Monday, July 14, 2008

Drawing Lines

http://captainyips.typepad.com/journal/2008/07/drawing-lines.html

[Captain Yips Secret Journal] 14 Jul 2008--I am grateful that Drs. Harper and Morgan have declared themselves; more clarity as we approach Lambeth is helpful. The gloves and the masks are coming off, all the better. Since they’ve abandoned Christian teaching, in my turn I’ll abandon their Christian honorifics: time end this pussyfoooting, mealymouthing, rhetoric. I was especially charmed by Dr. Harper’s suggestion that St. Paul got it wrong because the apostle didn’t know enough. I would myself be reluctant to contradict someone chosen by Jesus to be His apostle, but I’m not a Revised Anglican Archbishop with the special Know-It-All charism.

But since “experience” is now a fourth font of authority in Revised Anglicanism, let’s look briefly at “experience” as applied to the broad issue under discussion. The advocates of Revised Anglicanism, as I understand them, assert that homosexual inclinations are “natural” and not to be fled or condemned, and those so oriented are to be included fully in the life of the Church. Let’s look at how this approach might affect similar situations, most of them in some way familiar to most readers.

The former generally accepted standard for the sexual life of Christian disciples was either faithful monogamous heterosexual marriage, or a continent single life. That many Christians have struggled within that standard is true, but not immediately relevant. Proponents of Revised Anglicanism would add at least one more possibility, monogamous homosexual marriage, though some critics suspect that they have somewhat more ambitious long term goals. The argument seems to be that such “orientation” is “natural” or inherent, and that as such it should not be condemned.

If we grant this argument, we immediately encounter several problems.

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