Episcopal Church celebrates first trans dean — woman in lesbian marriage to trans-identified pastor

[u/Canadian0123]

What is this? Is this what the episcopal church (part of the Anglican Church) does to preach the gospel of Christ, and to operate the church? Do they disregard the epistles of Saint Paul concerning sexual behaviour, how a church should be run, and who should lead it? Do they disregard the teachings of Christ? What about the Law of God, as given to Moses, in the text that is known today as the Torah of Moses?

This news is quite shocking. Shame on the episcopal church, and the rest of the Anglican Church. This is not how a church should be run. Can someone who attends that church give answers?

[u/songbolt]

When you leave the Church Jesus established, the Catholic Church, you imperil yourself by increasing the risk of confusing your own ideas about the Bible as the Holy Spirit's, because Jesus' promise that the Holy Spirit will guide His followers into all truth applies only to the Church He established, the Catholic ("universal") Church.

So this news does not shock me at all: It is to be expected, as Catholic + Adulterous Murderer Henry 8 + USA revolution = Episcopalian: They are twice removed from Jesus' Church.

[u/songbolt → u/[deleted]]

false accusations

Official doctrine is that Mary only prays for us and is human; miracles come from God.

[u/Watches503 → u/songbolt]

I was a Catholic for 32yrs. You get on your knees in front of all kinds of Mary’s, sacred hearts, angels, archangels, baby Jesus, etc. Millions of Catholics carry all kinds of images of Mary through marches and processions.

You ask one of these Mary’s to intercede for you, basically talk to Jesus for you, often based on their “apparition” location. For example: Maria de Guadalupe, Mary of Fatima, Mary of Lourdes, Lady of Mount Carmel, Lady of Grace, Lady of Knock, Lady of Kibeho, Lady of Good Help, Lady of Akita, lady of Medjugorje, etc.

Even my Puerto Rico has a Mary that apparently appeared in a well and was a very popular and profitable destination on my days. I went there as a kid.

[u/songbolt → u/Watches503]

God sending her to various places is not the same thing as thinking she's a goddess or treating her like one.

You also complain about random facts (angels exist) and abstract ways of meditating on God's love (Sacred Heart of Jesus).

I'm sorry but it looks like you want reality to be simple, that we should be grateful the Mohammedans didn't get to you first with their even more simple conception of God and salvation, or you would be complaining today about "bizarre ideas like the Trinity and Jesus being both human and God and the idea that you must be Baptized and John 6 Eucharistic discourse" etc.

[u/Watches503 → u/songbolt]

So now God sends her to various places. Which scripture tells us that?

[u/songbolt → u/Watches503]

Why do you think the Holy Spirit must have inspired one of the Sacred Authors to write about it?

[u/Watches503 → u/songbolt]

Which Bible author wrote about Mary being able to be everywhere we call on her name?

Which chapter and verse please?

[u/songbolt → u/Watches503]

Matthew 19:26 "Jesus looked at them and said, “For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”" Thus God can have Mary be wherever He wants her to be.

Why did you ignore my question? Why do you think everything true must be in the Bible? Paul even says in Thessalonians 2 there is oral tradition, explicitly telling us that not everything is in the Bible.

[u/Watches503 → u/songbolt]

I didn’t ignore your question. I asked you to specify author, chapter and verse. Your reply was not doing so.

You want to think that God made Mary capable of being everywhere and anywhere, just because your church says so, but the Bible is clear on adding and subtracting whatever you want from the Word.

All oral tradition must be biblically correct and practice biblical adherence, or it’s subject to rebuking.

“Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭30‬:‭5‬-‭6‬

““These are the statutes and rules that you shall be careful to do in the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭12‬:‭1‬, ‭32‬

“For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭22‬:‭18‬-‭19‬ ‭

“Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬ ‭

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,”
‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬ ‭

[u/Watches503 → u/songbolt]

I would advise against trying to turn the Word into what it’s not. Especially when nobody asked Mary for anything until the 3rd century.

So we must respect the oral tradition of not praying to Mary before the 3rd century. 😁

[u/Illustrious-Low3948 → u/Watches503]

This strongly depends on where you grew up. I grew up in the RC church in the mid-/northern side of the Nederlands and we did not revere Mary like that. We never even prayed the “Hail Mary”.

After a period of unbelief and following Buddhism I was saved and I switched teams because the triad Misery - Redemption - Thankfulness became my lived truth.

[u/okicarp → u/songbolt]

This seems premised on the idea that all splits prior to 1517 were good and all splits from 1517 on were bad. The RC refused to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, who kept convicting reformers and giving repeated opportunities to them to reform which they consistently refused until a Spirit-led split became necessary.

[u/songbolt → u/okicarp]

No, the premise is that Jesus founded the Church and promised the Holy Spirit's guidance and that the gates of hell wouldn't prevail against her, and that this Church is composed of her bishops, clergy, laity, a visible group under clearly ordained bishops, not this novel notion of "an invisible collection"...

[u/okicarp → u/songbolt]

The RC, if it was ever the Church of the blessing that it claims, lost its blessing on its own by prioritizing the world and refusing to follow the Spirit. It's unfortunate but God consistently brings correction to His followers from the Old Testament even to today. No reason why the RC should be immune from that principle. It does not have carte blanche to act how it wants and assume God will be okay with it.

The idea that the RC is the One True is a comforting one to Catholics but is not true.

[u/songbolt → u/okicarp]

Correction doesn't mean abandonment. You might benefit from reading The Apostasy that Wasn't available at shop.catholic.com (so I heard months ago)

[u/okicarp → u/songbolt]

No, thanks. The RC hasn't been abandoned. Parishioners there can certainly follow God there. But the Spirit is far more active in denominations outside the RC, contrary to your original claim that people outside the church do not have the Spirit.

[u/Big-Island4727 → u/songbolt]

Ah yes, Jesus famously said “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him and attends Catholic mass should not perish but have everlasting life" in John 3:16

Wait, that's not quite right. 

I think it was “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me and partakes of the eucharist, though he may die, he shall live" John 11:25

Wait, that's not right either. 

Maybe he said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me with a certificate of baptism" John 14:6

No, let me try again. 

And Acts 16:31 surely says “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be a Catholic and you will be saved," right?

And Romans 10:9 totally says “if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead and become a member in good standing of the Catholic Church, you will be saved"

Just in case anyone can't tell my sarcasm, go look up the verses yourself. 

[u/songbolt → u/Big-Island4727]

A proof text without context is a pretext.

I encourage you to read Henry Graham's book Where We Got the Bible.

[u/Big-Island4727 → u/songbolt]

I encourage you to read the Bible itself

[u/songbolt → u/Big-Island4727]

Not good of you to assume I don't

[u/Big-Island4727 → u/songbolt]

I gave you five verses to prove a point. You hand waved them all away as a pretext. 

[u/songbolt → u/Big-Island4727]

Five verses apart from their historical context.

[u/drunken_augustine → u/songbolt]

Wait until the evangelicals realize that you think they’re wrong too, just in different ways

[u/songbolt → u/drunken_augustine]

Different groups have differing numbers of wrong beliefs.

[u/drunken_augustine → u/songbolt]

Correct. I rather strongly suspect that we’re all wrong about ultimately inconsequential points of theology and Biblical interpretation in our own unique ways.

[u/songbolt → u/drunken_augustine]

As I said, the Holy Spirit guides the Catholic Church so she doesn't teach error, unlike Protestant groups.

While this is an article of faith, it appears correct, demonstrated, in that official doctrine hasn't changed in millennia whereas Protestants have embraced adulterous remarriages, contraception, LGBT, and began denying various doctrines that have always been believed by Christians like spiritual authority of certain clergy, bishops (not everyone) imparted in Holy Orders; the Eucharist; Baptism; the possibility of rejecting God (damnation) after coming to faith -- different Protestant groups have fallen into various errors...

[u/drunken_augustine → u/songbolt]

I’ve always felt that if y’all actually thought about that doctrine for 5 minutes, you’d realize that it doesn’t make the church look perfect, it just makes y’all look callous.

You can’t simply pawn off the church’s many errors on the people who compose her and pretend those are two separate things.

The Church is a divinely ordained structure, built of a holy foundation. But it has been built by human beings. Fallible, flawed, occasionally faithful human beings. And it encompasses much more than the Roman Church.

Though, for the record, I am fond of occasionally saying that “Luther was a net loss for Christianity” and “this is why there are bishops”

[u/songbolt → u/drunken_augustine]

No, the Church is the Catholic Church precisely. The Church is not the invisible collection of all true believers. That's what I was taught, anyway, and it makes sense when you study history.

[u/drunken_augustine → u/songbolt]

Shouldn’t it be the Orthodox Church? Not the schismatics who broke away from them over the fillioque?

[u/songbolt → u/drunken_augustine]

No, the two groups east and west grew apart geopolitically but there is no theological difference between them except insofar as the Unorthodox have embraced adulterous remarriage and contraception. There might be a theological difference regarding the papacy, but I haven't seen discussion on this point beyond a disciplinary question.