Swedish Lutheran decision on same-sex marriage draws flak

LONDON/NAIROBI (RNS/ENI) The Lutheran Church of Sweden’s decision to bless same-sex marriages in churches has been criticized by fellow Lutherans in Africa and by the Church of England, a full communion partner with the Swedish church. The Church of Sweden voted last Thursday (Oct. 22) to allow same-sex weddings in churches beginning Nov. 1, six […]

LONDON/NAIROBI (RNS/ENI) The Lutheran Church of Sweden’s decision to bless same-sex marriages in churches has been criticized by fellow Lutherans in Africa and by the Church of England, a full communion partner with the Swedish church.

The Church of Sweden voted last Thursday (Oct. 22) to allow same-sex weddings in churches beginning Nov. 1, six months after Sweden approved gay marriage.

Before the marriage law was changed, gay couples in Sweden could enter into registered partnerships, a possibility that has now been replaced by marriage. The Church of Sweden will apply to civil authorities to conduct marriages under the new regulations.


Speaking to Swedish Radio, Bishop Martin Lind, who supports gay marriage, said Sweden has approved of gay partnerships since the mid-1990s.

“When we said yes to life-long homosexual love we said yes to the decisive part of it all. What is happening now is primarily a question of terminology: Can this also be called marriage?” he said.

However, Bishop Hans Stiglund, who voted against gay marriage, said the decision had been hasty. “In my way of looking at it marriage is defined as a relation between man and woman with no room for a relation between partners of the same sex,” said Stiglund.

In Kenya, Bishop Zachariah Kahuthu, the leader of the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church, said his denomination’s general assembly would “consider cutting off any links” with the Church of Sweden.

“The whole idea of homosexuality is against God’s purpose of creation,” Kahuthu said. “What we are all forgetting is that there is transformation. Homosexuals can find divine transformation.”

Brighton Kilewa, general secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, said the denomination stands by a statement it issued in 2004, in which it said that homosexuality “is not a natural constitution of a human person anywhere.”


In this statement the church said that legalizing or accepting same-sex relationships will “undermine the institution of marriage and its sanctity. …To sabotage it is to sabotage God’s command.”

In London, a spokesperson for the Church of England said Sweden’s decision is “clearly at variance with the theology and practice of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion as a whole.”

The Church of Sweden and the Church of England are both part of the Porvoo Communion, an agreement between British and Irish Anglican churches and Lutheran churches in the Nordic and Baltic countries.

Last summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to allow men and women living in monogamous relationships with persons of the same sex to be ordained as clergy.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who is president of the Lutheran World Federation, said on Friday, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if as Lutherans we could witness that those respected differences are honored and held with respect within the communion of the LWF. That could be wonderful testimony of how to live in unity and in diversity.”

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