From Independent.ie (Ireland):
By David Quinn
Friday August 08 2008
LIBERALS are fond of brow-beating the Churches about sectarianism and disunity. These twin evils, they say with some justification, are harmful to society because they set one group against another and because sectarianism is, at the very least, uncivil.
It now transpires that all this liberal bleating about sectarianism and disunity was exactly that, bleating. But it was also hypocritical because when it suits their agenda liberals are very inclined to use sectarian language of their own and have no hesitation adding to the already deep divisions between the Churches.
The Anglican Communion, of which our own Church of Ireland is a part, has just finished its once-a-decade Lambeth meeting in England which gathers together all the Primates of the Anglican world.
Or at least it should gather them all. But this one didn't. Fully a quarter of Anglican bishops stayed away from the event because liberal Anglicans have plunged their Communion into a crisis over the issue of homosexual clergy.
The Church of England itself is also in crisis because of its recent decision to ordain women bishops.
For liberals this is a matter of principle. Equality is equality. If men can be made bishops, then why not women? Likewise, if sexually active heterosexuals can be made priests and bishops, then why not sexually active homosexuals as well? The questions are unanswerable, once you absolutise equality.
Writing in 'The Guardian' the other day, commentator Theo Hobson attacked the Lambeth Conference for putting unity above (his) principle.
He was angry that the Archbishop of Canterbury and nominal head of the Anglican Communion, Rowan Williams, hadn't come down hard on the side of the liberals and strongly endorsed the decision by American Anglicans in 2005 to elect as bishop of New Hampshire an openly homosexual man, Gene Robinson.
He asked: "Why hasn't a tougher liberal Anglicanism emerged that says the truth of liberalism must not be sacrificed to 'unity'?"
He declared 'institutional religion' to be all but incompatible with liberalism and therefore it and institutional religion (I presume he means orthodox religion) must go their separate ways.
Ecumenism, that is to say the drive for Christian unity, has long been a priority of theological liberals.
Conservative and orthodox Christians are used to being lectured about the need to put aside their opposing dogmas for the sake of unity. But as we're now discovering, liberals have dogmas of their own, or rather they have one super-dogma; equality.
Since its beginning, the Church has taught that only men can be ordained because Christ was a man and because his Apostles were men. But liberals dismiss this argument on various grounds, the chief one being that it creates inequality within the Church. With regard to human sexuality, the Church has always taught that sex has a meaning and a purpose beyond the act itself and that it finds its true meaning only if it takes place within a permanent loving relationship and if the relationship is open to the procreation of children.
This makes it intrinsically heterosexual. Ordaining sexually active homosexuals would radically change the Church's teaching on sex.
Liberals, of course, are quite happy to see that teaching change, even though the separation of sex from children, and often from commitment, has been extremely bad for children.
It has resulted in a colossal number of children being effectively disowned by their mothers through abortion and in many more being disowned by fathers who want little or nothing to do with them.
Apart from the general liberal view of sex, however, they insist that sexually active homosexuals must be ordained because it is an offence against equality not to ordain them.
Having decided on these positions, liberals are then happy to employ the most sectarian language possible to describe those who stand in their way.
All opposition to theological liberalism is rooted, they insist, in ignorance and prejudice, and opponents are summarily dismissed, insulted and derided as 'bigots', 'sexists', 'fundamentalists' and 'homophobes'.
It never seems to occur to liberals that such language is as sectarian as anything that ever came out of the mouth of Ian Paisley.
In any event, it is now perfectly obvious that liberals no longer prize Christian unity. Indeed, they have become its chief enemy.
The damage they are causing to the Anglican Communion is immense, as is the damage they are causing to relations with the Catholic Church. There is now no longer any possibility at all of a rapprochement with the Churches of Eastern Orthodoxy.
The fact is, liberals are willing to sacrifice anything and everything on their altar of equality, because they believe they are right and that they are the One True Church.
Everyone else must give way, including that other claimant to being the One True Church, the Church of Rome.
- David Quinn
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