From time to time a report comes across my desk that is so important that I want to share it with my readers. That is the case with this report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the United Kingdom. It is not that their thought is new, it is that they have undertaken to report it systematically and with the full scholarship and authority of their offices. They have also included a bibliography, which is attached.
When a prejudice is being debated there is a necessity for both sides of the debate to possess facts not just opinions. That is what is so often missing when religious people debate homosexuality. This report was issued because of the raging argument and dislocation going on in my church and in many others about homosexuality. The time has come for people to realize that pious homophobia is not a substitute for truth. The time has also come for Church leaders at every level to be confronted by competent scholarship, and for weak and fearful bishops, who believe that unity in ignorance is a legitimate goal for the Christian Church, to be told that it is not.
I commend this report to your study and hope that you will help to distribute it widely. For any part of the Christian Church to break apart over the use of outdated and thoroughly discredited ideas about homosexuality is a tragedy. For any part of the Christian Church to be as woefully uninformed on this subject as so many ecclesiastical leaders seem to be is a sign of incompetent leadership.
I think what i UL'd says it all. Thoughts? Comments? Roger
Full report can be found on Spong's site <support@johnshelbyspong.com>