St Valentine’s Day is a good day on which to welcome the leaked news that later this week the government is expected to announce full marriage equality for gays and lesbians under reforms to the marriage law as well as allowing civil partnerships to be held in religious buildings.
Changing Attitude England has been involved in consultations with the government that tested public and LGBT opinion before the decision was made. We will now campaign vigorously for the Church of England to adopt the changes being proposed by the government, open Church of England doors to welcome gay marriages and civil partnerships and grant clergy persons the freedom to preside over and register them.
I am probably quite wrong here, but I understand that the legislation proposed will refer to ‘places of worship’, rather than to places of *Christian* worship.
May I suggest a pre-legislatory trial period, during which we observe how the ‘new thing’ works in synagogues and mosques. I am sure that “call me Dave” would not expect any religious persuasion to escape his equality aspirations, and we could learn so much from seeing how other major religions handle a sensitive issue such as this.
Chris Baker – Durham UK
Forcing something so evil that it requires the full coercive power of the state.
This differs from Facism in what way?
Is Rowan just trying to fully co operate with the Pope to make the transition for people to Roman Catholicism that much easier? You know it used to be so comforting to say “It won’t happen in MY parish…Not at the ten O’clock..” Now it seems it *will* and the government says so. That clarifies things, don’t it?
American readers of T19 need to remember that in a very real the Church of England is part of the state. So the situation is a bit different from what it would like if Congress passed a law forcing the Baptist church down the road to perform gay weddings.
Remember that, in Britain, church and state are incredibly intertwined — imagine what it would be like if TEC bishops were automatically part of the Senate and if Clinton, Bush, Obama determined who our presiding bishop were going to be.
Thus Britain has a legitimate problem — which is that if marriage laws are extended to gay people by the British state, and if the church is just part of the sate, then shouldn’t the church need to make similar changes?
This is why the gay activists in the article are demanding that the C of E in particular should have gay marriages.
Naturally as a traditionalist I am disturbed by the specific situation, but it’s important to see it as part of a broader historic problem in the C of E, which permitted the State (under Henry) to dissolve monasteries, under Bloody Mary (to burn protestants), and so on.
It looks to me like the UK now has ‘1984’-type control (AKA Big Brother) over the Church of England. Another good reason for disestablishment. Wake up, blokes!
If this may be pursued, I don’t know what could be the reactions of the other religions in taking this issue.
The State decided that divorcees might remarry – there was no attempt to coerce any Church into marrying or forcing Churches to allow divorced people to remarry in their buildings – it was a long time before the Church of England allowed remarriage and still individual clerics can refuse.
In England and Wales Civil Partnerships may only take place in buildings registered for the purpose. In fact, the only buildings in England and Wales that could not be registered for Civil Partnerships were religious buildings.
While we have yet to see the Government’s proposals, the likelihood is that those Churches who wished to allow Civil Partnerships to be registered on their premises would have to apply to the Registrar General to have their buildings added to the schedule. Just who might be the Registrar is yet to be decided.
All marriages/CPs have to happen in buildings registered for that purpose in England and Wales, many churches are not registered for marriages. Marriages do not happen in the garden here!
Possibly this controversy will have a positive outcome. That it will bring about the final destruction of the immense absurdity that is the union of Church and State that has been the hallmark of post-Henry VIII British Christianity.
Whether that will come about by all those who believe in traditional Christian morality fleeing to Rome (so the state church has few or no followers) or Anglicans powerfully organizing to get the state’s tentacles out of their sanctuaries only time will tell.
However, it does seem that Pope Benedict’s creative opening to Anglicans has the aura of Divine Providence at work.
Before too many people lose too many feathers over this, consider that no Anglican church in the US or in England would bother to lift a finger if a couple is merely shacked up. Any gender or former gender combination you can name or invent. That is such old news it would be laughable to even point it out as a “problem”. Laity, clergy, bishops. Since that is a common day to day fact of life in the mainstream church, why does anyone expect opposition to this matter? So much has been lost so long ago that there’s very little of the beach left to “defend”. A wedding is only worthwhile for shock value it seems, and it’s got kind of boring for that purpose.
Two Broad points:
Firstly
1. The role of, what we might now call, the civil authority in ordering the church was rather ardently supported by all the mainstream English reformers. They argued this was justified both historically and Scripturally.
2. Nevertheless they assumed that a Protestant civil authority would be godly.
3. Faced with a civil authority that they considered ungodly, namely Mary Tudor, some fled and opposed from abroad, others were martyred, some opposed secretly within England and many quietly and faithfully waited, as they saw it, for God’s judgment to be enacted.
Secondly
1. Law sets a particular moral context which doesn’t need to be coercive to influence the teaching of the church. That is clergy don’t need to be imprisoned to be shaped by what the culture the law permits to flourish.
2. Divorce is rather a good example. The COE maintained a marriage discipline more or less identical to the current RC official teaching, between its foundation and 1857. That is if one wants to talk about Anglican traditional teaching about marriage one needs to think in terms of indissolubility. When the law was finally changed in 1857 the church inputted significantly into the debate and was willing to accept divorce only on the Scriptural ground of adultery. In the century and more following the input of the church became less and less significant when the state changed the law concerning divorce. As early as 1937 the then ABC, Cosmo Gordon Lang, abstained in a vote liberalizing civil divorce law since he considered, “it was no longer possible to impose the full Christian standard by law on a largely non-Christian population”.
3. But what happens when the Church no longer feels able or willing to “impose the full Christian standard” within even in its own life. One might look at the changing contours of COE teaching on divorce and remarriage over the 20th century to get an idea of what that might look like.
[blockquote] Remember that, in Britain, church and state are incredibly intertwined—imagine what it would be like if TEC bishops were automatically part of the Senate and if Clinton, Bush, Obama determined who our presiding bishop were going to be. [/blockquote]
Sorry, but I just have to ask: if POTUS chose your current presiding bishop, in what way could his choice be worse than the current incumbent?
[blockquote] Thus Britain has a legitimate problem—which is that if marriage laws are extended to gay people by the British state, and if the church is just part of the sate, then shouldn’t the church need to make similar changes? [/blockquote]
Because the CofE is not “just part of the state”. If you start with a false premise, you will inevitably arrive at an incorrect conclusion!
[blockquote] In England and Wales Civil Partnerships may only take place in buildings registered for the purpose. In fact, the only buildings in England and Wales that could not be registered for Civil Partnerships were religious buildings. While we have yet to see the Government’s proposals, the likelihood is that those Churches who wished to allow Civil Partnerships to be registered on their premises would have to apply to the Registrar General to have their buildings added to the schedule. [/blockquote]
Isn’t the concern that any building registered for marriages (including churches) will now be *required* to permit civil partnerships to be registered on their premises?
deaconjohn25 wrote:
[blockquote] Possibly this controversy will have a positive outcome. That it will bring about the final destruction of the immense absurdity that is the union of Church and State that has been the hallmark of post-Henry VIII British Christianity. [/blockquote]
That seems most unlikely. The CofE can survive for a long time. Look at how well TEC is holding up, and on any view it is further down the road to secularism than the CofE.
In any case, the entanglement between CofE and the state is not a “hallmark of post-Henry VIII British Christianity. What you are seeing here is a throwback to the way most European countries functions BEFORE Henry VIII!
For now, disentangling the morass of legislation, regulations, and customary law that ties the CofE into the fabric of British political and public life would be beyond Solomon, methinks.
However, if this move drives more people away then CofE income will drop even further. The British government will have to consider where to find the funds to maintain all those tourist attractions (Westminster Abbey, York Minster, Durham Cathedral etc etc) if the CofE doesn’t have the money to do it. That might cause some heartburn.
[blockquote] However, it does seem that Pope Benedict’s creative opening to Anglicans has the aura of Divine Providence at work. [/blockquote]
Most people that want to go to Rome don’t need an Ordinariate to do it. Perhaps if the RCC can convert the Ordinariate into a distinctively Anglican form of Roman Catholicism, then it might start to form a real challenge to CofE’s position in England. Given the politics of RCC, that is a huge IF.
Driver8 hits the nail on the head:
[blockquote] “3. But what happens when the Church no longer feels able or willing to “impose the full Christian standard†within even in its own life. One might look at the changing contours of COE teaching on divorce and remarriage over the 20th century to get an idea of what that might look like.” [/blockquote]
If the CofE had publicly stood by its values, no government would dare make such an imposition. Even now, if the bishops of the CofE denounced this move, it would wither away.
Because the truth is, many bishops and clergy of the CofE agree with this move, and the British government knows it. Even the government of Constantine and his successors, with extreme coercive powers by our standards, eventually lost the fight with Athanasius and the orthodox. Why? Because the orthodox refused to be cowed.
The ultimate blame for this situation lies with the leaders of the Church of England, not the British government.
Peter Ould has a good summary of the current legal situation and the possible impact of the proposals:
http://www.peter-ould.net/2011/02/15/civil-partnerships-and-the-proposed-changes/
But why is this homophile movement so successful in Britain? Clearly there is enormous cultural force driving this marriage issue forward and the drivers thereof seem wholly uninterested in the consequences beyond putting their agenda in place. But why are government and church in such agreement? Larry
Larry, I don’t know why it’s so successful, but the English title “Sir Elton John” certainly shows it’s there to stay. He is known to sing at state funerals. In a church, if that means anything.
Michael A. –Agreed–countries other than England in Europe had incestuous relationships between Church and State such as England had. But usually the King (or Queen) did not have the absolute power over the Church Henry VIII garnered unto himself. On top of that, Catholic Churches in other countries did not roll over to monarchy in quite the same absolute way the English hierarchy did for Henry.
In fact, the Gregorian reforms of about 1,000 A.D. were to help disentangle the Church from the overweening power of lay state power. Most historians agree that individual freedoms grew up under the umbrella of the Church’s struggle to be free of state control–just the existence of a vibrant independent organized entity greatly beyond state control such as the Catholic Church (no matter what you think of her doctrines or practices) had a great beneficial effect on history.