The Diocese of Toronto plans to bless same-sex relationships without taking any formal vote on the theologically contentious issue.
“(A vote) would cause more division than it would cause resolution,” the diocesan bishop, Colin Johnson, told the media.
Johnson will set up a commission of clergy and laity to engage in a consultation process but most observers see it as a “done deal” without any vote. The consultation likely will only fine tune the details.
“They are proposing that at two synod meetings, May 29-30 and one day in November, only small table group discussions be held. Such semi-private conversations would make organized dissent more difficult than in plenary sessions with questions from the floor.”
Give them credit for their honesty about stifling resistance to their agenda.
The no-vote strategy would appear to be an inspiration to Shori and co. in matters such as deposing bishops they find annoying – – Duncan, Schofield, etc. Voting is far too divisive, so let’s just do it without a vote. Surely Beers would find justification for it somehow.
[i] “Pastoral provision that encourages sin is hardly pastoral,†said the Rev’d Chris King of Little Trinity in Toronto. [/i]
Glad to know someone there has eyes that see.
[blockquote](A vote) would cause more division than it would cause resolution[/blockquote]
No, the division is caused by blessing “sin” not by voting on blessing sin. The division is caused by ordained leaders in the Church not following or keeping or understanding the Church’s teaching. The problem is not the voting process itself, but the innovations that are being put into practice against the teachin of the Church.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
[blockquote](A vote) would cause more division than it would cause resolution[/blockquote]
You just can’t make this stuff up. Seriously.
Well, there goes “democracy” in the Diocese of Toronto! Who’s next?
Vote with your feet.
At least they’re up front about it. The Bishop of Fredericton has surreptitiously allowed one SS blessing in his diocese that we know of, and that in blatant defiance of the resolutions of two successive synods which voted, with 90%+ majorities, that such things will not happen.
Well, there goes “democracy†in the Diocese of Toronto! Who’s next?
Isn’t this a theological issue? If so, then it is the right and the place of the Bishop to decide.
Brian from T19,
If it is right for one bishop to decide a theological issue, then why was it no right for the US House of Bishops to decide on the same issue? Why is it not right for the Lambeth bishops to decide the issue? Why is it not right for the Primates to decide the issue?
It is an issue of theology. It is not for a bishop to decide. It is or the bishop (and priests and deacons) to submit their personal preferences to the wisdom of the whole Church.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
One bishop (or even the bishops of a province) does not have the authority to determine if a matter is essential or non-essential. Only the whole Church (or, at a minimum, the Anglican Communion as a whole) has the authority to determine what is essential to the faith. The Communion has spoken and sexual morality is essential to the faith. Blessing same sex unions is against the teaching of the church and should not occur.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Torontoans, remember! You have no input into your “church” and neither does the Anglican Communion. I can hear the earth shake if some conservative did the opposite number. Why all the PC in Toronto to Tutu in Southern Africa would rise up to call this process “deeply flawed” and “alienating” – but not this time. Oh, no.
[i] [A vote] would cause more division than it would cause resolution [/i]
Reasoning worthy of some tinpot kleptocrat like Abacha, Duvalier, or Mobutu.
What was that about “polity”?
“The division is caused by ordained leaders in the Church not following or keeping or understanding the Church’s teaching. ” How did the Church come to have an ordained leadership that doesn’t understand the Church’s teachings? That’s the cause of the problem, right there. The wrong people have been ordained for years. Now they’re in positions of leadership.
The Communion has spoken and sexual morality is essential to the faith. Blessing same sex unions is against the teaching of the church and should not occur.
Your second sentence is partially true, but your first is categorically false.
Let us be careful not to fall into the logical fallacy of Bulverism. (See C.S. Lewis, God In the Dock, &c;.) This move is wrong because, as #10 writes so well, it is a theological issue. It has theological error. It isn’t wrong because it was done without a vote, or some other reason outside of its own internal logic. It would be just as wrong if done via the bishop’s fiat, or after consulting chicken gizzards, or any other methodology. Theology is right or wrong on its individual merit, in light of Scripture, Right Reason, and Tradition with the Big T (see Hooker’s [i]Lawes[/i] or Thomas Aquinas, as you like) rather than because of the means through which it is actualized. Let’s make sure we’re irate for the right reasons, folks. :>
Brian T19,
The Church has always held sexual morality to be essential to the faith. Witness Paul’s castigation and excommunication of the man in I Cor.
Likewise, homosexual sex has always been considered immoral and sinful.
There are some in the Chuch todat that want to change it such that homosexual acts in certain contexts (such as life long mutually monogamous relationship) are not immoral and, thus, are eligible for the same blessing as marraiges. However, the Church has recently reiterated its traditional teaching on the matter. So, according to the Church catholic and the Anglican Communion, homosexual sex is immoral and sinful. Blessing these acts is also immoral and sinful. Teaching that these acts are not immoral and not sinful is teaching heresy.
Before we start blessing these (now sinful) acts, shouldn’t we (as a Church or as the Anglican Communion) at least state that we do not hold them to be sinul?
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Now, #17, you know that will never happen. If TEC voted and actually told the pew sitters that fornication and adultery were no longer sins, money would dry up like a defroster on a windshield. Our church hierchy has never been up front with us pewsitters and they won’t be now. But then again, have we ever demanded honesty in church politics from our bishops and priests? No, we’ve always bought their equivocating lines as we continue to. May be hard to continue swallowing this pablum for pewsitters, however, if SSBs and SS marriage become the order of the day after GC2009. The money tree could become fairly sparse if the resolutions submitted thus far are passed in any form resembling what they are now.