I’ve gotten tired of apologetics efforts against Protestants that offer “A million bazillion scattered quotes from the Church Fathers that clearly, obviously prove that they thought X.” Proof-text warfare is easy, but generally worthless, and the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was the issue of what the Fathers believed about the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. No more, please. That is not a respectful way to treat the Fathers on this or any subject.
I’m coming out. Yes, I’m going Anglican, no, I haven’t lost my mind, and here’s roughly how and why it happened (and is still happening).
As I indicated in my last blog post (on entering the Anglican fray on marriage), my family and I have begun to attend the Anglican Church. I say “attend” because nothing has been signed in blood and no dark ceremonies have been performed to make anything official, but I’m sure that will happen in due course. I’ve even redecorated the blog in honour of this move.
This will be a surprise to some people.
You’ll be hearing more about this over the next little while, but we’re moving in an Anglican direction.
My wife and I are dragging our kids along (actually it’s not proving to be terribly hard) to the Anglican Church. It is not official yet, but that will come in time. I won’t go into the story of that just now. I’ll start right where we are now. We’ve walked (deliberately) into a Church – and plan to invest ourselves in a Church – that is beautiful, that has heritage, that proclaims the good news, that has a marvellous legacy of great thinkers and examples in the faith, and which, right now, is constantly under pressure to change, and in part due to the dedication and persistence of a few, the cracks are starting to show in the old girl.
If you’re near LA or Houston in July 2014, I’d love to meet you!
While I’m there I’ll be giving a total of four talks including the talk that sparked this visit in the first place, which will be at the inaugural Rethinking Hell conference.
Might it be true that the gender of some people’s souls doesn’t match the sex of their bodies?
In the ever-driven politics of the language of gender, the word “cisgender” has been forged. Without harping on too much about it, it’s a word that, in my view, has been created in part to destabilise the notion of “normal” as far as gender goes, so that what most of us took to be normal until now can be spoken about as simply one condition among the others. To be “cisgender” is to have physical makeup – including chromosomes but especially including sex organs – so that by examining your physical structure, a person can tell whether or not your gender is male or female.
On Good Friday this year I was privileged to give the message at Broderick Road Chapel in Wellington. I’ve re-recorded it for you as several people said that they would be interested. One of the themes that I look at is the idea that the Gospel is the truth behind so many of the myths we hear.
Enjoy, and have a safe and joyous Easter season. He is risen. 🙂
Glenn Peoples
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The Bible says not to be a selfish, hateful jerk. So you should be progressive, like me. Obvious, right? Well, no. Please stop. Sit down. We need to talk, because you’re hurting our ability to talk about politics in a constructive or loving way when you do that.
I don’t like the attempt to make Jesus into a gun-toting, welfare condemning, war-on-terror condoning hang-em-high Republican. That sort of cultural myopia is just cringeworthy. But if you’re going to condemn it, don’t go and do something just as cringeworthy by saying that to the extent that someone has an ounce of Christian virtue, they’re a left-wing liberal or progressive – just like you. Fundamentalism comes in more than one flavour.
We know that constitutional or legal freedom of speech was not violated when you bullied Brendan Eich out of his job at Mozilla because of his view on marriage. But lift your standards a little. “Legal” does not mean “good.”
Sometimes, public, ugly spats, cases of abuse or bullying, hate, or division can have the effect of causing misunderstandings – or perhaps just properly understood but really wrong views – about moral and legal issues to come bubbling to the surface of public discussion. The appalling treatment dished out to Mozilla’s Brendan Eich recently has been just such an example. In particular, the issue of freedom of speech and the consequences of the exercise of that freedom have been much discussed.
So Mozilla’s CEO has, in effect, been forced to resign. He was forced to resign because he believes that marriage ought to be regarded as the union of a man and a woman, and he has in the past donated money ($1,000) to a campaign to have the law in California reflect that belief. He didn’t want to go, but he was pushed, and pushed very hard.
Obviously this is a case of bullying. Obviously this is a case of free speech being stifled,1 and equally obvious (or it should be) is the fact that Mr Eich’s view on what constitutes a marriage is not, in any way at all, an attack on the equality of all persons regardless of their sexual orientation.
But what is perhaps worst of all (perhaps, I’m not sure – this sort of bullying is despicable enough) is that
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