tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post8396255641166503831..comments2024-03-29T22:00:02.999+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: Weighing responses to the Final ReportPeter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger192125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-38988228755901153632018-02-24T16:37:04.490+13:002018-02-24T16:37:04.490+13:00COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED ON THIS THREAD.
THANK YOU...COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED ON THIS THREAD.<br /><br />THANK YOU COMMENTERS - YOU HAVE RAISED QUESTIONS AND ISSUES WHICH ARE PERTINENT TO THIS MATTER OF THE DAY.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-50888574515126299072018-02-23T20:59:05.683+13:002018-02-23T20:59:05.683+13:00Hi Bryden
At last, we are agreed!
And, indeed, the...Hi Bryden<br />At last, we are agreed!<br />And, indeed, the church is a funny old thing :)Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-28205243631636518722018-02-23T20:57:55.557+13:002018-02-23T20:57:55.557+13:00Dear Ron
Thanks and, understood!Dear Ron<br />Thanks and, understood!Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-87272928615519671202018-02-23T20:52:02.735+13:002018-02-23T20:52:02.735+13:00You ask a good and reasonable question Peter; and ...You ask a good and reasonable question Peter; and the answer is simple, and is already within my previous comments: the Church is properly the first fruits of the new creation, the kingdom of God. Meanwhile, the institution will attempt all sorts of accommodations as it providentially passes through history - Papal States, Benedictine communities, Establishment Alliances, Amish Communities, Mt Athos, SSB/SSM, et al. But as I said elsewhere, these all will meet with as much mercy as judgment, as much perdition as pardon.<br />Chete! Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-24864678641175456032018-02-23T20:45:21.829+13:002018-02-23T20:45:21.829+13:00Dear Peter,
If I ay be permitted one final commer...Dear Peter,<br /><br />If I ay be permitted one final commernt on this threade...<br /><br />One of the reasons I will not be at the diocesan synod on 3 March is the fact that it will be conducted in a place where I have found hostility towards SSA people and the prospect of the Church blessing their faithful monogamous relationships.<br /><br />I pray that God's will may be done - and be seen to be done - by our Synod. And I want to thank you for your openness to the possibility of the passage of Motion 29.<br /><br />Jesu, mercy; Mary pray! Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-44225544535579538912018-02-23T20:42:10.095+13:002018-02-23T20:42:10.095+13:00Hi Bryden
Yes, I see what you are saying but I rem...Hi Bryden<br />Yes, I see what you are saying but I remain wondering why you can not find one good thing to say about SSB - not one. Despite your and your schoolmates' lovely "indifference" to gayness in a former era, you either cannot or will not be indifferent to its manifestation in the life of the church.<br /><br />When I think about partnered gay and lesbian friends in church, how they remain somewhat defiantly committed to being Christian in a hostile community, both within a church which will not affirm their partneredness and outside the church which will not affirm their Christianness, I am wondering if they are as far removed from the spiritual transformation of Romans 12:1-2 as your analysis concludes. Are they as "mistaken" as you with Augustine and Bowman make out?! After all, such Christians are strikingly committed to Christ against the mould!<br /><br />We may be three generations from demise but I suggest that is so even if we shut down the matter of SSB and never spoke of it again.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-14769341506797276982018-02-23T20:30:30.983+13:002018-02-23T20:30:30.983+13:00Hi Glen
We meet Jesus in the breaking of the bread...Hi Glen<br />We meet Jesus in the breaking of the bread.<br />And in that breaking we remember with thanksgiving that Jesus died for our sin.<br />Nothing I write here denies that humanity is sinful and in need of a Saviour.<br />Everything I write here is about living life with our Lord who knows us and loves us and guides us to eternal habitations.<br />That the human journey turns out to be longer than we may have thought deepens the mystery of God's work as Creator and Redeemer.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-47735374396835521462018-02-23T20:25:40.149+13:002018-02-23T20:25:40.149+13:00Whoops, D. Alek, those dates in March are when I h...Whoops, D. Alek, those dates in March are when I have my check up for mental agility :)Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-60624110292852632472018-02-23T20:07:58.409+13:002018-02-23T20:07:58.409+13:00Hi Peter,
So,I leave you re-arranging the deck ch...<br />Hi Peter,<br /><br />So,I leave you re-arranging the deck chairs on the proverbial Titanic,as the band plays on; as you sail into uncharted waters with neither compass or sextant to guide you.The ACANZP has long forgotten which port it set sail from and appears to have lost any idea of its destination.But as one Bishop is so keen on saying: "we need to be on the right side of history".And if you sail far enough,you may well find some Denisovans.<br /><br />I, for my part, am happy to come to Christ as a "little child" accepting that Moses, Jesus and Paul were correct in stating that death came into through Adam sinning; and that through Christ,life came. If we are here through evolution,and there was no Adam and Eve,no fall and no sin; then what is the value of Eucharist. If that is the God of the present ACANZP,I am happy out of it.<br /><br />Glen Youngnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-52160290737525097192018-02-23T19:45:02.550+13:002018-02-23T19:45:02.550+13:00"I write this c. 3.20 pm Friday 23 March NZ t..."I write this c. 3.20 pm Friday 23 March NZ time. I am likely to end this thread around midday tomorrow Saturday 24 March NZ time."<br /><br />I always knew Peter was an advanced thinker but I didn't know he was also a Time Lord. Before the Rev Dr Who closes this thread, could he please give me some tips for the racetrack over the next four weeks (earth time) and for my pension fund?<br /><br />D. Alek Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-90272805035196502912018-02-23T17:54:56.872+13:002018-02-23T17:54:56.872+13:00Bowman, you ask @ February 23, 2018 at 7:57 AM: “B...Bowman, you ask @ February 23, 2018 at 7:57 AM: “Bryden, How do you propose that ACANZP receive and guide adult converts to the faith who are in civil SSM?” Well; here goes ...<br /><br />Mercifully Bowman, I’ve been a minister in Africa where polygamous marriages were common. And here we’ve some parallels - perhaps ... In some places, as we know, European missionaries forced divorce upon all but the first wife. But that only spread human misery in the fulness of time, with exposure of other ex-wives to real lack of social support and even non-identity. The key seems to have been sheer providence, the gracious allowance of time to work its way into and through history. Here the emphasis is upon the next generation of Christians, and the next, for them to seek monogamy, marriage between one man and one woman. “Chete” (Shona!)<br /><br />I guess our current social experiments, secular and ecclesial, will just have to undergo the test of time. I give it approximately three generations at most - should the Lord tarry! For by then the strength of providence will become evident. Back to ER’s <i>Church</i>: Providence engages with human beings with as much mercy as judgment, with as much perdition as pardon.<br /><br />And all the while I agree wholeheartedly with your vision of the Church’s true vocation to be worshipful transformation unto the Image of Christ. It’s not for nothing that one of my mantras is Rom 12:1-2.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-74621407154897322782018-02-23T17:37:04.875+13:002018-02-23T17:37:04.875+13:00I’ve no idea where you got this idea from, Peter: ...I’ve no idea where you got this idea from, Peter: “I think you hammer the present as though the past was glorious ...” Five things:<br /><br />1. What I hammer regarding the past is a series of attempted answers (provided most recently by the likes of Polanyi and MacIntyre) on how we have reached the present cultural place, where there is an extraordinary mixture of confused moral discourse and practice. Not an unimportant item of research for the western Church I fancy, if our true missionary praxis is to gain better traction.<br />2. You continue however: “... but in the past times ...” Interestingly, one might try to be more specific re what past times: Ancient Greece and Rome, Jacobean, Victorian, 1960s when I was at school. For re this very last, we knew full well in our boarding house which three boys were expressing gay tendencies, among 50 boys in any one year, and over five years. And how were they treated by their peers? Not with derision nor mocked nor bullied; but with studied indifference, as if the sky were not always grey nor always blue in the British Isles! Yes; I’m serious! It was no big deal among us. One has gone on to become a Professor of Psychiatry, another an art dealer in the capital, and I’ve lost touch with the third.<br />3. “... in this environment of responsible morality in respect of honesty ...”: I had to smile wryly when you said “environment of responsible morality”, for to what exactly <i>are</i> we responding? Notably, in a post Freudian world? And notably in a world where ‘autonomous experience’ has become <i>the</i> touchstone. Sure, you go on to say “in respect of honesty”. Yet it’s exactly here that I’ve invoked my Basic Question #3; “How do we <i>become</i> <b>genuinely</b> mistaken?” The emphases being again on “become” and “genuine”: an historical process that is both individual and structural, both within a single life-time and over some three centuries (the latter if we dare to probe); yet frankly our “honesty” is a mixed, alloyed bag - if we are truly honest and if we dare to probe both individually and structurally. That’s the point of all three of my Basic Questions in fact.<br />4. “ ... indeed, if I understand you correctly, you can only frame any aspect of what is asked of the church in terms of immorality.” Well; you should know better than that having reviewed my <i>God’s Address—Living with the Triune God</i>, and with my having strongly endorsed Bowman’s emphasis on spirituality and our due human transformation in Christ Jesus. What tosh at that point!<br />5. While there’s much more I could isolate and refute, I’d lastly address the matter of “justice”. Love and truth are, as I’ve said often before, inextricably intertwined for the Christian Faith. While it’s easy for some to say seemingly, “Where love is, God is”, I’d respectfully still ask the basic question: What constitutes the truly loving thing to do, to be? The answer to this question is perhaps the nub of our current ‘dilemmas’. And if we are to approach anything like a due Christian answer, at least two things are justifiably to be also addressed. What constitutes human being? And, secondly, one key feature of personhood, at least in the Augustinian-Thomist tradition—which after all actually bequeathed unto human history the very idea of person—is again the complex intertwining of being + knowledge + will, lover + loved + love, mind + knowledge + love, memory + knowledge + will, all the key ruminations of Augustine’s <i>De Trinitate</i> as the dimensions of subjectivity and personhood. Just so, to escape the hard questions as GS and M29 and the WG Reports have done is not only to shirk our Christian duty; it is to precipitate potential pathways that can only end in tears, institutionally, historically. And that really seems to me to be the most unjust of all possible worlds. For “a house divided against itself may not stand.”Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-41000196828307216882018-02-23T15:49:40.898+13:002018-02-23T15:49:40.898+13:00Thank you, Peter & Friends, for a stimulating ...Thank you, Peter & Friends, for a stimulating discussion on this thread. This is my final comment on it.<br /><br />BWAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-51236688671688931822018-02-23T15:26:02.150+13:002018-02-23T15:26:02.150+13:00Dear Brendan
Thank you for your conciliatory tone....Dear Brendan<br />Thank you for your conciliatory tone.<br />Briefly, my public support for the possibility of SSB in the life of our church, according to the constrained proposal currently under consideration, despite my not personally supporting SSB, rests on two considerations in particular:<br />(1) That others in this church offer a theological support for SSB (e.g. that where love is, there is God; that God blesses covenanted relationships) which is theological support, even if, in my personal judgement it is insufficient.<br />(2) I think it better - pragmatically - that we are a church with some space for different convictions about SSB to be expressed, including in practice and not just in discussion. The alternative, that we prohibit SSB (in some "once and for all" manner), will not, in my view curtail the desire for them, which will continue to be pressed, continue to soak up energy, etc; and, as I have been emphasising here in recent comments, is almost certain to contribute to our church being viewed as a place which is hostile to rather than hospitable to gay and lesbian Anglicans and likely-to-be-Anglicans.<br />Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-44377750780331694352018-02-23T15:19:15.352+13:002018-02-23T15:19:15.352+13:00GENERAL NOTE TO COMMENTERS
It has been a very stim...GENERAL NOTE TO COMMENTERS<br />It has been a very stimulating thread, this one of now around 180 comments, and I thank you for your contributions. But I am now behind on some important, deadlines-looming things and I need to stop this discussion. I write this c. 3.20 pm Friday 23 March NZ time. I am likely to end this thread around midday tomorrow Saturday 24 March NZ time.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-7283143621035041452018-02-23T15:09:05.612+13:002018-02-23T15:09:05.612+13:00Thanks Ron for your attempted response @ February ...Thanks Ron for your attempted response @ February 22, 2018 at 11:43 PM, in which you reveal some interesting and not unimportant things.<br /><br />Your peremptory dismissal of the respective voices of two gay men whom I know well, just because they were mediated via me - when neither would be seen dead on this ADU site - and perhaps just because their views differ so basically from your own, is frankly unjust. Their voices are just as personal as your own in the event, and certainly NOT “speculations”.<br /><br />Far more important of course is whether any such voices, your own as well, match the will of the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, or are just this - merely personal voices/choices. Somewhere along the line, if reason is to have a role in our moral deliberations and moral discourse, we cannot ALL be right! Yet this is exactly what ACANZ&P is seeking to institutionalize ...Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-55704624916029360852018-02-23T15:08:09.019+13:002018-02-23T15:08:09.019+13:00Dear Peter
Thank you for the opportunity to engag...Dear Peter<br /><br />Thank you for the opportunity to engage in debate around what is perhaps the most significant change to be contemplated in the life of the church in my living memory. It’s not surprising that it has generated considerable interest from all sides.<br /><br />I wonder if the conversation would have been much shorter, if your public support for SSB had been based upon your firm theological convictions. Then we could have simply moved on. But because you agree that homosexual activity is sinful, and you would not personally perform SSB, many of us have wondered if we might not persuade you to align your public stance with your personal convictions. We have wondered how you reconciled this moral dichotomy; to publically advocate for a sexual activity you firmly believed sent Christ to the cross, along with all sin.<br /><br />As to your statement concerning the ‘unfairness’ of my comments I offer the following thoughts. If I have misquoted you, or been wrong in any statement of fact, then I will be pleased to apologise. However, unfairness is a subjective term, and like beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.<br /><br />There are many in our church who think it is unfair that the debate about SSB has been forced upon them. Must they really consider accepting a sexual practice that is explicitly condemned in Scripture, has no place in 2000 years of church history, and up until 40 years ago was illegal in New Zealand?<br /><br />The conversations I have had with people since raising the topic of SSB in church last Sunday would flow about 10 to 1 in that direction. People on both sides of this question feel unfairly treated. <br /><br />The ones most unfairly treated are those same sex attracted young people I referred to some time ago on this blog. Motion 29 says both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to them regarding the legitimacy of their sexual desires before God. How have we let that happen? If we want to be upset, therein lies the greatest cause for offense. <br />Brendan McNeillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741263914308842497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-57940906540831856452018-02-23T14:02:58.786+13:002018-02-23T14:02:58.786+13:00Hi Brendan
You raised a question about cultural ac...Hi Brendan<br />You raised a question about cultural accommodation.<br />I responded by pointing out that if are having "a go" at either homosexuals seeking blessings or those promoting blessings or those (such as myself) willing to see a place of permission in our church for such on the grounds of "cultural accommodation" then please, could we also acknowledge that other Christians, in heterosexual marriages, may also be acting out of cultural accommodation (and I gave as one example those who marry but then choose to not have children - this could be to pursue career aspirations - a cultural accommodation at variance with "be fruitful and multiply).<br />If, however, you do not wish to be consistent re having a go at fellow Anglicans over cultural accommodation, that is your choice. I then made the point that pastors respond to people as they present themselves and tend not to judge people for some perceived prior cultural accommodation.<br /><br />So, please do not make the leap you made to accusing me of then conflating two situations re behaviour. That is simply unfair on your part and makes me inclined to consider ceasing from responding to your points if doing so only leads to further and unrelated critiques.<br /><br />You seem unable to make an imaginative leap into the situation in life of gay and lesbian people within a church which, on your arguments, must have a negative view of any attempt on their part to enter into a loving, committed relationship. Do you have any idea of the hostility of your remarks here towards people who, in my experience, are fragile around the question of whether they are or are not welcome to be who they are in the life of the church? Nor do you show any appreciation of the possibility of a theology of SSB which is part of an offer from the church to regulate same sex desire in a world which relentlessly pushes the possibility of acting on that desire in ways which constitute promiscuity and casual sex. A theology - if you like - of the lesser of two wrongs. It may not be a theology which is much good in your eyes. It may not be a theology in my eyes which I actually agree with. But it is not a theology of a slippery slope towards justifying every possible sexual sin.<br /><br />I am about to bring this thread to a close anyway - it is now consuming too much of my time - but I am open to you offering something fairer and more constructive than your last comment which, frankly, is deeply unfair to a number of people in this church, including myself.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-22352265328719166952018-02-23T13:46:04.384+13:002018-02-23T13:46:04.384+13:00Peter
You cannot usefully conflate the difference...Peter<br /><br />You cannot usefully conflate the difference between Bill and Jean not having children following their marriage for reasons that are unknown except to God, and Bill and Bill having their extra-marital sexual relationship celebrated and blessed by the Anglican priest at the 10:00 am Sunday service.<br /><br />Sadly, this is the level of ‘debate’ the proponents of SSB have been reduced to. Unable to justify SSB theologically, we are being told: ‘look at that other person’s sin over there’ and stop complaining. The clear inference being that it would be hypocritical for anyone to point out homosexual sin when we are all sinners.<br /><br />But where does that approach leave us except to completely erase sin and repentance from the church’s vocabulary? But I’m forgetting – there is only one sexual sin you are seeking to liberate into the life of the church.<br />Brendan McNeillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741263914308842497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-38838681301467534812018-02-23T13:17:35.141+13:002018-02-23T13:17:35.141+13:00Hi Brendan
It stretches my credulity that we would...Hi Brendan<br />It stretches my credulity that we would run church in such a way that gay and lesbian members feel intimidated into silence re their situation in life; including possibly keeping lifelong relationships secret; though more likely simply leaving the church.<br /><br />Individual members of the church may have arrived at their situation in life through "cultural accommodation" (more than a few remarried after divorce persons would likely deserve that judgement; to say nothing of married couples who, say, postpone children for ten years after their wedding ...) but they present to pastors as people and to their situation in life, not to their (so you or I judge) cultural accommodation do we respond, pastorally.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-55957476385702544062018-02-23T13:01:11.290+13:002018-02-23T13:01:11.290+13:00Peter
It would stretch credulity to believe your...Peter<br /><br /> It would stretch credulity to believe your pastoral accommodation of SSB is not first predicated on cultural accommodation. <br />Brendan McNeillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741263914308842497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-79758843217884893492018-02-23T11:30:35.845+13:002018-02-23T11:30:35.845+13:00"Note the lack - apart from Ron - of self-dec..."Note the lack - apart from Ron - of self-declared homosexuals offering their own testimony here while many heterosexuals readily pronounce on their behalf......<br /><br />"Nevertheless would it not be worth hearing from gay and lesbian Christians in partnerships who seek blessing (a) whether they believe (as many if not most Christian married couples believe of their marriages) that their specific relationship, necessarily a man-man or woman-woman relationship rather than "marriage as in one flesh of man and woman", is a contribution to personal transformation in Christ? And, (b) whether SSB is an important step on the pathway of being transformed in Christ in the context of relational domesticity? The personalised answers to those questions are glaringly lacking in this thread ..." - Dr. Peter Carrell -<br /><br />Thank, Peter, for this admission - that I may be the only self-confessed 'same-sex-attracted' person to contribute to the arguments on this thread. I think the reasons for that ought to be obvious:<br /><br />1. Because of the negative view of homosexual relationship that are put out by the vast majority of your correspondents, any S.S.A person with any sort of ministerial responsibility in ACANZP might justifiably be afraid to offer their own story - for fear of the threat of being outed and the consequent loss of livlihood.<br /><br />2. Clergy who may be SSA or bisexual, who have quietly and conscientiously carried out their ministry to the best of their ability without exposure and without causing scandal in the Church may just not be disposed to put themselves at risk from the abuse they might be subjected to on this blog and from any public exposure of their innate sexuality.<br /><br />3. As I have indicated earlier on this thread; my own sexual orientation has been made know to my religious superiors - without any suggestion that my sexuality is ungodly or deleterious of the Church's understanding of such matters. I suggest there are Anglican bishops around the world who are quite au fait with the SSA nature of some of their clergy. What they desire is that there not be any cause for scandal in the behaviour of such baptised and ordained members of the Body of Christ. <br /><br />There have always been gay clergy. What is possible now - about the openness of the Church's attitude towards such clergy, is that there is now no need for hypocrisy to be practised among a category of faithful servants of God and the Church who, because of the puritanical and outdated attitudes of past generations of conservative Church Leaders.<br /><br />As I have stated already in my comments above, the reasons given in the BCP for the institution of marriage include (1) procreation, (2) the avoidance of promiscuous sex, and (3) the mutual support and companionship of both. <br /><br />Surely, if promiscuous sex is one of the problems in binary relationships, it ought to be considered the greatest problem (as witness the incidence of AIDS which has now spread to heterosexuals) for homosexuals. <br /><br />Does the Church have a logical ministry here - in encouraging S.S. couples to avoid promiscuous relationships by entering into a faithful partnership akin to marriage? Would Jesus reject such a 'saving grace'?<br /><br />Civil society gets the message. How long will it take the Church? Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-34597894842367839632018-02-23T11:21:13.592+13:002018-02-23T11:21:13.592+13:00Hi Brendan
Cultural accommodationism is always at ...Hi Brendan<br />Cultural accommodationism is always at work in the church and sometimes the church has resisted heroically and sometimes it has yielded. Most times, of course, the church (especially the Anglican church) has steered a middling pathway.<br /><br />It is obviously not clear to you so I have equally obviously not clearly communicated but my motivation for supporting the proposal is not cultural accommodation but pastoral accommodation - there are gay and lesbian persons in our church and some are civilly married, and some wonder whether the climate of the church is simply too hostile for them to remain (e.g. because, in terms of your comment, their desire for a blessing is all too much and represents some terrible betrayal of the gospel), and I think the proposal might take the hostility down a notch or two and might just serve those very brave gay and lesbian Anglicans who hang in with us even though there are quite a few reasons for them to leave and shake the dust off their feet. Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-68766827866256376132018-02-23T10:57:20.581+13:002018-02-23T10:57:20.581+13:00“What we are facing in society and church is a rec...“What we are facing in society and church is a reconsideration of the moral status of being homosexual (we seem to accept that simply being homosexual is morally neutral) and "active" homosexuality (we are in debate about that, though, in Western societies, the secular judgement is generally that that is also morally neutral).” PC<br /><br />Peter, <br /><br />I regret to inform you that the future relationship between the church and culture is not going to look as it did in the past. The Anglican church, if it is to survive intact as the household of God, must forego all desire to remain culturally acceptable, and recognise that out of necessity God is calling us to become counter cultural. I am realistic enough to recognise this may be too great a step for Anglicanism to contemplate.<br /><br />Our culture has become a swamp of moral relativism. It has embraced an orthodoxy that is not just ambivalent towards the Christian faith, but in a very brief space of time has become explicitly hostile. Peter, I don’t know how long it has been since you worked in a secular role, but there is a new Sheriff in town, and he demands conformity not just in behaviour, but also in belief.<br /><br />Having our church cede to the demands of the Sherriff will not endear us to him, or to those in his thrall until they own us completely. There will be new demands that eventually even you will decide cannot be met. Appeasement and compromise has never produced liberty either in politics or in the realm of the spirit.<br /><br />SSB is a new expression of an age-old struggle for the very soul of the Anglican church. <br /><br />Sadly, it seems many within the church view this as moral progress. <br /><br />In the words of the Psalmist: “When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3)<br />Brendan McNeillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02741263914308842497noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-73046910287082266512018-02-23T09:58:14.622+13:002018-02-23T09:58:14.622+13:00Hi Ron,
Like you, I am in the position of being a...Hi Ron,<br /><br />Like you, I am in the position of being able to speak the truth about the CHAOS that is called mental health; without my living being taken from me.<br />Conversion belongs to God and not Caesar; because it is only God who can change the spirit.Glen Youngnoreply@blogger.com