GOE Blast from the Past ...

OK ... since the football game last night stopped being interesting (unless you're a total die-hard Jets fan!) I was amusing myself by websurfing until it was over and came across this link to the 1996 General Ordination Exam (yes, that was the year I took it!)

And while the whole thing was a memory-lane deal for me, here's the question I thought was the most interesting ... in retrospect ... about the theology of marriage:

SET V Saturday, January 6, 1996, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon

LIMITED RESOURCES - You are limited in resource material to the Bible, the Book of Common Prayer, the Hymnal, and the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. You may use printed or electronic versions of these texts but no other resources of any kind, printed, written, verbal or electronic.

(Set V focuses on the canonical area of Ethics and Moral Theology. It also deals with the areas of Holy Scripture, Liturgics, and Contemporary Society.)

A couple active and involved in your congregation who have been living together for some time come to see you. They tell you that they have decided not to have children. They ask you, "Are there reasons to get married other than having children?"

In an essay of no more than 1250 words, discuss how a Christian understanding of the moral goods of marriage invites them to marry in spite of their decision not to have children. Include in your answer at least the following:

A. The moral goods of marriage as set forth in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer;
B. The Biblical groundings of this understanding of marriage;
C. The moral criteria for evaluating a decision not to have children.

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Here's the other one that I remembered and why:

(#4 in the "Coffee Hour Questions:) This year we celebrate the 1400th anniversary of Augustine's arrival in England. Who was Augustine and why is he significant in the calendar of the Episcopal Church?

What I remember about it was the discussion that took place that night at the "THANK GOD THAT'S OVER" celebratory dinner ... when one of my GOE compatriots was going on about how grateful she was there was a question about Augustine and how she got to work in to her answer how important his mother Monica was in his formation and spiritual life.

Yep. Wrong Augustine. But there was nothing to be served at that point other than saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING beyond "More wine? Red or white?"

Ah ... the things we remember! (And we now return you to our regularly scheduled first-week-of-the-New Year! :)