UPDATE: the full text is here.
A bit from this morning's address:
The word orthodoxy, from Greek, means teaching what is right and true; and in Christian tradition, this leads to glorification - 'being changed from glory to glory' - orthodoxy is transformative.
That is why I am persuaded that our sexual affections can no more define who we are than our tribe, ethnicity or nationality. At the deepest ontological level, therefore, there is no such thing as 'a homosexual' or 'a heterosexual, or a 'bisexual; there are human beings, male and female, called to redeemed humanity in Christ, endowed with a complex variety of emotional potentialities and threatened by a complex variety of forms of alienation. In Christ - and in him alone - we know both God and human nature as they truly are; and so in Christ alone we know ourselves as we truly are. There can be no description of human reality, in general or in particular, outside the reality in Christ.
...Jesus was telling his disciples that if you want to meet God face to face, the nearest you are going to come to it on this planet is to look into the faces of your brothers and sisters - and especially your sisters and brothers who have been declared unrighteous, unclean, unacceptable.
It isn't that we find God there, it's that God finds us there. [orig emphasis]
from the text of the address of Archbishop John Sentamu to the session of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada
June 20Dr. John
I have a hard copy of Sentamu's address in my hands. If I run across a scanner or an online version, I'll let y'all know.
i would agree with this, but i would go one further, and say that "at the deepest ontological level" there is no such thing as anglican, or african, or canadian, either.
Posted by: Anthony | June 20, 2007 at 06:02 PM
http://www.anglican.ca/news/news.php?newsItem=2007-06-20_y.news
Is the full text.
Posted by: Matt | June 21, 2007 at 07:16 AM
From the same address (thanks Matt)
"We are called to die to the values of the world -- greed for wealth, status and power; as well as our psychological tendencies: our desires and compulsions for success, to be loved, to be held in esteem, to be acclaimed by those in our group, to have, power and control over others. It's a call to disarm ourselves, to die to our plans and let God's plans and ways take hold of us."
May God who has called you to this task give all the delegates at this General Synod the grace and humility to let God's plans and ways take hold of them...and the wisdom to recognize what those plans are....
because it seems to me that this could be interpreted in a number of ways depending on where you stand.
Posted by: Elizabeth | June 21, 2007 at 08:10 AM
Anthony,
I agree with you - the only important thing (ontologically speaking)is 'child of God' - as the ABp says. After that it's all labels, some helpful, some less so.
Posted by: Matt | June 21, 2007 at 09:00 PM