Saturday, July 12, 2008

Gene Robinson Writes in the Guardian

The God I know is alive and active in the church, not locked up in scripture, says Gene Robinson
Saturday July 12, 2008
Gene Robinson

I believe in the living God. Now, that may not seem like a surprising statement for a bishop of the church to make - but as we approach the Lambeth conference of bishops, it may be a crucial belief to reaffirm.

The debate raging in the Anglican communion over the place of women and gays in the life and ministry of the church, and the name-calling about who does and does not accept the authority of scripture, belies a much deeper question: did God stop revealing God's self with the closing of the canon of scripture at the end of the first century, or has God continued to be self-revelatory through history, and right into the present?

My conservative brothers and sisters seem to argue that God revealed everything to us in scripture. Ever since, it has simply been our difficult but straightforward task to conform ourselves to God's will revealed there and to repent when we are unable or unwilling to do so...

... But in the community of the church, together we are able to discern God's will for us - and sometimes that may mean reinterpreting and even changing old understandings of things thought settled long ago. -emphasis added
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One question for Gene and his disciples: Is God so fickle or indecisive about sin such that your reinterpretation of His will is completely inconsistent with what He revealed in ages past from the time of the writing of Scripture through the mid-1960s?
-Raymond Dague

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