Holy books virgins and marbles reloaded.

[gleeber]

Once again the Church of England stands accused of hypocrisy.
An openly homesexual priest, living with the same partner for 27 years although now celibate has been appointed Bishop of Reading.
The good and the right of the church are up in arms at the unscriptural activities of Dr Jeffery John not because he used to be a practicing homosexual but because he fails to ask for repentance. He obviously thinks he has done nothing wrong but apparently it says in the bible that same sex sexual relationships are wrong, so thats it, set in stone?
Love the sinner, hate the sin is the cry of the fundamental christian as he tries to justify his camouflaged prejudice and at the same time show compassion and understanding towards his fellow man.
Hopefully the hierarchy of the church will prevail against an archaic and out of touch set of moral values and reinvent their bible with a touch of modern reality.
As a start I would suggest it it embraces modern scientific investigation towards creation and a huministic philosophical approach towards eachother, just loving and accepting people for who and what they are and not what the biblical scholars and writers of 4000 years ago demanded we should be.....on pain of death.

[Anonymous]

show compassion and understanding towards his fellow man

is that not what the good Bishop has been doing Sorry could't resist. Since when did the Anglican Church pay any attention to the Bible anyway

[Mr Sensitive]

Cue: rare posting from Mrs M Bruce?

[Mr Sensitive]

Oh whoops, I appear to have killed this thread dead as a dodo.

Gleeber raises an interesting point about what churches should do to avoid the fate of the dodo. What should the church of England do now? The church of Scotland is nearing bankruptcy, how can it revive its fortunes? These are good questions and I dont know the answers.

Gleeber suggests that the CofE "embraces modern scientific investigation towards creation and a humanistic philosophical approach towards eachother, just loving and accepting people for who and what they are and not what the biblical scholars and writers of 4000 years ago demanded we should be.....on pain of death."

He is probably right although I think many CofE vicars already do that but they can't publicy promulgate their thoughts and beliefs because their parishioners are too conservative and would rebel. I think the Vicar of Dibley is closer to reality than you might think. However, the CofE is a very broad church and many vicars are as blind as Gleeber suggests. On the other hand Its breadth will lead to its survival for many years to come.

The Church of Scotland however comes over as a much more conservative (with a small "c") beast, despite its longstanding contingent of women ministers, and despite its occasional historical shedding of its extremist wing to the more extreme presbyterian churches. Attendences continue to drop, the coffers continue to empty, and I don't see a very rosy future for the Church of Scotland unless it proceeds with the vaunted merger with the Episcopalian church, and, wait for it, embraces bishops, including gay ones.

What are the Implications for theology and theologians? Modernise or die perhaps? Withdraw from their more extreme beliefs using the doctrine of allegorical convenience? You bet! They dont have to embrace pole dancing, they can still be moral pillars albeit broadly humanist ones.

I was at a wedding in St Peters and St Andrews (or whatever its called) in Thurso a couple of weeks ago. It would be a shame if the physical and moral incarnations of our christian heritage are allowed to wither away unnoticed and unloved, despite the fact that many of us (or them) dont worship God any more, and some dont even think god is necessary for anything, with christianity included amongst the anything!!!

Discuss (20 marks)

Gues who is thinking of retaking Higher English next year!!!!!!