Andrea Williams

Chichester 293

Lay Member of General Synod - Business Committee Report Debate - February 6, London. General Synod of the Church of England

Chairman, I stood before you in July and declared there to be a presenting issue for the Church and State which needed to be addressed by Synod as a matter of urgency and grave importance.

I stand before you again and suggest that as we enter into the Spring with a government determined to consult on the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples and in recent days with the Bishop of Salisbury and 120 priests in the London Diocese publically dissenting to the Church's position on the public doctrine of marriage that the Archbishops, as Presidents, should call an Emergency debate.

In a sense there are two distinct issues here - the extension of civil partnerships to religious premises and the redefinition of marriage but both constitute an attack on marriage as defined in the Bible and the Common Book of Prayer. This issue is extremely significant for our society and there can be no more important issue on our agenda than this one.

If an agenda can't be changed or extended to accommodate something as foundational as this then I believe there to be real difficulties.

If the national Church were to stand for marriage as traditionally defined then our Prime Minister would be defeated even before he began. We are living in extraordinary times when our conservative Prime Minister states that he is in support of gay marriage not despite being a conservative but because he is a conservative.

Is it not the job of the established Church to hold government to account and not to let her stray from biblical precepts which are good not just for individuals but for communities and nations?

On 23rd June 2011 William Fittall, responded to the Government Consultation on the extension of Civil Partnerships to Religious Premises by saying the Church of England's response would focus on the need to ensure that the forthcoming regulations would continue to provide unfettered freedom for each religious tradition to resolve these matters in accordance with its own convictions and its own internal procedures of governance.'

I said in July that this response cedes the public doctrine of marriage to the state; it privatises the Church's involvement in marriage and is very serious indeed. It leads to the very danger predicted; one week before this synod 120 Anglican clergy and the Bishop of Salisbury say that whether to preside over civil partnerships should be a matter of conscience for the individual priest.

No, Chairman, whether to preside over civil partnerships in our churches is not a matter of conscience but rather a matter of biblical truth on which the Church must set clear direction.

And to the second issue today: Until the passing of the Civil Partnerships Act, the public doctrine of marriage was consistent with the Book of Common Prayer, however this is no longer the case. The state no longer has a view about marriage that reflects the teachings of Scripture. The Bishop of Salisbury argues, somewhat incredibly, that 'If there's a gay couple in The Archers, if there's that form of public recognition in popular soaps, we are dealing with something which has got common currency.' He said that in the Church marriage was defined by two people promising to love one another faithfully for life and that the Church was moving towards the recognition of gay marriage.

A re-affirmation of marriage as between a man and woman in the public domain is what the church must have on this agenda of February 2012. It is almost impossible to imagine anything more pressing in terms of Church business at this moment in our history. We have a government about to begin the process of redefining marriage.

[Marriage is solemn and holy. A country that does not uphold the institution of marriage strikes at its own heart. In Matthew 19 Jesus tells us categorically that marriage was ordained by God from the beginning of our creation as the union of one man and one woman and this relationship is a direct reflection of the relationship between Christ and the church - the bridegroom and the bride.]