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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><SPAN class=TopStory>The church and moral discourse: Allegations of sexual misconduct</SPAN>
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY Bishop Howard Gregory
Sunday, December 03, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>In a book entitled Terror in the Mind of God: The Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer, the author explores the global nature of violence which finds its justification in a religious and moral tradition.<P class=StoryText align=justify>At a time when many accept the notion that we now live in a post-modern, post-Christian era, sometimes referred to as the age of secularism, when religion has lost its value and meaning, violence is being manifested in its most extreme form in what we have come to call "terrorism" in the life of the religiously committed. He then offers the following conclusion concerning this development:
"Perhaps understandably, therefore, in the wake of secularism, and after years of waiting in history's wings, religion has made its reappearance as an ideology of social order in a dramatic fashion: violently. In time, the violence will end, but the point will remain.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=130 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>JOHNSON. murdered at the St Jude's Rectory on the night of November 12, 2006 </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Religion gives spirit to public life and provides a beacon for moral order. At the same time, it needs the temper of rationality and fair play that Enlightenment values give to civil society. Thus religious violence cannot end until some accommodation can be forged between the two - some assertion of moderation in religious passion, and some acknowledgement of religion in elevating the spiritual and moral values of public life. In a curious way, then, the cure for religious violence may ultimately lie in a renewed appreciation for religion itself."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Equally, there are those who speak of this as an age of moral pluralism and who seem to argue from a position of individualism, which allows each person to choose his or her moral imperatives and absolutes as one would choose items from a supermarket shelf. In this way, no meaningful moral discourse can take place since in the long run it is all about personal preference and choice. Events in the contemporary world and in its most recent expressions belie the validity of such a position.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Beyond the recurring concerns for issues of poverty and human rights, we have witnessed in the last month the scandal concerning the Trafigura donation, the moral dimensions and implications of which few of us, except the die-hard party supporters, could miss and which fired expressions of moral outrage even from those who claim the individualism which moral pluralism offers.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This, of course, has been a matter that relates to governance and civil society. But what happens when the issue concerns the church and moral failure? Many Christians speak loosely of the Church as "the moral conscience of the nation", while others see the Church as a community of moral and religious discourse. But who constitute the subjects and objects of this moral discourse? Some see it as the Church speaking to civil society, while others with a measure of humility speak of it as discourse directed first to the Christian community and then to the wider civil society.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Within recent months we have witnessed the moral failing of a deacon of the Dayton Church of God who, by conduct and complicity, has been charged with the sexual violation of a teenage girl. Within the last few we
<SPAN class=Subheadline></SPAN></TD></TR><TR><TD>BY Bishop Howard Gregory
Sunday, December 03, 2006
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<P class=StoryText align=justify>In a book entitled Terror in the Mind of God: The Rise of Religious Violence, by Mark Juergensmeyer, the author explores the global nature of violence which finds its justification in a religious and moral tradition.<P class=StoryText align=justify>At a time when many accept the notion that we now live in a post-modern, post-Christian era, sometimes referred to as the age of secularism, when religion has lost its value and meaning, violence is being manifested in its most extreme form in what we have come to call "terrorism" in the life of the religiously committed. He then offers the following conclusion concerning this development:
"Perhaps understandably, therefore, in the wake of secularism, and after years of waiting in history's wings, religion has made its reappearance as an ideology of social order in a dramatic fashion: violently. In time, the violence will end, but the point will remain.<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=5 width=130 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><SPAN class=Description>JOHNSON. murdered at the St Jude's Rectory on the night of November 12, 2006 </SPAN></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><P class=StoryText align=justify>Religion gives spirit to public life and provides a beacon for moral order. At the same time, it needs the temper of rationality and fair play that Enlightenment values give to civil society. Thus religious violence cannot end until some accommodation can be forged between the two - some assertion of moderation in religious passion, and some acknowledgement of religion in elevating the spiritual and moral values of public life. In a curious way, then, the cure for religious violence may ultimately lie in a renewed appreciation for religion itself."<P class=StoryText align=justify>Equally, there are those who speak of this as an age of moral pluralism and who seem to argue from a position of individualism, which allows each person to choose his or her moral imperatives and absolutes as one would choose items from a supermarket shelf. In this way, no meaningful moral discourse can take place since in the long run it is all about personal preference and choice. Events in the contemporary world and in its most recent expressions belie the validity of such a position.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Beyond the recurring concerns for issues of poverty and human rights, we have witnessed in the last month the scandal concerning the Trafigura donation, the moral dimensions and implications of which few of us, except the die-hard party supporters, could miss and which fired expressions of moral outrage even from those who claim the individualism which moral pluralism offers.<P class=StoryText align=justify>This, of course, has been a matter that relates to governance and civil society. But what happens when the issue concerns the church and moral failure? Many Christians speak loosely of the Church as "the moral conscience of the nation", while others see the Church as a community of moral and religious discourse. But who constitute the subjects and objects of this moral discourse? Some see it as the Church speaking to civil society, while others with a measure of humility speak of it as discourse directed first to the Christian community and then to the wider civil society.<P class=StoryText align=justify>Within recent months we have witnessed the moral failing of a deacon of the Dayton Church of God who, by conduct and complicity, has been charged with the sexual violation of a teenage girl. Within the last few we