Archbishop Welby knows better. . .

It seems that Archbishop Welby has decided he knows better and the better he knows is that all sexual activity should occur within a committed relationship -- straight or gay.  Furthermore, that committed relationship need not be marriage but can be simply a blessing of the current relationship -- whatever the shape of that relationship might be.  What matters is that it is committed.  How interesting is the creative work of people trying to tiptoe around Scripture and the unanimous tradition right down to the present age!  How weird it is that even every secular idea of the basic shape of human relationships is also ignored in favor of a new imagined idea -- the committed relationship.   

The Church of England is a leaking ship, tilting to the left, on a sea of conflict, headed toward irrelevancy and yet the Archbishop works very hard to say that things are getting better and even perhaps due to the ability of the CofE to hold together conflicting views of everything from marriage to the ordination of women.  It must be exhausting to keep such a happy disposition in the face of all that is happening to him, to the Church of England, and to his place within the Anglican communion.  

In the end, however, the problem remains.  The Scriptures do not know of anything called a committed relationship.  In fact, no one knows of such a thing until the most recent of times.  So the CofE and Welby have mapped out a boundary which is symbolic and not one rooted in Scripture or known by nearly every religion and culture in history!  How do you defend such an arbitrary position when the world around you is constantly changing?  Why a committed relationship?  Why not let the individuals decide what sex, what relationship is necessary or prudent for such sexual relationship, and when that begins and ends?  That is the point. 

In January 2023, Archbishop of York Cottrell told BBC Radio 4 interviewer William Crawley that he thought “stable, loving, committed” same-sex sexual relationships were “good” – stressing that “they are the place for physical intimacy.”   “And not a sin?”  he was asked.  “That’s what I’m saying,” Cottrell replied.  This is where Welby is as well.

What Welby seems really good at is playing politics with theology.  He knows how far he can go within the parameters of the situation today and he is adjusting to it.  But tomorrow another adjustment will need to be made by the Welbys of this world.  And again down the road until there is nothing that the CofE can say at all about what is moral or prudent or wise or godly about it at all.  He is playing a game to stave off a battle here and there while the strategic view of things has been lost to him, the Archbishop of York, and all of those in the CofE who think that you can whittle away at God's Word by degree and still retain some sense of Christian integrity.  Indeed, Welby will go down as one who steered the CofE away from an iceberg and into a rock.  So there are no tears from this corner for his leaving.

He is no more Archbishop of Canterbury though he resigned not for his failures in the realm of theology but for his failure to handle an abuse case.  His leaving is in the wake of increasing public anger about the way in which he and his office failed to handle an abuse crisis produced when an evangelical layman, John Smyth, young boys under the guise of offering spiritual direction -- beat until they bled! In all, about 130 boys and adolescents were thrashed but Welby, who has known about this since 2013 and was a visitor to the camp prior, seemed uninterested in this -- or not as interested as say advancing the LGBTQ+ cause!