Anglican Mainstream logoThe UK-based Christian group Anglican Mainstream has once again shown its extreme anti-gay propaganda is anything but mainstream.

In 2008, Anglican Mainstream published a book that included, among other homophobic essays, a vile anti-gay tirade penned by Ronald G Lee, in which the author said gays would spend most of their lives in pornographic bookstores until they die of AIDS and that gay Christians only go to church to cleanse their consciences from cruising for sex the night before. Canon Chris Sugden, the Church of England cleric who edited the volume, justified the inclusion by saying Lee deserved an equal hearing, and that “we love those struggling with same sex attraction too much to do otherwise.”

Now Anglican Mainstream has thrown its weight behind Dr Michael L Brown‘s new book, A Queer Thing Happened to America, a 600-page tome against the “gay agenda.” Anglican Mainstream blogger J Davies parrots Brown’s narrative that A Queer Thing is the book “publishers were afraid to touch”:

When he offered his 700 page book, which is filled with examples of homosexual activists ruthlessly exploiting their new protective laws, especially against orthodox Christians, every publisher rejected it. Terrified of offending the political correctness brigade as well as the homosexual rights lobby, they all “persuaded” themselves that anything so controversial would incur the bankrupting wrath of the activists. So Dr Brown founded EqualTime Books and became a publisher. And now the 21st century has what it needs to recognize this Orwellian cancer for what it really is and prevent it from corrupting every cherished institution from the traditional family to our systems of government.

Davies goes on to invoke the “precious blood” and sacrifice of soldiers in the 20th century, and portrays gay rights as political correctness that threatens the West’s hard-won democracy and free speech.

In another blog entry, Anglican Mainstream reposts a Michael L Brown interview from the US show It’s Supernatural! with evangelical host Sid Roth. The blog cuts and pastes the description from the YouTube video, which describes LGBT activism as “a diabolical spell being cast … to control your children,” but adds its own helpful advice to “Scroll forward 53 seconds”:

What’s at 53 seconds? An ugly assault on gay parents and families. In Sid Roth’s pseudo-parody, a teacher shows her class a book titled Two Daddies or Two Mommies. A puzzled boy (of about 10, perhaps) has a day dream about what it would be like to have two parents of the same gender. In the dream — more like a nightmare — the boy chokes on smoke while one dad ties his shoes and another burns the dinner; he cringes as two moms fuss over him excessively; he cowers in disgust as his two dads wave him off to school; he can barely contain his revulsion as two mothers kiss him goodnight; and the kid is plainly terrified as two dads lay either side of him fighting over a bedtime story book. All this is set to a horror-movie soundtrack.

The distasteful and offensive video ends with the boy protesting to his teacher: “That book is weird! I only have one mommy and one daddy, and that’s all I want!” The teacher comes to her senses and throws the book in the trash. The skit is hateful and slanderous toward gay parents and families everywhere.

In the UK, there’s a traditional perception that the Church of England, the English branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is moderate and somewhat trustworthy. (A reputation that’s suffered greatly in the last few years, admittedly.) I’m a confirmed Anglican and was fortunate to be part of a C of E congregation from 2003 to 2009 that epitomized that kind of moderacy.

But there are fundamentalists in Anglicanism that are far from moderate. Anglican Mainstream, with no qualms about pointing to such offensive propaganda to attack gays, is one such group. As far as Anglicanism in the West goes, Anglican Mainstream is anything but mainstream.

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Addendum: This is Anglican Mainstream’s editorial policy:

The Anglican Mainstream website seeks to present material relevant to the vision for biblically faithful Christian faith in the Anglican Communion.

Material posted on the Anglican Mainstream site drawn from other sources should not be taken to imply that AM necessarily approves of or agrees with their content. When AM comments appears on the site they convey the comments of the AM leadership, sometimes drawing on specialist knowledge.

The material by J Davies is original Anglican Mainstream content, not “drawn from other sources.” (The Sid Roth/Michael Brown video is from another source, but the recommendation to “scroll forward 53 seconds” belongs to AM.)

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