Maybe it shouldn’t come as a major surprise that a church that was founded just because King Henry VIII wanted to bang a woman other than his wife is still going through a moral crises… but here we go…
Bishops in the Church of England have just begun to ramp up efforts to recruit women who claim to be men and men who claim to be women as new leaders of the church in an effort to present the church as a place of “diversity.”
A newly released guidance by the Diocese of Lichfield begins, “you may have heard about initiatives happening nationally in the area of human sexuality and gender identity”, before diving straight into SJW Territory.
“Bishop Michael has convened a listening group,” the document continues, “the group consists of a range of people, identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, same-sex attracted, and heterosexual; single and partnered; celibate and married” (don’t ask me for a second what the difference between gay and same-sex attracted are, not sure I want to know).
Calling it out for what it is, before delving into bullet points, the document proclaims “This, we believe, is the starting point of that radical Christian inclusion for which the Archbishops have called.”
Oddly enough, the Diocese claims “Intrusive questioning about someone’s sexual practices or desires, or their experience of gender, is almost always inappropriate. It is also unacceptable to tell or insinuate to people that sexual orientation or gender identity will be changed by faith, or that homosexuality or gender difference is a sign of immaturity or a lack of faith.” You’d think that questioning some of the proclivities of future church leaders IS necessary to determine moral character; it is one thing to say homosexuality itself is not a sin, it is another to say potentially dangerous notions of sex or gender are no business of the church (wasn’t it that same blind-eye to sexual impropriety that gave us the pedophile scandals a decade ago?).
The fourth and last bullet points lay out their objective far more clearly: “We wish to affirm that LGBT+ people can be called to roles of leadership and service in the local church. We very much hope that they, like everyone else, feel encouraged to serve on PCCs, or as churchwardens and worship leaders, for instance, and are supported in exploring vocations to licensed lay and ordained ministries. Nobody should be told that their sexual or gender identity in itself makes them an unsuitable candidate for leadership in the Church.”
The reason for this shift? Because they believe “the perception that the Church is homophobic and transphobic is harming our mission.”
And therein lies the problem here, it is one thing to work towards more acceptance of all people and individuals, but what does become dangerous (and is an unfortunate symptom of our time) is to base leadership roles on meeting diversity quotas; to work so hard to breed the notion of “acceptance” within an organization that you end up with people destroying the organization itself. We’ve seen this across the private sector in America time and time again (not to mention what happened when the Boy Scouts decided to go this route and their membership halved), I think we can guess who this will play out within a religious organization…
