It's been a while since I posted on this blog - facebook takes up most of the short posts and I have not had time to develop a long post because we are working Saturdays at the factory!

I have moved past my flirtation with a conservative position on homosexuality, and I am looking for a long term relationship.

Friend me on Facebook to find out what I'm up to.

I began this post intending to cross-post it, but I think that this bit about my personal spirtual journey belongs on my personal journal.

I began my conscious spiritual journey- which I date from the summer after my freshman year of college - by describing myself as a "liberal Christian" because I was against the literal reading of Genesis 1, and because I was OK with partnered gay people being ordained and the celebration of same sex unions in church. This was plenty to put me on the left edge of the suburban Texas Methodist church to which I and my family belonged. I began my reading of Christian literature with two books, one by John Shelby Spong, and one by Martin Luther. Luther convinced me that Christ was really present in the Eucharist. Spong convinced me that there were people calling themselves Christian that were a lot more liberal than I was.

The short version of my spiritual development is that in Georgia I nearly joined the Episcopal church and also discerned a call to ordained ministry. I came because TEC was "liberal" and had just made a gay man a bishop. I stayed because of the ancient, beautiful liturgy.

I returned to Methodism when I transferred colleges from Oglethorpe to UTA, both because of the ugliness going on in both of the local Episcopal dioceses, and because I wanted to worship with my family.

I went to Methodist seminary, came out of the closet, flirted with the United Church of Christ before returning to the UMC, and became more and more convinced of the need to read Scripture in line with the Creeds and the Church Fathers. I also became convinced of the necessity of weekly Communion.

After leaving MTSO for academic reasons, I decided that it was time to act on the fruits of my discernment of many years and leave the UMC for TEC.

Howevery

Things I like about TEC:
1. Weekly Communion
2. The worship doesn't change from week to week.
3. No matter what fruitcake things the Rector believes, as long as the 1979 BCP is used
the worship will be orthodox and include the Creeds.
4. In most dioceses gay people can be out and be ordained.
5. Remarriage after divorce is subject to restrictions
6. Continuity with the pre-reformation church (I about swooned with delight when +John Saxby called +Cardinal Wolsey his distinguished predecessor as Bishop of Lincoln)!
7. Tradition is subject to correction based on Reason and Scripture (unlike the RCC).

Lately, I have been re-evaluating my position on homosexual practice, based on my own experiences, the consensus of the worldwide church, and what seems to be the undivided consensus of the Fathers. In essence, it seems that most of the people who share my conviction that the Creeds and the early Fathers are central to an Anglican reading of scripture do not share my belief that committed, monogamous gay relationships can be considered Christian marriages. Furthermore, my own use of my own homosexual orientation has not been very god-honoring, to the point that I now think that at least for now, complete celibacy, even to the level of fantasies and masturbation, is the best option for me. And it seems like pro-gay societies are secular societies. So I find myself slipping unhappily to a more conservative position on same-sex relationships, just after I joined a church which takes a more liberal line on such things.

However, the Fathers are also consistently against ordaining women as priests, but world Anglicanism has accepted that this innovation is within an Anglican reading of Scripture. If we accept one innovation, why not the other. If the answer is that one innovation grosses out some people, and the other doesn't, then the innovation of same-sex unions IS compatible with classical Anglicanism, and a lot of the Anglican Communion needs to get over itself. If the ordination of women is not acceptable, than Anglicanism has failed and we all need to become RC or Orthodox, because clearly Tradition must be completely unchanging if we are to remain faithful Christians in our current culture.

Thoughts?

I'm a very recent 'convert' to Anglicanism (TEC) from the United Methodist Church. I did not change denominations- "convert" is probably too strong a term - because I believed that the UMC was not a part of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. Nor did I make the switch because of the changing and chaotic politics surrounding the place of LGBT people in either denomination, though I admit that my own opinions on this secondary issue are inline with the majority thinking in TEC. However, I had come to two conclusions, plus a tentative third, that made me decide that Anglicanism was the only modern denomination which practiced pure Christianity, with no additions or subtractions.
My two firm conclusions are:
1. Weekly Communion is the norm for Christian worship, and that norm should only be deviated from when there is no ordained presbyter or bishop to preside at the Altar/Table.
2. The Holy Scriptures and the Apostles and Nicene Creeds are the only proper sources and norms for Christian doctrine. Adding anything else, such as John Wesley's Sermons and Notes, or a Confession of Faith, is adding human teachings to divine revelation.

So I had concluded that while the UMC is a Christian church, confessing the Trinity and the Creeds, and holding to a Biblical model of ministry, its practice of the Sacraments was sub-Christian, while it's doctrinal standards added human teaching to divine revelation. I had also concluded that the Episcopal Church had done neither of those things, and was the closest thing to pure Biblical and historical Christianity available, and that made my conversion inevitable.

My third tentative conclusion was that at least some of the Apocrypha, especially the two additional Wisdom books, should be regarded as inspired Scripture.

Finally, a note about the practice of Communion in Episcopal and Methodist churches. In the average UMC you get part of a common loaf of real bread, but a separate little cup of grape juice. In the average TEC you get a common chalice of real wine, but a separate little wafer of "bread". I would like to see all churches use a common chalice of real wine and a common loaf of real bread- I think that this is what the first Christians would have recognized as Communion.

( cut for length )

TL DR: 30 minutes is an acceptable commute to church for me, but an hour or more is not. This is why I want to stay in Columbus, despite the upsides to moving to Thornville.