Angered by the Episcopal Church’s move to accept homosexuals as fellow Christians, the Anglican Bishops of Africa have moved to stop sending their clergy to train in the West.
I wonder if that African perspective will include those other ideas from African custom such as femail genital mutilation and widespread genocide. Nice to see that the Bishops of Dallas and other parts of the country have chosen to associate with their fellow troglodytes in Africa.
I’d bitch about this, if it weren’t for the fact that our own rector and visiting Bishop Barbara Harris said exactly the same thing last week. (Are you three on a newsgroup I don’t belong to? ;))
I’ve seriously considered sending the appropriate Primates the Scripture quote about motes and beams in eyes.
These are the African Anglican bishops.
Please don’t vilify all Anglicans by one group’s actions. 
Wow, a strawman before the first comma, and two of our progressive posters playing with racial stereotpyes for fun.
Impressive.
Likewise, please don’t vilify all Africans.
If you are accusing Polycarp of racial stereotyping for using the word “primate” in relation to African Anglicans, then you owe him an apology. In the Anglican church, a “primate” is a presiding bishop.
I believe he’s also calling out Homebrew for “troglodytes”.
The only person in this thread playing with racial stereotypes is you, furt. There are accepted usages of those words that have nothing to do with race, and I cannot believe that anyone who’s been around here longer than a month or two would believe that either Polycarp or Homebrew would be using them in other than those accepted usages.
Your post was a foul blow and beneath even your standards.
Me, I’m not playing with racial stereotypes.
Several of the bishops and archbishops who have been most outspoken about Gene Robinson and the blessing of gay marriages have been from countries which practice genital mutilation of females. They happen to be Africans of what’s traditionally classified as “black” in racial breakdowns. Another such outspoken person is from Singapore, and is not black; I don’t know what his ethnic background is, offhand. There are African Anglican leaders who hold a quite different view, and I have no interest in criticizing them.
And I might point out that the two people I quoted as backing Homebrew’s OP were my rector (a married woman of Scandinavian descent whose assistant is her husband) and the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris.
BTW, I think Homebrew’s first clause is right on the mark – that is exactly what they are doing, and it’s sanctimonious bullshit IMO (and in that of much of my church).
Would you care to rethink your comment?
Doesn’t
count as a racial stereotype? Okay, okay, Africans aren’t a race.
But I thought that here at the Dope, we frown upon tarnishing large groups of people with our judgements upon the acts of a few.
(I note that neither FGM nor genocide was invented by “Africans,” nor are they practiced by the huge majority of them.)
BTW, what’s “African custom”?
I don’t see anything Homebrew posted as tarnishing all Africans. Or all Anglicans. Nor even all African Anglicans. He’s tarnishing the leadership of the African Anglican church, based on their actions and statements.
I would hazard a guess that it’s any custom practiced in Africa, or a portion thereof. FGM is, indeed, a custom practiced in parts of Africa, making it an “African custom,” although no one has suggested that it is either unique or pandemic to Africa. I wouldn’t really call genocide a “custom,” but I suspect that was snark on Homebrew’s behalf. And, apparently, homophobia is one more such custom, at least according to the African Anglican church leadership. Since they think one disgusting “custom” is an important and integral part of thier religion, it seems that asking if other disgusting “customs” from the region are also important and integral parts of their religion is absolutely fair game.
I’d say an African custom is a custom widespread in Africa.
According to Amensty International
It’s not a racial stereotype, it’s a cultural condemnation. In Nigeria, for instance, 50% of women and girls are mutilated. In Egypt and Ethiopia, more than 90% of women and girls suffer this barbaric act. Yet these are the nations most up in arms about the election of Bishop Robinson in the United States.
A man is known by the company he keeps.
Are you daft? The first clause is the stated reason for the strife. If you don’t believe it, read the Primate of All Nigeria Peter Akinola’s comments on the Windsor Report.
Fuck him.
The Rector at St Mark’s is coming out on the side of the African Bishops?
Please tell me I’ve misunderstood.
grumblegrumbe* Gonna have to find a different new church if we move back to Raleigh.
Amazingly, several of the schismatic parishes disapproving in the Diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia who disagree with the diocese’s stance in favour of same-sex marriage have chosen to place themselves under the authority of the… Anglican Church of Rwanda.
boggles
No, it’s my incompetence at English style to blame. Lorraine and Bishop Harris said the same things as Homebrew, not as the African bishops.
Yeesh! Trust me to bollix up my syntax to sound like I’m saying the reverse of what I mean! :o
I knew I had to have been mistaken. The one time I had actually met Lorraine, she seemed to approve of the fact I grew up attending Pullen.
This has made me wonder what happens to the church facilities when churches do this. Are the parishoners disappointed to find out the buildings are acually owned by the local Diocese, and they can no longer meet there?
Sorry for the continuing hijack.
I disagree with this characterization on two parts.
First, it’s not “widespread.” Your cite says it happens in 28 African countries, which is fewer than half of all of them.
And, while we’re at it, can I have a cite for this?
Second, your cite also says that it happens in the Middle East and in immigrant communities around the world, so to describe it as “African” is somewhat misleading.
Finally: to call something an “African custom” sounds, to my ears, like calling something (and I hate to use this example, but please bear with me) a “homosexual custom.” Each of these uses implies some sort of homogeneity among Africans or among homosexuals. Africa is a massive country, with huge amounts of cultural diversity. Two randomly selected Africans are likely to be as different from each other as two randomly selected homosexuals. An Egyptian has little in common with a Bantu, and both differ enormously from a Boer. There is no shared ‘culture’ among them.
Sorry for the nitpicking. It just drives me bonkers that whenever “Africa” or “Africans” are represented in popular culture, it is usually with an uncritical reference to something horrible. We object when almost any other large group of people is represented in this way.
To clarify: I will not object if you generalize about, say, African Anglican primates. I also acknowledge (and condemn) the fact that homophobia is very common in many African communities.
I just ask for the clarity and respect, when speaking of Africans, that you would provide for Americans, or Democrats, or Muslims, or disabled people, or women, or whoever. Remember that the overwhelming majority of them do not practice genocide or FGM.
Thanks !
:smack:
heh heh … I know that Africa’s a continent, not a country.
slinks away in embarassment
Actually, my cites “more than” 28 African nations. The cite also says “It is practised extensively in Africa”. Extensive. Widespread. Tomato Tomahto.
Where do you suspect those immigrant populations are from? Further, also from my cite, “In the Middle East, FGM is practised in Egypt, Oman, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates.” Guess what contintent is proximate to those nations? Could it be that the custom predates the Islamic influence there since they are physically attached to Africa. More from religioustolerance.com
(bolding mine)
It’s a practice (FGM) common (practiced extensively) in a place (Africa). Q.E.D.
Egyptians and Bantu practice FGM. Boers don’t; but you have to wonder if that’s because of their ultimate heritage being from Europe.
I’ll criticize any group that practices such vile acts.
If there were more than 50% of American women undergoing this mutilation, then I’d call it an American custom.
But it is the Africans themselves who started talking about “African culture.” When Africans are talking about creating an “African culture” that reflects “African culture” and an “African perspective,” there’s no problem with questioning what these values are.