By Mike Lanchin
BBC News religious affairs correspondent
May 26, 2007
He said they should spend time on more pressing issues in the region.
Speaking to the BBC World Service, the South African bishop said Zimbabwe, HIV/Aids and the crisis in Darfur were not getting sufficient attention.
Zimbabwe's Anglican church also lacked courage to stand up to President Robert Mugabe's regime, he said.
This was the 76-year-old Nobel peace laureate touching raw nerves for the Anglican church in Africa on very sensitive subjects.
In his usual forthright manner, Archbishop Tutu told the BBC that the Anglican communion was spending too much of its time and energy on debating differences over gay priests and same sex marriages - a subject, he said, that had now become "an extraordinary obsession".
He said: "We've, it seems to me, been fiddling whilst as it were our Rome was burning. At a time when our continent has been groaning under the burden of HIV/Aids, of corruption.
I think I understand what Bishop Desmond is trying to do here, but I fear he is not only wrong but also playing into "the enemy's" hands.
ReplyDeleteThe "gay issue" is not a debate separate from all other debates but, because of its history, its present status and the percentage of church members it effects personally, it is the defining debate of the Church. Which ever way this issue is resolved will give the Church its style of morality for a long time to come.
I would suggest to the Bishop that an inclusive Anglican Church will result in a proper attitude towards such concerns as HIV on the African continent, whilst an exclusive Anglican Church will result in a bias towards local evangelism and isolationism.
Basically, I believe all our efforts should be put into coming to a decision on this matter. This should be done quickly and thoroughly so we can then move on to those issues in the world that Christians have traditionally felt called to address.