Anglican church blames Adam and Eve for the existence of trans people
Archbishop Glenn Davies (SydneyAnglicans.net)
The Anglican Diocese of Sydney has adopted a new anti-transgender policy that blames Adam and Eve’s “rebellion in the garden of Eden” for the existence of transgender people.
The Australian diocese has rushed to supplement its anti-gay marriage beliefs with anti-trans ones, though its views about trans people have no historic grounding in theology.
A proposed new policy bans parishioners from “celebrating or validating” the existence of transgender people.
Anglican Diocese of Sydney: God created ‘biologically-sexed body’.
It directs: “Blurring the distinctions between male and female, or seeking to present as a sex opposite to one’s biology, is a denial of the significance of the biologically-sexed body that God has given to us.
“Seek options that maintain the integrity of your physical and mental unity, and which honour and preserve the maleness or femaleness of the body God has given you.”
Archbishop of Sydney Glenn Davies (SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images)
According to Buzzfeed, the document also claims that gender dysphoria is “one of the consequences of human rebellion in the Garden of Eden”.
Bishop of Wollongong Peter Hayward told the outlet: “There are parishes far removed where suddenly, the family has been coming to church for a while, the father turns up with a wife and two children, it’s a woman!
“He says, ‘I’m now coming to church as a woman.’ How does the parish respond to that?”
Archbishop tells supporters of same-sex marriage to leave.
The church’s archbishop Glenn Davies has also doubled down on his anti-LGBT stance, asking same-sex marriage supporters to “leave us”.
“My own view is that if people wish to change the doctrine of our church, they should start a new church or join a church more aligned to their views,” Davies said.
“But do not ruin the Anglican Church by abandoning the plain teaching of scripture.”
His comments were challenged from Britain by bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes, who told The Guardian: “I regret that the archbishop seems to want to exclude people rather than to engage with them within the wider Anglican family.”
However, archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has declined to wade in to the row over anti-LGBT beliefs within the Anglican church.
