BP: “God, Mind Your Own Bee’s Wax”

By MICHAEL COREN

Thank God for liberal clergyman. Because if they didn’t exist we would have to make them up. The stuff of humour for generations, one of the most amusing of the gang is Michael Ingham, Anglican bishop of New Westminster in Greater Vancouver.

As his church dissolves into a fringe group on the margins of North American society, the bishop has issued a statement calling for, “a more positive approach to sexuality.” Of course, when he speaks of being positive he really means doing anything in bed or out of it and telling God to mind His own business.

Which is fair enough if you don’t believe in Him and in Jesus Christ. But if you do, your options are less flexible. It’s really very simple. Christianity and non-Christianity are mutually exclusive. If you’re not a Christian you can behave as you like. But if you are a Christian you are supposed to behave as a Christian.

It would be outrageous, for example, for Christians to try to redefine atheism and declare that it now meant believing in God and attending church. It doesn’t. Nor does Christianity mean making things up as you go along about the faith. We’re here to follow rather than edit.

Not the funny bishop though. “We must challenge the church’s condemnations throughout the centuries of such things as masturbation, birth control, abortion, and homosexuality.” When I was a boy we had a word for people who approved of masturbation. Mind you, I think we also had a word for people who couldn’t think straight.

The whole story … H E R E.

HT: NewsForum