Talk:Glynn Harrison

This article contains information about one or more living persons. Articles about living people must be handled carefully, because they are more open to legal threats. Reference any contentious allegations solidly; unreferenced allegations should be removed. If legal threats are raised on this page, please direct the potential litigant to RationalWiki:Legal FAQ; do not interact with them.

Several changes need to be made here. This is a defamatory article and inaccurate.

1. . It is not 'an emeritus professor'; it is just 'Emeritus Professor'
2. . He is no longer on the crown nominations commission
3. . 'Fundamentalist homophobe' is defamatory. It is also purely opinion and cannot be substantiated; not very 'rational'
4. . Prof Harrison nowhere uses the term 'cure' in relation to homosexuality
5. The Christian Medical Fellowship is not 'fundamentalist', it is evangelical, unless the author can show me somewhere that the organisation describes itself in such terms. Best to let people define their own beliefs, isn't it?
6. . His views were not published on the Anglican mainstream blog; someone misrepresented his views on the Anglican mainstream blog.

All these inaccuracies and utterly unsubstantiated statements should really be removed. ^{— Unsigned, by: Nuhai / talk / contribs}

What Nuhai says here needs addressing.

1. I believe this is true
2. Needs more research
3. Have we any proof of either "fundamentalist" or "homophobe". From what I've seen he's neither, just somewhat conservative in his views
4. Meh
5. This is the most important. this PDF suggests that he's far more reasonable and rational than this article makes out

In fact, I'd mark this article down for deletion. It comes across as a hatchet job and is he really that notable in the first place? We ought to strive for better than this. Innocent Bystander (talk) 17:03, 11 November 2013 (UTC

I agree with the hatchet job comment. 17:16, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Nothing here is defamatory, Nuhaj. We may have a policy for addressing such claims if you wish to formally invoke it. Look around. That's not my job. Some of the article is not up RW standards because it's cribbed straight from the Guardian UK, but that's an editorial issue, not a legal (?) issue as you claim. You need to educate yourself before you throw terms like defamatory around.

I don't see any big deal about accommodating some of your concerns. 1 and 2 are trivial if you're correct. Who cares. 3. is not defamatory and characterizing it as opinion doesn't serve you well. At least in the US, the evangelical movement is difficult to distinguish from the fundamentalist movement. It's not even fair to say that either is monolithic. Evangelicalism may have had a coherent program in the 18th century; fundamentalism originally referred to a movement based on a series of books called The Fundamentals, but I think these days bears little resemblance to the original program and I think is motivated by hatred and fear rather than a principled approach to scripture and coherent hermeneutics. Anyhow, people often use the terms evangelical and fundamentalist interchangeably and their arguments for and against conflating the terms are all over the place. You haven't even explained your position against it. Why do you object to this label anyway? Is it because it's used in conjunction with describing Harrison as a homophobe? Others can comment on whether he actually is one. I take him at his word that he believes in good faith that his approach is consistent with the Gospels. I accept that people can in good faith believe ridiculous, offensive, and dangerous things based on ridiculous interpretations of ridiculous holy books. 5. appears to be true: CMF is evangelical, if the distinction even makes sense. 6. I don't understand. For anyone to respond, you'll need to explain and justify your claim. 17:15, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with innocent bystander. The original article is very poorly referenced, and simply gossips a newspaper article. Harrison was a member of the Commission that appointed Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury who has now been in post for quite some time. On the basis of the statement issued by the Church of England (the PDF that innocent bystander references) in response to the newspaper article, Harrison is not even 'notable' in the area of sexuality but was asked by the Church to review the evidence on 'change' treatments given his academic experience. He repudiates concepts of 'cure' in the statement and the original hatchet job provides no reference to support the claim otherwise. Further, he seems to be saying that given there is evidence of a degree of flexibility of sexual preference in some people then a few of those who go for 'change' therapies (whatever our ethical view may be of that) are likely to experience some change anyway. But because there are no controlled trials nobody can claim that a particular approach is effective or that any change would not have happened anyway. This is a basic scientific assessment in keeping with RationalWiki values. We may not approve of his conservative views on religion and sex, but these appear to be little different form those of the Archbishop appointed (who opposes gay marriage). The article seems to be more a smear than a rational critique.--Fosterchild (talk) 14:30, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

It is not 'an emeritus professor'; it is just 'Emeritus Professor'. Nope, it's "Professor Emeritus." PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?. 14:21, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

AfD

Kept per RationalWiki:Articles for deletion/Glynn Harrison. Sophie^Wilder 18:07, 27 March 2014 (UTC)