FURTHER COMMENTARY ON CHURCH OF ENGLAND STATEMENT ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Here in PDF format is the Church of England's statement in response to the Home Office Consultation on Equal Civil Marriage, if you'd like to read it all.  The very first paragraph of The Church's understanding of marriage made me smile.

1. In common with almost all other Churches, the Church of England holds, as a matter of doctrine and derived from the teaching of Christ himself, that marriage in general – and not just the marriage of Christians – is, in its nature, a lifelong union of one man with one woman. 

 Well, there's sticky matter of divorce and remarriage, which is permitted by the church despite its understanding of marriage as a "lifelong union of one man with one woman," which seems to me to undermine their case against same-sex civil marriage from the very beginning.

Moving on...

Tim Ellis, Suffragan Bishop of Grantham:

‘...in what way can the statements of the prelates be taken to be the mind of the Church of England in this and other related matters?’ For, in truth, the bishops in the media have not spoken for me or the way in which I understand this thorny matter and, I suspect, they do not speak for a sizeable minority or even majority with the life of the Church. However, it is possible that I will soon be approached by the local media to defend the position taken up by my colleagues and the pressure will be on to ‘toe the line’.

Tobias Haller at In a Godward Direction:

The authors hammer away on the alleged "complementarity" of the sexes as a necessary component of marriage without apparently recognizing either the circular nature of that argument or the dangerous tendency towards Christological heresy inherent in its anthropology. The circular nature of the argument is: “Marriage can only take place between a man and a woman because only a man and a woman are of different sexes.” This is, of course, merely restating the premise. The more dangerous, and heretical, trend of this argument lies in the suggestion that the sex difference implies a different order of being for men and women. This is known as sexism, and it undercuts the orthodox doctrine of the incarnation. One would think the church might be more sensitive to that issue, though one wonders how many English bishops actually believe the doctrine.

Alan Wilson, Suffragan Bishop of Buckingham:

The mightiest act of God is his commandment to love him as we love our crooked neighbour with all our crooked heart. It’s shockingly unconditional. Someone wrote to me last month to say it beggared his belief that a bishop should think that “Love thy neighbour as thyself” applied to homosexuals. It beggars this bishop’s belief that anyone should think that it doesn’t.

Themethatisme at conscientisation:

There is the biological usage of complementarity, (not definition) and 'tis this, that is liberally sprinkled through the document as the Bishops seek a good legalistic euphemism for saying men's bits are designed to fit ladies bits and you shouldn't be doing anything else with that arrangement. Which owes more to the traditional definition of the word in which 'This port complements the stilton' or 'that handbag really complements those shoes'.  The two becoming one and being something else, a new ensemble, a new flavour, a fresh expression.

I've suggested a rather long reading assignment for two reasons: The first is that I believe all four posts are worth reading whole and entire.  The second is that three out of the four bloggers are Church of England, all but Tobias, and the statement claims to speak for the church.  Since the statement was released unsigned, the posts quoted and linked above make it clear that whoever put together the statement does not speak for ALL members of the Church of England.