Its wholehearted embrace of same-sex marriage is but one example.
This grovelling letter of apology for the Muhammad cartoons is but another:
Dear Imam Patel and Imam Slimi;
Greetings in the name of Jesus, whom both Christians and Muslims honour.
On behalf of The United Church of Canada we wish to express to you and through the Council of Imams, to the Islamic communities of Canada, our deepest regret that the name of Muhammad has been so tragically misused in the depictions of cartoons first published in Europe, but now also in Canada.
We believe that the intention of publishing the cartoons has little to do with freedom of expression and much to do with incitement to racial and religious hatred. As you have noted in your recent press release, the cartoons suggest that Islam itself teaches, condones and encourages violence, bombings and the mistreatment of women. Furthermore, the implication is that all Muslims believe so as well. This we know to be untrue. The answer to your question of "why publish such cartoons?" we believe is simply racial hatred. In other forms it has been called Islamophobia.
These attitudes should have no place in Canada. Because we all share responsibility for the society in which we live, we wish to offer our sincere apologies that such attitudes can persevere in a country that we believe can and should be a model for the world of racial and ethnic respect.
May God's peace be with you.
Hat tip to Colby Cosh for calling attention to this letter.
But note the language used in the letter. One perfunctory mention of the name of Jesus, "whom Christians and Muslims both honour" (forget that there's a world of difference between the Christian belief in Jesus as the Son of God and the Islamic idea that Isa was just another prophet of Allah whose death was faked) followed by a load of liberal platitudes.
They can't even frame a religious discussion in religious terms. The sins decried are not against God or Christian charity, but against the liberal tenets of racial identity and multiculturalism.
Stuff like this make me thank God that my father left the United Church to marry my mother, and sad for those good folks who find themselves trapped by their leadership in a hostile church not of their making, trying to follow the Protestant faith as best they can.
If I had grown up in today's United Church, knowing my own mentality, I would have ended up an Exclusive Brethren or a militant atheist.
1 comment:
There's a longstanding joke that "Buddy Wassisname and the Other Fellas" have about the Unitec Church: "They prays 'to whom it may concern'"
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