US Episcopal Church Removes “Husband and Wife” From Marriage Liturgy

The previous wording, “the union of husband and wife,” is being replaced with, “the union of two people.” And the section of the marriage liturgy that describes the purpose of marriage will replace “for the procreation of children” with “for the gift of children,” reportedly “to make it more relevant for same-sex couples who may wish to adopt.”

Now, marriage is not just the “union of two people.” Marriage is the union of a man and woman, where the two become one (Genesis 2:24). And marriage is not the Episcopal church’s institution to redefine. It’s ultimately not a church, government, social, or cultural institution. It’s God’s institution. He ordained marriage when he created the first man and woman in Genesis 1. Since he created it from the very beginning, only he has the authority to define what it is. And he has very clearly defined it as between one man and one woman for life. Gay unions aren’t marriages because they don’t meet God’s definition of marriage.

Marriage is not the Episcopal church’s institution to redefine. It’s ultimately not a church, government, social, or cultural institution. It’s God’s institution.

The Bible says that the procreation of children is indeed one of the reasons God makes a married couple one (Malachi 2:15), and we see that children are a gift and blessing all throughout Scripture (e.g., Psalm 127:3). This does not mean every marriage will result in children born into that marriage. In a sin-cursed world, some couples do struggle with infertility, and many choose the wonderful path of adoption. But that doesn’t mean that procreation isn’t still God’s design for marriage. Arbitrarily taking that out to appease gay couples who obviously cannot procreate within their union is a watering down of biblical teaching.

By the way, we have found that church leaders who accept gay unions also reject a literal Genesis! If you believe Genesis is literal history, then it’s obvious that marriage is one man for one woman, as Jesus himself reiterated in Matthew 19 and Mark 10.

Churches must stop ignoring biblical truth as they try to appeal to our culture. We aren’t the authority—God is. And we must allow his Word to determine our practice and even the liturgy that churches use, ensuring we are honoring and glorifying God, not man’s sinful ideas and practices.

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This item was discussed on Answers News today with regular cohost Dr. Georgia Purdom and guest Bryan Osborne, AiG’s curriculum specialist. Answers News is our twice-weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on my Facebook page and the Answers in Genesis Facebook page. They also discussed the following topics:

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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.