Job Description 'Celibacy'...legal?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Gay Bishops have to keep it in their pants

The sex-obsessed Anglicans can't be serious. In no other walk of life would it be legally OK to insist successful job applicants could be gay but would have to be celibate. Hope someone challenges this.

[StuffezLaBouche]

I know this is a big ask, and extremely naive and wishful on my part... but wouldn't it be nice if the church could employ the most caring, loving men and women who genuinely wanted to help people give them direction and support, whilst bringing communities together.....
and keep their noses out of what they and other consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms?

Why are they so fervently obsessed with sex and all things sexual? The arguments already put across here indicate how willing the church is to pick and choose which bits of the bible are important and which are "allegorical."

Oh yes, sex = control.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

It's a bit "We don't mind if our (male) Bishops are gay" (we never have minded really) Just so long as they (and the hetero ones too) keep quiet about anything to do with sex !

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

All men were born equal, except gay ones. And as for women....pah!

[mummyonvalium]

niminy - it is true that people like to bait CofE with homosexuality and the women bishops. After I converted to Christianity 2 years ago DH constantly asked me what my views were as if they would suddenly change overnight.

I am convinced that most Christians actually are quite liberal on these matters. There are small pockets of proper homophobes and they definitely egg each other on with their vitriol (there are a few in my church). Most people though are just very ignorant, live very sheltered lives and would not want to hurt anyone.

Once the younger generation in the Church come up through the ranks it can only be a good thing - they are more educated, have seen a bit more and generally less bigoted. However, I hope it is not to late by then.

[niminypiminy]

I'm totally with you there, MonV. Actually, of course, the Church is full of gay people and women who are holding out for progress, and it will come. But in the meantime, lots of people like to think that the CofE is full of dinosaurs, and imagine that just because you're a Christian you're bigoted and intolerant.

My brother in law is always going on about how the Church is homophobic, but when I told him that my sister's partner is pregnant you could see the whites of his eyes and he changed the subject pretty rapidly.

[Viviennemary]

The C of E has got itself tied into knots about this gay bishop and female bishop business. Because really if it's OK for a vicar why not OK for a Bishop or even Archbishop.

[MiniTheMinx]

Why have a book full of stuff you just disregard So as Christianity modernises is it to become a club full of nice people who just do nice things and think that Jesus was just some nice fellow. Will everyone sit around second guessing god's wishes and what Jesus may or may not have said. Sounds like it will be full of wishful thinking.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

But that's the point. They disregard some of the said book. Not all.

And isn't religion supposed to be about love for your fellow man and all that i.e. niceness?

[MiniTheMinx]

yes of course but then we may as well just drop the bible and get on with being nice.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Yes, we may (Mini) !

And you could say it's full of wishful thinking already.

Personally I think the world would be a better place if everyone was nicer

[MUM2BLESS]

I am a christian. What the bible states is what I am going by

King James Bible
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Romans 1 v 27

I will not compromise with what is going on in society today.

We put sin into catagories, for example a little white lie etc. We put murder perhaps in the highest catagory. With God ALL unrighteousness is sin......

Just because society says something is right that does not make it right.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

"unseemly"? Doesn't sound very strong to me.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I take exception to "leaving the natural use of woman" - but I suppose it is an old style translation

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

the woman - possibly slightly worse

[MUM2BLESS]

meaning

improper; in bad taste
Synonyms: cheap, coarse, crude, discreditable, disreputable, in poor taste, inappropriate, inapt, incorrect, indecent, indecorous, indelicate, inelegant, inept, malapropos, malodorous, out of keeping, out of place, poor, raffish, rough, rowdy, rude, ruffian, tawdry, unapt, unbecoming, unbefitting, undignified, ungodly, unrefined, unsuitable, untoward, vulgar, wrong

It depends on the Bible you are reading.

[MUM2BLESS]

Its not saying take advantage of a woman but rather turning to the same sex.

[ArielThePiraticalMermaid]

I have always thought that a religion which was open to so much interpretation and fudging of issues can't possibly have the monopoly on morals.

But that's just me.

[MUM2BLESS]

I take exception to "leaving the natural use of woman" - but I suppose it is an old style translation

Answering what you commented on

[Anniegetyourgun]

Well thank goodness nobody suggested we should outlaw stoning women who don't wear a hat to church. One has to maintain some standards.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I was just being generous.
It still seems an odd/ offensive thing to say.

[alemci]

also your body is meant to be a temple. The bible isn't very sympathetic towards sex outside marriage in heterosexuals either and most christians struggle with that as well.

this is talked about in Romans.

Alot of christians do chose to be celibate. Some of them find it enough to follow christ and take up his cross and forget about earthly matters.

I'm not saying it is easy and it is not my personal experience

[MUM2BLESS]

Being a christian is a life style (way you live) and NOT a religion.

I do what I do because I love God. You can go to chruch EVERYSunday and live by rules but still not know God as personally.

God helps me to understand the Bible. After all He is the author of the book.

[MiniTheMinx]

ah ha "Romans 1 v 27 " but the Roman's had a thing about the natural use of women, pesky women were needed for procreation. Other than that they were so second rate within society that any Roman of any worth would take a male lover.

" Roman men were free to enjoy sex with other males without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status, as long as they took the dominant or penetrative role. Acceptable male partners were slaves, prostitutes, and entertainers, whose lifestyle placed them in the nebulous social realm of infamia"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome

This is where patriarchy was born. With the idea of Familia, being all property under the male head of household, property including the wife (breeding stock) and all other slaves.

[MiniTheMinx]

God didn't write a book, the Roman's wrote a book after they put Jesus to death, or are we rewriting history according to wishful thinking ?

[trockodile]

Mum2Bless - I am a Christian and think that the only possible way to interpret the bible is to read it with an open mind knowing that we have knowledge that the writers didn't have. (Scientific/medical/cultural) It is not possible to obey every law in the bible and nor would we want to. There are many interpretations of the bible, and many interpretations of the will of God. I may not be correct-but I would rather be wrong than believe in an afterlife that includes the haters and the bigots like Westboro Baptist Church and a God who agrees with them.