Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town has released six pages of draft prayers for and about same-sex couples. Remarkably for this genre of prayers, the 15 drafts released by the archbishop reflect not only proposed blessings but also a prayer of opposition and prayers that focus more on the divided nature of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.
Southern Africa’s Provincial Synod will discuss the draft prayers in September. The prayers use sparse punctuation and occasional free-form capitalization, and some push the church toward blessings.
The archbishop himself pushed toward such blessings in his two-page cover letter, issued April 25. “In order to provide ministry to all our people, we must engage this challenge, and I urge you to deliberate on it in your parishes and Dioceses,” Makgoba wrote.
“Many of our young people have already moved on from the debate, finding it difficult to understand why we can bless their dogs, cats and guinea pigs in services commemorating St. Francis of Assisi, but not their LGBTQI friends in committed relationships. The recent decisions of the Church of England and Pope Francis of the Roman Catholic Church to allow blessings for same-sex couples only add to their questions and confusion.”
The simplest draft prayer is designed for a case of a couple asking for a blessing while they are at an altar rail:
May Almighty God
Bless you Both
As you Kneel/Stand
in this Holy Place.
May you be enfolded
by God’s Grace
Amen
The archbishop identified the final prayer in the collection as clearest about blessing a same-sex couple’s relationship:
N________ and N_______
You stand before God
who created you
who loves you
who calls you
We pray that God may Bless you Both
and your relationship
and make his face to shine upon you
and be gracious to you
and forever hold you
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The archbishop designated this prayer as reflecting the perspective of South African Anglicans who do not believe the church should bless same-sex relationships:
Almighty Father
We stand before you conflicted
We are praying for this couple/family
Their conviction and sexual desire differs [from] ours
We acknowledge your love and acceptance of us as Christians
Yet, we are not in agreement with their sexual relationship
We pray therefore for your saving grace and wisdom in both our lives
That we may know your love
And know your intention for us
And change where change is required
That we may reflect your divine will for your creation
In the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
Amen
That prayer is not alone in expressing struggle. Another says this:
Almighty Father
We praise you and acknowledge your creative power
You made us in your image and invited us into relationship with you
Yet for all this we are not perfect
We fall short
We ask therefore in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
that you continue to make us anew
And grow us in your image and into a full relationship with you and your people
through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever
Amen
Another prayer summarizes the difficulty of Christians trying to find a common mind:
Almighty Father
We are in conflict with one another
We are entrenched against our fellow Christian
This in the area of sexuality and dignity
Each claim to represent you, but you are not divided
Help us to recognize our common humanity
Help us to forge a path of righteousness and understanding
That we may reflect your presence and will for all your people
We ask this in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ
Amen
Makgoba linked to a statement in March 2023 by the province’s Synod of Bishops that explained the boundaries of the proposed prayers:
At this Synod, we engaged over four sessions in quietly impassioned, but respectful debate with one another over the [Archbishop’s Commission on Human Sexuality’s] proposal. We were agreed on three issues:
-
- That, as we have previously declared, “We are of one mind that gay, lesbian and transgendered members of our church share in full membership as baptised members of the Body of Christ…” All Anglicans, of whatever sexual orientation, are equally deserving of our pastoral care;
- That whatever our views on the sacrament of marriage under church law for LGBTQI persons, we accepted that we were not debating any change to our Canon on Holy Matrimony, endorsed in our Prayer Book, which declares “that marriage by divine institution is a lifelong and exclusive union and partnership between one man and one woman”; and
- That whatever our different interpretations of Scripture and understandings of where the Holy Spirit is leading us, we fully accept one another’s integrity in our debates on the matter.
“The publication of these prayers has been a long time in the making,” the archbishop wrote early in his cover letter. “The Synod of Bishops discussed pastoral guidelines in response to the Civil Unions recognised under South Africa’s Constitution in 2010, and has regularly visited the issue ever since. In 2013, Provincial Synod urged the Bishops to finalise the guidelines ‘as soon as possible.’
“The sticking point in our debates at Synod of Bishops has been that we are not of one mind on the issue of blessings for same-sex unions.”
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa has debated the blessing of same-sex unions since the tenure of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who served as primate from 1986 to 1996. In 2016, the Rev. Mpho Tutu van Furth, one of the archbishop’s daughters, had to surrender her license to officiate in the Diocese of Saldhana Bay, north of Cape Town, after marrying Marceline van Furth, a Dutch medical professor.
The Rt. Rev. Raphael Hess, Bishop of Saldhana Bay, came to Tutu van Furth’s defense, announcing his strong support for same-sex blessings. Later that year, his diocese sent a proposal for same-sex blessings to the Provincial Synod, which defeated it by wide margins (72% of the bishops and 55% of the clergy voted against it). In 2016, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa still included dioceses in Angola and Mozambique, which have since formed a more conservative Anglican province.
In 2018, Hess gave his permission for same-sex blessings within his diocese, the first African bishop to permit the practice. Hess, one of the longest-serving bishops in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, is chairman of the Southern African Anglican Theological Commission, and served on the task force that prepared the draft prayers of blessing.
The Anglican Church of Southern Africa includes Anglicans in Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, and the island of St. Helena. South Africa is the only independent African nation to allow same-sex marriage under civil law. It is also legal in St. Helena, a British Overseas Territory.
