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Shouldn't the Church of England be more concerned by the appointment of a bishop who has divorced than the appointment of a bishop who is gay (and celibate, I might add - how many of us could willingly do that long term?).
When someone gets married in a Christian wedding, they make vows before God. Divorcing means you are breaking these vows ("til death do us part" - remember?). But the Church of England has already said that being gay is not a choice. Someone doesn't just wake up one day and decide to have any particular sexual orientation, whereas the decision to divorce is just that - a decision. A choice.
A bishop is supposed to set an example, I've heard so many of those protesting against the appointment of Dr John argue. Surely on this basis someone who breaks a vow made before God is not fit to be a bishop?
Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, but I've never heard of anyone being told they can't be a bishop because they are fat. Why does this latest appointment not bring widespread condemnation, as happened with Dr Jefferey John? How can people be so bigoted and hypocritical, and not see it?
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My other half made an interesting comment or two, which go as follows:
1. Separation is okay according to the Bible, but re-marriage after separation is not.
2. The new bishop's divorce, etc are in the past. He can repent and move on, so it doesn't matter. Dr John can't change. His sexuality is "an ongoing problem", even though he is celibate. Nothing he can do will ever change that, so he can't just "repent and move on".
I probably ought to point out that I don't actually care if the C of E appoint a divorced bishop, or a gay bishop for that matter. I just think that they are being rather bigoted.
Another thing I didn't know about previously is that the new bishop is not only openly divorced, but has remarried too. There are many conflicting views and biblical passages on divorce and remarriage, so I'm not sure whose view is right here. Mostly it seems to be saying that divorce is only okay if the other person has committed adultery, and remarriage is wrong.
Then again, the Bible isn't too clear on homosexuality either.
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- Mood:
annoyed
Comments
"The church of england" as in the one that we have now, you know the one, where whichever tart or fart is on the throne is in charge was re-formed by Elizabeth in 1559 in the second schism.
I presume that James II (the last catholic monarch) (he was a bit of a stuck up tosser too) didn't try to do the same as mary ( i think he only went as far as trying to secure equal rights for catholics), either way we chucked him out to france. I don't think we can have catholic monarchs any more (although i wouldn't like to say how much power parlimentary law has over the monarchy anyway, probably best not open up that old cherry, wouldn't like to start another civil war...).
I'm not sure what the position is on jewish monarchs either, i guess its never really come up.
The queen herself is above the law in England she can do litrally as she pleases (all prosecutions for the state are brought in her name). There was a bit about it fairly recently when Diana's butler was accused of nicking some of her stuff, the case collapsed when the queen said she knew about it. There was talk at the time about changing things so that the Queen was no longer head of state, but as the only alternative was to make Tony Blair above the law we all thought better of it.