…but hold it just a minute there, folks. Haven’t we heard this trope before? About a guy named McGreevey? And remember how that ended–much ado about nothing?
Well, it turns out that’s what we’ve got here: some incredibly sloppy reporting that’s frankly unworthy of the venerable New York Times.
Your epiScope editor, who spent her youth as a reporter when Woodward and Bernstein were the heroes, decided to track down what really happened by talking to Mr. Boyer’s rector, the Rev. Hank Mitchel–which is more than reporter Waxman managed to do. Let’s go through the story, bit by painfully distorted bit.
Kendall, kudos for posting this update. It’s interesting that so many commenters, responding to your first posting, were prepared to take the (inaccurate) [i]Times[/i] story at face value because it fit what they [i]wanted[/i] to be true.
D.C. you’re assuming motive. How about the possibility that many took the story at face value because it was in the NY Times? Not exactly some little local paper. Most of us would assume that the Times did some fact checking.
McGreevey was a tempest in a teapot? Much ado about nothing? Huh?
But I am surprised at the Times. I took the story at its face value because of the paper that printed it.
AS far as my own response is concerned, DC above is completely in error. What isn’t in error is his past.
This man is a slime ball, and nothing I said about him before would I take back. He’s a Typhoid Mary. He hasn’t been converted; he’s just old enough so the old game has lost its savor. He is, in short, a McGreevey. This is what TEC needs to improve its inclusiveness base. May he stay there. LM
One of our commenters took the initiative to e-mail Sharon Waxman of the NY Times and posted [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/4373/#81097]this comment[/url] on the original blog post below.
[blockquote]Sharon Waxman of the New York Times responded to me via e-mail this afternoon as follows: “i absolutely stand by the story and its reporting. . . . [But] i am travelling in [the] far reaches of turkey on book leave (the book is about looted antiquities), and am physically unable to query the parties involved to get further answers. i have written to my editor and have not heard back yet†(the point there being that by protocol it is editors, not reporters, who handle these sorts of challenges).[/blockquote]
The truly sad thing, is not so much that folks believed the NY TIMES, but that so many believed such a thing was possible in ECUSA.
Gloria
I think the problem is that ECUSA has fallen so low that eveyone now assumes, whether rightly or wrong, that it is promoting every type of sexual immorality and impurity. So it doesn’t take much for people to give this story credence, even if it is printed in a newspaper as infamous for its inaccuracy, slant and journalistic fiction as the New York Times.
Both and.
As unveiled by Jan Nunley in her Episcope research, the core of the situation does still lend itself to the truth about what might otherwise be labeled, “from mercy to ordination.” Certainly, no one person who is ordained can theologically claim that ordination is the consequence of personal perfection, or, if that is understood to be possible by some, call it personal sinlessness. However, Paul’s admonition to “not lay hands on someone too quickly” for eldership should be writ large in this kind of potentially contentious case.
What I do know is that even in those cases where the clergy of oversight – in this case Fr. Mitchel – are calling for a long term objective, the very suggestion of some sort of turn-around ministry (perhaps by Fr. Mitchel as noted in the article) – in this case to the porn industry – fires up the itch to get going on it.
I had a situation like that a while back. The person I was almost literally sitting on, a type-A Alpha, finally just couldn’t be “patient” any more, even though progress was being attained, step by little step. Eventually, he left our parish, and joined another denomination hoping that the recruitment he heard included a fast track to ordination. And it did.
There seems no doubt that Waxman’s reporting style (is this what the Times wanted anyway when they hired her which might explain why she’s remained there?) is, well, unprofessional by a tendency to fictionalize and sensationalize a core of an existant situation for the sake of selling copies. But let us not pin all the stinky stuff on Waxman once we rightly judge that the article should never have been published as written. There is also the “we are a church of mercy” stuff reportedly said by Bp Bruno without any balance of accountability or discernment process (which might have been said but not reported!), there is the rector, Fr. Mitchel, admittedly opening the flow gate in the first place without the balancing admonition to “keep it under wraps”, so to speak, for a while (which might have been said but not reported!), and Boyer’s own personal understanding of the situation without also understanding the long-term commitment and necessary discernment all along the way (which might have been said but not reported!).
Bottom line, the interviews should not have been granted and the article never published. Waxman should be on the short list for dismissal.
What adds even more bother is the content of the articles she wrote while on assignment as a foreign correspondent. What did the newspaper unwittingly publish of any sensitive nature in that realm with her byline? Hmm?
Good sleuthing, Jan.
#6 Jim I agree, the story just didn’t pass the smell test. I hope Mr Boyer continues to grow in Christ and in Faith.
Larry – Is he beyond salvation and amendment of life?
The journalist’s motto used to be hammered into our heads in j-school.
“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
Sounds to me as if the Grey Lady is losing its touch and reputation.
Virtually every time I have been involved in something reported by the press, the reports got something (or somethings, often major) wrong. It makes me wonder why we trust the press when they report on anything that we haven’t been involved in.
I don’t know the situation, so I can’t have much of an opinion. I hope that Mr. Boyer has had a true conversion and will continue to grow in faith and put that faith into practice. He might make a good evangelist to those enslaved by the porn industry. But that is not my (or your) call. Given the track record of the NYT on issues where I know something, I don’t trust them much – especially when presented with evidence that they don’t have the story right.
Of course, if Boyer is ordained in the next two years or so, I will repent of what I said here about the NYT and this story.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I think no one is beyond redemption. The harder question is whether he could be called to the ordained ministry. I would think in Boyer’s case, that could take a substantial period of observation by those who have the gift of discernment.
I don’t see any problem with Boyer commencing a lay ministry to sex workers if he has truly been converted, that may very well be his calling. It often takes a repentant sinner to rescue others from the same pit, and I think that is often the Lord’s way of working (remember that Paul used to refer to himself as the worst of sinners). Some of the finest ministers I have ever met have come out of a history of drug abuse, gang membership, and other terrible things.
But I hope it is a ministry that calls for repentance and abandoning of that lifestyle. Too many things I’ve heard out of ECUSA and other mainline churches simply seek to “reaffirm” the person on an “I’m ok, you’re ok” basis, without seeking to have that person turn from their ways.
#9. No, I suppose he is not beyond redemption. In theory. Maybe. But let’s deal with real people in the real world. Do you believe that ex-Gov McGreevey has reformed, for he is less of a slimeball than our present subject. Do you REALLY think he is repentent and has accepted penance? Or is he weaselling out? Shall we welcome Mr. Boyer? Do you want you son or daughter hanging around with Mr. Boyer?
Redemption is a nice gambit. It means I can live a life of the most vicious degradation and then have a change of heart, so that all the harm, all the injury I have done to others in my prior life is wiped from my slate. Nice arrangement.
For my part, I prefer the system where slime balls stay in business until their corruption catches up with them and they get what they deserve. This is called by the quaint and antique word “justice,” not much in use nowadays when the fashionable word is “mercy,” which everyone is entitled to because God loves us. Do you really want this guy to walk? Do you really want him to bail out from all the psycho-social damage he has done? Why has being a Christian come to be a synonym for being a patsy? I have known a number of druggies who woke up in the slammer and said to themselves at one point,” What’s the matter with me? This isn’t fun, it’s misery.” And they undergo conversion and become ministerial, one way or another. Or they join fundamentalist churches.And then they preach against the sins of those whom they have left behind. But here’s the point, #9, they NEVER pay for the damage they have caused; their conversion is a form of self-protection, this is the mind playing CYA when it realizes it is vulnerable.
Do leopards really change their spots? ARe you willing to put your hand in the mouth of a leopard who shows up and says, “Look! No more spots.” LM
Larry Morse –
Do you consider yourself a Christian? If not, then what you have written is understandable, but if you do name yourself a Christian, then you should consider that what you have written is utterly opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was the Lord Jesus, not Episcopalian liberals, who said that as you judge, so you will be judged. Do you really wish to stand before God and be judged by your comment #13? Do you not know that you, nor I, nor anyone reading this, are not one whit better than this porn star compared to the holy God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! You will never pay for the evil you have done in this life, neither will I.
I work with criminals on a daily basis and have seen a lot of jailhouse religion come and go. But I have seen my own weak and self-willed faith come and go as well, and it is only by grace that I can call myself a Christian, and have any reasonable hope of salvation today. I have no idea of whether this man has had a real conversion, no more than I can say that I have. We walk by Faith in the Risen Lord Jesus, not by our own sight.
Hey,
This isn’t about Boyer’s ability to be redeemed by God, or whether or not he should be ordained!!
Maybe that’s where it started originally. But the credibility of direct quotes has now been dissed. No revisionist troll could have done a better job riling people up than what Waxman did in putting together this “article”!
This is now about the ability of anybody to trust the newspaper to present the news in a credible fashion. As noted by many comments already.
RGEaton
I have stopped reading the newspapers entirely except for local items. The same for TV “news.”
I have concluded the American media no longer have any credibility. Everything now is written with the aim of pushing a political or social agenda, whether left or right. I am not going to waste my energy trying to sort through the 5% of truth from the remaining 95% of spin.
#14. Am I a Christian? I dunno. I have never figured that out, although I am trying to be.
As to the rest, esp. the judgmental thing, the notion that we should avoid being judgmental on scriptural grounds is pure nonsense, the pawky fruit of a touchyfeely spineless tree. Consider for a minute: Christ Himself rendered one judgment after another. Practically everything he said and did was judgmental. And for yourself, you could not survive a day without being judgmental. You distinguish between good and bad, do you? And how? By rendering judgments. Am I willing to stand before God and be judged? Absolutely. His justice is without flaw; whether my judgments have been good or bad, He will not mistake. And if I come up on the short end of the scale, I have to hope that his mercy will tenderize the sentence. Compared to Christ, I am late on the pitch, but that isn’t the issue, is it?
But to tell me that Boyer and I are are cut out of the same cloth, that I am as evil as he is, had better be balderdash, because if that is so, then I have no reason not to go into the porn business, get rich and get laid and then walk away scot free. What IS the matter with you? Are we to make no effort to do what is right in this world because we are all hopelessly sinful? Come on, get a life. (Sorry elves).
The grace thing is all right, but there is a ministry of works and it counts for something (pace Luther and Calvin and my Puritan ancestors, but they believed in predestination too. T’hellwiddum).
If they don’t count, you wouldn’t be messing around with the castoffs in prisons. There is no Original Sin which condemns all mankind before it is born. Read Genesis again. I tell you, it isn’t there, and if it isn’t there, it isn’t anywhere. Good works are good, not to the extent that the world sees them as so, but that as the motive to do them is of the right sort. Christ placed a lot of value on motive, good and bad. (I may never get my paws on my neighbor’s wife, but Christ makes it clear that as soon I begin to hunger for her, the judgment is complete. And he is exactly right, isn’t he?)
Now, for Heaven’s sake, stand up straight and dump the guilt thing until you actually do something that deserves the judgment. AS to the creep under discussion, would you like to venture whether he feels any guilt or not? I can only hope tht God’s judgment will not fail here either, because he deserves a vacation in a real warm climate for a long long time. Who am I to judge? If I can’t render an accurate judgment over a slug like this, I will be helpless in this life to decide whether I dare cross against the light or not.
There is no evidence that God and Christ are handwringing, sweaty browed Milquetoasts, and a lot of evidence that they aren’t. Eat salt, keep good motives, pine tar your hands and take a good cut at the ball. Larry
Mr. Morse,
Obviously, we believe in different religions, with entirely different worldviews (as Sarah would say) and, apparently, a different Bible. I’ll not waste my time or yours with further conversation on the subject.
Best wishes.
“For my part, I prefer the system where slime balls stay in business until their corruption catches up with them and they get what they deserve.”
Yes, Jonah.
I pray that Boyer never stops seeking Christ and that he finds his way to a church which preaches the truth about sin and redemption.
Larry Morse,
I understand your anger at the porn industry. But I hope you don’t mean what you say about there not being redemption for anyone. You cannot have Christianity without redemption. While you are not the “slimeball” that porn peddlers are, you are still a sinner whose just end is death and alienation from God. Remember, you pray “Forgive us our sins [b]as we forgive those who sin against us.[/b]” That is not milquetoast – it is harder than anything else in the world. Look at the record of some of our great heros in the faith. Moses murdered an Egyptian. Paul arranged the judicial murder of many Christians and was on the way to arrange more judicial murders when he met Jesus. Augustine of Hippo was a person who enjoyed stolen fruit more than earned fruit and had sex with as many women as possible.
The greater you struggle to right an injustice, the more blind you will be to the injustice you cause.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
NO, I did not say there was not redemption for everyone, as others above suppose I said. And Boyer hasn’t sinned against me, so I don’t have to forgive him for it.But if you believe Boyer, I have a bridge over the Hudson River, I will sell you cheap.
Come on, be honest, do you believe McGreevey?
The reason – I meant – about being beyond redemption is that some people put themselves past it because they choose to. Do you believe Paris Hilton with her Bible? McGreevey is one, Spong is another, and Boyer shows all the signs of joining this illustrious set. Christians get so in love with the vicarious pleasure of being guilty and suffering, they get morally paralyzed and unable to condemn what is wrong in others because they are so wrapped up in their own guilt syndrome – yet another form of narcissism and endless self-regard.
Is my just end death and alienation from God? Where did you get that notion? Not out of Genesis, you didn’t. The tale of Adam and Eve is a parable, not a historical relation. It tells us that man is inherently prone to sin because most sin is delicious and fun, at least at first. Nowhere does God in Genesis condemn man to everlasting damnation for his crime. Why would God condemn the unborn for crimes they never committed? He is just, and would not do an unjust thing, and such blanket condemnation is patently unjust. We sin, we get punished if we leave it unremedied.If I am alienated from God, it’s because I chose to do so and I should be rewarded accordingly. Why isn’t this sufficient? Isn’t this just enough?
But to lift this universal condemnation,isn’t this why Christ died? No, certainly not. He died for us because our nature, (*in which he participated because he was fully human as well as fully divine), left alone, will not take us through the gates of life. He had to die to show us the way. He did, and now we know. Is this not sufficient? Larry
Phil Snyder sas the more I struggle to right and injustice, the blind I will become to the injustice I cause. Now, people, does anyone here really believe that? Because if you do, then no injustice can be remedied because no one should attempt the remediation. Larry
Larry,
What I should have said (and meant to say) that the more overriding you make the struggle against injustice, the more blind you will become to the injustice you cause.
A classic example of this (on the “conservative” side) is the killing of abortion doctors and bombing of abortion clinics. Abortion is a great evil and injustice. Killing and bombing are just as evil.
On the “liberal” side, we have government housing for the poor. It was a great idea to make sure the poor had adequate housing. However, in their desire to right that injustice, they pooled the poor into one place and that place became a den of crime and poverty and despair such that life there was as bad as, if not worse, than life in inadequate housing.
Fight injustice. Work against it. Call attention to it. But don’t make Justice your goal or it will become your god. Make God your goal and justice will follow.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I fear to step in here, but Larry Morse seems to be making the case for classic Pelagianism.
Phillip, I am still inclined to disagree with your formulation, although I understand better its raison d’etre. Justice is my goal, in fact, but I do not pursue it as a monomania – which is the case of those who kill abortion doctors. They are not so much interested in justice as they are in acting on a fanatic obsession, a rather different matter. And yes, I do expect perfect justice for myself in that last day, precisely as I hope for mercy. The fanatics subsume all matters beneath their passion just the way Bush-haters see everything wrong with the world as Bush’s fault. (What do I hate and fear most? Fanatics, as a matter of fact.Wordsmatter is most upset with me, but she will not therefore encompass my death, and so I know she is not a fanatic, just a miffed believer.)
As to Pelagianism, let me return to my original proposition and call for an answer. How can it be that AandE’s disobedience in Eden is the cause of the inherited damnation of all mankind when there is no evidence for such a conclusion in Genesis? I hope Phillip or WW will undertake to answer that question directly.
No, I am not a Pelagian because if I were, I would suppose that all will at last see Heaven, and, as you must have supposed, I believe there are some people for whom a season in Hell should be a permanent residence. Until you give me substantive evidence otherwise, Spong, Boyer and McGreevey and their ilk have earned this vacation in a warm country.
If you cannot show me evidence in Genesis that God intended Man to carry damnation’s burden for all generations until Christ’s appearance, then we must assume that the burden of sin we labor under is simply that which we have earned by our own labors. I fail to see why this isn’t sufficient burden.
In short, why would God damn His own children who have themselves committed no crime? If He is justice, then this is injustice and we cannot have this contradiciton. For us to face the penalties of our sin on the last day, our will has to be free so that we can have done right or wrong unfettered by divine coercion. You and I will agree on this, won’t we?
If there is no Original Sin (in the customary sense) what did Christ die for? My answer,again, is that someone had to show us the way to the New Life, and dying is the gate through which we must pass. Some will pass and some won’t, but this is our fault, not Adam and Eve’s. But why should we believe this proposition? Because we have seen, or have heard from trustworthy people, that one who is both God and man has shown the way. We would believe in no one lesser. Isn’t that so? This hardly diminishes the crucifixion, and the resurrection is the point. Sure, I’ve over simplified it, but the basic plot is clear; and even the dumbest can get it. (It’s the brainy ones who have a hard time.) Larry
Not “miffed”, just not interested in inter-religious dialogue. Reappraiser religion is tiresome, whatever form it takes.
And it’s “he”, not “she”. 🙂
Larry Morse (#26) – The question I have for you is this: You say that Justice is your goal, but you don’t have a fanatical obsession. How do you know? I submit that those who kill doctors or those with fanatical obsessions generall think that they do not have fanatical obsessions. They believe that most people are not serious enough about their faith (in what ever form). It is almost axiomatic that we cannot acheive justice in our world. Each attempt at justice creates injustice in some manner. For example, it is unjust that we don’t house/feed/clothe the poor in our country and around the world. It is also injust that we take (by force of government) a significant portion of anyone’s income to pay for the poor. We live in a world of competing visions of “justice.” My point word I was searching for yesterday would be close to fervent. The more fervent you impose your justice, they more blind you will be to the injustice you cause. I think Miraslov Volf said it best: “The principle cannot be denied: the fiercer the struggle against the injustice you suffer, the blinder you will be to the injustice you inflict.” (Exclusion and Embrace, P. 217)
As for sins, can you show one person (aside from Jesus Christ) that has committed no sin? In our world, we are incapable of stopping to sin. Why? I don’t know, but it is so. All have sinned and the wages of any sin is death and separation from God and the community of mankind. Jesus died to repair that breach and heal that separation.
Sin isn’t just those acts we commit or thought we dwell on, sin is part or being – it is the state of rebellion against God. So, we are not punished for our actions, we are judged guilty by our state of rebellion. You say that we have free will and have the ability to do right or wrong “unfettered by divine coercion.” I would have to say “well, no. We are not truly free to do right.” We may have the ability to choose right, but I’ve never met nor heard of someone (apart from Jesus) who has done so their entire lives. Thus, we are only free when enbued with God’s grace and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Consider the alcoholic. Technically he is free to stop drinking, but drinking has such a strong hold on him that he needs external help to not drink. We are all “sinaholics” and need God’s help to not sin.
Trying to discern God’s action in the lives of notorious sinners or apostates or heretics is difficult. The image of God is still there – however marred. If Jack Spong were to renounce his former ways and ask forgiveness for perverting the gifts given to him, God would be there to remake him new. The same applies to Mr. Boyer. Neither you nor I know the depths of his conversion and how honest it is. I doubt that either Mr. Boyer nor his priest know as well. That is something that only God can determine. Even if he is the most sincere of persons in his conversion from a life of pornography to a life following Jesus Christ, his addiction to sin may be so strong that we will fall again and again. So, I would say that it is not up to us to judge someone else’s conversion. Can we just be glad that he left his former life and is trying to follow Jesus? Can we agree to pray for him and support him in his new life?
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#27. Me? A reappraiser? Ha ha ha ha ha. Inter-religious dialog? Take my wife….please. I knew I was heterodox, but I didn’t know I was an exiled Christian mouthing flaming heresies. Yoicks. L
Anyway, as to gender…. whoops! I have no idea why I thought you were feminine.
What you have writtern can not be replied to quickly. Let me pose the question again, just the question: Is it the case that the story of AandE is a tale, whether historical or not, that man is inevitably damned because he is incorrigably sinful?
If this is true, then neither right motive nor right action will help him. And all those preceding Christ have been damned, that is, all who do not know him, for whatever reason, are damned out of hand.
Is this truly the case?
And the conversion matter is of equal importance, but tht don’t belong here in this context. L
I point out once again that Genesis says nothing about automatic damnation. (Are we agreed on this/)
Let us leave free will and its potential for right action aside for a minute, and restrict the issue to “rebelled against God,” for this is what the AandE issue is. Andl let us leave fanatical obsessions aside for a minute too, although this is an important matter. Larry
Genesis says nothing about damnation – automatic or otherwise. However, all of creation is clearly in rebellion against God – do you deny this? Men and women are inevitably damned because of their participation in that rebellion and we would stay so execept for the Incarnation, life, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascenion of Jesus Christ. As for the people who died before the incarnation, the tradition of the Church (based on 2 Peter) is that they were preached to in hell (or the place of the dead) when after the crucifixion. I will not say that anyone is “damned out of hand.” That is not my call to make. I do know that God is just and merciful and that because of the cross and resurrection and only because of the cross and resurrection, can anyone be made right with God. One of the problems that we face in our lives is the idea of time. God is not bound by time – He exists outside of it. So, in once sense God can “see” the crucifixion taking place while at the same time “see” Abram and Sari laughing about having a son or Issac blessing Jacob or the prophets calling Israel back to their covenant or “see” your sin or my sin.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Gee, Larry Morse. I have paged through Genesis and I can find no record of anyone getting back into the Garden of Eden. Such a statement is not there. I can find no record of any further access to any of the Trees of the Garden. The way was shut by the angels. If no one got back into the Garden, and we find folk having to work for a living, by the sweat of their brow, where does that leave the descendants of Adam and Eve? What are you expecting to find in Genesis? The theological reasoning of Paul in Romans?
Seriously, sir. The antediluvian situation has caused much ink to be used and many arguments to be spread abroad. For one thing, the whole world (except for one family) was wiped out by a great Flood. For another thing, you do not need many fingers to count up those who were counted faithful in Genesis.
Mr. Morse, do you claim that we are back in the Garden now? If not, precisely what is the reason for our exile? If we are exiled for no reason, then that makes God unjust. If we are exiled for a reason, what can that reason be if our exile pre-dates our first conscious thought?
And what was Jesus doing, during the time that he suffered death?
I suggest you re-think your conclusions, based on all of the available texts.
“Genesis says nothing about damnation – automatic or otherwise. However, all of creation is clearly in rebellion against God – do you deny this? Men and women are inevitably damned because of their participation in that rebellion and we would stay so execept for the Incarnation, life, Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascenion of Jesus Christ.”
All of creation is in rebellion against God? Like the sunrise? Bunnies? Roses? That wonderful Fourrier Petite Vougeot? My last Romeo and Juliet Churchill?
I’m firmly against porn priests though. I don’t like the idea of bivocational clergy.
John – you have obviously not kept rabbits in your home or had them eat your garden. If any creature is in rebellion against God, is the smelly, garden destroying rabbit. You’ve obviously never accidentally run into a rose bush while riding a bicycle as a kid (boy did that hurt!). Roses may be pretty, but they really hurt and their thorns are only outward and visible signs of their participation in rebellion against God.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Clearly this is about two different religions…
😉
John – not to mention that the sons of the prophets (Monty Python)selected the rebellious rabbit to represent the greatest danger to the noble knights. The rabbit was even more dangerous than the French or the Knights who say “Ni” or the three headed Giant or the Black Knight.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Anyway, as to gender…. whoops! I have no idea why I thought you were feminine.
Not your fault. “Words Matter” was a pseudonym chosen for a specific reason, but the new blog really doesn’t encourage multiple identities, so I’m stuck with it. Yes, I could change it, but at this stage of my life, a little gender confusion is not worth the hassle. :coolsmile:
Very entertaining thread. Morse on the crucifixion sounds like classic liberal Christianity to me. Join the club, Larry?
Well, John, of all the things I am not, I am not a liberal. What I am is an independent (speaking in the terms of Maine politics) which means that I do not vote for the party, but for the ideas. So with Christianity.
Firs of all, if we are to believe in all men being in rebellion against God, there needs to be some evidence for it, and I have argued this evidence does not exist in Genesis. A and E are not in rebellion against God; Eve has disobeyed God because of intellectual vanity and A has gone along with her because she is his wife. Disobdience is not rebellion. BUt what is more important, there is not a shred of evidence that transmits this a priori damnation to their descendents. What we inherit is death and hard labor. These are the punishments and no other. You cannot get eternal damnation out of that.
So let me ask the next question: Are you in rebellion against God? I may be prone to sin but I am not in rebellion against Him. Why should I be?
And nothing that I have read suggests that you are in rebellion either. Moreover, how can all of creation be in rebellion against Him? This really doesn’t make sense. Or do you mean only mankind? Where do you get the notion that we are in rebellion? And that we deserve damnation therefore? Do I deny the rebellion? Why, of course I do, for there is no evidence that such a rebellion exists. Job was being rebellious, I suppose, in calling God to accounts, and God smacked him down, but he didn’t not condemn him to hell for his rebelliousness, did he?
Are Christians in rebellion too? Really? “I will not say that anyone is damned out of hand.” And yet, Phillip, you just did above, re:rebellion.
Beggiing you pardon, Phillip, but this argument doesn’t make sense. ARe you telling me that I am in rebellion against God even though I say I am not? That I am in rebellion because I cannot help myself, that this is my essential nature? Are you telling me that the crucifixion has changed my essential nature and I cannot rebel against God any more? Especially if Christ died for us all?
I realize I am being a pain in the tail, but I hope y ou will have the patience to address the above questions. About time, you are clearly right; and this is one reason predestination does not exist. (Incidentally, Re: free will and predestination, let me recommend Frost’s “Trial by Existence” for an original view of this matter. This is filled with some of Frost’s most compelling ideas. He has spoken a truth here as only poets can who put into words that which cannot be put into words.)
As to mathman, the issue wasn’t whether man can return to Eden. We agree that man’s lot is hard and death certain. Not the point. The question was, does this expulsion declare that all men are damned inevitably because of “Original sin?” I say it does not because this is not a shred of evidence the God so intended. If you have some indication tht God DID so intend, tell me, for I am willing to be convinced. What did I expect in Genesis? A clear statement that this disobedience was , as to all men’s souls, terminally condemnatory. And it isn’t there, although there is an explicit statement of what our punishment IS. Since He said it, I am willing to believe it and believe that THAT is the limit established to our punishment.
I will let you in on a secret, mathman, as to getting back into Eden. Remember my quote from Ben Johnson (“It is not growing like a tree….)? You can return, but only for a moment. Did you know that? I stood yesterday on the coarse sedimentary rock and granite intrusions on a private place on the Maine coast. The seagulls turned above my head, crying and creaking, wheeled on their wingtips and arced above the waves, riding the waves upwelling airs. The sea hammered the shore, and the long rote of the sea came in from the far ledges. The lobstermen moved from buoy to buoy, the white throated sparrow sang as if immortality lay in its grasp, the rugosa roses filled the air, and the air itself was like a perfect water, in which every thing was clearer and brighter than it could ever be. The sun lay a warm hand on my back, and the onshore breeze cooled my face. It cannot last, but I have seen the perfect place on the perfect day.”In small proportions we just beauties see/ and in small measure life may perfect be.” Is life suffering? Sure. Is sin real? Sure. BUt it is the custom of those in love with guilt and sin to ignore what I have seen – as others in Maine have seen – the flawless time, the flawless place, such that I can only wish Heaven will be the indefinite extension of this brief season in Eden. And this has not happened once, but a hundred times in a hundred different places in Maine. This is, as we say, the Gospel truth, precisely as the Gospel should be. Larry
Let us consider such evidence as we have. Did God turn A and E out of Eden as punishment. No. He turned them out because He said He feared they would eat of the Tree of Life. THIS is why a cherubim is placed at the mouth of Eden. Did He condemn mankind’s soul to the flames forever as punishment? No. He cited the punishment, death and a life of hard work in a hard world. Is there any sign that he thought of all mankind as being in rebellion? Nothing at all.
Now this will probably be the end of this thread, because I am asking you to consider the evidence that the Bible gives – even though in this case it is symbolic and metaphorical – and use it to scrape of the barnacles off a traditional belief which has been an albatross around Christian necks for a long long time. Does this alter why Christ was crucified? Not really. It merely sets it in a truer light, that is, the light of the resurrection. He said He was the Way, and He has shown it to us. And what sins did he take upon Himself? I don’t know, for I cannot find evidence in the gospels of any such declaration on Jesus’s part.
Show me clearly where Gospels deny what I have said. My knowledge of the gospels is probably much weaker than yours. If you cannot, then my argument stands. It is essential that Anglicanism purge itself of the goat’s feathers it has accumulated over the centuries, for if it does not, it cannot fairly face the crisis that is coming, when science, which delivers on its promises, declares that Christianity does not, that science alone is the way to the truth (as the noisy atheists presently declare). It is a shame to have this thread die of inanition because this subject is a good deal more important that Schori’s latest silliness.Wordsmatter may be right; we are talking about different religions; but I will still prefer the one that is rooted in the Gospels’ evidence. THAT Christ is the one we are given, and I will stick with Him (as far as I can) Larry
Larry, when I asked you if you were ‘liberal’ I was only pulling your tail. But it was affectionate – those good old bonds of affection … Nevertheless I do think that you think – sometimes – in ways that push objectively in that direction and that you are very properly aware (as so many others are in denial) of the huge challenges to Christian (or any other religious) orthodoxy posed by ‘science’. ‘Original sin’, ‘rebellion against God’ – this stuff has to go. How on earth (or in heaven) can one justify it when one thinks about the amoral and brutal aspects of the world necessitated by evolution (not the only aspects – but important ones and absolutely inevitable within the process). The Genesis myths do on the surface seem to posit an original paradise state ended by man’s transgression – actually a pretty well universal myth pattern and demonstrably influenced in the particular case by much earlier Mesopotamian myths. It’s not tenable. Better to read them synchronically – that is, as applying to the choices we face NOW, ‘we’ being all humans since ‘homo sapiens’ emerged. But on that reading, of course, original sin and rebellion against God go out the window. Of course, if you do think these kinds of thoughts, which inevitably involve seeing biblical things in their historical context, hence to a degree relativised, you are bound to wonder whether biblical prohibitions against homosexual behaviour are also historically and culturally determined rather than the abiding word of God. But thems the breaks, those are the risks and challenges – and they can’t be evaded behind some kind of impenetrable orthodox smoke-screen.
Larry – I can’t find in the Gospels where Jesus specifically said that he was dying for our sins. I hope you will accept what Paul said to the Corinthians: “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,” (I Cor 15:3). How about Romans 8:21,22: “because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now.”
Creation waits for its release from decay and bondage – bondage it is in because of the rebellion. All of creation is warped – twisted out of the shape that God desires. We too are warped out of shape. The means by which we are put back into shape is the cross and our death to self and being reborn through Jesus Christ. Whether you accept the theory of penal substitution or the theory of [i]Christus Victor[/i], the death of Jesus is what allows us to have union with God. The entire cosmos will be resurrected such that it is not in rebellion any more or such that it doesn’t participate in the rebellion against God.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Odd, Phillip, you and I are in half agreement.
Is all creation twisted out of shape that God desires? I am at a loss to undestand how you can say this. The universe is so orderly, so well constructed, so patterned, so utterly free from chaos, ans so enduring (it appears) that I fail to see how you can say it is twisted out of shape. It appears to be in perfect shape – unless you mean that the universe, rightly ordered, should be beyond all change? Do you mean that? And where has the univer se been groaning in travail? This doesn’t make sense. Philip. The suns live and die according to law, the planets turn according to law. All, all is lawful. Where’s the groaning in travail? This is just Paul preaching his own version of Christianity – which I must, say, I doubt that Christ would recognize.
Now, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Where in the scriptures does Paul discover that? My argument is simply that if I cannot find it in the scriptures, I don’t buy it. We do not accept Halacha (is that the word I want?) The Romans do, and they have washed up an enormous load of flotsam and jetsam on their theological beaches.
Jphn: The Genesis myths are the work of poet(s) who have peered deeply into the multi-layered human mind, so full of contradictions and stresses, and he has seen that evolution has bred into us new forms of mind while leaving the old forms intact. The libido and the id are hungry, always, but evolution has winnowed us so that those of us left have the tools to sublimate and redirect the beasts in us who still prowl and are hungry for their ancient meat.
For these dark powers are the source of our sinning, but we control them or not as self control commands or fails. And in all of this, the intelligent design fails not, and the designer is without error.
We will obey His laws or we will perish forever. And so Christ, who came to fulfill the Law and to show us the Way.
Incidentally, John, do you know what it means to love you neighbor as yourself? I still can’t figure this out. Why would Christ want to us extend our egotism, our selfcenteredness to somebody else? It sounds like that’s what he’s saying.
Incidentally, for all of you, the reason I despise the pornographers and would gladly see Boyer in hell is that they are selling an ersatz product, a fake, a fraud, for the Real Thing. In the old days, when the hunger got the better of you, you took up with whores or visited a prostitute, or you wore your wife out. But whatever it was, it was real sex, maybe just lust, maybe love, the Real Article, and this is what we were designed to do. But the porns remove you from reality and give you pretense, and a self-centered pretense it is. They teach you to substitute the fake for the real, and at last to prefer the fake. If this isn’t a dreadful sin, I don’t know what is. Wht will become of mortals who substitute the distant and the false for the near and the actual? They will cease to be real themselves, and become mere shadows, mere projections of desire. Boyer is a great criminal and his crimes should be mortal. Larry
Larry
Now, Chris may die for our sins, if buy that you mean the penalty God laid on Adam, that he should labor and die and return to dust. Is that what you mean? If so, then we are in agreement. The penalty has been spelled out – it is not automatic damnation because of A and E – and Christ has showed us how one passes through that penalty to new life. We still have to die, but that passes, for some of us (I hope for me) into something finer.
But am I in rebelllion? Are you? Come on Philip, we are both hoping for the same ultimate result by the same judge. Who would rebel? I don’t get it.
I know we are supposed to think the world villainously bad. It can be. But read what I said to mathman. Have you ever sat on an island off the Maine coast and let the sun and the sea sing to old old song to you? Have you sat in northern New England of a bright October day and watched the year die in glory, for some things, like hay, must die to release their fragrance? I continue to hope tht heaven is like this, always changing and never changing. Wherever Heaven is, I pray that a river runs through it.
The picture you draw is so glum, so gray, so dreary, so filled with pain, that it does not match the world I live in, the world I see every day. Drought comes and kills everything I have been trying to grow, and I am nearly bankrupt. Cancer may eat me alive and O may die in agony; and yet, the wood peewee sings as sweetly as ever where Wild River runs through the steep banks to the Androscoggin, the water is clean and bright, the air is transparent and full of the balsams which release their fragrance as the sun warms them. This is simply true. Larry