Thursday, February 14, 2008

Lambeth conference - time to move on !


My hero: Desmond Tutu

Anglican bishops from Uganda have stated that they will boycott the forthcoming Lambeth Conference due to differences over the church's stance on sexual matters. There's a rival conference being organised in Jerusalem.

This controversy has been rumbling on for ten years. It really is time to move on.

I understand that Rowan Williams has a convenant for people to sign up to at Lambeth. Good. But let this be the last time that this issue is revisited for a very long time.

There are thousands of more important and urgent matters to be addressed. It really has come to the point where whoever turns up at Lambeth is in and whoever doesn't is....well, not "in", not necessarily out. The door should be left ajar. But there are scores of different Christian denominations. There is no point in trying to hold together people who can't be held together. It's very sad, but let whoever cannot bring themselves to the table do their own thing. They are still Christians.

I'm with my hero, Desmond, on this one:

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has criticised the Anglican Church and its leadership for its attitudes towards homosexuality.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, he said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, had failed to demonstrate that God is "welcoming".
He also repeated accusations that the Church was "obsessed" with the issue of gay priests.
He said it should rather be focusing on global problems such as Aids.
"Our world is facing problems - poverty, HIV and Aids - a devastating pandemic, and conflict," said Archbishop Tutu, 76.
"God must be weeping looking at some of the atrocities that we commit against one another.
"In the face of all of that, our Church, especially the Anglican Church, at this time is almost obsessed with questions of human sexuality."
Criticising Dr Williams, he said: "Why doesn't he demonstrate a particular attribute of God's which is that God is a welcoming God."
Archbishop Tutu referred to the debate about whether Gene Robinson, who is openly gay, could serve as the bishop of New Hampshire.
He said the Anglican Church had seemed "extraordinarily homophobic" in its handling of the issue, and that he had felt "saddened" and "ashamed" of his church at the time.
Asked if he still felt ashamed, he said: "If we are going to not welcome or invite people because of sexual orientation, yes.
"If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God."
Dr Williams has been working to limit divisions between liberal and traditionalist Anglicans that came to the fore following Bishop Robinson's consecration in 2003.
Following his plea for compromise, leaders of the Episcopal Church in the US agreed to halt the consecration of gay priests as bishops, to prevent a split in the Anglican Communion.
In the interview, Archbishop Tutu also rebuked religious conservatives who said homosexuality was a choice.
"It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual.
"You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred.
"It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society."

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