Religious Left

Exclusive by Hans Zeiger in Canterbury Virtue Online News CANTERBURY -A distinguished liberal theologian who led a series of seminars for Anglican bishops about human sexuality has compared the orthodox position on homosexuality to past arguments for slavery and apartheid. The Rev. Dr. Richard Burridge, Dean of Kings College London, said at a Lambeth Conference "fringe" event this week that both sides in the debate over homosexuality claim Scriptural authority, but that the side most often associated with the Bible can be likened to British and American advocates of chattel slavery and South African advocates of apartheid. The title of Burridge's lecture, sponsored by Inclusive Church , was "Being Biblical: Slavery, Sexuality, and the Inclusive Community." Burridge said that it can be simplistic to draw exact parallels between the debates over homosexuality and the debates over past injustices, but "a lot of the rhetoric is very familiar." He said that...

By Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Religious Affairs Correspondent Telegraph.co.uk Liberals will be warned that they face being expelled from the heart of Anglicanism unless they respect the ban, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. The American church caused deep divisions between conservatives and liberals when it consecrated Gene Robinson as the first openly homosexual Anglican bishop in 2003. There have been reports that it is prepared to consecrate more gay bishops while the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, told this newspaper that he would be willing to do the same. The proposal to ban future consecrations is the most significant move yet over the issue. The paper, which was commissioned by Dr Rowan Williams, will be debated by 650 bishops tomorrow at the Lambeth conference in Canterbury, the once-a-decade gathering of the Anglican Communion. full article

by Hans Zeiger with David W. Virtue Virtue Online CANTERBURY-The Archbishop of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan today declared that Gene Robinson, the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, "should resign for the sake of the church." In a press conference at the decennial Lambeth Conference, the Most Rev. Dr. Daniel Deng Bul said that homosexual ordination "is not what is found in the Bible" and that it is "not the norm of the Anglican world." Archbishop Bul, who serves as Bishop of Juba as well as primate of the church in Sudan, represents some of the most persecuted Christian minorities in the world. The Episcopal Church of Sudan has grown from eleven dioceses, fifteen years ago, to twenty-four dioceses today. Dr. Bul rose to the archbishopric at the end of 2007. full article

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent The Times UK The Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Rev Gene Robinson, is to defy the Archbishop of Canterbury by turning up uninvited at Canterbury for the Lambeth conference this week. The Times has learnt that the crisis is likely to worsen, whatever is decided at the conference, because the Episcopal Church of the US plans to overturn its pledge not to consecrate any more openly gay or lesbian bishops. The US church, which will dominate the conference with 125 bishops attending, is expected then to elect rapidly and consecrate a further five or six such bishops. Bishop Robinson, speaking to The Times at St Mary's Church, Putney, before preaching there last night, said “When young men are knifing each other on the streets of London and a billion or more people are living on less than $1 a day, why is the Anglican Communion tearing itself apart over two men wanting to make a Christian family together?” Adding that he was totally orthodox on d...

By Katie Sherrod The Episcopal Cafe Several of us have been trying for months to figure out how to get the voices of GLBT Africans heard at the Lambeth Conference. Getting them there physically is very difficult, because it's hard for them to get passports and visas. Many of them can't get jobs because they are gay—or in the case of straight allies—because they are sympathetic to the GLBT cause. The British immigration people don't care why they are jobless -- they just won't let them in if they don't have a job to return to. So the idea for a Voices of Witness Africa video, similar to the Voices of Witness 2006 video produced by Louise Brooks for Claiming the Blessing, emerged. It seemed a natural way to bring the African witness into the Lambeth context. But raising money takes time, and the first bloc of funding didn't arrive until the first of June. We videotaped their stories for a video to be shown at Lambeth to as many bishops as we can corral, and perhap...

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent timesonline.co.uk The Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Rev Alan Harper, who is one of 38 primates in the worldwide Anglican Communion, said today that if “reason” were applied to the Bible texts that seem to condemn homosexuality, a different interpretation would be found. He challenged the intellectual rigour of conservatives who use St Paul's epistles — in particular the first chapter of his Letter to the Romans where the Apostle condemns men who commit “unnatural” acts with other men — to bolster their argument that homosexuality is wrong. Archbishop Harper, who will be among the most senior of the 700 bishops at the Lambeth Conference in Canterbury, Kent, this month said that it was “inappropriate” to “anathematise” homosexuals on the basis of what St Paul says in this and other texts. He gave as an example the Genesis account of creation, where the Bible says God made the world in seven days and that the first woman, Eve, was made from Adam...

Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent Times Online UK The "alternative Lambeth" conference organised by conservative evangelicals in the Anglican church in Amman has been forced to up sticks and move to a different country after the Archbishop of Nigeria was denied entry to Jordan. So, putting into practice the proverb that if Mohammed won't go to the mountain, the mountain must come to Mohammed, the entire conference is this morning checking out of the hotel in Jordan and getting on a bus to Jerusalem, where they will meet up with Dr Akinola. Archbishop Akinola was travelling on his diplomatic passport. After being questioned for four hours, he was turned back, although the rest of the Nigerian delegation was allowed in. -- end of Times Online article -- According to the folks over at akinolarepent : Why? They want to know his role in an anti-Muslim riot in Nigeria in 2004 which killed 660 people. This was in response to an anti-Christian riot two months earlier in the t...

From Times Online The gay bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Rev Gene Robinson says no progress on the issue of homosexual clergy will be made during the Lambeth Conference this summer. “We won’t move forwards or backwards in terms of any official stand. There are to be no decisions made, no statements issued,” said Bishop Robinson, who in 2003, became the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican Communion. Speaking at the Hay Festival on Sunday, Bishop Robinson said: “The way it’s designed [the conference] is simply about conversations; deepening relationships.” Were a statement to be published, he added, it would mean that “a coup has taken place and that the Archbishop of Canterbury has not had the courage to rule it out of order”. full article

original article Robinson has not been invited to the Lambeth Conference, which brings together bishops from all over the world every 10 years, but plans to be outside, talking to anyone he can reach. "One of the things I think I've learned in the last five years is that, as much as I wanted to be known as the good bishop, and not the gay bishop, there's no escaping," Robinson told the Boston Globe. "I would love just to be a simple country bishop but that just doesn't seem to be in the cards." full article

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Leaders of the U.S. Episcopal Church were told once and for all on Monday that the gay man they elevated to bishop will not be allowed to attend a top, once-a-decade worldwide Anglican church meeting this summer. "It feels as if, instead of leaving the 99 sheep in search of the one, my chief pastor and shepherd, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Rowan Williams), has cut me out of the herd," said Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, after receiving the definitive word that he will be excluded from the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference in England. Robinson said he would nonetheless attend the meeting as an outside observer. A team of bishops assigned to negotiate the issue with the Archbishop of Canterbury's office have been informed that a full invitation is not possible; that a retreat planned during the meeting in July at Canterbury Cathedral was closed to uninvited guests and media; and that there was no room for an "observer" at th...