• Church of Scotland rejects biblicist position on sex and marriage

    It is going to be important not to underestimate the significance of the votes in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland today. A last ditch attempt was made to get that church to commit to the idea that sex belongs only between a married heterosexual couple. That idea was comprehensively rejected.

    People with widely differing opinions never thought we would see this day. Though the legislation that the Church of Scotland is now consulting on accepting is a dreadful mess, and a long way from equality for LGBT people, today was a huge and historic boost for those who reject the ideas of those who claim the Christian tradition to be by definition narrow and anti-gay in character.

    It seemed to me, as I watched the debate, as though those seeking to promote an anti-gay view had made a huge strategic mistake by going for an all or nothing approach and trying to get the Assembly to affirm only their view.

    Generosity won the day in Edinburgh today. Generosity that has divine fingerprints all over it.

5 responses to “The Convent”

  1.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    I really enjoyed the programme, looking forward to the next part.

    Couldn’t help grinning all the way through though thinking of you and a certain remark about convents and nuns from last year!

  2. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    “wish more people did it”
    I tried to post a comment here, but it disappeared…

    anyway, I just said, be careful, because I’m scared I may get “itchy feet” again and want to reexamine looking at monastic life.

    I was disappointed by how rude two of the people were, but the sincerity of the lady who had been hurt by her family and was “afraid of God” was amazing stuff.

  3.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    Monastic Life
    I thought about monastic life at one point. However, when I went to a monastery to consider it more thoroughly I was stricken with a plague of boils and ended up being told to flee by a doctor. Notwithstanding my hesitation about the possibility of God meddling any more with humanity than by God’s becoming incarnate, there was no arguing with a plague of boils and I never went back.

  4. Mark Avatar
    Mark

    Hey, but I never got boils! And as I was saying to Fr Philip last week it was that very experience in the monastery that has left a mark on the rest of my life. I simply don’t want to play along with materialism to the same extent anymore…

  5. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    It was certainly interesting watching from an insider’s point of view…

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