The whole interview is here. It is titled: ”Welby explains gays and violence in Africa remarks” because, as you can imagine, liberals have been wailing and gnashing their molars at Welby’s saying that gay marriage in the West will lead to more murders in Africa. Many are grasping at tenuous explanations to excuse such a calamitous lapse from diversity groupthink.
The Anglican Journal tries to come to the rescue:
Q: Were you in fact blaming the death of Christians in parts of Africa on the acceptance of gay marriage in America?
This encourages Welby into Rowanesque waffling:
A: What I was saying is that when we take actions in one part of the church, particularly actions that are controversial, that they are heard and felt not only in that part of the church but around the world…And, this is not mere consequentialism; I’m not saying that because there will be consequences to taking action, that we shouldn’t take action.
So even though there are “consequences” – like murder – to our actions, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take them. Or does it? I really have no idea:
What I’m saying is that love for our neighbour, love for one another, compels us to consider carefully how that love is expressed, both in our own context and globally. We never speak the essential point that, as a church, we never speak only in our local situation. Our voice carries around the world. Now that will be more true in some places than in others. It depends on your links. We need to learn to live as a global church in a local context and never to imagine that we’re just a local church. There is no such thing.
Now for the hard question:
Q: In 2016, the church’s General Synod will be presented with a resolution changing the marriage canon to allow same-sex marriage. Is this a cause for concern?
A: That’s a really tough question. Well, it’s got to be a cause for concern because this is a particularly tough issue to deal with…And, I hope that two or three things happen: I hope that the church, in its deliberations, is drawing on the wealth of its contribution to the Anglican Communion and the worldwide church, to recognize…the way it works and how it thinks, to recognize the importance of its links. And that, in its deliberations, it is consciously listening to the whole range of issues that are of concern in this issue. We need to be thinking; we need to be listening to the LGBT voices and to discern what they’re really saying because you can’t talk about a single voice anymore than you can with any other group. There needs to be listening to Christians from around the world; there needs to be listening to ecumenical partners, to interfaith partners. There needs to be a commitment to truth in love and there needs to be a commitment to being able to disagree in a way that demonstrates that those involved in the discussions love one another as Christ loves us. That’s the biggest challenge, that in what we do, we demonstrate that love for Christ in one another.
It’s easy to tell that the answer is prating twaddle: it contains “listening” four times. My favourite is: “consciously listening”; can we unconsciously listen? I suppose so: in institutional Indabas. Although we must listen to “LGBT voices”, when it comes to listening to anyone who lives trying to resist same-sex attraction it will, as usual, be a case of the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear.
We live in a fallen world, so horribly full of atrocities and injustices that are the product of human wants and desires that take us away from the Will and Love of God. Sadly this situation that we humans have created is so immense and complicated that we simply cannot fix it on our own. We desperately need God’s Help. In the meantime perhaps we should be asking ourselves some hard questions, such as ones pertaining to priorities. For example:
Which is worse: That homosexuals cannot enjoy the same rights and privileges of marriage as heterosexuals (assuming that there can even be such a thing as a homosexual “marriage”), or; that Christians are being murdered simply because they are Christians?
I know what I would answer, and in turn where I would focus my attention.
I have not been able to find anything that says the ABC will be meeting with anyone from ACNA or ANiC. Does anyone know if he has / will be?
If the ABC does not meet with anyone from ACNA or ANiC on this trip than I would take that to indicate that he is not giving any serious thought to welcoming ACNA into the Worldwide Anglican Communion.
I don’t see why both groups can’t be part of the Worldwide Anglican Communion but I would think that it would be a bit ironic if ACNA/ANiC wanted to be part of it. Afterall, it includes liberal-leaning groups like the ACoC and ECUSA as part of its membership. My assumption was that the frequent criticisms of Welby on this site was because of this.
Perhaps I am wrong. Does ACNA/ANiC want to join the Worldwide Anglican Communion?
Ed, why would it be ironic? After all, most of the world’s Anglicans are not in communion with the leaders of ACoC and ECUSA, even though they remain members of the Anglican Communion. Things are likely to remain that way unless and until the leadership of those two provinces change.
The other thing I wondered is why you thought your question actually had an answer – is it possible that ACNA/ANiC don’t really care whether they join the WWAC or not? They seem to have most of the benefits already, so what would formal membership do for them?
To me the basic unit of the Anglican Church is the Diocese and the Diocesan Bishop has fellowship with the Archbishop of Canterbury who continues to lead the worldwide Anglican Communion, until the Church decides to form independent groups of churches.