Sir Elton John recently announced that Jesus would be an avid supporter of gay marriage.
Speaking to Sky News on the same weekend as the London Pride parade, Sir Elton said: "If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen.
The "Rocket Man" singer, who is set to marry longtime partner David Furnish next year, said Jesus would also have supported the union of gay members of the clergy.
"He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together.
"And that is what the Church should be about."
The British singer also praised the church for the "progress" that has been made in recent years, saying the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, was "doing a good job" and Pope Francis was "wonderful".
"He's excited me so much by his humanity," the singer said of the pope.
"He's taken everything down to the humility of faith," he continued. "He's stripped it down to the bare bones and said it's all basically about love and inclusiveness. That has to be encouraged by the Church of England as well."
However, church leaders are not altogether thrilled with the singer's accolades.
"The Catholic Church does not support homosexual marriage, and the Bible very clearly denounces such a practice," says Bishop Phillip Ledford of St. Jude Catholic Church in Detroit, MI.
"Saying that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, would "be all about" such an abomination is sacrilegious, blasphemous, and offensive to the Church as a whole," he continued.
Jennifer LeClaire, author of "The Making of a Prophet," echoes the bishop's sentiment.
"John got it halfway right. Jesus is loving, compassionate and forgiving. But Jesus would not support gay marriage today, He didn't support it when He walked the earth and He's not going to change His mind no matter how many denominations reject His truth. He's the same today, yesterday and forever (Heb. 13:8)," she writes.
"Many gay rights advocates argue that Jesus did not say anything about gay marriage. Besides the fact that Scripture, which is breathed by God, forbids homosexuality and many other sins (see 1 Cor. 6:9), Jesus did make the design for marriage clear when he told the Pharisees:
"Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate" (Matt. 19:4-6). And that, Sir Elton, settles it."
