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28875. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 2/21/2007 3:23:29 AM 
28876. jexster - 2/21/2007 3:32:43 AM equal 28877. jexster - 2/21/2007 11:10:26 PM From the Bishop of California
I am writing in response to the Communiqué coming out of the primates meeting in Tanzania. While many are reacting to the words of the Communiqué, I would like to respond from an awareness of the foundation of the day-to-day ongoing commitment of Christians to the gospel of Jesus. As bishop to the Diocese of California, I make the following affirmations:
The inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the full life of the Church is a matter of justice: as we are all part of the world, and the kindom of God is like a net laid over that same world. All on the earth are connected by this net, whether perceived or not. Actions of justice and injustice reverberate throughout the whole, promoting either integrity, remembering, and shalom, or diabolic isolation.
Understood as expressed above, our task in the Church is not actually to include or exclude anyone, but to show forth an intrinsic co-inherence that simply is, created and sustained by God.
Gay and lesbian people who come to the Church seeking the blessing of the Church for their unions are people seeking to lead holy lives, exactly like heterosexual couples. The Church must respond to gay and lesbian people seeking the blessing of counseling, community support, prayer, and sacrament in the same way it does to heterosexual couples.
The Diocese of California is a place within the Church -- not alone, but prominently -- where gay and lesbian people have been freer to offer their gifts: Both professional gifts and those of lay and ordained ministry. As a result, the Diocese of California has been immeasurably enriched. As bishop of this diocese, I know very well that the Christian rights of gay and lesbian people are intrinsic and must be supported, and that without these gifts, this diocese would be as immeasurably impoverished as it is now enriched. Immeasurably as the spiritual gifts of all God's people know no measure.
The polity of The Episcopal Church requires the deliberation and consent of two bodies, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, to properly respond to the requests made by the primates in their Communiqué.
The Episcopal Church should make every effort, including an extraordinary meeting of the two houses, and redoubled efforts to help the other provinces of the Communion understand both our theology relating to marriage and human sexuality and our polity. We should make these efforts, and at the same time not compromise the essentials of theology or our polity.
I will call on the Diocese of California to come together at Grace Cathedral during the Easter Season (at a time and on a date to be determined) when we affirm the triumph of Christ over all that destroys the creatures of God, filling that great house of prayer for all people with the full diversity of the people of God: people who differ in mind but not heart; gay and straight people; men and women; the young with the old; the poor and the rich; people of every ethnicity, all together to show our understanding of Christ’s gift of new life in the Church.
The Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus, Bishop of California
San Francisco
Shrove Tuesday, 2007
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We are not meant to resolve all contradictions,
but to live with them and rise above them and
see them in the light of exterior and objective
values which make them trivial by comparison.
Thomas Merton,
Thoughts in Solitude
Macaca Nigra 28878. jexster - 2/28/2007 9:58:37 PM The "Jesus Bones"
Who says Lent can't be fun?
Jen if UR lurking...see what the Jews are saying about us now
Don't worry...I smotheth the Blood Acursed with a Mighty Smite 28879. jexster - 2/28/2007 10:18:51 PM Speaking of Jews and their Secular Fundie fellow travelers
HOSEA ROCKS!
Don't Fret Jen, I smithest the Double Dealin Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap too...
Wonkers you and Thoughtfull (Sic) are dumb enuf (and you rich enuf) to be Republicans
28871. wonkers2 - 2/16/2007 5:51:56 PM
God's Instruction to Hosea, "Go find yourself a whore and marry her." God says marry a whore.
Why did you paste post w/out the substance? Do the Jews hold the paper on your fucking yacht!
Chapter 1 and Chapter 2
God's first instruction to Hosea is: Go find yourself a whore and marry her. (Yes, again with the prostitutes!) He picks up a streetwalker named Gomer—the ancient Hebrew for "Candee," I guess. They quickly have a son, whom Hosea names Jezreel. (As you may remember from 1 Kings, Chapter 21, Jezreel is where King Ahab and Queen Jezebel committed one of the Bible's most loathsome crimes.) He names their other kids "Not-Accepted" and "Not-My-People," to symbolize God's rejection of the Israelites. (Why couldn't he name them Jacob and Madison like everyone else?) But we're picking up a theme here: Hosea's family embodies Israel's disgrace.
The hooker wife, of course, represents the faithlessness of the Israelites
What? Schlomo got you by the balls?
28880. jexster - 2/28/2007 10:21:51 PM PS Hosea, I am BIG FAN!
Hosea 8-14
8Set the trumpet to your lips! One like a vulture is over the house of the Lord, because they have broken my covenant, and transgressed my law. 2Israel cries to me, “My God, we—Israel—know you!” 3Israel has spurned the good; the enemy shall pursue him. 4They made kings, but not through me; they set up princes, but without my knowledge. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction. 5Your calf is rejected, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence? 6For it is from Israel, an artisan made it; it is not God. The calf of Samaria shall be broken to pieces. 7For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The standing grain has no heads, it shall yield no meal; if it were to yield, foreigners would devour it.
8Israel is swallowed up; now they are among the nations as a useless vessel. 9For they have gone up to Assyria, a wild ass wandering alone; Ephraim has bargained for lovers. 10Though they bargain with the nations, I will now gather them up. They shall soon writhe under the burden of kings and princes. 11When Ephraim multiplied altars to expiate sin, they became to him altars for sinning. 12Though I write for him the multitude of my instructions, they are regarded as a strange thing. 13Though they offer choice sacrifices, though they eat flesh, the Lord does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish their sins; they shall return to Egypt. 14Israel has forgotten his Maker, and built palaces; and Judah has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his strongholds
28881. jexster - 3/1/2007 3:51:32 AM From my parish priest
Our Presiding Bishop has asked us to use the season of Lent as a time to refrain from blessing same sex unions. I believe this to be a perversion of the purpose of Lent, and so in response for this one year I am suspending the 'closed season' normally kept at this time, and I invite any who wish a blessing to come forward now during Lent 28882. wonkers2 - 3/1/2007 4:14:46 AM How come we haven't received our invitation yet? 28883. jexster - 3/1/2007 4:21:19 AM A Popular (not official) Prayer to St. Anne, Mary's Mom
Dear St. Anne
Find me a man 28884. jexster - 3/1/2007 4:22:06 AM and would you come dressed like a macacan? Reception at St. Francis...a wedding gift would be nice 28885. jexster - 3/7/2007 5:00:13 AM The West Needs a Spiritual Surge
By Amitai Etzioni
The spell of the Enlightenment so profoundly distracts many Western opinion makers that the worldwide rise of religion is either ignored or it is viewed as major threat rather than an important source for the re-moralization of society. True, many observers have noted, especially after September 11, that the rise of a religiously ferocious Islam is not limited to the Arab world, but is very much in evidence in all Muslim nations from Indonesia to Turkey. But few have paid mind to the importance of the crowded churches in former communist countries in Eastern Europe and Russia; to the many scores of millions who are finding religion in China; and to the rapidly growing followings of a variety of religious denominations, cults and sects all over the world.
....
The West may well have to draw on both enriched secular humanism and on moderate religious beliefs, if it is not to lose the struggle over the hearts and minds of the majority of the people of the world. It needs a spiritual rather a military surge.
Saint Tikhon the New Martyr, Last Patriarch of Russia
28886. wonkers2 - 3/11/2007 6:07:29 AM Special for Jen from Hank 28887. jexster - 3/15/2007 2:51:25 AM Furor over Baptist's gay-baby article
By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer2 hours, 48 minutes ago
The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has incurred sharp attacks from both the left and right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified.
The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the country's pre-eminent evangelical leaders, acknowledged that he irked many fellow conservatives with an article earlier this month saying scientific research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality.
Proof of a biological basis would challenge the belief of many conservative Christians that homosexuality — which they view as sinful — is a matter of choice that can be overcome through prayer and counseling.
However, Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., was assailed even more harshly by gay-rights supporters. They were upset by his assertion that homosexuality would remain a sin even if it were biologically based, and by his support for possible medical treatment that could switch an unborn gay baby's sexual orientation to heterosexual.
"He's willing to play God," said Harry Knox, a spokesman on religious issues for the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights group. "He's more than willing to let homophobia take over and be the determinant of how he responds to this issue, in spite of everything else he believes about not tinkering with the unborn."
28888. clydefo - 3/15/2007 7:29:44 AM Sorry if this has already been covered, I've missed a lot; but if Jehovah himself is opposed to homosexuality, why is the prohibition not in the Ten Commandments or one of the Seven Deadly Sins?
28889. alistairconnor - 3/15/2007 11:44:29 AM Those southern baptists crack me up...
How about selective abortion for homosexual foetuses?
Or does he propose pre-natal counselling to set the little fellas straight?
But fundamentally, if God makes little homosexuals, he must make them for a purpose...
Theologically, this opens the door to a lot of stuff that has fallen from fashion.
Homosexuality is a sin even if biologically determined... this was considered true of the Mark of Cain also... 28890. arkymalarky - 3/15/2007 11:57:54 PM Good question, Clyde. There seems to be a lot of selective reading where all that is concerned. It's always amazed me that they have spent so much time arguing over such a small portion as the very beginning of Genesis. 28891. wonkers2 - 3/20/2007 3:00:30 AM Just follow the money! 28892. clydefo - 3/31/2007 5:27:00 PM
Nun Says Parkinson's Was Cured Following Prayers to Late Pope.
"...She described going to bed one night barely able to write or walk and waking up at 4:30 a.m. fully cured. "All I can say is that I was ill and now I'm healed," said Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, smiling widely. "Now the church will decide if it's a miracle."
Church officials said Sister Marie Simon-Pierre's recovery from the advanced stages of a disease with no known cure could be instrumental in the canonization process, which can sometimes take centuries to complete but has been fast-tracked for John Paul..."
"Fast-tracked".
All with straight faces. 28893. alistairConnor - 3/31/2007 11:21:11 PM Well. My ex-girlfriend's grandmother had tuberculosis, of the bone variety. Invariably fatal (this is in the 1930s).
Did a little pilgrimage to Lourdes, and came back cured... had half a dozen children and lived to a reasonably ripe old age.
My opinion is that she did it herself. 28894. jexster - 4/2/2007 4:05:25 AM Luke 23:26-48
26As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him, and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27A great number of the people followed him, and among them were women who were beating their breasts and wailing for him. 28But Jesus turned to them and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29For the days are surely coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ 30Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’; and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31For if they do this when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”
32Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. 34Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.” 39One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
44It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, 45while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last. 47When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.” 48And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts.
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