[graemep]

You are assuming that the change can only happen in the west.

The rest of the world has mostly been experiencing industrialisation, and was only indirectly affected by the great crash.

If there is a transformation in the rest of the world the west cannot escape it.

A lot of people in the west seem to have their heads in the sand, very much like when Japan and China tried to ignore the west.

China is the world's second biggest economy by nominal GDP, India the fourth. We have a globalised economy where everything is interlinked.

[expedition32]

When I look at my own country it has proven to be open to change. There are people alive today who remember Christianity now we swear in a gay prime minister.

In that sense Western countries have proven that they are intellectualy very nimble.

[graemep]

Three of the best known Christians I have known in my life are gay. Two are priests (one Anglican, one Catholic). Obviously the Catholic priest had taken a vow of celibacy anyway to its entirely immaterial. I did read an interview of a celeb friend (also now a priest!) of his that said he (the priest I knew) thought people did not know he was gay we all knew, just did not make a fuss about it.

Even if you accept the idea that gay sex is a sin, the entire basis of Christianity is that we are all sinners. Possessing wealth is a failure to follow Jesus's commands for instance. You should be complaining a lot more if the prime minister is rich. Adultery is clearly a more serious sin than having the wrong sort of sex, and I bet your country has had adulterous prime ministers (the UK certainly has had many!).

I think Christians who are obsessed with homosexuality as somehow making people worse than the rest of us, are both failing to understand Christ's message, and saying more about themselves than gays.

If you look at when sodomy laws were abolished, countries with a Christian heritage lead this. There are reasons in the Christian ethos if choice and redemption for this.

[hackyhacky]

> people alive today who remember Christianity now we swear in a gay prime minister

Why would that be a contradiction? Gay people can't be Christian?