Modernizing the church

Dear friends

It’s been a pretty constant message for most of my lifetime—this call for the Christianity to ‘modernize’ or die—but a couple of recent instances have been notable.

In late August, The Times of London had a story about a survey of Anglican ministers, in which nearly half were in favour of same-sex weddings, and almost two thirds said that the Church should no longer teach that sex belonged only in marriage. It was a strange and probably misrepresentative survey, it must be said, but it led to the predictable refrain, along the lines of “If the Church doesn’t modernize its views on women and sexuality, it will continue to shrink into irrelevance”.

And then just a couple of weeks ago, Julia Baird hosted a discussion on the ABC (followed by an article in The Sydney Morning Herald), tearing into the familiar target of the outdated, misogynistic Sydney Diocese, with a similar kind of punch line—the Angicans need to change their appalling attitudes or be left behind.

In this week’s episode, we look at why modernization is good, necessary, unavoidable, dangerous and entirely the wrong way to think about it.

Hope that eventually makes sense!

Your brother

Tony

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