See here.
(Initial H/T to Ruthie, but I see that James has picked up on it too.)
The initial abortion seems one of the defensible sort to me – and it’s not 100% bonkers to say that it is wrong. What is 100% bonkers is excommunicating a suffering family and saying that the rapist’s offence wasn’t as bad.
Just a thinking out loud post: once women bishops get approved for the CofE, why don’t FiF and similar simply set up as independent churches with a more-or-less formal link with the CofE itself – rather like the Methodists? Or even a stronger link with Rome? Take the physical churches that they currently occupy, but leave the parish system (other churches can adjust boundaries to cope) and leave behind any church schools and so on. Take pro rata pensions and so on as well. In other words, isn’t there a way to do this reasonably and charitably, and avoiding legal arguments over who owns the particular church buildings and so on?
Very interesting, comprehensive and humane biography of the ABC which, whilst not pulling any punches, particularly with regard to his management capabilities, nevertheless conveys an immensely positive portrait of Rowan as a whole. We’re lucky to have him.
No TBTM today – but I love this quote from +Alan: “And the Atheism? It sounds as though God views atheism as a harmless eccentricity, which probably doesn’t really exist as much as people think, infinitely better than pretending to believe, which is a ruddy menace…”
The 90(!) comments on my post on the difference between being Green and being a Christian who cares about the environment (here) have ended up being a long conversation about different attitudes to contraception.
Chris G-Z takes a traditionalist Roman Catholic perspective on the subject, and I have been puzzled on the justifications being offered. In particular, in situations where a married couple come to know that they are not fertile, we pursued the question of whether it was legitimate for sexual relations to take place. Chris agreed that, in such a case, it was licit “to have sexual intercourse for non-procreative purposes, so long as, if it is procreative, then the conception is allowed to take its natural course” and so long as the sexual relation is “between a husband and wife married to each other”.
I am baffled as to the difference between this and accepting the use of contraception. I’m not aware of a contraceptive method with 100% reliability, and I’m aware of a number of people (myself included) who, should contraception fail, would be willing to accept the consequences of that failure (eg raise the resulting child). There seems to be an acceptance that sexual relations are not exclusively for purposes of reproduction, which I think is right, but which runs against the grain of the teaching on contraception.
I should add that I think this is a problem with the official teaching of the Roman Catholic church, not with Chris’ logic generally. It may be that there is something in the official teaching which we haven’t unearthed yet.
Discuss!
(H/T David Keen)
As tagged by Steve, I need “to list five people, living or dead, who influenced my spiritual path in a positive way.” I’ll ignore family in this and, like Steve, include someone I only know from their writings.
1. David Dixon, a teacher when I was at sixth form, also a lay reader in the CofE, who first made me question my atheism;
2. Trevor Williams, chaplain at my Oxford College, who really did the dismantling and helped me to feel intellectually comfortable with the faith;
3. Brother Bernard SSF, who was my spiritual director for many years and really sorted me out and set me on the right path;
4. Wittgenstein – understanding him allowed my rational and faith sides to integrate more or less successfully; and
5. The various evangelicals in the Mersea benefice (it would be invidious to pick out only one) as I have definitely ‘broadened out’ in my theology since arriving here. I don’t think I’ve abandoned anything I previously believed – I’m still basically an Anglo-Catholic sacramentalist – but I’m much more comfortable with evangelical language than I ever expected to be. And that’s a good thing.
I tag: Jon, Paul, Philip, Tom, Joe, Byron, John, Tim A, Tim C and Tim G.
Completely forgot to take a TBTM on the beach this morning – various things on my mind – but yesterday I met up with a fellow clerical blogger from Kent, which was an excellent day. Go here for a sample of why he’s such an interesting writer – indeed, such an interesting writer that he’s got a two book contract with Continuum press. Jammy git :o)
Had a nice lunch in this pub, close to my old stomping grounds, where we put the Church of England back into good theological shape.
