A secret kept by the incoming Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, will serve as a Rorschach test for the Anglican communion.
The Rorchach psychological test involves presenting individuals with a series of ten inkblots, and asking them to describe what they see. The test for the Anglicans is Cherry Vann’s election on July 30.
This week, Vann told the Guardian that she had kept her lesbian partnership a secret for thirty years. “Upon becoming bishop of Monmouth five years ago, Vann publicly disclosed her civil partnership with Wendy Diamond, her partner of 30 years, for the first time,” The Guardian reports.
“‘Other people in England were braver than I was and made their sexuality clear. A lot of them suffered the consequences of that, certainly when going forward for ordination,’ Vann said.
“’For years, we kept our relationship secret because I worried about waking up and finding myself outed on the front page of a newspaper. Now, Wendy joins me everywhere, and when I take services, it’s just normal. But in England, she had to stay upstairs if I had a meeting in the house.’”
Vann described that being a woman in the Church was difficult, speaking as one of the first women ordained as a priest in the Church of England in 1994. But being a lesbian in the church was even worse. “Other people in England were braver than I was and made their sexuality clear. A lot of them suffered the consequences of that, certainly when going forward for ordination,” Vann said.
“Being a woman in the church had been difficult enough, she added. “You can hide your sexuality, up to a point, but you can’t hide being a woman. There was a lot of nastiness; the men were angry, they felt they had been betrayed.”
Vann acknowledges she is stepping into a Church with great challenges, with her predecessor being forced to resign amidst public scandals (plural). “Archbishop John’s early retirement follows the publication last month of two critical reports about staff behaviour at Bangor Cathedral, his diocesan seat,” The Living Church reported. “The reports cited numerous issues, including failing to adhere to the church’s safeguarding standards, management processes that lacked transparency and vigor—including some appointments made without proper paperwork and inadequate oversight, weak financial controls, the presence of ‘hurtful gossip’ and also ‘conduct in some areas—relating to alcohol use and sexual behavior—that did not reflect the professional standards expected in a Christian church.’”
The Christians who believe that partnered gay and lesbian people should be treated equally with all others in the church will see a glass archiepiscopal ceiling being shattered – Vann is the first openly gay woman to head a province (national church) in the Anglican communion. They will sympathise with Vann’s three decades of secret keeping.
Evangelicals and others will also have seen a shattering – a further shattering of the Anglican Communion itself. For example, Sydney’s Archbishop Kanishka Raffel describes Vann’s election as “a grievous departure from the teaching of the Bible, inconsistent with the understanding of marriage as expressed in the formularies of the Anglican Church, and a tragic rejection of the words of Jesus.” Some theological conservatives will see the secret relationship as concealment.
A church with a hierarchy – having bishops – in effect legislates by whom it chooses as leaders. That is why the election of Bishop Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in the Episcopal church in 2003 was a catalysing moment in the United States, eventually leading to the formation of the conservative Anglican Church of North America, which, while comparatively small in the scale of the Southern Baptists or the Assemblies of God, is reporting significant growth. By contrast, Wales, once known for religious revivals – which were exported to Australia in Bible Christian and Wesleyan congregations in mining towns – has emptying Churches and emptier chapels. Church in Wales attendance has halved since 2000, down to 25,000 weekly.
Image: Archbishop Cherry Vann. Image credit: Church in Wales Facebook
Beats me what she preaches. It cannot be from Romans One, which says, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.” Rom. 1:21-26
Nations do not last forever. When there is no leadership in the Church there is no leadership in the nation.
This woman who does not teach the word of God faithfully and cannot. Despite being told “It is required of stewards, that a man be found faithful.” 1Cor 4:2 She and those over her should remember, “cursed is he who does the Lord’s work deceitfully.” Jer 48:10
This woman and the Church she belongs to need to examine what in particular caused God to give her up unto vile affections. Rom 1:26 and get rid of the offense to God.