In his new book, Dr. Carnley takes issue with the prominence that
evangelicals give to the doctrine of the atonement.

The Church's traditional teaching of the atonement, whereby a sinless
Christ takes upon himself the sins of the world and pays the debt of
this sin through his atoning death upon the cross is "uncompromisingly
cruel" and a medieval accretion. The Evangelical doctrine of a penal
substitutionary atonement paints God as a cruel master who demands
payment of sin from the innocent Christ and is unjust.

It is wrong for Evangelicals to make the atonement a core doctrine of
the faith, he argues, as it was only fully articulated in the medieval
era and was not defined by the creeds and councils of the undivided Church.

+++

Archbishop Peter Carnley suggests 'lifelong friendships' over gay marriage

TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Reporter: TONY JONES: President Bush's statements have naturally echoed
here in Australia, where, late last year, the Prime Minister argued
passionately against legalising gay marriage.

"You're talking here about the survival of the species," Mr Howard told
an interviewer in Darwin.

But at least one very senior churchman is offering up a third way -- not
gay marriage as such, but recognition of lifelong friendships between
two homosexuals which would give them the same legal status as a
heterosexual married couple.

I spoke to Archbishop Peter Carnley in Perth a short time ago.

TONY JONES: Archbishop Carnley, President Bush says he's been driven to
act by activist courts to prevent the meaning of marriage being changed
forever.

Do you have any sympathy for his action?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY, PRIMATE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA: I
think I understand where he's coming from.

I think he's wanting to defend the concept of marriage as a union
between a man and a woman from attack.

Whether he's quite right in his analysis of that I very much doubt
because I think you have to remember that homosexual people only make up
less than 10 per cent of the community and I think the other 90 per cent
is able to sustain the institution of marriage if it wanted to.

I think the interesting thing about the present is that marriage between
heterosexual peoples is a bit shaky these days.

I think there's so much divorce and fracture of relationships and de
facto relationships and a disinclination to commit at all so I think
that's probably more serious than what is happening amongst gay people.

TONY JONES: Do you think it would change the equation at all if gay
couples did not use the term 'marriage', did not appropriate that term?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: I personally do think that.

I think it would help their cause, their own cause, in fact.

I've always argued that marriage is properly used of male and female
relationships and we should in fact term same sex relationships,
friendships in the first instance, rather than marriage.

I don't know of too many gay people who think of themselves, if they are
in a long-term committed relationship, who want to see themselves as
husbands and wives, for example.

I think it's a much more equal relationship of friends.

TONY JONES: Tell me, George Bush was obviously horrified by this, but
what did you think when you saw the thousands of gay couples lining up
to have their unions made legal outside San Francisco or lining up at
San Francisco City Hall to have that done?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Well, I was rather uncomfortable with it
myself a bit.

I thought it was all a bit frivolous and you had to ask yourself whether
these relationships were really serious long-term committed
relationships or if this was just a bit of a stunt.

And I think real, solid relationships probably are formed in private and
quietly rather than that very public festive kind of atmosphere.

TONY JONES: But you're not opposed to gay unions being made legal.

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Well, it depends on the reason.

I think I understand it if same sex partnerships want to be legalised in
some way -- for holding property together, for example, to secure
inheritance, superannuation payments and, very importantly, to claim the
responsibilities or the rights of next of kin if one of them happens to die.

I think I can understand all that.

So to register a relationship for those purposes I think is
understandable and I don't think you have to use the term 'marriage' of it.

TONY JONES: The President and here the PM have got themselves deeply
involved in this issue.

Do you think it would be divisive in Australia if it became an election
issue here as it's clearly going to be in the US?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Oh, I think it would be divisive because I
think people take strong views on either side on this issue.

Some people are very threatened by gay people claiming to be entering
into a relationship which is more or less a marriage.

I think people would divide over it.

It would be a divisive issue.

I have no doubt about that.

TONY JONES: Since our laws are essentially based on a system of
morality, would you be at all concerned that changing the laws to create
legal gay unions would somehow give moral righteousness to those unions?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Yes.

That would be the next step, I think.

That's a question that is very greatly debated at the moment,
particularly in the Christian churches themselves.

There is a very open debate about how we should deal pastorally with gay
and lesbian people at the moment.

I think we have to acknowledge that and I think we have to acknowledge
that even Christian people read the biblical texts relating to
homosexual relationships in different ways so there's certainly a debate
going on about that, but I think that's quite a different debate from
the debate about legalising relationships so that one person can be
recognised as the next of kin of another, for example.

I don't think that's a difficult moral question at all.

TONY JONES: I know that a few years ago you recommended that your church
consider blessing monogamous committed gay relationships.

Do you still believe that?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: I think I was talking in terms of the blessing
of a friendship.

If you think of same sex relationships in the terms of the category of
friendship, I think that takes a lot of heat out of it because I think
there's nothing wrong with blessing friendships.

I think that's perfectly all right.

But that avoids, of course, or doesn't address the moral question of
what is to happen in terms of behaviour within those relationships.

I think that's another question.

TONY JONES: But it is effectively a way of blessing a gay marriage
without calling it marriage, a sort of splitting hairs, isn't it?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Well, no, I don't think it is splitting hairs
because I think it is possible for people to be friends, even to live
together in the same house, for example.

We used to think when I grew up of same sex relationships as
relationships between people we called bachelors, and we didn't even
think of what might happen in bedrooms.

And I think what happens in bedrooms is very much more an individual
decision that couples must make according to their own conscience, and I
think the churches can give them advice on that.

Unfortunately, the churches' advice at the moment is probably pretty
various -- different advice -- and that's because we've not reached the
point of a mature mind on it.

We're still debating the issues.

TONY JONES: A mature mind.

I mean, you have suggested to your own church that it needs to come to
terms with the reality of gay relationships.

What do you mean essentially by that?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Well, they exist.

Gay relationships certainly exist.

And whilst some heterosexual people might say that those relationships
are unnatural, if you talk to the gay people themselves, they'll say
what is unnatural for them would be a heterosexual relationship, so you
can't appeal to a kind of natural law to solve this problem.

I think it's a much more complex problem and I think the churches have
got to look again at the biblical material, they've got to look at the
natural law argument and just think through the whole issue, and I think
you have to do that realising that there certainly are in the world real
people who are in real same sex relationships.

You cannot avoid it.

TONY JONES: You mentioned, looking again at the biblical material, and
to some degree you have been doing that in one of your recent papers,
which has been put forward for discussion, let's put it that way, you
seem to suggest that there are parts of the Scriptures which appear to
accept same sex relationships.

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Oh, well, yes, the story of David and
Jonathan, for example, a very intense friendship of two males.

I think that's a very clear story in the Scriptures, and the story of
Ruth and Naomi too, two women with a very intense and loyal friendship.

I think they are clear stories that can be brought to bear on this
particular issue.

TONY JONES: In the case of David and Jonathan, it's in the Book of
Samuel, I think, it talks about a relationship that is wonderful, even
greater, than that of a woman -- a love even greater than that of a woman.

Are they, do you believe, are the Scriptures there talking about a
homosexual relationship?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: No, I don't think they are.

I think they're talking about a relationship between two men of a very
deep and loyal kind.

I think they're not talking about a homosexual relationship as we would
think of one today because the concept of a homosexual person, an
exclusively oriented homosexual person, is a 19th century concept.

It was a discovery of the 19th century.

So that certainly wasn't in the minds of the biblical writers.

I think when the biblical writers wrote, they thought that all human
beings were heterosexual and what we could call today homosexual
behaviour was therefore a deviant behaviour, but we might not think of
that in that way today.

TONY JONES: There are not hints, do you believe, in that section of the
Scriptures that their relationship may have been sexual?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: I don't think there are too many hints.

Some writers try and read that into it, but I think it is a neutral text
on that one myself.

TONY JONES: And you also raise, somewhat ambiguously, if I may say so,
the question of Jesus and his relationships with men.

And in particular you refer to the disciple, the male disciple in this
case, whom Jesus loved.

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Yeah.

A good example of a same sex relationship, of what I would call
friendship, a deep loyalty and love.

It is nothing to do with sexuality at this point.

TONY JONES: But when the issue of sexuality is raised alongside these
examples, what is the point you are seeking to make because those who
oppose your way of looking at it would simply say if there's no sex
involved, it isn't a homosexual relationship, no comparison?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Well, I think the first category to clarify is
whether you are going to speak of same sex relationships as marriage or
basically friendship, and I think they are two different things.

Marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman, a husband and
wife, basically for the purpose of mutual support but also for bringing
children into the world and to create an intergenerational family.

And I think basically a homosexual relationship is a relationship of a
different kind and that's why I don't want to use the category of
marriage in relation to it.

I think it's fundamentally a friendship.

Now just what behaviours can go on in that relationship is what we have
to sort out.

TONY JONES: In recognising, though, as you call it, the reality of those
relationships, do you believe the Church should ultimately accept gay
sex as being a legitimate part of that relationship?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: Well, it's hard to know.

I think if you did a count of Christians in churches these days, you'd
get a mixed message, but there are certainly a lot of people I know in
Christian congregations who are not too fazed by the presence of gay
couples in the congregations.

Just what those gay couples do at home and in their bedroom is just not
a question that people raise.

They accept them simply as human beings and relate to them as human
beings and support them as human beings and I think that's probably a
good thing.

TONY JONES: Can I ask what do you think about that?

Do you believe what they do in the privacy of their own homes -- that
is, gay sex -- is immoral?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: I think it's basically a question for them to
decide.

I think it's a personal question, an individual question, and they have
to decide that in accordance with their own conscience.

And I think the Church is in the position where it must clarify its
teachings so that it can point them in one direction or another.

And it just is a fact in the Christian churches at the moment that there
is great diversity on that matter.

So my role in the Anglican Church, for example, is to try and lead our
congregations through a study process to come to terms with the
complexities of the issue and to study the texts and the various
arguments that are put together for and against homosexual behaviour and
just commend it to homosexual people as the best advice we can give them
for the moment.

But I think in the course of time that will clarify.

TONY JONES: Archbishop, one final question -- it comes out of what you
just said.

Do you regard sexual morality as being subjective?

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: No, no, I don't.

I think it has to be argued publicly.

I think it's possible to say, for example, that it is objectively quite
clear that promiscuity is a bad thing.

I think we can say that and we can say it for good reason.

We can say it is a health hazard, for example, and so I would say very
clearly and objectively that promiscuity is a bad thing and that
faithfulness in relationships is a very good thing.

I think that's objectively supportable too.

I think the problem is when you start to talk about same sex
relationships, long-term committed relationships, you have got something
which can qualify to be called faithful.

And if the Bible is in support of faithful relationships, that
particular argument would lead you to support faithful same sex
relationships so that's the kind of debate we're in.

TONY JONES: Archbishop Carnley, I'm afraid we are out of time.

We could probably talk about this for a great deal longer but we thank
you very much for taking the time to join us tonight.

ARCHBISHOP PETER CARNLEY: It's a pleasure, and the churches will talk
about it for a great deal longer, I can assure you.

END