A Theology of Marriage Including Same-Sex Couples: A View from the Liberals

Abstract

Marriage is a discipline. Marriage is a means of grace. Marriage is a discipline and a means of grace for sinners. Marriage is a discipline and a means of grace for sinners and for whole church. It is a discipline because its vows are for better or worse. It is a means of grace because it signifies love of Christ for church. We argue that church should marry same-sex couples because it requires their testimony to love of Christ and church, and because it recognizes that same-sex couples stand in need of sanctification no less than opposite-sex couples do. In grafting same-sex marriage onto domestic rite, church follows pattern of God's grafting wild, Gentile olive branches onto domesticated olive tree of Israel (Rom. 11:24). church does so because same-sex couples need sanctification that marriage teaches, and church needs marital virtues that same-sex couples are already receiving. We would expand theology of marriage to include same-sex couples based on our corporate life of faith in Episcopal and our rereading of Christian tradition. This vision of marriage is offered not in arrogance, naivete, or spiritual enthusiasm, but in trust and with hope, as our witness to mission of Christ. In what follows we explain how marriage rite initiates couples into an arduous discipline, a training in sanctification. This account of marriage does not minimize procreation and chastity, but follows Book of Common Prayer in upholding context of those gifts: the union between Christ and his Church by which was reconciling world to himself' (2 Cor. 5:19).* This is not so much a new theology of marriage, as one explicit in Eastern Orthodoxy and implicit, as we shall show, in prayers and vows of Book ofCo?n~ mon Prayer. We portray world that marriage can if extended to same-sex couples. We base our argument, then, not on autonomy, individualism, or personal experience, but on embodied discipline of marriage by which God may transform longing into charity and dispositions to love into works of virtue. Can we credit what we pray in marriage rite, diat God may make their life together a sign of Christ's love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair (1979 BCP, 429)? Our argument arises from power of prayer, marriage prayer of church. Does it sense for two women or two men? Do same-sex couples, in spite of all that opposes them, nevertheless fit marriage prayer? This proposal is not intended to exclude those who disagree, to replace an old exclusion with a new one, but to pose a question: Does this proposal about marriage fit with our understanding of how God prepares us for life with himself, by binding us for life with another? Mission, Scripture, and a Confession Mission By mission does church live; you will be my witnesses, says risen Jesus (Acts 1:8). Disagreements among churches over blessing marriages of same-sex couples arise from zeal for mission. Traditionalists worry that some forms of welcoming same-sex couples would imperil church's proclamation of gospel. Some have even been willing to break bonds and create new ecclesial structures for sake of that mission. Expansionists have become convinced that marital blessings for same-sex couples will advance church's proclamation of gospel.2 Some have been willing to break bonds and risk new ecclesia! practices for sake of that mission. Because Christian marriage bears witness to reality of Jesus Christ for world, such missional zeal over question of blessing marriages of .same-sex couples should come as no surprise. full name of Episcopal is The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of Protestant Episcopal in United States of America. …