Aug 02 2008
Anglican Church to debate homosexuality
Well we are two weeks into the Lambeth conference and the bishops in attendance finally have the opportunity to debate the burning issue of the day, namely the Church’s stance on homosexuality. The Lambeth conference, held once every 10 years, gathers the bishops of the Anglican Communion around the world. However, notable in his absence is the openly Gay bishop of New Hampshire Gene Robinson who was ordained in the Episcopal Church 5 years ago. He wasn’t invited to the conference, yet has been present in the public galleries and been running his own ‘fringe’ events.
Meanwhile the traditionalists, not satisfied with Gene Robinson’s exclusion from the conference, have this time boycotted the Lambeth conference because the Bishop’s who ordained Gene Robinson, were invited. Instead they held a rival conference in Jerusalem called GAFCON, or as I like to call it “Gaff-Con”.
The head of the Anglican Communion the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has been desperately trying to hold the Anglican Church together over this divisive issue. He known to be fairly ambivalent towards homosexuality but has been unwilling to exclude traditionalists, by coming out on the side of the liberals. In effect he’s doing the annoying job of walking a tight-rope and pleasing no-one. He’s keen to get Anglican’s to recognise that the values they share outweighs their differences of opinion on homosexuality.
However, the conservatives are angry that the bible’s very specific ban on homosexuality is been ignored, and to a point I can understand why. Christianity as a religion, survives based on the teaching of the bible and the gospels, once you choose to disregard one passage of the bible, you throw the rest of it into question. The bible holds no authority as we are allowed to “cherry pick” our beliefs.
What traditionalists fail to realise is that most Christians already do just this, as contrary to the directions of the Old Testament, we no longer put children to death for cursing their parents, stone adulterers or execute homosexuals as is mandated by the Book of Leviticus. (We leave that to hard-line Islamists in Saudi Arabia and Iran.)
The Conservatives within the Anglican Communion singularly fail to realise that they have already lost the argument. To prove this lets examine the logic of the debate:
The biblical prohibition of homosexuality is immediately followed by the penalty for homosexual acts.
“If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”
Leviticus 20:13 (New King James Version)
Now if the Conservatives within the Anglican Church are advocating a return to more literal biblical teachings then I suggest we lock them up quick, as such a view would constitute a hate-crime! However, when mentioning the bible’s prohibition of homosexuality, they rather conveniently ignore any mention of the penalty. Hmm, well either they are trying to disguise their ill intentions towards homosexuals or it means they have already abandoned biblical literalism themselves.
You’ve got to admit, its hypocritical of conservative Christians to say liberals are abandoning the original teachings of the bible, unless the conservatives are prepared to be literal themselves. So I’d say liberal Anglicans have already won the argument, wouldn’t you?
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ask any religious authority whether you should stone a homosexual and they will laugh and be like of course not. arent they disobeying their own scripture?
That’s exactly the point I’m making… if they are prepared to ignore one part of a verse like Leviticius 20:13 why not the other?
Also Leviticus also proscribes death to children who curse their parents, acts of bestiality (for both the human and the animal), and or the crime of adultery.
In Numbers 31, Moses orders a genocide, which excitedly include the murder of women and children, but not virgin’s who were to be taken as slaves and raped. (Re-enacted here with lego characters: http://www.thebricktestament.com//the_wilderness/massacre_of_the_midianites/nm31_01p25_16p31_02.html_
Civilised society has long since abandoned biblical literalism, yet conservatives cling to the passages of homophobic hate… why?
Me thinks they have some sexual hang-ups.
Ultimately, I agree with what you’re saying, and think that taking an anti-homosexual attitude is just dumb. That said, I think the more important question is what effect the decision will have on the lives of GLBT people.
The way I interpret scripture as a Christian is to look at it through the eyes of Jesus, who reached out to sexual outcasts, preferring their company to religious hardliners. The person of Jesus, and his spirit as it is lived by his followers today, demands that we love those society says we must hate. This isn’t picking and choosing scripture, but seeing it as a living document, and one that is not meant to be taken literally.
OK I’ve got to disagree with the assertion that the bible is a ‘living document’, parts of the scripture have survived 3,000 years without major revision. Certainly in the last 400 years since the King James version of the bible and the widespread use of the printing press, the scriptures have not evolved in the slightest.
However, what Bishop Gene Robinson has been trying to argue is that although the bible is a closed book as far as revisions are concerned, God did not stop revealing himself to mankind with the death of Christ.
He points out that the night Christ was to be betrayed he told his disciples “there is more I have to teach you”. Indicating in Bishop Robinson’s view, that God’s conversation with man did not end 2,000 years ago and it then follows that the bible is not the final authority on God’s message. Worse, much of could in fact be wrong!
Liberal Anglicans have long believed this and it opens the doors to very personal definitions of faith, it enables each of us to define our own individual and completely autonomous articles of faith. What makes this idea so controversial is that followed to its logical conclusions it makes the church and organised religion redundant.
It doesn’t really matter what all these bishops decide, christianity is so fractioned that individuals and various sects will believe what they want. But then I think the whole religion is a sham anyway.