Conflict in Church of England about to get hotter

Conflict in the Church of England between traditionalists and revisionists is about to get hotter and soon. For now that the new UK Civil Partnership law has come into effect, there will be CofE clergy who will, um, “marry” their gay partners. One Darlington vicar has announced his intention to do just that this week. How Christmasy.

Such public actions present the powers that be in the Church of England with an unhappy choice: force such marrying kinds among gay clergy (And I’m referring to those who have no intention to practice celibacy.) to stand down and make the revisionists explode in anger or do little or nothing and anger the orthodox and increase divisions with them. You can guess what actions I think should be taken, but whatever church authorities do, divisions in the Church of England will deepen and become more heated.

As far as the Anglican Communion is concerned, you can toss any hope of it remaining together if the CofE tolerates sexually active gay marriages/partnerships/whateveryouwanttocallthem among the clergy.

Now, the announced policy is that same-sex civil partnerships among the clergy are o.k., but that they must not be sexually active. Well, we’ll see if that’s a wink and a nudge or not.

When the CofE announced their policy about clergy civil partnerships, I posted that they were asking for trouble. We’re about to find out how much trouble.

More links and comments over at titusonenine.