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Senior Anglican bishop exhorts gay people to repent
A senior Church of England bishop has called on homosexuals to repent and "be changed" in comments that have infuriated equality campaigners.
- The Daily Telegraph
- Published: 22:54 July 5, 2009
London: A senior Church of England bishop has called on homosexuals to repent and "be changed" in comments that have infuriated equality campaigners.
The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali has defended traditional biblical teachings on homosexuality and said the church should not be "rolled over by culture".
Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, spoke as tens of thousands of people, including Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife, joined the annual Pride march in London on Saturday to celebrate homosexual culture.
A war of words broke out between Labour and the Conservatives over the issue of homosexuality last week after a minister accused the Tories of having a "deep strain of homophobia" running through the party.
Nazir-Ali's controversial comments will reignite the battle over homosexuality in the Church of England ahead of what promises to be a divisive week for the Church.
Today, a new coalition of evangelical and Anglo-Catholic parishes, backed by Nazir-Ali, will get under way, which critics have claimed is an attempt to create a "church within the church".
The organisers said Queen Elizabeth, the Sup-reme Governor of the Church of England, had sent a message to the leaders of the movement saying she understood their concerns about the future of the Anglican Communion.
In an interview, Nazir-Ali said: "We want to uphold the traditional teaching of the Bible. We believe that God has revealed his purpose about how we are made.
"People who depart from this don't share the same faith. They are acting in a way that is not normative according to what God has revealed in the Bible.
"The Bible's teaching shows that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature.
"We welcome homosexuals, we don't want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed."
Nazir-Ali added that it is not just homosexuals who need to repent, but all who have strayed from the Bible's teaching.
Nazir-Ali, who is resigning from his post in September, said there was a need for the new evangelical movement, called the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, because the Church is already divided into two.
"We're two different sorts of religion," he said.
"One has a view of God and the Church and Christianity that is completely different from the other."
Derek Munn, the director of public affairs for Stonewall, the homosexual campaign group, criticised Nazir-Ali's comments.
"It is unfortunate that in 2009, a church leader should continue to promote inequality and intolerance," he said.
"Stonewall knows that most people of faith are accepting of lesbian and gay people. We also know that many lesbian and gay people who are themselves religious believers are not well served by some of those who claim to speak on their behalf."
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