The Episcopal priest has repeatedly proclaimed a message of inclusiveness. In a controversial move last year, Bacon opened his church to perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples a week after the California Supreme Court had legalized homosexual marriage in May.
After stirring more controversy on Winfrey’s show this month, Bacon has been flooded with calls and emails, some with positive words and some with critical remarks.
Labeling himself as “biblically oriented,” Bacon claimed he’s going down the road of Jesus, showing compassion and being inclusive, and not the road of condemnation and judgment.
Warren Throckmorton, associate professor of Psychology and director of the College Counseling Service at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, doesn’t believe Bacon’s comments help in the ongoing debate over the Bible and homosexuality.
“Traditional Christianity teaches that all people are valued by God as bearers of His image,” he commented to The Christian Post. “However, moral questions surrounding sexual behavior are matters of great dispute among Christians. Rev. Bacon is less than helpful when he condemns those who disagree with him.”
© 2004-2013 Gri5th Media, LLC.
All rights reserved.
[47 : 1.8678]
Welcome to Stand Firm!
Episcopal Priest Causes Stir On Oprah By Proclaiming Homosexuality Is A Gift From God
Thursday, January 22, 2009 • 6:14 pm
61 Comments •
|
Don’t listen to him, he’s a dud, a faux shepherd operating in the mind of flesh, which is at enmity with God and His Word. |
|
O boy. “Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” |
|
Of course it is a gift from God. All challenges are a gift from God. If you receive this gift and continue to obey God’s word, you will have the joy of putting aside your natural instincts in order to follow Jesus. I am sure it is difficult but I’m betting many more folks than we will ever know make this choice for the Lord. Bless them all. We can all learn from them. |
|
I never watch Oprah, and so in this case don’t know what was said or whether he was challenged. The significance of this isn’t what Bacon said, because we’ve come to expect it of too many priests, bishops, and lay leaders; it’s old news in a sense. Rather, the significance is that he said it on Oprah, which for better or worse has a huge following and is a widely influential “thought leader”. What she says and promotes unfortunately carries disproprtionate weight. (How else to explain Dr. Phil?) |
|
“In his article, ‘An Issue that will not go away’, Bishop Hugh Montefiore asks regarding homosexuals, ‘Why cannot we accept that this is how God made them?’ There are logical, psychological and sociological problems with the position implied in this question; we are concerned here only with the theological problem. For Montefiore’s question assumes that one may legitimately make deductions about the will of God from the way things are; that if this is the way things are, then this is the way God intends them to be. Yet that would imply that God always gets his way, and the very occurrence of sin should alert us to the fact that there are important senses in which this is not the case. If, as I have already argued, there has been an hiatus on the path from creation to present reality, then that would render illegitimate all attempts to argue back from the status quo to the creational intentions of God as if no such deviation from those intentions had taken place. Such reading back from the way things are to From the chapter entitled “The Humanity of Fallenness” by the Rev. Dr. Michael Lloyd in the important book *Grace and Truth in the Secular Age* ed. by Timothy Bradshaw. |
|
#18, I’m not so sure that Bp Montefiore is not correct in that “this is the way God made them”. And that’s sad, because He also makes an occasional two-headed calf or three-headed snake. But that’s not the point. The point is that as Christians, we have so behavioral choices to make: and homosexual activity is not among the behaviors which a Christian may choose. |
|
You know….with open TV exposure like this Mr. Bacon got on National TV and the fact taht h is representing TEc when he and VGR continue to go out and make proclamations like this…....it cannot actually be helping TEc in bringing in families to the church. I cannot see many families saying, “Now that’s a church I want my family to belong to!” Maybe a “family” that was designed by two gay people pretending to be married and living as a family that actually does it the way it was designed by God to be done….you know…make your own babies/family, not go out and have some unknown sperm donor’s seed planted in to another persons body because you have had all your reproductive organs removed for a sex change operation…... This whole gay thing is just really sick…. |
|
INFORMATIVE LINKS http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/uploads/rcp.html http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=60752 http://family.jrank.org/pages/1553/Sexual-Orientation-Sexual-Orientation-Social-Policy.html http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/prej_defn.html http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_mental_health.html http://www.holocaust-trc.org/homosx.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_laws_of_the_world http://www.law.ucla.edu/Williamsinstitute/reading/resources.html http://www.hrea.org/index.php?base_id=161 http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/corporate/pdf/equalityimpactassessment.pdf |
|
St James posts “INFORMATIVE LINKS To Responsible Sources” Not that responsible, really - more like biased. The man in charge of the committee that decided to to “de-list” homosexual orientation as a psychological disorder in the DSM of the APA back in the 1970’s was himself a partnered “gay.” He made up his mind, and then found the data he wanted - not to mention the pressure put on the APA convention by those with same-sex attraction, demanding to have the condition de-listed or else they would picket and shout. |
|
IN response to AnglicanXn (No.31) - The change that brought about dropping homosexuality from the manual of psychiatric disorders indeed may have been promoted by a gay man. However being either straight or gay does not make one either right or wrong. There are no doubt many gay psychiatrists, as well as gay authors, firemen, musicians, priests, soldiers, mechanics, statesmen, lawyers & judges, policemen, politicians, postmen, truck drivers, skiers, parachutists, chefs, swimmers, tennis players, footballers, scientists, etc., etc., etc. http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/policy/discrimination.html http://gay-religion.blogspot.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_LGBT_people |
He may condemn those who disagree with him because the arguments in favor of his position are so weak from a biblical and a rhetorical point of view. |
|
“Homosexuality is not a disorder, and the educated Western World is (slowly) recognising the fact.” I would argue that it is a consequence of the fall, just like all of our brokeness in every area of our lives which I am sure you (St. James) would disagree. What really scares me about you though is that you are putting your faith in “educated Western World” which I am convinced will be looked on by historians as a culture completely in the dark. I believe our time will make the “dark ages” look quite sunny when we are judged by our great grandchildren. That is if we have not aborted them all, chosen not to have them because of our sexual choices, or become infertile through std’s stemming from all the heterosexual fornication and adultery. |
|
St. J. - You have accurately and correctly posited the secular argument for equal rights for GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS people. This blog deals with what God has to say. I am unable to find after prolonged and diligent search any verse in the Bible - which is the only document that matters here - any instance, when taken in context, in which God in His Word recommends or even tolerates the acts described as characteristic of the GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS lifestyle(s). If you can cite a contextual scriptural references or even a single contextual scriptural reference that states that the GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS lifestyle(s) are just fine with God, I’d be very interested in seeing it. Otherwise, I’m forced to regard your long comment as just so much typical GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS blather. And before you flop out that old chestnut that ‘since God created humanity and some are of the GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS persuasion God must have blessed and approved of his work and therefore God is cool with the acts folks of the GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS inclination celebrate to define themselves.’ God also made note of the fact that sin entered the world God created with Adam. That wasn’t God’s idea and He wasn’t and isn’t cool with it. All of us - you, me and every ‘born again’ person on God’s Earth are misserable sinners. The difference between those of us who know we are sinners and those of the GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS persuasion is that we regret, repent and seek forgiveness of our sin. Those of the GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS persuasion celebrate their sinful behavior. And in their celebration they mock God. And my comment has nothing to do about ‘homophobia,’ so don’t go there, either. God commands us to hate sin. God also commands us to love sinners and encourage them to restore their broken relationship with Him. I am a sinner and I need all the help God can give me and I seek it daily and imperfectly. I do not celebrate my sin - I hate it. I am comforted that God and my fellow Christians love me anyway and pray for my healing. I, too, pray for the healing of those who are afflicted by the sin of GLBTQWOEUROSIDJFLKDJKLJKLSJDJLKSEUIOJFLSKDJFIOJOSDLJFOSIDJFOS behavior. |
|
Dilbertnomore, Nr.39 & 40: Homosexuality is no more a sin than heterosexuality. Both are sexual orentations, psychological attributes that exist in every person, innate, unchosen, and (as far as is known) not susceptible to change - in themselves unconnected to morality. IIt was difficult to read what you were actually saying due to the long streams of letters. If you wish to engage in civil discourse, you must avoid such antagonistic writing. |
|
St.J. - And there we part company. Sex outside of the marriage of one man and one woman is sinul. This is the case whether between an unmarried man/woman combination or within any man/man or woman/woman or other combination of man/man/woman/, man/woman/woman, man/man/animal, man/woman/animal or any other permutation or combination of perversion you can come up with. Again, just in case you don’t get it, sexual combinations outside of the union of one man married to one woman are sinful. Q.E.D. Take it or leave it. Your choice. Be in or be out. Thanks for playing. |
|
The Kat, Nr 43 I try to present links that do not rely on religious prejudice, but instead contain factual information or news about the topic of sexual orientation. Great wrongs have been brought about by unjust discrimination and denigration of gay people by uncritical adherence to literal interpretation of scripture. If you doubt this statement, read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_against_LGBT_people And here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hate+crimes++++gay&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq;= |
|
St. James [45 and previous] having delivered the flippant remark, now let’s get serious. “Orientation” or attraction is not the issue - its the acting out on that attraction or orientation. The Bible is clear on the subject no matter how much you attempt to rationalize from the apologist role for active GLBT behaviors. The whole GLBT thing is a smoke screen anyway - those groups are only together for purely political reasons. You isolate any one group and they immediately get on bashing the others. Further on down the pike, since the activists in the LGBT groups have declared that any negative discussion around acting out LGBT behaviors as hatred and discrimination - there is no level of tolerance for any discussion that in not fully supportive of the agenda. The major fallacy, as has been noted above and ignored by you is the oft advanced argument that since it occurs “naturally ” in a minority segment of the current population, it must therefore be a part of the natural order of things. None of what you trotted out in this thread is either unfamiliar or has not been presented as some kind of argument. Nothing you have presented is in fact news to anyone here, for the most part. You are proselytizing in an blogsite that has been discussing this for a long time and is probably more familiar with the arguments you present than you are, and more besides. |
And no doubt gay conservative evangelical preachers…. http://newlifeblogs.com/bradyboyd/2009/01/23/an-important-message-from-pastor-brady/#respond http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/23/DDV815FN8S.DTL Blessings Seraph |
|
and sundry others we have admired…and later ignored http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2008/09/ray_boltz_comes.html http://www.ocweekly.com/2005-03-03/features/the-first-jesus-freak/1 Someone posted that Oprah does not get out much….do we?? One would not think so to read here. Blessings Seraph |
|
I try to present links that do not rely on religious prejudice apparently because only secular prejudice serves your ends. Both are sexual orentations, psychological attributes that exist in every person, innate, unchosen, and (as far as is known) not susceptible to change - in themselves unconnected to morality. St. James, can you please google “is ought fallacy”? Granting that a proclivity to a certain kind of bad behavior is unchosen, what does that have to do with whether the action is moral or not? It just seems as if you are applying arguments to this situation you would not apply to any other situation in life. For instance, if a thief stole your TV set, would he be innocent if he could demonstrate how the optic nerves transmitted information into his brain and how he the neurons worked together to cause him to enjoy the experience of TV (and that his enjoyment was “unchosen”)? Would you argue that the Biblical prohibition against stealing is invalidated because the biblical authors didn’t understand about nerves or the structure of the eye? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you, but if so what did you mean to express by that sentence? |
As I think about this statement from a purported Christian I can not hel to find it baffling and abit amusing. In our context ...many people are persuaded to come to faith, visit church, get prayer for healing, volunteer for ministry, avoid sin etc etc etc…precisely by litsening to “incidents” that happened to others and often have not a thing to do with logic, investigation or reason. “Testimonies”....“incidents”...who is to say? It should at least cause us to think about wether our ironclad reasoned exegesis of Bible verses hold true in the lives of real flesh and blood “conservative” Bible believing Christians. Blessings Seraph |
|
Seraph, when I was a kid, my “conservative Bible believing” youth minister went to jail for sexual indiscretions with underage girls. Should I take that as an endorsement of such things? Conservatives and liberal alike are imperfect. The fallibilities of man are not sufficient to change God’s standards. |
|
If the devil can spout statistics, I suppose he is also quite good at citing websites. Contemporary group think is an interesting thing. We are all certain that science has proved beyond a doubt, all sorts of things like: carbs are good; carbs are bad; global warming; global cooling; nature rules; nurture rules…yada, yada, yada. I haven’t seen any definitive study or studies that bring the gavel down on the source of homosexual orientation. I think that some folks truly believe that those of us inclined to rely on scripture for our guidance hiss and spit whenever we encounter an “obvious” or “out” homosexual in our midst. Since I personally have the same problems Paul had with my own personal sins, I do what I tell myself I won’t do, and I don’t do the things I say I will—I sure can’t point any fingers or do any spitting. But I’m sure, if I tried, I could find some websites and studies that excuse, rationalize and defend (even celebrate) every one of my nasty little sins. However, I definitely won’t put myself up for Bishop anytime soon. |
Ain’t that the truth. I’ve even studied pro-paedophile and pro-zoophile websites, and the arguments they use sound remarkably like the ones that the more fashionable “sexual minorities” use. |
|
GoodMissMurphy- Nr.56: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=60752 |
|
MasterNav & AndrewA, Nrs 46 & 47 The links about violence and hate crimes in Comment Nr.45 are provided for no purpose other than to provide information about serious problems that have often been perpetrated or encouraged by Christians for many centuries. I am not trying to make any sort of religious or doctrinal point. |
Registered members are welcome to leave comments. Log in here, or register here.
Comment Policy: We pride ourselves on having some of the most open, honest debate anywhere about the crisis in our church. However, we do have a few rules that we enforce strictly. They are: No over-the-top profanity, no racial or ethnic slurs, and no threats real or implied of physical violence. Please see this post for more. Although we rarely do so, we reserve the right to remove or edit comments, as well as suspend users' accounts, solely at the discretion of site administrators. Since we try to err on the side of open debate, you may sometimes see comments that you believe strain the boundaries of our rules. Comments are the opinions of visitors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Stand Firm, its board of directors, or its site administrators.
When did Kevin Bacon become a priest? He’s a celeb. he should be close to being a bishop!