The Right Rev. Ralph Spence may be poised to step down from his post as spiritual head of the Diocese of Niagara but his influence remains strong here at home and across the Anglican Church of Canada.
Spence, who will play a key role at the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference in England next year, is one of two Canadian bishops behind a contentious pastoral letter from Canada’s Anglican bishops on same-sex blessings.
Released shortly after Canadian bishops met with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at a Niagara Falls retreat house in late April, the letter has drawn howls of protest from both sides in the 20-year-old debate on the legitimacy of blessing same-sex unions.
“We found that a lot of people in the middle really liked what we did and people at either extreme didn’t,” Spence said of the letter he penned with the Right Rev. Patrick Yu, suffragan bishop of Toronto.
“I think that in itself says we’re marching down the right road in trying to get people to speak to each other,” Spence said yesterday.
Read it all and there is more here.
If this is middle of the road it just shows how liberal the Canadian Church is. It simply continues the liberal take over by slow motion.
From the story in the Star by Stuart Laidlaw, Faith and Ethics Reporter
< blockquote> In many ways, he says, the storms began brewing with the church’s 1920s debate over birth control. Until then, the Anglican Church, much like the Catholic, viewed sex as purely a function of procreation, making birth control a bad thing.
But by allowing birth control, the church recognized that sex between consenting adults is about more than making babies. “Once you open that door a little bit, you can begin to discuss all kinds of aspects of sexuality,” Spence says.>
Shouldn’t this be “But by allowing birth control, the church recognized that sex between a married husband and wife is about more than making babies.�
By switching to “consenting adults†from “married husband and wife”, they then take us from “more than about making babies” to “not about making babies”, and that, of course, is how they try to get us to blessing of same sex behavior.
Wow, doesn’t my argument sound like what Paul was explaining in Romans, except they were using anal sex for birth control? What started out with women first agreeing to anal sex with their husbands for birth control eventually led to men having sex with men.
Or as Spence says,“Once you open that door a little bit, you can begin to discuss all kinds of aspects of sexuality,†Well, at least for those so inclined.
To call “extreme” what the Bible and thousands of years of Judeo-Christian moral Tradition say (and what 99% of other long-standing moral traditions also say) is the true radical, extremist position. But such Truth cannot get by those religious leaders whose prime value is the lukewarmness that has one Dogma -conciliation at all costs no matter what is at stake–and the liberal gatekeepers in the MSM who control the way all debates are framed in the public square.
After the last synod of his diocese, which approved blessings of same sex relationships, he refused to sign-off on the proposed changes to the canons and let the proposal die. So at least Ralph Niagara has a back bone.
Slightly edited by elf.
Think about what it takes for such a headline writer to call you “bold.”
“We found that a lot of people in the middle really liked what we did and people at either extreme didn’t,”
God made into a vending machine. Put your coin in and make your choice. The worship of “personal preference” is a mighty poor religion.
DonGander