Tuesday, August 26, 2003

Huh. I opened my e-mail inbox this morning to discover I’d collected one hundred spams in 19 hours. That’s a new record. I’ve asked our server’s admin to set up some sort of spam filter. I don’t even really need an ironclad solution that removes all unwanted e-mail; I just want something that’ll take care of the obvious stuff.

Can’t write much today; I overslept this morning, and I have about 24 pages of code to document before I leave. I should be able to do it, but that leaves little time for writing journal entries.

Last night, my church (The Falls Church) met to discuss our reaction to the General Assembly’s appointment of a practicing homosexual as a bishop. It was a rather difficult meeting, as everyone was pretty worked up over it. We oppose it, as a whole, and feel a need to response.

Let me make one important point here to clear up any potentail misunderstandings: This is not a condemnation of homosexuals. It’s also not really a condemnation of homosexuality. It’s about our church’s position in an organization that believes homosexuality is not a sin. Here’s the logic:

The Bible makes it pretty clear that homosexual sex is a sin (though it does not say that being attracted to others of the same gender is a sin). It’s also very clear that all sin is equal, and we are all sinners. So, the act of homosexual sex is a sin just like any other. We’re not trying to make homosexuality a huge horrible thing, and we’re not condemning a person because they’re homosexual. Our church would welcome gay people into our congregation (I would hope; I don’t know because there’s no noticeable gay membership in the church).

The big problem is that this new bishop does not acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin, and the General Convention (implicitly) agrees with him. We’re concerned because we as a church are part of an organization that has turned its back on Biblical teaching.

As our rector pointed out, this is good in a sense. It’s forcing a whole host of issues to the forefront of debate. It’s making us talk about this.

If nothing else, this is forcing the Anglican community to ask itself about its track record of treating gay people, which I’d say is pretty darned poor.

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