Showing posts with label anglicans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anglicans. Show all posts

Tuesday 24 March 2015

Hiding or opening attitude for same sex relationships

In this world lots of people seem to question their own personality. From the babyboom generation there are a lot who have problems with their outer-side or do not feel happy with what they get inside and outside not colliding.

We perhaps may say that there has been an "ethical earthquake" in the past decade in several countries. In Belgium people do not look strange any more when they hear the people opposite them are a married gay couple. for women going with women that was already long ago accepted, but for men it was much longer more difficult to walk hand in hand or to show their same sex love to others.

The gay parades and open same sex parties did not help but the opposite confirmed such negative ideas certain people had about gay people. Those events mostly accentuated perverse actions, though lots of gay people have a personal private relationship with one partner of the same sex, and are not interested in having partnerships with many.

Change in the feeling of the English people is notated by the results of the research by the Oasis Trust. According to the review almost half (49.6 per cent) of Christians across the main 11 denominations believe that monogamous same-sex relationships should be fully embraced and encouraged. More than two-thirds of respondents (68 per cent) said that their views have become more inclusive over the past decade, with 61 per cent noting that the shift had come as a result of "understanding or interpreting the Bible differently".

This is the most difficult issue, how to interpret the Bible and how to look at people with other feelings than your own.  I would say people should look more at Jesus and see how he went about people who were different than others, or who had an other ethic or other religious point of view. Can we see the churches of today take on such a gracious patient attitude as Christ did?

In many countries we also can see that the churchgoers have less problems about the gender issues than the church-leaders. Ten per cent are more likely to support gay marriage than their leaders, but Oasis found that those clergy who supported same-sex relationships were also reluctant to share their views. Some respondents said that admitting to it could put funding at risk, or even cost them their job.
"Whatever the stereotype, it's clear that attitudes in the church toward loving, committed and faithful same-sex relationships are changing,"  
director of Oasis, Steve Chalke said, adding
Many of the most senior church leaders in the country have said they support same-sex relationships, but feel they cannot state it publicly
"It's crucial that we keep talking about it."
According to the survey, the most accepting denomination of same-sex relationships is the Quakers – with 100 per cent of those asked saying that they had no problem with those in faithful same-sex relationships fulfilling a leadership role in the church.
Almost 9 in 10 (88 per cent) of Methodists agreed, along with 79 per cent of those who belong to the United Reformed Churches. Just over half of Anglicans (57 per cent) also affirmed their support of gay people participating in all areas and levels of the church.

The majority of respondents said they would be comfortable with their church leader conducting a blessing or marriage ceremony for a gay couple, but some people who said they had no issue with same-sex relationships didn't think churches should hold gay weddings. Five per cent said they were definitely against it, while eight per cent favoured a blessing.

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Friday 24 September 2010

Commitment to Christian unity

When the pope, at Westminster Abbey in London where he participated in an ecumenical celebration of Vespers on September 17, said:   "Our commitment to Christian unity is born of nothing less than our faith in Christ. ... It is the reality of Christ's person, His saving work and above all the historical fact of His resurrection, which is the content of the apostolic 'kerygma' and those credal formulas which, beginning in the New Testament itself, have guaranteed the integrity of its transmission. The Church's unity, in a word, can never be other than a unity in the apostolic faith, in the faith entrusted to each new member of the Body of Christ during the rite of Baptism. It is this faith which unites us to the Lord". did he wanted all around to believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the only apostolic church?

Speaking for a trinitarian public he could further say: "I come here today as a pilgrim from Rome, to pray before the tomb of St. Edward the Confessor and to join you in imploring the gift of Christian unity. May these moments of prayer and friendship confirm us in love for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, and in common witness to the enduring power of the Gospel to illumine the future of this great nation". Because we think he would not like to see the non-trinitarian Christians in unity with their church.

Important to remember is: "Here we cannot help but be reminded of how greatly the Christian faith shaped the unity and culture of Europe and the heart and spirit of the English people. Here too, we are forcibly reminded that what we share, in Christ, is greater than what continues to divide us".
Benedict XVI recalled how this year marks the centenary of the modern ecumenical movement which "began with the Edinburgh Conference's appeal for Christian unity as the prerequisite for a credible and convincing witness to the Gospel in our time. In commemorating this anniversary, we must give thanks for the remarkable progress made towards this noble goal through the efforts of committed Christians of every denomination. At the same time, however, we remain conscious of how much yet remains to be done. In a world marked by growing interdependence and solidarity, we are challenged to proclaim with renewed conviction the reality of our reconciliation and liberation in Christ, and to propose the truth of the Gospel as the key to authentic and integral human development".

You can wounder what the Church's unity should be. Is a unity in the apostolic faith not to believe what the apostles themseves believed? And would this not mean that all Christians should keep to the first centuries believe of those who really  knew Jesus from first hand? But more important should Christians not go back to their leader they are proclaiming to follow?

Normally we all should strive to Christian unity, but we should be following all that Jesus asked us to do. We should keep to the tasks he gave to his disciples. In case Trinitarian Christians would like to their idea that Jesus is also God they should also accept those who keep to the words of Jesus and his Holy Father. In the Holy Scriptures their relationship is clearly described.

The Vatican see themselves as the “mother” church. The universal church. The word Catholic means “universal”. They see other Christian churches as wayward daughters that need to be brought back under her wings. The Pope’s ambition therefore is to become head of all Christian religion. But do we not have to look at what the Scriptures gave as warning to the next generations? Revelation 17:2 says that the “kings of the earth” have committed fornication with the harlot woman of Rome.

What happened yesterday is important for Christians to see in the light of the Bible.
As the Anglicans and Catholics all sang together in London (latter day Tyre) we heard not joyful words but the singing of “an harlot” as prophesied in Isaiah 23. “Tyre shall sing as an harlot”. The singing which began in 1996/7 is reaching a crescendo. The judgement of latter day Tyre will soon come. The next chapter says “the noise of them that rejoice endeth…” Isaiah 24:8

Get to know more in the  Weekly World Watch 12th - 18th Sept 2010‏