Churches are not clinging to any 'Christian morality'. They are just like everything else these days and have, therefore, lost any authority they had.

One of your better essays Sells, but you lost me in the final paragraph. You need to do better there.

David

It lost something it never ever had! And what's the difference in Annul sex occurring with informed consent between a heterosexual couple and the SS equivalent?

It's still a phallus penetrating an anus sphincter! And although unnatural for the heterosexual couple, practised we're informed by our resident authority on all matters sexual, Big Nana, as (acceptable) birth control in some cultures?

Moreover, there are some cultures where homosexual practice or love was never ever considered immoral or verboten as common practise?

And given the aids epidemic and homosexual spread diseases like syphilis, with the associated onset of early dementia! Very unhealthy indeed!

I cannot feel anything except pity for people whose inherited genetic make up have made culturally acceptable male female sex, completely unpalatable for them along with all the pleasures and rewards of parenthood!

That said, forbidding homosexuality is not too different from forbidding left handedness.

Time to stop obsessing about the sexual predilections of consenting adults! And get onto something Christ would have really cared about?

i.e., injustice and poverty! And way way more important than what occurs in the bedrooms of consenting adults.

Always providing if different, then practised as safe sex! And then only ever as an expression of mind, body and soul, love!
Alan B.

Yeah, it's not only that the church has lost moral authority, most see its prescriptions for society as harmful.
Unfortunately, it seems the only way forward for christians in the west is to separate from the mainstream and request that the secular authorities allow christian safe zones to be established in regional, undeveloped areas.

Sells, the problems facing the Christian churches are bound up with their belief that the Bible is the "Word of God", but people have come to realise that it was written by men who had a particular agenda which was to control the masses. A lot of people still believe in the existence of this nebulous being called God, but because of the various shenanigans which are being revealed to us which show the unholiness of the clergy, they are turning away from organised Christian churches.

David.

I think what was thrown from the Tallahatchie bridge, was a Bible.

Bobbie Gentry was spotted on the bridge with Billy Joe McAlister, by the local preacher and caught in the act: Very co-incidental and somewhat profound, (and embarrassing), since it was the subject of the Sunday dinner, which included the Preacher!

But it was common knowledge among religious folk up on Chocktaw Ridge, Billy Joe was “Gay”.
Consequently, he couldn't cut the mustard, with the vivacious local stunner.

But sad as it all was for the dearest departed, and his watery end. It was actually the beginning of secular life away from the dreadful influence of the Southern Baptists, and their perpetual Bible bashing, (and of course, those stifling Sunday baked dinners, with the family and the preacher).

Bobbie can be seen on the odd occasion to this day, throwing flowers into the slow flowing Tallatchie river, in remembrance of her religious past, and all that went with it!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rNB8AKMdqiQ

Diver, one of your best ever contributions!

Be careful, I'm beginning to like you, again!
Alan B.

The ode to Billy Joe, is actually a parody to the death of Christianity, and sad moral decline.

Little hope remains for Christianity with its fundamentally flawed leadership.

But this is unlike Islam. Which forges forward with its powerful moral message.

Islam doesn't have a moral message if it includes discriminating against folks, daring to be born different!

And then fighting each other with much spilling of blood over the musings of a child raping paedophile? With the latest episode the attack on a Sufi mosque and the mass murder of penitent peaceful Muslims at prayer! EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE!

One wonders where in that blood soaked, mouth frothing history, is there even a single shred of moral authority Diver!?

Or ours in the Spanish inquisition, the dark ages and acts like burning Christian Saints at the stake! And other acts of sheer barbarity! And all of it under the alleged imprimatur of the "ONE TRUE GOD"!

WTF is wrong with you Diver? Are you just a bloody minded radical fundamental fanatic, just pretending to speak for Christ? EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE!? And then we wonder why Australia is going to hell in a hand basket!?

You are never ever going to be able to stop mindlessly obsessing over homosexuality are you!? And ahead of all other considerations, all vastly more important than your patently puerile, pernicious parsimonious obsessions!
Alan B.

Sellick writes: "Unlike the Church, democratic governments were able to respond to public opinion and it was that opinion that broke the nexus between government and the Church."

Anything but the cold hard truth, huh? Since the Renaissance witnessed the stirring of human minds increasingly dissatisfied with church control and dictat that demanded the suppression of truth to divine doctrine, human control of its society and its intellectual advancement has resulted in a growing revulsion toward chuch excesses. As social morality advanced and evolved to one more tolerant of diversity and as science demonstrated the perversion and corruption within church doctrine people voted with their minds. The thirst for education among developing nations, the basis of all development and essential in survival in world trade, was a significant move in intellectual advancement.

The various christian churches of Europe, so entrenched in the privilege of a second aristocracy, have not kept pace and have very poorly adjusted to being forced to act in society purely from altruism and sacrifice with little concommitant monetary gain or advancement in privilege.

The so-called "nexus" is without doubt a euphemism describing the millennia during which church and state were the same entity. It arouses utter abhorence in a citizenry so tired of weasel-worded euphemism used to describe the most awful acts of savagery and perversion perpetrated by the church against its flock, especially prior to but certainly not confined to the ages pre-dating the Renaissance.

POGI.

Yeah and Amen.

David