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| The Most Rev Justin Welby announced sanctions against the Scottish Episcopal |
Church at a news conference in Canterbury. Source: BBC
"A major row is erupting in the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) with half the paid clergy in one region rebelling over the appointment of their new bishopdanquot; reports Christian Today. This follows the appointment of Canon Anne Dyer to be the first female bishop in the SEC. Canon Dyer is "strongly in favour" of gay marriage.
The protest follows the failure of the normal nomination process where church members within the largely conservative Diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney failed to name the required minimum of three candidates. The SEC bishops then took over the process and nominated former business/systems analyst Canon Dyer but without first consulting clergy or churchgoers in the diocese according to the report.
The Archbishop of Canterbury said last October that the SEC would be excluded from ecumenical and leadership roles in the Anglican Communion following the decision of the SEC to begin marrying same-sex couples.
The first same-sex Anglican church wedding in the UK took place in Edinburgh in September 2017 after the SEC voted in June to amend canon law and allow same-sex couples to be married in church.
Following the vote the Most Rev David Chillingworth, then Primus of the SEC, said: "A new chapter opens up and inclusion takes a particular form. This new canon affirms there are different understandings of marriage in our church. We affirm we are a church of diversity and difference bound together by our unity in Christ."
Bound in unity in Christ they may be but that is no excuse for deviancy. There is only one understanding of marriage. Marriage is between a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others and for life.
Chillingworth retired at the end of July 2017. His successor the Rt Rev Mark Strange said in response to the sanctions imposed on the SEC: "We will continue to play our part in the Anglican Communion we helped to establish, and I will do all I can to rebuild relationships, but that will be done from the position our Church has now reached in accordance with its synodical processes and in the belief that love means love."
Love means love in many forms. That the English language uses one word to convey different meanings of love is too convenient for those pushing same sex marriage.
Another ploy is to suggest that people will become accustomed to same sex marriage in time as they have to re-marriage of divorced people', a false analogy because divorce is about the absence of love, complicated by issues of annulment, consummation and the effects on offspring.
Carrying on regardless, the Anglican church is striving to reflect rather than inform society. Empty pews are the result but the new bishop of London was not bothered in herresponse to the problem in 2015 when the former nurse and midwife was appointed bishop of Crediton - hence her ascendancy in today's Anglican church no doubt.
Her attitudeechoed that of Jan McFarlane, former Speech and Language Therapist, now Bishop of Repton. In response to the revelation that Norwich was the most godless city in England, the then Archdeacon of Norwich said that people were "doing their churchgoing differently" - staying away!
Postscript [08.01.2018]
Primus hits back after open letter criticises the appointment of Scotland?S first female bishop.
The Primus would be better employed examining his own conscience after seeking to justify same sex marriage using the simplistic jargon "love is lovedanquot;.
He now says. ?Whilst, it would not be appropriate to disclose the internal discussions which took place among the bishops, suffice it to say, that the bishops fully believe and trust that they have been led by the Holy Spirit in their election of Canon Dyer."
So the Primus stamps the SEC's gay marriage rencana with the approval of the Holy Spirit. The Church of England and the Church in Wales have been there before. If the Holy Spirit were to motivate anyone the signatories to the open letter would be more likely candidates having been informed by Holy Scripture rather than fashionable secular trends.
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