Bishop rethinks sexuality
A Gippsland bishop has told his Synod meeting he questions if Christians can still interpret Biblical references to sexuality in the same way “now we know that it is simply a reality of some people’s lives to be same-sex attracted, and not a perverse choice made by them.”
Addressing his Diocesan Synod in Sale last month, Bishop John McIntyre said he had moved “to a new place in my understanding of the place of same-sex attracted people in the life of the church.”
“I have come to know and acknowledge that the fruit of their works makes clear that God has been and is at work in and through gay and lesbian people, who for years have been a part of our church, in both lay and ordained ministries.”
McIntyre said the Church, in the name of orthodoxy, treated gay and lesbian people “rather shabbily”, comparing their treatment with Galileo’s persecution over proving the earth was round, not flat.
Regarding same-sex marriage McIntyre said: “Is there not an argument that all people should have access to the institution of marriage, precisely in order to guarantee under law the ongoing protection of children, the good order of society and the rights of those who are in committed life-long relationships? And is it not perhaps unjust to deny the rights of any group of people to that access?”
McIntyre said he was not demanding all Anglicans agree with him.
“We can stay together in the unity of Christ with our differences, and in grace we can continue to learn from each other,” he said.
- Tags: Anglican Church, Bishop John McIntyre, Blaze, Gippsland, MCV, Melbourne, Queensland Pride, Spirituality, SX
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Michael Magnusson
Michael has written for the gay media for over a decade and has also written for a number of journals, magazines and street presses around Melbourne and websites around the world.
Comments (3)
Note that this bishop is Anglican, not Catholic. Anglicanism is truly a broad church at all levels.
But you will never hear a Catholic bishop, priest or official publicly make supportive statements of marriage equality and survive. Such a person would be defrocked or excommunicated.
Yet the Catholic flock *is* broad in its opinions. So you have this bizarre disconnect between a medieval pope and his enforcers on one hand, and the broader Catholic church on the other.
Daniel, just as New Testamount condemnation of homosexuality is ideologically driven, cannot the same be said of the belief itself? Where's the truth in being born under a "wondering star" that much of Christianity is based on?
Attempting to use the Bible to condemn homosexuality is very much ideologically based. The Old Testament only mentions homosexual acts twice, in Leviticus. But the OT also orders that women who are found not to be virgins at time of marriage be stoned to death and rebellious adolescents also be put to death. It's pick & choose your flavour with the OT. Paul refers to straight people being given over to "shameful lusts" as punishment for their wickedness - that doesn't refer to people born gay obviously. The only other times Paul is supposed to mention homosexuality he uses an obscure term which he himself coined "arsenokoites", literally "man-bedder" which is translated in the King James Version as "abusers of themselves with mankind" and was for a long time universally considered to refer to masturbation, rape or temple prostitution. Actually no one can be certain what it means. Paul made the words up and he was presumably speaking of a sin so obvious to the immediate recipients of his letters he did not feel it necessary to elaborate. "Arsenokoites" only began to be translated as "homosexual" in very recent new translations of the Bible, after the word had been coined in 1892 by Dr. Harry Benjamin and had come into popular usage. So it would seem that modern translators are more driven by ideology than the Holy Spirit. Interestingly Jesus never mentions homosexuality at all, which seems strange if it's such a terrible, abominable sin. Jesus does however speak of eunuchs who were born as such, eunuchs who were made that way, and who choose to be such for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, a reference which may well refer to people being born gay, which is how some ancient church fathers certainly interpreted it.