For Ballard, the answer to the first is obvious – it’s discrimination and an aggressive environment. The answer to the second is to campaign for a change of the environment. The second, of course, logically follows from the first. It is not necessarily drawn directly from a need to legitimise homosexual behaviour – again, we should not doubt that this is more than simple political posturing; there is a real concern here for young people.

Last Saturday, the state of Florida finally banned sex with animals. It’s hard to believe that it’s taken so long, but it wasn’t a big issue before now. A rash of cases heavily reported in local tabloids convinced the state legislature that something needed to be done. A 54-year-old was arrested in June after his grandson walked into a bedroom and discovered him attempting to mate with the family bulldog. In 2009, a Panhandle man asphyxiated a goat while trying to have sex with it (protestors at his trial wore t-shirts that read “Baaa means no!”) and in 2005 a lonely blind man was caught in flagrante with his guide dog.

Every society has its tragic perverts. What makes this new generation of bestialists different is their political and cultural savvy. They have latched onto the language of “rights” and are trying to identify themselves with other sexual minorities. Michele Bachmann must be overjoyed. This somewhat validates the Christian Right’s prediction that the campaign for gay equality has accidentally opened the door to some far freakier demands.

By  Fr Dave Doveton (Vice Provost, Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin, Port Elizabeth)

INTRODUCTION

A current “Axe” commercial showing on television channels in Southern Africa features numbers of angels falling from the heavens to the surprise of mere mortals. On reading the Communique http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/news.cfm/2011/9/29/ACNS4951  from the recent synod of Bishops, one gets the sense that they were similarly surprised and dazzled by the presence of a certain eminent visitor from afar. It speaks in glowing terms of the visit and address of Katherine Jefferts Schori.  In the communiqué they mention that “While we acknowledge some differences between TEC and ACSA (for example, with respect to human sexuality), nevertheless we affirm the value of ongoing dialogues, exercised through truthfulness and sensitivity towards one another.”

The issue of primary doctrinal importance  which has led to the crisis in the communion is here merely a footnote in the Bishops communiqué. They obviously do not regard it as important.  They also omitted to point out that Jefferts Schori denies primary elements of the Christian faith. But why are her views and the views pertaining in the TEC as a whole regarding same-sex relationships a heresy?

What is heresy?

While heterodoxy is a doctrinal difference with Orthodox doctrine which can vary between something of a minor or non-essential nature to something much more serious,  heresy is a teaching or belief which denies a fundamental and central doctrine of the faith.

Those who teach falsehood are defined as heresiarchs only if they refuse to change their beliefs, and stubbornly pursue and hold to their teachings as true. “On the basis of its etymology α’?ρεσι? denotes a self chosen way. It is a way of thinking, an opinion, a teaching arrived at by conscious deliberate choice. A heretic is one who chooses to follow his own rather than God’s thoughts. The very term implies that the truth, the doctrine of scripture, has received a hearing and has been rejected” (W R Gawrisch, “What is heresy?” ) In the New Testament it has the predominantly objective meaning of a doctrine which is taught by a particular group or person. Heresy fundamentally alters the foundational doctrine of the church in such a way that it effectively creates a new group which is in conflict and opposition to the true church. Thus heresies arise within the fellowship of the church and always threaten both the catholicity (united in a shared faith) and apostolicity (true to apostolic doctrine)of the church. Read the rest of this entry »