calling all Anglicans

[ionesmum]

What do you make of the statement today re the gay issue?

Also, what do you make of the CofE in general?

I'm struggling to stay with the church at the moment, and could really do with some fresh perspectives on things.

waswondering, I couldn't agree more.

Congrats on your pregnancy MP!

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bloss

Asd you know, I have found discipleship costly. For it to be worthwhile it has to be. And I strive to love God with all of me. I'll never get there, of course, but I try. And I then obey the second great commandment, which is that I try to love others as I would wish to be loved. God's love is so huge...everything that is good in the world has come from that love: justice, family, peace, happiness...I could go on. I'm prepared to admit I may be wrong about gay marriage and divorce. But if I am wrong it is not because I want to disobey God but because I am obeying his commandment to love others as I would want to be, and because I believe his love to be wider than any book can ever tell us. If I am wrong I will pay the price.

TBH I know where you are on the Anglican communion. I really think the church may need to break before it can be healed and made whole again. But if God is in it, the healing will happen; he creates, he doesn't detroy. But there are some who have threatened and bullied on this issue (sorry, Bloss, but here it is the conservatives) to keep it together. And it's clear that a significant number of the primates who have called for repentance (inc. Rowan Williams IMO) are in favour of gay bishops; they are just (rather patronisingly) waiting for the conservatives to come around to their way of thinking. So what happened this week is yet another typically Anglican fudge that will delay the issue for a few more years but not prevent the implosion.

BTW that call for public repentence really pissed me off! What would it mean? ECUSA and the chruch in Canada wouldn't mean it, it would be so hypocritical of them to do so. So why are they being called on to lie? To satisfy the pride of those who disagree with them?

Re suffering, I don't believe in original sin, so therefore the Fall doesn't answer the question for me as to why tiny, innocent babies suffer. And I find the 'whole of Creation is fallen' arguement just a bit pat. Certainly it would offer me scant consolation. However we try to explain why there is suffering, we can't. I am with Rowan Williams on this when he argued that we believe in a merciful God because this is what we do: in the midst of it, we carry on.

And it's not a case of only loving God if he is how I want him to be. I love God because I know that he is ever-loving and merciful, and does not cause suffering; he is wholely good, the rock of my life, my companion from infancy, and no matter what I do in my life I will never be able to come close to serving him as well as I should.

I agree with the quote that you have used from Proverbs. I do fear the Lord - but maybe we have different views on what that means. And I do absolutely believe in discipline (and I'd like to try for wisdom ) - in fact before dd1 put in her surprise appearance I was considering either joining one of the new Celtic religious communities or becoming a Benedictine oblate - and it's something I expect I will return to once my brain no longer feels like cotton wool through sleep deprivation.

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Bloss, I am always striving for answers, but I don't believe that the Fall is an adequate explanation as to why there is suffering and for the moment I don't have a better one, except to say that God does not will it. If that makes my faith blind then so be it.

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I truly believe that you are ignoring the fact of man's free will, Bloss.

Bloss: Your striving for answers is commendable, although I prefer to think that it's continually asking the questions which makes a Christian.

Ooh now I'm going to tease you a bit and ask you to explain the whole point of the crucifixion for me. Because I am always fascinated by people's 'answers' to this particular dilemma. How does it work to redeem us?

This is what I don't understand. Imagine there is a class of naughty children, and the teacher keeps asking them to behave, but they ignore him. Finally, he decides there is only one thing for it. He makes his own son - who has been sitting in the front row, quietly copying down work - stand up and then proceeds to beat him in front of the class. The lesson is then over. The teacher lets the class go, and tells them that they don't need to be punished, because his son has taken the punishment for them.

HOW DOES THAT WORK? It's crazy. If God is all-powerful and all-merciful, then why isn't he able to just forgive us our sins against him? Why does God have a need for a sacrifice? Surely God doesn't have a need for anything? Or is it - as some people have said - that Jesus paid a ransom to the devil? A ransom for WHAT? And what was God doing letting the devil take anything in the first place?

It all makes no sense to me whatsoever. How do you think it works?

Ionesmum: I agree with you re. the public repentence. It makes me really angry too. And what of those of us 'normal' liberal anglicans in this country who 100% support the Canadian decision? Where does that leave us? Out in the cold with our deluded consciences?!

I can see that Williams is basically stuck with this issue and there's been a problem from the start (as I understand it) that he has been effectively cut off from his previous liberal advisors and surrounded in office by conservatives. I do feel for him. But part of me just wishes that he'd take the bull by the horns and 'be a man' about it! Take the decision to go with the Canadian church - it would give the CofE in this country a massive credibility boost and we all know that it's what he personally thinks is right. It's a bit depressing for us liberals knowing that even though 'one of us' has the reins, he's being bullied into submission from the conservative right. It will just go for years and years when we could have moved on to more important things e.g. firing any Bishops who have two cars or don't recycle.

Waswondering: I also agree 100% with your very wise post.

Haved stayed out of this for a bit because you all got way too deep - and beyond my understanding I am not a theology expert nor do I want to be. But my (perhaps basic) undertanding of the reasons for the crucifixion is that Jesus 'saved us' by showing us that death was not the end.. He was one of the few that understood from the word go, His reasons for being born onto the earth (which is what made Him the Son Of God.. but perhaps no more or less than any of us.. but with so much more insight than the vast majority of us.) He healed because He believed He could.. and he died because He knew that this is what it would take to make a small number of people understand the what It's Really AllAbout.. that they would then share that message with the rest of the world. And so they have. Although I don't believe for one second that Christianity is the Only Way To God (as I see stated on posters often.) I find that quite.. not offensive (too strong a word).. but a worryingly close-minded and uninformed approach. There are clearly many ways to God.. in fact we are no doubt all on our way 'to' Him.. but some make more headway in getting there 'in this life' than others.

Also, just to comment on what you said about Christians continually asking questions.. from my point of view I don't see that to be the case at least nowhere near enough. It's as if Christianity (and many other organised religions) are living their lives based upon a faith, the rules for were decided upon long ago (2000 year or so in the case of Christianity) and have all but closed their minds to new truths.. new insights which God has been sharing with us ever since.

SJ x

Sleepyjess: I totally agree with you on both fronts. You expressed my thoughts about the importance of the crucifixion much better than I would have done.

(On a different note, I keep meaning to bring this up as it was discussed by Marina and Ionesmum)

Our Parish has gone the whole hog for Resolutions A B and C. (You can see why I'm such a rebel!). These decisions were made back in 1993 (?) and it was a 50/50 split on the PCC.

How did your church overturn these Ionesmum? Who proposed overturning them and how did you know it was the right time? I can't ever imagine my parish going back on it now as we have attracted lots of Forward in Faith types, but I'm interested to hear about a parish that has changed its line, and why.

Gah! A test! I've just looked them up:

(Basically it's a provision for parishes who don't want anything to do with women priests!)

(Quote follows

BELOW ARE THE TEXTS of Resolutions A and B, and the provision for Alternative Episcopal Oversight, commonly known as Resolution C, as they apply to parishes. They should be read in the context of the legislation that put them in place - i.e., The Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure (Resolutions A and B) and the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993 (Resolution C).

Resolution A
That this parochial church council would not accept a woman as the minister who presides at or celebrates the Holy Communion or pronounces the Absolution in the parish.

Resolution B
That this parochial church council would not accept a woman as the incumbent or priest-in-charge of the benefice or as a team vicar for the benefice.

Resolution C
Where the parochial church council of any parish has passed one or both of the resolutions set out in Schedule 1 to the Measure, a decision may be taken jointly by the minister and the council to petition the diocesan bishop concerned to the effect that appropriate episcopal duties in the parish should be carried out in accordance with this Act of Synod.

I completely agree with you SJ about the asking questions (hello gate crashing non christian alert! - it is allowed?).
I found a real lack of questioning when I did an Alpha course and spent time in the bosom of a pentecostal church. My questions were the wrong ones and my line of thinking apparently also incorrect, about gay issues, sexuality issues and the greater spirit world.

The gaps in areas such as the above examples and the title of this thread, I see/saw in the bible, as opportunities for discovery and growth, questioning to spiritual evolve. Questioning outside of the box did not seem to happen and was disapproved of as not the right relationship to be having with Jesus. I apparently needed alot of work to see things in a way than I otherwise did.

Thats an interesting scenerio question you pose MP regarding cruxification. And here is my take as you like to hear about such things

The children would take time to learn from this and their inital response in the RW would be to report the teacher to either their parents or the school. I mean no parent today would be allowed to impose such sufferring as it would be seen as the actions of an extremist cruel lunatic. Smacking debates here rise enough steam without public humilating you own child by beating them publically. And the child would be a mess, mentally. The relationship would be defined as a abusive one.

If the idea was to be stretched as allowable behaviour to teach the class then I would still see fear, not in the child being beaten because he is Jesus and does not posess our human failings apparently. But the class of children more likely would be shocked and stunned into submission. Few individuals would stand up and oppose the teacher.
I have never in all my life seen how any form of violence can really be beneficial spiritually or otherwise - therefore the cruxification of Jesus as a way to faith in Christianity is just one example of why it just don"t cut the mustard with me.

Paps of course you (and all!) are welcome on this thread! I am actually a 'Christian-With-Issues' to say the least!! And I don't seem to be the only one on here..

SJ x

I'm enjoying this debate too, it''s good to give my brain some exercise and think about what I believe.

Bloss, I don't expect to be able to reason out why certain things happen. Faith sometimes isn't reasonable. You said that us liberals put conditions on our relationship with God, but IMO to need to be able to have explanations for things before you believe is also putting conditions on. IME God, the sacrifice of Jesus, and all the questions about our very existence are so vast, I don't think we are capable of understanding them. God is so very other, however much we try to know him. As we have said before, you like to be able to reason your way through things whereas I tend to be more intuitive - God speaks to us all in many ways.

MP - the only way we got our resolutions overturned was because our pp retired which meant a new vote was necessary. This only happened because our new bishop is very pro-women priests and forced the issue. As I understand it, if you have had a new pp since the original vote then a new vote should have happened.

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God has always taught that sin has consequences

So what you're saying is that God set up this system so that sin could only be cancelled out by something/someone dying? And then, it all gets so out of hand, that God has to kill HIMSELF to make retribution?!

WHAT A STUPID SYSTEM! It makes absolutely no sense at ALL. Why can't God just forgive us? He's either all-powerful or he isn't.

Are you saying that God COULD NOT forgive us without killing Jesus? That he wasn't powerful enough to do that? Or that he set up this crazy system and then got himself trapped in it?!

All sounds a bit ill-thought-out to me.

Ionesmum: Thanks for the info. Although our pp appears to be in his forties, he has unfortunately been in post since about 1812, so no change of personnel since the vote. Interesting though.