Moral leaders without morality
This might seem like more Christian bashing, but it’s not. Not really. The latest statements from one of the Anglican bishops concerning the Lambeth Conference just highlighted how often those people who take upon themselves the mantle of moral leadership exhibit the worst of moral deficits.
Rt Rev Dr Daniel Deng, the archbishop of Sudan, has accused Gene Robinson of essentially acting in a non-Christian way and of being a sinner, telling Robinson to resign. He accuses the U.S. Episcopal church of causing an “an outcry in the whole Anglican world” and that they too have sinned in consecrating Robinson. He claims that this has all held the Anglican Communion to ridicule.
Judging others and accusing them of sin is something that I believe Christ explicitly admonished others not to do. Discriminating against others who are, or who hold, different views was not the lesson of the Good Samaritan. And acting like bullies and a mob to gang up on a single man is, to my knowledge, not something generally condoned by any great religion. Surely seeing so called church leaders behaving this way is what holds the church to ridicule.
While Deng is busy demanding that Robinson do this and the Episcopal church to that, all to “save” the Anglican Communion, it apparently never once occurred to him that he and his ilk could, and would, achieve exactly that if only they would stop behaving badly and making demands of others. It’s not Robinson’s homosexuality that splits the church; it’s the naked homophobia of the “conservative” bishops and their intolerance and hatred of any who would not agree with them.
The first admonition of all great religions is to change yourself to make yourself better so that you may seek to follow a righteous path. Only then should you seek to help others, not to tell them what to do; telling people what to do is about power. All too often, “moral leaders” today seem to focus too much on their own leadership and not enough on morality.
