Not good news for the church is the church growing weaker because of the homosexual push? Is the homosexual push growing stronger because the church is growing weaker? Can humans bless what God has not?

Neither, cknuck, the church is growing stronger because people are finally willing to start recognizing all of God’s children as worthy human beings, regardless if they are gay or straight.

sorry m.e.g. you are arguing fiction not facts as stated in the article and everybody who follows church movement the church is on the decline please read more before you argue and it will benefit your argument. It brings me no joy that the church is losing members or splitting but the fact remains it is so your argument should start from there, not from your emotional fantasies .

Can’t imagine the Father God I know who would not bless a heterosexuals gay children. How sad that there are Churches with people in them that believe as Cknuck does. Thank God for the UCC, and the few others that follow Christ’s teachings of loving others as they love themselves.

Churches AGAIN wrestle with Gay debates! AGAIN???
Sooner or later this will be past history…and folks will wonder what the fuss was all about.

“In July, the United Methodist News Service announced that the United Methodist Church (11 million members, 8 million of whom are Americans) is on track, based on early voting results, to reject an amendment that would let any professed Christian become a church member.”
OK, now here is a church worthy of some deeper examination – they don’t want any self-confessed Chrsitians mucking uop their business! I guess this is part of their Groucho Marx/ Mark twain church growth strategy, “I would never join a club that would have me as a member.”
It seems as this is worded they want only non-Christians. This is actually good evangelism, but it is going to make church membership orientation sessions a bit murkier.

Not really about this topic, but on the issue of church membership–it is very difficult to imagine a less reliable yardstick of truth than popularity. That should be absolutely understood by Christians, as Jesus was quoted as saying that the path of truth is narrow and few find it. A huge and growing church membership does NOT necessarily mean that their teachings are true, and a small and declining membership does NOT necessarily mean that their teachings are false. Membership tells us precisely nothing about truth vs falsity.

“How sad that there are Churches with people in them that believe as Cknuck does.”
To be fair, Henrietta, that’s the majority of all churches throughout Christian history. Maybe liberal denominations like the UCC are really was Christianity is supposed to be about, but the vast majority of Christian thinkers and interpreters of the Bible through history certainly do not agree with that assessment–apparently not even those who originally put Christian Bible together to begin with.
Of course, the problem with saying that ordaining homosexuals is really what Christianity is all about is that the biblical support for such a statement can only ever be extremely indirect and inferential. The Jesus of the Gospels may have been inclusive and may have called all kinds of people, but we can’t forget that he called them to do some pretty harsh things: to take up their crosses and follow him to be crucified. The inclusive Jesus of the Gospels cannot be assumed to be a modern liberal with modern liberal values. Yes, gays are included in the Body of Christ, but they are included in the same way that straight people are: they’re called to mortify the flesh. The question is whether or not homosexual inclinations are part of that which needs to be mortified. Perhaps that’s an unsettled question, but it is simply NOT clear from any straightforward reading of the NT that Christ’s inclusiveness was necessarily very much like the inclusiveness of modern liberals.

Perhaps this would be a good time to point out that Lutherans are not sola scriptura.
I continue to be amazed at how many Christians seem to place more importance on the Bible than on our Lord. The NT did not exist in the time of our Lord. There are few if any times in which Christ place great emphasis (in a positive manner) on the OT.
I for one would rather error on the side of grace than on the legalistic side.
Peace!

Sorry about my earlier post….I thought I was on an different story.
That said, my post is still accurate….however, I would like to add:
Episcopalians and Methodists to the part about Lutherans
Peace!

No matter how you try to justify it, homosexuality remains an aberration from the norm, an unnatural lifestyle, and a departure from what the Christian faith has proclaimed for centuries. I do not say that out of hatred for anyone. I say it out of love for the truth.

“homosexuality remains an aberration from the norm”
So is left-handedness, Child.
“an unnatural lifestyle”
Not for homosexuals, Child. Certainly no more than the heterosexual lifestyle is abnormal for heterosexuals.
You don’t seem to know much about “truth”, I’m afraid.

So you know, the comment from 11:23 August 19 was mine. For some reason my moniker did not make the trip.
John Q wrote, “Perhaps this would be a good time to point out that Lutherans are not sola scriptura.”
Isn’t that ironic? Luther himself was so wedded to the concept of sola scriptura that he included as the frontispiece to his Summa Theologica a graphic of the universe with the earth at the center. This was a direct challenge to his contemporary, Bishop Kopernig’s theory that the sun was the center and the earth as one of the rotating, revolving planets.
You also wrote, “There are few if any times in which Christ place great emphasis (in a positive manner) on the OT.”
I would check that. There are some very key moments when Jesus was dealing directly with OT texts and addressing some OT based concerns. Think about the text he read from Isaiah 61 and then used in reference to himself. Also in dealing with the Pharisees and Saducees he was dealing with OT issues. His family and he with his disciples were often celebrating Jewish festivals. Another aspect of the story we never seem to deal with is Jesus and the Maccabean revolution. He is most definitely living in the post-Maccabee world with all of its expectations. Familiarity with those texts is as crucial as modern Americans knowing something about the Declaration of Independence.
Nate wrote, “The question is whether or not homosexual inclinations are part of that which needs to be mortified. ”
I am curious about your use of the word “mortified”. I am simply not familiar with that usage.
Also, I am fascinated by the moderate tone of your post. It seems much more conciliatory and open than some of those you wrote in the heat of academia. You wrote, “The inclusive Jesus of the Gospels cannot be assumed to be a modern liberal with modern liberal values.” I think this is as true with conservative inclinations. We know only what the Gospel “writers” (compilers? editors?) gave us. The UCC represents one end of the spectrum and other churches tend toward the other end. It is that range that makes the spectrum.
So how do you think the Methodists will do in terms of recruiting only people who are NOT professed Christians? It can also be a net, giving places for various people to “be caught” – and my hope is not entangled.

I’m a Methodist and I don’t even understand the sentence about the resolution our church is supposedly looking at. The workding in the article does not make sense.
With all due respect to Nate and his comment above, I think this is a misprint.

Jestrfyl,
The language of mortification might not be common in your tradition; I know it isn’t in all. It’s basically the idea of becoming “dead” to one’s past life so that one can live in a new way in Christ. It’s one of the things that baptism has historically symbolized: going into the water to have one’s old self die and rising out of the water with a new life of union with Christ rather than union with Adam. In ascetic traditions, this includes the killing off of those inclinations that distract us from properly loving God and loving our neighbor (in Orthodoxy, we call these “passions”): anger, greed, pride, laziness, a lust for power, sexual insatiability, a desire high social status, and anything else that would distract us from growing into the kind of people God has created and called us to be.
My point was not so much that homosexuality has to be understood as belonging to that part of us that must be killed off when we take up our crosses and follow Christ; it was more that the “inclusiveness” of Jesus, the Gospels, and the New Testament as a whole is not just inclusive acceptance but also an inclusive call to radically transform our lives: to abandon our fishing boats, abandon our families’ funerals, abandon our posh jobs as tax collectors, and take up our crosses and do what Jesus did: die in one of the most miserable and degrading ways human beings have ever thought up. And it is true that this is a message many conservatives need to hear as well, since they’ve so often reduced the Gospel to little more than baptized “American values” like individual freedom, patriotism, the work ethic, and the heterosexual nuclear family.
My biggest frustration with the Christian gay marriage debate is that, by and large, both sides seem to be about baptized secular values than about deep theological wrangling with a question that simply MUST be a difficult one. Those who think it is easily settled by a wholesale acceptance of gay marriage have too little respect for the historic Christian tradition; those who think it’s easily settled by a wholesale rejection of gay marriage have too little respect for the lived experiences of their gay brothers and sisters in Christ. Those who struggle intensely with both sides of the issue–people like Rowan Williams–don’t seem to get the respect or attention they deserve in the pews, to the detriment of everyone involved.

Very well spoken Nate. Good words.

Nate,
I am with you all the way. I had simply not heard “mortified” used in this way. However I am very clear on the concept. You have taken it – appropriately – to the extreme in terms of appreciating the idea. It is a very Pauline extreme, to the point of thinking marriage is in some ways a necessary evil.
I am intrigued by your take on whether homosexuality is something to be cast aside in the death and new life of baptism. Is the same true for heterosexuality? I have not read very extensively recently on this topic, so I have no strong sense of the scholarship in either direction. It takes us to the point of determining what is essential in each person’s particular and unique self. This gets as much to the nature of therapy as it does to faith – “how much do we medicate away in order to preserve the core personality?” As with so many things I guess there is a range or scale and the question becomes where do sex and affection (it isn’t necessarily all sex) preferences fit on that scale.
I share your frustration with the extremes. I suppose the challenge is to decide the middle course, and then if that is the better choice. I think Rowan Williams does represent that middle course, but I think his explanations and current strategies do not accomplish that goal.

methodist I am confident that it is a misprint and I find it hard to believe so many would commit so much focus to it instead of the main article.

Concerning the mystery quote, I agree it is a misprint. Where it said “Christian,” it should have said “homosexual,” as follows:
The United Methodist Church [is on track] to reject an amendment that would let any professed HOMOSEXUAL become a church member.
That would be consistent with conservative opposition to the proposed amendment.
Misprints aside, it is indeed interesting how much fervor and blather are devoted to discussions about human sexual orientation. For myself, I would rather see that further (minus the blather) devoted to solving some of the giant and tragic problems we face in the world. The nature of my neighbor’s sexual hard-wiring does not even register on any list of Important Things. Yet it seems intensely important to churches, to the extent that they may tear themselves apart over it. This is the nature of dogma and doctrine–the setting up of walls that separate people into groups defined as “right” or “wrong” with God. If I believed in Satan, I would think that the very concept of church doctrine (and its underlying foundation in scriptural literalism) was his device designed to set people at each other’s throats, thereby causing them to drift further and further away from God–and what an amazingly successful ploy it has been.

Yikes! Speaking of typos, I made an odd one in the above. Sentence near the beginning of the last paragraph should have read:
For myself, I would rather see that FERVOR (minus the blather) devoted to solving some of the giant and tragic problems we face in the world.

Nate,
I mostly agree with you, though I would point out that just because an individual comes down on one side of this issue does not mean they think it is easy or obvious. An institution may allow for both opinions, like the ELCA is trying to do, but individuals will almost invariably favor one side or the other. Sometimes, in the heat of debate and argument, things may be said which give the impression that that position was arrived at trivially, but such is not always the case.
Nate wrote: “In ascetic traditions, this includes the killing off of those inclinations that distract us from properly loving God and loving our neighbor (in Orthodoxy, we call these “passions”): anger, greed, pride, laziness, a lust for power, sexual insatiability, a desire high social status, and anything else that would distract us from growing into the kind of people God has created and called us to be.”
And I agree with all this. I believe Christians should never use another human being as an object, just to serve our own purposes: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others” (Phil 2:4). Sexual gratification can be one of these purposes, and certainly there are relationships, homosexual and heterosexual, in which one or both partners use the other simply for sexual gratification. This type of thinking and behavior is to be left behind, or ‘mortified’. But this doesn’t mean the homosexual Christian has to give up loving, committed relationships; in fact, such a relationship may be a part in “growing into the kind of people God has created and called us to be.” Lustful and self-centered relationships are part of the “old Adam”, and both homosexual and heterosexual Christians should refrain from such relationships, but that doesn’t mean that the homosexual has to become heterosexual or become celibate.

As to the quote regarding the United Methodist Church…..it is not a misprint.
Amendment 1 was designed as an “inclusive” amendment to allow all people who professed to be Christian (regardless of sexuality). It was crafted as sort of an end run around the issue of sexuality.
Initially, it had 2:1 support.
Sorry to pull the rug out from under so many posts.
Peace!

JohnQ,
Thanks for the clarification–I stand corrected. It makes sense to me now.

Nate-
To your earlier post addressing Henrietta’s comment on cknuck’s post regarding churches.
Can I remind you that through out most of the last 2000 years most Christian Churches believed that the earth was flat. The Catholic Church (largest Christian denom) for years accepted ideas such as non-whites were inferior, slavery was condoned by God, the killing of native peoples was acceptable, killing non-Christians was ordained by God, etc.
So, I think your point that most Christian Churches are not as enlightened as the UCC and others is indeed pointless.
Peace!

Actually, the idea that “through out most of the last 2000 years most Christian Churches believed that the earth was flat” traces back to an 1826 publication, “The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus” by Washington Irving (of “Sleepy Hollow” fame). I suggest looking at the following http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Early_Christian_Church

The description given of “mortification of the flesh”—turning away from savage violence and mindless lust—seems rather idealized. My understanding is that the church historically considered physicality (rhymes with sexuality) itself as something “sinful.” Homosexuals are the easy target for accusations of sin, since heterosexuals are not about to give up their sexuality.
Sex can be part of a stable and loving relationship—and that is true for homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. Or it can be impersonal or abusive or coercive—and that, too, is true for homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. For that matter, those same characteristics can apply to unmarried couples as well as married couples. It is the nature of the relationship that determines its quality, not the gender or marital status of the partners. It takes a kind of inhuman obsession with church doctrine to imagine that a marriage in which the husband beats and rapes his lawfully wedded wife is somehow more “godly” than a stable and loving relationship between two people of the same gender who are not married (probably because the religious types have succeeded in making that impossible).
Churches already have a model to study of what religious rejection of homosexuality really looks like and really means: the Reverend Fred Phelps and his “God Hates Fags” ministry. Is that really the direction churches want to go?

Previous was mine–I REALLY wish B-net would fix this misbegotten feature so that names don’t disappear.

“”Churches AGAIN wrestle with Gay debates! AGAIN???
Sooner or later this will be past history…and folks will wonder what the fuss was all about.”"
Yes, when churches return to righteousness.

“”For myself, I would rather see that further (minus the blather) devoted to solving some of the giant and tragic problems we face in the world.”"
There is no greater “problem” facing the world than that which is caused by sin.
And that means EVERY problem.
Furthermore, there is no relief from sin for those who deny the Hope sent from God; Jesus Christ.
The world is messed up.
But there is ONE hope.

Heretic: I don’t think my presentation was overly idealized. While there have been some heavily Greek/Platonic/Gnostic-influenced movements within Christianity at various times throughout its history, the idea that physicality itself is something sinful is not mainstream or orthodox No less a figure than Augustine abandoned the anti-material Manichean sect to embrace the more bodily, less dualistic Catholic Christianity. Many of the theological pillars of the Eastern Church likewise were not anti-body; you take Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor for instance, who though they were not quite modern body-loving Westerners nevertheless understood humanity’s materiality to be essentially good and, in fact, integral to the salvation of the world (and not just the human world). Many of the ascetic traditions as well are more about training the body than denying it. The Eastern Hesychast movement, for instance, continuously prays the Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) in certain positions and using certain breathing techniques in order to burn the Gospel into their bodies, so that their bodies should come to constantly praise God instinctively and without effort. That takes a kind of mortification of the body’s passions, which are, admittedly, more than just “savage violence and mindless lust”–in some traditions, like those of the “holy fools” or “fools for Christ,” it certainly includes a renunciation of anything that can possibly be a source of pride, including the appearance of sanity and even common morality itself (so that the holy fools would not infrequently take the blame for crimes they didn’t commit, simply so that the world would not hold them in high esteem).
My point is, none of this is necessarily body-denying, unless you hold up a very narrow modern Western view of the body as the only one that is acceptably affirming of our bodies. Mortification of the corruption of the body, yes; renunciation of materiality itself, not usually, and not in many of the most revered theologians of the Church, nor in the Church’s canons of orthodoxy.
And I don’t want to give the impression that I think an abusive heterosexual relationship is more godly than a loving homosexual one. Nor is the ridiculous Fred Phelps an example of a man who has taken traditional Church stances on homosexuality seriously. He’s nothing more than a radical cultist bigot who who is in no way an example of what most sexually-conservative clergy and theologians think.

jestrfyl:
I wouldn’t say that I agree that marriage is really a necessary evil. My stance is pretty much that of Eastern Orthodoxy: that marriage is a form of asceticism, just like monasticism. Marriage is one of the primary arenas in which most people train our bodies to serve God. What’s more, as the Eastern traditions often teach, it’s an arena in which we can work out the salvation of the world by shattering own egoistic individuality and opening ourselves up to uniting ourselves to the rest of the world and, through ourselves, uniting the whole world to God.
To be clear to you and others, I do not believe that gay Christians should be required to abandon their relationships in order to serve God. There’s a long tradition of same-sex marriage-like partnerships (albeit usually celibate ones) in Christian history, and I think we have every reason in the world to revive those and keep them going. The questions that remain open for me are 1) whether or not such homosexual partnerships are exactly the same as heterosexual matrimony and whether or not, sacramentally and theologically, they are doing the exact same thing, and thus whether or not they should occupy the same place in the sacramental life of the Church; and 2) whether or not certain kinds of sexual acts should be considered “against nature” and be discouraged. In other words, my open question is this: should homosexual marital asceticism take on a somewhat different form than heterosexual marital asceticism?
I realize I’m considering the issue in ways that are radically different from how most American Christians will ever consider them, but I think that stems from my conviction that religion is fundamentally about danger and struggle and not very much at all about comfort and affirmation. For that reason, I certainly don’t agree with the attitudes of most conservative evangelical folks either, who often speak of marriage as if it were little more than the contract God makes you sign so you can have a bunch of wet and wild sex with your hot spouse. I think many prominent voices on both sides of the current debate have understated the proper role of asceticism in Christian marriage.
You point about locating our “core personality” is a very good one indeed. For the most part, the early Church did not understand our particular sexual desires, inclinations, or activities as part of the core of what made us who we are, while the current trend among academics in general has been just the opposite, and an increasing number of Christians and theologians have followed that lead. The rise of the latter view seems to strongly correspond to the rise of acceptance of minority sexualities among many Christians. While I tend to lean towards the older view, I think that both sides frequently make good points.

Nate,
Thank you for your thoughtful and informative comments. I appreciate the history lesson.

Nate W. wrote: “The questions that remain open for me are 1) whether or not such homosexual partnerships are exactly the same as heterosexual matrimony and whether or not, sacramentally and theologically, they are doing the exact same thing, and thus whether or not they should occupy the same place in the sacramental life of the Church; and 2) whether or not certain kinds of sexual acts should be considered “against nature” and be discouraged.”
Very good post Nate. Regarding 1), it seems to me this will depend very much on how the larger culture views marriage. In some cultures, marriage is primarily a duty – a duty to parents, family and society to start your own family. Think of cultures which still practice arranged marriage. Here the happiness of the individuals involved is secondary. In such cultures, choosing not to marry, or a couple choosing not to have children, may be looked down upon. In such a society I would agree that a same gender relationship would probably have to be considered distinct from marriage.
But in the West, the dominant paradigm for marriage is that of two individuals choosing to become a couple out of love, and making a public commitment. In such a setting I don’t see why the commitment between two individuals of the same gender should not be treated the same as that between individuals of different gender. One can insist on the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, but if one simply applies a different name to same gender commitments, but they don’t differ substantively, has anything been accomplished?
Regarding point 2) I don’t see selectively prohibiting specific sexual acts, REGARDLESS OF THE CONTEXT in which they occur, as fitting in with Christian morality as I understand it. I don’t believe in “if it feels good do it” or “anything goes”, and I think sexual activity has the potential to be highly constructive or highly destructive, and I don’t take it lightly. I DO believe the Creator of the universe is intimately concerned with my sex life. I believe people using each other as objects for sexual gratification is wrong. But I don’t think morality can be boiled down to “never insert tab A into slot B” type laws.

Wannabe,
You make a very good point about the way the culture’s general view of marriage influences our thinking on this issue. I think you’re absolutely right that with the current dominant understanding in the West–marriage as essentially a agreement between two people in romantic love–there’s no good reason to single out homosexual partnerships as being somehow inferior or even all that different from heterosexual ones; all we could really turn to in this case is a rather fundamentalistic reading of a few verses in the Bible. Within some frameworks, like that of Orthodoxy, where marriage is understood essentially as an alternative to monasticism, and where the ontology of the human person is often quite different from in the modern West, I think that making certain distinctions between the two make a bit more sense. This is why when we look at the issues cross-traditionally and cross-culturally, the the matter is complicated quite a bit, since it becomes abundantly clear that different groups simply don’t believe the same fundamental things about the nature of marriage itself, whether gay or straight.
I think the question for all of us then is, “What should Christians understand the purpose of marriage in the Church to be?” Ideally, I think Christians ought to be able to formulate a theology of marriage that takes a critical distance from the views of the wider culture, whether that culture is sexually conservative or liberal. My biggest frustration with gay marriage debates is and always has been that it seems to be infected too much by cultures wars that originate at least in part outside the walls of the churches and outside the purview of serious theology.

I actually agree with you at least on one thing, GodsCountry…the world is messed up. Much of that mess is/was caused by religion…Christianity being one. The intolerance of those who don’t understand that theirs isn’t THE religion, and don’t understand why others don’t agree with them…because, after all THEY ARE RIGHT! Their “good book” says so…right? WRONG… and that book is not (fortunately) everyone’s guide.

Nate,
Why should the church feel compelled to take a religious stance on marriage at all? Marriage is a human-invented social institution. Religion is about our relationship to God. A person can have a relationship with God in or outside of marriage. That relationship, I believe strongly, is based on how we act, what we say, what we do. How we act in marriage is part of what we do in the world in general, but so is how we act with our colleagues at work, with friends, and with strangers. I don’t see the church struggling to formulate religious position-papers on work and friendship and dealing with strangers. Marriage is different–but why?
The obvious answer is that marriage is expected to involve sex and other areas of our lives are not. If this is the basis of the issue, then a religious position would not be about marriage per se, but about sex. Would the church care one bit about a marriage between an elderly man and an elderly woman who wish to be together in their last few years but are both past caring about sex? If not, then why would the church care about a same-gender marriage between two elderly gays who wish to be together but are both sexually inactive. In both cases, the non-sexual marriage would be a friendship that happens to incur certain legal rights and responsibilities relating to tax-filing status, inheritance rights, etc.
So it seems to me that all of this talk about marriage is a bit of a sham–what the church cares about is sex itself, taking a prohibitive stance against everything except legal marriage between a man and a woman.
Here is an irony for me: When I was growing up (back in the late Pleistocene Era), I learned about marriage and asked if a marriage license was a license for sex. The adults smiled at me and explained that marriage was a loving commitment between 2 people, and that sex was merely a part of their relationship. But if the essence of marriage is the loving commitment, then what is the objection to same-sex marriage? This current emphasis on legally banning same-sex marriage seems to turn marriage into what I naively has asked when I was a child: a state-issued license for heterosexual intercourse.
Here is another question: If marriage is a sacrament to the church, then why does the church recognize civil marriage at all? Why are the churches not railing against heterosexual couples who have chosen to wed in civil ceremonies that have no religious element? And especially against married atheists?
Apologies for dumping all this on you, Nate, but you are clearly concerned and knowledgeable, and I’d be interested in your responses.

Heretic,
The fact is that various religious traditions, including Christianity, DO develop theological approaches to things like work and friendship and dealing with strangers, even if it might be true that in some circles such things don’t get the attention they deserve or that the tradition warrants. But it’s out there: there’s a long history of reflection on how to treat strangers, guests, and foreigners based on the Old Testament and Jewish customs; there are rich theologies of work and vocation in many different traditions; and friendship is huge in a lot of monastic theology, where it’s often treated as something woven into the very fabric of created being itself, such as in Aelred of Rievaulx’s classic “On Spiritual Friendship,” or as something almost essential to spiritual formation, as in Fr. Florensky’s letter on friendship in “The Pillar and the Ground of the Truth.”
The Church cares about marriage because it does not believe that marriage is a strictly man-made institution. Pair-bonding has its roots in human nature itself and, as Aristotle said, is the foundational level of man realizing his nature as a “political animal.” Even if all the customs and expections of pair-bonding differ from time to time and place to place, it’s clearly not something that someone just invented out of thin air. Marriage is a way that people unite in body and soul to form a new social unit, to transcend themselves in a way that few other relationships encourage us to do, to learn the virtues of total commitment, to give life to and care for new children, and a whole host of other deeply meaningful activities. To expect the Church to have no interest in developing a theology of this kind of relationship is to expect the Church to take a deistic-tinged position towards the created world that orthodox Christian simply cannot accept; it’s to suggest that God has no particular interest in the way we use our created bodies, our created sexuality, our created capacity for nurturing new life. Far from pulling out of the world and leaving it to its own devices as if none of that matters theologically, the Church has sacramentalized the very earthy and mundane act of pair-bonding, just like it has sacramentalized the mundane acts of eating and bathing in the Eucharist and baptism. Why? Because of all of creation is God’s, and our way of inhabiting our own createdness and dealing with the created world is our primary way of relating to God. Not to mention the fact that it’s part of the Jewish legacy and biblical heritage; the Bible begins with the story of a marriage between the first man and woman, narrates the tumultuous marriage of God to the people of Israel, and culminates in the New Testament in a marriage between Christ and the Church–a “one-flesh” marital union that many classical traditions do not understand to be mere metaphor.
Is Christian matrimony merely a state license for intercourse? No, most certainly not. Although some people do seem to treat it that way when the rubber hits the road. That, I’m thoroughly convinced, has more to do with the fact that the current debate is dominated more by extra-ecclesial culture wars than by anything seriously theological or seriously Christian. Many religious conservatives in this country have so thoroughly wedded their Christianity to the government and to American culture that they’ve lost any good sense about what traditional Christian teaching on marriage really says. Having done that, they fixate on any cultural shifts that they think will spell the doom of “family values” (which aren’t always the same as Christian values). Now having pretty much irreversibly lost the battle on issues like divorce and possibly abortion, gay marriage looks like the last stand, so that’s where they’ve turned their energy and their frustration with what they perceive to be the erosion of what once made American culture great.

Well, the ECLA has voted to permit partnered gay/lesbian clergy.
I know this was a hard step for them….and, I salute them for doing the right thing over the easy thing!
Peace!

Nate,
Again, thanks. Obviously, our perspectives are different. I am a heretic in that I reject church doctrine entirely. It is why I stopped going to churches years ago–and only then was able to find God. But I appreciate your patience and I respect your knowledge and eloquence.

The wisdom of the world made foolish – by the Cross of Christ.
Christ died to save us from mortal sin – including homosexuality.
Christ leads us away from sin, encourages us to righteousness.
Homosexuality is sin.
All the talk in the world can not possibly make it right.
Warm feelings for a fanciful “god” do not make it right.
You perish, yet you chatter on.

GC,
If I believed in Satan, I’d have to wonder if maybe you are him or at least one of his minions–for who else would pose as a servant of God while seducing true seekers into paths that lead them further and further iaway from God? But since Satan is a logically self-contradictory concept, I guess you are just what you appear to be–a sanctimonious bibliolater who has no true faith in or sense of God.

H4C what does that make you? You certainly sit high and look low with your judgment.

Guess the Kool Aide is cool and refreshing, huh GC? Grape?
IYO there is only one way to live, being a JC addict, but since it is obvious that all the people in the world don’t agree, things are looking up. Relax. Life is good…

…the wisdom of the world made foolish…

“…the wisdom of the world made foolish… GC
And this from one who knows just WHAT? Not much IMO except how to quote one of many books considered special.

pagan I’d rather quote the bible than people like you. I know people like you have backed a lot of people in a corner from believing in the bible but I’d rather read the bible and live by it’s principles than to read the words of people than oppose it

Whatever floats your boat, ck. No one is forcing anyone to read anything. However you seem to continue reading….interesting.
However I do enjoy reading your posts…and sometimes quoting them.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places

Too much reading of GC, Ck.

“…you can’t HANDLE the truth!”
from some movie, but apt here.

“…you can’t HANDLE the truth!”
“from some movie, apt here.” GC
That’s from “A Few Good Men” 1992,said by Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessep) to Tom Cruise (Lt. Kaffee).
As to “apt here”? That’s questionable.

If you could handle the truth, you would not be known as a pagan.
As far as churches “wrestling” with the idea of accommodating sin, well, they obviously can’t handle it either.

I can handle the truth, thus I’m not a believer in the same things you are, religion wise.
My name is because I don’t believe in the divinity of a man called JC, and really wonder if he actually lived to begin with. And if he did, and he was hung on a cross, he died just like any mortal. The god you believe in is invisible…and also is the way some humans explain how this world was formed. Personally, Darwin and Big Bang theories are more logical. The theory of a god as maker of “heaven and earth” and his child dying for us humans makes no sence to me… even with my parents taking me to church for the first 17 years of my life. Just didn’t make sense..and still doesn’t.
Goddess’s work for me much better.

…”goddesses” are demonic influences which keep you from the truth and saving knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Blood from His Holy side will wash you, nothing else.
The Christ is King over all and will vanquish evil in the end.
But if you wait to see your goddesses fall, it may be too late.
Turn back to the truth of your childhood.
Now, before you die or the Savior of the world returns.

OH PLEASE give me a break! Goddesses are demonic influences that keep me from the truthy?! GC
What a load of Bull!
My Goddesses have been around so many more years than Christianity and haven’t “failed” yet, so not to worry. Turning back to the truth of my childhood? Thanks, but no. I’m in my 60′s, so have had a lot of time to think on this. If indeed your savior returns and pulls all the “good guys” up, there will be more room here for me and mine. I am so not worrying about any savior coming back…or what happens when I die. I will be cremated and my ashes returned to the ocean and universe from which all came. That is, however, a long way off.

BTW, Goddesses include all people in their love and protection…even (gasp!) homosexuals. “As it harm none, do as ye will.”

…pretty frothy reply for one with no worries.
Just why ARE you here?

“Just why ARE you here”? GC
You seem to have all the answers…so I’ll leave that to you.
“…pretty frothy reply for one with no worries.” GC
Thanks, I liked it.

You are here to subvert the faith of others.
I believe you to be a false guide.

GodsCountry says: “As far as churches “wrestling” with the idea of accommodating sin, well, they obviously can’t handle it either.”
There’s nothing sinful about being gay or having gay relationships Godscountry. People are gay because God made it so, not because of ‘sin’. Therefore, if a gay man or woman wants to become an official in a church, then so be it. All of God’s children are welcome in his House, and if he has called them to minister to the people, through his infinite love and wisdom, then God’s will be done.

“You are here to subvert the faith of others. I believe you to be a false guide”. Quote from the infamous GC
Somebody has to do it, GC…might as well be me. ) Anyhow, if folks are that easily “subverted” then they don’t honestly believe, huh, like you, the ultimate believer.
tophtheearthbender:
Totally agree with you.