So why the ban on gay clergy ? Everyone sins, we agreed on that.
You said all sins are equal too...
So, why ?
Honestly, not sure. Neither Jesus nor Paul lay out that policy. My guess it is has become a Church policy overtime for fear that to do otherwise would be to endorse it for the general population. And not all denominations do that either. All sins are equal in the eyes of God, according to scripture. Men don't implement that particularly well though.
Is that so with every sin ? Just the desire for it is a sin ?
It's a sinful desire. How you act on it is important, and whether or not you embrace it.
Yes, but why can't Catholic priests marry ?
Officially, the reason is that Jesus was celebant, therefore those doing the concectration should be too, and thus a concencration of the sacriment by a non-celibant is invalid. However, while Paul encouraged celibacy as a means to further cleanse yourself and become closer to God, it wasn't official policy until the First and Second Lateran Councils in the 12th century. I've read some research that the main reason that it was declared was to keep clergy from using their Church positions to acquire land and wealth and pass it on to their heirs. Personally, I don't agree with this policy, but I'm not Catholic.
You never know... Maybe it would have been the one and only religion by now if it hadn't become an organized one, look at Hinduism, Sikhism...
It would have been a religion that does what it says... a religion of good. Instead so many evil things done by people who have said that it was in the name of the religion...
True, or maybe to would be even more fractured than it already is with the Gnostics and others preaching a message that over time divereged more and more over time from the orthodox beliefs.
Isn't the Lutheran Church part of the Anglican Church ?
No. The Lutheran Church was essentially the Catholic Church in Germany before Martin Luther broke from Rome over theological and institutional differences in the early 16th century. The more conservative Lutheran Churches tend to follow worship services that are very similar to Catholic, but there are some differences. Our pastor's can marry (and in the past two decades they have allowed women) and we believe that forgiveness of sins comes from direct confession to God, not confession through a priest. There are others as well, but those are the two big ones off the top of my head. Also, while the crucifiction is prominent in our litrugy, we don't have generally have actual crucifiction's depicted in our Churches, just crosses.
Well, you can't actually believe God changed his mind ... God knew what was going to happen, but he needed Noah proclamation of faith. Otherwise he could just have saved Noah... There wouldn't have been a real story then. It would just have been a flood with Noah and his family surviving. Noah had to attest his faith. It was a test like many other things.
God never broke a promise though, when he said he'd do something because of something, that thing happened. When he promised something to someone that thing happened. Breaking a promise isn't something God has done, not in the OT and not in the NT...
That's a fair reasoning. Of course one of the hardest things about the God of Abraham is that he knows what you are going to do before you do it, yet at the same time we have free will! Talk about a conundrum!
