(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

The Bishop of Buckingham (or @alantlwilson as he is known elsewhere) on gay marriage:

I am Evangelical enough to believe that Christ is, in fact, risen and we are, actually, his body in the world, charged in Matthew 28 to be good news to the whole creation, by observing his commands. He didn't say “keep everything the same” let alone “suppress gays.” He did say “Love your neighbour as yourself” and “Judge not that ye be not judged.” He did say “take the beam out of your eye before you try and remove the mote from someone else's” and “Love as I have loved you.”

Is there anything unclear about any of that? I don't think so.

Comments

[serriadh]

I read that, and tried to comment but captcha was defeating me and I gave up.

I agree entirely with the thrust of his post (and this bit was particularly beautiful: Marriage is a gift of God in creation that strengthens community and expresses divine love — that’s what’s meant by calling it “sacramental.”)

But I really worry when people use Jesus's language on not judging sinners (judge not, beam/mote, cast the first stone, etc.) when discussing gay marriage (or sexuality more generally). Obviously this isn't what +Alan is going for, but it does always sound very close to 'hate the sin, love the sinner'.

We shouldn't love gay people instead of judging them because that's what Christians are called to do (though that'd be a start), we should do it because being gay isn't actually a sin.

Also I wonder whether gay Christians would really like to be married by someone (or in a church that) hadn't really decided where it stands on the "theory" of 'is gay marriage really marriage', even if they were willing to go ahead in practice because it was the most loving thing.

[dejla]

Loud applause from this angle. I was raised as an American Baptist -- but I can no longer in good conscience remain.

I believe I have found an Espicopalian church in Brooklyn that I can be happy in.

Good men, bad reasons. Bad men, unexpected grace.

[legionseagle]

I'm not sure this is the right time to tell this story, and when I say it's about someone dying young you may wish to put it on one side, which is fine.


But it's also about gayness, and religion, and grace in unexpected places.

I used to work at the Bastard Git-Faced Spawn Of the Devil Law Firm From Hell.

And the firm, collectively, drank a lot. And, for one reason or another, the firm paid for great parties.

On this particular occasion they'd paid for a do at Barca, down in Castlefield, and I'd stumbled home (grabbing a cab on Deansgate) at a late hour, woken up with a headache and stumbled into the office (TBGFSOTDLFFH always held parties on Thursdays)

Where I discovered that one of my colleagues, a nice bloke from GO, had not made it home at all. In fact, he'd been precipitated twenty feet, head first, onto a canal tow-path off Sackville Street and had not survived the experience.

The thugs were never caught. But the senior partner of the Manchester office (a man now dead) called us all together and told us, firmly, that the murdered man's family were coming here from Ireland and that nothing suggested that he'd done anything more than got a bit disoriented on his way to the station, and anyone hinting anything else would be on the wrong end of disciplinary sanctions.

Half the office had beenon the pull that night, and the drink didn't help. Sackville street's in the heart of the gay village. We all knew exactly what must have happened.

The senior partner telling us to lie - effectively - so as not to distress the Catholic parents of our dead colleague who was dead at the hands of people who took certain bits of Leviticus a bit too literally seems almost like official CofE policy under ++Rowan, and I hope for everyone's sake we don't get something worse. (I suppose Alan Wilson's too young?)

Re: Good men, bad reasons. Bad men, unexpected grace.

[perennialanna]

He's 57, which is probably about the right age, but he's a suffragan not a diocesan bishop - technically possible (it isn't actually necessary to be bishop at all), but unlikely.