The C of E bishops have said no to the demand of Penny ‘Thunder Thighs’ Mordaunt, senior Tory minister, that the Church “conduct weddings for same-sex couples or, at a minimum, enable authorised blessings.”
According to Thunder Thighs, the Church fails “to recognise the pain and trauma that this continues to cause many LGBT+ people who are left feeling that they are treated as second-class citizens within our society.”
Specifically unrecognised are the pain and trauma plaguing her brother James, a homosexual airline steward and, by all accounts, a keen body builder. Actually, James would be well-advised to concentrate on developing his mind, rather than just building (and decorating) his body.
If he made that effort, he’d probably refrain from speaking arrant nonsense, such as: “If you are a member of the Conservative Party, a Conservative MP, part of this homophobic transphobic Government, you are complicit [in the hatred that’s conspicuously prevalent in England]”.
Clearly, James’s big sister wants to absolve herself of any such complicity. To that end she has contributed some arrant nonsense of her own.
Thunder Thighs doesn’t seem to realise that promoting secular egalitarianism isn’t what churches are for – even if they happen to be established. They have their own mission and their own rules, which are collectively called Christian doctrine.
That doctrine regards homosexuality as a mortal sin and homomarriage in church (which by the way was regrettably legalised by precisely the “homophobic transphobic” party that James finds complicit in fostering hatred) as a sheer impossibility.
Equally impossible is, or rather should be, offering “authorised blessings” to homomarriage, for churches are supposed to damn mortal sins, not bless them. Anyway, that would constitute cultural appropriation, for such endorsement is the exclusive domain of satanic sects.
If Penny Mordaunt wishes to indulge in social taxonomy by dividing citizens in first and second classes, and then insisting they be merged into one, that’s her privilege. However, one wishes that a Minister of the Crown devoted her boundless energy to more productive activities.
For the time being the C of E bishops are holding firm. They have reiterated that, according to the Church’s teaching, Holy Matrimony is a union between one man and one woman. They’ve also refused to put the matter to a Synod vote.
However, the Church is under tremendous pressure to adapt its doctrine to the vicissitudes of secular fads.
Its ability to resist isn’t helped by its established status, especially since its Anglican equivalent in Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church, has chosen woke virtue over the Christian kind, at least on this issue.
(That Church is the ecclesiastical equivalent of the consistently subversive Scottish Independence Party, whose mission in life is to destroy the United Kingdom in the name of independence. It then hopes to commit Scotland to membership in the EU, which worthy goal doesn’t quite tally with any sensible idea of independence.)
My guess is that the C of E will succumb soon enough. That should remind those who take such issues seriously of how perilous it is for churches to submit to state control.
State policies change in line with its flexible, not to say these days nonexistent, principles and elastic morality. So much more important is it that Christian doctrine remain immutable and impervious to any secular pressures.
Doctrine should only ever change strictly as a result of an internal ecclesiastical decision, not of ministerial diktats. If any church becomes a weathercock turning in the wind of secular fashions, it thereby forfeits its mission.
Those Scottish prelates ought to remind themselves of the kingdom that is not of this world. In case they aren’t sure of the provenance of this phrase, it comes from John 18:36, which is a verse in the book that Christians used for guidance in the past.
When they veer from it in the direction of other publications, such as PinkNews or the Communist Manifesto, they are no longer Christian churches in anything but name.
As for our siblings, I have an idea they may wish to ponder. Brother and sister Mordaunt should campaign for incestuous nuptials as well, so that they could marry each other in church. Or, barring that, save from pain and trauma other blood-related couples, those who are willing and able to consummate such unions.
Just to think that Penny Mordaunt almost succeeded in becoming our prime minister. On the other hand, she probably would be no worse than the current incumbent or any other present candidate for the post.
Few Catholic bishops actually have supernatural faith. I assume it is the same in the Anglican Church. Their mission these days is to curry favor on the earthly plane, as they do not believe any other exists. As a good proportion also suffer same sex attraction, I have no idea why more (outside Germany) are not pushing for this same blessing/marriage apostasy.
What sort of consolation is there for sinners who push to have their church accept (or even celebrate!) them in their sin? Why not just leave the Church? They know it is wrong and a sin, so what possible benefit do they derive from some perverted ecclesial authority claiming otherwise?
I have a bad temper. Should I start some “curmudgeon community” and lobby for acceptance? Then, rather than trying to restrain my outbursts, I could claim that God accepts them, even blesses them? How about the “thieving community”? Why do they not have representation? Liars? Murderers?
Let’s hope and pray that the Church of England and the Catholic Church remain strong enough to fight this idiocy. Although, with Pope Francis’s latest outburst, it seems the wolves outnumber the sheep and have donned shepherd’s clothing.
The “curmudgeon community” has been welcomed by the Church since at least the days of St Cyril of Alexandria and the Desert Fathers, while the “gay community” has been condemned since at least the days of Abraham. (And now I think of it, there’s something attractively curmudgeonly in Abraham’s recorded utterances.)
As for the “thieving community”, it’s fully represented in all churches and conventicles by so-called “Christian Socialists”, while liberal Protestant churches that endorse abortion are part of the “murdering community”.
“Even now are there many antichrists” – I John 2.18
Vatican II, in trying to accommodate the Soviet “Union”, actually began much of this nonsense.
Don’t be too quick to applaud the C-of-E bishops. They may (for the time being) have stopped short of authorising “gay” parodies of Holy Matrimony in churches, but they propose to bless (and thereby endorse) “gay” parodies of civil marriages:
https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/draft-prayers-thanksgiving-dedication-and-gods-blessing-same-sex
N.B. The Episcopal Church of Scotland isn’t the established church in Scotland. My native land was sadly taken over by ultra-Calvinists in the 16th Century, as a preparation for being taken over by ultra-Marxists today.
At least for the time being we are spared the spectacle of men in white dresses having confetti thrown at them.
I’m sure that confetti will be thrown after the men in white dresses have been “blessed” in churches.
Probably the only way to spare one’s eyeballs such an assault is to live next door to a mosque.
The end of Christianity should be welcomed as it’s a foreign imposition of culture from the middle East, nothing to do with Britain
We should support the resurrection of the old gods
Besides homosexual love predates the Christian indoctrination by thousands of years, it’s Christianity that’s out of kilter with our natural normal ways