Thinking Anglicans

I feel very heartened and encouraged by the interview with the PB. She exudes a quiet confidence.

The key phrase I take with me : these differences fade in sigficance before the needs of the world.
(Her closing words, as I remember them now).

The word gracious was used to say, with understatement, hear this very clearly.

NP-
Dose your bitterness and snide nastyness know no end?

Expect that many conservatives posting on all the usual blogs will find ways to make fun of the PB, both how she looks, and what she says, in this video. In response to NP, all I can manage at the moment is to remind us all that TEC is simply leaving its doors open and its lights on while it keeps on keeping on in the face of calls from extremely conservative entities, leaders, and people to suddenly betray its own best conscience, big tent version. I might also remind myself that even if the split much desired by conservatives… Read more »

Well said drdanfee – But let’s also keep the analogy on the affect on our lives. There are many here who have seen the path of shunning worked out in our own families and the families of our friends. It is thus heartbreaking to watch as a portion of our church seeks to reinforce that path. Cutting off the parent from the child is tragic for the parent as well the child. Life is so short. There is only a little time that we can be together with our families in the first place, God willing. Then to watch parents… Read more »

NP – of course you are right that the don’t ask don’t tell strategy of the last 70 years (?) is riddled with a hypocrisy that is now coming home to roost and haunt everybody. However, where you are wrong, in this increasingly open world, is in your reading of the bible and people’s experience. In this new context of transparency you are the very people to whom we must take the argument about the right and wrong way to treat/welcome lbgt people vigorously. And I have every confidence that the negativity you passionately represent will be defeated in God’s… Read more »

Neil says “And I have every confidence that the negativity you passionately represent will be defeated in God’s good time.”

Remember, my position is His stated position.
So, you think He is going to contradict himself in order to agree with you?

NP
As Athos reminded us so kindly this week, you can use the bible to prove anything you want.

And wasn’t it fascinating to see during the slavery debate how able conservatives suddenly were to interpret the bible and to recognise that our way of understanding it changes over time.

To think that anyone is in posession of God’s absolute final truth is either wilfull arrogance or utter blindness.

NP “Remember, my position is His stated position.”

Good grief, what a bunch of sanctimonious foppish nonesense. You really believe that YOUR understanding of scripture is THE way, and ONLY way. Between the “changeling” liberals that have trashed anything dear and extreme fundamentalist people like you that have these cookbook remedies that have gotten the church to where she is today.

Erica. When Athos so rightly described the Word of God as “a plastic nose that can be twisted either one way or the other”, you may be pretty-well certain that his personal approach to Biblical interpretation was not what he had in mind. Regarding NP’s statement that “the weak arguments about slavery etc carry no weight” [why won’t bloggers punctuate?], I refer you to the March 10th T.A. posting “Williams and Malango meet Kunonga”, where he and I exchanged thoughts on this one: http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/archives/002283.html The slavery argument is NOT a weak one (my 7:45 p.m. March 14th posting clearly states… Read more »

NP
Sorry to hear that you would have been a slave – but I suppose you would have been following scriptures and served your masters with respect and fear and with sincerety of heart…. serving wholeheartedly (Eph 6:5-6).

And although you now tell me that slavery was a sin, you would have “served them even better because those who benefit from their service are believers, and dear to them.” (Tim 6:1-2).

This is not the church occasionally getting it wrong, this is what happens when you follow scripture unthinkingly.

I’m amazed at the weak showing by the liberals here. The only argument seems to be the conversatives in the past used Scripture to defend slavery. Ergo current conservatives are doing the same thing wrt sexual sin (since all conservatives are the same…) Therefore, liberals’ view must be correct. Anyone want to prosper a test for whiches? That would be about as sound as this argument. As for can we know Truth – didn’t someone say we’re no longer servants but friends because we know what’s going on and friends get clued in? NP – thanks for invoking Wilberforce. The… Read more »

lapinbizarre – sorry, I’m a child of the spell-check age. Still, fairly embarrassing.

Any comment on the substance of the post?

Please dear Chris, you cannot adequately summarize the entire body of alternative hermeneutical work on all the non-conservative readings of all the scriptures that could possibly be involved, in a single blog post on TA. If you really want the range of serious answers to your question, don’t look to a post here, but engage in serious study of critical scholarship and hermeneutics. The incredible range of interesting and viable frames and lenses through which to productively read and understand scripture is so very, very large. No single scholar encompasses all of hermeneutics, and the implication that any view could… Read more »

Chris Comment on the substance of the post: The point is that throughout this debate the conservatives have told us we haven’t got a leg to stand on, because however nice sounding our arguments are, they clearly go against scripture and therefore have to be discounted. The slavery issue is a perfect example to show the conservatives that even they have once overturned a literalist reading of scripture. If we can get this core point straight – that it is possible to come to different understandings of the meaning of scripture over time – then we migh actually have the… Read more »

Again, Erika – you do not seem to know what the bible actually says on slavery – it does not say it is good to own slaves – it says things which were revolutionary 2000 yrs ago eg “there is no slave nor free” and see how Paul pleaded for Onesimus. There was no justification for the slave trade from scriptures – that is why the evangelical Wilberforce and others fought it. No, I don’t think “liberals” ditch scripture “unthinkingly” – some “liberals” seem very keen on scripture when they want to talk about poverty or against capitalism. However, when… Read more »

NP suggested that “the evangelical position has a lot of scholarship behind it “ I’m uncomfortable with blanket statements like this and wonder whether it is affirming evangelical scholars or evangelical scholarship. To be an evangelical scholar is to have certain religious beliefs which inform one’s scholarship, but which one is prepared to expose to the full investigation of the wider academic comunity. It is ‘an honourable estate’. Names from the past include Guthrie and FF Bruce. ‘Evangelical scholarship’ is an oxymoron in my book, for it implies the production of scholarly material for a ghetto and the editing of… Read more »

Chris. Last post from me on this one. Israelites might only be held in what a later age termed “indentured servitude”. This condition was not permanent, and the family and children of the individual were not necessarily or normally similarly enslaved. Non-Israelites, by contrast, were subject to “hereditary” slavery. Your slaves, their children and their descendants were the property of you, your children and of succeeding ages of your descendants. Occasionally, on less staid blogs than “Thinking Anglicans”, you will see the quotation “your male and female slaves whom you may have from the nations that are around you” followed… Read more »