Headline: Presbyterians approve gay marriage in church constitution
The new wording for the church Book of Order will read, “Marriage involves a unique commitment between two people, traditionally a man and a woman, to love and support each other for the rest of their lives.”
That’s roughly 10,000 congregations and about 1.8 million members.
That makes the Presbyterians “the largest US Protestant group to formally recognize gay marriage as Christian and allow same-sex weddings in every congregation.”
“Wait,” you say. “What about the Episcopalians? They already ordained a gay priest, right? So what about them?” They don’t have a formal position on gay marriage. Bishops can instruct their priests whether they can officiate at the ceremonies. They’ll take up gay marriage at a national meeting in June.
Surprisingly to me, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America eliminated barriers to gay ordination in 2009 and allows some discretion by clergy and congregations to officiate at same-sex ceremonies without formally recognizing same-sex marriage as a denomination.
On the other hand, the United Methodist Church, the second-largest Protestant denomination in the US, “bars ‘self-avowed practicing homosexuals’ from ordination and prohibits gay weddings.”
Small steps, small steps.
I’m an ordained ELCA pastor, and it makes sense to me! We’re strongly congregational. We are also an amalgam of different Lutheran traditions that merged, and individual congregational DNA still reflects that variety. What our policy does is allow gays and lesbians to be on the official clergy roster, which means congregations can choose to call them or not. Who is married is also decided by the congregation.
This isn’t ideal, but a big part of Lutheran theology is about living in paradox. Simul justus et peccator is our motto. This respects the values of love for neighbor, and sola scriptura, word alone, another Lutheran value. We hold them in tension, with mutual conversation, while we watch for the guidance of the Spirit.
And this has been your theological post of the day!