In addition to the press release from Lambeth Palace issued earlier today, Ruth Gledhill reported yesterday on her blog that Rowan Williams has recently written this in response to this LGCM Open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury following the Tanzanian Primates meeting Feb 2007:
‘I don’t think there was a chance of getting an agreed statement out of the Primates on this subject at the moment. I don’t take any pride in that, but it’s a fact.’
She mentioned this in the context of the Listening Process dossier:
Peter Akinola… has given an interview to Philip Groves, who head[s] the listening process for the Anglican Communion, in which he makes it clear that he is fully behind the draconian anti-gay measures currently going through Nigeria’s legislature.
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) statement in that dossier, which can be found here, says:
The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has therefore strongly opposed the developments in the Episcopal Church (USA), the Church of Canada and the Church of England. The Primate has called for the Church of England to be disciplined within the Anglican Communion for its response to the Civil Partnership Act.
In Nigeria the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2006 is passing through the legislature. The House of Bishops has supported it because we understand that it is designed to strengthen traditional marriage and family life and to prevent wholesale importation of currently damaging Western values. It bans same sex unions, all homosexual acts and the formation of any gay groups. The Standing Committee of the Church of Nigeria has twice commended the act in their Message to the Nation.
And another quote:
The Primate of all Nigeria has said “Our argument is that, if homosexuals see themselves as deviants who have gone astray, the Christian spirit would plead for patience and prayers to make room for their repentance. When scripture says something is wrong and some people say that it is right, such people make God a liar. We argue that it is a blatant lie against Almighty God that homosexuality is their God-given urge and inclination. For us, it is better seen as an acquired aberration.”
Many people, when commenting on the dossier, have made specific reference to the Nigerian entry.
Changing Attitude issued a lengthy statement which includes:
“The Archbishop’s concern for situations where the Church is seen to be underwriting social or legal attitudes which threaten proper liberties may be taken as code for the situation in Nigeria. The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) has used high ranking Anglican officials to persuade the Government to introduce a new bill banning same-sex marriage and extending sanctions against any lesbian or gay social or political activity. The Church continues to support the proposed legislation despite international reaction against the Nigerian Government.
“Changing Attitude Nigeria and England have alerted the Communion to the active support being given by Archbishop Akinola and senior Church officials to the bill. The bill extends sanctions against lesbian and gay people to the extent that all social activity will become illegal. As we have repeatedly pointed out, this would make any bishop who met with and listened to a lesbian or gay Anglican subject to arrest and imprisonment. The Church of Nigeria is working actively to ensure that the listening process can never happen in Nigeria. We hope the Archbishop of Canterbury’s concerns for the legal attitudes which threaten proper civil liberties will be communicated directly to Archbishop Akinola.
The Living Church has Provinces’ ‘Listening Process’ Reports Published:
In contrast to the submission by The Episcopal Church, the report submitted by The Church of Nigeria views homosexuality as an “abominable deed.” The report notes that the House of Bishops in The Church of Nigeria has supported a proposed state law which if approved by the Nigerian legislature would, among other provisions, ban same-sex unions, the formation of homosexual advocacy groups and “prevent wholesale importation of currently damaging Western values.”
Ekklesia wrote Archbishop of Canterbury says churches must be ‘safe’ for gays:
In what will be seen as a reference to the situation in Nigeria where Anglican Archbishop Akinola is backing legal measures which would oppress gay and lesbian people, Rowan Williams said; “I share the concerns expressed about situations where the Church is seen to be underwriting social or legal attitudes which threaten these proper liberties. It is impossible to read this report without being aware that in many places – including Western countries with supposedly ‘liberal’ attitudes – hate crimes against homosexual people have increased in recent years and have taken horrifying and disturbing forms.
and also there is Gay Christians appeal to international community over repressive laws.
Among the blogs:
William Crawley has Primate of homophobia?
Tobias Haller wrote They Will Never Learn
Fr Jones wrote Anglican Centrist 18 – The Listening Process
Jim Naughton has ABC kinda sorta speaks out in a muted and extremely qualified sort of way
Scott Gunn has Rowan says church must be a “safe place”
Not too much has Nigerian church condemned by its own words
Fr Jake has The Listening Process: Reports from the Provinces
Jared Cramer has Lambeth Ringing Hollow
21 CommentsArchbishop – Church must be ‘safe place’ for gay and lesbian people
Wednesday 28th March 2007
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has said that the churches of the Anglican Communion must be safe places for gay and lesbian people. His comments come in a welcome to an interim report on the Anglican Communion’s Listening Process, a commitment to listen to the experience of homosexual people. Dr Williams warns that the challenge to create the safe space for their voices to be heard and for their dignity to be respected is based on a fundamental commitment of the Communion.
“ The commitments of the Communion are not only to certain theological positions on the question of sexual ethics but also to a manifest and credible respect for the proper liberties of homosexual people, a commitment again set out in successive Lambeth Conference Resolutions over many decades. I share the concerns expressed about situations where the Church is seen to be underwriting social or legal attitudes which threaten these proper liberties. It is impossible to read this report without being aware that in many places – including Western countries with supposedly ‘liberal’ attitudes – hate crimes against homosexual people have increased in recent years and have taken horrifying and disturbing forms.
“ No-one reading this report can be complacent about such a situation, and the Church is challenged to show that it is truly a safe place for people to be honest and where they may be confident that they will have their human dignity respected, whatever serious disagreements about ethics may remain. It is good to know that the pastoral care of homosexual people is affirmed clearly by so many provinces.”
In his statement, Dr Williams paid tribute to the work of Canon Phil Groves and the team at the Anglican Communion Office involved in coordinating the Listening Process. The interim report, comprising summaries of the Communion’s 38 Provinces’ progress on the issue, has been posted on the Anglican Communion website and can be found at http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/50/acns4270.cfmThe full statement follows.
Updated Wednesday
The Anglican Journal has a copy of the lecture delivered recently to the Ecclesiastical Law Society by Bishop Musonda Trevor Selwyn Mwamba of Botswana.
I recommend that you read it in full: The Anglican Communion: crisis and opportunity.
The Anglican Communion Office has published a lot of material relating to the Listening Process. The section on Reports from the Provinces starts here:
The Facilitator of the Listening Process has collated relevant research studies, statements, resolutions and other material on human sexuality from the various Provinces. Summaries of the responses are here available for study, discussion and reflection across the Communion. This was called for by ACC 13 and commended by the Primates in their communiqué of their meeting in February 2005…
Go here to find the index of the individual summaries. It includes responses from the Global South.
Update
Here is the press release from ACO about this: Listening Process Summaries now on-line. It includes:
…In addition to the summaries, and the materials being formulated on our website, A Study Guide for use at the Lambeth Conference 2008 on: The Process of Listening to Gay and Lesbian people and Mutual Listening on Human Sexuality is underway. The facilitator requests contributions for the study guide, the full details are on the website.
The Primates also asked for ‘the preparation of material to assist the bishops at 2008 Lambeth Conference.’ The Facilitator for the Listening Process is asking for contributions to be used in the writing of a Study Guide…
Go here to read about A Study Guide For use at the Lambeth Conference 2008 on: The Process of Listening to Gay and Lesbian people and Mutual Listening on Human Sexuality.
20 CommentsEpiscopal News Service has a 15 minute video interview with the Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. Go here to watch it.
35 CommentsPress Release from InclusiveChurch
26th March 2007
We acknowledge the frustration which has led the Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) to reject the requests of the Dar Es Salaam Communique for the creation of a parallel church structure.
We welcome their strong affirmations of the equality before God and human rights of all people.
We wish members of TEC to know that we fully support them in their response to the Primates.
To lose the long-cherished principles of provincial autonomy, respect for diversity and active participation of laypeople and clergy would be to lose many of the defining principles of our Anglican inheritance. We have no tradition of centralising authority in the hands of a few senior bishops.
The majority of members of the Church of England find the continued failure of Anglicans to recognise the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people absolutely unacceptable.
It is increasingly clear to us that the process which the Communion has followed over lesbian and gay Christians has been very seriously flawed. Comparisons have been drawn with the ordination of women. In relation to that question a moratorium was imposed in 1948. But the next twenty years led to a conditional acceptance, following a great deal of work by the Communion and a serious and sustained engagement with the question.
But the initial Lambeth resolution in 1978 calling for sustained engagement over issues of human sexuality was honoured only in the breach. Twenty years later at Lambeth 98, the conclusions of the working party charged with coming up with a response to these questions were hijacked by a few conservative bishops with the active support of the then Archbishop of Canterbury. A resolution was produced which rowed back from the 1978 call. In other words, the “conservative” position became a “regressive” position.
In this context, the frustration felt by the Episcopal Church and expressed by its Bishops last week is entirely understandable. To add weight to that frustration, the “listening process” which was called for by Lambeth 98 and again in the Windsor Report has not been carried out with any degree of seriousness by those people who have most to lose by genuine engagement – that is, those parts of TEC loosely grouped under the American Anglican Council, the Province of Nigeria and conservative groups in England. And the cross-border incursions condemned by the Windsor process have, far from coming to a halt, merely increased.
In the meantime, the Church of England has moved on. The debates at General Synod on Wednesday 28th February showed that there is a desire by Synod to take a more mature and supportive approach to Christians who genuinely see the inclusion of lesbian and gay people as a Gospel imperative.
We are now in the ridiculous position where we have gay clergy living in relationship at all levels of the hierarchy – and where the blessing of same-sex relationships is taking place in a significant number of parishes. Parishes trying to live out the radical and inclusive welcome of Jesus Christ are thriving. But because of the untenable policy of the House of Bishops none of this can be acknowledged.
In the meantime, the Archbishop of Nigeria is proceeding at full speed with his support for the homophobic legislation proposed in that country which breaches the UN Declaration on Human Rights, unchecked by his brother Primates.
In this context, we do not see that Lambeth 1.10 can be considered any longer to hold legitimacy or credence. Nor do we see that the Windsor process (which was planned as a process of reconciliation but has been used as a process of exclusion) can continue any further. The road map, effectively, was torn up at Dar Es Salaam. We are now in a new world, in which it is hard to see how a meaningful Covenant can be agreed.
This week it is worth remembering that the entire House of Bishops was originally opposed to the abolition of the slave trade. It took William Wilberforce and his colleagues over twenty years to convince the Church of the rightness of their cause.
InclusiveChurch remains committed to its fundamental aim: to celebrate the diverse gifts of all members of the body of Christ; and in the ordering of our common life to open the ministries of deacon, priest and bishop to those so called to serve by God, regardless of their sex, race or sexual orientation. We will continue to work to fulfil that aim across the Anglican Communion. We look forward to ever increasing friendship with inclusive Christians around the world.
Giles Goddard, Chair, IC
51 CommentsAnglican Mainstream has published the following comment in response to the LGCM advertisement in this week’s Church Times:
From Canon Ben Enwuchola, Chaplain to the Nigerian Community and Canon Dr Chris Sugden. Member of General Synod and Executive Secretary of Anglican Mainstream
The Lesbian Gay Christian Movement has a full page advertisement in the Church Times this week linking the church’s dilemma over engagement in the slave trade with its current dilemma on issues of human sexuality. It states: “Should it (the Anglican communion) support the end to the slave trade? Some said ‘no’ and turned to the Bible for justification. But just as the Church was able to search its soul and overcome this to support the abolition of slavery, it ought to be able to support justice and inclusion for lesbian and gay people.” The advert also makes a number of allegations about the Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Rev Peter Akinola.
The following should be noted.
1. The very people who were set free from slavery, which was a powerful global expression of western culture at the time, do not wish to come in bondage to that culture again in the form of its sexual licence.
2. Those who cited the Bible to justify their views on supporting slavery based their views actually on economic theory, not on the Bible.
3. When he met a representative of Changing Attitude Nigeria in Tanzania in February, Archbishop Akinola treated him with courtesy. Those of us who know Archbishop Akinola and have discussed these matters with him know that none of the imputations of this advert have any basis in his thinking or action. He is committed to the human rights of all the oppressed, including those who feel they are oppressed because of their sexuality. He is seeking in his context which is characterised by militancy on this issue to operationalise that decision. He needs our prayers and support.
What the advertisement says about Archbishop Akinola is this:
Shamefully the Anglican Primate of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, has promoted this legislation, condemned by UN officials as “an absolutely unjustified intrusion of individuals’ right to privacy” which goes against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In Archbishop Akinola’s view, “homosexuality is flagrant disobedience to God”, and an “acquired aberration” which “does violence to nature”.
These quotations all come directly from an article Why I object to homosexuality written by Archbishop Akinola for the Church Times and published originally on 4 July 2003, during the campaign against the appointment of Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading:
…Our argument is that, if homosexuals see themselves as deviants who have gone astray, the Christian spirit would plead for patience and prayers to make room for their repentance. When scripture says something is wrong and some people say that it is right, such people make God a liar. We argue that it is a blatant lie against Almighty God that homosexuality is their God-given urge and inclination. For us, it is better seen as an acquired aberration.
THE ISSUE is such an important one, such a defining one, with the potential of splitting the Communion, because it has become a chronic aberration, which is being defended and promoted in the Church of God. On the authority of the word of God, we see homosexuality as a rebellion against God, like that typified by Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. A rebellion cannot be relative.
Moreover, homosexuality is flagrant disobedience to God, which enables people to pervert God’s ordained sexual expression with the opposite sex. In this way, homosexuals have missed the mark; they have shown themselves to be trespassers of God’s divine laws.
Protagonists of homosexuality try to elevate this aberration, unknown even in animal relationships, beyond divine scrutiny, while church leaders, who are called to proclaim the undiluted word of God like the prophets of old, are unashamedly looking the other way.
The practice of homosexuality, in our understanding of scripture, is the enthronement of self-will and human weakness, and a rejection of God’s order and will. This cannot be treated with levity; otherwise the Church, and the God she preaches, will be badly deformed and diminished.
Homosexuality does violence to nature. As someone puts it: “It contradicts the very light and law of nature….”
Indeed in the same article Archbishop Akinola wrote:
35 CommentsHomosexuality or lesbianism or bestiality is to us a form of slavery…
Telling Beads is keeping track of statements made by individual bishops, commenting on their recent meeting in Navasota, Texas, at Bishops Speak About Their Meeting.
Episcopal Majority is also collecting them, but in multiple posts. Go here and scroll through the recent posts.
Changing Attitude has issued this press release: Changing Attitude England welcomes the response of the House of Bishops of the American Episcopal Church.
0 CommentsUpdated Friday 30 March
In last week’s Church Times Paul Bickley of Theos wrote an article about the bishops and the House of Lords, under the title Fewer Lords Spiritual, or none at all. In it he argues convincingly that:
The game is almost up for the bishops in the Lords. The only option for them is to put forward a counter-proposal of their own, with a radically reduced number of bishops to be part of a potential appointed element of a reformed chamber. They have not done so in the Lords’ debates on the subject this week. But five, six — even two — bishops, appointed on the basis of ability and capacity, and released from some diocesan responsibilities, could ensure that the national Church could maintain its excellent work in a reformed second chamber.
This article follows on from the Theos report Coming off the bench: The past, present and future of religious representation in the House of Lords which was published in February and can be downloaded from here. At the time, Bill Bowder reported on it: Report finds bishops too political.
This week’s Church Times has letters in response to the article, including from Frank Field and Colin Buchanan.
Update These letters are now available, see If the bishops want a future in the Lords, they need to work on it.
Frank Field writes:
…The impression given by the bishops is like that of their predecessors sitting around, sharpening their quills, and waiting for Prime Minister Peel to come and begin ecclesiastical-committee meetings. This time round they are simply awaiting reform.
The House of Bishops needs to become proactive and introduce its own Bill reforming the place of the Lords Spiritual in the Upper House. But to do this the bishops need to have thought through what is their place in a “modernised” Second Chamber.
Despite the increase in attendance of bishops now, compared with the Thatcher era, most bishops who have places in the Lords do little to justify their existence…
And Colin Buchanan says:
14 Comments…I wonder whether a few one-line shafts of the obvious would help?
First, if there were 16 bishops taking their seats on the present pecking-order basis, all but the top five would get about nine months’ membership of the House before retirement.
Second, if there were the Bickley solution of “six, five — even two — bishops appointed on the basis of ability . . . and released from some diocesan responsibilities”, then (a) who would appoint them? (b) what would count as “ability”? and © what diocese would want them in absentia?
Third, surely the issue of “100 per cent elected” should be addressed in its own right, not simply on the grounds that it unseats bishops?
Fourth, when will anyone start to couple a changed future for bishops in the Lords with an end of Downing Street’s final say in their appointment as bishops, indefensibly staked, as it is, upon the current expectation of their proceeding to the Lords?
The Times Many roads lead to the One in southern India by Guy Liardet
Guardian Stephen Tomkins writes about the abolition of slavery campaign.
Telegraph Christopher Howse The lost language of worship
Church Times Giles Fraser Capitalism can have a warm heart
Tablet Dangers, toils and snares by Michael Fitzgerald
Church of England Newspaper via Fulcrum The Church of England: More than Evangelical but not Less by Graham Kings
18 CommentsEkklesia has Victory goes to equality in House of Lords vote.
The BBC has Blair proud of gay rights record.
The Daily Mail has How agencies could beat gay adoption laws and also Gay adoption laws forced through by the Lords.
…Equalities Minister Meg Munn admitted the nine Catholic adoption societies in England would be released from the demands of the Sexual Orientation Regulations if they forego cash from state-run social services and instead rely entirely on collections from supporters.
The announcement caused speculation that the Catholic Church could launch an appeal to England’s one million Catholic churchgoers to make up the £10million agencies get from local councils.
Miss Munn revealed the breakaway option in a Parliamentary written answer.
She explained how regulation 14 of the gay rights laws allows religious organisations exemption from the discrimination rules, as long as they are not run on commercial lines.
They can discriminate if it is necessary to comply with doctrine or the beliefs of members…
The Parliamentary written answer to which reference is made above can be found here.
The Evangelical Alliance issued this press release: Christians should continue to deliver public services until the law stops them.
Craig Nelson has an excellent detailed and critical analysis of the bishops’ contributions to the House of Lords debate at More on the House of Lords debate – the bishops’ speeches. It’s worth reading in full, but predictably he selects this quote from the Bishop of Winchester as winning the prize:
“I greatly regret the fact that the Government chose not to do so, but, rather, chose to legislate to coerce the churches and others to accept as the norm for this society—the regulations ask us to accept this and to collude in the Government’s promotion—alternative patterns of living and of family life that many people conscientiously believe are less than the best, less than the most healthy, and less than God’s will for humankind.”
Keith Porteous of the National Secular Society has much harsher things to say about the bishops:
13 Comments“As it turned out, only three of the bishops turned up. They probably realised that a show of brute power would seriously jeopardise the survival of the Bishops Bench in House of Lords reform. But they clearly tried to field their top brass. This included the Archbishop of York, who even apologised for the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and two senior bishops. All voted against the Regulations…
…“Their remarks were torn to shreds by several speakers in a way that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. The most effective attacks came from three non-aligned Christians, two peers who happen to be gay and a baroness who was chief executive of Childline. To murmurs of approval they lectured the prelates on love and discrimination. It was unforgettable.
“Lord (Chris) Smith spoke of the humiliation of a gay couple being turned away from a bed and breakfast, and the reality of gay and lesbian people being removed from GP lists because of their sexuality. In one of the most powerful speeches of the evening, Lord Waheed Alli spoke of his father, a Muslim. The Koran openly says that Jews should be killed, he told peers. As a Muslim, if he truly believed that, then there should not be a law against it, according to the arguments of the bishops. ‘The sight of children holding up homophobic placards outside the Lords seems a good argument for these regulations,’ he told peers. Baroness Howarth of Breckland concluded ‘Gay people deserve that as much as any of us, just as Wilberforce said that every black person deserved equal treatment.’
Updated Friday evening
Today, the Daily Telegraph catches up with the news, as Jonathan Petre reports Liberal bishops reject parallel Church, but compensates for the delay by printing this leader column: Communion no more. Part of it reads:
…The text of the American bishops’ statement is damaging. This is a national Church speaking with an (almost) united voice. The casus belli has shifted from the ordination of Gene Robinson, a bishop who is in a relationship with another man, to allegations of bullying by a group of primates led by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dr Williams now finds himself out of favour with liberals and moderate conservatives in his own Communion. And, harsh though it may sound, he has only himself to blame.
In the past couple of years, he has allowed conservative Anglicanism to be hijacked by extremists. Archbishop Peter Akinola, Anglican Primate of Nigeria, is the leader of the Global South provinces opposed to the ordination of actively homosexual clergy.
That is fair enough, but he has also defended new Nigerian legislation that makes “cancerous” (his word) same-sex activity punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. The deeply divisive figure of Archbishop Akinola was central to Dr Williams’s Tanzanian compromise; is it any wonder that it has been rejected?…
It takes a while for the RSS feed to arrive, but the Damian Thompson blog entry related to this is now on Holy Smoke: It’s all over for the Archbishop. He starts out this way:
35 CommentsRowan Williams is finished as Archbishop of Canterbury. His authority has been utterly destroyed by the decision of the American bishops to reject his scheme to hold together the Anglican Communion.
If there is a Lambeth Conference next year – and it is hard to see how there can be, if its American bankrollers are kicked out – then I shall be very surprised if he presides over it.
Any Archbishop of Canterbury would have faced almost insurmountable obstacles to preserving the unity of the Anglican Communion, many of whose members do not recognise each other as Christians, let alone as Anglicans. But Dr Williams has not come even close to surmounting them.
Just as John Major never recovered from Black Wednesday, Rowan Williams has never recovered from Black Sunday: 6 July, 2003, when he forced his friend Canon Jeffrey John to withdraw his acceptance of the post of Bishop of Reading…
Updated Monday morning
One of the things the American bishops did was to invite Rowan Williams and the Primates Standing Committee to come to the USA, and talk directly to them.
Somebody has decided to help this idea along: see on Ebay Travel for the Archbishop of Canterbury to the USA:
See American bishops in their native habitat!
The bishops of the American Episcopal Church have asked Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to make an unprecedented and long-delayed visit to them in North America to discuss the Current Unpleasantness pre-occupying the Anglican Communion. The Americans assure ++Cantuar that their Christian hospitality will match that of the various fissiparous bishops he has broken bread with on multiple continents. So that the plate and pledge of parishes is not unnecessarily depleted, elements within TEC inclined toward reconciliation or at least a good face-to-face row are offering a business class ticket to any USA destination of the archbishop’s choosing, along with lodging in a Courtyard by Marriott ™ or better accommodation within strolling distance of the agreed-upon meeting place. A team of Th.D translators will be on hand to couch ++Cantuar’s musings in terms accessible to the colonials. Tea and biscuits to be provided by the ECW.
All are invited to bid on this communion-saving encounter.
Update see eBay Shall Not Splinter the Communion!
2 CommentsUpdated Saturday
Changing Attitude has this: Changing Attitude Nigeria urges international action against Same Sex Marriage Act. It concludes thus:
…Archbishop Peter Akinola is said to be doing last minute lobbying of Anglicans in the House of Representatives and the Government to ensure the bill is voted on soon and passed into law.
Davis Mac-Iyalla, Director of Changing Attitude Nigeria (CAN), said:
“Changing Attitude Nigeria stands as a reminder to the world-wide Anglican Communion that the Church of Nigeria is promoting and supporting a bill which will erode the most basic human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.”
“Archbishop Peter Akinola has committed himself to the Windsor Report which commits him to the process of listening to LGBT people. If he is honest and serious about listening to LGBT members in his Province he must speak out now in condemnation of this bill and ensure that it is defeated.”
“I am very worried because very few Nigerian LGBT activists are free to speak out in a country which already has repressive anti-gay legislation on the statute book. The bill is moving very fast and although some people think the bill will fall, the Church sponsors are not giving up and neither are we.“
“Conservative Christians want to use Nigeria as an example to other African countries to demonstrate that anti-gay legislation can be passed which criminalizes all affection and activity between LGBT people.”
To put this in context, another article from the Daily Trust (Abuja) is instructive, Nigeria: The Audacity of Deviants.
Update Saturday
Jim Naughton reports in A hopeful delay in Nigeria? that
28 Comments…the Nigerian legislature did not consider the hateful anti-gay legislation being supported by Archbishop Peter Akinola and the Church of Nigeria before adjourning yesterday. The legislature as currently composed does not reconvene until May, after the general election, and then only for one week…
Last week, I wrote an article for the Comment pages of the Church Times, which is now available on the public part of the website: How far churches may discriminate. Most of this article is an attempt to explain how generous the religious exemption is to churches. I also wrote:
…the initial Church of England response was only lukewarm: “The Government has gone some way to recognising the particular needs of churches and other religious organisations to act in accordance with their own convictions.” In contrast, the Christian charity Faithworks welcomed them: “The proposed SORs are an opportunity for Christians to demonstrate the love and grace of Christ.”
Sandhya Drew, a barrister who specialises in discrimination cases, commented: “People of faith who respect the principles of universal human dignity have nothing to fear from these regulations.”
This week, Bill Bowder reports fully on the latest events in Christians fight on gay Regulations.
25 CommentsEpiscopal News Service has a detailed report of the news conference held at the end of the American House of Bishops meeting: Bishops comment on invitation to Archbishop of Canterbury, other actions.
The Living Church has a report headed Resolutions Arose From Bishops’ Concern Over Pastoral Council Nominations.
18 CommentsThe Comment is free website is carrying an article by the Guardian’s Religious Affairs Correspondent, Stephen Bates. The title is Bishops to primate: drop dead.
The original on which this headline is based can be found here.
44 CommentsThe American Anglican Council has this AAC Statement on the Episcopal House of Bishops’ March 2007 Meeting.
Integrity has INTEGRITY APPLAUDS BISHOPS’ STRONG STAND AGAINST PRIMATES.
The Bishop of Central Florida has written a very surprising letter which can be found here.
The Bishop of Western Louisiana also wrote about it. See here.
The Bishop of New Hampshire wrote this Pastoral Letter.
Susan Russell had this Report on Post Camp Allen News Conference which includes some interesting tidbits.
Bishop Christopher Epting has written What The Bishops Didn’t Do.
6 CommentsThere were three bishops present and voting last night, and one retired English bishop.
Lord Harries voted against the amendment.
The Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham each spoke for, and voted for the amendment.
Lord Eames also voted for the amendment.
You can read their speeches here (in chronological order, scroll down as necessary):
Ekklesia has commented on this aspect of the debate: Bishops reject calls to vote on Sexual Orientation Regulations and also Bishop’s vote over Sexual Orientation Regulations.
The Press Association issued Kelly welcomes gay equality law
Zefrog has Sexual Orientation Regulations – Lords Vote and What the Christian Right Doesn’t Want You to See Anymore.
The Public Whip analyses the Lords voting in detail here.
10 CommentsFor earlier reports, including UK papers this morning go here.
BBC US bishops refuse Anglican demand
Reuters Global Anglican dispute remains after US meeting
Associated Press Episcopal bishops reject ultimatum from Anglican leaders, risking split from Anglican family
New York Times Episcopal Church Rejects Demand for a 2nd Leadership
Washington Post Episcopal Bishops in U.S. Defy Anglican Communion
Los Angeles Times Episcopal-Anglican rift deepens
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Episcopal bishops reject Anglican demands
Houston Chronicle Episcopal bishops spurn demands from Anglicans
USA Today Episcopal bishops reject Anglican ultimatum on gays
50 CommentsThe American bishops issued A Message to God’s People…from the Bishops of the Episcopal Church.
And here is the Presiding Bishop’s homily at House of Bishops’ closing Eucharist.
13 Comments