Love. Treat others as you would have them treat you. If you feel you are a child of God, then honor your common and equal status with others as children of God. Except (and there are always exceptions with sibling rivalry) if they are women and therefore not qualified to perform the holiest sacraments of the church. Except if two members of the same sex engage in long, committed and faithful love; God may be love, but this love is ungodly.
Just look, some vigilant Christians say, at the “clear teaching” in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (“Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers ”” none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.”); in 1 Timothy 1:9-11 (“The law is laid down … for the unholy and profane … for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.”); and especially in Romans 1:26b-27 (“Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”)
I know that this will offend some Christians, but the notion that Scripture is perfectly clear is wishful thinking, as a recent white paper prepared by the All Saints’ clergy demonstrates. The writers of the four Gospels don’t agree on even so simple a thing as which people were present at Christ’s empty tomb. Considering that, over the centuries, the Bible has been translated into and out of multiple languages, it only makes sense to consider the context of what’s written rather than believe that every word is literal divine revelation.
It is the New York Times after all. Many cannot accept that the way is narrow, it grates against the all inclusiveness of modern man.
This sort of blather doesn’t offend me at all. To a revisionist a Stop sign can have multiple meanings and is confusing.
The old ploy of “We don’t know for sure what it really says, so we can do as we please, on whatever basis seems good to us.”
The Episcopal Church (and many others) have heeded the serpent’s question, “Has God really said…?”
Whether one understands the US federal tax laws or not, the IRS does still expect each of us to pay tax that we legally owe, and will eventually collect it one way or another. How much more so God, to whom we owe everything and can pay nothing? The main things of Scripture are the plain things and the plain things are the main things.
[blockquote][b]Deuteronomy 29:29 (New American Standard Bible)[/b]
29″The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.[/blockquote]
Just an example of Lax thinking. 😉
What else could Mr. Lax opine regarding these matters ? He is a
member (nominally, as he notes) of All Saints’ parish in Beverly
Hills , CA.
There’s something almost nostalgic about this article. The suggestion that you could have all the ethics (or at least parts with which you are in agreement) without any of the troublesome God stuff seemed that it might be true for a couple of hundred years. But the truth was that the demanding and in some ways counter intuitive ethics (putting love at the centre of ethical life) is tied to the authority of Christ and Scripture. Hack away at the huge, objectionable trunk that seems to be blocking your way and the fine filigreed branches, the thin veined beautiful leaves, that fine woody fragrance you rather like come crashing down too.
This article is being circulated on the Arkansas list serve — with predictable gushing. It is so depressing. The transcendent objectivity of the commitment made in marriage is vital for both the partners and their children — witness the Pope’s simple and warm meditation posted above. If it is reduced simply to the love of the partners for one another it loses all objectivity — and, for all practical purposes, the possibility of renewal from beyond ourselves. Of course there are examples of extraordinary fidelity outside of marriage (but are they really all that common?); but, with a nod to #7, that doesn’t amount to much more than pulling a burning log out of the fire — it will glow brightly for a while, smolder for a while longer. The author himself, on his own showing, is completely detached from any transcendent claim of faith on his life. None of this has anything particularly to do with “exclusion” — it is a positive witness to a way of life for those who follow it.
And then comes the shoddy treatment of church history, the development of doctrine, and Scripture. Complete with reference to a so-called “white paper” at All Saints in which observations that would undermine only the most literalistic fundamentalism are taken as somehow seriously criticizing the authority of Scripture.
In the New York Times, no less.