Who are the bullies?

At General Synod last week the Church of England announced that it was going to work with Stonewall to address homophobic bullying in schools. In response there has been a typically mean spirited statement from Angican 'Mainstream'. Changing attitude has delivered a robust riposte. To quote Colin Coward:

Anglican Mainstream says that children's lack of psychological and cognitive maturity makes them vulnerable to ideological and sexual manipulation. The statement implies that Stonewall manipulates children ideologically and sexually – it's a disgraceful statement and deeply homophobic.

Anglican 'Mainstream' is deeply homophobic and some of its supporters indulge in bullying and intimidation of those who disagree with them - excusing their behaviour by claiming that those they attack are 'guilty' of first order offences whereas their 'ends justify the means' approach should be disregarded. They need to look at themselves!

The Window

Say he is any man
anywhere set before the shop window
of life, full of comestibles
and jewels; to put out his hand
is to come against
glass; to break it is
to injure himself.

                     Shall he turn
poet and acquire them
in the imagination, gospeller
and extol himself for his abstention
from them?

                     What is he is not
called? I would put the manufacturers
there. Let them see the eyes
staring in, be splashed with the blood
of the shop-breakers; let them live
on the poet's diet, on the pocket-money
of the priest.

                     I see the blinds
going down in Europe, over the
whole world: the rich with everything to
sell, the poor with nothing to buy it with.

R S Thomas (Experimenting With An Amen 1986)
I'm reading this book - I'd missed out seeing this volume before and I was struck by Thomas' view of an acquisitive society. Particularly after this summer - in the UK - of riots and looting. Shall we offer pretence, a substitute for that which cannot be afforded?

Christian Values

Hat tip to Richard Smedley