And, a
lot later on:
Ananel
The problem with this, Calmer, is that it over-stresses the need for a church to precisely adhere to the exact dictates and only those dictates that are listed within the Scriptures, rather than apply the Law of self-sacrificial love generally to the society around it. The idea of Christian Freedom as presented within the latter half of Colossians 2 indicates rather pointedly that those things which are not dictated in the scriptures as being negative may be positive, so long as they do not take one's focus away from Christ.
...or were you planning to stop having church council votes sometime soon?
Not quite, or at least, I didn't mean to imply it did.
As I see it, the problem is simply that there is a lack of specific Biblical rulings on a fair few things, homosexuality being one of them. Hence, any Church that makes a judgment one way or another here is acting on its own best judgment given the verses it takes to be of close context, or of general relevance.
Can a Church give a blessing based not upon exact Biblical passages, but rather upon its best judgment?
In the Catholic Church, this is internally true, because they claim a position of authority by which to do so with the Pope. But in other Churches, most of which consider themselves more pastoral than actually apostolic, as the RCC does itself, I don't think they have that benefit.
As an aside, I suppose this also depends upon the nature of the blessing ceremony: whether the Church simply claims a blessing of God is given, or whether they rather ask for the blessing of God upon the union.
The former appears to me to cause the problems above; the latter, however, does not state a vested authority or knowledge about where God does and does not lay blessings in situations not described within Biblical context.
PoeticVengeance
Not quite... I may have been unclear:
Its more like Christians can not claim anything is directly forbidden or considered sinful by God if it is not referenced or implicitly derived from a reference within the scripture of Christ.
Anything else is irrelevant to Scripture for Christians, and irrelevant to God in terms of Christians.
Not entirely sure how you're determining irrelevance here, but I agree with the prior paragraph.
PoeticVengeance
However just because something is too small scale for God to consider relevant to the universe as a whole, doesn't mean its too small scale to be relevant to small groups.
By, "too small scale for God to consider relevant..." do you mean, as in, including in the Bible, or something else?
PoeticVengeance
So my expectation would be that Christians would use ethical and logical justifications to build morals on things not handled in the relevant sections of the Bible.
So a Christian would be able to go against Gay Marriage, provided he/she could ethically and logically justify it. But that Christian would not be able to use the Bible to support that opposition. Therefore it is not a religious opposition to homosexual marriage but a personal one.
So to clarify, a Christian that engages in a religious based opposition of gay marriage is a bad Christian, and one that engages in a personal opposition to homosexual marriage is not (although he/she is probably bad with logic in that case.)
Yup, that explains it much better. If you are against homosexual marriage for religious reasons, you are a bad Christian.
3nodding
PoeticVengeance
I'm glad you brought this up.
The question is raised whether it actually has the position of enlightened interpretation that it claims.
Whereas Jesus fulfilled specific prophecies that labeled him the messiah (and granted him the authority to make such changes) the Catholic Church's authority appears to be noticably less supported by any form of Scriptural litmus test.
You are free to dispute this. I think it would be an interesting conversation.
Hmmm. I'm not sure exactly: I'll have to have a look at the Catechism again. However, I think the RCC claims Apostolic levels of interpretation, rather than near-Messianic. There were, similarly, a lack of prophecies regarding the Apostles, so at that level, I believe they're okay (insofar as any self-claim regarding divine influence and knowledge is 'okay').
Whether that degree of interpretation is high enough to allow the RCC to contradict the Bible in places as you assert is also an interesting debate.
PoeticVengeance
Actually, legal marriage should be separate from the Christian ceremony. State officals should be the ones to perform them, as it is a secular ceremony to gain secular rights.
Then if the couple is composed of Christians, it can get a Christian ceremony too.
Of course, being licensed to perform secular marriage isn't something we need to restrict. A church offical can still have that ability, but there must be a religion neutral government offical nearby that can perform the marriage if the church refuses.
Indeed: the present situation mostly stems from the fact that a large proportion of the legal/'secular' side of marriage has, for nearly the last millenium at least, been considered a Church matter, handled by Church officials (especially in England, during the Tudor period - no end of joy at the 'legitimacy' of marriages made whilst intermittent monarchs of different Christian faiths flip flop around
xp ) and hence there was no distinction between secular and Christian (and different sects of Christianity's) marriages.
PoeticVengeance
Does the bible address heterosexual marriage within Jesus' teachings?
If so then yes, you're right. Homosexual marriage is not forbidden but it is also not granted. Its something God has left to us to decide.
If not, then heterosexual marriage is weighed the same, and is up to us to determine its formation and actions.
Within Jesus' teachings, I believe the only time marriage is referenced is within several metaphorical parables, and once about Levirate (which is the "not married in heaven, will be like angels," passage).
Heterosexual marriage is addressed, in both rules regarding it and general practices, in the letters from the Apostles and several of the other post-Gospel chapters, hence it has some
Biblical weight to it, but lacks actual direct teachings of Christ regarding it.
Which presents the obvious dilemma of whether solely Apostolic support for it (and indeed, many of the letters only described how to act within a marriage, as opposed to the validity of the custom itself as regards God - it's possible to argue, I suppose, that Jesus' response above as regarding Levirate indicates marriage is an entirely social matter, without actual religious definition to it beyond the law of love as regards how you act towards your spouse and any children) is enough to determine it as a religious formation.
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