The Māori elders who raised me in Wellington use to muse "E kore te paru e piri ki te rino: Soil never lasts on steel (lit: insincereity can never co-exist alongside sincerity)"

I'm sure everyone who left General Synod will be pondering 'Now what was steel and what was mere soil'.

Hi Glenn. This is precisely why we need a space in the church where LGBTI people can be fully welcomed and cherished. The other alternative - the one you sketch out here - is psychological and spiritual abuse of the most insidious kind. For to say on the one hand, you are welcome, we love you, to offer the promise of friendship and community, salvation even, and then to say on the other hand, in all manner of implicit and explicit ways, what you call love we call sin, what you call being true we call being disordered, and that the only decent alternative is to live a secretive or a profoundly lonely life, this sort of mixed message is truly soul-warping, crazy-making.

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It's disappointing to me that so much language coming out of this general Synod is about acknowledging the sorrow of those who wait, as though pre-emptively saying that the change for which they wait is both right and inevitable.

A way forward is for the Church to defer to its own declaration that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and acknowledge that this particular way forward cannot be reconciled with this declaration.

I think it is terribly unhelpful and unkind that some people, in spite of all the discussion that has transpired, still choose to describe the actions of conservatives as fearing gay people, as not welcoming gay people, of not loving gay people etc.

That is immensely unfair.

For "conservatives," that is, people who in my view uphold the historic and biblical position on marriage, the issue is not at all whether or not we love people who are attracted to members of the same sex. You insult and belittle us, fellow Christians, when you describe us that way. The issue for us here is that we uphold the stance of our Church that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and we do not believe that this "two integrities" model really respects this affirmation at all. It would enable churches to bless a union and treat it the same way we treat marriage, all the while saying - in word only - that we affirm marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

These recommendations are effectively a way of getting around what the church has decided about the meaning of marriage.

It's disappointing to me that so mu...

Hi Bob. I appreciate you are very much living with both sides of this issue and the inner tension this brings. I respect your struggle and integrity. Whatever 'way forward' is eventually ennacted in the Anglican Church, I wouldn't want to see you feel compelled to change your beliefs in any way. At the same time I was so excited and hopeful that the church might find space to respect and allow another "integrity", those who see the Spirit clearly present in two people of the same sex who genuinely love and care for each other, who are devoted to each other, whose lives are immeaurably better because they have found one another, and who give thanks to God for that.

I don't know Mark. I am finding it a very great struggle. My wife, whom I love very much, sees things similar as you and I have a close family member who I also love very much who is apparently gay. On the other hand I have a very real revelation of God via the Bible and because I love God more than anything I want to be true to His revelation unless He shows me something different. This does not mean that I don’t accept the possibility that I, a fallible person, may be wrong. It’s is something I pray a lot about I assure you. Ultimately, it boils down to where we source our truth and authority. Pro-LGBTI people say that human Reason (eg. the UN Charter on human rights) justifies same-sex marriage but then I say that it defies Reason to interpret the Bible to mean the opposite to what it clearly says. Can we play the same game by different rules? In my experience of relationships it is very difficult.

Hi Bob. What is happening between you and me is the story of our church at present. We both feel very strongly about this and can't be convinced otherwise. You say we are being motivated by an external gay rights agenda that has nothing to do with the Christian faith, whereas we feel moved by the Spirit, by grace, justice, and love. We feel you are acting out of a perverse obsessiveness over matters of sexuality that is severly out of proportion to the Gospel, and a fear-based clinging to rules and views that works to diminish the power of love and hurts people's lives and families, whereas you feel that you cannot just go changing the truth of Christ as it has been understood and practiced for centuries, and that would set such an awful precedent for goodness knows what. Our "integrities" cannot be "reconciled". What do we do when we have such different, impassioned experiences of the Spirit? Walk away? Can you and I live in a church that allows both of our testimonies to coexist - and do we want that?

Mark, regarding that blog, those 12 scriptures are pretty clear in both testaments and when one adds to them numerous mentions about marriage, including Jesus' own understanding of marriage being between a man and a woman (eg. Mark 10:6-9) I find it very hard to see how I can reasonably have a different perspective from what I have already expressed.

Bob, let's get this into perspective...

http://vendr.blogspot.co.nz/2016/05/an-autumn-leaf-evidence-of-death.html?m=1

Three days' debate, to delay a decision again? The church fiddles while the planet burns. Let's get on with addressing the major issues of poverty, injustice and survival of the human race and the biosphere, before we become totally irrelevant.

I am sorry - this is a conflict I personally have never wanted but I now see some sort of Church split as inevitable. To gay people and supporters this is about gay rights but I think the Church is being hi-jacked by their apparently just agenda in a manner that will cause fatal collateral damage to the Church. To me the deeper issue is all about the integrity of the Bible as the basis for Church authority and Christian life. I am not a Biblical literalist but even so, in my view the only two ways that I can see that the Bible can be interpreted to support same-sex marriage in the Church (OR the "blessing" of such) is by the pruning and twisting of scripture, or if God writes a third testament!

Kia ora Paddy. Mauri ora! The living spirit blows where it pleases...and often outside of the church!

An article choosing to use particularly abysmal quotes and particularly abysmal photos to announce a particularly abysmal decision.

Hi Mark I totally agree with you. But in saying this I'm not surprised by the responses by the conservatives. Sometimes these things can end up being a word war on the smallest of details where the bigger picture doesn't get seen and yet its right in their faces. I don't understand why many of us still hang on to our oppressive structures that shape our faith. I'm still trying to let go and find my own faith in God in life itself. Away from from the walls of oppression and in justice.

Two more years? Really? After a national commission and a working group, Tikanga Pakeha still need more time? Can someone please explain why conservatives in Tikanga Pakeha feel so "unprotected" (wow, thats rich) when conservatives in Tikanga Maori and Tikanga Pasifika have agreed to A Way Forward?

“We are aware of the considerable pain that this decision will cause to those most affected.
“But we are confident that our determination to work together across our differences will bring us to a place of dignity and justice for everyone.” - Archbishops -

Justice delayed is Justice denied. I hope this will not cause gay people to leave the Church. Another sign of our Church's inability to combat institutional fear of homosexuals.
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