Church of Sweden: Gender is irrelevant

The former Swedish state church is introducing a gender neutral marriage ceremony. The church is redefining basic Biblical concepts of gender and marriage, thus alienating itself from the global and the historical church. Bishops and leaders from the Church of England's Council for Christian Unity and the Faith and Order Advisory Group express deep concerns over these moves in a letter to the head of the Church of Sweden. They write: "If we understand the situation in the Church of Sweden correctly, what is now proposed appears to be a fundamental re-definition of the Christian doctrine of marriage and of basic Christian anthropology. "This development might be seen as part of a wider shift within Western culture and theology to a position in which the idea of a fundamental distinction between the genders is seen as irrelevant and in which marriage is therefore seen as something that can and should be gender neutral." They warn that this goes against biblical teaching and say it is "vital" for the Church to "maintain a critical distance from the state and resist what the state is doing if this is at odds with scripture". The bishops say plans by any church to revise Christian teaching over sexuality will have "immediate and negative ecumenical consequences". The Church of Sweden, which is formally linked to the Church of England through an agreement called the Porvoo Declaration, is making the marriage liturgy "gender neutral" so that same-sex couples can have traditional wedding services for the first time. Church of Sweden: Gender is irrelevant PS. I will have some time off the next few weeks and there may very well be less blog entries during this time.