LONDON, November 26, 2002 (CWNews.com/LifeSiteNews.com) – The new Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, says there is a case for “acknowledging faithful same-sex relationships.” In a BBC documentary, “An Archbishop Like This,” to be broadcast next Sunday, Archbishop Williams says the Bible doesn’t forbid all homosexual activity.
He says, “If the Bible is very clear—as I think it is—that a heterosexual indulging in homosexual activity for the sake of variety and gratification is not following the will of God, does that automatically say that that is the only sort of homosexual activity there could ever be?”
He continues, “What about those people who—with prayer and thought and seriousness and adulthood—say ‘I’ve never known anything different’? What are we to say to them?”
The Archbishop said he didn’t want to talk about gay marriage as that “isn’t appropriate language” but he said he could “see a case for acknowledging faithful same-sex relationships.”
The archbishop’s comments have angered conservative evangelicals who have recently challenged him to recant his liberal views or resign.
The Rev. Rod Thomas, a spokesman for the evangelical network Reform, told the Daily Telegraph that even the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement accepted that the Bible condemns all homosexual activity, not just that performed by heterosexuals. He said that, by making the comments, Williams was breaking his own pledge to keep his views private and not to campaign on the issue.