Thursday, July 30, 2009

Interesting article

I liked this article. Brave stuff in the environment. At the heart of it:

"Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

The author has written a few books and is quite well-known I believe.

7 comments:

Rhett said...

Wright didn't get the memo about the five year moratorium?

BJ said...

He wrote the article in response to the Amercian Episcopal church passing a resolution endorsing the ordination of homosexuals as clergy and bishops. This was seen as breaking (at least in spirit) the 5 year moratorium on appointing any more practising homsexual bishops while the church worked out what it would do. So, yes I think he got the memo alright!

Rhett said...

I was talking about a different moratorium! :-) But good on N.T. Wright.

Flendolyn said...

1. I find it amusing I knew who the author was before I read it, given your last sentence ;)

2. I still struggle with this whole issue, it just seems so 'unfair' given my cultural upbringing, and yet I have come to the conclusion that we were created for monogomous, same-sex relationships. How to deal with the cognitive dissonance!?

3. If you're breaking apart a church body, how can you think you should be in leadership? (yes, I know, sometimes breaking apart people in the wrong is a good thing).

BJ said...

Rhett - I am thick - of course you meant this one: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2006/01/brian_mclaren_o.html Whatever else one might think of McLaren, the article has one of the best pastoral questions of all time: "Can you tell me why that question is important to you?"

Flendolyn (if thats your real name) the thought of dealing with cognitive dissonance is giving me cognitive dissonance...it's exactly the wrestle that McLaren describes in the article.

Rhett said...

Ha! Personality dissonance... I prefer a straight answer over questions followed by questions any day. We have the Beehive for that.

...Though, it is nice to see Wright give a "straight" anwser. Sorry, couldn't resist.

BJ said...

Ben Witherington (who I am listening to "live at the Wesleyan National Resource Centre" right now) has commented on this article:

http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/2009/07/the-wright-stuff-hits-the-fan.html