I’ve decided that I’m tired of hiding my true feelings, of pretending to be someone I’m not, of living with the shame of concealing my essential nature. So here goes.
I am convinced that:
Same-sex marriage is bad for society. Marriage is meant to create a family. A family is meant for bringing up children in a manner that strengthens society. A same-sex ménage does neither.
Sexual relations between members of the same sex is intrinsically unnatural, a product of the Fall, not a design facet of God’s creativity. That goes for penguins, too.
Sexual relations between members of the same sex is forbidden by the Bible; Christians who are determined to twist Biblical prohibitions to suit their purposes do so at their peril.
Children should be brought up in a family consisting of a married man and woman and their adoption by same sex couples is tantamount to abuse.
The Anglican Church of Canada, insofar as it has preferred societal whims on same-sex relations to Christian doctrine, no longer deserves to be called a church.
The Anglican Church of Canada, insofar as it has abandoned both the transcendent and the revealed Gospel in favour of temporal pettiness such as social justice, no longer deserves to be called Christian.
Bishops in the Anglican Church of Canada who are more interested in money and property and, hence, are pursuing both through litigating against Christians who follow their conscience, are no better than the money changers who were cast out of the temple. However, since they blend harmoniously with the ethos of the Anglican Church of Canada, there isn’t much point in casting them out.
Diversity is not inherently good and its opposite inherently bad. I have no idea who first came up with this potty notion, but I suspect it was someone who doesn’t fit in because he lives in his parent’s basement, has body odour and doesn’t get out much.
The same goes for inclusion.
Rowan Williams should trim his eyebrows.
Brother in Christ,
I really want to engage with you, but honestly, I’m not sure how. I admire your honesty, and the strength of your convictions, but sometimes in statements above you are simply wrong when empirical research becomes part of the picture around adoption and the raising of children.
So, I guess my first question is: If you feel this way, are you currently part of an Anglican Church of Canada parish? And if so, why?
Searching for the bond of peace,
Rob
Rob,
My parish was in the ACoC up until 2008 when we voted unanimously to join ANiC which is a province of ACNA.
That’s fair. Thanks for letting me know. It’s very clear, at least on Bible stuff, that we read the text in very different ways. So in a sense, we are now in two different kinds of Anglicanism.
What do you think we agree on?
May the Holy Trinity bless you and your parish. Speaking as a Div student, I don’t understand the politics of the lawsuits, but I agree with you that there has been a serious failure of grace when Christians drag each other into court (1 Cor 6).
In peace,
Rob
Rob,
We might be able to agree that your desire to find common ground on which we can agree is considerably stronger than mine.
I certainly agree with his view in totality However, I would like for this unidentified person to put a name on the article
Herman,
I am not sure whether your thirst for information concerns me or some other “unidentified person”. If it is me, you can find some fascinating details, including my name here.
Hey David,
You seem really abrasive and even mocking. I’ll back off. It’s fine.
I’d be willing to bet we agree on Jesus Christ.
In peace,
Rob
Rob,
Yes, perhaps I was.
It is probably because it reminds me of Rowan Williams’ attempt to concoct an Hegelian synthesis between the opposing liberal and conservative poles that are rending the Anglican communion. I think the effort is misguided.
Also, I confess, I enjoy disagreeing with people more than agreeing with them – a trait which I would hesitate to portray as anything other than a character flaw.
Yup. He’s a cranky Aulde Pharte, Rob, don’t take it personally… 😉
Hi Kate! I hope you’re doing well! 🙂
Hi David – I think the thing that you’re assuming is that I’m a liberal. *If* I am, I’m not a very good one! Oliver O’Donovan, who’s an upstanding Anglican Evangelical theologian if I’ve ever seen one, has said that the liberal paradigm of the Church has failed, in part because the liberal party in the Church has now become a pole rather than a mediator.
I don’t usually use labels, because they strike me as trying to shorthand for the purposes of gaining inappropriate power in most circumstances, but I agree with you that there’s a serious problem in the Anglican Church of Canada at present. I sat in a room with five clergy from diocese Toronto for a conversation the other day, and I was appalled, because two of the clerics could not affirm the statement, “Jesus Christ saves the world.” I realise that it sounds superheroish, but when teachers of the faith cannot use one of the central realities of the Bible and tradition, cannot use “save” or “redeem” in a sentence without cringing, there is a very serious problem. Without getting into the debate about “are those clerics Christians?” the problem I have is this: how has the Church failed you so deeply that you cannot connect your own experiences of physical healing or repaired relationships or strength to carry on through trials to those words? Salvation and redemption are happening all around you, and yet liberal/liberation theologian type folks cannot bring themselves to plumb the depths represented by those words! I was so sad I went away and cried.
I am not hopeless about the ACC yet. I tell you this story to say that, though we may disagree about homosexuality, I certainly hope which tab goes in which slot would be of tertiary importance compared to making sure that clergy and lay people both have a living experience of Christ that is nurtured by the central realities, themes, stories, and metaphors of our faith. But thanks be to God that I’m part of a generation of divinity students who seem to understand that, as obvious as it is, we cannot do without Jesus. And that gives me hope.
All this to say what Alister McGrath writes about constantly: The primary impulse that will keep the health of the communion will be catholic-evangelical heart of the Church, as it has been from the beginning. The gift of the liberals, when it is properly centred, is to ask how the living God expresses himself today, and looks for common grace in the world.
I don’t really hear Hegel in what I just said–do you?
Rob,
We’ve danced around this mulberry bush before and I’m not sure I have anything to add, other than to re-iterate that I believe your conviction that what one does with one’s body and having “a living experience of Christ” are disconnected issues is a serious mistake.
Well, I think your determination for us to find a common ground that, from my perspective, has had the rug pulled from under it by what I said above is rather Hegelian, yes.
Hello David,
I, too, have always wondered where and how this nonsense idea about diversity came to be so large a part of our present-day landscape. Did God hand down a stone tablet to Moses on Mount Sinai, dicitating, “Thou Shalt be Diverse”? Where did this over-riding notion come from….and who ever made it into a moral must-be? To me, it is one of the list of Commandments from the Lefty Religion (you know, the others are along the lines of radical feminism and abortion are to be considered sacred, cyclists and marathon-runners and Greenpeacers are to be your high-priests, Israel doesn’t deserve to exist, the gay agenda is one of our gospels, be promiscuous until you drop, Christianity is to be treated as a silly myth, and so on…..).
Who ever pressed this “Diversity equals Morality” notion on western society? And why have so very many fallen for it? One of the ways to dig out truth in this old world is to look thoroughly into the history of an idea……does your mother cut that Sunday roast in a particular way each week because of valued family tradition springing from a meaningful act, or did her grandmother just not have a long-enough roasting pan in her day, and so it was done out of neccessity? In other words, why are we following what we follow?
I have just received my copy (ordered online) of “Diversity: Invention of a Concept”. Here is the Amazon review posted for it:
“Anthropology professor Wood examines two kinds of diversity. Diversity as physical and cultural variation among humans was propounded by nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century systematic anthropology. Diversity as the conviction that physical and cultural traits should determine one’s eligibility for admission to college, career advancement, and bestowal of government largesse arose from Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell’s freestanding decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, in which he allowed that differences in race, gender, and other traits–designated as diversity–were worthy of consideration in distributing social goods. The new diversity quickly became an aggressive ideology, damaging American institutions and poisoning public discourse with “identity politics.” Wood blames the Left for using diversity to undermine democracy and faintly praises the marketplace for trivializing it into a matter of lifestyle choice. But the marketplace is interested in making money off diversity, not quashing it. “We will be left,” he sadly concludes his otherwise surprisingly congenial survey,”Diversity: The Invention of a concept”, by Peter Wood. “for a long while still, with the reign of diversity’s pasteboard stereotypes.” Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved”
Carol
“Diversity is not inherently good and its opposite inherently bad. I have no idea who first came up with this potty notion, but I suspect it was someone who doesn’t fit in because he lives in his parent’s basement, has body odour and doesn’t get out much.
The same goes for inclusion.”
Spooky, in that you’ve captured the essence of my evening prayers.