Anglican bishops at the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in Canterbury said Friday that they were positive about the process towards an Anglican Covenant.
Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Chair of the Anglican Covenant Design Group, said that the Anglican Covenant was “badly needed” to help reconcile liberal and conservative Anglicans at odds over a number of issues, most notably homosexuality.
“We are seeking to act in such a way that will hold the two together, that we will not seek to act [in a way] that would destroy the [Anglican] Communion or the unity that is a gift to us from God,” he told reporters on Friday.
Relations with ecumenical partners would also benefit, Gomez maintained, if Anglicans were able to “state clearly and unequivocally who we are as Anglicans.”
He said the Covenant would attempt to respect and maintain the autonomy of the Communion’s 38 provinces, while at the same time “providing breadth and scope for communion.”
The Archbishop of Brisbane, the Most Rev. Philip Aspinall, said meanwhile that the Covenant expressed a “commitment to hanging together as a Communion and working through things together.”
“I think that some of the responsibilities and obligations that attach to being in communion have not been well respected in recent years and we’ve encountered difficulties as a result of that,” he told reporters. “So the Covenant is seen, I think, positively and hopefully as a vehicle for redressing some of those mistakes going forward…Initial signs are positive.”
The Episcopal Church in the United States, the church at the heart of the row over homosexual consecrations and blessings, said it could take up to two General Conventions – or six years – before a final vote is made on whether to enter into the Covenant.
Gomez said that the Anglican Communion would have to “make space” for provinces or dioceses that feel unable to sign up to the Covenant, although he said more specific proposals would be drawn up further down the line.
“I believe we will always leave the door open for persons to enter who don’t feel they can enter at the particular time,” he said.
Meanwhile, Aspinall stressed the voluntary nature of the Covenant.
“Entering the Covenant is a self-limitation in order to remain in communion. The whole idea of the Covenant is that people by consent enter into it,” he said. “It is not a stick to whack people over the head with. So if people enter into it voluntarily the expectation is they will observe it.”
As bishops at Lambeth got down to discussing the Covenant, Ugandan Archbishop Henry Orombi attacked the instruments of communion in an article in The Times on Friday, in which he dismissed the Archbishop of Canterbury as a “remnant of British colonialism.”
Anglican Communion Secretary General Kenneth A. Kearon is expected to mail out letters to the hundreds of bishops boycotting Lambeth in protest of the presence of pro-gay bishops, asking them for their feedback on the Anglican Covenant.
When asked if he thought the Anglican Communion could survive the present crisis, Gomez replied, “I’m an optimist by nature. I believe firmly that the Anglican Communion is going to continue by God’s grace.”
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According to the Bible, when homosexuals have sex together, they are harming themselves and each other.
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 (NASB)
18 Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
The word for immorality is transliterated porneia. This is the same word Christ used. It has been translated as fornication, unchastity and immorality, but includes all illicit sex (including homosexual sex).
Mt 5:32
but I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except for the cause of unchastity, makes her commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Mt 15:19
For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
Mt 19:9
And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.
Mk 7:21
For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
It refers to illicit sex - that which is prohibits in the Old Testament.
Definition:
1. illicit sexual intercourse
a. adultery, fornication, homosexuality, lesbianism, intercourse with animals etc.
b. sexual intercourse with close relatives; Lev. 18 (also Lev 20; Dt 22)
c. sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman; Mk. 10:11,
2. metaph. the worship of idols
a. of the defilement of idolatry, as incurred by eating the sacrifices offered to idols
It is specifically NOT adultery, which is transliterated moicao.
Additionally, because homosexual sex is a sin, you are causing your brother to stumble when you participate in it.
1 Cor 10:32
32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God
So, according to the Bible, when a homosexual has sex with another homosexual, he is sinning against God, hurting himself and hurting his partner. Thus, this goes against the commands to Love God and love your neighbor. If you love someone, you will not cause someone to sin.
This describes those who want sin to be welcomed into the church:
Jude 1:4
For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Actually marriage among heterosexuals goes beyond sex or devotion, especially among believers. It goes back to the way God made us, male and female. And he told us to be fertile and multiply. Children can only be produced by heterosexual couples. That should tell us something.
feetxxxl, AMEN
this is so strange. among heterosexuals we know that their marrying is realy not about sex but about devotion to another. yet when the same is referred to about homosexuals, that is all they are credited with. and this crediting done by those who are called to love them they love themselves.
when scripture says that apart from the commandment of loving god there is no greater commandment than loving ones neighbor as oneself. what is it crediting as love?
"my point is that under the new covenant there is no basis for homosxuqality being a sin, unless it is of the sin nature. but there is no evidence of spirit that it is of the sin nature. "
What are you talking about? Are you blatantly glossing over large chunks of the OT and NT just to justify your sinful lusts? If you want to go out and commit gay-homosexual acts, go ahead, but don't call it biblical. Sodom was burned to the ground for such evil acts, so what makes you think God 'loves' these unnatural acts now? God most certainly does not change.
Uggg, feetxxl, what is your definition of 'love'? Just some sort of emotional ecstasy? Because the way you talk of love, it sounds like some sort of emotional disposition towards someone. You 'love' someone because you have some sort of 'kinship' towards that person?
Well according to the biblical standard, none of that qualifies as love.
my point is that under the new covenant there is no basis for homosxuqality being a sin, unless it is of the sin nature. but there is no evidence of spirit that it is of the sin nature.
it doesnt come against the three commandments of love, it doesnt come against the fruit of the spirit and it doesnt come against the spirit of christ, who i said before, we know, has been entrusted with all judgement and been put in authority over all things. surely that would include the law as well.
Look it, homosexuality is sin, there's no way around it. Endorsing it is also wrong. I don't hink we need to hash over all the Scriptures that state this.
The New Covenant does not allow new freedoms (meaning that you can sin all you want and that God's grace covers it all) nor does it allow us to not produce Godly qualities in us (aka fruit of the Spirit). So since Christians are to be led by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
first of all has not jesus been entrusted with all judgement and has not he also been put in authority over all things.
would that not also include marriage and the ordination of women? in addition under the new covenant the above being true, surely god would doing nothing that was not thru the spirit of the son.
paul said that in christ we died to the law and are resurrected in christ to be under grace. if we died to the law, why would paul create more for us to die to, such a law about orientation, marriage, and the authority of women in the church.
jesus said we would recognize them by their fruit.
aren't you saying that fruit of homosexuality and woman's ordination is breaking the law? how is that understanding of the new covenant?
Gratus, according to Gen. 1:27 God created man and woman at the same time, thus the birth of the medieval myth of Lilith. Secondly, God created Eve in Gen. 2:23 in response to Adam's loneliness, 2:18. But first God created all the animals and only after it was determined that they did not suffice for his needs, 2:20, did God create Eve. If you think God instituted marriage in 2:24 then at least acknowledge that it was to meet the needs of loneliness, unless you think God intended Adam to have sex with all those animals. Also you might acknowledge that this story may itself be read by some as encouraging gay marriage, for clearly it is not good that man should be alone.
feetxxxl Just as I want my own body to be free from homosexual sin, I want my neighbour's body to be free from it, because I love him as myself.
The essence of homosexuality is that it is a sin against God's institution of marriage, which is God's way for us to have sex.
The important issue is not the ordination of women, but the authority of Scripture. Women elders and 'normalizing' homosexuality are some of the offshoots of not having God's authoritative Word any more.
Woman was created second, and sinned first. 1Ti 2:12-14: 'But I do not allow a woman to teach, or to exercise authority over a man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.'
please, if you believe that condoning homosexuality is lawlessness, against the gospel, and against truth, explain how it comes against the commandment of loving ones neighbor as oneself which is the summation of all the LAW, the fulfillment of the law being love.
what is the essence of homosexuality that it would be of the sin nature.
and it has been explained by conservative anglicans that the more important issue is the oordination of women. that homosexuality is merely an offshoot of a much deeper problem.
is the ordination of women also of the sin nature. does it also come against the commandment? in what way?
is it your understanding that we are led by god's natural order?
paul said that under the new covenant we are led by and serve of the spirit.
I am sorry, but I cannot see any good coming from a covenant with apostates. What is at stake? The Bible as the authoritative Word of God, and with it the gospel itself!
2Co 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers; for what fellowship does righteousness have with lawlessness? And what partnership does light have with darkness?
I am not saying that all who are part of this apostasy are unbelievers. But a covenant with these people will be wrong. I would rather say to those who are bewitched by the teaching of 'inclusivity' and 'normalizing sexuality' etc what Paul wrote to the Galatians:
Gal 3:1 O foolish Galatians, who bewitched you not to obey the truth, to whom before your eyes Jesus Christ was written among you crucified?