Ch. of England CONDEMNS gay marriage

This is coming on the eve of Lambeth Conference 2022, which has gathered all the world's Primates and Patriarchs in one place... Look at this language coming out of Canterbury, wow

“Given Anglican polity, and especially the autonomy of Provinces, there is disagreement and a plurality of views on the relationship between human dignity and human sexuality. Yet, we experience the safeguarding of dignity in deepening dialogue. It is the mind of the Anglican Communion as a whole that same-gender marriage is not permissible. Lambeth Resolution I.10 (1998) states that the “legitimizing or blessing of same sex unions” cannot be advised. It is the mind of the Communion to uphold “faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union” (I.10, 1998).”
https://www.lambethconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Lambeth-Calls-Study-Guide-English.pdf


Here's an entire Twitter thread of progressives and heretics "Reeee-ing" in despair.... hope springs!
https://twitter.com/jayneozanne/status/1550256819943219200


This guy declared a year-long "hunger strike from the Eucharist" back in 1998, lmao; when that Lambeth 1998 declared that marriage is between a man and a woman (the famous Resolution I.10)
https://twitter.com/mustard_james/status/1550425535800549376



“The @churchofengland has betrayed LGBTQI people. '[we call for] a reaffirmation of Lambeth I.10 that upholds marriage as between a man and a woman and requires deeper work to uphold the dignity and witness of LGBTQ Anglicans.' LLF is dead.”
https://twitter.com/charliebelllive/status/1550409588985499649

 

If anything it is yourself that has not LOOKED at the language though. Did you see a single word condemning gay marriage. I didn't. All I could see was upholding marriage between a man and a woman, just as marriage has always been in the past in Jewish, Christian or Muslim religions and probably many others as well. Condemnation is not something the Anglican church generally goes in for, is it? You must have read more into the statement than it actually said.

Your thread title is misleading.
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It condemns it insofar as it says that marriage, as such, is between a man and a woman and therefore gay “marriage” isn’t even possible in the mind of the Church

“It is the mind of the Anglican Communion as a whole that same-gender marriage is not permissible”

 

Well, I wouldn't throw any parties just yet.

For one thing, having (maybe) reaffirmed I.10, it remains to be seen what the CofE will do to their own Bishops and priests in same-sex partnered relationships(1), or if they will subject TEC to discipline for their continued violations of I.10 over two decades. Affirmation of the Resolution without enforcement is, well, right back to the status quo we've been living in for the past two decades. If no discipline is forthcoming for violations of that Resolution, what's the point of it? It's a dead letter, and is likely to remain so unless violators are punished.

For another, reaffirmation of I.10 may not be what it seems. From what I've been reading, this years Lambeth conference is doing away with Resolutions entirely and is instead issuing "Calls". In other words, Lambeth is not issuing a consensus guidance of the Communion, but rather just suggestions. No enforcement language, which is exactly why Lambeth chose this route: if you set a rule as a Church you have to live by it, but a "Call" can be safely ignored (and will be, most certainly).

Finally, it's obvious that Canterbury's hand has been forced on this by the African primates. It leaves Abp. Welby et al with few good options if they want to keep peace in the Communion: the Africans will not stand for homosexual clergy(2), but the CofE already has a homosexual clique that will riot if orthodox teaching about homosexuality is restored. The problem is that the African churches are much bigger but also very far away, while the homosexual lobby lives literally right next door. Placate one group and alienate the other; there's no winning hand here, so Abp. Welby, like Rowan Williams before him, will simply delay, temporize, and attempt to keep the plates spinning as long as he can in hopes that a miracle will happen before it all collapses.

1. "But they're not married!" some will say. "But they are living in sin, since fornication is also a sin," I reply. "But they're celibate!" the response rings out. My response is a verbal eye-roll. Riddle me this, Batman: what do you call a celibate long-term loving relationship between two people of the same sex? If the answer is not "friendship", why not? Absent sex, it's not clear to me that there's a difference between eros and phileos, even in the Christian sense of those terms. (And that's assuming that I believe the part about celibacy, which I don't.)

2. Gay marriage is only part of the larger argument about receiving practicing homosexuals into the Christian church; the specific question cannot be answered without addressing the larger one.

 

"Same-gender marriage is not permissible" seems to be a pretty straightforward condemnation to me. How are you reading that as anything other than a rejection of gay marriage?*

*As I said earlier, I have absolutely no confidence that Canterbury actually disapproves of gay marriage. I think they're all for it. The gayer the better! But we're arguing the text here, not the subtext.

 

Issuing a statement that the church's clergy are not permitted to conduct marriage services for any other combination of parners than a man and a woman, is not CONDEMNATORY.

Issuing [As it HAS], a directive to CofE priests that they may not marry anyone under the age of 18, instead of 16 or (17 with parental consent), as it used to be in the UK, is not CONDEMNING everyone under the age of 18 who applies to be married. It is just stating a policy which may be seen by those < 18 as discriminatory toward < 18 year olds but is not CONDEMNATORY of 17 year olds or less.

The thread title is deliberately MISLEADING.
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If it is the "mind of the Anglican Communion as a whole that same-gender marriage is not permissible" why, then, does the Scottish Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion, allow same-sex couples to marry?

 

An exception, which tends to go against the norm of the Anglican Communion worlwide perhaps? 'As a whole' seems to indicate the position is recognised as not being universally an entirely 'Anglican' opinion.
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Indeed, we must keep going forward and return more wayward Provinces to obedience unto God

 

Whew - that makes things really easy for me. If the Anglican Church condemns gay marriage then I will just have to leave it like I did the RCC. Do I get condemned to hell for leaving the Anglicans like I did for leaving the Roman Catholics? hmmm ? Churches are just going to make themselves less and less relevant to people with all the prohibitions and condemnations.

 

Christ commands; we obey. We refer to him as "Lord" for a reason. The Bible is the Very Word of God. Disobedience to Biblical teaching is disobedience to God himself.

 

I wouldn’t worry about it. Liberals always win the culture wars.

 

On the contrary. We should, as faithful servants of Christ, recognise the complexity of the issue, have compassion for those whom it affects most, and not let differences of opinion or 'Black/white' thinking, cause scism in The Church. Most of all it is not an excuse for condemnation or scapegoating, both of which are unchristlike.
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A compassionless church too protective of itself and hiding behind doctrinal crenelations to protect its vaunted 'dignity', is a church already so unsalty that it's fit only to be thrown out and trodden underfoot by the world. That's what makes this issue so difficult to debate fairly.
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I hate to be the one to break it to you, but that ship sailed in 1054. And again in the early 1500's. And yet again, most recently, in 2008.

To insist that schism is worse than heresy is nonsensical -- our own church is the product of such a schism, which (in the case of Protestantism more generally) took place to return Christianity to its founding principles and throw off the errors of Rome. This is why it was a Reformation rather than a Revolution.

 

They lost on abortion recently, haven't they?

To my recollection that kind of backwards to how it actually happened, namely that all schismatic acts (severing one church from another) were done by Rome and Papal edicts.. so Rome has schismed herself from the Catholic Church, not the other way around…. But I get your underlying point that schism isn’t worse than heresy; what a ridiculous thing to say

 

Well...let's call it a mutual leave-taking. Having the Pope excommunicate you after you've already left is rather like the "you didn't fire me, I quit!" thing.

 

Hardly.

 

I've said all along, the church has no business performing same-sex marriages. It's good to see them coming back to this truth.

As for condemning people, no, the Anglicans are not doing that. Not condemning Christians who feel sexual yearnings for others of the same sex. Nor would we ever anathematize any Christian for switching denominations.

 

I have an issue with the phrase "condemn". I think this kind of language goes against how Paul teaches us to behave in Romans 14. The Anglican Church has simply restated things it has already resolved in the past, in the same way it has in the past. That it will not conduct same-sex marriages. That is not a condemnation. Judgement is for God alone. Anglicans do not damn other people for doing what the Anglican Church does not.