Thinking Anglicans

views on the adoption agency row

Andrew Brown writes about the Anglican archbishops’ statement: Is Rowan too subtle or too supple? It is in the nature of churches to regard themselves as higher moral authorities, but there’s no reason for the rest of us to go along with it.

Stephen Bates also writes about this: Gallantry after the battle. The Anglican archbishops’ intervention in the gay adoption row was an astonishing blunder.

Listen to an interview with Stephen Bates on the Guardian website here.

And, Elizabeth Ribbans on the Guardian Editors’ blog asks Was archbishop’s intervention a mistake?

Simon Barrow writes about it at Ekklesia: Adapting ourselves to adoptive grace. It would appear that the most senior figures in the English Catholic and Anglican churches have no real idea just how bad they look to a massive number of people right now.

Ekklesia also reports on what LGCM said, Catholic Church adoption policy seriously confused, says Christian group.

Changing Attitude said this in a press release.

In The Times Mary Ann Sieghart comments on The fallout from the gay adoption row. Jane Shilling also has some comments here. The leaders of Affirming Catholicism have a letter to the editor here.

Update
The full transcript of the BBC TV interview with Robert Pigott which was referenced earlier, hcan be found here.

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Ken Sawyer
Ken Sawyer
17 years ago

Is no one here unaware of an interview between the Archbishop and Robert Pigott for the ten o’clock news on the 24th? The full transcript is at: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/070124.htm RW made some very significant remarks in the current debate re adoption in the UK and Government’s role and rule of law. He ended with: “I think what’s at stake ultimately is whether the church is answerable finally to the State as the only court of appeal or whether the church can rightly appeal to other sources for its moral compass and whatever one’s views on this particular issue, I think that… Read more »

Gerry Lynch
17 years ago

It is worth noting public sentiment on the issue as polled by YouGov today – 42% support the churches’ demand for an exemption, 43% oppose. As a society, we really are split down the middle on this one.

However, I’d guess the 43% is disproportionately concentrated among the under-40s; they’re the people we’re telling that you have to be a homophobe to be a Christian; once again we mortgage our future to defend the legacies of our past.

Simon Sarmiento
17 years ago

Ken, I am away from home at the moment, and not keeping up very well, thank you for the link, I will add it to the main article.

Göran Koch-Swahne
17 years ago

Jane Shilling sums it all up: “Crikey. To think that people were burnt at the stake for this.”

So no Gerry, we are not mortgaging our future, we are paying for our past.

laurence
laurence
17 years ago

Sometimes it the tone of the public discussion can sound as if lesbian and gay relationships and people are on trial. I think it should be borne in mind, that it is the (continuing) failure of male-female relationships that is the cause of this crisis. And believe you me, it is a CRISIS for every abandoned infant, child or teenager; and time is of the essence for each one of them. But the crux of the matter, is the urgent need for more individuals and couples,to come forward, for consideration as potential parental surrogates. Foster & adoptive parents are urgently… Read more »

Göran Koch-Swahne
17 years ago

As to the “TV interview with Robert Pigott” ;=)

I can only cite the (US) Bishop of Bethlehem: ““distant, confused, and multiply triangulated””.

I don’t care to go into detail.

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
17 years ago

Good news this time around. And how it cheers one up.

laurence
laurence
17 years ago

Andrew Brown writes about the Anglican archbishops’ statement: Is Rowan too subtle or too supple? It is in the nature of churches to regard themselves as higher moral authorities, but there’s no reason for the rest of us to go along with it. This marvellously perceptive of the issues and emotionally literate too. To be read by all who care about the whole anglican thing at the moment. It sort of clarifies what you know –but couldn’t have found quite the words for. At any rate, it has moved and helped me. Mary Ann Sieghart, Stephen Bates and Simon Barrow… Read more »

Merseymike
Merseymike
17 years ago

I disagree with what the ABC says. I think in the case of the civil law, then it has to be the state’s decision.

I am prepared to see exemptions for internal church/religious matters, but as soon as they step out of that boundary – the Church must comply.

Prior Aelred
17 years ago

Andrew Brown’s comment in the thread to his own article made sense to me (but then I am accustmed to the separation of church and state): “. . . if Catholic adoption agencies take public money, they must go along with parliament’s idea of what is decent.”

Matthew Hunt
Matthew Hunt
17 years ago

Does anyone know what Murphy-O’Connor, Sentamu, and Williams’ take on Masonic affiliation is?

I’m not talking about being friendly with the builders.

Stephen Wikner
Stephen Wikner
17 years ago

Gerry, your second paragraph would appear to imply that 42% of the UK population (that’s +/- 25m people) who apparently support the views expressed by the three archbishops on this matter are homophobic. As someone who supports the various points (note the plural) made by the archbishops and who is therefore, I must presume, numbered among the 42%, I would suggest such an implication is likely to be wide of the mark. Speaking personally, it is certainly so. One of the functions of statistics is to clarify matters that are complex by simplifying them. The danger one runs in looking… Read more »

jnwall
jnwall
17 years ago

This whole episode is yet another reminder that homophobia is a cancer on the Body of Christ.

The current crisis sadly provides the temptation to people minded that way to turn the Church into yet another purity cult.

Some of the most loving parents I know are gay couples who have adopted children.

drdanfee
drdanfee
17 years ago

I still have a lingering hunch that God uses this sort of false move by the great leaders of great churches, to show the cul de sacs of definitional-presuppositional flat earth understanding into which we have let some key legacy falsehoods lead us. The ConsEvs folks would have us believe that it is all of a piece, this legacy flat earth stuff about sex and embodiment – but in fact even they no longer believe that oral sex causes hurricanes or stillborn catttle – something which would have been so self-evident to most ancient legacy believers that they would be… Read more »

Fr Joseph O'Leary
17 years ago

Brown’s is a propagandistic and question-begging article and Bates’s piece is not much better. If you grant the State unlimited power to dictate morals you will end up with martyrs of conscience a la More or Becket. The parliament who gave us the horrors of the Iraq War and Rendition Flights are more fit to play the role of Herod than that of Moses.

The emotivity of the reactions suggests that we are not facing the key issue about the autonomy of conscience squarely.

JCF
JCF
17 years ago

per Andrew Brown: “Dr Sentamu’s performance on the Today show yesterday morning was a breathtaking display of intellectual dishonesty.”

Between this, and his blowhard performance at GC last summer, ++York has blown an astonishing amount of goodwill the past year. Let’s hope this ends the ill-considered “Sentamu should be the next ABC” sentiment?

laurence
laurence
17 years ago

Sentamu is acting from ‘York’ as he did from ‘Stepney’ by all accounts. Its just that, for some reason, the press and tv/radio are more interested in utterances coming from York. Desmond Tutu should have been invited to ‘Canterbury’. I believe he was considered, but some British State protocol got in the way. These things can be got round with desire and effort. May be he will be asked to take care of things quite soon ? Rowan Williams could follow could follow David Ebor’s example quite soon. (Father David Hope). For David Hope sexuality was famously “a grey area”.… Read more »

Christopher Shell
Christopher Shell
17 years ago

Hi Matthew Hunt
is masonic affiliation a controversial issue for Christians? There is no basis on which it would be. The Masons worship one Jahbulon, incorporating among others Baal. I have not heard that church leaders are masons any more, though there was a time when they were (in the 1950s even the ABC).
There are so many I’ll scratch your back / old-school-tie set-ups in life, but I had thought they were getting fewer and more accountable.

Göran Koch-Swahne
17 years ago

“Brown’s is a propagandistic and question-begging article and Bates’s piece is not much better. If you grant the State unlimited power to dictate morals you will end up with martyrs of conscience a la More or Becket.”

Sorry, but we will end up with O’Connor the Cover-upper, Sentamu the Discriminator and William the Spineless.

Merseymike
Merseymike
17 years ago

Absolutely, Goran.

This whining about conscience ie justification of religious homophobia is sickening. They should be exposed for the bigots they are.

Let them keep their consciences within their temples of prejudice – at least those of us who have seen through the cant and lies can avoid attending them until there is real change eg a split and the formation of a new global movement.

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