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Friday, December 30, 2011

POST CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF SEXUALITY AND MARRIAGE, FROM WHENCE DID IT EVOLVE?

Once the Anglican Communion approved this in 1930:
The following images eventually evolved in the Anglican Communion:
Female "bishops" a openingly gay bishop and the same openly gay bishop with his same sex partner:
A brief history from Wikipedia:
Before the Protestant Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church viewed the purpose of sexual intercourse as almost exclusively for purposes of procreation. As part of the Reformation, Reformers began to more strongly emphasize the unitive pleasures of marriage. Still, all major early Protestant Reformers, and indeed Protestants in general until the twentieth century, condemned birth control as a contravention of God's procreative purpose for marriage.

As scientists advanced birth control methods during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the tradition of Protestant rejection of birth control continued alongside growing dissent from Protestant Nonconformists. As an example of the dissent, the editor of a Nonconformist weekly journal in the United States wrote in 1893,
There was a time when any idea of voluntary limitation was regarded by pious people as interfering with Providence. We are beyond that now and have become capable of recognizing that Providence works through the commonsense of individual brains. We limit population just as much by deferring marriage for prudential reasons as by any action that may be taken after it.

Non-Catholic denominations were slow to officially go along with such a view, although followers were not as reluctant.

Then in 1930, at the Seventh Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Communion, after years of considerable internal debate, issued the first statement permitting birth control "when there is a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence." During the 30 years afterward, Protestant acceptance of birth control steadily increased. By 2005 acceptance had increased such that a Harris Interactive poll conducted online among 2,242 U.S. adults found that 88% of non-Catholic Christians who identified as either "very religious" or Evangelical supported the use of birth control/contraceptives.

My comments: Most if not all mainline Protestant denominations since the 1930 Seventh Lambeth Conference have embraced all forms of artificial birth control and leave the abortion issue to the private domain and condone laws that allow abortion for the same reason, making it a private matter between a woman, her doctor and whomever else she wishes to consult or not consult.

Since the true and complete meaning of sexuality based on natural law and Sacred Scripture and Tradition is eliminated by most mainline Protestant denominations, they now emphasize the unitive, pleasurable aspect of sex and begrudgingly acknowledge that for some people it can be pro-creative. This has led them to become neutral on same sex relationships and even endorse homosexual marriage.

Pandora's Box was opened in 1930 by one Christian denomination and an unraveling of traditional Christian ethics concerning marriage and sex has evolved for them and most in various Protestant denominations.

Not too far back I was speaking to an Episcopal priest (in another city) who is homosexual and in a committed partnership. His Episcopal bishop endorses his relationship and the Church where he is employed is well aware of it. The only concern by one member of the vestry was whether or not he would show public affection to his same sex partner.

I asked him if a heterosexual Episcopal priest who had a live-in opposite sex partner would be allowed the same liberality. He said no. They can get married legally. I asked, "Isn't that discriminatory?" He said, "I hadn't thought of it that way."

Once a Christian community or individual displaces divine law and natural law in favor of situational ethics or feelings or letting the good times roll, anything becomes possible. Why in the world couldn't an Episcopal priest who is married have a paramour on the side if no one is hurt by this. There are many couples who actually love a ménage à trois. But, heck, why limit it to three? Why limit it to humans?

The absurdity of the logic of the 1930 Seventh Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion has led it to become post-Christian today and spiraling toward Unitarianism, not just in sexual morality but in doctrinal belief.

My last and most important point. If not for Pope Paul VI reiterating traditional Catholic teaching as it concerns human sexuality and marriage and the Church's prohibition to artificial contraception with Humanae Vitae, the Catholic Church would be well on its way to becoming just like the Anglican Communion is today--irrelevant, not because of the truth but because of the infidelity. In fact, there might well have been a reunion with the Catholic Church and the Church of England if Humanae Vitae had not reiterated traditional Catholic sexual and marital morality and the Catholic Church would have today female priests and bishops with same sex partners and same sex marriage and a post-Christian Catholicism.

But herein lies the good news: The Holy Spirit guides the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and the Pope and Bishops in union with him to preserve the Church from fatal errors of this sort. That is why the Catholic Church no longer sees as any real possibility reunion with the Anglican Communion as it now is. Heck, Anglicans around the world don't want to be in union with the Anglican Communion precisely because of its fall from grace and truth symbolized by its errant sexual novelties that started it all in 1930.


With that said though, we must recognize as Catholics that many Catholics who are ill-formed about their Catholic faith and are malformed by liberal theologies and political trends are buying into the Episcopal way of viewing human sexuality or at least into the general culture's decline and fall as it concerns human sexuality. But that is different than the Church herself falling into such error.

10 comments:

Marc said...

Is there a rule that female (fake) priests can only wear the most atrocious vestments known to the human eye or is that just a coincidence? Maybe we need these fake priests (both female and male) in the Protestant religions to occupy all the terrible vestments and keep them away from Catholic priests... They are really doing us a valuable service, if you think about it positively.

Carol H. said...

Ha ha ha he he he!

Marc, I enjoy your positive way of thinking!

Templar said...

I think the sexual morality issue is the lynch pin of the whole societal morality issue. Everything seems geared towards providing sexual relations for sport alone, without responsibility for consequence.

Carol H. said...

I agree, Templar.

Gene said...

The Episcopal Church has long been a laughing stock among devout protestants for its watered-down theology and Platonist/Universalist overtones. This was before the homosexuality thing became an issue, although we used to snigger in grad school at all the sister-boy Episcopal students. Then came the women Episcopal priests. If you had hollered "Butch" at Vanderbilt in the 70's you would have been stampeded by them.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

Trying to post from my iPhone is tricky as sometimes I delete inadvertently rather than post as with this:

TCR has left a new comment on your post "POST CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF SEXUALITY AND MARR...":

In the little village I frequent in England, the local Anglican community and the Catholic Church formerly co-hosted an ecumenical Stations of the Cross during Lent. Now the Anglicans refuse to partake because they "cannot tolerate the Catholics' intolerance" in all issues sexual. So instead, they instituted a garish and frighteningly pagan "Goth Eucharist" and pepper their homilies with quotes from Buddha and ancient Druid masters---almost as scary as those rainbow vestments Marc pointed out.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

I also deleted by accident this one--those virtual buttons to blame!

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "POST CHRISTIAN UNDERSTANDING OF SEXUALITY AND MARR...":

Not to pick on your semantics, Fr, but the term I would use is 'reversion'. Evolution implies an improvement. The technology to interfere with human reproduction is only useful if you view the humans as an animal to control. The appeal to women to use contraception stems from the social pact that they will allow themselves to continue to be treated as sex objects and avoid bearing a child or having to kill the child after birth. They are complemented for their progressive mind set to lessen the sting of surrender.

Men have succumbed to eternal adolescence to avoid the burdens of manhood. Confused in their virility, they seek anonymous admirers over reliable fealty.

We have attempted to use technology to extend useful lives we never begin.

rcg

Anonymous said...

I took that personally.

rcg


(LOL!)

Anonymous said...

rcg,
You got that right!! on all counts!!

I gave up birth control long before I even thought about returning to the church simply because it was oppressing me.
My husband was free to use me without taking responsibility, whilst the pill was endagering my arterial health and perpetuating his adolescent behaviour, and robbing me of my self respect and allowing him to believe he didn't need to give me any respect.
Good riddance!

Gene said...

...spoken like a true feminist...