Whether or not same-sex marriages will be performed in the local Anglican church is still unclear.
Delegates at the synod (meeting) of the Huron diocese held recently in London voted on a motion related to same-sex marriages. Although the motion passed, gay couples shouldn’t start making wedding plans in Anglican churches yet.
Father Bill Ward, priest at St. John’s Anglican in Tillsonburg, who was in attendance at the synod, said the vote did not result in the go-ahead for Anglican priests to perform same-sex marriages. He said the motion that passed was “This synod requests the bishop grant permission to clergy whose conscience permits to bless the duly solemnized and registered civil marriages between same-sex couples where at least one of the parties is baptized and that the bishop authorize an appropriate right and make regulations for its use in supportive parishes.”
Ward said one of the questions remaining is if St. John’s congregation is supportive of such a motion. He said the bishop would put a process in place to determine if parishes support same-sex unions, but he is unlikely to make a decision until fall.
Forget about what 85% or more of the Anglican Communion might think of your actions.
Read …”after Lambeth”
Another coward without a Cross.
Intercessor
I was at this Synod, and was one of the 23% of the clergy who voted against this motion. I think those of us who stood to be counted felt that this was a watershed moment in our life as a diocese, and that we who were against same-sex blessings would from now on be seen as “them” by our colleagues who voted for the motion. This division was already playing out on the synod floor on the following Tuesday, when one senior cleric who voted for the motion said that he couldn’t support the motion about evangelism because he didn’t agree with the underlying theology of the priest moving the motion, who voted against same-sex blessings the previous day. The most depressing thing about this Synod for me was that the evangelism motion, calling on all parishes to report annually on their efforts to take the gospel to the communities around them, triggered much debate around fears that the motion was a challenge to other faith groups and religions, since the mover stated that he wanted “all people brought into the family of Christ”. The motion passed, but by the slimmest of margins. I thought that an apt headline for Huron’s synod would be “Small majority of Huron votes in favour of the gospel” rather than “Large majority of Huron votes in favour of same sex blessings”. It was with some sense of irony that I noticed the first hymn at a Huron ordination service the following week included the verse “Let every tongue confess with one accord / in heaven and earth that Jesus Christ is Lord; / and God the Father be by all adored: / alleluia, alluelua!”. Apparently in Huron it’s one thing to singthe name by which every knee shall bow, but its quite another to take this name into the world because we’re kinda embarrassed about the claims of our Lord and King.
MP, so much for the greatness of that old, seemingly forgotten commission. Let us pray that the blind receive sight, the deaf hear, and the lame walk.
A question: in the discussions on same-sex marraige at the Synod, was this vote viewed strictly as a local or national matter or was there a sense of how it may effect the greater communion?
BlueOntario – I don’t remember very much said about the national or international consequences of Huron Synod’s vote. Mostly the debate centered around whether homosexuality was a sin or not, and apparently 77% of Huron laity and clergy think it isn’t. As one senior cleric said, Jesus came into the world to bless, and therefore blessing same-sex unions is apparently Christ-like.
MP
The evangelism motion Mad Padre refers to in #2 reads as follows: “Whereas the local faith community is the primary means through which the good new of God in Christ is proclaimed, be it resolved that this synod directs every congregation to develop strategies to reach out with the gospel to people who are not yet members of Christ’s family, such strategies to be reported annually at a deanery council meeting.” It was amended on the floor so that the section that read ‘to reach out with the gospel to people who are not yet members of Christ’s family’ was left out. But since the amended motion passed we are at least mandated to talk about evangelism strategies at deanery councils.