lutherans elect first transgender bishop

There is a certain limit to that, namely God’s own reason itself, where he cannot will something that is impossible or irrational to his mind (like 2+2=5). But within the created world, absolutely, he can do anything he wants. He could make human beings asexual, or with three sexes or with a hundred. Whatever is the order that he created, going against that is going against nature.

We can study the sacred Scripture to understand the world from a divine perspective, yes. We can also use reason and science from a purely evidentiary perspective. This is why you see all scientists who opposed LGBT ideas being fired and canceled from universities—the revolutionaries know that the science is NOT on their side and any scientists who step outside the party line must be quickly dealt with before it spreads. Something like hundreds and thousands of scientists have written on:
-the dangers of transgenderism and its grave risks to mental health and even survivability of the individual
-the dangers of sodomy, leading to high suicide rates, severe health defects, anal bleeding, broken families
-even the dangers of feminism (a VAST collapse in women’s self-reported happiness as tracked over the course of the last 70 years; peaking in 1950s and at its bottom today.)

So there is science. There is revelation. Pick how you want to approach God’s created order, but the answer you’ll get is going to be the same.

 

I'm confused at your confusion. This stuff is Sunday School level theology, and if you don't understand it by now I am truly shocked.

Is God sovereign, yes or no? That is the question. Is God bound by any law? Does God make mistakes? Does He change his mind about things? Does God suffer from fits of temper or pique?

Doesn't it bother you, Tiffy, that in your theology you always seem to be arguing against the plain reading of the Bible? Your pseudo-Socratic method of questioning is an old tactic skeptics use to cloak your own doubts -- you ask us how we can be sure as a way of avoiding saying that you can't be sure. And I find that confusion shocking, especially in someone who claims a long tenure in Christ's church.

Say what you mean. If you believe the Bible permits a transgender Bishop, then quote chapter and verse and explain why you think that's so. Make your argument. I've made mine. Refute it if you can. I'm not going to continue to repeat myself because you refuse to accept what I'm saying.

 

I think you're projecting things that I'm not saying. I agree God can do "what He wants, when He wants, how He wants", and in fact I said, "God is not bound by rules" in response to you.

I'm contesting your interpretation of para phusin as a violation of God's plan. I'm contesting your interpretation of phusin to mean the natural order as God says it is. If you believe the bible is free of contradiction, then para phusin cannot mean a violation of God's plan because Paul uses it to describe an action by God. God cannot violate Himself. This isn't my interpretation of scripture, that's literally what it says. Either God contradicts himself, or the Bible contains an error, or para phusin does not mean precisely what you believe it means.

Perhaps this conversation is evidence people need to read more theology, but possibly translation theory instead of dogmatics.

ει γαρ συ εκ τησ κατα φυσιν εξεκοπησ α γριελαιου και παρα φυσιν ενεκεντρι σθησ εισ καλλιελαιο ποσω μαλλον ου τοι οι κατα φυσιν ενκεντρισθησο ται τη ίδια ελαια

For if thou wert cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these the natural be grafted into their own olive tree.
​

Paul describes God's action in renouncing his covenant with the Jews and creating a new covenant as para phusin, or contrary to nature. This is the good rejection of the natural order - in so doing Paul believes the Jews will begin to trust in Christ as their salvation. Nature has been violated, and the outcome is the Jew's acceptance of Christ.

Para phusin does not imply a violation of God's plan. We don't disagree with each other on the theological point you're making. We disagree that the words are relevant to the theological point.

​

 

Well, then your argument is with Paul in his epistle to the Romans, not with me.

 

Ok I don't want to derail this thread with a detour into linguistics, but let's be careful about taking words too flatly at face value. St. Paul is drawing an analogy, that taking a branch from a wild olive tree, and attaching it to a different species, would normally not work. Engrafting the gentiles into the Tree of Life is of that category; the natural members of that tree, the Jews, are the only ones who naturally belong there. The gentiles are an external different entity. But God takes us, and engrafts us on the tree of the Jews, so that both the Jew and the Gentile can be saved.

So the only thing that's unnatural in his verse, is just the metaphor of the olive branch and the trees, and husbandry. It's only unnatural in that one sense. But in reality engrafting the gentiles onto the tree of Life isn't actually unnatural; God is not crossing any actual natures in order to make that happen.

 

This might seem like Sunday School level theology to a fundamentalist with a head full of rules and regulations cobbled together from a cursory reading of selective bits of scripture and reinforced by a judgmental attitude but for those of us who have a wider understanding of the whole of scripture it seems a bit harsh and highly doctrinaire.

God seems to have changed his mind quite a lot since the death and resurrection of Christ and even changed his mind from one bit of the Old Testament to another. Even Jesus recommended prayer because God often changes his mind if we persist. Luke 18:1-8.

Taking a particular case to do with genitalia though, God seems to have changed his mind concerning this issue too. Deut.23:1, Acts 8:26-39. The Ethiopian Eunuch could never have entered the ecclesia of God, (the church), by direct order of The Almighty, but when asked “What prevents me from being baptized?” Philip put up no objection whatever, in spite of God’s prohibition in Deut.23:1. “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.”

Could your objection to gender reassignment perhaps be influenced by a slavish adherence to Old Testament strictures rather than the rather more inclusive, less rejecting, New Testament examples? I don’t know.

Christ had a tendency to ask a lot of questions which shocked a lot of bigots and provoked some very religious people who thought they had a superior, ‘plain understanding’, of the scriptures, I seem to recall from my studies of the Bible. Not that I think I am as he is, but a servant should at least be like unto his master. Matt.10:25.

Actually I have made no mention at all of whether the person under discussion should or should not be the holder of a bishoprick, ( no joke actually intended just accidental), (perhaps you have not noticed that fact, in your enthusiasm and haste to refute most of what I have written in the thread). I have merely questioned the premise upon which you and some others claim this person to be so sinful as to be unworthy of the office of bishop. I'm still undecided and am glad that I have not been given the authority or responsibility of having to make such a decision.

I think the burden of proof to justify your claim that she is unworthy lies upon yourself, since it is you and others with similar opinions, who are making the claim concerning her unsuitability, on the grounds of her genital deformity, due to surgical intervention.

I have cited scriptural cases of genital surgery which apparently were quite acceptable to God and not the subject of condemnation, in fact some were actually carried out on God’s command. So just exactly what scripture do you cite which expressly disqualifies the person under consideration on the grounds of her supposed ’sinful’ genital surgery? Let’s have the chapter and verse so we can discuss those scripture's relevance to her case. So far all we have seen as an objection are general appeals to abuse of the natural order as if that in itself is always a sin.

 

A couple of false assumptions here need whackamoleing.

(1) A 'different species' is not involved in the analogy. It is a wild olive, grafted onto a good olive tree. The good one is the rootstock of God's People. The wild one is the 'Gentile believers' of the nations of the world. An olive grafted to an olive. It is not either of the trees which is unnatural. It is the act of grafting which is the thing which would not normally take place in nature and is therefore un-nature-al. Unnatural does therefore not mean sinful. God cannot sin and it is God who is doing the grafting not either of the trees. Grafting usually has the effect of improving the tree making it more resistant to disease, more fruitful or both. It also enables a variety of fruit to be born of the same tree, (e.g. eating apples on one side of the tree and cooking apples on the other side). The Church of Jesus Christ has actually benefited from having wildness grafted into it. (but as Paul, pointed out, fruitless brances beware, they can be pruned out too just like the fruitless ones removed from the rootstock to originally make room for the wild ones).

(2) The Tree of Life is, as far as we know not an olive tree. Paul does not intimate that this analogical 'tree' is the tree of life, which appears in The Garden of Paradise and in The Heavenly Jerusalem. That is a different tree and a different analogy altogether.

 

Yes and in Origen's case he became a church father, although he was anathematised at the the 5th œcumenical council, apparently not one of the councils recognised by the Anglican church.

 

I would argue your argument is with Paul in his epistle to the Romans. He is the one who said God acted contrary to nature, and you are the one claiming God cannot act contrary to nature, not me.

I apologise for continuing this derailing, but I think at the moment the people active in this thread have contributed all they will at this point to the original question, so I don't think there's too much harm going off topic until someone else comes along to bring us back to the original transgender priest problem.

I'd say two things. First, to nitpick, you definitely can graft a wild olive tree to a domesticated olive tree, but to do so is clearly to violate nature in the Greek sense of the word (perhaps I shouldn't have been so accepting in my first reply to Ananias when I said "hotly contested translation of para phusin aside", but lets not open that can of worms in an already muddy thread). It's very much not the way you tame an olive tree, but it would live. That's not relevant to your point though, so I digress. I hadn't thought of this perspective - the whole industry of agriculture regularly violates nature in a way that is para phusin - and obviously growing genetically modified rice in famine-ridden Africa to save millions from starvation and suffering is the opposite of sinful.

The second is that when we read the whole of the passage (Romans 11.11-24), we see that it's not merely the analogy that contains the unnatural. He is specifically using this analogy to prove to us that what God did was para phusin. He didn't accidentally choose this analogy, he chose it with purpose, because it most closely resembles what God actually did. But even if the choice of analogy was accidental, and he did mean "contrary to nature" only in the context of the analogy, and not the the actual practice of God, the previous verse says "If God were to graft them in... for God has the power to graft them in" (or something to that effect). So even within the analogy we need to accept that para phusin cannot mean "violation of God's Plan", because that would mean grafting a wild olive tree to a domesticated olive tree would then be a violation of God's Plan, and scripture would then tells us God has the power to (and in this analogy, does) violate his plan. Either way such a reading is rife with danger.

I'll summarise by saying this isn't contradicting the traditional interpretation of Romans 1. I'm just saying the word phusin does not mean "God's Plan" or "God's Will", or anything to that effect, and so we must assess each violation of nature on a case by case basis to determine if the violation is condemned or permitted.

 

This is well put. I must have replied before reading all the future comments. This is a more cogent explanation than mine above.

 

The one point I would add to what I wrote is that arboreally speaking it would be rare to be grafting wild grafts onto domesticated stock. More likely the other way round if disease resistance is the objective. Also that according to St Paul God himself planned all along to include the Gentiles into the Hebrew 'church', and so did Jesus, (him being God and all). Rom.3:29, John 10:16. So it seems God can do as he pleases with nature since it is God who decides what is 'against nature' and whether it would be sinful in any particular case to do so, not us.
.

 

... Right, the only way to interpret that passage, since God and the tradition of the Church has strongly endorsed obeying human nature, for the last 5000 years of the Revealed word of God in our world, from the ancient times, the old, and the new testaments.

Just to be clear, that was your debate with Ananias. My response would be somewhat different:

Grafting a wild olive tree onto a domesticated one is 'against nature' but acceptable, according to St. Paul.
Two men laying with one another is also 'against nature', but is not only unacceptable but leads to a straight road to hell, also according to St. Paul.

How do we explain this, when is going against nature okay, and when it isn't? Simple. Going against nature with plants and animals is okay, because they aren't going to be saved or damned. Nothing is at stake when you graft a wild olive tree unnaturally. It is senseless and irrational, it has no choice, and will be consumed in the parousia either way. Nothing is at stake when you train a wolf to become a dog, or mix dog breeds to get good traits: the creature is irrational, it has no choice, and will be consumed in the parousia either way.

But everything is at stake when you cross human nature, because even naturally many people will reject God and be consumed terribly; original sin and concupiscence means that most people will rather choose their belly, and their pleasures, over the treasures of heaven and the beatific vision, even naturally. Then when you allow them to violate their nature, then forget it, it is basically impossible to be saved.

Now, it doesn't mean that defective people with mental problems, like gender dysphoria, LGBT attraction, or schizophrenia, can't go to heaven. But what it means is, if they act on their illnesses, they will be definitely held liable by God.

And if we enable them, we will be terribly held liable by God. A schizophrenic who kills someone, God will judge them. But if we know they're a schizophrenic and allow them to to walk around anyway, then God will judge us most awfully. Same with all the other mental illnesses that are cheered and celebrated in this day and age.

 

It only seems to us humans that God changes His mind. To the perception of some OT writers who spoke of God changing His mind, it did appear that way to them. They didn't understand that time is a construct built by God and that He already knows what He is going to do, but He waits until the right point in time, after people have honored Him with their prayer requests and such.
Num 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? (ESV)
1 Sam 15:29 And also the Glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret. (ESV)

 

..............
This is a very interesting take on this. Deut. 23:1 clearly is a law that is refereed only to the Jewish Assembly and as such has no implication for Christians. The first canon of Nicea only is dealing with those who self mutilate. The prohibition against Eunuchs was never levied against those who had it performed on them against their will. This is probably the reason why that Origin was never canonized also even though he was pre Nicea

 

Jonah 3:10-4:1. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry.

1 Chron.21:15 And God sent an angel unto Jerusalem to destroy it: and as he was destroying, the LORD beheld, and he repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed, It is enough, stay now thine hand.

The trouble with making hard and fast rules, (which we have cobbled together from reading bits of the Bible), concerning what God theoretically can or can not or does not do, is that he is God and we are not. Or perhaps we may be wrong about our hard and fast rules where God is concerned. Or then again we just might have missed something when we thought we had full understanding.
.

 

I can see a wide difference between a eunuch (nearly all eunuchs were made so by involuntary means), and a transsexual who actively chose and proudly flaunts the change and who also actively promotes gay rights.

Happily nothing in those quotes from Jonah and 1 Chronicles negates or contradicts what I stated earlier. O.T. writers often got the impression that God had changed His mind, and they said as much, but God was already set on what He would do and when the people would experience it.

 

I have no problem with that explanation. What do you think about vasectomy? Would that be sinful too like wearing a condom or taking the pill? All against nature I'd say, and so would The Pope.
.

 

It depends! Is the priest or bishop going to show off his vasectomy and advocate for vasectomy patients' rights?

As for Popery, there's a reason why the French named smelly stuff Potpourri....

 

I tend to believe that all contraceptive is immoral and sinful as it goes against nature. I wish churches would start pushing back on it and doing it hard.

 

You, the Pope and the RC church agree on something then.
.