The story tells us that the Emperor Nero fiddled while Rome burned. This is probably only a rumour, but (according to Wikipedia) it is an ancient one (originally with a lyre rather than a violin), recorded as a rumour by Tacitus who as a child was an eyewitness of the great fire of the year 64. What Tacitus records as fact is that the public blamed Nero for the fire, and

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. (Tacitus, Annals 15.44)

Now it looks as if history may be repeating itself to some extent, with Archbishop Rowan Williams playing the role of Nero and Canterbury replacing Rome. So, is Rowan fiddling while Canterbury burns? Now by “Canterbury” here I do not mean the historic little city where I went to school, which fortunately is not on fire. I mean “Canterbury” as a symbolic name for the Anglican Communion, as often paired with “Rome” meaning the Roman Catholic Church. In this sense Canterbury is certainly burning. But could Rowan be playing the lyre or the fiddle? I can find no mention of him playing any instrument, although I read

He is very fond of classical music, particularly Renaissance Baroque and Bach

Well, while he is listening to Baroque music or watching The Simpsons, the Anglican Communion is burning, and he seems to be doing nothing effective about it.

While I will not blame him for the fire, I can’t help wondering if he really wants it to be put out. Is his secret wish for the Communion to disintegrate? Does he plan to fasten the guilt on those Christians who hold firm to the moral standards which the Apostle Paul taught, in Romans 1, to the very Christians whom Nero blamed for the great fire of Rome?

Those early Roman Christians were surely shocked, as was Tacitus, by Nero getting married as a bride to a man:

Nero, who polluted himself by every lawful or lawless indulgence, had not omitted a single abomination which could heighten his depravity, till a few days afterwards he stooped to marry himself to one of that filthy herd, by name Pythagoras, with all the forms of regular wedlock. The bridal veil was put over the emperor; people saw the witnesses of the ceremony, the wedding dower, the couch and the nuptial torches; everything in a word was plainly visible, which, even when a woman weds darkness hides. (Tacitus, Annals 15.37)

The true spiritual heirs of those first Christians are similarly shocked at the prospect of a male bishop of the Anglican Communion taking the part of a bride to go through a wedding ceremony with a man – and then being welcomed on “honeymoon” to Canterbury, the venue of the Lambeth Conference, by the Archbishop!

Now I admit to writing the above before even reading the latest news from Rowan, his Advent Letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion and Moderators of the United Churches, drawn to my attention by Anglican Mainstream. In this letter, what is Rowan saying about the current situation?

Well, at least he acknowledges that there is no consensus. He may well share with some of the Primates “a deep desire to put the question decisively behind us as a Communion”, but it takes more than a deep desire to do this, it also takes decisive action.

There is encouraging material in the letter, such as this:

Our obedience to the call of Christ the Word Incarnate is drawn out first and foremost by our listening to the Bible and conforming our lives to what God both offers and requires of us through the words and narratives of the Bible. … Understanding the Bible is not a private process or something to be undertaken in isolation by one part of the family. Radical change in the way we read cannot be determined by one group or tradition alone.

And this:

The Instruments of Communion have consistently and very strongly repeated that it is part of our Christian and Anglican discipleship to condemn homophobic prejudice and violence, to defend the human rights and civil liberties of homosexual people and to offer them the same pastoral care and loving service that we owe to all in Christ’s name. But the deeper question is about what we believe we are free to do, if we seek to be recognisably faithful to Scripture and the moral tradition of the wider Church, with respect to blessing and sanctioning in the name of the Church certain personal decisions about what constitutes an acceptable Christian lifestyle. Insofar as there is currently any consensus in the Communion about this, it is not in favour of change in our discipline or our interpretation of the Bible.

And he makes a reasonable point that if interventions across provincial boundaries continue

the risk is magnified of smaller and smaller groups taking to themselves the authority to decide on the adequacy of a neighbour’s ministerial life or spiritual authenticity.

Yet Rowan is very critical, although in careful language, of the response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church, the official Anglican province for the USA, to the request for clarification of their position. And he reiterates that Bishop Gene Robinson will not be officially invited to the Lambeth Conference, while leaving open the possibility that he may attend as a guest.

Rowan goes on to make a strong appeal for all invited bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference next year. The case he makes is a good one:

Some reactions to my original invitation have implied that meeting for prayer, mutual spiritual enrichment and development of ministry is somehow a way of avoiding difficult issues. On the contrary: I would insist that only in such a context can we usefully address divisive issues. If, as the opening section of this letter claimed, our difficulties have their root in whether or how far we can recognise the same gospel and ministry in diverse places and policies, we need to engage more not less directly with each other. This is why I have repeatedly said that an invitation to Lambeth does not constitute a certificate of orthodoxy but simply a challenge to pray seriously together and to seek a resolution that will be as widely owned as may be.

And this is also why I have said that the refusal to meet can be a refusal of the cross – and so of the resurrection. We are being asked to see our handling of conflict and potential division as part of our maturing both as pastors and as disciples. I do not think this is either an incidental matter or an evasion of more basic questions.

Rowan then outlines his plans for the next few months. He is not calling a meeting of all the primates, but he will

convene a small group of primates and others, … to work on the unanswered questions arising from the inconclusive evaluation of the primates to New Orleans and to take certain issues forward to Lambeth.

And this one is interesting:

I wish to pursue some professionally facilitated conversations between the leadership of The Episcopal Church and those with whom they are most in dispute, internally and externally, to see if we can generate any better level of mutual understanding.

So things are looking a bit more promising. It seems that Rowan has put down his fiddle and picked up a fire extinguisher, and he is even planning to call in the professional firefighters. So there is some hope that this fire will not keep burning for ever. But there is still an open question about whether Rowan’s new action will perhaps turn out to be too little, too late. The fire has been burning out of control for years, and much damage has already been done. Even if it can be put out immediately there will be major task of rebuilding ahead. And it may well turn out that the only way to put out the fire is to clear a fire break through the church, to accept some kind of formalised division. Does Rowan have the stomach to push that through if necessary?

Or maybe the fire is destined to burn until the entire structure of the Anglican Communion is destroyed. If it is the fire of God’s judgment on an apostate church, then it cannot be put out by any human firefighting, although possibly by mass repentance. Perhaps the time has come for an end to denominational structures like the Anglican Communion dividing up the body of Christ, and for Christians to relate to one another no longer according to denominational labels, but as brothers and sisters in Christ.