(LifeSiteNews) — The Archbishop of Canterbury defied the teachings of Scripture and the Anglican Church by claiming that sex is permissible within a homosexual relationship and that same-sex couples can be blessed in church.
“All sexual activity should be within a committed relationship … whether it’s straight or gay,” said Justin Welby, the leading cleric of the worldwide Anglican Communion, in a recent interview on “The Rest is Politics,” a podcast hosted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart.
Campbell is a former spokesman, press secretary, and director of communications and strategy for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Stewart is a former Member of Parliament for the Conservative Party.
Welby continued, alleging that a same-sex couple can be “married” and advocating for their blessing by the Anglican Church: “We’re not giving up on the idea sex is within marriage or civil partnership or whether marriage is civil or religious and that, therefore, we’ve put forward a proposal that where people have been through a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage … they should be able to come along to a church and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together.”
Anglican Ink noted that these remarks were Welby’s “clearest” yet on homosexuality. In 2017, Campbell had asked Welby whether gay sex is sinful, to which the archbishop famously said, “I can’t give a straight answer.”
Homosexual relations are repeatedly condemned in Scripture, in both the Old Testament and New Testament, as a grave violation of God’s law and an “abomination.”
St. Paul writes, “For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (Rom. 1:23-27)
In accordance with Scripture, the Church of England (CofE) officially teaches that “sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively,” defining marriage as a lifelong union between “one man with one woman.”
As Anglican Ink noted, Welby’s comments are “a clear departure from CofE doctrine on marriage and sexual ethics, and from the Global Anglican Communion, and from the historic position of every other Christian denomination across the world, and the clear teaching of the Bible.”
This departure from Christian teaching has triggered backlash from within the Anglican Communion, prompting Welby to make a follow-up statement that explains, “Archbishop Justin was giving a personal view that reflects the position now held by himself, the Archbishop of York and many other bishops regarding sexual intimacy. He has been honest that his thinking has evolved over the years through much prayer and theological reflection … and he now holds this view sincerely.”
Anglican Ink remarked, “Welby uses the classic postmodern defence of sincerity. We should all respect his views because he is sincere. But many apostates are sincere.”
The departure of leading Anglican prelates from fundamental Christian teaching has led to a fracture within the Anglican Communion as well as the defection of a significant number of clergy to the Catholic Church – such as that of former Anglican bishop Michael Nazir-Ali in 2021 – assisted since the establishment of the Ordinariate by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011.
After Welby’s recent comments, The Alliance, a cohort of Church of England groups that hold to Biblical teaching on sexuality has written to the Anglican bishops, noting that they have begun “setting up a de facto parallel province within the Church of England in response to the de facto change in doctrine.”
Last year, Anglican bishops throughout the world declared their communion with the Anglican Church of England to be “broken” over its support of same-sex “marriage” and its official approval of a liturgical rite of blessing for same-sex unions.
The declaration came in a statement issued by the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans’ fourth Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) held in Rwanda. The 1,300 attending delegates represented an estimated 85% of the world’s Anglicans.
“The current divisions in the Anglican Communion have been caused by radical departures from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some within the Communion have been taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies of this world (Colossians 2:8). Such a failure to hear and heed God’s Word undermines the mission of the church as a whole,” the GAFCON IV statement said.
A group of 12 Anglican leaders had just previously publicly rejected Welby as the spiritual head of the Church of England after he permitted blessings for same-sex unions.