The pain for those who are both gay and celibate, when a church changes its doctrine on marriage

Jun 14, 2017 by Jill

by David Bennett, Christian Today:

The Scottish Episcopalian Church was brave to apologise to LGBT people for the prejudices and horrors of the past weeks and yet no one has asked the question of why saying sorry for the past has anything to do with playing God’s role in the present by redefining marriage.

Instead, the Scottish Episcopal Church, among many others, has trampled on celibate LGB people with the decision to depart from God’s own teaching in scripture. Next year, when I move to Scotland to study, I may not be able to attend a Scottish Episcopalian Church. The question of whether I can continue to attend in line with the Anglican church I attend in the south of England hangs over my head.

A certain comment from the recent synod flagged this for me. ‘Gay people can now be married in God’s eyes.’ Such a view highlighted the danger we first witnessed in humanity’s parents. This danger is making God in our own image by eating from a kind of knowledge and role that God has. We are redefining things that God has already defined for the Church. We hear that voice whisper ‘Did God REALLY say [that he made them male and female for marriage]?’

When quoting directly from the creation narrative in Genesis, Jesus does so by rendering what appears in the Hebrew as God’s voice, straight from the Creator’s own ‘mouth’. In Matthew 19:4, ‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father.’ When one decides who and what God’s image is in contradiction to what he has said, one puts themselves in the place of God. When the Church exalts herself above God, she breaks covenant with God.

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