Paul is a great teacher and an incredibly insightful individual.

If you have time and energy to commit, and have a serious interest in online ministry, do check it out.

I am surprised that gender even comes to mind here.

It means we are bringing another gospel into the church and must seriously think about Galatians 1:6-8 as it applies to ourselves.
Katherine Jefferts-Schori denies the divinity of Christ and the resurrection - http://anglicanecumenicalsociety.wordpress.com/20...

It means that we should warn all that they need to do all they can to prevent persons who do not have a missionary faith from being exposed to the Church of England, her parishes and her various programs. It means that we should inform our ecumenical partners that they must prevent their sheep from coming to our pastures, but that they can send those of strong faith to those amongst us who might be prepared to hear the words of Christ.

Surely there are still many good, God-fearing individuals amongst us, but on an institutional level we are committing an atrocity and sowing spiritual death.

There is no problem with persons denying Christ or the central teachings of the church. But when we bring church leaders into our churches who do so, it is time to read Galatians 1.

It sounds to me like you do have a position to argue, and that it could be very interesting, but that it is dependent on a number of separate propositions that need to be linked more explicitly, though I don't doubt that you can make an interesting case by linking them.

I don't mind so much your lack of answer, it was about the denial of the doctrines of the divinity of Christ and the resurrection by the Presiding Bishop of TEC, I threw that in more as an example. I think though you should write a good essay and then ask Peter for comment - I really do think this would make for interesting material, and it's a point that is on your mind, and I'm sure Peter would have interesting responses as well once your argument is a bit more fleshed out.

The article I referred to regarding the Presiding Bishop is athttp://anglicanecumenicalsociety.wordpress.com/20... if you care to comment on it. Unfortunately, it's very long. But it needs to be long since TEC is in the habit of making remarks which it expects to be taken one way by one audience, and another way by another audience. I think you'll agree after reading it that she denies both.

Perhaps an exception then should be made in the cases of bishops who have made public announcements of their sin and also public announcements of their lack of repentance, perhaps such persons should be requested to repent?

If we are not calling upon our bishops to repent, even when they publicly describe their lack of repentance, is it then not hypocritical of us to call upon laity to repent who have made no such public gestures?

Canon Andrew, you have the right to ask an off-topic question, but it looks like Peter here wants to keep things on-topic. Indeed, it's good for Christians to have an interest in the law, but this seems to be the only reason you are giving for demanding that Peter go off on a siderail and possibly bring this conversation there with it.

You could open a thread on another forum or blog about the relation between civil law and church doctrine particularly with regard to the issue of homosexuality, make your points, and then invite response. I am sure that you have interesting things to say about this matter, and I for one would be interested in reading them. I think this would be preferable - I for one do not see the relevance here for the reasons above stated, which you also seem to be "ducking."

A few weeks back you demanded of me that I provide for you evidence that the Presiding Bishop of TEC has denied the resurrection and the divinity of Christ. I did indeed provide such evidence from her own quotes, but then I heard nothing from you in response.

Please lighten up a little bit in sideline issues if you aren't willing yourself to provide response when you demand further answers and explanations.

We've been down this road before too. You claim that since the Church of England is a state church, that - [ I am not quite sure how I should phase this ] - what the Church teaches should be similar to what the law says, and vice versa. Even when there is a state church, it is important for citizens and clergymen to understand the difference between the secular realm and the church. John Millbank is rather fun with regards to this one, though you might not accept him.

It may seem perfectly logical that the church and the state's laws should affirm and proscribe the same things. This is not, however, the case. Take the example of adultery. Can you not understand how it is more appropriate for the church to teach that a man should not have sex with a woman other than his wife, than it is for the state to make adultery punishable by law?

Would you like to see customs agents swinging around thuribles and asking those whose luggage is being searched to rise for a gospel reading?

Even in the case of England, we shouldn't confuse the sacred and the secular. We thereby do both a disservice, and maintenance of a healthy secular environment which is consciously secular is exceedingly important to both church and state.

I think you are probably right about this matter, except regarding "hypocrisy."

For example, I smoke. However, I advise others that it is not a good idea to take up smoking. This is in no way hypocritical.

If we have bishops who engage in same-sex activity but are struggling with this matter, that is one thing. Their struggling and teaching that what they are doing (whether they reveal that they are doing it or not) is in no way hypocrisy, if done candidly.

But we should be refraining from ordaining bishops and priests who teach heresy - a celibate bishop who teaches heresy is worse than a bishop who honestly struggles with sin and teaches fruitfully and in accordance with God's Word.

You seem to be suggesting that we should make a habit of consecrating bishops who have in the past made public sins that they have committed, and also made public that they are unrepentant.

Isn't there something a bit fishy here? The article -http://www.christian.org.uk/news/exclusive-video-... - says that the footage is recorded with "a hidden camera" - but it's not indicated who owned the camera, why it was placed there, etc. etc.. It sort of sounds like the guy suspected beforehand that he might be approached by the police, & that he was being very careful. It would have been helpful if the article gave more information about the placement of the hidden camera.

No Michele, one rather has to twist things about to come to that conclusion, and Biblical scholars are pretty much in agreement that that isn't the case - with those with the aim of advocating homosexual sex acts as exceptions. There has been a lot of extensive study on this and it's fairly conclusive. Even Walter Wink, who is much in favor of homosexual sex acts, says that it's quite reprehensible to reason to assert that these texts have some kind of deeper or hidden meaning.

I most certainly don't either. Though I don't believe that groping or rape should be considered as "pure" either, just to provide some examples from the area of sexuality.

Some kinds of sex, however, are indeed sinful. When Christ says this, he isn't encouraging us to go about looking at people as "dirty." I think that as Christians we are sometimes taken in a bit by the critics of Christianity - who sometimes qualify their words as a critique of "fundamentalist Christians" in order to make them more interesting to their listeners - but which seem to imply that Christians go about calling people "dirty." Indeed some people do, and in * any * culture, persons will take upon themselves the prevailing norms of the society, and go out and play "moral policeman" - for various reasons - either in a real act of ethical indignation, however misplaced, or for recognition by the community as "someone who speaks out for us," etc. etc.. We see this happening enough in our own society on both fronts, but at the moment, primarily by those who in the name of "tolerance and inclusiveness" promote such things as joblessness for Christians who do not reform their views to those which are deemed socially acceptable. I understand much of the criticism, but when it is out of context, and becomes contradictory and intolerant - I suspect such "moralism" - i.e., language which is unlikely to change the heart of the purported wrongdoer, but is more intended to "rally the troops" for the crusade. We have seen this happen in Christian circles too, though in the UK we don't see much of it.

Anyways - we as Christians, realizing that we are sometimes "on the receiving end" of such criticism, are sometimes apt to step away from other Christians, and in our eagerness to do so, also insinuate that they go about seeing other persons as "dirty." Or see in Christ's language such implications.

In previous times, it was permissible to use cleanliness and dirtiness as metaphors for good and evil. In many ways, these metaphors "work" rather nicely. They also connote how one can suffer a state of dirtiness while one hasn't really "done anything wrong" - something is wrong - but no specific act that we can point to made the person morally culpable. But when the metaphor is stretched - with such "dirty" persons being subject to malice - clearly our connotations of "dirty" and "clean" are no longer what Christ meant when he uses these metaphors.

On the flip side though - it's also inappropriate to go pointing the finger at Christians when they quote Christ simply because we attach different connotations to such metaphors, and because our nieghbours are egging us on to imagine "most Christians" as being cheap moralists, or expanding the definition of "fundamentalist" to include all people who believe that Christ rose from the dead - something which is happening in The Episcopal Church, especially amongst those who are influenced by Bishop Spong - however ridiculous this is, however much Spong's scholarship slides under the academic standards of some of worst "fundamentalist" literature I have come across, however relatively uneducated or vitriolic his adherents tend to be.