Topic

Sexuality and Marriage

What marriage is, who may marry, and how churches should teach and practise on sexual ethics, especially same-sex relationships.

The Traditional Marriage Ethic holds that marriage is a lifelong union of one man and one woman and the only right setting for sex. Affirming Theology holds that faithful, committed same-sex relationships can be blessed and married in the church.

Since the late 20th century the question has divided several Protestant families. For Anglicans, Resolution I.10 of the Lambeth Conference 1998 set a traditional line that some provinces later departed from. For Methodists it led to the United Methodist Split. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches keep traditional teaching, though in 2023 the Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans allowed short, non-liturgical blessings of couples in irregular situations, including same-sex couples, while restating that marriage is between a man and a woman.