A great post at the Briefing by my good friend (and imminent replacement!) Lionel Windsor: Off the top of my head, here are some of the stories about polygamy in the Bible: The first polygamist, Lamech, calls a family conference so he can boast about his inordinate vengeful violence. He’s clearly not a nice man […]
A magnificent piece by Andrew Cameron of Moore Theological College in the Southern Cross and on sydneyanglicans.net In the middle of these changing loves, Christians can ask helpful questions (there’s not much point being polemical when so little thought has been given to the nature of marriage). We can ask our neighbours: ‘Are you sure […]
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Reports from 2 diocesan synods here in Australia. The first, is more detail on the Gippsland synod. The Diocesan Newspaper June edition has a large report on the whole synod, including an entire page dedicated to the sexuality debate. There’s quite a bit of detail […]
My wife and I watched the excellent Iron Lady last week. About halfway through there is a telling moment when Thatcher goes to see her doctor. He asks her how are you feeling? One of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do […]
A remarkable show on Insight last night, Polygamy. Fascinating because a number of men and women argued in favour to varying degrees. Again, the question has to be, what rational argument is there to legalise “homosexual marriage” but not polygamy or polyamory if the argument for “homosexual marriage” is the affirmation of people’s feelings? Here’s the […]
“…what slippery slope?” THE power couple of Australia’s increasingly open polyamorous community, Rebecca and James Dominguez, have made Senate submissions urging the legalisation of same-sex marriage, as they promote greater acceptance of multiple-partner relationships. The couple have led the way in publicly outlining their own journey from monogamous marriage to one in which each has […]
The Diocese of Gippsland has had it’s annual Synod and Bishop John McIntyre seems to have decided that when he agreed to the Australian Bishops’ Protocol a few months back he really didn’t mean it. His President’s Address [pdf] shows a clear determination to push against the recently-established collegiality of the House of Bishops. Only in light […]
It is the way of advocacy scholarship to seize upon snips and pieces of “evidence” divorced from their historical context, and then offer an improbable or fanciful interpretation that serves the argument being advanced. That is the way egregiously exemplified by Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. David Wright, the author of the pertinent encyclopedia article on […]
Like me you’ve probably seen this sort of thing doing the rounds on teh intarweb recently: Prof John Boswell, the late chairman of Yale University’s history department, found there were ceremonies called the Office of Same-Sex Union and the Order for Uniting Two Men in the 10th to 12th centuries. The medievalist published Christianity, Social […]
This is going to be a bit of a ramble. Grab a cup of something and sit down with me… I’ve been working through the latest government adoption report [pdf] in Australia, prompted by my previous post and I came across this chilling sentence (chapter 4, p.34): Broader social trends, such as declining fertility rates, the wider […]
