26-02-2005 01:16									#31
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quote: Originally posted by Last Conformist Not necessarily. I've certainly run across Christians for whom the mere admission of homosexual orientation constitutes sin.

Perhaps, but that's not the issue with the Anglicans in this case, IIRC. There have been openly gay priests before, but they were celebate, and the official church stance was that was ok. With Robinson, the issue that is most contentious was that he is "living in sin" with his partner.

	26-02-2005 01:21									#32
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quote: Originally posted by GePap Any attempt at some monolithich monotheist religion is bound to break up into a bunch of sects- nothing that can be done about it unless you can create some sort of theological orthodoxy and a mechanism for fiercely and streneously enforcing it at all costs- ain't going to happen.

actually no. while breaking up is inevitable, the kind of sharp lines well defined lines of Christian denominations is largely a Christian thing - while the Muslims have Sunnis and Shias, the groupings WITHIN sunni and Shia are nothing like the various Protestant sects. As for Judaism, while its hard to recognize some Reform Jews and say Szatmar Hasidim as the same religion, its hard to draw hard and fast lines along the spectrum - the trends are more organizational questions than anything else (there is a heavy block of Orthodox Jewish rabbis that make a distinction between all O Jews and reform and Con jews (as heretics, not as non-Jews of course), but lots of O laypeople, and a few O rabbis deny any such distinction)

	26-02-2005 01:22									#33
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In Catholic church it is also about the deeds, not the preferences.

	26-02-2005 02:50									#34
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quote: Originally posted by Heresson And St Paul (and Od Testament) did find homosexuality wrong.

Only if you believe Timothy was written by him and ignore the consensus among scholars that it wasn't.

	26-02-2005 02:51									#35
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Odd Testament

	26-02-2005 03:19									#36
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quote: Originally posted by Heresson Bkeela and Kuci... You are iving proof of that You can be ignorant agnostics/atheists as well.

No, they just can't take something as pathetic as religion seriously. Trust me, it is very hard to give any kind of credit to it...

	26-02-2005 03:34									#37
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Yeah, right.
All the humanitarian aid we owe to religion... All the brilliant religious art - architecture, paintings, sculpture, large part of poetry, literature, most of philosophy,
so many great people through history...
All the history of mankind since we can trace it well up to very recently, and even mostly today - it's all not worth a thing, of course.

	26-02-2005 04:24									#38
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quote: Originally posted by lord of the mark actually no. while breaking up is inevitable, the kind of sharp lines well defined lines of Christian denominations is largely a Christian thing - while the Muslims have Sunnis and Shias, the groupings WITHIN sunni and Shia are nothing like the various Protestant sects. As for Judaism, while its hard to recognize some Reform Jews and say Szatmar Hasidim as the same religion, its hard to draw hard and fast lines along the spectrum - the trends are more organizational questions than anything else (there is a heavy block of Orthodox Jewish rabbis that make a distinction between all O Jews and reform and Con jews (as heretics, not as non-Jews of course), but lots of O laypeople, and a few O rabbis deny any such distinction)

The sharp lines amongst several protestant sects are more organizational than doctrinal. The difference in doctrine between a Shiite and a Sunni is as large as those between a Catholic and a Protestant.

BUt I wouls agree that protestants are extra crazy when it comes to sect creation. Christianity's core belief's are so complex as to allow for more sect building.

	26-02-2005 04:32									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Heresson Yeah, right. All the humanitarian aid we owe to religion... All the brilliant religious art - architecture, paintings, sculpture, large part of poetry, literature, most of philosophy, so many great people through history... All the history of mankind since we can trace it well up to very recently, and even mostly today - it's all not worth a thing, of course.

Hmmm, well a lot of that philosophy and those people have happened despite religion, we've finally been able to break free of it's constraints...religion is not the thing that empowers us, it is human creativity. We've had barely 100 years of relative secularism compared to millennia of religious dogma...it is hardly surprising that there are more achievements to marvel at over this time...sheerly because of the numbers game.

And besides, it doesn't make that dogma any more true...

	26-02-2005 04:44									#40
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quote: Originally posted by GePap The sharp lines amongst several protestant sects are more organizational than doctrinal. The difference in doctrine between a Shiite and a Sunni is as large as those between a Catholic and a Protestant. BUt I wouls agree that protestants are extra crazy when it comes to sect creation. Christianity's core belief's are so complex as to allow for more sect building.

Just to clarify - i meant something different by organizational. I realize that the difference between say, anglicanism and presbytirianism is about rule by Bishops, vs more "democratic" rule by Presbyters, etc. But those are DEEP issues for the sects in question, with biblical roots. What I meant by organizational for Judaism is that the there is a continuum from say, "left wing Reform" to "right wing Reform" to "left wing conservative" to "right wing Conservative" etc and that at the margins the question for a borderline congregation ( of which ive been a member in the past) has mainly to do with whether you choose to pay dues to one organization or the other. Its arbitrary and the lines are drawn differently in the UK, Israel, etc than they are in the US. (The UK historically has a "liberal" movement that is more traditional than US Reform, and an establishment Orthodox movement - The United Synagogue - that is closer US Conservatives than US modern Orthodox are - and a tiny (and recently founded) Conservative movement.

	26-02-2005 05:25									#41
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The fundies are trying to take over the Lutheran church too, one a bastion of progessivism. A few months ago, the congregation of my hometown's church kicked out the pastor because he wan't a homophobe. Many congregations are leaving the ELCA (the main Lutheran organization in the US) because people think that the ELCA is too socially permissive.

	27-02-2005 20:43									#42
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quote: Originally posted by Provost Harrison Hmmm, well a lot of that philosophy and those people have happened despite religion, we've finally been able to break free of it's constraints...religion is not the thing that empowers us, it is human creativity. We've had barely 100 years of relative secularism compared to millennia of religious dogma...it is hardly surprising that there are more achievements to marvel at over this time...sheerly because of the numbers game. And besides, it doesn't make that dogma any more true...

I was not pointing that there wouldn't be anything to marvel at without religion: we simply don't know how the world would look without it.
I was just pointing that a statesment "it is very hard to give any kind of credit to it...". It can be given credit to a lot of stuff. Amost entire ancient philosophy was done in connection to religion - Museion (and not only it!) was in fact a cult organisation. Similarily, the blossoming of Arabic science and culture had religious roots. And not much different in Christian world.
You can not say that world would have been better off without religion, because You don't know what would You get in return for the losses.

	27-02-2005 21:44									#43
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The idea that organized religion enabled organized society on a wider scale does seem to have much for it. Cultic legitimization seems to've been of paramount importance for all early states.

	28-02-2005 11:01									#44
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This schism means much to me, DanS, and is one of the reasons why I will be confirmed precisely one month from now.

The challenge is not just for the Anglicans, but for all the protestant churches over their authority in the church. Each church has it's own traditions, and how they are interpreted can be done in different ways. To vote on doctrine will lead to many other schisms over this issue, in a variety of churches.

I was baptised Anglican, and the Anglicans were my first impression of Christianity. So much of their service was compelling that I never went back to church until university.

One would hope that the conservative Anglican denominations would seek union within the Catholic church, but it seems that just the opposite has happened. They have retained control, and have managed to boot the liberal Anglicans out of the church. So we will see what happens to the countries with these liberal anglicans, whether they will remain out of the fold, or whether they will capitulate to rejoin their brethren.

	28-02-2005 11:12									#45
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quote: Anyway, it all comes of the problem of sexuality in Christianity. Ir may be questionabe if from the start, but for a very very long time, up to today, sexuality was dismissed as something dirty and sinful. I do not agree with that.

I agree with you here. The problem, is where does this idea that the material world is flawed, and dirty come from? It's not a Christian concept, but predates Christianity, going back to the Greeks.

quote: On the other hand, Jesus did consider prostitution a sin, and yet I do not see anything wrong in that.

Do you understand why Christ believed prostitution to be a sin? It's what Paul gets into in his letter to the Conrinthians. Do you know that you are united to the prostitute when you sleep with her? Christ taught that the ideal union was between one man and one woman, and prostitution falls outside of this ideal, and is therefore sinful.

quote: And St Paul (and Od Testament) did find homosexuality wrong. It's not a big problem with me, Old Testament I don't care about, and St Paul didn't have to be right in everything, but it's not what a decent Christian church can say.

Why is it indecent for a church to condemn sin? Isn't that the role, for the church to teach others how to lead a moral life apart from sin? You cannot do this without teaching what sin is, and to neglect this resposibility allows others to fall into sin.

quote: On one side, I see ordaining a gay bishop as a progress to some extent, and on the other, I feel such decision does not come of Christian roots, and even if it does, it will soon be used by Christianity(all or just some denomination)-bashers as a comfortable attack opportunity.

Why do you feel the decision does not come from Christian roots, Heresson?

	28-02-2005 11:24									#46
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Personally I feel a split should be avoided but if they insist I won't terribly miss any backwards faction.

	28-02-2005 11:42									#47
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quote: Only if you believe Timothy was written by him and ignore the consensus among scholars that it wasn't.

Are these the same scholars that date the Pentateuch to after the exile?

	28-02-2005 11:46									#48
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quote: is one way of looking at it. But I can't help but think that if the RCC were still in union with the orthodox church, then christianity as a whole would be much stronger. The great schism seems like a huge loss, in hindsight. Maybe it is incorrect for me to project our experiences in this regard onto the Anglican church.

How so? The Anglicans also schismed from the Roman Catholics.

I would think the same desires for unity between the Catholics and Orthos would be the same as between the Catholics and Anglicans.

You are hardly 'projecting' one onto the other.

	28-02-2005 12:03									#49
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You are right in that I thought that the Anglicans were protestants rather than schismatics (from the RCC pov). It is true that there were two RCC/Anglican schisms rather than a quitting of the church, but wouldn't the Anglican church of nowadays be properly described as protestant and not schismatic?

At a minimum, Anglicans are classified differently than the schismatic churches, such as the various orthodox churches who don't recognize the primacy of Rome.

As you can probably tell, I'm pretty hazy on the details with regard to the Anglican church.

Last edited by DanS on 28-02-2005 at 12:19

	28-02-2005 12:05									#50
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In Australia, an uninformed person would look at all our denominations and groupings and decide that Christianity is very devided. But in actual fact, these days people do not look much at the 'name' of the church, but instead float between the different groupings, choosing the church whose size, arrangement of service, type of music, availability of personal involvement, location, doctrine etc best suits them. There is now tending to be more variation in relation to many of these matters within each grouping than between groups, with even pastors, ministers etc switching between the groups as well as congregations. Within the Anglican church here, there is wide chasms between certain dioceses already, with very limited interaction and movement of priests between particular diocese as they each seek to maintain their own doctrines. But many of the people ignore the organizational matters and just attend a church that suits them and many times probably do not even know the name of the denomination they are attending, because of a tendency for many groupings to use the title 'community church' for the local church congregation with the suburb name attached.
A split at the organizational level would actually have almost no impact at the local congregational level as people would still float about just the same seeking the church that suits them.

	01-03-2005 13:18									#51
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quote: You are right in that I thought that the Anglicans were protestants rather than schismatics (from the RCC pov). It is true that there were two RCC/Anglican schisms rather than a quitting of the church, but wouldn't the Anglican church of nowadays be properly described as protestant and not schismatic?

Anglicans broke from Rome in rejecting the authority of the pope, to set up a national leader, the King of England as the head of the church. Even though there was an Archbishop of Canterbury, the position has been subsidiary to the title of Defender of the Faith, first declared for good ol' Harry 8.

The doctrinal differences between the Anglicans and the Catholics didn't emerge until later, after the schism, rather than as a cause for the schism.

In this, and this is one of the reasons why the Anglicans refer to themselves on par with the Orthos, because they retain the historical episcopate, but claim to just be another branch. Three forks, but one church. Roman Catholic, Ortho, and Anglican.

Their 'protestant' capacities emerged from Luther, but were really borrowed as the church saw fit, and even in their confessional statement, you will find Anglican churches disagree as to the number of points, and whether adherance to their confession is necessary for membership within the Anglican communion.

quote: At a minimum, Anglicans are classified differently than the schismatic churches, such as the various orthodox churches who don't recognize the primacy of Rome.

Yes, through their later actions to adopt many of the doctrines professed by Luther. However, they are unique among the protestants in their nature of their schism.

	01-03-2005 13:26									#52
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quote: A split at the organizational level would actually have almost no impact at the local congregational level as people would still float about just the same seeking the church that suits them.

Why does a church happen to be in a particular neighbourhood? To shift from an organisational matter, to a congregational matter is a big one. Essentially, the churches without a congregation would be unable to sustain themselves, and would have to close, while the ones that would be able to have a group of people attend, would survive.

Plus, how many of these churches rely upon the organisational links between the various Anglican churches? Without these links, each congregation has a much more difficult time, unless they become the same model as my mennonite church, in getting so big, it just doesn't matter anymore.

	01-03-2005 13:55									#53
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Anglicans are the shismnit!