I'm a Church of England parish priest - AMA

[whyhere]

Baptisms, weddings, funerals, Sunday worship, belief in general - I'm at your service 🙂

My parents are both CofE vicars. Always interesting to see things from the outside perspective such as MN!
How are the preparations going for Christmas OP?

What is your opinion of ministers/youth pastors who act like rock stars, I know one who clearly gets off on his quasi celebrity status and actively has saught postings which take him round the world to lovely places each time moving to richer and richer churchs with large affluent congregations.

That's fine, same as me thinking how can anyone believe in a virgin birth.

I know a vicar @PeterRabbitHadACarrot (a friend, no religious connection) and they get LOADS of stick, from all quarters so I'm not surprised they learn to answer questions in a certain way.

Hmm. Suddenly got really busy, huh?

@whyhere I'm not sure it's wise to tell someone to "go for it" re reiki:

www.gotquestions.org/energy-healing-medicine.html

I happened to be reading the book of Malachi today. This part jumped out to me:

You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?" Malachi 2:17.

Why wouldn't they? It is Sunday, after all.

Just because some homophobic fundie website says something doesn't mean all Christians agree.

Just thought it was a bit odd they disappeared when asked some more topical questions. Surely if you do an AMA you should be willing to answer the questions.

if someone is managing three services is extremely likely that 2 were this morning and one is this afternoon / early evening a vicar is likely to need to spend sometime on Sunday preparing for next service nothing suspicious at all, in fact I would be suspicious about a priest that had much free time on sunday!

Nothing wrong with a polite difference of opinion, it's to be expected. Making wild, unsubstantiated claims about God, like the one in the programme, crosses a line into blasphemy.

@toffeecrisps Are you a Christian?

Not really. Why?

@toffeecrisps Then you have no dog in this fight, so to speak

@MardyBra :

Sorry, are only Christians allowed to comment?

Didn't you ring at your installation?

@whyhere would you mind if I sent you a private message?

I have another one you almost certainly won't answer but I'll go anyway.
I believe that Mary and Jesus were probably real people but certainly not who they say they are. I have this theory, well chain of thought that Mary had additional needs, some fella named Gabriel or claiming to be called Gabriel fed her a lot of tosh and coerced / raped her,persuaded her into thinking it was gods work. Jesus probably too had some additional needs, believed what he was told about being gods child and of course ended up being a retelling of a much older story. Maybe he was used by the people funding his campaign for their own somewhat political agendas.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this - and if you acknowledge the whole Jesus thing is a retelling of an older story ? If so, why do you think it resurfaced if you disagree with my thoughts?

Okay I think, thank you.

It's not a form of behaviour that I perceive to be recognisably Christian.

I did indeed, but I don't think any decent bellringer would really count that 😀

Not at all.

@toffeecrisps I don't think you're qualified to comment on whether a resource is 'fundamentalist' or how other Christians feel about reiki, no.

@PeterRabbitHadACarrot I'll pretend I didn't read that. 🙄

How many times?

There is a school of thought the the number of rings equals the length of your incumbancy. 😀

I'm sorry, who appointed you the thread police?

I cannot speak for the OP obviously. I was simply suggesting that she may not share the views of a right-wing homophobic website.

I know you like to act like you're the expert on all things Christianity, but some people do have different opinions.