The bathwater is dead but so is the baby. (Sunday Forum)

by James, Australia, Tuesday, May 26, 2009, 09:54 (1454 days ago) @ Brian Coyne

Thanks for providing us with the extract from Spong's book. What he says ties in with my own observation both of history and the current world.

The majority of the great moral reforms of the last two hundred years have not come from the Church which almost always fights them tooth and nail until it is finally forced to give in. It is still fighting rearguard actions over gays and women.

And the vitriol and nastiness is ever present in Church life. Peter Kennedy's story (as depicted at least in Australian Story) is just one of many. I am not saying that this nastiness is any different to conflicts in secular society. It is just no different and that is where the hypocrisy and cant comes in. Christians claim to be holier than thou. I am guided by the Holy Spirit but you in that faction (or other religion) are not.

But I don't think this problem is confined to the Catholic Church, nor to Christianity. You can see it in the divisions in the Muslim and perhaps to a lesser extent in the Buddhist world.

All religions have always had one thing in common. They will not tolerate the others, with varying degrees of obnoxious behaviours from the local Parish Priest and Anglican Minister not talking to each other right down to outright massacres.

You don't give us Spong's answer to this problem with religion. I know what mine is: ditch them all.

The bathwater is dead, but so is the baby.