Posted on 06/22/2006 2:42:57 AM PDT by beaversmom
What do I have to do to join the American Episcopal Church? It sounds great now that it has a woman, the Bishop of Nevada, the Rt Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori, in charge and an openly gay bishop in Gene Robinson. That, for me, encapsulates all the best Christian virtues of tolerance, diversity and acceptance.
A woman at the head of a Church! Who would have thought it? All we need now is a female Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Oh, and a President too, but that may not take too long either.
I may cheer, yet all the talk of schism in the Anglican Communion rests on the premise that what the Americans have been doing is unacceptable. In fact, there are plenty of us who think it is wholly admirable. It’s just that we tend to be less vocal and less harsh in our language than the conservatives.
Here is the conservative Bishop of Pittsburgh, for instance, who said this week: “For the Anglican Communion worldwide, this election reveals the continuing insensitivity and disregard of the Episcopal Church for the present dynamics of our global fellowship.”
The idea that electing a woman is provocative is highly insulting to those of us with XX chromosomes. How would men feel if we refused to accept their authority, if we begged the Archbishop of Canterbury to be our leader instead because she (yes, doesn’t that sound odd?) didn’t have a beard?
You have only to look at it that way round to see how insensitive, how deeply unChristian, such views sound.
And, yes, I know it’s not exactly the same for gays, as there is some scripture in the Old Testament (though not in Christ’s teachings) that forbids homosexuality. Yet there is some pretty rum stuff in the Old Testament, Leviticus in particular.
Are women still to be deemed “unclean”, “impure” and untouchable for seven days in every month? Are priests with a physical disability to be banned? After all, God instructed Moses to tell Aaron: “No man among your descendants for all time who has any physical defect is to come and present the food of his God. No man with a defect is to come, whether a blind man, a lame man, a man stunted or overgrown, a man deformed in foot or hand, or with misshapen brows or a film over his eye or a discharge from it, a man who has a scab or eruption or has had a testicle ruptured.”
I bet there is a bishop or two in the Anglican Communion with misshapen brows or filmy eyes.
Leviticus also prohibits tattoos, beards with the edges shaved, and garments woven with two kinds of yarn. That puts paid to polycotton vestments then. We should not eat meat that has any blood in it, or any meat from camels, rock-badgers, hares or pigs. Shellfish are out too, but locusts are fine.
It is all very well for conservatives to say that we liberals cannot pick and choose what teachings we follow from the Bible. But they do the same. How many of them abjure prawn cocktails? Do they refuse to take out a mortgage or put money on deposit because of the injunction against usury? Do they wear no clothes with added Lycra?
Many thousands of years since Leviticus was written, we live our lives very differently. We are no longer nomadic tribesmen, herding our sheep, goats and camels. What should endure from the Bible are the eternal messages, those that can apply to all societies at all times.
We no longer make burnt offerings of oxen to the Lord. But we can all still try to love our neighbours as ourselves. And that fundamental stricture should apply whether our neighbour is male or female, gay or straight — even if he has misshapen eyebrows.
if you visit Slate.com..Faith Based forum....you will find regular debates on the subject of homosexuality/homosexuals and the Bible verses related to such......you will find that all the noted verses above have been conveniently explained away by those espousing that homosexuality is really as 'natural' as heterosexuality.....
for instance: in the new testament, romans, they argue the the translation should have been a word denoting 'male prostitutes' and that paul is condemning heterosexual men going to the temple to use male prostitutes and women going to the temple to use female prostitutes....outside their 'natural' proclivity if they are homosexuals, etc (sarcasm).....as much a stretch this is, this argument is the basis of the various homosexual church teachings....they also argue that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, per se, only illicit homosexual sexual relations, same as it condemns illicit heterosexual sexual relations.....they claim that when Jesus said "some are born 'eunuchs' means that He knew that some are born homosexuals, some heterosexual...
in leviticus, they claim that the passage pertains to the ritual purity demanded of the israelites by God....
as much as this defies logic, there are those who can make a very detailed debate of this crap (sic)......
as for me and my house, we will worship the Lord....the Holy Spirit spoke to Paul...Christ said that he would send the Holy Spirit, thus Paul's writings are as if Christ Himself was speaking to him, thus, the liberal idiot who wrote the subject of your post basically follows normal liberal behavior: ignore what is inconvenient to absurd points of view..full speed ahead....
the Christians on that Slate forum could use some help as it's about 10-1 anti-christian.....i know, however, i tend to hold my own a little better than most there.......
I think the Episcopal church and other churches would be more diverse, tolerant and showing acceptance if they admitted a bunch of Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Atheists.
God bless liberals and teenagers. But I repeat myself...
Yep. Christian belief holds that we are all sinners. But Christ also calls on us to go and "sin no more".
Seems liberals just can't get their heads around the concept of renouncing sin.
She probably tore 1 Timothy 3 out of her Bible - if she actually owns one.
The priest stands in the place of Christ, who was a man. So having a woman priest, er,... well,... oh nevermind.
Will the Ten Commandments be replaced with the Ten Suggestions? Will they replace the Sacrament with Viagra? Coming soon to a Liberal Social Club near you. What dolts the media is for pandering to these Asshats.
What you call Christianity is worldly paganism. Jesus came to separate the wicked from the righteous, not "tolerate" or "accept" them.
There's too much Pop-Christianity going around. Go back and read The Book to find out what it's really about. It's not diversity.
Another asshat who thinks if Christ didn't specifically mention a sin as being a sin, it can't possibly be a sin.
The Gospel according to Clinton. Parse it, twist it, shape it and make the damn thing fit MY lifestyle Christianity.
Christ also didn't mention pedophilia. NAMBLA should start a PR drive on how they are a Christian Society.
These people do not fear God at all. It is not that they are liberal, it is that they do not fear God. They mock God. The Episcopal Church mocks God and all God mocking liberals should feel at home there.
Being in this church reminded me of another time I had been there decades earlier. A student who assisted in the church and was also a friend of my family invited me and my siblings to join him while he played music on the church bells on Easter Sunday. We climbed up into the church tower and he assigned us all to certain levers of the carillon. He played all the other ones, some with his feet, and called out to us when our bells were required in the music.
That young man was brilliant and also devoted to the church. Years later I realized that he was gay and so was the family friend whose funeral I later attended.
So it has always been true that some of the people most involved with the church were gay. That never seemed to be a problem because their gayness did not seem to be related to their involvement in the church, except perhaps in how it might be connected to a greater appreciation of liturgical music and art, etc.
The problem I think many people have with gays in the church is not so much their presence; it turns out that they were always there. The thing people object to is the possibility that the church will be turned over to promote gay culture rather than Christianity.
Well, great! They'll gain one member. That will make up for the thousands that are leaving in disgust.
My bible doesn't have an expiration date. Hers must have a "sell by 2006" stamped on it somewhere.
I hate this one. The whole bible is Christ's teachings.
And, yes, I know it’s not exactly the same for gays, as there is some scripture in the Old Testament (though not in Christ’s teachings) that forbids homosexuality.
Guess she never read Romans.
Or this...
“If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.” (Luke 16:31)
exactly...thank you, Sir Francis....
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