Scottish Presbyterians are closer to allowing ministers and deacons to marry same-sex couples.
Church of Scotland Commissioners approved draft legislation, known as an Overture, at the General Assembly on May 24 allowing clergy licensure to celebrate same sex marriage ceremonies. The vote was 319 to 217.
Legislation next goes to presbyteries for further consideration. Most presbyteries must back the legislation for it to become church law. Such a move would further compromise a church body already facing fierce cultural headwinds.
The Church of Scotland, the mother church of Presbyterians, mirrors many other state churches in western Europe, and more than a few of the U.S. mainline Protestant denominations, in its declining number of adherents.
According to Church of Scotland membership figures, the church in 2013 reported 398,389 members (7.5% of the total population) the first time it had dropped below 400,000. By 2018 (the most recent reporting year) membership dropped to 325,695, or 6%. According to the 2018 Annual Report of Scotland’s People, 22% of the Scottish population (down from 34% in 2009) reported belonging to the Church of Scotland. In contrast, the same census reported that 841,053 Scots held membership in the Catholic Church in Scotland, or 15.9% of the population.
Increased secularization, demographic change (especially reduced birthrates) and urbanization likely all contribute to declines in the Church of Scotland, which correlates alongside theological innovations.
Officially, the Church of Scotland affirms a traditional understanding of marriage as between one man and one woman. At present church law only allows ministers and deacons to marry opposite-sex couples. But the General Assembly has been on a trajectory to develop legislation authorizing same-sex unions since May of 2018. Local churches already can call pastors in same-sex civil marriages, prompting church traditionalists to argue that orthodox teaching on marriage is essentially being chipped away.
The much smaller Scottish Episcopal Church has moved to embrace LGBT identities and sexual partnerships, even as it has precipitously declined to become one of the smallest provinces in the worldwide Anglican Communion. The 2011 Scottish census reported fewer than 10,000 people claiming affiliation with the Scottish Episcopal Church.
In 2017, Scottish Anglican clergyman The Rev. Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St. Mary’s Episcopal (Anglican) Cathedral in Glasgow, provocatively urged believers to pray for Prince George — at the time age 4, and third in line to the throne — to find the love “of a fine young gentleman” when he grows up so as to advance the cause of same-sex marriage in church. The same clergyman in January of the same year invited Muslims to give Quranic readings during a cathedral worship service – readings that specifically denied the divinity of Jesus Christ.
The Free Church of Scotland, an evangelical Presbyterian body, strongly holds to a biblical teaching and counts an average attendance of 8,000 and 5,400 communicant members.
Worldwide, a small number of Presbyterian denominations including the Presbyterian Church (USA) permit clergy to solemnize same-sex marriages. The PCUSA General Assembly moved to redefined marriage as between any two persons in 2014, following the ordination of persons in non-celibate same-sex relationships in 2011. The latter caused the Mexican Presbyterian Church to conclude its 139-year-old relationship with the PCUSA, other overseas partners, including Presbyterians in Brazil and Peru, soon followed in concluding their partnerships with the PCUSA.
Like the Church of Scotland, the PCUSA has been in steep decline. Theologically orthodox Presbyterians looked to the exits as the “fidelity and chastity” clause was removed from PCUSA clergy ordination vows in 2010 and redefinition of marriage was approved by the General Assembly and ratified in 2015 by a majority of presbyteries. The denomination reported 2,016,091 members in 2010, and 1,572,660 in 2015, down to 1,245,354 in 2020, a loss of 770,737 active members across the decade (38%).
Comment by David S. on May 26, 2021 at 10:41 pm
But in regards to the PC(USA), if you ask Stated Clerk J. Herbert Nelson, all is well because the precipitous decline has slowed. Of course, this was before the full effects of the pandemic and the public facing leadership’s wholesale embrace of Critical Theory. We shall see what that yields.
Comment by Jeffrey Walton on May 28, 2021 at 10:03 am
The rate of decline hasn’t slowed. The total number of people exiting the PCUSA rolls has decreased, but the percentage of decline increased in 2020. If that continues, the PCUSA won’t exist in 13 years.
Comment by Steve S. on May 28, 2021 at 12:15 pm
I don’t understand on what Biblical grounds these so-called Christian churches base their decision to call homosexual relationships ‘marriages’.
There is no implied permission to bless these relationships. There is no explicit promotion of these relationships. There is no permission to equate homosexual relationships to heterosexual relationships. What the Bible calls a marriage is between a man and a woman…ONLY!
If one does not believe in the what the Bible says, how can one call themselves a Christian?
Comment by Diane on May 28, 2021 at 5:41 pm
John Knox would turn over in his grave.
“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’.”
Comment by Jerry Dunlap on May 28, 2021 at 6:02 pm
My wife and I left a PCUSA church 4 years ago, after an interim minister told me that once church polity was established, it was unchristian to try to change it. I then asked him that since The Bible is God’s inerrant, infallible Word, hadn’t church polity been set thousands of years ago? In his view The Bible was just a guide, and needed to be fluid.
Comment by Jackson G. on May 28, 2021 at 10:35 pm
The Church of Scotland has foolishly taken a bite of the fruit of the tree of Satan. It now moves the church into the cesspool as many denominations have done here in the U.S. only to see increasing declining numbers. This great lie that sexuality rules our Lord’s Church is a fallacy created by Critical Race Theory and Marxism. We are living in the last days of the Church. God help us!
Comment by Ellen Richardson on May 29, 2021 at 5:29 pm
When religious teaching are conveniently flexible to keep up with the socio-political views promulgated mostly by secularists, they cease to be religious teachings.
What’s next ?
Comment by Diane on May 31, 2021 at 12:42 pm
Marriage in this country is a civil, legal contract which is constitutionally not permitted to any longer discriminate on the basis of gender of either party in the contract.
Who cares what churches think? Same-sex couples don’t need the approval of churches to recognize the legal validity or legitimacy of their marriage. Churches should have better things to do than continue debating this. Many have understandably moved on.
Comment by George on May 31, 2021 at 3:37 pm
Yes, marriage has become a civil legal contract for sure. It did so because of government encroachment. There was a time when marriage was recorded in church records. Family Bible, and a periodic census . Now we register with the government to be married. Give our children a number that follows them to the grave. And now the government decides that same sex marriage is fine. What next ? God gave us marriage, not the government.
Comment by Loren J Golden on June 1, 2021 at 12:38 am
“John Knox would turn over in his grave.”
Likely not.
Given Knox’s fiery nature (e.g., The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women), he undoubtedly would have disavowed the Church of Scotland in 1690, when the Scottish Covenanters broke with the state church, eventually to form the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, after the Revolution Settlement, which reestablished (following the Glorious Revolution) the Presbyterian form of government in the Church of Scotland rather than the Episcopal form forced on the Kirk by England’s Charles II, neglected to acknowledge the sovereignty of Christ in the terms of the Solemn League and Covenant, as it was originally agreed to by the Church of Scotland and the English Parliament in 1643.
And even had Knox not broken with the Kirk in 1690, he certainly would have done so in 1843, after the English Parliament refused to acknowledge the legality of the Veto Act, which was passed in 1834 by the General Assembly of the Kirk to allow to veto a patron’s choice of pastor (patronage was established in the UK by a vote of Parliament in 1712, in which a patron of a church [usually a congregation meeting at a church building on the patron’s estate] was allowed to appoint whomsoever he chose to pastor the church of which he was the patron), thus prompting nearly 200 teaching and ruling elders, led by the retiring Moderator, to walk out of the General Assembly and form the Free Church of Scotland.
Of course, John Knox hasn’t been too terribly concerned with Scottish (or American) Presbyterian politics since November 24, 1572, when he was issued into the immediate presence of his Lord and Savior, there to await the resurrection of his lifeless body from the aforementioned grave.
Comment by Loren J Golden on June 1, 2021 at 12:53 am
“Who cares what churches think?”
I would venture to suggest that you do, madam. After all, you’ve written enough comments on this website over the past few years to express your personal beliefs on the subject, ostensibly to persuade them (albeit not too successfully) to your point of view.
Comment by Lee Jenkins on June 1, 2021 at 2:19 pm
“Be ye either cold or hot, for if ye be lukewarm I shall spew thee out of my mouth.”
These Harvey Milquetoast churches will continue to see a falling off of their membership roles, for if they stand for nothing there is no reason to belong to them. Sin is sin. God does not change with the times. God does not change to suit what man wants Him to be. God is GOD!
Comment by Duncan Mulholland on June 1, 2021 at 4:39 pm
As here in the USA another example of the Church adjusting to the beliefs of Society, instead of leading the people to the beliefs of Scripture. An immoral society will surely die. ( collapse ).
Comment by Diane on June 3, 2021 at 12:05 pm
Re civil marriage:
Puritans believed marriage was a civil contract. Couples were married by a magistrate, not a minister.
——-
Following the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved people of color, those who believed in the segregation of races defended their belief by insisting segregation was necessary to prevent unholy interracial marriages. I know White parents who enrolled their children in predominately White, private Christian schools here in the south because they were fearful their their children would be more likely to establish romantic relationships with classmates of color in racially integrated public schools. These parents believe – in 2021 – that interracial marriage is not God’s will.
Those who refuted this argument, after the Civil War, who believed in both full societal racial integration and interracial marriage, declared it was an act of hostile overreach of the government to deny interracial marriage. The government, they said, had no business in controlling peoples’ affections and who they chose to marry.
The same can be said for marriage equality today. It’s an overreach of government to control people’s affections, denying civil marriage to same-sex couples of legal age and consent. It’s none of the government’s business to legally insist which on the race or gender of the one we choose to enter into civil marriage with.
Of course, religious bodies don’t have to bless civil marriages. But as more people come out as lesbian or gay, their friends and family members are likely to honor their loved ones relationships, even if their religious institution (church, synagogue, etc) preaches a god who doesn’t honor those relationships. It’s only natural that people will leave their faith communities over this clash.
It is incorrect to assert that marriage has exclusively been a religious contract in America. Puritans, again, went before a magistrate because they understood marriage as a civil contract.
Comment by Loren J Golden on June 3, 2021 at 11:00 pm
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.’ …
“Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ … So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
’This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.’
Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 1.26-28, 2.18,21-24)
“And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. But you say, ‘Why does he not?’ Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.” (Mal. 2.13-15)
“And the Pharisees came up to (Jesus) and tested him by asking, ‘Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?‘ He answered, ‘Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh”? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.’ They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ (see Dt. 24.1-4) He said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” (Mt. 19.3-9)
“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.” (Rom. 13.1-5)
When God created humankind in the Garden, He created them in the form of two complementary genders—male and female—each with a specific function to play in the propagation of the species: The male provides the sperm that inseminate the female’s egg. Thus, whenever a man and woman copulate (presuming they are neither beyond childbearing years nor otherwise infertile), there is the possibility that she will conceive and bring forth one or more children.
In order to provide, then, for a stable structure for the bearing and rearing of children, God ordained marriage at the beginning of our race, to be a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, for as long as the both of them shall live, and He commanded that this covenant, which He brought together, should be inviolate. “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.” (Heb. 13.4)
The civil magistrate certainly has a vested interest in regulating marriage, because of human sin. The law in lands, such as the United States, where Christianity has been influential have limited the number of wives a man might take, because Scripture amply demonstrates that polygamous marriages are much more dysfunctional than monogamous marriages. Laws are enacted for the protection of women and children because of the irresponsible and/or abusive behavior of husbands and parents. And because marriages sometimes fail altogether, laws are enacted to regulate divorce. For the welfare of society, including the security of society’s future, the civil magistrate has a vested interest in seeing physically, emotionally, and spiritually families raising physically, emotionally, and spiritually children. Therefore, the civil magistrate has a vested interest in regulating marriage.
Pseudo-sexual intercourse between two people of the same gender (it cannot be considered genuine copulation because of the incompatibility of the genitalia) inherently cannot produce children, as should be patently obvious. Whereas the state has a vested interest in licensing marriage between men and women, it has no vested interest in doing the same for couples of the same gender. Financial benefits, such as reduced income taxes and health insurance costs for married couples are intended to defray the costs of raising children, and society truly does not have a vested interest in extending them to couples who, by their very nature, are completely incapable of producing them.
Finally, pseudo-sexual intercourse between two people of the same gender is perverse, for it is a mockery of God’s good design and intent behind sexual intercourse for the production of children. Therefore, He has consistently condemned the practice in His holy, inspired, authoritative Word (Gen. 19.4-9, Lev. 18.22, 20.13, Dt. 23.17-18, Judg. 19.22-25, I Kg. 14.24, 15.12, 22.46, II Kg. 23.7, Rom. 1.24-28, I Cor. 6.9-11, I Tim. 1.8-11, Jude 7). To solemnize it as “marriage” is to dishonor the marriage covenant and show further scorn to the Creator who established it when He created our first parents.
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. …
“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Rom. 1.21-32)
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge;
but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Prov. 1.7)
Comment by Diane on June 4, 2021 at 12:08 am
Yes, the traditional laws of this nation have favored the colonizers, is, mostly Christians. Does that make it right just because it’s so? The American Indian Religious Freedom Act wasn’t passed until 1978, offering constitutional religious freedom rights to the people’s who inhabited this land before Europeans arrived.
In our increasingly pluralistic nation, I find it helpful to recognize that anyone who is an American citizen should have the full rights and equal protections of any other citizen. Adherents of any religious belief should not have the right to decide whether certain rights and privileges shall be denied of citizens on the basis of their beliefs. Within the confines of a religious community and its related entities that aren’t taxed, rights and privileges can be denied within that venue.
There are some exceptions to citizens’ rights and privileges – as being convicted of a felony might result in the denial of certain rights other citizens enjoy.
Comment by Loren J Golden on June 5, 2021 at 7:06 pm
“Anyone who is an American citizen should have the full rights and equal protections of any other citizen. Adherents of any religious belief should not have the right to decide whether certain rights and privileges shall be denied of citizens on the basis of their beliefs.”
Let me ask you a question: Who defines human rights and privileges? Man (or the state; it amounts to the same thing), or God? Who decides what these rights are, and which rights can be taken away?
What if a ruthless dictator enacts inhumane laws that deprive his citizens of their human rights, and then he lives out his days and goes to his grave in peace, without having made satisfaction for his wrongdoing? Where, then, is justice? Did he elude it? Or is there a higher Law than the state, one which will call him to account on the other side of the grave?
The God whose holy, inspired, authoritative Word the Bible is, and who is revealed therein, simply exists. I did not create Him; you did not create Him; the Church did not create Him; and the human authors of Scripture did not create Him. He simply exists; He has existed since before the foundations of the world were laid, and He will still exist when those foundations are removed and this world is no more. It is He who sets the standards for right and wrong, who reveals those standards in nature His creation, in the moral constitution of man His creature, and in the Bible His Word. The words of the Bible are a matter of settled fact: I did not write them; you did not write them; no one living memory wrote them; they were written long before our time, and the Church of Jesus Christ is built on them (Eph. 2.20). What these standards are is settled from all eternity and is not up for debate. When all is done and we stand before His Judgment Throne at the end of human history, He will judge us all by this great Standard.
Within this world lost in sin, there is much confusion, doubt, and even unbelief in the God of the Bible. For this reason, the founding fathers of this land established a law enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America that states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” (Amendment 1: Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press) Therefore, under U.S. law, Jews, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, First Peoples, Atheists, Agnostics, etc., are free to practice their religion, or free to abstain from religion, as their conscience dictates, free from the interference of the state. But this does not mean that we will not be held to account to the higher Law of God, should the lesser law of man not require compliance therewith. God still sits on His Throne, and no man, no institution of man, and no government of man can usurp His authority, or forbid what He has commanded, or require what He has forbidden.
As the Apostle Peter told the Sanhedrin, after that governing body of men had forbidden the early Church from teaching in the name of Jesus, “We must obey God rather than men.” (Acts 5.29) To be sure, we must obey the laws of men insofar as they do not conflict with the Law of God (Mt. 22.21, 23.3, Mk. 12.17, Lk. 20.25, Rom. 13.1-7, Tit. 3.1, I Pet. 2.13-17), “For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Nevertheless, secular governments are run and operated by sinful men and women, and unjust laws conflicting with the righteous Law of God can be enacted into law. For that reason, where the laws of man conflict with the Law of God, “We must obey God rather than men.”
Now, supposing you were to raise the fact that the Bible in places specifies capital punishment for offenses that today are no longer deemed punishable by death, such as homosexuality (Lev. 20.13). There is a threefold division in the Law of God that has been recognized by the Church since the days of the Church fathers. As the Westminster Confession of Faith puts it:
Thus, the laws stipulating a penalty, such as capital punishment for homosexuality, are included in the Judicial Law that governed Ancient Israel as a sovereign state, which expired with Ancient Israel as a sovereign state, and are no longer in effect under the New Testament. However, the moral kernel of the law, such as that homosexuality is an offense before God (Lev. 18.22), is still in effect under the New Testament, for God does not change (Num. 23.19, Ps. 102.26-27, Mal. 3.6, Jas. 17), and His Law never passes away (Mt. 5.17-20, Lk. 16.17).