Bishop's full statement of his comments on the floods

In view of how my views on recent natural disasters have been misreported I would like to clarify my position.

I did not say that pro-gay legislation had provoked God to send the storms that caused the Yorkshire floods. I did not say that God had sent the floods at all.

This is an elucidation of what I was trying to say:

1. God views life and the environment as one whole. This is the message of The Bible from Genesis 3, through Noah’s flood, the kingship psalms, to Revelation. Because the world is God’s, and we are his stewards, there is an integral connection between the harmony and fruits of the earth and the overview of human morality. Put simply, if we are to enjoy the blessings of God’s world, we must live in it his way. We should not lightly set this aside just because we cannot understand how it works.

2. Serious environmental disturbance, therefore, not only draws out human compassion, but it also should lead us instinctively to examine our behaviour. This will include not only our care of creation, but also world-wide economic justice and social morality. To some extent these are all interconnected by the extent to which our life style pays attention to God.

3. As other bishops have noted, the connection between human behaviour and the environment is, to a far reaching extent, the reaping of what we have sown, the direct consequences of our greed and lack of care of creation. However, that may not be all that needs to be said about this connection.

4. In the Book of Revelation, there is a call for just such a moral examination and the language of serious judgment is used. When I referred to this book in the telephone interview, I was speaking of God’s judgment in general, but it seems to have been heard as judgment on the places affected by the floods.

5. It is clearly evident that our society is ignoring the ways of God, such as in unjust economic trade relations, in lack of care for the environment, in choices of life-style and in family breakdown. It is wise, therefore, in the face of natural disaster to pray, ‘Lord, have mercy’.

6. More controversially, it is my personal view that the government has taken to itself the right to insist on its own version of morality. It has supported a choice of life-styles, both heterosexual and homosexual, and it has undermined marriage and family stability. Over specific issues, Christians who cannot agree with the government’s stance are likely to be required to do so by law. There are echoes of the Book of Revelation here.

7. It is an out of context, and therefore misleading, version of this point which was attributed to me, when the journalist interviewing me introduced the Sexual Orientation Regulations and I put that into the context of a wider acceptance of general permissiveness of different life-styles, for example, co-habitation.

+Graham Dow 15th July 2007