Pink News reports a Nigerian bishop raging at the archbishop of Canterbury for not hating teh gaze.
The Most Rev Justin Welby risks allowing the Church of Nigeria to break away from the worldwide Anglican Communion, Bishop Emmanuel Chukwuma warned during a conversation with journalists at Nigera’s Akanu Ibiam International Airport.
Bishop Chukwuma had returned from Nairobi, where he’d been attending the Global Anglican Future Conference, along with 500 other Nigerian bishops.
He said: “We are not going to compromise. And we have made it quite known even to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the whole Europe and America, that there is no compromise as far as the scripture is concerned. So, if they do not repent, we are ready to stand on our own and go ahead with that authority of the scriptures and confess that faith as Anglicans for the future of church of Anglicanism.
“We secede. We are ready to secede because if you look at Ephesians chapter 5, verse 7, it says that you should not have anything to do with those people [homosexuals] who are becoming disobedient. So, why should we yoke with unbelievers. So, if they do not repent, we are ready to say, go away, we go our way. We love them but we hate their sins.”
Who cares what Ephesians chapter 5, verse 7 says about what you should not? Ephesians was written many centuries ago, and morality has improved since then. What pathetic bungling ignorance it is to point at a page in one single book and treat it as dispositive of anything.
Let’s take a look at the conversation-stopping wisdom of Ephesians 5. The New International Version.
5 1 Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. 5 For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.[a]6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. 7 Therefore do not be partners with them.
Well there you go – it’s just some ignorant anal-compulsive narrow pseudo-morality about being pure. It’s ethically impoverished. It’s barely adequate even as advice on polite manners in a public place, and as for being an irrefutable reason to treat LGBTQ people as tenth-class citizens, it’s beneath contempt.
Your morality is shit, Bishop Chukwuma. You’re a bad man doing bad things. You may not mean to be, but you are.
I looked at that passage from Ephesians and it didn’t say anything about hating the gays. Of course I’m not a homophobic bishop so I’m probably missing the nuances he sees.
@ 1: Probably. Yes.
Betcha they just elided the part about “greed,” too.
Did the bishop miss the part about “foolish talk” ?
“Sexual immorality” is traditionally taken to mean anything other than straight, intra-marital (and in especially backwards traditions, non-contraceptive) fucking. Whether all the other possibilities strictly can be declared anathema on the basis of scripture, I don’t know and don’t much care.
But I do prefer to share my world with people who don’t make a point of disapproving of other people’s sex lives, whatever theological shenanigans they may have to play to justify their tolerance to themselves (because these attitudes tend to spill over). So it’s been interesting to watch this slow-mo Anglican schism developing.
As I read it, the wording of the Ephesians doesn’t seem to specifically talk about the LGBTQ folks at all. Therefore, it appears that Bishop Chukwuma is simply pulling his personal definition of “sexual immorality” out of his arse, and projecting his homophobic bigotry onto, at least, this part of the Scripture. Quelle surprise.
Oh the jump from “sexual immorality” to teh gaze is dead easy.
People can’t marry people of the same sex obviously!!!!!!
Unmarital sex is sexual immorality obviously!!!!!!!!!11
Job done.
At times like this, I almost wish I was still an Episcopalian, just so that I could warn the good bishop about the proximity of the doorway to his ass, and the general concern about an impact between the two.
The mugs in the pews pay good money to hear that kind of talk. They love it when their bishop gives them the OK to hate a smaller group – for two reasons:
(1) They can feel superior to the untermensch.
(2) They can pretend to be brave little soldiers in the army of the Lord, desperately fighting to uphold god’s law while the homosexual horde descends upon them.
“We love them but we hate their sins.”
WHY do they always quote Ghandi and think they’re quoting Jesus?
Like I’ve told my ‘born-again’ sister, JESUS NEVER SAID THIS!
(According, of course, to their ‘holy’ books)