The Christian church has a deeply flawed understanding of sex that has led to morally groundless objections to masturbation, birth control, abortion and homosexuality, says a leading Canadian Anglican bishop.In particular, the church has been wrong for centuries on the notion that sex exists only for the purpose of procreation, Right Rev. Michael Ingham, bishop of the Greater Vancouver Diocese of New Westminster, told a conference in Ottawa last night.
“Christianity as a religion stands in need of a better theology of sexuality,” he said, “a better understanding of the complex role sexuality plays in our human nature and of the purposes of God in creating us as sexual beings.” globe and mail
One of the pleasures of being a notional Anglican is the intelligence and compassion which some, but not all, of our bishops bring to fundamental questions. Unfortunately, Bishop Michael’s positions may well lead to schism withing the worldwide Anglican communion; but that is not such a terrible thing if the alternative is an ongoing set of theological errors regarding sexuality.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:18 am
Arrgh! I don’t understand how a “notional Anglican” can talk about “theological errors regarding sexuality”
Isn’t this kinda like a bystander diagnosing the precise mechanical cause of a twenty car pile-up? ... I mean, I understand that you FEEL that traditional Christianity is in error, but until you bother with a discussion of these theological errors per se, I don’t see the point in mentioning them.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Well I am notional only in the sense that my current situation precludes all but a quick Communion of a Wednesday night.
As for the specific errors I leave it to my former bishop and better to provide the list of particulars as he does in the Valpy piece cited.
March 9th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
You’re kind of a notional “notional Anglican”, then. Okay.
But the list of particulars given in the Valpy piece are extremely tenuous by any reasonable standard. Extremely tenuous. Their validity, I can’t help thinking, has largely been determined through a kind of tautology. Progressives let it be known that they take issue with the historic interpretation of scripture, this is reported in the news media, then the progressives brandish the newspapers saying: see, there IS a problem. (I don’t mean to suggest that there isn’t a problem, and a rather painful one at that, but the idea that the existence of a conflict validates the source of the conflict simply does not follow.) Then they start to unload all the favourite stuff of the Christian-crisis-hungry mob: accusations that conservatives are Biblical literalists, homophobes, etc.
To say that scriptural proscriptions about men lying with other men were meant figuratively—that the second “men” should be taken to mean “boys”—is a matter of interpretation. Of very loose interpretation and one that can only exist outside of the far larger scriptural context.
I mean, do we really believe that homosexuality, as we understand it (as between consenting adults), is in effect an invention of the 19th century? This is crazy! Not to mention, I strongly suspect, offensive to many of the concerned parties.
For an actual discussion of the actual theological problems at stake here, can I recommend the piece Drexel Gomez—Archbishop of the Southern Cone—commissioned in 2002 for that purpose? It can be found here:
http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org/ articles/trueunionhome.htm
And, no, you’ll be hard pressed to find any of the fire and brimstone homophobia that you might expect.
March 15th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
To call an objection to abortion, “morally groundless” is ignorant. You can be anti-abortion on simply moral grounds without being a Christian.
And I would ask Michael Ingham to point out where the Bible or the Anglican church points to procreation being the only reason for sex. He confuses his church with the RC church.