Well, Charles Bennison and Louie Crew come as no surprise…It’s a shame we don’t have pictures of all these people. Somehow I can’t shake the feeling that they’re all aging and — when not fully vested — badly dressed.

Love your site, Christopher. You read a lot of stuff that I couldn’t bear to.

I’ve been listening to these tripe since I was a kid, and it’s all a variation on one theme: teenagers are going to have sex whatever you do or say.

Two comments:

The people saying this fornicated freely enough that I got the feeling their real interest wasn’t teenager morality, but to justify their own immorality.

The American economy runs, to a large degree, on advertising, which is based on the premise that you can influence behavior. To say that we can’t influence this one thing is too precious by half.

In other words: give me a break. If you want to fornicate, go fornicate, but lay off the religious crap.

That United Methodist Board of Church and Society site looks just like the Piskies! Check out the ads. Take the Conflict Minerals Pledge. Join the John 10:10 Challenge for a Justice-Filled Prescription for Healthcare. And best of all, the online store featured product: MDG Wallet Cards.

It’s always sad to see another church infected with the same toxic virus. This featured UU minister’s article has nothing in it about Scripture or faith, of course.

CJ: “… the Rev. Debra Haffner brings her Gittin’ Sahm crusade to the Methodists.”

The UMC churches in America also “celebrate” WO. And to no one’s surprise (except for maybe some ostrich-brained pro-WO’ers), the UMC churches are struggling with GO and the GLBT heresy and apostasy. Overturning the Authority of Scripture in one case leads to the overturning of Scripture in the other.

Woe is what you reap
when what you sow
… is WO!

I looked at the list, and was surprised only by #93. Didn’t Folwell start out, even as a bishop, as an Anglo-Catholic opposed to WO? (He was Howe’s predecessor in Central Florida, I think.) But, then, I have a vague recollection that he was one of the “finalist” candidates to succeed Browning as PB, and so he may have turned his coat in that vain effort. “For Wales, Sir Richard, for Wales.”

She seems to be redefining “intercourse” as well. All this careful reference to people engaging in…something. Although she removed any need for the sexual activity to occur between male and female, she persists in using the word. I can just hear prissy English-teacher types: “well, it means communication between two beings, so where’s the prob?”

The FACT that this document has gone unchallenged and the signators have not been disciplined and told to repent, recant or be removed is the problem.

(Don’t say a word, highly esteemed RC friends. As far as I know, there has been no official rebuke or removal of the leadership of the 10 Catholic Universities that have come out pro-homosex/pro-abortion. NotreDame had homosex activities during Holy Week this year.)

All these people(and Spong and his ilk) still priss around in collars and purple, taking God’s money, spouting their heresies and immoral agendas and no one has the guts to deal with them in the correct and Scripture-mandated way.

The Five Criteria of Modern Sexual Morality:

1. “It is consensual.” Human will is here established as the principle post-modern criteria for determining moral conduct. How can it be otherwise, since the whole idea of revealed Truth has been set aside as archaic?

2. “It is non-exploitative” A re-statement of the primacy of consent. Exploitative relationships proceed from power imbalances, and true consent cannot be given under such conditions.

“It is honest” Yet another restatement of the primacy of consent. True consent cannot be given on the basis of a lie.

“It is mutually pleasurable.” A third restatement of the primacy of consent. The primary purpose of sex has been recast as personal gratification through pleasure. If one is not receiving pleasure, then consent was obtained under false pretenses. Note that ‘pleasure’ is subjectively defined.

“It is protected.” A fourth a final assertion of the primacy of consent. Sex should involve no unchosen responsibilities or attachments or consequences. It is an experience intentionally divorced from both the past and the future, so that the pleasure of the moment not be infringed.

She could have said just one thing: “Any freely chosen sexual act is a moral sexual act.” But the five criteria sound so much more impresive.

carl

“And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man’s nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances.” Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941

Wisdom! Let us attend!

“I developed a framework for a moral sexual relationship. I believe, based on my more than 30 years as a sexuality educator and now as a minister, ”

so who needs an eternal God when you’ve punched a time clock for 30 years…

“She could have said just one thing: “Any freely chosen sexual act is a moral sexual act.””

I think she’d shy away from that. They’re laying the groundwork for requiring state permission to reproduce – hence the requirement for protection. They’ve inverted morality to such a degree that they object quite strenuously to “be fruitful and multiply”.

Wellington, no theologian,said “The Church of England has made England a country of honest men,” meaning that they were taught simple morality without expecting excuses through bought or ritual forgiveness. Churhc was the source of services for the principal events of life, social cohesion, and very basic moral teaching. It has none of these three duties now. What is its worth?

“young people reach puberty at an average age of 12 to 14; the average age of marriage is 25 to 27…For at least the past 40 years, nearly 90% of people have first intercourse before their wedding night.”Someone Quipped, “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, D*mned Lies and Statistics.”She manages to squeeze all three into one small paragraph.

TUAD,

Although I do agree with you regarding “[o]verturning the Authority of Scripture in one case leads to the overturning of Scripture in the other”, I would say that WO was not the beginning. Rather, acceptance of birth control and divorce by those in power in many protestant denominations. WO followed the logical path of this departure.

I notice not one but two bishops of the Diocese of Olympia (I guess Rickels is some kind of bluenose?) and a Portland *youth* director. I can never be grateful enough to have left that organization before this era.
Bishop Nedi goes to a lot of youth events that last several days. How, I would love to know, does she justify separating the genders come sundown? Or does she? What possible rhetorical gymnastics do such “grownups” have to use to say it’s utterly OK for those over 18 (any combination thereof) and not those under 18 to pair up for the night? Why belong to a church that encourages your children to be molested and endorses statutory rape? If you have trouble with these terms, please point out where I’m mistaken.

Michael,

I don’t disagree.

I read this far and had to stop and post:

“Premarital chastity is an ethic based in ancient biology and social mores. At the time the Bible was written, people were married shortly after they reached puberty. They died soon after their own children reached adulthood. The average life expectancy for women was only 25; many died in childbirth.”

1. How has our biology changed in the last 6-7 thousand years?

2. “Average life expectancy” means just that – the average of all women – those that die in infancy, those that die in childhood, those that die in childbirth and those that lived to the same three-score and ten mentioned in the Bible. In other words, pretty much the same as today except we’ve reduced the number of infant & childhood mortalities and post-partum mortalities.

3. This woman’s an idiot.

“sexuality educator” – what the hell is this?

I’ve found that excising all the parts of the Bible that might be restrictive or embarrassing has made the old Scriptures a lot easier to carry around.

But, then, if I can just make up my own criteria, why do I need to be burdened with those old Scriptures at all?

And it frees up space on my bookshelf for all the self-improvement volumes and guidebooks for increasing one’s self-esteem.

Someone was advertising a pencil version of the Bible to make such editing and customizing a bit easier and eliminate all the tattered papers hanging this way and that.

If you can eliminate what doesn’t suit your fancy, why not add what you like as well…put in some Koran and Bhagavad Gita, Lady Chatterly and Peyton Place to round it out. Ought to make the new BCP a zinger…and well-read by all ages.

Besides our host’s spot-on exposé of this sophistry, many thanks, M Raitt:

Wellington, no theologian,said “The Church of England has made England a country of honest men,” meaning that they were taught simple morality without expecting excuses through bought or ritual forgiveness. Church was the source of services for the principal events of life, social cohesion, and very basic moral teaching. It has none of these three duties now. What is its worth?

Ever since the ‘Enlightenment’ KO’d English Calvinism, turning the ruling class into agnostics, and stamped out what little residual mediæval Catholic feeling there was among ordinary English people, that in a nutshell is everything that’s wrong with Anglicanism. (The modern stuff with the gays is just the latest symptom.) You had an orthodox shell with the BCP but now that the surrounding culture is no longer as friendly to orthodoxy and no longer props up this social institution, away that church goes…

“…people were married shortly after they reached puberty. They died soon after their own children reached adulthood. The average life expectancy for women was only 25; many died in childbirth. … Today, in stark contrast, young people reach puberty at an average age of 12 to 14; the average age of marriage is 25 to 27;” and many die of drug or alcohol abuse.

Sorry. The Fornication Saves Lives argue just does quite work.