.
 |
|
The grace of the message that our
religion brings to the world is designed to heal and comfort those who might
otherwise be driven to close down their basic human emotions. Any person who is driven to that state of
affairs is left only half a human being.
And that is not, by any means, the objective of Christian beliefs and
the loving message that lies at their heart...
Sadly, there are those
today, including amongst Protestant Christians and others who should know
better, who read Scripture with arrogance.
Who believe that, doing so, they can entirely defy the evidence of the
natural world and science, now available to us.
In a sense, they are making the same error as those who fought and resisted
the Reformation. They want to adhere to
comfortable old ways of understanding.
They resist those who bring a new message of truth and insight. As someone raised in a Protestant tradition
of Anglicanism, a mere layman, I have to remind these pretended evangelists of
the core of the Protestant approach to Christianity. It is a humble and simple core, based upon
open mindedness, free inter-congregational dialogue, a search for truth and a
connection to the real world beyond tradition, power and superstitious
ignorance...
In the battles that are
now being waged concerning Scripture and sexuality, it is not surprising to see
some in the line-up of power-brokers clinging to old beliefs. But it is astonishing, and distressing for me,
to see them joined by those who claim to be faithful to the Protestant
tradition of Scripture-based Christianity.
And this is a nice thing about Protestant Anglicans. They believe in the virtue of a bracing cold
shower from time to time. In the matter
of religion and sexuality, this is what realism and truth require today...
With all respect to those of an older, narrower and a more authoritarian view of such matters, the change in the United Church of Canada is one that I believe is comfortable with the Scriptures; conformable to the central loving tenets of the Christian religion; and consistent with modern scientific knowledge as well as social and individual reality.
I am here to say these
things, not despite the fact that I am a Sydney Anglican. But because of that fact. Not despite the words of Scripture. But because those words, read in context and
with the light of reason and love provide no impediment. Not despite my upbringing in the Anglican
tradition of Christianity. But because
of it.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment