It’s all here, although the nub of it seems to be:
I could not remain in a church that effectively excluded gay people. That’s only one of the reasons, but for someone who had taken the Catholic position on same-sex marriage for so long, I’d never been comfortable with that even though I suppose I was regarded as being a stalwart in that position. But I’d moved on, and I felt a hypocrite. I felt a hypocrite being part of a church that described homosexual relations as being disordered and sinful. I just couldn’t be part of it anymore. I could not do that. I couldn’t look people in the eye and make the argument that is still so central to the Catholic Church, that same-sex attraction is acceptable but to act on it is sinful. I felt that the circle of love had to be broadened, not reduced.
I have a strong suspicion that he won’t be particularly comfortable being an Anglican either; luckily there are about 21,000 other Christian denominations still to try.
Good to know. I was awaiting something more from the pen and mouth of Mr. Coren.
I will stay tuned.
What tripe! MC was a stalwart defender of a church that excluded the rest of Christendom, and now he claims to be uncomfortable with excluding sodomites; we see who rates higher in his priorities. Now his new church makes it a high priority to stick it to historic Christians by ousting them from their properties and then letting them become mosques and restaurants; again MC chooses heathens over allegedly fellow Christians. “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways (Jas 1:8).”
This utterance is quite a tour de force, packing so many falsehoods into so small a compass. Journalists always seem prone to swallowing slogans and clichés and regurgitating them as truth.
He never seems to have been troubled by the fact that Rome persists in confining all females to their biological function, as though keeping the population up was the only aspect of marriage or a woman’s life that matters. That’s all of a piece with endorsing male behaviour that is essentially as cruelly sexist as any in this wicked world.
How do we really feel folks. My gosh, I am shocked but not dismayed……..with Mr. Coren.
I leave Mr. Coren to his choice of denomination, and I wish this brother in Christ well in his future endeavours, but I am very disappointed that this once steady voice for truth has waivered and drank the Kool-Aid.
“I could not remain in a church that effectively excluded gay people.” Sadly this is not because they threw him out for endorsing unnatural vice – for unrepentant sin, in other words – but because he decided to go.
“I could not remain in a church that effectively excluded gay people.”
This is bs. Saying to homosexuals that their chosen lifestyle is sinful and will not be endorsed is not in any way “excluding” them. It is having the integrity of being honest.
If a “Church” were to say to homosexuals that their sex acts are “ok” is just as bad as telling a whore that her chosen profession is ok, or to tell an adulterer that his/her sex outside of marriage is ok. or to tell a thief that his/her stealing is ok. Obviously these things are not ok and should NEVER be condoned. Likewise homosexual acts are not ok and should NEVER be condoned. If the homosexuals want to interpret this as being excluded then that is their own misinterpretation.
The thief takes umbrage at “thou shalt not steal” as does the hit man at “thou shalt nkt kill;” how uncharitable and exclusionary of us.
I think what we have here is the classic case of self re-evaluation. For years to many to count his polemic diatribe has left me cold. A large ego to be sure and more often than not a sense of self righteousness. With a breath of fresh air now sitting in ‘the Chair’….the current Bishop of Rome……..I suspect Michael thought it time to go. Perhaps he had an epiphany. Who knows. I wish him well though.
I wonder if he should have re-phrased the comment that “the circle of love had to be broadened”
Then he would have a defective definition of love, which could never condone sin.
I have not read his book, “Why Catholics are right,” but I suppose now it is obsolete. He may be working at this very moment on his next book, “Why Liberal Anglicans Are Now Right.”
Mr Coren, “felt a hypocrite.” Now his feelings have progressed to reality. Because now he has proven himself to be one. He should return every dollar of royalties from his book, “Catholics are right,” or at the very least, accept no more.
To depart purple-clad Magisterium for purple-clad Millennialism
still is to “exclude” The One Who asks of His Church in every generation:
+ Matthew 21:23 et seq. ” By what authority” do you “do these things?”
In his ‘Why Catholics Are Right’, Mr. Coren had the wrong answer; he still does.
Just ask the Archbishops of Toronto, both Roman Catholic and Anglican, clerical collar-deep in the Wynne sex “eduction” improvements for the souls of Ontario school children.
Oh dear…………”the times they are a changin'”