There Is No Place For Homosexuals in the Anglican Church

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Personally, I don't understand why gay men or women would want to belong to an organisation full of homophobic morons. But the battle-lines seem to be drawn. Why do North American Anglicans want to continue to define themselves as such? Why do Christians want to pretend their religion isn't hateful? Which came first, repentance or orthodoxy? I don't wanna hate my religious brothers and sisters, but all I see is defence of bigotry. Spread love, peeps.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 February 2005 02:34 (twenty-one years ago)

its an issue of bibical interations, and political authority, they are using queer stuff as a smoke screen.

its too big to compromise on.

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 26 February 2005 03:50 (twenty-one years ago)

It is yay funny watching evangelicals trying to be hateful bigots in a loving, christian way.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 February 2005 14:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Many of the African churches seem to be using it as a cultural-colonialism issue. There's an attitude of "gayness is a decadent white problem - there are no gays in *our* country".

Something else I've noticed is: I could be wrong, but as far as I can see the whole biblical-law-versus-humanitarian-morals aspect to the debate is something of a mirror of the Jesus-versus-the-Pharisees parts of the Gospels. Which is kind of amusing.

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 26 February 2005 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, the African churches' attitude has struck me as similar to the way many Jamaicans defend anti-batty boy songs.

If I was a Christian, I'd find it hard to argue that the Bible isn't homophobic. It seems to me that the people trying to defend gay clergy are the ones who are straining logic. Course, from my point of view, that's just another good reason why Christianity sucks. I'm interested in why gay men and women want to belong to a club with so many people who quite clearly hate them.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Saturday, 26 February 2005 22:49 (twenty-one years ago)

The problem there, though, is that the Bible is a very big book. The homophobic parts are scattered few and far between in it, some of them alongside other parts which noone aside from ultra-orthodox Jews takes seriously (like, don't wear mixed-fibre clothing).

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 26 February 2005 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

the concept of the homosexual is v. much a western one; same gendered attraction is framed differently geographically, its not something that the west recognizes...it is v. defintely a colonaztion issue.

its almost like those dumb backwards southern folks , they dont understand how to be tolerant like us...thats the irony.

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:17 (twenty-one years ago)

um but isn't the concept of the anglican church very much a western one too?

i mean i accept that xtianity itself is not european (or "western") in origin

haha "non angli sed angeli"

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:25 (twenty-one years ago)

x post

That's a huge can of worms there, anthony, and I don't buy it. I wouldn't argue that cultures of sexuality aren't different around the world and at different times, but at some point cultural relativism and human rights crash right into each other. I don't believe in broad-brush stereotypes like "backwards southerners" either. I do believe that bigotry is bigotry, whatever cultural defence you try to use to justify it.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:30 (twenty-one years ago)

he's no justifyin it ferlin, see his first post

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't this blacks and/or women trying to get into a country club all over again?

Why do North American Anglicans want to continue to define themselves as such? Why do Christians want to pretend their religion isn't hateful?

The usual reasons.

It takes a special kind of person to challenge something that need only be challenged on pure principal, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I think the point about American Anglicans I was drunkenly trying to make last night was about what the Anglican communion in particular offer American Christians that other American branches of Christianity don't. After all, half the reason a lot of them are there was because their great-great-great-etc-grandparents were trying to get away from the Church of England.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:38 (twenty-one years ago)

at some point cultural relativism and human rights crash right into each other

Change "at some point" to "every damn time."

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:39 (twenty-one years ago)

If the God giving his only begotten son to redeem humanity schtick is true and there is no other way to heaven but to acknowledge Jesus as your lord and savior, then that supercedes all the Old Testament stuff about keeping kosher, stoning adulterers, the duty to marry your brother's widow, and abominating men who lay with each other, no? 'Faith, hope and charity, the greatest is charity' etc... blah, blah, blah.

― Michael White (Hereward), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:41 (twenty-one years ago)

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Sorry, I wasn't implying anthony was justifying it, when I said "whatever you use to justify it" I meant "whatever one uses to justify it". I always feel weird using "one"...it's the class overtones I think.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Well yeah, Michael, but I seem to remember St Paul contributing a fair bit to the Biblical queer-bashing.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:42 (twenty-one years ago)

then that supercedes all the Old Testament stuff about keeping kosher, stoning adulterers, the duty to marry your brother's widow, and abominating men who lay with each other, no?

No. Look at all the people who believe that Jesus was anti-homosexual, the say way they believe he was anti-whore. Stupid Christians.

It's like that Christian radio show I linked to the other day (I'll look it up) that argued that no, Jesus was not a socialist because "capitalism takes care of the poor and socialism doesn't."

'Faith, hope and charity, the greatest is charity'

See the love thread.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Sunday, 27 February 2005 00:48 (twenty-one years ago)

the same way they believe he was anti-whore.

On second thought, he kinda was. He certainly believed the whore should be "cleansed." At any ratem though, not for a moment was he full of hate for homosexuals or any 'sexuals. That's a fundamental human activity, and he never condemned it outright -- not like he did the money lenders.

― Fish fingers all in a line (kenan), Sunday, 27 February 2005 01:23 (twenty-one years ago)

african xianity is as old as anything else--augustine grew up in hippo which is in the northern sudan, the copts were missiomized by paul...and anglican africans are older or as old as canadians. (as well, the idea of a core idenitiy called homosexual is 100 yrs olf;the idea of a core idenity called anglican is 500 years old; the core idenitity of something called african christian is 1700 years old; and the core identity of something called christian is 2000 yrs old--chronology actually usually trumps in these cases)

you cannot deny that imposing a western order of sexaul orientation (and violating the first concept of the anglican union--ie the seperation of primacies, and the decentralizing of authority is massive) and non religous folks keep thinking that how people interept the bible doesnt really matter and those poor homosexuals are more impt.

and no one has said outloud that gene robinson is a grandstanding fool, griswold is an arrogant prick, robinson doesnt seem to understand the subjective natu re of sexuality and alonski(sp--the nigerian) tends towards petty biogtry.

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:04 (twenty-one years ago)

also, we tend to forget--when using the same seven proof texts--that the idea of pair bonding and patriachy, is infused in he scirpute, it is deeply important and difficult tradtion--and one tha sustains and makes holy the idea of how a man and woman love each other--like a river thru the old and new testemant (ie christ said nothing about sexual ethics, but he did attend the wedding feast of canna and he did bless the wine; or abram and sarah;the consquences of bathsheba and the heart break of anselem; adam and eve and the adulterus serpent; the song of songs...)

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:09 (twenty-one years ago)

Hippo was in modern Algeria dawg

― R. Jackson, Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:14 (twenty-one years ago)

sorry. i was going from my hip--dont algeria and sudan border each other.

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Augustine was African in the same way as the French Algerians who came a few hundred years later: a colonist, the child of colonists. That colonial stuff's got a history even longer than Christianity.

As far as the church and homosexuality is concerned I'd tend to agree with you, anthony, but like I said for me that's just another reason for non serviam.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 08:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Hippo was a town in the coastal region run by the Romans. You might as well say that Cape Town is profoundly African. It may arguably be that but the mores, politics, and general power structure have a foreign origin. Leave modern ideas about colonialism, nationalism, and identity politics out of this. It's misleadingly anachronistic and simplifies complexities that a finer narrative would have to qualify considerably.

Comes down to: Judeo-Christian ethics are sex-negative. Procreation = good. Having fun with one's fundamentally sinful carnal envelope = slap in God's face. Fuck the religions of 'The Book'.

― Michael White (Hereward), Sunday, 27 February 2005 09:17 (twenty-one years ago)

surely you mean fuck all religions, they are all pretty bad on this point and on many others.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 27 February 2005 09:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Not to get off on an Augustine kick but he wasn't a Roman colonist he was a native north African (there are several references to him being dark skinned).

― Chip Whitley, Sunday, 27 February 2005 09:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Chip, they didn't have sunscreen. Ok, ok, so maybe he was a Berber. Ed, there are several religious traditions in N. America that honor gay men. I will say, 'fuck you!' to all traditions when I find them silly, 'cause I was made to be burned at the stake.

― Michael White (Hereward), Sunday, 27 February 2005 09:50 (twenty-one years ago)

re: Augustine. That's interesting, Chip. I had no idea. It should've been obvious, I suppose: the huge majority of citizens of the Roman empire weren't of Latin extraction, were they?

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 10:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Italic extraction.

― Michael White (Hereward), Sunday, 27 February 2005 10:10 (twenty-one years ago)

The Latins were not even initially dominant in Italy.

― Michael White (Hereward), Sunday, 27 February 2005 10:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, but the relationship of Latium with the rest of Italy was just a forerunner of the relationship of Rome with the rest of the Empire, wasn't it?

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Sunday, 27 February 2005 10:53 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't trust those Italics - they look a bit slanty to me.

― caitlin (caitlin), Sunday, 27 February 2005 11:05 (twenty-one years ago)

aguing the exact racial make up of augustine (and i think he was afric even if i fucked up geogrpahical locations) is interesting, but doesnt address the rest of what i have said (including the copts and nubians)

the amusing thing is that the problems we are having now w. african xianity and islam fighting for dominence is the same problems we had in the 3rd to 7th century...

we can do it earlier then augustine then--we can do the ethopian eunuch that was converted by paul

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 27 February 2005 15:52 (twenty-one years ago)

why are you picking on anglicans again? around here (vancouver) they're the only people that are even considering equal rights for gay people. is there something i'm missing about this thread?

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Sunday, 27 February 2005 21:54 (twenty-one years ago)

You're missing that evangelical Anglicans, and many Anglican leaders in the developing world, are extremely homophobic.

― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 28 February 2005 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Augustine was African in the same way as the French Algerians who came a few hundred years later: a colonist, the child of colonists. That colonial stuff's got a history even longer than Christianity.

I'm not sure if that's as true as you make it out... the Roman Empire wasn't into race or colonisation in the same way later ones were, and he probably came from one of Hippo's romanised families.

where is Hippo anyway? I thought it was in Libya or Tunisia - didn't think the Romans ever got to what is now Sudan.

I think the Anglicans should split into the Friendly Episcopalians and the Cockfearing Episcopalians. I hear the Irish church is on the cockfearing side... I wonder could it split into northern and southern versions? that would be cool.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Monday, 28 February 2005 18:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, goodness. My brother, who is gay, is at the divinity school at Yale. He worked within the Anglican/Episcopalian church for many years as an organist/choir director. When he decided that his calling was to the priesthood - the Anglican version - the Bishops were in charge of his divinity school placement - and they will be in charge of his service placement when he graduates. My brother did his undergrad at Yale, and he wanted to go to Yale( plus he got into a competitive program).But the Bishops really decide a lot of things.
Homosexuality is widely acknowledged in the upper eschelons of the Episcopalian church. It was just a quiet part of the church for a long time. The Bishops have already dealt with this - their hope is to place a gay member of the clergy away from distinct homophobia.Their concern is not so much who fits the bill, but why he/she might fit the bill. But these are the East Coast Bishops.
All I know is that my brother had to be approved for the program, and is undergoing rigorous academic pursuits to become an impoverished priest.
I think it's all about gay and pedophilia being marched out in the same breath as priest. All priests are gay or all priests are pedophiles?

― aimurchie (aimurchie), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 08:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Things seem very different in the US, aimurchie. What's happening in the UK is in some ways the perpetual story of the Church of England: conservative and liberal wings fighting for control of orthodoxy. The evangelical wing of the C of E seem similar to Fundamentalists elsewhere, in that they use the Bible to assert a conservative social doctrine. The Anglican church in the US may well be forced to break from the C of E as a result of this, and all power to them.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/dec/06/rowan-uganda-homophobia-lesbian-bishop

otmfm

― poster x (ledge), Thursday, 10 December 2009 15:49 (sixteen years ago)

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