A few months ago I offered a brief workshop on the Lambeth Conference for a small rural church that I serve in my retirement. To prepare, I read through each of the 1500 or so resolutions considered by the conference since its inception as a way of learning more about the issues that have been raised, the voices that have been heard, and the changes in “orthodox” theology that have been experienced.
For instance, one might take the issue of polygamy among the laity, clergy and even bishops of certain parts of the church in Africa. It was an issue hotly debated over multitudes of decades during which bishops of Europe and European cultures had very strong things to say and demand about the need to stop this abominable practice. Still, no one ever suggested a divorce, and in the end there were a number of accommodations allowing African leaders to work things out within the context of their own cultures.
What kept an issue like that from becoming a threat to communion was, I believe, the lack of an Internet. Look back in the local church publications, city newspapers and radio, or even television, broadcasts of the times. You will find little or nothing about the problem for Anglicans of polygamy in Africa. It meant that there was room for a very difficult issue that raised all kinds of emotional responses to be aired in an environment that permitted plenty of time for reflection and among those whose patient, prayerful and considered judgment might eventually find a path forward illuminated by a subtle re-understanding of orthodoxy.
The Internet, for all its good, including this post, has deprived us of an environment rich in time for prayerful reflection. The instantaneous communication of news, gossip and hysterical rumor mongering has deceived us into thinking that there is an ultimate imperative for our immediate decision on complex issues because the very fate of the church hangs in the balance. The argument rages with almost no concern for wandering off and taking the time, like Balaam, to find out what God might have in mind. Because of the Internet we have the impression of being surrounded by a herd of Balaks stomping up and down in juvenile tantrums demanding curses, and demanding them right now! C.S. Lewis’s Wormwood could not have come up with a better plan A.
It seems to me that we, and I mean we in every conceivable context, in a new age of instantaneous global communication, have got to learn a new way finding time and place for long, slow reflective prayer and discernment. It seems to me that we need to learn that not every decision should be the product of an undisciplined shouting match unleashed in the name of democracy. I don’t have a clue how we might do that. How about if the bishops at Lambeth agree to go behind closed doors and offer not a peep of gossip about their discussions until the ecclesiastical paparazzi have given up and gone home? A couple of them might have to be locked in solitary confinement for the duration. We could bring back the iron mask. It might work.