Audience of One

Civil partnerships and the Anglican church

First Ben Bradshaw, the first MP to have a civil partnership ceremony, says the Church of England’s stance on them is “ludicrous and unworkable”. Then the Nigerian Anglican Church says that the Episcopalian Church of the USA (both Anglican churches like the Church of England) should be “excised” after Rowan Williams writes of preserving unity.

Apparently the the Nigerian bishops commend Dr Williams’ idea as “brilliant as the heartbeat of a leader who wants to preserve the unity of the Church by accommodating every shred of opinion no matter how unbiblical”. Williams wants to keep ECUSA in the Anglican Community, and he wants to do it by allowing them to be “associate members”. Now that seems unworkable. How far away from what the Bible teaches can a church go before they can no longer be “associated”? Where do we draw the line? I’d draw the line by saying churches that don’t take the Bible as their ultimate authority should be out. Unity is only unity if we have something to be unified about; if we don’t have the Bible as the source of the Church’s teaching, then we have nothing to be unified about.

Onto Ben Bradshaw, who says: “The priest who blessed us was breaking the rules. Those rules allow clergy to be prayerful with and about same-sex couples but they expressly forbid the blessing of civil partnerships. This is ludicrous and unworkable.” Well, it’s certainly ludicrous – if you’re allowing clergy to be prayerful about same-sex couples you might as well allow them to bless civil partnerships. Not to do so is inconsistant. Of course, to do so ignores the Bible, which brings us back to the Nigerian bishops’ point. What Bradshaw doesn’t understand is that Christians should have the Bible, not national law, as the ultimate authority. Christians are called to submit to national law as long as it doesn’t contradict what the Bible says. We have a higher authority. I’ll save discussion of calling church pastors “priests” to another day. Maybe when I tackle calling the church a “temple”, or what we do in church “worship”. (Yes, one of those is slightly more common than the other. I said I’ll save it for another day…)

Matthew @ 12:19, July 5, 2006 to Politics | Comments (0)