Right and wrong not open to debate

Five years ago, a conference of Episcopalian church leaders declared that the homosexual lifestyle was in direct violation of biblical scriptures. Therefore, they reasoned, it would be wrong to seat an openly gay bishop. In just the short time since, the homosexual agenda has inundated the culture, and the Bible has been tossed out on its axis.

Nice post, but I must offer this criticism. The overwhelming majority of Anglican bishops worldwide has expressed great dismay over the election of this bishop within the Episcopal Church of America. There are also branches of the Anglican church in this country which are not affiliated with the Episcopal church and disagree with the path on which it is traveling. They include the Anglican Church of America www.acahome.org, and The Anglican Province of America www.anglicanprovince.org.

”Which is why the author believes that polygamy and other behaviors that were deemed acceptable in the Bible should be permitted today. Correct?”

First, polygamy is not a Christian imperative. Second, I’m surprised that you didn’t drag out the old chestnuts about stoning adulterous women, etc. etc. etc. Was that an oversight?

You are confusing crimes, punishments and societal evolution with issues of right and wrong.

When God gave the Decalogue to the Jews, he gave us broad rules to regulate our lives. The Jews then developed long lists of rules and regulations that ruled their lives. It may be possible to argue with some of these rules as having more of a basis in culture than in theology. I don’t know enough about this issue to offer anyone an informed opinion. It is the Christian faith that Jesus came to earth to give us a new dispensation. That is the “good news” of the Gospel.
In doing so, he did not then give his approval to the elimination of old crimes. He merely made it possible for us, if we repent of our sins, to find God’s forgiveness.

However, the old rules still apply. We may no longer stone a woman for committing adultery, but we still acknowledge it as a sin, no matter how many lovers women (or men) flaunt to the approval of an increasingly hedonistic society. Sodomy is specifically condemned as a sin in the Bible which for Christians is the revealed word of God. Time does not allow us to “evolve” out of sin. We may find that our neighbors and our society no longer condemn certain sins (and creates new ones), but there is no grounds in any theology that I know that says that God changes his mind about right and wrong as the result of the evolving mores of that part of humanity that lives in Europe and North America.

I think it's interesting to note that polygamous marriages in The Bible were never really very happy ones. Conflict within them was the norm, whereas monogamy generally seems to have detracted less from those individual's relationships to God. (Within the diaspora, the matter was fianlly laid Talmudically to rest by 1,000 CE.)

The Bible also, while recognizing it usually in some form of indenturedness, never calls slavery good.

That the ancients of Israel (which means, to struggle with God) honed their understanding of God to the point of substituting prayer for sacrifice after the fall of the Second Temple, doesn't mean that their ethical monotheistic underpinnings have changed as have fashions, though rather testify to Judaism's perseverance through so many trials across history - even in and of itself - as evidence for God's existence.

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