Peter Carrell asks some Much Needed Questions

Posted by Kendall Harmon

But the quest for theological coherency in the case is a quest for something more from a church which normally acts with, and not against, the grain of Scripture and its interpretation worked out and received as the church's tradition. Questions I do not see being answered, in TEC or in ACANZP, include:

- what Scriptural basis authorises the church to bless a sexual relationship apart from a marriage between a man and a woman?
- where, in the long history of Israel and the church, both as written down in Scripture, and recorded through Christian history, does the tension between faithful marriage and committed singleness of leaders of Israel and of the church extend to the possibility that God calls leaders who are in committed same sex partnerships?
- given the fact that the situation in Western society now is such that the quest for 'acceptance' of homosexuality includes a growing agenda (gay, lesbian and bisexual and transgender; same sex couples rearing children with the aid of a third person as biological father or mother), where is the 'positive' basis in Scripture and the tradition of the church for acceptance of the whole agenda being advanced?
- how is the church to theologically sustain either of the following situations: being a church in which ministers may teach that the blessing of same sex partnerships is wrong and ministers may live in a blessed same sex partnership OR being a church in which both ministers may live in a blessed same sex partnership and ministers may not teach that such blessings are wrong?


Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia • Episcopal Church (TEC) • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings • * Theology • Ethics / Moral Theology • Pastoral Theology • Theology: Scripture

3 Comments
Posted August 27, 2008 at 5:48 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Larry Morse wrote:

These are the questions we have all been asking and want answered by TEC. and these are precisely the questions that won’t be answered clearly - or at all. That they will not be should be all the testimony we need to turn our backs on TEC.  Larry

August 27, 6:49 am | [comment link]
2. azusa wrote:

- what Scriptural basis authorises the church to bless a sexual relationship apart from a marriage between a man and a woman?
*well, some would say, the same that authorizes WO.
- where, in the long history of Israel and the church, both as written down in Scripture, and recorded through Christian history, does the tension between faithful marriage and committed singleness of leaders of Israel and of the church extend to the possibility that God calls leaders who are in committed same sex partnerships?
* don’t understand the question? what leaders of Israel were single?
- given the fact that the situation in Western society now is such that the quest for ‘acceptance’ of homosexuality includes a growing agenda (gay, lesbian and bisexual and transgender; same sex couples rearing children with the aid of a third person as biological father or mother), where is the ‘positive’ basis in Scripture and the tradition of the church for acceptance of the whole agenda being advanced?
*‘Render unto Caesar etc’ - the same attitude that led the present Church of England to authorize ‘civil partnerships’ for its clergy, instead of showing cojones and holiness.
- how is the church to theologically sustain either of the following situations: being a church in which ministers may teach that the blessing of same sex partnerships is wrong and ministers may live in a blessed same sex partnership OR being a church in which both ministers may live in a blessed same sex partnership and ministers may not teach that such blessings are wrong?
*it can’t - Neuhaus’s Law kicks in: ‘Where orthodoxy is permitted, it will soon be proscribed.’ See also ‘Elijah on Mount Carmel’; ‘The camel’s nose in the tent’. The call is to marturia, even against false shepherds.

August 27, 7:08 am | [comment link]
3. Peter Carrell wrote:

Jeremiah was forbidden to marry (Jeremiah 16:1) - otherwise, agreed, celibacy was a rarity, if not unheard of in Israel.

August 28, 3:29 pm | [comment link]
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