Here is an excerpt from a statement by a group called 'The Chicago Consultation' responding to the recent ACI statement re the polity of TEC, in conjunction with the recently released 'Ridley Cambridge' draft of the Covenant:
"The Chicago Consultation believes that, like the church’s historic discrimination against people of color and women, excluding GLBT people from the sacramental life of the church is a sin. Through study, prayer and conversation, we seek to provide clergy and laypeople across The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion with biblical and theological perspectives that will rid the church of this sin." (Whole piece here)
So, we can know what a 'sin' is. Indeed we can bring a 'biblical and theological perspective' to bear on our knowledge of what a particular 'sin' is. Further, we can be as clear as the light of a sunny day about this, as the Chicago Consultation is.
Oh, that's right, quite a few Christians, reading the Bible, think that sex between people of the same sex is a sin. Apparently quite a few have no doubts about that, indeed their 'biblical and theological perspective' offers great assurance that they are correct.
I wonder if the Chicago Consultation and its ilk within the Communion will ever 'get it': definitions of sin cannot be advanced on the basis of what 'we believe'; only on the basis of what God reveals through Scripture. The Consultation would be better advised to engage with the interpretation of Scripture than snide attacks on bishops and theologians of integrity based on self-confidence that they know what sin is and the rest of us do not!
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