The Anglican debate

I hadn’t anticipated that my last cartoon would provoke quite such strong reactions. To those who felt my cartoon was helpful: I’m glad, thankyou for your kind words. To those who felt that I was trivialising something too important to be represented by a cartoon: I’m sorry that you felt that way – to trivialise the matter was not my intention.

It is my opinion that the debate in the Anglican church is not really about homosexuality any more. It is a fact that we hold different views. We can trade Bible verses and scriptural interpretations. At best we may come to understand each other more fully, at worst the result will be unedifying for all who participate and observe. I suspect that changing each other’s mind is not going to be a likely outcome.

The question is therefore really how we consider those whose views differ from our own. Does their point of view mean that we consider that they are no longer fit to be part of the church? That they are no longer valid Christians? That would appear to be Judah’s point of view in the comments of my previous post. I suppose it comes down to what we consider central to our faith. If sexual ethics are central then perhaps this is indeed an issue we need to break up over. But if not that I don’t understand why we cannot continue to be a broad church following the one creed but with room for widely differing expressions of faith as we have been for hundreds and hundreds of years.