Abstract

This paper asks whether the Church of England considers sources other than the Bible in its teaching on marriage, focusing specifically on divorce and human sexuality. On the issue of divorce and the growing number of remarriages, the church felt comfortable letting reason and experience lead the discussion. However, in the more recent debates around same-sex marriage the church has continually referred to scripture. The literature review examines how marriage is understood historically verses theologically. One key observation from the literature is that the historical discipline considers marriage as a human invention for social and economic purposes. This differs from marriage as defined by the theological literature which contends that its origins are divine. The fundamental theological question centres on the Churches use of the sources of theology: scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. The method of discovering the answer concerns examining Church documents to understand the sources they use. The findings focus on the Church documents concerning marriage and divorce and marriage and sexuality. In the first group of reports the church is found to use scripture to dictate doctrine while using reason and experience to direct pastoral discipline. However, the distinction between doctrine and discipline is brought into question when examining the reports discussing marriage and sexuality. The documents on human sexuality make clear that expanding the Church’s definition of marriage to include same-sex relationships would fundamentally alter current doctrine. To make a change to doctrine would not only have theological consequences but national and global ones to the unity of the world-wide Church. This is due to the vast range of opinions regarding same-sex marriage within the Anglican communion. The desire to maintain unity within the global Anglican community is a contributing factor to the Church’s reluctance to alter current doctrine on marriage. This paper concludes that ultimately the church’s use of these sources is divided. Human reason and experience only given authority on policies that do not directly impact official Church doctrine, which is directed by the witness of scripture.