Responding to my church brethren:

I guess I just flamed my church's website. There was this long, judgemental discussion on a bishop scheduled to celebrate Communion. He was sued for a sexual indiscretion with one of his male assistants, and offered an affirmative defense. Our church appears outraged, and maybe they genuinely are. Homosexuality is clearly not an issue for me, but this is a church that encouraged me to leave it when I wrote an article suggesting Christians should perhaps consider a non-hateful response to gay people. So I wrote them the following:

Haven't been on this forum in forever, and reading this thread reminds me of why.

This argument has been circulating in the Christian Church since the fourth century. The Donatists and Catholics were in major disagreement: Donatists thought that the person administering the sacraments had to have lived a blameless life (in that case it had to do with whether or not they had been traitors against the faith), while the Catholics maintained that the mystery and the Power was in the sanctified elements, which were greater than the people administering them.

I personally believe that the Blood of Jesus is stronger than the flawed and frail human vessel used to administer sacraments. That's what gives me hope every day. I look to the Bible and see examples of how God has continually used humans right where we are, with our sexual sins, with our spiteful words, with our misdirected attentions, and with all our murmuring and grumbling -- God has still, in God's omnipotence, been able to use us according to HIS plan, despite ourselves.

I know my sins, and they are many. I thank God for His Grace and Mercy, and I thank God that HE stands in judgement, rather than my CME brothers and sisters. You all quote the law on homosexuality and sexual immorality, but what about all the other laws? What about the prohibition against shellfish? What about the prohibition against pork? What about tattoing the sacred Temple of God's Spirit? What about cutting the corners of the hair and wearing different kinds of cloth? Those are all also Levitical restrictions, and also condemned with sexual misconduct. The reason for them all was to separate God's people from the people around them. No disrespect intended, but you guys sound like all the secular folk who murmur and gruble among themselves.

And what about Jesus' commandment that we we should Love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbors as ourselves? Is this forum how we show our Christian love? What about Jesus' direction that the one without sin should cast the first stone? From the outside looking in, it seems that we who profess to follow Christ are still a brood of vipers who do not understand.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but it seems like this thread has been focused on symptoms of our corporate spiritual dysfunction without addressing anything about the actual dysfunction.

My $0.02...