Friday, February 25, 2005
TRASHING THE ANGLICAN CHURCH?
I supposed I’m supposed to be relieved by this sort of “compromise” that the Canadian and American churches are being asked to leave the Anglican consultancy body temporarily for three years because they recognize gay clergymen and perform same-sex marriages. This is of course the opposite of what I raised as a solution a while ago (though did I really use the term “progressive message”? *shudder*). And I am not relived at all.
Needless to say I’m unhappy with the current situation and I am still maintaining that the proper Anglican way to deal with this issue would have been ignoring it. It is simply inappropriate to drag such personal issues out into the open instead of keeping them in the intimacy of private life where they belong. And to be absolutely sure about this I am hereby criticising both sides in the argument. It is a spectacle very unbecoming of the Church, indulging in these bouts of therapeutic exhibitionism and ritualised homophobia.
(Just for the sake of being complete I should perhaps add that personally I am completely in favour of gay clergy, but I am as now opposed to gay marriage in Church because of the meaning that I believe such marriage to have; incidentally a completely different issue from the question of civil gay marriage and the possibility of asking for God’s blessing for such marriages.)
I supposed I’m supposed to be relieved by this sort of “compromise” that the Canadian and American churches are being asked to leave the Anglican consultancy body temporarily for three years because they recognize gay clergymen and perform same-sex marriages. This is of course the opposite of what I raised as a solution a while ago (though did I really use the term “progressive message”? *shudder*). And I am not relived at all.
Needless to say I’m unhappy with the current situation and I am still maintaining that the proper Anglican way to deal with this issue would have been ignoring it. It is simply inappropriate to drag such personal issues out into the open instead of keeping them in the intimacy of private life where they belong. And to be absolutely sure about this I am hereby criticising both sides in the argument. It is a spectacle very unbecoming of the Church, indulging in these bouts of therapeutic exhibitionism and ritualised homophobia.
(Just for the sake of being complete I should perhaps add that personally I am completely in favour of gay clergy, but I am as now opposed to gay marriage in Church because of the meaning that I believe such marriage to have; incidentally a completely different issue from the question of civil gay marriage and the possibility of asking for God’s blessing for such marriages.)
Comments:
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There's probably more to your argument than I'm happy to admit, and I'm certainly quite agnostic about the idea of civil marriage as well. But I still think it's important for the Church to be clear about what it wants marriage to mean, particularly marriage by and in the Church. Otherwise I'm quite open to be convinced by other side of the argument.
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