Archbishop of Canterbury’s LGBTQI Bible
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is a respected theologian, but not every Christian agrees with his private doctrine and interpretation of the Bible.
Among those who are suspicious of his theology are evangelical Christians, a grouping in Christianity noted for their insistence that the Bible is not just words and should, therefore, not be read as a textbook or a novel; that its interpretation is to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.
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The English Archbishop disagrees with the position of the Anglican Church of Ghana on homosexuality, generally, and the Proper Human Sexuality and Ghanaian Family Values Bill currently before Parliament.
His view is that the Bill does not preach “God’s offer of unconditional love to every human being through Jesus Christ”.
In opposition to these views from the English Primate, the Anglican Church of Ghana regards the LGBTQI+ practice as unrighteousness in the sight of God; though it promises that “we will gladly open our counselling and support centres for the needed transformation services required by these persons or groups”.
Ghana
Ghana’s anti-LGBTQ+ Bill criminalises activities that “promote, support, express sympathy for or call for a change of public opinion towards an act prohibited under the Bill”.
As a writer and a Christian, I know of God's loving warning and offer of grace for those who have strayed from His will for sex, but I also know scripture in which God expressly states not only His opposition to the homosexual act but actually condemns both the act and the doer of the act.
If the Archbishop of Canterbury ever reads this article in the Daily Graphic, I’d like for him to do me a favour.
He should educate me on what Romans 1:27 says, that “In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.
Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Unless by his advanced studies in theology, the English Archbishop has special definitions of “men” and “women”, I’d like to be instructed on Romans 1:32, which says that “those who do such things deserve death”.
These are God’s words, not those of a bunch of religious fanatics.
In Leviticus 18:24, God is quoted as warning: ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled.”
If God so hated the “other nations” and destroyed them for homosexuality and bestiality, how can He, today, have a different opinion about the same category of practitioners. He is quite categorical that “men who have sex with men… will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
The Bible is the most “democratic” book in the world. It allows everybody to have their interpretation of its words.
Drunks will quote 1 Timothy 5:23 in which Apostle Paul advises young Timothy to “drink a little wine for the same of your stomach”. Men who want to marry more than one woman will cite Abraham, David etc.
How else was it going to be possible for the same words in the above scriptures on homosexuality to mean one thing for Anglicans of England and another for Anglicans in Ghana?
Many Christians seek to be politically correct, one thing Jesus wasn’t, one thing His Apostles weren’t, and for which they were killed. John the Baptist was beheaded because his views went against the grain.
The king had divorced his wife and then gone on to marry Herodias, the divorced wife of Herod Antipas’s half-brother, Philip. Prophet John preached that King Herod Antipas’ marriage was unlawful and therefore sinful.
Jesus’s first Apostles were boiled in oil, sawed into two and crucified upside down for preaching what was politically incorrect.
Perverse
Preaching in his church a few weeks ago, Pastor Mensa Otabil bewailed the perverse and crooked nature of our present generation.
In this generation, as in all previous generations since Christ, Christians are supposed to be the light of the world, but now, he said, “Christians, who are to shine like lights, are imitating the darkness”.
At one of the country’s mines, the then Indian Ambassador paid a visit and had to be taken underground.
To go underground, he had to wear a helmet. To wear a helmet, he had to remove his turban. He refused, insisting that he was a Sikh and could not remove his turban, except to sleep or take a shower.
Some Christians would have discovered some scripture to justify removing the turban: it’s politically correct.
This opinion piece is not a judgement on those for or against the LGBTQI Bill before Parliament.
The writer is the Executive Director, Centre for Communication and Culture,
E-mail: [email protected]
