The Government is considering turning a 700-year-old Parliament chapel into a multi-faith space, so that same-sex weddings can be conducted there if marriage is redefined. The Anglican chapel of St Mary Undercroft would be unable to carry out homosexual marriages under current proposals because the Church of England is to be exempt from the new law. But gay MP Chris Bryant proposed that the chapel should become a multi-faith space, during a sitting of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Public Bill committee.... Full story: http://www.christian.org.uk/news/plan-for-parliament-chapel-to-conduct-gay-marriages/
I just can't come to the conclusion that same-sex intercourse can be acceptable under scriptural norms.
The moral liberals & progressives can never do anything like this without a victim. "If we don't do such and such related to Gay Rights, here is a Gay man who will feel very sad and hurt". It's horrible, manipulative, and evil. From a 7-century-old chapel consecrated fully to the worship of God in Christ... into a "multi-faith space"! Babylon is our home, my friends. Let us pray Psalm 137 fervently with sorrow. Ask God to dash such legislation against the rock of Christ before it is accepted. How sad, but expected: the place we had always treated as a haven of the Gospel turns out to be just as unsafe as the rest of The World. Trust no men, nor put your trust in the princes of men. Parliament can do what it wants, but if it carries through with this then the state will lose all rights to be called a Christian nation.
As a citizen of the USA I am not sure what the benefit is of mixing religion and politics. I see no benefit of having a chapel or a muilti-faith space in a government building. I would imagine that anyone whether they be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or athiest can find any Church , Synagogue, Mosque, or other event venue to have a wedding. I am also not sure that having the mantle of being a Christian Nation is beneficial as it seems to have not made any nation on Earth thus far any holier. Christ neither knew of, nor never expressed such a concept as far as I can tell. Obviously the CofE is a state church at the moment, again a concept I have difficulty with and did even when I was Orthodox.
I can understand the American idea of the separation of church and state, but I don't see this chapel dispute to be about this really. Having a chapel linked to the parliament is important first by affirming that religion and faith has a real place within politics and not just within the private personal lives of people. Secondly, its important that it doesn't just become an interfaith room because this undermines the history and tradition of England, and the UK. An erasing of a national identity and tradition weakens the whole of society. Historically we have been a Christian nation and Christianity has shaped our values and our culture and history up to the present day. While I'm supportive of other faiths having the freedom to practice as they want within this country and the freedom to build places of worship, they shouldn't be given equal footing with Christianity. Christianity has had a pedigree and a proven record of shaping this society positively. These other religions are newcomers here and this should be recognised. This is not just an isolated chapel incidence. We have seen an effort by secularists to remove parliamentary prayers, to remove Christianity from schools, to prevent Christians wearing crosses at work under the guise of offending other religions. Really its about bringing in an atheistic communism. There is this concerted effort to disparage our history and traditions in the name of political correctness but all we lose is who we are as a people. I heard on a talk show being British means acceptance of everything. In that case being British means nothing. Why should we care to make this country better? We just become another state within the EU,, no story, no myth, no sense of our place within the world I also do strongly believe that Christ is lord of all, and as a Christian I want to see governments recognise his lordship in the life of the nation, recognising they are but servants who must give an account to the King of all in the last day. I recognise most people don't recognise this anymore in this country but I hope one day the tides will be reversed,
Strong post SK. Thank you. I don't agree, however, with the idea of trying to get governments to recognize the Kingdom of God. Even if it were not antithetical to the powers of this world, there are other problems with attempting to institutionalize the Basileia tou Theou. The majesty & lordship of Christ is the deciding factor in a man's decision to become a politician almost exactly zero-percent of the time. History shows it, sadly. "My Kingdom is not of this world" applies here. Having a chapel of any kind on Parliament's grounds is not the Church saying the state is capable of being converted; rather, it's the state saying the Church can be domesticated. We could've averted this crisis by simply not establishing religion, for the safekeeping of the holy Gospel. I realise that you're rather partial to this idea, due to the Scottish Covenant. I respect that, and Christ must not be eliminated from the public arena.
I couldn't agree more, Scottish Knight. The Christian religion should pervade all aspects of social life, including politics. The greatest disaster of the modern world was when the political power divorced itself from God and recognised no lord but its own secular agenda.
But my friend, the only recognition of the powers of the world is the secular agenda. Why else would our Lord have distinguished between that which is Caesar's, and that which is God's? Strong public voices from Christian politicians must be encouraged, but not tying the Body of Christ with the Government. Did the establishment of the papal religion in France, marrying the Roman church to the state, do anything for the godliness of religion there? No; rather, it produced heretics & atheists like Voltaire, Rousseau, and others - because the Church was a corrupt, state-sponsored massacre-machine. The bureaucracy and worldliness inherent in politics are indestructible. Our treasure is not whole nations or cultures - for those are impersonal forces - but each precious heart & soul of individual sinners. When the Church is married into the state, the state is never converted. The Church is always the worse off, for it loses the Gospel, its shepherds become wolves, and the virtuous pastors are turned into fat greedy little bishops. Our fallen nature makes established-church utopianism an impossibility. The true Established Church will come when the Kingdom is fulfilled.
I'll just put forward some of my thoughts on this. There is a difference between state control and state recognition of the church. State control I really believe must be resisted because it has the tendency of making the church a pawn in politics so we agree there . As the Scottish minister Andrew Melville said to James VI " Sire, I must tell you, that there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland: there is King James, the head of the Commonwealth, and there is Christ Jesus, the Head of the Church, whose subject King James VI. is, and of whose kingdom he is not a head, nor a lord, but a member; and they whom Christ hath called, and commanded to watch over His Church, and govern His spiritual kingdom, have sufficient authority and power from Him so to do, which no Christian king nor prince should control or discharge, but assist and support, otherwise they are not faithful subjects to Christ. Keeping the state and church in separate but complimentary spheres is the ideal I think
I was going to answer that but SK already did so. I should also point out that the famous saying of Christ of rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's is not a prohibition that the state recognise Christianity as truth nor that its laws be informed by the salutary doctrines of our faith. Politics divorced from God is precisely the problem of the modern world of politics.