Father Greg Jones on Homosexuality

Father Greg Jones is a self-proclaimed centrist on the issues that divide the Anglican Communion, and he has expressed support for the Windsor process. He is also one of my favorite Episcopal bloggers. His post today responding to what Mathew Kennedy had to say about homosexuality is well woth a read. Here are some highlights:

In terms of homosexuality, it is a stretch to say that Paul has 'teaching about homosexuality.' Paul assumes, as does Kennedy, that all human beings are 'naturally heterosexual' and that any physical passion between persons of the same sex is a choice made from that same proud desire to worship one's self and not God. I agree with Paul that the sin of the human being is indeed that deep seeded urge to worship and serve the self and not the Lord God. However, with many modern people, and the overwhelming majority of the scientific community, I believe that persons who wish to form committed relationships of monogamy, fidelity, and life-long tenure with persons of the same sex are not doing it out of perverted desire to worship themselves, but as a result of their being ordered that way naturally, and that gay Christians are looking to enter into a covenant relationship and share in the kind of steadfast loving that God seeks for us to model and share. Moreover, many of witnessed it that when Christian persons who are so ordered do commit themselves to faithful relationships of life-long tenure, lives of grace are born out.

While Christians must always be careful not to replace the authority of God mediated through Scripture and Tradition with human reason -- Anglicans have always believed that God gave us reason as a tool for interpreting God's will from Scripture, the tradition of the Church, and the Spirit which speaks through the Eucharistic community of the faithful.

As such, just as many faithful Anglicans no longer believe the world is less than 6,000 years old -- despite what Scripture 'says' and because of what Spirit-touched Reason has discerned -- and just as many faithful Anglicans no longer believe that wives should be 'subject' to their husbands more than husbands should be 'subject' to their wives -- despite what Scripture 'says' and because of what Spirit-touched Reason has discerned -- many faithful Anglicans today (and Christians in other denominations) are beginning to say that maybe the Church should look for new ways to honor and include gay people without condemning them or consigning them to lives in mental hospitals, prisons or in forced isolation from loving partnerships. Indeed, many are saying, "these folks should be included in all orders of ministry just as women ought to be, and just as divorced persons ought to be permitted to remarry."


Read it all here.

Comments

MadPriest said…
I can think of no person in the Bible who worshipped himself more than Paul did.

I would also class Matt Kennedy as an arrogant person. In itself I don't think that's much of a sin (for my sake I hope it isn't) - it's when it is mixed with hypocrisy and power that arrogance becomes dangerous for other people.
December 19, 2007 at 1:52 PM
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