Bishop Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town and icon of the struggle against apartheid and racial injustice, has since become one our most outspoken and strongest straigh allied for LGBT justice in church.
With characteristically colourful language, he’s done it again. In an interview with Charisma News, he has insisted that fighting for gay invlusion and equality it’s not a simple matter of personal choice - it’s something forced on him and demanded by God, who has caught him by the neck, to do so,
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Here’s a key extract:
Q: What is the most pressing issue in which Christians need to relate their faith to power and injustice?
A: Anywhere where the humanity of people is undermined, anywhere where people are left in the dust, there we will find our cause. Sometimes you wish you could keep quiet. It’s the kind of thing you heard the prophet Jeremiah complain of where he says, “You know God, I didn’t want to be a prophet and you made me speak words of condemnation against a people I love deeply. Your word is like a fire burning in my breast.”
It isn’t that it’s questionable when you speak up for the right of people with different sexual orientation. People took some part of us and used it to discriminate against us. In our case, it was our ethnicity; it’s precisely the same thing for sexual orientation. People are killed because they’re gay. I don’t think, “What do I want to do today? I want to speak up on gay rights.” No. It’s God catching me by my neck. I wish I could keep quiet about the plight of the Palestinians. I can’t! The God who was there and showed that we should become free is the God described in the Scriptures as the same yesterday, today and forever.
Q: Pope Francis recently said of those who are gay, “Who am I to judge?” What do you make of the pope so far?
A: He’s taken a selfie! (cackling) He’s a tremendous breath of fresh air. The things he has done in a short period of time: the fact that he does not live in a huge papal mansion and just dropped by in the dining room where ordinary people have meals. You think of his background, where he didn’t use limousines in South America, that he used public transport. I’ve got to say to you that I’m so, so thrilled that he is there at this crucial moment in the history of our world.
- read full interview at Charisma News
Related articles
- “God Is Not a Homophobe” - Archbishop Desmond Tutu. (queeringthechurch.com)
- Desmond Tutu: ‘I’d Pick Hell Over an Anti-Gay Heaven’. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
