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N.T. Wright is the rare sort of theologian who attracts respect from both conservatives and liberals. He became Bishop of Durham in 2003, and for the past year has served on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Commission on Communion. In this interview with contributing editor Douglas LeBlanc, he discusses how the commission's Windsor Report can help the Anglican Communion resolve its conflicts about homosexuality, ordination, and pastoral blessings for gay couples.

Archbishop Robin Eames has said more than once that leading this commission was the hardest work he's ever done. How difficult was it for you as a member of the commission?

Well, the fact that Robin was leading it made it a lot easier for the rest of us because he is a remarkable man in every way. And it was a privilege to work under him. And I'm not just saying that. I've sat under many chairmen in my time, and he's one of the best. And he's a very wise statesman who can see around the issues and see where the dynamics are and so on. So the fact that he was doing it made it a lot easier for the rest of us.

In some funny ways, I enormously enjoyed it, rather like one would enjoy an extremely hard-played sports match. There was a sense of excitement and exhilaration about trying to wrestle with the big issues and work out what we all meant and particularly how to listen to each other and be sure we heard what each other was saying.

Of the commission's three meetings, was there one in which that give and take was most evident?

I think each meeting had its own internal dynamic. We had presentations from a variety of points of view at the first meeting and then we discussed those and really got to know each other and worked at what the issues were. At the second meeting we had presentations from a team led by the presiding bishop of the United States and another team led by Bishop [Robert] Duncan of Pittsburgh [moderator of the Anglican Communion Network], with some colleagues of his. And then at the last meeting we were working frantically on drafting the statement, of course. The same working out of different paradigms occurred in each but in a different guise.

The early part of the report cites Scripture frequently. Did you have a hand in writing it?

Well, I think anyone who knows my work in detail, and anyone who reads the report carefully, will spot that there are some paragraphs which I drafted. I worked quite a bit on the first half. But I would stress that the drafts came back to us again and again, and we all wrestled through them and argued our way through them.

Some of the conservative leaders I spoke to Monday have expressed dismay that the report seems to treat border crossings by bishops as equally disruptive to Anglican unity as gay blessings would be. Do you think that just as much is at stake with border crossings?

The word equally, I think, doesn't really reflect the balance of the report as it has come out. The trouble is that, as with any sort of tit-for-tat scenario, trying to say you did this first and then we retaliated, but it was you who started it, really doesn't get us anywhere. It then becomes like the Middle East, you know, who started it, who fired the first shot, who dropped the first bomb? And there is no way you can go back and write all that history.

And the important thing to say is that border crossings are disruptive. Not only are they against the spirit and the letter of Anglican formularies, they are against one of the decrees of the Council of Nicea, as we point out. And I think not a lot of people know this, but it's important to say this was a question that the early fathers faced at the same time as they were hammering out the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, and that they gave it their time to say people should not do this because that's not how episcopacy works.

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October (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48