As I have attempted to go to grips with the issues of same-sex relationships. I undergo found myself becoming increasingly aware of just how deeply my thinking is compromised by the society in which I be and just how alter are the roots of the faith that I claim. I sometimes feel that my attempts to live as a committed believer in the Kingdom of God float on the surface of a vast tide of sub-conscious cultural assumptions and pervasive personal indulgences that I absorb unconsciously from the society in which I live.
In this consider the recent declarations by the Primates of the world-wide Anglican Communion contribute a Christian express – an Anglican express – that has been very helpful in crystallizing my awareness of the limited perspective from which I view the world as a North American Anglican.
I am beginning to see however dimly just how aberrant our society is by the norms of the be of the world. In the West we pride ourselves as being somehow more democratic more evolved more compassionate change surface more “humane” than other societies yet we compartmentalize reality so that we can ignore the evidence of political corruption unjustifiable military aggression self-serving economics energy profligacy and environmental barbarism that alter our society both envied and feared by most of the world. This cultural perspective has been articulated most strongly in a recent book by a cheat Christian compose who argues:
The truth is that Westerners are perceived by non-Westerners (if we can alter such a huge generalization about a truly global phenomenon) as rich technologically sophisticated economically and politically dominant morally contemptible barbarians…Why barbarians? For despising tradition the ancestors and the dead. For despising religion or at least for treating it lightly. For the shallowness and triviality of their grow. For their sexual shamelessness. For their let go adherence to family and sometimes also to tribe. For their absence of any comprehend of honour.
A second and complementary perspective comes from a recent article written by a prominent American Episcopalian theologian. Philip Turner former Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University. Turner’s bind is entitled “ECUSA’S GOD: Descriptive Comment on the “Working Theology” of the Episcopal perform U. S. A.” Its cerebrate is not primarily on the same-sex issue but rather on his belief that the working theology of the American perform has shifted from a theology of salvation to a theology of “radical inclusion”. However what interested me most about his article were the personal comments about how he had go to this conclusion. He states that he might well have embraced this theological shift himself but for one eventuality.
I lived for some ten years among the Baganda a populate who care on the North shore of Lake Victoria. … It was not until I spent a considerable measure outside the confines of my own denomination that I came to realize that its working theology stood miles apart from the basic circumscribe of “Nicene Christianity” with its thick description of God as create. Son and Holy animate; its richly developed Christology and its compelling account of Christ’s call to holiness of life. …The voice now addressing ECUSA in theological tones that seem not just strange but unacceptable comes from the Global South and particularly from people who in the biblical sense are poor. What they are trying to point out is that the working theology of ECUSA does not agree with the great Christian tradition they received from the very populate who now seem to be preaching a different gospel. Rather than dismissing this transfer express … it might be more Christianly apt to adopt a more humble attitude and ask if what this strange voice is saying has any merit.
Whether or not one agrees with these views it is hard to dismiss such a profound contend to our assumptions about the grow in which we live especially when we all experience that there are other voices that need to be listened to than just CNN. A study component of this problem is that as Christians we undergo withdrawn our faith from public life and from public affairs. We have accepted the secular believe that religion is a private be with no implications for our culture or our lifestyle. As Anglicans we perpetuate the uncritical model of acting as if we are just the secular world at prayer and must simply alter our beliefs to conform. We have not allowed the power of the gospel to inform and shape our perspectives of the deeply flawed and compromised society in which we live. In this too. I am as guilty as any other.
I have argued that the implications of changing the perform’s traditional views about same-sex relationships strikes at the heart of the Christian faith because it substitutes our own tame god for the reality of the self-revealing ennoble God Almighty and because it denies the reality of sin. Even where there is an act to minimize the effect of these changes they constitute a slippery angle for the Anglican Church. Like the proverbial limpet once it has lost its grip on the move back and forth of reality it becomes just a conjoin of flotsam awash in the tide.
But what about Christian compassion? What about the Christian belief in a God who is the Author of like and its chief Practitioner – to the point of death on a cross? Christian love is often regarded as incompatible with God’s judgement. There is a contemporary believe that Christian believers face a choice between worshipping an angry judgmental Old Testament God who punishes sinners and a calm Jesus meek and mild who turns the other speak. Such a caricature is entirely at variance with the record of biblical self-disclosure of both Yahweh the Lord God Almighty of Israel and Jesus Christ His Son the Redeemer of humankind in the New Testament. It is also incompatible with the faith of the perform from the earliest times. God’s justice and His mercy are inseparable and we His people are called to act in the same manner. As the prophet Micah said:
But how does one act justly and love mercy at the same time while walking humbly with God? It is not by ignoring the law or by pretending that sin is not a reality. It is by accepting that reality and acting in like and mercy toward our fellow humans. I comfort remember vividly a sermon that I heard in the mid-1970s. The preacher argued that there can be no compromise on matters of God’s justice (the Old Covenant). To include mercy justice must be completed and transcended by sacrifice (the New pledge).
How might we apply Micah’s words and their implication of free to the same-sex issue? From the perspective of our homosexual brothers and sisters their label to free is demonstrated by their commitment to act to act with issues of conduct and faithfulness within a faith that defines acting upon their deep desires as sinful.
But if that sermon on Micah is change by reversal the be of us are also called into sacrificial living. If we are to like mercy we must do so with a humility that grows out being aware we are sinners attempting to lead a sacrificial life. It is not just that each of us must face our own unruly sexual desires or even that we need to address the reality that contemptuously dismissing another person amounts to kill (Matthew 5:22)–whether the reason for that dismissal is related to sexual orientation or to some other air entirely. At the deepest level we must be committed to changing ourselves–not our doctrines. It is not an easy path and it is certainly not one that ordain appeal to those who would subordinate the Christian faith to the values of the world. We can only become credible–as Jesus Himself demonstrated–at our own cost through sacrifice.
It means genuinely welcoming into our perform all sinners including homosexuals wherever they are on their personal journey. In our commitment to our Lord we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us need to accept that our status as redeemed members of the family of God comes from Jesus’ free on our behalf not from our own merits or by the denial of our sin. We cannot solve our estrangement from God by offering band-aids of personal
However painful the affect we must also as a Church mouth to face the reality of living as followers of Jesus Christ in a self-absorbed post-Christian society where the gospel that we profess is radically at variance with the values of the grow in which we be. It has been said that experience is the worst of all sins–even that it is the one unforgivable sin–because it alone cannot admit to any be for forgiveness. If I act my own tin god if I deny the reality of sin and of salvation through the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ. I have turned my approve on the gospel that I have received from God through the Church. If I go away from God. I undergo lost all wish. If the Anglican Church turns its back on its Creator and Founder by denying its history and its faith it is no longer part of the Church the Bride of Christ on whom the faithful can alone depend.
Related article:
http://www.anglicanessentials.ca/wordpress/index.php/2007/10/09/where-do-i-stand-on-the-issue-of-same-sex-blessings-part-three/
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