In 2004, General Synod appeared slightly muddled about same-sex blessings (SSBs). In 2007, it appears hopelessly confused. SSBs, it declares, are “not in conflict” with the core (credal) doctrine of the church. This seems to be a clear enough statement: SSBs are perfectly in harmony with the fundamental teachings of the church as represented in the creeds.

Why, then, the second, negative vote on Sunday, the one that got all the media attention? “Same-sex Blessings Rejected!” screamed the National Post, in double columns. If SSBs are not in conflict with the doctrine of the church, what is the problem? Is our GS simply afraid to do what it says is credally acceptable?

Part of the problem lies in the wording of the motion that passed. It is, upon closer examination, rather ambiguous. What does “not in conflict” actually mean? By one reading, the motion does not say much. SSBs are “not in conflict” with credal doctrines. Yes, but the creeds don’t say anything about sex at all, so it is hardly surprising if SSBs are not in conflict with them. There is nothing there to be in conflict with. So the question of whether such blessings are right

or wrong, consistent with Christian life and faith or not, is still unanswered.

If one assumes, charitably, that this is what delegates thought the not-in-conflict motion meant, Synod’s apparently contradictory no-vote is understandable. The motion that passed  gives no direction about the validity of SSBs, so GS is free to hesitate. One might ask, of course, why GS would bother with a motion that establishes precisely nothing.  But does anyone really think that is what the motion intends?

By another reading, the motion means to say rather a lot. It means to say that whatever is not stated in the creeds is a matter of indifference to Christian faith and life. Because homosexual marriage does not contradict the credal affirmation “I believe in God the Father, Creator of heaven and earth”, then that creedal affirmation has no bearing on homosexual marriage. By this principle, all matters of Christian discipline – how we actually live our lives – have nothing to do with our fundamental doctrinal assertions. Our beliefs – about who God is, who Jesus is, what was accomplished for the world in Christ – float free from the way we shape our lives; core doctrine has nothing to do with ethics.

This is surely a dangerous move for a church to make. What will guide our moral decision-making, if not our faith in God: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier? How do we know who we are and who God wills us to be, except through the doctrines of creation and redemption, through the persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, through our faith in the forgiveness of sins and the resurrection of the body and a holy communion of saints? What the creeds say is fundamental precisely because it lays the groundwork for everything else. Everything follows from our credal doctrines – even sex, even marriage.

So what did happen on Sunday? Was it the declaration that our moral life floats entirely free of our fundamental beliefs? Or was it an attempt to finesse the outcome, to do a slick end-run around the canonical procedures of the church? Either way, it is an unedifying spectacle.