Another denomination takes a stand

See story here.

 

Thanks Jimmy.

 

Good.

 

Ah - the missionary position.

 

Frankly, I'm kind of surprised it would even come up in a denomination like this.

Matt

 

Viagra.

 

Creole? In Ft. Wayne?

 

Is there a problem with same sex marriage?

Just because the church opposes it doesn't mean it is 'wrong' - whatever 'wrong' means!

 

Why is everybody all up in arms over whether this, that, or the other denomination does/does not allow gay marriage/gay pastors? Regardless of whether one considers it timeless universal moral truth or the mutterings of ancient xenophobic tribes, Christianity's holy writ does call homosexuality an abomination. Personally, if the First Church of the Homosexual Gods and Goddesses wishes to declare heterosexuality an abomination and therefore deny me the benefits of baptism, confirmation, communion, confession, marriage, ordination, and last rites, I frankly could give a flying f*ck less.

 

Yes, you make a good point, Ted.

If a same sex couple want to get married, they simply avoid the church for the 'blessing'.

If you want to play golf, you don't join the tennis club, do you?

 

Or found your own church, write your own holy writ, and declare gay marriage and gay ordination sacraments.

 

This is why it matters what this denomination does:

"The Missionary Church, Inc., headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is an evangelical denomination dedicated to church multiplication and world missions. With its largest constituencies overseas, the Missionary Church is one of the fastest–growing denominations in the U.S.A."

Because they are exporting this crap.

 

Seems to me that if they are exporting (among other things) the idea of marriage being strictly a heterosexual matter, then they're merely "exporting" that which is already indigenous in most contexts, nu?

Matt

 

Which is what Troy Perry did when he founded the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches.

Bio on Perry.

 

There are really two very different issues here:

A. The homosexual issue. This one seems to be largely emotion. The people who spin elaborate theological rationalizations about homosexuality wouldn't want to associate with gays in secular contexts either.

B. The question of how fundamentalist, how 'Bible-based', how uncompromising religious denominations should be in the modern secular world.

Should religious denominations hold fast to what Ted calls "holy writ"?

Or should they read the Bible in more modern fashion, seeing it as a record of how ancient people grew in their understanding of their God?

After all, it isn't just homosexuality. The Bible portrays God as favoring all kinds of things that moderns find totally evil. He is said to have condemned Hebrews who killed every man, woman and child among their enemies, condemning them not for the crime of genocide, but because they failed to kill their victims' animals too.

I think that most Christians (and Jews) quietly accept an evolutionary scheme of revelation as they sweep that kind of stuff under the rug, whether they like to admit it or not. There are aspects of ancient religious understandings that our consciences simply can't accept today. So the Bible passages that portray those things are interpreted as inessential.

Liberal Protestantism has addressed those kind of problems with a huge literature. I think that their theologians generally see the Bible books as written by men, recording their understanding of their God and of his revelation. And as the centuries pass, as you move from the earlier books to the later ones, you see the recorded descriptions of God becoming progressively more transcendent and refined.

God starts out as a guy who sits with Abraham under a tree at Mamre, by the time of Moses he is something terrible and holy atop a mountain, and finally perhaps a transcendent being without physical form at all. (Many religions around the world show the same pattern of divinities receding off into heaven as their decriptions gradually become more elaborated and glorious. So the need for intermediaries arises.) God starts out as a jealous tribal god, and ends up a divinity of universal love.

Seen that way, perhaps the point in religion isn't just to slavishly seize onto some understanding frozen into an ancient book. It might be to walk the same path that the book's authors' took, refining our own conception of deity and making it more congruent with its divine object.

And that might suggest that it isn't necessary for today's Christians to grasp onto ancient understandings of homosexuality, whether in Deuteronomy or in Paul's letters. It might actually be possible to grow beyond Paul's first century opinions on the matter.

We've grown in our moral understanding of genocide, of slavery and of women. So why not gays?

I guess that my point is that this isn't really about gays at all. It's about something more important and more basic to religion in the modern world. Homosexuality just provides a convenient hook because it arouses so many deeply held passions.

 

This comes the closest to reflecting my own opinions. As I said in another, related thread, it's a matter of cultural evolution. It will continue to evolve. It can't not evolve.
Jack

 

Bill Dayson: Each religion has its own holy writ. What each of those holy writs say they say. Who do you think ought to dictate what various religions can/cannot say in their holy writs? I say it should be the ecclesiastical bodies themselves.

 

Some time ago, cannot find thread as search engine is kaput, someone inquired about ordination.

For a strong evangelical with solid biblical moral and ethical beliefs, the Missionary Church might be a good option. One can fill out a credential application online here.

Well, I have to read three books for FLET so I will not be posting much this week. As we say in Mississippi, "Y'all be sweet."

 

While that has oten been true, it isn't always at all. Part of the answer to this particular question also may have to do with the fact that prior to the past 30-40 years or so, "homesexual" (to say nothing of thw whole LGBT scheme) was never an identity as such.

Probably worth noting that the term "fundamentalist" has outlived it's usefulness in this context, except as an epithet.

The real question is whether it continues to be "reasonable" for Christians to believe that their Holy Book reveals anything about ontological reality, or whether it is merely a cultural artifact to be discarded as we all slouch our way into the Age of Aquarius.

The question itself assumes the Hegelian idea of "progress in history"; that is, that certain things must be more true because they are more recent. As I'd quoted recently from theologian Thomas Oden in an earlier recent post,

(whole interview online at http://ivpress.gospelcom.net/accs/meet_tom_oden.php)

A difficult issue, which has been dealt with somewhat in an article here: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/rbutcher1.html
and another one here: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qamorite.html
I could give a "short answer" with a reference to the system of child sacrifice in quantity, but this issue is not, in my opinion, well dealt with with a "short answer".

Actually, no. A number of Old Testament passages relating to issues of ceremonial law were meant to be for the Jews during the existance of the Tabernacle and sacrificial system. In the New Testament, this was dealt with in Acts 15:1-35 and passages such as in Galatians 3:24-25 ("Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.").

With Abraham, God is dealing with him as an individual, and meets him in the context of his own culture, but nonetheless reveals things about His nature and power that don't fit in with the "tribal deity" model. Two things which are unique (as far as I know) in ancient religious literature from, for example, the cycle of interaction between God and Abraham found in Genesis, is the fact that God not only promises to bless Abraham and his descendants (Genesis 12:1-2a), but also goes on to note that through Abraham " 'all the families' of the earth will be blessed". The Bible is also different in that it doesn't always show its heroes in a positive light; it shows their screw-ups as well (What other royal literature would include things like David's adultery with Bathsheba and repentence?)

If one believes that he is so mature spiritually as to be "beyond Paul's first century opinions on the matter", then perhaps the suggestion given by others above should be taken, and one should go ahead and start a new religion ->. Again, it's the Hegelian assumption: "We're modern, happening and now, so we obviously are more mature in our understanding than that ancient old Paul".

The first of these is referenced above, but as for the latter two:

Women's issues: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/femintro.html

Slavery: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qnoslave.html

Indeed, on this at least, I would say we are at a substantial level of agreement (;->.

Difficult to deal with these issues in a forum like this. With regard to the specific issue of homosexuality and marriage, I would continue to recommend the writings of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary scholar Robert Gagnon (http://www.robgagnon.com). With regard to the whole Liberal versus Biblically and historically faithful theology, I would say consider looking at the writings of Thomas Oden, a Methodist theologian and scholar who was a fairly serious liberal before taking a turn towards a more Biblically and historically grounded theology, especially with reference to the writings and exegesis of the early Church. Oden gives a brief account of his own pilgrimage in the introduction to his book Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition, which is online here: http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1938&C=1737

Anyway, I've gone on too long. Gotta get to work.

Peace,

Matt

 

Apart from its contribution to the whole question of morals and ethics and how we should live together in a society, the church really has nothing to contribute.

In fact, it has been, and some would say, continues to be, one of the major forces of reaction and opposition to development - scientifically, socially and psychologically.

Human being and their society are evolving. The world unfoldes to the enquiring minds of humanity. Our understanding of the world increases, and hopefully, our ability to live with each other ,improves as well.

Yes, the Bible does evidence a similar unfolding and development. But unfortunately, the Bible is not a never ending story.Its last words were penned somewhere in the 1st century. "Revelation" has ceased, whereas the humanist, freed from the shackles of old texts of old men from old cultures, can further explore and seek new ways of doing and seeing things.