Coren’s same-sex ‘epiphany’ dubious

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/05/2016 (3724 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Anyone who actively consumes mainstream media — either in both broadcast and print — will likely be familiar with Michael Coren. He’s a transplanted Englishman who has made quite a career out of his own personal spiritual journey. He has also shown himself to a rather accomplished and shameless self-promoter, and it’s difficult at time to separate the two when reading his latest book.

Growing up in the U.K. in the 1960s and ’70s, the now-56-year-old Coren was born into a family that was half-Jewish, and he was he not particularly religious. In 1985, not long before he emigrated to Canada, he embraced Roman Catholicism. As a writer and broadcaster, he became a staunch defender of the more traditional conservative values of the church, particularly the belief that homosexuality is a sin and that same-sex marriage would never be acceptable based on the teachings of Jesus as reported in the Gospels of the New Testament.

Coren has long been an articulate proponent of traditional right-wing Catholic values. But as he details in this book, that all changed dramatically in 2013 when he experienced his own personal version of Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Among other contributing factors, he says he was deeply moved by the stories of gays who were unfairly persecuted in places such as Russia and Uganda. Much of this slender volume recounts recent writings by religious scholars on homosexuality and the same-sex marriage issue. The writings re-examined those passages of the Bible that are seen as supporting Rome’s long-held anti-gay doctrine, including the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

So where has Coren’s spiritual journey taken him since his “Epiphany”? He now worships at an Anglican church in Toronto, while his wife, the mother of their four children, continues to be a practising Catholic. If he truly believes gay couples should now receive equal treatment in Christian churches, including being allowed to marry, his choice of a new religious home would seem to be a strange one in some ways.

Same-sex marriages are not officially allowed in Anglican churches. Proposed changes to the marriage canon will be up for debate at the church’s general synod this summer. For the moment, though, the Anglican Church remains deeply divided on the issue, and that divide’s not likely to close anytime soon.

(One can’t help but wonder if Coren now belongs more properly in a pew at the United Church, which has embraced and supported same-sex marriage more than any other Christian denomination in Canada.)

In the book, Coren also suggests he was shocked and appalled when his conversion resulted in him losing media jobs and speaking engagements.

All of that has now become part of the “shameless” self-promotion mentioned earlier. On April 25, theWinnipeg Free Press was one of several Canadian newspapers which ran an op-ed column by Coren. It was barely-disguised promo for Epiphany peppered with some brief references to the dramatic political change taking place here in Manitoba.

Roger Currie is a Winnipeg writer and broadcaster, and a lifelong Anglican.