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It's a bit of a surprise to discover that a book which discusses some of the splits and controversies within the Anglican Church is unputdownable, but "A Church At War" was indeed that. What made the book so good was, firstly, the excellent writing style of Stephen Bates, whose book "God's Own Country" about American Christianity is also fascinating. Bates identifies himself as a Catholic married to a Charismatic Evangelical and his writing shows that he is very familiar with and at home in the world of Anglicanism.
This book is not just about the homosexual debate within Anglicanism. It looks wider, describing some of the political machinations behind many of the events including Lambeth Conferences, the Appointment of Canon Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading, the US Episcopal Church's Gene Robinson situation and the contribution made to events by the ever-strengthening Evangelical section of the church. The underlying theme is that the divisions over homosexuality are more of a power struggle with the evangelical wing of the Church identifying this issue as one over which they could make a stand and wrest power from the liberals. This includes conservative American Christians bankrolling the African Anglican churches in their campaigns against the loosening of the church's stance on gay people, and many of the machinations such as this are shown taking place behind the Lambeth conferences and other meetings while the Archbishops of Canterbury make statements about listening to and learning from each other in a spirit of love. Parts of this book make for very uncomfortable reading, rather akin to watching children having a punch-up in a playground.
Bates speaks firmly from the side of those who believe that gay people have their part to play in the life of the church. He doesn't spend much time considering the Biblical references to homosexuality, just enough to show that there are scholarly reasons that mean it isn't a cut and dried issue, whether or not people find the arguments convincing themselves. This book isn't an impartial discussion but instead is a gripping read with caricatures of many players in the story, amusing asides and yet an overall sobering message. Bates reminds the reader many times of the inconsistencies in some of the arguments used against homosexuals (for example that divorce and remarriage are now allowed, although Jesus forbade that) and it's hard to know whether he has chosen some of the worst of the quotes from the Evangelical wing to contrast with the humble and godly statements of the gay people in his pages. Most of the evangelicals campaigning against changes in the church's acceptance of homosexuals come across very badly, with particular focus on many of the African church leaders and their own double-standards (as Bates points out, the Nigerian church vilified homosexual acceptance within the church but doesn't do anything about the polygamy, child sacrifice and the stoning of adulterous women within their own church).
This book isn't an easy read. It's hard to read of the strife and arguing between people who are supposedly in mission together. It's appalling to hear of some of the abuse and discrimination that gay people within the church have suffered. It's also frightening to believe, if his overall thesis is right, that those in control of the section of the church with growing authority chose to make a stand on this subject in order to wrest power from other traditions within Anglicanism, apparently unconcerned about the human despair and devastation that would follow. This isn't an impartial book but it's an important book for people from all sides of Anglicanism to read as it acts as a mirror to those within the church and can help them to see how the outside world may see them and their squabbles.
It's interesting to note that of the reviews so far, the two favourable reviews both give their real names (and five stars), whereas the two critical reviews do not (and they both give one star). I think the readers biases are influencing their judgements here.
Bates provides a brilliant exposé of how a small cabal of conservative Evangelicals, a minority even within the Evangelical tradition in Anglicanism, have made homosexuality the definining issue in the Anglican Communion today. Bates ruthlessly exposes the media spin, American big money backers, unbalanced extremists and double standards behind the anti-gay camp in Anglicanism. Bates traces the growth of conservative Evangelicalism within Anglicanism in contrast to an increasingly pluralist and tolerant social stimmung in Britain and Ireland, relating how the sense of being backed into a corner makes the extremist wing of the Church more dangerous. He also casts a caustic eye over the double standards that make male-male sex a defining issue of orthodoxy for conservative Evangelicals while they ignore issues like polygamy and Christian involvement in the Rwanda genocide.
This book is disturbing. After reading it, moderate, Catholic and open Evangelical Anglicans will be in no doubt that we are engaged in a war for the soul of the church. In his final chapter, Bates looks at some of the casualties of that War. For the sake of those broken people, it is a war we must win.
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"Interesting comparison"