Listening to Others
Here's a Conundrum ...
We have some friends who travel frequently to the States, have a lot to do with the church there and are often invited to minister in various places. Their links are, however, with the much more evangelical, traditionalist, and anti-any-change-in-stance-about-homosexuality end of the church spectrum. So they bring back horror stories about the church situation there, depicting the evangelical faithful (primarily within the Episcopalian Church) as an embattled minority, persecuted and discriminated against by the liberal, anti-scriptural, and apparently unbelieving hierarchy. Their latest account of the Gene Robinson affair is that it was not primarily about sexuality, but about the whole way that the liberals have abandoned scripture and any semblance of obedience to God's word.
Now this is so different from the picture I get from other sources - the relatively few American Christians I know, what I read in Church Times or in people's blogs, etc. - that I simply don't know how to reconcile these different versions of the world. It suggests to me a possibility that all the talk about schism comes not from our substantive differences of opinion - which no doubt are real - but from mistaken understandings of what the other person's opinions or motivations are. Perhaps the words 'from not listening to the other person' may not be entirely inaccurate?
But can it really be that liberals in ECUSA claim that they are ignoring scripture? Surely not: surely this is an anti-liberal libel. But if that is how non-liberals actually perceive and are able to represent the situation, then I reckon liberals haven't done a good enough job of explaining why a liberal position in the homosexuality debate is compatible with - I would say, demanded by - a faithful reading of scripture.
Lambeth 1998 urged all Anglicans to listen to the experience of gay and lesbian people. I wish we would. Because that is what really made me think again about the whole issue. It's when you realise - and really come to believe - that sexual orientation is not chosen, but part of our God-givenness as humans, that you can start to address the question, How, then, can we live holy lives? rather than, What acts are or are not sinful?
The problem is that it has been so difficult for gay and lesbian people to testify to their experience, and faith, within the faith community that has so long misunderstood and persecuted them, that it is almost impossible for anyone to really listen to and hear those whose views or experience are different.
We have some friends who travel frequently to the States, have a lot to do with the church there and are often invited to minister in various places. Their links are, however, with the much more evangelical, traditionalist, and anti-any-change-in-stance-about-homosexuality end of the church spectrum. So they bring back horror stories about the church situation there, depicting the evangelical faithful (primarily within the Episcopalian Church) as an embattled minority, persecuted and discriminated against by the liberal, anti-scriptural, and apparently unbelieving hierarchy. Their latest account of the Gene Robinson affair is that it was not primarily about sexuality, but about the whole way that the liberals have abandoned scripture and any semblance of obedience to God's word.
Now this is so different from the picture I get from other sources - the relatively few American Christians I know, what I read in Church Times or in people's blogs, etc. - that I simply don't know how to reconcile these different versions of the world. It suggests to me a possibility that all the talk about schism comes not from our substantive differences of opinion - which no doubt are real - but from mistaken understandings of what the other person's opinions or motivations are. Perhaps the words 'from not listening to the other person' may not be entirely inaccurate?
But can it really be that liberals in ECUSA claim that they are ignoring scripture? Surely not: surely this is an anti-liberal libel. But if that is how non-liberals actually perceive and are able to represent the situation, then I reckon liberals haven't done a good enough job of explaining why a liberal position in the homosexuality debate is compatible with - I would say, demanded by - a faithful reading of scripture.
Lambeth 1998 urged all Anglicans to listen to the experience of gay and lesbian people. I wish we would. Because that is what really made me think again about the whole issue. It's when you realise - and really come to believe - that sexual orientation is not chosen, but part of our God-givenness as humans, that you can start to address the question, How, then, can we live holy lives? rather than, What acts are or are not sinful?
The problem is that it has been so difficult for gay and lesbian people to testify to their experience, and faith, within the faith community that has so long misunderstood and persecuted them, that it is almost impossible for anyone to really listen to and hear those whose views or experience are different.
posted by Tony at 11/24/2004 07:30:00 pm
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