Nice review! Glad you liked the book. I think that's probably right about homosexuality and the NT, but she does, iirc, make the point that Jesus never comments on sexuality, which I take to the basis of her position that it is therefore not a sin, and she doesn't really need to go into Paul for that.
primarily the second, I think Matthew 19 probably isn't best read the way she is implicitly reading it, but I do think it is an argument and not one that can be dismissed as readily as it sometimes is
I find that people from all manner of religions report the same experience described by Damien, a sort of "(re)enchantment of the world", where meaning/miracles/magic become a constituent part of reality.
Which religion they deduce from it falls on priors: for someone who grew up or lived a decent chunk of life with an Anglican church on every corner, Christianity would be their "default setting" unless they were curious and interested enough to study other faiths.
I really appreciate you giving voice to concerns that orthodox Christians would have with Ash’s view on sexual ethics. But I would press you a bit on the low bar you seem to accept for the consistency that we should expect from a Christian worldview. “It’s obviously fine” doesn’t nearly cut it as a justification for such significant departures from historic, Biblical Christian teachings on ethics. If one wants to make such departures in a convincing manner, she needs to do the leg work to show us how her view coheres with a fully developed system of Christian beliefs.
I think your first instinct to demand more of an exegetical explanation was right on. 👍🏻
Nice review! Glad you liked the book. I think that's probably right about homosexuality and the NT, but she does, iirc, make the point that Jesus never comments on sexuality, which I take to the basis of her position that it is therefore not a sin, and she doesn't really need to go into Paul for that.
*homosexuality?
Hi, I’m curious…Do you find the “Jesus never talked about it” point compelling? Or are you just trying to explain Ash’s reasoning?
primarily the second, I think Matthew 19 probably isn't best read the way she is implicitly reading it, but I do think it is an argument and not one that can be dismissed as readily as it sometimes is
Thanks for the reply. So her argument was specifically about Matthew 19?
I find that people from all manner of religions report the same experience described by Damien, a sort of "(re)enchantment of the world", where meaning/miracles/magic become a constituent part of reality.
Which religion they deduce from it falls on priors: for someone who grew up or lived a decent chunk of life with an Anglican church on every corner, Christianity would be their "default setting" unless they were curious and interested enough to study other faiths.
I really appreciate you giving voice to concerns that orthodox Christians would have with Ash’s view on sexual ethics. But I would press you a bit on the low bar you seem to accept for the consistency that we should expect from a Christian worldview. “It’s obviously fine” doesn’t nearly cut it as a justification for such significant departures from historic, Biblical Christian teachings on ethics. If one wants to make such departures in a convincing manner, she needs to do the leg work to show us how her view coheres with a fully developed system of Christian beliefs.
I think your first instinct to demand more of an exegetical explanation was right on. 👍🏻