Guardian Riazat Butt Gay clergy: Archbishop urges Anglican factions to ‘show generosity’
The Times Ruth Gledhill Archbishop of Canterbury’s unity plea to Lambeth Conference and also Lambeth Diary: Rowan begs, ‘Choose Life’
Telegraph Martin Beckford Archbishop of Canterbury accuses Anglicans of threatening ‘death to each other’
Anglican Journal Marites Sison Rowan attempts to bridge sides in human sexuality debate
I am curious as to the Sign on the soap box, is it an A for archbishop? or is it the Symbol of McDonalds? A fast food version of theology-ecclesiology maybe? Does he need to say things like “more like a church”? As menmbers of Anglican churches you are not, only part of the Church Universal. Or indeed speak of the “confused or reckless innovation in some provinces is felt as a body-blow to the integrity of mission and a matter of literal physical risk to Christians”?? Doesn’t Rowan read the news??? The shootings in the Unitarian church in Tennessee,… Read more »
Dr Williams ‘appears’ to give an even handed analysis but careful reading exposes the bias. Is he really asking for more time and more personal sacrifice from homosexual christians? He sounds more like a World War 1 British general writing off collateral damage amongst the troops in the trenches because his is the long game plan.
I try not to get annoyed at all this but I confess to running out of patience with Dr Wiliams and the beginnings of finding him less than a man of intergrity.
There’s a piece in ‘America’ on +Williams’ speech that’s worth reading. How it is influenced by two figures he admires – the idea of ‘kenosis’ in Chiara Lubich and that of scapegoating in Rene Girard.
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=70445BD9-5056-8928-105A1709EEA14492
At last, something conservatives and liberals can surely agree on. To quote another fine upstanding Anglican: “You have been sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”
MRG,
Where are we then? The end of your note is,your way or no way? I think we recognize this as a dead end! R W is aiming for something more than this.
|Ben W
If Rowan is so taken with Girard’s views on triangulation and scapegoating, he would hardly engage in the not so subtle scapegoating that he constantly indulges towards queer folks, for example. But of course, the whole business grows dim when keeping the conservatives at the tables is concerned, as the only immediate and powerful way to appeal to them is to talk very highly of them as examples of faith while they talk very meanly and lowly of you know who. The sound bite presentation, welcoming does not mean … is also misleading and unwelcome fakery from a thinker of… Read more »
The critical thing about +Rowan’s address is that he never imagines himself as a homosexual. It might be eye-opening, especially in the African context.
Overall, this has the quality of a kindergarten teacher urging everyone to just get along and play nice. And, sweet as all of that is, it won’t work in this context. The issues faced are not kindergarten issues. Once again, RW offers platitudes instead of action. And yes, I know he is not the pope of the AC. Still, one can’t but think he could have done more with what he has. Frankly, by not taking a firm position on the presenting issues and acting on that position, he has reduced his office to something close to irrelevancy. At this… Read more »
I’m guessing that the “A” on the lectern is an alpha, as in “and omega,” not a McDonald’s reference…unless you’ve tried their delicious McCommunion burger.
Straight to hell, I’m going. Yup.
“The critical thing about +Rowan’s address is that he never imagines himself as a homosexual.” Do any of them, ever? It was interesting to me a few months ago when conservatives on this board were denying the idea of gay bashing, claiming that any fear we have of violence is overreaction. I was accused of hysteria. Yet, none of them seemed to be more than peripherally aware of who Matthew Sheppard was, and most not even that. Here is someone who is an icon of antigay violence for most of us, when we saw the pictures of him on television… Read more »
After reading the AB of C’s comments last night, it occurred to me for the first them that it seems he has choreographed the entire Lambeth Conference – – not as an instrument of listening, exchanging views (on subjects like homosexual inclusion) but as a carefully constructed instrument to close down the homosexual conversation and to cement the Communion to the disgraceful idea of a covenant. I can hear him . . . No, we don’t want to talk to Robinson – – keep him out – – he might tell us something we don’t want to hear. We’ll set… Read more »
The sign on this soap box certainly doesn’t look like an alfa which is one of the Greek letters where the origin in Phillisté letters are unmistakable.
alef was originally the head of an ox viewed from the side.
Sirs, thank you for posting my comments. I have noted several egregious typos. Would you be so kind as to post this corrected copy? – – – After reading the AB of C’s comments last night, it occurred to me for the first time that it seems he has choreographed the entire Lambeth Conference – – not as an instrument of listening, exchanging views (on subjects like homosexual inclusion), but as a carefully constructed instrument to close down the homosexual conversation and to cement the Communion to the disgraceful idea of a covenant. I can hear him . . .… Read more »
“His “reporting” rhetoric last night on ‘do we have to bless what they do” is a phrase that should never be repeated” And yet, Richard, isn’t that really the ESSENCE of Rowan’s perspective—and moreso the (so-called!) “traditionalist” side? In this POV, gay people don’t have a BEing, only a DOing (the latter NOT meaning, of course, the making of marital vows or the hard work of carrying them out, day-after-day, year-after-year—but ONLY what they IMAGINE we “get up to” in bed). “what they do”: no matter the faith we profess, no matter the works of mercy we practice, all too… Read more »
I guess as ‘Moderator’ in this whole argument about Gays/Women/Border-Crossing, the Archbishop of Canterbury has to present both sides (or is it all three sides) of the argument – simply in order for all of the bishops to more easily comprehend what the stakes are, for all concerned. A bit of good old hermeutical Study wouldn’t go amiss in all of this. One can’t help thinking, though, that the Conservative Faction (Biblical Literalists apart) have the luxury of being able to appeal to the Traditionalist argument. One wonders what would have happened to the Saviour’s ministry of liberation if he,… Read more »
Ron Smith, You constantly operate from very large assumptions! On homosexuality and diversity you say, “the world knows this . . .” The critical issue that we have confronted here related to the Muslim view, do the billion people there not count? If you go to Asia, Africa, or Latin America are they for this? The fact is if you go beyond a few secularized western countries people have not endorsed it. Even in those countries the concern of people is with civil rights and fairness (in my view properly so) without endorsing it as a way of life to… Read more »
OK, Ben, let’s put it this way–the world that informs its faith with science and reason knows this.
Ben W
You constantly operate from very large assumptions!
(If I may say so.)
Thanks, Pat and Goran. It does seem that Ben W really does have his own problem about God’s acceptance of the diverse human beings who happen to be ‘different’ from the majority. I supppose if he had been a bishop, and invited to the Indaba Bible Studies, he might have been privy to a disturbing revelation – that the old, out-dated shibboleths we were reared on at Sunday School, about the inerrancy of every word of the King James Bible, no longer obtains amongst scholars. However; God does love Ben W. – whatever his sexual orientation may be. So perhaps… Read more »
“The critical issue that we have confronted here related to the Muslim view, do the billion people there not count?” When it comes to Christian belief and practice, no they don’t. Muslims deny the divinity of Christ and the Trinity, for a start. So, if Muslims say homosexuals deserve death, we as Christians are not bound to that. One issue we have also been confronting in this contest is what appears to most to be a Christian subordination of the Gospel to the Qur’an. “The Muslims will kill us if you in the West are nice to gay people.” Well,… Read more »