Anglican bishop who hailed transgender rite as biblical calls it flawed in shambolic U-turn

Dec 17, 2018 by

by Jules Gomes, Rebel Priest:

Four days after commending the Church of England’s transgender liturgy as “rooted in scripture,” a senior evangelical bishop is now calling it “highly divisive” and “flawed” and claiming that it “will be seen by many as a serious abuse of Scripture.”

In a humiliating climbdown, Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, issued a statement on Saturday stating that the “use of Scripture” in the new baptism-based transgender liturgy published under his oversight, “is a major cause of concern, particularly given the lack otherwise of any theological explanation or rationale.”

Henderson, who is president of the Church of England Evangelical Council, issued the statement on behalf of the CEEC saying that the rite for transgender initiation has “raised a number of serious questions and aroused deep concerns,” the most serious of which was the biblical texts the House of Bishops and his committee had recommended to be read at the service.

Some of these biblical texts include God changing Sarai’s name to Sarah (Genesis 17.1–7, 15–17) and God giving Jacob the new name Israel after Jacob wrestles with God at Peniel (Genesis 32.22–31). They also include New Testament texts where Jesus refers to Cephas as Peter, announcing that he will build his church on this “rock”.

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