Then I read in The Church of England Newspaper a report on John Pickering and he seemed to be being quite vigorously pilloried. It struck me that John had straightforward courage that was quite unusual and because I was in a theological minority in my own denomination, I immediately felt a kind of rapport with John Pickering; he seemed to be taking quite a stand that involved quite a bit of personal cost, so I dropped him a line and he responded very warmly. And I'm still coming here.

To move to the recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church, USA (ECUSA) and the election of Katherine Jefferts Schori as Presiding Bishop - she consented in 2003 to the election of the openly gay Bishop Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire: what's your reaction to her election?

My reaction was one of despondency and serious sadness about it. The election was quite clear. The fact that she's a woman is not the problem. What upset me was that she's at the extreme end of all the candidates. She's not a centrist, even in the remotest sense. She's an articulate person on the extreme end as a theological liberal, as I see it, and I think we [conservatives] were all very dismayed by her invocation of "Mother Jesus" in her inaugural sermon, which upset us terribly; it was very definite - it was in the written text. I regarded that as an expression of heresy in the true christological sense. Others objected to her because she's never been rector of a parish and she's only been ordained a very short time and she has only been a bishop for five years in what is one of the very smallest dioceses in America. She's a friend of John Spong and is at the forefront of a diocesan movement to bless same-sex marriages. So I'm despondent about her. But I may add - she's very gifted, she's very articulate; I'm sure she's a very fine person and priest.

Were you in any way encouraged by the way in which, despite what she personally thought, she did seem to see the bigger Anglican Communion picture and to move the Convention to stay within that Anglican Communion fold? Was that a correct impression?

I think it's a correct impression. It was basically a movement of expediency because they had overwhelmingly voted against the Windsor agreement three days before and I think that she and the Presiding Bishop were trying to make it possible for her to have what they call in America 'a place at the table' at the next Lambeth Conference. I mean, we all want to give her the benefit of the doubt. The Sunday following the election, the largest Episcopal parish from the standpoint of Sunday attendance in the USA decided to disassociate from ECUSA. I would have said the first thing she should have done was immediately telephone the rector and ask him to change his mind.

And get into a dialogue situation?

Yes. The best thing she could have done, which she didn't, would have been to get on an airplane and fly and talk to that parish. Six dioceses have already declared themselves as wishing to have alternative oversight.

With regard to those requests for alternative primatial oversight - from those dioceses that do not want to be under her as Presiding Bishop but to have some other bishop, perhaps the Archbishop of Canterbury, give primatial oversight - isn't this all getting very complicated and confused and fragmented? It's all getting very muddy, isn't it?

I couldn't agree with you more. It's not only muddy, it's positively absurd. Our context has proven unable to deal with diversity in the genuine sense of the word. The regnant majority has found it impossible genuinely to concede space and ground to the minority - to the anglo-catholics, who are now feeling totally unchurched, and to the conservatives.

What are their respective proportions in ECUSA?

Traditional clergy - catholic and evangelical - would be about 18%. The catholics would way outnumber the evangelicals. In the laity, it would have been about 30% until recently; I would say it's probably more like 22%.

So basically around about 20% of ECUSA would be either evangelical or anglo-catholic?

Yes.

And 80% liberal.

In the current perspective that would be correct.

And do you feel that that majority really is not respecting the minority?

Well, that's what I feel. Be they anglo-catholic or evangelical. Well, I know they're not respecting the anglo-catholics because of the election of Katherine Jefferts Schori; from the catholics' point of view, they were having a complete meltdown.

How will the anglo-catholics proceed?

They will leave.

Of course at the heart of all of this crisis is the appointment of the openly gay Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire. In terms of the sexuality issue itself, the distinction is being drawn quite widely between orientation and practice. Do you think that's a really sustainable distinction? Is it possible to separate orientation and practice as starkly as is so often done in the thinking through of this issue?

No. I think it's a distinction that has a little merit, but it seems a little casuistical as well. The real problem is really a theological one. The liberals' doctrine of man you might say is quite high and their doctrine of salvation is quite low. With us, of course, it's our doctrine of human nature is quite low and our doctrine of the Cross is quite high. It's the theology. That's really the battle for us. Also their tactics are extremely strong-arm.

Are there no strong-arm tactics on the conservative side?

Yes, of course there are. They all say to me, OK, Zahl, let's agree that we'll give you the space to have your church where you do it your way and you don't ordain practising gay people - and I agree it's a somewhat specious distinction - and you give us the right to have our church across town where we're doing it our way. And you know what the answer is? Actually, yes. If we're really going to be true to what we're saying. Now I get in trouble from my people on the right because they misunderstand.

Are you saying here that you can accept two integrities?

I think we have to come close to saying something like that. If we don't, I feel we become hierarchical and central.

So you don't really see it as a communion- breaking issue?

If they would give us the integrity, I feel that many fair-minded conservatives - perhaps not the Africans, but in our context - would give them the integrity. It's like the Orange and Catholic situation - if they're willing to give me freedom to do it my way, it seems to me I have to be willing to trust the Holy Spirit with their freedom.

Can ECUSA recover from this situation?

What should have happened is that Gene Robinson should have chosen not to be consecrated. It's a Garvaghy Road situation. He should have said - I was elected, I was voted, I am fully able now to be consecrated, according to the canons of the Church, but I'm not going to do it for two years because I know this is going to draw huge division in the Church. Had he done that, had he given us a two-year breather, he would have made a vast difference.

That was then, this is now.

I think what should happen now would be for Katherine Jefferts Schori to make some kind of an overwhelming concession. I don't know what that would be, I can't quite...

Like standing back for two years?

Yes, if she were willing to say, Look, the thing is a mess; she could even say, I will step back until the next General Convention - she's not going to do that - but something like that could break the deadlock.

Are you calling for her to do that?

No. I'm not. I'm not calling for her to do that.

The problem's not so much with her, is it, it's more the Gene Robinson situation, isn't it?

And Gene's a good man. You know, the funny thing is, I regard him as a real Christian, I regard him as a fully Christ-honouring man.

Do you see ECUSA recovering?

At present, there's no way barring an act of extraordinary, unforeseen statesmanship on the part of the liberal leadership. What's happened in the last three years is that a great many of my colleagues have been inhibited in their posts. These are fine, conservative parish priests and, because they will not go along, these very hardball bishops have initiated what are called abandonment of communion processes against them. The bishops in these cases have decided to use a kind of canonical hardball to implement uniformity.

Let's assume for one moment that, through the Windsor process and the Covenant, Anglican Communion assent to a further Gene Robinson-type election were not forthcoming, do you think ECUSA would be capable of living within that kind of Covenant?

No.

At the end of the day, within Anglicanism the supreme authority of Scripture is recognised.

Absolutely.

Yet there seems to be an inability to find a real authority in Scripture, because different people say they read Scripture in different ways. What does that do to Scripture's actual authority?

That's an interesting question. In my context, I would probably differ with the way you've described most Anglicans. Most Anglicans who voted for Gene Robinson would not agree that Scripture is the supreme authority.

What about your formularies?

Well, remember you have to have a microscope to read the 39 Articles in the new [American] Prayer Book! They [the liberals] will say, we believe that Scripture is the Word of God, but we believe that Scripture, reason and tradition are three legs of the same length. Now we would say that Hooker said that tradition speaks where Scripture doesn't and reason speaks to help us understand Scripture, but they would say that they are equally valid, and they would add a fourth - experience. Gene Robinson was interviewed recently on television and he said we Anglicans believe in Scripture, reason, tradition and experience. Now that's quite different from what you've just said. So, I want to say that what you've said is normative Anglicanism.

It's said that America is the largest churchgoing nation in the West. How do you see that in relation to American culture?

American religiosity is currently slightly overestimated. It's in arithmetical decline, in the last five or six years, because the preaching is appalling. The megachurches are very superficial and they're losing ground. Generally speaking, the churches are preaching the Law rather than grace and I would say - I have to travel constantly around the USA - that churchgoing in the US is slightly exaggerated. It's probably more like 40% than 50 and I would say it's gone down about 2-3% in the last five years because we're not training really good people. American Christianity is not as bad as it's portrayed in Europe. European people regard George Bush and the Iraq war as the kind of brainchild of Messianic American fundamentalist Southern evangelical Christianity, and it's not. The essential religiosity of the American people is a sound, rooted, historical turning to God in times of crisis that goes back to the early days and it is basically a good thing. It's gotten a little hijacked by an extreme, millenarian group and by the sort of Christian right political thing. I would say the main centre of American evangelical traditional Christianity is basically sound. It's a good thing for the culture, but it got way out of whack with the Iraq war. It was a terrible mistake. But American Christianity is not as big as it's thought to be here, it's not as bad as it's thought to be here, but it needs a shot in the arm.

What would you say to the Church of Ireland?

Well, I have deeply appreciated the historic ethos of the Church of Ireland. I think it's become a little more liberal- catholic in some areas. I was at the Theological College recently. Some of the conservative students seemed to feel that there wasn't quite as much space given to them as 'northern, evangelical' types as they would wish to have had. I saw the Church of Ireland as Cecil Frances Alexander, benign, parish-based, pastoral.

And how do you see the Church of Ireland now?

I worry that some of the bishops are not speaking up, who might have reason to speak up, on the conservative side and there are some spokesmen in this Church who have given tremendous aid and comfort to Gene Robinson. There are some bishops in the Church of Ireland who seem almost to give the impression that the Church of Ireland is like the Episcopal Church in its basic ideology.

You mean you perceive the liberal side in the Church of Ireland as speaking out, but not the conservative side?

That's the impression I get reading your media back at home. I hope the Church of Ireland is as comprehensive as I believe it has been.

From your perspective, are you suggesting a danger that in fact there are greater divisions between conservatives and liberals in the Church of Ireland than we are pretending, as it were?

I perceive very serious division, but I don't see it expressed.

Wouldn't that be a dangerous situation?

Well, look what happened in our situation. What happens is bishops in an Anglican set-up ultimately end up having huge impact and I just hope that people are not fearful - whether they are on the left or the right - of speaking out because of episcopal authority.

Do you feel our more conservative bishops are not as vocal as the more liberal ones?

Yes, an American now, who followed these things, would basically perceive the Church of Ireland as very similar to the Anglican Church of Canada, and New Zealand, as basically a 'liberal' denomination as opposed to the Church of England which we would regard as mixed.

So our image - how we are presenting ourselves in the Church of Ireland - doesn't reflect the reality?

Certainly not on the ground among the parishioners, as far as I can tell. And I'm here a lot. Yes, the Church of Ireland is perceived in my context as a liberal Church that increasingly sounds like the American Episcopal Church - 'sounds like', I'm not saying 'is'.

Our bishops, several years ago, issued a pastoral letter on the human sexuality issue indicating four points of view that were held among them and in the Church of Ireland at large. Do you feel that kind of statement is helpful?

I would wish that they would have given a lead. I mean, what does that mean? We have four different opinions here. Hurrah. I mean, yes, it's a good description, but what I think people want from bishops is some form of a lead.

But if they don't all agree, how can they lead?

Big problem.

What should they do? How do you feel they should be approaching this situation?

Our bishops [in ECUSA] basically clamped down on discussion. They didn't want to have these issues discussed, especially homosexuality, because it was so divisive. So, you were allowed to discuss process but not the issue. I'm a member of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission and I kept saying, Look, people, we were formed to discuss homosexuality in historic and biblical perspective and to come up with some document. And they say No, no, no no. It's all about process and structure.

You see, I don't know, but I would suspect our bishops would say they are listening, they are talking to gay people, and so on.

Are they talking to the very conservative people too? What happened in our context was everything was quietly suppressed and when you suppress people long enough it comes out later.

Do you get the impression there's suppression going on in the Church of Ireland?

That's my impression from the clergy that I am in touch with. If you actually say something negative about something, well, you might not get preferment or perhaps your role in the diocese will be minimized. I mean, for 20 years [in ECUSA] the hat's been down on us and then they went ahead and did this.

And you have an explosion.

You have explosion and split churches. The Episcopal Church goes back to 1607, which for us is incredibly old, and there's no reason why we should be talking about two integrities, but it has to do with the fact that there was a suppression that ended up in a revolt.

Dr Zahl, thank you very much for talking to the Gazette.

You're very welcome.

END