Posted on 06/19/2006 1:10:35 PM PDT by SmithL
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.
Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She will formally take office later this year.
Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be homosexual.
"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.
"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."
Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening to break away.
It could also widen divisions with other Anglican communities, including the Church of England, which do not allow women bishops. In the worldwide Anglican church women are bishops only in Canada, the United States and New Zealand.
Three years ago when the Church last met in convention, a majority of U.S. bishops backed the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history.
The Robinson issue has been particularly criticized in Africa where the church has a growing membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.
Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of Anglican history.
The 52-year-old bishop is married to Richard Schori, a retired theoretical mathematician. They have one daughter, Katharine Johanna, 24, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and a pilot like her mother.
Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very different historical context by people asking different questions.
"The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said.
"The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus -- to include the unincluded."
I wonder how long until she throws out the other nine commandments.
Yes, you're right, but being tempted is not a sin. It is acting on that temptation that is the sin, whether that act is in thought or deed.
If temptation were sin, God would be a being steeped in contradiction and inconsistency and we'd have no hope because we'd not be able to place our faith in such a capricious being. We came to this life in part to prove our ability and willingess to withstand tempation. It is part of the necessary testing of this life. Therefore God would be cruel indeed to make it a sin just because of merely being tempted. Sin is an act, not merely an impulse to an act. If tempation is sin, then where's the incentive to avoid the sin itself if we're not worse off by giving in as we are just by having been subject to the temptation? If temptation is a sin, then Satan has already won the war for souls!
Yes Christ taught if a man look upon a woman to lust after her, then he has already committed adultery in his heart. That's because one had not resisted the temptation to entertain inappropriate thoughts, but has given them full reign. One could see an attractive woman and choose to re-direct their thoughts. If they are lusting, they have not worked to redirect their thoughts but have taken them through a process to the point of imagining sexuality with that person. It is not that he is condemning all temptation as sin. Just my humble opinion.
Most adults are probably guilty of sodomy. Not just homosexuals.
However, attraction to members of the same sex is more a condition. Think of homosexuality as a disorder. A disordered sexuality, for "God made them man and woman". Those afflicted with this disorder are required to live chaste lives, as is anyone outside the married state, for that matter.
It's when we act against chastity, either in thought or deed that we sin. This applies to both homo and heterosexuals.
The sin is sodomy.
Yes -I watched the interview and she parsed her words well; however, she objectively did not take the opportunity to add in the portion you necessarily knew was required for completeness e.g. "the sin is sodomy" nor did she even hint at stating the objective reality that homosexuality is a disordered condition...
You left out the grand cayuna of the NCC - the Presbyterian Church USA
Now this woman wants me to believe that being queer is a 'gift'??? Gays, lesbians, bi's and trannys are now to be considered a 'blessing'???
Beam me up Scotty.
Some maybe....not Most! Onky in the gay dreams.
"...and graduated in marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and oysters"
Well, there you have it. Squids and Oysters! I wonder what the squids are and what the oysters are? On second thought, I don't want to know.........
link please
She may be married and have a kid, but why is it I think this broad has been on the carpet a few times.
Ack!
Bishop Jefferts Schori: My parents brought me into the Episcopal Church in early 1963, in conjunction with their own move out of the Roman Catholic tradition. This was before Vatican II had had any impact on parish life, and as a fifth-grader, my awareness of the difference was of language (from Latin to English) and of community and style (large and faceless to small and intimate).
Okay, I'm gonna guess her parents stopped "raising" her as a Catholic long before they left.
Sadly, it won't shock me, if sometime in the future these people embrace pedophiles and claim "They were just given a different 'gift'"
Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.
The daughter of satan shall rule with benevolence over her flock which eventually will consist only of perverts.
This bitch of a bishop must know exactly what she's doing as well as those evil ones who appointed her.
The Episcopal Church in America is toast!
Missed that.
Her "husband-figure" probably serves as a front whilst she delves into her crustatian delicacies.
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