My Church is not a safe haven for bigots

[lemonbeam]

I really feel there is a God. I know atheism is extremely fashionable nowadays but I just can’t kick this believing thing. I must say that I have a lot of time for atheists. I respect anyone who gives this most momentous question a good deal of thought, whatever conclusion they finally arrive at.

I’m less keen on the glut of bandwagon atheists who’ve just unquestioningly joined in because they think the atheist label makes them sound clever and grown-up. I suspect that they see themselves in an elite senior common room with Bertrand Russell and Charles Darwin while people like me are in Julie’s Pantry with Cliff Richard.

It’s bad enough that many believers never question their own convictions but at least their dumb acceptance comes with an element of “safest option” insurance. I’d have thought, in the bandwagon atheist’s case, that it’s worth having a proper think — maybe even spending an hour on Wikipedia — before turning your back on what might just be a life illuminated by faith. It seems rash to screw up eternity on the strength of something that you read on the side of a bus.

I was baptised Roman Catholic but left the Old Church when I was 17 because I was an angry young man who couldn’t accept doctrine like papal infallibility, praying to saints and the gaining of indulgences. I read every book I could find on Catholicism — most of them condemnatory — but 11 years later I returned to the Church.

Read more: timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/frank_skinner/article6886168.ece

 

[gardienbleu]

“It feels more like they’re [Anglicans are] seeing my Church as a safe haven for homophobes and misogynists.”

With grace, hopefully Mr. Skinner will come to see that The Church loves women and homosexuals, whereas the world that hates them by encouraging them to violate God’s plan for creation. It is bigotry against sin and heresy that has finally driven some Anglicans to return to their true home, the Church of Rome.