tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post4777200994596039394..comments2024-03-30T00:33:32.285+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: Communion Crisis Has Deepened As Much As Resolution Has Been DelayedPeter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-23127240898327272532016-01-29T07:56:42.979+13:002016-01-29T07:56:42.979+13:00Thanks Bowman
That - to my mind - is now much clea...Thanks Bowman<br />That - to my mind - is now much clearer.<br />You may have predicted a ACANZP outcome!Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-27485919062998815972016-01-29T07:29:39.771+13:002016-01-29T07:29:39.771+13:00Peter, a typology of endpoints is easier-- and at ...<br /><br />Peter, a typology of endpoints is easier-- and at this stage more useful, I think-- than a predicted pathway. The former reflects the differing priorities among opponents of SSM. The latter is a guess about how forces in tension will respond to changing constraints in an unknown timeframe. The CIA would assign a roomful of analysts to some matters simpler than this one. But I understand your haste.<br /><br />In the churches you mention, proponents of SSM primarily seek to avoid disagreement with their social peers, and opponents of SSM primarily seek to conserve biblical authority. Yes, warm-hearted people on both sides do care deeply about other things, but a settlement that is either a social embarrassment or an abandonment of scripture will lead some to try to unsettle it, and others to try to leave. Even churches in which one side has the votes to prevail, will usually step back from measures that cost them much of their base of support (eg Wales). <br /><br />As I said in September, the hardest practise to dislodge would be one that left traditional marriage intact, but also graciously acknowledged a prior legal commitment undertaken in SSM. Those for whom the duty of procreation rather than punishment of homosexuality is the central concern of biblical teaching could accept this, and so could those whose main concern is to avoid being ostracised by their neighbours as wicked, persecuting homophobes. It would, of course, disappoint those for whom the Bible's anti-homosexuality is truly cosmic, as well as their polar opposites who want to see a sexual ethic for androgynes marked by a rite of the church. I have no vote counts at my finger tips, but my guess is that, to the annoyance and disgust of the blogosphere, a *marriage and partnership* position is the one most likely to hold in most of the churches on your list. <br /><br />What "gracious acknowledgement" is sufficient for each local church but not "legitimisation" in the meaning of 1988 Lambeth I.10? This is the real question. We could-- and no doubt will-- reflect in some depth on the meaning of the word. For the moment, it is enough to say that the more robust a church's teaching on the procreative, or at least on the sexed, character of traditional marriage, and the more it stresses the state's just purpose in SSM, the more gracious its acknowledgement can be. A church is at least taking a position clearly different from that of TEC if it-- (a) cites scripture against both homophobia and androgyny, (b) asserts a firm Romans 13 rationale for critical support of the state's SSM, and (c) further shows from scripture that the pastoral priority is to affirm the Church's continued challenge and love of a still-learning child of God. <br /><br />Try to imagine one of your Primates with his colleagues in the Canterbury crypt saying something like this-- "Although ACANZP has just reaffirmed and clarified its traditional theology of marriage, it also supports New Zealand's effort to give all citizens equal access to the many customary and third-party contractual rights associated with marriage. ACANZP does not affirm that such scriptures as Genesis 1:28, Ephesians 5, etc refer to SSMs, but we do recognise that our members who share their rights and resources under the law are taking a praiseworthy step toward just relationships. <br /><br />"Just because ACANZP's practise of marriage is so traditional, lesbian or gay members could doubt that God still loves them and that the Church still accepts them. Guided therefore by Articles XXXI and XI of the 39 Articles, ACANZP proclaims the gospel of grace to all persons, and especially to those of our own members who are partnered in SSMs. As with all members of ACANZP, our pastoral conversation with them never forgets that we are equally at the foot of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel has not changed; presented with new circumstances, we have proclaimed it in a new way."<br /><br />Bowman Walton<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-18045818109853827172016-01-28T22:28:52.830+13:002016-01-28T22:28:52.830+13:00That may be all very well, Bowman, as an analysis ...That may be all very well, Bowman, as an analysis which points us to ways forward other than TEC's pioneering pathway. But is it realistic to suppose that (say) CofE, SEC, ACCan, ACAustr, or ACANZP are going to follow either of the pathways of Cockaigne or Parador?Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-54709807532212132142016-01-28T17:38:23.245+13:002016-01-28T17:38:23.245+13:00Cont'd
In the northerly and cosmopolitan Chur...<br />Cont'd<br /><br />In the northerly and cosmopolitan Church of Cockaigne (CoC), weddings are always private, and churches are not popular venues for them. Thus a protracted fight in convocation over SSM with nothing of pastoral value at stake marked the end of church weddings in the eastern province. From that time forward, the bishops withdrew the 1662 service from use except by their special permission. In its stead, the bishops encouraged couples of all sorts to be lawfully married by a magistrate, and to invite a priest to offer prayers in their private celebrations. For such events, the bishops issued a litany that makes no legal declaration of the couple's marital status, but does ask God for the peace of the couple, all present, the people of Cockaigne, the royal family, any stricken by disaster, and the peoples of the earth. In the name of Jesus Christ, and in the hope of his return, a blessing is given to all present. In Cockaigne, weddings for nominal Christians have been supplanted by warm fuzzy evangelism to a secular society.<br /><br />Meanwhile other bishops in the subtropical Anglican Church of Parador (ACP) also require that couples be married by a magistrate, but only pray for them in their community's ordinary Sunday eucharist. Rather than discarding the ideal of the village wedding, these bishops have reclaimed it as a service in the household of faith for journey and reconciliation, healing and fertility. As with many services in a pentecostal milieu, the couple are at once the object of concern and representatives of the hopes and fears of the men and women present. Emphasising that marriage demands the transformation of the self in Christ, this rite does not shrink from notes of penitence and eschatological hope. Clearly this is no service for a nominal Christian, and counseling before the service is often apologetic or catechetical. Perhaps for that reason, those who object to its use with same sex couples are biting their tongues for the time being. Most often, as the priest crowns the couple and leads them around the font three times, the congregation unabashedly pray that the couple will have many arrows in their quiver. In Parador, C12 legalities have been pushed aside for a C21 experience of converting grace.<br /><br />From brief experience in just two provinces one cannot make predictions. But it is striking that the unintended consequence of state SSM in both has been the same: churches searched their souls for the reason for doing weddings in the first place. Having done that, the "pioneers" in both CoC and ACP have been happy to leave the witnessing of intent and consent to clerks in the town hall. In so doing, they have freed themselves to frame and pursue contemporary pastoral objectives for marriage that reflect the prevailing churchmanship in each place. The lighthearted liberals of Cockaigne simply want to be God's presence at the party as Jesus was in Cana of Galilee. The counter-cultural conservatives of Parador want their church and society to feel about sex, marriage, family, and life as God does. Neither province's Primate understands why TEC is so stuck in the past, and neither had the patience to spend a week in Canterbury finding out. <br /><br />Bowman Walton<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-54694274747703909162016-01-28T17:36:42.076+13:002016-01-28T17:36:42.076+13:00Thank you, Peter, for a swift, thoughtful reply.
...<br />Thank you, Peter, for a swift, thoughtful reply.<br /><br />The one wiki is here. Catholics read Luther; Calvinists read Maximus; Orthodox are beginning to read Augustine; everybody reads Tom Wright. Is there a unified fields theory of the gospel? No, but for the first time in history, the several magisteria can and do learn from each other. Benedict XVI was a different sort of pope for having read Martin Luther and Karl Barth in depth. <br /><br />We have one wiki, but a few global communions. For them we need to distinguish three sorts of promulgating authority-- communion identity, vocational tradition, local application. From communion to communion, those three kinds of authority differ in form, but are recognisable nonetheless. Richard Hooker would attribute that to the ubiquity of right reason.<br /><br />TEC, a pioneer? Like Pius IX in 1865, TEC needs a Bishop Dupanloup, and I am not sure what he could say. <br /><br />http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3165356.pdf?<br /><br />In the negative birthrate lands of Utrecht-Porvoo, TEC's *SSM for all* is not a pioneer. In the moderate to high birthrate Anglican Communion, it is a dead end. <br /><br />But yes, in principle, the question how churches should respond to civil SSM will most likely be answered by local bishops who actually encounter it. Eventually, somebody's pastoral guidance to clergy will evolve toward a useful practise that can spread. <br /><br />Two pioneering examplars show contrasting possibilities. In both places, the lawyerly service of the BCP has come to be seen as a redundant anachronism. "Today, a priest is not a public notary. But in the twelfth century, he had to be, or there would be no records. Without publicly verified records, brides would be sold into exploitive marriages to near kin who bounded from parish to parish in search of extra wives. Over a few centuries, the meticulous recordkeeping of the clergy cleared all that up. But now that civil servants can also read and write, clergy can spend their time on other things." And indeed, so long as couples obey the civil law, the medieval social pathologies will never again return. Realising this, and faced with state reforms of marriage, some bishops have done a bit of reforming of their own.<br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-75442462529174240402016-01-28T10:11:36.285+13:002016-01-28T10:11:36.285+13:00Hi Bowman
I am in agreement with much of what you ...Hi Bowman<br />I am in agreement with much of what you say, but your version of the organically growing Spirit directed "tradition" is that it is solid, coherent and agreed by all. (At least, that is how I read one or two phrases above). But the tradition does occasion some sharp disagreement, and promulgators of consequential schism are sometimes substantial bodies of Christians committed to one form of the tradition rather than another. Principally I have in mind the split between Eastern and Western Christianity. Fast forwarding, there is a potential "pioneering" role for a promulgator such as TEC's GC, which reshapes/reforms the tradition, so that one day the faithful (the whole of the West? or, just: the whole of the Communion?) look back, and around, and say "Look how the tradition re marriage has grown organically, starting with those first TEC buds."<br /><br />However, what I infer from your comments, is that the much stronger pathway to adjusting the tradition is for a widespread change to take place among all God's people, which synods and conventions finally recognise by change to canons. From that perspective, you are right to call into question the hubris of (e.g.) TEC claiming exclusive foresight as to what the tradition one day will be, as justification for changing the tradition when (relatively) few other Christians support them doing so.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-18897123488237660432016-01-28T09:23:28.617+13:002016-01-28T09:23:28.617+13:00Cont'd
Importantly, whilst local adaptations ...Cont'd<br /><br />Importantly, whilst local adaptations of the wiki are authoritative where they are, nobody believes in a wiki that is simply the sum of all the local adaptations around the world. That is, nobody anywhere believes that a communion can be an atrium of doors with nothing behind them and only empty space in front of them. What would be the point? <br /><br />Modern heresy arises from the delusion that there can be a promulgator independent of the wiki or even superior to it. Roman Catholics insist that papal infallibility is an orderly defense against that delusion; many Non-Romans worry that such concentrated power could lead to, or has already lead to, just such a delusion. Whichever is the case, papal infallibility is more faithful to the wiki than the TEC view that the General Convention can prune and reshape the wiki by its own lights to make a desired interpretation more plausible.<br /><br />Now that SSM is a right protected by the US Supreme Court, US states are adapting their marriage laws and procedures to comply with the law of the land. Presumably, bishops in cathedrals around the corner from state capitols are responding deliberately to any pastoral issues that arise as they do. Some are upsetting local conservatives, whilst others are upsetting local liberals, just as bishops have always done. Local dioceses seem entirely equal to the task of responding to the actions of their own governments in their own social contexts. Nevertheless should some distinctively American circumstance require it, TEC's House of Bishops could support what member dioceses are doing with counsel or direction. <br /><br />At either level, TEC has the limited responsibility of local promulgators-- to advise where local circumstances pose problems to all baptised Christians living by the common wiki. Reviewing the kinds of promulgators above, TEC has no responsibility to promulgate a distinction between the Anglican Communion and other communions (eg Anglicans are not evangelicals); the Instruments of Communion do that. Nor to act as a special body within the Communion (eg the American chapter of Modern Church); there is no national exception to Anglican comprehension. Nor to lend the authority of the Church to a favourite theology or hermeneutic, as though ordinary academic and committee work could bind the freedom of the Holy Spirit (eg Task Force on Marriage); the Holy Spirit owns every real church, and no church owns the Holy Spirit. Some want power that nobody has.<br /><br />For many restless Anglicans, and not only in TEC, that last paragraph is the sticking point. What they see as a modest desire for a church that thinks the way they do-- and as they are Masters Of The Universe, why should it not think as they do?-- turns out to be intrinsically impossible, and not simply because the Primates are too rigid to allow it. Ethnophyletism is, not only an Orthodox heresy, but an Anglican one. <br /><br />https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyletism <br /><br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-79987391258378458612016-01-28T09:22:49.603+13:002016-01-28T09:22:49.603+13:00Peter, Father Ron-- We seem to be confusing two di...Peter, Father Ron-- We seem to be confusing two different things that Anglicans, whether anglo-catholic or evangelical, are usually rather good at distinguishing well: on one hand, sacred tradition as a sort of wiki that grows organically in whatever ways please the Holy Spirit, and on the other hand, the promulgation of inferences from that wiki as binding law (eg canons, de fide definitions, liturgies, etc). Catholicity is life in the often informally recognised wiki; communion is reasonable compliance with some trusted promulgator.<br /><br />As a condition of that trust, every legitimate promulgator is in abject nose-in-the-dust submission to the tradition. Open the front door of a communion and you can walk through to the wiki, an ecology of faith teeming with life. But open the front door of a heresy and you can't walk through because there is nothing behind it but a book or a task force report or a charismatic personality. <br /><br />From inside, the wiki is like a vast greenhouse with several promulgators coming and going. Some distinguish one communion from another (eg the Pope, the Ecumenical Patriarch). Others distinguish practises within communions (eg The General Chapter of the Order of St Benedict, the Church of England Evangelical Council). Still others adapt the common wiki to local conditions (eg the General Synod of ACANZP). Remember: the wiki itself is a living ecology beyond the control of any of them. Theologians conduct tours of the greenhouse, and can tell us a lot about its contents, but they have no binding authority there. The Holy Spirit is in charge.<br /><br />Bowman Walton<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-86643444420984559512016-01-27T12:51:40.974+13:002016-01-27T12:51:40.974+13:00Hi Ron
There is a creedal basis to catholic Christ...Hi Ron<br />There is a creedal basis to catholic Christianity, but there are other things to consider as that which is important for Christians to agree on. Anglicans and Roman Catholics, for instance, are divided on matters not attended to by the creeds (e.g. the role of the magisterium, the role of Mary, and the role of the Pope), and a greater catholicity would come from those disagreements being overcome.<br /><br />The words you cite at the beginning of your comment above, however, are focused on "catholicity" within the Anglican Communion: our agreed doctrine which undergirds our union around common things. That includes the creeds but is not limited to them. Funnily enough, it includes rejection of magisterium and of papacy. My argument is that it also includes agreement (albeit an unwritten one, with reference to Anglican documents prior to Lambeth 1998 1.10) on the doctrine of marriage. The Primates Meeting's communique highlights the move away from that agreed doctrine by TEC. It can scarcely be denied that Anglicans have until recently been unanimous that marriage is between a man and a woman, because all 38 provinces individually thought that was the case via their canons and liturgies. It is not difficult to logically conclude that therefore 38 provinces had agreement on the gender differentiated character of marriage, whether or not a Communion body wrote that agreement down on a bit of paper or not.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-39256379648693054512016-01-26T23:34:17.915+13:002016-01-26T23:34:17.915+13:00Bowman; No I have never thought that (although som...Bowman; No I have never thought that (although sometimes I wonder whether he is not tempted to exclude someone from being an Anglican)- Just joking. Peter is a dyed in the wool Evangelical Anglican - just as I am a dyed in the wool Anglo-Catholic. We just can't help ourselves. We have to learn to co-exist - "Just as I am without one plea..."Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-23072694275301471732016-01-26T19:21:46.404+13:002016-01-26T19:21:46.404+13:00
Father Ron, do you think that Peter is disqualify...<br />Father Ron, do you think that Peter is disqualifying anyone from membership in the Body of Christ? <br /><br />Bowman Walton Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-42038303402642181182016-01-26T19:12:35.796+13:002016-01-26T19:12:35.796+13:00Bryden, your last comment hints at a suspicion or ...<br />Bryden, your last comment hints at a suspicion or a disagreement, but I cannot quite find it. Sometimes on these threads, reasonable people are emphatic about points that clearly mean more to them than they do to me. What am I missing?<br /><br />On therapy for homosexuals, my sense is that happy warriors still fight about it wherever happy warriors go to fight about everything. The world of Christian psychotherapy has been a stormy place for four decades. Every time I seriously investigate the rival claims of some new controversy, I find more of the same old inter-regional conflicts of class and culture. The Civil War here has never really ended; it was institutionalised as religion. <br /><br />But on sexual orientation, serious specialists on both sides now sound as though they are saying the same things. Both sides agree that therapy cannot reliably change a person's sexual orientation, but that FWIW change does sometimes follow a treatment. Both sides agree that they have gay and lesbian clients who seek therapy to help them live within the bounds of their religious commitment to celibacy. Both sides believe that their clients are helped. Both sides pray with clients. Religious counselors do this work; the American Psychological Association endorses it. <br /><br />Apart from the occasional blizzard, why should I worry?<br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-35611227534177786752016-01-26T12:00:39.466+13:002016-01-26T12:00:39.466+13:00"Now it is not rocket science to work out tha..."Now it is not rocket science to work out that in pretty much any debate over which church or Communion is living out its catholic character or not, the majority set of churches claiming to be catholic with supporting evidence re sharing the teaching of the catholic church wins over one or two or even six Anglican churches claiming to be catholic while departing from agreed doctrine!" - Dr. Peter Carrell -<br /><br />I never thought that you, Peter, above all people, would have thought the virtue of 'catholicity' in the Christian community to have been total agreement on all things to do with polity and doctrine. After all, you are an Anglican - part of a community that has already resiled from the magisterial doctrine of papal infallibility (whose adherents may claim to be the only 'catholics' in the Christian world). Surely, the deep-down visceral meaning of the 'catholic' - as the Oxford dictionary claims - is first and foremost: "including a wide VARIETY of things". The O.E.D. then goes on the explain that the word "Catholic", with a captial C, "of the Roman Catholic faith; of or including all Christians; relating to the doctrine and practice of the Western Church".<br /><br />The middle definition - "of or including ALL Christians" is surely the category into which (still, apparently under the capital C definition) both Anglicans and the Churches of the East can claim the title of Catholic. The common demominator here, is not the Roman Catholic Church and its Magisterium; but the commonality of belief in the Creeds of the Church Universal - which includes, but is not defined by, the institution of the Roman Catholic Church. <br /><br />Therefore; when speaking of a 'departure from agreed doctrine', one needs to ask "Whose agreed doctrine". Not that of the Roman Catholic Church, nor even that of the Orthodox Churches of the East, surely?<br /><br />The true basis, then of Christian 'catholic unity'; is the agreed historic Creeds of the universal Church - before any agglomeration of the doctrines that have been added on by successive Church Assemblies (e.g. Papal Infallibitly).<br /><br />There are, for instance, those of us in the Church who do not believe that certain 'pastoral' sanctions - such as limited sacramentasl accessibility, male-only priesthood, papal infallibility, selective categorisation of what constitutes sinful behaviour on the grounds of defective understanding of the tenor of the Gospel - all of these being contrary to the unbounded love and mercy of God - disqualify any believer in Christ from membership of the Body of Christ. Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-81385009327821962412016-01-26T08:30:08.524+13:002016-01-26T08:30:08.524+13:00I would not get to stubborn with this. If we get ...I would not get to stubborn with this. If we get expelled you won't only see dioceses leave you will see Provinces leave. Nobody wants to belong to some offshoot and will get rid of the bishops before they leave. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-28634812062039551102016-01-25T16:53:28.942+13:002016-01-25T16:53:28.942+13:00I would simply and humbly venture Bowman that we a...I would simply and humbly venture Bowman that we are playing ‘their’ game in some of those sections of Pilling you cite (which I downloaded quite some time ago BTW). <br /><br />You mention “empirical” matters; I shall also. I have observed folk encounter a wide and deep set of consequences of sin as well as their own sinful behaviours and their consequences; and nonetheless also encounter a God who has a singular remedy for all of these. It is indeed as the cross of the Crucified is lifted up and the Holy Spirit called upon to come to his wounded People, that slowly but surely - and sometimes most dramatically - the Image of Christ is restored to them and in them and they know themselves fully children of the Father, whose call ever remains upward until their deaths. I ask only whether you have encountered the ministry of Leanne Payne and her successors? As GK Chesterton once remarked: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” Sadly, this is where much of the state of our current dilemmas remains. And I guess it is the conclusion also of the Bp of Birkenhead, whom you also cite.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-28980372104424147652016-01-25T16:21:03.310+13:002016-01-25T16:21:03.310+13:00Hi Ron
I am not going to publish the comment you h...Hi Ron<br />I am not going to publish the comment you have just submitted to this post.<br />I both understand and appreciate the point you are making, but it could be made without discussing particular named people and their sexual identities. While those named people have discussed aspects of their sexual identity in the public arena, on one matter, proposing that one is and one would be (if married) "bisexual", I think you go beyond what has actually been said.<br />Your logic may be irrefutable but this blog is not funded to fight litigation!<br />Feel free to submit again, making the same point, without discussing named individuals.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-35839375331341148242016-01-25T12:42:32.350+13:002016-01-25T12:42:32.350+13:00Bryden, as you will recall, the empirical problem ...<br />Bryden, as you will recall, the empirical problem is also mentioned in two evangelical appendices to the Pilling Report by + Keith Sinclair and David Runcorn. The Bishop of Birkenhead's paragraphs 420-422 point out that we are uncertain about the causal web behind presenting cases. David Runcorn meanwhile asks whether we can be morally certain that those cases instantiate the behaviour prohibited by divine law promulgated in the ancient world. These two limitations in our knowledge are linked.<br /><br />If the prevalence today is close to a naturally occurring y < 3%, whilst in some societies of the ancient world that prevalence b was high enough to be normal or even normative, then surely in those societies x > y. Given that the prohibition cannot have been directed solely at the y hidden in x, might the cases intended by the prohibition be only the difference, the unnatural but conventional behaviour of x - y = z? <br /><br />An affirmative answer does not settle the matter. It does enable discussion of why the matter has been so hard to settle.<br /><br /><br />https://www.churchofengland.org/media/1891063/pilling_report_gs_1929_web.pdf<br /><br />http://www.christiantoday.com/article/the.pilling.report.bishop.of.birkenheads.dissenting.statement/34867.htm<br /><br />http://www.churchnewspaper.com/41004/archives<br /><br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-70094222368070231182016-01-25T11:23:42.149+13:002016-01-25T11:23:42.149+13:00Thank you Bowman for your considered comments over...Thank you Bowman for your considered comments overnight. Trust the snow storm has not wrecked too much havoc with you and/or yours. Being part farmer, I am all too aware of the significance of weather events. E.g. part of North Canterbury is undergoing the worst drought in 80+ years these past 18 months - though beautiful respite these past few weeks, with rains and heat one after the other, and in the middle of summer and El Niño: go figure!<br /><br />I sense we are drilling down further quite nicely with these rounds. True; ‘inclusivity’ does not necessarily imply dualism and/or Gnosticism. Just so, the legitimate complaint of Jerome re <i>hypostasis</i>. And yet Basil’s greater concern to absolutely fend off any Sabellian understanding overall (re Trinitarian doctrine) trumps in the end the collective appreciation of the specification of terms available. It’s something like this that is driving me here. The pitfalls of dualism over the centuries (Platonic, Kantian, and now neo-Gnostic: cf. TF Torrance’s oeuvre) are just too serious in their consequences in my view. I well recall KJS’s talk, “Science and religion: your context or mine?”, held at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, on 29th June, 2010, during an informal trip to Australasia. My question (deliberately sprung) evidenced her inability to distinguish genuine “paradox”, scientific or religious, from sheer contradiction. Indeed; her (eventual, after a great pause) answer stank of <i>neti neti</i>, pure and simple.<br /><br />As for the Six Texts. Curiously perhaps but not insignificantly, I have over many years tried to establish a frame of reference that does not rely simply or solely upon them in these debates, our current dilemmas. Rather, as ever in any hermeneutical exercise, each has to be situated with care; and overall, they need to be able to be read canonically, as well as philosophically (e.g. in the wider setting of the perennial “the one and the many”, and nowadays “pluralism”). I.e. back once more to 4th and 5th C, which was ‘decided’ by means of multiple criteria and shifts of framework (or paradigms). And so, while I agree your second para has <i>prima facie</i> plausibility, especially the second sentence, what if hypothetically - in the strict sense of that word - any genetic impulse towards same-sex orientation were indeed a consequence of the Fall. And of course any additional factors might be also specified as Fallen - epigenetic, societal, environmental. For example, my family clearly has a familial propensity for bowel cancer. And while the jury is still out as to what % of folk present with the disease due to such genetic factors and what on account of lifestyle and diet etc, our human sense of medical stewardship (itself a glorious expression of the combination of Nature and Grace) would excise the thing! And I am mercifully a recipient of all this - just as other members of my wider family are embroiled in the ss debates. All of this therefore is both intensely intellectual as well as pastoral and moral in my camp - a fully orbed theology indeed!<br /><br />But of course such a train of thought just might not be germane: your “created” ss possibility remains an option - initially, and perhaps even for a while. And so, what as ever we need to ascertain is what constitutes data and so evidence at all at all. Back to an earlier thread and our comments back and forth. And so it is in this overall context that I am striving to set up Occam’s Razor, and even such things as Critical Experiments, to validate and/or falsify any hypothesis and/or framework. And within this process, I have found my desire for these current distinctions and specifications not only helpful but essential, as we all seek those consequences ecumenically which under our Courteous Good Lord might eventuate. Perhaps even, our one holy catholic and apostolic Church depends upon such ‘nice’ distinctions ...Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-5926890928254008262016-01-25T07:37:36.815+13:002016-01-25T07:37:36.815+13:00Bryden, my word "distinction" in the las...Bryden, my word "distinction" in the last comment should have been "specification." BW<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-10265652018380164592016-01-25T03:45:16.306+13:002016-01-25T03:45:16.306+13:00Yes, Bryden, it makes sense to specify, as you do,...<br />Yes, Bryden, it makes sense to specify, as you do, that the differentiation of the tiles of the mosaic is created, not chosen. That done, the Judaic universalism in *inclusivity* is distinguished from the baggage of existentialism and liberationism that it carries for some, though not all, who use the word. That in turn should distinguish narratives of homosexuality that are at home in that Judaic universalism from narratives that are only intelligible in the frames of Sartre and Marx. <br /><br />Both sides in this debate would find your distinction challenging. The Six Texts do not show that there could not be persons whose *homosexual* condition is created (eg Michael Wigglesworth); they show that the bisexuality practised among Israel's neighbours was prohibited by God. Just because some narratives of homosexuality are, as you say, gnostic, it does not follow that all of them are, as some evangelicals seem to imply (eg Ian Paul's use of Paul Ricoeur). And of course, your distinction should induce our other good friends to explain why they are burdening homosexuals and churches with a myth of Sartre and Marx, rather than the gospel.<br /><br />Bowman Walton<br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-91600103109393954072016-01-24T15:50:37.502+13:002016-01-24T15:50:37.502+13:00Bowman, a further stab at the need (IMHO) for the ...Bowman, a further stab at the need (IMHO) for the clear distinguishing of ‘inclusivity’ from the hallowed Christian note of “catholicity”, one furthermore that is actually sustained by the very comments you make.<br /><br />Naturally, I well appreciate your second and third paragraphs: nicely adumbrated. But we need to go even further, to distinguish not just inner city types (San Fran) from farmers (Dakota), but what is even more basic. For as and when we drill down, right down, to rock bottom, much that passes for ‘inclusivity’ slips, slides into sheer monism. It is the monad in addition that is unable to distinguish the good from evil. Au contraire; it rejoices in the very evil that seeks to masquerade as light! For <i><b>every</b></i> form of ‘difference’ is justly an emanation of the One. Nor do have to be aware of the Forest Debates of the Upanishads to see this. Our culture these past decades has become delightfully gnostic at a popular level. And so how might we sift that feature.<br /><br />Rather; I really do sense the important thrust of your second para is better served by the notion of “kata holos”. True; ‘inclusivity’ <i>might</i> do equal service. I demur however, and along similar lines to those of the second half of the 4th C. The Church needed to get hold of suitable language to distinguish, via perennial terms available, what eventuated as <i>ousia</i> on the one hand and <i>hypostasis</i> on the other. And true again; notable folk like Jerome and Augustine are on record as being disgruntled and/or disapproving - even confused. And one can only be sympathetic given the perspective(s) from which they were thinking. YET the alternatives were dire ... And it is to clearly and justly and boldly avoid our own current, dire cultural wars and worse that I seek to distinguish a wholesome catholicity, which is fully synchronic and diachronic (Ephesians, Irenaeus, and yes, Barth), from the muddied idea of inclusivity. Our evangel requires it, as do the current recipients of that Good News (IMHO).<br /><br />And ALL the various recipients of the Good News, as you seek to portray in your first para. Just so, the other pairing of the title of that essay of mine: created differentiation versus diversity! Me thinks we are in heated agreement - to some degree - here ... <br /><br />And just so, finally, the conjoining of the catholic + created differentiation establishes a richer, more clearly defined vision of the mission of the Church than our present (western) indulgences (IMHO).Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-34293386722738231672016-01-24T07:52:45.258+13:002016-01-24T07:52:45.258+13:00
Bosco, *remit* is a hard word to resist here whe...<br /><br />Bosco, *remit* is a hard word to resist here where we shovel snow in January. Unlike our semantic equivalents, *remit* has that punch on the second syllable that sounds like what it is. Or ought to have been. <br /><br />A governor who had planned to run for president has poisoned one of his own cities with lead in the water supply. (No, I am not making this up. Search words: Flint, Michigan, Lead, Rick Snyder.) He was empowered, had a responsibility, granted authority, gave approval, took under consideration, etc. Alas nobody had a remit to keep people from being poisoned by their own government.<br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-44181107898610985382016-01-24T06:00:52.481+13:002016-01-24T06:00:52.481+13:00Bryden, a word of discerning praise for *inclusivi...Bryden, a word of discerning praise for *inclusivity*. <br /><br />It acknowledges the central insight of the Adam story in Genesis-- that the image of God in the temple of the creation is a mosaic comprising each person with all of his or her given exceptionalities in humanity as a whole, and just so, the Church is intrinsically, not just as a pious afterthought, bound to the richly differentiated wholes of humanity and creation. At least in the theological West, the older language has not communicated this so clearly to so many. Barth, for famous example, rediscovered this missional being of the Body of Christ in the world, not in the magisterial reformers, but in their Anabaptist critics. <br /><br />Inclusivity challenges us to hold in one thought both Christ's mediation of all things in heaven and on earth, and the perceptible horizon of change and differentiation. It suggests that God's image is not complete without the man born blind in so many gospel stories, the differentiation of the sexes throughout scripture, and all the exceptionalities within the human condition, including the 3% who put up with these debates about them with astonishing grace. We do not all fit the same places in the mosaic, but we do all have places in the image of God. <br /><br />TEC's approach to SSM was indeed the unintelligible concept juggling to which you object. To minimise the difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals, it tried absurdly to eradicate the difference between men and women. Concretely, so that LG folk would feel church-accepted in America's wealthy suburbs and college towns, it asked people in farm towns and inner cities to disown their sense of themselves as women and men in their thinking about marriage. It eased the sense of marginalisation for gay executives (a good thing) at the expense of a farmer's wife's sense that her man would do and should the right thing (a crazy thing). Just so, that approach was not inclusive-- it was just another battle in America's inter-regional wars of culture and class. But the flawed proposal has popularised something true that deserves to survive and thrive in a less myopic and meanspirited milieu. <br /><br />Bowman Walton<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-7097750516342303642016-01-23T17:49:12.788+13:002016-01-23T17:49:12.788+13:00This "...is not their [the Primates'] rem...This "...is not their [the Primates'] remit." Bowman Walton<br /><br />Ah... yes - their remit...<br /><br />BoscoAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-42972898030030117062016-01-23T15:52:53.968+13:002016-01-23T15:52:53.968+13:00Thank you Peter for your musings around “catholici...Thank you Peter for your musings around “catholicity”. As you know, I’ve tried as well to distinguish this Christian notion from the now near universally touted world of ‘inclusivity’. [See my “Whose Language? Which Grammar? ‘Inclusivity’ and ‘Diversity’, versus the Crafted Christian concepts of Catholicity and Created Differentiation, in <i>Whose Homosexuality? Which Authority? Homosexual practice, marriage, ordination and the church</i> (ATF Press, 2006), pp.151-167.] For starters, confusion often arises due to a lack of appreciating the important if subtle difference, especially among ‘native’ westerners.<br /><br />As Wesley Hill so eloquently states, among other features, it means stewarding a tradition. Not that this then sets matters in stone. Yet it does challenge those who’d ‘stretch’ the ‘boundaries’ of that tradition as they try to ‘include’ what seems for all the world Aristotlean opposites to that tradition to make their case on grounds that are at least commensurate in a clearly demonstrable way with the evaluative criteria of that tradition. For my money, “progressives” have simply not been able to do that to date, even after years even decades of discussion: alien paradigms seem always to be surreptitiously imported to solve the problem.<br /><br />And it’s at this point I venture that we need to grasp the nettle. Even granting Provincial autonomy (by whatever means of local polity), what does mutual submission and mutual humility look like institutionally? E.g. Eph 5:18-21 & Phil 2:1-13, notably given v.5's baptismal nature - “Let your bearing towards one another arise out of your life in Christ Jesus.” (NEB) For only such characteristics warrant a form of (Christian) life whereby the catholic co-inheres with unity, holiness, and apostolicity. And furthermore, should we ‘tolerate’ degrees of ‘difference’ among us, then what forms of “integrity” (cf. e.g. Motion 30) align with any form of catholicity and what are simply incoherent? I suspect that our current local dilemmas at this very point are merely a microcosm of the macro AC as a whole.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.com