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anglomedved) wrote2010-09-13 08:11 pm
Gays, women priests and the Russian church .....
I have recently been reading a lot of material from the Russian Church in Russia, condemning western secular liberalism. In general, I agree, but allow me three questions:
1) Is it possible to make the argument without this constant reference to homosexuality or women priests? How would one have argued before 1960, when secular liberalism was solidly rooted, but homosexual acts were still illegal in most western countries and women priests existed only in Denmark.
2) If I take the percentage of adult men having homosexual relations at least once a week in England or Germany, and compare it with the percentage of adult men getting seriously drunk at least once a week in Russia, which percentage is higher?
3) If a young Christian man finds himself sexually attracted to other men, are there competent priests in the Russian church who can handle the situation properly. I will not accept the argument ‘This does not happen in our house’. It does.
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In your last line you are referring to one or more incidents which I am unaware of.
To take it one stage further, and to go to St Paul, the identity he gave to his Christian community was built up primarily of the good things they represented ("we commend ourselves by ...."), and only very secondarily or the bad things they had left behind.
I fear that, in the process of building up a Russian church/national identity, too many of the bricks being used are the bad things in other people's systems, and too few are the good things in one's own system.
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