Monday, July 27, 2009

Archbishop of Canterbury on non-celibate homosexuality and Orders

Wow, is this the ABC I know and (try to) love? The gentle-spoken Welshman is being amazingly (and rightly) strong in his words here. The Episcopal Church can only push things so far. He needs to understand that Americans are arrogant and self-righteous much of the time, and that is certainly the case with TEC. To the American he must be as an American.

Thus a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires.


From HERE.

3 comments:

jmw said...

Excuse me, but AMiA, CANA and other groups - while led by Africa - are largely American efforts. I don't see similar orthodox responses in the UK. TEC isn't an "American" problem. The COE itself is rotten to the core and Williams exemplifies it. He is just fine with gay sex and is only holding back due to what the Church has taught in the past. His advice now is for the orthodox to continue talking to apostates and heretics, thank God he was not in charge when the Arians were around.

Abu Daoud said...

Hi Joel,

A few things. I'm not saying I'm happy about Williams--I'm not. I do think his language here is more direct than earlier, which is good. As far as I'm concerned he should have tallied up all the bishops who voted in favor of consecrating Robinson back in 03 and said that's all, this See of Canterbury is no longer in communion with these dioceses. We will not accept their Orders or Confirmations.

But yes, what are they doing in the UK? It's harder bc it is a state church, but there are movements of renewal going on there, and the C of E seems not quite as far gone as TEC is.

John said...

It seems that Williams is back to his typical lack of action in what he is doing about the problem of ECUSA.

As a British evangelical Anglican, I'm not sure what's meant by "The COE itself is rotten to the core". Yes there are problems (as there are everywhere), but the last 6 bishops appointed have all been evangelical, large parts of it are growing, by and large we've avoided the danger of getting drawn into culture wars, and overall the situation for the C of E is looking brighter than it has done for a long time.

Yes, the #1 bishop is too woolly, but the numbers 2 (York), 3 (London), 4 (Durham), 5 (Winchester) and so on are all remarkably solid.