A worm's eye view - A letter to Rowan Williams

The Guardian Unlimited
April 1, 2006

Stop equivocating and apologise, Andrew Brown tells the Archbishop of Canterbury

Dear Rowan

(And we may recall this was also the basis of the ordination of women in Pentecostal circles many years before the human rights movement affected the mainline churches. Further, we may recall that women missionaries had set examples in Africa from the nineteenth century through to the late twentieth century of doing much more and having greater responsibility in the missionary than the home church.)

I want to share with you what I know about this letter, its author, and the DVD it offers. Mr. Smart was a deacon in the Episcopal Diocese of Kansas and was deposed (removed from Holy Orders) for abandoning the communion of this Church. Unlike some members of the Anglican Communion Network who continue to work for the unity of the Church, he has disassociated himself with the Diocese of Kansas and the Episcopal Church.

At the right end of the spectrum are those who believe that there can be no compromise over sexuality: the church's doctrine is that sexual intercourse and relations are between one man and one woman in holy matrimony as one flesh and every other alternative is wrong and sinful (fornication, adultery etc.). A very large number of bishops and laity in the global South hold to this position.