The Anglican Church in Australia discussed and is discussing the Nature of Marriage in a broad range. The Bishops of the Anglican Church do not have a consensus on this matter as yet. I would have attached the General Synod Essays about this and in particular, drawing attention to Bishop Stephen Pickard's Essay on Disagreement and Christian Unity. Given the copyright issues, I probably shouldn't however the document can be found here. https://broughtonpublishing.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/marriagedoctrineessays.pdf It has some 300 pages and doesn't equate to light reading, however, does show the arguments on both sides. I have read a number of other papers from around the world, and I felt that this was one of the best. Obviously, it is one of the core divisive discussions for Anglicans worldwide at the moment and has led to some fracturing. Australia now has a Gafcon Church - essentially on this issue - and they now have five parishes, (4 in Queensland and 1 in Western Australia), though the base number does not correctly estimate to extent of division. The Bishop of our Diocese is clearly at odds with our Metropolitan, who is a leading light in GAFCON would wide. At the time of the Elizabethan Settlement, there was a firm intent to ensure that there was space in the Church of England where all who were loyal to Christ and the Monarch (and not necessarily in that order) could find sanctuary and home. There were those who wanted Episcopal Governance and those who didn't. There were those who valued ceremonial and those who didn't. The Anglican Church has always been a Church in tension of one sort or another, with folk tearing at the tent cloth to keep it taught. The Church lives within the context of wider Society. One of the things that has changed in the last 50 years or so is the shape and culture of political debate. In Australia, Question Time in the House is broadcast nationally and perversely it is at the same time as the show Pointless is broadcast on another channel. Question Time increasingly looks like Reality television, and on the whole, is marked by derision and division. I would hope that the Church might do better than this. Lots of people, from Paul forward speak in binomial times about Jews and Gentiles. Of course, the blindingly obvious omission from this is the Samaritans, who were neither Jew nor Gentile and if it wasn't for Luke and John they might have been forgotten. They of course were too much in common with the Jews to be Gentiles, and yet, in the eyes of many of the Jews not Jewish enough to be counted worthy. At the time of my growing up, there was much anti-Catholic sentiment, and it was a great surprise for me when I discovered, they worshipped Jesus, they had the Bible pretty much the same as us, they said the same creeds as we do, and some of them were quite nice people. It worries me that the division between Anglicans in the Communion and Anglicans in the Conference runs the risk of extending our disunity by failing to see what we have in common. How are we to restore dignity and respect to this debate?
I do not know the answer to that. You mention Question Time in your House. Emotions do run high at times over issues that people deem of tremendous importance. I'm reminded of our US political history. In the 1800s there were occasions (not too often, fortunately) when senators or representatives beat one another with canes or called someone out for a duel. So I don't think the divisions or levels of angst we experience today are a new phenomenon. People are sometimes willing to fight for what they believe in, and sometimes fighting for important things becomes necessary. There is evil in the world, and we are counseled in the Bible to resist evil. Thus, fighting to preserve justice, goodness, and rightness is sometimes necessary. I notice that the issues mentioned pertain to church polity and practice. Anglicans have good reason to remain unified despite such differences, which do not pertain to our core beliefs. On the other hand, at the core of Anglicanism is faithfulness to the message handed down to us in the Bible. This is first and foremost. Also (a distant second place) we are faithful to the understanding of God's message that the early church possessed, since many of them learned it from the Apostles first- or second- or third-hand (whereas the people of later centuries who paid attention to tenth- or twentieth-hand conceptualizations rather than adhere to the earliest teachings were sometimes led astray from the core message). Thus, even Anglicans find themselves in a position (once again, as they were a half-century ago) of having to push back against novel concepts in an effort to preserve Bible truths; such things are far more worthy of vigorous words and actions than those lowly matters of polity and practice. Therefore, there are three ways in which division can be reduced and the peace and unity restored: 1. Anglicans who fight to preserve the foundational truths, such as the sinfulness of homosexual activity (no matter how much "in love" the participants think they are) and the wrongness of gay "marriages", surrender their principles and let the church veer into error and perversion; or 2. Anglicans who seek to promote "new scholarship" and novel ideas in contradiction of Bible truths instead be reconciled to the wise counsels of the Bible and the long-held beliefs and traditions of the church; or 3. Jesus returns.
It was the early church that determined not only what the Scriptures’ meaning (i.e., binding and authoritative interpretation) for the Church would be, but also what its very content (i.e., canon and text) would be. It is a beneficial exercise to read the Apostolic Fathers straight through several times in a row with the thought that there was no canon and no standard biblical text (either OT or NT) when they wrote, and try to piece together what Christianity actually was to the people responsible for its initial spread. (I recommend the Michael Holmes edition, as it is the most complete.) It is a rewarding and enlightening exercise. (As a companion to such an exercise, I suggest the first volume of Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition, as it focuses on the first five centuries of doctrinal development.)
Today's readings and sermon included the story of Stephen, who stood up against people whose religious viewpoint, though sincerely held, was very much wrong. Stephen was not afraid to speak vehemently in defense of the true faith. For this he was stoned to death. The homilist pointed out that Stephen saw a vision of Jesus standing at the Father's right hand. (Hebrews 10:12 and Col. 3:1 tell us of Jesus being seated at the Father's right hand.) He added that under normal circumstances a king will not stand up for the entry of a mere subject, but Jesus stood to welcome a martyr and defender of the faith. (And I would add, such is the servant's heart of Jesus, for He made Himself of no account on our behalf.) Truly our Lord desires that His disciples honor Him by defending His teachings, which He handed down both in the flesh and (for centuries before and after His incarnation) through the Spirit. The very best and most important of those teachings are found in our Bible. We also read, in today's service, Jesus' teaching that He is the door for the sheep. Our homilist brought out how stupid, stubborn, and wayward sheep often act. "We all, like sheep, have gone astray." Sheep tend to wander off in whatever direction they wish to go, with no regard for the shepherd. Alas, I am like a sheep; if I have given offense to anyone on this forum, I hereby apologize and beg forgiveness. At the same time, I see in Christ's words an admonishment for the church as a whole: like sheep, the church has a tendency to wander off and sometimes fall into a ditch. The longer a sheep wanders, the farther away it gets from where it belongs (if it wanders too long its wool will grow out and block its vision entirely!); likewise, the longer the church has endured, the more opportunities it has had (and has taken) to wander away from orthodoxy. There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death (Proverbs 14:12). The church needs to continually heed the call of its Master and remain close to Him; it must heed the "sincere milk of the word" (1 Peter 2:2) and resist addiction to the sugar-coated siren song of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Do we have a proper consensus understanding of what Anglican Core Belief comprises? I am moderately sure you will point me to the Jerusalem Declaration. Paragraph 8 seems to stand out as the major point of angst in the current climate. In my view, it is a shame that Paragraph 12 isn't more to the fore. And I don't even want to argue so much about Paragraph 8, save that I am not sure that it is not more properly one of the secondary issues of paragraph 12 being promoted above its weight. Do Justice, Love Kindness, and Walk Humbly with your God.