(Anglican) Archbishop: We ‘have evolved’ from Bible’s teaching on divorce, why not gay ‘marriage’?

Life Site News ^ | April 25, 2014 | HILARY WHITE

[Steelfish]

You make a good point. I was operating on the premise that many of these Christian leaders actually used Christianity to enrich their families, sell their books, and build personal financial empires for their progeny.

[narses]

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[RichInOC]

Jesus, he added, “had nothing to say about gay marriage”...

Well, there’s the inconvenient bit about his never referring to marriage other than as between a man and a woman, but do go on, Your Grace.

[trebb]

What exactly is the real difference between a divorce and an annulment? Like losing one's virginity, pretending it didn't ever happen doesn't make it to have never happened.

I don't support "evolving" on homosexual marriage and believe that we are seeing signs of what God told us was going to happen prior to His return. We can't stop society, or even our religions, from "evolving" because He has ordained that it will all become rotten - all we can do is carry His Word and try not to let our own lives become corrupted.

[NYer]

What exactly is the real difference between a divorce and an annulment?

The truth is that civil divorce and a church annulment are two vastly different things. A divorce is concerned with the legal realities of marriage only; an annulment is concerned with the religious and spiritual element—the sacrament of marriage. A divorce focuses on the end of a marriage; an annulment looks at the beginning, the very moment the couple said "I do." A divorce looks at marriage in civil law; an annulment looks at marriage from the perspective of the Gospel and of Church doctrine. It is a myth that an annulment is "Divorce, Catholic style."

[Mrs. Don-o]

Can't do that. They've got to retain the unquestionable moral certainty that homophobia (failure to celebrate, affirm and wave the banners for gay pride) is wrong.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Are you proposing it was only for the sin of attempting to rape angels? Not much of that around anymore.

I'm half--- but only half--- ironic on that.

The wages of any kind of sin is death. And the prophet Malachi says God hates divorce.

Plus Isaiah:

"Hear the word of the Lord,
you rulers of Sodom!
Listen to the teaching of our God,
you people of Gomorrah!...
your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
remove the evil of your doings
from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
learn to do good;
seek justice,
rescue the oppressed,
defend the orphan,
plead for the widow."

Somehow, He doesn't specify "stop trying to anally rape angels"--- although no doubt that was one of their many abominations. In this passage, God says they failed to do justice for the oppressed, the orphan and the widow.

In the NT, certainly, St. Jude speaks of the sins of unnatural sexual vice:

Jude 1:7
"Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire."

But then again, the questions of pride and greed, and the neglect of the poor and needy, are specified as Sodom's sins:

Ezekiel 16:49
"This was the guilt of your sister Sodom:
she and her daughters had pride,
excess of food,
and prosperous ease,
but did not aid the poor and needy."

So: pride, materialistic excess --- it's just a tad wider and deeper than the specific vice of active homosexual conduct. Straight people are given no reason to think they are exempt from the sins of Sodom...

[Mrs. Don-o]

#47

[tjd1454]

Your concern is valid. With no bishopric oversight, the pastors of these large churches are essentially a law unto themselves, and many go astray.

However, these high-profile megachurches comprise less than 1% of Protestant churches: the vast majority are small churches whose pastors minister with little fanfare, out of the limelight.

I have had the opportunity to worship and be involved in Protestant churches across the spectrum, from Pentecostal/Charismatic to Baptistic/Evangelical to Fundamentalistic. Almost without exception, the pastors have been sincere men who seek to serve Christ, and many of the parishioners were devoted Christians.

My experience has been that, when it occurs, hostility to the Catholic Church is typically based upon ignorance and misconceptions. Anti-Catholic attitudes are on the decrease as many Protestants realize how much we share in common. More and more, I am finding that faithful Christians are eager to fellowship with other believers regardless of church affiliation.

I can foresee a day in the not-too-distant future when many Protestants begin to look to the Catholic Church as a bulwark against a hostile society that is actively persecuting Christians. When this happens it will be a unity wrought by the Holy Spirit.

[RobbyS]

The Reformation led to disaster. It could not have succeeded in Germany without the political help of the German princes. In Switzerland, Zwingli died on the battlefield. The anabaptists tried to take over cities in Germany, and were crushed Geneva served as a citadel for the Huguenots in France.

[Vigilanteman]

Compared to the alternative of a world headed by the Spanish Inquisition and a corrupt world government, it was a trade-off worth making. There were certainly tyrants in the Reformation movement and those who latched on to it to build their own evil empires. John Calvin was arguably the worst of the lot and would have instituted something close to the Inquisition if left unchecked.

Some of the greatest minds and contributors who built this God inspired experiment we call America can trace their ancestry both idealogical and literal back to the anabaptist movement and the Huguenots.

[Vigilanteman]

I do not disagree. In fact, I tend to favor the Catholic view on divorce while recognizing that there are no viable alternatives in some narrowly defined circumstances such as serial infidelity, refusal to work or otherwise contribute anything meaningful toward the partnership, refusal to abandon drug and alcohol addiction, violence toward spouse and children and the like. These cover maybe 15% of all divorces today. The other 85% are bogus excuses like "no longer meets my emotional needs", incompatibility and the like.

If allowed to bloom and grow, this type of crap will eventually destroy a society almost as efficiently as rampant homosexuality did to Sodom and Gomorrah.

It is just that Sodom and Gomorrah is an express highway to destruction. Quickie divorce, pride, materialistic excess and the like take awhile longer.