Actions have consequences, the Archbishop of Canterbury, told Canada’s Anglican Journal, defending remarks he made last week to LBC radio in London linking gay marriage in the UK and America to the persecution of Christians in Africa. However, the Most Rev. Justin Welby declined to say whether the murder of African Christians due to their links to the Episcopal Church and Church of England was reason enough for the Church to stop what Islamist extremists saw as provocative acts.
In an interview entitled: ”Welby explains gays and violence in Africa remarks” the archbishop said the outrage expressed by some liberal Anglicans in the West was misplaced as his words had been misconstrued. Asked if he was “blaming the death of Christians in parts of Africa on the acceptance of gay marriage in America?”, he responded:
“What I was saying is that when we take actions in one part of the church, particularly actions that are controversial, that they are heard and felt not only in that part of the church but around the world…And, this is not mere consequentialism; I’m not saying that because there will be consequences to taking action, that we shouldn’t take action.”
He added: “What I’m saying is that love for our neighbour, love for one another, compels us to consider carefully how that love is expressed, both in our own context and globally. We never speak the essential point that, as a church, we never speak only in our local situation. Our voice carries around the world. Now that will be more true in some places than in others. It depends on your links. We need to learn to live as a global church in a local context and never to imagine that we’re just a local church. There is no such thing.”
Archbishop Welby has not been the first to raise the issue of the murderous consequences of the gay agenda in the US and Europe for African Christians. Speaking to the House of Bishops during the debate over trial rites for the blessing of same-sex unions at the Indianapolis General Convention in 2013, the Bishop of Central Florida, the Rt. Rev. Gregory O. Brewer, warned of the dire consequences for some Africans from the actions contemplated by the Episcopal Church. The Bishop of St Asaph, the Rt. Rev. Gregory Cameron, when he served as Deputy General Secretary of the Anglican Consultative Council, aroused the ire of some members of the Anglican Church of Canada when he warned the 2004 meeting of the General Synod that there would be consequences for their “African brothers and sisters” if they approved rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.