Right or Wrong - You Decide - Priest forced off Miss Universe panel

The panel deciding who will be the Norweigan contestant for the Miss Universe pagent is now missing a judge.

The Church of Norway has forced a priest to resign from a panel set to judge bikini-clad women competing to be the country's Miss Universe contestant.

I can't say I would agree that a church leader should be a panelist in such a contest. Ultimately, I agree with the position of the Church of Oslo when they said:

church members said on Friday that as a clergyman he always represented the Church

And I can't see Jesus on such a panel. But I'm more curious about whether they came to this conclusion for the right reasons.

"The Church should preach that we are all equal and this competition's view of woman is particularly disturbing." [Arne Groeningsaeter, head of the Oslo diocese counci]

Now, I know, the Norweigan church isn't likely the place we'd expect to be the arbiter of what the church should and should not preach, but I find the reasoning shows how far many who claim to be "Church" have strayed from standing up for the truth of Scripture.

The questions I have... Should the church preach that "we're all equal"? In what sense yes, in what sense no? Was this the correct reasoning for pressuring Gelius to resign from the panel, or is there a better one?

To be fair, as pointed out in a response to my recent discussion on Rick Warren, the news media will tend to "sanitize" what is said about a situation and avoid getting involved in theological matters. But that raises another question, to what extent (and in what ways) should we "manage" our contact with the media to make sure we are properly quoted and our real viewpoint is portrayed?


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