“The bishops may claim that this new service to bless same sex marriages is not a departure from the teaching of the Church of England, but this is sophistry. In any case, it is most definitely a departure from the teachings of God’s word – the Bible, and is therefore contrary to article 6 of the 39 Articles and it refutes the whole spirit of the Protestant Reformation under which the C of E was founded.
The bishops’ action represents a craven conformity to the fashion of the moment, which conformity is explicitly forbidden in Scripture, e.g. in Colossians 2:8 and Romans 12:2.
It is not an act of love to homosexual people to condone sin. The act of real love is to call sinners to repentance, but that is not a course which the C of E would ever wish to take, for in the bishops’s view maintaining the church’s alleged contemporary ‘relevance’ and alignment with the culture is far more important than obedience to God’s holy and righteous commandments”.
Pastor Peter Simpson, Penn Free Methodist Church