Rob Tish has put together another must see video, this time explaining how many ways you can be dead under the anti-gay bill before the Ugandan parliament.
Mark Silk writes about equivocal statements of criticism of a bill condoning “state genocide of the minority.”
So far as I can see, the only half-way plausible reason for equivocation on this issue is that speaking out forcefully would do more harm than good. That’s essentially the Archbishop of Canterbury’s position, justified by the claim, made sotto voce, that he’s working against the bill behind the scenes. But that’s not Christianity Today’s argument. To the contrary, its reasons for not coming out against the legislation are:
1. Deference should be paid to Ugandan resistance to Western “sexual liberation movements.”
2. Deference should be paid to African churches’ ability to make their own judgments.
3. Our missions might suffer.
These are grounds for refusing to take a stand against a genocidal campaign against homosexuals?
Yes, the Archbishop of Canterbury has taken the “more harm than good” position. More recently he said of the bill:
The rights and dignities of gay and lesbian people are a matter of proper concern for all of us, and we assume with good reason, even, I should say, with good Christian reason, that the securing of these rights is obviously a mark of civilised and humane society. When those rights are threatened – as in the infamous legislation that was being discussed in Uganda – we quite rightly express repugnance.
Of course the legislation is still being discussed. And elsewhere in the same address the ABC defended deference as a reason for equivocation:
The freedom claimed, for example, by the Episcopal Church to ordain a partnered homosexual bishop is, simply as a matter of fact, something that has a devastating impact on the freedom of, say, the Malaysian Christian to proclaim the faith without being cast as an enemy of public morality and risking both credibility and personal safety. It hardly needs to be added that the freedom that might be claimed by an African Anglican to support anti-gay legislation likewise has a serious impact on the credibility of the gospel in our setting.
But is it not equivocation that has a serious impact on the credibility of the good news?
Columnist Kathleen Parker writes,
Is neutrality really an option for one of the world’s most powerful Christian leaders [r.e. Rick Warren] when state genocide of a minority is proposed in the name of Christianity?
If we decide that genocide is too political for interference, then what good is moral leadership?