Interviewed by Couric, Pro-Robinson Bishop Says "We Respond to 'Reason,' Not only to Scripture"

The Today Show

[Cultural Jihad]

Shaw's response: "We don't only respond to Scripture. We respond to reason, and to Jesus's message of love. This is a new time."

God has no need to judge a thing twice. Scripture also condemns divorce, but then there would be no Anglican Church today if they were to adhere to Public Revelation instead of to their own prideful ideas.

[lawdude]

I suspect the church officials knew of this "problem" before the attempt to place him in high office. They wanted to test the winds and see how it would play. If all went well, put him in. Else pull this story out and kill the effort. They are OK in either case and they have gotten the drift of public opinion.

[MissAmericanPie]

"Pro-Robinson Bishop Says "We Respond to 'Reason,' Not only to Scripture"

I have it on good authority that God will eventually point out to this apostate the folly of his reasoning.

[clamper1797]

The essence of my post, and my analysis, is not a condemnation of homosexuality per se. Rather, I've focused on the fact that the liberals in the church have openly chosen to reject Scripture as authoritative, and substituted "reason," meaning whatever they currently think is right or desirable. A religion that takes such an approach is simply no longer a religion, it is a social, cultural or political movement.

I absolutely totally completely agree with you

[Biblebelter]

You have delivered a excellent post. Secular politics is full of hypocrisy. Church politics is even more replete with hypocrisy. But you found in one exhange the point in which most hypocrisy in the church hinges and that is scriptural authority versus humanism.

[1Old Pro]

Related article: Albany, NY Episcopal Bishop will vote NO regarding gay bishop.

[Teacher317]

I cannot. I was mainly being sarcastic and questioning the bishop's faith. It was all I could think of to paint religion as 'unreasonable'. ;^)

[Teacher317]

See 107, please. It made no sense because it was a lame attempt to do the impossible. It was meant as bitter sarcasm.... and not very well done, apparently. :^/

[Fifth Business]

Swearing total lifelong obedience to an invisible old man with unlimited magical powers, who talks to you but nobody can hear, who is everywhere but nobody can see, and whose stories have trouble coinciding with acheological and geological science... seems rather 'unreasonable'. Maybe the Bishop will give up that minor part of his religion as well. Faith certainly doesn't seem to play much of a part in it, anyway.

Good point. Faith is even more important than reason. If it were easy to believe, it wouldn't be faith--it would be deduction.

[MississippiMan]

But it would seem to me that when a Church ceases to base its actions on Scripture, and implies that reliance on "reason" leads to a different result from reliance on Scripture, the Church has lost its way as a religious institution.

This is but one manifest example of the "falling away," an apostate church, one more of the endgame prophecies being undeniably fulfilled.

MM

[Bluntpoint]

"We Respond to 'Reason,' Not only to Scripture"

Reason dictates that the anus is not a receptacle for the penis.

[y2k_free_radical]

Heard a high up VERMONT EPISCOPAL minister explain that the 8 verses in the BIBLE dealing with homosexuality did not refer to the monogamous gay relationships of today.Those of us who might think otherwise just don't understand the scriptures.

[y2k_free_radical]

Rather like the liberal thelogy professors who don't believe the essential tenets of 1-CHRIST was GOD INCARNATE;2-the virgin birth;3-the resurrection.

[y2k_free_radical]

HUMANISM REPLACING GOD

[GirlShortstop]

Given an opportunity to respond, did Bishop Shaw contest Salmon's reading of Scripture or the Episcopal constitution? Not at all.

Shaw's response: "We don't only respond to Scripture. We respond to reason, and to Jesus's message of love. This is a new time."

If they elect him based on anything but scripture they are no longer a church, they are just a club.

BTTT!!!!

[y2k_free_radical]

We have a NEW COVENANT and NEW TESTAMENT but it still condemns homosexuality.

[70times7]

I think you may have done too good a job of imitating the typical atheist flame.

[tractorman]

“We respond to reason, and to Jesus's message of love. “

Jesus' message was to love the sinner but to hate the sin.

Satan. The great reasoner and deceiver.

[pgyanke]

I thought Jesus came to fulfill the old law, not to cover it. What exactly do you mean by "cover?" Why would a perfect God revise His laws, or need to have his Son's blood "cover" them?

I have read through the posts on this thread with interest. This is an area that causes many in the faith to stumble. Jesus, Himself, is referred to in the OT as a stumbling stone. Not that He came so we could trip over Him, rather that we who would not accept the veracity of His words and Person would stumble over them rather than taking them up to build our faith.

It's not that Jesus did away with the Old Law. He explained and fulfilled it. Here's an example of Jesus's instruction; Moses was allowed some leeway with the law as evidenced...

Matt 19:3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?"
4 And He answered and said, "Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE,
5 and said, 'FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'?
6 "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate."
7 They said to Him, "Why then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?"
8 He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way.

It's not saying that Moses has authority over God's Law but that God allowed him some leeway in its application. Jesus restated the Law of God as it was meant to be. Reading many of the prohibitions in the laws shown in Leviticus and Deuteronomy you find that many are safety issues. We know the physical costs of immorality... look all of the sexually transmitted diseases today. Also, they were not to partake of pig products... these were dangerous to them in that environment. Jesus brought the reasoning behind the law. What God dislikes, He dislikes and He made those areas clear. What we eat doesn't make us unclean spiritually--it can make us sick. God preserved His people in the desert by these laws.

Looking at the Bible from the macro level what you see is a relationship between a loving father and his children. When they are young, he reinforces his commands with swift punishment... "Don't touch that stove [smack!] "Why?" "Because I said so and that's enough." The OT is all about "Thou shalt not..." and the reason is because God said so.

Jesus came and brought us our adolescence in the faith. We are still not allowed to touch the stove but we are now supposed to understand why it is a bad thing to do. Rather than fire and brimstone, we now have the Holy Spirit within us to convict us in shame of our wrong doing. We serve God because we want to do what pleases Him not because (necessarily) we fear His wrath if we don't. It's a mature relationship now where we are expected to police ourselves.

Jesus boiled the Ten Commandments down to two; that we love God with all of our being and love our neighbor as ourselves...

35 One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him,
36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
37 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.'
38 "This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.'
40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

If we follow these two commandments, we will be following all ten of the OT commandments. It isn't a change in the Law, it's a fulfillment of its purpose.

There are many such "thou shalts..." and "thou shalt nots..." in the OT. They are commands of behavior that are summed in the two commandments of Christ. There are others that have been posted on nearly every other homosexual discussion thread on FR that deal with God Himself and how He sees things. These things are immutable. We may not stone the adulterer anymore but God still does not approve. He gave no clearer language in the Bible of His disapproval of homosexuality than this: Leviticus 18: 22 'You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination'. That a church would seek to officially implement something that is an abomination before God is incredible!

God doesn't invite us to find our own way. He sent us the prophets, saints and even Himself to show us His way. Religion is about learning the immutable truths of God. To do otherwise is to make God in your own image... that is the worst sin of Pride (and the sin of the Devil himself).

God is consistent... what the Apostles bound on Earth is bound in Heaven and what they loosed on Earth is loosed in Heaven [Matt 16:19]. Once again, His "bringers of the Law" have authority over its application and this has been passed through the Magisterium of the Catholic Church. Just as Jesus invited the men to stone the prostitute if they were without sin, we are invited to condemn our neighbor if we are also above reproach. We are not without sin ourselves so we pray for the sinner that we will repent and sin no more.

[RinaseaofDs]

The Episcopalians gave us Bishop John Spong, he of the 'Christ's salvation isn't the only way to get into Heaven . . .'

It's so weird to see the big protestant and catholic religions looking for a 'second way' into Heaven. The whole point to Christ's salvation is that it takes into account that we are afflicted with sin, and cannot free ourselves. We are justified by grace alone.

I can't think of a religion, or any institution, asking so little of a person and that person getting so much.

For reasons I can't really understand, human beings more readily believe in self control. They want that control of their lives and the world around them so badly, and so few of us, if any of us, ever achieve it.

In the end, you die, which is the final seal on the failure of that quest for self control.

In Christianity, you just say, "Thanks." and your life changes forever. You have essentially the same struggles, but you know in the end where you are going to end up.

Why in the world would we want some sort of second way?