Thinking Anglicans: Statement on marriage from CofE Evangelical ...

Statement on marriage from CofE Evangelical Council

The Church of England Evangelical Council has issued this St Matthias Day Statement (PDF).

The CEEC has several FAQ pages on its website including answers to: What is CEEC? and Who does CEEC actually represent? and How big is the Council?

An actual list of members can be found here.

Posted by Simon Sarmiento on Tuesday, 15 May 2012 at 1:05pm BST | TrackBack
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Categorised as: Church of England

The statement provides no basis, biblical or otherwise, for a prohibition of sex outside of (their definition of) marriage. Sloppy!

I would struggle to call this 'irenic'

A couple of assertions in this document caught my attention straight away. Firstly, paragraph 1b describes marriage as a "god-given form of relationship". Secondly, paragraph 3b states as axiomatic that "marriage is instituted by God". Both of these claims stand in direct contradiction to article 25 of the Thirty-Nine Articles. Therefore, whatever else this document from CEEC might be, it is _not_ "a clear statement of the traditional and orthodox Anglican position".

This strikes me as just conservative evangelical Anglicans talking to themselves, not addressing the outside world in any meaningful way at all: it is certainly not likely to convert them, as evangelicals might hope to do. For all its talk of being sympathetic and understanding, it still calls for repentence, as if gays in committed relationships are doing something sinful and wrong.
And, interestingly, for all its talk of permanent and lifelong relationships in marriage it does not have a word to say about divorce and remarriage for heterosexuals. Surely that is against God's plan too, but is that too difficult to address, because so many evangelicals are themselves in that situation, but have yet had their second marriages blessed by evangelical clergy, including the children of the former archbishop of Canterbury?

"Marriage as created by God is an exclusive relationship between one man and one woman that is entered into for life .... Because marriage is instituted by God, neither the Church nor the state is authorised to re-define it."

But this is simply not true for two reasons:

First, marriage in the Old Testament is almost entirely polygamous. It was not between one man and one woman for life. Saying that God exclusively created monogamy is not Biblical. (That being said, I think that monogamy is vastly perferable to polygamy for the purposes of social stability and a lot of other reasons. But that's a different issue.)

Second, the state has in fact changed that definition of marriage. We have divorce and remarriage. This redefinition of marriage under this statement already violates God's institution. But are they seeking to ban remarriage after divorce? Of course not -- that's political suicide even if it's required under their Biblical standard.

Feria, I think you're misreading the Article in question, if you think that it maintains that God did not institute marriage. The issue in the Article isn't whether marriage is of divine institution, but whether or not the specific manner of performing it is. "Those five commonly called Sacraments," including Matrimony "have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, *for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.*"

The form and matter of the "Gospel Sacraments," Baptism and the Eucharist, are specified in the Gospels: water and the Trinitarian formula for the former, bread, wine, and the Words of Institution for the latter. That's not the case with Matrimony. And the traditional Anglican line is that Matrimony was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden (see 1662 BCP), so the CEEC isn't off base with that particular aspect of the topic.

For a good counter to this Statement try George Monbiot in today's Guardian

"http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/14/family-life-best-for-1000-years?INTCMP=SRCH"

Simon

In spite of all the flannel about love, this is pretty nasty stuff.

Any organisation which still has the discredited Wallace Benn as president isn't living in the real world and it's views are of no account.

Stephen - I noticed that too. My question to the writers would have been "do you not have any remarried divorcees in your churches?"

Of course as Evangelicals, they do not believe Christ turned marriage inton a sacrament for the baptized, abolishing polygamy and divorce.

Notice how they dare not tackle the issue of divorce and re-marriage as they are split as to the meaning of Scripture.

Sex is only for marriage, but they can only define it in vague terms.

The statement assumes that Christian Tradition has the right and ability to determine the legal definition of marriage for the state - which seems more than quite a leap. There are, at least in the US, more than a thousand legal rights attached to marriage - from inheriting property, to medical decision making, to ownership of pensions, to tax status, and on and on. This is why civil marriage is a question of equal rights, not of moral judgement. So what the authors of this document are really arguing (at least in the USA) is that large chunks of the population must be deprived of 1000s of rights that others take for granted (until divorce time) in order to satisfy an extremely static reading of scripture. Certainly the state has every right to define civil marriage and for this document to assert otherwise is to enshrine discrimination in the name of Jesus. God forgive us.

RIW has a good point - these people do not consider marriage a sacrament.

Bill,

You may well be right to suggest that _something_ to do with marriage was instituted by God. However, I'd suggest that this document, and the current debate more generally, are all about "the specific manner of performing it", i.e. about who does and doesn't get access to the visible, outward ceremonies. By article 25, those details are not believed in Anglicanism to have been instituted by God.

"5b. Redefining marriage to include same-sex relationships or affirming or blessing
sexual activity outside marriage is contrary to God?s word." - Evangelical Council Statement -

Where, precisely, is this stated in Scripture?
______________________________________________

"Sex is only for marriage" - Robert I Williams

Dear Robert, your conversion from Evangelicalism to Roman Catholicism bespeaks a misunderstanding of the fact that most human beings are wired for sexual expression. This is a known problem with your new ecclesial community. The most loving expression of our common human sexuality is now being debated in a much wider forum than you may be used to. The conversation may need to be actually listened to, carefully, before uttering the usual shibboleths.

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