Suchergebnisse

This article addresses the intersection of sexual orientation and religion and belief through a focus on a specific religious community — the worldwide Anglican Communion. It does so by unpacking a particular event within this Communion debate: the decennial Lambeth Conference, at Canterbury, UK. Events have received little attention within sociology, yet case studies of particular events potentially represent an effective way of empirically researching the complexity of the ways that intersections of categories, such as sexual orientation and religion and belief, are experienced in everyday life. By focusing on the strategies of pro-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) groups at Lambeth, this article demonstrates how, in the material space of an 'event', abstract discourses and positionings in diffuse social networks become transformed into tangible emplaced social relations where power is outworked.

Recent discussions of the international Anglican Communion have been dominated by notions of a 'crisis' and 'schism' resulting from conflicts over issues of homosexuality. Existing accounts of the Communion have often tended to emphasise the perspectives of those most vocal in the debates (particularly bishops, senior clergy, and pressure groups) or to engage in primarily theological analysis. This article examines the nature of the purported 'crisis' from the perspectives of Anglicans in local parishes in three different national contexts: England, South Africa, and the United States. Unusually for writing on the Communion, attention is simultaneously given to parishes that have clear pro-gay stances, those that largely oppose the acceptance of homosexual practice, and those with more ambivalent positions. In doing so, the article offers new insights for the growing body of literature on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Christians, as well as wider discussions about the contested nature of contemporary Anglican and other Christian identities. Key themes include the divergent ways in which respondents felt (and did not feel) connections to the spatially distant 'others' with whom they are in Communion; the complex relationships and discordances between parish, denominational, and Communion-level identities; and competing visions of the role of the Communion in producing unity or preserving diversity amongst Anglicans.