What the Scottish Episcopal Church is Voting On
by Kelvin Holdsworth:
As I write this, it is just over 24 hours until a debate and a vote in the Scottish Episcopal Church’s General Synod that lots of people are going to be more interested in than most other General Synod happenings. It is the debate and the motions relating to a change to the Canons (ie the rulebook) of the church which could change who can get married in church. If the proposals are accepted tomorrow then same-sex couples would be able to get married in such churches that wanted to host such marriages and by such clergy who wished to be nominated by such
Rather tellingly, there is an item on the agenda just before this called “Strategic Direction” and this is scheduled to take half an hour. The various motions around marriage have two hours scheduled for them. There would be those who believe that the marriage motions say more about our strategic direction than will be said in the debate with that title.
It is probably worth a quick outline of what the synod will be doing.
The big motion is Motion 6 on the agenda. This motion is simply this:
That the amended text for Canon 31 be read for the second time.
One could be forgiven for thinking that this is rather a lot of fuss about a motion which is only about a dozen words long. However, what we are talking about has been talked about more than anything else that I remember whilst I’ve been on Synod – far more, for example, than the debate about whether to open nominations to Episcopate to clergy who happen to be women.
[Editor’s note: there will be more responses from orthodox Anglicans after the expected vote of the Scottish Episcopal Church to change the Canons on marriage on Thursday 8th June 2017 .]
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