Mail & Guardian reporter
The archbishop of Cape Town, the Reverend Njongonkulu Ndungane, is to present the world’s largest gathering of Anglican bishops with an explosive document suggesting the church take a fresh look at issues such as polygamy and euthanasia.
The 24-page report, entitled Called to Full Humanity, is to head the agenda at the Lambeth conference – a gathering of more than 750 bishops and archbishops held by the church every 10 years.
The conference is being staged in July and August at Kent University in Canterbury, England, and is expected to witness fierce controversy over the Ndungane study document, particularly its implicit defence of polygamy.
“Of all the themes to be considered at the Lambeth Conference 1998, that of sexuality is one of the most sensitive,” says the report. “Bishops know there are deep divisions within and between our different cultures on a number of issues – divorce, cohabitation, marriage, polygamy and homosexuality.
“It has long been recognised in the Anglican communion that polygamy in parts of Africa, and traditional marriage, do genuinely have features of both faithfulness and righteousness.”
The report also defends homosexuality, suggesting it should be excluded from the list of “sinful practices”, in recognition that there are many examples of faithful homosexual relationships within the church.
On the subject of euthanasia, the report argues against “clinging pointlessly” to life. “For the Christian, life on earth is not the only life. Life perceived as God-given is always to be treated with respect, with gratitude and with responsibility. While such a truth must make Christians cautious about sanctioning the deliberate taking of life, it might also discourage them from clinging pointlessly to it.”
The goals of medicine are to “relieve suffering”, and not simply to extend physical life. “As medicine develops, it becomes possible for people with severe disabilities to be kept alive for much longer. While this might often be desirable, it can also create some highly distressing cases.”
The report is strongly critical of what it terms “globalisation”, saying: “It is particularly in the area of the family and sexual relations that the moral challenge of globalisation is evident.
“Faced with a rapid decline in two-parent families in many parts of the world, a rise in both teenage pregnancies and abortions, increasing evidence about child abuse and violence against women, and widespread confusion about the legal and social limits of pornography and obscenity”, church leaders are facing an “enormous challenge” to traditional teaching.
“Two physical changes do seem to have prompted these challenges. The first of these is hormonal contraceptives, which have allowed women an unprecedented degree of emancipation. The second is a greatly increased life expectancy …
“Yet these two physical changes do not fully explain the radical shift in practice and attitudes that is currently taking place. Undoubtedly, this shift is driven by a combination of social and cultural factors, for example, an increasingly globalised media, commercial pressures, political disenchantment, generational shifts.
“Many church leaders find it increasingly difficult to know how to respond, not least because their own families are caught up in these changing perspectives.”