ABC kinda sorta speaks out in a muted and extremely qualified sort of way
Updated: Simon Sarmiento has an excellent bunch of links up on this issue.
Rowan Williams says the Church must be a safe place for gay people, but even in this statement he does not publicly criticize those working to make it a dangerous one.
This is as close as he comes: I share the concerns expressed about situations where the Church is seen to be underwriting social or legal attitudes which threaten ... proper liberties." (emphasis mine.)
"Is seen to be." That's a peculiar choice of words. The issue isn't how Peter Akinola is perceived. The issue is what he is doing: supporting a law that would legalize human rights violations against gay people and their supporters, and tolerating a smear campaign against the most prominent gay Christian in his country.
First in silence, now in speech Williams has demonstrated that he will go to great lengths to avoid crossing Akinola. This has been noticed both within the Communion and without. He can only hope that the damage to his credibility is reversible.
Do see the Mad Priest's comment here.
"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.
Posted by Doug Simonsen | March 28, 2007 1:55 PM
News flash. ABC praises Church of Nigeria for care of homosexual people.
http://www.aco.org/listening/reports/nigeria.cfm
QUOTE/A statement of the House of Bishops makes it clear that The Church of Nigeria is committed to the pastoral care of homosexual people. It says: “While recognising the sinfulness, from the biblical perspective, of homosexuality, we must continue to keep open the door of restoration for homosexuals through repentance on the one hand, and sensitive pastoral care, on the other.” The Church is clear that all people are sinners and need to repent. What it will not do is bless sinful lifestyles.
...
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./UNQUOTE
Nigeria thus comes in for praise by the ABC: "It is good to know that the pastoral care of homosexual people is affirmed clearly by so many provinces.”
Posted by John B. Chilton | March 28, 2007 2:03 PM
Also in the "Listening Process" report from the Church of Nigeria: "The Western idea of human rights is subservient to the service of the common good. The so called ‘right’ to homosexual orientation threatens the order of society because the continuation of the race is threatened by gay practice."
For a clear appreciation of just how fully Nigeria has complied with the call to listen to the experience of homosexual persons, it's worth reading the report in full (at the link posted above by John B. Chilton).
Posted by Doug Simonsen | March 28, 2007 2:24 PM
Rev. Chilton, thank you for providing the post of the statement from the HOB of Nigeria. It saddens me to think that people can actually believe in such a merciless god, not my God.
And about the thought that people must continue to endlessly propagate ever increasing numbers of human beings, did they ever stop to think of the stresses this places on a world which God has created and loves?
Posted by A MacArthur | March 28, 2007 6:04 PM
It bothers me, in a chillingly ironic way, that the Canadian Anglicans have asked the following question to be considered by their upcoming General Synod, while Akinola presses for the condemnation of people born gay:
"Is it theologically and doctrinally responsible for one member church of the Communion to approve a course of action which it has reason to believe may be destructive of the unity of the Communion? Is it theologically and doctrinally responsible to accept unity as the value which transcends all others, and therefore for a member church of the Communion to refrain from making a decision when it believes it has an urgent gospel mandate to proceed?"
So does Akinola find --in the GOSPEL (the good news of the coming of the Kingdom of God) -- a mandate to condemn people?
Posted by Jim Sturges | March 29, 2007 9:57 AM