There's been a bit of an anthropological kerfuffle over the American Anthropological Assocation's (AAA) decision to remove a (rather retro) reference to science from it's 'Statement of Purpose'. 

I'm not an AAA member, and it's highly unlikely I ever will be, so I get to look on with bemusement. 

Over at Labour uncut, Kevin Meagher last week had a bash at drawing an analogy between the Lib Dems and the C of E.  Nah.  The Lib Dems are more likely the Methodists of politics. 

But I like this analogy lark, and I reckon anthropology is all a bit Anglican. 

Anthropology, in it's broadest sense, studies people.  About three seconds thought is all it should take to appreciate the nebulousness of this.  Study people?  Which?  Where?  How?  Doing what? 

So anthropology is a big disparate group of scholars affiliated to various universities, professional associations, interest groups and committees all united, however vaguely, by a shared interest in studying people.  (That, and wearing sturdy, comfortable footwear.) 

And like the regular throes of the similarly disparate Anglican Communion over scriptural interpretation, there are regular anthropological throes over how to interpret the idea of studying people. 

Structuralism!  Functionalism!  Structural-functionalism!  Clifford Geertz!  Writing Culture!  "We're not a science!"  "Yes we are!"  Sahlins vs Obeyesekere!  Spats in journals!  Spats in conferences!  Spats in tearooms! 

In anthropology, as in Anglicanism, things can descend to a bicker-a-thon pretty quickly.  Sometimes a good round of combat can help us understand more about who we are and what we want to do.  Other times it can be over something that's just daft as a brush. 

There can be splits, like that between the RAI and the ASA, and there are plenty of interest groups promoting everything from the anthropology of Britain to advocating for gay and lesbian anthropologists. 

Because of how all this to-ing and fro-ing looks to the casual observer, there are periodically fingers pointed by media pundits and sociologists.  Such rumours of demise and announcements of crisis are, in both cases, greatly exaggerated. 

And anyway, the science hardliners could always set up an Ordinariate. 

[disclaimer: this post may not have anything to do with Britain]

Last night I went along to Luke's Evensong followed by the Changing Attitude Australia* (CAA) AGM at our very own Christ Church South Yarra.

I was rather pleased to have the CAA folk turn up in my own backyard since I've long contemplated joining (and haven't thus far because I'm no longer an office worker with a 'free' printer on demand and the instruction to 'go to our website and print out our form' is never a helpful one).

Outgoing Co-President, the Reverend Scott Holmes (who as it turns out has been in my own backyard all along, at St Martin's Hawksburn)
preached a rip-roaring sermon which, we are assured, will be going online (somewhere!) shortly.

Since there has been a bit of a recent blogging resurgence from Changing Attitude UK, Scott's sermon popping up on t'internet will be
timely. 

Beginning with Luke, the physician, Scott considered what it means to be healthy. Bravely listing his own medical complaints, niggles, and worries, and asking us to remember our own, he challenged us to come up with a total model of what defines a healthy person. It isn't possible; for each of us whether we consider that we are, from this day to the next, healthy, is entirely down to (to put it into anthropologist speak) individually embodied experience.

If, he wondered, physical health is something that we each experience for ourselves, then mightn't it also be true of spiritual health?

And if we come to see spiritual health as not based on a one-size-fits-all model … (can you see where this is going?), then isn't it high time we abandoned a one-size-fits-all model when it comes to human sexuality?

There was actually a lot more to the sermon than my quick précis here, but it deserves to be read in it's entirety when it pops up online. Though I've concentrated here on the message which chimes the most with CAA's valuable work, Scott managed, I felt, to offer the fabled
something for everyone (even, I hope, the sorts who'd turn up to the opening of an envelope and who weren't entirely sure before the service what this Changing Attitude thingywotsit was about).

At the AGM (which I merrily invited myself to), there was some concern that CAA has a largely inactive membership, and that this is hampering their reach. But I do hope that encouragement is taken from the success of Scott's engaging sermon. As my (older and wiser) friend Diana announced in a momentary confusion between the twin excitements of Evensong and vestry elections: “I'm voting for the homosexuals!”

You can show your support for CAA, no matter where or who you are, by popping along to their new Facebook page. They'll be chuffed.

*CAA works for the full inclusion of people of all sexualities in the Anglican communion.