[Erin] Schism, or no?

JPL, there is a difference, I'd say. Slavery isn't commanded as a good in the Bible, nor expressly forbidden, which may be why it took so long for all churches to teach clearly that it was wrong. Segregation isn't commanded or forbidden, either; different churches *have* reached different conclusions about the role of women in church ministry, which has led to plenty of division among various denominations.

On sexual morality both the Bible and tradition speak clearly. Various sins in this arena are mentioned by name both in the Bible and in the writings of the early Church as being behaviors to be avoided by the followers of Christ, and the traditional Christian understanding of sexual morality is also reasonably easy to discover. Whatever else you can say about various sexual matters, you really can't say that we have no idea what the early Church thought about it all, not without overlooking both Scripture and Tradition.

So those who oppose the traditional morality must do so on the grounds that this traditional understanding was wrong. For any church with any claims whatsoever to apostolic origins, as (I believe--please correct me if I'm wrong) the Anglican church considers itself, it becomes an extremely serious matter to discard any strong moral traditions on any ground whatsoever.

The biblical issue is: do the several scriptural texts regarding homosexuality refer to homosexuality _per se_, in any and all of its manifestations (even the modern common examples of civilized committed couples)? This is not a tendentious question, I'm merely isolating what I think the key issue is for us laypeople who are not Hebrew, Greek, or Bible experts. I think churches that accept gay marriage are saying that the modern phenomenon of committed couples is not what the Biblical texts are opposing; in which case this is not the same as opposing morality. This stance may be correct or incorrect, but we laypeople need to hear an understandable analysis of this. If you can refer to one, I'd be interested in a link, book title, etc.

No, the real division is not between those who still see themselves as accountable to the authority of tradition/Scripture, etc., and those who have been "poisoned." I am a faithful Anglican who believes in the three pillars of our worldwide church: reason, scripture and tradition. I believe a careful, reasoned and respectful analysis of scripture and what we know of history at the time it was written reveals that the Church was condemning sexual relationships between older, more powerful men and younger, less powerful ones, sometimes boys. There were no committed, monogamous same sex relationships between equals; the homosexual relationships they observed were coercive and even abusive.

The Leviticus verses occur in the context of a whole host of prohibitions against things that don't "belong" together, including an injunction against wearing mixed fabrics. The Church has never felt it important to observe these myriad laws; we have seen ourselves, rightfully so, as having been set free from such laws even as we are subject to the law of love. Why should we then continue to condemn as an abomination what, to any reasonable person, clearly seems good: a lifelong commitment to love and honor another?

Those courageous individuals who opposed slavery while their fellow Christians pointed to individual verses that appeared to support the institution knew that Biblical principles take precedence over individual verses. The declaration in Galatians that "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female," embodies such a principle and proved to be the foundation for the abolitionist movement. Might we not today apply the same principle to the question of homosexual/heterosexual? I think we should and must.

Eh bien, quoi de neuf? This country was founded as a have for Anglican schismatics.

The de facto schism has already occurred. Some parishes have bolted to the RC's. Others have ensconced themselves under an African crozier. Henry and Elizabeth's pathetic communion has gone the way of all the other heretical sects.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Pontiff has "requested" that the ancient liturgy be celebrated in ALL parishes throughout the world (those of Latin rite, naturally). Further, that all seminaries train priests (not "presbyters") to celebrate the traditional rite in Latin.

The West begins to recover its heritage. The "liberals" are moribund.
Carthago delenda est.

I think the argument that is often left out in discussions of committed homosexual relationships and that is the image of The Bridegroom (Christ) and His Bride (the Church) taken from heterosexual marriage. Marriage is a human reflection for a divine mystery. This, to me, is a more compelling argument than "Paul said so..."

Actually, JPL, I believe the Methodist church did indeed split in the 1800s over the issue of slavery. Women's right to teach and lead have also been at issue in the ELCA vs Missouri Synod Lutherans, and in some of the Baptist subdenominations.

The biblical and traditional case against homosexuality, at least male homosexuality, strikes me as pretty straightforward. Speaking as a non-Christian, I don't really understand why male homosexuals don't just stop calling themselves Christian, and confine their activism to the secular realm, where the issues are actually worth debating.

The importance of the issue in Anglicanism in particular really has more to do with the British constitution than either Christian teachings or sexual morality per se. The C of E would disintegrate if separated from the state. The only places where this is important are:

1. England (but not the rest of the UK): Some conservatives, even in not Christian, revere the C of E as a pillar of the establishment.

2. Sub-Saharan Africa: Whereas most former European colonies have strong bases for political legitimacy, either in Enlightenment ideas (eg. settler colonies, India, West Indies, Latin America) or in appeals to pre-colonial traditions (eg. Muslim countries, SE Asia), Africa is weak in both respects, and the church is rushing to fill the gap. Thus there is a strong streak of theocracy in Akinola's teachings - he demands secular punishment for homosexuality.

Schism? We're getting worried about schism?

The Anglican church is itself the product of schism, triggered by King Henry VIII's desire to get divorced.

GAFcon is just a schism within a schism.

"why male homosexuals don't just stop calling themselves Christian"

TR: Male homosexuals can be celibate. Personally I think it could just be a sign a person is not meant for marriage. That God wants them to have another life and that their disorder may help them feel a special empathy for others who are disordered in some neurochemical way. (Alcoholics, Schizophrenics, the Bipolar, the Autistic, etc)

Which is a bit of a problem I have with some Catholic documents. In Catholicism celibacy is supposed to be noble, but when it comes to gays their having to be celibate is often described as just being an agony and an affliction. I can see how that'd be a tad discouraging even if they want to live according to the faith.

When I realized I was attracted to men I almost immediately assumed that's what it meant. As I wanted to be celibate anyway it was okay in some ways. Although in other ways it was deeply confusing as I'm also attracted to women and also I really didn't want to be sexually attracted to anyone.

So anyway maybe what I'm saying is that reading David and Jonathan really meant is he should stay unmarried then die to save a king. Or maybe not, but there's many possibilities.

"John M., how do you know it was God speaking to you? Have you seriously considered that it might have been one of his fallen angels instead (i.e., the voice of Satan) ?"

I am going to take this as a sincere question, not a sarcastic one. How do we ever know if it's God and not Satan? The only way is through prayer, reflection, study, testing my ideas through discussion with other who may not share my views.

Thanks for asking.

We would find your argument more convincing, Naomi, if African churches acknowledged a spiritual reality: that many gay marriages in places like South Africa are socially and spiritually successful, are indeed covenantal.

It would also help these churches' credibility if they were to do more things like act to end the continuation of slavery in Africa. Or acknowledge the unChristian corruption and careerism of people like Peter Akinola, and his ties to the Nigerian ruling elites.

Schism is good. It was, in part, not wanting to subsidize bigoted "church" leaders such as the so-called Presiding Bishop Shori that caused me to leave the Episcopal Church and to give my money to another church.

It might also help the credibility of your own point of view if "civilized" Europeans like yourselves cared as much about helping "savage" Africans with their various life and death problems -- many of which were and still are caused by people like you -- as you do about pursuing your own self-centered claim on the merely symbolic recognition of sexual practices of which those in cultures -- and in churches -- that are different from your own happen not to approve.

It's fair to say that liberal Americans and Europeans have bankrolled the African Anglican churches for decades. They were the ones who paid for the programs that kept the churches going, paid for poverty and AIDS programs, provided the feed-money for mission work. So, yes, European and Americans have been concerned about the life and death problems of Africa.

But the African bishops would rather talk about homosexuality at the behest of American conservatives than be concerned about what's happening in their own countries. Instead of working for schism, they should be focusing on the spiritual lives of their nations that having nothing to do with homosexuality

Daniel,

From where do you get your (incorrect) sense that African Christians are *not* concerned with -- and working to solve -- the problems of their own countries? Is that there some incompatibility that I cannot grasp and that you presumably can between caring for the health of one's national community and also for the health of the international religious communion of which one is part? Your blithe and wholly uninformed assumption that African Christians are not focused on the spiritual lives of their nations is a slander for which you should apologize. Barring that, you are welcome not to lend your support to Africans if you feel that their views on Christian doctrine exempt them from your charity. It may come as a shock for you to learn this, but Christians -- even African ones -- are heirs to a love greater even than your own. With that, I will end my comments and return to neglecting the needs of my countrymen and countrywomen.

Are Jillian and Daniel European??

It's funny, Daniel and Jillian try to engage Naomi, and all she does is ignore the valid points they make and spout off the usual nonsense about them being racists (oh, she doesn't use that specific word, but that's what she means) and she asks for an apology for a non-existent slander rather than engage in discussion. Predictably, she also raises the issue of colonialism, too. (When is the sell-by date for that argument finally going to come, anyway?) Pathetic. And I'm sure if she comes back she'll be sure to call me and everyone else who isn't impressed with her or her arguments racist, also. But, I guess when the only card you have is the race card, you gotta play that hand.

Actually Mel, I had a lengthy and serious discussion with an evangelical Christian, rather moderate in nature, about that very topic the other night. When I pressed the argument that genocide was wrong, regardless of the actions commanded by God in the Old Testament, she firmly refused to make that statement. She claimed that God is never in the wrong, and that therefore the Caananites deserved the genocide committed against them by the Israelites. And she put forward that, were she convinced that someone today was truthfully a prophet of God, and hearing him clearly, and if that voice demanded the complete extermination of Iran, down to the last child, she would (reluctantly and with sadness) support that action.

She was quite clear about her point. Killing women and children, including all non-combatants, is acceptable as long as God says it is. God, by definition, can't be wrong.

This has little to do with homosexuality, to be honest, but given that the justification for considering the act sinful comes from the same collection of works which supported this genocidal behavior, I'm not really running in odd circles. My experience is that the bulk of conservative Christians will not challenge even the horrible cruelties demonstrated in the Old Testament at God's command, let along the lesser issues of equal rights for gays.

Reaganite in NYC: The Anglican church is itself the product of schism, triggered by King Henry VIII's desire to get divorced.

Precisely. Mrs. Windsor's church, which garners headlines in the world press because of its decision to sacramentalize buggery, is reaping the fruit of its perfidy.

This British government agency's organization is a polyarchy, its sacraments a parody, its liturgy a pastiche.

St. Thomas More and the faithful martyrs are glorified; Henry VIII and his trimastic trollop vilified. Deo gratiae agantur.

Curiously this is considered the enlightened liberal view of Africans.

No, that's just your meanspirited caricature.

Several of my friends have been to Africa via the Peace Corps and Quaker groups that actually give average Africans some help. Some have dedicated their lives as doctors and engineers and scientists to the work. They're the people that bolster the West's claim to civilization and genuine spirituality on the continent.

Your side's psychological colonization game, corrupt alliances with regional governments, false flag operations, the game of provoking "persecution" once there are a few converts, and deathbed chasing of souls in AIDS wards in Africa is sheer obscenity by comparison.

Apparently my typing is no better than my hermeneutics.

"Crowmell" should be "Cromwell".

and "Thou art Henry and upon thy rocks I build my church"

Roland,

Has the thought ever occurred to you that in seizing certain prerogatives for himself that were denied to him and others by the church of Pope Buggerbum XXXVIII (or Pope Whomever) Henry VIII was simply doing in London as the Roman (Catholics) had already been doing in Rome for a long, long time?

Without the buggery of scripture at Rome, there would have been no Reformation. And without the Reformation there would have been no chance for Henry VIII to seize the opportunity to break with Rome in the way that he did for reasons including but by no means limited to his desire for a divorce.

And, that said, let me add that while, as a life-long pilgrim on the middle way, I am, for more reasons than I care to give here, appalled past words by the likes of "Bishop" Gene, I am even more appalled by the mongol hordes of pedophilic papists who have "buggered" so many little boys and so many little girls, with so little action taken to prevent it by their "betters" at Rome. Perhaps the more things change the more they stay the same, so far as doing as the Romans do.

JPL: the millions of faithful members of the Anglican Communion are nothing but heretics of the worst sort ...

Well, JPL, perhaps not the worst sort, but heretics nonetheless. I am merely stating the RC position, stripped of the warm and fuzzy oecumenical persiflage of the Vatican II ilk. Cf. Dominus Jesus.

Richard Hooker: Without the buggery of scripture at Rome, there would have been no Reformation. And without the Reformation there would have been no chance for Henry VIII to seize the opportunity to break with Rome in the way that he did for reasons including but by no means limited to his desire for a divorce ...

Many thanks for the history lesson. I hadn't realized that Good King Hal, quondam papist and ultramontane, Defensor Fidei (a moniker still hypocritically used by his spawn Mrs. Windsor), was merely a Lutheran sycophant. I'll say a prayer to Cardinal Newman for your prompt illumination lest you swelter sempiternally for having failed elementary Latin.

Richard Hooker,

I am afraid that you are as deficient in the literary art of parody as you are ignorant of historical truth. Your "parody" is toxic venom, your "jesting" caustic vitriol: my distortion of the Petrine mandate was parody, even a pasquinade. "Mongol hordes", "Pope Buggerbum XXXVIII", "pedophilic papists", "buggery of scripture at Rome" -- do you deceive yourself that this is a clever retort to my humorous "Paddington Bear" sobriquet for Rowan Williams? Do you not understand the difference between a sullying of the priesthood in the Catholic Church by paedophilic homosexuals and the sacramentalization of homosexuality in the Anglican Church?

Might one not unjustly conclude that such contumelies arise in a heart full of rancour and malice?

My judgement on the Anglican sacramentalization of buggery is spot-on. There is no authority in Anglicanism that can gainsay the heinous and grotesque perversion of a "bishop" who abandons his wife and children, turns his house into a invert's brothel and the sanctuary into a bathhouse. Was he excommunicated or even laicised? Rather he was in fact "consecrated" and "civilly unionized." Res atrox foedaque ipsa loquitur.

It has been said here that I am lacking in most of the virtues both cardinal and theological. I admit the truth of that claim. I probably embody most (but not all) of the various vices in immoderate measure as well. I therefore with gratitude and such Christian humility as I can muster accept your offer of prayer for my soul. And I will pray for yours, to Thomas More, to John Fisher, to Mary Stuart.

Richard Hooker: the sauce which you can dish but which you clearly cannot take is the splenetic self-salvation of a Pharisee ...

I confess I thought it futile to point out your feckless foray into parody. But I took the trouble in an attempt to sharpen your literary wits. I acknowledge defeat.

And now you come with "the sauce of splenetic self-salvation". Your genius is farce, not parody!