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Loading ...Church of England bishop says gays should ‘repent’
07.06.2009 11:30am EDT
(London) A senior Church of England bishop has angered gay-rights campaigners by saying homosexuals should repent.
Archbishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that the Bible defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman. He said the church welcomed gay people, “but we want them to repent and be changed.”Nazir-Ali is a leading member of the conservative wing of the global Anglican Communion, which is riven by divisions over homosexuality and the ordination of women.
Gay groups condemned the bishop’s remarks. Campaigner Peter Tatchell said Nazir-Ali’s view “goes against Christ’s gospel of love and compassion.”
And Derek Munn of gay-rights group Stonewall accused the bishop of promoting inequality and intolerance.
The 77 million-member Anglican Communion has been splintering since 2003, when the Episcopal Church – the Anglican body in the U.S. – consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has tried to hold the fragile communion together by getting churches to observe a voluntary moratorium on consecrating another openly gay bishop and developing prayers for same-sex unions. But many fear a split is inevitable.
Nazir-Ali’s remarks appeared a day before the launch in Britain of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, a coalition of conservative parishes from around the world, which Nazir-Ali supports.
He was quoted as saying that people who depart from traditional Biblical teaching “don’t share the same faith.”
“We want to hold on to the traditional teaching of the church,” he told the newspaper. “We don’t want to be rolled over by culture and trends in the church.”
Asking American/Canadian Bishop to comment.
Everytime I read Nazir-Ali’s name – I keep reading “Nazi”….go figure!
Bishop Nazir-Ali would do well to advance the true teachings of Jesus Christ which is to love thy neighbour as thyself. By his off the cuff remarks he is clearly demonstrating his lack of tolerance and understanding and of course inciting hatred towards the Gay Community. If he claims to be a true representative of Jesus Christ’s ministry, then he must by his claims advance that ministry and get past his own personal prejudices and intolerance.
Does any sane/intelligent person actually care about what these brainwashed idiots think anymore?
The Anglican church is a split off from the tyrants of Rome.
But human nature is so queer, if you’ll pardon the term. Some anglicans have their own group to hate.
Religion has a major major problem. They teach people to believe. Instead of teaching them to think with the brain God gave them.
And if people did think rather then believe their religious leaders, we wouldn’t have had 9/11, by a bunch of believers. People who thought they would get rewarded by God, with 72 virgins, for mass murder. And if people had thought about how hitlers rantings against the Jews were bringing hatred against Jesus own people, they wouldn’t have elected that maniac. But instead they followed that hatred, hatched from Rome. Abd the result was WWII.
Trendy lesbian here. If by “repent” this homophobe means screw little boys… I don’t want to repent.
I just can’t believe tyhat this guuy’s name is Bishop Nazi-Rally.
Heh.
Somebody should tell this Bishop “Judge not, less the be judged.”
Whatever….
This Michael Nazir-Ali is likely from a Pakistani or other South Asian background and those people are from a conservative antigay culture anyway.
English and non-English cultures native to the UK like the Welsh in the process of changing. (The Welsh with their own language, music, culture, history, their cuisine, their non-English personal and place names etc. I had a good sampling of Welsh people, lively Welsh folk music including harp, Irish drum, Welsh bagpipes, horn called pibgorn and a fun-loving and publicly affectionate (amongst themselves) young Welsh male choir able to sing and speak in Cymraeg and Saesneg (English language) And able to do some very suggestive Michael Jackson-like dance moves during rehearsal in honor of him.
So, I believe the problem is with very stuffy Nazir-Ali as well as very stuffy Rowan Williams, to whom I pay no attention (as an Episcopalian whose sole focus in on my own spiritual well-being and nothing else).
Church of England is still established–supported by UK taxpayers–right? If so, with crap like this coming from the Church, I’d be waiting for the complaint to be filed with the European Commission for Human Rights. Be fun to see the blowback on UK gov’t, and how they plan to reconcile this “religious” opinion with UK anti-discrimination law. A split in Anglican Communion would be messy–would Whitehall or the Queen decide which one remained the established church? (I feel like I’m back in AP European History at this point.)
He was quoted as saying that people who depart from traditional Biblical teaching “don’t share the same faith.”
Hmm…most churches today depart from traditional Biblical teaching when it comes to slavery, which both the old and new testaments support. What hypocracy.
“…people who depart from traditional Biblical teaching don’t share the same faith,”
He said as he smacked his lips and sucked the meat out of a Lobster tail shell during his friday lunch at Captain Morgan’s Seafood Shack…
Does anybody care? This is as relevant to me as if the serial killers association of america denied entry to gays and lesbians. That’s not the kind of company I wish to keep. Life is too short. There are more positive people to surround ourselves with.
Cheese & Crackers,
Just because it’s not relevant to you doesn’t mean it’s not relevant to other people. This man doesn’t represent those good and decent fair and liberal-minded people of this faith.