What bishops should be more concerned about is her insinuation that a non-white culture leads to domestic violence and that white, western culture is too civilised and too advanced to allow such atrocities to occur. Roskam fails to recognise that domestic violence affects people regardless of their class, ethnicity, religion, gender or geography.
But perhaps bishops should not be surprised by her attitude, which has echoes in an incident from the previous Lambeth conference in 1998, when another American bishop claimed African Christians had only just developed from believing that rocks and trees have spirits and did not understand modern science. This rhetoric, and the underlying assertion of superiority, plays into the hands of conservative evangelicals who are fed up with colonialist attitudes, but also of people who argue that religion, its followers and leaders are backwards and irrelevant.
Good for Riazat Butt for challenging +Roskam’s statement. Very glad to see this.
Amen, Elf. Here are the TEC liberals, saying they are so “inclusive” while calling other cultures — Christian bishops! — primitive and prone to violence. What’s amazing is that they can’t see how arrogant this sounds.
The issue in question was page 1 of Tuesday, July 29. It was an outtake quote. (Just wanting to give context.)
I am planning to send a note to Diocese NY regarding this.
Randall
Randall,
Please let us know what response you get to your note.
Didn’t one revisionist here sniff that ++Akinola, et alia were “pre-moderns” and thus not to be heeded on matters civilized?
Underground:
I don’t expect much. I am not from NY but am in NYC on business a good deal so I don’t mind speaking up.
I am really aggrivated over the statement, though, because it is embarrassing to the whole church. That’s all I have to say.
Randall
Is the statement true, or not? As someone who is half Indian and half European, I can definitely attest to the fact that physical abuse is much more common in one than the other.
This is an example of multi-culti relativism.
Not that she is wrong that there is some imperialism going on – American capital is what is responsible for that. We’re selling them the goods, and the culture is buying it.
Let’s have a little clarity here. If both partners are of the same sex, is the incidence of “spouse†abuse higher or lower than the percentage in the general man-woman pairing? The Journal of Interpersonal Violence reports it as >30% “reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse†among lesbians and the Journal of Social Servic Research reports “the incidence of domestic violence among gay men is nearly double that of heterosexualsâ€.
So on this basis there’s a one in 3 chance that certain prominent married lesbians from All Saints, Pasadena, have engaged in physical abuse and a greater than 50% chance that a certain country bishop from New Hampshire has as well.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics from the USDJ reports that married women have the lowest rate of violence compared with women in other types relationships. The Medical Institute for Sexual Health concurs reporting that marriage (between a man and a woman) have the least violence compared to cohabiting or dating relationships.
So, if sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, we can opine that more physical abuse occurs between lesbian couples and male homosexual couples than among heterosexual couple as a percentage and that the stance of the ECUSA/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC is likely to INCREASE partner violence. That’s certainly a justice issue that the gay agendites do NOT want to talk about.
Here’s to Bishop Roskam for raising the issue. Let’s have her statistics in support of her opinion.
dmstroud – then perhaps marriage is the cure for such violence.
Given that bishop are mortal flesh like all of us, it’s probably that some bishop, somewhere has struck his/her spouse at some point. That could, of course, be true in the enlightened United States as well as darkest Africa.
What’s really needed is evidence that such events occur routinely in the ranks of the episcopate and have approval, at least tacit, of the local House of Bishops. Since Bishop Roskam has not produced evidence of even one such case (and acknowledging it likely she could), I doubt she can produce the really damning evidence of cultural violence enacted by Anglican bishops against their wives.
That being the case, the woman is a disgrace and should resign immediately. If she won’t, the American bishops at Lambeth should denounce her and demand she resign. If they won’t, the Archbishop of Canterbury should denounce them. If he won’t…. decent bishops should walk out in disgust.
Somehow, though, I don’t see any of that happening.
This is from Bishop Nick’s blog at Fulcrum. The Telegraph article referred to the same statement. I am not sure Bishop Nick is aware of the “Lambeth Witness” article or the Guardian article.
I felt a bit sorry for the media people. They have built today up into the day the explosion would happen and the Anglican Communion would collapse in on itself under a weight of sexual tension. But it didn’t and we didn’t. Mind you, this might have been an appropriate and just reward to the Daily Telegraph for its scandalous, misrepresentative and deliberately sensationalist article about wife-beating by bishops. The American bishop who had been interviewed was horrified to see what the press had done and explained herself to the assembled bishops in the afternoon session. Welcome to the British media! She should sue the journalist concerned. And the journalist should ask whether this sort of story really satisfies any sense of professional integrity…
My concern is scandalization of the Church, and that has been done. I am not sure if Bishop Nick is aware of the article in the “Lambeth Witness” that was involved. If +Roskam explained herself as he indicates, though, then good for her. That was what she needed to do. I hope it was accompanied with an apology.
The media damage is done, of course, but that is what the Brit press does.
Randall
Randall –
I am not finding the blog to which you refer. Sorry if I am being dense.
Obviously, if Bishop Roskam was seriously misquoted, then I withdraw my comment #10. This is, however, the first claim I’ve read to contradict her quotes.