The Bishop of Lichfield told the Express & Star he had a traditional view of homosexuality and viewed the appointment of gay bishops as wrong.
He said: “I have friends who are gay and I am very fond of them and life is very complex for them. I don’t want a split at all but the reason for it not so much the moral issue, it is the fact the Americans have gone ahead without a debate. We need to have a debate, that’s the real cause of the split.
“It may be that the American churches are allowed to split and get on with it while the rest of the church gets back to debating it. Appointing a gay bishop, in my view, was wrong and I think 95 per cent of the Anglican Communion would agree with me.”
Isn’t this sort of a ‘dog-bites-man’ story? Am I missing some great point or revelation?
Revk
If only.
It is a shocking reality that it is highly unusual that a Diocesan Bishop would make such a clear statement on this issue. I wonder if the English Bishops are being somewhat emboldened and driven to make their positions clear in the face of the impending schism? Perhaps I am dreaming……
naab00,
But there have been many bishops saying this – Ali-Nazar for example. Is this a first for this bishop in particular? Is he ‘British reserved’ in his speech on most occasions? Is this, as you suggest, the signal for the C of E to take up pre-Lam2008 battle stations? I’m not trying to be contrary, I just don’t see the A-HA moment in this story.
One point about the visit of the president of Iran is apropos here. There used to be a legitimate school of thought that homosexuality as a practice was very much culturally conditioned or created–that there really is no such creature as a Gay person based on genes or biology. And today the hunt for a Gay gene has been virtually abandoned (but because of the biased news coverage in our pro-Gay culture most people are unaware of this and still think being Gay is genetic fate).
So maybe the guffaws and hoo-hahs from the liberal academic crowd hearing the president of Iran at Columbia for his comment that there are no homosexuals in Iran are out of place. Maybe their culture is so negative on homosexual activity that noone wants to have anything to do with it as a variant sexual activity. There have been studies of cultures where certain forms of mental illness which exist in the West do not exist in the cultures studied. Maybe, after all, culture is all.
RevK
I think you’re right, there should be no A-Ha moment to it.
The sad reality is that the minority of the English Bishops who come from an evangelical stable (and I believe Lichfield is one of them) become gagged the moment they become Bishops – all in the name of “collegiality” in the House. If one of them does have the courage to stick his head above the parapet, it is usually only ever so slightly and only momentarily.