But Doug Farrow is not simply a conservative malcontent. He has written that the description conservative evangelical is an oxymoron\u201d\u201dfor the gospel upsets conventional notions of morality, it does not conserve them. He has chastised conservative Christians for merely playing chaplain to the conservative subculture. He is also a renowned theologian, who did his doctoral work at King’s College in London and taught at Regent…[College] in Vancouver before coming to McGill. His book Ascension and Ecclesia (T&T Clark) has been hailed as an important treatise on Jesus’ ascension. Ellen Charry of Princeton called it “nothing less than a theological breakthrough.”<\/p>\n
Farrow’s rationale for his claims about homosexuality are more interesting than mere culture-war rehash. He asks why the government, in permitting gay marriage, felt the need to promise religious groups that they would remain free to “refuse to perform marriages that are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.” Just by raising the issue, Farrow suggested, the state was indicating that it could, if it wished, require ministers to perform rites against their will. “What has happened in Canada that suddenly we are forced to contemplate such a thing?”<\/p>\n
Theologically, Farrow takes issue with the Anglican proposal to “affirm the integrity and sanctity of committed adult same-sex relationships,” for the wording suggests that persons can be “already pleasing to God, requiring no redemption in Christ.” Such marginalization of Christ’s redemptive work in favor of approval of what people innately “are” would give up “what cannot be conceded without denying the gospel itself.” Finally, Farrow wrote in First Things about the oddity of the Anglican primates criticizing conservatives for poaching on the dioceses of liberal bishops in forming the Anglican Mission in America\u201d\u201da conservative network of parishes that have defected from the EC-USA to submit to mostly African primates. For is not Anglican existence in a place like Montreal (where Farrow teaches) a relic of a previous poaching effort into Roman Catholic land? “If Episcopal disunity and competition is wrong between Anglicans, it is wrong full stop.” Farrow concluded that essay of January 2005 with a hint of his pending departure: “Perhaps the crew of the good ship Anglican needs to put in at the nearest Roman harbor.”<\/p>\n