Rev’d Dr. Leander Harding

After 42 years of working with over 10,000 couples in various states of crisis, I can confirm that divorce has already become increasingly popular and is now considered not just normal but the expected and perhaps inevitable final chapter of marriage.Divorce is considered, by the media, by the TV and newspaper advice giving “experts,” and even by many of the professional therapists, particularly the youngest and least experienced ones, to be the treatment of choice for mild depression (”I’m just not happy,”) for unpleasantness (”I felt verbally abused”) and for sexual attractions to passing strangers or casual friends (”I must not be in love with my mate.”) All baby boomers are sure they deserve an ideal partner and when they discover they don’t have one they know they should be free at any moment to dump this imperfect one, put the kids in storage, and go back to the perfect partner collection for another try.

Frank Pittman, Response to “The Death of ‘Till Death Us Do Part’: Marriage in the 20th Century”

John said, “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

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It is quite wrong to say that the rapture is scriptural, it is no such thing. There are no references to it, zero, nada in the Bible. The idea comes from a Latin translation of a verb, “snatch,” which the Vulgate uses a word with the root “rapt” to translate.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Kendall S. Harmon, The Challenge of the “Left Behind” Series, The Anglican Digest

Does Advent in your parish serve as a season of anticipation for the second coming of Christ? It is to focus on preparing us for both comings, the first in Bethlehem and the second in glory, but Christmas preparation has gained huge precedence in the last century.

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What follows is my summary of the Windsor Report. Thanks to T19 for putting this up when I first wrote it. I have now read the report three times and my appreciation for the work of the commission has grown with each reading. It is not the chastisement and punishment for which so many hoped, nor is it the vindication of the autonomy of national churches cherished by innovators. It is not a completely adequate theological analysis of the state of the Anglican Communion. It is a document that draws boundaries, makes challenges and clearly articulates the consequences of choices. It is an exercise in theologically informed church diplomacy. The Windsor Report is offered in such a way that it has the possibility of changing the terms of the discussion from a question of civil and ecclesiastical rights for a persecuted minority to the question of the meaning of communion and the proper theological criteria and ecclesiastical process for settling disputed issues. As I watch the responses to the Report, I believe I am seeing a new coalition emerging which includes many people who are variously minded on the gay agenda but don’t want to see their church further damaged by the controversy. It is at least possible that the necessity of responding to this report could allow new voices and new leadership to emerge in the Episcopal Church which while still sympathetic to the gay agenda would not wish to make same sex blessings a church defining or church dividing issue. This I take it is the position of Rowan Willams.

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The Rev. Dr. Paul Clayton, Patristics scholar and Northeast SEAD colleague on science and homosexuality Read the whole thing here [Editor's note: this link is broken. We apologize for the inconvience.]

The current debate in the church about homosexuality is often presented as an issue of justice. Clearly the church should be on the side of respect for individual civil rights and upholding the innate dignity of all human beings as made in the image of God. Often this discussion is focused solely on the rights of adults to free expression and to have equal access to the goods of society and to the goods of the church including the controversial issue of access to the sacramental rites of Holy Orders and Holy Matrimony. In these discussions, the issue of the origins of same sex attraction is often bracketed. It is argued that it matters little whether same sex attraction comes from nature or nurture if homosexual orientation is experienced as a fixed and defining element of an individual’s identity. The justice issue that presents itself is how to treat this identity group with equity.

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The divorce courts have it all wrong. “Irreconcilable differences” - like a bad knee or a chronic back - are
part of every good marriage. Successful couples learn to dance in spite of their differences.
If we switch partners we’ll just get ten new areas of disagreement, and sadly,
the most distructive will be about the children from our previous relationships.

Read more at the Smart Marriages website.

One of the very important consequences of insisting on identifying Jesus as the climax of the covenant is that a church that breaks apart along racial and cultural lines is a countersign to the Gospel and an impossibly inadequate medium for the message it carries.

From a paper where I argue that the most popular versions of the story of salvation in both liberal and conservative circles are parts of a larger and more comprehensive biblical story which N.T. Wright’s new reading of Romans helps us recover. The whole paper is on the Northeast SEAD site. [Editor’s note: this link is broken. We apologize for the inconvience.]