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Christian Fundamentalism Is the Real Western Invention

By Mario Ribas

The recent debates in the Anglican Communion regarding homosexuality have put our church in media headlines everywhere, perhaps in a way that has never previously happened. It seems there is a game being played by some church leaders, in order to see who can get more media attention. Some have done a good enough job that there is a perception that we do not take our mission in the world seriously.

In reflecting on these developments in the Communion regarding the issue of gays and lesbians, I recollect a great illustration used by Dr. Louie Crew in his sermon at the National Consultation on Human Sexuality in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2002. He used a metaphor of gays and lesbians being "canaries in the mine." He used this metaphor after explaining that in old times miners used to send canaries into mines before they themselves would go in. Sending in canaries was a way they could check if there were any lethal gases in the mine, and since the canaries are very sensitive to poison, they would not return if there was any trace of lethal gas.

The recent developments in the Anglican Communion have tested whether or not the church is a safe place. The decision of the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada, the (initial) appointment of Jeffrey John, and the election of Gene Robinson — any time there is a discussion going on about who should or who should not belong to the church, it functions like safety measurement, checking whether the air inside the church is clean and safe, or whether it has been contaminated by the gases of bigotry, hypocrisy, hate and arrogance. Unfortunately, world history has often shown that the church has not been a safe place to be, especially if you are a woman, black, or lesbian/gay. The Roman church has, for many centuries, stated the doctrine Extra Ecclesiam Nula Salus (there is no salvation outside the church). Sometimes the air outside of the Church is purer to breathe since the excesses of institutionalism and the fight for power makes the inside air intoxicating.

The growth of Anglicanism in many developing countries is frequently praised and credited to the maintenance of orthodoxy. In this way, big numbers are often used to justify intolerance, as if numbers represent a good way to measure the accomplishment of our mission in the world.

The growth of Anglicanism in many developing countries is frequently praised and credited to the maintenance of orthodoxy. In this way, big numbers are often used to justify intolerance, as if numbers represent a good way to measure the accomplishment of our mission in the world. That is a capitalist way of measuring success: showing the numbers. We should instead ask how those churches have exercised their prophetic calling, addressed corruption, and challenged the breaking of human rights in their own realities. Where is the church when a woman is sentenced to death by stoning due to accusations of adultery? Has the church forgotten that Jesus challenged it once, saying, let the one who has no sin cast the first stone. Would any of the provinces in the Anglican Communion sever ties with other provinces that keep silent on the breaking of human rights in their countries? Would they sever ties with those who are conniving with corrupt government officials, or persecution of ethnical minorities? Would they break ties with those who allow tribal rivalries amongst church leaders? These are real problems that are often blotted out by big numbers; there may be a growth in quantity, but a decline in relevance.

Those new and big churches are, in many cases, just a reproduction of a Christianity that is handicapped by what we call "spiritual verticalism," produced by an imperialism of southern fundamentalists. The U.S. "Bible Belt" is still today the major exporter of missionaries and money to developing countries. Many conservative missionary societies are doing very well financially, thanks to the way they advertise the situation in other parts of the world in order to manipulate people’s emotions and pockets. I would not deny that many of those missionaries do wonderful social work, and that many of them are wonderful people with the best of intentions regarding the world’s social problems. On the other hand, the majority of them concentrate their efforts on converting people to an ethos of intolerance. They are developing communities of faith that tend to be ghettos, without any awareness of faith put into practice — a practice that also addresses social and political problems.

…some bishops would rather travel to England or other places to meet with others to decide how to interfere in a diocesan decision, threatening to split the church. But they would not travel to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, or to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

These missionaries are good in spreading this southern fundamentalism — or European Puritan intolerance — but not in creating militant Christians who preach the gospel and fight against injustice. In this way, they also get the internal problems of their dioceses and provinces internationalized, by mobilizing church leaders in those countries to protest against homosexuality in the U.S., Canada and England, rather than protesting against injustice and poverty in their own countries. In this context, some bishops would rather travel to England or other places to meet with others to decide how to interfere in a diocesan decision, threatening to split the church. But they would not travel to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, or to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, to join hands and challenge world poverty, environmental devastation, war, epidemic diseases, and the international debt crisis.

Many of these leaders might piously believe that homosexuality represents a big threat for the accomplishment of the church’s mission in the world. Most southern conservatives describe it as a Western invention, a result of the West’s moral decadence. I heard a bishop affirm that homosexuality is a phenomena of imperialistic arrogance, and they would place themselves as a guardian of orthodoxy with regard to moral standards. In this way, they forget that in many Southern countries, during pre-colonial times, we could find a variety of attitudes towards human sexuality that were normally accepted by everyone as part of their societies and culture. This variety of attitudes was suppressed, at the advent of the colonialist period, by Western shame and guilt regarding the human body and sex. Indigenous peoples of Brazil, Caribbean, and Africa were told to get dressed because Western missionaries did not want to see them walk around naked and behave as if that was something normal for a decent Christian to do.

Shame and guilt, that is the gospel we inherited from imperialist missionaries. Our Church leaders need to realize that the "Western invention" that they are victims of is not homosexuality but Christian fundamentalism.

The church seems to have become a strict monastery, with walls to protect us from anything that represents danger and challenges the relevance of our faith, especially for real people and real issues around the world which we know little about. In this way, the air inside of the church get more and more poisoned due to the intolerance and "spiritual verticalism" that make people unable to see the real problems we face in today’s world. This air is poisoned by a fundamentalism that normally compartmentalizes life and reinforces a Christian dichotomy, rather than the integral mission of the church in the world.

For a long time, the crisis has been intrinsically about power, where homosexuality is just one detail manipulated as a horse-battle in this war. It is difficult to believe that anyone with a good conscience would ignore their own reality’s social problems for the sake of time and money wasting to fight against the churches in the other corner of the world. Gays and lesbians have indeed became canaries in this mine, the church, and many of them have already died poisoned by the excessive focus on institutionalism, and the maintenance of Western heterosexual paradigms, which still are racist and patriarchal. To challenge those paradigms does not necessarily means challenging only an ethical concept. It challenges and shakes the very foundation of a colonial and imperialist mentality of the church, which is still today reproduced in fundamentalist movements. It frees the church in each country to find its own way to express its faith without building walls around itself. It frees the church from all shame and guilty regarding our bodies and our sexuality, it frees us to preach the gospel to those who truly need it, and put the church back into the margins where it should be.

The world is expecting the time the church will solve its internal conflicts, and concentrate on its mission. However, this mission will not be accomplished if we put ourselves in the place to decide who should, or who should not work in the fields of the Lord. The Lord himself has called many times, and those who are the least expected are doing the work he expected to be done by those who instead prefer to play and fight.

Mario Ribas (right) and friend Ethan Flad in Hartebeespoort, South Africa, at an Anglican Environment and Sustainable Development meeting.

The Rev. Mario Ribas is rector of All Saints’ Church in Santos, Brazil. He may be reached by email at mribas@iron.com.br