The latest row \u201d\u201d into which the Archbishop of Canterbury has stumbled like a blind man into a bog \u201d\u201d is over the \u201clesbian bishop\u201d\u009d elected by the American Episcopal Church (the equivalent of the Church of England). According to Ruth Gledhill, The Times\u2019s reliable Religion Correspondent, this single appointment places the future of the entire Anglican Communion \u201cin jeopardy\u201d\u009d. Such is the froth of hysteria about sexuality in the upper echelons of the Church that this astonishing claim seems quite plausible.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a theologian. I may be overlooking something in the recorded sayings of Jesus Christ. But as far as I can recall, the founder of the Church said nothing whatsoever about sexuality \u201d\u201d either his own or anyone else\u2019s. We don\u2019t know whether he was gay or straight; celibate, monogamous or promiscuous. Nor what he expected his followers to be \u201d\u201d if he expected anything. Mercifully, perhaps, the gospel writers \u201d\u201d compiling their chronicles 30 years or more after Christ\u2019s death \u201d\u201d lacked the ruthless digging skills and insatiable prurience of today\u2019s biographers. Had Kitty Kelley rather than St Mark been around in 1st-century Judaea, the story might have been racier. But as things stand, there is no justification in the pronouncements of Christ for anyone in the Church to pontificate (I use the word advisedly) about harmless activities that go on in private between consenting adults \u201d\u201d even if some of those adults are the Church\u2019s own clerics.<\/p>\n