The full text of the essay can be found here (thanks to Phil Ritchie for the information). And blogged here.
One of the country's most senior bishops has argued that the Bible sanctions same-sex relationships, using the bonds between Jesus and John the disciple, and David and Jonathan as examples.
The Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Rev James Jones, a conservative evangelical, expressed the views in a book, A Fallible Church, in which he apologised for objecting to the appointment of the gay cleric Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading. He was one of nine bishops to sign a public letter criticising the proposed consecration. Read more
3 comments:
Some clarification is certainly needed. All words in this area seem to be ambiguous. He is correct to approve of the relationships in Scripture he refers to but there is no indication that they were erotic in nature. The jeffrey John affair was a deeply unpleasant episode in the life of the church. As he has cconfirmed that his relationship is celibate it is not in the same catagory as Gene Robinson. His views on homosexualiry may need to be challenged but if some bishops are less than clear on the incarnation, atonement and the uniqueness of Christ as the only savour of mankind, this is a stange place to draw a line in the sand. I find the peronal atttacks on rowan williams and Jeffrey John as distatesful as those from other quarters on Richard Turnbull and Richard Coekin. So lets wait for the bishop to clarify his views or an extended quoteation to be published.
David Hey
West Yorkshire.
The full text of Bishop James' essay can be found at this link:
http://liverpool.anglican.org/people/bishops/jamesspeeches/0712_Lambeth_essay.htm
One strange aspect of this is that Riazat Butt describes James Jones as a "conservative" evangelical. Maybe it's just that Stephen Bates didn't given a very good handover- although doubtless it was done with all the fairness, evenhandedness, and lack of bias he's famous for. I've never heard JJ described as this before, and I don't know any conservative evangelicals who would recognise him as such. Not from a desire to be nasty or exclude him: simply because it's never seemed a very accurate label. Of course, if he isn't really a "conservative", this isn't such a big shift as the Guardian article makes it seem. So itc ould just be media sensationalism. But it is a bit odd that "opens" like JJ and Tom Wright suddenly want to call themselves conservatives, or that others want to call them that. Explanation anyone?
Stephen Walton
Marbury, Cheshire
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