Hi Clare -  I think you underestimate what I said.....which is that the Nigerians need to make sure they are supporting nothing incompatible with scripture i.e. the same standard for all of us in the AC..... &  I did not defend the proposed Nigerian law because (as I said) I disagree with it. I am being consistent - my view is that we ALL need to make sure we (all of us in the AC) are not supporting anything incompatible with scripture...... -  no excuses for any of us sinners.

However, Clare, I do not want to give the anti-Akinola propaganda  more respect that it deserves......eg the idea of expelling Nigeria is ridiculous when we have had more than 5 years of no action re expelling churches which condone behaviour which is sinful according to "the mind of the Communion" (to use the ABC's words).

Simon - if certain behaviour is "incompatible with scripture" i.e. sinful.... it  is no less a sin than theft which is also incompatible with scripture - you would have a point if I had called something sinful which the bible does not call sinful - but I did not and you do not.

It just goes to show you can't be too careful.

Toby

"Gay weddings" don't feature in the Bible do they? And, pinch me someone, but the HoB advice in re Civil Partnerships was not to come out categorically against them, was it? So the picture is not quite as simple as you suggest.

And I wasn't aware that we should not stand up against oppression where the oppressor is bigger and more impressive than us - that is the point about bullies - they make people think that and then think that they shouldn't say anything. So you may think you are puny - but your GLBT brothers and sisters in Nigeria are being given life sentences (one man in Northern Nigeria is on death row now for having confessed to previously committing homosexual acts http://www.afrol.com/articles/16722)  for being themselves, and any who feel they might want to form a partnership are threatened with three/five years in jail, with the witnesses to any partnership forming ceremony facing five/three (depending on whether you take the law drafters or the Akinola line).

Post-colonial guilt makes some of us reticent about speaking out - and that is milked for all it is worth by some in Africa. Listen to Mugabe!! But the language of Akinola in his submission is not just unfortunate - it is vile. Look at this:

“Same sex marriage apart from being ungodly is also unscriptural, unnatural, unprofitable, unhealthy, uncultural, un-African and un-Nigerian. It is a perversion, a deviation and an aberration that is capable of engendering moral and social holocaust in this country. It is also capable of existincting (sic) mankind and as such should never be allowed to take root in Nigeria.”

Capable of endengering moral and social holocaust? What is he talking about? This tiny persecuted minority want to be given the freedom to live their own lives. Extistincting (sic) mankind? What arrant nonsense. Gay people are never more than a small minority anywhere, and have no interest in subverting heterosexuals, or marriage, or ending human procreation. This is hateful and intellectually pathetic rubbish - he should be ashamed of presenting it as a parliamentary submission. That is where law is framed - and it is no place for "startling rhetoric" - people's lives will be ruined if others take notice of this. And if we think there is any place for speaking out against Mugabe we should be speaking out against this ghastliness too.

Clare is right. There is every reason for CEs to speak out over this matter - it just might make a real difference to real people's futures.

(my first go at this vanished half written - I hope not sent!)

I found the Radner/Goddard article helpful in giving me understanding of the cultural background to the Nigerian church.

But the focus on the family there is first of all cultural - therefore not neccessarily Christian is it?

Some of Jesus's toughest teaching concerns the family. He knew well from within his own culture - where family was central too - how such a focus can actually destroy communities by excluding those outside such closed, self serving networks by accident of birth or the contract of marriage. This lies behind his fierce separation from his own earthly family and insistence on a the scandalous welcome of social outsiders into his Kingdom. The gospels strongly challenge our assumptions about who is in and who is out.

There can be a focus on family then, that may not be Christian at all in fact - and could be, in the phrase much repeated by one contributor on these threads, 'incompatable with scripture'. The Western church has been guilty of this too.

Of course our Western society is coming from a very different place to this discussion and the challenges we face are huge too. But that does not stop me finding the Nigerian church's contribution to this debate in their own context oppressive, obsessive, violent in tone, discriminatory, utterly lacking in the compassion for the outsider that we meet in Christ and working in manifestly uncritical partnership with the agenda of the secular and religious powers around them. I do not find their approach 'compatable with scripture'.

and in strange partnership with secular or muslim

You ask me Toby about my pluralism, and if I just have comment for Anglicanism.

I've spent most of my religious involvement in Anglican and Unitarian churches. This included professional ministry seeking in both. I was in a Buddhist group, the FWBO for a short time and only left because they are not in this area. I have never really got on with Tibetan Buddhism as offered in these parts, though I have attended some meetings and been to Kilnwick Percy, a regional Madhyamika centre.

I did train to be an RE teacher, meaning I learnt about other faiths for the purposes of teaching, but I won't teach in schools (and the QTS has run out anyway).

At the moment I worship in an Anglican church, but I'm on its margin. I still present to a theology group there on material I have written - the last one was about Rudolf Bultmann and the next is about theology and other academic disciplines. I will take a Unitarian service on Easter Day, which means I write and select the whole service.

I call myself a religious humanist who practises Christianity. I don't think all faiths have roads to the same divine: I think they are as different languages - more postmodern. Rather they work within themselves and there are extractions to be made that can produce individual packages. So mine is a combination of religious humanism, Christianity and Western Buddhism. As for comments elsewhere I have made them about the Baha'i Faith more than most, as I also met with them once but took a different view. I occasionally make comment at the National Unitarian Fellowship forum and have long opposed the General Assembly Object, being in a minority, but one that gathers support from time to time.

Hello again, Clare

You said, 'Does not that make it even more urgent for an independent evangelically based voice to be heard loudly and clearly rebuking the complicity in homophobia that the C of N is enmeshed within?'

I think that evangelicals, as people who claim to take the Bible seriously, have a duty to stand up against injustice. I try to do this in my own life. But before I can 'rebuke' the Nigerian church for its 'homophobia', I need to know what's meant by the term. If you're referring to Abp Akinola's sometimes startling rhetoric, I agree that it's almost certainly unhelpful - though whether my rebuking him would be appropriate is another matter.

But I can't criticise him for his stand against 'gay weddings', or whatever the phrase was, since it's also the position of the Anglican Communion and the Church of England, not to mention pretty much every other denomination, the church catholic for 2000 years and, er, the Bible. That's a fairly weighty list in his support, is it not?

In any case (and perhaps this is what Nersen was getting at), before we turn our rather puny fire on the Church of Nigeria - which in other ways could certainly teach us a thing or two - shouldn't we look closer to home? We need to fix the church in the west before we patrol the world in judgment over everyone else's failings.

Toby

I've recently attended an anti-BNP rally  - organised by the local TUC but obviously attracting those from the left, far left, and anarchist groups. There were quite a few 'normal' people there who were in the march (the stewards were TUC officials) which tended to keep a lid on the more, er, enthusiastic slogan-shouting... but I share Toby's concern about being hijacked by the SWP at anti-war rallies (and pro-Palestinian ones, too).

The unfortunate fact remains, that the SWP, and not the churches, are often organising these events.

Nersen - comparing homosexuality with theft? Have you nothing better in your armoury? ++Akinola is bang out of order on this - and you're left using weasel words. I can't remember if it was here, or over on Ship of Fools (and I'll have to paraphrase):

The only difference between Fred Phelps and some other evangelicals is a question of tactics.

I get Toby's comparison with his reluctance to associate with the 'stop the War' campaign because of its origins in the SWP and his reluctance to whole heartedly stand behind us old libs.

Does not that make it even more urgent for an independent evangelically based voice to be heard loudly and clearly rebuking the complicity in homophobia that the Cof N is enmeshed within?  Just as you have campaigned against the war - though not under the auspices of the STW coalition, so might you campaign against this under your own 'flag' as it were and on your own terms.

Nersen, I confess to be disappointed in you.  I would have thought that someone of your passionate conviction would have been a bit more fulsome in their condemnation of Akinola. Whilst in passing you say you disagree with the enprisonment of homosexuals, you do not lay into him in the same way you do into Rowan williams, for example. and, even if you are right about Rowan (of course I disagree, but for the sake of argument let's put that to one side for a moment) surely Akinola's  actions are in a different league to those of Rowan Williams?

we do already know that you find the present situation in the Cof E regarding homosexuality very frustrating and muddled. we know you ardently wish is were otherwise.  you weave this into practically every post! you have not failed in your duty to share this with us.  have you no moral passion left for anything else?

btw - I am not in favour of kicking anyone out of the AC. that doesn't mean we don't admonish member churches when they act in ways grounded in hatred.

Re the anti-++Akinola propaganda below - before the CofE throws stones, it has to be sure its own position has integrity. If the UK govt proposes laws which are against behaviour that the bible calls sin, does the CofE not support it?    Theft, for example,  is incompatible with scripture ...naturally, the CofE supports the government's laws against theft. And the CofE is consistent in its attitude to theft eg it would not have clergy who were unrepentant about stealing or teaching that stealing is good and holy..... that would be a recipe for division and disaster......

While UK evangelicals might not agree with ++Akinola et al supporting their government's proposed laws  re prison etc (I don't),  the Nigerian church's stance does expose the CofE's very compromised attitude which states certain things are sins but has often turned a blind eye.... even inside the church -  this  has led to hypocrisy eg the ordination of people who are quite open about being unrepentant about certain behaviour which the CofE still today calls sinful....somehow, their position is supposed to have some integrity.   I am sure  the Nigerians  want to avoid this kind of hypocrisy...... but the Nigerians  need to make sure that they support nothing which is incompatible with scripture.   

(As usual, very helpful work from Radner and Goddard - thanks for the link Graham)

Hi Pluralist

You said, 'oppression is just that, and you can state one view about the oppression and have another about the wider agenda'. I hope my views on both are clear. But I think it's wise to be wary when different agendas are presented as if they were one and the same. My attitude to the Stop the War Coalition, for example, is affected by the fact that it was set up (and to some extent run as a front for) the Socialist Workers Party - and I've kept away from it for that reason (though I've protested against the same war).

I'm interested, too, in what 'pluralism' means to you. Does it mean that different faiths point equally to the divine? If so I'd ask, do you think that the Church of Nigeria preaches a gospel which leads to God? Does the Christian faith in its traditional teaching on sexuality? Does Islam or Buddhism? (Though, to be fair, I don't know what Buddhism's 'official' teaching is on this, only the thoughts of individual Buddhists I've met).

If 'pluralism' does mean what I think it means, I hope you're equally present on Islamic and Buddhist websites, excoriorating them for their exclusivity and demanding that any mosques, temples etc which don't come up to the mark are banned from the umma. Or do you give Christianity (and the Anglican Communion) the benefit of your special attention? On what basis? Are you really a 'Christian pluralist', whatever that might be?

I guess what I'm getting at is that I'm not sure how compatible 'pluralism' (as I understand it) and modern European social liberalism are. And, since 'pluralism' seems to be a product of that same liberalism, I guess there are questions here about the coherence of 'pluralism' itself.

Thanks from Toby

There is so much in this interesting article that needs responding to. But let me pick up one point.

Radner and Goddard write:

The Church's support of civil limitations upon homosexual conduct, therefore, cannot (in this reading) be attributed to "discrimination". It derives, rather, from the calling and duties of a well-ordered society that supports the created purposes of human persons including marriage and family life.

I am concerned by the rather widespread assumption that protecting marriage and family life means the oppression (for such is the penal supression of gay relationships) of others.

I know perfectly well that some sites (Virtue Online, Anglican Mainstream etc) always choose the most anti-family and anarchic gay stories they can to paint every homosexual person in the same unflattering light - but that is as ridiculous and iresponsible as gay people insisting that all Christians must subscribe to the same views of homosexuality as Westboro' Baptist Church.

Where is the evidence that the homosexual proportion of the population is increasing with gay liberation? It appears from all we know that homsexuality is a persistent minority of the human population - its proportions vary depending upon social and political factors, but it may be between 2.5% and 10%. I would guess that the extreme ends of the estimated range are exaggerations. AM and VO and their like are always keen to minimise the proportion of the population that are homosexual ("There you are, there aren't that many of them"), while at the same time subscribing to the hysterical notion that if given any protection or recognition then we may all be drowned in a wave of gayness. Hence the "defence of marriage and the family" motif.

Whose marriage is really threatened by the existence of gay people in our society enjoying the same sort of civil and legal rights as everyone else? No one's. If you aren't gay then you're not gay. Straight people are not interested in SSA - by definition. There is no eveidence that more people are choosing to be gay - indeed I would maintain that no one chooses to be gay at all. I have certainly never seen a shred of evidence of the old canard about homosexuals recruiting for their cause. So what is the threat?

What threatens marriage and family is a society where heterosexuals don't feel that it is worth investing themselves in stable, faithful relationships as a context for raising children. That is where the problem lies - not inhaving a go at gay people. What appears to constitute the felt "threat" from gay folk among conservative commentators is the visible acknowledgement and protection of people whose normal sexual preference is not that of the majority. I quite understand that people may not like homosexuality and may find the notion of SSA repugnant. I know too that people may think it is morally wrong for that in any way to be expressed - though I think they are mistaken. But none of that means that the linkage between a civilly protected existence for gay people and shaking the foundations of marriage and family life has any reality at all.

In this country we began a process whereby we separated moral judgements about the matter from the penalty of the law. Most of the people writing who value marriage and family life so much have done all the raising of their families and living of their marriages in the years since 1967. How much, truthfully, have their marriages and family lives been threatened by the gradual emergence of gay people in British society?

I think that Radner and Goddard have got this entirely wrong - for Church to support penal legislation against gay people anywhere, with the global knowledge that we have access to at the click of a mouse, is both discriminatory and oppressive.

Let me reply to Toby.

Of course there is another agenda as well. There is the agenda of homosexual inclusion in blessings and ministry. It would be daft to deny that there is such an agenda.

I go further, that a means to counteract what Akinola is doing is indeed to give the gay and lesbian people in Nigeria, and elsewhere, a different model of a Church that can be a beacon of hope for them, and this can be provided by the Americans and Canadians, and when they do others will follow. Indeed the Americans have a General Convention coming.

However, oppression is just that, and you can state one view about the oppression and have another about the wider agenda.