Iain Provan taught Old Testament at Regents College Vancouver for 25 years, and I first met him at a conference in Canada many years ago. (We went under the Niagara Falls together!) Iain has written a fascinating book, Cuckoos in Our Nest: Truth and Lies about Being Human. I had the chance to ask him about it.
Ian Paul: You open by talking about the times of crisis that have faced the Christian church in the past—relating to issues around the person of Christ, the nature of salvation, and authority of Scripture, and so on. We are now facing a crisis of understanding what is means to be human. What has led you to believe that we are in such a crisis? Why is the question of what it means to be human so important?
Iain Provan: There are significant disagreements on this question in our post-Christian culture at large, in terms both of what a human being is and how we might gain reliable knowledge about this matter. Are we essentially minds unfortunately currently trapped in physical bodies, for example, as in the transhumanist vision? Does our biological sex have anything fundamentally to do with our human identity? Do we find the answer to the human question by consulting Nature at large, or our own intuitions and desires? Or do we simply make naked choices about how to construct reality?
The Church has never been immune to the cultural currents swirling around it and has often become seriously compromised in its witness because of an unwillingness or inability to stand firm on the foundation of biblical truth. The current moment is no different. The Church is in many ways already compromised by lies about what it means to be human – a question that lies at the very heart of the Gospel.
Ian Paul: You begin by exploring issues around how we know things, and in particular the role of science in our knowledge of the world, a question to which you return several times. Why is this question of knowledge so important? How does Christian thinking both welcome and set limits to the place of science in our thinking?
Iain Provan: If we wish to know reliably the answer to any question, we need to decide how best to approach that question – what will our chosen sources of information be on this or that aspect of it, and why? Science offers us answers to many questions, including some concerning our humanness – but science is limited to its own “domain.” This is the world of what Aristotle called “physics.” Science aims to explain the properties of the physical world by means of empirically testable theories.
It is set up, then, to discover only certain kinds of truth about reality, using methods appropriate to its goals. But many of the important questions about our existence, having to do with things like purpose, value, vocation, and destiny, can only be answered in the realm of what Aristotle called “metaphysics.” Our primary authoritative source here, as Christians, is Jesus Christ.
Ian Paul: The central idea of the book—which actually unfolds gradually—is that of a cuckoo in the nest. What does this idea mean, and why does it illustrate the situation we are in? How does it help our thinking?
Iain Provan: The European cuckoo does not raise its own young, but instead places its egg in another bird’s nest. The host bird then raises the cuckoo chick believing that it is one of its own. Unfortunately the cuckoo is an assassin. It systematically destroys the other eggs or chicks, taking over the nest and filling it by growing to two or three times the size of the adoptive parents.
Unbiblical anthropological ideas are like cuckoo chicks in the Christian nest – smuggled into it by birds whose natural habitat is elsewhere. If they are not removed, they can grow to such a size that they take over the entire habitat, destroying the host community.
Ian Paul: In considering the question of what it means to be human (anthropology), you draw extensively on the creation narratives. Why are these foundational—and where do we see them shaping later parts of the biblical story?
Iain Provan: Each human being inhabits a “story,” whether consciously or not—a narrative the makes sense of who that person is. The beginning of each narrative (as in fictional literature) is crucially important for what follows. This is true of the Bible as well: the creation narrative provide the foundation for everything that follows, identifying all humans as image-bearers of God, describing our vocation as rulers and priests, explaining our fallenness, and describing our destiny.
All these ideas are intrinsic to the biblical story as it unfolds, describing the restoration of our broken image as our fallenness is overcome, and our eventual reign as kings and priests in the new creation.
Ian Paul: Throughout the book, you seem to move in quite different directions—at one moment considering the implications of biblical anthropology for the life of the disciple in community, the life of the church, but the next moment considering issues well beyond the life of the church in work, art, and wider culture. What is the connection between the two? How does shaping of the first affect our engagement with the second?
Iain Provan: If the biblical idea of humanness is true, then that truth affects everything, and we need to consider how it does so – in the Church and in the world; in science and in art; in work and in play; and so on. We are called to be integrated beings loving and worshipping the Triune God with our entire being. My book tries to outline something of what that looks like.
Ian Paul: How does getting our anthropology right shape our engagement with the current debates in the church about sexuality and marriage? Do we really have a better story to tell to wider culture? Can this be done with credibility?
Iain Provan: One aspect of the question, “What a human being?,” is: “What is sex for?” Where does it fit into the Story? And the biblical answer to that question is: “Sex is for a lifelong marriage between one man and one women, with the primary (but not sole) purpose of fulfilling the human vocation to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’” How credible one finds this proposition will depend on many factors, not least how dysfunctional one finds the world to be on sexual matters when it is not governed by biblical faith.
It is interesting and encouraging in this respect to find considerable evidence at present that GenZ folks appear to be much less enamoured of so-called “sexual freedom” than many of their predecessors.
Ian Paul: You portray the implications of getting our anthropology right—or misunderstanding it—very widely. It seems obvious that it will have an impact on questions of sex and marriage. But why does it also affect issues about justice, culture, and the environment?
Iain Provan: The “big story” of life that we inhabit inevitably affects every individual aspect of life. A Marxist will inevitably see “justice” in terms of class conflict, for example, rather than in terms of doing right by individuals. A gnostically-inclined “Christian” will see material culture only as something to be escaped from – not something to be redeemed. A Romantic will not understand care for the environment as “Creation care,” and may well view humans as the main problem to be overcome rather than the dominion-wielding heart of the solution. Every idea about what a human being is – true or false – has a street value when it comes to how we behave and what we strive for.
Ian Paul: How can people use the material in this book most fruitfully in the local church?
Iain Provan: The chapters are short (four pages), and people can read the book individually as the equivalent of Bible-study notes. They can also use it for Bible-study groups, and for broader educational initiatives in church. For all of these, you can also go to my website and find study-guide questions to help you.
Iain Provan taught biblical studies for 35 years in the UK and Canada before retiring in 2022. He now runs The Cuckoos Consultancy, which aims to help Christian individuals, churches, and other organizations reflect on a biblical and Christian theology of humanness.
Yes indeed. The church can survive any amount of attack from the outside – the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church – but attacks from within are far more subtle and difficult to deal with, and have done more damage. It is as if Satan realised that his first murderous attacks on the church weren’t working and moved instead to a more subtle weapon (often based on his first, temptation). The Screwtape Letters come to mind.
It certainly sounds like a book for our present times. Starting with the creation narrative as the foundation on which the rest of the Bible’s account and teaching follows is exactly right. In biblical times, and even today in parts of the world, most people would have lived with a much greater closeness to the outdoors and the reality of the created world. Many of its lessons would have been instinctive to the culture; the creative hand of God was constantly observable for all to see. Today most of us are sadly separated from much of that unless we very regularly make the effort to get out there and be a part of it.
Sadly for many, the created world is now seen in terms of being a threat – an idea which is being ruthlessly promoted by powerful interests in their plans to restrict the individual freedoms of the great mass of people who will be confined largely to city life over which those interests will exert strict control. Such an agenda is fundamentally atheistic, scientifically abusive, and dehumanising. It’s hardly surprising that it has no problem with allying itself with ideological pressures which aim to destroy the natural order (God’s intention) of family life and identity within inherited geographical locations where people can flourish freely but securely. Amongst Christians it should hardly need saying that for such a way of living to be successful as God envisaged, it is as necessary to respect the boundaries to lifestyle he set as to enjoy the freedoms he granted.
So it’s particularly concerning to be living at a time when Christians are absorbing the cultural and political propaganda which promotes those destructive ideas and placing them alongside or even instead of a truly God centred gospel. Cuckoo chicks don’t know they are cuckoos: they have no moral responsibility to question the unfortunate behaviour which comes naturally to them. But we Christians have been given the information and the ability to exercise discernment and wisdom in what we understand, say, and do; we cannot escape our moral responsibility in general and our Christian calling in particular to do so.
The cuckoo of covetness is satan’s bird of counterfeit paradise.
In his letter to the Romans, St Paul describes Gentiles who do not have the law yet who “do by nature what the law requires,” saying that they prove that “what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them” before God. (Rom. 2:14-16)
As God is not arbitrary and His revelation about human anthropology and morality can be explained by reasoning and not just by citing Scripture.
Catholic moral theology holds that human actions always have some end or purpose: something that the action is for, some goal that the action is “ordered toward” obtaining. Eating food is naturally ordered to health, whether or not that purpose is consciously intended by the person. In other cases, the purpose of an action is superadded by the human will (e.g. when “comfort food” is desired primarily because it gives pleasure or satisfaction, without any explicit concern for nutritional value. And sometimes the human purpose driving an action is radically incompatible with the natural purpose, e.g. when poison is consumed for the sake of suicide, which is absolutely incompatible with health. In these cases the action is “disordered”, because the natural purpose of the action has been fundamentally impeded.
In a very similar way, Natural law theory holds that every desire has an end; something that the desire is “ordered toward” obtaining. If you desire to commit an action, your desire is ordered toward some. If we speak of your desire as being “disordered”, this means your desire is ordered toward something unintended by God. Therefore: if you desire to commit such an action your desire is “disordered”; and if you desire to commit an action that is intrinsically against God’s law, then your desire is “intrinsically disordered.”
Catholic teaching says: “Lust is disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure. Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes.”(CCC 2351) A disordered lustful desire is directed toward an inordinate end. A morally disordered lustful action is motivated by seeking sexual pleasure in ways that are isolated from (and therefore not compatible with) its natural, God intended purpose. The desire for sexual pleasure (between a man and woman) is not “intrinsically disordered” because within marriage it can be in accord with the procreative and unitive purposes intended by God.
Based on this reasoning, the Church has identified an array of sins that are “objectively and intrinsically disordered:”. These include: lying and calumny (CCC 1753); fornication (CCC 1755); blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery (CCC 1756); masturbation (CCC 2352); rape (CCC 2356); homosexual acts (CCC 2357); and artificial contraception (CCC 2370). The language of disorder is even extended to describe the “spirit of domination, infidelity, jealousy, and conflicts that can escalate into hatred and separation” between a husband and wife in marriage (CCC 1606-1607).
The Church affirms that: “the deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose” (CCC 2352). This is the very same core moral principle that condemns masturbation as an “intrinsically and gravely disordered action” on the one hand, and equally labels homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered” on the other: because sexual pleasure is always “morally disordered when [it is] isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes”(CCC 2351). Homosexual actions are “deprived of their essential and indispensable finality” – i.e. these actions are inherently deprived of their natural end, the purpose that sexual activity is ordered toward by nature and God. This applies to a spectrum of sexual acts and is not uniquely applied to homosexual sexual acts.
Church teaching on homosexuality follows a very simple logic: since homosexual actions are an objective and intrinsic moral evil, the desire to engage in those actions is intrinsically (morally) disordered. And for the very same reason, it is evident that any behavioural tendency to engage in those actions is a moral disorder within the person: a bad habit (vice) that must be broken through cultivating the contrary habit (virtue) of chastity, whereby man gains freedom from slavery to his passions (CCC 2337-2339).
Sinful actions are disordered. The behavioural tendency to engage in those sinful actions is disordered. The desire or temptation to engage in those sinful actions is disordered. This logic applies to every sin. We are speaking of “disorders” in the moral sense. Experiencing temptation is not a sin. “Being homosexual” is not a sin; it is no more disordered than an internal tendency to experience any other temptation. However, if we define “being homosexual” as engaging in homosexual actions, then there is an intrinsic link with sinful actions.
Rather than throw Scriptural passages at “sinners”, HJ finds it more helpful to use this approach.
HJ should try it out on the Pope!
The Pope unilaterally changed Catholic doctrine on the death penalty. Catholicism has always maintained that the death penalty is not intrinsically wrong, but Francis personally overruled this teaching and changed the Catechism to state that there are NO circumstances in which the death penalty is licit. This is good news for Hamas
Catholic theologians are widely agreed that Francis has erred.
So is St Paul (Romans 13:4), and capital punishment for murder is a command to all mankind after the Flood (Genesis 9:6), not just part of the Law of Moses.
so it’s just unfortunate that some of those who have been killed by the state were innocent of the crime they were executed for?
I am talking only about murder. If some were executed for murder they didn’t commit then yes, it is unfortunate. Take it up with God. But remember: there is no such thing as a perfect law. Law exists only because of the Fall.
Approach to what, though? If you are aiming to convert someone who lives a homosexual lifestyle then you preach to them exactly as to anybody else: God has standards of perfection and any sin would debar you from heaven – which it would wreck – so you need forgiveness of various sins of yours if you are to avoid the alternative to heaven, which is hell. The good news is that you can be forgiven through Jesus Christ.
Answer any questions about homosexual acts according to what the Bible says. But the point is that everybody sins every day in multiple ways.
@ Anton
An approach to explaining human morality as revealed by God through reason as well as Scripture.
“Answer any questions about homosexual acts according to what the Bible says.”
If only we could agree what the Bible says!
We live in a “post-enlightenment” era, with secularism and semi-paganism being predominant. So citing biblical passages isn’t going to be fruitful if the person has no background in the Christian faith. Add to this the “critical method” and “scripture alone” for those in Christian communities, and you end up with biblical ping-pong.
God isn’t an arbitrary legalist in His moral prescriptions for our earthly conduct and happiness.
What I am saying is that in the context of evangelism of homosexuals, you should be willing to answer honestly questions such as “What do Christians believe about homosexual acts?” according to your understanding of scripture, but you should simply preach the need for divine forgiveness which every person needs for many things they have done wrong. I don’t think we are disagreeing, but you should clarify whether the conversations you refer to are intended to be evangelistic or social, and who exactly they are with.
@ Anton
“God has standards of perfection and any sin would debar you from heaven … “
Well, the sin that “leads to death” does – but that’s another debate for another time!
We are not “perfect” in the first moment of our conversion. When we receive a grace of conversion, we break definitively from evil and then gradually advance in holiness. We may even fall back into grave sin, but, helped by grace, we repent and start anew.
We live in a utilitarian age of moral “proportionalism” and “consequentialism” that puts barriers in the way of responding to grace. There are numerous examples today – euthanasia, abortion, contraception, homosexual ‘marriage; no-fault divorce and ‘remarriage’; sex workers; pornography; oppression of the poor; exploitation of workers – all defended/proposed because of some anticipated “good” that might come.
So Christian belief has to be explained without condemnation of those who are discouraged or confused and caught up in sinful lifestyles. It has a general application, but HJ has found the approach helpful in discussion at “Courage” meetings for those wanting to break free of sin but trapped in a world of distorted thinking, guilt, shame and discouragement.
It depends who you are talking to. Some people respond well to “What you are doing is wrong, stop it and repent”. If you are preaching to a crowd then it is the only approach. Others respond well to your approach in small groups or 1:1. But all have to be told at some point to stop sinning and repent in order to become Christian.
@ Anton
“But all have to be told at some point to stop sinning and repent in order to become Christian.”
That sounds almost semi-Pelagian. A positive response to the ordinary experience of the grace of conversion doesn’t come from being told but from a deep realisation that change is required – then it needs building on.
Christianity takes the human person as he is: broken by sin and in need of redemption. Christ welcomes us all by calling us to healing. This calls for conversion. And conversion involves repentance. The word used in the New Testament for “conversion” and “repentance” is metanoiete, literally “to change one’s mind,” “to change one’s way of thinking.” This is a rejection of sin and a turning to Christ. And evangelisation is about helping this process.
HJ prefers small groups or one-on-one discussions. Opening up pathway to conversion and repentance is necessary for those who living in habitual sin such as homosexual relationships. It’s about being guided by the Holy Spirit to help them to see that their relationship is not God’s plan. The rest is with God, not man, and the individuals response.
It’s one reason why HJ doesn’t look favourably on “hell fire and brimstone” street preachers.
If you look at evangelism in the New Testament you see the Holy Spirit using both carrot and stick. But you condemn half of the gospel when you describe as ‘almost semi-Pelagian’ the sentence “all have to be told at some point to stop sinning and repent in order to become Christian.”
In short, it is the covetness of disordered desires- misaligned in opposition to God- to replace a desire for God Himself.
HJ should try out his methodology on the Pope! Would citing of scripture to the Pope, be of little effect, as scripture would be in subjugation to Rome, of secondary import, and not primary.
BTW, I would not seek to resile against the substance of all you have written in your comment.
There is a depth, that is rare in the contemporary Christian and Protestant church, even as it is grounded, sourced, in scripture.
@ Geoff
Agree or disagree with Pope Francis’ pastoral approach. he is seeking out the “lost sheep” by acknowledging modern culture and post-Christian ways of living and thinking have infected people and made evangelisation complicated.
There are both merits and dangers in his approach.
Effective evangelism is never complicated, but it might be difficult. The aim is to get people to identify with the narrative that is scripture, and that is as true in our postmodern relativist age as it ever was. Testimonies are helpful, as they are stories that can’t be argued with.
@ Anton
“The aim (of evangelism) is to get people to identify with the narrative that is scripture.”
Indeed – and one way is to approach this through is an exegesis of Genesis that incorporated natural law reasoning as opposed to simply quoting the ‘go to’ texts in Scripture against all immoral acts.
For example, there are seven standard texts cited to condemn homosexuality: Noah and Ham (Genesis 9:20–27), Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1–11), Levitical laws (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13), and vice lists (1 Corinthians 6:9–10; 1 Timothy 1:10), and Paul’s letter to the Romans (Romans 1:26–27).
Modernist theologians seeking to change Christian beliefs contend these do not refer to homosexual relationships between two free, adult, and loving individuals. They argue, they describe rape or attempted rape (Genesis 9:20–27, 19:1–11), cultic prostitution (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13), male prostitution and pederasty (1 Corinthians 6:9–10; 1 Timothy 1:10), and the Isis cult in Rome (Romans 1:26–27). They argue these cultural backdrops informed the writings. Add “scripture alone” and the tacit freedom this gives to individuals, “moved by the Spirit” to interpret Scripture, absent an authoritative teaching authority, and we’re in a cul-de-sac of “not so good disagreement”.
Natural law offers a way forward that links Scripture with reason and with Church tradition.
Jack, I agree that there is no point in quoting Bible verses as if they settle an argument to people who are not believers. But evangelism is not about intellectual argument. At some point you are going to have to say that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. You have no other source for that claim than the Bible, and you can’t derive it from Natural Law.
@ Anton
Of course and HJ wouldn’t claim otherwise. But even those Christians who accept the resurrection as fact don’t agree on the meaning of major Scriptural texts. This approach to understanding morality applies also to those who believe in Christ too but misunderstand, misrepresent or reinterpret His teachings – as represented in the examples HJ has already given. Christianity is also about the mind and will, as well as faith, and necessarily involves intellectual study and debate.
Jack, I’m not interested in having discussions about discussions; to those who talk about differing interpretations of scripture I respond “Alright then, let’s actually look at the scriptures and discuss them.”
You have to draw a line and say that some differences of opinion are great enough to distinguish Christians from non-Christians – meaning the saved from the unsaved – and that is what scripture leaves to the church and sometimes the individual.
@ Anton
“Alright then, let’s actually look at the scriptures and discuss them.”
But Scripture is never read ‘blind’ without some tradition or authority behind its understanding. Then add the human agenda of self justification. So disagreements arise, the Body of Christ fragments into competing camps. This scandalises the faith and weakens the effectiveness of evangelism.
HJ
1.Try John 3:16-18 and John 17:3. For question of condemnation and eternal life.
2. Or as JI Packer formerly of Regents College succinctly put it in the title of his book: Knowing God and that is the telelogical goal of being a Christian and union in Him and fellowship with Him; of scripture, Biblical study, scholarship, Christian theology.
3. It is not certain that you have commented on the interview other than to immediately trigger a Roman response.
4. It is a wonder of mine what responses CoE, Anglo-Catholics will make to the Catholic teaching you have set out. It is doubted that there would be much, if any, substantive support.
@ Geoff
There’s actually a wealth of Protestant literature on the benefits of reclaiming Natural Law in the field of moral ethics.
Here’s one example:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/1992/01/protestants-and-natural-law
There are many more.
HJ,
I agree that there is substantial Protestant matural law theology , to which I also subscribe, but it is not the only one that addresses the issue. Nor does it have much to say about salvation, justification, sanctification, heaven, hell, sin and righteousness,, eternity, nor indeed the doctrine of humanity, it seems to me.
Persuasive evangelism, which may include the natural law argument (which has been rejected, almost out of hand on this site by revisionist activist proponents of ssm/ssb) has a place, but as much as I can see, so far, it has not carried much weight in a biblical theological wasteland which
a) rejects scripture as unalterable with God as it’s author
b) ultimately denies the Triune God of Christianity, in the historical incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension and return of God the Son…
And more…rejects the Sovereignty of God, including common -grace- providence over all of life, death and eternity and destiny, as humanity asserts and assumes being masters of its own destiny and adopts, deigns, a moral and ethical (educated to imbecility – Malcolm Muggeridge) and human omniscient superiority over our peerless thrice Holy and Almighty God.
Me: Alright then, let’s actually look at the scriptures and discuss them.
You: But Scripture is never read ‘blind’ without some tradition or authority behind its understanding. Then add the human agenda of self justification. So disagreements arise…
Fine. Pick a scripture and let’s discuss it publicly. I’m not going to waste time on discussions about discussions, as I said.
@ Anton
HJ doesn’t want the discussion – too long – but here are just some examples where Christians differ – Protestants (amongst themselves) and Catholics – over their readings of Scripture:
– monergism v synergism;
– the atonement of Christ – penal substitution v self sacrificial love;
– total depravity or wounded man;
– imputed or infused righteousness;
– universalism, annihilationism or separation from God of some/many;
– the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist;
– ecclesiology;
– prima scriptura v sola scriptura v scripture and Tradition;
There are other differences. The main groups being: Baptist and Anabaptist; Calvinists/Reformed, Anglicans; Methodists; Adventists; Pentecostalists; Quakers; Catholics and Eastern Orthodox; and various sub-sets and off-shoots from these.
Oh, and not forgetting:
– how to understand the Scriptural teaching on predestination.
Jack, to put it gently because we go back a long way, it is a jolly poor show when you give a list of topics about which Christians disagree over what the Bible says but then refuse to discuss the scriptures of even a single one with me!
@ Anton
Because they all require reference to numerous scriptural texts and exegesis, as you well know.
Happy Jack
Usually gay/homosexual means someone with exclusive attraction to the same sex.
You’ll see some medical advice referring to MSM (men who sleep with men). They don’t say homosexual because that’s inaccurate. Many male homosexuals don’t have sex with men. Many heterosexual and bisexual men have sex with men
Many heterosexual and bisexual men have sex with men
Supposing that by heterosexual you don’t mean bisexual – a distinction which your words imply – this is a matter of definition, is it not; and one that you are not on the correct side of?
*sighs* by heterosexual I mean men who are exclusively attracted to women, but who have sex with men for other reasons. Its not talked about much, but I understand its still common for soldiers to do this to their enemies as a form of dominance. Others are curious or exploring or whatever.
Since 80-90% of men are heterosexual I’d argue that the most common form of male male sex involves heterosexuals
That is merely prurient gossip in the absence of stats and evidence.
Anton
I think you’ll find plenty of evidence in male prisons.
Anton
No it’s reality.
‘its still common for soldiers to do this to their enemies as a form of dominance.’
That is not ‘having sex’
That is Male Rape.
Very different.
Penelope: Yes, prisons and, historically, seamen. That is due to heterosexuals regrettably unable to control their lust in the absence of their wives. I was limiting – implicitly, I admit – the scenario to heterosexuals having a free choice of men or women.
Anton
Even with the free choice plenty of heterosexual men have gay sex
Evidence, Peter, not assertions, if you please.
Anton
To me it’s blindingly obvious, but here’s a survey suggesting that 2.3 % of straight men have sex with other men, which must be a higher number than the number of gay men having sex with other men.
I find it increasingly frustrating that conservative Christians set themselves up as moral teachers on homosexuality and “know” so much, but know so little
Peter, you have completely misread the article.
It doesn’t say that ‘2.3% of straight men have sex with other men’. It says (and I quote): ‘Results showed that the number of straight men who have had sex with another man had risen significantly – with 2.3 percent of men engaging in same-sex sexual activity identifying as heterosexual.’
So 2.3% of men having sex with men identifying as heterosexual. Given that about 1.8% of the population are gay, that is 2.3% of around 1.8%, which is 0.04% of the population, or approximately 4 in every 100,000 men. In the UK, amongst the sexually active, that works out at about 6,000 men in total.
Is that really a ‘surprisingly large number’??
(In today’s culture, I suspect you could find 6,000 men doing just about anything you could imagine…)
Peter,
Where’s the survey?
You write: “I find it increasingly frustrating that conservative Christians set themselves up as moral teachers on homosexuality”.
We are merely trying to keep the church to the Bible, whereas you are trying to change an unbroken 2000-year-old tradition of exegesis.
Anton
https://www.thepinknews.com/2016/01/08/a-surprising-number-of-straight-men-admit-to-having-gay-sex/
Anton
Even if you confined yourself to talking about scripture, how can you understand what was meant in thousands of years ago if you know nothing about the subject today?
It really matters to understand that gay men are not the only people having male male sex
Peter,
Someone who has sex with both men and women is called a bisexual. That is the meaning of the word. They can identify as a tree if they wish. Do you believe this means they are a tree?
Wrong Anton. That’s not the meaning.
AJB: You don’t get to decide the dictionary unilaterally. If anything genuinely belongs to The People, it is language usage.
Physician heal thyself!
The dictionaries (Oxford, Cambridge, Collins, Merriam Webster) all agree it’s about sexual attraction not behaviour.
Dictionaries have been run by the woke for some time. I trust the talk in my local pub more on this subject.
Ian
Heterosexual means straight.
2.3% of men who self identify as straight also said they have same sex sex
I agree that self identification isn’t a good way of measuring orientation, but that’s a different argument…indeed you get to 1.8% via self identification
Peter, I don’t understand why you are finding the article you cited hard to read. It says ‘2.3 percent of men engaging in same-sex sexual activity identify as heterosexual.’. That is *not* saying ‘2.3% of heterosexual men had same-sex sex.’
Can you see the difference? The second (your claims) means 2.3% of roughly 30 million. The first (in the article) means 2.3% of about 600,000.
Anton
Bisexual is generally used to mean people who are attracted to both sexes. That’s not what I am talking about. I’m talking about men who are exclusively attracted to women, but sometimes have sex with men.
I’m genuinely shocked that suggesting such people exist and speculating they may even outnumber gay men should be so controversial!
Is that meant to be a serious response? You started off declaring that we couldn’t overrule the dictionary unilaterally, then it was pointed out to you that the dictionary disagreed with you you instantly switch sides and declare unknown inebriates to be the true source of authority.
Adam, it is worth remembering that dictionaries don’t create meaning. They just gather perceived usage, and that process is open to bias. There can be a circularity in the process.
Ian
You are making the false assumption that only 600,000 British men have had same sex sex.
You are getting to this number by assuming that all the men having same sex sex have self identified as gay, which is the exact opposite of the point of the article.
I did indeed misread initially, but not in the way you claim. It’s 2.3% of MSM, not 2.3% of straight men or 2.3% of gay men.
This is immaterial to the point which was blindingly obvious to me – that a lot of straight men are having or have had same sex sex. It’s not something that only gay men do. You yourself have claimed before to have gay friends who only have sex with women so you should understand the difference between sexual partners and orientation
‘You are making the false assumption that only 600,000 British men have had same sex sex.
You are getting to this number by assuming that all the men having same sex sex have self identified as gay, which is the exact opposite of the point of the article.’
The article says that the margin of error here is 2.3%. I have allowed for that.
Ian
In the English language meaning is defined by usage.
You can use whatever meaning you want for words, but if you are not using them in the standard meaning then prepare not to be understood.
‘In the English language meaning is defined by usage.’ Not so.
Usage plays a role, so that words shift over time. But if usage defined meaning, you could never claim that people made mistake in writing or speaking.
If someone says ‘I imply’ when they mean ‘I infer’, that does not change the meaning of ‘imply’. If people start calling dogs ‘cats’, that on its own does not change the meaning.
Meaning of words is defined corporately, not by individual usage. If not, we would never be able to communicate with one another.
All the corruption we see in the earth
Has its root in the desires of the heart
“You shall be as gods…” is that age old lie
Told to our parents on the day they died
Made in the image of God as they were
Satan deceived them into wanting more
And from that moment the corruption spread
Now our whole race is spiritually dead.
But that is not the end of the story
The Son of God laid aside his glory
He came down from heaven in our nature
To restore what’s lost to helpless creatures
That we may escape all the corruption
Which would only end in our destruction
And here’s that mystery of atonement:
At-one with Him is now the enjoyment
Of all those whom He shall call to know Him
And His divine nature to partake in.
Very great, precious promises indeed
Are given to those who this gospel heed
The first: that Eve’s seed would bruise Satan’s head,
The last: that there is now life for the dead
This work of redemption, “it is finished”
As He cried from the cross, then hung His head
For all those who will believe: righteousness,
Immortality, hope, glory, and yes
All things for life and godliness He gives
To all who will now come to Him to live
He will sustain them hour by hour,
From first to last, it is by His power.
Based on 2 Peter 1:3,4
Thanks Sam.
You’re welcome, Geoff
‘It’s one reason why HJ doesn’t look favourably on “hell fire and brimstone” street preachers.’
You’d not have looked favourably on Jesus then. Or his cousin John. Or any of the apostles. Or the men and women around them.
Men and women who stand in the streets preaching and ministering to the lost need Christians to support and back them up.
It is scary, hard and lonely ministry.
And that’s without other people who claim to follow Christ disapproving of them!
Always encourage them! Street work is Very hard!
@ Jeannie
As HJ recalls, Jesus met people where they were in their sin. He directed His warnings primarily to religious leaders who put burdens on others. And St Paul’s letters were written to churches, to other Christians. There are more effective ways of ministering and sharing the Gospel.
You think shouting “hell fire and brimstone” at people unfamiliar with the “Good News” is effective? Is it more likely to prepare the soil or harden it?
HJ,
Your last paragraph, particularly the last sentence, is a travesty.
How do you know or assume that: will it harden, soften, lead to fear of the Lord, to repentance?
And what if only one turns in repentance ? There will be much rejoicing in heaven. And just who is Lord of the harvest and of the soils, in His Sovereignty?
Who hardened Pharaoh’s heart, how and why?
God IS the Gospel. It is the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Where is that demonstrated but in the voluntary substitutional atonement , in our place, on the cross of Christ, God the Son, died once for all and raised of our justification, for the Joy that was set before Him to redeem a people for himself, his inheritance, given by the Father. A people who have indeed died and been raised in Him, with Him.
Even for one lost sheep.
@ JA
Well now, that isn’t a “hell fire and brimstone” presentation of the Gospel, is it? And those unfamiliar with Scripture would struggle to make sense of it. It’s precisely this rattling off Scriptural themes on the street, regardless of the audience, that HJ doubts is effective.
And what if the “hell fire and brimstone” variety preacher repels rather than attracts? The word fear in the expression “fear of the Lord” means awe or profound respect. It does not mean literal fear of God’s power but an awe and respect for the absolute majesty of God. We should “fear” offending God not because of his just punishment but because he is all good and deserving of our love. it is thus very different from worldly fears of suffering or punishment.
It’s the fierce, fundamentalist: “Repent the Day of the Lord is at hand” style, the haranguing of passers-by with a message of doom, gloom, hellfire and damnation, that HJ objects to.
A public witness for Christ should be charitable, open to the other person. Listen, don’t be argumentative or combative. Certainly defend and explain the truths of the faith but do so in a spirit of sincerity and compassion. Relate to souls on the streets with the Gospel message of mercy. A non-confrontational method of evangelisation is, in HJ’s opinion, going to be more effective and consistent with his understanding of personal faith – a journey to God, not an an instant conversion.
Why not set up a stall in a suitable location with signs, pamphlets and religious icons? Then wait for people to approach you. Ask them questions; answer theirs. If the time is right in their lives, the Holy Spirit will surely draw people to you.
That was meant for Geoff!
HJ’s personal objection and opinion and taste is of no consquence in questions of salvation, conversion.
(Are you really saying Jesus was none confrontational? Did he not confront you. It seems as though he did , from a comment you made in on an earlier blog post of Ian’s. He did me, over time and in various ways.)
What is heard may be the terminus of whatever unknown *journey* a person may be on, (or at some later time and place) convicted by the Holy Spirit of sin and need of Jesus.
Sure, fear of the Lord is awe but that does not exclude judgement and hell, unless HJ is a universalist.
God saves us from God, (and for God). That is the good news terminus of the biblical teleological, theological*journey*.
My, how I dislike that modern terminology of life being a journey, though it does provide an opening for the evangel.
“To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”. Really??? False hope v true hope. And destination unkown, (Bob Dylan) but nevertheless made known real.
An older sister in Christ now with him, said to her Anglican minister son, that she’d been to many funerals and they mostly fell into one of two categories; holding out 1. False hope or 2. No hope. Rarely heard and celebrated was true Christian concrete hope of future reality of
bodily resurrectionn to eternity with our Triune God.
What you describe is not the method of street evangelism, I’ve engaged in, too many years ago now, as part of a team of a well respected Anglican organisation, Through Faith Missions, but I’d not oppose it by seeking to impose my personal opinions and sensitivities, restrictions, on how and through whom God works to convict of sin and save.
Indeed, Johnathan Edwards’ Sinners in the hands of an Angry God, bore much conversion fruit, described as the catalyst of the First Great Awakening.
If I have any cause for caution it would be that this would be the commencement of discipleship. But again that could be in the foreseeability of God and His providential arrangements.
The old adage, Carpenter seeks Joiners, expresses the point.
Jack, one reason that believers should fear God – in the genuine sense of the word Fear, not the slidey sense you use – is that we can lose our salvation and end up in hell. One thing which you and I agree on is that “Once Saved, Alway Saved” is untrue.
And what if the “hell fire and brimstone” variety preacher repels rather than attracts?
Public preaching needs to be done by persons who are not manifestly weird; we all know that ‘manic street preachers’ strikes a chord. But not all are like that and if they repel some, then let it be so. God told some prophets explicitly to preach so as to polarise people for or against Him. They did what God said and the response was not their business.
‘It’s the fierce, fundamentalist: “Repent the Day of the Lord is at hand” style, the haranguing of passers-by with a message of doom, gloom, hellfire and damnation, that HJ objects to.’
If the internet is the modern marketplace then you are objecting to what I, for one, do every single day. Announcing online that Judgement Day approaches and that Jesus will judge all for their deeds is a daily refrain of mine. I write of Hell and eternal punishment every day or so. I call on all to repent of their sins and put their trust in Christ to be saved. Every single day. I warn people they are dancing on a cliff edge and that they are in danger. I call for them to step away from the edge. I make clear to fence-sitters that Satan owns the fence. I talk of Satan and the demonic realm. I write about good and evil.
I’m a voice crying in the wilderness, declaring the way of The Lord.
I explain the good news of the gospel throughout the world, online, just as Jesus commands me to and vary the delivery and manner as required, as The Holy Spirit leads me to.
But you want to tell others that you know a better method. They are wrong and you are right. Well some of us use a variety of evangelistic vehicles. We aren’t daft.
The important thing is that a person is led by God and if the fruit is good then why is so very hard for other people who claim to be Christians to support and encourage them?
I can honestly say that I’ve been caused more hurt and rejection and pain by Christians over this than unbelievers (apart from family persecution for my faith).
I do feel strongly about this.
It isn’t ok to look down your nose as a street preacher giving it some welly in the market square. For goodness sake put your thumb up and shout ‘God bless you, brother/ sister’ Say ‘well done’ as you pass them. Offer to get them a coffee take-out to warm them up.
or else you are being no friend to the obedient child of God doing what God commands him to do.
Sometimes people need to hear that Judgement is near. The the Holy Spirit convicts them and they have an encounter with Jesus later. Other people need to hear how much God loves them- that he sent Jesus. Others that Jesus is the Way, The Truth and the Life and another that No-one even sees the Kingdom of God unless he is spiritually reborn.
The harvest is ready and the workers are few. So few.
Don’t despise the brother who God entrusted with a task in a different way to you.
Just because you wouldn’t see yourself working in a particular way doesn’t mean they are doing it wrong.
I wouldn’t have ever seen myself as the extreme Christian holy, scary, female John the baptist (non-locust eating vegan) weirdo I’ve become, rejected and persecuted by everyone I loved.
It’s all hard enough without other Christians joining in.
Be on his side!
Support and encourage him.
Please
It won’t kill you!
Jeannie,
I *have* encouraged some good street preaching when the guy took a break. Nowhere have I said that I am against all street preaching. I am convinced merely that it is not the right ministry for some who do it. I believe that this is a good way to do public evangelism today:
https://church14-26.org/starting-a-church-14-26/
Jeannie – yes – sometimes a street ministry can be the way to go. I remember, back in 2000, seeing an elderly lady and her husband doing this in Sergels Torg, Stockholm. I think her husband was almost blind and it was his job to play the accordion. Sometime later, her husband died – and she kept going anyway. A few years after that, she died – and there was a nice, respectful piece about the couple in Svenska Dagbladet – of all places – indicating that they had actually been respected as part of the fabric. I’m not sure what good their ministry did, but it certainly didn’t do any harm.
Jack, how do you reconcile your comments about fear with what 1 John 4:18 says about it?
Jeannie
Are you getting rejected because you are a Christian or because of the way you treat other people?
This time you beat me to it!
‘Public preaching needs to be done by persons who are not manifestly weird;’
History changing idea, that!
“Sit down John! Stop baptising people and proclaiming that your cousin is on his way!
Have another locust, mate”
John the Baptist was speaking to a nation inculcated in Judaism and eagerly awaiting the arrival of their Messiah. His behaviour and style of preaching would not be considered “weird” or unusual to his audience.
Peter’s speech at Pentecost was teaching a Jewish audience familiar with and versed in Old Testament history and prophecies. He was enlightening them about its applicability to Jesus Christ.
Do these forms of evangelism adequately address the wide range of intellectual and personal difficulties people have today with the Christian faith?
“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders (i.e., non-Christians); make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”</i (Colossians 4:5-6)
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” (Ephesians 4:29)
Jeannie,
There are anointed street preachers without question, but there are also a distressing number who are not embedded in a church (or move from congregation to congregation after falling out with the leaders) and whose personality would repel most people well before they reach the punchline. I would that it were not so. But in my observation it is.
And yet it is they who obey Jesus’ command to go and preach the good news of the gospel to the lost and pray for them and minister to them. They tend to get rejected by churches who completely fail to tell others the good news of salvation. I was thrown out and banned from a C of E coffee shop for quietly telling an old unsaved man about Jesus. Apparently their policy was that people are supposed to see how holy and wonderful the parishioners are without Jesus being mentioned and come to faith as a result. Hilarious. The street preachers’ personalities are off putting as well? Goodness, who knew street preachers were under such personal scrutiny from other Christians. It’s hard to stay embedded in a Church where you are so disapproved of and disliked. Where the leaders are not born again and following Christ in holiness and see you as a threat etc. I’m all for all the street preachers, good bad and indifferent! Church leaders? Not so much.
In a large city some distance from me there are street preachers who have had theological arguments with each other through megaphones in public. You want street preachers who aren’t lone wolves acting out of some inner need, who have well ordered lives, and who have personalities that make people think “I want what you’ve got”, and who talk for Jesus not rant against Charles Darwin. I know one or two who fulfil these criteria, and I wish them well. I know others who I reckon to have put off more people than they have brought into the kingdom, and I wish they would shut up.
Despite not agreeing with their ecclesiology, some aspects of their theology, and certain of their moral/ethical stances, HJ greatly approves of the Salvation Army’s origins and approach – taking the church to people vis “mission tents”, often in the roughest parts of town, drawing large crowds to hear the Gospel message. They also cared for the poor and needy. It suited the times and circumstances prevailing in the late 19th century.
“How credible one finds this proposition will depend on many factors, not least how dysfunctional one finds the world to be on sexual matters when it is not governed by biblical faith.”
Part of the cuckoo syndrome are those who try to copy and paste a 20th century western understanding of marriage back on to the ANE culture. Marriage as portrayed in the bible was nothing like marriage as we understand it. Those who read the bible in this literal way are not convincing when they try to describe others as ‘cuckoos’. It’s rather an abusive way to treat texts.
Andrww Godsal writes: “Marriage as we understand it.”,
Who is “we”, Lone Ranger?
Marriage is portrayed in the New Testament as:
a. how it actually was in the Greco-Roman (and Jewish) world; and
b. how Jesus and his apostles understood marriage to be *intended* by the Creator.
The first is descriptive, the second is prescriptive. It is important to distinguish the two senses.
Which account of the second sense to you find to be defective and why?
I don’t find it defective at all. The question is whether it precludes other ways of relating.
So, where is this rich theology of marriage described by Jesus and His apostles?
Sir, sir! You asked a question about Cuckoos!
The [usual] boys have been awake all night talking [see post times] and riding their hobby horses. All quite interesting, I am sure, but we are no wiser about cuckoos!
Could you perhaps explain what a Cuckoo is so that we can begin to look for one?
I was about to sit this one out but came across an article by the eminent [ according to Time Magazines most influential people list] Niall Ferguson and his excellent depiction pf Cuckoos which I think would enable us to consider your question to some profit as this example is but one of many endemic in the public square.
/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12681617/What-irony-deranged-defence-Hamas-campuses-West-fuelling-counter-revolution-finally-loosen-stranglehold-wokeism.html.
This may free us from navel gazing.
Alan
A cuckoo is someone who doesn’t agree with Ian
I have disagreed with Ian here about church polity and it has remained courteous. I (and clearly he) have little time for people who manifestly torture or ignore the scriptures.
The term cuckold may be bilbically appropriate to those in the CoE misappropriating scripture for their own purpose, in breach of their ordination vows they didn’t believe in the first place, who don’t believe the God of self revelation and his revealed will as author of uncorrectable scripture. And who now seek, promote and condone what may be culturaly known and celebrated as cuckold relationships.
Four questions
1. If the biblical answer to “what is sex for” is that it’s for one man and one woman for life for creating more humans (fruitful?) then why does the Bible not say this?
2. Why does the church allow infertile couples to marry?
3. If the point of humans or sex for humans is only to make more humans then what’s the point in faith or the church? Atheists make more humans very well.
4. Where does romantic love fit into all of this?
Peter, it’s all in Summae Theologiae. Look it up.
James
Surely if it truly was “The” Biblical view then it would be in the bible?!
It is!
An interesting source to point people to on a debate about cuckoos in the nest…
Aquinas cites a lot of non-Christian sources in developing his arguments.
1. If the biblical answer to “what is sex for” is that it’s for one man and one woman for life for creating more humans (fruitful?) then why does the Bible not say this?
It does.
Here-
Genesis 5:2 He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.
Here-
1 Corinthians 11:11 However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman.
Here-
Genesis 2:22 The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.
Here-
1 Corinthians 11:8 For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man;
Here-
1 Corinthians 7:33 but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife,
Here-
Ephesians 5:23 For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Saviour of the body.
Here-
Genesis 1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
*This one is important as it shows that man and Woman are made in God’s image- they together as a couple reflect God. Parody or distort that God- reflecting image and you insult God. On purpose.
Here-
1 Corinthians 7:2 But because of immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband.
Here-
Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”
Here-
1 Corinthians 7:10 But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband
Here-
Ephesians 5:33 Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.
Here-
Genesis 2:23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
Here-
Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.
Here-
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her
Here-
Romans 1:27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
Here-
Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Here-
Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion” over all creation
Here-
Genesis 22:17-18 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.
Here-
Genesis 35:11-12 I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.
Here-
Malachi 2:14 You cry out, “Why doesn’t the LORD accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the LORD witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. 15 Didn’t the LORD make you one with your wife?
Psalm 127:3 Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a reward from him. 4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. 5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
Jeanine
I get that those verses aren’t completely inconsistent with the claims made in the article, but none of it directly states the claim made.
You blame God for not making things clear enough to you through his Word and through the history of his people?
You are suggesting that God wasn’t clear?
Did God really ssssaaaay?
Is it possible that God did not make man/Adam and woman/Eve to be joined as one flesh for life, being faithful and having sex and making babies together? Is there any evidence that this was not his perfect intention as the pattern for family life?
Is there any evidence that God designed men to lie with another man as though they are a woman? Even again and again for life?
Or are there many many scriptures where he very clearly says what he thinks about that?
You are wasting your time trying to force God to change his mind about something he absolutely condemns.
Why not focus instead of this satanic ‘did god really say’ hobby and commit your life to serving him and witnessing to the lost and discipling people. Living a wholly holy blameless life?
Why try to destroy the church instead of that? Why actively make yourself an enemy of God and good?
Please repent and be saved. Life is short and we don’t know if today is our last day.
You are not God and it is not your train set. You are not Lucifer or one of his demons or servants of Satan that you would think you know better than God. Are you?
Sorry to say but you do sound like one even if you are not one. Shocking as that is. Do differently and life following God can be joyful and peaceful and productive.
Celibacy isn’t an issue when you give it to God to manage.
There is more to life than sex. Way more.
Jeanine
I’m disagreeing with you, not God. You are not God.
I don’t believe that there is a single God approved pattern for life. I don’t believe God is opposed to romance or attraction. I don’t believe God has said that marriage is only to produce more humans
When God made woman He did so as an intimate companion for man (Genesis 2:18, 2:24). Children are the normal consequence, but the act of sex is at least as much for binding a couple. That is why God arranged it that the human female be sexually receptive when non-fertile: beyond menopause, in early pregnancy, and in some of the monthly cycle. That is not the case in mammals with similar reproductive physiology.
Anton
I agree that sex is not only for procreation
Not according to St Augustine.
Something he got wrong, and not the only thing (eg his exegesis and use of Luke 14:23).
Except that the authonchthous couple don have sex and reproduce until after the Fall
Peter, I don’t know who you have been listening to, but my advice is to make your own observations of what happens in the world around you and then weigh them up against what you learn from the witness of Scripture (God’s word) and the witness of science (God’s creative technique). It’s my experience that where you see human disorder you are likely to notice attitudes and behaviour which are condemned rather than condoned in the Bible; and you’ll often discover good scientific reasons which corroborate those scriptural teachings. Of course you won’t always find things cut and dried perfectly because our human understanding has its limitations. That’s where eternity comes in: Christians who haven’t learnt how to say ‘I don’t know’ haven’t yet grasped the vastness of God and their own smallness in comparison.
If you take your question 4) for example, you’d have to live a very odd life not to notice that romantic attraction is ubiquitous beyond any question of doubt that it must be wired into our human brains (by God!). Its purpose is surely obvious. And where does the Bible suggest that humans or sex for humans are solely about exponential numerical increase? And why on earth should infertile couples be refused the many positive goods of marriage? Beware the twisted logic which can arise from an unimaginative reading of scripture.
On the other hand it’s plainly obvious that God has set some boundaries to what we may or may not do; he also allows us the choice to cross those boundaries. But when we do cross them, things don’t end well because those boundaries have been set for our benefit rather than our misery. I think that when we are in doubt or frustrated, remaining obedient to God is a no-brainer. Elucidation of the whole reasoning behind his commands may have to wait before it’s revealed; accepting that reality (even when it sorely tests us) is the very essence of faith.
If only it were as easy to practise what I’ve preached as it is to write it!
Don
My questions were about this articles description of the Bible.
I don’t agree that the Bible says marriage is only for making hew humans. I’m asking the people who do believe that how romance fits into that, along with some other questions.
In fact I doubt many people really believe that. I think its more likely something they think in opposition to same sex marriage, but not something they apply to heterosexual marriage
@ Peter Jermy
Put simply, because the deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage between a man and a woman is contrary to its purpose – i.e., unitive and procreative. Conjugal love between an infertile couple is not contrary to these purposes. It is both unitive and procreative in kind, regardless of whether it achieves or is incapable of achieving, the goal of procreation or not.
Conjugal love is a unique kind of love that is intimate, self-giving, and both expressed in and nurtured by sexual acts. Out of this unique love, God willing, come offspring. This love also enables the couple to experience the Divine of their lives.
The scholastic language used by Thomas Aquinas is now outdated but the moral framework he sets forth is still pertinent. He ranks the “unnatural vices,” those contrary to nature, from least to greatest: first is masturbation (“which consists in the mere omission of copulation with another”), contraception (or any sexual activity between men and women “not observing the right manner of copulation”), homosexual actions (which is a more grave sin against nature because “use of the right sex is not observed”), and finally bestiality (which is “the most grievous [sin against nature] because use of the due species is not observed”). (Summa Theologiae II-II, question 154, article 12, reply to objection 4)
All the above acts are considered gravely immoral. The ranking serves to draw out the reasons for this. There has been a shift in language away from this Thomist analysis with its sole focus on procreative purpose, towards making more explicit that sex is a way for husbands and wives to express and deepen their love – but still avoiding any separation of this expression of self-giving love from its natural purpose or end.
How can marriage of an infertile person be procreative?
If the logic is that same sex marriage is banned because it can’t produce more humans then why isn’t marriage of infertile people also banned?
Does Thomas Aquinas give a reason why same sex marriage is immoral?
@ Peter J
Happy Jack has answered that: conjugal love, between a man and a woman, is both unitive and procreative in kind, regardless of whether it achieves, or is incapable of achieving, the goal of procreation.
As Pope Paul VI stated,
@ Peter J
And Thomas Aquinas certainly gave reasons: it is a grave sin because a the “use of the right sex is not observed”, i.e., between a male and female.
For Aquinas, the bond of matrimony has a two-fold purpose: 1) the pro-creation and raising of children, and 2) the couple’s growth in love and mutual support through their life together.
HJ
But that’s not creating new humans, which the article says is the only biblical reason for marriage! Its also reasoning that can be applied equally to same sex marriage – that sex has a natural adaptation to the expression and strengthening of the union.
Thomas Aquinas probably didn’t recognise that gay people exist?
@ Peter J
Why do you eat food? Do you get pleasure from it as well as nutrition? Is it communal activity with social benefits too? And what if the pleasure takes over from the nutritional purpose?
The drives, passions and appetites of man serve a purpose. They have a “right order”. The sex drive and the expression and strengthening of the marital union through conjugal love, are “rightly ordered” towards procreation, the strengthening of the marital bond for the raising of children.
HJ
There are plenty of reasons to eat food, just as there are plenty of reasons to have sex. I am not saying otherwise. The article is saying the only reason for marriage is to procreate. I disagree
“The article is saying the only reason for marriage is to procreate.”
But it doesn’t say that. It says:
HJ
The problem is procreation is either a requirement for marriage or is not. As usual we have anti gay Christians creating standards to justify discrimination against gay people that they don’t apply to anyone else. Its more dishonest hypocrisy dressed up as orthodoxy
Except that many Christians no longer regard either masturbation nor contracepted (conjugal) sex as sinful.
Both Augustine and Aquinas condemned them. Interestingly, scripture does not.
Is it not true that the Bible overall says that sex outside the relationship of marriage is sexually immoral ? If so, then by definition, sex is for marriage and only marriage. It doesnt have to spell it out in the precise wording you insist on. But it is clear nevertheless.
As to childbearing, that is clearly often the outcome of having sexual intercourse at least in the early years, but is less likely if done at certain times or while using contraception. The use of contraception is debateable for some.
Peter Jermey writes-
‘Jeanine’
My name is not Jeanine.
‘I’m disagreeing with you, not God. You are not God.’
I’m not giving my own opinions or views here as yet. These are scriptures I’ve posted. God’s views, not mine.
Ok now the following are my own thoughts on these things off the top of my head…
‘I don’t believe that there is a single God approved pattern for life.’
There is only one pattern for life. Being born again spiritually, becoming married to a person of the opposite sex/gender for life or remaining celibate, serving God either as a singleton or as a married person, as called and led in holiness.
‘I don’t believe God is opposed to romance or attraction.’
Attraction is presumably chemical or biological responses which may or may be useful. We are not to be subject to imaginations and lusts and wants. If attracted to someone outside of the prayerful will of God for our lives then it is a mere distraction. If a person looks at another person with lust then they have already committed adultery in their heart. We are not to indulge in lusting. Discipline is required. Don’t feed the flesh.
Romance has its place after the commitment to marry. Courting a holy courtship, building connection. And keeping the connection for life. Romance has no place outside of a marriage commitment.
‘ I don’t believe God has said that marriage is only to produce more humans’
Then I pity you. I think your worldview is very distorted. Study your bible and you will see that is exactly what God has created marriage for. SSA men don’t have to do marriage- there is other ways of living life. But God has made clear what he will not tolerate.
“I’m not giving my own opinions or views here as yet. These are scriptures I’ve posted. God’s views, not mine.”
That presupposes a particular approach to scripture which is by no means held by all Christians and by no means held by all Anglicans or by all those in the CofE. God’s views are found not just in scripture, but in between scripture, tradition, reason and human experience.
I do realise it can be hard to see where a post fits into the overall discussion, but I was referring specifically to the 21 scripture verses I had posted.
God’s views, not mine.
I did clarify that a later post would be my own thoughts. Are you here for the five minute argument or the full half hour?
It’s your view that the scriptures are God’s view. It’s an opinion, not a fact.
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
An opinion shared by Jesus and his Apostles.
As the New Testament makes clear.
Not so James. Whilst the NT makes it clear that Jesus came to fulfil the law and not abolish it, it is also clear that Jesus says “you have read…but I tell you…” about a number of things. God’s mind apparently changed.
Jeannie: certainly scripture is inspired. And it is useful for all those things. Still doesn’t mean that all of it is God’s ‘view’. It remains your opinion, not a fact. So it is that Paul sometimes makes it clear that his letters are expressing his own opinion. A letter usually addresses a particular issue at a particular time and the NT letters are no different.
AG has no reason to believe or cite anything that Jesus said, as he does not accecpt the historicity of Jesus or the reliability of the Biblical record.
It is recalled that he passed one comment on an article by Ian,. Challenging whether Jesus said what what written.
It is barely credible that AG believes the doctrine of scripture.
Could this be another example of cuckoos, where those ordained do not believe from the outset what is feigned to believe in ordination vows? Including Bishops?
Will this circle be unbroken?
Geoff you continue to be libellous. As a lawyer you should know better. You have zero evidence for what you have written. Ian continues to publish these libellous statements. That’s his choice but it isn’t a wise one.
Theopneustos was not always translated as god breathed.
And in any case, the writer of 1Tim was referring neither to the Nt which didn’t exist nor to the HB which had no fixed canon at that time.
Theopneustos = life giving.
Quite a different kettle of fish.
@ JA
And God’s view on artificially and deliberately obstructing the natural end of conjugal love – i.e., reproduction? Isn’t there a paper-thin line between homosexual sex acts and the use of artificial contraception?
HJ
There is a chasm, a world of difference.
1 with m+f the possibility of biological function is temporarily suspended. ( And it is suggested that would place the parties in the a similar category to the one HJ set out for infertile couples, who from the outset may be unaware of their infertility.)
2 with m+m and f+f, biologically it is inherently and functionally impossible and known from the outset.
@ Geoff
You mean with “the possibility of biological function is temporarily deliberately and artificially suspended. Entirely different from infertility or natural pauses in a woman’s menstrual cycle.
This means the two-fold purpose of conjugal love is obstructed: 1) the pro-creation and raising of children, and 2) the couple’s growth in love and mutual support through their life together.
Luther commented on Onan:
“The voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between man and woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is doubly monstrous. For this is to extinguish the hope of the race and to kill before he is born and hoped-for offspring” (Commentary on Genesis,/i>).
Two of the leaders of the Protestant movement condemned a practice which suppressed the procreative dimension of marital love.
Formatting issues!!
Luther commented on Onan:
HJ.
It is suggested that the OT reference to seed is to be seen in the light of looking forward to God’s Promised Seed, that would crush Satan’s head, Jesus, so that any act that, in effect, would be a denial of that possibilty was, snd as such would be a renunciation of God’s Promise, and a removal of that possibility.
@ Geoff
Well, that’s a rather imaginative interpretation!
The article here states:
If its primary God ordained purpose is procreation, and Happy Jack agrees, then wilfully thwarting this for whatever reason, is to go against Scripture.
HJ,
It is suggested that it is not from my imagination, but is from reading scripture as a whole sweep of the Bilbical canon, from Genesis to Revelation and tracing the Biblical Theological theme of God’s promised seed.
@ Geoff
“[It]is from reading scripture as a whole sweep of the Biblical canon, from Genesis to Revelation and tracing the Biblical Theological theme of God’s promised seed.”
As are Happy Jack’s …
Did human sexual morality change after the arrival of Jesus Christ.
Jeannie
To clarify I’m disagreeing with your interpretation of those scriptures that says that sex is only for creating more humans
‘To clarify I’m disagreeing with your interpretation of those scriptures that says that sex is only for creating more humans’
Nice try Peter, but that wasn’t what I wrote.
I wrote-
‘There is only one pattern for life. Being born again spiritually, becoming married to a person of the opposite sex/gender for life or remaining celibate, serving God either as a singleton or as a married person, as called and led in holiness.’
1.What method of interpretation do you use PJ?
2.What is your starting presupposition?
Jeannie
That’s two patterns for life, not one.
And I still disagree that the Bible agrees with you
Andrew Godsall, you write: Jesus says “you have read…but I tell you…” about a number of things. God’s mind apparently changed.
Sometimes Jesus said “you have heard it SAID… but I tell you…” On those occasions he was having a pop at the authority of rabbinical additions to the Law of Moses. When he did actually speak the words you ascribe to him, he was saying that his followers – Christians – must have higher standards still.
You are Exeter’s teacher and you do not understand these things?
Anton you are merely interpreting things in a way that suits you. Of course they had heard it ‘said’ – they were not, by and large, a people who could read the texts for all kinds of reasons. Not least because they didn’t have bibles/Hebrew scriptures. So your comment doesn’t make a lot of sense.
You fail to engage with the points I have made: Jesus was challenging addons to the written laws of Moses and was also demanding higher standards of his own followers. God was not changing his mind, which is your insidious contention.
You are Exeter’s teacher and you do not understand these things? Do you actually receive a salary from the Church of England?
As I have said, that is your interpretation of things. It isn’t one that all Christians agree with.
Please refrain from personal comments and stick to the arguments.
Clearly it is a view that you don’t agree with, but you are unable or unwilling to say why. Do I hear the words “Did God really say?” from you – while you are in a senior church position?
‘Rabbinical traditions’ is something of an anti semitic anachronism.
The oral law is not rabbinical traditions. They came much later than the 1st century in early Judaism.
Penelope,
Trying to tar me with antisemitism is hilarious. I am a Zionist Christian (a term I prefer to Christian Zionist) and I reckon to base that view on the Bible, although this is not the place to discuss it.
Read Pirkei Avot for a family tree believed by Orthodox Jews to be that by which the oral torah was transmitted, from Moses’ time to the Talmudic era. No matter what its accuracy, there was a body of commentary on the Pentateuch which progressively came to be granted equal authority.
I didn’t say that there wasn’t an oral tradition granted authority. It wasn’t ‘rabbinic’ and it’s not spurious
It was granted spurious authority – equal with the written laws in the Pentateuch. And in Jesus’ time it was upheld by the rabbis.
Anton
Oral tradition is no more spurious than written codes and still obtains in rabbinic Judaism.
There was oral tradition in Jesus’s time and there were rabbis. There was no rabbinic Judaism which came later.
I understand the history behind your final sentence, which you are deliberately phrasing to mtry to make me look ignorant.
The laws in the ‘oral torah’ claim equal authority with those in the written torah (the Pentateuch) throuigh the assertion that they wre given to Moses at the same time together with instructions that they were not to be written down. There are a number of reasons why this claim is false, but the strongest is that the oral torah refers to te written torah hundreds of times but there is no unambiguous reference the other way round.
Don’t take my word for it – ask a karaite or a messianic Jew.
And the 21 verses did not say what you claimed they did.
God’s views on sex are not found in the sexual revolution of the atheistic culture.
More particularly God’s views on human nature and what it is to be Christian and Christian morality salvation, justification, sanctification, sin and righteousness, Holines and the nature of the Person of God is not to be defined and described outside of scripture particularly by those who deny the doctrine of scripture and trash tradition for cultural revision driven by the absolute of subjective self interests and self will.
‘God’s views are found not just in scripture, but in between scripture, tradition, reason and human experience.’
That is not the doctrinal position of the C of E.
@ Ian
No, it’s not the doctrinal position of the Church of England, but do you believe the following standard proof texts demonstrates support for sola scriptura?
“These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31).
“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable (ophelimos) for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be equipped (artios), prepared for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16–17)
Is there one Bible verse which says Scripture is “sufficient”, and not just “necessary”; or that oral Tradition is to be disregarded once the New Testament is written and supplants it; or that Scripture is superior to oral Tradition?
HJ, @12:29 am
Sola scriptura is part of the 5 solas of the Reformation as you are aware.
It is not nuda scriptura.
I’m almost semi fascinated that you suggest oral tradition continued and perhaps takes precedence over or is equal relevance to scripture as the word of God.
Till when? Written transmission is more evidentially reliable than oral transmission.
As a former solictor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, I see NT scripture based on eye witnesses and is akin to Documents of Public Record, which supplants oral tradition and transmission. An example is my birth certificate. No one present at my birth is alive (other than me). Oral tradition and tramission, is of no evidential value to prove the date.
@ Geoff
That hasn’t answered the question.
Question: Where does Scripture teach sola scriptura?
Answer: It doesn’t. Indeed, the Bible denies that it is sufficient as the complete rule of faith.
HJ, has avoid my points and questions.
As for God’s word alone. A synoposis of Matthew Barrett’s book, God’s Word Alone, could be provided but it rehearses and cited well known authorities.
God’s word is the Final Authority.
Galatians 1:8-9; 2Thessalonicans 2:2; 2Timothy 3: 15-17.
There are chapters in 402 pages which address and counter your RC position.
In the context of the whole of the Protestsnt canon of scripture, it is important to clarify, what ‘sufficient’ means: “all things necessary for salvation and for living the Christian life in obedience to God and for his Glory are given to us in the Scriptures. Not only is the Bible our supreme aithority, it is the authority that provides believers with all the truth they need for reconcilliation with God and following after Christ.”
Barrett descibes Rome’s elevation is “tradition on steroids” as sola scripture is rejected by the Council of Trent. He goes on to cite Ratzinger to conclude that ” the doctrines of the Catholic faith are not found in scripture. Instead, they are found in Tradition” (That is, extrascriptural dogmas of the RC church which every Catholic theologian must subscribe to as official church teaching.
Now HJ, please answer my comment, but as briefly as I have been.
But, I am drawing a line under this as you are only here to promote Roman Catholicism, in this instance, Trent, and more which is at odds with the 39 Articles.
At my time in life, I have no time for this. Others may. But our host, Ian, isn’t interested in engaging.
Yours in Christ
Geoff
@ Ian
And therein lays the rub.
Who determines, on what authority, points of doctrine, derived from “secondary authority.” is erroneous and “subject to reform when compared to the teaching of the Bible”? Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Cranmer?
And on what basis is it claimed that all that is sufficient for salvation is contained in Scripture and that Sacred Tradition, expressed in the practice of the early Church, derived from oral teachings, is to be dismissed?
“That is not the doctrinal position of the C of E.”
The C of E most certainly believes that scripture has to be interpreted. I read your work Ian. And it makes clear that scripture needs interpreting. And what you use to interpret is scripture, tradition, your own reasoning and your own experience. What else are you going to use.
Andrew
I think often the problem becomes that the interpretation becomes so familiar that people don’t really read the passage any more, but simply refresh what they have been told it means. This can make interacting with anyone who doesn’t have the same exposure to church, or even someone from a different church, very frustrating
@ Peter J
This is what Pope Francis means when he describes ideology replacing faith, with membership in a sector of the Church replacing membership in the Church.
HJ
I think the Pope is right there. We are getting to the point where a person’s social views are more important to determine soundness than their faith.
Andrew G ‘Interpreting Scripture’ is not the same as ‘finding God’s views not just in scripture, but in between scripture, tradition, reason and human experience.’
Your claim is that each of these is a source of authority, potentially overruling the others.
To interpret Scripture means draw on the others as hermeneutical lenses—but the authority remains with Scripture. That is the doctrine of the C of E.
@Peter J
“We are getting to the point where a person’s social views are more important to determine soundness than their faith.”,/i>
Which is the precise opposite of what Pope Francis meant!
Although equally the CofE is not a “sola Scriptura” outfit either.
Are you confusing ‘sola scriptura’ (Scripture the only ultimate authority) with ‘nuda Scriptura’ (Scripture is the only thing you need to read)?
The C of E, as a Reformed Protestant church, is certainly sola scriptura.
Nope, we’re a prima scriptura people.
The Wiki article notes:
Prima scriptura is sometimes contrasted to sola scriptura, which literally translates “by the scripture alone”.[1] The former doctrine as understood by many Protestants—particularly Evangelicals—is that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice, but that the Scriptures’ meaning can be mediated through many kinds of secondary authority, such as the ordinary teaching offices of the Church, antiquity, the councils of the Christian Church, reason, and experience.[1]
However, sola scriptura rejects any original infallible authority other than the Bible.[1] In this view, all secondary authority is derived from the authority of the Scriptures and is therefore subject to reform when compared to the teaching of the Bible. Church councils, preachers, Bible commentators, private revelation, or even a message allegedly from an angel are not an original authority alongside the Bible in the sola scriptura approach.
The Articles say: ‘it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of holy Writ, yet, as it ought not to decree any thing against the same’…
and: ‘GENERAL Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.’
I am not sure how much distinction there is between prima and sola, but it seems clear that the Articles articulate the latter, and not the former.
Jeannie
I’ve read the Bible since I was old enough to read. I don’t agree that it says what you think it says!
Do you mind me asking if you are in a heterosexual marriage? If not then aren’t you being a little bit hypocritical by saying it is the only pattern for life?
Peter: you clearly didn’t read her comment with any care. She said: heterosexual marriage or celibate.
Please read carefully next time!
James
She said there was only one pattern for life. That is two
The pattern for life is to first be BORN AGAIN…then…either married or single….led in HOLINESS
‘There is only one pattern for life. Being born again spiritually, becoming married to a person of the opposite sex/gender for life or remaining celibate, serving God either as a singleton or as a married person, as called and led in holiness.’
That’s two patterns…
Be specific. What exactly have I written (please quote word for word) that you disagree with and why?
(As you ask- I was faithfully and prayerfully married for twenty years to an unbelieving adulterer who has subsequently been married to another for twenty years.)
In general terms the pattern for humans is one man and one woman, together as one flesh for life, having children together as a family.
Holy people (straight or SSA) can of course remain single and must not engage in sexual or romantic behaviours as a part of that.
What is God calling you (everyone) to? These choices are not meant to be made in a vacuum.
The world of course does what it does. And the vast majority of people will spend eternity in Hell as a result of their choices and subsequent deeds.
But the followers of Jesus are not to live as the world lives and sow to the flesh, but to walk in the spirit.
There is a world of difference between being religious and simply being born again, full of The Holy Spirit, walking along the narrow path following Jesus Christ in obedience.
You (all) must be born again or you(all) won’t even see the kingdom of God.
This railing against God must be exhausting.
Satan says ‘Did God really say?’ a lot, in order to confuse and sow rebellion against God.
If you (all) intend to defy God in this life then it is honest to just admit it to him.
That’s bad enough without trying to corner his faithful followers from the top down into accepting and blessing and celebrating your (anyones) sin and changing the whole of the Church’s doctrine over 2,000 years and beyond so that they will join you (all who do this) in eternal punishment.
Distorting the natural functions of man and woman, one flesh together, made in God’s own image into a narcissistic parody of the same is clearly insulting God who clearly forbids it.
What is your evidence for God changing his mind?
Secondly, Satan didn’t say ‘did God really say?’. It was a serpent. No one conflated the serpent with Satan until after the written canon.
And the serpent was right. They didn’t die on that day. Adam lived for another 930 years.
PCD.
PCD:”The sepent was right”.! (A teller of truth and God isn’t?)
It says it all as to who is believed. Outed.
The devil was a liar from the beginning.
More could be said about the longevity in Genesis. But it would tampled on, be lost in unbelief.
Penelope: Revelation 12.9. 20.2 identify ‘the ancient serpent’ with ‘the Devil, Satan’. Revelation is part of the written canon.
James. That’s the twisting serpent Leviathan.
Not the serpent in the garden of Eden.
Both in the Canon.
Different serpents,
Again the serpent isn’t the devil.
Secondly, why do you resist the clear meaning of scripture (when it really is clear)?
God in Gen. 2 and 3 is wrong. The serpent is right. Adam and Eve did not die on that day. They became like us [God]. And God exiles them from Eden to prevent them from eating the tree of life.
Does satan/the devil, exist PCD? The father of lies.
God never said you will die “that day”. Just as woman added God’s word by saying must not touch.
Both woman and satan implied God is not good.
Leviathan may or may not be representative of satan, but it is not either or, but both and.
I do not accept your authority in this. Neither, have you stated your interpretative authority.
Anyway, I’m not sure how much authority you place in any of the OT, as it seems that you veer towards neo- Marcionism.
I’m done with you over this. Who are you siding with, the truth of God or the crafty serpent: “did God really say?”. (More than redolent of Satan’s adversarial encounter with Jesus in the wilderness).
And die she did but not until God’s pronounced a curse and a Promised seed to crush the serpent’s head putting enmity between the Serpent’s and woman’s offspring.
And not until God provided a blood sacrifice covering, clothing (the proto -evangel) and banishment from God’s good- garden-presence.
And it was Jesus took that curse all God’s curses of death on the cross in his death, and eternal life, raised into the presence of God in his resurrection.
Satan exists. He is not the serpent in Genesis 2. Eve did not die on that day. So, God was economical with the truth. Gen. 3.22 couldn’t be clearer.
You couldn’t possibly be twisting scripture to fit your own agenda could you?
PCD.
It’s called reading the scripture with a whole canon biblical theology hermeneutic.
Where does it say God said they would die “that” day. Die, they surely did.
It doesn’t.
And your lack of response to the scripturally developed Good news history of redemptive reality of Jesus from a sometime bible teacher is astonishing. The proto-evangel is far from being new Christian teaching.
You side with crafty satan and believe against God.
It is more than deeply revealing.
Jeannie
I disagree that the Bible says that marriage is only for straight couples and that marriage is only for creating more humans.
If that is the case, why were there no Jewish male-male marriages for the whole time Judaism has existed?
PC1
There are Jewish same sex marriages. Judaism still exists.
Jeannie
I dont think God has changed his mind. I think you are wrong about his requirements
PJ.
Interpretation.
See my comment above, to which you have not responded.
Read some St Paul. Nothing about the goodness of procreation.
Marriage is simply to assuage lust.
More scriptural cherry picking.
Penelope: read some more St Paul. Plenty about parenthood and the mutual obligations binding Christian parents and their children.
For the avoidance of doubt, I include Ephesians.
Beware of scriptural myopia!
James
St Paul didn’t marry or have children
@ Peter J
And ….
Happy Jack has never been a sex or drug addict, a serial abuser of children, a murderer, a domestic abuser, a rapist … the list goes on, but he spent over 40 years working with those who are. Was he unqualified to do so?
Do we actually know that? Some believe he may have been married, but then widowed or divorced. They base that on the view that most Rabbis would have been married.
Perhaps his view that it was better to be single, as he seemed to think, was based on his own experience because he had been both married and single…
HJ
No.
I’m not saying Paul was unqualified. I’m saying that his lifestyle was outside what modern conservative Christians see as acceptable
So do I. It’s household codes for existing families. It’s not pro natalism.
Off to worship Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Yippee.
Peter Jermey writes at 9.91:
“Thomas Aquinas probably didn’t recognise that gay people exist?”
I very much doubt if you have ever read Aquinas. Have you? Read before commenting!
James
Where does it say that I must read Aquinas before commenting here?
Most people commenting have no knowledge or understanding of gay people, but I dont tell them they must do more reading before commenting!
Peter, you made a statement above about Aquinas which strongly indicated you have never read him. You seem to have confirmed this.
Don’t talk about Aquinas until you have read him.
James
I’ll take that as a “no Aquinas didn’t know that there were people who were Naturally attracted to the same sex”
Andrew Godsall states at 7.11 on Jesus and the Scriptures:
“Not so James. Whilst the NT makes it clear that Jesus came to fulfil the law and not abolish it, it is also clear that Jesus says “you have read…but I tell you…” about a number of things. God’s mind apparently changed.”
That’s an appallingly uninformed and careless way of reading the Sermon on the Mount! Please look up a commentary instead of these journalistic sound bites. Even the average careful reader can see that Jesus isn’t “changing God’s mind” but intensifying and interiorising the claim of the Mosaic law, to embrace not just our outer actions but our inner attitudes.
Who can know the mind of God? Does God have a mind anyway?
This is what happens when you start making God in your own image – and in the case of this website it’s an image of God as a nice middle class English Protestant who has a PhD in biblical studies.
Please stop reading everything so literally!
Blessed are the cheesemakers is a better reading/understanding of the sermon on the mount than much of the stuff spouted here.
Goodness, you are being obnoxious, aren’t you.
I did one year of Theology at undergrad level during the pandemic and it was really philosophy and atheism- useless. I’d love to have a PhD in it.
The scholars here don’t deserve your insults.
If they aren’t nimble in their thinking but you are, then I’ll eat my hat!
And no-one that I can see is reading anything literally that requires other methods.
Talking to a couple of you is like flogging a dead horse, I see.
Here is a little non-literal poem wot I wrote on The Mind of God
The Mind of God
The mind of God cannot be contained by man
She holds the waters and measures them
in the palm of one strong but tender hand
Manicured perfect unpainted nails
Femininity personified
Thoughts and thinking never new
outside of time and space and you
wrap bubble wrap around our heads
stifle truths keep clarity out
poison seeping into our skulls
bombardment of falsity lapped up
counterfeit absorbed and loved
Truth denied excuses reeled
counter thrust self-destruct
grains of sand all turned to dust
Andrew writes: “Who can know the mind of God? Does God have a mind anyway?”
Now you have really wandered off the reservation into who knows what kind of belief.
I don’t know where your ideas come from but you are increasingly sounding post-Christian in your understanding of God.
I should add that while I have a PhD in Old Testament and some people think I’m nice (sometimes), I am not English!
Irish, James?
HJ – careful. I remember when Richard Ingrams (Private Eye) described Spike Milligan as a ‘dirty Irish pouve’ – and Spike Milligan sued him on the grounds that he wasn’t Irish.
@ Jock
Hah … Happy Jack is of Jewish and Irish heritage, so he is on safe ground!
James,
Over the years AG’s sources of belief and understanding, interpretation of scripture and what scripture is, has been made known, bit by bit, in various comments sections. They include, but are not limited to points made in my comment above today at 9;26 am which AG states is libelous in response, without saying how. As he has made the claim the burden of proof is his.
But I agree with your point, James, post-Christian (or maybe sub -christian) of AG:s comment; “Does God have a mind anyway” just about tops the lot from someone of past or present prominence in Christian church leadership and as such there is accountability to God and the flock of Jesus, as a teacher.
It is certainly is far from Christian orthodoxy.
Well, 1 Cor2:16 indicates that God certainly does have a mind although it is infinitely bigger than our own, and what we know of it is what God chooses to reveal to us through his Word. and through his Son.
I have always thought that Scripture, Tradition, and Reason while not explicitly stated in Cof E doctrine, is certainly what I see on this blog particularly in the application of scholarship and historical context. While not foolproof its not a bad way of approaching scripture.
‘my thoughts are not your thoughts’ – I would imagine to be able to have a thought a mind must exist?
To be fair to Andrew, the Mosaic Law did teach ‘ an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth’ and viewed that as correct justice. It may very well have been trying to limit the sort of excessive revenge people often wanted on those who had hurt them. But it wasnt an ‘add-on’ as Anton tried to say in a post above, it was part of Scripture.
But that in itself doesnt mean that God’s ‘view’ has changed at the coming of Jesus, but rather certain aspects of the law of Moses were only ever meant to be temporary in nature. I think this was a temporary accommodation to the people at that time, meaning you can have revenge but I am limiting it, for the time being.
I think Jesus’ words about divorce and Moses’ instructions that a man could issue a certificate of divorce are pertinent. Jesus clearly implies this was a temporary accommodation by God because of the hardness of men’s hearts. But Jesus then made it clear what was God’s will all along.
The purpose of lex talionis was primarily as a deterrent, and then as an incentive to negotiate a settlement. Keep in mid when you read the sermon on the mount that it applied to accidents as well as injuries inflicted in fighting.
I agree that God’s view didn’t change. The church is a volunteer organisation called out from many nations, not a nation with an enforceable legal code. As such it has a different Constitution. We are to forgive and we are not to stone people in the churchyard.
ok. I was noting your view that Jesus was correcting an ‘addon’ to the law as written, but it was very much part of the written law, written scripture, not an addon. So Jesus was saying that part of the law no longer applied, at least when it came to personal relations.
‘Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ was given as an instruction for magistrates dealing with permanent blemishes (or death).
The Jews of the time were personally seeking revenge for temporary difficulties. If somebody slaps you rudely, then don’t slap them back – and ‘eye for an eye’ in the OT context doesn’t contradict that.
Kyle – yes – I remember at a church bible study once, one of the down-and-out characters who attended announced proudly that someone had struck him during the week and he had turned the other cheek. So the question ‘and when you turned the other cheek, did he strike that one too?’ arose. ‘Well, he couldn’t, because he was flat on his back.’ While turning the other cheek, he had administered a powerful left hook.
Did he get struck at the church meeting Jock?
Chris – no, of course not! It wasn’t the C. of E. synod, you know.
I hear the sound of cuckoos.
@ Geoff
Those pesky Swiss clock makers have marketed their product very successfully – cuckoos are everywhere!
HJ,
At least with the clocks they only sound off now and again and can be wound down and taken down, silenced and removed.
Didn’t hear any, worshipping God in our all age sevice looking at Acts 10.
The cuckoo clock, as described by Orson Welles in the Third Man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cydkTy6GmFA
Just an aside – cuckoo clocks are a masterpiece in marketing, not least because they are rarely Swiss. They originated from and are still mostly made in the Black Forest area of Gemany.
Yes, there was a section in a Portillo trip to the Schwarzwald showing a craft shop making cuckoo clocks.
It was a great line by Orson Welles but very unfair to 500 years of Swiss history!
Switzerland has given so much to the world: William Tell, Heidi, the Bernouilli brothers, Euler, Karl Barth – and excellent cheese.
There are goaty cuckoos in positions of influence and power throughout the nest.
They need to be stood down fast and replaced.
Just as these agents of Satan work together to achieve their evil goals,
Holy strategizing to defend and clear up the nest needs to be prioritised.
Mark them, Expose and block, dismiss and refuse.
Replace and Defend/ Support.
Put your armour on, generals, and stand up and fight.
Perhaps the time has passed to be spending effort trying to persuade agents of Satan to see the goodness of God.
To Jude’s strategies instead- Before the church (the c of e) is completely beyond rescue.
Onward Christian soldiers!
Ah! Ian, it appears that a whole flock of “cuckoos” have now been spotted in various necks of the wood.
Alas, as ever, the focus has reverted to the navel gazing of the C of E’s particular individual*cuckoo* or towards sectarian tribalism’s; a big cuckoo, and to me, not dissimilar to the old Apollos, Peter Paul conundrum.
A mixture of observations [particularly as to how the Gospel should be preached} but no solutions as to how to rid one’s company of said voracious cuckoos.
The Great Salvation that is so easily neglected and misunderstood is a Gospel fraught with difficulties; witness the Teacher of Teachers who after instructing 12 picked men and some women for 3 years who still didn’t geddit!
Witness tha too a very clever enemy who has from the beginning lied, robbed and attempted to kill and sown choking tares….
Or take the Apostle Paul at Ephesus ACTS 20:19ff “Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons,
Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying-in wait of the Jews:
And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house,
Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
Witness also the assessment of Jesus of the same church just a few years later in Revelations.
Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
Perhaps, no doubt, that Paul was thinking on the Holy Scripture of Isaiah Ch 33. and his Gospel [Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.]
Glorious things are spoken of thee O Zion, the city of our Great God.
For a broader outlook of the world, we inhabit I would recommend
PROFESSOR DOUG STOKES: /www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12683719/PROFESSOR-DOUG-STOKES-Yes-Hamas-imperils-values-smug-celebrities-virtue-signalling-Left-biggest-threat-Western-civilisation.html
Readers might be interested (or not!) in the report concluding Pope Francis’s initial month-long Synod on Synodality which has been published by the Vatican – in Spanish at the moment.
Cardinal Mario Grech, head of the Vatican’s synod office, told a press briefing that the assembly felt a need to “respect everyone’s pace.” He added (a reference to cuckoos, perhaps?): “It doesn’t mean if your voice is stronger it will prevail.”
.Assembly members discussed pastoral approaches to welcoming and including in the life of parishes people who have felt excluded. The synthesis report on the discussions did not use the term “LGBTQ+” or “homosexuality”, speaking generally of issues related to “matters of identity and sexuality.”
It stated that these issues “are controversial in society, but also in the Church, because they pose new questions,” adding, “anthropological categories” for these issues “are not sufficient to capture the complexity of the elements that emerge from experience or scientific knowledge and require refinement or study.”
It continued: “To develop authentic ecclesial discernment in these and other areas, it is necessary to approach these questions in the light of the Word of God and Church teaching, properly informed and reflected upon. In order to avoid repeating vacuous formulas, we need to provide an opportunity for a dialogue involving the human and social sciences, as well as philosophical and theological reflection.”
There was “divergences” in the assembly, reflecting opposing concerns: that “if we use doctrine harshly and with a judgmental attitude, we betray the Gospel; if we practice mercy ‘on the cheap,’ we do not convey God’s love.”
Still, it said, “in different ways, people who feel marginalised or excluded from the Church because of their marriage status, identity or sexuality, also ask to be heard and accompanied. There was a deep sense of love, mercy and compassion felt in the Assembly for those who are or feel hurt or neglected by the Church, who want a place to call ‘home’ where they can feel safe, be heard and respected, without fear of feeling judged.” However, it observed too that this acceptance “does not mean abdicating clarity in presenting the Gospel message of salvation, nor endorsing any opinion or position,”, noting also that Jesus in scripture “opened new horizons to those he listened to without conditions and we are called to do the same.”
Some terms used in the document I would be cautious about:
– current “anthropological categories” being insufficient;
– “vacuous formulas”;
– “elements that emerge from experience or scientific knowledge”; and
– a dialogue “involving the human and social sciences”.
Still, overall, it is hopeful that Church teaching and orthodox practise will not see radical change.
New Ways Ministry, a pro-LBTQ+ ‘Catholic’ pressure group, issued a statement saying the report “disappoints by simply reaffirming the hierarchy’s status quo.”
Fr. James Martin, editor of the LGBTQ ‘Catholic’ publication Outreach, said he was “disappointed but not surprised” by the result. “There were widely diverging views on the topic,” said Martin. “I wish, however, that some of those discussions, which were frank and open, had been captured in the final synthesis.”
I thought the significant thing about the synod on synodality was the mean by which it sought to change the basis for where power lies to determine doctrine in the Catholic church? I do not understand the rather Byzantine details but isn’t it about more than one specific area of contention between traditionalists and liberals?
That’s a broader topic, Anton. HJ was restricting his comments to the issue of homosexuality.
Fair enough, Jack. I’m simply seeking information but another time maybe.
The time will come …. probably, as the IG would say! HJ is still confused about this aspect. Too many contradictory opinions’ from the ‘pro’ and ‘anti’ Pope Francis camps and not too much clarity from the Vatican.
i wonder at Ian’s mind in poseing this question. Was it just for us to identify a cuckoo of our experience
I wonder why Ian posed this question? Just because he had a conversation and wanted us to identify our own particular cuckoos?
Or was it to ask us how we may domesticate one and “welcome it into our *family* ?
Or was he thinking like Paul about those who preach another Gospel that for our sakes they may be anathema [accursed] ?
Heresy isn’t harmless.
The most distressing aspect of the work of false teachers is not that they are among you (2 Peter 2:1). False teachers always have been and always will be among Christians. The most distressing fact is that so many Christians will follow their destructive ways.
Because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed: When false teachers are at work and when crowds are following them. the way of truth is blasphemed.
God’s holy name and and honor are disgraced.
God did not spare the ancient world: God judged the ancient world, the world before Noah’s Flood, because the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).
God turned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction: God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, making them an example of His judgment, because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grave (Genesis 18:20).
“The preservation and deliverance of Lot gave the apostle occasion to remark, that God knew as well how to save as to destroy; and that his goodness led him as forcibly to save righteous Lot, as his justice did to destroy the rebellious in the instances already adduced.” (Clarke)
In preaching the Gospel why does anyone need to be saved?
what does one need to be saved from?
From the wrath of God….. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
From the world… Because all the world lies in the evil one.
From oneself… The heart of man is desperatly wicked who can know it?
Merely bringing people out of the world into our family is not the Gospel.They must be brought out with a mighty hand.[that is the easy part if one may so say.]
It is not enough to bring people out of Egypt [the world]
The hard part is getting Egypt out of the heart. a sanctifying work. “whom He called them He also sanctified” The final part is to bring them to His Holy Mountain the place of God’s rest which is our glorification To enjoy being in His rest.
God bringS OUT in order to bring us IN to a land [Life] flowing abundantly in milk and honey, living waters, and the fruits [issues] of righteousness which are by Christ Jesus to the Glory of God.
Bring Him no more, vain oblations. How will you escape if you neglect so great Salvation,?
/
Having identified our particular Cuckoo and understood their aims and intentions ie to be parasites and kill the legitimate host, what is still required to understand of them?
Are we intended to be but mere protestants?
How are we saved from our enemies?
Shall we take up the carnal cudgels of social action and whine “What would Jesus do?”
Or use the weapons that are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds and taking into captivity every thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of Christ.[ If you want to be DOING something.]
There indeed “ be giants in the land.” The cuckoos does seem to be overwhelming the nest.
The good puritan, Thomas Goodwin observed “ They [ the wicked ] are being fattened for a day of slaughter but you are being dieted for health”.
Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.
Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity [emptiness ]….. God has spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongs unto God.
Two thoughts:
In the West we have a problem remembering just how much of our modern world, discourse and assumptions are heavily informed by Christian theology (see Tom Holland’s “Dominion” for a good discussion of this), so much so that most of us take it entirely for granted. The issues with issues cut both ways. Whilst folk like Tom Holland tend to argue with atheists and agnostics about just how Christian the foundations of their philosophical outlook really are, there’s also a challenge for Christians about how opposition to “the world” is opposition to Christian theological ideas put into world by earlier generations of Christians (see secularism for example).
One particular problem we do seem to have is an assumption throughout modern society (at least in the West) that there are really only two sides to any debate. So we form two gangs, grouping all our opponents into one homogenous bloc we can merrily oppose by attributing the most extreme views to the entire cohort, and at the same time turn a blind eye to flaws with the argument or behaviour of anyone we perceive to be in our gang. Discussions cease to be an exploration of issues to learn and advance our understanding, and descend into intellectual pointscoring, debate gameplaying, and trying to show off to the rest of the gang.
Adam: former-or-almost-Christians in the public eye today (Tom Holland, Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray) do indeed recognise that the traditional liberal values of the west (freedom, tolerance, equal rights, individual rights etc are the fruit of a Christian civilisation that has not really appeared elsewhere in the Islamic, Indic and East Asian worlds. The struggle for these three agnostics is how to validate these liberal values without its religious foundation – which Marxism in its protean forms has been attacking for nearly 200 years and continues to do so in its modern cultural iterations (sexual liberation, Critical Race Theory, transgenderism, and now transhumanism).
But now there is another problem that few Christian intellectuals in the west have addressed, and that is rise of Globalism in alliance with Greenism and Marxist conflict-politics. By spreading a narrative (now deeply imbedded in education systems and popular entertainment) that the world is facing imminent catastrophe because of climate change, covid and other pandemics, and heightened race and ethnic conflict, the case is made for ever growing control of ordinary people’s lives through censorship of speech, monitoring of movement and purchases, and the restriction of ownership of goods. This is the real crunch point we are moving to, and most ecclesiastical place holders, at least in the Church of England, side with the controllers.
Astute observations. James.
Ah, more cuckoos observed. AJ Bell has adequately spotted the “echo chamber” cuckoo. This is probably the most common of the species but not easily or often recognized. They are often seen on blogland, either wet or dry.
It is most vocal but hears very little, in this regard they were encountered in the 58th Psalm and summarized in verse 4.[Psalm 58 v 4]
Psalm 58 is informed by them; They listen to neither man nor God.
For keen twitchers, a large flock has been observed in the Canterbury area of Kent.
As to T,Holland et al; no doubt they are attempting to inject some light into the almost moribund Enlightenment, a city which is not much considered to be a “light on a hill,”
Nor any kind of answer to the human condition.
I meant to add; A Church that embraces the surrounding philosophy of cultures can not realisticaly be designated a city on a hill. Thank God our Lord is and will build his Church against which the gates of hell will not prevail.
No Thomas Aquinas for you then.
Does make one wonder what you think of St Paul employing the arguments of Greek poets and philosophers in his preaching though.
I quote all sorts of things when I preach—if they serve to illustrate a point.
That does not imply ascribing revelatory authority to them.
I feel a little guilty in criticising the premise of Iain Provans book, as I have so little to go on and the interview might not fully represent the thesis, or it might over simplify it.
I am concerned by the attempt to use some simple ideas of a greek philosopher to ‘clear the ground’ of alternative scientific research. This feels a bit like a very dodgy ‘God of the gaps’ project. As we know, building our sand castle a little further from the incoming tide has not work well in the past. Unless we are, at last, above the the high water mark, and I am not sure we are.
Describing theories as lies is also a little unwarranted, mistaken perhaps, but not lying.
If I were to try to answer the question ;’what is sex for?’ I can’t think of any academic discipline that would produce the answer; ‘for a life long marriage between one man and one woman’. This might be the answer to the question ‘who is sex for?’ but does not tell us what it is for. [I note there were two questions and one answer, so I don’t really know what Iain P is saying.] For a more biblical and academic consideration, I would point readers to ‘Down to Earth’ Ed. John Stott, 1980, chapter 13 by Charles Kraft ‘The Church in Culture’. One quote comes to mind reading Iains very weak statements; ‘Polygamy, for instance, though accepted by God throughout the Bible, ultimately died out in Hebrew culture (it never was present in Greek and Roman cultures).’ Charles Kraft (who was a missionary and a biblical anthropologist) hopes that in time the Christian communities in North Nigeria and Liberia, that insist on their leaders having more than one wife, will over time change their practice, but in the 1980s they said; ‘How can you trust a man with only one wife?’. Well, some one is lying, or are we simply mistaken?
Some final thoughts.
St Pope John Paul II described gay rights advances in the political and social sphere, such as same-sex marriage, as a “new ideology of evil,” that attacked the fabric of society by undermining the family. That said, in the Catholic Catechism we read “These persons are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.”
Let’s be clear, a blessing of an individual (or a couple) is an invocation of God’s protection and sanctification. The Church blesses people to request some good be granted to them by God. They are prayers and actions intended to dispose people to receive grace.
Any such blessings will certainly need to be clear that same sex attracted people would need to renounce same sex genital activity and commit to a life of chastity, asking for God’s help in this. At as stretch, same sex friendships could be blessed, subject to this same caveat. Any ritual blessing/service would need to include this clear and public commitment – i.e., if it’s not a private service.
One notes the Church offers ritual blessing services for a range of people, including penitents, the sick and those addicted to drugs and alcohol.
But let’s not be “semi-Pelagian” about this. Semi-Pelagian thought teaches that the latter half of growing in faith is the work of God, while the beginning of faith is an act of free will, with grace supervening only later. Christians see grace and faith working differently on free will – i.e., if you’re a synergist.
In Catholic moral theology, the law of gradualness is the concept that people improve their relationship with God and grow in the virtues gradually, and do not jump to perfection in a single step.
Concerning chaste relationships for the divorced in adulterous sexual relationships, St John Paul II teaches that when a couple changed their intention from adultery to living as “brother and sister”, they may receive the sacrament of Confession and Holy Communion. Until their intention changed they remained in a state of sin and could not receive Communion.
HJ knows the Church of England holds a different view on these matters, but couldn’t approach be adapted to same sex couples seeking to grow in faith, aided by grace, including blessings for those intent on asking God’s help to lead chaste lives?
Oh Jack, you’re getting very close to agreeing with the CofE Bishops (and possibly are there already). Be careful, the gang here won’t like it…
Personally I’ve never understood the argument that same-sex marriage undermines the family. Having a class of people who are barred from marriage does that. What’s remarkable to me is that it’s folks like me and Peter and others who’ve been winning the argument for marriage and family in wider society, whilst the institutions like the Roman Catholic Church have been of no help. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but the old gay liberation arguments of the 70s that marriage was ruinous patriarchal construct that needed to be done away with has been on the defensive and on the decline for quite some time now, ever since the same-sex marriage advocates started making some progress.
On faith and grace it’s interesting how many people skip past this stuff, and end up making serious errors – e.g. pretty bad renditions of the penal substitution theory of atonement start with Gods wrath, when the Gospel starts with Gods love for us. Grace is the beginning of faith – we are only able to reach for the hem, because Christ chooses to walk through the crowd.
@ AJ Bell
“Oh Jack, you’re getting very close to agreeing with the CofE Bishops (and possibly are there already).”
Did you miss this:
[A] blessing of an individual (or a couple) is an invocation of God’s protection and sanctification. The Church blesses people to request some good be granted to them by God. They are prayers and actions intended to dispose people to receive grace.
Any such blessings will certainly need to be clear that same sex attracted people would need to renounce same sex genital activity and commit to a life of chastity, asking for God’s help in this. At as stretch, same sex friendships could be blessed, subject to this same caveat. Any ritual blessing/service would need to include this clear and public commitment – i.e., if it’s not a private service.
So, far from it, in fact.
[I]t’s folks like me and Peter and others who’ve been winning the argument for marriage and family in wider society … I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but the old gay liberation arguments of the 70s that marriage was ruinous patriarchal construct that needed to be done away with has been on the defensive … ever since the same-sex marriage advocates started making some progress.
And that just about proves Pope John Paul’s argument about political and secular “new ideology of evil” that attacked the fabric of society by undermining the family.
Not that far if you read the proposals – the blessings aren’t marriage, and marriage is the proper place for sexual intimacy.
The new ideology of evil are the anti-same-sex marriage folk like the 70s gay liberation movement?
Is that a scriptural view of evil or is it merely serving a purpose of your own subjective and the present, cultural- spirit-of-age subservient, and bilblical inversion, revisionist’s view ?
What does (deliberately?) reading into HJ’s Catholic teaching, the opposite meaning, amount to, AJB?
@ AJ Bell
“[T]he blessings aren’t marriage, and marriage is the proper place for sexual intimacy.”
Indeed it is. Hence the requirement of chastity for the unmarried.
“The new ideology of evil are the anti-same-sex marriage folk like the 70s gay liberation movement?”
Those promoting same sex ‘marriage’ and twisting Scripture to say it supports same sex genital acts, are fruit from the same poisonous tree.
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. 2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron. 3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. 4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
1 Tim 4
Peter, that is an interesting verse for you to quote. Paul certainly meant by ‘marry’, marry one man with one woman. And he clearly forbids same-sex sexual relationships.
Many in the C of E say they believe the doctrine of the Church, including the doctrine of marriage; they make public vows that they believe this and will live by it when they do neither; they flourish on a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ pattern of behaviour.
Do you think the phrase ‘hypocritical liars’ might have relevance here?
Unless you actually try and perform a same sex marriage in the C of E, which Synod and the Bishops still have not approved, then no I don’t think if you are in a same sex relationship you are being hypocritical. Synod has now approved prayers of blessing for same sex couples, so that is now within the doctrine of the Church of England if you are in a same sex relationship. If you are divorced you can remarry in the Church of England too, so divorced and being in a new relationship and remarried is not now contrary to the doctrine of the C of E after Synod approved that as well
So, if you say that you believe the doctrine of the Church, if you make public vows that you will both teach and live out that doctrine, and if you actually do neither, that is not hypocritical? That’s a strange understanding of the term…
The doctrine of the Church of England is ultimately determined by the Bishops and Synod, it can evolve. So if you are divorced and remarried or in a same sex long term relationship capable of having prayers of blessing said for you even if not able to be married in holy matrimony then yes you are still living out the doctrine of the Church of England
‘The doctrine of the Church of England is ultimately determined by the Bishops and Synod, it can evolve.’ No, it cannot. Canon A5 says it is tied to the BCP, ordinal, and 39 Articles. And the Articles say ‘it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.’
I confess I don’t understand why you make these repeated claims. Do you not understand the doctrine of the C of E? Have you not read Canon law or the Articles?
Or do you think they somehow no longer apply? Can you help me understand?
No, it cannot. Actually Canon A5 says ‘The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures.
In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.’
So not exclusively to the BCP, ordinal and 39 Articles. Of course none of those forbid blessing of homosexual couples either anyway, so the Bishops and Synod are quite able to do so and correctly to bless such couples as the established church where they are married in English civil law and have now voted to do so by majority entirely correctly while reserving holy matrimony for heterosexual couples.
If you really refuse to support anything contrary to God’s word and interpret that is forbidding also blessing of homosexual couples why one must ask do you support women priests or remarriage of divorcees even where no adultery involved (the first against the biblical teaching of Paul and the second against the biblical teaching of Christ?) On that argument the C of E long ago broke God’s word, unlike say the Roman Catholic church or some conservative independent, Baptist or Pentecostal evangelical churches
‘Of course none of those forbid blessing of homosexual couples either anyway’. Yes they do: they say marriage is between one man and one woman.
You don’t appear to have read what I have written about women in ministry or divorce. Could you go and do that before repeating your trolling mantras again? Thanks.
I notice too you neglect to mention Article 8 ‘The government of the Church of England under the Queen’s Majesty, by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and the rest of the clergy and of the laity that bear office in the same, is not repugnant to the Word of God.’
And holy matrimony is reserved for heterosexual couples still (even though divorced couples can now get full remarriages in the C of E)
Ian
Yes I think “hypocritical liars” applies to lots of people in the CofE, especially in senior leadership.
I think anyone who is themselves married, and especially anyone who had broken their vows, is not in a moral position to tell anyone else that they are not allowed to marry.
Paul certainly did not say that gay people could not marry. It would have been anachronistic for him to do so
‘I think anyone who is themselves married, and especially anyone who had broken their vows, is not in a moral position to tell anyone else that they are not allowed to marry.’
No individual has the right to tell anyone anything. This isn’t about individuals; it is about what Jesus teaches, what Scripture says, and therefore what the doctrine of marriage should be.
HJ,
Thank you for the clarification that brooks no misunderstanding nor substantial misreading.
It seems as though you have put up your response, while I was thumbing a comment on the phone.
Justification, righteousness and Sanctification and the Holiness of God and of disciple are of a piece linked with a life of repetance, acknowleging sin and turning from it.
HJ’s comment begs some questions, about
1) what and how it means to live together as brothers snd sister in Christ and particularly
2) the point about semi-pelagianism, a deep question, which applies across all the categories I’ve mentioned above and it frequently seems to morphe into full blown pelagianism. (Which is of no to little use at all it seems, to anyone seeking to want to live a chaste life). But it is it well beyong the scope if this article.
And I think either I or AJB have misread HJ’s Catholic Pope John together with the catechism if it is to be concluded that it is implicit of supporting the CoE Bishops.
To me there are gaps, between the Pope and the catechism; a discontinuity, perhaps quoted out of context to support a pre-determined outcome, by HJ.
AJ Bell
” The Gospel starts with Gods love for us. Grace is the beginning of faith – we are only able to reach for the hem, because Christ chooses to walk through the crowd.”
Au contraire this is misdirection and miss appropriation, the beginning of the Gospel is repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 PETER 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
LUKE24:46 And said unto them, thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
24:47 And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
ACTS 20:20 And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house,
20:21 Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Beware not to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. Alas we do not seem to be worshiping the same God.
Mark
Describing theories as lies is also a little unwarranted, mistaken perhaps, but not lying.
The kingdom of God was and is not a theory but a declaration and manifestation of truth.
One can only give due warning that other “Theories” are destructive to the human spirit.
The watchman on the wall calls out a warning that a cuckoo is approaching.
Alan thank you for commenting.
I try to stay on subject but I must comment about your reply to AJBell; I think it is acceptable to assert that grace is the first cause of salvation and that repentance is its fruit not the other way around. Other theologies are available.
I am unsure how the truth of the kingdom leads to the conclusion that theories are lies. Do I distrust those that disagree with me to such a degree, that their disagreement is evidence of lying? I would be very cautious about concluding that.
My point is, that trying to push evidential science into a box that excludes all Theological thought is a fraught undertaking. We must be very confident of our ground. There are many areas of science that might have been thought to be metaphysical that are now physical. The current experimental work on the boundary between non living and living matter could be challenging. I find the experimental and theoretical work on time and consciousness very challenging. One person my not be challenged because they have not listened to the scientists, I might be challenged because I have not understood them. I worry that evangelical christianity will not survive another Copernicus moment, perhaps it should not. Or perhaps in a post truth world the story trumps the facts. My worry is, that Iain Provain might be be saying just that, I hope not.
Yes, Mark November 2, 2023 at 7:38 am I agree Grace is God’s primary volition in offering a way of Salvation to man which of course emanates from His Love and a satisfaction of His Justice. However such grace can be refused; if Repentance is the primary volition of man, that must produce the fruit thereof.
One then needs to define what true repentance is, of which there are many theories posited.
All does not depend on the Grace of God, the onus is incumbent on man to embrace it.
That there are other theologies is true, but do they adequately define what Grace or Repentance are, or present a whole counsel of God as Holy, hating sin [why does God hate sin so vehemently?] taking vengeance on His enemies Deut. 32:43 [Who are God’s enemies?]
I am not sure about your digression into scientific theories.
My intention was to encourage folks to examine whatever “theology” they hold that may not be misdirected lest they become vain in their imaginations’ or believe a lie.
. Some theologies turn the Grace of God into lasciviousness.
MARK
To press the point a little further, what is our “theology” of the Eucharist?
Do we view it as a general confessional, or, do we confess specific sins? Do we bring the same sins whenever we partake [the which ordinance was done away with] this also applies to priest confession who may be absolving repeat offenders with a penance, fine.
Or is it a time to examine ourselves as Paul teaches the Church 2 Cor 13:5- whether or not we are actually in the faith?
Has sin been dealt with 2 Cor 7:11 in repentance.? If so, the Eucharist is presented to us for our comfort that our repentance is acceptable for we have repented Godward and now through faith in Christ we partake of His offering .In viewing or receiving the body of Christ in an unworthy manner is greatly detrimental to one’s spiritual and physical wellbeing.