The Bishop of Leicester, who leads the bishops in the House of Lords, said they would now concentrate their efforts on “improving” rather than halting an historic redefinition of marriage.
It represents a dramatic change of tack in the year since the Church insisted that gay marriage posed one of the biggest threats of disestablishment of the Church of England since the reign of Henry VIII.
And it comes despite a warning from the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, that the redefinition of marriage would undermine the “cornerstone” of society.
What opposition are we referring to? The official opposition of the CofE was never more than half hearted and evidence suggests that a solid majority of the bishops quietly were cheering for the bill.
The voting Bishops in the House of Lords. 14 attended the debate: 9 (including the ABC) voted in favor of a wrecking amendment, 5 abstained.
I guess from now on the diocesan Bishops will abstain in any vote on the main Bill but may vote in favor of various (non-wrecking) amendments.
To be fair this principle isn’t new to the CofE. As I recall back in 1937 the ABC, Cosmo Gordon Lang, along with all but one other bishop, abstained in the final vote liberalizing divorce law. He wrote, “‘I came to the conclusion that it was no longer possible to impose the full Christian standard by law on a largely non-Christian population, but that the witness to that standard, and consequent disciplinary action towards its own members or persons who sought to be married by its rites, must be left to the Church.”
Of course one may notice that the current ABC sense of the “full Christian standard” included civil partnerships (presumably because they may, unlike traditional marriage, they cannot be consummated, which is not, of course, to say that they must be chaste). Those with a historical sense may also recall that in the decades after the 1937 vote, the church’s own marriage and re-marriage discipline gradually changed such that it mirrored more or less the civil law.
Driver8,
Thanks for the historical perspective. The exception in 1937 was – I presume – Hensley Henson of Durham, who supported A. P. Herbert’s divorce bill and whom Susan Howatch used as the basis for her portrayal of the fictional bishop of Starbridge, Alex Jardine, in her novel [i]Glittering Images[/i].
Yes. Looking at [url=http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1937/jul/19/matrimonial-causes-bill-formerly]Hansard[/url] shows that, in fact, two bishops voted in favor, Hensley Henson (Bishop of Durham) and Walter Whittingham (Bishop of St. Edmunsbury and Ipswich). The only Bishop to vote against was Michael Furse (Bishop of St. Albans).
During the debate the then ABC, Cosmo Gordon Lang identified the way in which in his view since 1857 the State had departed from the teaching of the church:
[blockquote]Ever since 1857 the Stat., has seen fit to depart from the principles of the Church in this respect. Under this Bill the position will be worsened rather than improved. But it may be, and I have always acknowledged the fact, impossible for the State to impose Christian principles by law upon a mixed community when many of its members have neither the religious faith nor the assisting grace to enable them to live up to the Christian standard. That is the reason that in my judgment makes it the more necessary for the Church more resolutely to maintain that standard for its own members and to do all it can to uphold it for the whole community. As a guardian of that standard, my Lords, how can I bring myself to vote actively in favour of a Bill which contains some provisions which seem to me inconsistent with that standard?[/blockquote]