Some people may have forgotten by now, that Rowan Williams became Archbishop of Canterbury bearing a history of progressive thinking on homosexuality…

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.

But this isn’t new, and that needs to be emphasized.  What is being reported here are Williams’ correspondence on the issue Prior to his becoming Archbishop…

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. 

This wasn’t unknown to church reactionaries at the time of his appointment.  They kicked up a fuss over Williams precisely because of what they knew his thinking on same sex relationships was.  The question is, does Williams still think this or did he, upon becoming head of the church, revert back to his previous beliefs.  Because Williams, despite the hysterical protestations of the haters, has been anything but a friend to gay people.  At every juncture on the road to the schism that sure looks inevitable to me, Williams has consistently, Consistently, ratcheted up official hostility toward gay people.  He has done nothing, absolutely nothing, to bring gay people more into the heart of the church.  Everything, absolutely everything that he has actually done, has pushed gay people further away from it.  It’s hard not to conclude that he’s had a profound change of heart regarding the sanctity, the reflection of God, in same sex love.

If the stiff arm he’s giving to gay Anglicans is his way of trying to mollify violent haters like Bishop Akinola enough that they won’t bolt from the church, he’s worse then merely an idiot.  And not simply because Akinola and his kind won’t be satisfied with anything short of a purge of homosexuals from the face of the earth, so they sure as hell aren’t going to accept them in the church pews, let alone in the leadership.  Those who were hopeful when William’s took office need to consider that the man never really had his heart in affirming gay people as his neighbors.  His "definite conclusion" simply melted away when they put the Archbishop’s robes on him, leaving behind only the bedrock that preexisted it. 

Because, if the love between a same sex couple Does reflect the love of God, then isn’t the man who strikes at those lovers for bearing that love within their hearts guilty also of striking at God’s love?  Either Williams still believes what he wrote or he doesn’t, or worse…he thinks the structure of the church is more sacred then the love of God, reflected in the hearts of the faithful. 

It might well be the latter.  And if that’s the case, it’s unsurprising that he’s loosing the battle for the soul of the church to the likes of Akinola.  Take the love of God out of the church, and Akinola is exactly what you have left.

At some point Akinola is going to lead his flock away from the church of England.  If that hasn’t been staringly obvious before now his current argument that the Church of England is a relic of colonialism should I think, decisively settle the question.  He is going to do it.  And at some point after that…soon I would guess…Ratzinger and Akinola are going to publically shake hands.