Posted on 03/08/2007 9:06:35 PM PST by Huber
Spong Canada thinks the Christian church needs to lighten up:
The Christian church has a deeply flawed understanding of sex that has led to morally groundless objections to masturbation, birth control, abortion and homosexuality, says a leading Canadian Anglican bishop.
In particular, the church has been wrong for centuries on the notion that sex exists only for the purpose of procreation, Right Rev. Michael Ingham, bishop of the Greater Vancouver Diocese of New Westminster, told a conference in Ottawa last night.
"Wrong for centuries," Mike? You and the Big Guy are tight, are you?
"Christianity as a religion stands in need of a better theology of sexuality," he said, "a better understanding of the complex role sexuality plays in our human nature and of the purposes of God in creating us as sexual beings."
And a better way for the guy doing his best friend's hot wife to claim that he's still a good Christian.
He said the church has misunderstood references to homosexuality in the Bible, wasted energy in persecuting individuals who have argued for a new understanding of sexuality, and failed to comprehend how much the Bible and church doctrines have been shaped through the lens of male experience.
Yeah, if we'd just asked the ladies, Hugh Hefner would be a bishop by now.
The forthrightness of Bishop Ingham’s address on sexuality is without precedent in the Canadian Anglican church. It not only puts him at odds with much of the Anglican Communion but with Roman Catholicism, most Protestant sects and the Orthodox Church.
Boy, you can't slip anything past the Toronto Globe & Mail.
The Bible’s Christian New Testament condemnation of homosexuality, he said, is "almost certainly" a proscription of sex between adult males and young boys -- tolerated in the 1st century AD in Greek society -- and not a proscription against adult homo-eroticism.
That sound you just heard was 1,000 Canadian Anglicans fleeing the Anglican Church of Canada for actual Christian churches.
"[The Christian biblical writer] St. Paul understood same-sex relationships only in terms of the older-man and younger-boy relationship of the Greeks, which we call pederasty, or in other words child abuse.
Hmmm. Canadian Christianity must be in sorry shape if the writer feels the need to explain that to the TG&M readership Paul was a "Christian biblical writer." But did Paul actually tell you that, Mike? Wow. You have some cool friends.
"Today we have a better understanding of homosexuality as a basic and natural orientation experienced by some members of the human community, just as we find the same thing among some animal species, and in Christian terms we must come to think of this as not only natural but also God-given and good.
There go another thousand.
Several times in his address, Bishop Ingham referred to the church’s inability to get beyond a fixation on genital intercourse -- and a negative view of sexuality for any purpose other than procreation as tainted, impure and evil -- isolated from a full, loving interpersonal sexual relationship.
And two more thousand after that. I guess Mike's never going to get all up in anybody's face about what they're doing in bed, how they're doing it or who or what they're doing it to. After all, money thrown into a collection plate by adulterers and fornicators is just as good as anybody else's and the Anglican Church of Canada can really use the jack these days.
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams. I don't think so:
[T]he causes for which Matrimony was ordained.
First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.
Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ's body.
Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.
Straight out of the Book of Common Prayer, where it has been for over 400 years.
Verily, the floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.
We have an excellent one in JP2's Theology of the Body, but I'll bet my lunch money that Bp. Ingham isn't a big fan of it.
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