Do you believe in God?

[HenrySwanson]

Are there any instances of drag queens doing similar?

Makes you wonder if conservatives really do shout "GROOMER" for the protection of kids.

And why is a child rapist going to be out before 3 years.

 

[HenrySwanson]

Lose the religion, people:

 

[HenrySwanson]

Eugh....

Why Justin Welby must go

unherd.com

Not wrong enough for him to resign, though. Last week, when asked if it was time to go, the Archbishop responded: “I’ve been giving that a lot of thought. I’ve taken advice as recently as this morning from senior colleagues and no, I’m not going to resign for this. If I’d known before 2013 or had grounds for suspicions, that would be a resigning matter then and now. But I didn’t.”

That Justin Welby knew nothing about the Smythe abuses before 2013 is, for many, hard to fathom. The report itself concludes that it is “unlikely that Justin Welby would have no knowledge of the concerns regarding John Smythe in the 1980’s in the UK”. Welby was a friend of Smythe, a voluntary “dormitory officer” on the Christian camps where it happened, he was in the circle of trust of Church of England evangelical Christians, and the knowledge of what was going on was widespread in those quarters. As early as 1981, reports were being written about what Smythe was up to. “The scale and severity of the practise was horrific,” one vicar wrote in the Eighties. “Eight received about 14,000 strokes, two of them having some 8,000 strokes over three years.” The young men who received these beatings would have talked to each other. Is it credible a dormitory officer, with some level of pastoral responsibility, would really be so unaware? Indeed, the whole thing was even spoken about publicly in sermons. It was, the Makin Report concludes, an “open secret amongst a whole variety of people connected with the Conservative Evangelical network”, and “badly kept”. So the Makin Report is surely correct soberly to conclude it is “unlikely” that Justin Welby didn’t know. And so, if he really did know, then this would be a resigning matter on Welby’s own admission.

Clergy are naturally cautious creatures, and yet many are increasingly saying that the Archbishop’s position has become completely untenable. Vicars retweeting Welby Resign hashtags is not a good look for the Church. As one west country vicar wrote: “If this were any other member of clergy, a safeguarding review and risk assessment for their future suitability to continue to operate would be undertaken. Is there a reason it isn’t for Welby?” The Rev. Fergus Butler-Gallie, Vicar of Charlbury in Oxfordshire, wrote to the Archbishop at the weekend: “We will continue to pray for you, but I for one will be praying that you will resign … If you will not go for the love of the institution, if you will not go for the love of its people and priests, if you will not go for the victims, if you will not go for reasons of your own embarrassment or shame, then I pray you; for love of God, and Him alone, go.”

The concept of sin can be so detrimental to a person's life, and by extension people they come into contact with:

The Makin Report has attached an analysis of John Smythe by a clinical psychologist. It concludes “the beliefs and values of the conservative evangelical community in which John Smythe operated are critical to how he manipulated his victims into it”. She describes a focus on personal sinfulness, “a default sense of guilt, defectiveness, submission”, often focused around young men’s masturbatory habits. This sense of shame and sin has come to be fused into the very theological DNA of conservative evangelical theology. Christ died for our sins, he was whipped for our transgressions. And when sin is then understood instead as teenage bedroom fumblings, a toxic and pornographic brew of theology and sexual guilt is generated.

 

[ga_hellraiser]

I fear a very large debate could emerge from this question....

I don't personally believe in the same God the Christians do, but I do feel there could be a higher power up there of the same kind.

What's wrong with debating? Most of us here are mature adults who can respect each other.
As for the question, yes I believe there is a God, but i do NOT believe in all these man made religions about God. Am I wrong? Nope. Am I right? Nope.

 

[HenrySwanson]

What's wrong with debating? Most of us here are mature adults who can respect each other.
As for the question, yes I believe there is a God, but i do NOT believe in all these man made religions about God. Am I wrong? Nope. Am I right? Nope.

Just a heads up, the post you are quoting is from 2008.