News: The Church Should Lay off Sex

Added Thursday 23rd August 2012

What is it about homosexuality which arouses so much heat and so little light? I mean, what does it matter to anybody else what people do with each other's parts in private, particularly when, unlike irresponsible heterosexual sex, with which I am not comparing it, there is no chance of procreating unwanted offspring?

The simplest answer is that religions in general and Christianity in particular have made the mistake which only God can forgive of conflating morals with religion which is fundamentally a matter of worship.

As Christians we should live what we in good and informed conscience believe to be morally sound lives but there is no such thing as Christian morals which is not at all the same thing as saying that Christians are and have been individually and collectively amoral and immoral. But we should have learned by now from officially sanctioned injustice, territorial war, slavery, racism, oppression and, perhaps above all, cowardice, that Lambeth Palace and the Vatican are not reliable guides to living the good life. You could argue that Christian hierarchies have behaved as creatures of their time. That's my point. They haven't stood out against prevailing, traditionally sanctioned moral outrages.

If Christianity is to survive it must de-couple itself completely from ethical controversy in general and sex and gender issues in particular.