Canadian Bishop Michael Ingraham, whose diocese of New Westminster is one of the focal points of conservative rage over same-sex blessings, forthrightly confronts some important issues in the primates’ communique (hat tip to TitusOneNine):
[The Primates] have called for genuine international consultations to be held on the subject
of human sexuality – a call first made by the Lambeth Conference of 1978 but
unheeded until now. … The Primates’ call for the Canadian and American churches “to
consider voluntary withdrawal” from the next three meetings from the ACC
[Anglican Consultative Council] is carefully worded, and intended to appease the angriest voices in
the Communion, but it should be firmly resisted by both churches. ACC
is the one place where the provinces are fully represented and where
the broadest consultations can and should occur.To place the Canadian and
American delegations in the position of explaining to the ACC why homosexual
Christians should receive equal treatment in the church is invidious and
unsatisfactory. It continues the Primates’ policy of ignoring homosexual
persons themselves ….
(Emphasis added.)
In a related vein, reader Barry Fernelius commented yesterday that the conservative
primates should follow Jesus’ advice that we remove the plank from our own
eyes before worrying about the speck in our neighbor’s:
[M]any of the Bishops from the Global South have not been committed to
the pastoral support of homosexual people, as described in section 6.
In fact, in much of the Global South, homosexuals can be imprisoned,
tortured, or put to death.My modest proposal: these bishops should voluntarily withdraw from
the ACC until they can adequately address this problem. This would be
something akin to removing the plank from your own eye before trying to
remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
(Emphasis added.)
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