Religious Left

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent The Times UK Rowan Williams believes that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, The Times has learnt. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams recommitted the Anglican Communion to its orthodox position that homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture at the Lambeth Conference, which closed on Sunday. However, in an exchange of letters with an evangelical Christian, written eight years ago when he was Archbishop of Wales, he described his belief that biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature. He argued that scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety. He wrote: “I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithful...

from WalesOnline.co.uk The leader of the Church in Wales has risked inflaming a split in the Anglican Church by declaring: “I would ordain Britain’s first gay Bishop.” The Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, said practising homosexuals should not be barred from becoming bishops. He accused opponents of being exclusive and narrow-minded and said the Church should select on ability not sexuality. full article

by George Pitcher The Telegraph, UK Leadership in the West is “a mess and unable to understand the post-colonial reality”. The best thing to do would be to “dismantle” the western establishment to usher in a post-colonial world. Who might this be speaking? The increasingly beleaguered Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in one of his more mild-mannered moments? Actually it is Canon Vinay Samuel, who was yesterday addressing the alternative Anglican conference in Jerusalem, Gafcon, for bishops who feel that they cannot in conscience attend the decennial Lambeth Conference at Canterbury next month, so long as they have to be in communion with openly homosexual bishops. Not that Canon Samuel is a bishop. He is from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. But he reveals what Gafcon is really about. The Global South’s spiritual leader, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, is fond of saying that the post-colonial West demonises him and that a new order must be ushered in. So this conference of Anglica...

ATLANTA -- Court officials say the 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge he lied under oath. Cobb County Magistrate Frank Cox said Archbishop Earl Paulk of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church was sentenced to 10 years probation and a $1,000 fine for the felony charge. The felony perjury charge against Paulk stems from a civil lawsuit against him, his brother Don and the church by former church employee, Mona Brewer. The lawsuit alleges that Earl Paulk manipulated Brewer into an affair from 1989 to 2003 by telling her it was her only path to salvation. In a 2006 deposition for the lawsuit, the archbishop said under oath that the only woman he had ever had sex with outside of his marriage was Brewer. But the results of a court-ordered paternity test revealed in October that Paulk is the biological father of his brother's son, D.E. Paulk, who is now head pastor at the church. As part of Brewer's lawsu...

The film opens on Friday, October 5 in New York, before expanding through October and November to over 40 markets. An exploration of the religious right's use of the Bible to justify shutting homosexuals out of the faiths in which they've grown up. One of the central figures in For the Bible Tells Me So is Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first-ever openly gay man to be elected a Bishop of the Episcopalian Church. Robinson's consecration in 2003 (at which he had to wear a bullet-proof vest due to death threats) was a historical occasion that caused a rift in the Episcopal church. Director Daniel Karslake explores, with various historians and religious figures including Robinson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the use of the Bible in the religous right's attempts to portray homosexuals as being abominations against God and nature. Karslake seeks with this film to both put a face on the issue of religion and homosexuality, and to give people dealing with family...

" The Bible is the word of God through the word of human beings, speaking in the idiom of their time,and the richness of the Bible comes from the fact that we don't take it as literally so that it was dictated by God ." -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu , Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Peter Akinola, Primate, Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), yesterday rejected assurances by U.S. Anglican Bishops to halt ordination of gay bishops. Akinola described the assurances as "not a whole-hearted embrace of traditional Christian teaching. Instead of the change of heart (repentance) we sought, what we were offered was a mere temporary adjustment," he said in a statement. In a bid to save its members in the U.S. from churches who support homosexuality, Akinola floated a branch to cater for them. The branch known as Convocation of Anglican in North America (CANA) will consecrate an additional four bishops this December.

U.S. Episcopal bishops, fed up with Anglican criticism of their support for gay priests, implored the Anglican spiritual leader to hear their side of the story -- in person. Starting Thursday, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams will be in New Orleans for that private talk, hoping he can hold together the increasingly fractured world Anglican family. Williams arrives in the U.S. facing a real danger that the global Anglican Communion could break up on his watch. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-anglican-crisis,0,7650946.story .

Sept. 6, 2007 Dear Rowan, I am delighted that you have agreed to meet with the House of Bishops of the American Episcopal Church in September, even if you appear to be unwilling to come alone. It has seemed strange that you, who have had so much to say about the American Church, have not been willing to do so before now. Your office is still honored by Episcopalians in this country, so our bishops will welcome you warmly and politely. We have some amazingly competent men and women in that body, many of whom have not yet met you. There is clearly an estrangement between that body and you in your role as the Archbishop of Canterbury. I want to share with you my understanding of the sources of that estrangement. First, I believe that most of our senior bishops, including me, were elated, at your appointment by Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair. Most Americans are not aware that yours is an appointed, not an elected position. Those of us who knew you were keenly aware of yo...