Baroness Royall, the Leader of the House of Lords, insisted that anti-discrimination laws could not be used against conservative vicars, because they would not be under any obligation to acquire the necessary licence to host civil partnership ceremonies on their property.
Her comments came as the controversial Equality Bill ”“ criticised by the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury for trying to restrict religious freedom ”“ passed its Third Reading in the Lords. It will now move back to the Commons and is likely to gain Royal Assent and become law before the election.
For now.
Sounds like BHO’s Executive Order to not federally fund abortions. Its only good as long as it doesn’t change.
Umm, since when have Quakers abandoned morality?
For those versed in British law and custom, what would happen if Royal Assent was withheld? Would it cause a constitutional crisis? Can Royal Assent even be withheld anymore, and if so would withholding it have any meaning or force of law?
#4 – Last time royal assent was withheld was by Queen Anne in 1708 (in the UK). Seriously doubt it’s going to happen in today’s world.
No suits until a gay couple start hollering really loudly! Then let the court rooms flood
I find it interesting that envious people, those who could not attract or afford multiple wives, violently apposed Polygamy. There is no condemnation in either testament of Polygamy and many of the Great Prophets, including David, (11-12 wives) practiced polygamy. Jesus never mentioned it. Paul in his own words, only mention of it was to advise bishops, not to take more than two wives because the maintenance, and distractions of more than two would be a detriment to managing the rigors of a Bishoprics.
However, more telling is Organized Religion’s frowning upon physical love, while Jesus in every single encounter with adulterous women, prostitutes, or serial polygamists, was, in fact, defended the women, saving at least two from stoning, and easily forgiving all with, go and sin no more, except in one case, John 4:4-42, of the Samaritan Woman at Jacob’s Well. There John merely pointed out that she lived with a man to which she was not married and had five previous husbands. He never followed up with a lecture about her apparent serial relationships, nor dismiss here with, Go and sin no more, he simply discussed structure and mode of formal worship and living water, and she, in return delivered to him as believers, her entire town.
By the condemnation, or discouragement of physical love, the stratification of sexual satisfaction between lovers, husbands and wives and the denigration of polygamy, the church interfered in the several million years of practice among hominids and the nature of relationships between the genders. They undid God’s will, that certainly polygamy, should be at the very least, a choice among consenting adults.
On the other hand, in every single case, Jesus showed anger at profiteers, and in one or maybe two cases (since the synoptic gospels display early in Jesus career, the event on the Portico of the Temple, in which Jesus physically and verbally assaulted the Cash Exchange Profiteers, and John the last Gospel writer displayed it late in Jesus’ career, it may have been two separate events.). His anger at the them was his answer to what 2000 years ago amounted to the equivalent of modern Big Business Corporations. He is not shown in any case treating Avarice (Greed) with the compassion with which he considered sins of passion. There is a huge difference between sin and evil. Between the joy of loving sex and the demonic evil of greed which destroys nations. “The root of ALL evil is the love of Money…â€
The church in essence should urge that the practice of Avarice become a felony and that polygamy, which was never condemned either by God, the prophets, or Jesus be a choice.
Oh, PS: You have here, the finest comment implementation of publishing writing and comments I have seen. It is wide, tall and large scale and makes it very easy to type and edit, because one can edit at a large scale size. I have advocated this sort of system at every site for which I write editorials, but none have yet to implemented one matching fine quality as yours.
God Bless you all for such a keen insight.
Professor Emeritus Peter Bagnolo
ProfessorEmeritusPeteB
Sorry ut I must correct your statement that Paul says that Bishops should have 2 wives…he did not hes aid:
[blockquote]1 Tim. 3:2
Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, [b]the husband of one wife,[/b] sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, …[/blockquote]
By the way Paul does address your multiple sexual relationships sir in [blockquote]1 Cor. 7:2-4
But because of the [b]temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.[/b] [3] The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. [4] For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.[/blockquote]
No mention of multiple wives or extra relationships
Professor,
I think the Church has viewed polygamy as wrong and unscriptural for several reasons….
1) In Genesis God speaks of man and woman becoming one flesh. This clearly points to a unity of the two becoming one.
2) The examples you give in the OT are crystal clear in their bad fruits. Abraham, not having enough faith to wait on God’s unfolding plan. Instead Sara gives him her slave to take as wife. This causes bad fruit for them and for the future of Palestine as well. David’s mulitiple wives (one a Cannanite, yields Absolam). Solomon, his mulitple wives led Israel to aspostasy.
Seems that there is much more reason to point to one man, one woman instead of pointing to the validity of polygamy.
Just my thoughts,
Jeff
Professor,
Actually your thinking on avarice is tied to a very old idea of money. Jesus condemned the acquisition of wealth because money was tied to precious metals. These same metals were used to make idols that other nations worshiped. Wealth, itself, was not the issue, but idolatry.
Additionally, the ancient world did not have the economic acumen that we have today. We know so much more about how economies operate that they did over 2000 years ago.
Today, we see wealth as a sign of God’s favor. Thus, those who acquire more wealth are, in reality, just showing God’s favor towards themselves. Avarice is directly related to God’s favor of a person.
Instead of condemning avarice and wealth we need to stop the sin of envy and let others aquire however much wealth their ability and desire allow them.
The Spirit is Doing a New Thing and that New Thing is freeing mankind from the chains of oppression that the ancient christians (who lacked the ability to get wealth and, thus, did not truely undrestand it) put on our societies concerning the disapproval of wealthy and greedy individuals.
For a more detailed discussion of how God ordained the accumulation of wealth, I suggest G. Gecko’s book “Greed is Good – Greed Works.”
(/sarcasm)
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
BTW, if you believe that the government will never sue ministers for not conducting gay marriages, I have some property on the coast for sale. It is located about 20 miles east of Dallas.
Note, my #12 was a parody of the normal reasons given for blessing same sex unions. Greed (like all the seven deadly sins) is wrong and Jesus roundly condemns it as has the Church throughout history.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Thank you Phil Snyder for clarifying your #12….I thought for a moment you had gone off the deep end to revisionist land. Thank you Jesus
Paul also said, “Slaves be obedient to your human masters…” in Colossians 4:22, Ephesians 6:5, and elsewhere, do you still advocate that?
From the Greek, the meaning is a bit different, and please if you do your own translation, DO NOT folly by using current Greek, please use only archaic Greek
and in the other s languages, archaic Hebrew, Archaic Aramaic, Archaic Coptic, Or Archaic Latin.
I also highly recommend reading, THE MEANING OF “THE HUSBAND OF ONE WIFE-IN 1 TIMOTHY 3:2″
Copyright © 2004 by Andy Woods which I quote from below:
“First, 1 Timothy 3:2 says “husband of one wife†rather than “husband of a wife.â€
7 This latter
expression could have easily been stated in Greek through simple omission of the word mia”.
8
Thus, Paul could have easily used the latter phrase if his only intention was to communicate the
married state as a prerequisite for eldership. Second, this view misunderstands “one†or mia” as
drawing a contrast between one and none rather than one and more.9 “The antithesis of mia” is not
‘none,’ but ‘two’ or ‘many.’â€10 In other words, the view “does not properly represent the force of
the adjective ‘one’ (mias) which is placed first. The overseer must be the husband of ‘one’ wife, not
‘many.’â€11
Third, the marriage as a prerequisite for eldership view seemingly contradicts other strands
of Pauline thought. For example, in 1 Corinthians 7:8, 25-33, Paul encouraged celibacy as a desired
state. Thus, it seems inconsistent for Paul to then turn around and argue that a man must be married
in order for him to occupy the office of elder.12 However, it might be argued that Paul’s discussion
of celibacy in the letter to the Corinthians should be culturally limited in that he only encouraged
celibacy in order to avoid the “present distress†(1 Cor 7:26). Luck advocates such a view when he
states, “This phrase directly refers to local conditions. The Corinthian Christians were facing
difficult times of oppression and persecution.â€13
4.”
I suggest reading the entirety of the PDF file
Philip Snyder:
Your comments: I agree about envy. My wealth and skills have been envied by many over the years. However, your comments are exactly the sort of thinking against which Jesus spoke and acted and your comments of “we see wealth as a sign of God’s favor. Thus, those who acquire more wealth are, in reality, just showing God’s favor towards themselves. Avarice is directly related to God’s favor of a person.” are a spectacular version of Jesus anger toward not the wealthy, but the AVARISTIC wealthy.
As to your property, good luck with that. Aside from your allusion to Michael Douglas as Gekko he went to jail, as did Mr. Maddoff and many like them., Wealth gained honorably is not condemned, but your take on wealth is one condemned by Jesus , wealth is not a sign of being chosen, Gifts such as art, writing, composing, Prophecy, etc. are gifts. Your mockery of Jesus and the NT I am certain will be justly rewarded.
I equate in this day and age the term “slaves” as workers. If I am an employer or owner of a business then my workers that I pay even a maid in my house should be obedient to my rules of my home and my company.
[blockquote]”…expression [b]could have[/b] easily been stated in Greek through simple omission of the word miaâ€.
8 Thus, Paul [b]could have[/b] easily used the latter phrase if his only intention was to communicate the married state as a prerequisite for eldership.[/blockquote]
“Could have” does not make a “did”. Prove it please….show me….show me where this word “Mia’ was left out….
ProfessorEmeritusPeteB …Phil Synder said it was a [b}Parody[/b] in his 313 post. I think you woe him an apology.
TLDillon,
PEPB (#16) does not owe me an apology. He simply does not have the capicaty for humor and cannot see the absurdity of his own claims when they are mirrored in my #12. He both missed my “sacasm” tag (that is HTML shorthand for “end of sarcasm” like b means end bold) and my #13 that specifically said my #12 was a parody.
When it comes to justifying sin (such as same sex blessings or, in my example, greed), the pattern seems to be the same
1. Question the authority of scripture by saying that the scriptures don’t really say that and that our interpretation of them needs to change to catch up to “modern” though.
2. Claim that the sin is part of creation (not in question) and, therefor, part of God’s design in creation (a bit of a stretch).
3. Claim to see God’s grace in the lives of those involved in the sin. This is really a take of on the Donatist heresy as it assumes that only the sinless can evidence God’s grace.
4. Claim authority of the Holy Spirit – the “New Thing Gambit.”
At some point during the whole process, claim that we need to explore the meaning of what we are discussing because we obviously are not of one mind on it. So, we should not discipline priests or bishops who engage in blessing the new thing.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Professor,
I am still looking for that polygamist marriage in the Bible which is not criticized by God in the Scriptures. To which ones are you referring in your claim that polygamy is not criticized by God? Initially, I assumed Sarah and Abraham, but that is full of criticisms within the text. Then I thought Jacob, but favoritism rears its head. David’s? Solomon? I thought perhaps you meant in general, but Deuteronomy deals with fathers giving their sons their rightful inheritance (implying that some fathers did not before then) and the rights of divorced wives. Even Jesus takes up the question when the leaders question him about divorce. “But, It was not always this way in the beginning.” Then there is the pesky problem of the apostolic witness. No Church fathers argue for the inclusion of polygamy as the norm. Now, I suppose if we reject that Scripture is God-breathed, we can chalk it up to simple misunderstandings on the part of the early witness. But then we are left trying to explain why we know this Scripture (say, His Resurrection) and that one (say–pick any sin) is not. Listeners recognize that we have nothing to offer and so turn away form His saving grace.
Your point that sins such as avarice are far more destructive than the sexual proclivities is well taken. But in the end, if those unrepentant of any sin are destroyed and left outside the wall in darkness, does it really matter? All sin should be taken seriously, and none of it should ever be blessed.
Peace,