Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Beth Stroud is preaching at the Princeton University Chapel on April 10th, 2005 at 11:00am. Beth was defrocked last December by the United Methodist Church for openly acknowledging that she is in a "committed relationship" with another woman (i.e. married). Beth endured her fifteen minutes of general fame in the documentary "The Congregation." But that congregation, the First UMC of Germantown PA, continues to support her as she appeals the loss of her ministerial credentials through the UMC judicial process.
This paragraph was buried in an address given by Dr. Iain R. Torrance on March 10th on the occasion of his inauguration as President of Princeton Theological Seminary.
Matthew 19 is one tough chapter; only the children catch a break. When some Pharisees put a seemingly simple question to the young, popular rabbi, but really a matter on which volumes of complex interpretive commentary had already been written, Jesus "threw the book" at them, in effect replying, "Here's God's indisputable original law; can you live with it?" He doesn't go any easier on the rich young man or on Peter & the Disciples. "But many that are first shall be last; and the last first."
In the 1950's, the popular pastor of my church resigned when his marriage failed. Methodist ministers did not divorce.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
This paragraph was buried in an address given by Dr. Iain R. Torrance on March 10th on the occasion of his inauguration as President of Princeton Theological Seminary.
- Yet we are now in a context in which our tradition, the Christian tradition, has reached virtual deadlock over a whole series of issues, a zero sum game in which if there are winners there are losers also. There are certain questions which we seem incapable of resolving so long as those issues are posed legalistically. When faced with the question, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’, Jesus evaded the question ‘Is it lawful to do this or that?’ and instead reached back to a fundamental vision or awareness for humankind. Jesus said: ‘In the beginning it was not so.’
Matthew 19 is one tough chapter; only the children catch a break. When some Pharisees put a seemingly simple question to the young, popular rabbi, but really a matter on which volumes of complex interpretive commentary had already been written, Jesus "threw the book" at them, in effect replying, "Here's God's indisputable original law; can you live with it?" He doesn't go any easier on the rich young man or on Peter & the Disciples. "But many that are first shall be last; and the last first."
In the 1950's, the popular pastor of my church resigned when his marriage failed. Methodist ministers did not divorce.
