It’s the 21st Century, Stupid!

     Monsters and Critics writes on the belief of some Southern Baptists that the recent spate of successful books critical of religious beliefs shows that Christianity is being successful. They view these books as the act of a desperate movement, their ever-present bogeyman, secularism. I can’t help but believe that what they really mean is the success of their particular kind of Christianity, including a rejection of concepts such as evolution. They are quite gleeful about this success, of course. But I think that it is entirely possible that they are reading it wrong and that these books and their success just might be an indicator that the ever-swinging pendulum of social movement might be just about as far as it will go in their direction.

     After all, the Southern Baptist Convention just decided to take the Bush Administration position on global warming today. And some people are getting tired of what they view as excessively political and narrow-minded churches, taking stands that the SBC and Family Research Council detest.

     I can hope, can’t I?

 The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church has a bit of a problem with reality. She thinks that it’s possible for theological fundamentalists to compromise. Time reports on her live webcast where she says that the American church should agree to the demands issued from the meeting of church officials in Tanzania. Everyone should calm down and be patient.

“If we can lower the emotional reactivity in the midst of this current controversy, we just might be able to find a way to live together.” 

 Really? How? The rest of the Anglican Communion outside of the U.S. and parts of Europe is so conservative that they still hold a grudge because of the ordination of women, which occurred decades ago. How patient are the gay members of the Episcopal Church supposed to be before they simply abandon the church, recognizing that patience means that bigotry will be compromised with for the rest of their lifetime?

The article also reported this:

Asked whether she was abandoning gay and lesbian Christians, Jefferts Schori said, “My view hasn’t changed, but I’m called to be pastor to the whole church.” 

In other words her personal views haven’t changed but she has abandoned them for the sake of unity with the “conservatives”. I’m sorry but I consider compromising with fundamentalist bigotry to be a very bad idea but if you’re going to do it don’t you owe it to the people you’re betraying to be honest with them?