St-Matthew-in-the-City's billboard supporting the bill to legalise same-sex marriages. Photo / Supplied
Opinion
Jim Hopkins usually manages to both amuse and inform me with his erudite articles but his latest on the churches and marriage is a sad muddle of prejudice and misinformation.
Firstly, St Matthews-in-the-City does not speak for the Anglican community and is generally regarded by us as a maverick and
an embarrassment. The bishops of Auckland have recently spoken against St Matthew's muddled slogan about who should be 'on top' observing that the Anglican church is opposed to all kinds of exploitative relationships.
But it is on marriage, the church and the state that Hopkins is seriously confused. He seems to think that the church has been in a position until very recently to dictate the terms of marriage to the state and needs to reclaim that role if it is to be true to itself. Marriage policies and laws have been the concern of the state since at least Roman times and most legislatures whether asian, middle-eastern ,western european or even celtic have set policies for the enactment of and exiting from marriage including the property rights of the parties.
Certainly in the high Christian period in Europe from about 500 to 1800AD whatever church was dominant frequently acted as both the partner and the servant of the state and used that relationship to foster Judeo-Christian policies in marriage and family life. In the last two centuries that has changed greatly.
Parliaments have increasingly set the rules according to the demands of the electorate; churches have often argued against such changes (sometimes mistakenly; sometimes rightly) but democracy has ruled and the churches have had to live with it.
