Posted on 05/24/2006 5:12:03 PM PDT by sionnsar
This is awfully un-Anglican of them but apparently Africans mean what they say:
An Essex bishop travelling with 20 clergy in Africa has been ostracised by the head of the church in Kenya because of his liberal views on homosexuality.
The Rt Rev John Gladwin, Bishop of Chelmsford, was told he was no longer welcome after his views on gays were discovered by the local archbishop.
The group has been told hospitality has been "withdrawn".
The visit was to strengthen links first set up more than 20 years ago between four dioceses in Kenya and Chelmsford.
Bishop Gladwin was named this month as one of four new patrons of Changing Attitude, the campaigning group that aims at equality of opportunity for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the Anglican Church.
Which drew the expected shrieking, hysterical response.
The Revd Richard Kirker, General Secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement [LGCM] made the following statement today in response to the news from Kenya:
“I have the deepest sympathy for the Bishop of Chelmsford and his curates who are experiencing in some small way the humiliation and rejection experienced by lesbian and gay people in the countries he is visiting. They can expect no reasonable understanding of this careful position there. However I am very surprised the Bishop of Chelmsford did not seek and receive an adequate assurance before departing for Kenya that he and his party would be treated with proper respect from beginning to end. It is naïve to think that a person as noted for his antipathy towards gay and lesbian people, such as Archbishop Nzimbi, would not take action of this sort.”
“Bishop Gladwin is sensitive to the fact that in the Church of England there are many hundreds of lesbian and gay clergy, some of them openly so, and tens of thousands of openly lesbian and gay lay Anglicans turning up to worship in English parish churches every Sunday, some with their families, partners and children. Many of these hold office in the parishes, some high office in diocesan and national Church bodies.”
“This is not going to change because of the views of a host of bullying bishops in far flung places nor because we have the Windsor Report nor even if we ever get an Anglican Covenant, nobody, here in these islands, believes for a moment these facts on the ground will change at all.”
“This farcical dance we are all enduring to pander to fanatical homophobes in Africa and elsewhere has to end. They are not just rejecting gay people they are rejecting any who would want to openly debate the subject or engage with us. The new legislation depriving every citizen of Nigeria from making or even listening to the arguments on sexuality is not an aberration it is the norm for these intolerant fundamentalists.”
“When are we going to stop wanting to appease these wicked bishops who would gladly see us locked up rather than listen to our voices, and when are they going to wake up to realise that all this Windsor process nonsense will change nothing on the ground in the United Kingdom, America, Canada and even Nigeria!”
“The hapless bishop of Chelmsford is just a pawn in the greater game of persecuting every person who just might be open to change on the issue of human sexuality - perhaps now his brother bishops in the UK will realise how hopeless it is to use reason and debate with these people and rally to his support; if that is, they have an inch of spine left between them.“
Kirker doesn't want to have a debate and he knows it. For to have an honest debate, his side must be willing to admit that it might be wrong. And to his side, there is only one right answer. So "listening" and "debate" and "discussion" must go on until men like Archbihsop Nzimbi and those who agree with him realize what that answer is and assent to it.
I do agree with Kirker on one point. The Windsor process is nonsense. As it is presently constituted, the Anglican Communion cannot be salvaged and the sooner it is put out of its misery, the happier all of us will be.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. God bless the African Anglican Churches. God bless the Anglican Mission in America.
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