Archbishop of Canterbury Approves Homosex

Rowam Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, does not have papal powers in the Anglican Communion, but he does have significant authority. That authority could have been used to avert the Anglican schism that has taken place through lack of consensus on the Bible's authority. The following report on Williams' position on homosex is taken from a study done by SPREAD, The Society for the Promotion of Reformed Evangelical Anglican Doctrine based in the USA.

Article reprinted from Cross†Way Issue Spring 2008 No. 108
By David Phillips

Williams began his efforts to overcome Scripture's prohibition of same gender sexual relations and obtain the Church's approval of such conduct some twenty-five years ago when he was a university professor. Williams explained in a newspaper interview in 2002 that he set about to do so when, during the course of his experience of "being the spiritual director to people of the homosexual persuasion," he "did come to a point where" he "could no longer say that the Biblical account answers all of the questions we have or want to ask."

Williams provided in his writings a theological justification for the Church's approval of same gender sexual relations, despite Scripture's prohibition of such conduct. Williams began doing so in 1989 when he published The Body's Grace in which he (a) propounded the thesis that committed and loyal same-sex unions are compatible with the Christian faith; (b) dismissed reliance on Scripture's prohibition thereof as "an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous biblical texts;" and (c) called for "a fuller exploration of the sexual metaphors of the Bible...to teach us about a theology and ethics of sexual desire than will the flat citation of isolated texts."

Williams went further in 1994 with the publication of a collection of his sermons and essays in the book, Open to Judgement. In Open to Judgement, Williams dismisses Scripture as a reliable source for discerning "the mind of God." Williams contends therein that we should not read Scripture with "a kind of blind and thoughtless obedience to every word of scripture as if it simply represented the mind of God." Williams then asserts that the reason we should not do so is that the "writers of scripture" were "caught up in the blazing fire of God's gift yet struggled with it, misapprehend[ed] it, and misread it." In short, Williams says we cannot rely on Scripture because the writers thereof did not correctly discern "the mind of God." Williams is still committed to his teaching that the Church should approve of same gender sexual relations, notwithstanding reports to the contrary.

Source: Anglican Mainstream