Saturday, July 14, 2007

An Agreement to Disagree (from Fr. Jake's Blog)

For many years I have been of the opinion that matters of sexuality should not be causes of schism or determinative of a person's orthodoxy in essential matters of faith. Now, Paul Stanley, a contributor to Fr. Jake's Blog, has come out with an An Agreement to Disagree. I welcome this succinct agreement which may well be the best summary and plan I have run across for dealing with current difficulties. As I have pointed out in my comment on the post, the "agreement" assumes the authorization of rites for the blessing of same-sex unions or the modification of the marriage canons to allow the marriage rite to be used with two people of the same sex. Whether that will happen or not at General Convention 2009 is an open question, at this point. There are many things that will no doubt happen between now and then.

One of the many reasons I like the above agreement is that it separates sexuality issues from the more core issues and doctrines like the Incarnation, Resurrection, Trinity, etc... which I think should be rigorously defended as they are core pieces of the Nicene and Apostles' creeds and therefore most definitely should be labeled "core doctrine."

See what you think, and comment as you wish.

P.S. Aloha from Hawaii!

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