Misunderstandings as to the true nature of Galileo’s battle with the church, for example, along with beliefs such as the church banning the number zero, the excommunication of Halley’s comet, or that the church believed for centuries that the earth was flat, are urban myths peddled, in the main, by Draper and White’s writings.
.. a meaningful, genuine and effective apology starts with saying sorry. Period. It is very tempting to want to explain why, or to indicate that one didn’t mean it to cause harm, or to refer to social mores at the time and so on. This undermines the effectiveness of the apology. Anything that sounds like self-justification doesn’t help those to whom the apology is directed. This is one of the costs of being prepared to make an apology. And reminds us to remember that the apology is for those who have been hurt, not those who are doing the apologising. The words of the apology therefore need to be clear and unequivocal; free of any desire to save face, to qualify or justify.
“.. the liberating goal of all the woman theologies is not reached by simply integrating women into a society and a church where patriarchal structures, androcentric theory and privileging prevail as the norm. This ‘add woman and stir’ recipe isn’t working, it has never worked and will not work while women are taught to disregard their gifts to try to fit into the male defined world.”
By the Revd Dr Josephine Inkpin, an Anglican priest and transgender woman,currently serving as Minister
