• Sermon – the parable of the sower

     

    The church is completely obsessed with one topic.

    Whenever you go to church meetings there is one thing that dominates everything and has done so for at least the last 15 or 20 years.

    We talk about it endlessly. Whether it is local regional chapters, diocesan synod, General Synod or even the meetings of the Anglican Communion such as the Lambeth Conference which gathers all the bishops of the communion together every 10 years, there is sure to be this one item on the agenda.

    Reports are written.

    Debates are had.

    Motions are passed.

    Decisions are made.

    All in relation to this topic which has seemed to dominate absolutely everything we do.

    People (by which I mean me) are bored to the back teeth of hearing about it and yet still we go over and over it all again at every meeting.

    Bishops and archbishops make statements about it. And our concern is matched by similar conversations in other denominations.

    Who would like to hazard a guess at what that topic is?

    Is it wonga?

    Is it assisted dying that Lord Carey has been highlighting rather unhelpfully this weekend?

    Is it sex in general and homosexuality in particular?

    Well, (more…)

27 responses to “Can you backdate a marriage?”

  1. Colin Backhouse Avatar
    Colin Backhouse

    If a man and woman from England were married in a Church in the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus with a proper ordained anglican minister can that marriage be registered and recognised retrospectively back in england?

    1. Kelvin Avatar

      I doubt it, but I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know.

  2. Stephen Clark Avatar

    Am interested to note that the Register in your post seems to be of the Commonwealth of Australia…we are now happily within the marriage equality fold (after a tortuous process).
    At lunch recently with a fellow priest we both agreed that while the laws of Australia may have changed, neither of us (he 70+ and I, 65) will live to see The Anglican Church of Australia allowing marriage equality; being as we are totally bullied by the GAFCON politics of the 4 or 5 Evangelical Dioceses led by the Diocese of Sydney (I would suggest that they are happy to call everyone to scriptural fidelity…whilst the first to breach the call to NOT call sisters and brothers to the secular courts…and then to bring the blessed Owen Dowling to the secular courts…because he chose to ordain women!.

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