“Nothing has changed”: Fr. Curry on the Marriage Issue
‘Nothing has changed’
A statement about same-sex marriages in the light of the decision of the General Synod and Archbishop Ron Cutler’s response
It is incumbent upon me, for what it is worth, to say something about the recent decisions of the Anglican Church of Canada with respect to the question about same-sex marriages. Simply put, nothing has really changed. The Anglican Church of Canada remains caught in the confusions and the contradictions of contemporary culture about the politics of identity. Yet the General Synod, meeting in Vancouver, ultimately voted against equating same-sex marriage with the Christian doctrine of marriage articulated most clearly in the Book of Common Prayer. The result of a long and drawn out process of discussion, this was the result, whether or not one agrees with it, or, for that matter, whether or not one agrees with the assumption that national and diocesan churches have anyauthority to determine on such matters of doctrine, in this case, moral doctrine.
Councils “may err and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God,” as our Articles remind us (Art. XXI), and so Councils will err though sometimes, too, they may be right. There is also the question about which councils and upon what issues. Archbishop Ron Cutler of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island notes that this issue can be revisited within the institutional structures of the Anglican Church of Canada. Everything, it seems, is endlessly ‘provisional’ especially when one is in pursuit of a predetermined end which only then becomes, mirabile dictu,definitive. Thus, despite the decision of the General Synod, he has declared that Diocesan local option takes precedence against it. Same-sex marriages will be allowed where desired in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. At the same time, we are told, no parish or priest will be forced to marry same-sex couples. Nor can they be. And so the division continues and endlessly so.
We live with the confusions and complexities of our age about identity, about what it means to be a self. What matters are the assumptions underlying such decisions. Marriage, according to the Archbishop, and in this he simply reflects the assumptions of the culture, is fundamentally about ‘committed relationships’. If that is so, then there can be no discussion, no debate. And while commitment is an important concept, the question is, commitment to what? After all, one can be in a ‘committed relationship’ with any number of things, including oneself, and to any number of social constructs of whatever sort. While we would all want to agree about the importance of commitment, the classical understanding of Christian marriage is not simply or even primarily about commitment beyond a commitment to the character and nature of marriage; in short, to what it is. We cannot be of one mind if we cannot say what something is; in this case what marriage is. At issue are the principles which govern our understanding about the meaning of our humanity as found within the doctrines of creation and redemption in which marriage is located as oneof the ways of living out the Christian faith.
Nothing has changed inasmuch as the institutional church remains caught in the controversies of identity in our contemporary culture. And nothing has changed with respect to my own contributions to the debate theologically. “The sad tragedy of the Anglican Churches” continues to be “the inability … to distinguish between two different things: marriage and the blessings of friends.” I continue to be committed to upholding the principles of Christian Faith doctrinally and morally as they have been received by the Anglican Churches insofar as they lay claim to be and are an integral part of the Catholic and Universal church regardless of the statements of Synods and Bishops. We live in a divided church but prayerfully and, I hope, charitably with respect to these divisions.
Rev’d David Curry
July 18th, 2019
