by Adam Linton » August 8th, 2008, 6:28 pm
With substantial hesitancy I post this...
As Rus has said, the topic has been discussed extensively elsewhere--so we're unlikely to add much new to it here at this point. I don't want to argue it here at all, only perhaps help give a sense of how those of us on the "liberal/progressive" side of the issue (even if we're otherwise quite traditional, theologically speaking) might have come to where we are.
I'll try to do so by posing a series of "what if" questions...
What if--after extensive observation, as well as critical examination of history--one came to question if "the Church" (and by this I mean to include Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestants)--unlike the cases of "murder, theft" and such--really had believed what it said about homosexuality?
What if--after extensive observation, as well as critical examination of history--one came to wonder if what "the Church" was saying about homosexuality was, in fact, rhetorical cover for a systemic "don't ask, don't tell" policy?
What if--after extensive observation, as well as critical examination of history--one came to notice that the occasional poor souls singled out for church discipline in regard to homosexuality always seemed to be--how shall I say it?--ecclesiastical "small fry"--and never those with influential contacts or too much sensitive inside information?
What if--after a such difficult, sometimes personally agonizing, re-assessment of the meaning of "tradition," one turned to the Scriptures--both looking at how the Church has read them in history and using, as well, (in a context of faith) the best critical tools--one began seriously to suspect that the contemporary "conservative" argument against the possibility of a faithful, permanent, mutually exclusive same sex-relationship was, in fact, based on a misreading of Scripture (specifically, the interpretive use of an impossible, anachronistic biblical referent)?
I don't want to argue this. I don't want to besmirch anyone or any faith tradition.
But, granted possible answers to these "what ifs," can it be humanly understood how someone like Rowan Williams could come to be seen as a remarkably good Christian leader--and how the Anglican Communion/Episcopal Church--yes, with all its very open struggles on the matter--might start to look like a very faithful option?
Let the reader understand. Consider this post as an opportunity to get to know the poster better. I hope that I haven't been offensive--and ask pardon if I have.
(And by the way, the world-wide debate climate on this being what it now is, for the record, let me assure you--for whatever it's worth--that I am a "straight-as-an arrow" kind of guy; very happily, faithfully, and traditionally married [in one mutually-unique marriage] for thiry-one years, with five wonderful children.)
Last edited by
Adam Linton on August 8th, 2008, 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
