Catholic school defends cross-dressing kids

According to Anglican interpreters, divorce was forbidden by God even in the Old Testament, no less than the New. Nothing changed in the NT. It’s the same sacred word, before, now and ever.

Consider the possibility that you may be using liberal or even atheistic interpreters, if they have so distorted the sacred Scripture’s teachings for you, and undermined its authority in your mind.

 

I never mentioned divorce, but of course it was allowed in the OT. Jesus made explicit reference to it in the Sermon on the Mount, and Jewish Law continues to allow for it.

I haven’t referenced any particular commentary tradition, just my own familiarity with the biblical text. Who wrote this or that commentary or what their viewpoint is, is completely irrelevant to me so long as they’re properly trained and honest scholars.

 

Are we reading the same Bible? Polygamy, concubinage, and the other items I mentioned are all condoned if not commanded in the OT. Abraham and Hagar. Jacob and Leah + Rachel. There’s a whole section of the Torah detailing regulations for slavery. (Interestingly, abortion is treated as a property matter unless harm comes to the mother; otherwise it’s not treated as murder.) Then there’s the genocidal account of the Book of Joshua. Fortunately internal evidence and archaeological research says much of this likely isn’t historical, which means we need not blame God for these stories. But it’s not intellectually honest to take those stories at face value and also claim that God is not the author of evil. I am interested in biblical exegesis for its own sake, and I have no interest in the “culture wars.” The private decisions people make regarding their own bodies is no concern of mine.

 

Was Abraham rewarded for lying with Hagar? No. In fact, it brought misery to all. Hagar ended up expelled from the house, and her son Ishmael was the father of clans that would become enemies of Israel. Consider how Paul uses Hagar as a metaphor in Galatians 4:21-31.

In Jacob's case, he was beguiled into polygamy by Laban's trickery (Gen. 29-30). It is clear from the narrative that Rachel was Jacob's choice as wife. But as a result of Laban's trickery, Jacob had to provide for Leah as well. God clearly favored Rachel as she gave birth to Joseph, who carried on the line that would eventually give rise to the Messiah. God took an evil act (Laban's deception) and turned it for good. It's also interesting to note that it was Leah's children who eventually sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt.

 

I know but since you are Anglican, it stands to reason that you’d give a special ear to the Anglican tradition.

Modern Judaism has very little connected to the actual Bible. It is what’s known as the Rabbinical or Talmudic Judaism, because it largely stems from the Talmud and the Mishnah, written in the early centuries of Anno Domini, long after the closing of the OT and the writing of the NT.

As for Jesus, sure he speaks of divorce, but he mentions it without allowing it. That’s the point the Anglican commentators have made. Jesus never says that it was okay for the OT Jews, or that it was a valid permission, let alone a divine permission. Divorce is uniformly prohibited in the Old just as the New Testament. Thus we see a continuity between the sacred books of the most holy Scrioture.

 

So you take Cain's philosophy, then? "Am I my brother's keeper?"

1 Cor. 6:18-20

Allowing a brother or sister to destroy their bodies in service to worldly vice is not the Christian way. Love for them, and concern for their immortal souls, compels us to speak out against it. And refusing to speak out against the murder of unborn innocents is simply evil and sinful. Willful murder of an unborn infant is not a "personal choice" because it involves two people: the mother and her unborn child. The child belongs to God no less than the mother. (This is why murder is the very worst form of theft: it is the theft of a life that belongs to God himself.)

We are called to pray for our wayward brothers or sisters (1 John 5:16-17):

If a Christian brother or sister wanders, we are directed to lead them back to the flock (James 5:19-20):

Christians are called both to watch out for each other so that we do not stray (Heb. 12:15-16):

This is why I say that egalitarianism and extreme individualism are leading our societies into a place of moral horror and damnation. Our bodies are the temple of God (1 Cor. 6:19), God's holy house, and we should treat them accordingly.

 

This really is not accurate. God's will was for people to not divorce. The Bible says that Moses, not God, gave permission for divorce to occur. Jesus very clearly stated that divorce is wrong.

Mat 19:8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
Mat 19:9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.

 

When it comes to confessional statements, formularies, etc., then yes. The Prayer Book, Articles or Religion, etc., certainly hold greater weight than, say, the Augsburg Confession (or the Westminster Confession). Likewise, what Richard Hooker or John Jewel or Jeremy Taylor had to say is of greater interest than, say, Jonathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon. When it comes to commentaries, I don't assume that any established doctrine of the Church is premised upon one single verse or passage, so for me the main concern is that the commentator be qualified to render an opinion as to the historical-grammatical meaning of the original language.

This is simply inaccurate:

There is neither an absolute prohibition in these passages nor can it be said to be uniform (since the law is different for men and women in these passages).

 

It isn't as if the Lord is saying, "Yeah, go ahead and divorce, I don't mind. You have my blessing." God foreknew that divorces would take place, though. Let's look at it in the KJV:

Deu 24:1 When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
Deu 24:2 And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.
Deu 24:3 And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife;
Deu 24:4 Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.

The Hebrew word in verse 1 which the KJV translates as "uncleanness" seems to suggest some sort of shame (perhaps the woman is found to be not the virgin she'd claimed to be, for example), but I don't doubt that the Israelites took full advantage and divorced wives for all sorts of reasons. Nonetheless, we don't see any express permission being given by God to divorce; rather, it's an acknowledgement that divorce will happen. And as undesirable as divorce may be, we are told that it would be much worse for a man to divorce a woman and then remarry her after she's been remarried and divorced by some other man.

I'm not sure why anyone would insist that the absence of an "absolute prohibition" would constitute divine permission or serve as conclusive evidence that it once was God's will for people to divorce. Certainly, divorce isn't generally on the same level as such heinous offenses as murder or sodomy, but divorce has never been a part of God's will or His best plan for people.

 

Edmund Bunnius wrote specifically about Deuteronomy 24.1. Many protestants began claiming that passage allows of divorce, and even the Geneva Bible corrupted that passage to imply this permission. Bunnius knew how to read the original Hebrew, so he saw through the corruption, and went ape on the Geneva Bible, on Theodore Beza, and frankly on roman catholics like Erasmus who were also pushing for divorce:

https://www.anglican.net/works/edmu...-is-no-sufficient-warrant-so-to-do-1595/#p4-3

 

I rest my case.

 

Edmund Bunny, (1540-1619), was an Anglican with strong Calvinist leanings. He was a capable preacher, and spent much of his ministry as an ingenerate preacher, which retaining prebends in London, York and Carlisle. Erasmus had been dead four years before Edmund Bunny was born, so by the time of his essay on Divorce and Remarrying the only thing Erasmus was pushing was daisy's.

Now whilst it must be said that Henry VIII also predated Edmund Bunny in the main, the story period of seven years when the were both alive, saw Henry Marry Anne of Cleaves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. Edmunds Father was about the Kings service in the north, and they suffered as a protestant under the reign of Mary, and had some measure of relief under Elizabeth. For much of Mary's short reign Edmund was at Oxford, where he father thought he was being prepared for the law, and when Edmund decided he was destined for the Church he was indeed disinherited.

There were of course many large discussions in the period about divorce, and we all know that Henry VIII was not a fan of divorce, and went to great lengths to avoid it, having his long standing marriage to his first wife declared invalid, his second wife pre-deceased him, his third wife died following childbirth, his fourth wife he argued pleased him so little that the marriage was not consummated, his fifth wife predeceased him, and his sixth wife outlived him. Indeed dispensations was another great tool the Vatican used as a fund raiser.

Now the scary thing about divorce for a woman in ancient times, was that it left her with very little personhood, few in any financial resources, and not very much to make her way in the world. Henry's 1st and 4th wives were at least spared that indignity, however in the Deuteronomy period there were some much harsher realities in a society where women were to some extent treated as property. Divorce is clearly sub optimal, and the limitation on remarriage recognises that and precludes putting women down and picking them up again when it suits the man.

Now marriage is a good thing, and hopefully a good thing for both parties. Some marriages are better than others. Some marriages fail, and when they fail they cease to help and enable people to flourish, and they become impossible prisons. That is not what marriage is supposed to be. Marriage should not be entered into lightly or carelessly, and the same might be said of divorce.

The historic position of the Anglican Church has been against divorce. In the last 100 years or less, there has been a greater acceptance of divorce in Anglican circles, and I understand that there will be differences of view about this. I personally see little value in keeping people trapped in the intolerable prison of a failed relationship. I believe that the point that @Invictus raised was that the Biblical record is not entirely monochrome nor as absolutist as some in this thread, and indeed Edmund Bunny appear to have bean.

 

That is what I have been thinking all the time.
And asking for the death penalty for homosexual acts here in this forum in the name of Anglicanism is the last straw.

 

What do you rest your case on? He demolishes the case. In 3-4 paragraphs he conclusively, for all time, shows that Deuteronomy 24:1 did not advocate for divorce.

I don’t know where you got that from, as I saw nothing calvinist in what I’ve read from him. There is an aggressive group of modern puritans who try to classify as calvinist any historical person whom people might not be too aware of. Bunnius seems to me a classical Anglican rather than a calvinist. Indeed he severely criticizes actual calvinists: Theodore Beza, Musculus, Gualterius for their errors on divorce and departure from apostolic teaching.

Right.

No one has done that. Please do not post such slander as that will get the civil authorities to shut down this forum.

 

You are painting a very pleasant picture of this Henry here.
He sounds like the ideal husband.

 

The pre-deceasing of the 2nd and 5th wives, and the measure and means of those that occurred may give one to think that those two wives might have preferred divorce.

The point I was making is that Henry in striving to be a good Catholic and manage the matters of the throne, found ways to avoid divorce from a technical stance, and he almost certainly strived to be the ideal husband, save that he played away sometimes. Yet he gets remember by the mantra, divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded survived.

And he did bring in one of the best executioners from France for Anne Boleyn, which was thoughtful of him.

 

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Bunny,_Edmund

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Bunny

Sorry for not providing references.

 

Let’s not overstate the matter. His exegesis rests on conjecture, and does not negate the fact that there is no prohibition in the text itself. It does not say, “A man shall not put away his wife”, or anything to that effect, which is what it would need to say for there to be a genuine legal prohibition. Rashi interpreted it this way as well, and I don’t think anyone would accuse him of not understanding the Hebrew. The text says what it says and I’m not going to continue arguing about it.

 

How droll. Indeed, no one would want to be on the receiving end of a dull blade, requiring multiple strokes...

 

I am confused by your post. Perhaps I'm the only one because, although I've only scanned the thread, I can't see anyone else writing anything in response to it. I know David Walliams is perhaps less well known as an author than he is for other things and maybe that's to what you were drawing people's attention. Other than that I am not sure why you would point out who the author of this book is. I do hope you take this post at face value. I genuinely do not understand the point you are making.