Scots prepare for gay marriage showdown with Anglican leaders
Canterbury meeting will rule on Scottish Episcopal Church’s decision to allow same-sex marriage
THE Scottish Episcopal Church is likely to face “consequences” for its vote to allow same-sex marriage, The Daily Telegraph understands.
Next week Anglican leaders will decide how to respond to the church’s vote to change its Canon on Marriage to remove the definition that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The most likely outcome is that they will decide to restrict the organisation from representing the group at interfaith meetings and from voting on decisions about policy or teaching.
The measures, which are effectively sanctions, would restrict the church from taking part in these key roles for three years.
The church, which voted in June to alter its rules to let clergy carry out same-sex marriages, is likely to face the same measures earlier imposed on a US branch which made the same decision in 2015.
But the Episcopal Church, a liberal branch of the Anglican communion, is still a member of the group and was not excluded entirely, a decision which has prompted more conservative members to boycott next week’s meeting.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Episcopal Church said it would not comment on any potential sanctions before the meeting.
In a video posted online earlier this week, the Most Rev Mark Strange, Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness, the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, said he was “confident that the love and fellowship of those who share my ministry of leadership will be present throughout the week”.
The global Anglican group has been divided over the issue of sexuality since the American church ordained an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, in 2003. Discussions over the Scottish church’s decision are likely to throw into sharp focus the split between the increasingly liberal northern churches and those from Africa, which take a more traditionalist stance.
Representatives from Rwanda, Nigeria and Uganda will not attend because they believe the American church should face a tougher punishment for changing its rules.
Following the decision in January last year, the Most Reverend Stanley Ntagali, Archbishop of Uganda, said he would not attend meetings of the Communion “until godly order has been restored”.
In August he confirmed to the BBC that he had written to the Archbishop of Canterbury explaining his non-attendance.
Archbishops Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria and Onesphore Rwaje of Rwanda have also said they will not travel to Canterbury for the meeting.
Okoh, who is chairman of Gafcon, a conservative organisation that has pushed for more serious consequences for churches which change their doctrine to allow gay people to marry, said in an open letter earlier this month that same-sex marriage and “the blurring of gender identity” were contradictory to “fundamental biblical understandings of marriage and human identity”.
Last week the Archbishop of Canterbury said he was “greatly looking forward” to the meeting, which will be attended by 39 senior Anglican figures from around the world, adding that he would “miss... very much” the members who were not planning to attend.
As well as the sexuality issue, the primates are expected to discuss issues including religious persecution, climate change, modern slavery and migration.
A letter sent to Communion members by the Church of England synod’s General Synod Human Sexuality Group asked them to consider condemning socalled “conversion therapy” in their own countries, following a vote to do so in July’s synod meeting.