Anglican Groups Urge Focus on Sexual Policies

Keeping pressure on the new archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, several evangelical groups in the worldwide Anglican communion have issued a statement contending that sexual policies should be a “first order” of concern of the church.

Many conservatives have been alarmed that Williams knowingly ordained a practicing homosexual while he was a bishop in Wales.

“The church has tried to teach sensitively the biblical norm of lifelong heterosexual marriage and abstinence outside it, not just for its own members but out of concern for the health, moral life, well-being and character of the whole community,” said the evangelical groups’ statement.

Signers included Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Anglican primate of Nigeria, and U.S. Episcopal bishops John Howe of central Florida and James Stanton of Dallas.

Williams, meanwhile, in his first public lecture since assuming office, said society must “take religion a good deal more seriously” as the Western world adapts to change.

In the lecture, which was broadcast in Britain, Williams noted a shift among nation states to market states, where responsibilities have changed from protecting citizens to enabling free market capitalism.

“It means that government is free to encourage enterprise but not to protect against risk, to try and increase the literal and metaphorical purchasing power of citizens, but not to take for granted anything much in the way of agreement about common goals or social good,” Williams said.