Will the real church please stand up?

this from http://dale77.wordpress.com

There was an interesting forum on TV3's Campbell Live on Monday. The topic du jour was of course, Sue Bradford's anti-smacking bill. The most disappointing aspect for me was the unfortunately titled Reverend Glynn Cardy who was aligned with the bill's misguided supporters.

Glynn borders on the blasphemous as he says:

Holy scripture contains a lot of wisdom and insight, but also a lot of predjudice and bigotry, and things like slavery, ethnic cleansing and those things.

He is right in one sense that scripture does contain the historical record of much that is sinful coming from the heart of man. But I have this feeling that Glynn was referring to some of those just acts attributed to God, such as the destruction of the Canaanites by Israel.

His main reason for supporting the bill was that Jesus said "let the little children come to me and don't hinder them", treating them as equals with adults. So children are adults, which presumably is why parents shouldn't smack them. Thanks Glynn!

Glynn may be an Anglican, cloistered at St Matthews in the City in Auckland, but I seriously doubt he is actually a Christian. I submit his blog, exhibit A. In his theistically flavoured double-speak the Nicene Creed is "dubious" and perhaps the heretic Arius would be preferable to the trinitarian Athanasius.

In time Athanasius won, and we have the dubious legacy of the Nicene Creed. Unfortunately however the potential of Athanasius's theology to bring down the mighty from their thrones, to relativize their power, and to lift up the lowly and meek was not realized. If the proof of the theological pudding is in how effectively it feeds the poor, we may have been better off with Arius.

As bad as Glynn's theology is, a terrible question arises. Where is the real church witness on this issue?