Swedish Lutheran Synod Allows Gay Weddings

Despite warnings by the Archbishop of Helsinki last week, the Swedish Synod of the Lutheran Church have ignored centuries of continuity and in a majority vote, decided to declare in favor of the spirit of the age.

Religious Intelligence quotes a discouraged and disheartening Pastor Kalin in what must be for him the end of a world,

In the Church of Sweden, “theology has been transformed into an ideology and the church’s own institutions happily provide theological post-constructions to the latest opinions and whims of the world,” he said.

Pastor Kalin said that “for the church, this is devastating” as the “faith, confession and teaching of the Church of Sweden” rested “on political majorities or on the currently fancy views of the world.”

The proposed changes will likely take the form of the modification of the marriage liturgy, replacing “man and wife” with “lawfully wedded spouses” for same-sex couples and follows upon the 2005 vote to amend the title of Chapter 23 of its prayer book, from “Marriage” to “Marriage and Blessings” to permit blessing of same-sex civil unions. Pastors will be permitted the option of refusing to perform same-sex marriages; however, traditionalists worry that this conscious clause will be abrogated in future sessions of the synod as past guarantees respecting the conscious of those opposed to women clergy were rescinded.

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