(^^ For the record, I personally don't find the term "third world" offensive, but that is another discussion. I'm happy to switch to "Global South" if that's prefered.)
It's not offensiveness, just that first/second/third world refers to countries' status during the Cold War (hence Russia and China being second world countries) and is no longer a relevant way of categorising them - developed/developing I think is seen as actively more *offensive*, first/second/third world is more just inaccurate.
How about "those who have reached the apotheosis of rich, European countries, and those who aren't there yet."
"Destroy" is awfully final. Are you suggesting that so-called third world nations have no hope of becoming first-world nations, i.e. moving from poverty to general well-being of the citizenry?
Yes, I get all of that, but if one looks at the functioning of GAFCON, which co-ordinates and legitimates the defence of homophobia within the Anglican Communion, a lot of its more prominent supporters and indeed apparatchiks are African bishops.
ETA: and I am more than cynical enough that they deliberately wrap their murderous beliefs in a cloth of race, to deflect criticism. This is a canard which should not be allowed to work.
But they aren't homophobic *because* they are African. Being African and being homophobic aren't related, so why target African bishops specifically and in such racist terms? Having been part of GAFCON-aligned churches in the past (so do not need educating on the subject), the white bishops/key figures and Anglophone churches are far more prominent within the fold.
It's not 'using race to deflect criticism' to point out racism. Using it to race or culture to excuse or endorse homophobia, of course not - but likewise it's not homophobia to point out the often very open racism within Anglican LGBTQ+ organisations and their supporters. Greenbelt for instance is much better than it was a few years ago, but I've still heard some breathtakingly racist comments from both speakers and people attending - within the last 5 years. Racism doesn't erase homophobia, it just makes LGBTQ+ people of colour and their allies unwelcome.
(^^ For the record, I personally don't find the term "third world" offensive, but that is another discussion. I'm happy to switch to "Global South" if that's prefered.)
It's not offensiveness, just that first/second/third world refers to countries' status during the Cold War (hence Russia and China being second world countries) and is no longer a relevant way of categorising them - developed/developing I think is seen as actively more *offensive*, first/second/third world is more just inaccurate.
Well, according to research I did earlier tonight, some people DO in fact consider the "first, second, third" categorization offensive: something about it seems to be prioritizing the higher numbers over the lower.
As I say, I have no real problem with it. I take the point about the outdated Cold War perspective, but I think we can still salvage "third world" in the same way that we've salvaged "the West", even though it dates from an era when Europe being west of Asia was considered the most salient geopolitical fact.
Why not just talk about "richer countries" and "poorer countries"? That seems to be the salient point!
A country may have relatively low GDP but have a high quality of living, or be classified with other richer countries for historical reasons. Eg, many European countries are relatively poor without being considered third world/developing - often due to having had empires in the past like Portugal or a lot of cultural capital like Ireland. And then you have somewhere like the US which a popular facebook group refers to as 'a third world country in a Gucci belt'.
It's also very dismissive of the whole of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic renewal as irrational hysteria.
Which doesn’t strike me as at all surprising, given his foundational belief that in order to be credible in the modern world, faith and belief must move beyond such things. That is very much, it seems to me, a view that treats a Western educated and intellectual perspective as the norm against which all other approaches are judged.
FWIW, phrases like "the intellectual revolutions of Copernicus and Einstein", when used to indicate what someone's opponents supposedly lack insight into, always sound so much like a first-year undergrad congratulating himself on being smarter than the folks back home, just because he's now privy to knowledge he didn't have a couple months earlier.
It's perhaps a case of being circumspect about how you express things, but, for example, you can no longer base your theology on a literal perfect creation into which a single human ancestral pair brought death and all manner of pain and suffering once you know about Lyell, never mind Darwin.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein? My con-evo Anglican church in Sussex would not have a problem with recriminalising homosexuality (I went to *youth group* meetings where HIV/AIDS was openly referred to by the leader as God's plague on gay sex, in the late 00s) and many people were open about this. But at no point would my church or others with shared beliefs be talked about in the degrading way African churches and bishops are. Nobody called +Wallace Benn primitive or hysterical.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein?
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
Coming in from a different time zone and catching up with posts. @Pomona, I'm really appreciative of your posts on the issue of homophobia in post-colonial Africa and have little to add. Most of us living and working across southern or east Africa would argue that 'homophobia' is an imported colonial legacy and certainly not indicative that homosexuality/queerness is in any way incompatible with traditional or pre-colonial Africa. In June 2020, Botswana finally succeeded in overturning its colonial-era anti-sodomy laws that criminalised homosexuality, laws created across Africa by the British, Portuguese and French without any consultation with local peoples and set in place as a matter of course.
Although the focus has often been on the African missionary churches, it makes more sense to look at the countries belonging to the Commonwealth that still retain homophobic, biphobic and transphobic legislation (Jamaica and Uganda, for example). For generations both missionaries and colonial administrators in sub-Saharan Africa legally enforced and culturally indoctrinated populations with the notion that queerness was criminal, decadent, repugnant, unnatural or unChristian. Echoing prevalent attitudes in the West until recently.
There is significant evidence that before colonisation, many African societies had a relaxed and tolerant attitude towards same-sex relations. The post-colonial climate fostering populist homophobia is a complex issue but no different in many ways to the rise of homophobic fundamentalism in parts of the US or Europe. To use exoticising, infantilising or racist epithets about Africa is unacceptable.
Most of us living and working across southern or east Africa would argue that 'homophobia' is an imported colonial legacy and certainly not indicative that homosexuality/queerness is in any way incompatible with traditional or pre-colonial Africa.
I am told that there is a significant difference in attitude to homosexuality between Anglican churches where the first missionaries came predominantly with the Society for Christian Knowledge and those where they came predominantly from the Church Missionary Society, with the SCK churches being more tolerant.
I believe also that the Church of Uganda celebrates a group of young men who were allegedly martyred for refusing to give in to the king's sexual demands. The wikipedia article for the Martyrs of Uganda suggests that the king's motives were as much to do with power politics as with sex. Powerful men using dependents and slaves of both genders for sex is a universal phenomenon not restricted to 'unenlightened' cultures.
KarlLB: It's perhaps a case of being circumspect about how you express things, but, for example, you can no longer base your theology on a literal perfect creation into which a single human ancestral pair brought death and all manner of pain and suffering once you know about Lyell, never mind Darwin.
Of course, one should not assume that the originators of those stories based their theology on "a literal perfect creation", as opposed to the insights they intended to illustrate and the questions they intended to raise. My beef is that biblical fundamentalists have discouraged non-literalists from mining the relevance of the Genesis narrative to current discussions of the human condition.
On the question of "primitive" nature of African theology, might it be relevant to point out that North Africans have had a considerable impact on the development of Western theology, not least Augustine, for better or worse?
@Dafyd, yes, I've also read that the SCK (formerly SPCK) missions were more progressive than the CMS. What's tricky (and I read a fair amount in colonial missionary historiographies) is that the reach of both the SCK and CMS missions was so extensive (SE Asia, the Americas, the Caribbean, what is now the Middle East, the North Pacific, China etc) and the personalities of certain missionary figures so eccentric and iconoclastic that it's hard to generalise. What I do believe to be as influential and often disregarded by church historians, was the co-existing military, cultural and legislative impact of colonial powers bent on civilising, domesticating and controlling the sexual mores and cultural practices of indigenous peoples.
Most current writers looking back at the Ugandan incident you mention would take a revisionist approach and describe the key issue as resisting rape rather than 'giving in to the king's demands'.
KarlLB: It's perhaps a case of being circumspect about how you express things, but, for example, you can no longer base your theology on a literal perfect creation into which a single human ancestral pair brought death and all manner of pain and suffering once you know about Lyell, never mind Darwin.
Of course, one should not assume that the originators of those stories based their theology on "a literal perfect creation", as opposed to the insights they intended to illustrate and the questions they intended to raise. My beef is that biblical fundamentalists have discouraged non-literalists from mining the relevance of the Genesis narrative to current discussions of the human condition.
I don't know about the originators, but an awful lot of Christian theology has been built on literality of the narrative, especially ideas about death coming into the world after the Fall of Man. Since by man came death... - except it didn't. Creatures had been dying for millions of years before the first proto-hominid decided to try a short break from the trees in the long grass.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein?
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
I don't think that really holds up as an argument given that the white-majority homophobic churches (I don't know if 'Western' is the best term to use given that all African churches are west of Sydney for eg) are actively funding and supporting those elsewhere and were doing so at the time. Nobody in 1998 would be unaware of the links between them. Unfortunately even today, picking on African churches as being particularly homophobic and ignoring the mess in their own back yard is very common in liberal Anglican circles.
Also to build on @MaryLouise 's comments, in places like Uganda and Jamaica the homophobic laws are being actively supported by certain Anglican churches in the UK. They were literally shipping people in to preach on the campaign trails. The homophobia comes from colonialism, it isn't an indigenous trait to Africa or other places Britain or other colonial powers colonised.
As far as I know, it was in fact the British colonialists who first brought "anti-sodomy" laws to Africa(and numerous other places). And shame on them for that.
However, I don't think that's sufficient explanation for why those laws have in some places survived for decades after decolonization, sometimes with fierce resistance against attempts at repeal.
Upon independence, most of the former African colonies declared themselves republics, struck the Union Jack from their flags, and in some cases sent the colonial civil-service packing. So why were they so strict about maintaining the anti-gay laws, especially seeing as how the Mother Country itself abolished its own similar laws in the late 1960s?
As a prallel, Britain deserves anything it gets for its long history of slavery in the Americas. The one thing they cannot be blamed for, however, is the decision of the American colonists to continue slavery after independence.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein?
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
I don't think that really holds up as an argument given that the white-majority homophobic churches (I don't know if 'Western' is the best term to use given that all African churches are west of Sydney for eg) are actively funding and supporting those elsewhere and were doing so at the time. Nobody in 1998 would be unaware of the links between them. Unfortunately even today, picking on African churches as being particularly homophobic and ignoring the mess in their own back yard is very common in liberal Anglican circles.
Right. But do we know for a fact that Spong, at Lambeth, was, in fact, ignoring the mess in his own backyard? As I say, we don't know if he ONLY critiqued the African bishops, or if that was just the one critique the media decided to report.
From my fairly casual impression of the man, I don't think he was someone who shied away from attacking white western bigots.
As far as I know, it was in fact the British colonialists who first brought "anti-sodomy" laws to Africa(and numerous other places). And shame on them for that.
However, I don't think that's sufficient explanation for why those laws have in some places survived for decades after decolonization, sometimes with fierce resistance against attempts at repeal.
Upon independence, most of the former African colonies declared themselves republics, struck the Union Jack from their flags, and in some cases sent the colonial civil-service packing. So why were they so strict about maintaining the anti-gay laws, especially seeing as how the Mother Country itself abolished its own similar laws in the late 1960s?
As a prallel, Britain deserves anything it gets for its long history of slavery in the Americas. The one thing they cannot be blamed for, however, is the decision of the American colonists to continue slavery after independence.
@stetson the colonial governing apparatus and legislation stayed in place in most of the former British colonies for many reasons. The new post-colonial states were not the gung-ho republics you describe, they were dependent on loans and the goodwill of previous regimes and the new governments often had a fragile authoritarian basis relying on previously established power structures.
In order to understand why repressive legislation was not revoked and how certain issues would be you'd need to look at drawbacks to economic development in former colonies, debt burdens, tensions between former settler and peasant economies, uneven urbanisation, extractive exploitation of mineral resources, the continuing influence of conservative missionary and cultural ideologies etc etc. Before even starting to examine the policing of morality in certain post-colonial states.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein?
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
I don't think that really holds up as an argument given that the white-majority homophobic churches (I don't know if 'Western' is the best term to use given that all African churches are west of Sydney for eg) are actively funding and supporting those elsewhere and were doing so at the time. Nobody in 1998 would be unaware of the links between them. Unfortunately even today, picking on African churches as being particularly homophobic and ignoring the mess in their own back yard is very common in liberal Anglican circles.
Right. But do we know for a fact that Spong, at Lambeth, was, in fact, ignoring the mess in his own backyard? As I say, we don't know if he ONLY critiqued the African bishops, or if that was just the one critique the media decided to report.
From my fairly casual impression of the man, I don't think he was someone who shied away from attacking white western bigots.
From my personal knowledge, I would agree with your casual impression. While I understand the problems with the quoted statement, I’m uncomfortable with judging someone’s views of the world by a single quote—especially a quote reported in the media where, as you note, we may not have been provided important context.
There have been lots of comments on his death from folks who knew him on my facebook feed. I’ve been interested that not a single post has mentioned the controversies that surrounded him as a bishop; they’ve all focused on his pastoral care and on what he did in the local community as rector.
Kwesi: Of course, one should not assume that the originators of those stories based their theology on "a literal perfect creation", as opposed to the insights they intended to illustrate and the questions they intended to raise. My beef is that biblical fundamentalists have discouraged non-literalists from mining the relevance of the Genesis narrative to current discussions of the human condition.
KarlLB: I don't know about the originators, but an awful lot of Christian theology has been built on literality of the narrative, especially ideas about death coming into the world after the Fall of Man. Since by man came death... - except it didn't. Creatures had been dying for millions of years before the first proto-hominid decided to try a short break from the trees in the long grass.
As far as I know, it was in fact the British colonialists who first brought "anti-sodomy" laws to Africa(and numerous other places). And shame on them for that.
However, I don't think that's sufficient explanation for why those laws have in some places survived for decades after decolonization, sometimes with fierce resistance against attempts at repeal.
Upon independence, most of the former African colonies declared themselves republics, struck the Union Jack from their flags, and in some cases sent the colonial civil-service packing. So why were they so strict about maintaining the anti-gay laws, especially seeing as how the Mother Country itself abolished its own similar laws in the late 1960s?
As a prallel, Britain deserves anything it gets for its long history of slavery in the Americas. The one thing they cannot be blamed for, however, is the decision of the American colonists to continue slavery after independence.
@stetson the colonial governing apparatus and legislation stayed in place in most of the former British colonies for many reasons. The new post-colonial states were not the gung-ho republics you describe, they were dependent on loans and the goodwill of previous regimes and the new governments often had a fragile authoritarian basis relying on previously established power structures.
In order to understand why repressive legislation was not revoked and how certain issues would be you'd need to look at drawbacks to economic development in former colonies, debt burdens, tensions between former settler and peasant economies, uneven urbanisation, extractive exploitation of mineral resources, the continuing influence of conservative missionary and cultural ideologies etc etc. Before even starting to examine the policing of morality in certain post-colonial states.
Not to mention colonial powers (including the US, by the 90s) 'encouraging' military dictatorships in post-colonial states to prevent the population from voting in a leftwing government, though that was more of a Central/South American and SE Asian speciality. It's like how someone exiting an abusive relationship is at heightened risk of entering into another abusive relationship. Being an occupied country is psychologically traumatic as well as socio-economically. This has later ramifications due to intergenerational trauma.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein?
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
I don't think that really holds up as an argument given that the white-majority homophobic churches (I don't know if 'Western' is the best term to use given that all African churches are west of Sydney for eg) are actively funding and supporting those elsewhere and were doing so at the time. Nobody in 1998 would be unaware of the links between them. Unfortunately even today, picking on African churches as being particularly homophobic and ignoring the mess in their own back yard is very common in liberal Anglican circles.
Right. But do we know for a fact that Spong, at Lambeth, was, in fact, ignoring the mess in his own backyard? As I say, we don't know if he ONLY critiqued the African bishops, or if that was just the one critique the media decided to report.
From my fairly casual impression of the man, I don't think he was someone who shied away from attacking white western bigots.
From my personal knowledge, I would agree with your casual impression. While I understand the problems with the quoted statement, I’m uncomfortable with judging someone’s views of the world by a single quote—especially a quote reported in the media where, as you note, we may not have been provided important context.
There have been lots of comments on his death from folks who knew him on my facebook feed. I’ve been interested that not a single post has mentioned the controversies that surrounded him as a bishop; they’ve all focused on his pastoral care and on what he did in the local community as rector.
People are probably being polite given that he's just died - it doesn't mean that the controversies didn't actually happen.
My problem isn't even necessarily specifically about Spong, but that functionally identical statements are made by white liberal Christians all the time and it very rarely gets picked up on as being racist in the first place. How many comments had been made here before I mentioned it? It blew my mind that the quote was just there and seemingly nobody had reacted at all to a quote I found really shockingly offensive. I would posit that 'low level' or 'implicit' racist statements amongst liberal Christians are just normalized rather than actually uncommon.
As far as I know, it was in fact the British colonialists who first brought "anti-sodomy" laws to Africa(and numerous other places). And shame on them for that.
However, I don't think that's sufficient explanation for why those laws have in some places survived for decades after decolonization, sometimes with fierce resistance against attempts at repeal.
Upon independence, most of the former African colonies declared themselves republics, struck the Union Jack from their flags, and in some cases sent the colonial civil-service packing. So why were they so strict about maintaining the anti-gay laws, especially seeing as how the Mother Country itself abolished its own similar laws in the late 1960s?
As a prallel, Britain deserves anything it gets for its long history of slavery in the Americas. The one thing they cannot be blamed for, however, is the decision of the American colonists to continue slavery after independence.
@stetson the colonial governing apparatus and legislation stayed in place in most of the former British colonies for many reasons. The new post-colonial states were not the gung-ho republics you describe, they were dependent on loans and the goodwill of previous regimes and the new governments often had a fragile authoritarian basis relying on previously established power structures.
In order to understand why repressive legislation was not revoked and how certain issues would be you'd need to look at drawbacks to economic development in former colonies, debt burdens, tensions between former settler and peasant economies, uneven urbanisation, extractive exploitation of mineral resources, the continuing influence of conservative missionary and cultural ideologies etc etc. Before even starting to examine the policing of morality in certain post-colonial states.
Not to mention colonial powers (including the US, by the 90s) 'encouraging' military dictatorships in post-colonial states to prevent the population from voting in a leftwing government
The US was involved in that game long before the 90s. The School of the Americas was training death squads for right wing dictators from the 70s, and the US was sticking its oar in all over Africa and Asia throughout the Cold War.
I think the point is the chauvinism of assuming having achieved enlightenment over those primitive African churches.....it isn't hard to see how that way of thinking is a problem and why it's not just a question of wording that better. If YECs* are the target for example then why not criticise American fundamentalists? Or Hell, British/Australian churches in the St Helen's Bishopsgate vein?
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
I don't think that really holds up as an argument given that the white-majority homophobic churches (I don't know if 'Western' is the best term to use given that all African churches are west of Sydney for eg) are actively funding and supporting those elsewhere and were doing so at the time. Nobody in 1998 would be unaware of the links between them. Unfortunately even today, picking on African churches as being particularly homophobic and ignoring the mess in their own back yard is very common in liberal Anglican circles.
Right. But do we know for a fact that Spong, at Lambeth, was, in fact, ignoring the mess in his own backyard? As I say, we don't know if he ONLY critiqued the African bishops, or if that was just the one critique the media decided to report.
From my fairly casual impression of the man, I don't think he was someone who shied away from attacking white western bigots.
From my personal knowledge, I would agree with your casual impression. While I understand the problems with the quoted statement, I’m uncomfortable with judging someone’s views of the world by a single quote—especially a quote reported in the media where, as you note, we may not have been provided important context.
There have been lots of comments on his death from folks who knew him on my facebook feed. I’ve been interested that not a single post has mentioned the controversies that surrounded him as a bishop; they’ve all focused on his pastoral care and on what he did in the local community as rector.
People are probably being polite given that he's just died - it doesn't mean that the controversies didn't actually happen.
What? Where did I suggest that the controversies never happened? I’d wager every one of those who’ve posted in that facebook thread know quite well that the controversies happened.
And given that I’ve known most if not all of those posting in that thread for the bulk of my 60 years, I don’t think they’re just being polite. I think they’re speaking from their personal experience of and personal relationship with Spong.
For them it’s not the death of a troublesome bishop whom they’ve read about or whose books they’ve read that they’re commenting on. They’re commenting on the death of the priest who was their pastor, who had a direct and personal impact on their lives and on their community.
And that’s my point—that press reports and news articles may show us part of a person, but they rarely show the complete person
Pomona: My problem isn't even necessarily specifically about Spong, but that functionally identical statements are made by white liberal Christians all the time and it very rarely gets picked up on as being racist in the first place.
That's my problem, too, and applies not simply to white liberal Christians but white liberals as a whole, because they claim their values constitute non culture-bound universal human rights.
Pomona: My problem isn't even necessarily specifically about Spong, but that functionally identical statements are made by white liberal Christians all the time and it very rarely gets picked up on as being racist in the first place.
That's my problem, too, and applies not simply to white liberal Christians but white liberals as a whole, because they claim their values constitute non culture-bound universal human rights.
Isn't that another way of saying they believe in a moral and ethical framework that exists whether or not cultures stray from it? And don't pretty much all Christians, liberal or otherwise, believe that?
[url="http://"]Arethosemyfeet[/url]. Isn't that another way of saying they believe in a moral and ethical framework that exists whether or not cultures stray from it? And don't pretty much all Christians, liberal or otherwise, believe that?
It's their claim to know with certainty what is that ethical framework that's the source of their imperialist arrogance.
[url="http://"]Arethosemyfeet[/url]. Isn't that another way of saying they believe in a moral and ethical framework that exists whether or not cultures stray from it? And don't pretty much all Christians, liberal or otherwise, believe that?
It's their claim to know with certainty what is that ethical framework that's the source of their imperialist arrogance.
Not imprisoning or murdering people for who they're attracted to is something I'm pretty confident about. If that's imperialist arrogance so be it.
[url="http://"]Arethosemyfeet[/url]. Isn't that another way of saying they believe in a moral and ethical framework that exists whether or not cultures stray from it? And don't pretty much all Christians, liberal or otherwise, believe that?
It's their claim to know with certainty what is that ethical framework that's the source of their imperialist arrogance.
Not imprisoning or murdering people for who they're attracted to is something I'm pretty confident about. If that's imperialist arrogance so be it.
This does rather suggest that you think such things are unique to white liberals, when they're not.
[url="http://"]Arethosemyfeet[/url]. Isn't that another way of saying they believe in a moral and ethical framework that exists whether or not cultures stray from it? And don't pretty much all Christians, liberal or otherwise, believe that?
It's their claim to know with certainty what is that ethical framework that's the source of their imperialist arrogance.
Not imprisoning or murdering people for who they're attracted to is something I'm pretty confident about. If that's imperialist arrogance so be it.
This does rather suggest that you think such things are unique to white liberals, when they're not.
No it doesn't. It merely notes the existence of cultures that consider those things moral.
KarlLB: I'm not so sure. I found it particularly ironic that he [Rowan Williams] follows a series of paragraphs I can make no sense of with.
I have every sympathy with these remarks, for while I agree with Williams regarding Spong's challenge that: "The implication of the theses is that the sort of questions that might be asked by a bright 20th century sixth-former would have been unintelligible or devastating for Augustine, Rahner or Teresa of Avila. The fact is that significant numbers of those who turn to Christian faith as educated adults find the doctrinal and spiritual tradition which Bishop Spong treats so dismissively a remarkably large room to live in," I find his counter argument difficult to follow. I think that the development of a Christian Apologetic is a central matter facing the western church, and find it very frustrating that we a presented with the superficialities of Spong and the incomprehensibility of Williams.
I think Spong was once a gateway into Christianity for me. Having dug deeper into the faith, I now take issue with a lot of his arguments. At the same time, I'm glad he left the gate open for me. He also is responsible for the ordination of a gay woman who was the pastor at an Episcopal church we joined, and there's a story.
When she was first assigned, it was assumed that she was there to bury it, because it was withering. She turned it around instead, and went on to lead it as a thriving progressive congregation for the next couple decades. I joined that church with my family near the end of her term, which ended with her being elected a bishop.
So, I kind of have to respect the guy, practically, even if I'd argue with him on a lot of details. He kept the gate open.
I'm really enjoying that - thanks so much for posting. I don't find Williams easy to follow - but here there are times when he nails something which I have been groping around, with a precision which very much helps me understand what (I think) I think, myself. For instance:
But then we discover in Spong’s theses that there is, after all, a non-negotiable principle, based upon the image of God in human beings. Admirable; but what does it mean in Spong’s theological world? What is the image of a ‘non-theistic’ God? And where, for goodness’ sake, does he derive this belief about humans? It is neither scientific nor obvious.
It is, in fact, what we used to call a dogma of revealed religion. It is a painful example of the sheerly sentimental use of phraseology whose rationale depends upon a theology that is being overtly rejected. What can it be more than a rather unfairly freighted and emotive substitute for some kind of bland egalitarianism – bland because ungrounded and therefore desperately vulnerable to corruption, or defeat at the hands of a more robust ideology? It is impossible to think too often of the collapse of liberalism in 1930s Germany.
Spong is rather polarizing, I find it strange that among people I follow on Twitter or Facebook, you either deeply love him or hate him. I wonder if we can be more nuanced in our approach to theologians.
There are some things that I think Spong got right, I admire him for advocating for inclusion of LGBT people in the Church, I also think generally he is right in advocating for a non-literalist approach to the Scriptures.
That being said, I disagree with him in his rather dismissive attitude towards orthodoxy. Theology is absolutely metaphorical, however the question is what metaphors are helpful in illuminating the faith. There is a tenderness about God the Father, that God the Ground of Being does not convey.
Anglican Brat: There are some things that I think Spong got right, I admire him for advocating for inclusion of LGBT people in the Church, I also think generally he is right in advocating for a non-literalist approach to the Scriptures.
That being said, I disagree with him in his rather dismissive attitude towards orthodoxy. Theology is absolutely metaphorical, however the question is what metaphors are helpful in illuminating the faith. There is a tenderness about God the Father, that God the Ground of Being does not convey.
Thank you for the above post, AnglicanBrat, though I don't think the advocacy of a non-literalist approach the scripture is particular novel or remarkable. I thoroughly agree with your observation that theological propositions are "absolutely metaphorical", and that the question is which metaphors are the more helpful in illuminating the faith. I also share your preference for "God the Father" for that reason. We are, however, reminded by Bullfrog that Spong acted as a "gateway to Christianity" for him, and that some of his progressive attitudes and actions in society and the church, at least, reflect credit on his witness. I have to remind myself that the metaphors that appeal to me may not be those that compel others, and that I shouldn't get too worked up about it!
I just have the sense that Spong wanted to "have his cake and eat it". Say you don't believe in God, that's fine, it's your choice. Say you do believe in God, of course. Or say that the notion of God is a human construct deriving from inside us. But please don't talk about a "non-theistic God" - that, to me, is an inherent contradiction or gobbledegook.
Of course not, and I think that paradox is actually a very important part of faith.
My quibble is really about Spong's language as I cannot see how you can have a non-theistic God.
I think this is where Spong as a theologian fails. Among orthodoxy, there is the notion of via negativa, that all language about the divine ultimately fails at fully grasping the complexity of the divine, the old quote from St Auggie, "If you can fully explain God, then you don't really know God." On this understanding, yes the Christian narrative is mythic, in the sense that things such as Incarnation or Resurrection cannot be completely comprehended on this side of life. But and here is where Spong and other 'non-theists' fail in understanding metaphor. Metaphor only has meaning if they actually refer to something that is objectively true.
I'll use a common example that Spong has used, the Ascension. He once argued that the Ascension is mythic nonsense because it is based on a three-tiered universe, the idea that God is 'up there', we are 'down here' and hell is 'below here'. And of course he on the same breath argued that this is literal nonsense because it apparently assumes God is a literal being in the skies.
You don't need to have a PhD in theology to effectively refute Spong here. Of course, the Ascension as we narrate it, is mythic, because for us puny humans, the notion of up is a helpful metaphor for divine transcendence. And yes for us to conceptualize Incarnation, it is helpful to imagine God 'coming down'. But just because the way we explain a sacred mystery is mythic, does not mean the Incarnation and Ascension did not objectively happen. If God did not become flesh in Jesus Christ, then we should not be reciting the Creed because the metaphor collapses if it is built on a lie. To use a romantic analogy, I do not write love poetry to my beloved if I do not in fact, love them. If there is no truthfulness to the mystery in which the metaphor/sign points to, then the metaphor/sign is absolutely meaningless.
You don't need to have a PhD in theology to effectively refute Spong here. Of course, the Ascension as we narrate it, is mythic, because for us puny humans, the notion of up is a helpful metaphor for divine transcendence. And yes for us to conceptualize Incarnation, it is helpful to imagine God 'coming down'. But just because the way we explain a sacred mystery is mythic, does not mean the Incarnation and Ascension did not objectively happen. If God did not become flesh in Jesus Christ, then we should not be reciting the Creed because the metaphor collapses if it is built on a lie. To use a romantic analogy, I do not write love poetry to my beloved if I do not in fact, love them. If there is no truthfulness to the mystery in which the metaphor/sign points to, then the metaphor/sign is absolutely meaningless.
Comments
How about "those who have reached the apotheosis of rich, European countries, and those who aren't there yet."
But they aren't homophobic *because* they are African. Being African and being homophobic aren't related, so why target African bishops specifically and in such racist terms? Having been part of GAFCON-aligned churches in the past (so do not need educating on the subject), the white bishops/key figures and Anglophone churches are far more prominent within the fold.
It's not 'using race to deflect criticism' to point out racism. Using it to race or culture to excuse or endorse homophobia, of course not - but likewise it's not homophobia to point out the often very open racism within Anglican LGBTQ+ organisations and their supporters. Greenbelt for instance is much better than it was a few years ago, but I've still heard some breathtakingly racist comments from both speakers and people attending - within the last 5 years. Racism doesn't erase homophobia, it just makes LGBTQ+ people of colour and their allies unwelcome.
A country may have relatively low GDP but have a high quality of living, or be classified with other richer countries for historical reasons. Eg, many European countries are relatively poor without being considered third world/developing - often due to having had empires in the past like Portugal or a lot of cultural capital like Ireland. And then you have somewhere like the US which a popular facebook group refers to as 'a third world country in a Gucci belt'.
FWIW, phrases like "the intellectual revolutions of Copernicus and Einstein", when used to indicate what someone's opponents supposedly lack insight into, always sound so much like a first-year undergrad congratulating himself on being smarter than the folks back home, just because he's now privy to knowledge he didn't have a couple months earlier.
It's perhaps a case of being circumspect about how you express things, but, for example, you can no longer base your theology on a literal perfect creation into which a single human ancestral pair brought death and all manner of pain and suffering once you know about Lyell, never mind Darwin.
*Young Earth Creationist
In fairness to Spong, though, we don't know the context of his remarks about African bishops. It's possible that he was asked specifically about the Africans' role in voting down the equality resolutions, and responded with the best analysis he could muster.
And it's also possible that he offered a similar, if maybe varying in the specifics, critique of western bishops who oppose equality, but it didn't make the papers. We really don't know.
Although the focus has often been on the African missionary churches, it makes more sense to look at the countries belonging to the Commonwealth that still retain homophobic, biphobic and transphobic legislation (Jamaica and Uganda, for example). For generations both missionaries and colonial administrators in sub-Saharan Africa legally enforced and culturally indoctrinated populations with the notion that queerness was criminal, decadent, repugnant, unnatural or unChristian. Echoing prevalent attitudes in the West until recently.
There is significant evidence that before colonisation, many African societies had a relaxed and tolerant attitude towards same-sex relations. The post-colonial climate fostering populist homophobia is a complex issue but no different in many ways to the rise of homophobic fundamentalism in parts of the US or Europe. To use exoticising, infantilising or racist epithets about Africa is unacceptable.
I believe also that the Church of Uganda celebrates a group of young men who were allegedly martyred for refusing to give in to the king's sexual demands. The wikipedia article for the Martyrs of Uganda suggests that the king's motives were as much to do with power politics as with sex. Powerful men using dependents and slaves of both genders for sex is a universal phenomenon not restricted to 'unenlightened' cultures.
Of course, one should not assume that the originators of those stories based their theology on "a literal perfect creation", as opposed to the insights they intended to illustrate and the questions they intended to raise. My beef is that biblical fundamentalists have discouraged non-literalists from mining the relevance of the Genesis narrative to current discussions of the human condition.
On the question of "primitive" nature of African theology, might it be relevant to point out that North Africans have had a considerable impact on the development of Western theology, not least Augustine, for better or worse?
Most current writers looking back at the Ugandan incident you mention would take a revisionist approach and describe the key issue as resisting rape rather than 'giving in to the king's demands'.
I don't know about the originators, but an awful lot of Christian theology has been built on literality of the narrative, especially ideas about death coming into the world after the Fall of Man. Since by man came death... - except it didn't. Creatures had been dying for millions of years before the first proto-hominid decided to try a short break from the trees in the long grass.
I don't think that really holds up as an argument given that the white-majority homophobic churches (I don't know if 'Western' is the best term to use given that all African churches are west of Sydney for eg) are actively funding and supporting those elsewhere and were doing so at the time. Nobody in 1998 would be unaware of the links between them. Unfortunately even today, picking on African churches as being particularly homophobic and ignoring the mess in their own back yard is very common in liberal Anglican circles.
As far as I know, it was in fact the British colonialists who first brought "anti-sodomy" laws to Africa(and numerous other places). And shame on them for that.
However, I don't think that's sufficient explanation for why those laws have in some places survived for decades after decolonization, sometimes with fierce resistance against attempts at repeal.
Upon independence, most of the former African colonies declared themselves republics, struck the Union Jack from their flags, and in some cases sent the colonial civil-service packing. So why were they so strict about maintaining the anti-gay laws, especially seeing as how the Mother Country itself abolished its own similar laws in the late 1960s?
As a prallel, Britain deserves anything it gets for its long history of slavery in the Americas. The one thing they cannot be blamed for, however, is the decision of the American colonists to continue slavery after independence.
Right. But do we know for a fact that Spong, at Lambeth, was, in fact, ignoring the mess in his own backyard? As I say, we don't know if he ONLY critiqued the African bishops, or if that was just the one critique the media decided to report.
From my fairly casual impression of the man, I don't think he was someone who shied away from attacking white western bigots.
@stetson the colonial governing apparatus and legislation stayed in place in most of the former British colonies for many reasons. The new post-colonial states were not the gung-ho republics you describe, they were dependent on loans and the goodwill of previous regimes and the new governments often had a fragile authoritarian basis relying on previously established power structures.
In order to understand why repressive legislation was not revoked and how certain issues would be you'd need to look at drawbacks to economic development in former colonies, debt burdens, tensions between former settler and peasant economies, uneven urbanisation, extractive exploitation of mineral resources, the continuing influence of conservative missionary and cultural ideologies etc etc. Before even starting to examine the policing of morality in certain post-colonial states.
There have been lots of comments on his death from folks who knew him on my facebook feed. I’ve been interested that not a single post has mentioned the controversies that surrounded him as a bishop; they’ve all focused on his pastoral care and on what he did in the local community as rector.
Thanks Karl, you make my point.
Not to mention colonial powers (including the US, by the 90s) 'encouraging' military dictatorships in post-colonial states to prevent the population from voting in a leftwing government, though that was more of a Central/South American and SE Asian speciality. It's like how someone exiting an abusive relationship is at heightened risk of entering into another abusive relationship. Being an occupied country is psychologically traumatic as well as socio-economically. This has later ramifications due to intergenerational trauma.
People are probably being polite given that he's just died - it doesn't mean that the controversies didn't actually happen.
My problem isn't even necessarily specifically about Spong, but that functionally identical statements are made by white liberal Christians all the time and it very rarely gets picked up on as being racist in the first place. How many comments had been made here before I mentioned it? It blew my mind that the quote was just there and seemingly nobody had reacted at all to a quote I found really shockingly offensive. I would posit that 'low level' or 'implicit' racist statements amongst liberal Christians are just normalized rather than actually uncommon.
The US was involved in that game long before the 90s. The School of the Americas was training death squads for right wing dictators from the 70s, and the US was sticking its oar in all over Africa and Asia throughout the Cold War.
And given that I’ve known most if not all of those posting in that thread for the bulk of my 60 years, I don’t think they’re just being polite. I think they’re speaking from their personal experience of and personal relationship with Spong.
For them it’s not the death of a troublesome bishop whom they’ve read about or whose books they’ve read that they’re commenting on. They’re commenting on the death of the priest who was their pastor, who had a direct and personal impact on their lives and on their community.
And that’s my point—that press reports and news articles may show us part of a person, but they rarely show the complete person
That's my problem, too, and applies not simply to white liberal Christians but white liberals as a whole, because they claim their values constitute non culture-bound universal human rights.
Isn't that another way of saying they believe in a moral and ethical framework that exists whether or not cultures stray from it? And don't pretty much all Christians, liberal or otherwise, believe that?
It's their claim to know with certainty what is that ethical framework that's the source of their imperialist arrogance.
Not imprisoning or murdering people for who they're attracted to is something I'm pretty confident about. If that's imperialist arrogance so be it.
This does rather suggest that you think such things are unique to white liberals, when they're not.
Do you think that anti-racism is unique to white liberals?
No it doesn't. It merely notes the existence of cultures that consider those things moral.
No. And I never said it was.
Come on baby, let's do the twist. --chubby checker
Or, indeed, that racism is unique to white illiberals.
https://anglicanecumenicalsociety.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/bishop-spong-and-archbishop-williamss-response/
I have every sympathy with these remarks, for while I agree with Williams regarding Spong's challenge that: "The implication of the theses is that the sort of questions that might be asked by a bright 20th century sixth-former would have been unintelligible or devastating for Augustine, Rahner or Teresa of Avila. The fact is that significant numbers of those who turn to Christian faith as educated adults find the doctrinal and spiritual tradition which Bishop Spong treats so dismissively a remarkably large room to live in," I find his counter argument difficult to follow. I think that the development of a Christian Apologetic is a central matter facing the western church, and find it very frustrating that we a presented with the superficialities of Spong and the incomprehensibility of Williams.
I think Spong was once a gateway into Christianity for me. Having dug deeper into the faith, I now take issue with a lot of his arguments. At the same time, I'm glad he left the gate open for me. He also is responsible for the ordination of a gay woman who was the pastor at an Episcopal church we joined, and there's a story.
When she was first assigned, it was assumed that she was there to bury it, because it was withering. She turned it around instead, and went on to lead it as a thriving progressive congregation for the next couple decades. I joined that church with my family near the end of her term, which ended with her being elected a bishop.
So, I kind of have to respect the guy, practically, even if I'd argue with him on a lot of details. He kept the gate open.
I'm really enjoying that - thanks so much for posting. I don't find Williams easy to follow - but here there are times when he nails something which I have been groping around, with a precision which very much helps me understand what (I think) I think, myself. For instance:
There are some things that I think Spong got right, I admire him for advocating for inclusion of LGBT people in the Church, I also think generally he is right in advocating for a non-literalist approach to the Scriptures.
That being said, I disagree with him in his rather dismissive attitude towards orthodoxy. Theology is absolutely metaphorical, however the question is what metaphors are helpful in illuminating the faith. There is a tenderness about God the Father, that God the Ground of Being does not convey.
Thank you for the above post, AnglicanBrat, though I don't think the advocacy of a non-literalist approach the scripture is particular novel or remarkable. I thoroughly agree with your observation that theological propositions are "absolutely metaphorical", and that the question is which metaphors are the more helpful in illuminating the faith. I also share your preference for "God the Father" for that reason. We are, however, reminded by Bullfrog that Spong acted as a "gateway to Christianity" for him, and that some of his progressive attitudes and actions in society and the church, at least, reflect credit on his witness. I have to remind myself that the metaphors that appeal to me may not be those that compel others, and that I shouldn't get too worked up about it!
My quibble is really about Spong's language as I cannot see how you can have a non-theistic God.
I think this is where Spong as a theologian fails. Among orthodoxy, there is the notion of via negativa, that all language about the divine ultimately fails at fully grasping the complexity of the divine, the old quote from St Auggie, "If you can fully explain God, then you don't really know God." On this understanding, yes the Christian narrative is mythic, in the sense that things such as Incarnation or Resurrection cannot be completely comprehended on this side of life. But and here is where Spong and other 'non-theists' fail in understanding metaphor. Metaphor only has meaning if they actually refer to something that is objectively true.
I'll use a common example that Spong has used, the Ascension. He once argued that the Ascension is mythic nonsense because it is based on a three-tiered universe, the idea that God is 'up there', we are 'down here' and hell is 'below here'. And of course he on the same breath argued that this is literal nonsense because it apparently assumes God is a literal being in the skies.
You don't need to have a PhD in theology to effectively refute Spong here. Of course, the Ascension as we narrate it, is mythic, because for us puny humans, the notion of up is a helpful metaphor for divine transcendence. And yes for us to conceptualize Incarnation, it is helpful to imagine God 'coming down'. But just because the way we explain a sacred mystery is mythic, does not mean the Incarnation and Ascension did not objectively happen. If God did not become flesh in Jesus Christ, then we should not be reciting the Creed because the metaphor collapses if it is built on a lie. To use a romantic analogy, I do not write love poetry to my beloved if I do not in fact, love them. If there is no truthfulness to the mystery in which the metaphor/sign points to, then the metaphor/sign is absolutely meaningless.
And the Transfiguration as well as the Ascension.