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Just in case you didn’t get the message from Thursday’s front-page puff piece on Bishop Michael Ingham’s address to the Whole Message Conference in Ottawa, the Globe and Mail reprints most of his speech today on the comment page. Some readers may feel they’re being smacked upside the head with a 2-by-4, but apparently the Globe believes its audience is slow on the uptake.
I wonder which side “Canada’s [self-proclaimed] national newspaper” favours in the Anglican Church of Canada’s debate over same-sex unions.
Christianity as a religion stands in need of a better theology of sexuality. The church must find a way to discover that human beings are sexual beings and, in the words of the creation stories in the Book of Genesis, that "this is very good."
For 2000 years, the church has been unaware that human beings are sexual, and it falls to Michael Ingham to bring us the news. Does he really not know how lame-brained he sounds?
But this task of finding a new and positive theology of sexuality is very challenging for the church. It involves of necessity an entire reappraisal of Christian tradition, going back to the Bible itself.
For example, St. Paul understood same-sex relationships only in terms of the older-man, younger-boy relationship of the Greeks, which we call pederasty, or in other words, child abuse. It was and still is an intolerable practice, and Christians have condemned it from the very beginning.
But no difference was perceived between child abuse and adult same-sex love. Against this background, the teaching against erotic and sexual passion found its way into the foundational documents of the Christian tradition.
It’s rather irritating that the same glaring error about St Paul’s understanding of homosexuality featured in Thursday’s propaganda news report is blandly repeated today.
Masochists can read the whole thing here. It consists of a lengthy excerpt from his complete speech, posted at the ACC website.
What’s even more galling than the Globe’s partisanship is that the ACC has posted without comment a highly controversial address so lacking in biblical and theological insight.
h/t for ACC link: felix hominum
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[...] – OBEDIENTLY LIBERAL Globe and Mail regurgitates Ingham‚Äôs speech; Michael Ingham seeks to conform the church to the world … (magicstatistics) [...]
[...] Michael Valpy spins the story some more in today’s Globe and Mail. On the eve of his first Canadian visit as spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans, the Archbishop of Canterbury has been rapped by Canada's Anglican primate for at times lacking clear and decisive leadership as the global church slides toward fracture over homosexuality. [...]
[...] Finally, the retired archbishops’ statement does not appear to be posted at the Anglican Church of Canada website or anywhere else on the internet. Whaddya bet it turns up before Tuesday’s opening of General Synod, giving the Globe and Mail the opportunity to push their agenda regurgitate the ”news”? [...]
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[...] One interviewee rightly points out that women of various religious and cultural backgrounds do not want to report sexual harassment or violence. Still, I find it odd that the Star feels it necessary to repeat four times the claim that Islamic beliefs are not a factor. I’m getting that old feeling that I’m being smacked upside the head with a 2-by-4. “It’s not the religion, stupid, it’s the culture!” [...]