A friend of mine, ordained in the Church of England, once told me that free evangelical churches will have every argument the Anglicans have had, only twenty years later. Arguing about bishops and archbishops aside, he wasn’t far wrong and it seems his rule of thumb works internationally.
In 2005, the Church of Sweden (Svenska kyrkan), which is Lutheran in heritage, was willing to bless same-sex civil unions, and in 2009 accepted church weddings for same-sex couples after the Swedish government passed a gender-neutral marriage law.
The free church landscape in Sweden consists mainly of three denominations. Pingst (Pentecostals – about 430 churches), Equmeniakyrkan (the result of a 2011 merger of Methodists, Baptists & the Mission Covenant denominations – about 600+ churches) and EFK (Evangelical Free Churches – about 270 churches). There are other groupings and networks but those are the main ones. Equmeniakyrkan has from its beginning given freedom to the local congregation to decide but also in 2019 formally adopted liturgy for same-sex marriages.
Just over twenty years after the Church of Sweden was willing to bless same-sex partnerships, at least some churches in EFK are willing to do the same. Two of the denomination’s largest churches, over the last few years, have publicly said that they would receive same-sex couples into membership and one of them is now willing to conduct same-sex weddings.
Officially, EFK says marriage can only be between a man and a woman, so at their latest Annual Congress there was a motion about what to do about dissenting churches. The motion proposed removing such churches from membership because the denomination could not claim to hold one view of marriage while permitting two. This motion was defeated by 341 votes to 63. Not a close vote.
It’s worth noting that the proposer of the defeated motion (Swedish article) was someone who not that long ago was chairman of the denomination. The shift in Biblical convictions has been relatively swift, two years ago a similar motion received 43% support and this time just 16%1.
They then, in a very Swedish move, approved of a motion for the Leadership Committee to write into their foundation documents that they only have one view of marriage. Which seems redundant after clearly voting for accepting two.
The question is what will happen next? Will anyone leave the denomination? Certainly some leaders have said that they would, but will their congregations follow? Most of the free churches operate with congregational voting making leaving more complicated and painful but it could happen.
History suggests that formal doctrinal revision often follows prolonged practical accommodation. It probably won’t take 20 years.
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