I have been reading blog after blog about what is happening at General Conference 2012, taking particular interest in the ones that supported the now-dead legislation that would take language out of the Book of Discipline that condemns homosexual practices.
I have numerous thoughts here. The thing that hits me the hardest here is the utter biblical ignorance that is being expressed by those who oppose the full inclusion of our GLBT brothers and sisters into the life of the church. They pick up a few verses from Scripture and use them to condemn or go with that disgusting “Hate the sin, love the sinner” justification.
If we are going to take a literal adherence to biblical teaching, without regard to essential hermeneutical and interpretative issues, as to who is worthy of ordination–and I’m willing here to just use the New Testament–then we need to do these things:
1. First, remove from clergy leadership all the divorced.
2. Remove from clergy leadership all females.
3. Remove from clergy leadership all single men.
4. Remove from clergy leadership all childless men.
5. Remove from clergy leadership all men with long hair.
6. Remove the idea of ordination completely from our vocabulary.
7. Return to the custom of the Lord’s Supper being a simple part of the communal meal without need for special words of consecration.
8. Stop any fights we may have against any who are keeping slaves.
9. Insist that plural marriage take place when a woman’s husband dies and leaves her childless–she MUST marry her husband’s brother and MUST have sex with him until she has a male child.
10. Sell everything we have and give it to the poor.
11. Own everything in common.
12. Empty our pension plans and take no thought of the future, for this day has enough trouble of its own.
13. Start handling snakes and raising people from the dead.
Anyone want to give a few of these things a try in order to have a more “biblical” church?
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