The Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) has urged its member churches to refrain from conducting same sex marriages. The Union’s Council meeting this week discussed the issue of same-sex marriage in the light of the 2013 legislation making such marriages legal. A previous response to the change in the law, in May 2014, affirmed “the traditionally accepted Biblical understanding of Christian marriage, as a union between a man and a woman”. However, it also said that “we also recognise the freedom of a minister to respond to the wishes of their church, where their conscience permits, without breach of disciplinary guidelines” – implicitly allowing ministers to conduct same-sex marriages if they wish.
The statement from this week’s Council meeting “positively re-affirms and commends to our churches our Union’s historic Biblical understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, and calls them to live in the light of it”. It stresses that this understanding has “shaped the rules for accredited Baptist ministers regarding sexuality and the ministry and our rules continue to remain unchanged”. READ MORE
