Calton's New Year Homily

If you accept an offer of employment from a company, you need to abide by the conditions of employment imposed by that company. If you don't like them, you are free to find another job. If you want to join a political party, you need to subscribe to the beliefs of that particular party. Otherwise, don't join. If your interest is knitting, don't join the local motorcycle gang and expect them to abandon their bikes in favour of knitting needles. We all understand that. So why do people who don't accept the Bible's teaching on homosexuality join organisations which are based on the teachings of the Bible? No-one is forcing them to do so - they have a choice. There's nothing to stop them forming their own organisations based on their own beliefs. Perhaps Calton is being simplistic but it seems to him that if you don't like the rules of the group, find another group or start your own. If everyone adopted that philosophy, the Church of England would not be in its current ridiculous position vis-a-vis homosexual Bishops. Alternatively, if the CofE were not so hell-bent on maintaining unity, it would have split long ago and both sides could now be concentrating on other more important things. There's a limit to how diverse an organisation can be before it loses its fundamental cohesiveness and/or its raison d'etre. It is maybe presumptuous of Calton to pontificate on the problems of the CofE since he is not a member of that, or indeed any, church, however, if he was able to give advice to His Grace, who has temporarily taken over the reins at Lambeth Palace, it would be to acknowledge the fault lines which already exist and pave the way for an amicable split. Because this is one of the few instances where divorce really is better than continued bickering.