Discussion of the Episcopal Church

On each of those subjects, I have merely been responding to what others have said (which, in this case, includes yourself: you are the one who brought up WO and SSM on this thread). Were it not for fundamentalists and biblical inerrantists obsessed with those subjects it is unlikely I would ever talk about them at all. There are about a billion other things I would rather be talking about.

I lean more toward memorialism because I think it is the most intrinsically plausible exegesis of the Institution narratives. I am not opposed to the liturgy containing alternative expressions, including more realist ones. The Anglican liturgy has always been very accommodating of a very wide range of views on the subject, and I have no objection to the liturgy in either the 1662 BCP or in subsequent revisions.

 

From where do you get that God created the institution of slavery? Or you mean people claim it did?

 

The Bible everywhere assumes the validity of the institution, for males and females, and endorses the legitimacy of the economic activities which support and sustain it. The Israelites didn't invent slavery, but the peculiarly Israelite form of it is presented as having been revealed to Moses by God. There is nothing in the NT that specifically opposes the practice, and there are passages that endorse it. For a fundamentalist these texts are - or at least should be - a serious problem. For a modernist they present no such problem: these are Bronze Age legal codes, they weren't written by God, and we aren't bound by them today.

 

The Anglican Liturgy has been accommodating to some form of real presence never really been that open to a memorialist position unless I am wrong. That is not an area that I know a tremendous amount about.

 

No it doesn't. It mentions it, without approving it, similarly to how it mentions the practice of divorce among the Hebrews, but never approves of it either. In fact, kidnapping was a crime punishable by death: Exodus 21:16

 

Are you kidding? Of course it does. There are whole sections of Leviticus that dictate exactly how the institution was to be structured. It could have - and should have - just consisted of three words: "set them free".

 

Why did it need to have those words? The Bible is not about every subject and every theme that's ever existed. Where is the verse about whether computers are good or bad for society?

The Bible is about the gospel. And slavery is nothing to do with the Gospel. The Bible is about the gospel, about our permanent eternal freedom, rather than the temporal and rather inconsequential freedom.

It's only in the modern secular/atheistic culture that we've raised slavery to some kind of Most Heinous Crime against the Infinity of the Universe Itself. Slavery indeed is an evil, but there are other evils out there. American slave past is a bad instance of an otherwise middling evil reality. The history of slavery in human history is merely an evil; it is not the evil, or some sort of evillest evil that ever evilled. Anyway, I'm out.

What's far more of an evil than slavery is atheism, which leads to eternal damnation and unspeakable torments of being separated from God for all eternity. You should be campaigning against that, far more than you should be campaigning against temporal and temporary legal institution.

Anyway, I'm out.

 

Computers of course are a moral neutral. It is the way we use them that is either good or bad.

Hemp is a moral neutral. It is the way we use them that is either good or bad.

Slavery is not a moral neutral. A proper understanding of the Genesis creation narrative where we are made in the image and after the likeness of God should inform us that seeking to contain and control is a long way from recognising and celebrating the image and likeness in which we are all created.

 

But you do know the scriptures say all scripture is God breathed right? Unless you’re willing to ignore the specific verses you like, all scripture comes from God. This doesn’t explain how it comes to us (through a person) but from who (God). So if all scripture is fit for doctrine, reproof, and correction, then you can’t just pick and choose whatever you like.
The scriptures never once allow slavery. What they allow are servants.
“Whoever steals a man and sells him, and anyone found in possession of him, shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:16)
“You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. Indeed, he may live among you in any place he chooses, in whichever of your villages he prefers; you must not oppress him.” (Deuteronomy 23:15–16)

The “slaves” were servants. Usually people that sold themselves into work to pay for a debt. So the slavery of the Old Testament is not the American chattel slavery. If I so choose to become someone’s servant and sell my time for money, what of it? That’s basically modern day job contracts. You sell your time for money. Except back then you lived with your “boss” and helped with whatever they told you to do. Abuse against the servants was not tolerated, and if they agreed to work for a certain amount of time they couldn’t leave until it was completed. The fact that exodus prohibits kidnapping and selling people as slaves should tell you this was nothing like American slavery. are you suggesting God should have outlawed servitude? A lot of times this was the only way people could make a living, since they had no property or skill.
We are not “Bronze Age” Jews so clearly we won’t be practicing having servants any time soon, but the system they had was not inherently evil, neither do any passages support American chattel slavery. That God allowed people to do things that weren’t his will sometimes is true, like Stalwart pointed out in the divorce issue.
This said, what has any of this to do with homosexuality? It isn’t something God allowed for the time being, he has never allowed it. Are we also going to say sodomy is a “Bronze Age legal code?” I hope not.
I would just caution against picking and choosing what things are “Bronze Age legal codes” and which are not. If you subject God to your morality, you become your own God.

 

The views you are assuming are scriptural inerrancy, and what is often called "plenary verbal inspiration". There are all kinds of problems with both theories, and in my experience they create more problems than they solve.
http://www.crivoice.org/inerrant.html

 

That has nothing to do with what I said. I don’t need to jump through hoops to support the servitude Israelites practiced was fine. I personally don’t have an issue with it. If we are going to assume that Bronze Age legal codes that were not inspired by god somehow made it into our scriptures, then we need to start questioning what else is false.
Also idk how you can get over the fact that scripture is god breathed, and Jesus said to the Jews, have you not read what was spoken to you? He treats scripture as being spoken by God. I don’t think the Bible can’t have minor errors. I just don’t think I can pick and choose what is revelation from god and what people just decided they felt like writing and claiming it was revelation from god.