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I am well aware of who Spong is, since I am from New Jersey, and he was the Bishop of Newark when I was confirmed (by Spong's Adjutant).
But you missed the point. My ex-priest friend CHOSE to revoke his vows because his conscience did not allow him to remain a priest in a church that required a belief in something he could no longer believe in. I doubt he gives a fig about Spong. Never heard him mention his name. He's more of a follower of Richard Rohr and Contemplative Christianity, who was in turn influenced by the Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton.
However, he's still active, heading up near ninety, survived heart surgery and cancer treatment, still holds Centering Prayer meetings (a type of meditation based on the concept that the first language of God is silence) and runs 12-step groups for men for life in general, not just addictions.
A lot of us thought that Spong cared mostly about...Spong. He liked the limelight. But he did make people think and ask questions, which you are encouraged to do in the Episcopal Church without condemnation. A few people I know thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Other Episcopalians wanted nothing to do with him.
Personally, I think Spong was a heretic, and the fact that the Episcopal Church allowed him to remain a Bishop told me how seriously (or not) they guarded the Doctrines of the Faith. That said, good on your ex-priest for following his conscience and not (by remaining a priest) implicitly supporting something in which he did not believe. Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrisy, so I'm glad to see that your ex-priest did not allow himself to be a hypocrite.
Wow! The Episcopal Church has fallen quite far. Is their any denomination left that is still sane?
This is why the Episcopal Church in the U.S. is flailing. Their membership is way down. So are all the old mainline churches like the Presbyterian Church USA, of which I used to be a member. My Presbyterian church left PC USA and joined other dissident Presbyterian churches in forming a new Presbyterian church organization.
When you look at where Christian church membership is booming it is in independent evangelical churches.
I do, which is why I do not think it is right for a church to support altering people, who are made in God's image, which is what they are doing by supporting children taking puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapies...
It's also rather odd.
Do they have policies on cancer medications, radiation, surgery, or other medical treatments that physicians offer? Or just gender-affirming care?
Do you really think that if there is a treatment for birth defects, it shouldn't be used? That congenital issues shouldn't be treated? Forget treatment for mental illness? What about heart disease or erectile dysfunction? People are born with lots of things that are wrong and they try to correct them. What about plastic surgery? Did God make a mistake on that nose or those boobs? If something can be corrected, then God must have made it wrong, right?
You know very well what I'm talking about. And it ain't what you are talking about.
It's gender affirming care that is the issue. Not "nefarious" practice. Gender affirming care IS the issue.
That's it.
I suggest that if you really care about the children, you educate yourself.
If you don't, then no worries because it's aaaaaallllll goooooooodd!!!! Peace sign, my man!! Anything goes!!!!
ADD: Just occurred to me that you probably don't know what gender affirming care means.
It means that any child brought to a doctor who says I fell like a boy/girl, will IMMEDIATELY begin transitioning. Because it is AFFIRMING care. That means, no psych evals, no tests to see if the child is lying/misguided/too young to decide. Nothing. Just an OK you feel like a girl/boy here's your hormones, let's set up your next appointment.
There is NO differential diagnoses. Just agree with the child and THAT's IT. No investigation at all.
Let's but this into practice. Doctors are obligated to provide "cancer-affirming care." What does that look like?
It would be like you go to the doctor and say, I have breast cancer. Doctor schedules a double mastectomy the next day, You are not tested for anything. Turns out later you learn you did not have breast cancer. But they chopped off your breast because you basically told them to.
This is what I read about gender affirming care:
Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care—a medical and psychosocial health care designed to affirm individuals' gender identities—greatly improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse, transgender, and nonbinary children and adolescents.
I choose to believe the professionals involved in this are working in the best interests of the child and their families. Just like those who post that abortion means women can abort their fetuses into the ninth month, I think we all know that no doctor or woman would allow that to happen to a full-term healthy baby. I think when people come up against something that goes against their narrative, fear can motivate a knee-jerk reaction. This is not to say that there aren't those who are irresponsible and criminal whenever it comes to medical practices, but for the most part medical professionals care for their patients responsibly.
I don't believe there are no evaluations, no tests, no nothing. Again, any healthcare professional, mental or physical, will do their due diligence to take care of the patient first and foremost. If they don't, they don't need to be practicing medicine.
This is as far as I wish to go with the gender diversity/affirming debate.
...Yes, hate evil. The acts of evil, not the persons performing the acts. The persons performing the acts can be forgiven, and will be forgiven if they repent. Remember the robber crucified next to Jesus.
So Episcopalians shouldn't be welcoming to kids who are experiencing gender-related doubts and turmoil? Nice ...
No, they should not be embracing evil.
You all take versus out of context. Most of those who do that haven't even read the Bible, know nothing about it, have no understanding of the difference between Old Testament and New Testament and When Jesus Was Alive vs After He Was Crucified. See, I'm not a Jew of the time Jesus was on the earth. Therefore, a LOT of what you all like to throw out there as some sort of, 'I hate Christianity, I don't even believe in God, but I'm going to throw this in your face, anyway' win, is actually a massive fail.
Gentiles were not even part of this while Jesus was walking around on the earth. So, unless we still have some Jews from 2000 years ago on this earth, judging what these lunatics are doing with children, then everything you all keep throwing out is meaningless.
Things changed after Jesus was crucified. You all might want to learn about that before the next 'I'm going to throw Jesus in the face of these Christians to win my argument' bs.
It's like when people judge the pedophiles in the Church, well that's wrong. They should love and accept them and let them keep preying on children because it's allll gooooooood. Jesus said so (according to you).
No judgement here. Hey, pedophile, we need an aide for the nursery. Be happy to do it? AWESOME.
That's a pretty sick accusation. I hope you are joking, although I don't find pedophilia quite so amusing as you do.
However, the reality is that those people do exist. We had one older man coming to our parish for a time. Sob story, had lost his place to live, was living in a local transient motel, ended up with a couple offering to store his possessions in their garage.
Then our priest got a call from him saying he had been arrested and needed bail money. Someone had left their pickup running outside a 7-11 and he got in and drove off in it. The police chased him and arrested him, and he was wearing a Tony The Tiger costume.
Who would wear a costume designed to attract children? The priest discovered that this guy had a history of sexual offenses against children AND grown women in Florida, where he lived before. The priest visited him, told him that he was still a child of God but that he was not going to be bailing him out, would have to face his consequences, and that he would no longer be welcome to come into our church because the safety of the parishioners came first.
Now here is another story. A good friend of mine, Catholic, has a sister who after a couple of failed marriages and some wild living, became "born-again" and active in a "Bible church", where she met and married another man. When her daughter from a previous relationship was 12, the man began to molest her. The girl told her mother, and the mother went to the church leaders to ask what to do. They brought in the man, who cried and confessed and asked to be forgiven and "repented" and all was fine and dandy! Everyone was happy, and hey, it was all good because he REPENTED, so YAY. Except that no one would call the police to report that a child had been molested and no one was paying any mind to the little girl who was his victim. She was told to forgive him because isn't that would JESUS would want?
But the girl told someone else in the extended family, who gathered together and confronted her mother and stepfather and then, under threat of reporting them to the police, which the mother and her husband knew would result in the removal of the girl from her home as well as charges against him, took her out the house themselves. She was raised by her aunts and uncles in the home of one of them. She is an adult and a mother herself now, her mother will not speak to her or the rest of the family, and the mother in fact has had two more daughters with her molester.
So which church would you want to go to? Those damned liberal Episcopalians, or those who can quote memory verses up the wazoo and roll around on the floor babbling when catchin' the Holy Ghost but don't acknowledge what is happening under their own noses to protect their children?
The fact is that no one can point to just one denomination because pedophiles will find their opportunities wherever they can get them. Abuse can happen anywhere, and doctrines don't seem to do much to prevent it.
The mental condition that we now know as "gender dysphoria" is not mentioned in the Bible, to the best of my understanding. But this is what Jesus had to say about anyone harming children: "Jesus said to His disciples, 'It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be better for him to have a millstone hung around his neck and to be thrown into the sea than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.'" (Luke 17:1-2) Personally, I consider physically altering the basic bodily characteristics of a child, when it is legally and morally impossible for that child to give consent to this procedure, to be a stumbling block. Thus, I conclude that Jesus would not be in favor of gender-affirming care, as it is being understood in this context.
You are entitled to your conclusion about gender-affirming care. We are all entitled to our opinions about this topic. And that is what this all is. Opinion.
This is what I read about gender affirming care:
Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care—a medical and psychosocial health care designed to affirm individuals' gender identities—greatly improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse, transgender, and nonbinary children and adolescents.
I choose to believe the professionals involved in this are working in the best interests of the child and their families. Just like those who post that abortion means women can abort their fetuses into the ninth month, I think we all know that no doctor or woman would allow that to happen to a full-term healthy baby. I think when people come up against something that goes against their narrative, fear can motivate a knee-jerk reaction. This is not to say that there aren't those who are irresponsible and criminal whenever it comes to medical practices, but for the most part medical professionals care for their patients responsibly.
I don't believe there are no evaluations, no tests, no nothing. Again, any healthcare professional, mental or physical, will do their due diligence to take care of the patient first and foremost. If they don't, they don't need to be practicing medicine.
This is as far as I wish to go with the gender diversity/affirming debate.
What YOU believe is irrelevant. I believe the sun is the moon and the moon is the sun. Am I right?
Gender affirming care MEANS that any child that says "I am a boy/girl" will be transitioned. It's what medical professionals are ORDERED to do. They cannot investigate if they child is truly transgender or having other mental health issues.
It can't be any clearer than that.
And if YOU choose to NOT fully understand what it means, that's on you when you support gender affirming care that HARMS CHILDREN.
They are expecting 1,000 patients in lawsuits against the Tavistock Clinic in the UK.
Feel free to NOT investigate that either. Knowledge is dangerous.
A Christian Denomination practices Jesus’s instruction to Love thy Neighbor as thy Self and the “Christian” Right loses its mind.
Let's assume you're a Christian (for argument's sake, if not actually).
Yes, the second greatest commandment according to Christ is to love your "neighbor". But love is not absolute nor without reason. The old "love the sinner, hate the sin".
So, let's say your "neighbor" - in this case a close relative - is a sinner in a way that is harmful to themselves ... alcohol or drug addiction are great examples. Do you believe that Christians are supposed to approve of, support, or further the addiction? I assume not.
In many ways, love your neighbor is "judge not lest ye be judged". So, yes "God made us all", and in his image, but did he make that many "mistakes" where the biological and psychological uniqueness of man and woman were mistaken or crossed up? And so, I am not going to judge a transgender, because it's not my job. You can love the person, but not "who they are". It's not to me to decide, it is to God.
And I haven't heard a single clergy say "God told me gay is OK" and certainly not "transgendering 7 year olds is OK." Both sides seek justification in Scripture, but there isn't any specifically given, and surely not towards favoring non-traditional sexual preferences or gender choices.
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The priest discovered that this guy had a history of sexual offenses against children AND grown women in Florida, where he lived before. The priest visited him, told him that he was still a child of God but that he was not going to be bailing him out, would have to face his consequences, and that he would no longer be welcome to come into our church because the safety of the parishioners came first. 