Flashback:  An Interiew with the ABC after Dar Es Salaam

from Stand Firm by Jackie

One can only wonder about the what ifs as it relates to ++Rowan and the Anglican Communion:

Q: Some people are saying that the Anglican Church has done away with the Bible altogether. What do you say about that?
A: I say they are completely wrong. We are reading the Bible, studying the Bible and making out of the Bible as best as we can. As priest of the Anglican Church, I am obliged to study the Bible four times a day.
And the issue in the Anglican Church at the moment has nothing to do at all with the place of the Bible.
It is due to the fact that some people in the church, a minority, especially in the United States, have chosen to read the Bible in a new, very controversial way.
Now that is not the way most of the church reads the Bible. The Bible is still important to most of us.
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Q: We go back to the primates meeting in Dar es Salaam. The meeting has failed to come out with a clear decision on the raging controversy regarding same sex marriages….
A: That`s not true actually…
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Q: It seems that the leaders are more concerned with preserving their cohesion rather than communicating the truth to the faithful. So, given the circumstances, what does the Anglican Church stand for and why are you dilly-dallying to give a stance in this very crucial moral issue?
A: The stance of the Anglican Communion is clear: It has never said anything other than that. The ordination of active homosexuals is not acceptable.
It has never said anything other than that the marriage of same sex-couples is not to be admitted.
That`s what the Lambeth Conference said in 1998, and every meeting has said so since then.
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Q: This could be a turning point for the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church in Africa is up in arms against this situation. It has severed relations with the Episcopal Church in the US. Is schism not inevitable in the near future?
A: I don`t know. We have worked very hard to avoid it this week by saying to the American church what the condition might be…that we can mend the broken relations; and between them and other churches; and I think that the Primates Meeting has come out with a very clear statement that if that relationship is to be restored, there are certain things that we need to hear from them (the American Church).
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Q: Archbishop, I will ask you a personal question: You speak as a leader, you have to guide, you have to encourage and you have to be patient. At times, you have to preserve your opinion until the opportune time. What is your personal position in regard to homosexuality and same sex marriages? Are they sinful or not?
A: I have said what the position of the church is and that`s the position I teach.
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Q: And what is that position?
A: That is the position laid out in the resolution of the Lambeth conference in 1998. That is the position that I teach.
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Q: But are they sinful or not?
A: That is what we have said. The phrasing of the resolution in 1998 was that homosexual relations were not compatible with scripture. As Archbishop, bishop, priest of the church, that is the teaching which I must keep my allegiance with.
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Q: Archbishop: How do you like to be remembered? When your tenure of office is over, when you have gone to retirement, how would you like the world to remember you?
A: I would like the world to remember me mercifully, and I hope, as somebody who tried to serve the Body of Christ.