Amazing Love? A review article (Part 2)

Jul 29, 2016 by

by Peter Sanlon, Church Society:

This short book that we have been considering has a significance disproportionate to its size. It is an instructive example of the rhetorical strategy being deployed by the homosexualist movement. The work has the superficial appearance of being an impartial academic digest ─ in reality it is by no reasonable measure anything of the sort. The project was targeted at changing the Church of England’s stance on homosexuality and has theological ambitions that transcend even the stated goal of moving the Church towards celebrating homosexual relationships. We conclude this review then with some reflections on the rhetorical strategy and theological significance of the book.

Rhetorical Strategy
This volume has the appearance of being a digest of thoughtful and considered academic research. However that is just the surface reality ─ a carefully curated image. Academic publisher, long sub-title, titled academics listed as authors. It looks like academic work; but upon closer examination the mirage fades.

The first thing many remark upon is the astonishing number of authors ─ In addition to the Editor Andrew Davison (Cambridge Lecturer in Theology & Natural Sciences), eight are listed: Duncan Dormer (Dean of St. John’s College Chapel), Ruth Harley (Children & Families’ Minister at All Saints, High Wycombe, Oxford), Rosie Harper (Vicar of Great Missenden and chaplain to Bishop of Buckingham), Elizabeth Phillips (Ethics Tutor at Westcott House), Jeff Phillips (Philosophy & Theology Tutor at Westcott House), Simon Sarmiento (a founder of Thinking Anglicans website), Jane Shaw (Dean for Religious Life at Stanford, Canon Emirata of Salisbury) and Alan Wilson (Bishop of Buckingham).

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Part 1 here

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