CT: How do you think the Archbishop of Canterbury should deal with the issue of Gene Robinson?
TW: When Gene Robinson's consecration was mooted in 2003 the Archbishop issued a statement at the time warning that if Robinson was consecrated he could not be regarded as a bishop by most of the churches in the Communion because even if he was a priest in most of the churches in the Communion he would be under discipline for leaving his wife and setting up with a same-sex partner. In most churches in the Communion he wouldn't have been exercising a ministry as a priest.
One of the things you do when you ordain a bishop is that you consecrate somebody to be a means and focus of unity across all the churches. You are not ordained a bishop in Durham, for me, or in England. You are ordained a bishop in the church of God. And the Archbishop warned before Robinson was consecrated that he could not be acceptable to most of the Communion and that it would therefore be very unwise for him to be invited to the councils of the Communion. The Windsor Report simply voted and reaffirmed what the Archbishop had already said and he was simply reflecting the mind of the Communion, as is his job to do, and nothing has changed in any of that since 2003.
CT: Some ecumenical partners told the Archbishop that the issues facing the Anglican Communion are the same issues they are grappling with. Yet the divide in the Anglican Communion seems to be sharper than in other communions and has attracted far more media attention. Do you think the Anglican Communion could have dealt better with the crisis?
TW: I suspect there are many ways we might have done it differently, whether it would have been better is really impossible to say. It's like saying could I have had different parents? Well yes, but would I have been the same person? We are where we are.
We have tried to deal wisely and reasonably, biblically, cohesively with the issues and with one another. Having been part of the process, I can say in each of the four we really have done our best to do that and I don't regret any of that.
Some other churches in some other parts of the world have done it differently. Presbyterians, Methodists, have had different processes. For some reason which I don't fully understand, it is as though some of the great tensions of our culture are being focused on the church and some of the great tensions of our church are being focused on the Anglican Communion and some of the tensions of the great Anglican Communion are being focused on this Lambeth Conference and the next 10 days. That's why we have to spend the coming days wisely, prayerfully, listening to God and doing what needs to be done.
CT: The Archbishop stated unequivocally that the Anglican Communion is not headed for schism.
TW: It depends what you mean by schism. The Archbishop has also said several times that we will not resume business as usual after this. There is no way back to where we were say 10 or 15 years ago. In finding the way forward we hope to find a way forward which will unite the great majority of Anglicans around the world, which will inevitably challenge some but will I hope be as much of an invitation as a challenge, can they but see that actually this is how we have to be. And some will inevitably say no I can't see that and that has already happened. Some have already set up different bodies in various directions.
But part of the strange vocation that the Anglican Communion seems to have is to be biblical but broad-based. The Bible is a broad-based document. That doesn't mean it is fuzzy or contradicting itself. But it just means that a biblical wisdom is a bit larger than some people often think it is and if people can hear that, our hope is that they will find a home there.
CT: There were concerns that the vote on women bishops would complicate proceedings at Lambeth. Has that turned out to be the case?
TW: The vote in Synod has nothing to do with what is going on at Lambeth. I argued in Synod that this was the wrong time to have that debate but it was too late, we had it anyway. It has thrown dust in the eyes of some people because those for whom those particular issues about women bishops are hugely emotive and contentious were so fired up with that, that they were in danger of taking their eye off the ball and the big issues that we face here in Lambeth. I think this far into Lambeth most people have parked that issue and are focusing on the issues we are facing here.
