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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.”
It must also be noted that Bishop Nazir-Ali is from a group that may well break away from progressive provinces of the Anglican church to form their own province– and undoubtedly one day will separate completely from the Anglican church. Fortunately, there are many Anglicans who are active supporters of LGBT equality and welcome the our gifts in the church. It is important not to judge all Anglicans and all Christians by so-called “conservatives” who find the church a convenient vehicle to advocate discrimination and ignorance that is rapidly becoming unacceptable for most people in or out of the religious community. Some of the strongest advocates of LGBT equality and ending homophobia are Christians. Let us not supplement homophobia with anti-religious bigotry.
Since none of us were “born into sin” because that is a religious myth – it nonetheless goes without saying that this mans hypocrisy is merely sad, laughable even.
From what I understand of the grand scheme of things, we were all born into sin because of the actions of Adam & Eve. We should not have to say a prayer for forgiveness for the way that we were created. If that was the case then God wouldn’t have made us this way. Homosexuality or whatever you choose to call it did not just appear. This is something that really always was but now that the fight for equal rights has become so large we are supposed to repent for being gay? WOW! The funny thing is that this guy thinks that the gay people who attend his church can really be changed. It does not matter how much of a straight life they can fool themselves into living. Those feelings will always be there and eventually will be acted on. The Bible says that we are not to judge one another. That is something for God only, so why is that all these Bible pushers do? Do they not realize they are violating the thing that they claim to protect?
THERE WE GO AGAIN. THE CHURCH GETTING INTO OUR LIVES. I HOPE THIS BISHOP FRYS IN HELL. HOW CAN HE JUDGE US. ONLY GOD CAN DO THAT. SOME ONE SHOULD LOOK INTO HIS CLOSET.
Bishop, speaking as a gay Episcopalian in a 30% gay church in Tucson, sir, your hate proves to me that you are no more of a man of God than a piece of rubbish is. I have not one word of truth to learn from you, though you apparently have much to learn from me.
Who on earth could possibly care what open sewer of a theology you preach.
Mason, that’s great news re the publishing in English of the oldest copy of the Bible! I think we should all take a looksee to counter Bible-thumpers who have only read select parts of the modern book. As a History major, I’ve been telling people for years that if they’re reading the KJ Bible, they’re not reading the real one! In fact, my pastor friend completely changed her religious right views after reading non KJ versions of the Bible and finding that everything she had been told was God’s Law written in the Holy Book was, in fact, not there at all. It will be interesting to see just how much King James screwed around with the Bible to promote his own rulings.
The church and it’s contolling, anti-learning policies should repent, and apologize, and more to all the people they have damaged with their bigotry
They should be sued for mental anguish, and pay for all people who have been beaten and more from those who follow church provocation
Amazing to me that AP states that he is an Archbishop (there are only two of those in the Church of England – Canterbury and York). He is just a bishop. He is also retiring at the end of this year. Also, he is one of the very conservative faction in the Anglican Communion, so no surprise to me in his comments.
cheese & crackers
I find it quite relevant as I am Episcopalian so anything to do with the “church” is of interest to me. (funny the church had a contingent in the Seattle pride parade last week)
The Christian Talibas is alive and well throughout the world. How nice. The Islamic and Christain Taliban shoule soon hold a world summit so they can comapare tactics. Maybe have Admiral Mullen as one of the guest speakers.
An article on the CNN site today “Oldest know Bible goes on line”, says in part: Juan Garces, the British Library project curator, said it should be no surprise that the ancient text is not quite the same as the modern one, since the Bible has developed and changed over the years.
“The Bible as an inspirational text has a history,” he told CNN.
“There are certainly theological questions linked to this,” he said. “Everybody should be encouraged to investigate for themselves.”
Clearly, the opinion of contempories who claim to know what the Bible says have a problem. Why would any one listen to their homophobic vitrol?
Since his part of the Anglican communion is opposed to the ordination of women, I suppose he should ask women to ‘repent’ of being born female — that makes as much sense as asking gays to ‘repent’ of being gay — the way the deity made them.
To Bishop Nazi-al-lie, I say; “Go to Hell!”
Not to sound nit-picky, but i can’t understand why this made 365gay.com, whereas the story of Scott Rennie, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6633498.ece and the divide in the Church of Scotland didn’t. Especially as the Scott Rennie debate made national news, whereas this is the first i’ve heard of Nazir-Ali.
Though i prefer to think positive, 48% of Britons don’t affiliate to any religion, this man’s beliefs are far on the out.
Michael Nazir-Ali is not welsh…He was born in Pakistan. Although he was educated in England, he has made a lot of troubling statements, he believes married people that do not raise children are indulgent, he believes that immigrants to the UK should abandon their own cultures and integrate (himself included)…I know from personal sources within the Anglican communion that some of the most conservative Bishops on gay issues are secretly homosexual. I have two words for Nazir-Ali: “Self-Hating”
Menstruator,
You are not trendy. You are sexist, man-hating, opportunistic and repulsive.
You never fail to capitalize on tragic or sad situations to advance your man-hating agenda. You disgust me.