Church of England bishop Nazir-Ali tells homosexuals to 'change and repent'
He could be prosecuted for this under British law but that would make the law look the ass that it is so it won't happen.
"A Church of England Bishop has called for homosexuals to 'repent and be changed' at the annual Gay Pride London march yesterday. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, made the controversial comments at the event, attended by Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife.
Dr Nazir-Ali told The Sunday Telegraph: 'We want to uphold the traditional teaching of the Bible. We believe that God has revealed his purpose about how we are made. 'People who depart from this don't share the same faith. They are acting in way that is not normative according to what God revealed in the Bible. 'The Bible's teaching shows that marriage is between a man and a woman. That is the way to express our sexual nature.
'We welcome homosexuals, we don't want to exclude people, but we want them to repent and be changed.'
SOURCE
Sad when it takes a bishop of Pakistani origin to preach the Gospel within the Church of England. The church as a whole just dithers on the issue and their American branch (Episcopalians) thinks the Bible is just a quaint old book.
28 comments:
It's going to take a whole lot of outside teachers to get the Brits back to normalcy, assuming that's even possible.
The bishop is wasting his time, he might as well as carnivores to give up meat. It ain't gonna happen.
God made them the way they are. You cannot go against God's will. PTL.
Uh Huh, or they decide using free will, or it genetic, could be any reason. Point is that this is one brave bishop.
God made them the way they are... - Anonymous 4:30AM
God made murderers, rapists, thieves, and liars the way they are too, but that doesn't make them any less sinful.
All sex outside of marriage is a sin. God (through Christ Jesus) said marriage is between a Man and a Woman. Therefore, those who do not marry are to remain celibate.
That's the sin. A man who has a series of one night stands with women is no more (or less) sinful than a man who does so with other men.
"God made murderers, rapists, thieves, and liars the way they are too, but that doesn't make them any less sinful."
So, you are grouping gays in with the above group? You need to seek help, my friend.
"All sex outside of marriage is a sin. God (through Christ Jesus) said marriage is between a Man and a Woman. Therefore, those who do not marry are to remain celibate."
So it's either marriage or celibacy? Talk about a no-win situation!
"So it's either marriage or celibacy? Talk about a no-win situation!"
Yeah, Thank "God" there's separation of church and state eh? The last thing we want is people making laws based on that book! No one will be getting any then!
"So it's either marriage or celibacy? Talk about a no-win situation!"
Fraid so anon.
However you can marry your hand!
That's win-win
Remember your hand
1) can't get pregnant.
2) can't divorce you.
3) smoke after sex unless you agree.
The Bishop should address his opinions solely to members of his own church - why should anyone else care what he and his bible say, any more than he would care what gay people might say in response to his gratuitous remarks.
If bishops attend gay events to criticize gays, then they should not complain if gays attend church events to criticize the church's attack on gays.
Different christian denominations have different interpretations about the bible. Catholics like drinking alcohol yet baptists think it's a sin. Mormons won't even drink coffee yet their church used to have polygamous marriage. 7th Day Adventists think eating pork is a sin even though the new testament says gentiles can eat any animal God has created. So what's the point of quoting the bible when anyone can choose to believe whatever they want?
"So what's the point of quoting the bible when anyone can choose to believe whatever they want?"
What makes you think every chosen belief is valid?
What makes you think that ANY part of the Bible is valid?
Mongo,
Haven't you been paying attention to the other thread?
Here's something we haven't covered in the other thread yet: Archaeologists keep discovering that the Bible is historically accurate. It has yet to be shown to be inaccurate. There are portions which have not been verified by outside evidence one way or the other. Uncorroborated is not the same thing as false.
Even if the Bible wasn't true, and something else was, the original question still stands:
What makes you think every chosen belief is valid?
If someone believes in X, then X is valid to them. Their belief may not be valid to others. It is a point of view issue. Why do you think that are so many religions and cults?
As for the Bible, since there are so many inaccuracies, conflicts, and contradictions, how can you trust everything is accurate? Sure there are many historically accurate accounts, not denying that.
From http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/07/06/ancient.bible.online/index.html
"And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said."
So does that mean Cardinals and politicians added the section of the resurrection to make the story more compelling?
Religious people just want a "security blanket", they don't care about historical accuracy of documentation made over millennia of time (and all the political and practical ramifications involved - gives them a headache if you mention it!)
Anon is attempting to read minds again. Here's a hint: Those voices in your head are NOT other people's thoughts.
Mongo,
I will be getting back to you when I have a little more time to write a proper response.
"Anon is attempting to read minds again. Here's a hint: Those voices in your head are NOT other people's thoughts."
they are Jesus' voice. Luke, don't piss off Jesus.
Mongo,
"If someone believes in X, then X is valid to them. Their belief may not be valid to others. It is a point of view issue."
Really?!? Do you look both ways before you cross the street? Why not just believe that nothing on that street can harm you? Does gravity disappear whenever someone doesn't believe in it? (Shouted to the guy floating away: "Just believe in gravity and you'll come back!") Do you withdraw huge sums of money from the bank because it is your view that the bank should give you money which is not in your account?"
You act contrary to your stated principle every single day. If you acted like your claim was actually true, you would be dead already. Why should I accept something you can't actually practice in daily life?
"Why do you think that are so many religions and cults?"
Anon claimed that Christians believe the Bible because it gives them the warm fuzzies. His claim was wrong for two reasons: it was too broad, and it was too narrow.
The question of why people believe things (not just religion) has been studied. Reasons why people believe something fall into 4 general categories: Sociological, Psychological, Religious, and Philosophical. Sociological reasons are believing things because their parents, friends, culture, etc., have told them so. Psychological reasons are the warm fuzzies. Religious reasons are being told something by a respected religious authority, including holy books or religious teacher such as a priest, pastor, imam, guru, etc. Philosophical reasons include looking at the evidence and using reason to put it together, completeness, coherence, etc.
Anon's charge was too broad because he tried to claim that all Christians fall into the Psychological reasons category, a charge that simply cannot be true. I used to believe in Christianity for Social and Religious reasons. Then I started asking hard questions and digging into the evidence, and now I'm a Christian for Philosophical reasons. Furthermore, given the growing hostility towards Christianity in this country, being a Christian is certainly not a way to get a warm fuzzy feeling.
His charge was too narrow in assuming that only Christians believe things for psychological reasons. Those four categories apply to EVERYONE. That includes atheists. I have had atheists admit that they refuse to accept Christianity because they hate the idea that they would have to answer to God. That is a Psychological reason. It makes them feel better to believe that God doesn't exist.
There so many different cults and religions for the same reason that there are so many possible wrong answers to 2+2: though the truth is actually very narrow, the possible range for other answers is practically infinite. Given the human imagination when it comes to religion, that range will be exercised for reasons ranging from "it makes me feel good" to "it excuses what I want to do" to a method of exercising power over someone else and many, many, many others.
"As for the Bible, since there are so many inaccuracies, conflicts, and contradictions, how can you trust everything is accurate? Sure there are many historically accurate accounts, not denying that."
Like I already said, archeology has consistently shown the Bible is accurate in things archeology can be applied to. I challenge you to show anything in the Bible that archeology has shown to be untrue.
IMPORTANT: Unproven is not the same as proven false.
For example, it used to be thought that the Bible's description of the Hittites was a myth because there was no evidence of their existence—until the evidence of 1,200 years of Hittite history was found.
"Scholars" also claimed that Moses could not possibly have written the first 5 books of the Bible because "writing didn't exist at that time", until other examples of writing predating Moses (such as Hamurabi's Code) was found.
It's a sad old story of claiming the Bible is wrong because there is no evidence, only to find that the evidence backs up the Bible when it's discovered. If you come up with some claim that the Bible is historically inaccurate, please be careful not to embarrass yourself by falling into this trap.
As for conflicts and contradictions, I've been pummelled often enough by so-called contradictions that I'm actually quite sick of them. They usually fall into three basic categories:
1 - Claiming a "contradiction" when two passages give non-contradictory but different details of an event. IMHO, these types of claims always make the claiment look stupid. Most of the time the level of "contradiction" is similar to one witness describing a person as wearing a red shirt and another witness describing the person as wearing dark pants. Differing details is not a contradiction. Only describing the exact same thing in contradictory terms is actually a contradiction! (Red shirt vs. blue shirt. Even then the person could have a blue shirt over a red T-shirt.)
2 - Taking the passage(s) in a fashion other than the writer intended. For example, the Bible often uses figurative or poetic language to describe something, but people will pretend that such language is a literal description. Or maybe the passage is describing something in general terms and the person will make a claim as if the text is an engineering description down to 5 decimal places.
3 - Ignoring relevant historical details. I've seen soooo many instances where someone tries to apply a modern approach to things written in the Bible which simply were not true of the time. For example, news reporting in ancient times was nothing like it is today. Only really, really big things were usually reported. There was no such thing as newspapers. There was no "news gathering" organizations. What did get written down tended to be treated as if looking through a strong lens, with the central point being clearly in focus, but surrounding details quickly getting fuzzy. There was even different methods of telling time. (The Jewish day and clock started at sundown, the Roman day and clock started at midnight.) These are details which must be taken into account with every ancient document, not just the Bible.
There are claimed problems which don't fall under these categories, but these are the big ones. The claimed contradictions aren't even new or unheard of by Christians. Believe me, any Christian who is serious about the Bible runs into these objections pretty regularly. There are answers for all of them, even if you have already decided not to accept those answers.
Thanks for the link to that CNN article. (Here is a live link to the article for those who couldn't use what you posted.) The link to the Codex Sinaiticus Product was included in the sidebar. It was really cool to be able to look at one of the important source documents for the Bible.
Ironically enough, the very topic of the article—that the Codex Sinaiticus is now available online—proved exactly how wildly slanted that article is. Let's take just the sentence you quoted and your take on what that sentence meant:
"And some familiar -- very important -- passages are missing, including verses dealing with the resurrection of Jesus, they said."
So does that mean Cardinals and politicians added the section of the resurrection to make the story more compelling?
If all you read was the article, then I can see why you get that impression. It definitely makes it sound like the Resurrection was added something like 800 years later, or at least after this copy was made.
Problem is, visiting the Project site and comparing what it shows with a modern translation proves just how big of a lie this sentence is.
All four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—describe the events surrounding the Resurrection. Those descriptions are in Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20. So I compared those chapters to what the project site shows. What I found is that not a single verse was missing from the accounts in Matthew and Luke. There was one verse missing from John (20:14) and Mark 16:9-20 isn't there. So let's take a look at what's missing.
Here's John 20:14 from the translation I use:
"Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, though she did not know it was Jesus."
Wow! What a huge theological verse! That changes everything! Not!
As for the passage in Mark, verses 1-8 in chapter 16 describe the women arriving at the tomb, having an angel tell them that Jesus had risen from the dead, and the women returning to the city. The rest reads like a postlude; a severely condensed summary of events. So even there, the Resurrection is clearly in Mark in the Codex Sinaiticus.
Furthermore, scholars are very upfront with the fact that Mark 16:9-20 is questionable. I don't think it's possible to find a Bible printed today which does not mark this passage as questionable, largely due to its omission from the Codex Sinaiticus. In fact, here are how some translation note the questionability of this passage:
16:9–20 Other mss omit bracketed text ("mss" means manuscripts)
—Holman Christian Standard
Later mss add vv 9-20
—New American Standard
Manuscript evidence indicates that this Gospel probably did not originally include any of verses 9–20. Either Mark ended his Gospel here, he never wrote an intended ending, or his original ending has been lost.
—Apologetics Study Bible
The Gospel of Mark ends at this point in some witnesses, including two of the most respected MSS ([refers to Codex Sinaitcus and one other]).
—New English Translation
The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.
—New International Version Study Bible
We are hitting the motherlode here. One simple sentence (Mongo 11:23) yields lots of response. Good work, Mongo.
It looks like Blogger ate the last section. Let's try that again:
There are other implications in the article which are just plain wrong.
It implies that other important passages are missing because they where never part of the CS. The simple fact is that they're missing because some of the pages are missing. They don't have the entire CS, just most of it.
The article also implies that it's the oldest manuscript, period. Again, this isn't true. It's a nearly complete collection of the books of the Bible. (There were questions about which books were actually genuine scripture and which were pretenders. The question wasn't settled by the time the CS copy was made.) It's also the oldest of this type of collection. However, there are older manuscripts of specific books and fragments, with some New Testament fragments as much as 150 years older than the CS.
When it comes to the Old Testment manuscripts, the CS is a spring chicken. The Dead Sea Scrolls predate it by about 750 years, dating back to about 400 B.C. They include a complete copy of Isaiah plus significant portions of every other Old Testament book except Esther.
Finally, there is the implication that anything that is not in the CS should not be in the Bible and was illegitimately added later. This would be true if every manuscript of biblical texts was a direct descendent of the CS, but this is not the case. The explanation is far to complicated to get into here. There is actually a science to comparing various manuscripts to figure out which copies they were copied from, and so forth. The science is called Textual Criticism and you can find a good introduction to it here.
There is soo much more to be said on this topic, but I have to stop now. So I'll leave you with this link and this link for more on the history and other details on the Codex Sinaiticus.
Good points. Good research.
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It's interesting to see just how permeant digital memory has become in our everyday lives. It seems like everywhere I turn, I see something with a card slot or USB port, haha. I guess it makes sense though, considering how much cheaper memory has become lately...
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