November 1, 2015: Gay weddings for Episcopalians


"I write more posts about marriage, homosexuals and homosexual marriage than I would like, but this is a blog about Christian unity, which means it is also about schisms, and gay marriage is a hugely schismatic issue these days."


The Episcopal Church USA has formally approved gay weddings, and the go-live date for the policy of allowing such weddings to proceed with the full approval of the church is today, November 1, 2015.

Here is a background article explaining the Episcopal Church's new policy: http://www.christianpost.com/news/us-episcopal-church-approves-same-sex-marriage-replaces-terms-man-and-woman-with-couples-141163/

And here is a rather self-congratulatory page on the Episcopal Church website, pointing out the church's stances on LGBT matters: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/lgbt-church

The Episcopal Church's long unfolding of progressivist policies toward homosexuality has already caused schisms and tensions with more conservative Anglicans in the USA and throughout the world. The new policy on weddings can only add fuel to the fire. Other church groupings are also troubled over the issue of gay marriage, for example the Presbyterian Church USA, a matter I remarked upon previously.

I write more posts about marriage, homosexuals and homosexual marriage than I would like, but this is a blog about Christian unity, which means it is also about schisms, and gay marriage is a hugely schismatic issue these days. So I must cover the question of what marriage is and what it is becoming. In this case gay marriage is a wedge issue driving dissention throughout the Anglican communion, the world's third largest Christian grouping, after the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.

I would like to give less coverage to the gay marriage question because it is essentially a frivolous one, merely a matter of worldly syncretism. Churches that ape the world that lies outside the door tend to be uninfluential for the purposes of God's kingdom on earth, so writing about them seems somewhat a waste of time if what interests you is the real work of the church in the world. A former clergyman of the Episcopal Church (he resigned) recently told me that for about 20 years the Episcopal Church has been not so much a church as a social club set up to resemble a church--deeply discontented words, yet I have heard them echoed by other former and current members.

The upshot of the Episcopal Church's policies to date has been to alienate theologically conservative Anglicans everywhere who, however kindly they may feel toward gays, cannot see how historical Christian doctrine can ever accommodate the things the Episcopal Church wants to say and do. Today's change is fully consistent with prior developments on that front and is likely to be seen as the last straw by  many Anglicans.

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