Sunday, September 9, 2012

Thinking Anglicans: Telegraph interviews Rowan Williams

Telegraph interviews Rowan Williams

Update (Saturday 9.15 am) The Anglican Communion Office has responded with this Correction to The Telegraph article.

The Secretary General of the Anglican Communion has responded to an article in today?s The Telegraph newspaper that inaccurately stated: ?The Anglican Church is drawing up plans? that would see the introduction of a ?presidential? figure to take over some of the global role of the Archbishop of Canterbury.?

?The opening paragraph of this article is mischievous,? said Canon Kenneth Kearon. ?There are no such plans. The Archbishop of Canterbury simply said in the interview that he could see that in the future there might be some reflection on how the administrative load associated with the Anglican Communion might be better shared.

?The Anglican Communion has several decision-making bodies, one of which is meeting in a few months? time. Nothing like what this newspaper has suggested is on the agenda.?

The Telegraph today has a major interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

John Bingham and Benedict Brogan My job is too big for one man, says Archbishop of Canterbury

The outgoing leader of the world?s 77 million Anglicans suggested a form of job share after admitting that he had failed to do enough to prevent a split over homosexuality.

Dr Williams said a new role should be created to oversee the day to day running of the global Anglican communion, leaving future Archbishops of Canterbury free to focus on spiritual leadership and leading the Church of England?

Benedict Brogan Archbishop of Canterbury interview: I don?t think I cracked it

?Does it worry him that, of the three main party leaders, two are atheists, and the third - David Cameron - says his faith comes and goes like ?Magic FM in the Chilterns?? Doesn?t it make them unreliable allies against those secularising forces? ?It does give me some concern. That means we have, as people of faith, to encourage our own folk to be a bit more willing to go into politics, and get their hands dirty.?

Nothing illustrates better the insensitivity to minorities than Mr Cameron?s wish to legalise gay marriage. Dr Williams is critical of the ?embarrassment? the Prime Minister has caused the Church. A ?very inadequate? consultation overlooked the legal position of the Churches and marriage. By opposing the change, however, the Church attracted accusations of homophobia, and for good reason, he thinks. It has been too ? he says ?lily mouthed? before correcting himself: ?We?ve not exactly been on the forefront of pressing for civic equality for homosexual people, and we were wrong about that.?

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams: Church ?wrong? not to promote homosexual equality (audio recording)

In his last major interview before he steps down later his year, the Archbishop reaffirmed the Church?s opposition to same sex marriage and warned it would lead to a legal ?tangle?.

But he added that the Church had been ?wrong? in the past in its approach to homosexuality.

?We?ve not exactly been on the forefront of pressing for civic equality for homosexual people, and we were wrong about that,? he said.

Dr Williams was speaking as Faith in the Public Square, a collection of his lectures dealing with subjects as diverse as human rights, secularism and multiculturalism, is published?

Posted by Simon Sarmiento on Saturday, 8 September 2012 at 7:12am BST | TrackBack
You can make a Permalink to this if you like
Categorised as: Anglican Communion | Church of England

I note he says only that the church should have supported moves for civic equality, saying it should have recognised the difference between the rights of citizens and ethics. In other words no recognition that the church should change its own behaviour towards gay and lesbian people, no recognition that gay relationships can be holy too.

We can expect nothing to change, therefore. All we ever get are words, no actions.

Let us pray that more practical heads will prevail after +Rowan leaves office. Yikes! Rowan's recommendation is that we upend 1500 or so years of tradition and have a Primate of the Anglican Communion who will be free to engage in the day to day administration of the Communion. In Rowan's scheme, the ABC would continue to be primus inter pares but have no actual role in the Anglican Communion. What an amazing idea. No doubt that this could lead to electing the Primate of the Anglican Communion by the Primates. That way, the Anglican Communion would renounce its historic comprehensiveness to become a confessional body led by an uber bishop. The benefit, presumably, would be that the pope would have someone to negotiate with when he has some free time from meeting with his lawyers and maneuvering his tanks onto Canterbury's lawn.

I don't think most of us share Rowan's vision. If the new ABC can manage the dialogue in his own province without trying to foist his half-baked ideas on his Church, he will do well. If he can act in good faith with all of the major interest groups in his Church and moderate their conversations, he will do well. If he can do the same thing when gathering the Communion leadership bodies with a firm commitment to comprehensiveness, he will be a hero.

And a word of simple advice to the next ABC. Have a little respect for the Church that you wish to talk to. Learn the simple basics of this other Church's polity. It would take about 5 minutes to understand that the ABC can talk with TEC's House of Bishops "till the cows come home," without affecting legislation in our Church. Our House of Bishops does not act independently of our House of Deputies in making critical decisions for our Church. Our representatives, including our Presiding Bishop and the President of our House of Deputies, have made this point with Rowan many times. He remains strangely tone deaf on this matter. His remarks about speaking earlier and more often to our House of Bishops has a flavor of triangulation about it. Once more Rowan offends one of the provinces in the Communion while hardly trying.

Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, makes me dizzy with his poor management skills and hot and cold ?compassionlike? twist and turns for LGBT people and heterosexual female clergy spiritual directives at Church.

Please Sir, fade into the sunset of your promising retirement and leave us alone to regroup, heal and love oneanother...ALL one anothers (it?s not that complicated for some of us who have been quietly loving EVERYONE for lifetimes).

Source: http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/005649.html

vikings stadium breitbart dead db cooper fafsa branson missouri davy jones dead monkees

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.