THE next Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has refused to sign up to traditional Christian teaching that sex outside marriage is wrong.
Although his comments were made in the context of the debate about homosexuality — on which his views are known — his failure to condemn adultery and pre-marital sex will dismay evangelicals and traditionalists.
Dr Williams, who has knowingly ordained a practising homosexual, was responding to a challenge to recant his views on homosexuality or step down as the next Archbishop.
He turned down the request: “My personal views are on record and I have not found reason to change them. Somehow I have to try and discern the will of God in all this, knowing all too well the risks to the unity of the Church.”
His surprising public avowal of his beliefs will deepen the division that Dr Carey has warned will lead to schism between traditionalists and evangelicals and the liberal wing of the Church.
Clearly Dr Williams has yet to come to terms fully with his appointment. The issues of homosexuality and women bishops may cast a shadow over his enthronement next February.
He has disclosed that he does not welcome his nomination to succeed Dr George Carey as he struggles to reconcile his private liberal beliefs and the public stance of the Church. “The decision to accept this nomination, not sought by me and not welcome to me, was not taken without reflection and consultation,” Dr Williams said.
The Rev David Banting, chairman of Reform, the influential conservative evangelical grouping within the Church of England, wrote to Dr Williams asking him to affirm the traditional teaching that church members should abstain from sex outside marriage.
Dr Banting was concerned,explicitly, to extract from Dr Williams an avowal that he would condemn the practice of homosexuality. Intercourse between people of the same sex is forbidden in several texts in both the Old and New Testaments. Dr Williams refused, saying he would not “set a precedent” by affirming more than the canons of the Church of England require in terms of allegiance to the Scriptures and the Creeds. Homosexuality is not referred to explicitly in canon law, although all clergy in the Church of England must swear a “declaration of assent” in which they assent to belief in the Scriptures.
In a letter to Dr Banting, Dr Williams pledges to “exercise the discipline of the Church as I am bound to do. I can’t go beyond this and say that I believe what I do not believe.” This meant he could not affirm that there should be “appropriate discipline” in cases of sex outside marriage.