Homophobic Pope Shocker

If only we lived in a world where the ignorant words of an old man with too much time on his hands didn’t matter; they do. We live in a world where people like Mikey Causer are beaten to death for being gay. Yet again with Pope Benedict XVI we have the Vatican badmouthing homosexuality, transsexualism and every variance from baseline heterosexual behaviour and institutions:

Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian Credo, the Church cannot and should not confine itself to passing on the message of salvation alone. It has a responsibility for the created order and ought to make this responsibility prevail, even in public. And in so doing, it ought to safeguard not only the earth, water, and air as gifts of creation, belonging to everyone. It ought also to protect man against the destruction of himself. What is necessary is a kind of ecology of man, understood in the correct sense. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman and asks that this order of creation be respected, it is not the result of an outdated metaphysic. It is a question here of faith in the Creator and of listening to the language of creation, the devaluation of which leads to the self-destruction of man and therefore to the destruction of the same work of God. That which is often expressed and understood by the term “gender”, results finally in the self-emancipation of man from creation and from the Creator. Man wishes to act alone and to dispose ever and exclusively of that alone which concerns him. But in this way he is living contrary to the truth, he is living contrary to the Spirit Creator. The tropical forests are deserving, yes, of our protection, but man merits no less than the creature, in which there is written a message which does not mean a contradiction of our liberty, but its condition. The great Scholastic theologians have characterised matrimony, the life-long bond between man and woman, as a sacrament of creation, instituted by the Creator himself and which Christ – without modifying the message of creation – has incorporated into the history of his covenant with mankind. This forms part of the message that the Church must recover the witness in favour of the Spirit Creator present in nature in its entirety and in a particular way in the nature of man, created in the image of God. Beginning from this perspective, it would be beneficial to read again the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sexuality as a consumer entity, the future as opposed to the exclusive pretext of the present, and the nature of man against its manipulation.

It’s a whole load of unscientific, mostly meaningless garbage of course, but what’s important isn’t so much the content as who’s saying it. For some drunk in a pub to come out with such archaic nonsense is one thing – for the leader of one of the world’s organised religions it’s another. People do and will listen to him, and although I don’t believe for a moment that he speaks for all the world’s Catholics, when he legitimises bigotry through religious intellectualism, or even via the modern language of environmentalism, he is dangerous. Homophobia isn’t an inherent quality in human beings, it’s a value which is transmitted and legitimised, and people like Josef Ratzinger should know better:

It is an instructive exercise to take Pope Benedict’s latest homophobic outburst and substitute the word “Jew” for “homosexual.”

The Pope’s detractors are always quick to point to his service in the Hitler Youth as a teenager.

I fully accept that his Hitler Youth membership was probably compulsory, even that his views on homosexuality may not have arisen from his membership of the party – he has shown a propensity to over-intellectualise anything. But his unique position as Pope should make him particularly mindful of the origins of hate and the role his office can play in either fostering it or inhibiting it:

Gay people are a serious threat to the existence of humanity, as serious as global warming. Does any of that rhetoric sound familiar?

Even the most casual observer of history cannot help but be struck by the chilling parallel.

Yet instead he capriciously couches his homophobia in the terms of environmentalism to legitimise it to his wider audience. The last point is equally salient though, and more concerning. The leader of the Catholic Church actually uses the language of social Darwinism, of Nazism, that we’re ‘against God and nature’, to justify his attack on everyone who doesn’t conform to baseline heterosexuality. A man who has lived through the Holocaust should know better – such words will only help to justify the ignorance of those who hate us. Peter Tatchell remarks:

Free market capitalism, and its culture of greed and consumerism, is a far greater threat to the ecological survival of our planet than homosexuality or transsexuality.

Is the Pope ignorant or malevolent?

The suggestion that gay people are a threat to human survival is absurd and dangerous. It is poisonous propaganda that will give comfort and succour to queer-bashers everywhere.

Homosexuality is a part of human ecology. It has existed in all cultures in all eras. At a time of global over-population, by not having children gay couples contribute to population stabilisation and thereby reduce pressure on over-strained natural resources. We are an ecological asset to humanity.

He may rhetorically overstate the counter-argument, but he’s obviously right in slamming Benedict for linking environmental protection with ‘gender protection’. With capitalism uniquely responsible for the destruction of the environment, as well increasing poverty during this ‘credit crunch’, it’s a disgrace that the leader of the Catholic Church should find time once again to prioritise blaming us for the world’s ills. He has indeed learned nothing from his time as a Nazi.

Time to Split Church From State

It’s an emotive time of year for the subject to have once again come up, but I’m going to confront it head on: the Anglican Church should, for everyone’s benefit, be disestablished from being a component of the British state.

That wasn’t so hard. Even the current Archbishop of Canterbury has acknowledged that the world wouldn’t come to a grinding halt if the church he leads (albeit barely). In his interview with the New Statesman he said:

“The answer’s yes.” He went on: “Because I grew up in a disestablished Church; I spent ten years working in a disestablished Church; and I can see that it’s by no means the end of the world if the Establishment disappears. The strength of it is that the last vestiges of state sanction disappeared, so when you took a vote at the Welsh Synod, it didn’t have to be nodded through by parliament afterwards. There is a certain integrity to that.”

Yet he was clear that ultimately it is not on the agenda. “At the same time, my unease about going for straight disestablishment is to do with the fact that it’s a very shaky time for the public presence of faith in society. I think the motives that would now drive disestablishment from the state side would be mostly to do with . . . trying to push religion into the private sphere, and that’s the point where I think I’d be bloody-minded and say, ‘Well, not on that basis.'”

An interesting point – that the church itself would benefit by losing the constraints it too has by being part of the state. I don’t however think there will ever be a ‘right’ time for doing so, and I don’t think the motives for wanting to do so are chiefly dictated by a desire to push religion into an exclusively private sphere. The split should happen now. When I attended this summer’s lecture by Bishop Gene Robinson, he made an unequivocal case that the church could and should have a leading role in pushing social change forward in this country, and his argument made a great deal of sense. Where the government and lobbying organisations are effective at changing laws, they are notoriously bad at bringing attitudes up to date as quickly. The Anglican Church is uniquely well positioned to act as the other half of that equation, but as long as it exerts privileges as an arm of the state, merely on the grounds of belief, I don’t believe it can do anything other than interfere and muddy the waters. The Telegraph argues otherwise:

The Archbishop of Canterbury is formally enshrined as the moral conscience of the state, a role that can sometimes be as deeply vexing to politicians as it is welcome, but that always bears the stamp of a long-held authority. Indeed, with growing co-operation between the faiths, the Archbishop of Canterbury is ever more likely to raise issues of pressing concern to a number of British spiritual leaders, and not simply members of the Church of England.

I can see where they’re coming from, but I don’t think Rowan Williams is understood to speak for anyone; in this day and age such authority and political legitimacy can only come from elected representatives. Even members of his own Church are increasingly disinclined to acknowledge his authority. Although his views are often highly regarded, I don’t believe Rowan Williams or any future Archbishop of Canterbury speaks for the nation, at least no more than the Queen does. While she remains head of state, she at least can lay claim to speaking out (and annually at that) from tradition if nothing else; not so the Archbishop. Inter-faith cooperation is happening independently of bishops sitting in the House of Lords, and would no doubt be strengthened by them setting their sights on community and not meddling in legislation:

the establishment is a great deal more than how the Queen gets crowned or who sits in the House of Lords. From the church’s perspective, at its heart is the idea that I, as a parish priest, am at the service of my parish and not just my congregation. Church of England churches are not religious clubs run for the benefit of members. We are – at best – a focus for the entire community. We serve religious and non-religious alike.

Terry Sanderson argues that way lies self-destruction:

Without the support of the state and left to its own devices, the Church of England would be dead and gone within decades, ripped apart by its own internal rivalries and left penniless by the indifference of the population.

But I’m not sure I agree with that either. Church attendance may be down, but the population certainly isn’t indifferent to religion. I would argue it’s Anglicanism’s loss of focus on the community which has crashed its popularity – Islam certainly isn’t doing badly, nor is African Christian church attendance. Split church from state and its internal rivalries will no doubt become more vociferous, but modernisers will also have an entirely free hand with which to reform the organisation and make it more relevant for the 21st century.

If the Church however is to remain part of the State, it needs to get its house in order – as does the state. Gene Robinson was quite right earlier in the year when he said it was madness for an established Church to be allowed to discriminate. If it’s to remain an established institution, it needs to live up to the ideals of equality and diversity which now characterise the modern state: it’s time for the institution’s inherent misogyny and homophobia to go, whatever the cost. The New Statesman believes:

Against the odds, Williams succeeded in raising the sights of his church beyond the destructive, inescapable issues of sexuality and gender, despite the best efforts of extremists on both sides to disrupt the ten-yearly Lambeth Conference, over which he presided in late summer.

He did nothing of the sort. Traditionalist extremists for the most part refused to attend, and he personally banned Gene Robinson from taking part, if not actually attending. While church is still part of state Archbishop Williams clearly judges his hands perversely to be tied to conservatism and tradition. Oddly it seems likely that were disestablishment actually to happen he would likely behave in a less subservient manner to the bigots in his organisation. In order to save the Church of England and allow it to evolve into the organisation it needs to be for the 21st century, it needs to be freed. Is it, as he implies in the initial quote, British parliamentarians who cause such a privately liberal man to behave in such a publicly illiberal way? Perhaps, but liberal Anglicans would argue it might also be a weakness of leadership which causes him to pander to regressive elements in the Communion.

Either way in an age of freedom, democracy and accountability, an organisation based entirely on faith and belief should not be allowed to operate as a component of the state. The ability to inhibit social change based entirely on faith and belief is a horrible anachronism which must be ended.  The Anglican Church’s voice undoubtedly needs to be heard, but on its own terms for the first time, with the freedom to stand up for morality worldwide.

Supporters of Prop 8 Are Manipulating Kids

It’s quite ironic to see supporters of homophobic Proposition 8 using children to express their bigotry:

Gerrie Schipske makes an excellent point regarding Prop 8 when she says:

The supporters of Proposition 8 are in fact waging a vigorous campaign with the assistance (financial and otherwise) of religious organisations and are providing materials for church bulletins to remind their members that Proposition 8 “restores the definition of marriage. God himself is the author of marriage. Its meaning is written in the very nature of man and woman as they come from the hand of the Creator.”

These supporters also warn that without the passage of Proposition 8 “Californians will be forced to not just be tolerant of gay lifestyles, but face mandatory compliance regardless of their personal beliefs.” The only problem is that Proposition 8 would actually do just that – force mandatory compliance of a religious belief “regardless of personal beliefs”.

And that’s at the heart of the argument about Prop 8. It was at the heart of Lilian Ladele’s argument, Graham Cogman’s argument, and all of this religious intrusion into secular public space. Except where Britain’s laws and constitution are muddled when it comes to the place of religion in civil society, as Schipske points out there is no such confusion in California – there is strict division between church and state. Proposition 8 is a religious-based initiative to rob the state of its secular responsibility not to discriminate precisely on the grounds of religion. Ladele and Cogman wrapped their arguments up in the same way – the law they said was discriminating against them by inhibiting (they believed) their ‘right’ to discriminate on the grounds of their religion. Britain’s equality laws being muddled and set against one another as they are is one thing, but the situation in California is another. Schipske reminds us:

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1808: “State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights.”

Homophobic Church Leaders vs. Their Flock

It’s interesting, that at a time when Stonewall has released a report which suggests that Church leaders are significantly more homophobic than their flock, it’s curious to see that the Rt Rev Daniel Deng – Archbishop of Sudan – has demanded at the Lambeth Conference that Bishop Gene Robinson resign for the sake of the Anglican Church:

“The people who consecrated him should confess to the conference because they created an outcry in the whole Anglican world. God is not making a mistake creating Adam and Eve – he would have created two Adams if he wanted. If he was a real Christian he would resign.”

If you’re reading this and gay, this argument will likely be one you’ve had thrown at you at least once before. A variation on Adam and Steve, eh? Such a tedious stereotype, which you’d expect of a child, or a young person, without any experience of self-reflection, not a so-called man of God. He’s actually demanding that Robinson collude in the bigotry of others – the arrogance is breathtaking. However:

Ben Summerskill, the Stonewall chief executive, said: “Witnessing the tragic divisions in the Church of England demonstrated at this week’s Lambeth Conference, it’s telling that so many people of faith say they actually live, work and socialise with lesbian and gay people, and that significantly reduces negative ideas about difference.”

Proof, albeit not necessarily definitive, that people are not as stupid as their representatives, either political or those of faith. In this country at least, it suggests that equality legislation has proven Gene Robinson’s approach right, in demonstrating to his ‘moveable middle’ of the religious community, that with full civil rights for us the world doesn’t come to an end – plagues don’t come down, social order doesn’t break down. Nutters like Deng can’t speak for them, because Stonewall’s side of social change is having an effect, in increasing our visibility through normalising everyone’s treatment before the law. The same approach is needed within the established Church, and Gene Robinson must stay put at all conceivable costs. In a society governed by the rule of law, to exclude religion from the need for equality really must be out of the question, partly on humane grounds, partly on those of diversity – just look how much better society operates when we all are free to take part equally within it!

I can’t help but be reminded by this of the fight in 2004 over same-sex marriage in the US (which of course persists). The persistent argument was that same-sex marriage on equal terms to heterosexuals would undermine heterosexual marriage – somehow if we were granted equal rights, it would be at the expense of those who already had them. It was homophobic nonsense when articulated by George W Bush, it is homophobic nonsense uttered now by Archbishop Deng.

Perhaps most alarmingly from the Archbishop:

Deng said there are no gay or lesbian people in Sudan.

Like Iran eh? Uganda? Nigeria? This claim, if not countered, is the most dangerous of all because it doesn’t allow for a difference of opinion, for shades of grey, or any scrutiny at all. He could say Robinson should resign because it’s politically necessary at this time in the Church’s history. My opinion in response would be to disagree – the opposite is politically necessary – but instead he’s playing up to homophobic superstitions, no doubt shoring up a cheap power base, which only encourages those who would dehumanise us. In Iran Ahmadinejad’s identical claim legitimises the torture and execution of gay people; for a man of God to offer the same argument is beyond shameful.

Iris Robinson: Hatemonger!

You remember the post a short time back about Iris Robinson, MP & MLP and her appalling comments on homosexuality and the furious exchanges which came from it? Well the chair of the Health Committee at the devolved Northern Irish Assembly has now well and truly poured a tanker of petrol on the fire:

“There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.”

Right. So gay people and gay sex are now not just as bad as murderers, but we and the way we express our relationships are now worse than child molesters too? She didn’t even say this on a radio show or in a TV interview – she actually had the nerve to say this to the Westminster Parliament. Madder than a bag of cats, I say, but when she was questioned by the Belfast Telegraph over the quote she went further:

“I cannot think of anything more sickening than a child being abused. It is comparable to the act of homosexuality. I think they are all comparable. I feel totally repulsed by both.”

She then said that her comments were not made out of hate.

“I am trying to reach out to people. I try to reach out and love them. That is what Christ teaches us. He wants us to help all people and give them an opportunity. We all have the opportunity to come to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything I say is out of love. I am not hate-mongering. I cannot leave my Christian values hanging at the door when I go into politics.

“I am speaking out more now because we are getting it more and more rammed down our throats that the minority views are more important than the majority views. I am not trying to alienate anyone. Anyone can come to me with any problems. I do not turn anyone away.

“I would never water down anything with the scriptures and I don’t think I should. I find it (the controversy over her comments) amazing, if not unexpected, as these days Christians are persecuted for their views but that will not stop me. There will be a judgement day and when I am judged I want to know that I did all I could to spread the word of God.”

Not hate-mongering eh? Sure you are. Can’t leave your Christian values at the door Iris? Well homophobia isn’t a religious value, so it’s really your choice. Given that your job and your profession are committed to the representation and equality of all, the attitudes which you are now clearly pushing are in direct contravention of those goals. Persecuted for your views? Sure you are – as I would hope any homophobe who tried to push their views in public were persecuted – quite right too; your religion doesn’t justify your homophobia. We live in a society governed by the rule of law, which aims for the equality of all, not the superstition of and interpretation of scripture by people who think they’re more equal than the rest of us merely because they have religion.

That she’s repulsed by homosexuality is her business (I fail to see why we need to have her personal tastes repeated to us again and again), and surely if she’s so put off by it (which you’d expect, being heterosexual) she just shouldn’t do it? The ego of this woman is quite breathtaking. Her argument whereby her religion justifies her bigotry really needs to be taken back and recast, as Sir Ian McKellen did in his interview on the Andrew Marr Show with Gene Robinson. The problem she and her ilk have is not persecution for their views, but a refusal to countenance social change they don’t like, and rather than taking responsibility for their homophobia they:

“root around in the Bible to discover the very few passages that seem to be relevant…the argument is one we have to…take seriously.”

Except of course the Bible has been interpreted, translated, reinterpreted and retranslated, not to mention having been written for a specific culture at a specific time in world history. To literally believe that every word in it is equally applicable now as it was then is to deny the responsibility we have to use our intellects. A book which cannot be critically evaluated is no better than a weapon, but even then we should remember that even fundamentalists like Iris do critically evaluate it – Iris is hardly going around arguing for the death penalty for adultery, is she? We indeed have to take her argument seriously, because it will be seductive to some, although underneath it’s about plain old hate.

Religious Homophobia – Emboldened!

First it was Lillian Ladele, now it’s Graham Cogman, a civil registrar, followed by a (surprise surprise) policeman, both of whom think that as Christians they have special rights which allow them to opt out of the flow of mainstream society, which is increasingly understanding towards diversity and respectful of equality. As my fellow blogger said the other day:

Beliefs are beliefs, they should be respected in as far as they don’t try to limit other people’s freedoms.

Yet policeman Graham Cogman, displaying no hint of irony in ‘coming out’ as a homophobic policeman, is following the same path as Lillian Ladele in trying to morally relativise homophobia within the diversity agenda, in arguing that as a Christian he doesn’t have to support the gay community:

The 49-year churchgoer, who circulated emails to officers quoting the biblical stance on homosexuality being a sin, claims he is being singled out because of his beliefs. The force has responded by saying it will not tolerate any “homophobic behaviour”.

Of course as a policeman you’d think he wouldn’t feel the need to justify his homophobia, yet he is claiming that as the Norfolk Police pursues its diversity agenda he is being ‘victimised’ because he believes gay sex is immoral. I know I’m not alone in getting quite sick to death of this, particularly hearing:

“The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult,” he said.

“I am not undertaking this action lightly but I have to make a stand when things become so blatantly biased against me just because I hold a faith.”

A Christian officer eh? No, you’re a police officer you idiot. You don’t get to pick and choose who you get to support and not support because of your religion, you have to serve and respect everyone equally. Of course it’s biased against you if you’re a homophobe because you don’t get to trample on other people’s rights because of your beliefs.

I’ll never in my life be a Christian, but can see full well that, particularly during this period of the Lambeth Conference, there has never been more of a need for Gene Robinson and people like him. These ideas of Cogman’s didn’t come out of the blue – he was taught the idea that gay people are less than straight people, and had it justified because of religion, when that religion preaches nothing of the sort. The Church, particularly because it is an established Church, really has to get its own house in order and start accepting that it can’t continue to preach discrimination and delude people like PC Cogman into an erroneous belief that they can withold equal treatment from the people they work for, not just because of magic and superstition, but because of outright homophobic lies. Homophobia is no less real when ‘justified’ by scripture and religion.

Of Demons and ‘Negative Foreign Cultures’

A war of prejudices is being played out at the Lambeth Conference, or more precisely through the absence of key bishops, ostensibly on the grounds of homophobia. That they dress it up as justified under a ‘post-colonial settlement’ doesn’t make it any less bigoted or unjustified, and the thing is most of them are African. Ian Baxter, of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, after his visit to the breakaway Gafcon in June wrote:

“One of the things in “The Way, the Truth and the Life,” one of the key points that you’ve written is to “prepare for an Anglican future in which the Gospel is uncompromised and Christ-centred” But the gospel is already compromised by bishops who support the jailing of lesbian and gay people throughout Africa, which then leads to rape, which leads to torture of people and yet they are not prepared to speak out against this and change the laws in their countries.”

Archbishop Akinola chose to respond, informing the world that he did not know of any such cases.

I asked again, was he really not aware of any who were in jail for being lesbian or gay?

He said he was not, and challenged me to give him an example.

This, I am sure, is where God intervened with one of his divine “coincidences”. My church in Manchester, the Metropolitan Community Church, has begun a campaign on behalf of Prossy Kakooza, a 26-year-old woman seeking asylum in the UK. She fled Uganda after suffering vicious sexual, physical and verbal attacks due to her sexual orientation. I had brought copies of the information about the case, with the hope of being able to distribute them to members of the media covering the conference. While answering Peter Akinola’s challenge to give him an example, I was able to reach down and pull the information out of the laptop bag at my feet and give the example requested.

The Archbishop then spoke at length about African culture and beliefs, and this was echoed by Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda. Neither of them chose to condemn the violence or comment on the particular case of Ms Kakooza.

Further questions followed but, just before the end, Riazat Butt of the Guardian asked a follow-up to my original question. Would the Archbishops condemn the torture and rape of Lesbian and Gay people? Again they would not.

Really telling, isn’t it? These are supposed to be spiritual men, who love their neighbour as themselves. And yet the conditionality that’s there undermines their entire calling. This isn’t a surprise when people like the Ugandan President ‘reject’ homosexuality:

The Ugandan President has spoken of his country’s “rejection” of homosexuality during a speech he gave at the wedding of a former MP’s daughter.

Yoweri Museveni said the purpose of life was to create children and that homosexuality was a “negative foreign culture.”

Right, so it’s because of those nasty old colonialists or it’s even our own imagination – it isn’t freely occurring in Africa. I remember the other night listening to Bishop Gene Robinson, who couldn’t understand how people could refuse to use their intellects to make reasonable interpretations of the Bible. The answer of course with people like Museveni is that there’s money and power in it – there always has been when people have played to people’s ignorance and fear throughout history. The film also showed just how 20th century a phenomenon it was to have individuals who were prepared to make all-time judgments and definitions of the Bible, life and existence, when it had previously been and is increasingly now seen as a text which should be interpreted in an evolutionary way as society develops – we don’t exactly go around stoning adulterers to death do we?

The Right Rev John Chane of Washington has spoken out against this too:

“I think it’s really very dangerous when someone stands up and says: ‘I have the way and I have the truth and I know how to interpret holy scripture and you are following what is the right way,'” he said “It’s really very, very dangerous and I think it’s demonic.

He’s right. The people doing this are a blight on their religion, as Iris Robinson is to whatever sect she adheres to. The remainder of the article is telling, because it suggests that, as with Iris Robinson’s and Lillian Ladele’s cases, the mainstream of all societies and their Church leaders, don’t necessarily go along with this naked bigotry. I don’t think Gene Robinson is right in wanting bigots like Peter Akinola at the same table as him – sometimes bigotry is chosen rather than through ignorance – but I’m not as giving and charitable a man as he. And the irony that neither of them is at the Lambeth Conference isn’t lost on me either. Simon Jenkins has a great point:

It might be simplest to conclude that these are the last twitches of the British empire. The mind and the body may be long dead, but the soul has taken some time to catch up. It must be absurd to expect 70 million worshippers worldwide to accept the “discipline and leadership” of an archbishop selected by just 1 million in distant England – especially when each of 38 archbishoprics are referred to as “self-governing”.

Equally absurd is to expect the cultures and belief systems of Polynesians, Chinese, Africans and Americans to harmonise with the fast changing social mores of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant diaspora. How can African bishops commune with gay American ones, whom they regard as in mortal sin?

How can they indeed? Perhaps the Church, particularly in the days where the market determines everything, really does need to fracture and concentrate on what it’s good at, within competing markets for spirituality. Except if it did, Gene Robinson’s ambition for the Church to be a means of changing hearts and minds – to become a tool for human rights, would then be lost. Someone needs to exert some leadership, and find a compromise which can get the Gene Robinsons and Peter Akinolas at least to the same table, to avoid an unprecedented lost opportunity:

The Church of England is confounded by an absurd argument over gender and sexual discrimination, albeit often as code for a growing challenge to the authority of what is seen abroad as a still imperial church. A looser confederation of churches, a commonwealth of faith, ought to be good news.

For the Bible Tells Me So

On Monday I went to the Queen Elizabeth Hall to attend the British premiere of ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’, a film detailing the painful relationship in the US between Christianity and homosexuality, which was followed by a question and answer session with the man who was the main focus of the film – Bishop Gene Robinson. Robinson was for some of the time interviewed by Sir Ian McKellen, co-founder of Stonewall, and it was a remarkable experience, being in the presence of two men who have transformed society around them. Whilst it was fascinating listening to Robinson on his own, having McKellen as a counter-point made it particularly inspiring. Witnessing their joint claim that society could only progress through their joint work – the atheist McKellen lobbying to change laws, directly affecting civil rights, with the religious Robinson working to change hearts and minds, felt like a sea-change in social campaigning was occurring in front of me. It’s a position you never hear organised religion or the non-religious taking – that both sides working together should be fundamentally essential for social change to work. Robinson had a lot more to say (the supporting quotes are from this Guardian article), which that night and in other interviews throughout his stay pretty much concentrated on using the Church as a tool for human rights. Given much of the Church’s current obsession with exclusion, intrusion where it isn’t needed, and its lack of attention to crime and inequality of opportunity in this country, that argument couldn’t have been more timely.

It was time to take back the Bible, he said, from those who used it as a weapon with which to bludgeon the most vulnerable in society.

And now, by the leading of that same Spirit, we are beginning to welcome those who have heretofore been marginalised or excluded altogether: people of colour, women, the physically challenged, and God’s children who happen to be gay.

God and the Church were not the same thing, he reminded us – as humans we get it wrong. He also didn’t think we’d see the day when homophobia was eradicated. He was ultimately comfortable with that however, because (as he put it) those who followed on from us would need our shoulders to stand on for their battles. He was going to Canterbury to remind the Lambeth Conference that ‘we’re here too’, and to remind them of their vows to serve all of their flock and not just some of them.

He thought it crazy that an established Church should be allowed to discriminate in any way at all. That it could meant we should ‘separate civil rights from religious rites’ – ie. distinguish the civil from the religious sphere. In the case of marriage, he advocated its restoration as a universal civil right, which could then be celebrated and blessed within and by the religious community, and not be identified as a religious institution which could then (in this country) be discriminated against (yes, they were in part talking about Lillian Ladele). When the religious people who reject us see that civil rights don’t mean the end of the world, he believed they would likely then follow an extension of the equality agenda of civil rights within their own, religious community.

If the African communion didn’t remain part of the worldwide Anglican communion, we wouldn’t be able to see the consequences of colonialism, racism and Bush’s adventurism. The world needed a model like that, he maintained, particularly with the world getting smaller, and the Anglican communion could offer this model. He wanted opponents like Archbishop Peter Akinola to stay within the Anglican communion for that reason, but also because they were both part of the same Church, Robinson would present for Akinola (and homophobes like him) the possibility by example of changing his worldview. (following quote from the video – transcript here)

We need each other. We need the voices from Africa and Asia and South America to tell those of us in the so called first world the ramifications of our racism, our colonialism and so on. We need each other really for our mutual salvation.

In describing what for him is an interactive God whom he worships, he wanted to make it clear to the audience that he understood Christianity to be something not uniquely locked up in a one-time, immovable, exclusive book of scripture, and used an example from the Bible to illustrate his point. In John’s Gospel Jesus said there was more to learn, but the people of the time couldn’t handle it (as opposed to now).

Jesus says a remarkable thing to his disciples at his last supper with them: “There is more that I would teach you, but you cannot bear it right now. So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.” Could it be that God revealed in Jesus Christ everything possible in a first-century Palestine setting to a ragtag band of fishermen and working men? Could it have been God’s plan all along to reveal more and more of himself and his will as the church grew and matured?

We have intellects, and should use them to make reasonable interpretations (about the Bible), he maintained.

This is the God I know in my life – who loves me, interacts with me, teaches and summons me closer and closer to God’s truth. This God is alive and well and active in the church – not locked up in scripture 2,000 years ago, having said everything that needed to be said, but rather still interacting with us, calling us to love one another as he loves us. It is the brilliance of Anglicanism that we first and foremost read scripture, and then interpret it in light of church tradition and human reason.

It was possible, he believed, to reach people in the ‘moveable middle’ – those who weren’t rejecting of gay people but who weren’t fully accepting, and this pretty much summarised why he’s here. The Anglican Church is fracturing because traditionalists can’t abide the inclusion of women and out gay people, and modernists similarly won’t concede to the rigidity of traditionalists. Just the other day the General Synod backed the appointment of female bishops, flying in the face of traditionalists such as the aforementioned Akinola and their Gafcon. The position towards Robinson however remains acrimonious on both sides. He was barred from the Lambeth Conference, and he says:

“I think a mistake was made in not including me in those conversations. I was the only openly gay voice that might have been at the table. But I will do all I can from the fringe. Miracles happen when people who are divided by something get to know one another.”

McKellen though went deeper:

Just looking at it from the outside, the church thinks it’s got a particular problem with some articles, perhaps not of faith but of, written in the Bible that they refer to. And I can remember the armed forces not that long ago saying they had a particular problem – it was all to do with discipline. Well it’s just been discovered there is no discipline problems when you let gay people into the military. And schools too. Well we’ve got a particular problem.The particular problem they’ve all got and share is homophobia. And having it they root around in the Bible to discover the very few passages that seem to be relevant. But people like the Bishop, like the Quakers, like many people I marched with in Gay Pride last week, gay Christians, gay Jews, gay Muslims are at ease with their faith and their position in society.

Both of them really are looking at the identical issue from completely different angles. It’ll be fascinating to see what happens to them next, both singly and together. I must confess that when Ian said he was so moved by Robinson that he’d nearly converted him to Christianity there and then, I shared a similar feeling. Gene Robinson is an unquestionably great man; at a time when Chuch attendance is at an all time low, Lambeth Palace risks damaging itself yet further by excluding him.

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