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That was before he was asked to lead a global church. When the Episcopalians elected Robinson, Williams faced conservative demands that the Americans leave the communion. Instead, he endorsed milder requests like a promise, for now, to make no more gay bishops and bless no more gay marriages. The Episcopalians made ambiguous gestures of compliance but have elected as their presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who had supported Robinson. Today Williams calls Robinson's election--absent any prior decision allowing same-sex ordination--"bizarre and puzzling...
Williams insists that he is "not recanting" his old arguments about homosexuality but that his new job demands that he express "where the consensus of our church is" rather than press for change. He himself does not see sexuality as of "first-order" theological importance. But he believes so many Christians do that pro-gay measures must be preceded by a broad shift in consensus--and thinks the U.S. church failed in that regard. Old allies, he admits, saw his shift on gays as a "betrayal." But it has won him few new friends--certainly not archconservative Nigerian Archbishop Peter...
Williams has handed out offsetting penalties to the two sides. One of his few direct powers is to send invitations to the Lambeth Conference, and he announced in May that for now he was excluding just two people: Robinson and Martyn Minns, the bishop of Akinola's U.S. church. Akinola has threatened that Nigeria will boycott Lambeth, and Robinson hinted at wanting the Episcopalians to do likewise. But defections may be limited. Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies, an influential Global South leader, says his contingent will attend. Liberal Washington bishop John Chane said he will probably skip...
Williams wants everyone to downplay their more extreme philosophical impulses and work to preserve Anglicanism's unique assets. God, he says, intends that members of a church "have something to learn even from the people we most dislike or instinctively mistrust." It's a nice thought. Will it be enough to stop a split? Williams concedes he is not "absolutely confident" that the whole structure of Anglicanism can be kept together. But--by the help of God, no doubt--he's trying...
...very existence of such an identity is news to a lot of people. The president’s gown, for example, is a form of clerical rather than of academic dress, and the Corporation’s official seal still reads “Truth for Christ and the Church;” both are functioning contemporary vestiges of Harvard’s religious past...