Posted on 12/12/2007 7:22:29 AM PST by NativeNewYorker
Stockholm (dpa) - Marriage and same-sex unions were ``equal forms of living together,'' the Church of Sweden, a Lutheran church, said Wednesday.
The central board of the church said it would accept pending changes of marriage laws that would offer same-sex unions the same legal status as traditional marriage.
However the term ``marriage'' should be reserved for the union between man and woman, the board - elected by the Church Assembly, the highest decision-making body in the church - said.
The church was one of many bodies asked to comment on proposals to change current legislation presented earlier this year.
Archbishop Anders Wejryd said the answer reflected ``the different theological interpretations within the Church of Sweden.''
The board said it was important that society supports ``safe and faithful partner relationships, with legislation as one measure.''
Draft legislation has yet to be presented by the centre-right government where only the Christian Democrats have expressed opposition to the changes.
Same-sex couples have since 1995 been able to form a union in Sweden via registered partnership which later was amended to allow them to adopt children.
Government-appointed investigator Hans Regner, former Chancellor of Justice, said the 1995 law would be scrapped while allowing priests to bow out of marrying same-sex couples.
Some 80 per cent of Sweden's 9 million people belong to the Church of Sweden, that was separated from the state in January 2000 making it a ``faith-community'' along with other denominations like the Pentecostal, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
Currently, 39 faith communities have the right to conduct legally-recognized marriage ceremonies and would likely have to reapply for that right should new marriage laws be adopted.
The ELCA is not alone in desperately needing another Luther.
The Swedish “middle” way again. Maybe they’ll suggest a three-way.
Or one will be able to marry their love-doll...
Isn’t this going to upset the muslim minority? We can’t do that.
Jesus never spoke against homosexuality because if he had, 100% of this audience would have gone - well Duhhhhh!
It took 2000 years to decend to this point,.
I think we are seeing the prophesied “rebellion” or Great Apostasy that immediately precedes the return of the Lord.
The historically Christian nations are turning rabidly against the God of the Bible one by one.
The next event is the rise of the “lawless one”, the Antichrist.
Strange divergence: The Church of Finland is trying to reunite with Rome.
Moot point. Within a few years, Sweden will be governed by sharia law, and homosexuals will be executed by having walls toppled on them.
More fruit of Luther's non-Biblical dogma of "the Bible alone."
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector."
--Jesus"if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."
--St. Paul
Why would they? They are vigorously exercising Luther's principle of private judgment of the Scriptures as this article shows.
His rebellious spirit lives on in the Church of Sweden.
If the Church of Sweden was reconciling with the Roman Church, then they might need another Luther.
The Nordic Track
http://www.worldmag.com/world/issue/03-06-04/cover_2.asp
COVER STORY: State approval of homosexual marriage in Scandinavia contributed to the virtual disappearance of real marriage
By Gene Edward Veith
No matter what happens in the homosexual-marriage/civil-union controversies, marriage as an institution isn’t going away, is it?
Yes, it is. Marriage has already all but disappeared in Scandinavia. Other Europeans are heading down that Nordic track. And, if gay marriage is legalized, so will we. That is the conclusion of Stanley Kurtz, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, whose article “The End of Marriage in Scandinavia” was published in The Weekly Standard.
Sweden was the first country in Europe to legalize homosexual unions in 1989, and Denmark and Norway followed soon thereafter. Today, a majority of children in those countries are born out of wedlock. Although some older couples are getting married after having more than one child, younger couples are dispensing with marriage altogether. Southern Seminary president Al Mohler reports that in Sweden, the few young couples who do get married often do not like to admit it, since what they have done is so far out of the norm that they feel embarrassed. Couples just live together for awhile. If the woman has a baby, the father-unlike in the United States-will typically stay around until the baby reaches a certain age. Until recently, if they had a second child together, they would typically get married, but this has changed for the new generation. Once the children are grown, the parents typically go their separate ways.
What role has gay marriage played in the disappearance of marriage in Scandinavia? “Scandinavian gay marriage has driven home the message that marriage itself is outdated,” says Mr. Kurtz, “and that virtually any family form, including out-of-wedlock parenthood, is acceptable.”
More direct causes Mr. Kurtz cites include the Scandinavian welfare state, which means that the family unit is no longer necessary for economic support. Plus, to support that welfare state, taxes are so high that both parents have to work. A vast state day-care system has taken over many of the child-care duties that once were the job of families. Also, the universities are even more radical than they are in the United States, with socialists, feminists, and other social revolutionaries-including those who denounce marriage as being intrinsically oppressive-having a huge influence in public policy.
Homosexual marriage has contributed to the dissolution of marriage as a significant institution in Scandinavian culture primarily by contributing to the notion that marriage need have nothing to do with having children.
Most instructive for Americans is what happened with Norway, traditionally the most conservative of the Scandinavian states. Sweden and Denmark have always been far more liberal, and in those nations the public wanted gay marriage. In Norway, though, the general public had gay marriage foisted upon it from above, by elite judges and lawmakers. The state Lutheran church opposed not only gay marriage but the growing trend of cohabitation and having children out of wedlock. The church also fought an internal battle over the ordination of those in homosexual unions.
The media covered the church’s debates over these issues, taking every opportunity to attack and ridicule Christian teachings about sexuality and marriage. As a result, the church’s traditionally strong influence on Norwegian society declined. When the dust settled, the liberal pro-gay and cohabitation theologians, who were once in a minority, took over the leadership of the church.
Another important finding about the Scandinavian experience with what Mr. Kurtz describes as “de facto” gay marriage-actually, they are “civil unions”-is how few homosexuals actually enter into them. A study published by Yale’s William Eskridge in 2000 showed that after nine years, only 2,372 homosexual couples took advantage of the Danish law allowing gay unions. After four years, only 749 gay Swedes and only 674 gay Norwegians bothered to “get married.”
Today’s gay activists in Scandinavia, having gotten everything they wanted, now admit that their case for homosexual marriage-particularly that allowing gays to marry will encourage a monogamous lifestyle-was only a tactical argument. The goal, says Mr. Kurtz, citing two prominent gay thinkers, “was not marriage but social approval for homosexuality.”
They achieved that goal, but now there is little social approval for marriage.
“Jesus never spoke against homosexuality...”
No, he said, “love they neighbor as thyself”...which pretty much covered everything else.
“Love thy neighbor as thyself” does not mean condoning everything that your neighbor does. (Love the sinner; hate the sin.)
The Moral Law as presented in the Old Testament:
Do not lie with a man as one does with a woman; that is abominable. (Leviticus 18:22)
If a man lie with a man as one does with a woman, both have done that which is abominable. (Levitucus 20:13)
Jesus discussing the Law as it applied during the New Testament (gospel) period: (Jesus speaking) "Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truthfully I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter or penstroke will disappear from the Law until all things are accomplished." (Matthew 5:17-18)
In addition, regarding the logical fallacy known as the "Argument from Ignorance":
The two most common fallacious errors caused by "arguing from ignorance":
(1) Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
(2) Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.
With all due respect to Mr. Kurtz, there really should be no reason to spread misinformation. Here’s a graph over marriages and divorces in Sweden:
http://www.scb.se/templates/Publikation____119732.asp
As you can see, the stats from 1990-2004 are stable, trending upwards slightly. The peak in 1989 was due to a rule-change which made a lot of cohabiting couples marry.
Why would they? They are vigorously exercising Luther's principle of private judgment of the Scriptures as this article shows.
Sorry, but Luther's grievance was the departure of the Catholic Church from scripture and extra-Biblical practices. Fidelity to scripture and rejection of Biblically unsupported Catholic dogma was what Luther was all about. The Church of Sweden is no longer a proper Church, but rather a humanist temple that borrows what suits its fancy from Christianity. The same is true of the Episcopal and ECLA Lutheran denominations in the USA.
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