The great irony is that the Church of England is accepted as the home of the Anglican religion yet it lags behind other countries in the matter of adjusting to modern thinking. How then can the Church remain relevant?

@Amused

The problem for the Church of England, the bastion of Christianity, is that to adjust means that it has to drastically amend long standing doctrines which have been established over centuries. Not an easy task.

any thing built on hatred ! bigotry ! exclusion ! Racismism ! or any ism.would find itself at the lower end of the social pole . the church as a christian organisation has been able to get away with all the above mentioned and it is being weighed in the balance and is found wanting.

@ Islandgal
Rrrrrrrrrr bow wow!

You right, Bushie. Even I would turn up for that.

And, Islandgal, agree with Bushie, but more so. Double Rrrrrrrrrr bow wow!

@ac. Stop it at once. You got me greeing wid yuh again.

The Church of England is not alone in this. During the long years of communist rule in the Soviet Union, the clandestine Roman Catholic church worshipers appointed a woman bishop, probably with the blessing of the Vatican, but as soon as the Soviet Union was broken up ,and the Stalinist rule on religion was relaxed, that woman Bishop was unceremoniously defrocked,allowing one of the men who previously had no balls to confront the Kremlin, to take her place.

The Great Apostasy!

The C of E, is only one of many such ‘Apostate’ churches, and this abased immoral, and other deviation FROM God’s Word, is to be expected, as we are warned that this will happen.

“Now the Spirit EXPRESSLY says that in latter times some will DEPART (Apostatize) FROM the faith ( body of doctrinal truth) giving heed to DECEIVING spirits and doctrines of demons. Speaking LIES in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.” (1 Timothy 4: 1-2)

Nothing new, true to form!

women and HOMOS are not ALLOWED to be Pastors ! KJV says a pastor A man Of One Wife

@ islandgal246 | November 25, 2012 at 11:54 AM |
“If they were thinking like me, there would have been a similar church with only women leaders long long time ago.”

Would you advocate such a move in today’s religious world? Would you recommend it also for the female Islamists?
If the women were to adopt your proposal then whom would they have to vie over to sleep with? The women in churches only allow male leaders as pawns in the sexual beehive game to fight over and be the football in the warring political game among the various social fractions in the pews.
Get rid of the few men and there will hell in the church leading to total upheaval and chaos.
Ask Bushie and Caswell if that isn’t true.

@ Hants
At what risk of what verbal wrath what?!?!

Everyone already knows that you are a born again “gallows bait”
You got cloths hang out and looking for rain….

@ Miller
Wait skippa, you very scarce lately. Since you gone, ac ’bout here doing Dixie on every topic. Bushie was trying to keep she in check, but when she start talking ’bout how God come from the word Good because ‘yuh only have to drop an “o”‘ , Bushie put down the computer and went and clean out the swimming pool….

…see what you can do wid she bozie. Only you know to get through that head….

@ Islandgal
“What I can’t understand is WHY women have to wait for these chauvinistic men to validate them”
************
Why not ask Simple Simon? …bet SHE knows.
It is because the system was DESIGNED that way…..as in why do you have to turn your water tap ANTI clockwise to get water?
Why do you have to sleep?
Why should women have to be the ones that get pregnant?

It is the way it is!! But the REAL point is that these ARE NOT the critical issues of life. When you start your woman led church Bushie the alt boy will show you what are….

The debate about female bishops has dragged on for many months in the C of E. It seems a futile debate. Once agreed that women can be ordained to the priesthood, there is no theological or other justification for not recognising translation to the episcopate that I can accept. Once ordained to the priesthood women are primus inter pares with men..

There are those in the C of E who still do not accept women priests and so have alternative episocopal oversight. That is a rational position to take given the nature of Jesus’ ministry. It follows that they cannot accept translation to the episcopacy. But there are other ‘rational’ positions and it all depends on how the premises are framed and by whom. Many here opposed female ordination – but were neither big enough nor bold enough to treat the issue as one which strikes at the heart of the faith. In short they trimmed. It will be interesting to see what happens here in 15 years or so. Most of the Holy Cross people will be retired or dead..

But let me say…this really has nothing to do with women’s rights, or same sex marriages, or ordination of celebate homosexuals to the priesthood. Those issues are fudges. Each is separate and presents its own theological and biblical issues. It’s not a case of “Because ordination of celibate homosexuals THEREFORE translation to the episcopacy’.

I hadn’t realized we had a David/Amused axis on ‘Anglicanism’ too. That should prove interesting.

Or again……perhaps not.

@Miller

Is it about what has been tolerated/going on in the Church for years, or more so the fact homosexuality and the role of women challenges Bible doctrines as espoused by the traditionalist Christian?

@ David | November 25, 2012 at 4:17 PM |

If you want to know who is the real “boss’ of the Church just take a close look at any “original” print of that famous painting the “Last Supper” by the genius Leonardo da Vinci.
You will realize, if you are perceptive enough, that the person sitting next to your sweet Jesus is a woman playing handsie handsy and footsy footsie with your dear lord and saviour.
Take a further look and you might see 2 other beardless feminine persons in the painting. But what is most interesting and a blinder is that the most macho stone hard man called Peter has a knife in his right hand ready to cut poor Mary’s Virgo neck the sexy and intelligent wife of the lord the sun of god so that the blood would flow like that of the Milky way.

But Miller

Leonardo was gay. What possible interest would he have in making ‘the disciple that Jesus loved’ a woman? You are on an old scent.

@ robert ross | November 25, 2012 at 5:56 PM |
“Leonardo was gay. What possible interest would he have in making ‘the disciple that Jesus loved’ a woman? You are on an old scent.”

Maybe Leonardo was encoding a message that your friend Jesus was ‘one of them’ like LdV himself. What real ‘he-man’ would surround himself with men hiding in gardens and other strange sleeping places with three ‘she-she’ in the bunch to meet their nocturnal needs?
That old trail also reeks with a strong testosterone scent full of esoterica attracting many of the ‘bent’ leaning to the faith. It is also a haven for ‘lefthanders’ and other ten percent of Nature’s deviants.

@Bush Tea “Why not ask Simple Simon? …bet SHE knows.”

What I do you.

I here this Sunday afternoon peaceable and polite and you looking to trouble me.

My family and I don’t get involved in theological trifles.

@islandgal246 “What I can’t understand is WHY women have to wait for these chauvinistic men to validate them to become leaders in the church”

I don’t think that women are waiting for men to lead them in the church.

But prior to the birth of the oral contraceptive pill in 1960, most women gave birth 8 or more times and many raised more than half a dozen children to adulthood. Try doing that and forming and leading churches too. Although I know a number of Bajan women who formed and led theiir own churches, significantly one of these early 20th century Bajan women had only 2 children.

I guarantee you that 100 years form now most churches will be led by women, as most university places are now held by women.

Historically men have formed churches because since the invention of agriculture (by women more that 5,000 years ago) men just do not have enough hunting to do, so they form churches and have wars over religion etc.

Men want wuk.

Miller

LOL….But that’s another old scent. As for ‘my friend Jesus’ – well, yes, someone I wouldn’t be ashamed to have beside me. Can you say the same about those beside you who call themselves ‘friend’? Or is this all about rehabilitation? Sorry, the fella is a recidivist.

“Historically men have been afraid of vaginas” (Simple Simon)

Very quotable. Did Jesus come to rid us of the works of the female as Robert Graves suggests in ‘King Jesus’?

The Bible
The Authenticity and Proof of Divine Revelation
© 2002, K. Rhodes. All rights reserved

It can be demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt through empirically adequate proofs that the Bible is the inspired word of Almighty God. There are many areas of proof that verify the reliability and authenticity of the Bible. Two such areas are the manuscript evidence confirming the reliability of the biblical documents and predictive prophecy; these proofs verify that the Bible is Divinely inspired rather than a humanly crafted book. If the documents of the Bible predict and accurately record the events of Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth, including his resurrection, then it can be stated unequivocally that the Bible is the Word of God.

Manuscript Evidence
There are three basic principles of historiography, which help in determining the reliability of ancient documents. These are the bibliographical test, the internal test, and the external test.

Bibliographical Test
The bibliographical test is the examination of the textual transmission by which the documents reach the present. Since we do not have the original documents of the Bible, how reliable are the manuscripts we do have and what is the time interval between the original and the extant copies.1 There are more than 5,000 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and about 9,000 other early versions. In all, there are more 25,000 manuscript copies of the New Testament extant today. No other work of antiquity comes close to the manuscript attestation of the New Testament. In comparison, Homer’s Iliad has a total of 643 manuscripts extant today. The importance of the sheer number of manuscripts extant today cannot be under estimated. The abundance of manuscript copies makes it possible to reconstruct the original documents with almost complete accuracy. The time interval between the original to the extant copies establishes the fact that “myth” or error did not have time to enter into the manuscript tradition. Sir Fredrick Kenyon writes in The Bible and Archaeology: “The interval then between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established.” Following is a comparison chart of the New Testament documents verses other writings of antiquity

Author – When Written- Earliest Copy – Time Span- No. of Copies
Caesar 100-44 B.C 900 A.D. 1,000 Yrs 10
Livy 50 B.C -A.D 17 1,200 ” 20
Plato 427-347 B.C 900 A.D 1,200 ” 7
Tacitas 100 A.D 1,100 A.D 1,000 ” 20
also minor
works 100. A.D 1,000 A.D 900 ” 1
Pliny the
Younger 61-113 A.D. 859 A.D 730 ” 7
Thucydides 460-400 B.C 900. A.D 1,300 ” 8
Suetonius 75-160 A.D. 950 A.D. 800 ” 8
Herodotus 480-425 B.C 900. A.D. 1,300 ” 8
Sophocles 496-400 B.C. 1,000 A.D 1,400 ” 193
Catullus 54 B.C 1,550 A.D. 1,600 ” 2
Euripides 480-406 B.C. 1,100 A.D 1,500 ” 9
Demosthenes 382-322 B.C 1,100 A.D. 1,300 ” 200
Aristotle 384-322 B.C. 1,100 A.D. 1,400 ” 49
Aristophanes 450-385 B.C. 900 A.D 1,200 “: 10
Homer (iliad) 900 B.C. 400 B.C. 500 ” 643
New Testament 40-100 A.D. 125 A.D. 25 ” over 24,000

Dr. Ravi Zacharias writes concerning the manuscript evidence of the New Testament: “In real terms, the New Testament is easily the best attested ancient writing in terms of the sheer number of documents, the time span between the events and the document, and the variety of documents available to sustain or contradict it. There is nothing in ancient manuscript evidence to match such textual availability and integrity.”

The Patristic citations of the New Testament also give witness to the accuracy of the New Testament manuscripts, which are extant today. Dr. Geisler points out that, “the patristic citations of Scripture are not primary witnesses to the text of the New Testament, but they do serve two very important secondary roles. First, they give overwhelming support to the existence of the twenty-seven authoritative books of the New Testament canon. It is true that their quotations were often loose, although in the case of some Fathers they were very accurate, but they do at least reproduce the substantial content of the original text. Second, the quotations are so numerous and widespread that if no manuscripts of the New Testament were extant, the New Testament could be reproduced from the writings of the early Fathers alone.” The writings of the early Church Fathers give us overwhelming secondary evidence to the accuracy of the New Testament documents. Following is a chart, which catalogs the quotes of the Church Fathers of the New Testament:

Fundamentalism, Fundamentalists, the terms have been terribly misunderstood in recent times, and misrepresented by many who do not understand the simple meaning of the terms.

Fundamentalism is simply historic, orthodox Christianity. Dr. Kirsopp Lake, the noted Modernist professor of Harvard University ably pointed this out when he wrote:

It is a mistake, often made by educated persons who happen to have but little knowledge of historical theology, to suppose that Fundamentalism is a new and strange form of thought. It is nothing of the kind: it is the partial and uneducated survival of a theology which was once universally held by all Christians. How many were there, for instance, in Christian churches in the eighteenth century who doubted the infallible inspiration of all Scripture? A few, perhaps, but very few. No, the Fundamentalist may be wrong. I think that he is. But it is we who have departed from the tradition, not he, . . . The Bible and the corpus theologicum [body of theology] of the Church is on the Fundamentalist side [The Religion of Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1925, by Kirsopp Lake, pp. 61, 62].

@Zoe

The manuscripts used to authenticate the bible is the best supporting argument to establish events of the bible. You should expand this argument for the agnostics and atheists.

But Zoe: the argument is circular – it takes us nowhere. You are back to words and not words written contemporaneously with the words spoken either. And the premises remain constant…the Bible is “God’s Word”.

Mind – you will still have to deal with the concept of the Apostolic priesthood, what Jesus actually meant in the words you quote – ‘I will build my Church’ – which begs all the questions, and whether God did indeed fumble and mumble in the OT, a condition which a throat operation cured in the New.

@Zoe
love ya passion, but ya flying over some people’s heads.

“There are many denominations, that hold to, believe, and TEACH, the Core, historic, first century Apostolic Biblical Faith, that is, the corpus of Doctrine, ‘Once for all delivered to the Saints””

Like my gym trainer says, once your core is good, you can lift any amount of weights! The explanatory challenge for the searchers among us is though……who / what dictates the “core” and which combination of religions are there that have the “TRUTH”.

@robert
the circular argument is the difficulty many fundamentalists have with convincing others. It shouldn’t be an argument.It shouldn’t need proving. It doesn’t need validating. Honestly it doesn’t even need explaining, lol.

Everything is already there to see if we allow ourselves to.

Walk good peoples. Love this discussion.

Just Observing

the Core, historic, first century Apostolic Biblical Faith, that is, the corpus of Doctrine, ‘Once for all delivered to the Saints”” also called the faith [pistis in the greek] is the Word of God, rightly divided. Simple!
All denominations claim to follow the Bible. But this is clearly not the case, when one carefully examines their individual distinctives.