By Harry Farley, Christian Today.
Nearly a hundred evangelical leaders have written to Church of England bishops warning that any change in teaching or practice over same-sex relationships would cause “fundamental disunity”.
The letter was sent to every bishop including the Archbishop of Canterbury on Tuesday as they consider whether to introduce some form of acceptance or blessing for gay couples. It warns the smallest change would “trigger a process of division and fragmentation among faithful Anglicans”.
The signatories include major church leaders as well as heads of Anglican networks and some of the Church’s largest theological colleges. Any shift in teaching that sex should only be within marriage between one man and one woman would “cause a break not only with the majority of the Anglican Communion, but with the consistent mind of the worldwide Church down many centuries,” they warn.
“Responses would vary, but the consequences for the life and mission of the Church will be far-reaching, both nationally and globally.”
Beneath the question of same-sex relationships were deeper “tectonic issues” including the authority of the Bible, the Church’s “apostolic inheritance” and how it relates to wider culture, the letter said.
“Any change in the Church’s teaching or practice – such as the introduction of provisions that celebrate or bless sexual relationships outside of a marriage between one man and one woman – would represent a significant departure from our apostolic inheritance and the authority of the Bible in matters of faith and doctrine,” the letter read.
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Older Mainline Protestant liberals will always define “unity” as a function either of polity or process. That if only the polity or governmental plumbing could be refined to a certain point, or a matter of economics, One pays their per capita tax or assessment, then one is in state of “unity” to the majority whole or governmental matrix. And failing that, change the rules or redefine the process, AI’s or other polity end-arounds. Such has always been a unity that is cheap, bogus and always the lowest common denominator. And such will always fail.
Witness the subterfuge and arrogant duplicity of the current PCUSA, which used the concept of “mutual forbearance” as a means to an end in matters of the culture/sex wars in the church. Only to pull the rug many times in both churches and clergy who fail to conform to the dominate ethos in many Presbyteries. South Florida, James, Baltimore among the most hostile to those would would push back. With the expected results of further institutional collapse, de-population of the entity, as people figure out that concepts such as toleration, pluralism, forbearance, freedom of thought and assembly are in essence one way streets, with directions defined by the majority in power. Who wants any part of that?