Ex Patria

Do we really need another Church that knows best?

Via Feministing, this piece of not news:

Hundreds of formerly Episcopal parishes are meeting this week to unify as a new national church: the Anglican Church in North America.

Organizers, led by former Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh Robert Duncan, expect 300 delegates, including 50 bishops, in Bedford, Texas, for a three-day gathering that begins Monday.

The group is scheduled to adopt church laws that will exclude women and homosexuals as bishops. It also is expected to elect and install Duncan as archbishop.

My personal opinion is that we need another church that ostracizes a group of people as badly as a sore throat. Especially in times when religious fundamentalism is causing harm left and right, I find this a worrisome development.

First, CANA, now the Anglican Church of North America.  Next, what? We need unity, and respect for each other more than that every single opinion gets their own church.

One of the main principles of us UU's is that we have respect for every person, even (or especially) in the face of differing opinions.  I find this the one principle with which I struggle the hardest.  Not because I can't show respect but because I find it very hard to show respect towards people who don't respect me and my beliefs.  I find that infuriating. 

Among the people I know who belong to CANA, my differing opinions are hushed up, not talked about, especially not in front of the kids.  I can't mention what I believe in, what I think, what I passionately fight for.  It's all worth nothing at all as soon as I enter their periphery. There can't be any discussion or dissent.  You either conform to those rules or you are "breaking the peace of the house" and are asked to leave.  For me, this seems as if I have to slice off a part of me before I enter their house.  That's very sad because you know, some of those people are really nice. I suppose it's really their problem that their religion doesn't allow them to accept me as I am, only as I should be. 

But somehow, it's ends up being my problem after all.  I respect their views but they don't respect mine.  And I really have not yet found a good way to deal with that.

Questions

You may or may not know that I was born and raised Catholic with a Protestant father.  As a child, I was very religious and I struggled for a long time with the fact that my parents were so open-minded heretic.  Apparently this is infectious, as I started asking tough questions myself as I grew up, and the answers didn't satisfy me.  Later, much later, I found the Unitarian Universalists and finally had the feeling that I was among people like myself. I'm very happy with my choice.

Doug is still Catholic but, well, that's his story to tell.  In any case, we do not raise our children with a belief in a higher being of any sort.  We do tell them religious stories of all kinds and from all backgrounds, they know the story of Noah and his ark as well as the Norse or Greek mythology.  We more or less raise our kids according to UU principles because they are good principles.

We are currently visiting in Germany, and in Franconia (traditionally Catholic( there are lots and lots of giant crucifixes standing around in the landscape.  Alan has started asking questions, and he started to find his own answers, too.

The trash that they are

I don't think that my views are much of a secret.  I've been slapping them into the faces of my readers, want or not.  How I then got onto the mailing list of the UK-based "LifeLeague" sincerely baffled me.  At first, I didn't heed it much, trashed the email and forgot about it.  Since my email program doesn't show pictures until I tell it it's OK to do so, I didn't get to enjoy the photos of aborted fetuses that were part of the newsletter.

Today, I got the third newsletter in as many days.  I got annoyed, more so when I noticed that the "unsubscribe" button didn't work, so I wrote them an admittedly sharp email:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I've been receiving unsolicited emails from you.  On top of landing on a mailing list without agreeing to it, the link to unsubscribe from it doesn't work.  I am quite bothered by this intrusion into my privacy.

Furthermore, I fail to see why you would send me any of your mailings in the first place. I am a Public Health professional, pro-choice, a Unitarian Universalist and could not be further removed from your way of thinking.   Also, as a German national, I'm very offended by your misrepresentational and misleading reporting of the case of a German home-schooled child.  In Germany, home-schooling is illegal.  If you do something illegal in a country, you have to suffer the consequences.  If you don't want to deal with the laws, you have to move somewhere else. Your choice of sources is biased and bigot. [Yes, I know.  Bigoted.]

Please remove me from your list effective immediately.

The reply below the fold.

Ever closer

The Episcol Church of is undergoing some vital changes these days.  Some congregations are not happy with the appointment of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire (where else?).  After the vestries of the Truro Church and The Falls Church have recommended that the congretations should take up with CANA, a Nigeria-based Anglican branch, the church members are this week voting on the issue.  It is expected that both congregations will follow the recommendations of their leaders.

CANA is headed by a bishop by the name of Akinola who is in favor of jailing gays.

Why is this so important to me?  Well, my brother-in-law and godfather of David sits on the vestry of The Falls Church.  And my very best friends' brother is gay.  And I'm leaning ever close the the Unitarian Universalist view of the world.  Those things don't mix very well.

It feels to me that my world is getting ever smaller and at some point, I cannot just shut up and be quiet for the sake of family peace anymore.  I will have to make my point, for Dan's sake, and for my own sake.  I don't want to cause yet another rift in the family but then, how cowardly would it be to just not say anything? 

I'm going to see my family in January.  Will I dare to wear my HRC T-shirt? Is that too risqué?