Universal?
Check out this article on the growing divide in the Anglican church over homosexuality.Encouraging, but I think very optimistic. McGillion rightly points out that by fully including homosexuals in the life of their churches, Anglicans in North America are responding to the generally greater acceptance of homosexual practices in their cultures. Likewise, African and Asian Anglicans are leading the attack on liberal views of homosexuality due in large part to the abhorrence with which it is regarded in their countries.
But if certain forms of gay relationships are still being resisted and banned in the US, where there's supposedly "greater acceptance", what chance is there for Anglicans in Africa and Asia? Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams can only do so much on his own, after all. The Anglican and Catholic churches always resist moving with the times, and they still have plenty of ammunition with which to continue their battle against progress. There's still a very long way to go.
And perhaps McGillion's argument that a church that insists its universality is expressed by all its members following the same rules in the same way may simply invite its own fragmentation; one that allows variation in the way its moral principles are interpreted in particular contexts may ensure its sustainability, though it sounds great, is just not right. After all, in Australia more and more people are flocking to the evangelical, singing-for-Jesus churches, and I don't think they're big on moral diversity and broad interpretation of the scriptures.
Times like this I'm glad I'm a godless heathen with a seat reserved in Hell, sandwiched between Janis Joplin and Tennessee Williams. Makes life so much less complicated.
posted by Sam @ Tuesday, March 01, 2005
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