Monday 9 August 2010

Separate the Church Wedding Ceremony From The Civil Ceremony?

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Collin Hansen has asked four pastors for their opinion on whether there should be a separation between the Christian wedding ceremony from the civil rite?

I honestly believe this is a discussion that Church leaders in the UK will need to have in the not-to-distant future. I've chatted to quite a lot of people about this since the first gay ceremony was held in Lisburn.

(I'd be pretty much for the separation, although with some reservations.)

I'd Love to hear your thoughts so please comment.



[Picture: my wife running up to the Church for our wedding]
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About Boaly
Gary has been involved in printing the Scriptures for 20 years, enjoys photography and rambling online

2 comments:

Family Blogs said...

Hi Gary,

I'm not sure how this works in the USA, but as far as I know in the UK there already is a good degree of separation between the 'civil' and 'religious' elements of marriage.

When I started as a Pastor back in 2002 the minister kept all of the records regarding marriages and issued marriage certificates etc. Around 2005 or thereabouts this changed and the state now looks after ALL of the paperwork. The church building is no longer registered as a location for weddings, but the minister is registered as being authorised to conduct weddings. The certificate and schedule is completely state produced now.

Personally I felt at the time that this was a good thing. For one thing it removed a lot of admin from this aspect of the work, and it also makes it easier for me to refuse/be unavailable to conduct a ceremony - rather than the broader church being culpable or responsible as a place where weddings are registered to take place.

Just my twopenny worth!
Blessings,
Andrew

11:57 am
Boaly said...

I'm not sure of all the details of it, i was watching some talk show recently in which they were discussing the possibilty that christian pastors may lose the right to refuse to perform gay marriages under some discrimination thing.

Hopefully it doesnt become the case. and i do think it would be a way off yet (although its not hard to see how it could come as society is becoming more and more accepting of gay & lesbian relationships.)

1:34 pm

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