Friday, November 9, 2007

HOW FAR WILL WE ALLOW THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH TO GO?

"This understanding of church as an exclusive country club with a set of rules that everyone's got to follow - I don't think that's reflective of the type of community that Jesus was all about...." [For the full article, see here.]

In that above article, part of it reads:

"A book discussion at a Roman Catholic parish that was to be led by a lesbian Catholic and her father was canceled after objections from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis."

In another RC debacle, that occurred in Rome:

"An Italian couple has been told the bride's cousin cannot attend the wedding because she is transsexual, supports gay rights and is a critic of the Catholic Church.

"Vladimir Luxuria was to have been a bridesmaid at the wedding, to take place this weekend at an ancient chapel in Foggia, in southern Italy.

"Italian media report that the chapel's priest told the couple that it has a choice to make: either they disinvite Luxuria or they do not marry.

"The priest, identified as a Fr Francesco, said Luxuria does not represent 'family values'."

[For the full article, see here.]

In the last article, there is the appeal to "family values" as part of the justification for what I perceive to be extortion by a priest of the RC Church; in the first article, a discussion of a book written by a lesbian and her father is forbidden to be discussed in a RC Church. Don't the father and his daughter have "family values?"

Rather than focus on its priest ephebophilia scandals, and the assorted coverups by Bishops and other clergy, of those who sexually prey on young people, and who, thereby, allow those priests to be moved about without consequence so that they are then free to emotionally and sexually prey on other young people, the representatives of the RC Church are into extorting a young couple and their families, and preventing a father and daughter from talking about their struggles and relationship in an RC church.

It is no accident that the sex scandals, costing assorted diocese hundreds of millions of dollars, within the RC Church have provoked it to seek to divert attention from those scandals by demonizing LGBT people (Remember the witch hunts in seminaries to weed out those who might be Gay and who support 'Gay culture'?), and seeking to further assert its "moral" authority amidst the wreckage of lives and the serious compromise of the RC Church's reputation by all thinking, decent, and sensitive people.

Those in the RC Church, and in the institutional Church at large, who show disdain and spew hatred against LGBT people for living their lives as fully as possible, and for being true to the souls that God has given them, seek to fool others and, perhaps, themselves by thinking that they are taking the "moral" high ground by so doing. But don't believe it for a second!

They are committing grievous offenses against others and against God!

No, "I don't think that's reflective of the type of community that Jesus was all about...."
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I feel we should take this matter a step further since you want to talk about love and acceptance. There is a side of love that if you really love Christ, you will follow His commandments. When you love Christ, knowing the power of salvation, and understanding you're a new spiritual being, everything about Christ should be mirror reflection in you. The nature of Christ is not only love, but also being holy. This is where the rubber meets the road. No where in the holy nature of God can homosexuality dwell. The church IS doing their job, loving people, but keeping themselves holy, untainted, and untouched by the carnality and filth of the world.

Jerry Maneker said...

The Captain: "No where in the holy nature of God can homosexuality dwell. The church IS doing their job, loving people, but keeping themselves holy, untainted, and untouched by the carnality and filth of the world."

First of all, by you saying that nowhere "in the holy nature of God can homosexuality dwell," is no where to be found in Scripture or anywhere else (See, for example, the articles in the Links section: "Why Every Church Must Be Open And Affirming"; "Some Talking Points on Christianity and Homosexuality."); your mere assertion of this lie doesn't make it so! For further discussion of this and other relevant issues and topics, see some of the links on this blog.

Holiness is not restricted to Straight people, but to ALL of God's children, be they Straight, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, people of color, tall, thin, heavy, etc. God loves ALL of His children, and imputes holiness to those whom He has chosen and called out from the foundation of the world. (e.g. Ephesians 1:4)

By you saying, "The church IS doing their job, loving people, but keeping themselves holy, untainted, and untouched by the carnality and filth of the world," you are living in a parallel universe from anything that Christians worthy of the name and all decent people know.

The Church's "job" is to be an agent of God's grace in this world! Christians are told by Jesus not to judge others; not to condemn others; to love others as God in Christ loves us!

If you think that most of the institutional Church by its homophobic rhetoric and/or actions, or silence and inaction, is showing love, "keeping themselves holy, untainted, and untouched by the carnality and filth of the world," you should grow up and talk to LGBT people and their families, and open your eyes to the ravaged lives left in most of the institutional Church's wake; the ephebophilia scandals and coverups in the RC Church; the suicides, bashings, and murders of LGBT people by many who think that by so doing they are doing God a favor.

Willfully ignorant and/or hateful people will almost always appeal to virtue when doing evil! And you, The Captain, by your very words and the seeming animus that lies behind them, are seeking to do much evil, not the least of which is to yourself!

Allyson Dylan Robinson said...

To your response, Jerry, I would humbly add only this. I challenge those who hold the line The Captain laid out above to show how any human being can truly love other sinful human beings while simultaneously hating what they consider to be their sinful conduct. Additionally, I challenge them to show how any church can juxtapose love and holiness in the way The Captain describes without slipping into Donatism.

Jerry Maneker said...

Beautifully put, Ally! When we scratch the surface just a little bit, the "hate the sin, love the sinner" schtick is shown to be a mere sanctimonious facade that overlays a great deal of hate, and frequently self-hate.