A People's Church: A Church's Fall, A People's Spoil
I have read Jeremy Morris’s A People’s Church: A History of the Church of England. Morris describes himself as a ‘somewhat renegade Anglo-Catholic’, which is possibly an attempt to appeal to every wing of the Church. Although I enjoyed the breadth of material, and the way in which he writes in an independent, unpartisan style, one particular observation set my blood a-boil. He compared an eighteenth-century individual, upon proclaiming himself to be an evangelical, as ‘coming out’, in the modern sense of announcing to one’s friends and family that one is homosexual. Although Morris probably thought himself wonderfully witty and provocative in making such a comparison, it seemed tasteless to me. His People’s Church is likely to split over the issue, and evangelical pastors like myself consider jail time a realistic prospect for refusing to accept and endorse same-sex marriages. Such relationships are the hair that shall break the People’s Camel, the Nail in the People’s Coffin. Morris may well rue the day he confused so glibly a previous generation’s conversion to vibrant, saving faith, and a current generation's attachment to lust and identity politics.
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