Depends what you think praying is, and what you mean by `pray for’. Hint: probably not as bad as you allude

Freda: I trust you’ve seen good news? I fail to understand why it should take yet another 2 years but at least the CoE synod are being consistent.

Here’s one to bake the noodle. That BBC news item has dug out someone threatening to leave the CoE over the issue. Is the church *too* paranoid about counting bums-on-pews that it daren’t let people go where they feel most comfortable? Also, doesn’t the approach “until I am driven out” quoted there seem incongruously pathetic? He’s involved in the decision-making processes of the CoE and yet takes a passive attitude, blaming the establishment.

Jimmy: Gay groups in the church often cite the changing attitude toward women in leadership as an example of how the church and doctrine can change.

I can’t say I’ve heard that one much, and it seems rather weak as arguments go, especially with its spin about doctrine changing.

not one word of precedent for two gay married men leading a church
There doesn’t have to be. The point is that the bible was written WITHIN the contexts of various cultures. You have to see the culture of the times first[0] and then see what the bible contains in relation to that[1], then you can extrapolate to today and assess what it means to subscribe to the tradition and its stories in today’s context. Society changes over centuries, writing stuff as it goes, and sometimes we look back on a remaining subset of those writings from a gap of ~1900yrs – does it not make sense to say “take the stories we find we can resonate with” and dump this preposterous idea of the bible “saying”, much less “prescribing”, anything?!

[0] Let’s not forget that Roman blokes used wives for procreation and lavished affection on boys – as a cultural norm, (why) would that be mentioned in the bible in the remaining filtered epistle to the Romans?

[1] When Paul “permits women to learn from their husbands at home”, that is relative to a culture that didn’t even allow that. It’s not about staying shut-up in church, it’s about giving women more rights than they already had.

I was reminded of this recent blog cartoon and post that you might enjoy for its rousing discussion in comments afterward!

Aloha from Hawaii, friend

Comfort Spiral

Years ago, in the ’80s, I was serving as an officer on the council of my church, a fairly liberal branch of the Lutheran Church here in the US. A couple new in town was visiting, and I made a point of welcoming them, visiting with them for some time following the service. In the course of conversation, the woman asked me if she heard me right, that I was on the directing council and was an officer. I confirmed it, and then was struck with the look of amazement on her face. I learned that they had belonged to one of the very conservative branches of the Lutheran Church, in which not only were women excluded from the pulpit, from participating in any part of the service (such as reading aloud from the scripture from the lectern), from serving on the directing council, but even from having a voice/vote in matters of the Church! She was as stunned in reverse.

I’m afraid that as far as we sometimes think we have evolved, we are still stuck with a great deal of “isms” limiting our ability to simply be people. I wonder how many more generations before those isms go away.

Gay groups in the church often cite the changing attitude toward women in leadership as an example of how the church and doctrine can change.
But although there is many examples of women in leadership roles in the Bible there is not one word of precedent for two gay married men leading a church. So that would have to be teaching a new doctrine and setting a new precedent.