ABofC responds -- kind of -- to Anglican Journal

Here's the Clif Notes version of the interview Justin Welby gave last night with the Anglican Journal -- which included responding to some questions on the controversy about his remarks on LBC Radio.

And -- just for the record: [a] I did listen to what he said and [b] I am still looking for some acknowledgment that the "voice that carries around the world" also carries to LGBT people in Africa, India, Russia and elsewhere looking for a word of hope the Good News we're charged to proclaim includes them and that they are something more than sacrificial lambs on the altar of global politics.

Q: Were you in fact blaming the death of Christians in parts of Africa on the acceptance of gay marriage in America?
A: I was careful not to be too specific because that would pin down where that happened and that would put the community back at risk. I wouldn't use the word “blame”— that's a misuse of words in the context. One of the things that's most depressing about the response to that interview is that almost nobody listened to what I said; they mostly imagined what they thought I said...It was not only imagination, it was a million miles away from what I said.

Q: So what exactly were you saying?
A: What I was saying is that when we take actions in one part of the church, particularly actions that are controversial, that they are heard and felt not only in that part of the church but around the world...And, this is not mere consequentialism; I'm not saying that because there will be consequences to taking action, that we shouldn't take action. What I'm saying is that love for our neighbour, love for one another, compels us to consider carefully how that love is expressed, both in our own context and globally. We never speak the essential point that, as a church, we never speak only in our local situation. Our voice carries around the world. Now that will be more true in some places than in others. It depends on your links. We need to learn to live as a global church in a local context and never to imagine that we're just a local church. There is no such thing.

Q: You've said the issue of same-sex marriage is a complex one that you wrestle with every day and often in the middle of the night…
A: I have about a million questions. I think really I've said as much as I want to on that subject.