update Thursday morning and afternoon
The Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Revd Graham Dow, spoke at the launch today of God, Gays and the Church. He may regret what he said.
Ruth Gledhill in her Times blog Graham Dow: UK Government a ‘Revelation 13’ Govt
Ruth Gledhill in the Times Bishop sees demons in Downing Street
Jonathan Petre in the Telegraph Brown Government ‘like a demonic beast’
I bet it took all of the bishops seven heads to come up with that contrast.
Well, the circus is now moving on to that superstitious prelate from Carlisle. Rowan must be relieved…
May we Episcopalians again explain the virtues of ELECTING our bishops? ;-/
[My condolences to the good Anglicans of Carlisle]
This is just the kind of thing that reminds us why “keeping God out of government” may not be such a bad idea. While the theory of the pluralist State (in the Cole, Figgis, Laski tradition), based on “belief in the vitality and legitimacy of self-governing associations as means of organizing social life and the belief that political representation must respect the principle of function, recognizing associations like trade unions, churches and voluntary bodies” (P. Hirst), is interesting and thought-worthy, the sad fact is that churches have far too often sought influence in the most retrograde causes, and the State… Read more »
The interesting thing about Revelation 13 is that it refers to duress and having the rules imposed upon souls. Whereas Romans 13 refers to the freedom that comes from doing no wrong, even to those who are in authority e.g. “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you.” Those who want to create a “new covenant” to which we must submit sound more like the draconian repression of Revelation… Read more »
On the subject of God, Gays and the Church, I’d have liked to contact you guys this morning, but couldn’t find an email address on the site. I’ve found the book contains some horrendous examples of homophobia, far beyond what (I would hope) most evangelicals in the Church of England would be prepared to accept. I really think this kind of thing needs to be denounced loudly, as it has made it very obvious that a group claiming to represent mainstream Anglicans has in fact moved to ridiculous extremes.
My preliminary review is here: http://www.exgaywatch.com/wp/2008/02/new-book-reveals-depth-of-anglican-mainstreams-homophobia/
The Bishop of Hereford breaks the law, and the Bishop of Carlisle appears to be an alien to reason, and yet there seems to be no mechanism to remove them. Would any other organisations allow such evidently sub-standard leaders to remain at the top and expect to maintain their credibility?
Here, here! And what about the Bishop of Liverpool, chair of Wycliffe Hall council, which is being accused of dismissing Elaine Storkey illegally? She spoke up on this at the Synod. Can we bring complaints against these three?
Hey – personal attacks here are just as much in the public domain as on the BBC, maybe just a bit less obvious.
I don’t like what Graham Dow said at all, not do I like what’s happened at Wycliffe, but can we not keep the debate to what these bishops are doing?
I thought that gospel tells us to resolve our differences without bearing it all in public.
It’s Dow who seems to be happy to bare all…and then (according to the article) ask that his comments not be reported!
So, a coward too?
Not forgetting the good Episcopalians of San Joaquin, JCF.
Basically I agree with you, of course, but let’s not forget the “rotten apple in the barrel” principle and the power, that C of E bishops do not have, but TEC diocesans clearly have, to shape and determine the politics and churchmanship of their diocese at the parish level – see also Pittsburgh & Ft. Worth.
Dave Rattigan,
thank you for your review!!
I read it open mouthed, I still find it hard to believe that many actually believe this nonsense.
Do they?
Genuinely, apart from the Anglican Mainstream fundies and their supporters, how widespread is this ignorance and venom in the Communion?
I have met many who oppose my life on religious grounds but none who has ever peddled such utter rubbish.
I just cannot believe that this truly represents the majority of the anti gay movement in the church.
I met someone from the diocese of Carlisle about 4 years ago when we were being interviewed for a parish. He said that many (including he) were trying to escape because of a perceived shift in the climate in the diocese since +Graham arrived. Fast forward to the other day, when I met another priest from the diocese who said that more and more posts were being filled by those attracted by +Carlisle’s theological stance, with the consequence that a feedback loop seemed to be being created, the diocesan becoming more CharisEv, which drew more likeminded clergy into the diocese,… Read more »
Overheard at a gathering last year, some ordinands from St Helen’s, Bishopsgate (via Oak Hill), discussing the difficulty of finding title posts: “there’s always Carlisle…”
From the review and excerpts this book can only be described as “hate literature”.
Disgusting, disgraceful stuff.
Combine this with the ABC furore and watch the CofE shrink even more.
This is the same chap who believes gays cause floods, right? Lord Melbourne would never have appointed such a person to the Bishops’ Bench!
One neither wishes to interfere with Peter Ould or some other nominally ex-gay or post-gay citizen’s happiness, any more than one wishes to intefere with Bishop Robinson’s happiness as a partnered gay bishop who has ministry to do in New Hampshire. But from where does the rest of all this hysterical trash talk come, and how does it so repeatedly arise, mainly from very conservative religious narratives? Do any of these vitally alarmed people who tag their own false witness about queer citizens, Agape Love, that is, un-self-serving, wow? – actually know any modern, productive, ethically alert, and spiritually minded… Read more »
Some may be interested in this cartoon of mine:
http://pluralistspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/02/bishop-in-government-shift-13-shock.html
What left my mouth agape was the idea that some public figure would believe he could prevent remarks at a public meeting to which the media had been invited from hitting the media.
The technical term for such a person is “idiot.”
Nice to see that the reactionaries are just as feeble as Rowan in dealing with the realities of modern communications.
Oh dear – no wonder we in the gay rights movement have so comprehensively won all of our recent campaigns.
We couldn’t have more inept and stupid enemies as those in the Church!
You really couldn’t make it up….but you know, the cons evos just do not realise how utterly, totally loony they appear. And they will always see any opposition as persecution for being Christians.
Of course, its not. Its simply a totally reasonable reaction to perceived lunacy.
A piquant end to the week-long struggle between theocracy and democracy…(Punch and Judy?).
“I read it open mouthed, I still find it hard to believe that many actually believe this nonsense.”
Erika, I am still reeling that someone who thinks like this can be a bishop! I’m used to fundamentalists being so ignorant, but I thought possession of a brain was a prerequisite for Episcopacy in the Anglican Church. It is a sad day when Anglican clerics sponsor what sounds, from the reviews, like hate speech. Dear God!
>>>This is the same chap who believes gays cause floods, right?
I think it’s not the gay men themselves who cause floods so much as the gay men’s rectal demons.
malcom+, i think it is unwise of you to call graham dow an idiot. in the first place, this has a technical, clinical definition, and it would not be appropriate for him. in the second case, there is the example, as in dostoevsky, of the idiot saint, or idiot savant, and he certainly isn’t that. i think you’ll find that the more appectable word is ‘cretin’.
Poppy:
Actually, I think the operative term is probably “bigot”.
Well it seems that I’m the only person in the world who is prepared to say anything good about +Carlisle’s comments. When he criticises the UK Government for imposing its morality what he means is, of course, that he disagrees that homosexuality is equal to heterosexuality, and objects to legislation that effectively imposes that view. The basic issue is that the Bible is extremely narrow on sexual issues. It has no accommodations for sexual orientation, repeatedly rejects homosexuality as a perversion, and several times links it into motifs of degraded societies that come about when God is rejected. Liberals argue… Read more »
I didn’t call my Lord of Carlisle an idiot.
I said that anyone who believes that controversial and provocative comments openly made at a public even with the media present can be kept out of the media is an idiot.
If the episcopal slippers fit . . .
I had considered “brain-dead moronic blithering twit,” but thought it was a trifle harsh.
I think the appropriate word is “verkakte”.
David Wh
You’ve made a strong point about why you believe that homosexuality is wrong.
You have not made the point why the state should accept your view over mine and allow you to discriminate against me.
The SOR’s expect you to treat people equally and not discriminate against them. Of course, if you wish to treat them as if they are ‘bad’, or something about them is ‘bad’, then you will hardly be treating them equally. You can’t have it both ways. I’m not a Tory, but I recall David Cameron saying that whilst on one level he understands where the religious conservatives are coming from, in the law you either allow discrimination or you don’t, and there cannot be one law for one and one for another. Thus, if equality for gay and lesbian people… Read more »
“The conservative counterargument is, obviously, that what God has revealed so clearly through the Bible and Tradition, can’t just be swept aside by changing the grounds on which you decide what is right and wrong. They can also point to male-female physical sexual complimentarity, and the incongruity between the homosexual mental attraction and physical design.” You mean the way we “swept aside” belief in special creation, a young earth, geocentrism, and a host of other ideas “revealed so clearly through the Bible and Tradition”? Or are you one of those folks who rejects the last 150 years of scientific research… Read more »
Much as I disagree with +Carlisle on this one (and on many other issues), in the light of what happened to the ABC recently perhaps we need to get this in perspective. If Graham Dow thinks the present government is more Rev 13 than Rom 13, then he’d be in company with Tom Wright and others – it’s about a govermnent taking choice away from citizens and impoding a moral code without debate. As to how he is received in his own diocese – I have met several middle of the road clergy in Carlisle who find him a mixed… Read more »
Bp Dow may be being genuinely reactionary and apocalyptic, or alternatively clear-minded and able to think for themselves (ie one of those majority which does not simply see their own very specific culture as some kind of norm but has the capacity to stand outside it and critique it from a broader basis). Or maybe a bit of both. I think the phenomenon of vociferously anti-christian individuals (satanists or wearers of garb depicting dark-arts-related material, on the one hand; radical socialists, on the other) seeming to prefer black is not something to be dismissed out of hand without further reflection.… Read more »
“seeming to prefer black is not something to be dismissed out of hand without further reflection”
said Chris Shell of vociferously anti-Christian types.
Umm, speaking as a vociferously extravagant Anglo Catholic priest I wear black rather a lot (though I did once, just once, possess a grey clerical shirt). Would he care to cast the runes as to my religious agenda/state of mind/degree of demonic possession?
You bet he would!
;=)
Dave Wh wrote: “The prohibited discrimination is against the person, rather than the ground. I think most conservative Christians would not feel so abused if the UK SORs had made a distinction between treating others equally whatever their differences, and being obliged against conscience to act as if homosexuality is good.”
Seems to me they must be virtually the same, in practice, so – feel
free to feel “abused”…
;=)
The removal of the choice to discriminate is something governments should rightly do, in my view.
“I thought that gospel tells us to resolve our differences without bearing it all in public.” Adrian, naughty souls have been using that one to shut up the oppressed and abused for centuries. Sorry, but when the leadership brings a planet’s biosphere to the brink of extinction, they lose the rights to posture as God’s emissaries. They broke the covenant of peace, they went to war on a lie invoking God’s name in the process (to paraphase Ted Turner from CNN “it was probably the stupidest thing ever an American president has ever authorised”). Break covenants, then find the branches… Read more »
Erika, I don’t *want* to discriminate against you, or anyone. However, I have a conscience that tells me that some things are wrong, including homosexual sex. That puts me in a dilemma. I am supposed to have a Right to religious expression and freedom of conscience: Article 10 of the European Charter is supposed to guarantee freedom of thought, conscience and religion: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion … to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, *practice* and observance.” And I’m supposed to have “The right to conscientious objection … in accordance with the… Read more »
David Wh Your argument is flawed because people divorce and remarriage are a genuine moral choice, whereas being gay isn’t. Governments cannot allow you to discriminate against people on the basis of who they are. By that argument, a religious bigot who still believes that God has made black people naturally inferior to white people should be allowed not to take photographs at a black wedding. Or a Muslim newspaper photographer should be able to refuse to take photos of women politicians if that happens to conflict with his beliefs. It’s easy to see why a Government cannot possibly allow… Read more »
Hi David Rowett-
False syllogism , mate. ‘A more than average number of lovers of demon-related decor/attire wear black. Revd Smells and Bells wears black. Therefore Revd SnB is a lover of demon-related decor/attire.’ Spot the logical flaw.
We all know the stereotype of the ‘orrible teen who paints his room black. It wouldn’t be funny unless there were a grain of truth in it. It is black as opposed to grey, puce, peach or any other colour. Is that a random truth or a truth with roots and causes?
David Wh: there’s no conscience dilemma necessarily involved in your belief that having a same-sex relationship is wrong. You merely have to avoid entering into one yourself. That’s fine by me and the rest of us on the liberal side, I’m sure. But you also have to allow the rest of us to make our own conscientious choices, and not treat us differently if they are not your ones. How have you ever survived this long in a country where not everyone makes moral choices you agree with?
Erika
If a newspaper employes a muslim photographer who only takes pictures of male politicians, and has other photographers who take photos of women politicians, what the heck is the government doing insisting that he must be sacked?
Erika Obviously I disagree with your logic as well as your example. Firstly, the analogy with race is not sound. Gay is not something you ‘are’ – it describes your sexual ‘orientation’ – strongly and mostly unchangeable sexual attraction. Secondly, whatever your orientation, how you behave is your choice – people decide to deny their desires and act in ways they believe are more virtuous all the time. People are not born gay – even genetically identical twins from the same womb environment, and brought up in the same house, do not necessarily have the same adult orientation. If one… Read more »
Try applying David Wh’s logic to a whole host of possibly genetic related illnesses and it falls over.
For example, not all twins both develop schiozphrenia or multiple schlerosis.
Then there’s that chimera twins reported late last year that manifested their hermaphrodite tendencies in different forms.
It’s a good idea when stating “facts” to make sure they can be consistently observed.
Otherwise one looks like a grandstanding ignoramous relying on censorship to shut up alternative credible evidence.
David Wh To say that you are not gay, you only experience same sex attraction is about as helpful as to say you are not black, you only have black skin pigment. And whether genetic, environmental or whatever (the question doesn’t actually interest me one little bit), fact is that a significant number of people recoils at a relationship with a member of the opposite sex to the same extent you recoil at a relationship with another man. That is unchangeable. You are able to have an emotionally and physically satisfying relationship with a woman, a significant number of people… Read more »
Cheryl, But all identical twins share the same race and gender!! At most genetics and womb environment seem to predispose to sexuality, but so do home environment and developmental experience. That is not the same as being a “given”, and does not explain why some people choose to abstain from their disposition on moral grounds. +Carlisle is just questioning those parts of the discrimination legislation that oblige people to act in agreement with a particular view on sexual morality, and disregard their individual conscience. That is completely disproportionate to any issues of balanced rights or of real harm. Article 52… Read more »
David Wh wrote: ” I am supposed to have a Right to religious expression and freedom of conscience: Article 10 of the European Charter is supposed to guarantee freedom of thought, conscience and religion: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion … to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, *practice* and observance.” And I’m supposed to have “The right to conscientious objection … in accordance with the national laws …”. Furthermore, Article 22 is supposed to guarantee that “The Union shall respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.” Oh, oh! That was a slip… Hardly spontaneous,… Read more »
David Wh “That is completely disproportionate to any issues of balanced rights or of real harm.” Even granted that you might feel distress or distaste at having to accept that some people, somewhere, share same sex relationships, and assuming you might actually be a photographer who may one day be asked to spend a couple of hours taking photos of a happy couple and their smiling assembled friends and family, and that this prospect fills you with unease… Can you please explain to me why the harm done to you during those 2 hours is to be valued as deeper… Read more »
Erika, I did not say that no self-respecting Christian should come into contact with LGBT people. I have LGBT friends – one in a longterm partnership. I’m quite happy to be in contact with everybody, even people *you* would think were sinners – as Jesus was! What I said was that I do not wish to be obliged to act in agreement with someone else’s view on sexual morality, and to be told to disregard my own conscience. I *don’t* want everyone to be legally forced to live according to my moral views… I don’t manage to live up to… Read more »