Thinking Anglicans

weekend reading

The Guardian has a godslot column today by Richard Harries Jaw jaw on just war. It also has a column by Mark Lawson titled One miracle too many and subtitled The US is a theocracy suffering from galloping spiritual inflation.

The New York Times recently carried a major article What’s Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage?

Margaret Atkins writes the Credo column in The Times under the heading Beware the sword of rash judgment cuts both ways

In the Telegraph Christopher Howse’s column is Pegging out love’s laundry

The CEN has an interview of John Sentamu by Jonathan Wynne-Jones in two parts, here and here

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Dave
Dave
18 years ago

“What’s Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage?” Well, EITHER you can’t have Gay Marriage, since marriage is the primarily the joining together of one person from each half of the human race to make a family who can produce and nurture their own children, and secondly a rejoining of two parts of the society (two families) in a social as well as personal commitment… OR you have to de-define “marriage” and make it just a personal commitment between any two people. This is not just about who you can have sex with; it’s as much a clash of two visions… Read more »

Merseymike
Merseymike
18 years ago

I think thats a very partial view of what contemporary relationships are actually about. 1. A growing of heterosexual couples now opt to remain childless after marriage, and marry with no intention of having a family 2. With geographical mobility, the idea of bringing together two wider extended ‘clans’ is again, far from a reflection of many contemporary marriages, where links between extended families are minimal 3. Marriage today is far more about a personal arrangement between two individuals, but stable relationships are certainly shown to be beneficial to the individuals concerned, and thus also the wider society. Thats why… Read more »

bls
bls
18 years ago

So society should forbid marriage, then, to couples in which the woman is past menopause?

Better yet: why not simply make marriage a temporary contract, and once the couple’s at the “empty nest” stage, dissolve it. Couples who aren’t planning to have children don’t deserve any benefits! I know I don’t want to pay for those slackers….

(BTW, there’s a little thing called “adoption,” too. I assume that couples that can’t produce their own children wouldn’t be able to get married, either?)

J. C. Fisher
18 years ago

Or such it is in “Dave’s Definition of Marriage.”

But for those of us who take another view . . .

Rob Leduc
Rob Leduc
18 years ago

Actually, Dave’s option #2 has been the trend for at least a hundred years in the industrialized nations of the communion. Perusing the text of the marriage rites for Ireland, Scotland and England show profound changes from the 1662 occuring as early as 1928. While the 1662 rite explicitly mentions procreation as the #1 point underlying marriage, later rites severly downgrade this, push it into optional bits of the rite, or eliminate it completely. Perhaps ironically, the American prayerbook has gone in the opposite direction. There is no reference to children at all in the marriage rite of any American… Read more »

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Hi JCF! Of course you take a different view! That was exactly what I was saying; you have to de-define most aspects of marriage, except the two people, to create “Gay Marriage”. And to everyone else; I’d like to point out that having children is only one of the much richer aspects of being married to someone from the other half of the human race. And that most families are committed generationally, even when separated by the demands (and opportunities) of life nowadays. If you read your contributions again I think you will agree with me that what we have… Read more »

Rob Leduc
Rob Leduc
18 years ago

“And to everyone else; I’d like to point out that having children is only one of the much richer aspects of being married to someone from the other half of the human race.” Actually, Dave, it was your statement in your original post that claimed that the currently recognized purpose of marriage was defined primarily as two people coming together for the purpose of procreation. My comments were to show that this simply has not been the case in the industrialized nations of the communion for at least 100 years. Furthermore, once the references to procreation were eliminated (or in… Read more »

Merseymike
Merseymike
18 years ago

I can’t imagine I – or moreover, the woman concerned – would find being married to one another a very ‘rich’ experience.

And its nice to know that I’m not part of @God’s order in creation’.

Enough to make one think that such a vision of @God’s creation’is largely fantasy, and we should get on with doing not ‘what we want’,but ‘what is right’.

Which, in my case, is a loving, committed and monogamous relationship with my same sex partner. We’re getting married next year! (sorry, ‘civil partnered’…nah, its married, in reality!)

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

Rob Leduc wrote “….once the references to procreation were eliminated (or in most cases made optional) in the marriage rites, there is no reason the individuals need to be from “opposite halves of the human race”…. This is no product of modern liberalism, but simply a process that began with the industrial revolution and reached clear liturgical and theological milestones by 1928.” Rob, I don’t think that the assertion that two people of the same sex can be in a relationship equal to marriage would have been considered credible by most people in 1928. It would have been more current… Read more »

J. C. Fisher
18 years ago

I simply refuse to countenance that there is something “lesser” about a family which adopts, rather than procreates, children. (Even as I glory that I am—through Christ—God’s child *by adoption* Gal.4:5) Once again, Dave, it is not that we have different views: it is whether one will use worldly POWER to *impose* that view on others. As I have argued, there is no way that other provinces in the AC can rationally believe that ECUSA or the AngChCanada are, by virtue of their own *internal* polities, imposing their views on the rest of the Communion (And if, say, Muslims in… Read more »

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

JCF wrote: “Once again, Dave, it is not that we have different views: it is whether one will use worldly POWER to *impose* that view on others.” Hi JCF, By *imposing* do you mean imposing the liberal view of homosexuality on churches and clergy in ECUSA & ACoC who reject it ? And will you now finally support them being allowed to live in peace and keep their buildings, assets and pensions, without having to submit to bishops and a GC that they believe to be in serious error ? Or will “liberal” bishops CONTINUE to use their *worldly power*… Read more »

Merseymike
Merseymike
18 years ago

So, if you think that two opinions should be accepted, Dave, would you extend that same liberty to those of us who wish affirming views of gay and lesbian people within the church at all levels to be enacted?

I think there is a case for pluralism and acceptance of difference but it has to work both ways.

Dave
Dave
18 years ago

No, I was questioning JCF’s fear that that the conservative primates would use “worldly power”. And pointing out that liberal ECUSA bishops are ACTUALLY persecuting their dissenting conservatives.

I think that the only pluralism most “liberals” believe in is “liberal pluralism”… Everyone else is seen as “extreme” and “excludes themselves”, as you have said before.

Rob Leduc
Rob Leduc
18 years ago

Dave wrote: “Rob, I don’t think that the assertion that two people of the same sex can be in a relationship equal to marriage would have been considered credible by most people in 1928.” I never said it would. In fact, I would agree with you on that point. What I am saying is that the trend of “redefining marriage” has been underway in industrialized nations for a long time – at least a century. My point is that once procreation is eliminated from the purpose of marriage (or seriously downgraded by being made optional), as was reflected in the… Read more »

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