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SCOTLAND: Rowan Williams urges Kirk not to split over gay ministers
Former Archbishop should mind his own business
News Analysis
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
May 12, 2013
The former Archbishop of Canterbury is urging Presbyterians in Scotland not to split over gay ministers. Dr. Rowan Williams is counseling the Kirk to stay together. The Church of Scotland has been decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation and traces its roots back to the beginnings of Christianity in Scotland, but its identity is principally shaped by the Reformation of 1560. Its current pledged membership is about 9% of the Scottish population-though according to the 2001 national census, 42% of the Scottish population claim some form of allegiance to it.
Williams is urging evangelical congregations within the Church of Scotland not to "walk away" over the ordination of gay ministers. Some 50 congregations have said they might.
VOL: And Williams did such a sterling job holding the Anglican Communion together that he quit 9 years before he had to precisely because he could not see, or refused to see, the enormous damage he and his homosexual views and its attending sexualities are doing to Western Anglicanism while the Global South firmly aligned itself against him to the point that many of its leaders would not even be seen in the same room with him and US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
The former Anglican leader was so conflicted over homosexuality that his schizophrenic views brought about realignment in the communion and the formation of FCA/GAFCON, forcing him into the liberal/revisionist camp from which he could never extricate himself. He drove Global South Primates crazy over his wobbling views on sodomy.
Early on, following his elevation to the highest post in the Anglican Communion, Williams made it clear that his personal views on homosexuality would be kept separate from his public stance saying he would uphold the Church's received teaching that homosexual behavior could not be condoned.
However, that bipolar position was unsustainable. The Global South never bought it. Under Williams, an already divided Anglican Communion became even more divided. He proposed a Covenant to keep the communion together. It now lies in tatters. The long struggle to prevent a schism over women and gay bishops and same-sex unions has gone badly, making realignment of the Anglican Communion inevitable. His Affirming Catholicism failed to take hold in the communion. His speeches and sermons, couched in riddles and convoluted language structures, only frustrated orthodox Anglicans.
The 77-million-strong worldwide Communion had been threatened with division for several years. Progressives, liberals and revisionists were pushing the boundaries on sexuality and women bishops, while conservatives pushed back forming new alliances. Williams's book, The Body's Grace, only cemented orthodox Anglicans claims that he was truthfully on the "other side" on sexuality issues. Williams never fully embraced the Biblical prohibitions on sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman.
His prevarications and failure to safeguard his Anglo-Catholic wing of his church resulted in the Pope offering a safe harbor Ordinariate for traditionalists who could no longer stomach the theological innovations of the Church of England and, more specifically, the Episcopal Church. Ironically, a former Episcopal bishop was selected to lead the worldwide movement for Anglicans wishing to become Roman Catholic while retaining some of their liturgical traditions.
One African Anglican leader hammered Williams' leadership.
In a blistering attack, not seen in modern memory, the Metropolitan and Primate of the Anglican Province of Nigeria ripped the Archbishop of Canterbury saying his sudden resignation announcement would leave behind a Communion in tatters, with highly polarized, bitterly factionalized, issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness.
Archbishop Nicholas D. Okoh noted that when Dr. Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002, it was a happy family. He is leaving it with decisions and actions that are stumbling blocks to oneness, evangelism, and mission all around the Anglican world. Okoh went so far as to say that it was like being "crucified under Pontius Pilate".
The leader of the world's most populace Anglican Province - over 20 million - said the lowest ebb of this degeneration came in 2008, when there were two "Lambeth" Conferences -- one in the UK, and an alternative one, GAFCON in Jerusalem -- that saw more than one third of the Anglican Communion's bishops as "no-shows" at Canterbury. The trend continued recently when many Global South Primates decided not to attend the last Primates' meeting in Dublin, Ireland.
Now, speaking on the eve of a visit to Scotland as the new chairman of Christian Aid, Williams said he understands that some congregations might threaten to break away if the Kirk's General Assembly votes to allow the ordination of gay ministers later this month, but warned against such a divisive move.
"The impulse to walk away, while deeply understandable, is not a very constructive one," he said. "The things which bind Christians together are almost always more profound and significant for themselves and the world than the things that divide them. When you do walk away from other Christians you are in effect saying well, either I can do without you or I've got nothing to learn from you. That can't be good for us. You may disagree, you may think somebody else is tacitly perverse, but you might want to hang in there with them."
Williams' remarks after Scotland on Sunday revealed that up to 50 congregations could leave the Church of Scotland if ordaining openly gay ministers is passed. Two congregations and a number of ministers have already left over the issue, which they believe goes against Biblical teachings.
VOL: So, after a decade of disastrous leadership of the Anglican Communion, Williams now seeks to lecture the Kirk on what they should do. Oh the hubris of it all.
Although he said it would be "inappropriate to comment on a sister church with its own issues", Williams said the church community was part of a wider family and there was a case for keeping it together. "We are stuck with each other, in a very important way. If we believe as I do that God calls us into the church, rather than choosing to sign up, then God's calling us to find our way in the company of these people however obnoxious some of them may seem. You don't agree with all the members of your family, but it's a family."
VOL: We are not "stuck with each other." The formation of FCA/GAFCON, the formation of the ACNA in North America, the intrusion of CANA in North America, the CEEC and multiple other Anglican jurisdictions is living proof that we are not stuck with each other. It is further proof that heresy isworse than schism. There are multiple New Testament passages that speak of separating oneself from open unbelief and the need to discipline erring church leaders. Why did he never speak up when New Westminster Bishop Michael Ingham got the ball rolling in 2002 by issuing a rite for blessing same-sex relationships. And we must not forget that in the OT, God divorced himself from Israel for the purpose of bringing about repentance and reconciliation. Williams never once talked about active homosexuals needing to repent of their behavior.
Williams flip flops continue when he said he is "not convinced" of the case for gay marriage, having opposed legislation to introduce it in England, but added, "Because we are all breaking up over issues of sexuality these days, can we all stop and think why it is, this issue, sex is the great divider, given that we have lived with radically different approaches over the years, for example to pacifism."
VOL: Because scripture is abundantly clear that "fornicators, adulterers and homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom." (I Cor. 6: 9 -11). Ya think? Pacifism and just war theories are not remotely in the same category. Christians can disagree on the latter because their salvation is not at stake.
To demonstrate how conflicted he was over homosexuality, in 2003 Williams approved the appointment of Canon Jeffrey John, the gay Dean of St. Albans, as suffragan bishop of Reading, but later backed down in the face of a conservative revolt. Now the openly homosexual dean who is in line for Bishop of Durham has threatened to sue his employer, the Church of England, under the Equality Act 2008, if it fails to make him a bishop in fairly short order. This is what happens when you have no clear stated position. The other side pushes their agenda to the point that if the orthodox don't cave, they are accused of homophobia and hate and ultimately vilified, sued and lose their properties. Look at what has happened over the last 30 years in the Episcopal Church.
Williams' prevarications only weakened his position not strengthened it to the point that the Global South, who are the majority of the Anglican Communion, eventually came to despise his authority and walked away from him at Lambeth and again in Dublin.
Andrew Goddard's sympathetic book His Legacy on Williams described his views as "expansive" based on the notion "I have no need of you" and looking for the "authentic, genuine and good" failed to deal with liberals like those in the Episcopal Church who berated him for not doing enough to promote the cause of gays and lesbians. At the same time he viewed conservatives as narrowly fixated on one issue, lacking in expansiveness and generosity. In the end conservatives had no use for him, with one noted Anglican theologian Dr. J.I. Packer calling for his resignation.
But the Law of non-contradiction, one of the basic laws in classical logic, states that something cannot be both true and not true at the same time. Either homosexuality is good and right in the eyes of God or it is not. Williams never resolved that to the satisfaction of both sides, and he left office a failed leader.
His speaking up in Scotland about the issue only undermines Archbishop Justin Welby, an Evangelical, who probably wishes Williams would just shut up. The truth is it is none of Williams' business what the Kirk decides; he should mind his own business. His views on homosexuality nearly destroyed the Anglican Communion. One hopes Welby can put it back together again.
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