Why Christian ministers should stop taking weddings
by Mark Woods, Christian Today.
A Norwegian Roman Catholic bishop says it’s time for clergy to stop officiating at weddings.
Bishop Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo told the Catholic News Service that he would have to seek permission from the Vatican, but added: “It’s clear we must distinguish our own church marriages from others.”
Eidsvig was arguing that priests should move to offering Catholic weddings to Catholics, but should no longer act as officers of the state.
He spoke in the context of a decision by the country’s Lutheran Church to offer gay marriage services, saying that “we don’t understand their decision and hope they’ll still reconsider it”.
Eidsvig said of his own position: “This is a matter of liturgy, so it doesn’t necessarily reflect broader change in our society’s moral values. But politicians may now get aggressive toward churches who resist these weddings, so the best option is for us to stop conducting marriages on the state’s behalf.”
And there’s a great deal to be said for this.
One of the problems facing many conservative Christian ministers is that they’re afraid that, with shifting morality and increasing acceptance of gay marriage in many places, they’ll come under pressure to marry people of the same gender.
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