Storyteller's World

The Church Times (I would make this a link, but you won't be able to visit it unless you subscribe) has an extract from Stephen Bates' book on the Jeffrey John affair, in which he interviews Rowan Williams about why homosexuality has become the divisive issue for the Church. Rowan says:

I think it is about a cultural challenge to the whole view of scripture. This is an issue which allows a clear line to be drawn in the sand. It's not something that affects many people, unlike divorce. It's a good rallying point at a time of cultural flux. If you're a Roman Catholic, there are other issues you can find as a marker - divorce, contraception - but Anglicanism does not have these.

The powerful politicisation around the issue makes it very much harder to have a discussion, and I don't think we are going to get a balanced debate going in the near future. There will not be a rapid reconciliation, especially in the U.S. Do we want some endless fragmentation of the kind that traditionalist groups are prone to, or some coherent strategy which will enable us to work co-operatively?

I think we need rather more attention to what really are Church-dividing issues. Many of us thought we knew what these were - things like the divinity of Christ - not splinters of interpretation. It seems curious to me that at a time when we need quite a lot of attention and understanding to be given to the big central shape of the story, border skirmishing like this is taking up so much of our energy.

Thank God for an Archbishop who speaks his mind and speaks truth. But are enough people listening? Is the reason the traditionalists (though I dispute their right to claim the title of being the true representatives of the Tradition, as I've said before) are wasting our time in 'border skirmishing', that they actually have no Good News (the 'big central shape of the story')?