Entrenched Conversations: Christian sexuality
Typically I stay away from ecclesiastical controversies when I write on this blog. There’s plenty of sites that cover that stuff. It gets tiresome fast. The discussion goes nowhere fast and devolves into rhetoric and the abuse of Godwin’s Law very fast. (See also: my piece on Christians attacking a MySpace group for Atheists and any other entrenched conversation such as Democrats vs. Republicans, Pro-choice vs. pro-life or Tastes Great vs. Less Filling.)
But there’s a conversation of local interest that’s been happening. I can report the discussion going on in Concord, NH. On Sunday (May 18), the Concord Monitor ran an article about Bishop Gene Robinson’s new book, In the Eye of the Storm: Swept to the Center by God.
The article, The Bishop Who Doesn’t Back Down, is a balanced one. It teases out Bishop Robinson’s dilemma within the Anglican Communion but also criticizes the book as not broadening the conversation enough.
The very next day (May 19) the Monitor ran this letter from Gary Cote, pastor of Merrimack Valley Church (Assembly of God). A few days later (May 22) the Monitor ran this letter from David Parry.
While the original article offered a balanced critique of the Bishop’s book, Cote and Parry rush in to condemn and repeat the Bible’s well-known “clobber verses.” Here is our sign of an entrenched conversation: there is no recognition that thoughtful Christian folk have offered responses to those verses or that others have responded to those responses and so on. Quite simply, the conversations remains locked in the Somme, soldiers never advancing and content to fire mortar across a wide distance.
There will always be people willing to fight in the trenches. This warfare seems to degrade the soul and isn’t much for me, but it seems it will always be with us. My greater concern is that the Concord Monitor prints and re-prints these letters, re-inforcing the trenches. As a newspaper the Monitor ought to be invested in facilitating and furthering public conversation. They should be helping factions find reconciliation rather than set up barbed wire and widen the no-man’s land.
