The rector St. Michael’s and All Angels Anglican Church in St. John’s can’t wait to get started; we must assume the queue of same-sex couples outside the church demanding ecclesiastical approval of their coupling is so long it’s causing traffic congestion.
There’s one thing to be said in Rowe’s favour: at least he’s honest about what the Anglican Church of Canada is up to:
Father Jonathan Rowe says it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when for the Anglican Church of Canada to allow for same-sex marriage in its parishes
Most clergy are too timid to admit this.
The principle under which Rowe seems to be operating is that if something is legal in Canada, the church should approve of it. Same-sex marriage is legal in Canada. But then, so is smoking cannabis, abortion, adultery and pornography.
From the CBC:
One Anglican parish in St. John’s is ready to allow same-sex couples to get married under its roof — but is caught in the middle of a waiting game.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada since 2005.
“Things seems to take a long time to happen in the church, and for an institution that’s 2,000 years old, that kind of makes sense,” said Father Jonathan Rowe, rector at St. Michael’s and All Angels Anglican Church in St. John’s.
Rowe said the Anglican Church has been having conversations regarding human sexuality, same-sex unions and most recently, same-sex marriage.
On Sunday, Rowe’s parish passed a motion during their annual meeting to request permission from the Bishop of Eastern Newfoundland and Labrador to, “offer the sacrament of Holy Matrimony to all couples who are legally entitled to marry in Canada, as soon as such an option becomes possible in this diocese.”
Regarding the wording “to all couples who are legally entitled to marry”, take note of the word “couples”. This could either imply that the good parishioners of St. Michael’s and All Angels deliberately drew the line at extending the domain of the concept of Holy Matrimony to no more than two people, whatever future extensions occur in secular law, or else they did not carefully think it through and merely assumed that such an extension to more than two could never occur. I suspect the latter, but either way, they should take note that the revision of Canon 21 (On Marriage in the Church), passed by General Synod a few years back and now coming due for a second reading, in its wording spoke, after a preamble of “duly qualified by civil law”, not of replacing “man and woman” and “husband and wife” by “the TWO parties to the marriage” but merely by “the parties to the marriage”. Was that carelessness or deliberate ? I have my suspicions. If the circumscription of one man and one woman is erased to be replaced by, a weakly implicit rather than strongly explicit, one of two people, then where is the logical barrier against future civil law acceptance of polygamy ? As the revised Marriage Canon now stands, should that occur the Anglican Church of Canada would follow suit. Would the Parish of St. Michael’s and All Angels repent of its accidental use of the word “couples” ?
“[W]here is the logical barrier against future civil law acceptance of polygamy?”
There is none.
Once the legal definition of marriage was tinkered with in order to accommodate same-sex couples, the recognition of polygamy became a mere matter of future legislative action.
I believe this is known in the vernacular as “opening up a can of worms”.
This simply proves that Satan’s angels will do anything to pervert the true WORD and any clergy person that denounces the authority of Scripture should be removed from office.
You know that won’t happen in the ACoC
Unless the rector is orthodox, of course.
So rather than the Church being a shining light in the world and showing the world what is right a proper it has abdicated this responsibility and become a follower of the foolish, the lost, the blind. Nothing like the blind leading the blind, which of course can only lead to destruction.