Unlike so many clerics, at least Reverend Glynn Cardy is clear about who he thinks should be the arbiter of our moral values. Not God; not the Bible – perish the thought; not the church; and not traditional societal mores accumulated over centuries. The guardian of our ethical boundaries is the society one happens to find oneself in as it exists now; tomorrow it could all change.
So today, in the West, since gay marriage is legal the church must get in step with society and accept gay marriage; according to Cardy, this demonstrates that the church has “a strong moral compass.”
If Cardy really insists on taking his moral cues from societal surroundings, in Egypt he would be favour bombing churches, in Iran hanging homosexuals and in Saudi Arabia not allowing women to drive.
The fact that churches holding fast to revealed truth are growing and churches which have surrendered to the Zeitgeist are floundering on the precipice of extinction – in step with their societies – seems to have escaped Rev. Cardy.
From here:
An outspoken Auckland vicar says the Anglican Church is in danger of becoming a moral dinosaur and is increasingly seen as irrelevant with the passing of the Gay Marriage Bill.
Reverend Glynn Cardy said that with the passing of the law, the state had moved well ahead of the church.
[…..]
The vicar said his comments were in relation to the church’s position on gay and lesbian people getting married or ordained when they have partners.
“It’s really about when the church gets out of step with society and society loses confidence in the church as having a strong moral compass.
“I think the church for many years has been seen as a model that tries to promote good values in society and I think the church has done that well in times in pointing our different issues of justice and promoting honesty and kindness,” he said.
“I think that society and science have said that gay people should be treated like anyone else and if the church continues to discriminate the confidence society has in it will diminish.”
He said the church could be left behind “as a relic” and needed to change to have society’s confidence as a moral body to be listened to.
And if the fashionable folk say that all Anglican clergymen must advocate marriage between man and horse, doubtless a certain type of cleric will write in glowing terms against the “bigotry” that dares protest. It’s the old, old story; a man decides to do something vile, and is amazed at how narrow-minded everyone else is.
“Beware when all men speak well of you … “
“Do not follow the crowd in doing wrong.” Exodus 27:2
From a sermon preached at Little Trinity Anglican Church, Toronto in August 1973: “If the church is to rise above its culture, if it is to be a lamp and salt rather than mirror and cement to its society, the church must subject its theology, its ethics, and its values to the light of the Word of God.”
New Zealand is an extension of Australia in a race toward godlessness and apathy.
This cleric, unfortunately, is typical of the majority. The fallacious and superficial nature of his message, the moral childishness of his assertions should be obvious to all, yet is not, because our societies down here in the Southern Hemisphere are deeply immature in their thinking on moral issues. The leading lights – dim ones to be sure – down in the South, eye enviously the cultural and intellectual deposit found in America and Europe, and appear to conclude, that the only way to ever be as accomplished is to embrace the most virulent liberalism.
Listening to this clergyman makes one yearn for the worldly cynicism of Big Bird and his multicoloured friends. Reverend Cardy triumphantly claims the church has promoted “justice” and “honesty”, as if society requires a moribund organisation full of frustrated politicians and social workers wearing ministerial garb to advance virtues that even the pagan Greeks and Romans managed to identify as praiseworthy.
Oh, the agonies of being an Anglican clergyman in the 21st century! On the one hand, he (or she) possesses all the resolve of Stalin in the task to remould society into a earthly paradise according to a master plan that only enlightened receptacles of social wisdom – such as themselves – are privileged to understand or construct. They look with disdain upon lesser mortals from elevated altitudes.
Yet, on the other hand, they belong to an organisation whose power to influence society has spectacularly collapsed over the past forty years; an organisation which is haemorrhaging people like a lacerated haemophiliac; and which has so lost its moral authority and raison d’être that most people find them unutterably boring.
The vast majority of “the society” for whose sake they have contorted themselves, correctly recognise that a lecture from an Anglican clergyman on the condition of society contains nothing novel or thought-provoking since it “challenges” an unbelieving society only to accelerate in the direction that it is already heading. The social commentary of the average liberal Anglican clergyman consists of a less-competent and less-interesting, yet fundamentally identical prognosis as that which can be found flowing out of any social sciences department at a humdrum university near you.
Such clerics, having drunk deeply from the well of liberalism, now stake their entire persona on demonstrating their enlightened credentials by attacking everything that supports them: the church, the ministry, the Bible, the doctrine, the history, and generous conservative believers. Indeed, a sort of mathematical scale could be constructed that would show how the mea culpas and self-directed attacks escalate in direct proportion to the degree of support offered by the objects of criticism.
What use, really, are these people? They believe neither doctrine nor Bible; they believe in few absolutes that cannot be remoulded in any emergency into new forms; they are not competent preachers – at least, not by the standards of the Reformed – they lack passion and enthusiasm for deep and serious issues yet eagerly run after sugar candy and pink clouds; they are heterodox not orthodox; they hunger for publicity and prostitute themselves to the media; they appear to be more concerned about furthering the cause of homosexuality than they do the cause of Christ. The parade themselves as the font of salvation, yet close up the doors to heaven for those who are sinful and needy of the Message of Christ.
Most assuredly, the Pharisees live.
“Woe to you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites!”[7 times]
“Serpents, brood of vipers!How can you escape the condemnation of hell!” Matt.23:13/33
Jesus said it, oh so well.
Terry, Jesus said everything well; trouble is nobody listens or cares in today’s society! Except a few faithful disciples, and I fear that if all the heretics, naysayers and downright weirdos were gone, then the ‘few’ would start fighting among themselves…
Does this character actual listen to his own words. What he is basically saying is that the Church has to follow others if it is to be a their leader. This is basically a “lets tell them what they want to hear and maybe they will listen to us”. So I ask, where is there any leadership in any of that?
Furthermore, this is certainly not the example that Jesus Christ gave us. He repeatedly went against the societal norms of the place and time. It is also abundantly clear the He was not anything like what many had expected or hoped for (a military leader who would free Israel from Roman rule). What He did do was tell everyone the Truth, no matter how hard it was for people to accept.
May I go so far as to state that anyone who does not understand and accept these Truths should not be Priest.