Rembert G. Weakland was an archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church, but his career came quickly to an end (2002) when a man whom he had paid $450,000 to keep his mouth shut about their romantic involvement, appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," claiming that Weakland had "raped" him. His story can be read here.
Archbishop Weakland was already a liberal voice in the RCC before his early "retirement," but after he resigned from his position as archbishop, he became even more outspoken against the church's teaching on homosexuality.
Interestingly enough, in an article from the NY Times we read Weakland's rationale:
"If we say our God is an all-loving god,” he said, “how do you explain that at any given time probably 400 million living on the planet at one time would be gay? Are the religions of the world, as does Catholicism, saying to those hundreds of millions of people, you have to pass your whole life without any physical, genital expression of that love?”
Well, no Christian is surprised by Weakland's rationale. In fact, sinners have been (ab)using the love of God since the Fall. However, it is an abuse of the love of God to use the love of God as an excuse for sin. I wonder if the Arminian sentimentalism of the love of God has contributed to the use of the love of God as an excuse for sin... Just some food for thought.
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I think that sometimes even those of us who are doctrinally sound (ab)use the love of God to justify sin. I know that there has been many a time that I have been reflecting on God's grace only to follow that up with some egregious act of wickedness. Then I typically continue in a cavalier state of unrepentance rather than mortifying my sin.
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