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Sudan: Anglican Head Urges Unity But Rejects Ordination of Gays
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Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
25 July 2008
Posted to the web 25 July 2008
Canterbury
The head of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) has called on the ongoing Lambeth Conference to defend the unity of the Anglican Communion but at the same time condemned ordination of homosexuals.
Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul who is at the conference said in a statement that the ECS opposes consecration of a practicing homosexual as bishop in the US and in approving a rite for the blessing of same-sex relationships in Canada, Catholic Bakhita Radio reported.
Other reports said the archbishop told a news conference that the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire (US) should resign his post "in order to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion".
"Gene Robinson has to be away from the Anglican world and be a normal Christian," said Deng. "If he is, as he always says, a Christian, he should resign for the sake of the church."
The primate said the issue of gays has seriously harmed Anglican witness in Africa and elsewhere, opening the church to ridicule and damaging its credibility in a multi-religious environment.
"We reject homosexual practice as contrary to biblical teaching and can accept no place for it within ECS", Archbishop Deng said.
"We believe that human sexuality is God's gift to human beings which is rightly ordered only when expressed within the life-long commitment of marriage between one man and one woman. We require all those in the ministry of the Church to live according to this standard and cannot accept church leaders whose practice is contrary to this."
He urged the Anglican Churches of Canada and the USA to refrain from ordaining practicing homosexuals and approving rites of blessing for same-sex relationships. They should respect the authority of the Bible.
The Archbishop urged his peers attending the Lambeth Conference to keep the unity of the Anglican Church.
"We appeal to this Lambeth conference to rescue the Anglican Communion from being divided. We pray that God will heal us from the spirit of divisions. We pray for God's strength and wisdom so that we might be built up in the unity of the Body of Christ", he said.
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The Lambeth Conference is a meeting of more than 800 Anglican bishops and their spouses to strengthen the Anglican Communion. It takes place every 10 years at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It started on July 17 and ends on August 3, 2008.
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