Comments on: Building A Bridge

By: Marika

Marika — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 15:28:57 +0000

Father Martin is a bit of an exception and Francis is not a typical pope. Make no mistake: more Catholic theologians have been silenced in the 20th and 21st centuries than Orthodox ones. It’s always struck me that the Orthodox have have taken the “reception” of teachings far more seriously than the Roman Catholics. Witness the colossal fail of Humanae Vitae, which the RC Church seems helpless to address except to restate the party line. The current problem with the Orthodox and LGBT issues right now is twofold: ancient cultural prejudice against homosexuality, which is alive and well among the various autocephalous churches, and the unfortunate coalition of the Orthodox with the anti-intellectual evangelicals, which has resulted in bypassing modern science and reinforcing all the old prejudices. Have any of these clerics from the East or the West ever humbled themselves to examine a modern undergraduate or graduate textbook in psychology to see what the research on LGBT issues (which has exploded in the last 30 years) actually says? Is it OK for churches to proclaim truths that are at odds with scientific literature on the nature of sex and gender or to misrepresent that work? What is a church for, anyway? Does it exist so that the male celibates can proclaim that “wife and mother” is a woman’s sacred duty and that LGBT people are spitting in the face of God? How would they know? How irrelevant can they get before people simply ignore them?

By: andre

andre — Sat, 26 Aug 2017 13:04:16 +0000

In reply to Bob.

Bob,
Thank you for the wonderfully expressed sentiments of hope. May the Lord hear your prayer.
I bid you peace,
Andriy

By: Bob

Bob — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 03:26:08 +0000

I appreciate Fr.Martin’s article and remain hopeful that bridges may be built between the institutional Church and LGBT Orthodox Christians. We should recall though that bridges already exist, and many have covered some distance in trying to reach the institutional Church, serving and suffering, in Christian discipleship, yet fearfully aware of being excluded from the body of Christ upon discovery of their sexual identity. With hope that some brave and honest servants of God will take some steps towards the LGBT Orthodox Christians who are also on that bridge, and with warm and loving embrace, accept fully that ” lost sheep” into the Body of Christ.