Gay marriage? The Archbishops who know better than the Bible
by Peter Mullen, The Conservative Woman:
IN about eighteen months, the Church of England will announce that it intends to solemnise homosexual marriage. I have neither runes nor crystal ball, so how can I possibly know this? Because the Church has as good as announced it in its recent publication Living in Love and Faith. Creditably there is no obfuscation in LLF.
It begins with an apology ‘for the damage and hurt caused to the LGBT community’. It proceeds with the launch of a programme of ‘discussions and learning about gender identity’ to be completed this year. The House of Bishops will then bring the process of ‘decision-making to a conclusion’ and their conclusions will be put to a vote in the General Synod. This procedure appears to be no more than a polite charade, for the presenter of LLF, Christopher Cocksworth, Bishop of Coventry, has already declared that the Church’s teaching on marriage is ‘ripe for development’. A cynic might comment, ‘What a giveaway!’
When the huddling into groups has begun and the participants are embarked on their ‘decision-making’, they will find a great deal of historical matter to help them towards what LLF refers to as their ‘discernment’. For example, that both the Old and the New Testaments declare unambiguously that sexual relationships must be between one man and one woman for life. In particular, homosexual acts are prohibited: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind’ (Leviticus 18:22). St Paul condemns ‘Men who burn with lust one for the other’ (Romans 1:27). Those words are so plain as to be not beyond the understanding even of a modern bishop.
But Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell who, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, introduced LLF,claims to know better than the Bible:
‘What we can do is recognise that what we know now about human development and human sexuality requires us to look again at those texts to see what they are actually saying to our situation, for what we know now is not what was known then.’
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