No Gays Allowed (Nor Women, Nor Liberals)

The splinter church, Gafcon, formed in the last few weeks, has framed my understanding of conservative religious values. Homophobia and sexism are rife throughout the conservative religious, it seems, and those who are conservative but not against liberal movements are not outspoken. A religion based upon toleration, sacrifice and good will (remember Jesus?) is arguing over whether to accept women and homosexuals as their own. Equal in all respects, but not under the eyes of God, according to them. Perhaps their next moves will be a religious state in which women are subordinate, and gays not allowed. My annoyance at their ignorance is applied to Islamic movements and states that have the same following, and I hope in this climate of Islamaphobia Muslims as well as Christians can condemn the archaism of this splinter group. I also hope that those who are afraid of ‘the Muslims’ will see how backward factions of their own cultural institutions are want to be, before believing tabloid anti-Islamic opinion as a type of gospel.

Gafcon hope to create a church in which the ‘gospel is uncompromised’. Has an uncompromising, thousand year old philosophy ever been successfully adhered to, unquestionably? Confucianism, maybe, but look what happened to China. I thought, also, we (the ‘West’) were fighting those who would reduce us back to the ‘dark ages’ (the illusive ‘Al Qaeda’). I think the main tenants would sing to the tune of homosexuality is wrong, women are subordinate, but forgive me if I’m wrong. Looks like we have similar ideas festering in our own back yard.

My own young atheist’s standpoint on religion as an archaic, reactionary, relic of a by-gone era when picket fences were white, the borders of our gardens were straight, and pubs were men only, is surely being proven right by a bunch of old fashioned NIMBYs. Regardless of the slower acceptance of homosexuality in the African church (no doubt spurred on by the influence and male dominance of colonialism, but I don’t know enough about this to comment), and the unquestionable offensiveness this gives devout orthodox Catholics, is surely a step backwards to create factions in a body which can provide so much good. Australian holy men complaining about the liberal American and British stance on gays and women surely, in the history books of Anglicanism, will smack of ignorance and the view of a dying breed?

Doctrinal adherence is, in the long-term, nonsensical. History is littered with the evolution of ideas. Today’s heterodoxy is tomorrows orthodoxy. And religion, regardless of your belief in a God or several Gods, comes with its own philosophy: good will to all men (we can forgive the figure of speech and include women, I hope). The church will evolve, and eventually die (as have all other religions, in time). Yet the general philosophy has lived on, or been reinvented, or raised from the depths of history. I hope we can hold up this homophobia and sexism as an example of the ‘old way’. To quote Bob Dylan, “you’d better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone”. Gafcon aren’t acceptant of change, obviously, and I hope this is the beginning of the struggle for the end (their ‘old road is rapidly fading’, to quote Bob again). They will find, in the long-run, world secular and atheistic opinion against them (and if not, I am greatly mistaken in my optimism on the world in general). I guess it’s no use talking about the evolution of human thought to supporters of Gafcon anyway: they’re probably creationists too…

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Here’s a video for ‘alternative’ forms of news-getting given by the BBC.