The Church of England: change is always a long time a-coming

The Bible records God's judgement against these people from their first mention in the Bible.

For they are inferior in moral character and incapable of rising to the level of the rest of us.

They are, moreover, wilfully sinful, often sexually promiscuous and threatening. Therefore they deserve punishment for their acts.

You might think that these arguments sound like ones being advanced currently by Archbishop Peter Akinola and other conservative evangelical leaders in the Anglican communion, in support of their rejection of gay people in the Church and society. They could be.

In fact, they were first used in the 18^th and 19^th centuries in Europe and America by those who did not want to give freedom to slaves of African descent.

As Jack Rogers (Moderator of the 213rd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.) has pointed out in a recent book:

Why did good, intelligent, devout Christian people not see what we now recognize as mitigating factors in the biblical record? ....In each case, we accepted a pervasive societal prejudice and read it back into Scripture. We took certain Scriptures out of their context and claimed to read them literally with tragic consequences for those to whom these verses were applied. " Jesus, the Bible and homosexuality," Westminster John Knox Press (2006)

Here is another quotation, this time from the 19^th century, supporting the denial of equal rights to a large section of the population:

(Slavery) was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts. Jefferson Davis, President, Confederate States of America

This year in the UK the Christian Church joins the rest of western society in celebrating the anniversary of the abolition of the slave-trade.


Change in the Church is always a long time a-coming. But it can happen. It does happen. It will happen.



Interesting links:

Christianity and slavery on the Religious Tolerance website

Set all free website set up by Churches Together in England