The Anglicans did it.
They split theological hairs.
It's not too surprising to me. The limited amount of time I have spent in the Anglican churches and tradition I have seen deep thinking from most Anglicans who get invovled in Synod and in leadership. The scholarship is quite detailed, and they do know thier scripture and interpretations of the Bible very well.
Basically, they divided the issue into two motions:
1. Does the blessings of same-sex unions violate the CORE beliefs of the Anglican church?
and
2. Will we allow individual dioceses to bless same-sex unions?
They are NOT the same question to the Anglicans who were at the meeting. In thier minds, they are completely different.
The Anglican church is a rather unique denomination in that it doesn't have a central figure (like the pope) or a central document (like a creed or theological statement like Luther's) to point to as a reference for theological thinking. Instead, it points to the prayer book and other historical documents to guide the interpretation of scripture.
I won't try to explain the sources here - Wikipeadia's entry on the Anglican Doctrine does this in much more detail.
What does it boil down to? In the church's overall mandate to reach others for Christ - the blessings of the unions doesn't really matter......
BUT
The majority of the people at the Synod don't believe that the blessing of the unions should occur.
This is going to be called many things - it has already. Confusing (CBC) is one term we are going to hear a lot of. Bigotry is another we will hear as well.
Both stem from not seeing a difference between the two motions.
Like I said - splitting hairs.
ADDED JUNE 25
After reading Chester's comment, and checking out the Anglican Church's site, (Thanks, Chester), I found the results of the voting.
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2 comments:
I think your take is exactly right, except for one detail:
The majority of all delegates actually voted FOR the second question, not AGAINST it. But, the delegates were divided into three subsets: laity, clergy, and bishops. All three subsets had to deliver majorities (a "triple majority") in order for the resolution to pass.
As it turned out, the majority of laity voted yes, as did the majority of clergy, and a large plurality of the bishops. But a razor-thin majority of the bishops voted no. Thus, the resolution failed not because of a simple majority "no," but because the resolution just barely missed jumping the very high bar of a triple majority "yes."
Chester...
I'm not a member of the Anglican Church (at least not anymore) nor was I a delgate at the Synod. I wouldn't have the info about the actual voting. I guessing from your comment and your blog that you were in attedance at Synod.
Thanks for the clarification. Quite possibly the voting is set up this way for a reason? That discussion would be interesting.
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