Australia: Deadlock in key vote as Anglican bishops block a conservative statement on marriage
by John Sandeman, Eternity News:
A motion to affirm traditional marriage has passed in two of the three houses at the Anglican General Synod (GS) being held on the Gold Coast, but has been blocked in the house of Bishops.
As the vote was announced, Kanishka Raffel, Archbishop of Sydney, said “I have had people approaching me saying they would leave the Synod. I have urged them not to do so.”
Raffel recounted moves by Canadian, US and NZ Anglicans to leave when same-sex blessings were approved in their churches.
“Failing to make these affirmations today has left us in a perilous situation,” he said.
The GS voted on whether to make a statement about same-sex marriage moved by Raffel. The statement says that one man-one woman marriage is the only form of marriage taught by Jesus and that blessing same-sex civil marriages is also contrary to the teaching of Christ. (The whole statement is at the foot of this story.)
The GS is responding to the actions of the Church’s Appellate Tribunal – its top legal body – which ruled last year that blessing same-sex civil marriages is not against the Church’s constitution, narrowing the constitution’s view of doctrine to matters pertaining to salvation.