Debate over same-sex marriages simmers for Canadian Anglicans

Posted by Kendall Harmon

Davies-Flindall has not always felt strongly in favour of same-sex blessings. She started "with the question" and soon associated advocating for this issue with her humanitarian work through the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund.

"I hear stories of people who feel deeply about a church they think of as their own, but don't feel accepted in it," she said. "People said 'I love this

church but I can't stay.' It made me understand that I need to look more seriously at the argument."

The issue is around same-sex blessings rather than same-sex marriage because when it first arose, the latter was not legal in Canada, Oulton said. Same-sex blessings involves the church blessing a civil union that was legalized elsewhere. The issue has affected many Protestant denominations, he said.

Oulton will not say if he is for or against same-sex blessings, only that the church should proceed "very carefully." Any movement needs broader consensus, he said.

"The push is very divisive at this stage of the game," he said. "My feeling is that we need to continue to have the conversation. It's trying to sort out the mind and will of God, which is complicated at the best of times."

He also felt that people were frustrated with the votes at General Synod.

"I don't think we did what we were asked to do at all," he said. "People were very frustrated. I really believe it's critically important we encourage diverse people with diverse viewpoints to stay at the table."

Read it all.

Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Anglican Provinces • Anglican Church of Canada • Canadian General Synod 2007 • Sexuality Debate (in Anglican Communion) • Same-sex blessings

8 Comments
Posted August 28, 2007 at 8:02 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Chris Molter wrote:

“I hear stories of people who feel deeply about a church they think of as their own, but don’t feel accepted in it,”

me, me, me.  news flash.  it’s not “their own”.  It belongs to Christ, or at least it SHOULD.

August 28, 9:25 am | [comment link]
2. DonGander wrote:

“It’s trying to sort out the mind and will of God, which is complicated at the best of times.”

To modern liberals everything is very, very complicated. Only the anointed can really understand the deep, deep complexities of the soul. 1 + 1 = anything but 2. The Universe is just too complicated for we unwashed, unlearned, and untamed.

s/off

I understood the mind of God when I was but a child. It was not complicated. The deepest answers in life come from that mind of God but if you reject those then you begin an endless search for the un-findable.

August 28, 9:37 am | [comment link]
3. Mike Bertaut wrote:

#2 Amen, Don.  I also continue to be deeply offended that MY intelligence is often questioned by those to whom I reveal that my study says Christianity is simple.  As if my own acceptance of that mystery of mysteries, that Faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, that He was man and God, and that his death attoned for all the sin of mankind, makes me a closed-minded idiot.  Well, if that’s the worst I have to suffer in His name, it seems I got off easy.

Complicated.  This place, this fallen world, this life “behind enemy lines” as CS Lewis would say, is complicated.  The Will of God as revealed to us is not.  There are things we are meant to understand, and things we are meant to accept.  “His ways are not our ways” means exactly what it says: That we are not always going to get it.

KTF….mrb

August 28, 9:54 am | [comment link]
4. Adam 12 wrote:

The whole thing strikes me as a confusion campaign, particularly the part about having conversations. The conversation we all need to have is with Jesus.

August 28, 10:48 am | [comment link]
5. Rick D wrote:

me, me, me.  news flash.  it’s not “their own”.  It belongs to Christ, or at least it SHOULD.

Then you won’t mind leaving it behind, when you go….

August 28, 10:53 am | [comment link]
6. Mike Bertaut wrote:

Ah, #5 Rick D, but I will not be going.  I could never abandon those I care about to bad doctrine and heresy.  Even should they choose it, I will be there to remind them where orthodoxy lies. 

Never been that popular anyway.  No point in kow-towing now.

KTF!....mrb

August 28, 11:14 am | [comment link]
7. Bill in Ottawa wrote:

#5 - All things come from the Lord and will return to him. I will leave any building behind, regretful that the brand name has been usurped by non-Christians, to follow the Lord.

The Anglican Church of Canada is a diocesan based structure with the dioceses holding the property in trust for the Anglican Church. With the possible exception of the Chapel Royal mentioned in the article, the only way the we reasserter types get to keep our buildings is if the Archbishop of Canterbury chooses to recognize us as the Anglican Church in Canada in preference to the current regime. If so, we may choose to use that recognition to exercise our stewardship of God’s resources in a more Christian way. But I’m not holding my breath and we are looking for alternate venues to have services when the schism is finally official.

August 28, 11:33 am | [comment link]
8. Chris Molter wrote:

#5,  not an issue for me, since I’m now Catholic (and my prior parish is in good hands both at the parish and diocesan level) but thanks for caring.

August 28, 11:33 am | [comment link]
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