Firstly, he says Paul's letter to the Romans 1-2 was to critique the self-righteous who judge others, a point that challenges the position of persons today who judge those engaging in homosexual relations.

"It is precisely the same perversity that affects those who have received the revelation of God and persist in self-seeking and self-deceit," he wrote.

Secondly, it is a misuse of Rom 1:24-27 to use it as a "foundation for identifying in others a level of sin that is not found in the chosen community."

Thirdly, "Paul insists on shifting the focus away from the objects of moral disapprobation in Chapter 1 to the reading/hearing subject who has been up to this point happily identifying with Paul's castigation of someone else."

Fourthly, Paul is not making a primary point about homosexuality but about the delusions of the supposedly law-abiding, said Williams.

Dr. Williams also truncated the context of John 14:6 ("I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except through me") by suggesting that we can go into interfaith dialogue with the view that salvation does not depend on explicit confession of Christ.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Gagnon, America's foremost author, theologian and interpreter of biblical sexuality, wrote a response to the Archbishop's claim saying that the titular head of the Anglican Communion got it wrong.

"With due respect to the Archbishop, Paul never argued that believers should not judge sexual immorality committed by those inside the church. To the contrary, Paul was emphatically not telling believers in Rome to avoid passing judgment on persons who actively engage in sexual immorality of an extreme sort, including homosexual practice. When Paul next used the term "sexual impurity" (akatharsia) in his letter (6:19), a term that he used elsewhere in Romans only in 1:24-27 to describe homosexual practice, he did so in direct address to the Roman believers. He reminded them that believers in Christ are no longer "slaves to sexual impurity," for to continue in such behavior was to engage in acts of which they should now be "ashamed" (echoing the shame language that dominates Rom 1:24-27 regarding homosexual practice). Such acts, he says, lead to death and the loss of eternal life (6:19-23; compare 1:32). Indeed, Paul's entire argument around the question "Why not sin?" since we are "under grace and not under the law" (6:15; cf. 6:1) culminates in 8:12-14 with the response: If you continue to live in conformity to (the sinful desires operating in) the flesh you are going to die. But if by means of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For only those who are being led by the Spirit of God are children of God," said Gagnon.

"This quotation makes it clear, if it were not already, that mouthing a few words of confession that Christ is Lord does not exempt Christians from leading a life consonant with that confession, nor even from the dire eternal consequences that would arise from failing to do so. For Paul the outcome for a believer who lives under the primary sway of sin in the flesh is no different from the outcome for an unbeliever who so lives. Both alike face the prospect of exclusion from God's eternal rule."

Williams has seriously misread Romans, said Gagnon. "I say this with all due respect to the archbishop, who is a bright man and an able theologian (although not a biblical scholar)."

Gagnon writes: "Indeed, nothing in the immediate context of Romans 1:24-27 suggests that Paul would have been opposed to believers making the judgment that homosexual practice puts the offender at dire risk of facing God's wrath, warning in the most earnest terms those who engage in such practice, and insisting that a church puts its status as church in jeopardy when it affirms or tolerates such immorality (this last point, incidentally, is not limited to Paul in the New Testament; see, for example, the risen Christ's warnings to the churches in Pergamum and Thyatira in Revelation 2). For Rom 1:24-27 depicts homosexual practice as a particularly egregious instance of "sexual uncleanness," grossly "contrary to nature," and an "indecency." In fact, Paul treats homosexual practice as analogous on the horizontal dimension of life to the vertical offense of idolatry, since in both cases humans suppress the truth about God and his will for our lives that ought to be self-evident in creation structures still intact in nature (1:19-23, 25).

"Does Williams think that Paul would have chastised believers as "self-righteous" for speaking vigorously against Christians who worshipped gods other than the God of Jesus Christ? I would hope not since Paul clearly regarded belief in Christ as absolutely antithetical to idol worship. For example, he described the conversion of the Thessalonians as a turning from idols to serve the living God (1 Thess 1:9-10). Moreover, he severely chastised the "strong" among the Corinthian believers just for eating in an idol's temple, to say nothing of worshipping an idol, because it could provoke God to jealousy and wrath (1 Cor 10:14-22). Yet, if Williams would concur with this point, then he would have to give up his point about Paul being opposed to "judging" persons who engage in unrepentant homosexual practice. For Paul's remarks in chap. 2, where Paul allegedly says, "don't judge" (incidentally, he doesn't say this, as we shall see), as much follow the indictment of idolatry as they do the indictment of homosexual relations."

Gagnon's interpretation is also supported by Britain's foremost evangelical preacher and biblical interpreter, the Rev. John R. W. Stott who, in a booklet on biblical interpretation on Rom. 1:27-28 said this: "Pro-gay theology argues that Paul was referring to unnatural homosexual promiscuity in Romans and pederasty in the other two texts. However, the clear interpretation is that Paul is referring to individuals whose sexual behavior - i.e. homosexual behavior - contradicts God's created order for sexual expression. Taken together, St. Paul's writings repudiate homosexual behavior as a vice of the Gentiles in Romans, as a bar to the Kingdom in Corinthians, and as an offense to be repudiated by the moral law in I Timothy".

The pro-homosexual lobby often argues that the Scriptural prohibition against homosexual behavior is based on exegetical proof-texting. There are only seven texts, which directly refer to homosexuality. However, "the negative prohibitions of homosexual practices in Scripture make sense only in the light of its positive teaching in Genesis 1 and 2 about human sexuality and heterosexual marriage," writes Stott.

The Evangelical leader says that Scripture makes numerous fundamental assertions about sexuality and marriage including the truth that heterosexual gender is a divine creation, heterosexual marriage is a divine institution, and, heterosexual fidelity is the divine intention.

Refuting the contemporary pro-gay argument that biblical texts condemning homosexual behavior are culturally bound, Stott says modern loving homosexual partnerships are incompatible with God's created order in heterosexual monogamy. Since that order was established by creation, not culture, its validity is both permanent and universal. There can be no 'liberation' from God's created norms.

Stott goes to the heart of the matter when he writes that treating homosexuals with rejection, hatred and discrimination is morally wrong. We must distinguish between true discrimination and what is often labeled as homophobia. "If ... the 'wrong' or 'injustice' complained of is society's refusal to recognize homosexual partnerships as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriages, then talk of 'justice' is inappropriate, since human beings may not claim as a 'right' what God has not given them."

A much-favored argument by Dr. Louie Crew is that the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ says that God loves "absolutely everybody" and accepts us just as we are. Thus, the Church must accept homosexuals as they are and bless their loving relationships with one another.

Stott says this is false. He writes: "It is true that God accepts us just as we are; there are no stipulations for receiving God's love. However, God does not condone our continued sinning. God longs to transform our lives, as God loves us too much to leave us the way we are. Thus, "it is true that we must accept one another, but only as fellow penitents and fellow pilgrims, not as fellow sinners who are resolved to persist in our sinning."

"The testimony of Scripture and the refutation of contemporary pro-gay arguments lead us to conclude that homosexual relationships deviate from God's created intent for human sexuality."

The message then from Dr. Williams falls short. Writes Gagnon: "Obviously, then, in Romans 1-2 Paul is not telling his readers to stop passing judgment on severe and obvious cases of idolatry and sexual immorality. For Paul states that idolatry and same-sex intercourse, among other offenses, are already and in themselves manifestations of God's wrath (not grace). The wrath appears initially in the form of God stepping back and not restraining humans from engaging in self-dishonoring behavior that arises from gratifying innate desires to do what God strongly forbids. Such behavior degrades the human being who has received the imprint of God's image. The continual heaping up of such sins, Paul says, will ultimately lead to cataclysmic judgment on the eschatological Day of Wrath (1:32; 2:3-9). Thus to accept homosexual practice in the church would be to consign persons who engage in such behavior to the ongoing wrath of God with the ultimate prospect of exclusion from God's kingdom (compare also 1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19, 21; Eph 5:3-8). This is not grace but wrath. This is not love but hate. This is not the absence of judgment but the substitution of one's own verdict of acquittal for God's verdict of wrath."

END