Touchstone, a journal of mere Christianity published by conservative Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians, recently had an editorial that seems to indicate the Reformation we’ve been studying on Sunday nights is an on-going process.
“December 18, 2023, will go down in history as the date on which the die was
cast: the date on which the church renounced the gospel’s right to call us to
repentance; the date that, more than any other, signals the church’s implosion in the West.
“Of course, long before this fateful date on which Pope Francis signaled his approval of the ‘Blessing of same-sex couples’, indications abounded that not all was well… It is hard to imagine anyone doing more damage more effectively to the Catholic Church and to Christianity as a whole than Pope Francis has done with this declaration.
“Of course, every attempt will be made to explain that Fiducia Supplicans merely offers a blessing to people in need of God’s love and mercy… This so-called “pastoral” declaration utterly fails such people, for it refuses to hold out to them the way of love and truth, which is the age-old, ascetical path that we take by saying no to our sinful desires.
“The Church of England sanctioned blessings of same-sex couples only weeks
before the pope took the same leap… We cannot overstate the significance of the near-simultaneous breakdown of the Catholic and Anglican communions, for it means that the two key Western institutions that have nurtured Christian civilization since the time of the Reformation will do so no more… When we tie Christian identity to the anchor of prevailing cultural mores, what we end up with is flotsam of planks and poles, which tell the tale of a great ship that once sailed choppy cultural waters and didn’t manage to stay afloat.
“Only one thing can prevent this date from going into history as one of the most tragic dates in the church’s history: it is the conscious and deliberate reconnection of the pastoral and the theological. This means revoking…and prohibiting the blessing of same-sex couples, while unambiguously insisting on the pastoral counsel that same-sex activity is sinful and, as such, requires repentance.”
God Bless, Rick
Chatham Christian Church 