Justin Welby was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury ten years ago this week.
Giles Fraser UnHerd Justin Welby can’t read the room
Matthieu Lasserre La Croix International The man who’s trying to halt the Church of England’s decline
Tim Wyatt Religion Media Centre Gentle Justin, the archbishop who has steered the CofE through a troubled decade
Charlie Bell ViaMedia.News The Unholy Alliance
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love “I have come that you may have life, life in all its fulness”
Rachel Mann The Christian Century Twisting words
“What does it mean to protect women and girls?”
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church A New Dean – a New Beginning for Christ Church?
MPs in Uganda have passed a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which would make homosexual acts punishable by death. No comment from Archbishop Welby that I can find. The extreme homophobia in Uganda is motivated by Christian Conservatism and the Anglican Church of Uganda is a powerful body in the country.
I expect an Archbishop of Canterbury who stands up for right and condemns evil especially when his words would have a major impact.
So far (and I sincerely hope this changes) Welby has failed this elementary test.
Do we have to stand by, giving consent, to preserve ‘the unity of the Anglican Communion’?
I was going to post a general comment on this day’s collection of opinions about the new law(s) in Uganda, but you’ve already called attention to it. Thank you, David Hawkins, for doing so. The situation in Uganda seems to get worse by the year for GLBT people, and some time ago, I believe Thinking Anglicans posted a link to a magazine article that the Uganda effort is receiving major funding and active effort in person by American conservative Christians using Uganda to get away with legislation that would never fly back home in the USA, excepting increasing discrimination against… Read more »
Publicly critical statements made by any UK organisations about internal life and politics in an African country (and elsewhere) is, for very obvious reasons, a highly sensitive matter and may even be counter productive. Secondly, it is on public record that the ABC has challenged the Ugandan before now on this issue. Thirdly, I do not assume that no public statement means no personal contact at all is happening. The kind of response needed here is not best made with a loud hailer.
“The kind of response needed here is not best made with a loud hailer.”
Silence can embolden other countries to do the same.
And yet African Anglicans are vocal about the internal life of the Church of England. Evil prevails when good people remain silent?
I am not advocating silence. I was questioning the assumption it must be public – and that the lack of public voice meant no voices were speaking at all.
Boldly rebuke vice!
Absolutely. I never miss a chance. Megaphone on permanent charge. Full time job though don’t you find?
Depends what you mean by vice?
Exactly.
Justin has written to Yoweri Museveni in a private capacity.
I am sure he means well
Rachael Mann says: “In short, what we mean by woman or girl is not simply a matter of, for example, biological reduction to genetics—instead, it has millennia of shifting social meanings.”
This is just wishful thinking. To most people it’s pretty obvious.
So, chromosomes are destiny?
Depending on how the two sentences in your personal comment, not the quoted source material, are interpreted, they could be contradicting each other. Exactly what is pretty obvious to most people?
When I was born, the midwife looked at me and said “It’s a boy”. It was very clear.
As a male I can do pretty much anything a female can do. My sex has little to do with my destiny.
Lucky you. For some of us it’s not so straightforward. In my case there was dithering and an actual change of mind.
I get it, but that’s not what we’re talking about.
Except it’s not as simple as defining identity and consciousness and womanhood by genitals alone… here, and particularly here.
Isn’t it great to hear about the work of the Holy Spirit in people’s lives in the article by Matthieu Lasserre. Just like the early NT churches except perhaps for the coffee shops.
Rachel Mann draws our attention to the way in which what’s right for women (not the same as women’s rights) so often becomes a political football for groups and organisations at both ends of the political spectrum. Sometimes it suits them to make common cause on specific points. But who is to be listened to? Does anyone else remember the 1988 Apostolic Letter ‘Mulieris Dignitatem’ (‘On the Dignity of Women’) written, of course, by a male pope. Women responded that the dignity of women hinges on being able to define for ourselves what is consistent with our dignity. I would apply… Read more »
I hope we would all agree, but transwomen are women too. My experience is that the vast majority of women do not regard most transwomen as a threat – just a few crazies who would be criminals whoever they are. Transwomen may have breasts, and vaginas, and clitoris, and teeming oestrogen, that interacts with oestrogen receptors, and very definitely interacts (physically and bodily) with the gestalt identity and integral being as a person who identifies female. That poses no threat. It’s just who some people are, and it’s not always easy. No, they may not have ovaries or bear children… Read more »
200 years ago you would probably have written that the protection of people depends upon affirming the colour of your skin.
Quite. We must at all costs avoid demonising people, or weaponising a handful of specific incidents that get massaged by Christian Concern etc, as if they were generalities. Transwomen are not a threat to women. Not least because they are women themselves. When I was an Assistant Governor in the Prison Service, I ran a national centre for sex offenders. One of the 100 inmates in my care was a scout leader who had abused boys. It was really sad. But just because there was one scout who did wrong, should all scouts then have been banned? If a few… Read more »