From the Archbishop of the Sudan:
“My people have been suffering for 21 years of war. Their only hope is in the Church. It is the center of life of my people. No matter what problem we have, no material goods, no health supplies or medicine; no jobs or income; no availability of food. The inflation rate makes our money almost worthless and we have done this for 21 years. The Church is the center of our life together.
“The culture does not change the Bible; the Bible changes the culture. Cultures that do not approve of the Bible are left out of the Church’s life; people who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches. The American church is saying that God made a mistake. He made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Adam.
“We will not talk to Gene Robinson or listen to him or his testimony. He has to confess, receive forgiveness and leave. Then we will talk. You cannot bring the listening to gay people to our Communion. People who do not believe in the Bible are left out of our churches, not invited in to tell us why they don’t believe.
“I have just come from a meeting of the African and Global South bishops who are here. There were almost 200 bishops there. They support the statement my Church made yesterday. That’s 17 provinces.
“The Authority of the Bible is always the same. You cannot pull a line out or add a line to it. That brings you a curse. We are saying no. You are wrong.
WOW! Just WOW!
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
“When asked if he knows any gay people in the Sudan he replied, “They have not come to the surface. We do not have them.†The press from TEC that were in the room did not laugh out loud at this statement, but nearly.”
How many think that this snippet will be the focal point here in the US? I can see it now: WE DO NOT HAVE THEM–a perfect headline to draw attention away from the bulk of the very serious and passionate words of the Sudanese Archbishop.
Eternal Father.
Eternal Word made flesh.
Don
I am liking this Sudanese Archbishop more and more each day! Keep up your wonderful work and witness to this broken church!
About as clear as you can get. Bravo!
I vowed never to comment again on this blog and hope after this to regain my resolution. But for now:
(1) I know one of these Sudanese bishops and he is a deeply good human being.
(2) This may be it: the start of the final conflict within Anglicanism. I hope not.
(3) “When asked if he knows any gay people in the Sudan he replied, “They have not come to the surface. We do not have them.†THIS IS CERTAINLY A LIE.
What are the 17 Provinces he speaks of?
Is this a typo and should be 7?
Welcome back, John.
[blockquote](3) “When asked if he knows any gay people in the Sudan he replied, “They have not come to the surface. We do not have them.†THIS IS CERTAINLY A LIE.[/blockquote]
Not a lie, unless you think the two sentences of his response are unrelated to each other. Maybe more to the point, however, is that [i]gay[/i], as it’s understood is Western culture, is a cultural construct built around desires and activities known since time immemorial. Outside of Western culture, the construct itself is indeed alien.
He is the bishop of a church in martyrdom and he speaks the truth in a direct and honest manner.
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John Scholasti (#6) said,
““When asked if he knows any gay people in the Sudan he replied, “They have not come to the surface. We do not have them.†THIS IS CERTAINLY A LIE.”
Well John, it depends upon how you speak English.
“They have not come to the surface. We do not have them.†could mean when translated into American English that
“Members of the Church of Sudan have not ‘outed’ themselves as homosexuals.” or it could mean that
“Homosexuals have not ‘outed’ themselves in Sudan.”
But your statement “THIS IS CERTAINLY A LIE.” connot be made on the face of the statements made by the bishop.
8.
I remember you with great affection.
Over and out (I hope!),
John.
Perhaps he meant:
We do not know of them?
It’s difficult to speculate, but even more offensive to call him a liar.
It might have been a happier turn of phrase (and consistent with his earlier observations) simply to say that Sudan has sinners just like every part of the Anglican Communion.
As it stands, there is a danger that this will be read as a statement that “homosexuality is a Western thing and where it occurs in Africa it is solely the result of cultural imperialism.” I’m not sure that I’m willing to go that far and I don’t see that one has to assert it in order to promote a traditional Christian understanding of sexual practice.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
Whoops! I guess this means that the crisis in the Sudan will no longer be the PC cause de jour in TEC that it has been! Darfur, where’s that? Who cares? Southern Sudan? Juba? TEC focus and interest will now shift to some other location, but those are becoming harder and harder to find in the 2/3rds World! Sri Lanka, there we go!
Surely Don R is close to the truth. All may see that his English is not strong – clear, but lacking in the confident grasp of syntax and diction that are necessary in such sticky linguistic morasses. One might add that this stiltedness gives his speech an unusual power and force because he is in the position of having to make his sentences simple and direct – virtues not often seen at Lambeth. And the Sudan world, after all, has more compelling issues, as he makes clear, than political correctness and civil rights preciosities. For him and for many in Sudan, vgr’s assumption of the divine imprimatur is a matter of life and death.
Lies? Your return needs a more careful response than this. LM
My thought last night as I was preparing for bed was:
The purple elephant in the room has been pointed out!
🙂
Peace
Jim Elliott <><