'Please leave': why the Sydney archbishop's same-sex marriage message has Anglicans rattled

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JustSomeBloke

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I think it's fairly clear from this article that some people are seeking far more than the freedom to enter a church and worship. They want total affirmation of their sexual orientation, their same-sex marriage, and their interpretation of the Bible.

I'm gay, married, and not leaving my church

Note to Mods: I do not agree with what the author has written.
 
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hedrick

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I think it's fairly clear from this article that some people are seeking far more than the freedom to enter a church and worship. They want total affirmation of their sexual orientation, their same-sex marriage, and their interpretation of the Bible.

I'm gay, married, and not leaving my church

Note to Mods: I do not agree with what the author has written.
Thanks for the posting. I agree that it represents many of the people who are affected. But I don't think we need to demand that everyone agree. People can think that gay Christians are making a mistake, just as I think the bishop is making a mistake. It's not necessary, and an obvious impossibility, to affirm everyone's beliefs. But I accept many people who I think are in serious error as fellow Christians and members of the Church.
 
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JustSomeBloke

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Christianity has trouble retaining people because it has become nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the world. It doesn't offer much more that the world does. If a sinner wants acceptance he can find it in his own circle or in the church. No real difference except the church wants more money and has extra trappings that fewer people feel the need for. The church needs to be a different place and not just a whitewashed version of the old world. Jesus is little more than extra jargon that changes almost nothing nor needs to. Maybe instead of feeling good in church people should feel a little terror. It might make them think and it might prompt them into becoming the genuine article instead of a pretentious sham.
Totally agree. Faced with empty pews, many churches wrongly thought the answer was to be more relevant to the majority by being more woke, more right-on, more politically correct. What we are seeing now is a race-to-the-bottom, whereby some churches have all but abandoned Bible based teaching, and just tell people what they want to hear. Give it a bit more time, and many churches will be little more than community centres. It's exactly as foretold in 2 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 3.
 
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hedrick

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Totally agree. Faced with empty pews, many churches wrongly thought the answer was to be more relevant to the majority by being more woke, more right-on, more politically correct. What we are seeing now is a race-to-the-bottom, whereby some churches have all but abandoned Bible based teaching, and just tell people what they want to hear. Give it a bit more time, and many churches will be little more than community centres. It's exactly as foretold in 2 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 3.
This is an ad hominem attack, because it imputes false motives to people you disagree with. Liberal Christians are smart enough to realize that if we wanted to be popular, we should become more conservative, not more liberal. We're not trying to be relevant. We're trying to do what Christ wants.
 
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Daniel C

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This is an ad hominem attack, because it imputes false motives to people you disagree with. Liberal Christians are smart enough to realize that if we wanted to be popular, we should become more conservative, not more liberal. We're not trying to be relevant. We're trying to do what Christ wants.

He's telling the truth and it's not an attack.

People from this very thread have said their goal is to be ''inclusive'' and to not ''exclude'' people. So what does that mean?

I think it means they will take in people who would be shunned by the Biblical scripture. So liberal churches are indeed becoming more similar to communities centres than a Christian church and they admit it with their statements of inclusion. Correct?
 
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Jonathan Walkerin

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What we are seeing now is a race-to-the-bottom, whereby some churches have all but abandoned Bible based teaching, and just tell people what they want to hear.

How is this different from the people - like lot of posters here - who hop from one church to another until they find something they consider meaningful before hopping again ?
 
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hedrick

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People from this very thread have said their goal is to be ''inclusive'' and to not ''exclude'' people. So what does that mean?
right. But we’re doing this to follow Jesus’ example, not to be relevant or PC or popular. My objection was to ascribing false motives for this.

In case it's not obvious, "the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’" (Luke 7:34) There are two things to note about this:
  • This isn't about being around sinners to get them to repent, but about being their friends.
  • When the Gospels talk about "sinners" in contexts like this, they normally mean people who were given that name by the overly legalistic Pharisees. I.e. not sinners at all in Jesus' understanding.
 
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HatGuy

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right. But we’re doing this to follow Jesus’ example, not to be relevant or PC or popular. My objection was to ascribing false motives for this.

In case it's not obvious, "the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’" (Luke 7:34) There are two things to note about this:
  • This isn't about being around sinners to get them to repent, but about being their friends.
  • When the Gospels talk about "sinners" in contexts like this, they normally mean people who were given that name by the overly legalistic Pharisees. I.e. not sinners at all in Jesus' understanding.
Not true. It's not that they were not sinners, but that they were. And Jesus would hang out with them regardless.
 
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Daniel C

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right. But we’re doing this to follow Jesus’ example, not to be relevant or PC or popular. My objection was to ascribing false motives for this.

In case it's not obvious, "the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’" (Luke 7:34) There are two things to note about this:
  • This isn't about being around sinners to get them to repent, but about being their friends.
  • When the Gospels talk about "sinners" in contexts like this, they normally mean people who were given that name by the overly legalistic Pharisees. I.e. not sinners at all in Jesus' understanding.


Well both conservative and liberal think what they're doing is right,they both quote scripture,they both say they're acting in the name of Jesus. The church was only pure when the master was actually here to settle matters himself.

I personally don't think that man was attacking because from the non-liberal viewpoint that is not the vision of the church God wants for his people. Liberals would say otherwise. And so it goes.
 
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section9+1

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Jesus came for the people who needed him. The lost sheep of Israel. No one else. Only those who lack a shepherd. Anyone can come to the point where they get to their knees and beg for the shepherd. That is what makes for a lost sheep. Until then, they are a wolf or dog or swine or serpent or tares. None of these lack or need a shepherd. Christ came for none of them. We all are sinners but only some are repentant sinners. Those are for whom he came. He encountered sinners not for their company but for their redemption. Some received it and some didn't. His church consists of the called out ones. The ones who have responded to the call and come out of the world into his kingdom leaving behind their will to sin. Weakness and fallibility remain, but our heart is his and not the world's. Our separation from the world's ways is our hallmark. Not our integration with it.
 
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hedrick

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Not true. It's not that they were not sinners, but that they were. And Jesus would hang out with them regardless.
The truth, as often, is complex. Jesus did, after all, call sinners to repent, and defended his practice on that basis a few times. However he also didn't accept as sin things that the Pharisees said were sin. Jesus wasn't killed simply because he had the novel missionary approach of eating with sinners so that he could bring them to repentance. Rather, he objected to the Pharisees' interpretation of the Sabbath, and there's one passage suggesting that he objected to the kosher laws.

I understand "tax collectors and sinners" as the Pharisees' characterization of Jesus. In Luke 7:34 he seems to be quoting accusations. It would have included a mixed bag, including many "people of the land," who couldn't practically hope to obey the Pharisees' rules but were looked down upon by the authorities. The Anchor Bible commentary suggests that it might have included Gentiles. But surely there were tax collectors who did abuse their position, and there were people classified by the Pharisees as sinners who actually were.
 
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