The March issue of Atlantic Monthly carries an interview with Rowan Williams written by Paul Elie.
The place of gay people in the church is one of the bitterest disputes in Christianity since the Reformation. The Anglican Church is trying to have it both ways—affirming traditional notions of marriage and family while seeking to adapt its teachings to the experiences of gays and lesbians. Presiding over the debate, gently—too gently?—prodding the communion toward acceptance of gay clergy, is Rowan Williams, the brilliant and beleaguered archbishop of Canterbury. He’s been pilloried from all sides for his handling of these issues, but his distinctive theology and leadership style may offer the only way to open the Anglican Church to gay people without breaking it apart.
Read the whole thing, starting here.
Also, read an interview with the writer, at A Flock Divided.
Paul Elie talks about Archbishop Rowan Williams’s balancing act, and the schisms threatening the Anglican Church.
Gosh this is all so -er – new. Never before have I heard such talk !
And good heavens lesbians and gay may be admitted to the anglican churches ? !
What planet are some folks on ? And why are so many anglo-catholic churches like the gay clubs of yester-year ?
It’s not a Church, it’s a Communion. TEC, move on.
“Traditionalists are afraid that the further the Anglican Communion goes in creating openings for women in the clergy, for married clergy, and openly gay clergy, the less it will be able to claim any kinship with the Roman Catholic Church, which is against all these things. They say that if you go too far down this slippery slope, tolerating modern views of sexuality, you will just find yourself on the path of Protestant individualism. – Paul Elie: art.Atlantic monthly – Perhaps Paul Elie, in his article about Archbishop Rowan, has hit the nail on the head about the problems Rowan… Read more »
I thought it was an excellent article. Impossible too not to be moved in reading it and ever more strengthened in one’s conviction as an Anglican.
Also a great interview with the writer himself. And what a fine end. Pity the voice of ‘official’ Roman Catholicism (which is of course very minority within that church and generally disregarded by its members) is so lacking in such generosity of spirit.
Thinking Anglicans, please think! Otherwise you will look like the bored and boring-looking individuals (some allegedly very distinguished) so graphically captured in the photos.
Elie states: The Anglican Communion alone, Elie writes, “has sought to have it both ways: at once affirming traditional Christian notions of marriage and family, love and fidelity, and adapting them to the experiences of gay believers.”
Have Evangelicals respected the marriage Covenant with their acceptance of divorce…which Province of the Anglican Communion still bans re-marriage?
What about the compromise over polygamy…what a poor article.
Exactly what is your real objection to the article about Paul Elie, Robert? Was it just because your favourite word ‘divorce’ was not mentioned. I’m afraid you’re going to have to find better reasons for bringing up that subject. It is largely a non-issue at the moment – even, I might suggest, with many Roman Catholics. Except that they probably would prefer to use the ‘in’ word, which is ‘annulment’. But what, I wonder, is the substantive difference?