May 03 2007
Gnats and Camels
Thinking Anglicans draws attention to this hard-hitting article in the Falls Church News. The paper has a record, prompted by a split in its own local Episcopal Church whose leadership has decamped to a Nigerian allegiance, of protesting against a conservative takeover, and is not neutral on the issues. However, it does raise a very important question:
Is Robisnon’s sexual orientation more important than the heartbreaking fact that two million Africans die from AIDS-related illnesses each year, according to Nuhu Ribadu, the Chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission?
Does a New England homosexual take precedence over the nearly 3,000 African children who die each day from malaria? Is the gay issue a bigger moral concern than the 40 million African children who are not currently in school?
Or, what about the fact that Nigeria has profited to the lavish tune of a half trillion dollars from oil revenues in less than fifty years - and yet, seventy percent of Nigerians live in abject poverty with exiguous incomes of less than one dollar a day? (Presumably, these peasants are not the ones sitting in the pews of Akinola’s lavish church).
There are huge problems highlighted in the article about the consequences of Nigeria’s recent compromised elections, as well as these sharply pointed questions. One has to ask whether the obsession with sex, and gay rights, both by liberals and conservatives (irrespective of the rights and wrongs of the issue) is itself such a fundamental distortion of gospel priorities as to put the actual argument in the shade.
If it is possible for Anglicans to share communion while holding diverse views of the importance of addressing famine, tyranny, poverty, corruption, state violence and disease, then why is it not possible when it comes to gay relationships?