Earlier articles containing such comments can be found here, and here, and also here. There are further items here, and here.
New items continue to pour out:
Mark Hart What the Report from the House of Bishops Really Says
Al Barrett After listening? A response to the CofE House of Bishops
Andrew Lightbown Unity, dissent and episcopacy.
St Martin in the Fields A Fresh Tone and Culture:
A Response to Marriage and Same Sex Relationships after the Shared Conversations:
A Report from the House of Bishops
Jonathan Clatworthy Here we go again
Richard Peers For loving-kindness sake: an open letter to members of General Synod
Jeremy Clines By way of apology for the Church of England: sexuality report
Colin Coward The Bishops’ report – a holistic reaction
Three wasted, humiliating years
The dark shadow over the Church of England
David Walker: “the law will not change” – Pete Broadbent: “same sex marriage doesn’t exist”
There are some who support the bishops, for example
Fulcrum Fulcrum Response to GS 2055
Andrew Goddard Giving and Receiving Episcopal Oversight: The Bishops’ Report (GS 2055)
Ian Paul Were the Shared Conversations just a Con?
And you can find much longer lists of supporting articles here.
Sisters and brothers, for heaven’s sake let’s forget this second / third / nth order nonsense. The Gospel is about the one who lived, died and rose again ‘for us and our salvation’. There is a desperate need for us to show the overwhelming love of God in Christ. While we are arguing about who sleeps with whom, or the gender of the Bishop, people in our parishes are left without hope. When we have fulfilled our Gospel obligations, then perhaps we can return to these issues, which in my view, in the all encompassing love and mercy of God,… Read more »
Jonathan Clatworthy has hit the nail on the head again here, particularly in his comments on the ways of reading the Bible.
Meanwhile, genuine hopes that the province of ACANZP may get over the line with authorising same sex blessings next year:
http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/Common-Life/SWG
+Pete Broadbent is way wrong. “Same-sex marriage” does exist, even within his church. Marriage in the church is a sacrament which is “an outward and visible sign of inward and spiritual grace.” There are many, many LGBTQ couples who are filled with inward Grace. They are simply waiting for the church to do its part with the “outward and visible sign.” Marriage is between the couple and God. CoE can obstruct and insult, affirm, or not, but it really is between God and the couple. And it exists bounteously. My marriage is a marriage. It matters not what CoE bishops… Read more »
Mark Hart nails it.
This is a particularly appalling bit from the bishops:
“Sexual relationships outside marriage, whether heterosexual or between people of the same sex, are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings [i.e. sinful]”
So passive-aggressive. Sex outside marriage is sinful, but no, we won’t marry you.
And LGBTQI people fall short, every last one of us. The arrogance…
Ian Paul asks whether Shared Conversations were a con trick.
Yes they were, even if unwittingly so.
“Sex differentiation is a normal, natural and inevitable part of this bodily life.” – Ian Paul
In that he denies the existence and validity of intersex people.
“Sisters and brothers, for heaven’s sake let’s forget this second / third / nth order nonsense. The Gospel is about the one who lived, died and rose again ‘for us and our salvation’. There is a desperate need for us to show the overwhelming love of God in Christ. While we are arguing about who sleeps with whom, or the gender of the Bishop, people in our parishes are left without hope. When we have fulfilled our Gospel obligations, then perhaps we can return to these issues, which in my view, in the all encompassing love and mercy of God,… Read more »
“Sexual relationships outside marriage, whether heterosexual or between people of the same sex, are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings [i.e. sinful]”
Is that why the church refuses to marry all those couples who live at the same address? And those who bring their children as pageboys and bridesmaids?
Is that why it turns away about 99% of enquiries for marriage?
Or is sex outside marriage only used to clobber gay people?
I really wonder which world Pete Broadbent lives in. He seems to be sadly blind to many folk who live in the diocese of London, I believe his patch. As many of us keep repeating by our lives, and writing, It is God who brings us together, and Blesses our marriage, and gives His Grace to grow together in Love. As I travel around the church, in the various provinces of the United Kingdom, I am saddened that Canterbury and York in their college of Bishops are so frightened to grasp the nettle of true love between persons of the… Read more »
Erika – I fail to understand your line of reasoning here. Your rhetorical questions imply that a church in which sexual relationships outside marriage are regarded as “falling short of God’s purposes for human beings” should refuse marriage to everyone who has had sex outside marriage. Why? Would you expect a church which disapproves of sexual relations outside marriage to consider this an unforgivable sin? Why? Or would you expect the church to say “well, now that you have embarked on sex outside marriage, there is no point in getting married”? Why? I just don’t get what the implied logic… Read more »
Thomas, the logic is that we make absolutely no big deal about anyone having sex outside marriage. It’s the norm, not only in society but also in our churches. We only get hot under the collar when it’s gay people who dare claim the same right to intimate relationships. I’ve not known a partnered straight couple being removed from the coffee rota or complimented out of the church and asked not to return. No-one has pulled them aside and quoted Scripture at them, kicking them out of youth work or any other official involvement with their church. That fate is… Read more »