Christopher Landau was a liberal on sexuality—until he visited a gay bar in Chicago and talked to the people there about what their life was actually like. This made him go back to Scripture and theology, and understand why the historic Christian understanding of marriage was actually the only path to flourishing.
He believes that, in the conflict in the Church of England, the only way forward is for us to take serious Paul’s language in Romans 2 that ‘it is the kindness of God which leads you to repentance’. We must focus on kindness, not antagonism, but we also need to be clear where that kindness is going to lead people.
His Grove booklet includes a practical audit for the local church on whether they are expressing such a ‘compassionate orthodoxy’—but he also has interesting and surprising things to say about the current debate in the C of E.
You can buy his booklet Compassionate Orthodoxy here.
And you can buy Ian Paul’s booklet on the pastoral theology of our sexed bodies here.
Where is the kindness of God supremely to be found, encountered?
Interestingly, there is a section, ‘Why People Like Jesus but Not the Church’ in Keller’s, The Prodigal God.
Compassionate orthodoxy is what the Church of England preached about sexuality until the last few decades. Whether it practised it is another matter, but this was the mainstream position. Since then the CoE has let itself be infiltrated by the world, and includes many persons who wish it to affirm them in what the Bible calls sin, and hierarchs who do not accept what scripture clearly states. This issue will not go away unless the CoE is cleansed or dies.
I think this idea that compassionate orthodoxy is somehow a great new idea is bats, so I agree with Anton. It’s the precise reverse – the normal Christian way.
And, Christopher, do you also ‘agree with Anton’ that ‘Whether it practised it is *another matter*’ (my emphasis). Isn’t that the point?
It must be practised extremely widely, therwise there are so many thousands of churches that we would be hearing at least some stories of significant lack of compassion that were of such a level as to hit the papers.
I do find ‘compassion’ patronising in this context though.
The C of E is established church of a nation where same sex marriage is now legal. Synod has voted clearly for prayers for same sex couples who wish to have them in its Parishes. The issue is settled and those who refuse to accept the will of Synod are welcome to leave the C of E and its £8 billion in assets and investments
So you think the church should follow the nation.
What is the reason for belonging to a church which knows less than its surrounding nation, Simon?
If you don’t want any connection with the nation, don’t belong to its established church. It is not difficult, there are plenty of other denominations in England other than the C of E, including Baptist and Pentecostal churches which offer no prayers or services for same sex couples at all
Lol, you showed you were not able to answer the question. The question, as you know, was not about ‘any connection’. The question was about what is the point of having a church at all if it is not the conscience of the nation but rather merely follows the nation – just stick with having a nation and no church if it is the nation that knows best.
Jesus was notorious for tagging along with the national religious institution, never questioning it on anything. Wasn’t he? Same goes for all the great reformers.
The Jesus, that is, whom you never acknowledge as having founded the church of which you talk so much, nor allow any say in how it is constituted. What is this so-called pretend ”church” that does not defer to Jesus?
It defers to the UK, all right, because everyone knows the UK’s authority is considerably greater than that of Jesus.
By your logic.
The Church of England was created to be the established church of the nation, that is its whole point. It is not a nonconformist purely reformist church, there are plenty of Baptist, Pentecostal and Independent churches that do that. Nor was it the church of Rome under the authority of the Pope, instead it was established to have the English monarch as its Supreme Governor.
Jesus is followed by any old denomination, including all of the above not just the C of E, following Jesus is not what makes the Church of England distinctive. Having the King as its Supreme Governor, being Parish based and being Catholic but Reformed does
So you think that out of all the many laws of the UK, not one of them goes against Jesus?
Even in a non Christian country like this one?
It is perfectly obvious that at least some laws of the UK will disagree with Jesus. Given that there are so many of them.
When they disagree, you recommend going with the laws and not with Jesus.
In other words, the non Christian stance.
If you openly reject laws such as same sex marriage in England as against the will of Christ and refuse to even say prayers for same sex couples married in English law then you should of course really not be in the established church anyway
Nothing to do with my question. You keep repeating ad infinitum. Read my question. My question was – are there, Simon, any laws in the UK that are against Jesus’s perspective? Granted that the UK has many laws, the idea that the number of these that is against Jesus’s perspective is zero is a strange idea that could not be supported. So my question was whether you personally thought that the number was zero, or some other number.
This is a specific question, and liberals characteristically hide behind vagueness and seem scared of specificity.
It is not a hypothetical question.
I *thought* you could not answer that particular point. Therein lies the nub.
The nation has set itself against scripture. If you choose the nation rather than scripture, it is you who should leave the church. Likewise the traitors to Christ at Synod.
In your view, which presumably also opposes remarriage of divorcees except for spousal adultery, opposes women priests and opposes eating shellfish and recommends giving away all your possessions to follow Christ all of which you can also find scripture passages for? The established church will follow what Synod has voted for it
No doubt it will, but the question you avoid is: should it?
I see your trick of changing the subject when I put you on the spot. But, for the avoidance of doubt, I can answer your queries.
I oppose remarriage of divorcees in church during the lifetime of the ex.
All believers are priests and I oppose priestly ordination while believing that congregations should be led by men.
The Law of Moses was fulfilled by Christ and I am not under the law and am free to eat shellfish (although it was a moderately dangerous diet in the Ancient Near East). If you don’t understand the relation of Mosaic Law to believers in Jesus Christ today then you really ought to learn some basic theology.
There is no command to sell (not give!) away all your possessions in the New Testament to form a Christian commune, and the context in which this was done (Acts 4:32-35) was Jerusalem shortly after Pentecost, when 3000 Jews had been added to the church (Acts 2:41). Many of these would have been visiting Jerusalem for the festival and lived elsewhere in Judea and Galilee; they stayed on for a while at least to taste the new faith, and needed support. Some would obviously take the new faith back to their wives and children, whom God would not expect them to abandon. This is not the context today.
‘Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew 19 21
If you oppose priestly ordination you couldn’t even have been in the C of E in the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries let alone now as the Church of England is a church with Bishops of apostolic succession
This is a reply to TI
Your quote is not a call for everyone to rid themselves of their possessions. One has to apply common sense. It means be generous, don’t be greedy and don’t indulge in excess of anything. It is good advice, the reason why Christian ethic is the best way to live here on earth and the reason Jesus promoted it and all in all it is easy to understand and straightforward and it is not meant to be altered to suit the whims and fashion of the prevailing times. No need to read Summa Theologica. Christianity if understood is reasonable. and the most effective way to conduct a peaceful life here on earth. I would like to add that there is no reason why same sex couples need to marry. The law gives them the same rights for inheritance etc as married people. I think it was a move to undermine Christian values and the C of E fell into the trap and made it successful I still find it hard to believe that this could have even happened. Christianity in its true essence has a lot of enemies . Sadly a lot of them operate in the guise of Christians. A moment please while I take cover from the imminent onslaught. ANTOOOON…HEEEEELP! I’m an Aussie. Humour is in our DNA. Jesus loves Australia because the weather and mangoes are good all year round and we have the best oysters (Sydney rock) in the world and now I am probably going to be banned from this site for indulging in trivial banter.
T1: Like Jesus Christ, I take a congregation-by-congregation view of church (I’ll leave it as an exercise for you to find those scriptures), and a Church of England congregation a few miles from where I live is the best nearby, so I go to it. Nobody has asked me to swear loyalty to the bishop and if asked I would refuse. I don’t recognise the vicar’s ordination as more than a degree in theology and I don’t recognise the hierarchy above him; the point is that he is a godly man who knows how to provide leadership. I am not a typical Anglican but the vicar knows my views on hierarchy. In fact, since liberal theology ran up against faithful theology in the matter at issue, he largely shares them. So I have his blessing and Christ’s. I don’t have yours. What is that to me?
Jesus spoke those words in Matthew 19 to a young man specifically described as rich because He saw that money was the man’s idol. The lesson is to get rid of your idol(s).
In particular, do not make your sexuality or your church system your idol.
Cressida: Not only Jesus loves Australia! A long time ago I held a postdoctoral contract at one of Sydney’s universities and loved the place.
‘It means be generous, don’t be greedy and don’t indulge in excess of anything.’ So there you go, you straight away interpreted it the way you wanted to rather than what it actually says. Now Jesus did say ‘with him everything was possible’ despite also saying ‘it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven’ but that still doesn’t change the fact he said to be perfect a disciple should give his possessions to the poor and follow him.
Same sex couples of course still can’t get married in a C of E church, prayers for them via PLF were clearly not a marriage as Synod made clear when it voted for them.
The fact you find a C of E church particularly comfortable doesn’t change the fact the C of E is a denomination of ordained priests and Bishops of apostolic succession
And that, T1, doesn’t change the fact that you have no authority to tell me in what congregation to worship.
that still doesn’t change the fact he said to be perfect a disciple should give his possessions to the poor and follow him.
He said that if the rich young man would be perfect then *he* should do that. Wealth was that man’s idol.
You reckon that this is universal advice, so have you done it?
So yes, Christian perfection requires giving away your possessions. I am not a perfectionist nor a biblical literalist on every page of scripture, nor is the C of E
Simon, if you could find even one qualified biblical scholar that uses ‘literlism’ in the same uninformed way that you do, could you introduce me to them?
You use it as an excuse to say that the text can mean almost anything at all. The text is always saying something approximating (at least) to what it seems to be saying. That is why we have texts.
The illiteracy (and also dishonesty and wishful thinking) of those who use ‘literalism’ in the uninformed way that you do is great.
You are also – equally dishonestly – treating biblical texts differently to other texts, where the same laissez-faire attitude to meaning suddenly stops applying.
‘Jesus told him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.
You have literally just denied that and denied the literal word of scripture, proving you are nothing but a hypocrite on this
So if you do not obey the literal meaning, what IS the metaphorical meaning?
Who determines what it is?
On what authority do they do so?
How do we know they are right?
What if others disagree?
None of those problems arise with the literal.
Vice lists are literal.
Commands are literal.
Narratives are often literal.
‘As you well know.’
There should certainly be an embargo on saying ‘ I don’t take this particular one literally’ when they are not giving us the slightest bit of exegesis showing how they DO take it, and the basis for that in the text.
Simon
It’s the risible any text about sex (ditto patriarchy etc) must be taken literally (apart from male lust of course), but any text about riches, possessions, communism is … nuanced.
It would be funny if it wasn’t dangerous.
Great how context can be weaponised for your own ideology (early Christians were not communists, honest!).
But other texts you think should be read ahistorically can’t be contextualised. The exegesis of convenience.
BTW, the Mosaic Law condemns both ‘sodomy’ and shellfish, so that’s not the reason Christians eat shrimp.
Penelope, spot on, it is prioritising which texts to be read literally based on the ideology of the reader
And there was me thinking that genre was the key to interpretation; that genre was one of the easiest things to determine; and that picking and choosing is a sure sign of dishonesty.
It’s… risible any text about sex (ditto patriarchy etc) must be taken literally (apart from male lust of course), but any text about riches, possessions, communism is … nuanced. It would be funny if it wasn’t dangerous.
Penelope, male lust is condemned unequivocally in the Ninth Commmandment (“You must not covet your neighbour’s wife”), and in all of the many NT statements addressed to men condemning porneia (since porne means prostitute). Who here has dissented from those condemnations? In any reply, please specify at least one name, or withdraw your allegation.
And do you disagree with my exegeses of Acts 4:32-35 and Matthew 19:21? In any reply, please include a clear Yes or No along with anything else you wish to say.
Where did I say that scripture doesn’t condemn male lust?
Yes, I do disagree with your exegesis.
Though, of course, coveting your neighbour’s wife isn’t about lust, but about property.
By all means offer your own exegesis and we can discuss our differences, Penelope.
Perhaps you think I think wives are property, or think I condone such a view, or think that the Bible takes this horrible view. You will find no words of mine as evidence, because I don’t hold that view and I write as I believe. And although some rabbis, and certainly Roman Law, took that view, it is not in Old or New Testament. Women were rightly understood in the Ancient Near East to need protection, and at marriage a woman’s protector ceased to be her father and became her husband. But there was not capital punishment for theft of someone else’s property in Moses, but very definitely capital punishment for kidnapping or stealing a woman.
Everything in this post is correct, apart from the following…’voted clearly for prayers for same-sex couples’, ‘the issue is settled’ and ‘£8 billion’.
Yes Synod voted clearly by majority for PLF in all 3 houses and yes you are right in terms of investment fund assets the C of E now has £10 billion
https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/church-commissioners
Crucially, Synod did not vote for ‘prayers for same-sex couples’ in the way your post suggests. They approved Prayers of Love and Faith, which bishops were clear are prayers for individuals, not for a marriage or union—precisely to avoid changing doctrine. That distinction matters, and framing it otherwise misrepresents what was actually agreed. Equally, a majority vote doesn’t mean the issue is ‘settled’—far from it. Many bishops, clergy, and laity remain strongly opposed, and the Church is still deeply divided (see Brexit). As for the £10 billion, that only reinforces my point: your original claim wasn’t accurate.
T1/Simon
You do realise that for centuries the (unbiblically) established church supported the criminalisation and legal persecution of homosexuals – and the nasty judgemntalism that Christopher Landau mentions; a fact that still sours relations between the Church and homosexuals.
Faithful Christians must of course accept the biblical teaching that gay sex is wrong in God’s eyes – but a compassionate approach will be a lot easier if the CofE finally belatedly admits that the establishment and the resultant legal persecution of all kinds of dissent was a major error.
Your combination of support of establishment back then and of homosexuality now is rather bizarre and a major contradiction.
Far from it, of course the established church will in part reflect the culture of the time, that is what the Church of England was set up to be, the established church. Leviticus 20 13 says ‘“If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men have committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are guilty of a capital offense.” So Henry VIII had some Old Testament justification for his death penalty for buggery anyway, even if it was not in tune with the message of Jesus in the New which would likely be rather more in favour of PLF for male same sex couples than the death penalty!
T1/Simon
And there’s the thing – the reason for the OT/NT difference is not because Jesus would approve of gay sex, but because under the new covenant the Church would not be established as was the case in Israel, but would be a voluntary body separate from the state. Henry VIII didn’t have any NT justification for an established church – but because he did it anyway the situation between homosexuals and the church (along with many other things) was distorted and the CofE is still suffering from that distortion.
Jesus never said anything about gay sex, just that marriage should be between a man and a woman (and PLF isn’t marriage). Jesus anointed St Peter to lead the first church and the C of E flows via apostolic succession from that
T1/Simon
“Jesus never said anything about gay sex, ….”
Exactly – but the OT which Jesus considered to be the word of God, is clear that it is wrong, and Paul, an apostle appointed rather specially by Jesus, also says clearly it is wrong. IF gay sex is OK, don’t you realise that it’s rather strange Jesus doesn’t mention it, given how much else of the OT he challenged and made people rethink.
(Actually if gay sex is OK, isn’t it really remarkable that the nearly 2000 years during which the Bible was written gives the subject NO favourable mention and quite a lot of unfavourable?)
One thing apostolic succession cannot mean – or would be rather meaningless if it did – is that a person in the apostolic succession can validly contradict the actual apostolic teaching as found in the NT. So a person who defies Paul by saying gay sex is OK has surely stepped outside that succession no matter what apparent line traces to him. And BTW if apostolic succession is valid from Peter to the Pope, how can the CofE be in the succession when it rejects Papal authority; your position sounds grand but in practice is incoherent …..
Even Jews base their law on the OT.
Acceptance of ordained priests and Bishops and the King as your Supreme Governor are core principles of the C of E in the BCP and Articles. If you reject them there is a strong case to be made you can be expelled from the Church of England, certainly if you hold any position of leadership or authority within it
T1/Simon
But arguably THE core principle of the CofE – precisely according to the BCP and the Articles – is the primacy of the Bible in deciding what the Church believes. So in effect it is perfectly in order to challenge other ideas held in the Church by whether those ideas are or are not biblical. That is the necessary implication of the Articles giving that place to the Bible.
And unfortunately (for you) establishment and the monarch as ‘Supreme Governor’ are unbiblical, and it is rather the case that if the CofE accepts the unbiblical, it should itself be excluded from the wider Church of Christ. Whereas rejecting the unbiblical and calling the CofE to be more biblical is totally in line with the core principle and in line with continued membership of the Church…..
(and ditto of course for the CofE taking an unbiblical position on gay sex…. those who do that should be excluded from the church or have the simple honesty to exclude themselves)
No of course it isn’t, any old Christian denomination uses the Bible and interprets it their own way, in the C of E via Synod. That certainly is not what makes the C of E unique. The King as Supreme Governor of the C of E which is also a Catholic but Reformed Church of Parish ministry and with ordained Bishops and Priests is key to the uniqueness of the C of E.
Unfortunately for you that also means you as a nonconformist have no business whatsoever interfering in C of E affairs. You can profess what Synod passes as unbiblical and denounce the King’s position in the C of E and no longer be thrown in jail or even executed as you would have been a few centuries ago. However as a Baptist nonconformist your opinion on C of E doctrine remains utterly irrelevant
Simon, you are promoting something called ‘gay sex’ just after it caused a world pandemic. Where else would that pandemic start but the world’s greatest hotbed of GS, a particular quarter of San Francisco? What other behaviour would be the most likely to cause said disease, out of all behaviours?
You are talking rubbish about Jesus, who as you know well spoke against porneia in general and about the fact that we are made male and female. No-one in a Jewish context believed in such things – they were not only rejected but actually treated as abominable. That was one of the marks of being a Jew that marked them out against the Greek world. If he had believed such things it would have been all over the publicity against him. Unfortunately any such belief does not cohere with his stated beliefs. These are 5 reasons to reject the unscholarly thing you say. But we do not listen to non scholars on this anyway.
T1/Simon
THE KING OF ENGLAND IS NOT GOD
repeat
THE KING OF ENGLAND IS NOT GOD
So where did he get the authority to declare himself ‘Supreme Governor’ of even a part of God’s Church? He certainly did not get that authority from Jesus and the apostles as reliably recorded in the New Testament. The NT basically rejects any idea of national establishment, teaching a very different style in Church/World relations. The OT pattern is inapplicable precisely because Jesus himself is the only anointed Messianic King of God’s people, nobody else can claim that role.
The King of England is literally anointed by God to his role of head of state and Supreme Governor of the C of E by Divine Right as his C of E led coronation affirmed. Deny that and you have no place in the C of E
What does PLF have to do with promoting gay sex? If anything condemning committed and faithful same sex unions makes it more likely homosexuals will engage in casual sex instead.
Porneia is far more concerned with orgies and casual sex partners, heterosexual as well as same sex, than committed faithful unions of same sex partners as you well know.
As I well know? So speaks the non New Testament scholar to the New Testament scholar….?
The King of England is literally anointed by God to his role of head of state and Supreme Governor of the C of E by Divine Right
He is anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. And the Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen by the king (nowadays on advice, but signed off nonetheless by the sovereign). That is a closed loop which has no more or less to do with God than anything else in His creation.
How does your theology deal with the overthrow of a king by a usurper who then declares himself God’s choice? It has happened often enough in England’s history
The anointing of the King in their coronation is literally symbolising divine blessing on them as sovereign.
The vast majority of Kings overthrown by usurpers were in the Medieval period ie when the Roman Catholic church was still the English national church and the Pope headed the national church not the King. You could argue William III was a post Reformation usurper of the throne I suppose from James II but he ruled jointly with James’ daughter Mary and the same principle of divine blessing on their rule as sovereign and supreme governor of the C of was affirmed at their coronation
How does your theology deal with the overthrow of a king by a usurper who then declares himself God’s choice? It has happened often enough in England’s history
Christopher
It didn’t. But don’t let facts get in the way of your ideology.
The anointing of the King in their coronation is literally symbolising divine blessing on them
Yes indeed, but (i) that’s not what you said (“The King of England is literally anointed by God”). Does the symbolism reflect the reality?
T1/Simon
“How does your theology deal with the overthrow of a king by a usurper who then declares himself God’s choice? It has happened often enough in England’s history.”
Simples – that English king is theologically irrelevant. Jesus is the anointed-by-God King of everything, there is no vacancy for another such king. A claim to be anointed as a successor of David would effectively be a claim to be a pretend Messiah, or ‘AntiChrist’. Human pride yes, divine anointing absolutely NOT!!
Yes it does, core C of E doctrine is the King is anointed by God and holds his position by divine right
No anointing the King of England as appointed to that role bu God is not saying he is a Messiah or competing with Jesus. It is however a core principle of the Church of England and why a nonconformist Baptist like you can never be in the C of E
And unless you give some place to Jesus, how can you be in the C?
There have been people who worshipped their country and its culture before, relegating the divine or syncretising the divine into their own national mould. Some were in Ireland, some were in Public Schools, some went on crusades, some are now in Congo. It is possible that at least one can be found even on this blog.
PCD, what comment are you addressing there?
This is a blog discussion about the Church of England and one aspect of its Synod take on sexuality via PLF. Yet the Church of England is established Christian church whose literal Supreme Governor is the King and has been since the Reformation when it was first created. Do you actually know the history of the Church of England?
Christopher, what global pandemic do you believe started in San Francisco and was caused by gay sex?
Can you go back and read what I actually said, AJ Bell? Your question is like ‘When did you stop beating…’, and only unscrupulous people change what is said before they pose the question.
The HIV/AIDS pandemic first mushroomed (a) particularly noticeably and (b) quickly enough to become newsworthy in the ‘gay Castro district’ of San Francisco. If we say that that is one millionth of the earth’s surface (probably an overestimate?), then it just so happened to be in the ‘gayest’ area of the globe that this took place. Coincidence, of course.
Both then and at all subsequent times, the most at risk person from this disease (just like the most at risk people are always the ones doing the unhealthiest things) are men who sleep with men.
It is only artificially that that can be to an extent prevented. Purely naturally it remains the case and presumably always will.
But that is not specific to HIV/AIDS. They are the most at-risk group for syphilis, gonorrhea (both becoming frighteningly drug resistant in their mutations), monkeypox, anal cancer etc etc..
But it does not matter, it is said. Because the people involved ‘are not precious’. They should be left to carry on, at the toll to their loved ones and family members.
Notice that the main risk factor is not consistently AS as such but, rather, being a man who sleeps with a man.
But you knew this answer already. Why are you asking the question? Is that honest?
Given all the above, the message going out since the mid 1980s is that we should affirm man-man sexual behaviour all the more.
Yes.
T1/Simon, you have no King but Caesar.
So they led Him away to be crucified.
T1/Simon
“This is a blog discussion about the Church of England and one aspect of its Synod take on sexuality via PLF. Yet the Church of England is established Christian church whose literal Supreme Governor is the King and has been since the Reformation when it was first created. Do you actually know the history of the Church of England?”
Yes I know quite a bit about the history of the Church of England; including more than a few examples of ‘holy war’ and persecution (often of better Christians). I still ask, where did the monarchs of England get the authority to set up an established church contrary to the principles laid down in the NT? You still haven’t answered that, you just keep repeating the CLAIM of that status.
Jesus is the ONLY anointed king of the people of God; and the ONLY ‘Christian nation’ the NT recognises is the Church itself. England like other nations is part of ‘the world’ OUT OF WHICH people are called into the international/supranational Church, and has no special place in the matter at all. English people can do nominal anointings all they like, and the monarch will still not be entitled to any position in God’s actual Church.
Jesus and the Apostles give quite a bit of teaching on how Church and World should be related, and none of that teaching supports the idea that any worldly nation can have an ‘established’ church. There have been and are good Christians in the Anglican church – but the institution itself is misconceived and unbiblical which = unapostolic and unChristian.
Oh Christopher, I did read what you said. It was this:
“you are promoting something called ‘gay sex’ just after it caused a world pandemic. Where else would that pandemic start but the world’s greatest hotbed of GS, a particular quarter of San Francisco?”
So yes, I do think you’re claiming that a global pandemic started in San Francisco and was caused by gay sex. I think that because that’s the claim you made. This is basic comprehension.
Now you’ve clarified that you are talking about HIV/AIDS. That’s helpful. It also shows how wrong you are. HIV/AIDS did not start in San Francisco. It’s accepted to have originated in DR Congo, and spread through Africa. It got to the US via Haiti, first in New York, not San Francisco.
Knowing how much you like your statistics, it’s probably helpful to look at the current prevalence of HIV amongst adults. That can shed some light on your claim that this is caused by ‘gay sex’. The prevalence in the UK is 0.17%, and in the US it’s quite a bit higher at 0.42%. That’s curious because the UK is a bit more liberal in its gay rights record and culture than the US (where they still have a very strong conservative movement in society and a more culturally dominant Church). Shouldn’t the UK prevalence be higher? But it’s more curious. Russia, far far more hostile to gay people than either the US or UK, has an HIV prevalence of 1.5%. For Jamaica it’s 1.65%. In Uganda, where they debate whether to execute gay people or just imprison them, it’s a shocking 5%. If we turn to South Africa it’s 14.4% and if we look at Zimbabwe it’s over 22%. Are you really trying to tell me that there is dramatically more (perhaps hundreds of times more) gay sex happening in these countries and that’s what’s responsible for the prevalence of HIV? It’s not a serious position, and you are not a serious person on this topic.
‘You are not a serious person’ is ad hominem. What on earth has the person got to do with it when our currency is ideas and arguments?
I have now had to repeat myself twice. The only reaosn I said go back and read what I wrote is that I never mentioned ’cause’. Cause is origin. You are quite correct re origins, which is why I never said ’cause’. You import the word cause on numerous occasions, making your comments irrelevant to what I actually said. What I actually said was two main and very obvious things:
[Both of which you have not faced up to, even when they are cengtral to the issue.]
1/2: This corner of San Francisco is where it first mushroomed at a greter speed and became especially newsworthy.
2/2: Per head, being a man who sleeps with a man is a bigger risk factor than any other (as one might expect, since the greater the unhealthiness, the greater the risk will be). Not only is this the case with HIV/AIDS/, but also with gonorrhea, syphilis, monkeypox, anal cancer, etc etc. New strains are dangerously resistant, but if there were social stigma that would not matter.
Point 1 of course is to be expected given the truth of point 2.
Those two main points ought not to have to be repeated again. But they ought to be answered or gainsaid – not that that is possible – if you are to be an apologist for something so appalling.
The African figures merely show how bad promiscuous sex is – but that is something we have always been saying already.
The most basic point is the one that is never digested: ‘per head’. ‘Per head.’ The incredibly stupid normal tack is for people to say, ‘Oh, most victims are heterosexual’ when only single figures are homosexual in the first place. Is it possible that there are people who never learnt about proportions at school? If there really are (rather than their just being disingenuous), then who would pay any attention to their comments on numerical matters?
WHat happens after the people say ‘Most victims are heterosexual’? First the proportional likelihood point is ‘explained’ to them. Second, they disregard it. Third, they make the same bogus point again. Fourth, proportions are mentioned to them again. Fifth, they disregard this. Sixth, they try to pretend nothing has happened and make the same ‘heterosexual’ point again. And so on. One just sits there counting on one’s figures the precise extent of their dishonesty and willingness to watch precious people get diseased and die when all the while they themselves have neither mentioned restraint nor even regarded restraint or vaguely adult standards of behaviour as being good things. Thus effectively setting the atmosphere that directly leads to more deaths.
Christopher, you never mentioned cause?
What you said was, “you are promoting something called ‘gay sex’ just after it caused a world pandemic. Where else would that pandemic start but the world’s greatest hotbed of GS, a particular quarter of San Francisco? What other behaviour would be the most likely to cause said disease, out of all behaviours?” (March 31, 7:47am)
Caused a world pandemic…
Cause said disease…
Caused. Cause.
T1/Simon
With other contributions intervening between ours, can I just clarify that your comment “Under their authority as sovereign heads of state of England” is a response to my question “…where did the monarchs of England get the authority to set up an established church contrary to the principles laid down in the NT?”
If so then one can only say that “sovereign heads of state of England” have as such NO authority in God’s Church. It is true that all rulers are in a sense appointed by God as stated in Romans 13 – but that is a long way from saying that what they order is automatically in a simple sense the will of God. Precisely because it is ‘all rulers’ it includes many from the Pharaoh in Moses’ time to Nero in Paul’s time and onward to the likes of Hitler and Putin more recently. Christians are required to ‘be subject’ even to the Neros and Putins – but that is subtly different to an obligation to obey them, whence Peter’s comment in Acts 5 that we must obey God rather than man. ‘Being subject’ can sometimes mean very much disobeying the authorities but accepting martyrdom rather than violently rebelling like, for example, Ulster paramilitaries. This is not the kind of ‘appointment by God’ which gives a ruler authority over the Church, and CANNOT give the ruler authority to defy the teachings of scripture.
Christopher
I was addressing your ridiculous assertion that hay sex caused a (HIV/AIDS) pandemic.
But A.J. Bell has called out your lies below.
Of course sovereign heads of state of England have such authority, it was Henry VIII who set up the Church of England in the first place to replace the original Church the Roman Catholic church. Yet as a nonconformist Baptist you reject the authority of Roman Catholic church and the first Pope St Peter and his Papal descendants too.
“Christopher, you never mentioned cause?“
Christopher struggles with precision when it comes to language.
T1/Simon
“If the Roman Catholic church allowed women priests I might consider it but they don’t and I also support and uphold the divinely given authority of my King”.
But as I have explained the king of England has no more “divinely given authority” than rulers like Nero and Hitler, and cannot acquire such authority from a human act of anointing. The king’s authority is quite strictly limited – again as I have pointed out we indeed have to be ‘subject to’ our earthly rulers, but that cannot include obeying the ruler in opposition to clear scripture teaching; in that situation we are positively required to disobey, and express our ‘subjection’ by the alternative road of accepting martyrdom. The English monarch cannot have authority against the Word of God.
You get into a further tangle and incoherence in what you say there about the RC church. Apparently their much clearer ‘apostolic succession’ from Peter has in your eyes failed to give them the right answer about ‘women priests’ – but where do you get your own authority in favour of those women priests?
Given that what is termed ‘gay sex’ was the no.1 most effective thing for spreading HIV/AIDS, PCD’s mention of the ridiculous is pure ideology, and very false. To priorities the 53rd or 12th or 6th most effective thing would be ridiculous. To prioritise the 1st most effective thing is just what anyone would obviously do.
Christopher
Lying about what you wrote in order to accuse me of something I didn’t write is desperate. Please stop this.
PCD, you used the extremely serious word ‘lying’, just because you were not operating at the level of detail required to understand what I said. I certainly used the *word* ’cause’ (which is a common word) one time that I later forgot, but given that it was in a different context and I was most particular to say that what San Fran saw was a mushrooming and not a cause, how is that relevant? The only thing that would be relevant would be if I both said and denied that some specified thing was a cause of some other specified thing. My presentation has not changed on e iota, and is in 6 parts (below) which people seem remarkably shy in addressing. So, to repeat:
(1a) The virus and disease HIV/AIDS was *not* caused originally by homosexual sexual practice;
(1b) Nor did it originate in San Francisco;
(2a) The HIV/AIDS pandemic, on the other hand, *was* caused by the acceleration of infections;
(2b) and the thing that (as usual: cf. gonorrhea, syphilis, monkeypox, anal cancer) caused fastest acceleration was homosexual sexual practice, here coupled with drug use and needle sharing (yeeuch);
(2c) This was, naturally, the case in proportion as one found people with these risk factors, and accordingly nowhere more concentratedly than San Francisco;
(2d) So unsurprisingly it was San Francisco that first hit the headlines and suggested to people that a pandemic had begun.
The unhealthier something is, the higher a risk factor it is. This is at the high end of unhealthy and at the high end of risk. These two things are virtually the same as each other.
Homosexual sexual behaviour (often combined with drugs and needle sharing) caused the pandemic level of the spread, yes, thus caused the pandemic itself, and continued to fuel its flames as it spread further; caused the virus, no. San Francisco saw a mushrooming or acceleration to pandemic level to be caused; it did not see an origin or cause of the virus or its spread. That earlier stage – the root cause of the virus, though not of the pandemic – was elsewhere and often elsewise.
Christopher
You are still frantically backpedaling, if you prefer that term to lying. And you are still claiming that homosexual sexual behaviour caused the pandemic. It did not. Infection rates are still highest in African countries such as Botswana and Lesotho.
Christopher
And I used the extremely common word ‘lying’ because you were trying hard to wriggle out of being caught not telling the truth.
Under their authority as sovereign heads of state of England.
Jesus is not an earthly King, he is Messiah and heavenly King. The original church is of course the Roman Catholic church founded by St Peter which as a nonconformist Baptist you don’t recognise either.
T1/Simon
But your involvement in Anglicanism seems to contradict the importance of the Roman Catholic church? Yet more incoherence in your position…. Why don’t you yourself belong to that ‘original church’ …?
As a nonconformist Baptist I recently led a series of Bible studies based on I Peter; we Anabaptists frequently wish that the RC church would pay more attention to the teachings of the ‘first Pope’, teachings from which they (and the contemporary Eastern Orthodox) wilfully departed during the 300sCE. Anglicans could also benefit from paying attention to those apostolic teachings rather than following a chimera of ‘apostolic succession’ which clearly doesn’t result in actually following apostolic teaching (or the teachings of Jesus….)
If the Roman Catholic church allowed women priests I might consider it but they don’t and I also support and uphold the divinely given authority of my King.
For such a self professed Christian purist have you also followed his word that ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven?”
Whoops – originally connected this to the wrong primary post – trying again ….
T1/Simon
“If the Roman Catholic church allowed women priests I might consider it but they don’t and I also support and uphold the divinely given authority of my King”.
But as I have explained the king of England has no more “divinely given authority” than rulers like Nero and Hitler, and cannot acquire such authority from a human act of anointing. The king’s authority is quite strictly limited – again as I have pointed out we indeed have to be ‘subject to’ our earthly rulers, but that cannot include obeying the ruler in opposition to clear scripture teaching; in that situation we are positively required to disobey, and express our ‘subjection’ by the alternative road of accepting martyrdom. The English monarch cannot have authority against the Word of God.
You get into a further tangle and incoherence in what you say there about the RC church. Apparently their much clearer ‘apostolic succession’ from Peter has in your eyes failed to give them the right answer about ‘women priests’ – but where do you get your own authority in favour of those women priests?
The English monarch is Supreme Governor of the C of E, he doesn’t interpret the word of God for it, Synod now does.
I am ideologically in favour of women priests, Jesus never opposed them, they do good pastoral work and are far less likely to have been involved in cases of sexual abuse than male priests have been
T1/Simon
You still don’t even begin to explain whence – apart from his own wishful thinking – any English monarch can derive authority to ‘establish’ a part of God’s Church in England. Biblically he has no more authority over the Church than a pagan ruler like Nero or Stalin, and the Church both can and should reject any ‘overreach’.
“Women priests” – I would have said that before making women into ‘priests’ it would be a good idea to lay a proper foundation of what any ‘priest’ is in Christian terms. And I’d submit that properly they are not ‘priests’ as the RC and Orthodox understand it – priests are in fact ‘elders’, the wordderiving from ‘presbyter’, and not quasi-magical beings with special powers.
To me it seems that women can be presbyters because the ‘trend’ o Scripture goes in that direction; much as slavery went from being accepted but limited in OT circumstances to eventually being seen as a bad thing for Christians on the rule of treating people as one would wish to be treated. Whereas what you say here amounts to little if anything more than T1’s personal preference, which I can’t see as adequate authority
Incidentally an interview with Justin Welby – his first since he resigned – is to be aired tomorrow on the BBC. In the two short clips in this preview he speaks about safeguarding and leadership:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89y9g83e92o
He has thought well about this from what I have seen, and the Press and media have not a leg to stand on.
It’s an exercise in ego. And in not realising the foolishness of Prince Andrew.
And the nonsense he spouts about forgiveness is something else that he will presumably state in a few weeks time that he is now ashamed of and was very tired at the time he said it. Honestly…..
The media cannot believe their luck. They have someone whom they have opresented as being representative of Christianity (hence they always say ‘the church’ rather than ‘the church of England’, and hence they always ignore totally most denominations) whom they can make to grovel and plead ‘mea culaa’ at will. Something they are all far too arrogant to do themselves, despite it being more appropriate in their case.
Once the grovelling and ‘mea culpa’ begins, they can grind the stiletto in the Christianity vs secularism Superbowl. All their dreams have come true at once.
Screwtape must be licking his chaps.
Oh goodness everything has to come back to how wonderful C S Lewis was. I keep forgetting that particular law.
Amen to that.
But don’t worry – if you can improve on Lewis, that is by some distance the best news of 2025. We await.
Christopher
a) I don’t see Welby grovelling. He is far too egotisitical for that
b) painting the whole of the media as in Satan’s power just makes you look like some deranged US fundamentalist and not at all like a scholar.
(I am not a great fan of C.S. Lewis, but he would never have been so crass.)
I didn’t mention Satan, but it would have been apposite to do so. The media are compelled to follow editorial lines. Secondly, to follow preconceived narratives. Third, to abide by the Overton window which they themselves created (a circular process). Fourth, to present everything in a binary way. Fifth, to rush debates rather than teasing things out. Sixth, to quote soundbites from tweets and texts. Seventh, to refer to actual studies (i.e. to the main authorities) as infrequently as possible. Eighth, to concentrate on people who make good TV. Speak truth to power and call them out.
Christopher
You most certainly did mention Satan.
In his manifestation from the pen of one of your heroes.
Here is Anglican Unscripted on Welby’s interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3rT7-2TKaQ
I repeat mention of Satan would be apposite in this media context, but the individual I mentioned was Screwtape rather than the one he calls his father below.
However the idea that PCD puts abroad that to be scholarly is always to be moderate in one’s judgments is bonkers. To be scholarly is to be accurate in one’s judgments. That means a mixture of extreme and moderate: extreme where extreme is accurate, and moderate where moderate is accurate. Trying to be oh so cautious and ending up making no scholarly advance at all is an old dodge. As though there were merit in caution per se! What there is merit in is appropriate caution, just like appropriate anything else.
Christopher
I have no clue where you get that idea from grom! I am not in the least moderate. Sadly.
It doesn’t even mean anything. One can be moderate on a given topic but not across the board.
When asked whether he forgave Smyth he said Yes but pointed out that Smyth hadn’t thrashed him. He would have done well to ask back “Forgive Smyth for what?” I think Laura Kuenssberg would have floundered.
LK laid the trap from the beginning by ensuring that the headline would be his response to ‘Do you forgive Smyth?’. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t, but hey it’s a headline anyway.
The perspectives that fail to paint the media as absolute villain are seriously wrong. Cathy Newman has been feted as a hero, and has totally destroyed the family of the Perumbalaths for some spurious reason connected to her not allowing the investigations that already took place to have concluded against her sleazy tabloidy preferences. She has also made insinuations about what JW knew (about what exactly?) for which she has not the slightest evidence. If the idea is that so many knew that he probably did too, what about all those close to the action who knew almost nothing?
I haven’t read the book so am fully prepared to be wrong!
But my instant reaction is that maybe a survey of a gay bar in Chicago isn’t the most reliable guide to what same sex love might be like.
It’s a bit like doing a survey in your average nightclub as to people’s experience of heterosexuality. You’re hardly likely to find only things that are shining and wonderful!
Maybe try interviewing people in deeply committed, loving, faithful, prayerful unions instead?
Did you listen to what he found there…?
Peter
You put it much better than me. But 100% this. It’s looking for evidence that backs their position rather than looking for a position that the real evidence is consistent with. .
Yes some gay men are drug addicts, drunks and promiscuous, but so are many straight people! So are some church leaders!
Er, yes, Peter, but we have said for years that your side hides in vagueness, and now you are doing your best to prove it. What is ‘some’ supposed to mean. THere will always in a large world be ‘some’ of absolutely everything. The question is the variant proportions of things. Some things are MORE likely per head to be true of gay people; other things are MUCH MORE likely.
You want to take us backwards from a position when our material for discussion is actual studies and statistics. I wonder why you are so shy of precise data.
Christopher
You’re more likely to be a drug addict and promiscuous if you are a gay man. You’re also more likely to have never had sex with anyone.
So what?
‘So what?’, you say? Correlations are how we advance in our explanatory knowledge.
Christopher
Wheres the correlation though? Straight men can be as promiscuous as the most promiscuous gay men
That is the only issue in life right? What a vague point you make. The average number of people a ‘gay man’ has slept with is notably higher than for the average ‘straight’ man. Anyone else would understand that that is obviously the main point.
Christopher
I accept that statistic. I dont accept that it is very meaningful, especially when such surveys dont have a good methodology in distinguishing between gay and straight or ensuring that people answer truthfully!
Yes, but if those things biased the findings, they would be equally likely to bias them in both directions. So what we have is the average of those two eventualities and likelier than either of them to be accurate.
Indeed.
This interview with Christopher Landau is perfect for showing what is wrong with the present situation – but unfortunately I think CL’s approach exemplifies that.
Where Ian says we wish we’d never touch this topic ever again (given that it has been extensively raked over) and would concentrate on ‘Jesus and evangelism’, at last we get the voice of reason. Whereas CL’s approach is rehashing just on the issue where endless rehashing has already been particularly widespread.
I list the misconceptions, among which are several cliches:
(1) The idea that this is somehow about ‘faithfulness’ on the part of the Christians.
This suggests an ‘obedience through thick and thin’ approach, blind and unthinking and possibly reluctant. Quite inaccurate. The Christians would not be faithful to something that did not make sense in the first place. And secondly it is merely the fact that it DOES make sense in the first place, on a wider canvas, that leads them to support it – and to be delighted to support it, though they are puzzled at what all the fuss is about. Not that that is a strange move somehow, in a Christian context. And after all, it was Christianity that changed the world for the better.
The idea (the ‘creative tension’ unexamined cliche) is to hold together faithfulness and compassion. Faithfulness is not something that is at issue (see above). And compassion is far from being opposed to faithfulness in the first place. So….?
(2) The idea that God’s kindness is somehow a tactic on God’s part which he preplans will be more likely to lead to repentance on the part of the wayward. NIV ‘God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance’ does not help here. ‘Is intended to’ is invented.
What the text is saying is that God’s kindness leads people to repentance. God loves people and because of his love he wants the best for them so he moves them from the wrong way to the right way, which WILL be the best for them.
Now, when it comes to rather *tactics* (which are a rather clandestine thing, and it is not Christ that operates in the darkness…), humans – not excluding Christians – are at this all the time. In this instance, they are just saying – be affirming of people, and people are as a consequence more likely to repent – the end justifies the means. How dishonest.
And also, to portray this as kind is wrong – dishonesty can never be kind.
And thirdly, kindness is being defined as going along with what the sinful want, i.e. the attitude on your part that they (on what authority?) prescribe. That could not be further from a Christian way of doing things. It is also weak and caving in to those who least deserve it. It is an interesting question what precisely it is that possesses people, to make them cave in in this way.
The idea is said to be to ‘rediscover a posture of kindness’. Kindness is far from being a novel idea for Christians. And much kindness is already present in most local churches, so it is not in need of rediscovery.
(3) Civil Partnerships are portrayed as being very close to the extreme of what could be tolerated.
They are well beyond that extreme. They affirmed two men/women sleeping together while simultaneously also *not* affirming maiden aunt friends or widow friends or sisters or brothers.
Also they are an example of the devious pattern of change little by little by covert stealth.
(4) Compassion and orthodoxy is portrayed as a winning combination.
It has already been the Christian combination for ever.
(5) Also this is portrayed as a way ahead. The phrase ‘move forward’ is used.
If people go backwards, they need a way ahead, but that will only restore them to the status quo from which they began. But this point is not acknowledged; rather, the idea is that the recent endless discussions have been a worthwhile venture. What a colossal waste of time.
(6) CL says ‘I wasn’t convinced that the stories I heard represented life in all its fullness.’.
To put it no more strongly.
The intro says CL talked to people about what their life was actually like. But what else had he THOUGHT their life was actually like, and on what basis?
At one point, CL says ‘I have to listen to, and honour, his story, even if I disagree with it.’ But why? That depends totally on what the story IS. There are very many things in life that should not be honoured one bit.
And why doesn’t the neighbourhood name ‘Boystown’ ring alarm bells?
(7) …and adds, ‘If I’m perfectly honest’.
But honesty should be a given – does this mean the other statements made were NOT perfectly honest? This phrase appears twice, and ‘frankly’ once.
(8) CL encounters people who do not begin by being ashamed at all. In other words, the deadening of conscience produced by sin and by the sexual revolution. Main manifestation, as an example: having no feelings when you kill your own baby – because premarital sex killed conscience. That is some degree of deadening of conscience: a veritable phenomenon.
(9) ‘LGBT people felt alienated’. First, sin by its nature alienates. Second, human nature will be alienated at the idea of giving up its favourite sins.
(10) Language is adopted uncritically from quite alien worldviews: ‘one trans man, 9 lesbians’. This suggests that saying it makes it the case.
The word ‘progressive’, an insulting word that is also incoherent and (worst) inaccurate, is use uncritically too. So is the unexamined word ‘views’.
(11) Views are said to be held sincerely. Two problems. First, this is an invention. Why say something is sincere when everyone knows that one has no idea whether or not it is in fact sincere? Second, sincerity will not make anything a whit truer.
(12) There is said to be ‘disagreement’, and between 2 ‘constituencies’.
First this is too binary: why two, precisely, and not more? (This defines in terms of conclusions already reached, making those conclusions preemptive and therefore invalid, so why are we mentioning them at all?)
Second, it is a given that there will be disagreement – if for no other reason than that human nature will rail against what is best for us, short term will rail against long term, and so on.
Third, those who go with what they desire are bound to be a large constituency. So too are those who think things through. So it would be more remarkable if we did NOT have two substantial constituencies. But that does not mean that they jointly constitute a level playing field or have equal ‘honour’ at the table. That is to say that merely stating a position (or rather a desire) is equally good to thinking one through. Which would be a shameful position to take, and would make thought and education and honesty and truth all pointless.
(13) Anglicans are not transmitting faith, it is said. 40% falloff rate is quoted in the recent survey to which Ian refers.
The problem is not Anglicanism at all (look at Sunday School attendance in the early to mid 20th century) but the prevalence of non Christian culture which is seeping into Christian lives, lifestyles and worldviews, even those of the adults to a great degree.
(14) Compassion and flexibility are recommended on abortion and divorce.
So a society preaches to kill off your own daughters and sons, and people callously abandon their poor spouses (not their children, inconsistently, just their spouses) – and we should be compassionate and flexible to the actual aggressor in each instance? Without mentioning how we are oriented to the one who is aggressed against? That is (of course) quite distant from being right.
(15) CL mentions the attitude – ”Let’s just push things through” [before anyone can notice or catch their breath, presumably; and probably by precisely 50%, to produce a perfection of division]; he mentions being shut down for raising awkward (i.e. pertinent) questions.
Do those two things not give a clue about the dishonesty of those involved – who throughout are unaccountably treated by him as honest?
(16) Mention is made of ‘increasingly unbearable tension’.
Yet homosexual behaviour has always been with us. So why would tension happen now in particular? Only because of something that is here now that was not here before. Which probably is compromise.
(17) Disproportionate interest in sexual sin is cited.
This is in the cliche category. Is it not known, somehow, that it has so many times been said both (a) that it could not be otherwise than that people talk about the presenting issues of their day – yet they are somehow being made to feel guilty about doing this obvious thing; and (b) those who made this a presenting issue were not even the Christians in the first place, but the other group, the secularists and those who conform to them because of their more limited capacity for social deviance and/or integrity?
I go into this in detail above because the position of CL seems to me to encapsulate so many of the wrong presuppositions all in one place. Those who (not even knowing the names of authors or articles of relevant literature, let alone contents) are simply out to get what they want ( -and that is, of all things imaginable, two men sleeping together with impunity in the face of all that is holy) are treated as equal ”discussion” partners with good, scrupulous and detailed-examination people of integrity, and people of family.
Those involved in and/or affirming sin consider the Christians should be softer on them.
I cannot imagine why….
No one’s affirming sin. Except for your pal J.D. Vance.and his ilk.
Yes, we shared a restaurant meal yesterday. At which I naturally shared his exposure of the way innocent old ladies are treated as the new criminal class while phone stealers, robbers and shoplifters and those who use transport free thrive; and castigated him for his superior complacency on other issues.
If you think Vance gives a toss about old ladies crossing exclusion zones in Scotland, I have a bridge to sell you.
He certainly believes in the principle behind it – but then if someone did not believe in that they would end up locking up saints and letting thugs go free. Oh – wait a minute….
How very naive of you Christopher!
So your take is that he disbelieves in the principle of freedom of speech?
Well he is about to boycott the countries that will not uphold the principle, so it is a bit rich if he does not even believe in it himself.
Reductio ad absurdum.
You are priceless!
You honestly believe that a the government of a country whose secret police kidnap a woman off the street because she wrote a pro Palestinian op ed in a student newspaper* believes in free speech.
*other examples of crackdowns on free speech in the US are readily available in both mainstream and social media.
When a country is as big as that there will be all kinds of things done (what not?) at least once, and some of these will naturally contradict each other. It is not the same bloke doing all of them.
It’s the same people in the same government limiting free speech because it threatens their ideologies.
So long as the babies still die, that is all that matters to the secularists.
Whose side you are here on. Which is why it is hard to take seriously.
Since you seem to have changed the subject from freedom of speech to abortion, I’ll just draw your attention to the number of women who have died of sepsis in States which have banned abortion. You may think that’s collateral damage. I think it’s the program, not a bug.
Which number (quantity value)?
Wow! A lot of assumptions assumed here Christopher. And again, a lot of linguisticky labels to make your arguments rather than arguing what was being said — ‘incoherent’, ‘inaccurate’ (both used of *words*), ‘invention/invented’, ‘cliche’ … And again the (dishonest?) extension of the meaning of an utterance in context to other senses (for example, your #7).
You are wrong about #7.
My point at #7 was different from the one you say. My point was: For someone to be able to say ‘To be honest’ at all means that they are not treating honesty as a given. But it should be treated as a given.
Secondly, that has no implications for my view of the remainder of what the person says, which I personally was assuming to be honest. And I was further assuming that his use of ‘to be honest’ was just an unthinking thing he had picked up from the culture, and had no implications for his own honesty.
Bruce you always have to remember that when challenged about anything that the point Christopher was making shifts. Challenging him is like nailing jelly to a wall. And he has, as both you and I have noted many times before, a very special use of language that only he understands.
Which point shifted? My comment precisely shows how nothing at all shifted.
As for words and phrases used in different ways than the norm, all you have to do is give examples and we can see if you are right.
Fire away. The first example is:
Just scroll back through the exchanges with Bruce and you and me on here before Christopher. Seek and ye shall find.
And all I will find if I do that is the occasions he asserted I had done that.
Mostly because he had not yet grasped my train of thought.
From which we conclude your attitude to his utterances is fundamentalist (he is infallible) and to mine is different. The rationale for the difference has not been stated yet. It is:
[Presumably that anyone who picks me up on anything is automatically right because I am someone you would prefer to lose arguments because I oppose in detail so much of what you say and stand for.]
Christopher you struggle with reading as well as writing.
I have picked you up on your very imprecise and confused use of language many times. Each time you say ‘oh but I didn’t mean that, I meant this…’ …and the ground shifts every time.
Arguing with you is quite pointless.
As mentioned on many occasions, your failure to understand is the same as anyone else’s failure to understand – to be attributed to needing more time, more brains, or both. Since we know you are a bear of abundant brain, time and rereading will make all things clear.
The penetrating level of your analysis, and your excellent memory for answers already given, help us to hold out much hope.
It could, of course, be your failure to make any sense.
We can easily test which one it is: whether it’s my incoherence or your failure to understand. Reproduce what you think my meaning is, and I will immediately be able to see if you have put in the thinking to enable understanding. This will always be in the context of my needing to be coherent in the first place, so if I explain my meaning and it is STILL incoherent I lose.
That way there will always be understanding and we can always work out on which side the fault lies. Win win.
Drop the self righteous nonsense Christopher. Your claims to be more academic, more qualified in every area, more holy, etc etc are just repulsive.
And if you can’t see that you are that way then your self understanding is so limited that your proposal here – sensible though it might appear – could never work. (Please note the use of the word appear)
Can you direct us all to my claims to be holy – or indeed ‘righteous’? I do not believe these ever took place, did they? Moreover, they would have been mendacious if they had.
Secondly, more qualified. Yes, of course – those who have studied a topic more are more qualified to speak more on that subject, and those who have studied it less are less qualified to speak on it. And in my case my main qualifications are NT and my main publication and research for it majors on statistics on family/sexual issues. Whatever alternative view can you possibly have held of this matter? The idea that everyone who has not done a course is just as knowledgeable as one who has done a 3 year course? An interesting take, but any takers?
I’ve got it. It must be the cliche that if someone points out which things are obviously good, the cry goes up (quite illogically), ‘Oh, you are claiming to be good, and you are also claiming that we are bad.’.
Anyway, being good is a good thing, and we all wish we were.
Andrew seems to be struggling in his quest for any claims of mine to be holy or righteous.
Thank you Christopher for confirming that you were extending the function of ‘to be honest’ beyond the context of Christopher Landau’s utterance. So *yet again* you are showing that your understanding of language use in communication is severely deficient.
Your utterance below ‘As for words and phrases used in different ways than the norm …’ shows the same deficiency. What on earth do you mean by ‘norm’ here?
Non seq. You pronounce from Olympus that something is deficient, but omit to show your working. Wherein is it deficient? Details.
By ‘norm’ I mean the same as anyone else – words are sometimes used in their more normal senses and sometimes in less normal senses. What else could be meant?
Christopher
Perhaps this is where you are going wrong.
Norm does not mean “the same as anyone else” 🙂
I know it doesn’t mean that, and never said it did. I said, I assign the same meaning to it that everyone else assigns. That is what happens when you read too quickly.
It is the difference between
(a) ‘By ”norm”, I mean the same as everyone else means.’ – which is what I did say; and
(b) ‘By ”norm”, I mean ”the same as everyone else.” – which I did not say.
OK, Christopher, you want ‘working’. Why do you assume that when an utterance includes ‘to be honest …’ it is referring to the concept HONESTY which (as you confirmed) seemed to be the intention of your #7? And your use of ‘norm’ seems to suggest that even concepts such as HONESTY are not adjusted in the context of a particular utterance.
We could do that level of close and speculative analysis every time we opened our mouth, but….
For me to think that ‘to be honest’ had anything to do with honesty was certainly singular. What could have possessed me?
Christopher
But you didn’t say that. Amd if that is what you mean, how on earth do you know that your definition of norm is what everyone else means?
Christopher said:
‘We could do that level of close and speculative analysis every time we opened our mouth, but….’ In your own words Non seq. You asked for ‘working’. Don’t you understand (a) what linguistics as an area of study is about; or (b) what is involved in learning and using a language? Would you answer (b) by saying learning morphology, syntax and vocabulary in the way you possibly ‘learned’ Koine or Hebrew, Christopher? Just interested!
Also:
‘For me to think that ‘to be honest’ had anything to do with honesty was certainly singular. What could have possessed me?’ Nice sarcasm. Maybe ‘what possessed’ you was being unclear on differences between conceptual and procedural use of language. Or are you not up to speed on what has been discussed in language in communication circles?
There is no point in focusing on ‘Jesus and evangelism’ when you are peddling toxic theology.
Ian suggested this priority. What ‘toxic theology’ is he ‘peddling’, I wonder.
Wonder no more. The ideology that queer people who express their loves sexually are outside God’s grace.
As Jesus said on one famous occasion (Gospel of Thribbiel).
It certainly sounds like the ipsissima vox. Ring of truth.
All aboard the Skylark.
The Bible makes clear that Christians must face constant opposition from the world around them. And indeed that is how it has been through history, taking various forms ranging from simple mockery to vicious slaughter. There’s no doubt that a serious campaign to normalise and even celebrate same sex sexual activity and relationships has been at the forefront of the non violent antagonism waged against Christians and their churches in the Western world over several decades. It’s been wildly successful – but it isn’t finished yet.
We need to remember that the whole thing actually has direct relevance for only 1% to 2% of people, many of whom may once have been content quietly to follow their own path while living a normal life in all other respects. Yet it has been bigged up by obsessive campaigning into an issue which is certainly capable of taking down whole churches. Some of us would observe that the underlying issue is not really homosexuality: the real target is the normal heterosexual family which, if successfully undermined, will logically lead to the destruction of human flourishing – individual identity, stable society, whole nations. The human soul reflects God’s image; damage the human soul and you’ve taken a swipe at God himself. It’s part of a cosmic battle.
What’s certainly clear to me is that the whole thing has been waged in terms of narrative. Narrative is the perfect tool for seducing minds, drawing them in, deceiving them, confusing them, eliciting emotional response rather than logical thinking, creating tribal antagonism, and finally closing/captivating minds altogether. The Christian’s first response to narrative should be to test it against scripture but also to pray for discernment in recognising when it is being deceitfully used and knowing how to respond to it.
I think kindness should be instinctive to Christian speech and behaviour just as much as consulting scripture is to Christian understanding. But we should not fall for the notion that kindness requires Christians always to be welcoming, accepting, affirming, celebrating things which are directly at odds with what God requires of people; true kindness cannot allow us to take such an ambiguous approach. This can place us in tricky situations, particularly with people whom we know are going to take serious offence at being faced with unwelcome truth. Perhaps using language clearly but softly is the best we can offer in such circumstances; the reality is that we are not all equally blessed with such skill! Faithfulness requires simply that we do our best.
Exactly right, Don, and very well expressed. What you describe is nothing short of a Satanic attack using the all too familiar tools of the adversary.
In March 1981, Sister Lucia, one of the Fatima seers, was asked about Pope Joh Paul II’s new Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family which he established that year. She wrote:
Two months later, Pope John Paul II made his first visit to this Institute before his planned Wednesday audience in St. Peter’s Square. It was on this day, May 13, 1981, that Pope John Paul II was to announce to the world the opening of this institute as well as a new Pontifical Council for the Family. Instead, he was shot on the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima.
Coincidence? Let the reader decide.
The Church today is fighting what maybe a decisive battle against ideological forces which want to uproot marriage and the family by encouraging premarital sex, divorce, contraception, abortion, homosexual marriage and transgenderism. A root cause of their success since the late 1960s is a misplaced notion of “compassion” and “freedom.”
Hosea 8:7: For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
Unfortunately, Christian responses to the sexual revolution have tended to be reactionary, crude and blunt. rather that prudential. There is a spiritual war between God and Satan and the battlefield is the family and marriage. However, we need to understand that the ultimate goals for both God and Satan is either the salvation or the damnation of souls. This war then has two-fronts; 1) those who attack the family and marriage through covert and overt methods to lead souls away from Christ. This requires teaching and apologetics; and 2) those defending the family and marriage who simply attack the casualties of this full frontal assault. These fallen souls should not be metaphorically shot on sight; there should be discernment and attempts to help them back to Christ.
“many of whom may once have been content quietly to follow their own path while living a normal life in all other respects”
Is that supposed to be a joke?
“Some of us would observe that the underlying issue is not really homosexuality: the real target is the normal heterosexual family which, if successfully undermined, will logically lead to the destruction of human flourishing”
Hardly. The people who have done most destruction to the family are those who taught parents to kick their children out if they were gay, are those who argued gay people should have no permanency or legal protection for their relationships, and are those who argued that the foundation of marriage is not love but begetting offspring.
Indeed. Weaponising ‘normality’ as a certain moral good is dangerous and extremely unwise.
Normal heterosexual families can be very toxic and harmful environments.
Anything CAN be the case, which is why statisticians and truth lovers look at larger scale trends.
When it comes to small scale trends there are so many of them that one has to be selective – and selectivity is bias.
All this is 101.
Why do you select the studies you are do fond of cutting and the scholars and authors you are so fond of quoting?
Sh!t
so fond of citing
Because you have to select papers that are written on the relevant topic and deselect those that are written about other topics.
Other than that, no selection – simply citing all those known to me. Selectivity is bias.
Except, that as A.J.Bell has shown, you don’t.
So when I assigned studies to topics, I left some out, I added some that should not be there, or what? You are talking at so general a level, and yet if I tell people you have no familiarity with what I wrote, they will obviously say: ‘Penelope, why are you pretending to be so very sure about something you have not even gone so far as to read?’.
All future discussion needs to be on the basis of what I actually wrote, because discussion of that is impossible otherwise.
I wonder how many people on this thread would like their relationship, family or very existence judged by someone talking to people of the same orientation in a dive bar?
They won’t see that. They never can. Because, in their own eyes, they are normal. And this is a good thing. Apparently. God help them.
There is only one class of people who have the slightest idea what is or is not normal.
Students of statistics.
But plenty pretend.
Students of statistics….. Often known as liars….
We wait for your graphic descriptions and obsession with anal sex Christopher.
Your 16 days (yay! a statistic!) at Iwerne really do have a lot to answer for.
Whereas those who know nothing about what studies have been done but chatter a lot all the same rather than settling down to read are far more truthful. Ignorance is not only bliss but the height of learning.
My 16 days at Iwerne certainly do have a lot to answer for if I get arthritis later in life. For all 16 were spent as a senior camper, and you know what they do. Chores and more chores. You may put this down to the Protestant or Calvinist work ethic. On one 3-4 day camp I also wrote two 70 page Duke of Edinburgh award expedition illustrated reports while no-one was looking. The other 21,523 days of my life – well, I can’t remember what happened on any of them.
Christopher we all know you are a chief apologist for Iwerne. There is no need to rub it in.
Christopher
Statistics on gay men are never very good. There are always problems with accurate representation and changing times. The anecdotes here are from the US prior to same sex marriage and, with it, much greater tolerance that has massively changed how gay men behave.
I see huge differences between gay men 60+, gay men 35-50 and gay men in their 20s, yet you construct a monolith for all based on people who responded to an ad in a magazine about sex or who go clubbing or who visited a doctor for an STI decades ago.
Thank you so much Peter. At last a proper approach to the statistics.
In order to do that I would need to be relying on one study! So name any publication of mine where i rely on anything other than absolutely multiple studies – as many as I can lay my hands on?
It will be interesting to see what study you come up with.
A proper approach to statistics is an approach that mentions no studies, no authors, no conclusions, no journal names. The one criterion is that it should disagree with me, a random person. That is what makes it proper.
Christopher
Arent all your studies from decades ago?
How is that relevant in a culture that has dramatically changed in the last decade?
Peter-
Unless you want to be laughed out of court for trying to speak authoritatively about something you have never read, you will quickly have to do one of 2 things – read, or forbear from commenting.
You are speaking of studies which are not ‘mine’; which are the same ones everyone cites on the topic; which are large in number and variety (and yet you somehow think you can generalise…) and on many separate topics.
Do you really want to be seen as one of the people who knows so little that they cannot even name one author, one title, one conclusion, one statistic, of one of those many studies? And yet still wants to pontificate?
How would you know anything about dates BEFORE you did any reading? And how would that be relevant anyway unless things had changed since?
Christopher
For Pete’s ‘your studies’ please read the studies you cite. It’s rather obvious what he meant. You are simply trying to squirm out of his observation.
And no, another huge generalisation, ‘everyone’ does not cite them. Could you be a little more precise when trying to make your case. Otherwise you look disingenuous.
Everyone, I mean, who does surveys on the effects of homosexuality, cites the same papers, since those are the papers that have been written on the topic.
I am expecting that you will get to 100 comments on this without ever having known the author or topic or title or conclusion of even one of the papers you are pontificating about.
I think you need to think about what the end goal is here. Why engage with gay people at all? Do you actually want gay people at your church? Do you want them there as genuine equals?
that’s like asking, why engage with ‘sinners’ at all, ie anyone.
Sorry to leave a third comment, but I think it’s really significant that these counters happened in 2011, several years before same sex marriage was legalized.
It doesn’t take a suspicious mind to understand why a gay (bisexual?) man had gone dancing in a gay club if he genuinely were happily married to a woman. Is this a fully truthful attempt of heterosexuality or is it a veneer to allow him social capital at church while also getting some form of sexual or romantic outlet in the clubs? Is he still married to this woman? Does he still oppose same sex relationships for gay men?
*counters = encounters
*understand = question
apologies
But compassionate orthodoxy is thin on the ground. I attend a church where single folks are tolerated but not really loved. The brand format of family, family, family pushes single people to the fringes. How are same-sex attracted Christians supposed to thrive on such thin community gruel? Is it any wonder that they turn to genuinely compassionate affirming churches?
And let’s be clear. Nobody in an non-affirming church will shed one tear when a gay/ssa person ups and leaves that so-called ‘compassionate orthodoxy’. Instead they will blame that individual for giving into their sin nature. The entire dynamic is abusive. Jesus welcomed everyone – not just people living tidy, middle-class, heterosexual lifestyles.
Given that (a) the healthier a culture is in other respects the higher its marriage rate will invariably be, and (b) it is certainly strange if people are not actively seeking to marry when they are not married given that the alternative is a celibate life – then no wonder churches look favourably on marriage and treat it as the norm. Indeed (to make a further point) it is indeed the norm (in multiple generations) – apart from in one very odd generation.
Christopher
This is the church paradox – they want all gays to remain single. They want all single people to get married.
I experienced this pressure myself
How dreadful! And how unheard of. It is only biology, and the norm for all large international cultures.
All kinds of sexual practice are biology. One type happens to be procreative, if contraception isn’t being used. For most couples contraception is used. It’s the norm for all large international cultures. Or are you against that as well Christopher?
Different is actually the norm. The norm has come to mean what is actually most common. The norm is actually a need for sexual intimacy that doesn’t always result in procreation. That takes different forms, and that is what is the norm.
Anything a living being does is biology.
FOr some of these there is a clear proof that the action is as biologically intended.
For others of these there is no reason to think the action is as biologically intended.
To say there is no difference between these 2 situations is to treat the creation, formation and birth of a child as a matter indifferent.
However, there is nothing in the universe less indifferent or more awesome.
The perspective therefore falls as easily as a perspective can fall.
Nothing falls. The only thing that falls is your attempt at ‘othering’ people who aren’t like you.
Oral sex is clearly ‘intended’ else it wouldn’t be so universally practised – around 85% of humans. Contraception is practised by over 50% of people globally – but I note you ignore my point and direct question to you about the use of contraception. No surprise there.
Neither of the percentages you give is accurate. Instead they are specific to just one time among millions in history, and also vary. Largely the latter has been 0% if we understand the modern sense.
Secondly, if you think everything that happens a lot is intended, then presumably most of the worst crimes are intended and part of human flourishing.
Thirdly, it says it all that you focus on the two things you do (one extremely disease-causing among incredibly precious humans and the other synthetic and reducing the sublime to the cheap) when I am focusing on the birth of a new baby.
Worse than that – your attitude is baby / no-baby: same difference.
Fourth, your first para is relativism and so falls.
Christopher has clearly never read anything about contraception on antiquity. Really, context is important before posting such wild inaccuracies.
Indeed so Penny. I don’t think Christopher actually understands anything about sexuality at all, other than what he picked up in the playground at Harrow School or the ‘tents’ at Iwerne camps. And we know how damaging the latter in particular were for precious humans.
I try not to take anything Christopher says seriously as most of it is just ridiculous generalisation posing as facts. The nonsense about contraception and oral sex above are just two in the string of nonsense that he spouts.
In which case you will be able to give some reasons for your claim that each of these individually is nonsense.
So far you have given zero reasons in the one case, and zero in the other. The stopwatch starts now.
May I also draw attention to the double ad hominem from Canon Godsall.
Among ad hominems the inaccurate are the worse kind. Some schools have playgrounds and some are well known not to have. Secondly I attended Iwerne camps for something like 16 days in total. Is the idea that if you know 2 facts about someone these random facts must certainly be the most important about them, rather than the 1000s that are not known, and sufficient to base an analysis on?
PCD, my saying ‘if we understand the modern sense’ shows the precise reverse – that I did have ancient practices in my purview.
And so the inevitable spiral to the publicising of the private begins once more.
The apologias for huge HPV, mouth cancer, throat cancer increases are sickening.
You laugh when I call people precious. It’s a fact. They are very precious indeed.
No one is creating apologias for throat cancer or mouth cancer. In fact, no one mentioned them. It’s almost as if you believe no one ever enjoyed oral sex until the 196Os. In which case some more research into antiquity and early modern history would be good.
The good news is that there is now a vaccine against HPV, so future generations will escape the danger of, say, cervical cancer.
On another topic, I fail to see the moral difference between ‘modern’ and ‘ancient’ contraceptive practices. Indeed, some, such as barrier methods, are the same.
“So far you have given zero reasons in the one case, and zero in the other. The stopwatch starts now.”
I have already given reasons. And I don’t respond to playground bullying. So don’t worry about your stopwatch.
Oral sex is a very positive thing, as 85% of the population know. And contraception is a fact of life just as procreation is.
Both, of course, can be used wrongly, but that is also true of procreation. Or almost anything we might mention
And the reference to playground at Harrow School is equivalent to the reference to tents at Iwerne camps. Neither needs to be taken literally. But I know you struggle with anything that isn’t literal, so my apologies for not making that clear.
The need for the vaccine is precisely what shows us what is right and what is deviant. Do you think newlyweds need vaccines?
So, you don’t believe in vaccinating against flu or COVID, or measles ?
Christopher
It’s not my biology. It may be yours, but my body is non reactive to women
PCD never fails to show that her true and somewhat infernal calling is to be a tabloid journalist – always fishing,even in the unlikeliest waters (prepared o camp out for days) for a juicy quote. It’s what life is all about – nothing higher than that.
I believe all those vaccines are good, as opposed to the HPV one, but what on earth is the relevance to the discussion?
I recall the marriage preparation course my wife and I attended before marrying in a Roman Catholic church over forty years ago. The RC teaching was that oral sex (whether M/F or F/M) was an acceptable act for a married couple, with the proviso that it was foreplay before intercourse that was open to conception.
Peter, messing with families and with smooth development in a family context causes all kinds of havoc, but it is a maddish idea to say that we should live with that or encourage it.
It is easy to see what we can and cannot do – i.e. some things produce STIs (without artifice, which artifice destroys the whole point, and equates to the avoidance of doing something rather than to its opposite: doing something) and some don’t. Similarly, everyone who sleeps with a second partner is sleeping with all theirs too (where ‘all’ applies), meaning thousands of percent rise in this figure in no time at all.
Thank you Christopher. Not only do you ignore all my points about oral sex and contraception (possibly because I have shown up your foolishness and ignorance) you have now admitted that you believe that a vaccine which prevents cancer is bad.
A vaccine that prevents cancer is bad? It is cancer that is bad, and the only places where such vaccines are in vogue are where cancerous lifestyles are encouraged and normalised. Which, remarkably, you as a professing Christian are doing as we speak.
And in those places where cancer-directed lifestyles are encouraged, there will naturally be more cancer than otherwise.
Which, eccentrically, is what I am opposed to.
Your argument reminds me of what they used to say about contraception in Africa – ‘You want people to catch AIDS.’. But obviously the presupposition of an AIDS-directed lifestyle will mean, and result in, more AIDS than the presupposition of a marriage culture. And the latter was a point in social evolution that we had already reached, so what is the issue?
You do however, confirm once again the impression that what you are doing is eagerly plotting to extract out-of-context headline quotes out of people. Those who are caught in that obsession find it hard to escape it. But do.
No, what happened in the 1960s on was not de novo, despite your raising that de novo theme. It was instead a significant rise in instances, which was accompanied (as night follows day) with a significant rise in the associated serious diseases. Particularly as here we have a less easy case for contraception – for those who get as yukky as that.
This was also accompanied by two things: (1) journalists would not get a job at all if they did anything other than endorse and normalise this whole package including the diseases. I repeat: endorse. (2) The danger was not publicised so that someone like Michael Douglas did not have a clue till too late. The problem was so epidemic that entire populations started getting vaccinated.
The principle of seeing what does and does not cause disease is an incredibly simple natural law principle. Every other principle is incredibly complicated and unnecessary.
The usual answer is – It does not cause disease if you block it. Which is exactly the same as I said: If you block and prevent it, i.e. do not do it, then it will not cause disease. Like everything else does not cause disease if you avoid it. And whole swathes of cultures have done just that. Simple. But the alternative is to treat precious people as lambs to the slaughter. The choice is between simple on the one hand and ugly and conscience-dead on the other.
As a professing Christian I am not advocating ‘cancer causing’ lifestyles, as you would realise if you actually read people’s comments instead of imputing bad faith the whole time. Of course, I am in favour of a vaccine which prevents cancer, just as I am in favout of drugs which prevent HIV infection. Because I am not a monster! I don’t have to approve of people’s lifestyles to hope that they will not become ill or disabled – especially those who may be ‘innocently’ infected, such as in the contaminated blood scandal. Perhaps, as a professing Christian, you believe that hospitals should stop treating all smokers, alcoholics and drug addicts since their ailmebnts are mostly self inflicted?
In answer to your later comment: how on earth do you know that oral sex became more popular in the 1960s? What studies are you relying on for this assertion? And, why on earth is contraception yukky?
It wasn’t too late for Michael Douglas though, was it? And whole populations could only start getting vaccinated when the vaccine was developed and became available. Hurrah for modern medicine!
O brave new world. Get ill more often, because there are more medicines, and they always cure us totally.
And whatever you do, don’t flag up the risks.
Make sure your society’s base presuppositions are such as to eventuate in disease, and you can be sure that the amount of disease and suffering will decrease.
As to why c is yukky, if you cannot see even that, of all things, then I cannot help you. But I want to, and know someone who can. CS Lewis on the parable of the cave (whence we get the term ‘Shadowlands’).
Note that Christopher neatly ignored your questions about oral sex. Has no understanding of what contraception has and does mean. And thinks C S Lewis is the Messiah.
God help us.
But you were going to show us greater wisdom than Lewis, Andrew – ‘a greater than Lewis is here’. It disappoints me that you did or could not. But you’ve another chance:
Thanks Christopher, but I will leave children’s books where they belong.
And note what Penny says about being crass elsewhere here.
Christopher
I grew up in one of the most stable families going. My parents are still together and very much in love with one another. Nobody “messed” with me or my family…so please stop lying about me.
First of all, do not at any time call me a liar. Why not? First, because it was a rush to judgment, and second because rushes are based on not having taken time to understand. THird, because of what I say in the next para.
Second, statisticians do not talk about Peter Jermey or about any other individual. They speak about large scale trends.
Third, when statisticians speak of large scale trends they never mean 100% of people follow that trend.
Fourth, it is hubris to claim that a random individual like yourself is determinative of what is true of 10000s of people. It is also obviously untrue.
Fifth, if one were to choose a random individual at all (why?) why would it be you and not someone else?
Sixth, it has been mentioned many times before that anecdotal or small scale evidence are not at all statistically significant. You have failed by not remembering that.
Seventh, every statistician includes the minority groups (whose back story is atypical for their class) on their chart already. So they have already accounted for them, and know that they exist. You are speaking not only as if their existence is bound to be a revelation, but incredibly as though the existence of just one person in that category is somehow a deal breaker. Especially if it is you? Or whether it is you or not? Either way, you can see that nothing is less a deal breaker if the large scale trends are different to your own back story. Why is that not obvious to you?
Andrew Godsall writes: ‘I will leave children’s books where they belong.’.
First, Mere Christianity is written for adults. Which is where the different-dimensions (Platonic/cave) argument comes. Although of course it is exploited in The Silver Chair too.
Second, do I have any takers for Andrew Godsall’s view that all children’s books are on a level with each other? Or (third) that Narnia occupies a suitably low level. Books written for adults (e.g. sex-and-shopping books) are superior in his eyes, maybe, because of their target audience?
If there is even one person who agrees with that, do let me know.
Christopher you referred to Screwtape I think. Not Mere Christianity.
Screwtape is fun, but not very profound and a fantasy of its time.
Mere Christianity? Well. As a good introduction I prefer Priestlands Progress. And Honest to God is a better read. But each to their own.
Mere Christianity is mostly – to use the correct theological term – crap.
And no, Christopher, I absolutely do not understand why contraception is ‘yukky’, though the very fact that you use that term suggests that you have a juvenile approach to sexuality. If i was as crass as you I might enquire what led to your stunted sexual development and I might even ponder the malign influences of public school and Iwerne.
Without contraception there would be a lot more prematurely dead women. No religion, as far as I know, proscribes contraception and family planning is seen as a good (Unless you’re St Augustine.)
If you want a world where women die bearing their 12th child and the 12 children live in poverty because of scarce resources just don’t profess to be a Christian. Or at least a pro-life one.
‘Don’t be a Christian’? People cannot help what they believe to be true – if they said they believed anything else, they would be lying, which would make you an encourager and abetter of lies.
No religion – apart from the world’s main one, the Catholics. But of course, most were formed not only before something so artificial was part of mainstream discourse, within systems where it was assumed that there would be no need of such (if the thought ever occurred at all). So we add most other ‘religions’ as they think in terms of married couples.
It is only ugly secularism that does not and it is a tragedy that you should be inured to it and considering its norms to be normal.
Worst of all is to see this syntheticising and de-glorifying / contaminating of the sacred as an *advance* on – something *more* mature and adult than – the sacred itself. No-one can make that make sense. It is the way that you claim you cannot see what the big deal is (though that coheres with your earlier talk on many occasions) that is just so awful.
Penelope, “Mere Christianity” works by giving analogy after analogy, none of them containing all of the truth but each of them giving part of it. And I’d rather read it than your book “Queering the Church”.
Nothing but errors. It is , among others, Mere Christianity refers to the dimensions/cave argument, I believe. Screwtape the devil I referred to, not Screwtape the book.
‘Each to his own’??? – if that is the level of your thought, you don’t know what the word ‘thought’ means. What if their ‘own’ were Aleister Crowley? Woteva.
You seem determined that those who start with the highest spiritual treasures should degenerate the max possible. Am I wrong?
Ask any scholar about the other two books. One of which turned (not directly, as they did not actually read it) more people from Christ than any other in the UK at any time. Brewitt-Taylor.
It’s all preference, what tickles your fancy. Nothing objective.
People have these extraordinary UK-bound uninternational and completely unheroic ‘heroes’ such as Harry Williams, Richard Holloway, Gerald Priestland. Such small beer when the world is so large and history is so long.
Mere Christianity is one person’s attempt at apologetic. I admire his enthusiasm. Not his scholarship.
Priestlands Progress is an entirely different type of introduction to the Christian faith, based on an extensive series of conversations and research. But clearly you have never read it, so you wouldn’t know.
Honest to God is a popular scholarly work. Again, like Mere Christianity, very much of its time. But at least scholarly and written by a scholar of that discipline.
He was not a scholar of that discipline (systematics, modern theology) but of New Testament, and guite a good one. He took some false steps in the other.
None of the people I mention (though Priestland had an international life – it is of his thought that I speak) have any recognition as thinkers either beyond Christianity, beyond teh UK, or beyond their highly culture bound denomination. Compare Lewis and Wright, much plugged by all the main denominations and streams.
And of course each to their own when it comes to popular introductions. We aren’t talking about scholarly works here. Even if we were, there will always be some element of personal preference. What convinces one person will not necessarily convince another.
Once again you demonstrate that you have no knowledge of the Priestland volume and the work it undertook.
Most of what you have written about contraception is pseudo mystical claptrap, so I will leave that.
You have, however, made one serious error. The Roman Catholic Church does support contraception. But not by artificial means.
Anton
I have read Mere Christianity, so I can judge its merits. You have not read my book, so you can’t.
Mere Christianity is apologetic based on some broadcast talks. And that is why it is with comparing with Priestland’s Progress. The Priestland work is far more comprehensive and based on research and interviews. Mere Christianity is the thinking of one man who was not especially qualified in that area. Most of Priestland’s interviewees were highly qualified in their subject.
Penny’s book is a fine, scholarly, focussed work, based on extensive research which formed the basis of a PhD thesis. It isn’t apologetic. You can’t make any comparison Mere Christianity. That would be the same as me saying I’d rather read The Beano, or Hi Fi News, or Stamp Collectors weekly.
Have you read Mein Kampf, Penelope?
The RC Church does support contraception, just not of the artificial variety? Yes. Of course, its rejection of the artificial puts it out on a limb sociologically and in the mainstream in terms of minimal reverence and common sense.
It also practises d*****e, just not of the transparent variety.
Andrew is incorrect that Mere Christianity is not the work of someone expert in the area for 2 reasons. First of all, it is not in the same ‘area’ as something like Priestland’s Progress, because it, quite unlike Priestland’s Progress, is largely a book of logical reasoning. Second, that is an area in which Lewis was an expert. He was arguably in the chief philosophical university of his day, and no-one, even his opponents, claimed he lost a debate at the Socratics Club apart from on one occasion. It helps thought and analysis greatly to have become adept in various disciplines, and he had studied 4. Of these, he was initially applying for don posts in philosophy before securing one in English.
Oh I’m sure C S Lewis was a very intelligent man.
He had a couple of interesting romantic attachments as well. Maybe one of those with Janie Moore influenced what he had to say about sexual ethics in Mere Christianity.
Both Mere Christianity and Priestland’s progress began life as broadcasts on BBC radio. So they were intended for a particular audience. They bear comparison, but it’s no use discussing this with you as you haven’t read one of the books.
Who knows? What is for sure is that:
(1) that theory about CSL and Janie King Moore was first aired by AN Wilson. This took place (probably not exclusively) at an Oxford CSL Society meeting at which I was present. The biography came out shortly afterwards.
(2) AN Wilson’s own autobiography vol.1 affirms that his and his wife’s besetting scholarly sin was to paint their subjects’ life stories in their own image or in the image of people they knew.
(3) The main biographical fact about AN Wilson was that he fell for a much older lady when he was a young man of 20. CSL turned 20 at almost exactly the time of the Armistice, which was the time from which he had promised his friend Paddy Moore he would look after PM’s mother if PM died in WWI, as indeed he did die in WWI.
(4) As to whether he would be of a nature to prefer a more gossipy alternative to a less, I note that (AN Wilson moving in the circles of CSL’s erstwhile friends) his material at that level in the biography he wrote was more and more in proportion than were found in the RLG/WH and Sayer buigraphies (Sayer, a good friend of CSL, was -I believe- dubious about the JKM idea). In his diatribe Against Religion, from a couple of years after the biography, he also became quite ad hominem (and he was clearly not only very iconoclastic at this time but very badly affected naturally by the homebreaking that took place in his own life around the very same date as the biography, making him not unbiased); but as I am doing the same now, I should say that the origins of a theory (the CSL-JKM supposed romance) are highly relevant however much one rejects the etymological fallacy that a thing is its origins.
Interesting. To quote Sayer
“I have had to alter my opinion of Lewis’s relationship with Mrs. Moore. In chapter eight of this book I wrote that I was uncertain about whether they were lovers. Now after conversations with Mrs. Moore’s daughter, Maureen, and a consideration of the way in which their bedrooms were arranged at The Kilns, I am quite certain that they were”
As the subject has come up, CS Lewis wrote in his autobiography,
“I returned to Oxford… in January 1919. But before I say anything of my life there I must warn the reader that one huge and complex episode will be omitted. I have no choice about this reticence. All I can or need say is that my earlier hostility to the emotions was very fully and variously avenged.
There is no mention of Janie Moore in it (there is one passing reference to ‘I cannot tell you here of Janie M’) despite the fact they shared a house, The Kilns, many years. And George Sayer, a trustee of Lewis’s estate, changed his mind from believing that Lewis and Mrs Moore were not lovers to being ‘quite certain’ they were, following “a consideration of the way in which their bedrooms were arranged at The Kilns” (full quote at Lewis’s Wikipedia page).
Here is CS Lewis at his best, in the conclusion of his address at Westcott House, Cambridge in May 1959, titled “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism” (later retitled “Fernseed and Elephants”):
Such are the reactions of one bleating layman to Modern Theology. It is right that you should hear them. You will not perhaps hear them very often again. Your parishioners will not often speak to you quite frankly. Once the layman was anxious to hide the fact that he believed so much less than the vicar; now he tends to hide the fact that he believes so much more. Missionary to the priests of one’s own church is an embarrassing role; though I have a horrid feeling that if such mission work is not soon undertaken the future history of the Church of England is likely to be short.
Doubtless he would have included so-called Queer Theology in this conclusion, had it existed then.
Yes, I was aware of the Surprised By Joy passage and its central relevance, and had also read about but completely forgotten the Sayer retraction. In which case there is little mystery about what the truth was (in his pre Christian days).
Anton
That’s Lewis being particularly pompous. What a bore he could be.
CS Lewis’s rhetorical style does share a certain condescension with, say, Andrew Godsall’s; but Lewis is factually correct. Liberal denominations are dying whereas those which remain faithful to scripture are holding their own in the West. And in Islamic lands and China liberal churches have made zero headway in recent decades whereas evangelical ones grow dramatically.
I work with the ‘queer art of failure’ and the queer temporality of Holy Saturday as a space of abnegation and alterity to suggest alternative ways of being and doing in the pursuit of theological and ecclesial answers to questions on (homo)sexuality. Quite so, Penelope.
Anton
You have a problem with theologies of failure and the theology of Holy Saturday,?
More with pompous rhetoric.
‘Oh, I am sure CS Lewis was a very intelligent man.’
[Always keen to prioritise the airy, sarcastic manner of speaking exemplified by such as Scar.]
‘He had a couple of interesting romantic attachments as well.’
[Brilliant. Straight to the gossip level in one single irrelevant move. Confirming all I previously said about tabloidesque priorities.]
Should frame this example.
CS Lewis’s rhetorical style does share a certain condescension with, say, Andrew Godsall’s; but Lewis is factually correct. Liberal denominations are dying whereas those which remain faithful to scripture are holding their own in the West. And in Islamic lands and China liberal churches have made zero headway in recent decades whereas evangelical ones grow dramatically.
Do you believe that there is such a thing as compassionate orthodoxy or do you regard a SSM-denying church as necessarily uncompassionate?
It’s necessarily unorthodox!
JCF
Are you saying that to be “SSM-denying” is unorthodox??
Joe S
Jesus indeed welcomed everybody – but he also when necessary said “Go and SIN NO MORE”. Those who choose to sin choose darkness and exclude themselves, rejecting Jesus ….
Stephen, this is where the debate for Christians becomes rather more complex.
Without qualifying your response it is semi-Pelagianism, i.e., that humans can resist sin and initiate the first act of faith towards God without Divine grace. It is God’s grace that is the primary impetus for salvation and repentance. This is illustrated in the passage you’ve cited. Jesus, held back the baying “orthodox” crowd, reached out to the woman and then asked her to “sin no more”.
If we are to follow Our Lord’s example, this is the challenge facing the Church. The debate has now become so contentious and part of a broader “culture war,” that there’s a danger the Gospel message – which is love and compassion – becomes drowned out in noise. Above all else, this is a spiritual war and, at the moment, Satan is succeeding in hardening the hearts of both sides in the battle.
HJ
When God gives commands we don’t do lots of theological side arguing about whether God’s grace is giving us impetus; we obey – or not.
Stephen,
You seem to be overemphasising human agency and self-effort in matters of salvation or spiritual progress and downplaying the role of Divine grace.
HJ
Point – missed…..
Indeed, Stephen.
What of those in whom the voice of God has been dulled and obscured; those who have been beguiled and misled by false teachers? How will you assist the souls?
They do indeed. However, faithful queer couples aren’t sinning. At least in the sense you mean.
And there lies the problem. One group thinks they are sinning and should stop, the other wants to celebrate it.
And one thing is for sure. The mere assertion that people are or are not sinning remains and always will remain useless.
The way we can tell they are sinning is by statistical evidence of harm to others. And coherence with other kinds of harm towards their own creator, created potential, soul, etc..
Well, I’d leave it to people’s consciences. We won’t know until the eschaton and I have no desire to make windows into people’s souls.
The proposal was not to see into people’s lives but to further what is good at the expense of what is bad. Inactivism of the kind you suggest is uncaring laziness.
Christopher
It’s not inactivism. Its treating grown up Christians like gtown up Christians.
Lol. GIves a whole new meaning to ‘grown up’ that the main requirement is to behave worse than thsoe who are still growing.
It is a prescription for them to have nothing to aspire to apart from degeneration. As with the youngster who by mistake wrote, ‘I have nearly finished my childhood and am now looking ahead to my adultery.’.
But those who love them know that real and wholesome aspirations are healthy and bear good fruit.
Christopher
Your problem is that you have a morbid fascination with what you think of as degenerate sex and sexuality. Try to raise your mind above imaginary filth and you may realise that grown up queer Christians have healthy, fruitful relationships and healthy, fruitful sex.
Yes – because after all they are all the same as each other, aren’t they. They can be generalised about because they have no individuality (or must not be allowed any?).
Thanks, Nanny, for the advice. Not many are as wise.
Christopher
What are the same as each other? I don’t mind the sarcasm at all, but I would appreciate a coherent response.
The ‘grown up queer Christians’ (your words) about whom you generalised, and whose individuality you did away with. I am repeating your stated position that they are susceptible of being lumped into one, to the last individual.
Christopher
You are so prone to making generalisations that you cannot distinguish comments that aren’t. Observing that grown up queer Christians have healthy sexual relationships is incontrovertible; it is not generalising anything. Obviously, not all do, since some queer Christians do not have any sexual relationships.
So your claim amounts to: there are various people in various categories. Who knew?
And in order for your claim to be taken further, it would have to be agreed that the odd terms you use, ‘queer’ and ‘queer Christians’, have meaning and reference.
Christopher
Once again, you demonstrate that you don’t understand how language works.
All word are made up, their meanings are dependent on being used and understood by a number of people.
I would never have guessed.
So ‘a number of people’. 1 is an example of a number. Which number? How do we know that particular number of people has accepted a usage? Which number is the tipping point? What if that number then decreases again?
But the topic was not language but realities. If everyone in the world accepted a usage, that would not ipso facto be evidence for the usage being coherent or accurately representing reality.
Christopher
How else do we reflect on realities without language?
In no way. The language does homage to the realities.
Christopher
You really don’t understand language, do you?
If that were indeed true at this advanced point in my education, then you could educate me – which you seem to think I need – but insulting me is closer to your heart. Which, as I have often said, is sad.
Christopher
It’s not an insult.
It’s an observation.
An infallible one or a fallible one, Penelope?
This is somewhat surreal. The conclusion of “compassionate orthodoxy” is to say that we ought to have liturgical provision for same-sex couples in civil partnerships? This would be a pastoral provision that is no great threat to the conservative view of the current doctrine of marriage, just like the provisions to allow abortion, divorce, and polygamy. And Ian is enthusiastically nodding along?
If this is to be the future for the CofE, someone’s going to have to explain to me where the Bishops have actually gone wrong in the LLF debate. Is it really just disagreement about process, and actually everyone is fine about what the House of Bishops is arguing for as an answer?
I think you make a very good point.
I don’t know him but have an almost identical background to Christopher – BBC World Service Religion, Cuddesdon, (though I don’t at all share his understanding of charismatic theology.) I know Christopher will have encountered a very open and inclusive approach to sexuality. It’s simply the norm at both of the institutions I mention. So his approach will be, at one level, inclusive. And I respect his wish to hold to a traditional understanding of marriage. But I also suspect that he would not go the whole way with CEEC etc in wanting to have some kind of separate jurisdiction.
Christopher makes it clear that we do need to resolve questions and uses the analogy of landing the plane. Of course, in the case of the ordination of women we did find a way forward and that will be the same when it comes to matters of sexuality.
Christopher also talks about the tragedy of people in the same Deanery not being able to share communion with each other and Ian seems to nod and agree. Though of course Ian publicly refuses to share communion with his Archbishop.
I’m not hopeful that CEEC and all will be able to sign up to the idea of being compassionate without at the same time being self righteous. At least Christopher doesn’t seem to applaud self righteousness and for that I am grateful.
Having skimmed through the comments here, most of which leave me flabbergasted for one reason or another, it was good to find these two! Thanks to you both for ‘getting’ what I am attempting to say. I agree that much of the disastrous division we are now facing is as a result of the bishops, and the synodical process, not addressing these issues in a logical way, so absolutely everything felt thrown up in the air for debate in early 2023. I feel as though much of the current discussion has not adjusted to the (surprising) official restatement of existing teaching on marriage and sex. And that, of itself, surely has an impact on whether clergy can enter same-sex marriages, and indeed what kind of liturgical provision is consistent with that existing teaching on marriage (hence, I think, the significance of the Bishop of Bath and Wells noting that a service that looks and sounds like a wedding would be problematic).
Hi Christopher
It seems so obvious that this is an oil and water case, but that’s not my question. My question is – Given that there is a difference of ‘opinion’, is it not axiomatic that a large sector of people will follow their prevailing culture? It would be astonishing if they did not. Most of the heresies round the world are down to people following their own culture and either not being able to conceive that things could be different or else not having the capacity for too much social deviance, or both. It would be surprising if they were not.
Consequently difference of opinion is inevitable, because there will always be lots of people following evidence and lots of other people following culture. But here difference of opinion is treated as significant. What is inevitable cannot be significant. And that is even before we get onto the unusability of the word ‘view’ – it is quite impossible that research conclusions and unresearched selfish desires (for example) be treated as the same thing. Yet both are ‘views’.
I wonder what you think about this.
Many thanks.
Christopher.
I don’t know about wholly laying this at the feet of the Bishops Christopher L (thanks for taking the time to engage in the comments section by the way – it is often flabbergasting, but such is the nature of these discussions when conducted online I fear).
The difficulty that the Bishops and Synod have gotten into is that they didn’t think they were in an exercise that was about discerning and persuading people on the issue of sexuality. What they’re actually engaged in is, assuming that the positions are known and entrenched, an exercise in working out how to preserve Church unity whilst basically implementing Pilling. Hence, the draft of PLF contained a bunch of ideas that hadn’t been given any airtime in LLF but were there in Pilling (covenanted friendships), and when the Bishops are asked to provide their theological working we got an essay on Church unity, not human sexuality and marriage. At the same time however, I think we need to be extremely wary of simply blaming the Bishops. The behaviour of outfits like CEEC has been just as important and destructive to good discernment and trust within the Church. The attempts to shortcircuit discussion (see “Beautiful Story”) and argue we didn’t need to get distracted with any of the debate around sexuality, just continually re-assert marriage was one man and one woman, has been deliberately corrosive. And this has been exposed when it emerged that what they’ve really been after is a split in the structure of the Church, going so far as to argue that they dearly wished we could have same-sex marriages in Church just as long as they got their schism. Nor did the conservative-minded Bishops cover themselves in glory when they issued their theological note, which also sidestepped the issues of sexuality.
I have thought that it probably would have been better for Synod to try to work up from the start what we think about sexuality, and see at what point agreement really does break down. I suggest that starts with systematically revising Issues in Human Sexuality. The different factions of Synod all agree it needs replacing. What is untested is how Synod wants to replace it. There are really important questions for the Church to be clear about – is sexual orientation a real or imagined/constructed thing? Is it malleable or fixed, and should we be trying to change it or accept our sexualities? Should gay people be encouraged or discouraged from pursuing straight marriages? Is celibacy a calling or an instruction? Are faithful and exclusive but sexless relationships ok, and if so, how do we acknowledge that? And so on. Eventually with those questions we’d get toward the questions of sex and same-sex marriage, but we’d be doing so with a firmer grasp of what we do (largely) agree on.
Whether we can land on covenanted friendships for those in civil partnerships I have become increasingly doubtful. The revisions to PLF saw conservative factions dramatically change covenanted friendships to prevent this – the friendships are now drafted to definitely not be exclusive (i.e. you can enter one, or more, whether married or not). And whenever we try to discuss them on here, it’s made very clear that most simply do not believe such relationships will be sexless, and do not agree that they should be viable option.
On malleable and fixed a great amount of research has already been done. LLF was notable for ignoring or downplaying many of the most central questions conceivable about homosexuality. What Are They Teaching The Children? is only one of many places where these are addressed properly, and with far more (a) argumentation, (b) detail, (c) annotation – also by Gagnon, ML Brown, De Young sr, Whitehead, Schmidt, Satinover and others.
Christopher
Much of the research in WATTTC is out of date, and malleability does not imply faithlessness. Plenty of bisexual people are faithfully married.
WATTTC is a multi chapter work, and my own chapters cover tens of topics. So your assessment is meaningless. Give me examples of an area, or areas, of study where you say the realities and data have shifted, and we will look at the specifics.
Christopher
Others have pointed to egregious errors in previous threads. Go back and read them.
So egregious, in fact, that you can give no detail of any. Perhaps they were figments of your imagination. You actually think claims of error and actual error are the same thing. But that is because you are desperate to prove me wrong any which way. Truth be blowed.
Christopher
I am not desperate to prove anyone wrong because I don’t believe we are inhabiting a sixth-form debating society. I simply observed that others had found some of your research dated or misrepresented. If you are interested you are welcome to do some research and see who that was and what they claimed. I have ‘The Moonstone ‘ to finish.
Lol, your usual getout clause. And even then, who knows whether the claims were true. You are on the same level as Peter here – speaking sternly and condescendingly when it is you that have not the slightest knowledge of even one of the papers, one of the authors or one of the conclusions. Specifics are dangerous, which is why people hide in vagueness. The Moonstone is great, a favourite (and I even guessed whodunnit when 12) but what has that to do with anything? Your answer can wait rather than being cancelled.
Tedious.
One example Christopher would be on the article: “Seeking a Way Through LLF/PLF: Seeing the Forest Not Just the Trees”
You claimed that “those who now claim to be homosexual or lesbian are actually clearly higher than average on impregnating when young and being impregnated when young”. When challenged, you first got the citation wrong, and then when we got the right one it turned out you hadn’t read it properly.
The sample the article authors looked at was conditioned on those who engage in heterosexual sex in their adolescence. So, in New York 15-20 years ago, of the adolescents having heterosexual sex, those who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, appear to have done so in more risky ways. The authors went on to speculate about the connection to being forced into heterosexual sexual encounters as part of what’s going on.
From this I concluded you weren’t to be trusted to read and report this sort of research accurately.
The Lindley/Walsemann 2015 study (and goodness knows why you think one random study on a random topic has the slightest bearing on discussions of other studies on other topics – but in that you are obviously mistaken) found the chances among these 9000 sexually experienced students of having been pregnant were 10.0 percent among self-described heterosexual, 28.6 among ‘LGB’ and 12.2 unsure.
As to having made a woman pregnant, it was 13.3 percent among heterosexual, 22.6 among ‘LGB’ and 32.7 unsure. These discrepancies are absolutely massive – which you did not mention, but which is the main point.
As mentioned at the time, you cite avowed speculation, which by definition is non-evidence, as though it were your best piece of evidence!
The speculation in question is in fact the only perspective that could possibly let the self-described LGB off the hook – and that, no doubt, is why it was chosen. Normally and obviously, no speculation would rightly have place in a scientific journal (because that is where science abruptly departs) – but if any did, it would be improper for only one possibility to be aired to the exclusion of others. Another possibility (and reports of the speculated-about coercion in these cases were not cited) is that those with early ”sexual debut” (and this poor New York sample were certainly that) soon become bored with vanilla, react against it, and diversify.
Note that vultures or jackals are waiting expectantly for mere assertions (whether correct or incorrect) that I misrepresent literature. These they will not check out but crow about triumphantly. It is an easy matter to say someone has misrepresented literature simply because they do not quote every single angle or aspect of a paper. This is the same with anyone who ever cites any paper. The only thing to do is read it from cover to cover and not rely on summaries.
Christopher
A.J. Bell, who has far more patience and grace than I, has provided one very good example. Which, of course, you dispute. But your record for accuracy, even on this one thread, is unimpressive, as you claims about where the HIV pandemic started show.
If you guessed who the thief was in ‘The Moonstone ‘ at the age of 12, might I suggest that literature could be a more profitable pursuit for you than trying to score cheap points on here.
Yes, it’s an either/or. Each of us can pursue only one activity for all our days.
Whether I dispute it or not, you have not done the slightest analysis of the rights and wrongs. Nor shown what is the relevance to any other of our discussions.
Hang on – without your first hand knowledge, how do you know it is a ‘very good’ example, or even an example (of what?) at all?
Like the tabloids, the mere fact of an assertion or allegation (even from those biased enough to be itching to make one on any pretext) seems to be enough for you. Everyone can note that modus operandi.
I do not get the same treatment myself. If I say something it is never believed without checking. (Nor indeed should it be.) Two tier.
Which is precisely why I used the words vulture and jackal.
“goodness knows why you think one random study on a random topic has the slightest bearing on discussions of other studies on other topics”
It speaks to your misrepresentation of the studies you cite when trying to back up the claims you make. I could be generous and say you just misunderstood the analysis and were sloppy about how you handled it but I don’t think that’s what’s happening given what a fuss you make about the importance of speaking with precision.
But maybe this was an unrepresentative slip-up on your part. Sadly I think not. On the article on Justin Welby’s legacy in January you tried to claim that we could see the “actual degree of monogamy” amongst gay couples by looking at McWhirter/Maddison. When I pointed out that study was using a dataset almost 40 years old, and more recent work (Parsons et al, Hunter College, Lowen and Spears etc.) showed much higher rates of monogamy, and that monogamy was rising and pretty rapidly in the US, you backpedalled to say that you of course thought monogamy was rising, which if you were honest would make citing McWhirter/Maddison a remarkable error of judgement.
No – only dishonest people ‘backpedal’. Each study makes multiple points, and all your claims to misrepresentation forget that. Unless someone can summarise *all* points of a study in their summary, you can claim misrepresentation.
So can anyone at any time. But inaccurately. All it means is that that was not one of the points mentioned in their brief summary. As indeed most points will not have been mentioned in their brief summary.
Now – can you look at all the points I made in my previous comment that you have left unaddressed, and answer them.
What you are doing, in addition, is cherry picking. You have not shown I said anything untrue. But you have chosen two cases where I (like everyone else always does, by necessity) gave an incomplete summary, without checking whether this was representative or not.
McWhirter and Mattison should certainly be cited. In conjunction with other studies. Otherwise our picture would be less full rather than fuller, an odd goal.
Far from backpedalling – your invention – I have always regarded it as obvious that post SSM faithfulness rates will rise a bit.
I gather also that these are your only two attempted examples (both fail), or rather that they are the two that you have ever attempted to pick me up on; but you are happy (?) to give the false impression that they are culled from a wider field.
Meanwhile – what is your prescription for summarising a paper while leaving out none of its points at all?
“No – only dishonest people ‘backpedal’ “
You back pedalled when you said you never used the word ‘cause’ in relation to gay sex in San Francisco and the AIDS pandemic. And I’ve picked you up for back pedalling many times before. You must be quite dishonest, by your own reckoning.
Christopher
I have no idea what’s an either/or. You are incoherent.
Now, much as I enjoy teasing you, I really do think for the sake of your reputation you should withdraw from this thread. I am sure you will return to fight another day.
Christopher, you’re really no good at this, and I recommend you stop.
Only dishonest people backpedal? That’s a remarkable thing for someone who backpedals so much to say.
When I say you misrepresent the studies and academic work that you cite, I am not criticising you for giving an incomplete summary. I am saying that they do not back up or evidence the claims that you make and choose to cite them for. For example, you originally cited Lindley/Waldemann as evidence for your assertion that homosexuality was really just hypersexuality. Nowhere does Lindley/Waldemann attempt to address that question, and it couldn’t given that the sample it used for the study. Similarly you tried to suggest McWhirter/Maddison was evidence for current rates of monogamy amongst gay couples, when it was a dataset that was 40 years out of date, and the wider evidence tells us that prevalence of monogamy has changed significantly. And this dishonesty is found in more general writings: on this thread you’ve been caught claiming that gay sex caused the HIV/AIDS epidemic and it started in San Francisco, both of which are flatly untrue.
I’m going to step away and disengage now. This isn’t a healthy conversation.
AJB lists his initial perceptions of what I write. He expects (something that is vanishingly unlikely) that these initial perceptions will be perfectly accurate. Of course, most people know that a first reading rarehy enables an accurate rendition, whereas AJB is apparently taking it for granted that it will enable one. And on the basis of just a few words, to boot, which he uses as infallible evidence for an entire position that he somehow thinks he knows.
That expectation would be bad enough, but when I disabuse him of that perception above he just ignores it and repeats his initial reaction as though the clarification had never happened. When I disabuse him of it a second time, because he seemed to have forgotten the first time, he again acts as though it never happened and repeats his initial misunderstanding, as though no clarifications had happened, let alone been repeated, in the interim. This can only be the behaviour of someone who has not digested the clarifications, and/or someone who is desperate to jump to conclusions, or rather to negative conclusions, or rather to negative conclusions specifically where I am involved.
So to repeat for the third time – and surely no-one’s analysis can be at such a low level as to ignore the same thing three times:
-I always use the maximum number of papers, since more data is better and less data is worse. That necessarily means mining all the works on male-male stability or otherwise, which will necessarily include the random one mentioned McWhirter and Mattison (which you misspell) among all the others.
2nd, I certainly did cite Lindly as evience that homosexuality has something of hypersexuality about its essence, but I never remotely said that that was what Lindley had said. Lindley merely discovered that homosexual people were so sexual that they even outdid the heterosexuals in their back yard, before we even start on their own back yard. From that, it was I not Lindley who suggested that this might be what one could term hypersexuality. Which it certainly seems to be.
3rd, this is now the 3rd time that I am repeating that I do not see ’cause’ anywhere where there is not origins. My wording made it clear that San Francisco early-80s was not a place of origins but of mushrooming and of becoming such a phenomenon as to hit the headlines. This acceleration accorded with ‘homosexual’ men practically always being the very top at-risk group in such STI epidemics. Which is my second, oft-repeated point, which is still being inaccurately reproduced.
Having said all these things three times, it is inconceivable that the same misconceptions should recur a fourth time. But it does make you wonder why they would need to be said 3 times at all.
–
PCD, you were treating debate and literature as a mutually exclusive either/or. They are well known to be, instead, a both/and.
More back-pedalling Christopher!
Please would you explain why you used the word cause in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and gay sex in San Francisco and then denied even saying it, when it is there quite clearly in black and white?
Where is it in black and white, Andrew? Quote where you saw it in what I wrote?
Of course, every chief risk factor is indeed a cause. But I do not believe I used the word cause, since that implies origin to me.
Christopher: “you are promoting something called ‘gay sex’ just after it caused a world pandemic. Where else would that pandemic start but the world’s greatest hotbed of GS, a particular quarter of San Francisco? What other behaviour would be the most likely to cause said disease, out of all behaviours?”
And just so that you can reference when you said this Christopher, it was March 31 at 0747
Exactly. The virus or disease did not begin there, HIV/AIDS did not; but the HIV/AIDS pandemic did. You are saying that every virus there ever was has mushroomed into a pandemic?
‘What other behaviour would be so likely to cause said disease [in a new recipient]?’ is the sense. You were confusing (a) the cause of HIV/AIDS existing at all with (b) the cause of its infecting someone. The latter cause or sub-cause is (significantly more than any other cause) homosexual sexual behaviour.
The way you presumably took my words would mean speaking of homosexual sexual behaviour actually *creating* the virus. How would that work?
Christopher you are wriggling again. You said on APRIL 1 at 0847
“I never mentioned ’cause’. “
But you clearly did.
(1) Yes, I used the word, which is a common word, but in quite a different context and connection. Namely the most potent cause of a given individual contracting the virus which already existed.
(2) AJB said I was speaking of how the actual virus HIV/AIDS was caused. That is an error on his part, which is why he could not quote where I said that.
(3) I was very precise at the start to use words like ‘mushrooming’ precisely because these are in contradistinction to ’cause’. Because it was a mushrooming (a later acceleration) it was not a cause (an origin). Deliberate avoidance of the word cause was the reason I used ‘mushrooming’.
Ahh your usual “I didn’t mean what you think I mean” response.
Congratulations Christopher. Great back pedalling.
No wonder you were described as a person who could not be trusted.
Andrew
When Christopher uses a word it doesn’t mean what everyone else understands it to mean, it has a special meaning for him, which we fail to grasp.
Similarly, when Christopher cites a piece of research, it doesn’t really matter what the research’s topic is, or what its conclusions; it’s simply there to serve Christopher’s ideological purpose and to prove what a firm believer in statistics he is.
All you need to do is show anything that is untrue: HIV/AIDS (a) was *not* caused by homosexual sexual practice, (b) nor did it originate in San Francisco. The HIV/AIDS pandemic (a) *was* caused by its acceleration, (b) the factor that accelerated it quickest and very widely was homosexual sexual practice often combined with drugs and needle sharing, (c) that was especially the case, obviously, where there was the highest concentration of people doing these things, e.g. but not exclusively San Francisco, (d) so not surprisingly it was in San Francisco that the world started to take notice that this was a large phenomenon.
Six separate points to differentiate, and then all will be clear; all hard to deny.
Broadbrush will never understand fine toothcomb beyond a certain point, because it has not the level of detail or differentiation wherewith to do so. But what matters is that all those people lie dead; whereas you are operating as though what matters most was trying to trip up those who are aiming for the most precision and truth. As though that were an achievement (negative and destructive though it be); and as though you were on the side of the spread of the pandemic and its means of spreading. (Hence the sayings ‘Wait a minute – whose side are you on?’ and ‘playing d’s advocate’.) There are, of course, biblical characters who are characterised by prioritising this ‘tripping up’ ministry, and others dedicated to spreading the light.
Why so shy? You presumably agree that the 6 points are undeniable. Can we agree on that, or can you go through the 6 and see if any of them can be challenged?
Christopher (Landau) thanks for engaging and thanks for the thinking you have done about this.
I was going to make many of the same points that AJB has done above, but now don’t need to repeat those, but simply express my support for his questions and observations.
And to add a couple of my own.
Firstly I think it’s worth recalling that a lot of this discussion and LLF in general started because the bishops could not get their ‘take note’ paper through General Synod in 2017. I was a member of GS then and recall so clearly a meeting of Inclusive Church just before the key debate about the take note paper. Archbishop Justin came to that meeting, by invitation, and sat and listened carefully. There was a moment when he suddenly saw that his hitherto ‘conservative’ approach to human sexuality would no longer satisfy him personally, or the CofE corporately. He knew at that point that the debate would not succeed. And of course he then made his now famous speech at the conclusion of the debate. The tide turned.
Secondly, in terms of compassion and a pastoral approach. You will know from your time at the BBC, and your time at Cuddesdon, that many within and without the Church of England have a quality of same sex partnership that is clearly life giving. I doubt you will deny that, but I may be wrong. You will know that those partnerships are, without doubt, sexual. That applies to ordinands, clergy, laity, bishops. We don’t need cameras in bedrooms. We trust people. The question we have to address as a church is what we say about those relationships. I haven’t read your Grove booklet, but whatever it does or doesn’t say, the need to be pastoral remains. I know that some bishops are pastoral, and I know that other bishops are not. I know that some ask impertinent questions, and others do not. We effectively have a post code lottery.
And all of this is much worse, much less pastoral, and much less compassionate than it was in the CofE 50 years ago. And certainly much less so than it was nearly 40 years ago when I was at Cuddesdon and on the way to being ordained. The Cof
E has become a truly horrible institution for all kinds of reasons, but mainly because it simply has no sense of being pastoral. It is brutally focussed on self preservation to the cost of any real sense of decency towards the variety of human experience that I know exists, and that you know exists. The most important thing that can happen is to tear up Issues in Human Sexuality. And to allow a pastoral approach to a question that people come to different conclusions about.
Maybe that’s what you mean by compassionate orthodoxy. But may I plead with you not to condemn those who were your colleagues at the BBC, your colleagues at Cuddesdon, and your travelling companions in the faith of Jesus Christ to the misery of bishops who would rather launch a CDM than be pastoral.
If the culture at the BBC and Cuddesdon is so monochrome and uniform, then that says little for either institution – it bespeaks a lack of critical thinking (maybe sometimes also a passive conformity; maybe even a ‘go along to get along’ attitude; dissent could be curtains; to support morality – whatever next?). One notices that any time the media’s ”official” version (as opposed to the evidence, which is what matters) is contravened, that gets ridiculed; though, tellingly, reasons for this are rarely given (it is implied that a tabu has been broken – but who either established the supposed tabu or had the authority to? Some bossy person, no doubt.). The heinous sin is, in their eyes, to be laughed at by those who cannot articulate why they laugh (they laugh because they are terrified not to conform – though goodness knows what they think will happen if they do not) rather than to ignore evidence.
We obviously privilege those who can think critically over those who do so less. And we secondly privilege those who conform only when the evidence drives them to over those who conform, period.
Christopher I was addressing Christopher Landau and not you. For the avoidance of doubt – but it’s obvious from my comment and can easily be observed – the culture at the BBC and Cuddesdon is very much not uniform and entirely colourful. No one had implied otherwise.
I will not be replying to you again until the person to whom my comment was addressed has had opportunity to reply.
He has, but I never thought you were addressing me. My points were relevant replies to yours, though. If people are actually pursuing truth, it does not matter which person replies, and usually the more perspectives the better because that means that more thought in total has been brought to the table.
AJ
I’d say the bishops have produced a solution that, in practical terms, does nothing to improve inclusion of same sex couples or single gay people in the church (arguably makes things even worse!) and in ideological terms does much to anger conservatives.
They’ve also repeatedly ignored the issue of welfare/abuse of LGBT people in the church, which is an issue on which they might find some broad agreement (at least in theory).
Thanks Andrew, especially for the context from Synod in 2017.
I think for me the key question concerns when you write this: “many within and without the Church of England have a quality of same sex partnership that is clearly life giving. I doubt you will deny that, but I may be wrong. You will know that those partnerships are, without doubt, sexual.”
I agree with your first and second sentences here. But I cannot know how frequently your third sentence is accurate. Only recently I heard of a church with three celibate same sex couples. The bishops’ compromise concerning civil partnerships hitherto was based on their unwillingness to ask certain questions of same sex couples, but their trust that ‘Issues’ was being adhered to in clergy households. I think what inclusive campaigners have sometimes missed is that this calculated ambiguity enabled the church to stay together, when greater candour might have forced a split. The rights and wrongs of that approach are a fascinating historical question, but I’m suggesting ‘compassionate orthodoxy’ offers a way forward because it is clear about adhering to traditional teaching, and also clear about what kind of local flexibility is permitted. So it enables us to remain in one church, with one taught theology of marriage and sex, and also a continuing recognition that faithful Anglicans have a variety of views.
(Christopher Shell – apologies but I haven’t been able to follow your argument fully so will decline to respond at this point.)
“So it enables us to remain in one church, with one taught theology of marriage and sex, and also a continuing recognition that faithful Anglicans have a variety of views.”
I think many bishops after 2017 wanted that approach and referred to it as ‘pastoral accommodation’. I think you are right to recognise that faithful Anglicans have a variety of views and the problem with CEEC et al is that they don’t quite get that.
Thanks for your gracious reply. I should, of course, have said that some of those relationships are sexual. That will be true of heterosexual marriages as well. The important thing is not to focus on what happens in the privacy of a relationship but to offer support. And not to launch a CDM.
Christopher
And part of the problem for the CofE is that, although most bishops may have been too embarrassed to ask those questions, leaders lower down the pecking order were not. So that has led to the situation where gay people are better protected as clergy and other paid church staff than they are as congregants. The Bible says leaders are to be held to a higher standard. We have a church where congregants are often held to an impossible standard and leaders are often held to no standard at all.
No problem. It will not surprise anyone that I diagnose one key problem to be wrong and indefensible presuppositions – given that I have different presuppositions, that is a main reason why people may not understand what I am saying even though I use such simple vocab.
But among those presuppositions is that Jesus is the bottom line and I am debating people who think something called Anglicanism (or 50% of a vote by Anglicans most of whom on that side scarcely know the Bible let alone the details of the social scientific literature) is the bottom line. That certainly is a position hard to defend.
St Paul was a far better thinker than me but we do have one thing in common that we are holistic thinkers who come with a systematic position all at once rather than speaking in a linear way.
For Church of England doctrine what the majority of Synod determines is the bottom line. If you don’t agree with that you shouldn’t be in the C of E anyway but find another denomination
Simon, are you a brcord? How many times must it be repeated that to state a position is quite different from justifying it. That position puts something nebulous like something called ‘the Anglican church’ (not even that but its synod; not even that but 50% of it) in the place of Jesus. That is a loser before it starts. You have no king but Caesar – and are apparently proud of the fact. But rather than justify it you see it as a stance that fell eternally from heaven?
People are not anglicans etc because they LIKE the beliefs but because they are honest and think about what they actually believe according to the evidence, and label themselves according to what that makes them. Honest people, that is – we are not concerned with the others. Your model has people meekly having to believe what their denomination tells them. A denomination that can talk at all is certainly a novelty.
If people just meekly follow their denomination, they are unthinking people. THe last people that we should pay attention to, then.
I think if 50 of a synod who had never heard of Jesus at all did a vote, you would still accord more authority to them than to the actual lJesus.
‘broken record’ for ‘brcord’
It gets better. The Synod – whose average knowledge of teh biblical languages and biblical culture is way lower than that of the scholarly community – tramples the latter so as to impose its ignorance.
Which would be bad enough, but what is worse is that some are clapping enthusiastically. The vast majority of these people do not even know Greek.
You have described a power structure or a coup.
No I have described the power structure of the Church of England, which is that the word of God for the Church of England is interpreted by Synod. If you fail to accept that you should leave the Church of England.
You yourself refused to accept the literal application of Christ’s command that ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven?” anyway
Power structure is right. When you are inferior to others in the requisite / relevant matter (knowledge) then the exertion of power over them, in a might-is-right fashion, is the only way you can get your way.
We know these are the conventional structures. What we do not know is how they remotely make sense. They seem like a machinery for ensuring that those who want power, but do not merit it, get it.
Penny, as I asked before, what are the names of the ‘many’ biblical scholars of whom you speak? Did you say you knew them (or some)?
Yes, I know them.
They seem quite an amorphous mass. What are their names, and how ‘many’ are they?
You certainly seem quite coy on this matter. Why would that be?
No it doesn’t, it puts the Synod as the ultimate interpreter of the word of Christ at the core of the Church of England. You yourself rejected Christ’s demand that“If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” So to suggest you are always the ultimate follower of Christ and Synod isn’t is laughable!
T1/Simon
Is Jesus’ response to that rich young man a universal command or a challenge to a particular person to think about his values? Note that a somewhat different response is made to Ananias and Sapphira – that they could perfectly properly have kept their property, their sin was to try and have it both ways by lying so that they could have the reputation for generosity while not being truly generous. Synod in many ways seems to be doing the Ananias and Sapphira thing by expecting praise while disregarding the Scripture which the Church’s standards say is the foundation of doctrine ….
Peter responded to Ananias and Sapphira not Jesus. Jesus’ statement on possessions was clear but of course you interpret that according to your prejudged ideological viewpoint of scripture
Christopher
Interesting then that I know many biblical scholars – who know both Greek and Hebrew (as wll as German, Latin and Akkadian) – who would profoundly disagree with your hermeneutics.
given that you have never seen my hermeneutics, you are jumping the gun, which again is predictable and tactical.
Secondly, no particular biblical passage has been mentioned yet.
What are the names of these many? (You say that all of them are quite distant from my stance. How can you generalise? Stances are variegated and complex.)
Christopher you are having extreme difficulty following any argument on this thread, and that is troubling for someone who claims to be a scholar.
In response to TI, above, who was talking about the General Synod’s ability to vote on changes of doctrine – in this case matters of sexuality and marriage, as you well know – you responded that
“The Synod – whose average knowledge of teh biblical languages and biblical culture is way lower than that of the scholarly community – tramples the latter so as to impose its ignorance.”
You are suggesting here that the scholarly community knows better than Synod about the matters that are before Synod, and part of that has to do with their knowledge of the biblical languages.
Penny has said that she she knows scholars who speak the biblical languages, and they come to a different conclusion to you on this matter. Your conclusion on the hermeneutic of same sex relationships is particularly well known. You then respond
“given that you have never seen my hermeneutics, you are jumping the gun, which again is predictable and tactical.
Secondly, no particular biblical passage has been mentioned yet.”
Do you see the problem? I hope I don’t need to spell it out any further.
I will listen out for the sound of frantic back pedalling once again.
Does she know them or know of them? Because if it is the latter, then so do o.
But if she is treating it as a binary yes/no for all the available passages, both I and the said scholars and all other scholars know that there are multiple interpretative issues with each single passage. So how that translates to a binary yes/no, is not a question that needs to detain us: it does not remotely do so.
Name the scholars first, and then we can see. But why are Akkadian and German useful for reading Greek passages?
(if it is the latter, then so do I)
Christopher, you are back pedalling, just as predicted.
Christopher perhaps you could address what I wrote rather than frantically back pedalling again. Please, please try to follow the argument
Do pose questions one by one and I will address them. ‘Your conclusion on the hermeneutic of same-sex relationships’ is not a phrase that makes sense.
I think the main problem is that broadbrush never understands fine toothcomb, and indeed cannot easily do so.
Christopher if you really can’t follow this argument – and it seems that you can’t – I can’t help you any further.
You could firstly stop pretending that there is a long list of things not understood, of which you can list zero.
It is obvious that because I am a more detailed thinker than you, you develop misunderstandings because of the degree of detail or nuance, and then blame me for not being, like yourself, less detailed – as though that were an *advance* on being more detailed.
Together with this you are desperate to *claim* that you are certain that there are inconsistencies, before ever checking whether or not you have completely understood (and complete understanding is often something that does not come immediately, as the rest of us know, and as one would have thought that you too would have known). It is an interesting question why leaping to associate me with the maximum number of inconsistencies as quickly as possible is so important to you.
“It is obvious that because I am a more detailed thinker than you”
Oh really? No real evidence of that. All we know about your *thinking* is that which is displayed in your writing.
The evidence is that you are verbose in your expression. That usually conceals a lack of detail. And it is usually just vast generalisations.
You are very obsessional. That’s quite different to detailed. And it isn’t too hard to speculate why you are obsessed with certain things.
You are very emotional about some matters. But that seems to prevent detail actually because it blinds you to what is actually going on.
And you struggle with the use of language, as has been noted quite a bit.
You are certainly a very self congratulatory thinker. And that is evidenced here.
But more detailed? I don’t see that at all. All I see in these few comments is that you couldn’t actually follow the basic argument, and so needed to waffle on about other things. That’s not unusual either.
If there are alleged examples of me not following an argument, do immediately highlight these. They may or may not have been correctly identified.
In short comments on blogs, people summarise their position, which leaves out much detail. The problem you have created is coming along and assuming what that detail would be. When people unpack their position, which can never be done 100%, as more detail is always possible, it becomes clear that you had jumped to conclusions about what that detail would be, rather than asking if you were not sure.
Christopher once again you are not following the argument. Perhaps you just are not good at this.
Let me recap this part of the discussion.
You may made a claim: “ I am a more detailed thinker than you”
I have then questioned that, given that you have scant evidence. And I have given several different reasons for questioning it, all based on evidence here.
You have come back with a whole lot of generalising. All you ever do is generalise. And then claim that you are being more detailed than others. And you use 100 words where 20 will do.
It is tedious to try and debate with you, as you don’t seem able to do so.
It sounds like the aforesaid extra words are the very same detail to which I laid claim and which you doubted, but then observed and complained about. Which is it? – because it can’t be both.
You regularly assert things, and expect everyone to believe them (as why would they?). Yes – with specific evidence we will; no – without specific evidence we will not.
“It sounds like the aforesaid extra words are the very same detail to which I laid claim and which you doubted, but then observed and complained about. Which is it? – because it can’t be both.”
I have no idea what this means. Please reference which extra words and detail you are on about now. And what is it that can’t be both.
And do it with reference to the argument – which at this stage is to do with your ‘claim’ about being a much more detailed thinker and how obvious that is.
Last chance to make some sense Christopher. If you still can’t do it, then continue the conversation by yourself.
‘I have no idea what this means’.
Exactly the problem. Your level of understanding.
Not at all. Your inability to stick with the flow of an argument and express yourself words that bear any relationship to what has gone before.
You simply have to change the subject every time.
End of conversation.
Christopher
You are genuinely asking why Akkadian and German ate useful for reading biblical texts?
I can see how Akkadian is useful for OT, but the main texts we are concerned with are NT for which it is not useful. German is useful not directly but at one remove. But which of these ‘many’ anonymous scholars whom you keep en masse in your cupboard ready to emerge are adept at which languages? It is not the same in each case. All you need to do is name them. And stop making me say that 4 or 5 times. Something fishy is going on here.
“The minute one says, ‘All religions only see part of the truth,’ you are claiming the very knowledge you say no one else has.
And they are demonstrating the same spiritual arrogance they so often accuse Christians of. In other words, to say all is relative, is itself a truth statement but dangerous because it uses smoke and mirrors to make itself sound more tolerant than the rest.
Most folks who hold this view think they are more enlightened than those who hold to absolutes when in fact they are really just as strong in their belief system as everyone else. I do not think most of these folks are purposefully using trickery or bad motives. This is because they seem to have even convinced themselves of the “truth” of their position, even though they claim “truth” does not exist or at least can’t be known. Ironic isn’t it? The position is intellectually inconsistent. (Tim Keller)
In its pure form Pluralism is a fact. It’s not an opinion or a belief or a religion. In other words, not everyone believes the same things. We live in a society that’s very diverse, not just ethnically, but also religiously. But when pluralism starts to become a philosophy, when it starts to become a religious dogma, then it becomes a different animal. And that’s what I want to call relativism — or religious relativism, philosophical pluralism. It goes by different names but that is the dogmatic religious assertion that all religions are basically the same, that no one knows the truth about God. And no one can know the ultimate truth about God in a way that invalidates other peoples’ religious opinions and the belief that it’s arrogant to say that you have the truth religiously and it is arrogant to try to persuade other people to believe what you believe religiously. That’s relativism, philosophical pluralism. And I would say that’s the default belief of most people you run into in our city.– whether they’re religious or not, most people think about religion that way.
But if you look at it closely, the statements of religious relativism are every bit as dogmatic as the statements of the Koran or the Bible. It’s a religious dogma.
Relativism also zealously fights to make sure no one believes in any absolutes while they must use their own absolute to establish this idea.
r. That is in reality what happens to relativists: In claiming to be too lowly to know the truth, they exalt themselves as supreme arbiter of what they can think and do. This is not humility. This is the essence of pride.”
Pluralism as a Religious Philosophy by Tim Keller & Charles Garland
OR
//www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/keller.html
Andrew
Thank you for those kind words. The book is rather academic and, perhaps, not for the general reader. However, anyone who wants to know a little more about theologies of failure could read one of the reviews.
The chap who drives for a local charity and took me for my cataract operation read The Church Times review while he was waiting for me!
If there are alleged examples of me not following an argument, do immediately highlight these. They may or may not have been correctly identified.
In short comments on blogs, people summarise their position, which leaves out much detail. The problem you have created is coming along and assuming what that detail would be. When people unpack their position, which can never be done 100%, as more detail is always possible, it becomes clear that you had jumped to conclusions about what that detail would be, rather than asking if you were not sure.