Posted on 02/28/2007 1:15:40 PM PST by SmithL
LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) -- The Church of England's assembly on Wednesday affirmed existing teaching that homosexuality is no bar to full participation in the church but avoided the fractious debate within the Anglican Communion about accepting gay sexual relationships.
A motion approved nearly unanimously by the governing General Synod disposed of language including a commitment to "respect the patterns of holy living to which lesbian and gay Christians aspire," but affirmed "that homosexual orientation in itself is no bar to a faithful Christian life or in full participation to lay and ordained ministry."
Bishop Michael Perham of Gloucester had urged the synod not to take a side in the debate about whether people in gay relationships can be good Christians or, as in the U.S. Episcopal Church, serve as a bishop.
"This is not the moment — it is very clearly the wrong moment — to shift our formal position and give any sense of winners and losers on an issue on which we are finding it hard to reach consensus," Perham said.
John Ward, a gay member of the synod who supported the amended version, had asked the assembly "to say explicitly that we can and should have an open and Godly dialogue with one another about human sexuality and that we should create a safe place for this to happen without fear."
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
FYI
>> The Church of England's assembly on Wednesday affirmed existing teaching that homosexuality is no bar to full participation in the church <<
LYING HEADLINE WRITERS! The Church affirmed only that homosexual ORIENTATION is no bar to full participation in the church.
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It baffles me how people can think that Jesus would be OK with acting on gay feelings... it's contradictive to human nature. The point of sex is for married people to have babies, not for people to just have a good time.
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