Like a candle in the wind

The Rev. Jeremy Pemberton was the first Church of England priest to contract a same-sex marriage.  It was legal after all.  Later he applied for a license to act as chaplain in a local hospital but the bishop denied the license because while what Pemberton did was legal, it did not comply with the Church of England's rules and requirements. As a result he was not employed and he took the diocese to a church tribunal claiming he was the victim of discrimination and that the Church of England approved of priests marrying whomever they chose to marry.  He cited Article 32 claiming it says “priests can marry who they want to marry.”  Of course he qualified that by saying that you obviously can’t marry people not legal for you to marry.  Pemberton insisted that Article XXXII of the 39 Articles says the priest can choose who to marry and nobody can tell him otherwise.

What was lost to Pemberton is that the Article was written against the practice of celibacy and did not say anything close to what he claimed.

XXXII. OF THE MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS

BISHOPS, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God’s Law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.

The Article insists that clergy are not commanded to either a single, celibate, abstinent life but they are free (like all other Christians) ”to marry at their own discretion”. Who in their right mind would have presumed that the 39 Articles defined “discretion” here as same sex marriage or heterosexual marriage.  So the Tribunal came down against Pemberton who defied church law not in choosing to be married but in choosing to marry a same sex partner.

What is somewhat humorous in all of this is that for all the arguments, it is surely only a matter of time before the CoE will change its rules and allow clergy to marry anyone they choose.  So Pemberton is not so much a victim of discrimination as he is pioneer who will soon, with others like him, push the CoE to end up precisely where Pemberton is now.  Ah, I said humorous but I did not mean something that occasions giggles but laughable in the sad sense of a once great church body slowly dying by the surrender of faith and practice.  But, at least the CoE can take comfort in the fact that it is not alone.  It is slowly winding its way down the path so many other churches have gone and yet nobody seems to see the cost of betraying the Scriptures, the catholic tradition, and the natural order of God's creation.  What was the Elton John line, oh, yes, like a candle in the wind.