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Bishop Daniel Bul provides a very solemn instruction, while America and England is busy partying desperate Christians are martyred.

We have become a weak, feckless culture. While the Church here shrinking the Church in Sudan is growing. We need the Sudanese Christians more than they need us; we need their faith, their courage, and we need to return to our first love, Jesus Christ.

First of all, if the GAFCON/FOCA types believe their vision will become the vision of TEC, they are sorely mistaken.

First, Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul has a serious lack of understanding of TEC and its polity. For example, his (likely Martyn Minn authored) request that TEC cease court actions with immediate effect is not something doable under TEC's cannons. One does not walk away with TEC property and assets given they are in "holding" for future generations.

Second, there are serious differences between his understanding of Biblical word and mine, for instance. I am not a literalist, he appears to be. This is not a "new" thing, it is something that has been parsed for decades and beyond. We've always lived in that tension, but now, we are being called upon to all "think" alike. If I wanted that kind of leadership, I would be a Roman Catholic, not an Anglican/Episcopalian.

Finally, there is no way that +Gene Robinson will resign, nor should he. He was elected properly under GREAT scrutiny. He may not be the right person for Bul's Diocese, but he sure is for New Hampshire.

If we want to point to generous tolerance, one could point to the U.S. which does not make a big, loud demand of the various African churches where Anglican families may include more than one wife. Our cultures are different, and I must trust that the various African Bishops are leading in ways that make sense to their culuture. Personally, I suggest they give equal respect.

Bishop Bul is scapegoating his neighbors and Bishop Robinson for greedy political and sectarian power. Shame on him. Shame on his unkind Islamic fellow Sudanese for doing the same, if that is what they're doing (and I'm guessing that they probably are).

In any case, some Islamics call any Christian an "infidel," for any or no reason at all. Self important, self righteous bigots can always invent a reason for their actions if called upon to do so. Bigots never lose. Bishop Bul is also just using the usual scapegoating tactics with which bigots are so adept.

"Homosexual Practice" is a phrase that means anything Bishop Bul can imagine, but which has little that is respectible upon which to back him up.

If the Bible really does condemn "homosexuality," whatever that prissy, obsolete Victorianism means today, then it certainly condones slavery, even within the Ten Commandments themselves.

Rev, Gomes has an anecdote about a woman, who after emancipation, promptly tore Paul out from her Bible. One can understand the impulse, even as one should caution against it. If read though the lens of a radical understanding of the Golden Rule, Paul is much more moral than conservative Christians would lead one to suspect.

As a living Islamic scholar, who's name I can't remember, points out, the morality you extract from the text comes from the morality you bring to the text...and morality starts with thinking about the Golden Rule, I think. Where is the Golden Rule in Bishop Bul's statements?

When my grandfather was born, slavery was still legal in some parts of the country, though not in his state, and a Civil War was being fought, with the Peculiar Institution at the core. Slavery apologists were accusing anti-slavery activists of exactly what Bishop Bul and others are accusing accepting Christians of doing today, being contrary to Biblical teachings...and they were right, about slavery. The Bible, if read "literally," certainly condones slavery.

The Bible doesn't, however, condemn "homosexuality," which is obsolete, Victorian era sexology that is being much abused by condescending, scapegoating bigots trying to use the sheen of science to obscure there unseemly, puffed up greed, and who should be quite ashamed of themselves. If they're going to use obsolete science words, they should brush up on current science understandings, which say...same sex attraction and sexual activity is not "intrinsically disordered" any more than MSW activity.

It's not who you're do it with that makes sexual activity immoral; it's not following the Golden Rule that makes sexual activity immoral.

The Sudan has problems that scapegoating Bishop Robinson and GLBT/MSM won't fix. Bishop Bul should maybe be removed from office for bad judgement and public immorality. At the least, "the media" might pay more attention to fellow African Anglican, Bishop Tutu, who has an admirable track record on being an advocate for justice in the face of oppresion. Where is Bishop Tutu in Christianity Today's coverage of religious intolerance towards one's Gay/MSM neighbors?

Hallelujah, Praise the Lord for Brother Daniel.

Out of all love, perhaps it is just time to separate. As a cradle Episcopalian I have come to realize that the church I grew up w/ is no more. I prefer to keep the orginsal doctrime I was raised w/ and frankly the people on the other side of the fence can keep their doctrine but I just don't see us ever being able to agree. ECUSA should return the property to their parishes. Whatever legal excuses they may have, those are the people that worked to get the money together and paid the bills and worried over the mortgages, it is theirs, set them free.

There are numerous issues that the Bible is not clear about. Homosexuality is NOT one of them, and you don't have to be a "literalist" to see that. I'm sick to death of people comparing this issue to slavery. One could argue that the entire book of Philemon is a refutation of slavery. NO WHERE in the Bible is homosexual behavior cast in a positive light. It is condemned in both the Old and New Testaments. That surely does NOT give us a right to persecute homosexuals, but let's stop using clever mental gymnastics to reinterpret what the Bible says about this subject. If you simply disagree with Scripture then have to courage to say so.

Mr. Bul should pack up his bull and return to his country that is ripped with war, poverty, starvation etc.
Let him work on his own house before he attacks another.
Something like check out the beam in your own eye etc.
We hope Mr. Bul is rewarded with his great desire to be with the Lord...very soon.
He is truly a dinosaur and not a person for this time.
Kilty

Praise the Lord for Bishop Bul and his stand for the Authority of the Holy Inspired Scriptures. Many of us who are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America pray daily and work assertively for renewal and reform and recommitment to the historic foundations of the Lutheran church on the basis of our Confessions, the Book of Concord, and the Catechisms of Martin Luther. Thanks for the leadership in faith and belief of the Anglican Bishops from Africa who are speaking out for all Christian Believers who hold to the Truths of the Holy Bible.

We are grateful to "the courageous 300" which proves that at least one third of Anglicana does not suffer from "spiritual alzheimer's".

Boy, I wouldn't have thought that folks like "cany" and Gregory would even read Christianity Today.

To Archbishop Bul I say:Keep preaching it brother and God bless you.

Ahh, Mr. Peterson, the name calling and bitterness in your comments tell me you are not a Christian. A Christian abstains from man's desires and follows Jesus. A Christian does not walk into any house of Jesus and demand that all the beliefs since the time of Jesus be changed just so he can do what he wants and still be admired in what used to be a respected organization for "believers of Jesus" not for admirers and followers of man's desires. A Christian does not split the Church of Jesus wide open for his own needs and concerns. When a person knows he's wrong like you are, he starts up with the name calling and ridiculing those who disagree with him. Why is that Mr. Peterson. You know, you're free to start your own "church" for those following only man's desires and that would solve everybody's problem. Oh, wait, that's called paganism.

The anglican Church is in self-destruct mode! Why? Because it seeks to have what the almighty holy God calls "abominable" called honourable! Why does God utterly refute homosexuality? Because homosexuality is totally and utterly contrary to the nature and the character of GOd!It is the antithesis of all that the perfect God is! God is Holy! Homosexuality is unnatural, unhealthy and ugly! God is a creatorand the giver of life! Homosexuality leads to death! God is love! Practicing homosexuality is about lust not love! God is a servant! Homosexuality is self-serving!Small wonder that God condemns this abominable, unnatural practice in both testaments! Those pushing for its acceptance are not interested intthe welfare of the people trapped by their bad choices but only in theor own self-gratification and self-indulgence. Bishop Daniel has all the right-thinking, God-honouring Anglicans on his side.

As evidenced by the erroneous comments posted above by Peterson and Cany, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4: 1-5

In this case, Bishop Daniel is the only one sober-minded and not drunk from the immoral passions of his flesh like Gene Robinson and his supporters. Homosexuals don't exist. However, men and women who choose to satisfy their sinful nature by giving into the temptations of homosexual desires do exist. (In the same way that adultery or sexual permiscuity happens)

Disguising their plead in the name of "tolerance" or "the golden rule" is their easy-way-out of any challenge. When will we learn...WE ARE TO TOLERATE PEOPLE, AND NOT THEIR IDEAS. Christians apply the golden rule to you by loving you as a human being and loving you enough to tell you that you are being led astray by the enemy. Loving you enough to tell you that you are playing with fire. If we didn't then we would curse you and kill you like the Muslims are doing all over Sudan and to those who practice homosexual behavior. You will always have the opportunity to repent and save yourself from your error. The choice is yours and the time is short.

If Jesus had said "On this rock I will write my book," there might be more justification for perceiving the Bible, not the Church, as the basis of Christianity.

The foundation of Christianity is not the Bible but Jesus Christ the Ascended Head and the Church which is his body. The Anglican Communion, true to itself and its apostolic heritage, maintains this vision, and does not lapse into the mistakes of Luther's *sola scriptura*, his notorious hostility to reason and his cruel oppressive attitudes to sexuality and gender.

The authentic custodian of the doctrines of the Christian faith is not a book, but the Church, not an organization but an organism. It takes its place as the veritable Body of Christ.

Living organisms evolve, in continuous interaction with the environment within which they live. The Church, so long as it is alive, will change and grow. To cling to allegedly unchanging morality, to place words ahead of the Body, is bibliolatry.

I would say that I'm trying to follow the Golden Rule as taught by Jesus, the United Methodist Church and my very active in their church parents. I may not be doing it well, or in ways that everyone would approve, but I'm trying.

I'm also getting old and cranky...so I apologize if I came across as cranky. I have lost 60 pounds on my diet, if I may brag, so I could be hungry as well.

Not that I'm an artist any where near her class, but I remember, if my aging memory serves, a Reagan appointee who had once tried to suppress a biography by Marian Anderson, claiming that she was "bitter" about racism.

Hey, Jesus was "bitter" about moneychangers in the Temple...and I wouldn't have approved of what he did, either, even if I can well understand the impulse.

I'm not calling for beliefs to be changed, some traditional mores, yes, I am calling for changes. I think Evangelicals need to bring Golden Rule morality to their reading of the Bible. Who is it, an Islamic scholar as I wrote above, who pointed out that the morality you extract from the text depends upon the morality you bring to the text? I would say that's a good New Testament insight as well, and a mere almost two thousand years earlier.

The morality that Americans in general, and especially conservative American Protestants, bring to their reading of the text has been marinated by almost four centuries of American white supremacism, hegemony and privilege. Even as racism has been rejected, a "supernatural born again race," as I think Kenneth Copeland put it, seems to be thinking that it should have privileges and hegemony much like white supremacists of old once claimed as God's will for mankind.

I was thinking of Teodore Adorno's "The Authoritarian Personality" when I wrote that bigots never lose. Being anti-gay is bigotry. Using the word "homosexual" is usually these days, but not always, bigot speech. It is bigotry not to call a community and it's people by their own chosen label, which pretty much internationally is now "Gay."

One may be tired of cranky people like me comparing the efforts to halt and suppress full Gay citizen equality to past efforts to halt and suppress the full equality of others, but they are models. Given the stats of Americans living in poverty and crime ridden neighborhoods, the contra-egalitarians were all too successful and their actions still reverberate strongly. The damages of such long and extensive anomic bombing of whole communities of people are not shrugged off quickly and lightly.

As long as people trying to suppress full citizenship for gays use the same sectarian and secular tactics and justifications as people used against Black people, women and other communities, it would be hard not too compare today with yesterday. As near as I can see, conservative Christians (and others) have only changed the scapegoat, and not much of anything else, from what they were doing in my childhood. As Bayard Rustin pointed out, Racism is not just about black and white. And as Malcolm X pointed out, racism is like a Cadillac, there's a new model every year.

Being anti-gay isn't racism, gay people are of every "race" after all, but the tactics I see being used against the best interests of gay people are not new at all. If it's not like racism, then why is it so very familiar?

The bitterness and ignorance present in some of these comments illustrate the ever-increasing power of the internet to encourage those who have nothing useful or constructive to say to go ahead and say it.

The Episcopal Church of Sudan has not broken relationship with the Episcopal Church and her Bishops gathered with ours prior to the Lambeth Conference. The negative reactions to Archbishop Bul's statement (drafted by the Sudanese House of Bishops prior to Lambeth) betray more than a little western arrogance. Why not just tell the African to sit down and be quiet? I am thankful for the wisdom and restraint shown by the Church of Sudan in our current conflicts, I am grateful for their charitable spirit to the Episcopal Church in the USA which frankly, hasn't been deserving of it in many cases. and most of all, I am thankful that they have let their mind be known on this matter despite possible negative ramifications. What they have done--to maintain relationships and not deny the Christianity of the other party--but to call for repentance and change *because* we claim to be Christian, is admirable. It is scandalous to accuse any African Bishop of having someone else write their words for them (especially considering that there are more earned doctorates--usually from Oxford and Cambridge--among, say, the Nigerian House of Bishops than that of TEC), but this is especially insulting to Archbishop Bul who has had no connection to CANA (Martyn Minns) etc...

The next thing you know someone will be channeling John Spong and talk about chicken dinners. It's disgraceful; I pray those who spew such ignorance will come to repentance.

Pro slavery apologists interpreted the Golden Rule in a patriarchal way as: If I were a slave, I'd want a good master to obey. A master much like I imagine myself to be.

The radical abolitionists interpreted it differently: If I were a slave, I would want to be free...like I imagine myself to be free.

Still not radical enough. How about: If slavery exists, then I am a slave. I will try to think as a slave, to read the Bible as a slave, to try to be good neighbors with my equals, my fellow slaves.

On sexuality, then, it's not: If I were Gay, I would want to be told that God hates "homosexuality" by people who condescend to tolerate me, at best. As near as I can tell in the Bible, the only thing God consistently hates is idolatry. Since I can't possibly know the nature of God, I would hate to say "God hates," for that matter.

It's not: If I were gay, I'd want to be free to love whom I love, as I imagine myself loving my wife. Gay men obviously don't sleep with a man as with a woman. Usually, only a straight man who wants the other man to be subservient to him does that...whatever "straight" means.

It's: there are gay people who are being anomic bombed and victimized by the self righteous and the greedy, so I am Gay. I will try to think like a Gay man, to read the Bible as a Gay man, and be good neighbors to my equals, Gay people.

And if I'm Gay, I'll try to read think like a straight man, read the Bible like a straight man, and try to be good neighbors with my equals, straight men.

If you read the Bible as a gay man or woman, then you discover that what the Bible allegedly says about "homosexuality as a sin," it doesn't actually say. Any more than the Bible said that Black people are cursed to subservience to blessed "whites" because of ancestral sin, any more than woman are cursed to be subservient to men because of Eve's "sin," anymore than it says that race segregation is God's will. I'm old enough to have heard all those things that I find highly disgusting. You're talking about me and mine, after all.

The Bible says, as near as I can figure out, that there is one God, and you can't know that one God. What that one God appears to want for mankind is to love your neighbor as yourself, or in other words to that effect. And I interpret that as: To actually be my neighbor as best I can, then and maybe only then, can I love myself.

In a world of ever evolving complexities, Jesus seems to have given complex people a few simple rules of thumb to live by, as opposed to complex rules to keep people simple-minded.

Homosexuality in itself is not a sin, whatever "homosexuality" means. What is a sin is not being your Gay neighbor.

On the other hand, I just broke one of my own rules..."sin" is what I do, not what other people do. So, I'm definitely a hypocrite.

Love your neighbor as yourself as Jesus knew it was Jewish law being followed. It is the Ten Commandments which is also Jesus' law.
So,as long as you don't steal or damage your neighbor's property in any way (meaning his wife also) you "love" your neighbor as yourself. It doesn't mean you need to "love" your neighbor as you love your wife, your children, your parents, your friends. It just means you don't want your neighbor doing to you the bad stuff, so don't do the bad stuff to your neighbor. Actually when you study the 10 Commandments it's the way to live in a community. How perceptive these oldters were back than with no psychiatrists to lead them. It doesn't mean special privileges like additional years added to the crime of killing a homosexual as apposed to someone killing me. Murder is murder no matter to whom it's done to and for whatever the reason murder is done. Sin is sin whether me or them doing the sin. God demands you abstain from it. If I can abstain from the sin I crave, so can others. Keep your eyes on Jesus. It's very hard but others have given up sin for centuries and so can you.

THANK GOD!!!

PRAISE THE NAME OF GOD!!!

Bishop Bul and those who stood with him on this issue are totally correct!!! GOD'S WORD is clear on homosexuality. No cap, gown or degree required.Those wanting to pervert His unyielding warnings on this practice love their sin more than GOD, AND instead of professing The Word as Truth, they choose rebellion (idolatry), declaring their sin - ABOMINATION - as no sin, thereby choosing another god - flesh.!

Iam not a member of the Aglican Church but a Christian. Iam rather disturbed with what is going in the Church of GOD. How and Why should we allow HOMOSEXUALITY in the church.
Those openly gay Bishops need help so that they can repent and turn away from these abominable things that they are doing before the eyes of all the world the ALMIGHTY GOD. Why do we want to bring a curse on the church when we can prevent it.
The Bishop from Sudan has already said that christianity is a way of life. It's not something to be taken lightly. A sin is a sin it can not be sustituted with interpretations to suit ourselves. GOD HELP OUR BROTHERS IN AMERICA AND CANADA TO SEE YOUR GRACE.

The radical abolitionists exposed the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of a paternalistic reading of the Golden Rule. The Bible does not say that homosexuality is a sin. People just say that, with no real Biblical basis that I can read, and I'm very good at reading, apparently just to be hateful, greedy and to feel superior to their neighbors.