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Shaped by a traditional hostile social environment and internal psychological factors conservative Christianity erroneously sees an affirming welcome of sexual and gender minorities as a moral failure. This is combined with our emerging understanding of the social bias through the work of Jonathan Haidt, Mary Douglas, Julia Kristeva and the scapegoat theory of René Girard. I believe it involves factors including the long history of hatred, live burning, drowning and torture of sexual and gender minorities in the name God. In my book I explore a combination of causes for this. The reasons for this form of religious hatred are complex. As I follow you on Twitter, Michael, I see how this form of hatred is expressed daily against you as an ally. Q: Why is it that a subject that features so seldom in the Bible-homosexuality- seems so vital to conservative Christians?Ī: The British historian Alexandra Walsham describe this kind of Christian attitude of aversion, passive aggression and bullying as charitable hatred. This needed to stop, and I needed to create a resource that addressed the hatred and anger against sexual and gender minorities in religious contexts. The harm being done by the Christian religion right now in our Canadian context remains staggering. The research of Peter Newman and Sophia Fantus at the University of Toronto, Social Work has shown just how vulnerable LGBTQI youth are in religious schools in our city.
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I also realized that this experience is real for many sexual and gender minority people of faith and that I needed to address it.Īs my research commenced, I discovered that things were worse than I anticipated. The inner rupture between the teaching and attitude of my church and my experience as a gay man became unbearable.Īs a theologian and tenured professor, my mind could grasp that the church is wrong, but my heart could not get there. For me this book project began with a late Fall day in 2010 when I stood on the edge of a lake in Northern Ontario and seriously considered taking my own life. He spoke to Maclean’s about the harm being done by the Christian religion, confronting hatred and what needs to change.Ī: My response to this question is both personal and social. He has taught theology since 1983, beginning in his native South Africa but coming to Canada after being harassed and raided by the security police.
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That stance continues to cause great pain and suffering.Ī new book on the subject, Misguided Love: Christians and the Rupture of LGBTQI2+ People from Charles Fensham is the latest to address the theme, and what makes this volume so unusual and significant is that its author is not known primarily as an activist or a journalist but as an academic theologian.įensham is professor of systematic theology at Knox College, University of Toronto, the author of highly praised books and articles, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. The Roman Catholic Church states in its catechism that “homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity” are “contrary to natural law,” and that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” but most informed commentators believe that at least a third of all priests are gay, not all of them celibate.įather Donald Cozzens argues in his 2000 book The Changing Face of the Priesthood that as many as 58 per cent of priests are gay, and that the rate is higher for younger priests, yet Rome still denies and obfuscates.
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Some denominations have already become what is often known as “affirming”, others are almost at that stage, but most evangelicals-a deeply significant group in the U.S.-remain steadfastly conservative. Indeed for many conservative Christians, the litmus test for faith is less a belief in Jesus Christ than a rejection of homosexuality, which is bizarre in that the subject is hardly ever mentioned in the entirety of Scripture, and Jesus never refers to it at all!
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The issue of LGBTQ2 equality, the full acceptance of gay people, and the performing of same-sex marriages are perhaps the most divisive issues facing contemporary Christianity.