From the "Nashville Statement".

[Owlswing]

I have copied this from a thread on the Ethics and Freethought topic in order to save the Mods from having to do so! (Should they feel it necessary and appropriate!)

Posted by Rhiannon on a thread on the Ethics topic 

I have just come across this:

https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement/

Ye gods these people are sick morons! 

My comment:

From the preamble on this statement:

This secular spirit of our age presents a great challenge to the Christian church. Will the church of the Lord Jesus Christ lose her biblical conviction, clarity, and courage, and blend into the spirit of the age? Or will she hold fast to the word of life, draw courage from Jesus, and unashamedly proclaim his way as the way of life? Will she maintain her clear, counter-cultural witness to a world that seems bent on ruin?

I have never, ever, seen the Christian Churh or the Church of Christ referred to as a feminine entity before!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's a petition with a given rationale isn't it......and I'm sure there is a petition for same-sex marriage with a given rationale.

[SteveH]

I have never, ever, seen the Christian Churh or the Church of Christ referred to as a feminine entity before!

Well, you clearly haven't been concentrating. From the earliest days, the Church was called "the bride of Christ", and referred to as "she".

[Rhiannon]

I have copied this from a thread on the Ethics and Freethought topic in order to save the Mods from having to do so! (Should they feel it necessary and appropriate!)

Posted by Rhiannon on a thread on the Ethics topic 

My comment:

From the preamble on this statement:

I have never, ever, seen the Christian Churh or the Church of Christ referred to as a feminine entity before!

Not me. I can think of a more elegant turn of phrase.

[Rhiannon]

Well, you clearly haven't been concentrating. From the earliest days, the Church was called "the bride of Christ", and referred to as "she".

Yes, this is one justification for the inclusion of the Song of Solomon being included in the Bible. Otherwise having some mildly erotic love poetry in among the prophecies and slaughtering of innocents looks a tad odd.

[Nearly Sane]

Well, you clearly haven't been concentrating. From the earliest days, the Church was called "the bride of Christ", and referred to as "she".

or mother. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_church

[floo]

The Catholics make a big deal of Mary, they even pray to that long deceased woman. Apart getting pregnant before she married Joseph, and watching her son die a highly unpleasant death, she doesn't really feature much in the gospels.

[Shaker]

The Catholics make a big deal of Mary, they even pray to that long diseased woman.

Whoops!

[floo]

Whoops!

Oh whoops! Mind you, she could have caught an unpleasant disease, depending on who got her up the duff before Joseph put a ring on her finger! It seems most unfair that girls who find themselves in a similar  position have been condemned by churches throughout the ages.

[Owlswing]

Well, you clearly haven't been concentrating. From the earliest days, the Church was called "the bride of Christ", and referred to as "she".

The only person(s) I have ever seen referred to as Bride(s) of Christ are nuns.

As to "the earliest days" the only religion whose earliest days I have ever taken a serious interest in is Paganism in all its multifarous variations.

[Dicky Underpants]

The only person(s) I have ever seen referred to as Bride(s) of Christ are nuns.

As to "the earliest days" the only religion whose earliest days I have ever taken a serious interest in is Paganism in all its multifarous variations.

JPG and Rhiannon are quite right. The original references to the Church as the Bride of Christ are in Ephesians 5 & Revelation 19:7. The influential and sexually confused Church Father, Origen, wrote numerous allegorical interpretations of the OT, and the Song of Solomon was given an extensive exegesis claiming that the book represented "the love which exists between Christ and his Church". It is highly unlikely whether this erotic poem was originally intended to have any religious significance at all - but then lots of things got into the OT without there being any apparent religious significance in them - the book of Esther for example.
Bach was particularly fond of giving musical settings to this idea, and his famous cantata "Sleepers Wake" is all about the arrival of the "Bridegroom" (Jesus) in the hearts of the faithful, nuns and otherwise.

[wigginhall]

I thought that  the wedding service (Anglican) used to compare bride and groom to church and Christ, and probably still does.   

From the horse's mouth:

"Marriage is a gift of God in creation
through which husband and wife may know the grace of God.
It is given
that as man and woman grow together in love and trust,
they shall be united with one another in heart, body and mind,
as Christ is united with his bride, the Church."

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/pastoral/marriage/marriage.aspx

[Dicky Underpants]

I thought that  the wedding service (Anglican) used to compare bride and groom to church and Christ, and probably still does.   

From the horse's mouth:

"Marriage is a gift of God in creation
through which husband and wife may know the grace of God.
It is given
that as man and woman grow together in love and trust,
they shall be united with one another in heart, body and mind,
as Christ is united with his bride, the Church."

https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/pastoral/marriage/marriage.aspx

That's what I remember from Anglican wedding services.