'The logic of all purity movements is to exclude' - Comment - Times Online

A comment in yesterday's The Times [of London] by the Rev. Prof. Andrew Linzey, of Oxford University, is getting some notice on our side of the pond.  Excerpt (with extra paragraphing added):

... “Conservatives” are seen as preserving “historic truth” and “progressives” as wilfully discarding it. So long as the debate is cast in those terms, no resolution is possible.

The way forward is to grasp the dynamic of God: as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the teaching God, which, we are promised, will guide believers into all truth (John xvi, 13).

Not all truth is given in the past; the Spirit has something to teach us in the present. It is untrinitarian consistently to oppose God’s work in the past to what we may learn here and now. All innovations should be tested, but it is a mistake to assume that all development is infidelity.