Chris Sugden – Greenbelt The truth will out!
Chris Sugden, Evangelicals Now October 2009
When Gene Robinson was invited to Greenbelt, Anglican Mainstream raised the question whether there would be adequate opportunity for those who had found through obedience to biblical teaching and access to appropriate counselling that they had been able to address unwanted same-sex attractions. Anglican Mainstream had hosted a conference in April (Sex and the City) where Dr Joe Nicolosi, Dr Arthur Goldberg and Dr Jeffrey Satinover gave hope to those who sought to able to choose to leave the gay lifestyle.
Greenbelt replied that over time it had provided space for the range of diverse Christian views on these and many other matters.
Following the festival this claim needs to be interrogated. For Anglican Mainstream has received unsolicited letters to the effect that its questions and view on Greenbelt were entirely accurate. And this concerns not only its presentations on sexuality. Greenbelt covers Islam but has never had two of the acknowledged national experts on Islam and Christianity, Bishop Michael Nazir Ali and Canon Dr Patrick Sookhdeo to speak. Greenbelt is passionate for justice in the Middle East but only portrays the plight of the Palestinians, never the threats to Israel from its well armed and hostile neighbours.
One correspondent with 25 years experience of Greenbelt has written: “Their stock answer is about Greenbelt providing a debate on the fringe. The trouble is, there is no debate. There are no pro-family speakers or formerly Gay Christians who have rejected it as a lifestyle choice to provide balance. There are no people challenging the rise of Islamic influence in our culture that would implement Sharia Law and ban the church.”
We are facing a culture of intimidation – by an aggressively promoted ideology going under the name of human rights. This ideology is regarded as self-evidently right and therefore all criticism of it by definition must be wrong and silenced. It is never brought under the scrutiny of the very basis for claiming that there are human rights – our creation by God who sets the terms and boundaries for human flourishing in his word. The Sex and the City Conference faced a public demonstration – against what? The right to choose? Greenbelt allows no debate of what it regards as self-evidently right and thus provides no choice.
Bishop Michael Nazir Ali resigned his see of Rochester in order to champion the cause of religious minorities under threat of or actual persecution.
There are some obvious candidates for his attention. In Sudan at the end of August, Archbishop Daniel Deng reported the murder of Archdeacon Mabior Garang who was shot at the altar of the church in Wernyol during a service of Morning Prayer. “ Tens of others have been wounded, some very seriously with gun-shot wounds and broken limbs. The attackers were well armed with new automatic weapons, dressed in army uniforms, and appeared well-organized and properly trained . This was not a tribal conflict as commonly reported, but a deliberately organized attack on civilians by those that are against the peace in Southern Sudan.” 39,000 people have been displaced by these attacks which are seeking to demonstrate that the Comprehensive Peace Agreement cannot work and thus that Southern Sudan cannot have the opportunity to determine its own future in elections and a referendum.
Pleading such causes will arguably be easier for him than to deal with the silent acquiescence in the culture of intimidation represented by the silence of the establishment in Church and State when he has raised questions about the erosion of marriage and of the Christian foundations of our society, and in particular about no-go areas in the United Kingdom. After he spoke of these, he was contradicted by senior public figures, but supported by almost 1000 letters from people who had experienced exactly what he was talking about.
Truth will out.
Tags: Christian Life, Christianity