Tag Archives: same-sex marriage

Ontario House of Bishops complains about Lambeth same-sex spouse ban

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The Ontario House of Bishops claims in the letter below that a “diversity of theological positions” lurks somewhere in its midst, ready to spring out and surprise everyone. To demonstrate this diversity, the bishops are all making the same point by signing a letter complaining that Bishop Kevin Robertson’s husband… wife?  let’s stick to the nondescript “spouse” has not been invited to Lambeth 2020.

Here is the diverse bunch, including, on the right, Michael Bird even though he is an ex-bishop. You will notice in the very centre is what appears to be a robotic bishop from whom, I suspect, flow all the deeper nuances of theological diversity that were used to program the drones surrounding it:

And here is the letter:

Lambeth 2020: Feelings, nothing more than feelings

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When Justin Welby sent out the Lambeth 2020 invitations and disinvited the spouses of bishops who are in same-sex marriages, he was attempting a compromise which was typically Anglican: it had nothing to do with right, wrong, truth or lies; what mattered was whose feelings were going to be hurt.

That is because the Anglican church is taking its cues from the society in which it finds itself and the West, having sunk into a slough of aimless post-Christianity, has nothing to rely on but relativism and subjectivity. Equality has emerged from the slime as one of the new gods and, just as socialism’s aim is to make everyone equally impoverished, so the aim of Anglicanism is to make everyone equally aggravated.

Whether same-sex marriage is good, bad, Biblical or unbiblical is not the point; just like the treacly song, what matters is Feelings and not hurting them or, at least, hurting them all equally

From here:

The Archbishop of Canterbury (centre) with the secretary-general of the Anglican Communion, the Rt Revd Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, and the chairman of the ACC, the Archbishop of Hong Kong, the Most Revd Paul Kwong

SAME-SEX relationships, the topic that has riven the Anglican Communion for the past two decades, is not officially on the agenda of this week’s meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Hong Kong.

It is not a topic that can be ignored, however, not least because three provinces — Nigeria, Uganda, and Rwanda — have declined to be represented here because of the involvement of provinces with which they profoundly disagree.

At the opening press conference, on Saturday, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke again about his dilemma when issuing invitations to the Lambeth Conference next year. He has been under fire for not inviting the partners of bishops in same-sex marriages to join the rest of the spouses at next year’s gathering (News, 22 February).

There are currently two bishops in this position: the Rt Revd Mary Glasspool, Assistant Bishop of New York, and the Rt Revd Kevin Robertson, Suffragan Bishop of Toronto. Next month, they are due to be joined by a third, when the Revd Thomas Brown is consecrated Bishop of Maine.

“It is worth noting that the controversy is not only one way,” Archbishop Welby said. He had received “a considerable number of letters as well” about the fact that he had extended an invitation to bishops who were in same-sex partnerships: a change from 2008, when the Rt Revd Gene Robinson was barred from attending by the Archbishop’s predecessor.

“How we deal with people of different views, from views that are passionately, deeply against any same-sex relations through to people who believe it is a matter of justice . . . and [that] it is injustice not to accept same-sex marriage . . . whichever you’re dealing with, the first rule is: these are people.

“The most painful part, to me, of the decisions that have to be made, is that I know that, at every moment that I write a letter or make a decision, I am making a decision about people — and that there is no decision that will result in nobody getting hurt.

“If I’d decided differently on the decision about same-sex spouses — and it hurt a lot of people, by the way — I would have hurt a huge number of people elsewhere in the Communion. And there wasn’t a nice solution which I looked and thought, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do that, I’ll take the nasty solution.’ It’s not as simple as that.”

Come to the Diocese of Niagara to have the deep-seated need of who you are confirmed

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Confirming the “deep-seated need” of who I am has, of course, nothing whatsoever to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is much more interested mere peccadilloes such as saving us from eternal damnation and reconciling us with the Creator of the universe. We are very blessed, then, to have Bishop Susan Bell to set us…… straight.

As it happens, for a while I’ve felt a deep-seated need coming on to be recognised as the Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow I plan to self-identify as such and visit my local diocesan parish to have it affirmed.

It will be a huge source of joy and I will finally be equal with my whole family who unanimously self identify as asexual anthozoan coral reefs except for uncle George who, though a process of conversation, prayer, relationship, deep study of the scriptures and theological scholarship has moved through various stages of understanding and grappling to arrive at a place of conviction that he is a jellyfish. Personally, I think he has been seeing too much of Bishop Susan Bell.

This should help you to be more authentically who you are:

Four Toronto priests write an open letter about marriage

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Murray Henderson, Dean Mercer, Ephraim Radner and Catherine Sider-Hamilton have written an open letter to the Canadian House of Bishops. Although it’s a good letter, it is little more than yet another rearguard action in what is about to become not just a losing battle but a lost one.

The interesting question is: what will the four priests do when the motion to change the marriage canon passes in July?

An Open Letter to the House of Bishops

Tuesday in Holy Week

On March 29, The House of Bishops released a call to prayer which included their hope for the upcoming General Synod. From the bishops’ point of view, there will be two doctrines of marriage in the church, and for both there ought to be support and protection.

That said, the church is still rolling like a freight train toward a formal and canonical change and the declaration of a novel and single doctrine of marriage. This new doctrine changes marriage from a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman for procreation, to an erotic agreement between adults.

The purpose has changed, and so the boundaries of marriage become unclear and contestable. Everyone understands the boundaries for marriage and marital intimacy when marriage is defined as the union of sexual opposites in which procreation and the stable nurture of children and families is logically and ontologically implied. Remove that purpose from the nature of marriage, define it primarily as an erotic arrangement between consenting adults, and marriage becomes infinitely malleable. Why limit it to two partners, for instance? There are now articulate advocates for polyamory, and fidelity to more than one partner. Change the definition of marriage, and why should there be only one relationship of depth between one woman and one woman, or one man and one man?

Furthermore, given the magnitude of the proposed change, where is the rationale for it? Where, for a matter of this gravity, is its explanation and rooting in the Scriptures and the received tradition of the church?

Was the Primate’s “This Holy Estate” the rationale? When was it ever declared publicly to be so? Was the Communion ever asked for its opinion of “This Holy Estate”? Was it ever given, borrowing from the academy, a peer review? Were the criticisms ever answered, two of the most glaring being the flat-footed omission of the central scriptural texts on same-sex relations, and the complete absence of a representative conservative scholar on the rationale’s editorial committee – like a boxing match where you never let the received tradition enter the ring.

In other words, this is not an expansion of marriage but a fundamental change. The rationale for it is questionable and unclear and without anything approaching a consensus. Altogether, it is novel and untested.

If the bishops want two doctrines at work, we would urge the House of Bishops to say so. Leave the received doctrine as it is and bring forward a motion that describes the

alternative, its aims and its rationale. Add a term limit for the two to be tested against each other, say 25 – 30 years. We believe that a majority would shout for its approval.

The bishops are right to offer this prayer. There is more than one reason to let time be the judge, to let time clarify the divisions rather than letting rashness deepen them.

Father Jonathan Rowe is eager to perform same-sex marriages

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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.”

Fred Hiltz wants ‘good disagreement’ in marriage canon discussions

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From here:

The church should embrace a “humble humanity” and a “way of living together that is more respectful of our dignity as children of God,” Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said Friday in a report to Council of General Synod (CoGS).

[…..]

Hiltz also related this ideal to his hope that the Anglican Church of Canada would practice “good disagreement” in upcoming discussions of the proposed amendment to the marriage canon to allow for same-sex marriage, which will be discussed at CoGS and then be subject to a vote during General Synod in July 2019.

I’ve had enough of faux “good disagreement” or “we are doing things our way and we don’t care if you disagree”.

At the First Council of Nicaea when Christianity was muscular, when the participants weren’t effeminate men and aggressive women, St. Nicholas punched the heretic Arius on the nose. That’s “good disagreement”.

Diocese of Toronto Marriage Canon Dialogue conversations

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Yes, I know ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’ mean much the same thing, so one of the words is redundant, but that’s how the diocese has described their latest tête-à-tête on the issue that is eventually going to result in the diocese becoming redundant. When you see ‘dialogue’ and ‘conversation’ not just in the same sentence but contiguously in the same sentence, rest assured, the judgment of Babel has already been visited on the perpetrators.

What succulent fruit has sprung from the dialogue conversations? Weariness, fear, anxiety, pain and polarisation.

The only question left to ask is: this is so wonderful, why has the Anglican church waited so long?

Bishops report on Marriage Canon Dialogue conversations

  • A feeling of weariness
  • Fear of what the vote at General Synod 2019 will mean, both in the diocese and in the rest of the Communion
  • In spite of the fear, we want to stay together.
  • Need to include the insights of youth and children
  • Need to care for those who are feeling left out
  • There is a deep longing and need to talk about scripture and theology
  • There is a need to have resources, and to have pastoral care that is contextualized
  • People feel polarized but they do so within the Big Tent
  • Concerns about our international relationships
  • There is a degree of pain avoidance
  • Anxiety about being labelled
  • We’re already living with diversity and we need to hold up that we’re unified in Jesus Christ
  • While there is weariness and fear, there is a need to move on with courage and hope and faith

Bishop Jane Alexander denies tapping into the Zeitgeist while doing it

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Here are bishop’s remarks at synod in support of same-sex marriage:

play-sharp-fill

Her opening gambit, declaring LGBT people are “not an abomination” is a loaded statement along the lines of “when did you stop beating your wife?” It presupposes that there are conservatives in the church who think they are an abomination: no conservative I know thinks that.

She goes on to say that every person at the synod is “a beloved child of God”. Not quite. Every person is loved by God but before we receive Christ as Lord and Saviour, we are his creatures still in our sins deserving his wrath, not his children. Since this is an Anglican synod full of those averse to such ideas, I am sure there were at least some there that fell into the category of “creature”.

She moves then to piously declare that she will not pronounce LGBT people “not good enough” marry because, after all, we all take Communion together. This is another “when did you stop beating your wife?” statement. It has nothing to do with being “good enough”, it is a category error. Without redefining “marriage”, it is as impossible for a man to marry a man or a woman a woman as it is for them to marry a cabbage.

The bishop then meanders into the fantasy that marriage has little to do with sex so, by implication, we needn’t worry ourselves about the things homosexual couples get up to. Marriage is about relationship, not sex. No so: marriage is about relationship, erotic love and sex.

Now we reach the nub of the matter. Because Christian marriage is counter-cultural (it is), it must also be counter-cultural to marry homosexuals (it isn’t). The Anglican church is obsessed with homoerotic sexuality, just like the culture in which it immersed. It has absorbed, re-packaged and then regurgitated the obsession, but it is the same obsession: it is not counter-cultural.

This is the church pandering to culture.

Nominees for position of Toronto Coadjutor Bishop all in favour of same-sex marriage

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Well, apart from Jennifer Andison who is not partial to binary declarations and has opted instead for a stream of consciousness analogue waffle. In Anglican parlance this is known as “spiritual discernment” after “deep listening”.

All the rest are in favour. In Anglican parlance this is known as “diversity”.

From here:

If General Synod were held today, how would you vote on the Marriage Canon amendments?

The Rt. Rev. Jennifer Andison

I have been asked these questions during the course of our Diocesan discernment process and have consistently shared the following.

I understand that the laity and clergy of the Diocese of Toronto will feel supported or disappointed by how their Bishop votes at General Synod 2019 and that how the Bishop votes matters. However, there are a number of reasons why I don’t think it is pastorally helpful to answer this first question, today, with a simple Yes or No.

First, in our Anglican polity, Bishops vote “in Synod.” Synod is where Bishops, along with laity and other clergy, make such decisions. I want to be part of what the Holy Spirit is doing in General Synod 2019, and I am not prepared to pre-judge how I will vote then, and am not “in Synod” now. As a Bishop, I take spiritual discernment seriously. At General Synod in 2019, I intend to cast my vote after completing a process of prayer, scriptural discernment, and deep listening to laity, deacons, priests and other bishops, as well as those outside of the Church. I intend to seek the mind of Christ for the Church on this issue, whether I am voting in my current capacity as Area Bishop for York-Credit Valley or as Bishop of Toronto. The Bishop of Toronto also needs to be mindful that she or he serves on a national stage, both participating in the wider discernment of the Anglican Church of Canada and also acting as a witness of Christ’s love to our culture.

Second, the current wording of the proposed amendment is increasingly unlikely to represent what will be voted on in 2019. As our Primate, Fred Hiltz, has recently made clear, there very well may be amendments to the currently proposed canon change. Some other path may also emerge before 2019 as an alternative to a Yes/No vote, a binary and legislative approach that inevitably creates winners and losers, doesn’t account for culturally different ways of making decisions across our diverse Church, and risks oversimplifying the issue at hand. Although I would not abstain from a vote in 2019, locking episcopal candidates into such binary declarations at this stage is premature and potentially divisive.

The Very Rev. Andrew Asbil

I would vote in favour of the motion.

The Rev. Canon David Harrison

I would vote in favour of the change, as I did as a member of General Synod in 2016.

The Rt. Rev. Victoria Matthews

If the General Synod was being held this week and if I had a vote as the Diocesan Bishop of Toronto, I would vote YES to affirm the amendments to the Marriage Canon. I would do so believing that every Christian is called to interpret Holy Scripture in light of all of Holy Scripture, and I believe the weight of Scripture calls to care for every human person and give special attention and love to the marginalised. Secondly, I believe there are times when the church recognises a teaching in Scripture that has always been there but which has been undervalued. It is the work of the prophet to call the church to read Scripture with fresh eyes. In Luke 2.21-40, Simeon and Anna recognise the Christ in the Temple when everyone fails to recognise the Son of God. May our beloved church have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The Rt. Rev. Kevin Robertson

Unequivocally, I would vote “Yes” to amend the Marriage Canon, just as I did in 2016.

The Rt. Rev. Riscylla Shaw

Yes.

 

Diocese of Huron continues its Marriage Canon Newspeak

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The diocesan paper reports:

Conversations on the Marriage Canon
The Diocese of Huron is in the midst of a consultation about the proposed changes to the Marriage Canon. The first of these consultations have taken place and several more are planned throughout the diocese.
As the diocesan Marriage Canon Task Force reports in this HCN edition, a question raised at some of the first deanery gatherings was, “Does our input matter?”, and related to that question there were comments such as, “It feels like the decision has already been made.”

For those who question the impartiality of the decision makers in the diocese, this image, accompanying the article, of diocesan leaders conspicuously marching across a rainbow crossing brandishing crosses and an umbrella should leave little doubt in any mind whose neurons are still firing:

Of course your input matters. As long as it supports same-sex marriage.

Of course the decision to marry same-sex couples hasn’t already been made. Yes, we may already be doing it but that doesn’t mean we have decided anything.