Scottish Episcopalians revise canon law to permit gay marriage

by Hattie Williams
08 June 2017

THE Scottish Episcopal Church’s General Synod voted on Thursday to allow its clergy to solemnise marriages for same-sex couples in church. After two hours of respectful and emotional debate in St Paul’s and St George’s, Edinburgh, the Synod gave final approval to a revised Canon 31 on the solemnisation of holy matrimony.

The first two clauses of Canon 31 — containing the doctrinal statement that marriage is to be understood as a “physical, spiritual and mystical union of one man and one woman” — were deleted, and replaced with a single conscience clause to ensure that no cleric would be obliged to officiate against his or her conscience... the rest

Scottish Anglican Network: Fellowship impaired by Scottish vote
The Scottish Anglican Network is a movement of Christians - including clergy and laity - within the Scottish Episcopal Church who are seeking to follow the teaching of Jesus Christ, and therefore to retain and restore the Bible to the heart of Anglican churches in Scotland.

Today the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church approved an amendment to its canons in order to change its doctrine of marriage and permit same-sex weddings to be celebrated by nominated clergy in its churches.

We completely disagree with this action...

David Ould: GAFCON Announce New Missionary Bishop for Europe  GAFCON have officially announced their intention to consecrate a missionary bishop for Europe at a press conference deliberately placed to juxtapose with the Scottish Episcopal Church’s vote to change the definition of marriage.

The full statement, given by Archbishop Foley Beach of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), is available on the GAFCON website [pdf]...

Added:
Canon Phil Ashey: The GAFCON Missionary Bishop for Scotland and Europe On Friday June 30, 2017, the Rev. Canon Andy Lines will be consecrated in Wheaton Illinois (USA) at the Third Provincial Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the Most Rev. Dr. Foley Beach Presiding. The consecrating Bishops will be acting on behalf of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), and Canon Lines will become its first Missionary Bishop to Europe.

Canon Andy Lines’ consecration will not be irregular or invalid.  His Holy Orders in the Province of South America have been duly and lawfully transferred to, and likewise received by, the ACNA. He will be consecrated by acting primates, archbishops and bishops of the Anglican Communion. His consecration will fall within the historical tradition of faithful Bishops who have created order in the Church during times of crisis. These are times when faith and doctrine have been threatened by others’ failure to guard against false teaching—or worse, have actively promoted such false teaching. One can trace this all the way back to Athanasius and the crisis of Arianism in the early Church. Faithful bishops like Athanasius disregarded the boundaries and autonomy of Arian dioceses in order to consecrate Biblically faithful bishops for Biblically faithful Christians. The consecration of a missionary bishop by GAFCON for Europe is as much an emergency as the consecrations that Athanasius and other faithful bishops performed, and just as necessary to guard the faith and order of the Church and prevent spiritual harm to biblically faithful Christians.

We call these emergencies “exigent circumstances.” Although this is a legal term used in criminal courts for circumstances in which the potential death of a victim, flight of a felon or destruction of evidence justifies an emergency search or seizure that overrides the freedom, autonomy and constitutional rights of a suspect, “exigent circumstances” have also been the grounds for faithful Bishops, clergy and laity to take emergency action to guard the faith and order of the Church. I recently wrote about Exigent Circumstances in the Anglican Communion, citing the works of Paul Avis, Francis Oakley and Brian Tierney for the precedent of such “emergency action” which we see in the development of  the great reforming Councils of the Roman Catholic Church during the Great Schism (1378-1417).

There are four conditions for such emergency action that I cited in that article...