[danielf]

Originally Posted by Chris T

I would think anybody who believed themselves qualified to comment on God's thoughts to be somewhat deluded, and possibly arrogant, maybe even a little unhinged.

The only proper position of a Christian teacher is humility and absolute reliance on God, and not reliant on a sense of personal qualifications. However that does not preclude the possibility of God asking such a person to deliver a prophetic message. In such cases the person speaking would indeed be in a position of commenting on God's thoughts on specific issues. This is why, in Christian terminology, we're told to 'discern the spirits' - know the man, know his ministry. I don't know the Bishop of Carlisle (assuming that's who it was, I've not seen a link yet), hence my reluctance to weigh in on either side on this specific issue.

linky in post #5: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/34341134-post5.html

No mention of a prophetic message. The word arrogance is used though.

To your final point - any religion which sets out to promote a certain way of life in its adherents, and to persuade other people to join up and adopt that same way of life, is inevitably going to end up saying that it believes one lifestyle is better than another. It has always been so and it always will be so. All that has changed is the current fashion for relativism and the privatisation of 'truth'. It's not surprising that a generation that has been taught that truth is a personal thing rather than an absolute would be offended when it clashes with a body of thought that holds truth to be an absolute concept.

Not surprising perhaps, but irritating and offensive (to me) nonetheless.