- Jan 15, 2009
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anthropologist: When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian RiteThis will be moot point in a few years as more and more churches find God again and become tolerant.
Those churches will not be Christian. There are many false churches that will gladly marry queers, but not a true Christian church.
Contrary to myth, Christianity's concept of marriage has not been set in stone since the days of Christ, but has constantly evolved as a concept and ritual. Prof. John Boswell, the late Chairman of Yale Universitys history department, discovered that in addition to heterosexual marriage ceremonies in ancient Christian church liturgical documents, there were also ceremonies called the "Office of Same-Sex Union" (10th and 11th century), and the "Order for Uniting Two Men" (11th and 12th century).
These church rites had all the symbols of a heterosexual marriage: the whole community gathered in a church, a blessing of the couple before the altar was conducted with their right hands joined, holy vows were exchanged, a priest officiatied in the taking of the Eucharist and a wedding feast for the guests was celebrated afterwards. These elements all appear in contemporary illustrations of the holy union of the Byzantine Warrior-Emperor, Basil the First (867-886 CE) and his companion John.
I guess the early Christian Church wasn't a "true" Christian Church either...
Not sure if Boswell didn't have an agenda.....being gay. I would really need to see more unbiased work on the subject.
Sad he died of AIDS at a relatively young age.