The C of E is tiptoeing towards gay marriage – Telegraph Blogs:
A veddy British slash-and-burn about the "Anglican" brand as
"simply an attempt to sanctify pragmatism."
Dominican friar Aidan Nichols book, The Panther and the Hind, makes clear that within the so-called "Church of England" there have always been three churches corralled uncomfortably together in the State structure: the (non-Roman) Catholics, the (Puritan/Evangelical) Protestants and the (rationalist/culture-adapting) Liberals.
Accomodation is a short step from incoherence.
'via Blog this'
3 comments:
I have been thinking about the natural law argument for not recognizing marriage. More specifically, how it doesn't work any more. Once, it was a given that aristocracy was part of the natural order. As we know, that is no longer the case. Someone could make a well-reasoned argument for the necessity of aristocracy, but people would just dismiss it. So it is with marriage, perhaps.
Marriage was once about economics and children. Now it's about love. The acceptance of same-sex marriage may have been preordained from the moment marrying for love became the norm. Because once children, once the driving goal of marriage, become optional, what is to stop any two people whose relationship does not break a sexual taboo from being recognized? Aristocracy was once considered a vital part of society, just like marriage. Perhaps we are simply moving past that institution as a society.
But then again, I'm not surprised that the Church of England, the original Church of Political Expedience, is making this move. But even if revising a moral because it is untenable may be smart, is it right? And then, do you even have morals, or are you only as saintly as circumstances allow you to be? And did you really think the act was wrong in the first place if you commit it when it becomes easy to do it?
I have stopped trying to guess what the Catholic Church will do about homosexuality. Part of me thinks they will never embrace it in favor of migrating to a patriarchal setting. The other thinks they will eventually do a 180 and accept it, but how could they do that, short of divine revelation, and if that was the case, why the heck did God wait so long to share that little tidbit?!
I can't explain why, but even if the Church gave me what I want, I feel like I would be... disappointed in them. I'm not sure I would want to come back. Maybe because part of me would know they were suckered in by despicable liars, like everybody else is nowadays.
-Sean
Briefly, I don't think the analogy between marriage and aristocracy is a strong one. Marriage long predates aristocracy. And aristocracy take a variety forms, I believe, not just the bloodline version I think you are referring to.
Aristocracy, btw, seems to me to be one form of oligarchy, which exists in every human society, regardless of what we call it.
To me, if you accept gay marriage, you make marriage genderless and you accelerate the destruction of male/female difference and identity in the liberal state.
I wonder, could Anglican acceptance of homosexuality, even same-sex marriage, lead to a schism within the Church of England? I know that ever since Benedict was elected, Anglicans and Episcopalians, including some priests who have genuine apostolic succession, have been slowly moving back into the Catholic flock out of disgust with the Anglican establishment. Perhaps this would be the final straw for all the remaining Catholic Anglicans and result in their complete and total departure from the CoE? It's certainly in the realm of possibility. I don't know enough about the Protestant faction to make a bet on their chances for schism.
But if both of those factions departed, then Anglicanism would be neither Catholic nor Protestant. It would be reduced to what it has essentially been since its founding in the wake of Henry VIII's schism: an ecclesiastical cheerleading squad for the political zeitgeist. It would be nice to finally be able to say that generalizations and truth are one and the same.
-Sean
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