Ever since the question of homosexual practice came to prominence at the 1998 Lambeth Conference, successive Archbishops of Canterbury have sought to deflect the underlying question of the authority of Scripture by focusing on questions of process.
Archbishop Justin Welby was explicit on this point when he recently laid out his hopes for next year’s Lambeth Conference, writing that ‘It is unlikely that we will have a single common understanding’ but ‘we are called to find ways of continuing together … and where we disagree, disagreeing well’.
But, almost immediately afterwards, the mask of ‘good disagreement’ slipped. The Anglican bishops of Ghana are strongly supporting the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill (aka the ‘Anti-Gay Bill’), for which they were publicly and strongly rebuked by the Archbishop and by leaders of the Diocese of Portsmouth, with which Ghana is linked.
