Thank you for responding. I had hoped you would at least read my letter before sending off a form response.
Mr. William Sulik (a20)
Dear Mr. Sulik,
Your most recent message was forwarded to me in South Carolina where I am on vacation.
I assure you that I read personally every email and every letter I receive. I recognize I am a servant of the Body of Christ and try to listen to members of the Body, even when they are unhappy with me.
Faithfully yours,
Peter James Lee
"The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere."Thanks, Angel.
--J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Since the First Century, the church has made allowances for differences in the way believers live together in marriage. Jesus' prohibition of divorce was absolute. By the First Century, the church made allowances for divorce in certain circumstances."Let's go to
It has been said, 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.(emphasis added). See also, Mt.19:1-12, which containst the same exception. (But see Mark 10 or Luke 16:18, which do not contain this exception.
August 14, 2003
Mr. William Patrick Sulik (a4)
Dear Mr. Sulik:
Your email reached me at the General Convention and I have not been able to
respond until now. I take your message as a sign of you concern for your
church and welcome it in that spirit. Of course I am saddened that my vote
to consent to Canon Robinson's consecration disappointed you. I can assure
you that I made the decision only after much prayer and believe it to have
been the correct decision for the good of the church.
The fact is that the Episcopal Church is divided over the place of gay and
lesbian persons in our common life.
My prayer is that we can remain united in Christ, whatever our differences,
and wrestle with these issues together in a spirit of compassion, mutual
respect and civility.
Thank you for writing.
Faithfully yours,
Peter James Lee
----- Original Message -----
From: Raider Raider --@hotmail.com
To: pjlee@thediocese.net
Cc: WillSulik@---.com; debbiesulik@---.com
Sent: Monday, August 04, 2003 4:18 AM
Subject: Utterly Crushed
> Bishop Lee:
>
> Years ago, when you were a new Bishop, and I was a young man, you received
> me into the Episcopal Church. Many years after that, you baptized my
first
> born child into the faith of the Church. I have always admired you and
> appreciated your wisdom and balance. I was extremely disappointed when
you
> removed yourself from consideration to be Presiding Bishop because I
> believed you would bring a sense of balance needed to the ECUSA.
>
> Today, I was crushed to learn that the House of Deputies had voted
agaiinst
> the standards clearly set forth by the Anglican Communion, and indeed, by
> the totality of the Holy Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, not to
> mention the traditions handed down from generation to generation for as
many
> years before Jesus as there have been since.
>
> However, I was utterly crushed to learn that you had released a letter
> today, August 3, announcing that despite the clear teaching of Scripture
and
> the worldwide Anglican Communion (August 5, 1998, which "reject[ed]
> homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture"*) you would vote to
> elevate to bishop a man who was living in relationship contrary to these
> very clear standards.
>
> I feel that not only has my church turned its back on me and those like
me,
> but you have turned your back on me. I thought that you meant what you
said
> when you voted for the Lambeth Resolution on Sexuality.
>
> In today's letter, you first pull a little lawyer's trick. I know about
> these things, being a lawyer myself. You try to downplay immutable
Biblical
> standards by calling it a mere "policy." Moreover, you try to minimize
the
> fact that these standards are standards shared by the worldwide Anglican
> communion by saying it's just a *Virginia* policy.
>
> Secondly, you express your belief that "the Holy Spirit guides the church
> often through the decisions of lay people and clergy at diocesan
> conventions, councils and synods." Fair enough -- it is hard to discern
the
> move of the Holy Spirit sometimes. When I lived for awhile in Tulsa,
> Oklahoma, there was a televangelist there who said that the Holy Spirit
was
> going to kill him if not enough people sent him money. This person's
claim
> was contrary to the clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures, therefore, I
> didn't need councils and synods to know it wasn't the Holy Spirit
speaking.
> Similarly, if councils and synods issued decrees or take votes which run
> contrary to the clear teaching of the Holy Scriptures, I know it's not the
> Third Member of the Trinity speaking.
>
> But this is really a minor point; the major point is that the Holy Spirit
> does speak through councils and has done so throughout history: Jerusalem,
> Nicea, Ephesus, and so on to Lambeth. Yet, if a diocesan convention
passed
> a resolution denying the divinity of Jesus (Arianism), you would certainly
> (and rightly) oppose this action as being contrary to the First Council of
> Nicaea.
>
> In short, I don't understand why you are willing to affirm a position that
> is contrary to what has been decided.
>
> While you and the majority of the ECUSA establishment have turned your
back
> on me and the worldwide Anglican communion, that is only a *feeling* of
hurt
> and rejection. What has me more alarmed is that you and the Diocese of
> Virginia have decided to endorse a postion that is clearly repugnant to
the
> teaching of the Church of Christ. Since you have decided to drive me away
> from the Episcopal Church, I must ensure that I, as well as my family and
> co-parishioners may remain in a Church which supports a Biblical ethic.
>
> Nevertheless, I can not begin to tell you how much your betrayal has
grieved
> me.
>
> William Patrick Sulik
> [address in the original, deleted here]
>
>
> "Let the reader, where we are equally confident, stride on with me; where
we
> are equally puzzled, pause to investigate with me; where he finds himself
in
> error, come to my side; where he finds me erring, call me to his side. So
> that we may keep to the path, in love, as we fare on toward Him, 'whose
face
> is ever to be sought.'"
>
> -- Augustine of Hippo, The Trinity 1.5
>
> -------
> * The Lambeth Conference Resolution on Human Sexuality, stated, in
relevant
> parts, "``This Conference . . .
> in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage
> between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence
> is right for those who are not called to marriage. . .
> while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, [A36]
> calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all
> irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of
> homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and
> commercialisation of sex;
> . . . cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same-sex unions, nor
the
> ordination of those involved in same-gender unions. . .
>
The expanding crisis in the Episcopal Church USA and the worldwide Anglican Communion is about to reintroduce one of the most ancient dilemmas of Christianity: Can two opposing gospels coexist under one roof without doing damage to the Body of Christ?Diane is a wonderful Christian lady who is a fellow parishoner at Truro Church in Fairfax -- please pray for her, especially her health. She is very committed to believers in the third world, especially those in the persecuted Church -- What's happening with the ECUSA(postate) is obviously distracting the orthodox and evangelical believers from the true mission of the Church, and consuming an enormous amount of resources.
The problem will presumably come up when in mid-October the world's Anglican primates meet in an emergency session to discuss the crisis caused by the approval by the ECUSA's General Convention of an openly homosexual priest as next bishop of New Hampshire.
Diane Knippers, president of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, predicts, "There is an excellent chance of 7 or 8 out of 10 that an alternative (ecclesial) province will emerge in North America." Many observers agree.
August 14, 2003The second letter was from our Vestry to Peter Lee (and was much more gracious than I could ever be):
Dear Friends,
We had an extraordinary parish meeting last Sunday in response to the actions of General Convention. A number of presentations were made and many questions were asked. I am very grateful for the more than 500 who were present, including a number of visitors from other area churches. The atmosphere was somber and concerned, with strong emotions of sadness and grief just below the surface.
Let me restate my opening comments:
• The policies and teaching of Truro Church will not be changed by the actions of this General Convention.
• Although we approach Bishop Lee with profound disagreement regarding his leadership on these issues, we will maintain respect for his office as we pursue considered responses to these actions.
• We will continue to be a church that welcomes and cares for all people, especially those who struggle faithfully with homosexual temptation.
• We strongly dissociate ourselves from the election of a non-celibate homosexual man as a Bishop in this church, and we reject the claim that celebrating and blessing same sex unions is within the “bounds of our common life.”
A statement of disassociation was distributed and signed by 504 people. Truro will continue to collect signatures until August 31, at which time we will deliver them in a communication to Bishop Lee, Presiding Bishop Griswold and Archbishop Rowan Williams.
Among the many concerns raised at the meeting was the question of how to communicate with our children. I have responded to those concerns in my article in this week’s Truro Family News. Questions were also asked about the faithful stewardship of our finances. The offering on Sunday included a significant number of checks marked “for Truro Only,” or otherwise indicating that money was not to be passed on to the Diocese or National Church. At the Vestry meeting held later that afternoon we established a restricted fund to make this possible, and we also agreed to hold in escrow any future payments of our 2003 Diocesan pledge to allow time for further reflection. More information about the vestry’s actions will be available at the Vestry table after services in the coming Sundays.
I also reminded those gathered of our “Anglican Strategic Initiatives”—an initiative to support the work of those international leaders within the wider Anglican Communion who are standing with us. We took up an offering of more than $12,000 to further that mission.
What next? Pray! Pray for the Anglican Primates as they prepare to meet in October. Pray for the gathering of church leaders in Plano which will also be in October. Pray that we will not be divided or prideful as we seek to remain faithful to our Heavenly Father. Pray that in all this Christ will be glorified and His Church strengthened.
August 12, 2003
The Right Reverend Peter James Lee
Bishop of Virginia
Mayo House
110 W. Franklin Street
Richmond, Virginia 23220
Dear Bishop Lee:
In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
As brothers in Christ, we are writing you on behalf of the Vestry of Truro Episcopal Church to convey to you the depth of our grief over the consent vote to approve the election of Canon Gene Robinson to be the next bishop of New Hampshire and over the recognition of the legitimacy of blessing same sex unions, as expressed in the 5th clause of Resolution C051 of the 74th General Convention of the Episcopal Church. The Truro Vestry is dismayed that you chose to support these actions. Many at our Sunday Vestry meeting expressed a strong sense of betrayal that the leaders of our Church showed such singular disregard for the consistent teaching of the universal Church regarding human sexuality based on clear biblical principles.
Our Rector, Martyn Minns, called a special parish meeting at 3:00 p.m. this past Sunday, August 10, in pastoral response to the confusion and anger caused by the actions of the General Convention. Our parishioners had an opportunity to hear directly from Martyn and others who were present at the Convention and to ask questions of him. At the conclusion of the meeting, 504 of those present signed the attached statement dissociating themselves from the unconstitutional actions by the 74th General Convention cited above.
Afterwards, the Vestry met to respond to the concerns expressed by our parishioners. The fifteen Vestry members present unanimously approved the following resolutions:
In response to the unconstitutional actions by the 74th General Convention of the ECUSA and the pastoral needs of our congregation, and as a matter of conscience, our diocesan pledge will be held in escrow, pending a review of the situation in November. The diocesan pledge amount will be adjusted to reflect any changes in the amounts donated to unrestricted funds.
We will immediately create a restricted “Truro Only” fund for the exclusive use of Truro missions and ministries, not to be used to support the diocesan or general church budgets. The restricted fund would be under the direction of the Vestry.
In your August 3, 2003, letter to the Diocese defending your decision to consent to the election of Canon Robinson, you said “We must look to the cross of Christ, which embraces us in unity and not to peripheral matters of sexuality where we differ.” While we agree that it is only at the foot of the cross that we can find unity, we profoundly disagree that matters of human sexuality are peripheral. In Genesis 1:27 we learn God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
The issue of how human sexuality is to be expressed is central to who we are as human beings made in God’s image and likeness. This is why such passions are brought to bear on these issues. Each one of us needs love, and needs to know what ways are appropriate or not appropriate for the expression of that love. Children and youth growing up need practical guidance for their daily interaction with others. The Judeo-Christian tradition has upheld as a clear standard expressed in the Old and New Testaments that the proper place for sexual love is between a man and a woman in a faithful marriage. The election of an actively homosexual bishop and the legitimizing of same-sex blessings effectively changes the doctrine of the Episcopal Church. It is precisely this unilateral alteration of the standards for sexual conduct that is seen by many in the Anglican Communion as not peripheral but a significant and divisive departure from established doctrine.
For a Church that deeply knows the power of symbolic action, this change is a profoundly troubling one. It signifies to our permissive culture that the Episcopal Church has now abandoned over 3000 years of consistent teaching within the Judeo-Christian tradition on the standard for the expression of human sexuality. In this media age of sound-bite communication, the Episcopal Church will henceforth be known as a Church that says without distinction: “Homosexual behavior is OK!” Episcopal parents can no longer turn to the Church for guidance and example if they want their children to live by the traditional Christian standard for sexual expression.
Perhaps this is what many lay, clergy, and bishops wish for our Church—a fundamental change that impacts the practical ways in which Christians live and order their public life in society. There are many—perhaps a large majority in the Anglican Communion—who believe that such a change would be a tragedy that would undermine the truth of the gospel itself, by promoting destructive behavior that is neither good for the individuals involved or for our society, nor pleasing to God.
It is crucial that our Church find loving, compassionate, and just responses to those who see themselves as homosexual individuals. Those of us who articulate a conservative theological position on this bear a special responsibility to find appropriate ways that such individuals can truly be welcomed in our churches, where all are called to new and transformed life in Christ.
Christians are always called to act out of faith, hope, and love. That hope can only be realized as we stand together at the foot of the cross. Jesus prayed on the night before he died, that His followers “may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” For the sake of the gospel, that all may know the all-inclusive, transforming love of Christ, we respectfully call upon you to reconsider and repudiate the actions of the 74th General Convention, which have effectively separated the Episcopal Church from mainstream Anglicanism.
Yours in Christ,
Paul S. Julienne Warren A. Thrasher, Jr.
Senior Warden Junior Warden
The Minneapolis Creed---
We believe in Justice Mother,
the all inclusive Maker of good self esteem.
And in Jesus,
The only name we recognize from the Bible
He was conceived in an alternative committed relationship
And became person.
He was crucified, died, and was buried.
On the third day his ideals were raised in the minds of his friends.
He "Ascended" into "Heaven" and sits there with the heavenly Parent
But since there is no judgment, he shan't be back.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, Sophia.
She serves as a great rationale for whatever we want to do.
With the Parent and the Child she is used for furthering our agenda.
We believe in one church, as long as it agrees with us,
One baptism for the extinction of sins.
We look for the conversion of those less enlightened,
And a life of full inclusion of all who agree with us
Amen.
Books. It's happened to me again -- several books that I've put on hold at differing times have all become available at once. As a result, I'm "reading" the audio book Da Vinci Code and reading Jasper Fforde's Lost in A Good Book. The first is aggravating, yet a page turner (or a cassette flipper -- what do you call it for an audio book?). I'm also going through Eva Brann's Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad in preparation for reading the Odyssey and Iliad to my middle children (although, I'm not sure why, since I'll use one of the children's versions -- probably the Padraic Colum edition. (hey, they're just 5 and 6).
Earlier today, I received an e-mail that Tom Clancy's new book is available. Fortunately, this one is less than 500 pages, so I might be able to handle it.
The thesis for his book is take straight from Holy Blood, Holy Grail, yet there's no reference to this idea or source (okay, maybe it will come -- I'm still not finished). And his facts are so blatenly wrong! -- For example, he says the Catholic Church suppressed the role of women in religion and this is why there are no female Rabbis or female clerics in the Islamic religion. In this same discussion, he indicates that this is why everything related to the left side of the body -- supposedly the feminine side of the body -- has negative connotations -- to suppress the feminine divine. He even links this suppression (by the Catholics, no less) to the phrase "left wing" meaning "radical." In fact the origin of the phrase goes back to the seating arrangement in the French Assembly. See William Safire's Political Dictionary or this source.
Perhaps most worrisome, Nigeria combines several aspects that are familiar from countries in the Middle East: an abundance of oil, a young population, economic stagnation, a corrupt elite, a legacy of colonialism, a vision of itself as a superpower that is in decline, and a rise in Islamic radicalism. Although Nigeria is only half Muslim (and President Obasanjo is a born-again Christian), 12 states in Nigeria's north have instituted the Islamic law of Shariah...He fails to note the very strong and growing Anglican prescence in Nigeria . . . which was just severely undercut by the American bishops election of V. Gene Robinson, a notorious gay man to serve as Bishop of New Hampshire.
Alleluia! sing to Jesus! His the scepter, His the throne.The readings for today in the Lectionary were so on point, I got goosebumps. Consider the opening lines in the first reading: "Moses said to the people: This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors." The second reading I thought was a direct warning to me: "Putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin..." (emphasis added). God knows the anger and hurt I feel. It's multiplied in some respects at not being given any form of outlet. If Peter Lee came and put a dagger in my back at least I could give voice to my frustration. I wrote him last week, but I imagine it will go straight to his circular file.
Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.
Hark! the songs of peaceful Zion thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus out of every nation has redeemed us by His blood.
Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?
1 Corinthians 5:9 I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-- 10 not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. 11 But now I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. 12 What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? 13 God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you."Similarly, when I look at the mere Biblical qualifications to be a Bishop, as set forth in I Tim 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9, I must ask myself whether this church can truly call itself a Christian church. For now, I will stay at Truro, but if it continues to finance the ECUSA and the Diocese of Virginia and Peter Lee, I will not be able to contribute. And if I can not contribute to my own church, I will need to find another place...
No, God would not have approved of gay bishops
Matthew Parris
Anglican evangelicals are right. Knowingly to appoint gay bishops robs Christianity of meaning. It is time that convinced Christians stopped trying to reconcile their spiritual beliefs with the modern age and understood that if one thing comes clearly through every account we have of Jesus’s teaching, it is that His followers are not urged to accommodate themselves to their age, but to the mind of God. Christianity is not supposed to be comfortable or feel “natural”. The mind of God, contemplating the behaviour of man, is not expected to be suffused with a spirit of “whatever”. As it happens I do not believe in the mind of God. But Christians do and must strive to know more of it. Nothing they read in the Old and New Testaments gives a scintilla of support to the view that the God of Israel was an inclusive God, or inclined to go with the grain of human nature; much they read suggests a righteous going against the grain.
Certainly it is true that Jesus departed from conventional Judaic teaching in the emphasis He put on forgiveness, but neither the story (for example) of the woman taken in adultery, nor the parable of the prodigal son suggest that He countenanced a continuation of the sins of either. What these stories teach is that repentance is acceptable to God however late it comes, and that the virtuous should not behave in a vindictive manner towards sinners. That is a very different thing from a shoulder-shrugging chuckle of “different strokes for different folks”.
When the row over the appointment of gay bishops first blew up I expected, being gay, to join the side of the Christian modernisers. But try as I do to summon up enthusiasm for my natural allies; sorry as I feel for homosexuals struggling to reconcile their sexuality with their membership of the Church; and strive though I have to feel indignant at the conservative evangelicals, passion fails me. I know why.
“Inclusive”, “moderate” or “sensible” Christianity is inching its way up a philosophical cul-de-sac. The Church stands for revealed truth and divine inspiration or it stands for nothing. Belief grounded in everyday experience alone is not belief. The attempt, sustained since the Reformation, to establish the truth of Christianity on the rock of human observation of our own natures and of the world around us runs right against what the Bible teaches from the moment Moses beheld a burning bush in the Egyptian desert to the point when Jesus rises from the dead in His sepulchre. Stripped of the supernatural, the Church is on a losing wicket.
Even as a ten-year-old boy in Miss Silk’s Scripture class, when I heard the account of how the parting of the Red Sea could actually be explained by freak tides, and that the story of the loaves and fishes really taught us how Jesus set an example by sharing His disciples’ picnic (so everybody else shared theirs), I thought: “Don’t be silly Miss Silk! If Jesus couldn’t do miracles, why should we listen? If the bush was just burning naturally, then Moses was fooled.”
But — perhaps because like countless would-be Christians down the ages I was fighting an internal scepticism about the supernatural claims of religion — I found myself as an undergraduate powerfully drawn towards the sermons and writings of Joseph Butler. The persuasive, quiet sense of this early- 18th-century Bishop of Durham makes (as our college dean, Mark Santer, later to become Bishop of Birmingham, put it gently to me) “the best case one can” for the theory of natural religion.
By induction alone, Butler seems to suggest, we can draw from what we know of ourselves, of science, and of our world, a picture of the mind of God. He was suspicious of revelation. Butler it was who remarked to the evangelist John Wesley: “Sir, the pretending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the Holy Ghost is a horrid thing, a very horrid thing.”
In typically compressed but lucid style, he ascribed human goodness to a divine intention. Look at human nature, he said. “It will as fully appear from this our nature . . . is adapted to virtue, as, from the idea of a watch, it appears that its nature . . . is adapted to measure time.” Every work, he said, “is a system; and as every particular thing, both natural and artificial, is for some use or purpose, out of or beyond itself,” so we must ask what mankind is for. He went on to induce the existence of God from the fact that human nature yearns towards something greater and more perfect than itself.
My 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica devotes 6,000 words to Joseph Butler, and about the same to John Wesley. By the 1960 edition Wesley is steady at 6,000 but Butler is down to a quarter of that length. Today Wesley gets about six times as many words as Butler. Revelation may be a very horrid thing, but it seems to be selling better than reason.
At university I tried very hard to convince myself (as one senses Butler was trying to convince himself) that this appeal to sense will do. I was wrestling with my own sexual leanings at the time (I was 19) and the idea that anything we find within ourselves must be put there for a purpose appealed. Interestingly, it is the Butlerian slant we get today from those Anglicans who advocate the ordination of gay bishops: God cannot reject any loving impulse He has implanted in men, they say. “Really?” I asked the shade of Joseph Butler at 19, and ask the modernists now: how about child- molesting?
At 20 I turned from natural religion to an agnosticism which by degrees has slipped into something as close to atheism as makes no difference. But one could as easily — or, at least, as logically — have turned the other way: towards evangelism, revealed truth and self-denial. For though the New Testament says little about sex or marriage, nothing in the Gospels suggests any departure from Judaic wisdom on such matters, a pretty robust sense of which we gain from the Old Testament.
Jesus was never reluctant to challenge received wisdoms that He wanted to change. He gives no impression that He came into the world to revolutionise sexual mores. Even our eye, if it offends us, must be plucked out.
So this, in summary, is my charge against the Anglican modernists. Can they point to biblical authority for what, on any estimate, amounts to a disturbing challenge to the values assumed in both Testaments? No. Can they point to any divinely inspired religious leader since to whom has been revealed God’s benevolent intentions towards homosexuals? I know of no such saint or holy man. Most have taught the opposite.
Can they honestly say that they would have drawn from Christ’s teachings the same lessons of sexual tolerance in 1000, or 1590, or indeed 1950? Surely not, for almost no such voices were heard then.
In which case, to what does this “reform” amount? Like the changes to Church teaching on divorce or Sunday observance, the new tolerance gains its force within the Anglican Communion from a fear of becoming isolated from changing public morals. Is that a reason for a Christian to modify his own morality? I cannot recall that Moses took this view of golden calf worship. Whispering beneath the modernisers’ soft aspirational language of love and tolerance, I hear an insistent “when in Rome, we must do as the Romans do. Times have changed.” Gays in particular should be very wary of that message; some of us remember when it was used against us, and such a time may come again.
A religion needs a compass. Logic alone does not point the way and religion adds to the general stock of human reasonableness a new directional needle — if it adds anything at all. I cannot read the Gospels in any way other than as declaring that this was revealed to man by God through Jesus. Revelation, therefore, not logic, must lie at the core of the Church’s message. You cannot pick and choose from revealed truth.
The path to which the compass points may be a stony one, but this should not matter to a believer. The teachings of the early Church looked unattractive to the Romans. Revelation pointed the way, and only Revelation can point the way now. I believe this Revelation is false, but Christians have nothing else firm to cling to. The common sense of 1720 may almost have seemed to suffice in Joseph Butler’s day, but it will not suffice now. The Church must take wings and fly above sense, or it will drown. Let it fly — and fly away.
2 Peter 2:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them--bringing swift destruction on themselves.May God Have Mercy.
2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.
3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;
5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others;
6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly;
7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men
8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)--
9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.
10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.
11 Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings; yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.
12 But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.
14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed--an accursed brood!
15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.
16 But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey--a beast without speech--who spoke with a man's voice and restrained the prophet's madness.
17 These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.
19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
22 Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesu our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name.
[Psalm 43. Judica me, Deus]
V. GIVE sentence with me, O God, and defend my cause against the ungodly people;
* O deliver me from the deceitful and wicked man.
R. For thou art the God of my strength; why hast thou put me from thee?
* And why go I so heavily, while the enemy oppresseth me?
V. O send out thy light and thy truth, that they may lead me,
* and bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy dwelling.
R. And that I may go unto the altar of God, even unto the God of my joy and gladness;
* and upon the harp will I give thanks unto thee, O God, my God.
V. Why art thou so heavy, O my soul?
* and why art thou so disquieted within me?
R. O put thy trust in God;
* for I will yet give him thanks, which is the help of my countenance, and my God.
V. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
* and to the Holy Ghost;
R. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
* world without end. Amen.
1 Peter 4:1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.
2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God.
3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do--living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.
4 They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.
5 But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
6 For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to men in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit.
7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray.
8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
10 Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.
11 If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.
12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.
13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.
15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler.
16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.
17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
18 And,
"If it is hard for the righteous to be saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?"
19 So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
