[Q.] Where is the Episcopal Diocese of California going with Same Sex Blessings and Gay marriage? Will the Diocese of California support a measure at the national General Convention on this matter? Has a statement been formulated on the subject? Will you comment and broadly state answers to questions regarding your Pastoral Letter on Gay Marriage?
[A.] At its recent General Convention, an every-three-year legislative gathering for the whole Episcopal Church, among the many pieces of legislation passed was two that pertain to inclusion of LGBT people. Together, these two resolutions affirm the access that all people have to the full life of the church.
[Q.] If there is a key Bible vision that supports Gay Marriage & Same Sex Blessing, please give a Biblical example and explain something of your vision on interpretation? Who else shares this sensibility and understanding we might know or recognize?
[A.] The story of the anointing of David by Samuel in which it editorially says that God does not judge as human’s judge, human’s judge by outward appearances, but god sees the human heart. When The Episcopal Church is looking at a human couple who seeks the blessing of the church on their relationship, we humbly attempt to see as God sees, which reveals certain characteristics ”“ love, fidelity, forgiveness, mutuality, humility ”” all of which The Episcopal Church considers more important than external considerations.
When you “Read it all,” he freely admits to doing SSBs at the now-desecrated cathedral. I guess the AC primates are already not in communion with him. In my opinion, his unrepentant actions are evidence that he has renounced his Holy Orders.
no kidding, #1. And the best Scriptural support he can come up with is David’s anointing by Samuel (which follows Samuel’s anointing of Saul — the peoples’ choice)?
Are you kidding me? No, that’s TEC!
Folks, it’s not like the positions of the Bishop of the Diocese of California come as a great surprise. The only surprise is he hasn’t vociferously advocated for same-sex interspecies unions (of whatever number of combinations, permutations and complexity) complete with full recognition of all social benefits pertaining thereto.
I think that the bishop’s weak example of homosexuality being condoned in the Bible is hilarious. He clearly has not read Leviticus, Romans, Corinthians, or Timothy. They are all pretty clear about homosexuality.
I’m really not sure what he’s saying in this. He surely can’t be suggesting that the civil authorities are celebrating a christian sacrament? Or is it that the church ought to regard as married any couple who, say, make some promises, jump over a broom and inform their priest that they are married – regardless of what the state thinks about their marital status? (The first seems obviously to breach the Constitution and the second seems to undermine the demand for the state to take any sort of action at all).
Whose brains got checked at what door? Hat room! Hat room! Is there a miter with a brain, however small, in there? No. You’re sure?!
D*mn! No, no, sorry, not you! So sorry. Thank you ever so. Did you check for the Archbishop of Canterbury’s whilst I still have you on the line? Thanks ever so.
…
No. You’re sure? No, no, no! I’m not attempting to insult you. I’m merely looking for lost brains!
/
Where is Monty Python’s Flying Circus when you really need ’em?
I think it’s always good to try to understand as empathetically as possible in its own terms, someone’s thought. The Bishop seems to have prioritized above a coherent theology of marriage, a theology of, as I suspect he might see it, justice. So he’s apparently been led to a position in which his understanding and enactment of the church’s teaching concerning the sacrament of marriage is incoherent, by, what he seems to view as the more significant theological demand – namely that gay and straight couples receive the same outcomes as they share in the life in Christ.
Of course it is not a view with which I find myself in agreement but it may give an insight into the vast theological significance the bishop grants to, what he might call, “inclusion”.