Tag Archives: same sex marrage

Bishop of Edmonton responds to same-sex marriage decision

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Jane Alexander reacts to the recent house of bishops meeting where the bishops announced that the same-sex marriage motion to come before General Synod 2016 will not have the necessary support from the bishops to pass.

Alexander is another liberal, so her comments below are no surprise.

We still have no statements from any of the conservative bishops who have said they will vote against the motion. Are they all shy?

From here:

March 2, 2016
My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I have just returned to the diocese following a special meeting of the House of  Bishops and a meeting of the Provincial House of Bishops of Rupert’s Land prior to the consecration of William Cliff as Bishop of Brandon.
It is my hope that by now you will have had the opportunity to read the House of Bishops Statement (http://www.anglican.ca/news/statement-from-the-house-of-bishops-from-its-specialmeeting/30015170/) as well as the report of the Commission on the Marriage Canon ‘This Holy Estate’ (http://www.anglican.ca/wp-content/uploads/Marriage Canon REPORT 15Sept22.pdf).
As the 2016 meeting of General Synod draws nearer, there was an overwhelming feeling in the
House of Bishops that we should share with the Council of General Synod (CoGS) just where the Bishops are in their consideration of a change to the marriage canon. Our statement is our attempt to be honest about the position in which we find ourselves.
In this diocese, we have passed a motion that allows for the blessing of a civil marriage between two people regardless of gender. I fully stand by this decision of our synod, and feel that marriages between faithful Christians of the same gender can be seen as a sacrament and give glory to God. I apologize to those members of our community, LGBTQ and heterosexual, who have been hurt and confused by the Bishops issuing their statement. I want to tell you that it was not done with malice or in an attempt to stop us talking at General Synod. Rather, it was an effort to be open and honest about our conversations. We are often asked as a House of Bishops to comment on our discussions at our meetings, and this is our attempt to do so.
I will continue to try and do all in my power to be a symbol of unity in the Diocese of Edmonton, in the Anglican Church of Canada, and in the wider Anglican Communion. I am convinced that in the power of Jesus Christ we will find a way forward. I encourage all of us as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ to continue in prayer and fellowship and to seek the will of God. It is my deepest prayer that we may all be one as Jesus and the Father are one (John 17).
Yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Jane Alexander
Bishop of Edmonton

 

Fred Hiltz attempts a Primates’ Meeting pre-emptive deflection manoeuvre

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Will it work? I doubt it.

Fred Hiltz would like the main discussion items at the January Primates’ meeting to be poverty, refugees, and global warming; in other words, temporal items, woes which inspire church enthusiasm of a magnitude overshadowed only by its inability to remedy them.

As much as Hiltz would like to avoid any discussion of disciplining TEC and the ACoC over their same-sex marriage preoccupation, squirm as he might, I am sure that the GAFCON primates will not let him get away with it.

From here:

A number of primates within the Anglican Communion are pushing for a Primates’ Meeting agenda that “reflects not only concerns within the domestic life of the church, but around the urgent issues within our common humanity,” said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

Returning from his December 9 meeting with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Hiltz said he was informed by Welby that this particular call “is not coming from just certain parts of the Communion—it’s coming from every part of the Communion.”

While Hiltz acknowledged that issues around same-sex marriages will be an important topic of conversation at the meeting, he said he has encouraged Welby to make sure that the meeting’s agenda tackles important issues affecting the church and the world.

Earlier, Hiltz identified poverty, the global refugee crisis and climate change as key concerns for churches.

In an interview with the Anglican Journal, Hiltz said he was pleased with how receptive Welby was to this message. “He’s very open to that, and he said that a lot of the primates are calling for an agenda that reflects both.”

Hiltz also said that after his meeting with Welby, he came away “encouraged by his [Welby’s] clarity in terms of what the Primates’ Meeting is and what it’s not.”

The Primates’ Meeting “is not a decision-making body—it’s a body for people that come together to pray and discuss and discern and offer some guidance. We don’t make resolutions,” Hiltz said.

Since it was announced that Archbishop Foley Beach, the leader of the breakaway Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), would be present for the first part of the meeting, Hiltz said there has been concern in some quarters over whether or not attempts will be made to confront The Episcopal Church (TEC) over its decision this year to allow same-sex marriages. But Hiltz said Welby was quite clear that the meeting would not exclude any of the primates of churches that are members of the Anglican Communion.

“His principle is one of full inclusion of all the primates. I think he will encourage, and if need be, challenge, the primates to uphold that principle,” Hiltz said.

The meeting—scheduled Jan. 11-16, 2016—will be the first to be hosted by Welby since he was enthroned in 2013. The primates last met in Dublin in 2011, a meeting attended by only 23 or the 38 primates.

Hiltz said he believes part of the difficulty in getting the primates to meet arose from different understandings of the role of the Primates’ Meeting among the other instruments of the Communion. What began as a way for primates to meet for “friendly conversation” has been pushed in a more disciplinary direction, Hiltz said, which has led to some distorted understandings of how much authority primates actually have over the wider Communion.

“Within the Communion, as the Primates’ Meeting, we are called to a servant role, in terms of how we speak of, support and model servant leadership in the spirit of God’s mission,” he noted. “We’re servants of the churches in which we minister…we are called to be servants, not rulers.”

Anglican Church of Canada to use indaba groups for same-sex blessing vote

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The whole idea of the indaba groups is to create a climate of respect during which delegates put on a display of hugging, crying and earnest pondering while, in the background, there are secret machinations to pass the same-sex marriage motion and once again bamboozle the few remaining hapless conservatives still clinging to risible notion that the ACoC bears a passing resemblance to a Christian church.

From here:

Council of General Synod (CoGS) has stressed that delegates to the 2016 General Synod need space, time, and appropriate preparation in order to keep discussions around same-sex marriage from becoming antagonistic.

“The use of an indaba process or a Sacred Circle type of process is going to create a climate of respect,” said Don Wilson, of the ecclesiastical province of British Columbia. “There is a view of some that the revisionists are heretical and the traditionalists are stuck in the past, and if we can get beyond that and into a kind of respect, it could smooth things out.” (Indaba is a Zulu word for decision-making by consensus. The Indigenous Sacred Circle often involves the process of talking circles.)

Though the resolution that brought the issue before General Synod ultimately requires delegates to give either a “yes” or a “no,” CoGS has vowed to make the conversation leading up to that vote as non-adversarial as possible.

Marriage Equality

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For marriages to be equal, everyone would have to have to be hitched to a person who is no less or more attractive, capable, wealthy, fertile, sanguine, attentive, understanding, sympathetic or desirable than anyone else.

As with socialism, the only way this works is to compel all to sink to the lowest common denominator. We all have to marry unattractive, bungling, impoverished, impotent, miserable, disinterested, dense, uncaring, ugly and repugnant individuals – the sex of the person wouldn’t matter because there wouldn’t be any.

Of course, what those who tirelessly agitate for marriage equality really want is imbalance not equality: a contrived conjoining of two similarities, a consummation of anti-symmetry, a coitus of hollow infertility.

That was quick

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From here:

A Montana man said Wednesday that he was inspired by last week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage to apply for a marriage license so that he can legally wed his second wife.

Nathan Collier and his wives Victoria and Christine applied at the Yellowstone County Courthouse in Billings on Tuesday in an attempt to legitimize their polygamous marriage. Montana, like all 50 states, outlaws bigamy — holding multiple marriage licenses — but Collier said he plans to sue if the application is denied.

“It’s about marriage equality,” Collier told The Associated Press Wednesday. “You can’t have this without polygamy.”

TEC and the ACoC don’t haven’t much of a generous pastoral response to offer Nathan, Victoria and Christine because so many North American Anglican clergy have been too busy legitimising their own sexual urges to worry about polygamy – although clerical polygamy may well be on the horizon; as long as it’s gay polygamy.

TEC changes the definition of marriage; Justin Welby is deeply concerned

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From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury today expressed deep concern about the stress for the Anglican Communion following the US Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops’ resolution to change the definition of marriage in the canons so that any reference to marriage as between a man and a woman is removed.

While recognising the prerogative of The Episcopal Church to address issues appropriate to its own context, Archbishop Justin Welby said that its decision will cause distress for some and have ramifications for the Anglican Communion as a whole, as well as for its ecumenical and interfaith relationships.

Other than the fact that I am still waiting with considerable anticipation for an archbishop to voice a shallow concern, what I find most interesting about this is that Welby’s worry is not so much whether it is Biblically sound to redefine marriage, but whether TEC’s decision will hasten the demise of the pallid but still twitching carcass belonging to what used to be the Anglican Communion.

In order to remain credible, and in the absence of any more potent stricture on TEC than deep concern from Canterbury, what choice will Provinces that take the Gospel seriously have but to further distance themselves from TEC – and Canterbury?

Incidentally, does anyone doubt that the Anglican Church of Canada will follow in TEC’s footsteps? Anyone?

Primate hopes marriage canon debates will be respectful

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The object on which an Anglican bishop rests his hope rarely fails to confirm my low expectations.

Fred Hiltz could be hoping that the outcome of the debate will align with the Biblical understanding of marriage or, to say it another way, with God’s will for a Christian marriage. Instead, he hopes that there will not be too much squabbling.

From here:

Archbishop Fred Hiltz said he is aware that there is anxiety among Anglicans about how the 2016 General Synod will deal with a motion amending the marriage canon (church law) to allow the marriage of same-sex couples.

Hiltz expressed hope that the debates that will precede any decision will be conducted with respect and patience.

He is praying, he added, that people will “know the leading of the Holy Spirit” and that there will be “grace in the midst of what will be a very difficult and challenging conversation.”

[……]

In July 2013, General Synod — the church’s governing body — approved Resolution C003, which asked Council of General Synod (CoGS) to prepare and present a motion to change the church’s Canon 21 on marriage “to allow the marriage of same-sex couples in the same way as opposite-sex couples.”

It also asked that this motion include “a conscience clause so that no member of the clergy, bishop, congregation or diocese should be constrained to participate in our authorize [sic] such marriages against the dictates of their conscience.”

It’s hard to take the prayer “know the leading of the Holy Spirit” seriously, since the “conscience clause” (not that anyone takes that particularly seriously since those that exercise it will be ridiculed, ostracised and eventually driven out) anticipates disunity, something that would not be present if the delegates were more interested in being informed by the Holy Spirit than in using him as rubber stamp for their own opinions.

Scottish Episcopal Church considers change to Canon on Marriage

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Following the Anglican Church of Canada and TEC’s prophetic lead, the Scottish Episcopal Church is to consider changing its marriage canon to included same-sex couples.

In this context, “prophetic” means abjectly striving to fit into a world to which, the Bible tells us, the church is not to be conformed.

From here:

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church has today voted to begin a process for change in relation to its Canon on Marriage. It has therefore instructed the Church’s Faith and Order Board to begin the two year process which may lead towards canonical change. That change would potentially allow the marriage of same gendered couples in Church in late 2017. The option which Synod voted for states

The coming out of Vicky Beeching

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Vicky Beeching is a Christian celebrity, singer, and more recently media commentator; she has just announced that she is a lesbian. What makes this interesting – and, since I am firmly convinced that celebrities’ opinions are rarely sensible, the only thing that does – is that for a number of months prior to her unburdening herself, Beeching has been promoting same sex marriage in her blog, giving Biblical references as reasons for her support of same sex marriage. She urges us to have good disagreements: I can see her becoming a mouthpiece for Justin – it’s all about relationship – Welby.

As it turns out, though, the more probable reason for her view is an entirely personal one: she is attracted to other women. As so often seems to be the case, the Biblical texts are being read in the light of subjectivity, in this case because the reader is herself gay or, in other instances, because someone close to the reader is.

From here:

“I’m gay,” she says, confirming what is written. She has never said this publicly before – a handful of people in her private life know. She has only just told one her closest friends, Katherine, and Katherine’s father, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The enormity of the political ramifications of this disclosure scarcely have a second to sink in – a theologian who spends holy days with the Archbishop, whose God-fearing lyrics are sung by millions in America’s Bible Belt, coming out as a lesbian – before I begin to reflect on the implications for her personally.

Marriage Canon submissions now online

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The Anglican Church of Canada’s proposal to change the marriage canon to permit same sex couples to marry is supposed to be preceded by a “broad consultation” among those who are still its members. I think the whole exercise is a smoke screen to conceal the fact that the decision has already been made, but if it isn’t, what will the commission do with the submissions? Tally the for and against and go with the winner: theology through democracy, the next step in secularising the church?

You can read the submissions here.