More News.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rev Rowan Williams.
Rowan Willaims is a prominent figure for as he is on the Hope’08 board of reference, this means that he would be an advisory and honorary role on behalf of Hope ’08 this should place Hope 2008 into question.
Rowan Williams has stated “Hope 2008 is a really remarkable vision that has grown out of the success of a number of local urban projects. Christians have to learn how to give an absolutely clear answer to the question, ‘why is this good news?’; ‘Soul in the City’ and all the related enterprises that have been going on are a wonderful example of how to give such an answer, in terms of the building of responsible positive communities. Now, with Hope 2008, this vision is being extended, with great boldness to the whole country – and even more widely. It deserves the warmest welcome. I thank God for the inspiration that has driven it and wish every blessing to all involved.”
The leaders of Hope ’08 would take on a man such as the Archbishop who “believes gay sex is good as marriage”
It has been reported in The Times Newspaper, August 7, 2008 Rowan Williams: gay relationships ‘comparable to marriage’
Rowan Williams believes that gay sexual relationships can “reflect the love of God” in a way that is comparable to marriage, The Times has learnt.
Gay partnerships pose the same ethical questions as those between men and women, and the key issue for Christians is that they are faithful and lifelong, he believes.
Dr Williams is known to be personally liberal on the issue but the strength of his views, revealed in private correspondence shown to The Times, will astonish his critics.
The news threatens to reopen bitter divisions over ordaining gay priests, which pushed the Anglican Communion towards a split.
As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams recommitted the Anglican Communion to its orthodox position that homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture at the Lambeth Conference, which closed on Sunday.
However, in an exchange of letters with an evangelical Christian, written eight years ago when he was Archbishop of Wales, he described his belief that biblical passages criticising homosexual sex were not aimed at people who were gay by nature.
He argued that scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety. He wrote: “I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.” Dr Williams described his view as his “definitive conclusion” reached after 20 years of study and prayer. He drew a distinction between his own beliefs as a theologian and his position as a church leader, for which he had to take account of the traditionalist view.
The letters, written in the autumn of 2000 and 2001, were exchanged with Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian living in his former archdiocese in South Wales, who had written challenging him on the issue.
In reply, he described how his view began to change from that of opposing gay relationships in 1980. His mind became “unsettled” by contact as a university teacher with Christian students who believed that the Bible forbade promiscuity rather than gay sex.
Dr Williams, who was ordained a priest in 1978, became a lecturer at Cambridge two years later and was appointed Dean of Clare College in 1984.
He told Dr Pitt that by the end of the 1980s he had “definitely come to the conclusion” that the Bible did not denounce faithful relationships between people who happened to be gay.
He cited two academics as pivotal in influencing his view. One of them was Jeffrey John, the celibate homosexual whom he later forced not to become Bishop of Reading after an outcry from conservatives.
In his 1989 essay The Body’s Grace, Dr Williams argued that the Church’s acceptance of contraception meant that it acknowledged the validity of non procreative sex. This could be taken as a green light for gay sex.
Liberals have been bitterly disappointed that a man whom they regarded as chosen to advance their agenda has instead abided by the traditionalist consensus of the majority.
In the correspondence Dr Williams wrote of his regret that the issue had become “very much politicised” and was treated by many as “the sole or primary marker of Christian orthodoxy”.
Asked to comment yesterday, Lambeth Palace quoted a recent interview in which the Archbishop said: “When I teach as a bishop I teach what the Church teaches. In controverted areas it is my responsibility to teach what the Church has said and why.”
Yet Hope 2008 would have have us associate with this man.
goto this link you will find a photo, Pictured bottom: Prince Charles with (from left) the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hope08 leadership team Steve Clifford, Andy Hawthorne and Roy Crowne, and the Bishop of London.
yet they state Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said it was helping change the image of the Church, [1] I have seen what he is trying to do and it is not of God in anyway shape or form, Romans 1:26 – 32 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in [their] knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.
The bible is very clear on this position of homosexual practices amongst other sins but they choose to ignore this, PSALM 1 Blessed [is] the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly [are] not so: but [are] like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
as one person stated [2] “There are too many people, even what would be called Christian who agree with the world and sit in the council of the ungodly, They proclaim unrighteousness because they do not listen to the Word of God speaking to their heart that which would be right.”
This is what is at the heart of Hope 2008.
Ref
[1] http://www.inspiremagazine.org.uk/news.aspx?action
=view&id=2551
[2] http://www.mooncrestbaptistchurch.com/Psalms.html
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