A Methodist college in England fired a theologian and threatened to report him as a terrorist over a tweet “against homosexuality.”
QUICK FACTS:
- A Bible college has let a theologian go and threatened to report him as a “terrorist” after the professor’s tweets opposed homosexuality.
- Dr. Aaron Edwards, a professor at Cliff College in Derbyshire, England, was fired after tweeting “Homosexuality is invading the church” on February 19.
- “Evangelicals no longer see the severity of this [because] they’re busy apologizing for their apparently barbaric homophobia, whether or not it’s true,” Edwards continued.
- After the tweet received criticism, Edwards quickly defended his stance, saying Biblically his stance was not controversial.
- “That *is* the conservative view. The acceptance of homosexuality as ‘not sinful’ *is* an invasion upon the Church, doctrinally. This is not controversial. The acceptance is controversial. Most of the global Church would agree. It is not homophobic to declare homosexuality sinful,” Edwards continued.
- Edwards was suspended from the school pending an investigation after his tweets reportedly caused “distress” among members of the Methodist Church in England.
- “The reaction to my tweet and the unjust treatment I have experienced by Cliff College and the Methodist Church in Britain completely illustrates the problem my tweet addressed,” Edwards said in a statement.
BRITISH THEOLOGY PROFESSOR DR. AARON EDWARDS ON HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE CHURCH:
“This *is* a ‘Gospel issue,’ by the way. If sin is no longer sin, we no longer need a Savior,” Edwards said.
BACKGROUND:
- Last month, the General Synod, the legislative body of the Church of England, officially recognized gay marriage by voting to allow priests to bless same-sex marriage.
- The measure was almost universally approved by the House of Bishops, who voted 36 to 4, with two members choosing not to vote.
- Two senior bishops, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, released a statement saying, “It has been a long road to get us to this point.”
- “As Archbishops, we are committed to respecting the conscience of those for whom this goes too far and to ensure that they have all the reassurances they need in order to maintain the unity of the Church as this conversation continues,” the senior members went on to say.
- Where some rejoice at the measure, General Synod member Daniel Matovu described the move as a “fiasco.”
- “Where does the Church get its doctrine on marriage from? It comes directly from God,” Matovu said. “The Bishops cannot see, apparently, that the draft prayers are out of sync with, inconsistent with, and undermine the doctrine of marriage as in Canon B:30. They should have gone to Specsavers, bless them.”
