A New Song for the PCUSA

Since 14F has passed, we all know where to go if you:
1) Are married, but don't think your sex life should be confined to your spouse.
2) Can't abide being married to just one person at a time.
3) Are single and want to "test the milk" before you "buy the cow."
4) Reject the basics of human biological gender.



Let's face it. Gay clergy isn't the problem. Making the fundamentals of the faith optional is the disease...confusion over the sexes is just a symptom. As professor Alice Linsley reminds us: "Dialogue with revisionists is impossible."

“Not to oppose error is to approve it; and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and, indeed, to neglect to confound evil men - when we can do it - is no less a sin than to encourage them”
St. Felix III, Bishop of Rome, 483-492

Best wishes, though, to all my friends of evangelical persuasion still on that ship. May you find a lifeboat soon.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) an apostate denomination

Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. ("Should We Support Gay Marriage? No") Wolfhart Pannenberg

More analysis at Viola Larson's blog...

I'm pleased to see that others are pointing out what we've known for a long time. This is the end game for egalitarianism. When men and women become interchangeable in the liturgical context of authoritative public ministry, you can't stoop the implication that other liturgical / public authoritative acts are bound by sexual/gender distinctions. END

I'm 

Episcopal Church General Convention Same Sex Blessing

Sometimes I just can't help myself! They make it too easy.

There's nothing like a good Greek Orthodox Wedding!

And this is NOTHING like a good Greek Orthodox Wedding!

Seriously...the priest had nothing to say about that "dress"?

False starts in False Bay

An ad absurdum response to upcoming considerations in the Synod of the Diocese of False Bay, Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

Scheduled to meet 23-26 September, on its agenda is the following resolution:

“That this Synod

• Affirming a pastoral response to racist land-owners in our parish families.
• Notes the negative statements of previous Provincial Synods that racist white members of our Church share in full membership as baptised members of the Body of Christ, and are affirmed and welcomed as such;
• Affirms our commitment to prayerful and respectful dialogue around these issues, mindful of the exhortations of previous Lambeth Conferences to engage with those most affected.
• Commends giving serious and prayerful consideration to the acceptance of racist white landowners as valued members of our parish, bearing in mind the long standing tradition within the Anglican Communion of respect for individual conscience, in seeking to be faithful disciples of Jesus;
• Asks the Bishop to request the Synod of Bishops to provide pastoral guidelines for those of our members who are seeking to restore Apartheid structures as faithful members of our parish families.”

At the end of August the Diocese of Cape Town passed a similar resolution asking the Bishops “to provide guidelines for the pastoral care of racist white landowners”.

h/t Anglican Mainstream

The Government Can

This is a YouTube video of Tim Hawkins THE GOVERNMENT CAN - so view original post if you don't see anything.

Christian comedian and homeschooling dad, Tim Hawkins, is coming to Louisville (New Albany, actually) for the Marriage RAWKS! rally in October. Is anyone interested in going? If we get 5+ together, we get group rate ($13).

Black and Blue Laws?

I'm old enough to actually remember Blue Laws in our little mountain community that made the whole town shut down (except for a few restaurants, a handful of gas stations, and a few big-box retailers & pharmacies).

I still can't buy alcohol on Sundays in Indiana. It's also illegal on Christmas Day and election days until the polls close.

Now if only it were illegal for politicians to keep spending like drunken sailors, even when they have to borrow $0.50 on every dollar to do it!


h/t FailBlog

Three Catholic Universities Give Up Catholic Ethics for Lent

Folks...you just can't make this up.

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: From February 23 to 28, Georgetown University is hosting “Sex Positive Week,” sponsored by feminist and homosexual student clubs.

On Monday, the event “Sex Positive…What’s That?” featured a speaker from Black Rose, an organization “which provides a forum for the many different expressions of power in love and play. This can include dominance & submission, bondage & discipline, fetishism, cross-dressing, to name a few.”

Yesterday’s talk, on Ash Wednesday, “Torn About Porn?” was advertised to include “discussion about arguably alternative forms of pornography that are not supposed to be exploitative, but rather radical and empowering.”

On Saturday, February 28, pornographic film director Tristan Taormino will speak on “Relationships Beyond Monogamy”—one day after speaking in downtown Washington, D.C., about “Anal Pleasure 101”. She will discuss her book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships with Jenny Block, author of Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. Taormino is also the author of True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion.

LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: On Tuesday, the Student Diversity and Cultural Affairs Office of Loyola University Chicago presented the film Brother to Brother about a homosexual African-American who is transported in time to cavort with the allegedly homosexual writer Langston Hughes.

The film is part of a semester-long “Color of Queer Film Series” sponsored by the university. Upcoming films include Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros about a 12 year-old boy who falls in love with a male police officer, and I Exist: Voices from the Lesbian and Gay Middle Eastern Community in the U.S.

SEATTLE UNIVERSITY: This week is “Transgender Awareness Week” at Seattle University, including a session on allegedly transgender Bible heroes and heroines and “Criss-Cross Day,” where students are encouraged to “come dressed for the day in your best gender-bending outfit.” The events are sponsored by the university’s Office of Multicultural Affairs and the student Trans and Allies Club.

“That Catholic universities would permit these events on their campuses at any time of the year is unthinkable, but to do so during the holy season of Lent is unconscionable,” said Reilly.

“The saddest part of this story is that there is no indication that these universities are ashamed or embarrassed by what is taking place on their Catholic campuses. Parents and potential students might begin to wonder how these universities can in good conscience consider themselves Catholic when they allow such perverse distortions of Catholic values to take place.”

h/t Cardinal Newman Society

H is for Hypocrisy

On Wednesdays, I try to blog on a worship topic. However, my seminary has decided that the worship of perverse sexual acts and child rape is appropriate, so I'm interrupting my regular schedule.

(Sort-of...they promote it with the title V is for Venite. And venite is a legitimate liturgical topic which I'll need to return to at some point.)

Q is for Questionable Judgment

Here's the link to their site discussing the upcoming campus-sponsored production of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

R is for Risible

Here's my response (which may or may not be on the site...they moderate, and I was censored in public discourse throughout parts of my seminary career):

I'm personally saddened to see the Women's Center sponsoring this play. In a notorious section, "The Little Coochi Snorcher that Could," a woman recounts how as a 13 yr old girl she is given alcohol and then seduced by a 24 yr old woman. In the original form (which has been unsatisfactorily redacted to omit it and change the age from 13 to 16), she dismisses the substance abuse and statutory violation by saying: "Now people say it was a kind of rape.... Well, I say if it was rape, it was a good rape...." In another segment, a six year old is queried about her genitalia (smells, names, etc.). As the father of beautiful little girl, I would be hard pressed to stay in my seat through such a performance.

The rest of the play wavers between diatribes against men and male-female sex as inherently violent, or about sexual practices that really deserve to stay in the bedroom. How this play actually addresses violence against women (especially when it is celebrated in the above scene), or opens frank conversations about the role men - and women - have in the sexualization of children and women (objectification is a prologue to rape and oppression) is perhaps beyond the scope of Wimminwise to answer. But it would be helpful to reflect on why this play at this seminary - of all the venues and content available - is appropriate and effective.

O is for Objection

Beyond the politicization of a day that Christians should remember for martyrs, they overturn a divinely-ordained institution (heterosexual marriage). Worse, marriage is meant to be a mysterious - almost sacramental - expression of the union of Christ and His Church. What are we to make of this from a seminary?

B is for Bias

Why is homosexual rape given a pass by an event promoted as anti-violence-against-women?

H is for Hypocrisy

We have a mandate to reform the culture to the Scriptural norm (the norming norm), not let culture corrupt the message of the Scriptures.

E is for End!!!

U is for Update: They posted my response. It was the same old "You don't know what you're talking about." However, I have it from an eyewitness that the attendance at these events has been blissfully low. As some one once termed roughly 1/3 of the campus population: "middle-aged bitter divorcees and their dogs."

Sad, really. Men need to be molded by their interactions with the pain of women....this just stops with scolding.

Eat Your Heart Out

Literally.

Taking a Stand in Seminary

Want to know what seminary felt like for me?



Yeah...truth really does win.

Unfortunately, many seminarians - especially young conservative males like myself - can side with the truth in an ungracious way. For the first two years or so of my experience, that's what I did. I made an *ss of myself. Towards the end, things got a little better.

I thank God that he has used some other disappointments, heartaches, and failures to bring about a deeper brokenness in my life. And I thank God that His TRUTH is still TRUTH no matter how lousy or feeble my witness to it was and will be.

Those Sunny Beaches

Maybe it's just me, but the 2008 Presidential campaign is starting to look more and more like a bad day at the beach in Florida: shuffling white guys past their prime and cheap new flip-flops.

Eat this Malthus

I get criticized by some folks for having a large family (4 boys, 1 girl).

23

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

I'm glad to know, however, that I could easily handly 15 more!

(P.S. Click here if the Malthus reference didn't ring a bell.)

(P.P.S. Click here if Malthus and his claims do make sense to you. This is why I'm not an greenieweenie.)

Compassion Fatigue

We're getting closer. When we misuse rhetoric to make someone's access to wedding photographers a HUMAN RIGHT, we lose sight of real rights (and our attendant responsibilities).

Bizarro World...er...church

As requested, I've worked my Photoshop-phu on that Bizarro pic so descriptive of the PCUSA's GAPJC ruling on the Janie Spahr case. (Okay...this wasn't done out of a sense of camaraderie. I was just feeling left out when Holston Presbytery endorsed minister, John Shuck, started name-calling.)


Shouldn't you just go ahead and rename the organization the Presbyterian Smirch?

Happy Lupercalia!

For those of a more historical bent, read this entertaining history on Lupercalia which was celebrated in the middle of the month, so it was replaced by St. Valentine's Day. Hmm...with the flagellation and emphasis on purification, maybe it's worth celebrating within the season of Lent after all!

Anyway, if your view of Valentine's Day is more associated with the romantic revisionism of Geoffrey Chaucer (cf lines 309ƒ), then here's an equally great lyrical addition in the vein of Theodor Geisel.

PS - On a historical note, this day in 1556, my new home boy Thomas Cranmer was convicted of heresy. He would later be burned at the stake. Now if that doesn't get you in the mood, I don't know what will. Talk about burning with passion...

The Greedy Marriage or How Marriage Ruins Everything

Okay...did they statistically control for the fact that a large part of those helpful-to-parents young unmarrieds are doing the dishes and taking out the trash because they still live with their parents?

Also, did they control for the navel-gazing tendencies of current American cultural schemes? We paint marriage as if it were the ultimate in self-fulfillment instead of the covenantally blessed bedrock for child-rearing that God intended it. No wonder such self-serving marriages (many of which end in "no-fault" divorce) fails to create community. It's inwardly focused in the first place!

(No...I'm not slamming on childless couples. Mohler does enough of that.)