June 2011

A friend of mine has been engaged in a discussion with someone who cannot understand why Christians oppose “marriage” between two people of the same sex. He’s been struggling with answers and asked me for my thoughts. I thought it might be helpful to post up what I wrote in response.

Dear _______

I’ll try to make this brief but I don’t know that I’ll be able too since your question does require providing some context before diving in.

Usually the conversation starts with a number of assumptions on the part of your discussion partner that you’ll want to challenge:

Here are some of them…

1. Since science has proven that some people are born with desires for people of the same sex. That means, therefore, that God must have “created” them that way.

2. The bible addresses manipulative and abusive same sex relationships. It does not address monogamous, loving, same sex relationships

3. God is love and all love is from God…so if two people love each other why would the church stand in the way of it?

Let’s deal with them in order:

It may well be, though the evidence is inconclusive, that some people are naturally drawn to others of the same sex through some biological/genetic factor. But that we may be born with an orientation toward a certain behavior does not mean that “God made us that way”. People are born with orientations toward all kinds of behaviors–alcoholism, pedophilia, and, of course, heterosexual promiscuity to name just a few. Many behaviors have been argued to have some biological or genetic basis but we would not want to “bless” all of them.

The truth is, human beings are “fallen” by nature. (You might want to read through Romans 1:18-33; Romans 3:10-18 and Eph 2:1-3 at this point). That means that we are not who God originally created us to be. We are all born with an “orientation” away from God and toward the self. The way that orientation plays out is different for everyone and we should not be surprised that some are born with biological/genetic predelections to all kinds of behaviors that are not healthy or right. The average human male is, by nature, oriented toward promiscuity. Does that mean that promiscuity is God’s will? Should men be permitted to sleep with whoever they want when they want because they were “born that way”?

No. The whole point of the gospel is that though we are fallen and enslaved by sinful orientations Jesus has come to give us new life and to redeem us. Not only to die in our place to pay the consequences for our sins but also to give us his own Holy Spirit to break free from the bondage to sin. So a Christian has the power, through Christ, to escape the bondage of sexual sin or alcoholism or any other enslaving orientation or addiction.

The question needs to be: is homosexual behavior something that God needs to heal and free people from or is it something that God wants to bless?

The answer to that question, Christians believe, is to be found in the bible. Here are some of the texts that address homosexuality directly:

Leviticus 18:22 “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Romans 1:24-27 (As a result of the disobedience of humanity) “Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

1 Corinthians 6:9 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality.”

There are others, but the above texts are the primary ones because they are most clear.

But it is here that assumption 2 (above) comes into play. Some suggest that long term loving homosexual relationships are not addressed in scripture; that the bible writers knew nothing of them. Even a cursory glance at ancient Greco/Roman culture and literature will demonstrate that homosexual behavior and homosexual relationships, loving and otherwise, were commonplace. If Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles who wrote the most clear NT

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Mariette Ulrich Jun 2011 |

In the 1980’s, my hopelessly outdated mom counselled me not to kiss a boy on the first date. I tell my daughters not to kiss (or, for that matter, date) anyone they wouldn’t be prepared to marry. As someone who espouses values possibly more old-fashioned than those held by my pre-sexual-revolution era parents, I found this Mail Online itemworthy of note.

Bel Mooney’s review discusses the recently published Sex Before the Sexual Revolution: Intimate life in England 1918-1963 — the work of University of Exeter historian Dr Kate Fisher and Professor Simon Szreter from the University of Cambridge.

The review begins by noting the unhappy, sometimes tragic consequences of “pre-revolution” sexual ignorance: everything from women being clueless and frightened on their wedding nights, to the tragic case of a teenage girl who was so terrified by her first menstrual period, and afraid to speak to anyone about it, that she committed suicide. We can be thankful, says Ms Mooney, that we live in a more enlightened age, but she quickly adds that there’s also a downside to our current liberal social attitudes. No kidding.

Unsurprisingly, the interviewees believe that the benefits of freedom and pleasure people enjoy today are outweighed by ‘a high divorce rate, marital infidelity, illegitimacy, sexually transmitted diseases, the pubic visibility of pornography, unrealistic expectations of sexual pleasure and the supposed lack of respect between men and women’.

She’s also willing to admit that we can continue to learn from previous generations, and while in some respects we may know ‘more’ today, we certainly don’t know it all.

This book made me reflect just how much the young patronise the older generation. I suggest that perhaps that generation were far more sensible about passion and partnerships than we give them credit for. They might not have had sex education, but that didn’t stop them learning how to love.

[…]

What struck me most powerfully on reading the detailed interviews was how happy and contented men and women could make each other — without all the openness about sex which can put so much pressure on young people today.

One older gentleman (Colin, a plumber, born 1923) who was interviewed for the book put it quite simply:

“Anybody can have sex, there’s not a lot of people can have love. And sex wi’out love is nowt.”

Amen to that.

One of our modern “relationship” problems is that, contrary to popular belief, love is not something you passively wait around hoping to fall into; it’s something you have to work for. While sex comes naturally, especially to our information-saturated and over-exposed youth, love does not.

As the saying went (in a marriage preparation course I took with my husband, a quarter-century ago), “Love is a decision, not a feeling.” It’s not an emotion; it’s a way of life. It involves nice feelings, certainly, but also commitment, sacrifice, and sometimes, hard work. Who is going to teach the current and coming generations how to do any of that?

Caveat: I cannot vouch for all the content and tone of the book. A brief description on the University of Exeter’s website says:

The research is based on vivid, compelling and frank testimonies from a socially and geographically diverse range of individuals.  It explores a spectrum of sexual experiences, from learning about sex and sexual practice in courtship, to attitudes to the body, marital ideals and birth control.

It could be quite a mixed bag.

Archbishop Albert Chama

ACNS: ACNS4897

Tens of thousands of people–including all the Central Africa bishops–flocked to the Bernard Mizeki celebrations in Zimbabwe this weekend, despite being denied access to the shrine itself by the authorities.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 people came to the Marondera Show Grounds to commemorate the life of Bernard Mizeki, a lay catechist and missionary to the Shona people from 1891 until his martyrdom in 1896.

The attendees included all 15 bishops of the Anglican Church of the Province of Central Africa who con-celebrated the Eucharist on the Saturday morning. The Province’s Primate Archbishop Albert Chama preached what was described as “a moving and encouraging sermon”.

Following the Eucharist the day was filled with teaching on various topics by the clergy, drama based on the life of Bernard Mizeki, a programme led by the Mothers’ Union and then singing, worship and shared preaching by both clergy and laity. The celebrations finished after an early morning Eucharist service on Sunday and Harare’s Bp Chad D Gandiya presided at the Eucharist.

In a letter following the weekend’s celebrations, Bp Chad said it had been a truly blessed weekend: “I am writing to thank you all very much for your prayers. Our Bernard Mizeki celebrations at the Marondera Show Grounds went very well. Our theme for the weekend was, “Mukristu Usanete: Namata Urinde! Christian seek not yet repose: Watch and Pray!” We even had police protection which we appreciated very much.”

Pilgrims were hoping to visit the shrine after the main service, but police prevented them from doing so.

The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe has been under attack from an ex-communicated bishop, Dr Nolbert Kunonga, a supporter of President Mugabe, who left the Anglican Province of Central Africa (CPCA) in 2007 to try and set up a rival church. Kunonga, with the support of police and henchmen, has seized CPCA church property and used violence to break up church services.

Blessings

David

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
June 2011

Like their American counterparts, liberal Anglican leaders in Canada are winning legal but pyrrhic victories in property disputes with orthodox parishes that hold “to the faith delivered once for all to the saints”.

In a letter to Michael Ingham, Bishop of New Westminster, Canadian primate Fred Hiltz gloated over the recent Supreme Court decision to let him keep the properties of four Vancouver-area parishes in the ACoC, including the largest most vibrant parish in Canada, St. John’s Shaughnessy. In a “Dear Michael,” letter, Hiltz noted that he was pleased to hear of the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to deny Leave to Appeal to those who have launched law suits against the Diocese of New Westminster over its decision concerning the blessing of same sex unions.

Hiltz went on to eulogize Ingham, the first man to fracture the entire Anglican Communion by allowing the blessing of same sex unions, drawing the wrath and ire of Global South Anglicans by saying, “With integrity and insight, you represented the Anglican Church of Canada, its constitution, Canons and recognized decision making processes within the synods of our church – diocesan, provincial, and General. Our entire church owes you a great debt of gratitude. That expression of thanks is extended to your chancellor, solicitor, communications officer and others who supported you in your endeavors to represent our church with such resolve, grace and dignity.”

The archbishop went on to say that Ingham had been slanderously attacked “both professionally and personally,” but had stood his ground and upheld the decisions of his synod, claiming that Ingham had “consistently modeled” and was as “pastorally accommodating of a variety of theological perspectives in these matters as possible.

Quickly trading on the news of Ingham’s victory, the Bishop of Niagara, the Rt. Rev. Michael Bird wrote, “The decision clears the way for us to proceed to a trial involving the disputed ownership of three parishes in the Diocese of Niagara. This matter has been deliberated upon at every level of our Canadian legal system and this most recent decision must surely remove any question as to our ownership of these properties. Like our counterparts in British Columbia, the issue of same-sex relationships is well behind us and we are fully engaged in the work of mission and re-visioning our church as it engages with and serves the people of this generation. The diocese has been very patient over these years but now we hope that this property dispute can be resolved quickly.”

The Diocese of Niagara has instructed its legal counsel to move forward expeditiously to bring this matter to trial, he said.

In February, the Diocese of Ottawa struck a deal selling St. George’s Anglican Church to the Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC), confirming the B.C. Court rulings. In 2008, clergy and congregations in the historic churches of St. Alban’s and St. George’s in downtown Ottawa voted to join the Anglican Network primarily because of their opposition to the blessing of same-sex civil unions. This negotiated settlement followed legal action initiated by the Diocese of Ottawa against the two dissident parishes.

In victory, Ingham seems oblivious over what he has done, along with the depth of feeling orthodox Anglicans have towards revisionist bishops like him. He has no perception of the evil he has committed nor of the revisionist path he has taken the diocese down that will only further alienate his diocese and the Anglican Church of Canada and an ecclesiastically impotent Archbishop of Canterbury from the Global South. Is it any wonder that when Nigerian Archbishop Nicholas Okoh visits Canada for the first time next month, he will make a point of not seeing his Anglican counterpart Fred Hiltz?

“We are, and continue to be, respectful of genuine differences of conviction among faithful Christians. In a spirit of mutual respect, it is now time to move forward together,” opined Ingham. One wonders what world he is living in. The “differences” are between the options of heaven and hell, life and death. If these “differences” were just minor, there would be no need for the ANIC or the Anglican Coalition of Canada. But the differences are of such an eternal weight of glory, they cannot be lightly passed over.

There will be no moving forward. The vast majority of parishioners will leave those four churches and set up shop elsewhere. What will it cost the diocese to keep the doors open on four near empty parishes and putting in faux evangelical clergy to sustain the fiction that all is well? The “sad divisions” Ingham hopes may be healed are also a fiction. The divisions will never be healed in this life or the next. The huge unbridgeable divide has to do with “sound teaching” and doctrine upon which rests the fate of souls in this life and the next. That is something that is not up for discussion.

The Metropolitan for the Anglican Provincial Synod of British Columbia and Yukon, the Most Rev. John E. Privett weighed in with this, “We will continue as a Church to seek the most generous pastoral responses possible in our differing contexts as we continue, in good faith, to respond to God’s call to love and justice. It is my prayer that in God’s time and with God’s grace there will be a healing of the divisions amongst us and a renewed commitment to the Mission of God that we share with all Christians throughout the world.”

One wonders just how much spin you can pack into one paragraph. The only “generous pastoral response” has been endless litigation and a revisionist mindset of Bishop Ingham as he stomps on 2000 years of dogma, morality and church history, inhibiting and deposing his own clergy even and including the finest Anglican theologian in Canada Dr. J. l. Packer.

Healing. There is none and never will be. With two very different gospels and two very different understandings of the “Mission of God” there can be no reconciliation. The gap between the Anglican Church of Canada, the ANIC and the Anglican Coalition of Canada is so deep and so wide that only a full repentance by Ingham and Hiltz of their apostasies is reconciliation even remotely possible.And that is not going to happen.

Those who left knew their souls would be at stake had they decided to stay along with the souls of future generations who would never hear the clarion call of the gospel in parishes over which hung the cloak and mitre of a revisionist bishop. That is a bridge too far.

They also know that theological liberalism has no future. Liberals have succeeded in taking over orthodox parishes and then devouring them. They cannot build a single church or make a single convert because they have no gospel to proclaim. The affirmation and acceptance of pansexual sin will ultimately be the downfall of the diocese and the Anglican Church of Canada which is already hemorrhaging members and parishes. By infiltrating orthodox parishes, and then, over time, taking them over proves only that Satan is hard at work, and will be so until the end of time.

This win for Ingham is a hollow victory for the Diocese of New Westminster, because it’s already having trouble keeping its coffers and its parish churches filled. The four parishes he now claims are significant in size. To keep the doors open will require much money.

A church in point is small St. Simon’s in North Vancouver. Since that parish left the diocese, Ingham has had to provide over $250,000 dollars in diocesan subsidies to keep the doors open, a VOL blogger noted. “That parish entity saw its income from receipted donations drop by 90% (approximately $240,000 to $24,000) when the St. Simon’s people departed.

“Ingham says that the money for lawyers can now be spent on other things. This is probably going to be a big part of it, now that he has to underwrite four big parishes which will be bereft of people.”

The pain of departure is great, VOL was told, but the pain of staying in a spiritually, morally and theologically bankrupt church is even greater. One cannot joust with the devil. That is a losing proposition. He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon.

Sooner or later, Bishop Michael Ingham will learn that to his eternal damnation.

END

The top five news stories you need to know about from the past week.

Anglicanism Changing!

Russell Powell
June 24th, 2011

We are witnessing a huge continental shift in world christianity. It’s not just been this week, this year or even this decade, but I mention it this week because several of the breaking stories on sydneyanglicans.net relate to this changing of the old order. There was once a time when the educated, cultured north led the way in Christian mission to the Southern Hemisphere. Not any more.

The religious blogs in the US are alight with the news that the influential Pew survey of protestant leaders globally, has just been released and shows this continental realignment. To quote from the survey “Evangelical Protestant leaders who live in the Global South (sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and most of Asia) generally are optimistic about the prospects for evangelicalism in their countries. But those who live in the Global North (Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) tend to be more pessimistic.” What’s wrong with that sentence? Just a minor global positioning error which puts Australia and New Zealand in the Global North! Anyway, the Washington Post has written a good summary of the findings.

The survey was released just one day ahead of the announcement that an English missionary society has been formed with a push from friends in the global south, to plant churches and support orthodox Anglicans. It’s called the Anglican Mission in England – AMIE. You can read the details here. Similar societies have flourished in the US over the last decade as the Episcopal Church slipped further into liberalism. This is a very important development and one that needs prayer and support. There’s an excellent commentarty from Charles Raven, well worth reading.

With evangelism in the global south comes persecution, and this week there was a frightening statistic made public – that Christians are dying for their faith at the rate of one every five minutes. Unfortunately the figure is borne out by news from Sudan, where another purge of Christians is underway. Last week I reported that Archbiship Daniel Deng Bul Yak had spoken of genocide and “the threats to, and arrest and torture of, pastors and known Christians because of their faith…” This week, his colleague Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail of Kadugli, asks for a day of prayer for Sudan, this Sunday. Please pass this on to your churches.

Among other stories that we as Sydney Anglicans should be praying about, the earthquake disaster has led to parts of Christchurch being abandoned, and in China, 36 million (!) have been affected by flooding. Not a word from most of our media outlets, but the Christian Post covers it here.

Finally, some light relief, if the Westboro Baptist cult could ever be called that. Churchgoers at Mars Hill, Seattle handed them coffee and donuts when they came to protest.

At its recent convention in Phoenix, the largest evangelical denomination in the nation voted not to commend the 2011 New International Version (NIV) Bible because of its usage of gender-neutral language.

In the old translation of the world’s most popular Bible, John the Evangelist proclaims: “If anyone says, ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar.” Make that “brother or sister” in the new translation, which includes more gender-neutral language.

At its annual gathering last week, members of the Southern Baptist Convention argued that changes in the new NIV Bible alter the intended theological message. Dr. Randy Stinson, dean of the School of Church Ministries at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and president of The Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood, says evangelical Christians care deeply about every word in scripture.

“Southern Baptists, along with other evangelicals, affirm what we call the ‘verbal, plenary inspiration’ of scripture,” he explains, “which means that we believe not just the broad thoughts of scripture are inspired by God, but every word. And so every word, when it is translated from Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic, matters.”

Tim Overton, a pastor in Muncie, Indiana, proposed the resolution. The resolution “respectfully requests” that LifeWay Christian Stores not carry the new translation. Stinson explains the different philosophy behind the NIV.

“The NIV takes more of a thought-for-thought translation philosophy,” he tells OneNewsNow, “and the ESV, and the Holman Christian Standard Bible, and the New American Standard, and the New King James all have embraced more of a word-for-word translation philosophy.”

Southern Baptists rejected Zondervan’s 2005 version for similar reasons. The publisher says the NIV 2011 replaces both the 1984 and 2005 versions.