Rose Grigg Dear Church of England: from a gay ordinand
Nancy Rockwell Patheos No More Lying About Mary
‘The tide is turning’: Justin Welby interviewed by Michael Gove in The Spectator
Kelvin Holdsworth The next five questions the Archbishop needs to be asked
Michael Gove: “But, I challenged him, conscious of what many evangelicals believe, wouldn’t you say to them that while you love them, their relationship was sinful or inappropriate?” Archbishop: ‘I would say, “I will always love you, full stop. End of sentence, end of paragraph.” Yes, but at the same time you would not let them marry in your church. You do not even affirm their sexual relationship as equivalent to a heterosexual one. Well you are entitled to your conscience. But so are other Anglicans, who believe in affirming lesbian relationships as just as valid and good and worth… Read more »
There’s one question, above all others, that Welby needs to answer: “Do you believe that homosexual relationships are always sinful?”
It’s a question he keeps dancing around with all these platitudes about love and acceptance. He could attend same-sex marriages on a weekly basis, accept a gay child, and still believe that what Higton terms “homosexual genital acts” are a sin and worse, a “salvation issue.”
Until we get a straight answer from Welby on this point, we’re stuck.
Well James, the fact that he demands celibacy from his gay or lesbian clergy would seem to answer your question.
If gay sex wasn’t regarded as sinful, what possible reason would he have for imposing such an inhumane demand on his priests?
“To love the sinner, but hate the sin is pretty devastating …” Thank you, Suzannah Clark! I absolutely loathe the phrase. It smacks of condescension, paternalism (regardless of the speaker’s gender), sanctimony. “Even though I think you’re a loathsome, deviant sinner, I love you anyway.” Yeah, right. I’d rather hear a Christian minister thunder that GLBT people are disgusting, vile sinners unless they repent, and abandon their homosexuality, and are completely barred from any church activity except confessing their mortal sins, than hear a Christian minister tell members of his or her church that they are loved and welcomed, but… Read more »
Did God choose Mary because she was a feminist? In “The Testament of Mary” Colm Toibin wrote “We held each other and stood back as he howled out words that I could not catch. And maybe I should have moved towards him then, no matter what the consequences would have been. It would not have mattered, but at least I would not have to go over and over it now, wondering how I could not have run towards them and pulled them back and shouted out words, how I could have watched and remained still and silent.” Mary, mother of… Read more »
Realpolitik, Susannah, just like all the “liberal” English bishops who “discipline” LGB priests; though I agree that Welby probably does think that gay sex is always sinful. He is, after all, an unimaginative company man, trained in expensive “public” schools to play the game, get on, and to be suspicious of the academy, and of thinking in general.
In my In-box today came the following link to the recent talk given at St. Paul’s in the City, by the Revd.Dr.Sarah Coakley, on the Theology of Sexuality.
It is well worth the hour taken looking in on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxkHBKM4hMQ
I think it would be unfortunate if the Archbishop’s rather unexceptional comments about sexuality were to divert us from the Archbishop’s much more provocative and problematic comments about war in general, and the current Middle Eastern conflict in particular. Sex, in certain circles, risks becoming such a fixation that we ignore much more urgent issues, such as Archbishop Justin’s effective imprimatur on the ‘just war’ against the Islamic State. It is at least questionable whether this conflict really meets the traditional requirements of a just war (‘distinction of non-combatants,’ ‘proportionality of means,’ and ‘reasonable chance of success’ perhaps being the… Read more »
The comments under Kelvin Holdsworth’s excellent piece are startling. Apparently, gay marriage is equivalent to joining ISIS. Yes, those gays, with their beheadings and their mass child rape, eh?
” You tell me the African churches will kick up a raucous tantrum if I’m seen to be accepted by you. You tell me I have to be silent, to be patient, to put up with the abuse. You tell me it’s my cross to bear.” – Rose Grigg (above linked article) – And this is one of the problems of our world-wide Anglican Communion at this time. The Church of England, and other provincial Churches of the Communion seem to be held in thrall by the GAFCON Primates, whose understanding of gender and sexuality is less than humane or… Read more »
“You tell me the African churches will kick up a raucous tantrum if I’m seen to be accepted by you.” Martin Luther King had something to say about this. He said that it was unconscionable to demand that a class of people be made to continue to carry the heavy burden of injustice for the sake of others [like African human rights abusers]. And just in case anyone thinks “yes, but he meant African Americans” I would remind you that he, his wife, and his children have been and are strong supporters of equality for LGBTQ people. I’m sure that… Read more »
Metropolitan Ambrosios of Kalavryta and Aigialeia recently told his flock to beat up and spit on gays, because we’re “not human.” Truth be told, it seems to me that that is more open and honest than this long, slow, passive-aggressive purge in the Anglican Communion, and CofE, particularly. There is something fundamentally evil – a word I use advisedly – about claiming to love and respect people while sending every possible signal that they are defective, unwanted, unclean, perverted, are, in fact, “not human.” This is why I don’t believe God could possibly be “against” homosexuals or homosexuality, because that… Read more »
Every time I read about the continuing conflict over the status of LGBT people in C of E and other churches, I thank God that I am, as my bumper sticker says, “Blessed to be Episcopalian.”