serving two masters – Lee Duigon

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First the good news: new pastoral guidance issued by the House of Bishops states that, as far as the Church of England is concerned, sex is only for heterosexual marriage, there remains a clear distinction between marriage and civil partnerships, and “sexual relations are not proper to the latter” (https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/church-of-england-affirms-sex-is-only-for-heterosexual-marriage-10465?fbclid=IwAR2QmskyXITvPvM3D_GzUbMWWYNlm6ZGnBBPNs96C1k66JyMecm9ri4aOzo)

Furthermore, “the introduction of same-sex marriage [in 2013]… has not changed the church’s teaching on marriage or same-sex relationships.”

But before we break out the noisemakers and party hats, there’s still this:

In 2018 the church approved new liturgies “intended to affirm and celebrate a person’s shift to a chosen gender identity… [and] to recognize liturgically a person’s gender transition.” So Holy Scripture, Genesis 5:2, “Male and female created He them”–that, they don’t affirm? God’s created order, that’s not affirmed?

It would be astonishing if the church doesn’t come under intense fire simply for affirming its teaching on sex and marriage. So, yes, it took a certain amount of courage for the bishops to do this.

But they still have one foot firmly planted in the bizarre innovations of this evil age, and we hope they know what Our Lord Jesus Christ said about serving two masters.

Trying to get out of declaring which side they’re on, the Lord’s or this world’s–and it ain’t gonna work, guys. Bishops ought to know that. You can’t actually follow Yogi Berra’s advice: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” These two roads diverge widely, and you can’t travel them both.

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“The Swamp” wasn’t invented in 2008 and is not confined to Washington, D.C. It’s been with us since the dawn of history, and can be found wherever you look.

So R.J. Rushdoony’s 1995 essay, “Empty Suits,” is just as applicable, if not even more so, 25 years later.

https://chalcedon.edu/magazine/empty-suits

We wonder why tiny minorities with truly lunatic, perverse, or wicked ideas ride roughshod over everybody else and always seem to get their way. Well, it’s because no one will stand up to them. “Men,” said Rushdoony, “are everywhere refusing to be men.”

Go along to get along. The churches do it. Office workers do it around the water cooler. Teachers with outraged consciences fall silent in the faculty lunchroom. Go ahead–see what happens to you if you don’t go along with a lesbian “wedding,” or with some bearded man insisting he’s a woman, or with some race hustler demanding “reparations.” These are all perverse and evil notions–but who dares say so? And so they flourish.

Without faithfulness to God, we have nothing and we are nothing.

Meanwhile, a lot of Christians strain themselves trying to serve two masters.