Burnt Orange Report

Yay for the Episcopals! :)

I live just down the road from Durham, NH, where Bishop Robinson was consecrated, and the protesters were pathetic as expected. Funniest sign I saw while driving by: "STOP PEDERASTY- NO DEAN OR ROBINSON." I couldn't help but roll my window down, point and laugh at the doofus.

"Who will be next? Presbyterrians? Methodists? It's only a matter of time..."

Byron et. al,

This event truly is a tragedy, a Church turning away from the will of God to follow the path of cultural accommodation. One phenomenon that you should be aware of, fortunately, is that the "liberal" Protestant denominations have been hemoragging membership in the past decade. In 2000, some time around when the census was taken, although I don't think it was part of the census, researchers found that over the past decade the theologically "liberal" denominations had lost something like 15% or so of their membership, as measured in weekly church attendance, while the "conservative" churches had gained a similar or slightly greater number. This isn't too much of a shock; true believers are not going to be drawn to a church that selectively chooses which parts of the Bible it pays attention too, while those who don't believe in the accuracy of scripture in some areas often find it easy to ignore the rest of what is found in the Bible and stay at home on Sundays. While some of the liberal denominations may follow in the Episcopal's path, despite the fact that the Episcopals appear ready to break apart over the issue, but those denominations are rapidly losing their congregations. In short, it doesn't appear that most churches will creatively reinterpret scripture to discover that homosexual behavior isn't sinful after all.

On to another topic brought up in the postings relating to Mr. Shepherds tragic murder, a number of people wrote to the effect that "The Bible says X is moral/immoral, but X is actually immoral/moral, so the Bible isn't accurrate," or "The bible says X, I can't accept X, so I will selectively choose what I believe in scripture." Grouping these arguments (sorry, I did debate in undergrad) the basic response is that we humans don't get to "decide" what is right or not. God does. Now you might take issue with that, but it is clear that either God exists, or he doesn't. God doesn't exist if I want him to and believe in Him, but stop existing when I don't.

If God does not exist, if naturalists and atheists are right, and if men (and women) have no souls, if they are nothing but rapidly decaying sacks of amino acids, then it is absurd to claim that anything is objectively good or bad. It is simply a matter of preferences. "I don't like murder because it makes me feel sick, and I don't want to get killed." But there is nothing objectively and inherently wrong with it, anymore than there would be with lying, adultery, theft, homosexuality, or anything else you care to name. An atheist who thinks that homosexuality (or abortion, or whatever) is not wrong is being intellectually consistent. But the fact is, an atheist has *no basis* to call anything else inherently wrong, either. He might argue that he doesn't like certain activities, or he finds them distasteful, or harmful, even that he will use the government to stop others from engaging in them. But he has no basis to claim that his conception of what should and should not occur is objectively any better than anyone else's.

Even reason doesn't get you anywhere, for in a world without God, what is human reason but neurons firing in a sack of amino acids. Useful, yes, but those neurons can hardly be said to be endowed with any more moral wisdom than the electrons in the electricity that powers this computer, and by the same measure, whatever the human mind conjures up has no greater moral significance than the output of a computer program. Without God, you can't claim anything is right or wrong in any absolute sense.

If, on the other hand, God does exist, as I know He does (though many of you will take issue with that), it is absurd to believe that we get to pick and choose which of His commandments we want to obey. The bible makes it pretty clear that "all scripture is God-breathed." We do not have the authority to selectively decide what constitutes sin and what does not. Sin and immoral behavior is by definition a violation of God's commandments, and it is God who decides what those commandments are. We, as humans, have no other basis to decide what is right or wrong. Which is why saying "I can't believe in the Bible because it says X is wrong" makes so little sense. It is God who makes something wrong or right, not us, and we have no basis for coming up with an alternative system of morals when faced with the reality of God's existence.

Back, briefly, to the issue of slavery. I already explained why those passages Joshua referenced don't endorse slavery, and in fact reading the New Testament makes it clear that slavery is abhorrent "for all are equal in God's sight, Jew and Gentile, slave or free,..." (that's a paraphrase from one of Pauls letters, not verbatim). It is the fact that all men are equal before God, that no man is inherently worthy or sinless, and that Christ died equally for the sins of all, that makes slavery wrong, since no man posesses the authority to rule over another like that. But if we didn't have this revelation from God, there would be no moral basis to condemn slavery. You can come up with secular reasons why slavery is bad and harmful, but you can't prove that any one of them is objectively right. Same for homosexuality. If you accept that God exists, how can you possibly claim that any human gets to decide that sodomy is right, and that God must measure up to our standards?

God's commands are what they are, and our task is to follow them as closely as we can, asking for forgiveness when we fail. But sin does have painful consequences, in both the afterlife and this life. The Lord isn't being arbitrary or mean when he says "Thou shalt ..." or "Thou shalt not ..." God Loves us, and gives us these commands, among other reasons, for our benefit, because he doesn't want us to get hurt. Pretty much all sinful behavior leads to harmful consequences in the here and now. I don't think anyone here would argue that the world wouldn't be a better place if everyone objeyed Christ's command to "Love your neighbour as yourself." But even things that seem less easy to accept, like say, no sex outside of marriage, are there for our benefit. Yes, it might be fun, but extramarital sex winds up hurting a a lot of people, both pysically and emotionally. I trust that even those of you who think that there is nothing wrong with any kind of sex, as long as it is between consenting adults, would agree that unwanted pregnencies, STDs, and the emotional scarring that can accompany extra-marital sex are harmful things.

The point is God's commands are there for a reason, and we should obey them, both to avoid the harmful consequences now, and the damage that sin does to our relationship with God. The role of the church is to stand up for what is right, against the pressure of the world to give in to what is popular and easy. The church is supposed to uphold the timeless Truth of God against the cultural conventions of the day.

Which is what makes the Episcopals surrender so tragic.

Sherk

Also, I have midterms coming up that require A LOT of studying for, so I probably won't be able to make any extended responses until after the end of the week.

Wow, I'm glad someone finds the Bible so cut and dry. Heaven forbid we all start interpreting the Bible differently. We might end up with more than one Church...

Jason,
I agree.

Funny that someone who claims to be so well versed in the ways of Gawd has nothing better to do than go to a site that is 1. written by the very people he claims are sinners 2. Is no where near his own belief system, and 3. obviously has some need to spew religious crap that no one is apparently buying.
So I ask, why does this person keep coming back? Could it be that there is nothing better for this person to do, like study, graduate and go to a site that confirms his beliefs? Or is this person merely bestowing their holiness upon the rest of us horribly uneducated and downtrodden souls? Either way, I still haven't changed my mind about anything. Me thinks it is a waste of this person's time, which I guess is precisely the point.

I am sorry, please insert him/her anywhere there is the word "his/him/he". I don't want to be politically incorrect and insensitive... much.

erin - I do wish to clarify for all of our readers.... Karl-T and I are gay. Jim D and Andrew D are straight (although allies of the GLBT community). Just hoping to clarify so that the right wing nuts can feel better that only 50% of the BOR posters are unrepentant homosexuals, while the other half are going to be saved.

Byron,
LMAO. Andrew and Jim, I guess it is good to be you eh? Yep, no fires in hell for the likes of you, at least not for this particular "sin". Heh.

In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.

Wow, Sherk is truly an evil non-Christian. Jesus would be so pissed that people were doing EVIL and attributing it to Him. Jesus didn't write the Gospel so he takes no credit for it's contents. Thanks God many of the founders of this country Jefferson, Adams, Franklin realized that danger of angry bigots like Sherk and were careful to make sure that religious fanatics like Sherk would not be part of our governmental system. Sherk, people of intelligence think of you as a pathetic but necessary part of our culture. Without you there would be no reason to be dilligent against EVIL (which you represent) and we would not be as strong a country. Thanks for taking on the roll of the anrgy bigoted religious fanatic that allows the rest of us to look down upon your sad existance and feel SO much more satisfied in our lives. Bless you. God loves you.