Skip to main content

Archbishop of Canterbury on Gay relationships

From a letter from 2001 between the present Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams and Dr. Deborah Pitt, a psychiatrist and evangelical Christian:

"By the end of the 1980s I had definitely come to the conclusion that scripture was not dealing with the predicament of persons whom we should recognise as homosexual by nature. 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."

Good for him!! I agree with the above 100%.

Apparently the Church of England is going to split on this issue, and some Conservative Christians say Williams's position is now "untenable".

Some Conservative Christians need to go back to the Bible and read Matthew 7:1-2.

Some Conservative Christians need to understand the truly horrific abominations that are perpetrated on innocent children, not by homosexuals, but mostly by close family members, and maybe they'd get a better perspective on what's really going on in the world, and not spend so much energy condemning people for an orientation they did not choose.

And if, dear reader, you want to know more about what I'm saying in the last paragraph, and you want to have that better perspective, and if, (most importantly) you have a strong stomach, then read about the horrific abuse that Sophie Andrews endured from her adopted father, in her book Scarred: How One Girl Triumphed Over Shocking Abuse and Self-harm

I am serious - you need a strong stomach, and also most likely a box of tissues to equip you for reading this book.

Comments

Curlz said…
Hey there! How was your trip? I'll be looking into that book you mentioned - not sure about the strong stomach...

Curlz
Iain said…
Hi, Curlz,

The holiday ...

Well, the first four days weren't too special; appalling weather and a VERY stressy 17 yr old (the five year old mentioned in "Continuing his Work") awaiting her AS level results. She had us convinced she'd failed or at least got terrible grades.

Then things perked up. She got three straight A's, & is now upgrading the universities she can look at.

So a wonderful last day - weather at last good, no worrying about how to console my daughter after awful exam results, and an idyllic afternoon on the beach listening to Vaughan-Williams on the iPod.

Got another trip, this time to the USA the week after next; but that's work not pleasure - though perhaps less stressy!!

The book. It's definitely one of the most inspirational books I've read for a long time. This woman, who suffered the most horrific, bloody and perverted sexual abuse at the hands of her father has overcome suicidal depression (including at least one suicide attempt) and self-harm of the most extreme nature to become CEO of a charity that helps homeless young people, and is also a very senior person indeed in the Samaritans organisation, having been a volunteer for 14 years, director of her branch, and then the "uber-director" of 19 branches in the North West of England. During her worst times, as a teen, she says the Samaritans literally saved her life. So I guess you can see why the book is close to my heart..

I might also mention that the book is one that spurred me into thinking much more about homosexuality. But you'll have to read it yourself to find out why ...
Curlz said…
Glad your childs grades came through - sounds very motivated and ambitious - go university!!
Have you taken many trips to the US? Hopefully, you are headed somewhere beautiful or at least culturally stimulating. Take care - going to check on that book now ~ Curlz
Iain said…
Curlz,

I'll be in Carmel IN. This will be the third trip. First was in January and absolutely freezing. We'd heard that the "Canal walk" in Indianapolis was a beauty spot (most of the folks from the office couldn't understand us daft Englishmen wanting to walk and suggested we took a car to Chicago). However, when we got to the canal, we found it had been drained out for dredging, so had a beautiful view of the mud!

What really freaked out the folks in the office was the fact that we decided to walk the 10-15 mins walk from the hotel to the nearest restaurant most nights, when the temperature was sub-zero fahrenheit! Why not take the car?? Well, walking enables the consumption of beer, you see, which probably undid the good of the exercise!

Last trip was in July and I'm out there again in last week of August. Can't say I noticed a great deal of culture, but I stayed in a hotel just opposite the office & was working till 7:30pm most nights so didn't get to see a lot.

Hope you manage to get the book; it seems to be in stock at amazon.com; you can read the reviews at amazon.co.uk.
Curlz said…
Found the book on amazon, but will try the library first - not sure I will be able to handle it, perhaps in small bites? Your lovely view of the mud pit - great story. The weather in IN should be far more pleasant this time of year.

Enjoy ~ Curlz
Iain said…
Curlz:

Re the mud pit. Take a look at my most recent post on this blog. I'm just hoping that maybe I can persuade my colleague to take me back there next week so I can see it as it's supposed to be seen!

Popular posts from this blog

Large Hadron Collider Rap

Just LOVED this, physics geek that I am. "Alpinekat" (Kate McAlpine) is a science writer at the CERN experiment in Europe, which will turn on the largest particle accelerator in the world, the Large Hadron Collider, on Sept 10th. There are some who say it will cause the end of the world, because of the potential to create "mini-black holes". Black holes are normally formed by the gravitational collapse of a massive star, but it is possible that the conditions at the time of the Big Bang could have created extremely small black holes. Steven Hawking postulated that such holes would evaporate by the emission of radiation, called "Hawking Radiation", a result of a virtual particle-anti particle pair being produced at the black hole's event horizon. Some physicists now believe that Hawking radiation may be a flawed concept and that a mini black hole created by the LHC would not evaporate, but could cause a cataclysmic disaster and swallow up the earth.

The barbecue conundrum - a (partial) response to Stephen Fry

It's now notorious and has "gone viral".  I'm referring to Stephen Fry's response on being asked by a television interviewer what he'd say if he found God actually existed and was confronted by Him at the Pearly Gates.  Stephen replied that he'd say (something like) "Bone cancer in children - what's that about? How dare you deliberately create something that can cause so much misery and it's not our fault?"  Such a God would be evil, malicious, and he would want nothing to do with such a being. I sympathise, I really do.  Some years ago, I used to go to a poetry group.  The founder was a lovely lady called Sally.  Sally was one of the most honest people I'd ever met - if she liked your poem she'd say so, but wouldn't pretend if she didn't like it.  Everyone valued her.  She died at the age of 36, in Indonesia, when her plane crashed into the side of a mountain - she was one of the two Brits on board. I searched the sho

Comment moderation enabled

I regret to announce that I have had to enable comment moderation on this blog.  This is because some moron is leaving comments in Japanese that contain embedded links to Japanese porn sites, disguised as a row of dots.  This has continued despite the fact I have enabled the "Captcha" technology, so the moron has to sit there and manually enter the Captcha code.  I apologise for the inconvenience to any regular readers who might wish to comment.