With the Church of England now offering blessings to same sex couples as of last Sunday and now the Pope approving of the same, we need to ask what is meant by blessing something or someone.   Some will understandably take this to mean an endorsement of the relationship, while others will take it to mean what both Churches want it to mean (for now): a welcoming of the persons but not the relationship.   Neither the Church of England nor the Vatican has changed the definition of marriage as necessarily that between a man and a woman.   The Catholic Church still calls homosexuality a sin. So, by ‘blessing’ we are supposed to believe that this is not approval.   Obviously, we are in the world of doublespeak.   According to Garner’s Modern English Usage (4th ed.), ‘doublespeak’ is a kind of euphemism that intentionally obscures meaning and aims to misinform.   It ‘is language that pretends to communicate but really doesn't. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative

 [Foreword: This is a short, fictional story, written in response to a heretic in the Church of England who recently asserted that God's grace is so radical that no repentance is required.  Her implication is that the Church must not even bring up the subject of sin, no one has any need for repentance (though they may if they like!), and everyone should accept everyone else just as they are.  Most heretics in the Church of England deny that homosexuality is a sin, but this heretic wants to go one step farther in dissolving the category of sin because, she falsely claims, grace simply accepts everyone as they are.  Of course, this is an impossible reading of all the Bible, but it also rids the Church of the need for Jesus' death on a cross for our sins.  John ran into this heretic's forebears when he wrote in response to them, 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinne

Lesson 5: The Religion of Warfare In this lesson, I will repost two articles of mine from 2015.   The first provides quotations from the Quran, and the second quotations from Islam’s Sahih Bukhari .   From these, readers can see that Islam is only a religion of ‘peace’ if one understands peace as the result of submission —submission to Allah and to Islam.   More honestly, it is a religion of submission that engages in jihad as a matter of course to make others submit to it.   Of course, this applies more to some than to other Muslims.   Yet this fact does explain much of Islamic history and the present day Islamic terrorist groups in various parts of the world.   The purpose of this lesson is to identify some of the important and authoritative texts that undergird the understanding of Islam as a religion of warfare. What Does the Quran Say about Treatment of Jews and Christians? (3 February, 2015) The Quran seems to offer different advice on what to do with persons of other fai

Lesson 4: Ethical Considerations on Israel’s Clearing of Canaan from its Inhabitants Introduction What shall we do with Old Testament texts dealing with Israel's clearing of Canaan from its inhabitants?   While not the least surprising in the history and culture of the Ancient Near East, the story poses a potential ethical challenge when it appears in Holy Scripture and as an event called for by God.  Putting people to the sword hardly sounds moral.  It sounds like an evil military force like ISIS or Hamas.  We might view it as ethnic cleansing and genocide. Ancient Near Eastern peoples practiced people displacement and annihilation.  For example, in 1595 BC, Mursilli I (a Hittite) captured Babylon.  He removed the temple treasure and scattered the people.  This was a pattern throughout the region and over many centuries.   The stories of such practices are told on steles erected by rulers and depicted on walls and cliffs throughout the Ancient Near East.   Israel’s conquest of C