Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . INTERVIEW . Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon . August 1, 2003 | PBS

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INTERVIEW:
Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon
August 1, 2003 Episode no. 648

November 7, 2008

Read more of Kim Lawton's interview with the Rev. Dr. Kendall Harmon, canon theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina:

On the significance of current issues:

Photo of Rev. Kendall Harmon

Photo of Rev. Kendall Harmon

I think it's a watershed moment, because you have a situation where the church is clearly departing from the clear teaching of Scripture. It is departing from the 1998 vote of the Lambeth Conference, a gathering of Anglican leaders worldwide that happens once every 10 years. It will overhaul the church's theology of marriage, and in addition to that it will rupture the Anglican Communion. It's a very defining moment for the church.

What's at stake is the truth of the gospel, the confidence of the church to proclaim that gospel in a way that people will be attracted. We're in a very sexually confused culture, and Americans have sex on the brain. What the church says in the area of sexuality is something that's very, very critical culturally, so I think it's a very important moment.

On the views of international Anglican Church leaders:

We're privileged to have a number of primates and archbishops [who] are profoundly concerned about what has been taking place. The primates of the Anglican Communion gather once a year, and at their most recent gathering at the end of May in Brazil, they issued a statement on this matter, the blessing of same-sex relationships outside of marriage, and said, "We do not have consensus on this issue. We strongly do not want this to happen." I think that they've made clear their sense of what God is calling the church to, and they're very concerned that it'll be contravened in a short period of time, after they've made clear their sense of the direction the church should go.

On Episcopal-Anglican relations:

The phrase that we've used is "realignment." If the Episcopal Church decides to do this, the Episcopal Church will depart from the apostolic faith and will be at risk of leaving the Anglican Communion, and so it's going to strain relationships within the Episcopal Church. But the international Anglican community is a very different theological animal than the Episcopal Church, and there are already tremendous bonds of friendship and tremendous bonds of theological kinship [among conservatives], and I think that those will be strengthened. The full form of what's going to emerge is not yet clear. But it will be a very different day.

On unity and communion:

A sociologist in THE NEW YORK TIMES said this is the most significant Anglican crisis since the founding of Anglicanism, and I agree with that assessment. This is something where the worldwide Anglican community has made its voice heard and it's made its voice clear, and yet you have a church which, it seems, is willfully going to contradict that.

Real communion is only possible in truth. Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." One of the things that has happened in a lot of western Christianity is "ecumenism" and "communion" have been words that have been debased. They mean what I call "Rodney King theology," which is, "Can't we all just get along?" But the problem is that's not real unity, that's just getting together in the same room and doing a few things with people you might know or might like. Communion is participation in common fellowship with God and the truth of His witness to the world, and so if you fracture that body because you say "this is truth," whereas the church has previously always understood that is truth, then you fracture the communion because you no longer have agreement in the truth.

On New Hampshire's election of an openly gay bishop:

I think it's important for people to understand that there are two reasons why this election is so controversial. The first is a theological reason, because it will change the church's teaching about marriage and it will contradict Scripture. But the second reason is very, very important, and that is it's against due process. The Episcopal Church has been in the debate about this issue, and what would happen if the New Hampshire election is ratified? This debate would be settled by a group of people making an end run around the debate and putting in the midst of us the result of the debate before the debate has been settled, and if you want to have a debate, you need to win the debate as a debate without making an end run around it.

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	Read the Cover Story on the looming Episcopal Rift.