5th August Queen takes Bishop. Check Mate!

 

This was posted yesterday on Twitter by Sandi Toksvig in response to Justin Welby's recent affirmation that gay sex is a sin. Definitely a case of of the Queen taking an Archbishop. Check mate! 

Dear Justin, 

"I know we’ve never met and I probably should call you ‘Your Grace’ or ‘Your Eminence’ or something but I wish we were friends. If we were I’d call you and say “Justin, Justin, what are you doing?”

"We’d have a chat and maybe I could persuade you that you have made a horrible mistake. It’s what friends do for each other."

"So, you and your other religious pals got together at the Lambeth Conference and the main take away seems to be that gay sex is a sin. It was a sin in 1998 and you just wanted to make clear in 2022 that no one in your finely frocked gang has moved on from that."

"Seriously, with the state the world is in, that is what you wanted to focus on? You didn’t have other more pressing matters like, I don’t know, war or poverty? Did you know that a survey in 2021 by Just Like Us, an LGBTQ+ young people’s charity ound that young LGBTQ+ people are twice as likely to contemplate suicide and three times more likely to self-harm as their non-LGBTQ+ peers? Do you know why?"

"For many it’s because they don’t feel loved and love, Justin, is supposed to be at the core of what you do. It’s like top of the job description. Apparently you feel you have balanced out this shocking statement of exclusion by saying you won’t punish churches who conduct same sex marriages. What would that punishment be?"

"Does the Church of England have a naughty step where loving priests sit before allowed back at the bigot’s table? This is a serious matter. The lives of LGBTQ+ people are at stake here."

"I have had several credible death threats over the years sometimes requiring the very kind assistance of the police hate crime squad. Each and every one of those threats has come from an evangelical Christian."

"Inevitably they have wanted to kill me on God’s behalf because although he may be omnipotent apparently he’s also very busy. Why just raising this matter with you is probably a bad idea for my health. I’ll cope but what about my brothers and sisters who won’t?"

"You talk about questioning biblical teaching as ‘unthinkable’. There are seven texts in the Bible which are often pointed to as proof that God hates a homosexual but everyone who has ever studied the matter knows that the ‘proof’ lies only in extremely fallible interpretation. None of it is clear cut."

"You are a smart guy & you know it would be perfectly possible to see the same words in a positive light if you were so minded. Sodom&Gomorrah is not about condemning loving same sex couples but about sexual violence & the importance of kindness to strangers. How ironic."

"When same sex marriage was being debated I heard an Anglican bishop interviewed on Radio 4. “Gay people,” he declared, “have enough equality.” Enough equality? It’s not something that comes in slices. You either have it or you don’t."

"Oh Justin, how can you be so stuck? Are you saying that the Bible teaches us that none of us can ever learn from experience? That we can never grow and gain a deeper understanding of human behaviour than we had 2,000 years ago when you could still feed a crowd with two loaves and a handful of fish? Jesus doesn’t mention sexuality at all. It clearly wasn’t a big deal for him."

"The only time I think he had anything like a conference was when he gathered 5,000 people for the Sermon on the Mount. That was when he talked about good trees bearing good fruit and bad trees bearing bad fruit. That’s the sort of message that would be great from you. Really simple. Just be a good person. That’s it. Jesus never even mentioned whether the tree was bent or not."

"As chance would have it, this Saturday my wife of sixteen years & I, the heathens that we are, will be attending our neighbourhood C of E church. We have been too hurt over the years to have any faith left but I am hosting a concert to raise money for local Ukrainian refugees."

"I am happy to do it but I will not feel welcome knowing the long shadow my sin casts. I am a humanist. I continue to believe in the fundamental goodness of people. Despite my lack of religion I have often found solace in churches."

"We all need calm spaces to gather our thoughts but I am done. After the concert I shall leave the church and never set foot in an Anglican building again. I’ll come back when you decide to welcome all of ‘God’s children’ on equal footing."

"Call me, Justin. Let’s have coffee. Let me talk you round. You never know, I might even forgive you."