"If we really believe in the Anglican Church of Australia, we need to make sure that this is not fractured along these lines. And that those who want to bless same-sex unions or those who want to solemnize same-sex marriages, well then start your own church! Go off but don't change our church because we are grounded in the teaching of Scripture."

"We need to keep that unity of the Church based on that doctrine," he said.

Glenn is an author in a recently published book The Line in the Sand. The book is addressed to General Synod members, and speaks about a turning point in the history of the Anglican Church of Australia.

In November 2020, the church-based Appellate Tribunal released a Majority Opinion that gave legal validation to a liturgy which can be used to bless a same-sex marriage for the first time in the Church's history. This is a deeply concerning move, because it effects a fundamental change in the nature of the Church's doctrine relating to issues of salvation, and so it threatens the Church's unity.

The book, The Line in the Sand, is designed to help General Synod members to see the issues clearly and address them decisively in their upcoming session in May 2022, said Davies.

Glenn's chapter in the book is titled 'The Appellate Tribunal Opinion and Worldwide Anglicanism'.

Davies said he had watched the "actual, observable slippage" of Anglicans holding to the Scriptures around the world, particularly North America, but not just in North America, unfortunately. "I think it's getting worse and worse around the world." He said his predictions had sadly come true.

Davies blamed the North American Church for causing spiritual chaos by moving away from the Thirty-Nine Articles which bind Anglicans together along with Scripture and the Book of Common Prayer (1662). The North American Church sees the Thirty-Nine Articles as having no particular relevance, an archival document that doesn't relate to us today, he said.

"It came to a crunch at the Lambeth Conference of 1998 and a resolution, a famous resolution now, called I.10 was passed, which identified that homosexual practice was against the teaching of Scripture, and they could not advise in any way in favor of same-sex blessings."

"Within 5 years, in Canada, a diocese started authorizing same-sex blessings. A year later, the North American Church, The Episcopal Church then did the same. "They said, 'No, no, we're not going to change our doctrine of marriage' but of course within ten years they'd done exactly that. And so now the rites are not just blessing of same-sex marriages but solemnizing same-sex marriages, going completely contrary to our Lord's teaching in Matthew 19."

Davies described the act of TEC as "duplicitous".

"It has infected the global communion in many ways. You can now look at Brazil, New Zealand, Scotland, Wales, where blessing of same-sex marriages has been authorized and in some of those jurisdictions, solemnization of same-sex marriages."

Davies said he saw parallels with the women's ordination issue where there was just a change in order and now there's a change in order and so really, it's not a change in the doctrine of marriage' -- that's an argument that's coming up.

ORDINATION OF WOMEN

"It is true that we had disputes over the ordination of women and those differences still occur around the globe. The largest province in the world, Nigeria, still doesn't ordain women to the diaconate, whereas every diocese in Australia ordains women to the diaconate. We're not anti-women at all. But the arguments there are not salvation arguments; they're not linked to salvation so although there might be a difference of opinion, our communion might be impaired, but it's not broken."

Davies said the difference between women's ordination and homosexual practice is that the Bible clearly says that that's a salvation issue, for those who practice such actions are outside the kingdom of God.

"Paul makes that statement in 1 Corinthians 6 where Paul addresses not just this particular sexual sin but idolatry and greed and adultery and a whole range of things."

"We need to be clear if we're going to be teaching what our Lord has taught us to tell people about the gospel which comes with God's ordered creation, then we need to say this is not how he has planned it. Sexual activity is within a marriage of a man and a woman as God created it from the beginning. Marriage after all is God's idea, not a human idea."

END