White Liberalism, Black Fundamentalism, and Lambeth Conference 2008
Theological liberals have found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place during the once-a-decade Anglican convention known as Lambeth Conference 2008. For the past five years, the Anglican Communion / Episcopal Church (I shall refer to the joint group as Anglican from now on) has suffered repercussions from the election of openly homosexual clergyman Gene Robinson to the bishopric of New Hampshire.
Those within the Anglican church who are sympathetic to Gene Robinson’s cause tend to be theological liberals who disbelieve in the inerrancy of Scripture. These Anglican liberals tend also to be from wealthier portions of the developed world, sometimes referred to as the Global North. They are typically Caucasian.
Those within Anglicanism who are uncomfortable with homosexual clergy tend to be theological conservatives who ascribe to the inerrancy of Scripture. These Anglican conservatives are mostly from the developing world, often called the Global South. They are mostly African, Indian, and Asian. There are exceptions among both groups, but the generalization is viable.
A group of around 250 conservative bishops held an alternative conference in June called GAFCON.
Both sides have been lobbing grenades at one another. The conservatives accuse the liberals of heresy and the liberals attack the conservatives as being out of touch.
But contemporary liberals have had to soft-peddle their criticism, unlike in the grand old days of the 1910s and 1920s when the kid gloves came off. Guys like H.L. Mencken had a field day with Billy Sunday and the like; Fundamentalists were simply uneducated hicks in the South and Midwestern United States.
Anglican liberals today have to toe a careful line. They dislike Fundamentalism and would normally blast the Fundamentalists in question, native African conservatives. But like most liberals they have a strong sense of “White Guilt.” They believe that Western imperialism is largely responsible for Third World woes like poverty, corruption, and war. It is politically incorrect and frankly uncouth to accuse Africans of being the source of any problem (i.e. the support Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe received from Western liberals until very recently), so they have to find someone else to blame.
Aha! The Economist [July 26th 2008] discovered that blame can be assigned to “missionary work in Africa [that] was carried out by evangelicals who reflect a rather fundamentalist strain of British Christianity.” It wasn’t the poor Africans’ fault at all, but those evil British Fundamentalists!
Some African conservatives have cried foul. It is insulting for liberals to insinuate that Africans just believe what they were taught. No one likes to be accused of being passive, gullible, and simple. Men like Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda prefer to trace their heritage to native African revivals. Others decry attempts by the “western press” to villify African prelates. Indeed it can be argued that liberals are practicing a modern version of cultural imperialization. If Africans want to be taken seriously in liberal circles than they must make sure that their theology conforms to Western liberal ideals. Not particularly multicultural, eh?
Paul, a quick (unloaded) question: what’s your stance on “White Guilt”? I realize that’s kind of a side issue in your post, but was curious to hear more of your thoughts.
A good question that is worthy of discussion in isolation. I do believe in the concept of “White Guilt.” Let me note that there is nothing wrong with feeling bad about how white people mistreated minorities of all ethnicities. Indeed as Christians we tend to believe that guilt is a vital component in dealing with both individual and communal sin.
But “white guilt” can be a harmful thing. Proper guilt should be others-focused and not self-focused. My goal should not be to salve my conscience, but to actually right the wrongs committed or at least to mitigate the consequences. On a personal level I apologize to the person I wronged not to make me feel better but to repair a relationship and attempt to help the person wronged. The same should be true on a communal level.
Guilt should also be concerned with righting actual wrongs. Liberals are often anti-imperialistic. They believe that most of the problems in Africa today are the result of imperialists who robbed and raped their way across the Third World, especially in the 19th century. I’m not convinced. This is an declasse Marxist understanding of imperialism that has been rejected for lack of sufficient economic data, namely the fact that imperialism resulted in a net flow of wealth into a colony rather than out of a colony. There are a great number of other quibbles I have with this historical understanding of imperialism, but even if I grant that the net result of imperialism was harmful, I reject the blanket absolution granted to modern Third World leaders on the grounds that it was the “White Man’s” fault. Did Africans really learn greed, war, and selfishness from the West? Do past wrongs lessen personal responsibility for present sinful or wrong action?
Liberals often overlook or excuse the wrongdoing of current Third World leaders. As far back as 2000 Mugabe started seizing land from white African farmers in Zimbabwe, encouraging his supporters/thugs to drive them away through intimidation and abuse. Yet it was only once Mugabe extended those tactics to fellow black Africans that the collective liberal concious seemed aroused. I think some people thought that white farmers kinda deserved it since they inherited their lands from ancestors who “stole” it from black Africans.
White Guilt crops up in how foreign aid has been distributed as well. A good book that discusses this subject in great detail is “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good” by William Easterly.
The consensus about post-colonialism is changing slowly as new generations of historians studying Imperialism realize the history is not monolithic. It’s not my field, but a worthy one nonetheless…(-;
I think you’re being a little too eager in trying to fit that Economist quote within your argument. As the full sentence makes clear, the article is proffering an explanation, not a value judgment:
“To explain the Africans’ conservatism, many point out that they are on the front line of a contest with Islam; and that missionary work in Africa was carried out by evangelicals who reflect a rather fundamentalist strain of British Christianity.”
Taken on its own terms, I fail to see how the article can be seen to function as a way of finding white “blame” for African’s conservatism, that African’s can’t think for themselves, or that conservatism is even a bad thing. Further, I see nothing in your post that should make me believe that the article shouldn’t be read on its own terms but as some broader liberal narrative against conservatism.
Response, if given, must be less than 100 words!
Sure, I don’t think the Economist is taking a side, especially since it was the same Economist article that pointed me to Archbishop Henry Orombi. I should apologize for unintentionally implicating the Economist in a broad liberal conspiracy.
Even though the Economist didn’t take a side, the “many [who] point out,” do. Why do the “many” blame Fundamentalist-ish missionaries? I was giving my best guess, and such behavior is consistent with comments from liberal bishops I have seen over the past several months. So I took at least some of the “many” to be Anglican theological liberals.
What sparked this post was an interview on NPR with a homosexual Lambeth bishop who said that neither party should claim God favors them since God doesn’t take sides. But then he accused the conservatives of homophobic fear. That started me thinking along the lines of the sentence I included in the post, “if Africans want to be taken seriously in liberal circles than they must make sure that their theology conforms to Western liberal ideals.” One of those ironic intolerant tolerance situations.
[Word Count: 183 – a little verbal diarrhea, but not quite dysentery]
Jeff, maybe I was too quick to let the Economist off the hook. I was just reading the latest Economist (August 9th-15th) and they had an article making an argument for the disestablishment of the Anglican church based on the strife over this Lambeth Conference. They were honest enough to note their bias by saying “as a secular newspaper that supports gay marriage and believes in a firm line between church and state, we can hardly claim to be a neutral observer in this.”
Later on: “Some argue that liberals must hang in there to rein in the homophobes and misogynists. In fact, too often it is the high ground that gives. The gay American bishop whose promotion launched the latest round of internecine bitterness was not invited to Lambeth.”
A bit farther along: “Many in Africa and other parts of the ‘global South’ do [find homosexuality wrong] - and they see efforts to enforce liberal values as ‘colonial.’”
I think that this article validates my earlier speculation; the Economist staff ended up saying much of what I said, though their sympathies clearly lie in the opposite corner.