By Hilary White
LONDON, March 1, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Church of England’s General Synod met Wednesday and declined to make any final statement on the acceptability of homosexual activity itself but restated that merely having the homosexual “orientation” does not bar full participation in the life of the church.
The Guardian reports that language failed to pass that would have affirmed that the Bible permits sexual relations only between a married man and woman and that being “gay” is a choice of actions, not a natural condition determined by genes.
The Synod rejected proposed language affirming “respect (for the) the patterns of holy living to which lesbian and gay Christians aspire,” and said “that homosexual orientation in itself is no bar to a faithful Christian life or in full participation to lay and ordained ministry.”
Rev. Mary Gilbert, who sponsored the original motion, said she was happy with the final statement that, she said, creates “an open, careful listening process about the issue of lesbian and gay Christians.”
At a week long meeting last month in Tanzania, Anglican leaders from around the world issued an ultimatum to their liberal and secularized counterparts in the US who are seeking official acceptance of active homosexuality: come back to the traditional understanding of Christianity, or lose full membership in the Communion.
The bishops in Tanzania gave the Episcopal Church until September 30 to state explicitly that it will not authorize blessings for same-sex couples and will bar active and unrepentant homosexuals from becoming bishops.
David W. Virtue, an Anglican journalist, commenting on his website Virtue Online, wrote, “The notion of a ‘common mind’ is long gone. There IS no common mind. The Global South Primates have made that abundantly clear from the beginning.”
“All the whining, cajoling, and demanding that progressive bishops and pan sexually excited liberal laity of The Episcopal Church can muster, changes nothing. The Global South bishops have reached the end of their tether and they will no longer tolerate the parsing, disobedience, and sexual deviancy of an American church they believe is leading people to an unrepentant Hell,” Virtue added.
At the Tanzania meeting, seven Anglican bishops present, called “conservative” in the press but who represent 30 million of the 77 million members of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, said the dissenting Americans were so far removed from essential Christian doctrine that they could not in conscience participate in communion services led by them.
In a live webcast from New York, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the head of the US Episcopal Church, said she feared that the church was being pushed into making painful decisions on sexuality and scriptural interpretation.
“We are being pushed toward a decision by impatient forces within and outside this church who hunger for clarity,” she said. “That hunger for clarity at all costs is an anxious response to discomfort in the face of change.”
Without the statement of a reversion to traditional Christian morality, the ECUSA bishops will no longer be received at the Lambeth Conferences, held every ten years in London. The conferences are the definitive sign of membership in the mainstream of the Anglican Communion. The next Lambeth Conference is set for July 2008.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Anglican Hierarchy ~ US Anglicans Have Seven Months to Shape up or Ship Out
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