More from Doug Chaplin on Scripture and Homosexuality

Doug Chaplin is beginning a very thoughtful exploration of what the Bible has to say about homosexuality. He begins with the really tough stuff in Leviticus. The result so far is a very thoughtful explanation of issues that need addressing. As yet, Doug reaches no conclusions. Here are some highlights:

The two texts I want to address in this post are among them. (And yes, dear reader, I know there are other texts, but one post at a time, please!)

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. (Leviticus 18:22)
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. (Leviticus 20:13)

. . .

At one level, it seems to me that we can have some agreement about these texts themselves. They say pretty much the same thing, although the second elaborates and adds the punishment. . . .

Moving beyond that to further interpretation is far from straightforward, however. At the most basic level, there is little obvious historical context. The development of the legal materials, the possibility of a separate Holiness Code (Lev 17-26) being incorporated into (later?) P material, the dating of earlier and final recensions all leave much of this lacking a clear cultural context within which to understand it. One possibility might well be pagan temple prostitution, or other cultic sexual activity. But it might not have that kind of connection at all. It may, as with so many other features of the priestly writings, be concerned with a particular construction of what is order, and therefore safe, and what chaos, and therefore dangerous. It could be held that there is a quite rational emphasis on the maintenance of sex for procreation, and procreation alone, at a time when mortality rates made this a matter of elementary survival and the common good. Non-procreative sex threatens the well-being of the community of Israel.

It seems to me impossible to adjudicate between these possible interpretations, and quite likely that there are elements of all three. In every case, the text is implicated in a particular context. The third context is one that some parts of the world can still identify with, and it also raises some awkward questions for heterosexual people, and the ways in which the modern West (at least outside the Roman Catholic Magisterium) conceptualises sex. The second possibility may lead to some of the more interesting and fruitful questions in cross-cultural interpretation. Order and chaos are primal categories, theologically, culturally, politically and psychologically. Saying the text needs interpretation is not the same as immediately kissing it goodbye.

The other issue that confronts and confuses the interpreter however, is one of selection. . . . Everyone selects, and so everyone interprets. These troubling verses are surrounded (staying within the boundaries of the so-called Holiness Code)by some very different ones. It includes laws that are reinforced in the New Testament and are regarded effectively as universal moral laws, such as “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). It includes laws that no Christian even begins to think might be applicable today, such as “You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.” (Leviticus 19:27).

It contains laws that the Church now regards as incompatible with its understanding of the will of God: “As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves.” (Leviticus 25:44). Nonetheless, for a large part of Christian history, tradition saw this law as perfectly acceptable. It contains laws that the Church, or modern society, has effectively sidelined, and which are rarely debated: “Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from them, but fear your God; let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance, or provide them food at a profit.” (Leviticus 25:36-37). By contrast with the law on slaves, for the larger part of Christian history, the church thought this law was of ongoing significance, and revealed the will of God for Christian society.

Laws dealing with sex are mixed up with laws dealing with sacrifice, conduct for priests, general ethical behaviour, and other matters. The question of interpretation is not a cop-out, nor a way of avoiding difficulties. It is a necessary response to the nature of the text and in particular to the reading of Leviticus, where the selective and variable nature of Christian interpretation is perhaps at its most obvious. We Christians, at least, do select, and our selections appear to change. The question is “have we made the right selections?” Are our selections truly refracted through the gospel?

Doug promises more--this promises to be a very thoughtful series. Read it all here (including some very good comments already).

Another Post on Children and Happiness

I previously posted about research that purported to show that childless couples are happier than couples with children. In that post, I concluded that "Parenting is hard stuff. It can be very unpleasant at times. It can be boring at times. But, parenting (and loving) a child does give life meaning--and yes, deep happiness as well." Rod Dreher makes a similar point in a post that is worth reading:

By the time I got married, I was really sick of being single, and I didn't regret one bit giving up the autonomy of bachelorhood. Impending fatherhood, though, made me nervous. My sister, who married and started her family long before I did, told me not long before our first child was born,

"You and Julie are going to lose a lot. You won't be able to go do all the things you like to do now. You're either not going to have the time, or the money, or the energy. That part of your life is over now, and there's no sugarcoating it. But what you don't know is that another part is about to start. You really can't know what it's like to spend an entire Friday evening at home, just staring at your new baby, and to be happier than you ever imagined you could be. I can tell you this is going to happen to you, and you might believe me or you might not. But once you've lived it, you'll know what I mean."

So I lived it. I know exactly what she means. Now, with three kids of my own and 10 years of marriage behind me, I tell friends who are single, or who are married and contemplating children, that they really can't prepare for it. Both experiences are so life-changing that it's really hard to make someone who hasn't gone through it understand how much it alters your daily life. But if you go into both experiences with the right spirit, what you lose in terms of personal mobility and individual freedom will more than be made up for in the joy you receive back.

If you conceive perfect happiness as a constant state of maximized choice, then there's no way a spouse of children can be anything but a burden. But that's no way to conceive happiness.

Read it all here. Read a Newsweek article on the topic that started all this discussion here.

New Field Poll on California Same Sex Marriage Ban and a Story of Conversion

A new Field poll released today shows a bare majority opposing the ban:

In a finding that could foreshadow a difficult political battle for a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage, a new Field Poll says more California voters oppose Proposition 8 than favor it.

The new poll, released today, is the first independent statewide measure of public opinion on the proposed constitutional ban since gay men and lesbians began marrying legally in California on June 16. It was also the first time Field Research has polled voters on the official ballot description of Proposition 8. A narrow majority of 51 percent of 672 likely voters said they would vote against a ban, while 42 percent said they would vote for it.

. . .

"Very few initiatives in the history of the Field Poll have started out behind and come from behind to be approved," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. "The fact that (Proposition 8) is behind does not bode well for its chances."

. . .

But supporters of the measure still take heart from the Proposition 22 fight, noting that Field Poll projected somewhat less support before the 2000 election than the measure actually received. A Los Angeles Times poll in May found the constitutional ban leading 54 percent to 35 percent among registered voters.

I think this is just the begininng of a hugely important political battle in California. I therefore discount the real importance of the topline numbers above. What I find interesting is this explanation of who opposes the ban:

People who personally know or work with a gay man or a lesbian were much more likely to oppose a ban than those who said they don't.

The new poll and earlier Field results also suggest that some Californians who are uncomfortable with the concept of same-sex marriage still may not support changing the state constitution, DiCamillo said.

That, to me, confirms my own experience: Attitudes about gay and lesbians change dramatically when people actually get to know real gays and lesbians. The Arizona Republic recently gave the example of hard-right Legislator Karen Johnson, whose attitudes changed after befriending two gay legislators:

The 67-year-old's smile faded and her voice cracked as she shook her head. "Why do you have to live to be in your early 60s . . . before you learn a lot of this stuff?" she asked. "I hope I can help my children, who are way younger, to be learning this now so they don't have to wait as long as their mom did to learn some of these things."

When Johnson's legislative career began, following her election in November 1996, she prepared a bill that would have made sodomy a felony and would have banned gay groups from high-school and university campuses. Johnson said, at the time, that she didn't want gays recruiting on campus.

As her legislative duties were coming to a close this June, she was torn over one of her final votes, saying she didn't think it was a good idea to ask voters to ban gay marriage.

Johnson's transformation came about partly because of a seating assignment in the state Senate. In 2005, when Johnson moved from the House to the Senate, she was seated to the left of Sen. Ken Cheuvront of Phoenix and in front of Sen. Paula Aboud of Tucson. Both are gay Democrats.

Some political observers expected fireworks when they found out Cheuvront and Johnson would be seated side by side. "I knew there wasn't going to be a problem sitting next to Ken," Johnson said. "I had no idea that we'd become as good of friends as we'd become. Ken is a very special and very dear person."

Cheuvront said the friendship began slowly, during dead times in the Senate. "And unlike in the House, where all the Democrats are on one side and the Republicans on the other, here they kind of mix you up," he said. "And because of that, you get to know people."

Johnson once thought gay people were doomed to hell. She no longer feels that way. "I'm sure there's a percentage of homosexual people who are going to do just fine because they're good, honest, decent, loving, kind people," she said.

Read it all here. You can read the actual poll here.

A Post on Lambeth

There is a great deal of press interest in Lambeth, which seems to be demanding some type of action--whether it is a resolution that solves all that ails the Anglican Communion, a fire storm over gay Bishops, or at least some some typical anglican fudge. In other words, the press (and truth be told, many of the faithful) are watching the Lambeth Conference as if it were some political assembly--which it was seemingly in 1998.

But that is not what Lambeth is designed to be this year. As my own Bishop explains, the days are being spent in Bible Study, meditation, and small group discussions. For example, here is how he describes the first day:

We have just finished our first long day. It began with worship together in the "Big Top" at 7:15 AM. After breakfast, we had our first small group Bible study.

There are about six in my group,from England, Australia, the West Indies, and my colleague from Hawaii. Then all the bishops got on buses and for the short trip to Canterbury Cathedral.

We sat "collegiate style" on each side of the nave, and Rowan Williams spoke to us about our ministry as bishops. Each of two meditations was followed by a time for silent reflection in the cathedral. It was closed to the public for this "retreat" so in between being prayerful and still, I wandered around and looked at the building undisturbed. The retreat lasted until about 4 when we finished with Evensong.

It seems to me that the Archbishop of Canterbury has wisely decided that it is time for the Bishops to act like clergy, not politicians.

I find that refreshing.

Christianity Today Readers Favor Obama

Christianity Today is the leading publication for evangelicals in America. Despite my anglo-Catholic leanings, I am a big fan and avid reader. As perhaps an indication of the appeal of Obama to many evangelicals, the Christianity Today political blog is reporting that its readers are suppporting Obama over McCain in their online poll. Now this poll is hardly scientific,and a scientific poll of Christianity Today's readers would likley reach a different result. Still, do you think Kerry ever did as well on this poll?

Here is what the blog has to say:

Christianity Today online readers showed more support for Sen. Barack Obama than Sen. John McCain in our poll this week for the first time since January.

Obama passed McCain (41%) by garnering 51 percent of the vote during our poll that closed yesterday. In June, McCain led Obama 50 to 33 percent. The two were tied in March at 26 percent.

Here's a rundown of results from Jan. 4 (1,613 votes), March 3 (1964 votes), April 1 (2,668 votes), June 9 (3,007 votes), and July 10 (3,189 votes). Be sure to take the polls with a grain of salt - they are conducted online and are usually left up for about three days.

Read it all here.

Europe's Ancestors: Cro-Magnon 28,000 Years Old Had DNA Like Modern Humans

A very interesting report on some DNa analysis done on a 28,000 Cro-Magnon man skelton:

Some 40,000 years ago, Cro-Magnons -- the first people who had a skeleton that looked anatomically modern -- entered Europe, coming from Africa. A group of geneticists, coordinated by Guido Barbujani and David Caramelli of the Universities of Ferrara and Florence, shows that a Cro-Magnoid individual who lived in Southern Italy 28,000 years ago was a modern European, genetically as well as anatomically.

The Cro-Magnoid people long coexisted in Europe with other humans, the Neandertals, whose anatomy and DNA were clearly different from ours. However, obtaining a reliable sequence of Cro-Magnoid DNA was technically challenging.

"The risk in the study of ancient individuals is to attribute to the fossil specimen the DNA left there by archaeologists or biologists who manipulated it," Barbujani says. "To avoid that, we followed all phases of the retrieval of the fossil bones and typed the DNA sequences of all people who had any contacts with them."

The researchers wrote in the newly published paper: "The Paglicci 23 individual carried a mtDNA sequence that is still common in Europe, and which radically differs from those of the almost contemporary Neandertals, demonstrating a genealogical continuity across 28,000 years, from Cro-Magnoid to modern Europeans."

The results demonstrate for the first time that the anatomical differences between Neandertals and Cro-Magnoids were associated with clear genetic differences. The Neandertal people, who lived in Europe for nearly 300,000 years, are not the ancestors of modern Europeans.

Read it here.

Obama and Abortion

I wrote earlier about two voices on the pro-life left urging Obama to adopt an "abortion reduction" plank in the platform. In other words, while Obama would remain "pro-choice" on the issue of the legality of abortion, he would propose concrete efforts to reduce abortion.

Steven Waldman reports that many pro-choice voices are not happy:

An important split is emerging within the Democratic Party over abortion. Barack Obama’s reaction to it will tell us a great deal about how he intends to unify people of different views and manage key voting blocs.

A group of progressive evangelicals, including the Rev. Jim Wallis, has urged Sen. Obama to embrace an “abortion reduction agenda” that focuses on improving economic support for women so they won’t feel financially pressured into having abortions. The Rev. Tony Campolo, a member of the Democratic Party platform committee, announced that he’s going to mobilize an effort get an abortion reduction plank into the party platform.

Pro-choice activists have reacted angrily. Kate Michelman, the former head of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, declared on Salon.com that Mr. Wallis and company were implying that “given the choice, having a baby is a more moral choice.” Their approach will therefore “be understood for what it is: condescending and sexist.”

To which I respond: since when did the pro-choice position on abortion foreclose the view that abortions are a tragic and unfortunate choice? Since when did being pro-choice mean you have to be pro-abortion? Given that abortion and poverty are highly correlated, what is it about the abortion reduction plank that Michalman opposes? Adoption subsidies? Better access to health care? How is it sexist to want to provide financial support to women facing a difficult moral choice? Heck, isn't the entire "choice" message adopted by abortion rights advocates for the very reason that they don't want to be viewed as pro-abortion?

In my view, it is simply wrong--both morally and politically--to assert the view that the decision to abort a child is a morally neutral choice.

Waldman then proceeds to discuss the political choice facing Obama:

Sen. Obama’s moves on abortion have seemed clumsy. He made news by saying he supported a ban on “partial birth” abortions except if the mother’s life or health was seriously threatened – only to back off and add “mental health” to the list of exemptions.

Sen. Obama’s approach has been to combine pro-choice policies with conspicuous respectfulness of pro-life people. While he supports the Freedom of Choice Act, which would potentially roll back state restrictions on abortion, his Web site declares that he “respects those who disagree with him.” In his book “The Audacity of Hope,” he recounted how a pro-life protester had once offered to pray for him: “I said a prayer of my own – that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that had been extended to me.”

His most evangelical-friendly formulation came in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network. “Abortion is a deeply moral issue and those who deny there’s a moral component to it are wrong,” he said, adding that he trusted women to make “a prayerful decision” and said sex education needed to impart the “sacredness of sexuality.”

You might think: how can this furrowed-brow strategy possibly work? Pro-life people surely won’t be lured by empathetic words if his policies go the other way. Some won’t but some will. For some centrist Catholics and moderate evangelicals, disgust with the Democratic Party was less about policy than perceived contemptuousness of pro-life people.

Read it all here.

The politics are difficult, but I think the abortion reduction plank reflects the consensus views of most Americans--they are troubled by abortion as a moral issue, but still support leaving the decision to women. By embracing the legal right to abortion, while still offering concrete efforts to reduce abortion, Obama would have a political home run. And even more importantly, he will have done far more to reduce abortions than any pro-Life President.

Let's Get Rid of Darwinism

No, I am not changing my views on evolution. The title of this post is a wonderful column by Olivia Judson about why we need to stop using the term "Darwinism":

Darwin did more in one lifetime than most of us could hope to accomplish in two. But his giantism has had an odd and problematic consequence. It’s a tendency for everyone to refer back to him. “Why Darwin was wrong about X”; “Was Darwin wrong about Y?”; “What Darwin didn’t know about Z” — these are common headlines in newspapers and magazines, in both the biological and the general literature. Then there are the words: Darwinism (sometimes used with the prefix “neo”), Darwinist (ditto), Darwinian.

Why is this a problem? Because it’s all grossly misleading. It suggests that Darwin was the beginning and the end, the alpha and omega, of evolutionary biology, and that the subject hasn’t changed much in the 149 years since the publication of the “Origin.”

He wasn’t, and it has. Although several of his ideas — natural and sexual selection among them — remain cornerstones of modern evolutionary biology, the field as a whole has been transformed. If we were to go back in a time machine and fetch him to the present day, he’d find much of evolutionary biology unintelligible — at least until he’d had time to study genetics, statistics and computer science.

Oh, there would be so much to tell him! A full list would take me weeks to write out. But the obvious place to begin would be the discoveries of genetics, especially DNA. We’d have to explain that cells in each organism contain a code describing how to build that organism, written in chemical form — DNA — that evolutionary forces are constantly rewriting. Indeed, the study of DNA allows us to see the action of natural selection on a molecule-by-molecule basis. We can see the genes where natural selection acts to prevent evolutionary change, those where it drives change and those where it has no effect at all.

Then there’s the fusion of genetics with natural selection, which has enormously expanded our understanding of how natural selection can work. For example, it has led to the discovery that natural selection does not just shape individuals — the length of a beak, the color of a fin. It can also act on family groups, and thus drive the evolution of cooperation and other altruistic behaviors.

The reason is that evolutionary success can now be measured in terms of the number of genes an individual contributes to the next generation. Anyone who dies without reproducing does not directly contribute any. But because individuals have some genes in common with their family members, they can make an indirect genetic contribution if they help their relations to reproduce instead of reproducing themselves. Such “kin selection” is thought to have contributed to the evolution of the social insects — especially, ants, bees, wasps and termites — where only a few individuals reproduce and everyone else looks after the offspring.

We’d want to discuss evolution beyond natural selection — the other forces that can sometimes cause (or prevent) evolutionary change. For although natural selection is the only creative force in evolution — the only one that can produce complex structures such as wings and eyes — it is not the only force that affects which genes will spread, and which will vanish.

. . .

To return to my argument: I’d like to abolish the insidious terms Darwinism, Darwinist and Darwinian. They suggest a false narrowness to the field of modern evolutionary biology, as though it was the brainchild of a single person 150 years ago, rather than a vast, complex and evolving subject to which many other great figures have contributed. (The science would be in a sorry state if one man 150 years ago had, in fact, discovered everything there was to say.) Obsessively focusing on Darwin, perpetually asking whether he was right about this or that, implies that the discovery of something he didn’t think of or know about somehow undermines or threatens the whole enterprise of evolutionary biology today.

It does not. In the years ahead, I predict we will continue to refine our understanding of natural selection, and continue to discover new ways in which it can shape genes and genomes. Indeed, as genetic data continues to flood into the databanks, we will be able to ask questions about the detailed workings of evolution that it has not been possible to ask before.

Read it all here.

Doug Chaplin on Scripture and Homosexuality

Doug Chaplin is a parish priest in the Church of England who seems squarely in the middle on most issues. He had a post last week defending the ordination of women. I love his blog because he is both unpredictable--and thoughtful. Today he has a thoughtful post on the issues of sexuality that divide the Anglican Communion. He comes to different conclusions than me, but his comments are still worth reading. Here are some highlights:

I have (with considerable trepidation) decided to offer some periodic posts on some of the ways Anglicans (okay – and others) are reading, are not reading, could be reading and should be reading their Bibles about same-sex relationships. . . .

I think we’re standing at a point where, in the light of all our knowledge, it seems reasonable to ask whether this is one of those occasions for the church to engage in the kind of drastic re-reading of texts we thought we knew. This is the relevance of, for example, the admission of Gentiles, or the banning of slavery. In those debates, which were as divisive and acrimonious as the present one, what won the day for the overturning of traditional readings of scripture was the conviction that other readings of scripture were truer both to the overall reading, and to the core of the gospel. That is, even if it remains the case that specific texts and the traditional reading of them did support the exclusion of the Gentiles, or the owning of slaves, they were texts that needed to be placed in the tradition’s archives in the light of reading the text as a Christocentric, salvific and truly life-giving whole.

It does not seem to me that those seeking such a drastic re-reading of the texts have yet made a fully-convincing case, far less a compelling one. Some have simply seen no need to do so. That does not mean that others will never do so. I personally hope they will. Equally, while I think that absent such compelling arguments, the traditional readings need respecting, I have to say that the venom and desperation of some, together with some dubious arguments, suggest to me that the traditional reading not only has its weaknesses, but that it produces some very sour fruit. It is possible, of course, like 1066 and All That’s roundheads and cavaliers, to be respectively right but repulsive, and wrong but romantic. But as Jesus might well have said: “It shall not be so among you.” Repulsiveness is not a Christian virtue.

The true gem in Chaplin's post, however, is not his conclusion that the case has not yet been made to re-read Scripture. Rather the gem is his point that we may be asking the wrong question:

The answers we get are of course shaped by the questions we ask. It seems that the question many are asking is “Does the Bible condemn same-sex practices?” Apart from the dubious idea that the Bible says or condemns anything, I think this is the wrong question, because it is focussed on an abstracted behaviour, not on people. What matters, it seems to me, are the questions about how we can love one another, share God’s love with and for each other, and seek to respond as faithfully as we can to God’s calling. In that light the questions are perhaps better framed as “How do we (given that some of us are gay and others straight) follow Christ faithfully”? and “How do we (given that some of us are straight and others gay) love our brothers and sisters and help them follow Christ faithfully?” The parenthetical part of those questions could easily be omitted (or written vice versa) without significantly affecting most of the answers.

When framed in those terms, it is quite clear that 90% (at least) of the answers we get from our reading of scripture will be just the same in relation to both gay and straight people. Questions of sexuality are a small (but significant) subset about the ways in which we love God and our neighbour. We are not talking two headed Martians but fellow disciples and fellow creatures, alike the favoured recipients of God’s love and vocation. Any attempts to read or re-read scripture that seem to forget or disregard that common graced humanity will not take us very far. There may be better questions than the ones I suggest here, but they’re the best I’ve come up with, and the ones I intend to take forward on this effort at reading.

Read it all here. (By the way, g posted about one scholar's argument that we do need to rethink Scriputure on homosexuality here.

Bishop Kirk Smith's Sermon at St. Albans

My Bishop, Kirk smith, is blogging from Lambeth, and his blog offers the text of the sermon he gave at St. Albans Cathedral in the U.K. last night. Here are some highlights:

The medieval scholars used to say, Ecclesia semper reformanda, the church is always being reformed. In Jesus’ day the Temple worship had become big business, with a complex and expensive bureaucracy of sacrifice, it needed a through housecleaning and reminder that its purpose was to be the house of God, not a currency exchange or a shopping mall. I would suggest that in the case of the Anglican Communion we have become equally derailed by at least a decade of power politics and bickering about structures which have little relevance to the needs of our parishioners, and have for at least a decade distracted the wider church from its Gospel mission. We too are need of a reformation, of a cleansing and purification. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that the issues we have dealt with are not important. As practitioners of an incarnational faith, it is right and proper for us to enter into discussions about human sexuality. As members of a body which was founded by Jesus to be radically inclusive. It is essential that we be a place which is totally welcoming and affirming to all sorts and conditions of people, especially those who have been historically excluded from society and the life of the church, women, gay and lesbian folk, children, and those marginalized because of race or class. I am very proud of what the American Episcopal Church has done to include all people. To me, our prayerfully early inclusion of women as priests and bishops, our outspoken involvement in the fight against AIDs/HIV, and our ordination of monogamous gay lesbian people as priests and bishop. All of this is mandated by our baptismal vows. To put it bluntly, if we disqualify certain groups of people from ordination, then why baptize them? For me there can be no second class citizens in the Kingdom of God. Where the Church needs reformation is not in the area of belief, but the way we treat each other. Our problem is not purity of doctrine but lack of Christian charity. Our divisions not only distract us from our real mission, but thy make us a laughing stock to the rest of the world. It breaks my heart to see the time and money we have wasted fighting with one another. I have watched many of my conservative friend’s leave the church because they feel there is no place for them, while many gay and lesbian people have turned their backs because we have not moved fast enough. And now in the latest development, a group of very conservative Anglicans meeting in Jerusalem last week has defacto declared itself to be a church within a church. They have separated themselves, in spite of the rhetoric to the contrary, not because of theology, but because in their eyes certain of God’s children can never be loveable to God, even though one member of the conference claimed, “just because we think gay people should be in jail doesn’t mean we are homophobic.” So what we have left this summer is the Anglican Communion, meeting in Canterbury, and the Anti-gay-lican Communion meeting in Jerusalem. The real tragedy is that while we as bishops attack each other’s orthodoxy, a hurting world goes unheeded. It seems downright demonic to me that while Africa implodes in starvation, epidemic, corruption and genocide, so many of its bishops felt that the best use of their time and money was to travel to Jerusalem to help a small group of a handful of fat cat white churches in suburban Virginia separate from the American Church. The result of the preoccupation with doctrinal purity has resulted first of all in neglect of the desperate physical and needs of the rest of the world. When former Archbishop of Ireland Robin Eames spoke on this topic a while back, he used an image that I will never forget. A starving small child sits in the middle of the world stage, holding a begging bowl. She watches as well dressed clerics cross back and forth in front of her carrying the latest proclamation, covenant, or committee report. So busy are they, that they don’t even notice her stares of supplications. After a while, the child dies, but the clerics, we Christians, keep walking. And we are not only ignoring physical needs, we are failing to meet spiritual hunger as well. I come from a country where 90% of the populations say they believe in God, but only 30% goes to church. 11,000 people a week move to the Diocese of Arizona, most of them unchurched—but who wants to join a church where its leaders lie and steal from one another, and where the air is heavy with insults when the only name we should be calling one other is brother and sister.

Read it all here.

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Anglican Tradition and Women Priests

Ruth Gledhill had an interesting post on her blog this weekend about new evidence that the Church ordained women up until the 12th Century--putting in doubt the notion that women priests are contrary to tradition:

This morning, on Today, US theologian Professor Gary Macy was explaining his theory that the Church ordained women up until the 12th century and that women had episcopal authority until much later. Earlier this week he sent me his entire paper on the subject. I've also put a couple of extracts below.

Macy writes:

'Women in the Middle Ages played a far larger role in the life of the Church than they would in later centuries. In the early Middle Ages, they performed both sacramental and administrative functions that would be reserved to men after the thirteenth century. They celebrated the Mass, distributed communion, read the Gospel, heard confessions and preached. Some abbesses also exercised episcopal power, and indeed, a few were considered bishops. The powerful Abbess of Las Huelgas in Spain continued to wear her miter and exercise administrative episcopal power until 1874. This paper will discuss the evidence for these claims.'

'The Council of NÓmes, held in 394, noting that “women seemed to have been assumed into levitical service,” ordered that “such ordination should be undone when it is effected contrary to reason. It should be seen that no one so presume in the future.” It is quite likely that the ministry of women to the Eucharist was being discussed here, although some scholars have argued that it was the diaconate rather than the presbyterate that the Council intended to forbid. Ninety years later, in 494, Pope Gelasius in a letter to the bishops of southern Italy and Sicily also spoke out against bishops who were allowing women to serve at the altar. Gelasius had heard that “women are confirmed to minister at the sacred altars and to perform all matters imputed only to the service of the male sex and for which women are not competent.'

The full essay, Women and the Shaping of Catholicism, is to be published by Liguori Press in December later this year.

Read it all here.