![]() Campaigns against child marriage, the practice of suttee, and the slave trade affected the laws of many nations now in the Commonwealth. In former centuries, Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant evangelical missionaries brought Christian mores and reforms to many of those nations, curbing or eliminating such practices as polygamy, ritual mutilation of the body, and shrine prostitution. Christian principles were the spiritual and ethical glue holding the nation’s institutions and to a great extent, the British Commonwealth together. But the decision goes beyond the walls of the Church and the nation to shake the foundations of the British Commonwealth and the monarchy, which since the time of Henry VIII has been seen as the defender of the Christian faith, with the state as the supporter of the Christian religion as expressed in Anglicanism.Īs Gavin Ashenden, former LGBT activist and onetime chaplain to the late Elizabeth II has indicated, until the death of the queen, England was part of Christendom. It would be tempting to regard the issue of same-sex blessing as an internal quarrel within just the Church of England. If history tells us anything, the blessing of same-sex marriage will soon follow, with the revision of “hateful” and “discriminatory” liturgical language and references to God reflecting the new queer standards. ![]() The spearpoint that has wounded the Church of England, perhaps fatally, is the acceptance of blessing same-sex unions. However, as prescient as he was, he scarcely could have foreseen the rise and influence of the gay liberation movement, the beliefs of which have been affecting both the government and the Church of England.Įnglish clergy such as Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, have bowed to the pressure of queer theory advocates. ![]() It was Lord Acton who noted in his essay “Political Thoughts on the Church,” that when a religion formerly dominating a nation is supplanted by another belief system, all that nation’s foundational institutions change to reflect the values of the new zealots.Īcton was writing in mid-19th century England.
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