While Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali's decision to resign may have been unexpected, the reaction to it has been all too predictable.
For the liberals who have read his departure as marking the end of the Church's war over homosexuality, it has been hailed as an admission of defeat.
"Throwing in the Episcopal towel" is how my colleague George Pitcher described it. Others have looked at his decision to devote the rest of his career to defending persecuted Christians in a rather more positive light.
If his stepping down does indeed represent a victory for the liberal wing, one might have thought that they would have a little more grace and display the tolerance which they claim to represent.
I'd argue however that anyone that thinks that the battle is over is sadly misguided.
The storms that have broken intermittently over the last 22 years following Tony Higton's General Synod motion arguing homosexuality to be a sin have often been followed by periods of relative calm.
George Carey claimed that he thought the Anglican Communion was in good heart when he left, but that there were "black clouds appearing on the horizon".
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/jonathanwynnejones/blog/2009/03/30/liberals_too_hasty_in_claiming_victory_at_bishop_naziralis_resignation
2 comments:
I'm tired of the war talk in the Anglican Communion. There is no victory when schism is the goal. As far as I know, there is not one human alive, except Jesus, who knows as much as some claim about exactly what is intended everywhere in the Bible. Saying someone else is wrong or evil or non-Christian in God's eyes is arrogance at its most heinous. We need to kneel together at the altar in humility not battle for a "victory".
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