Transitioning a Liturgy
by Lee Gatiss, Church Society:
Lee Gatiss examines episcopal guidance on celebrating gender transition published yesterday.
The House of Bishops of the Church of England has issued guidance on the use of liturgy to mark and celebrate a person’s gender transition. This follows a statement from the Bishops in January (responding to a motion at General Synod in July 2017) that the existing rite of affirmation of baptismal faith could be used for this purpose.
Church Society and other groups responded then, as we also have on previous occasions (see below for examples). We continue to have extremely serious concerns.
The bishops start by affirming that all people are welcome at church and celebrating the diversity of the body of Christ. Those are things that every evangelical Christian would want to endorse enthusiastically. Our astonishment at God’s amazing grace, that embraces even a sinner like me, drives us to want others to share in that too.
However, this guidance is highly problematic for a number of reasons:
Distorting liturgy
As we noted back in January, this liturgy is not fit for this purpose. There is nothing in it that looks like a naming ceremony, so it is odd to use it to mark and celebrate a person’s gender transition. The transition it is intended to celebrate is a transition to public faith in Christ via repentance and baptism, not a transition from male to female or female to male via medical or cosmetic alterations.
Related Posts
Tags
Share This
