The ABofC said “The Church had not been persuaded of the acceptability of same-sex unions, but the question would not go away, and the Church should not suppress them or foreclose discussion and reflection, he told the Reuters news agency.” Maybe the church should now spend some time reflecting on the homosexual issue, and in the meantime get back to focuussing on core theological issues. For instance there are too many clergy and members of the church who hardly believe anything distinctively Christian.. even the creeds! This is hardly a recipe for a unified or spiritually powerful church ! I… Read more »
Merseymike
18 years ago
Dave ; I think your crusade to have the CofE as a purely conservative body is a non-starter.
Some of us are simply not going to buy the conservative message, because we don;t agree with it.
(And actually – will wonders never cease! – I agree with Dave’s contention in his last paragraph. I agree the Church ought to be “spiritually powerful,” too.
So again: why is the Church going into schism over the “homosexual issue”? Why can’t we attend to more important things going forward?)
Tunde
18 years ago
Persuading people of the validity of the Christian faith becomes more difficult when some undermine the very essence of Christ’s coming. It undermines His person and purpose. If I can get by with sin by blaming my urges on God, then I do not need salvation. I end up doubting the divinity of Christ and even the existence of a God who does not care if I do right or wrong. It is a process. You just watch what is going on in the liberal Churches. Gradually, Christ is being turned from a Saviour to a ‘great teacher’ If the… Read more »
Dave
18 years ago
Dear Mike (& bls), If you read what I said, you will see that I don’t want a conservative church; just a Christian one. Is that such an issue?!!
Disagreements over moral issues shouldn’t stop us getting on with teaching people to believe and trust in God in Christ!
Tunde, Might I suggest that the Christian faith is not a programme of “good behavior” by which one wins God’s approval. THAT undermines His person and purpose. If there was salvation in the Law, Christ need not have come. You are in danger of converting Christ into merely a “great teacher” who advises obedience to the Law — nothing more than yet another Jewish prophet. That is not the Christian faith, which teaches that all of our sins (and no one is without sin) are borne by Him and forgiven by him — but only to the extent that we… Read more »
Tunde, isn’t your problem w/ the LGBTs who *don’t* “doubt the divinity of Christ and even the existence of a God”, who *do* know they “need salvation”? After all, it is not secular queers who show up alongside of you, Sunday after Sunday, at the local Anglican church, as . . . wait for it . . . fellow ANGLICANS. I recognize that LGBT Anglicans represent a *cognitive dissonance* for you: how can we read the same Bible, pray the same liturgy, ponder both (and holy Tradition) . . . and (while still sinners) come to THANK GOD for the… Read more »
Church Times really needs to work on the headlines for some of their stories…
Dave
18 years ago
Dear JCF, The spiritual dissonance is on your part rather than Tunde’s. You claim to read the same Bible and follow the same faith, but then you reject the clear teaching of that same Bible !
On sexual orientation; there must be a dissonance problem for you with your homosexuality… Men and women are made to join together and become couples, form families, generate children etc. That’s part of what being fully human is about (says he who has had no children!). Don’t you feel the dissonance of being in a same-sex partnership ?
Merseymike
18 years ago
Of course no, Dave; we have the sense to recognise that which has limitations of cultural bias and lack of knowledge in the Bible. I simply wonder why you are unable to do the same – you don’t have the excuse of not being able to gain the necessary knowledge, after all!
Dave, how can I, um, *clarify* this for you? First, there’s THE BIBLE. As an artifact, it’s words on a page. Words written over the centuries, lost, found, re-translated, and re-translated again. And argued about every step of the way. For Christians, there’s a consensus that this artifact, THE BIBLE, is “the Word of God” (of course, there are still disagreements as to what, *exactly*, that means). Got it? OK, now there’s this second thing: “Dave’s ‘clear teaching of that same Bible'” This second, exists ***ONLY IN DAVE’S HEAD***. Now, don’t think I’m putting the latter down. Dave, with Dave’s… Read more »
Dave said: “you reject the clear teaching of that same Bible”. Again, Dave, the Bible doesn’t ‘teach’. It doesn’t get up and walk across the room to you and explain its contents to you and how you ought to apply it. YOU read and interpret it as a text – YOU are the active party in that event. You may say that is done under the guidence of the Holy Spirit of God, and by your God given gifts of reason, wisdom and conscience, and other Christians (inc tradition) – but in and of itself, apart from the prescence and… Read more »
nathan
18 years ago
“we have the sense to recognise that which has limitations of cultural bias and lack of knowledge in the Bible”
It might be more accurate to say that you have the freedom to DECIDE that which you believe is limited by cultural bias and that which is more transcendant and universal. “Recognition” implies that you have stumbled on the only correct view.
Others, presumably including Dave, have made different decisions about such matters as whether or not gender and the act of sexual (re)union have ontological significance and value in God’s eyes.
Tunde
18 years ago
Dear JCF & Tobias, The point remains JESUS SAVES! Lives of the saved are transformed. Fruits of repentance are evident in the day to day life of the believer. Right now prostitues (sorry, commercial sex workers) are ‘fighting’ for equal rights as all other workers. When is the church going to be PERSUADED to encourage such to become bishops? Do such need any change in their lifestyle or for fear of judging do we just admit such to ‘holy orders’ without questions? Something tells me the agenda will not end with the LGBTs but rather with Rev. 2: 12 -23… Read more »
Merseymike
18 years ago
Tunde ; I do actually think that we hold very different belief systems.
Tunde, the problem with your position is that you take the side of the Pharisee over against Jesus the Christ. Luke 7:36-48. Jesus allows this sinner to “minister” to him — doing the act he would later call upon all of his apostles to do for each other, the supreme act of humble ministry — while Simon sits back and says “She is a sinner, not a suitable person even to be in my house. And this man must not be who he claims to be because he tolerates her presence.” The fruit of the Spirit is not “good behavior”… Read more »
Dave
18 years ago
JCF wrote “”Dave’s ‘clear teaching of that same Bible'” Augustus Merriwether wrote “It seems there is a confusion between YOUR teaching and YOUR concept of something you call ‘Bible teaching’.” Dear JCF and AM, Err I think you forgot that I am only saying what the church has been saying for the last 2000 years. It is *your* teachings that are driven by your [socio-cultural] perceptions – mine are decidedly counter-cultural in Western Europe! Merseymike wrote: “Of course no, Dave; we have the sense to recognise that which has limitations of cultural bias and lack of knowledge in the Bible.”… Read more »
Dave wrote: “if God spoke through the Christian (and Jewish) authors of the Bible then you have to *at least* give it authority within their socio-cultural and knowledge contexts. And of course new contexts require new interpretations… the question is what has truly changed about humans and sex?”
Quite a lot, as you well know, dear Dave. The definition of “gender” even… Not to mention your own socio-political teachings post 1960…
What hasn’t changed are Pride, Greed, Rebellion, Self-Righteousness.
The Sins of Sodom.
nathan
18 years ago
How can the people of Sodom be characterised as rebellious or self-righteous? From what little I have read, they seem altogether too cowardly to be rebellious, and too ignorant to be self-righteous.
Merseymike
18 years ago
No, Dave, wrong again. Social and cultural understanding, the meaning we give to things, is everything. Without it all we have is words. The way we understand and interpret sexuality, for example, the understanding that there is such a thing as a gay person, is not labelling, but a recognition that something is radically different to what would then have been understood.
You conservatives need to start reading the Bible sociologically, as a social construction!
Dear Nathan, “cowardly” and “ignorant” don’t apply.
There are 48 references to the Sins of Sodom in the Bible talking of Pride, Greed, Rebellion, Self-Righteousness.
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idlenes was in her and her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy”. Ezekiel 16.48-49
Dave
18 years ago
Dear Göran and Mike, people’s sexuality hasn’t changed in the last 2000 years. Maybe we have a better psychological model of how sexuality is formed and how we perceive ourselves. But folk were not unaware that some people were attracted to people of the same sex! In ancient Greece, a minority of Greek males never married and continued to have sex exclusively with other men of their own age.. Lots of different sexuality groups are trying to get themselves labelled as an “orientation”… as if showing that a significant group of people experiencing strong and persistent desire for someone/thing really… Read more »
Dave
18 years ago
Dear Göran, Not just pride, idleness etc !!! You missed out part of the sin list in Ezekiel 16:49-50, and also omitted the consequence: ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. I presume that you wanted to avoid the condemnation of “doing of detestable things” and the idea of a God who exacts judgement ! But I would suggest that providing incomplete… Read more »
Merseymike
18 years ago
Dave ; that assertion about ancient Greece is certainly contested – and definitely not the case in ancient Rome. I think you need to take up your arguments with the medical profession which does accept orientation, which does actually change everything as far as the limitations of the Bible is concerned. This is why you need to start looking at the Bible as social construction, and recognise it is a product of its age and prejudices. Thankfully, in the UK, we are challenging some of those prejudices. the Church simply needs to catch up, abandoning that of its tradition which… Read more »
The ABofC said “The Church had not been persuaded of the acceptability of same-sex unions, but the question would not go away, and the Church should not suppress them or foreclose discussion and reflection, he told the Reuters news agency.” Maybe the church should now spend some time reflecting on the homosexual issue, and in the meantime get back to focuussing on core theological issues. For instance there are too many clergy and members of the church who hardly believe anything distinctively Christian.. even the creeds! This is hardly a recipe for a unified or spiritually powerful church ! I… Read more »
Dave ; I think your crusade to have the CofE as a purely conservative body is a non-starter.
Some of us are simply not going to buy the conservative message, because we don;t agree with it.
So this must mean that “the homosexual question” isn’t really a core theological issue after all. Kinda what we’ve been saying all along, isn’t it?
What do you know?
So tell us, then: why is the “Global South” threatening schism over the issue?
(And actually – will wonders never cease! – I agree with Dave’s contention in his last paragraph. I agree the Church ought to be “spiritually powerful,” too.
So again: why is the Church going into schism over the “homosexual issue”? Why can’t we attend to more important things going forward?)
Persuading people of the validity of the Christian faith becomes more difficult when some undermine the very essence of Christ’s coming. It undermines His person and purpose. If I can get by with sin by blaming my urges on God, then I do not need salvation. I end up doubting the divinity of Christ and even the existence of a God who does not care if I do right or wrong. It is a process. You just watch what is going on in the liberal Churches. Gradually, Christ is being turned from a Saviour to a ‘great teacher’ If the… Read more »
Dear Mike (& bls), If you read what I said, you will see that I don’t want a conservative church; just a Christian one. Is that such an issue?!!
Disagreements over moral issues shouldn’t stop us getting on with teaching people to believe and trust in God in Christ!
Tunde, Might I suggest that the Christian faith is not a programme of “good behavior” by which one wins God’s approval. THAT undermines His person and purpose. If there was salvation in the Law, Christ need not have come. You are in danger of converting Christ into merely a “great teacher” who advises obedience to the Law — nothing more than yet another Jewish prophet. That is not the Christian faith, which teaches that all of our sins (and no one is without sin) are borne by Him and forgiven by him — but only to the extent that we… Read more »
Tunde, isn’t your problem w/ the LGBTs who *don’t* “doubt the divinity of Christ and even the existence of a God”, who *do* know they “need salvation”? After all, it is not secular queers who show up alongside of you, Sunday after Sunday, at the local Anglican church, as . . . wait for it . . . fellow ANGLICANS. I recognize that LGBT Anglicans represent a *cognitive dissonance* for you: how can we read the same Bible, pray the same liturgy, ponder both (and holy Tradition) . . . and (while still sinners) come to THANK GOD for the… Read more »
Church Times really needs to work on the headlines for some of their stories…
Dear JCF, The spiritual dissonance is on your part rather than Tunde’s. You claim to read the same Bible and follow the same faith, but then you reject the clear teaching of that same Bible !
On sexual orientation; there must be a dissonance problem for you with your homosexuality… Men and women are made to join together and become couples, form families, generate children etc. That’s part of what being fully human is about (says he who has had no children!). Don’t you feel the dissonance of being in a same-sex partnership ?
Of course no, Dave; we have the sense to recognise that which has limitations of cultural bias and lack of knowledge in the Bible. I simply wonder why you are unable to do the same – you don’t have the excuse of not being able to gain the necessary knowledge, after all!
Dave, how can I, um, *clarify* this for you? First, there’s THE BIBLE. As an artifact, it’s words on a page. Words written over the centuries, lost, found, re-translated, and re-translated again. And argued about every step of the way. For Christians, there’s a consensus that this artifact, THE BIBLE, is “the Word of God” (of course, there are still disagreements as to what, *exactly*, that means). Got it? OK, now there’s this second thing: “Dave’s ‘clear teaching of that same Bible'” This second, exists ***ONLY IN DAVE’S HEAD***. Now, don’t think I’m putting the latter down. Dave, with Dave’s… Read more »
Dave said: “you reject the clear teaching of that same Bible”. Again, Dave, the Bible doesn’t ‘teach’. It doesn’t get up and walk across the room to you and explain its contents to you and how you ought to apply it. YOU read and interpret it as a text – YOU are the active party in that event. You may say that is done under the guidence of the Holy Spirit of God, and by your God given gifts of reason, wisdom and conscience, and other Christians (inc tradition) – but in and of itself, apart from the prescence and… Read more »
“we have the sense to recognise that which has limitations of cultural bias and lack of knowledge in the Bible”
It might be more accurate to say that you have the freedom to DECIDE that which you believe is limited by cultural bias and that which is more transcendant and universal. “Recognition” implies that you have stumbled on the only correct view.
Others, presumably including Dave, have made different decisions about such matters as whether or not gender and the act of sexual (re)union have ontological significance and value in God’s eyes.
Dear JCF & Tobias, The point remains JESUS SAVES! Lives of the saved are transformed. Fruits of repentance are evident in the day to day life of the believer. Right now prostitues (sorry, commercial sex workers) are ‘fighting’ for equal rights as all other workers. When is the church going to be PERSUADED to encourage such to become bishops? Do such need any change in their lifestyle or for fear of judging do we just admit such to ‘holy orders’ without questions? Something tells me the agenda will not end with the LGBTs but rather with Rev. 2: 12 -23… Read more »
Tunde ; I do actually think that we hold very different belief systems.
Tunde, the problem with your position is that you take the side of the Pharisee over against Jesus the Christ. Luke 7:36-48. Jesus allows this sinner to “minister” to him — doing the act he would later call upon all of his apostles to do for each other, the supreme act of humble ministry — while Simon sits back and says “She is a sinner, not a suitable person even to be in my house. And this man must not be who he claims to be because he tolerates her presence.” The fruit of the Spirit is not “good behavior”… Read more »
JCF wrote “”Dave’s ‘clear teaching of that same Bible'” Augustus Merriwether wrote “It seems there is a confusion between YOUR teaching and YOUR concept of something you call ‘Bible teaching’.” Dear JCF and AM, Err I think you forgot that I am only saying what the church has been saying for the last 2000 years. It is *your* teachings that are driven by your [socio-cultural] perceptions – mine are decidedly counter-cultural in Western Europe! Merseymike wrote: “Of course no, Dave; we have the sense to recognise that which has limitations of cultural bias and lack of knowledge in the Bible.”… Read more »
“Err I think you forgot that I am only saying what the church has been saying for the last 2000 years”
*Still* ONLY YOUR OPINION, Dave.
Shalom!
“The point remains JESUS SAVES!
Lives of the saved are transformed.
Fruits of repentance are evident in the day to day life of the believer.”
Agreed completely, Tunde (Truths for which no Anglicans are as *thankful* as LGBTs). God bless!
wooosh!
-passes hand over head-
Dave wrote: “if God spoke through the Christian (and Jewish) authors of the Bible then you have to *at least* give it authority within their socio-cultural and knowledge contexts. And of course new contexts require new interpretations… the question is what has truly changed about humans and sex?”
Quite a lot, as you well know, dear Dave. The definition of “gender” even… Not to mention your own socio-political teachings post 1960…
What hasn’t changed are Pride, Greed, Rebellion, Self-Righteousness.
The Sins of Sodom.
How can the people of Sodom be characterised as rebellious or self-righteous? From what little I have read, they seem altogether too cowardly to be rebellious, and too ignorant to be self-righteous.
No, Dave, wrong again. Social and cultural understanding, the meaning we give to things, is everything. Without it all we have is words. The way we understand and interpret sexuality, for example, the understanding that there is such a thing as a gay person, is not labelling, but a recognition that something is radically different to what would then have been understood.
You conservatives need to start reading the Bible sociologically, as a social construction!
Dear Nathan, “cowardly” and “ignorant” don’t apply.
There are 48 references to the Sins of Sodom in the Bible talking of Pride, Greed, Rebellion, Self-Righteousness.
Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idlenes was in her and her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and the needy”. Ezekiel 16.48-49
Dear Göran and Mike, people’s sexuality hasn’t changed in the last 2000 years. Maybe we have a better psychological model of how sexuality is formed and how we perceive ourselves. But folk were not unaware that some people were attracted to people of the same sex! In ancient Greece, a minority of Greek males never married and continued to have sex exclusively with other men of their own age.. Lots of different sexuality groups are trying to get themselves labelled as an “orientation”… as if showing that a significant group of people experiencing strong and persistent desire for someone/thing really… Read more »
Dear Göran, Not just pride, idleness etc !!! You missed out part of the sin list in Ezekiel 16:49-50, and also omitted the consequence: ‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. I presume that you wanted to avoid the condemnation of “doing of detestable things” and the idea of a God who exacts judgement ! But I would suggest that providing incomplete… Read more »
Dave ; that assertion about ancient Greece is certainly contested – and definitely not the case in ancient Rome. I think you need to take up your arguments with the medical profession which does accept orientation, which does actually change everything as far as the limitations of the Bible is concerned. This is why you need to start looking at the Bible as social construction, and recognise it is a product of its age and prejudices. Thankfully, in the UK, we are challenging some of those prejudices. the Church simply needs to catch up, abandoning that of its tradition which… Read more »
I wasn’t avoiding anything. I was talking of the Sins of Sodom, not yet the consequences…
Your interpretation, however, is yours.
“She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy” is the enumeration of the Sins of Sodom.
“They were haughty and did detestable things before me” is the Conclusion, preparing for the consequence:
“Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”
And this, by the way, is repudium in my book. Not Carolingian Purgatory and Hell, as in yours ;=)