Last week, Martyn Snow, the bishop of Leicester and current lead for the Living in Love and Faith process debating sexuality in the Church of England, wrote an article in the Church of England Newspaper arguing that ‘Unity Matters—it really matters’. The article, and comments he makes in support of it, set out some remarkable and revealing claims.
Martyn’s central use of Phil 2.2 ‘being in full accord and of one mind’ is fascinating. He deploys a classic rhetorical strategy by bundling together something we would obviously reject with the thing he wants to challenge: ‘this verse does not imply sameness or agreement’. We would naturally reject the idea that we should all be ‘the same’—but why does this verse suggest we should not be in agreement on core Christian teaching? Indeed, he immediately notes how both Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria draw on this passage to prove points of Christian doctrine.
The first of Paul’s two terms, sumpsychos, occurs only here in the New Testament, but is a compound of a well-known term psyche, sometimes translated ‘soul’ but really referring to a person’s whole life. The compound term Paul uses here has the sense of being in harmony, a deep unity of life. It is a striking contrast to the effect of the direction of travel some bishops are pushing the Church, causing deep division and anxiety. There is not a denomination anywhere in the world where pushing for a change in the historic understanding of marriage has not led to division and decline. One English bishop even told their evangelical clergy that, if they did not like the direction of travel ‘you can leave the Church’. This is not a picture of harmony! If ‘unity really matters’, we might ask why so many of the English bishops are pushing us down such a provocative and divisive path. If ‘unity really matters’, why has Justin Welby gone down a route which has split the Anglican Communion?
The second of Paul’s terms is clearly important to him, since he repeats it: ‘being of the same mind [literally ‘thinking the same’] … and of one mind [literally, ‘thinking the one (thing)]. The verb phroneo refers widely to our thinking; of course this includes our attitude to and regard for one another, but this cannot be separated from our understanding of faith. The related noun phronesis refers to the faculty of thinking and planning, the ability to understand, have insight, and be intelligent. It is a term Paul uses often in Philippians, in Phil 3.15 associating it with maturity of faith.
Paul was clear that there are some things about the Christian faith which are disputed, and about which we can ‘agree to disagree.’ In Romans 14, he includes issues about obedience to the food laws and observations of festivals; it is fine to have two views on these, so long as one group does not impose its views on the other. But sexual ethics and the understanding of marriage as between one man and one woman is never one of these ‘indifferent’ issues. It is striking that the bishops of the Church of England have yet to offer any argument as to why we should believe sexuality is a ‘thing indifferent’, on which there can be more than one view without this threatening our unity.
The reason that our understanding of sexuality and marriage is not a ‘thing indifferent’ is that Paul believes this teaching is rooted in our understanding of God as creator, making humanity male and female in his own image. This reflects Jesus’ own teaching in Matt 19 when asked about marriage, and both Paul and Jesus express the Jewish consensus which set all Jews apart from gentile attitudes to sex and sexuality. The creation of humanity, male and female, in God’s image, is a core creedal question and thus male-female marriage has always been a core ethical distinctive of the people of God.
Diaspora Jews had made sexual immorality and especially homosexual activity a major distinction between themselves and gentiles, and Paul repeated Diaspora Jewish vice lists (E P Sanders, Paul: The Apostle’s Life, Letters and Thought pp 344).
Thus, for Paul, turning from sin and entering the new creation of the kingdom (2 Cor 5.17) means rejecting same-sex sexual intimacy (1 Cor 6.9)—along with other patterns of sinful behaviour which are incompatible with the kingdom life of holiness Jesus calls us to. Paul does not make a big deal of this—but assumes the Christians in Corinth understand it. It is part of their ‘one mind’.
But Martyn appears to take a very different view from Paul on how we should approach this question. He posted the text of his CEN article on Facebook, and in response one observer asked:
Can you explain how unity can exist, unless the Church of England collectively decides whether same-sex sex is either a) sin or b) not sin? If it is sin, how can any Christian leader accept the blasphemy of asking God to bless it? If it is not sin, how can any Christian leader accept the bigotry of continuing to discriminate against those who want same-sex marriage in a church?
Martyn replied: ‘But what if we can’t decide? Some say one thing, and others (equally genuine) say another. What then do we do?’
This gets to the heart of the issue. Let’s put aside for the moment the consistency, clarity, and coherence of the biblical texts on this question. Let’s also put aside the uniformity and consistency of the reception of these texts in churches of every tradition, culture and place, so that male-female marriage has been the consensus view of the church catholic down the ages. Let’s also put aside the overwhelming consensus of critical scholarship on what scripture says and how consistently it rejects same-sex sexual relationships (see a list of quotations here). These views are typical:
Where the Bible mentions homosexual behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is correct (Walter Wink, “Homosexuality and the Bible”).
This is an issue of biblical authority. Despite much well-intentioned theological fancy footwork to the contrary, it is difficult to see the Bible as expressing anything else but disapproval of homosexual activity. (Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, 1490-1700, p 705).
The task demands intellectual honesty. I have little patience with efforts to make Scripture say something other than what it says, through appeals to linguistic or cultural subtleties. The exegetical situation is straightforward: we know what the text says. But what are we to do with what the text says? I think it important to state clearly that we do, in fact, reject the straightforward commands of Scripture, and appeal instead to another authority when we declare that same-sex unions can be holy and good (Luke Timothy Johnson).
Instead, let’s just focus on the Church of England’s own doctrine, liturgy, and canons. These are completely clear and consistent that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that sexual intimacy outside of male female marriage is sin. This is how Canon B30 expresses it:
B 30 Of Holy Matrimony
The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual society, help and comfort which the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. [emphasis added]
Note that this is not simply a decision made by the Church; this is the teaching of Jesus in the gospels which we have inherited, as a Church whose doctrine is ‘grounded in the Holy Scriptures’ (Canon A5) and is expressed in our historic formularies:
In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.
This understanding of marriage has been confirmed in Synod Questions by the Bishop of London in the last year, and the Bishop in Europe further confirmed that this is not a ‘thing indifferent’ on which we can ‘agree to disagree’. It is this doctrine which Synod has voted will not change.
And all clergy have taken public vows at ordination that they believe the doctrine of the Church of England, that they will uphold it, and that they will teach and expound it.
Do you believe the doctrine of the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it, and in your ministry will you expound and teach it?
Ordinands I believe it and will so do.
This includes the teaching of Jesus on marriage which is expressed in Canon B30 and explained in the marriage liturgy.
How, then, can we be ‘undecided’? How can some believe one thing, and others another? It can only be that we have, amongst our bishops and other clergy, people who simply do not understand the doctrine of their own Church or, understanding it, think it is wrong. That is the problem we have. What is the solution to this?
Martyn’s solution is—as he says openly in his article—‘a spirit of generosity and pragmatism.’ In other words, to preserve institutional unity, we must pragmatically give up on the idea that we actually share common beliefs, that we expect clergy to be faithful to their ordination vows, and that we expect our bishops to believe and teach the doctrine of the Church they lead. But what kind of institution will that be? A husk, a hollow shell of a ‘church’, retaining its outward, institutional, form, but having lost its heart.
This is very clearly the opposite of what Paul is saying to the Christians in Philippi. Paul’s call to ‘being in full accord and of one mind’ surely means that, at the point of ordination, we need to mean what we say, and say what we mean. Unless and until those who lead the Church actually believe and own the teaching of their own Church on marriage and sexuality, we will not have the unity which Martyn rightly says matters so much.
(A shorter version of this piece is published in the Church of England Newspaper today.)
Buy me a Coffee
The only unity needed in the C of E is to unite behind the decision of the majority of Synod. Synod has voted to approve prayers for same sex couples within services by majorities in all houses so we should unite behind that. It still confirmed marriage was reserved for opposite sex couples, in lifelong unions ideally, anyway
But that completely overlooks the important question raised above – is same-sex sexual activity sinful or not? If it’s sinful then the question of ‘marriage’ becomes an irrelevance.
Synod has ruled it is not sinful when in a committed relationship and Synod has the final say
Tell that to God on the day of judgement.
God on the day of judgement has far worse offenders to deal with than 2 homosexuals in loving lifelong unions! The head of the C of E on earth is the King anyway, God’s representative on earth is the Pope, though even the Pope has now interpreted scripture as enabling some prayers for same sex couples
So if A is worse than B, B can never be bad. So it follows that there can only ever be one bad thing.
Simon, you are incapable of a secondary school level of argument. It is so easy to spot the flaws in the points you make. There is nothing for it but further study rather than commenting like this and embarrassing yourself.
Off to Rome, then! The Pope seems to think he ranks equal with God.
Rome does not allow women priests and bishops unlike the C of E and until it does I could not cross the Tiber
No, Christopher, it is just following the true message of Christ which is love thy neighbour not spread eternal hellfire and brimstone on your neighbour even for just happening to be in a lifelong, committed and loving relationship with a member of the same sex
It isn’t all about you, T1. It’s all about Jesus.
Simon, I take it therefore that you think that Christ said only one thing. Which is true – he said one thing or more, or many more?
If ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ is the ‘true message’ as opposed to being part of the chief message or attitude, then all the rest is ‘false message’, is it?
Explain your point.
Simon, you are clearly not very enamoured of Jesus who is the chief Bible teacher on the topic of fiery destructive separation from God.
Is it that He could do better, or that you think you could do better than Him?
Jesus of course never mentioned homosexuality and certainly never condemned same sex couples. If my focus was solely on the Old Testament condemnation of it I would be Jewish not Christian
Simon, Jesus repeatedly condemned ‘porneia’. For him and any first century Jew listening to him, that includes same-sex sexual relationships of any kind.
SO if you ignored the Old Testament condemnation of it, and focused instead on the more detailed *New Testament condemnation of it, what position would you then adopt?
Pornea is fornication, so obviously not relevant to a same sex couple in a lifelong monogamous union!
Ian
And which is porneia?
A church leader forcing young male interns to wrestle half naked with him.
Or two people of the same sex forming a lifelong committed relationship built on mutual love?
You can maybe (maybe) claim both, but then that doesn’t explain why the CofE for decades covered for MP, but condemned all gay people who weren’t assaulting young men
Peter, in the New Testament including the teaching of Jesus, sex between two men was indeed porneia regardless of the context of their relationship, because Jesus understood human sexuality in the light of the creation narratives. No serious scholar of the NT doubts this.
Why you raise the other case I have no idea. ‘Some people in the C of E have behaved badly, so the teaching of Jesus is irrelevant…’??
No! Scripture has the final say!
Seriously Simon? Our unity comes from motions in Synod, not our doctrine, or the Formularies, or the creeds, or even the person of Jesus Christ?
What a strange world you live in.
Yes it does, our unity comes from the decisions of the majority of Synod and how the majority of the Bishops, Clergy and Laity interpret the Bible and teachings of Christ. If you don’t accept that then you shouldn’t be in the established church of the C of E but should join your nearest Baptist, Pentecostal or independent evangelical church
No, T1. If you don’t accept the word of God in the Bible then you should leave for whatever heretical church system you like, maybe the Methodists.
I accept the word of God in the Bible as interpreted by the Bishops and Synod which is the iron law of the Church of England. If you don’t agree with that it is you who should join the Methodists, the Baptists or Pentecostals
They’re not interpreting it, they’re ignoring it, and I suggest you know that very well.
Wouldn’t it be easier to ask you, Simon, what comparative ranking you give to:
doctrine
creeds
words of Jesus
synod votes
formularies.
Because you are already assuming such a comparative ranking when you speak, so it is necessary that you spell out what the ranking is so that it can be assessed by others.
To give a
If a thing can’t be done lawfully, it can’t be done. You can’t bless what is forbidden – and you can’t bless same-sex marriages without changing the doctrine of marriage. And you can’t change the doctrine of marriage without changing the canons. To will the end you have to will the means – but there is no will to change the canons. There is no unity in Synod – but even if there were, authentic unity lies not in Synod but in Christ. And Synod cannot pretends to represent the mind of Christ if it parts company with the apostles and their teaching.
Yes you can, the canons of the C of E are quite clear that what the bishops, clergy, laity decide within the C of E under the King’s Majesty is not repugnant to the word of God. Majority is what decides Synod, 100% unity is not required. Synod is the basis of C of E law and doctrine, if you want to interpret scripture only in an ultra conservative way then you could do that in any old Christian evangelical church, a Baptist or Pentecostal church say, which is not Anglican and of course you still get an opt out from PLF if your Parish wants it even in the C of E
The majority opinion does not make something that is wrong, right. Decades ago a US state passed a law stating that the irrational number PI was exactly 3.14. Changing the law didn’t change the truth, PI was still 3.1415926535897932384626433832795… . A majority vote in Synod does not change the Bible. I don’t believe that after 2000 years God has given us a new revelation on sexual relations and marriage.
An excellent summary, Ian. It is time to hold the bishops to their vows to uphold doctrine or demand that they leave the Church of England. The faithful in the pews have the means to do that. They need two more things: organisation, and acceptance in place of denial of the pain that comes from knowing that leaders of the church they love have betrayed them, and betrayed Jesus Christ.
The doctrine of marriage has not changed.
So, bishops are upholding their vows.
Many of the faithful people in the pews are queer people whose pain comes from the lack of acceptance that their lives and loves are holy. That is real pain, embodied trauma.
If they are trying to change the doctrine from what they swore to uphold then they are not upholding their vows.
Many of the faithful people in the pews are sexually attracted to others of their own sex but remain celibate out of love for Christ. Everybody faces temptation but God gives his faithful the power to overcome it.
Some queer people remain celibate because they are called to celibacy. Other queer people are called to lives of holiness in covenantal relationships. All Christians strive to resist sexual temptation.
Nobody in Britain ever thought of covenantal relationships for same-sex attracted people before Blair concocted them. And why live together with someone to whom you are sexually attracted if the Bible tells you that God thinks it is toevah to act on it?
who has decided that some gay people have been ‘called to live lives of holiness in covenantal relationships’?
As Jesus said.
Concepts not at all 21st century.
Peter
The Holy Spirit
Anton
Nobody lived in covenantal same-sex relationships before the advent of CPs? Let me introduce you to some history …
And yet more eisegesis, I’m afraid, nowhere in the Levitical codes are same-sex relationships described as an abomination. A single (male/male) act is thus described.
If these are your arguments, they are built on very sandy sand,
Now you have comitted blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Penelope. God is not divided. I tremble for you.
Anton
Well it’s quite a response when you can’t answer my question.
Don’t worry about my relationship with the HS; work out your own salvation in fear and trembling.
No fear of the Lord either!
I took your question to be rhetorical. I am well aware of gay cohabitation in history, such as the Sacred Band in the Theban army; and of course nothing stops two people from making vows – but ‘covenantal’? Where have the authorities granted formal recognition of such covenants?
Anton
Relationships don’t need recognition from authorities to be covenantal.
The House of Laity voted by majority for PLF, the majority of the faithful in C of E pews back some recognition for same sex couples married in English civil law
On your last point, are you referring to one of those very dodgy polls? They’re junk, campaign pieces, referred to in the trade as Voodoo polls. Furthermore, what someone backs in the civil law is quite different to what they’d back in church law.
No polling necessary, the elected Synod representatives elected by deanery synods in turn elected by each church’s Parish electoral roll voted by majority for PLF
James
I’d suggest about 10% of people in liberal churches oppose SSM, never mind the blessings and 50% of conservative churches.
If the numbers were very much in opposition to SSM, the church leaders wouldnt be so embarrassed by their own teaching
‘I accept the word of God in the Bible as interpreted by the Bishops and Synod which is the iron law of the Church of England.’
This was your comment above. Up to a few years ago Bishops and Synod understood the word of God to say that gay sexual relationships are sinful. Did you believe then that was what the word of God said? Did God then change His word?
It is up to each new generation of Anglican English Bishops and clergy and members of Synod how they interpret scripture and God’s word. This generation happens to interpret it differently from say those Bishops and clergy within the C of E 100 years ago when homosexuality and same sex relations was still illegal in the UK whereas now same sex marriage is legal in the UK. Obviously the established church will develop its interpretation accordingly and after all Jesus never forbade same sex relations amongst monogamous and loving same sex couples
He didnt need to, all Jews viewed it as wrong. There was no need for Jesus to comment on it. So He didnt.
Yes and Jesus founded the Christian religion, the C of E is not Jewish is it!
Simon, that would be news to all New Testament scholars. The parting[s] of the ways between Judaism and Christianity (which was originally a sect within Judaism) took place a long time after the crucifixion.
Regarding vows, people lie all the time to get their way. Ive recently learned my neighbour blatantly lied to get her own way. An elderly ‘lady’, a church-goer of course.
Noone should be surprised a significant number of the clergy and bishops are doing the same.
‘As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch, have erred, so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manners of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.’ Art. 19, whereas the are to believe that the Church of England alone is infallible?
No, and the C of E does not claim to be—in that it looks to Scripture.
It might well have erred—in which case either it needs to change, or people who disagree need to look elsewhere surely?
How can we survive with clergy who just undermine the doctrine of their own church, despite having taken vows that they would not?
What did the churches at Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch get wrong, please?
Perhaps by not changing the Nicene creed to say the the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, i.e. the ‘filoque’ question.
You ask the Reformers, Anton. I did not write the article, nor agree with it. But it seems a bit risky for protestants to argue that their church’s view of marriage cannot be changed.
When it suits them, Catholics wreite as if all protestants can be lumped together. When it suits them, Catholics write as if protestantism is splintered. Make your mind up.
If you are serious, I’ll summarise my viewe of the divorce/remarriage scriptures. You are raising the subject with me, after all.
If Catholics all agree about everything and Protestants split over the slightest thing, it is clear which group more resembles scholars (and therefore is more scholarly?).
Bishop Martin lead a Deanery meeting last Wednesday on LLF, which I attended.
He began by saying how the world had changed and not for the better citing TV programmes like Love Island. He is trying to bring unity to hold the church together as so many people have been changed by the world and the church cannot agree. I am paraphrasing but it is unity in diversity.
It was interesting as I have not attended any LLF events and I was interested to sense the numbers for and against. I did write to him when he promoted LLF meetings as I considered they would be difficult for those opposed. The meeting clearly showed what I had feared. Many responses were emotional with close family members being LGBT and disagreeing meant that you were “unloving”.
Toni’s credit Bishop Martyn had an open Mike session and you were allowed to give your opinion, which I did by quoting Matthew 19 and some church doctrine. Others also made the case fir children and stable families, but for a rural Deanery it was certainly mixed.
It is a Pandora’s box the bishops should never have closed and now they are struggling to put the lid back on.
They have managed to communicate that we should believe whatever is right in our own eyes…
Yes, indeed. The so called ‘new insight’ into doctrine which is intended to be reflected in the PLF looks like a new approach to doctrine altogether: one under which, although the Bishops say our doctrine is unchanged, the Bishops have made it clear with respect to intimate relationships that affirming and expressing our doctrine in our liturgy has become optional.
I do not know how this (supposed) ‘new insight’ is quantified or demonstrated or tested. It all sounds a bit Animal Farm; and while that is the case, why would they think people would take such a suspicious claim seriously? More likely they subjectively experienced the social difficulty of maintaining cultural deviance.
Tricia
Obviously I wasn’t at the meeting. I don’t watch Love Island, but my understanding of it is its about heterosexual promiscuity, not gay people. Surely it would be better to talk about Heart Stopper or Fellow Travelers, both about gay romance. It doesn’t give me any trust that the Bishops have made any effort to understand gay people (or the modern world more generally) when they are still confusing gay people with promiscuity
Ian of course all the ordained have taken vows. But you have to look at all of them together, and not just take one in isolation. And you have to be aware that the 39 Articles are open to interpretation and that both them and the BCP are products of a very turbulent time in our church history.
I had no problem taking the vows. But I had no problem specifically because they are quite general and do allow a great deal of interpretation. And I was specifically told that the assent given to the Articles is a general assent and that clergy are not bound by a literal belief in all of them. Reports of the Doctrine Commission have consistently made that clear, including the latest – To Proclaim Afresh. I certainly do not believe all of the Articles are correct now – and I deny some of them, and have always done so.
I have made the point before; if you or anyone else wishes to make a legal challenge or take any clergy to court over this matter then you should feel free to do so. But I really don’t think any such challenge stands any chance at all.
And what, pray, is the interpretation around ‘marriage is, according to the teaching of our Lord, between one man and one woman’?
How can there be different interpretations of this?
And when you said ‘Yes, I believe the doctrine of the Church’ what did you think you were committing yourself to?
Andrew approaches the Ten Commandments in the spirit of a public examination: only 4 to be attempted.
Ive explained that so many times….even last week to you directly
Then, Andrew, you should have honed your explanation to one of economy and clarity. I expect many of us would be glad to see your interpretation of ‘marriage is, according to the teaching of our Lord, between one man and one woman’ and whether you were consequently telling the truth when you said ‘Yes, I believe the doctrine of the Church’.
Andrew – so why do you think that people don’t think much of your explanation? Do you think we’re too thick to understand it? Or could it be something else?
Which people don’t think much of it? A few conservatives on here who aren’t even Anglicans?
First, you should distinguish between ideological conservatives (ugh); thinking people who have examined the evidence and ended up basically conservative; and eclectic people who have come to an unclassifiable range of positions including some so-called conservative ones. These 3 groups are quite different.
What is so great or superior about being anglican? – the thing is stated as though it were tribal or cultural or ideological, all of which would be useless.
“What is so great or superior about being anglican? ”
Nothing. Who said there was? It is simply the context in which this discussion is taking place. The 39 Articles and the BCP that Ian keeps appealing to are peculiar to the Anglican tradition. And given the wider picture, they aren’t all that important. Which is exactly what I have been trying to say. I’m very happy to have taken the vows fully knowing that the CofE is just one part of the wider picture of the journey of faith all Christians- inside and outside of the Church- are engaged upon.
So anglican is no better nor worse? Is anything better or worse than anything else, do you think?
Another vast generalisation Christopher. Address the specific points I made.
‘Given the wider picture they are not all that important’-
Point not made. It fails to differentiate between absolute and relative importance.
The point is that the 39 Articles and the BCP are only of relative importance. Clearly you missed that.
Do you think .- as Ian seems to think – that they are of absolute importance?
That does not grasp the point. We have agreed that wherever there is a wider picture then that wider picture is of higher relative importance. But the issue of how great the absolute importance of given articles is has not even begun to be broached. For example, we could be dealing with two matters both of which were of high absolute importance even though (irrelevantly) one happened to be of higher relative importance than the other. How then would you deal with the very high absolute importance of the lesser?
Certainly not by the fallacy of saying that lower relative importance must mean low absolute importance. Anyone can spot the flaw in that. So how, then?
You are waffling on about generalities again Christopher. Please address the question: do you think the 39 Articles and the BCP are of absolute importance as Ian suggests, or am I correct to relegate them to of much lesser import.
Far from waffling, I am just saying things you do not yet understand – that is the reason why you find it tiresome.
I think the problem is the two meanings of ‘absolute’. I am using ‘absolute importance’ in the sense of any ranking in an overall scale of importance (from bottom to top of the scale) so that ‘a high absolute importance’ means that something is very important in the grand scheme of things. You however are using it in terms of ‘utter’ or ‘supreme’.
When the absolute vs relative question comes up, the word ‘absolute’ is always used in the first sense not the second. Hence I at first thought you understood.
Christopher we have seen several tines here in your interraction with another contributor that you ofyen dont understand how lsnguage works.
Please go back to your first inervention in this exchange where you question whether my use of the term Anglican implies something superior. Then read the comments following. Then actually answer the question: do you personally think the 39 articles and the BCP are of absolute importance regarding the matters of doctrine OR do you think they may be regarded as of much less importance.
Andrew, I was sort of thinking the same thing 🙂 Christopher’s 12.34 and 2.50 comments are perfect to illustrate the cost/benefit balance that Dan Sperber & Deidre Wilson introduced into their theory of how language is used in communication.
Andrew, I will do that as soon as you agree that ‘absolute’ has two quite separate senses as I delineated; that you were using it in one sense and I in the other; and that you need this time to specify which sense you are using it in. You will probably then find that we agreed all along but were talking at cross purposes.
Bruce – wow, you will make not just me but everyone else terrified of ever opening their mouth again even to voice innocent platitudes.
Christopher: it’s a straightforward and clear question, and one that you prefer not to answer. I can see that. Please don’t play ridiculous school boy games once again “I’ll only do this if you do that…” . You aren’t at Harrow any longer
That’s easy, Ian! In this brave new world of ours, men can have ovaries and women can have testes.
And that depending on the day of the week.. and worse is yet to come.
‘The government of the Church of England under His Majesty, by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and the rest of the clergy and of the laity that bear office in the same, is not repugnant to the Word of God.’ Article 6 of canons of C of E
So if the next Synod votes to amend or change or repeal these votes you like so much Simon, will you accept that ruling and stop campaigning? I doubt it. You’ve been campaigning for change for many years, and were not silenced just because the rules were not in your favour. Well neither then shall we be silenced. You’d expect nothing less as we’re merely following your example.
You raise an important issue. The radicals compromise not at all, and are satisfied with only one end point. The conservatives try to be fair to all parties, not realising that the middle ground is a movable feast which people tactically shift for all they are worth. How weak and gullible.
Good but weak people now, for example, say ‘Abortion will never be revoked. Its opposite is entrenched.’ Whereas when non-abortion was entrenched, the radicals still believed their gruesome belief. So BOTH we should accept bad replacing good, but ALSO we ‘should’ not think that in an endless amount of time good could ever replace bad.
Who told you that? Who whispered that in your ear? Come on, people.
I would though I highly doubt that is likely, clear majorities of all 3 houses voted for PLF
Lol. If they had voted that red is green, then red would be green, right?
People just follow the culture they are in. So lobbyists make the future (as opposed to being those most qualified or suitable to do so). What is surprising about that?
Which negates Simon’s assertion earlier that he believed the word of God as interpreted by Bishops etc, if he has been campaigning for change for years. He is obviously only now saying he accepts it because the CoE is changing its interpretation.
Christopher: was that a reference to Ignatius Loyola’s absurd comment that “we should… believe… that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchical [i.e. Roman] church so defines” (Spiritual Exercises, no.365)?
PC1 you are correct.
Anton, no I am not well enough read in the Jesuits. It is a reference to an unnecessarily long phone conversation I had 8-9 years ago with Keir Starmer (DPP)’s staff.
Whatever ‘Article 6 of canons of C of E’ says, established churches are definitely ‘repugnant to the Word of God.’ The NT knows only one “Christian nation” which is the Church itself, according to Jesus a kingdom not of/from this world.
And Ian, it is now some months since, somewhere on Facebook I think, I challenged you to produce the NT texts which support ‘establishment’ and I’m still waiting….
A body determinedly wrong about establishment should perhaps not be surprised that other unscriptural attacks are now made upon it’s beliefs and practices.
Fine then you are correctly not in the established church, I however as a liberal Catholic who likes the King as my church’s Supreme Governor and accepts the verdict of Synod will gladly stay in the C of E
So when votes previously went other ways, did you respect and agree with the votes then?
Yes I accepted the lack of a sufficient majority in Synod for women bishops in the 2012 vote until Synod voted with the sufficient majority for women bishops in 2014 in all 3 houses
I will ask the question abzin. You answered ‘Did you accept?’ but I never asked that. I said ‘DId you respect and agree?’ Because after all, you were all that time campaigning for a minority position, so why cannot others do the same, rather than having to accept a majority one?
Court challenges standing no chance may just as easily tell us about the inadequacy of the law as it stands, or of its practice, or of the whole concept of law.
Just because things may stand no chance, how is that relevant to anything? It assumes (strangely) that the system is perfect as it stands. Justify that? The only thing that would be relevant would be if something DESERVED to stand no chance.
Welby is probably desperate to ensure it does not come to that, because the legal advice that the bishops have received would then get an airing in public.
The law in the C of E is made by Synod, no further legal advice is necessary!
T1
You wrote “Fine then you are correctly not in the established church, I however as a liberal Catholic who likes the King as my church’s Supreme Governor and accepts the verdict of Synod will gladly stay in the C of E”
But here’s a question – the NT (a) does not teach establishment, and (b) does teach a rather different way to do church/world relations. So in effect your choice to have an established church defies Jesus and the apostles – so where on earth does that idea come from ??
And as Ian has pointed out more thann a few times, Synod etc are supposed to follow the Word, not just come up with whatever they please….
The NT does teach St Peter as first Pope and of course the C of E via apostolic succession is indirectly linked to that. If you want to interpret the Bible in a conservative fashion on everything from homosexuality to women priests you could do that in any old Christian conservative evangelical Baptist, independent or Pentecostal church as you do you don’t need to be in the C of E whose core principle is its law is determined by Synod under the governorship of the Monarch
Yet of course the conservatives – led apparently by Nicky Gumbel, a lawyer – talk incessantly about law. Wanting the legal advice. Making a challenge under law etc.
As I’ve always said, let them. I have no interest in the law. The Christian life is all about faith – not law. And faith is not a static thing. It’s a journey. An ongoing journey. The destination wasn’t fixed in the 1st century…or the 3rd, or the tenth, or the 16th…or the 21st. There is a lot more light and truth to come from God’s Word.
But scripture is a static thing, isn’t it, at least until Christ returns? And He affirmed the Old Testament as the word of God, did He not? Including the opinion, therefore, of God about man lying with man for sexual gratification?
Yep scripture is static. But the Word of God isn’t
The Living Logos is not going to disagree with the written word of his Father, for then God would be divided. The Word and the word will always be consistent. And we know what the word says, as I explained to oyu at 0952 hours above and you did not reply.
The idea is to end up with whatever concept can be infinitely malleable to one’s own purposes. Whether that be ‘the Word of God’ as distinct from the Bible; the Holy Spirit – or whatever. It does not matter so long as the malleability (i.e. vagueness) is maximum.
“explained to oyu at 0952 hours above and you did not reply.”
You called me a liar in that post Anton. I don’t respond to that kind of online abuse.
I actually wrote:
I expect many of us would be glad to see your interpretation of ‘marriage is, according to the teaching of our Lord, between one man and one woman’ and whether you were consequently telling the truth when you said ‘Yes, I believe the doctrine of the Church’.
Won’t reply or can’t reply?
I was ordained getting on for 40 years ago. I didn’t believe the doctrine of the CofE was correct in terms of ordaining women as Priests – which it didn’t back then. I was active in campaigning for change. Ian was in the same position. Do you therefore think I ought not to have taken the vows I took?
And to add a further question. I was ordained with around 40 others. The bishop directed that we should wear stoles to be ordained in. Three conservative evangelicals refused and wore black scarves. They disobeyed their bishop. Do you think they ought not to have been ordained?
Your problem – as also with Ian and many others over this question of vows – is that you single out just one issue. Same sex marriage. There are many others, but you have this obsession. 40 years ago same sex marriage was unheard of and didn’t even enter my consciousness. So I was hardly lying when I took those vows about marriage. Please get some sense of perspective.
They disobeyed because their bishop was not actually lawfully by making such a requirement.
We are not the ones obsessed. I post on many other issues; how many of those do you spend time and energy commenting on Andrew? Not a single one. Someone is obsessed, but it is not us!
Andrew,
You use the usual mirror tactic. It is, of course, the movement that labels itself ‘gay Christian’ that is obsessed with this issue. Those who wish to keep the bride of Christ pure are doing no more than responding to them.
You should have told the bishop your views and asked him if he was still willing to ordain you. Did you? He could of course see what those other men were wearing and make his own informed decision.
“I post on many other issues; how many of those do you spend time and energy commenting on Andrew? Not a single one”
Quite a few actually. You have even responded to such. By your own admission you don’t read everything people post.
And I made a general point about the 39 Articles and BCP and the only response you could make was about same sex marriage. It is an obsession of yours.
“There is a lot more light and truth to come from God’s Word”.
Yebbut – even those of us who follow the idea of redemptive arc hermeneutics recognise that there will be sane continuity of changes rather than contradictions clearly only about suiting modern worldly ideas.
Clearly not everyone does recognise that. The Protestant churches have quite a different hermeneutic of the sacraments to the vast majority of Christians throughout the world. And the East/west split of the 10th Century was a huge discontinuity
11th century. An unnecessary divide over what was merely a precipitating issue. And the early church did not take the same view of sacraments as the post-Gregorian church.
Yes, 11th century of course. The point remains.
Really rather odd that the dispute over the filioque, which broke church unity, is dimissed as a minor matter but married couples shouldn’t have oral sex (I quote a contributor below).
Penelope – you’re a genius! You were able to get two subject – apparently completely unrelated – into a short comment of one sentence! Respect.
Thank you for pointing that out Penny. I laughed out loud.
The obsession with matters sexual continues.
The Greek-speaking churches had been deeply disillusioned with Rome for centuries – Rome which produced the pseudo-Isidorean decretals when it suited them (now known to have been forged), Rome which had been through a Dark Age when Constantinople was the opulent centre of a major empire in the Near East, Rome whose aristocracy had brought the papacy to a new low in the 150 years after 880AD during which 35 popes occupied Peter’s seat because most were deposed or murdered by their successors, Rome which nevertheless claimed to be inerrant and which unilaterally sought to impose the filioque which was obviously among the adiaphora.
The resulting mutual excommunications between politicised and corrupt churches are of little concern to me spiritually. But they were a tragedy for European history, exacerbating political divisions which let Islam into Europe.
The obsession with matters sexual continues.
Doesn’t it just, Andrew.
“The spirit of generosity and pragmatism”. Sounds like a political party sound- bite.
(Wait a minute: it is -the art of politics.)
And how so, if ordination starts with dishonesty, a publicly pronounced lie, which is akin to Contempt, contempt of God, contempt of the church, the people of God: akin to perjury.
That, of itself, is no small matter, a matter of indifference.
How is contempt to be purged? How is perjury to be prosecuted.
How about starting and continuing with the Spirit of Truth, honesty and integrity?
Geoff – it’s well known that there is a heavy degree of corruption in both the formulation and application of the law of the land – hence anybody who uses the justification ‘….. if you or anyone else wishes to make a legal challenge or take any clergy to court over this matter …’ is effectively saying ‘yes – we told lies and treated the whole process with contempt – and we have our friends in the right places so that there is nothing you can do about it.’
Not only is the present cultural accommodation tailor made for culture wars (aka division; and where there is abortion or unscientific gender theory introduced, or any other turning from natural law there will always immediately ipso facto by unhealable strong division), but voting figures nationally and ecclesially accordingly reflect this chasm like divide.
And then the perpetrators speak of ‘unity’.
Well said
im glad you agree that abortion and gender theory is against natural law T1.
I am pleased to see Martyn’s use of Philippians homed-in on in a further article, following Andrew’s article last week. Not because I particularly want to be pedantic with a Bishop (I rather like Bishop Martyn), but because it is always grating to see/read scripture used carelessly.
I think more should be made of the way we use language in this conversation, particularly the language of adiaphora, ‘things indifferent’. This phrase seems to get used of both the things that Paul explicitly names as such (dietary rules etc) but also as meaning ‘any non-essential thing’ in the far broader sense, and this is misleading. It connects salvation to doctrinal orthodoxy on a whole range of things in an unhelpful way.
I observed this played out in an argument between two North American Baptist friends in a Facebook group this week, arguing about Peadobaptism in the reformed tradition. One of the contributors asserted that this was not a matter we could ‘agree to disagree’ on as Baptists, but the other was immediately defensive that the legitimacy of his faith was being called into question and cited Paul’s use of adiaphora to make his defence. “How dare you imply I’m not a Cristian because…..” I don’t for a second think my friend meant to level that accusation, but this conversation spiralled (as Facebook conversations are want to do, SBC discussions even moreso) into a discussion about female ministry: the logic following that even if female ordination is perhaps a thing indifferent, to get there you have to undermine or discard scripture, which isn’t a thing indifferent, and viola female ordination is now (by-connection) an essential matter, just as Baptism has been inferred to be a few comments earlier.
I have seen similar things in the comments here over the years, and have been guilty of it myself when speaking about SSM. Should we not assert more strongly a category of things in-between, where we can recognise the critical importance of something, without calling another’s faith into account.
I try to be clear in which I mean, but words are tricky things sometimes..
Sorry, I meant to be explicit and connect both ideas to ‘unity’, but I must have deleted the paragraph where I did so.
We can agree to disagree only up until the point it impairs our unity. When it gets to that point, we must as an issue of faithfulness separate, but even this does not mean the relationship is truly ended. Our brothers and sisters they will remain, and we can hope, pray and work for future restoration.
I hope it remains implicit.
I’m really struggling to understand your point(s) Mat.
Unity in what? Who?How? Why?
Similarly, faithfulness in what? Who? How? Why?
Restoration to what, who, why and how? By a change of mind, of belief, which may involve not remaining faithful to pre-change.
A few years ago now, I recall an on -line discussion over whether Tim Keller could be an elder/member in a Baptist church.
But, this seems to be something of a tangential distraction from the burden of IP’s article
“But, this seems to be something of a tangential distraction from the burden of IP’s article.”
Sort of…
My observation was that a critical piece of the SSM debate (as it exists on forums like this) concerns the language we use to articulate the degree to which we disagree. Plainly some things are essential to the Christian faith, and equally plainly other things are not, but which doctrine falls into either category can depend on who you ask (or, historically-speaking, when). My central point was that a lot of commentary around the question of unity in the CofE uses the category terms of ‘essential/non-essential’, ‘first order/second order’ and ‘things indifferent’ somewhat interchangeably, when we probably shouldn’t, as it causes confusion. I was urging caution in general, rather than taking issue with Ian’s use of the terms in his article. Perhaps my example was unhelpful, so apologies for that.
“Restoration to what, who, why and how? By a change of mind, of belief, which may involve not remaining faithful to pre-change.”
Restoration of an effective unity within the church of England, by whatever means God deigns to use. Let the reader understand. 😉
Hi Mat,
‘Let the reader understand.’ a Rev. ref. Which makes me wonder—what the did the seven churches make of the open letter to them? Did they call a high council to decide who was in and who was out? Did six churches form a new denomination and expell the church they felt fell below standard? Did Smyrna become exclusive? Did they percieve unity in diversity?
More than once Mat, ad nauseum it seems in this revolving door of LLF and comment on this blog, the key unaddressed, rigorously denied, or avoided matters are these:
1. the Doctrine of God
2. the doctrine of scripture.
3 the doctrine of anthropology.
4 the sovereignty of God, the Lordship of Christ
They are distinct but inter-related.
The questions of ssm/s/blessings are irreducibly welded to them in their totallity, are inseparable.
And whilst your Baptist illustration may be on the perimeter of the target of the article it does highlight an important and equally ignored matter – church discipline in doctrinal standards, canons.
Throuhout society and evidently absorbed in CoE ordination vows, the concept of dishonesty has been downgraded, as being of little to no import, yet of far reaching malevolent and poisonous consequences, individually and collectively.
Thank you, Ian. Martyn’s use of Philippians 2.2 to address the issue is a misuse of Scripture, to be sure. The ‘one mind’ of the church in this verse is related to the ‘one mind’ with Christ in 2.5. Paul’s point in this passage is not about doctrine or ethics but about relationships. (Athanasius and Cyril were right to draw doctrinal implications from the passage–2.6-11 is rich in doctrine–but Paul’s purpose is not doctrinal.) He fills out what he means in 2.1-5 with other terms: mutual (‘the same’) love, no selfish ambition, no conceit, humility, regarding others as more significant, looking to everyone’s interests. Jesus is the Christian’s exemplar for such communal values. In the same letter, when a doctrinal issue is given consideration, Paul has an entirely different word of advice: ‘Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh’ (3.2). Phil. 2.1-11 does not apply when salvation by works of the flesh is introduced into the church over against the work of Christ. In 1 Corinthians, speaking directly to Martyn’s issue of the Christian view of sexuality, Paul has an equally exclusionary word: ‘But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one’ (5.11). As with the doctrinal issue of Phil. 3, now with ethical issues, Phil. 2.1-11’s communal values do not apply. In fact, so applied, they are destructive for the church.
The tyranny of the NOW, the spirit of the age.
I am currently reading a superbly researched book :-
T H E W I S D O M P Y R A M I D
Feeding Your Soul in a
Post-Truth World.
B R E T T M c C R AC K E N
Chiefly about the www it does have significands, I think, in this current exchange.
Aka “The tyranny of the NOW, the spirit of the age.”
We little realize the enslavement of the internet providers on our critical faculties along with the rapid-stream outpourings of “influencers”.
Thus to quote one aspect of the book; –
Perceptual Presentism
Compounding the problem is what I call “perceptual presentism,”
where reality is filtered to us in fleeting fragments of what’s happening
now, rather than through the filter of time and generational wisdom.
Real-time tweets and Facebook posts that often discuss whatever the
day’s trending debate is now dominate our attention. Status updates
and disappear-in-a-day stories populate our perceptual field. It’s called
Instagram for a reason, after all. Timeliness becomes an addictive
toxin. Immediacy becomes an idol.
But this approach to time is not only narcissistic; it’s dangerous. It
disconnects us from the wisdom of history and places undue mental
emphasis on (and blind trust in) that which is least likely to produce
wisdom: the untested now. C. S. Lewis called this emphasis on Now
“Chronological snobbery,” defined as “the uncritical acceptance of
the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption
that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.”7
Catholic philosopher Augusto Del Noce, writing in 1970, put it this
way: “Today’s man, cut off from the past and from the future, lives
through a sequence of discontinuous instants. . .. Perfect novelty is
his oxygen.”
In a sobering 2019 Atlantic article, Jonathan Haidt and Tobias
Rose-Stockwell note the problematic way that ideas and conflicts of
the present moment “dominate and displace older ideas and the les-
sons of the past.” One paradox of the information age, they observe,
is that even as younger generations grow up with unprecedented
access to everything that has ever been written and digitized, the
new generations nevertheless “find themselves less familiar with the
accumulated wisdom of humanity than any recent generation, and
therefore, [are] more prone to embrace ideas that bring social prestige
within their immediate network [and] yet are ultimately misguided.” 9
Today’s technological landscape hasn’t invented this sort of
problematic presentism, but it has amplified it. Our existing human
inclinations toward the latest and the trendiest are accelerated by
the breakneck speed with which things come and go. This presentist
orientation is particularly toxic (and all too common) in evangelical
faith communities, where obsessions with “relevance,” an uncritical
embrace of technology, and a disconnection from history leave many
churches vulnerable to being molded more by the ephemeral spirit of
the age than by the solid, time-tested wisdom of ages past.
Presentism is toxic not only because it rejects the resources of the
past, but also because it has little discipline to stay on course for
the future.
Book available free on line and very illuminating@
https://media.thegospelcoalition.org/private/Wisdom+Pyramid.pdf?utm_campaign=The%20Wisdom%20Pyramid&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=304127727&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_o2GvpH8MPJg1N_qBgPbQvKeFE2DV0_9wbMEh09oD0ws9YDCaqfRC7_ppdgGjdYJvS_FfdjgV_H6TaFzHmlzzpz4nSmw5xDifSttbndeEvqpUb6ZQ
Sorry Alan. That’s far too long a ‘comment’ for me…. Interesting as it may be.
To be able to say that the church is in disagreement or unity, it has to first have some teaching to disagree or unify over. Ive remarked before that fundamental questions on this topic have not been addressed and even decades old teaching is deliberately vague.
On top of this there have been scattershot statements (“zero tolerance to homophobia”, “no to conversion therapy”) and endless apologies that are never actually implemented, which simply undermines everyone’s good will.
A long time ago now, some gay Christians set up the church clarity website to encourage churches to at least be clear on what they taught about gay people (and a few other topics) because most of the harm is done in the shadows.
“To be able to say that the church is in disagreement or unity, it has to first have some teaching to disagree or unify over.”
Bingo. I do think the teaching plainly exists, even if one might like it to be clearer in terms of it’s pastoral implications. It is profoundly disingenuous to suggest that the canons of the CofE, as they stand right now, are anything other than clear in articulating what the CofE believes marriage is.
You have no idea* how frustrating it is as a Baptist, with a far less robust definition of any of these things, to hear Anglicans moaning about a lack of clarity on something like this! At least you have a standard. 😉 Canons, articles, liturgy (as reflective of the former), and several centuries of development and writing unpacking and wresting with these questions, and people have the temerity to wail “I wish it was clearer, there’s no way of knowing”.
The question I think should be asked, and which hitherto seems to have been avoided, concerns the consequences for not having taught it, or worse, teaching against it.
This failure to act and teach consistently with the doctrine it espouses, and to openly allow many of it’s senior leaders to openly question (if not outright deny!) said teaching, is the single greatest cause of pain and consternation to congregants in the CfE, gay and straight alike.
Mat
Hi Matt..
As an Anglican for 63 years… Christian for 57 years… Ordained for 47 years….
Bingo!
Ian Hobbs – well, I suppose this defines and characterises the problem of the Anglican denomination. You were an Anglican for 8 years before you became a Christian? Don’t the Anglicans require you to give a profession of faith before they let you in and let you describe yourself as an Anglican?
If you can pinpoint that you became a Christian 57 years ago, this sounds as if you had a conversion experience. What form did it take? What brought you to faith? And was there some sort of tension prior to this of being ‘Anglican’, but not being ‘Christian’?
I’d answer but it’s off topic. You’d likely only to carry on keeping your keyboard busy. But to aid your struggle, I did have a moment of conversion within a period of challenge. Faith may come in a moment but the journey to that point is another thing…
Ian – I think it is on-topic. The reason: I believe there may well be many Anglicans who, unlike you, do not come to faith. So instead of becoming an Anglican and then coming to faith 8 years later (as you did), they become Anglicans and then *never* come to faith.
The whole point being that if one doesn’t come to faith, then one is on the other side. I have seen people like this – join a church as children (because their parents sign them up to it), feel themselves part of the church, but never actually come to faith in Christ – and are hostile (and mocking) of the central beliefs of those who do.
I think this is the root cause of the difficulties we have here – so I think it is very much on-topic to discuss this.
Mat
I wrote a long post about this on another article, but here are some fundamental questions that the CofE has not addressed
1. Are gay people naturally gay or are they straight people with a mental health condition?
2. What counts as gay sex; what does not count as gay sex?
3. How should gay people who claim not to be having sex be treated in church – exact same as straight people, mostly the same, but with limits or should there be some requirement that they are seeking to be straight or should they be excluded altogether?
I doubt it matters how anyone would answer your questions, as you’ll just continue in your own beliefs and behaviour.
PC1
This is another thing that has changed – the church has lost influence to the extent that even people in the pews make their own minds up about theology, never mind the wider country. How can we expect to have unity on a sensitive topic when there’s no unity on anything else?!
I’m married with kids so you’d have to make an incredibly strong argument to convince me to divorce and put the kids up for adoption. As far as I can tell there’s been zero attempt to address the fact that, as you say, gay people will just do as they see fit regardless of what the church teaches.
Yes, and by that principle everyone can do what they like. Crime all round, then, with your support? Because that was the principle you just approved. But good people do not approve that principle.
Doing things makes those things acceptable, you say.
Explain the logic.
You can’t. The self-contradiction in your position was isolated and exposed.
“But good people do not approve that principle.”
Christopher your classification of people as goodies and baddies is extremely juvenile. And fortunately not something our Lord indulged in. The baddies were going in to the kingdom first.
Christopher
?
Sorry I don’t understand. You’re saying that I support crime??
Peter-
I knew you would not follow. No – I am saying that if you *don’t support crime, then your argument fails, because your proposal was that everyone should be allowed to do as they please, and since everyone doing as they please would inevitably mean a lot of crime (which you obviously would *not support), then that is the reductio ad absurdum of your proposal that everyone should be allowed to do as they please, and the proof that, although you claimed to support that principle, you do not actually.
Look up the functions of examples (their content is random; and the point being made has no connection with that random content but only with the principle it illustrates and exemplified), and also look up the concept of ‘reductio ad absurdum’, which is crucial in debate contexts for determining which argument is coherent and wins.
Andrew-
Good people do not support that principle, I said. Christians do not define good precisely the same way as others. In the gospels, taxcollectors and immoral entered the kingdom first – yes, because they knew they were sinners, which meant their orientation was right. And after such entered Paul said of them ‘Such WERE some of you. But you WERE washed, sanctified’.
But as for goodies and baddies, I am the most frequent participant to point out how modern abuser/victim narratives split the world naively but highly conveniently into goodies and baddies even before any of the knowable content has been known or analysed.
Christopher
The church doesn’t have the power to make laws.
I’m not saying everyone *should* disobey the law.
I’m saying the church has no power to make people obey it. The worst they can do is bar someone from attending.
While I also think these are important questions, I am not sure an answer to them would in any way change the definitions of marriage as found in standard formularies. And that (those definitions of what marriage is, and is for) are the subject of this article.
Your questions would come under the ‘pastoral implications’ I have already conceded could do with some further reflection. I am not prepared (or well-equipped enough) to do the CofE’s work for them. 😉
Mat
They are fundamental if you’re trying to live church teaching or have gay people in your local church who are trying to live church teaching. Just saying “no sex” is pathetic and is doing a lot of damage to real people and the church’s reputation
No Peter, your attitude is doing real damage to those who experience same-sex attraction and love Jesus Christ above themselves.
“Just saying “no sex” is pathetic and is doing a lot of damage to real people and the church’s reputation.”
‘No sex’ is the standard for everyone outside of heterosexual marriage, whatever their orientation. I would not uphold different standards for different groups in my congregation, as I am not sure there are any things that I would consider permissible and ‘not really sex’ for one group that I wouldn’t for the other…
Perhaps I’m just being ignorant, but I’m not sure such differentiation exists.
Mat
No sex tells you no sex, but it does not tell you how to deal with any other issue
I’ve been told that same sex hugging, kissing, hand holding are sex. But there is no clear standard teaching which clearly is a problem if you are trying to find the sweet spot between being out of good standing and going mad through lack of human contact.
But Mat, you’re only adopting the same standard if you’re saying that gay people (i.e. exclusively same-sex attracted) ought to be entering male-female marriages, and are encouraged to do so to the same degree as their straight counterparts. The wisdom of that is, however, extremely questionable (to say the least).
Peter
1) ‘Gay’ people are like other sinners – humans various of whose urges annd desires have been distorted by the underlying “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”
2) Basically I would say anal sex, oral sex, intercrural sex and mutual masturbation – the first two I think being also inappropriate in ‘straight sex’, not sure about the second two.
3) Bearing in mind that same sex storge/philia/agapE are not a problem, and that as physical beings interacting in a physical world, hugging and kissing and similar are to be expected, I think simply not doing gay sex is all that’s required. Bear in mind also that ‘gay’ is NOT like being black or similar, it’s not about ‘being’ but about decidedly chosen acts.
The CofE’s current problem is that too many of them have accepted the gay propaganda that it is a ‘being’ issue rather than in the wider area where urges and desires come into play.
Stephen
I think I’ve said this to you before, but if a person says they are gay they don’t mean they are having same sex sex. They mean they experience exclusive attraction to the same sex.
No offence intended, but your answers are irrelevant because they are not CofE teaching. The cofe doesn’t have answers to these questions, but they keep being asked. And what causes the damage is there is no agreement in the church on these issues. I have friends who are priests in civil partnerships, but they aren’t welcome in every parish because some parishes believe gay people shouldn’t be in ministry or that gay people in relationships shouldn’t be in ministry
Mat – well, if you’re frustrated as a Baptist, then why don’t you leave the Baptists and join the Anglicans? You’ve already indicated that you studied for three years on a degree programme that included quite a lot of material written by Rowan Williams – so a switch to the C. of E. would probably make sense for you.
It was hyperbole. 😉
I was simply attempting to highlight that complaining about the lack of clarity within an ecclesiology that goes to quite significant length to codify and clarify it’s doctrinal positions is rather amusing to those of us within a structure that emphasises the freedom to discern these things independently of each other.
Also, I am not a Baptist because I ‘chose’ to be, I am one because God called me to be. If he had called me into the Anglican ordinariate, then I would have obeyed. 😉
I do love the CofE, but usually in the same way that I enjoy spending time at a friends house. I can marvel at the differences and experience the hospitality of someone else and have experiences broadened, yet it is not home.
“I do think the teaching plainly exists, even if one might like it to be clearer in terms of it’s pastoral implications. It is profoundly disingenuous to suggest that the canons of the CofE, as they stand right now, are anything other than clear in articulating what the CofE believes marriage is.”
This is a hugely important point: Peter said that the Church wasn’t clear about what it taught about gay people. You’ve replied that it’s very clear what it believes marriage is. But that’s a very different question.
It is perhaps unsurprising that we’re struggling to settle on an answer when we still refuse to ask the same question.
Yes, I think it’s very easy to talk across purposes, some of us more than others.
But that conceded, I do not think the questions are as separate as you suggest, as they start in the same place. If we cannot agree on what God permits, or doesn’t, in even fairly broad terms, then we will always been looking for the loopholes. If we cannot agree on what marriage is, why should we think we will be able to agree on a proper pastoral accommodation for those who are not, cannot, or will not be married, whatever the individual circumstance.
I am certainly not unsympathetic to Peter’s complaint about a lack of consistency in how the church has responded in the past, my concern is that I simply don’t think you start there.
Mat
Let me put it another way.
The question is not whether it is permitted to work on the Sabbath; the question is what to do when your child falls in a well.
Peter
Much of the harm has been done by the idea of state/national churches, going back to the 300sCE and not taught in the NT. The dynamics of national religion in general (not just Christian) tend towards the persecution of dissenters, theological or moral.
Stephen
Every denomination in the west is having to come to grips with the fact that they have gay people in their church family who do not wish to pretend to be straight any more
PJ,
Although you do not reside in the UK, are not part of the CoE but were raised here and have said you attended Methodist church, are you really saying that you had no idea about the extant sexual ethics of mainstream Christianity: sex outside marriage is a sin: marriage is between male and female only?
And yet you openly and defiantly and with a free will choice, pridefully
rejected it all, rules for admission to the body of Christ, which is not a secular social construct.
Even in their lifetime Ananias and Sapphira found that out in God’s terminal judgment.
Geoff
I haven’t rejected anything of the sort.
I’d say about 80% of your responses to me fail to engage with the substance of my posts and instead make personal attacks on me.
I regularly attended three CofE churches for a total of about 10 years. I have several friends who are priests in the CofE.
Yes Pete, agreed, I did not have time to make it shorter.
The problem in the Church of England isn’t actually about sex. It’s about whether people with power and influence should be able to define their theology by their inclinations instead of by the word of God without consequences. Clearly this is the case – since C of E leadership cannot express any idea about sexuality which is coherent enough for them to even pretend they believe it.
The problem in the Church of England is that ALL of it – and vast swathes of the UK ‘church’ shows favouritism. If a middle level leader at All Souls, St Helens, and HTB taught wrong ideas about sexuality would they be given a couple of decades to change direction? No. Favouritism.
And the favouritism doesn’t stop there – since Ian is doing the same thing as these churches – he remains in the Church of England as if the current leaders deserve MORE than decades to being to act rightly – when a person in his church would not be offered the same opportunity. ALL of the Church of England shows partiality – and ALL of the Church of England is being judged for doing so.
No-one need ask if God is destroying the Church of England. This point is – surprisingly – irrelevant. It’s irrelevant because people with awareness of God’s self-giving love (everyone – believers and non-believers – see Romans 1:20) continue to show partiality are choosing to reject God – they are choosing to NOT BE the church.
to *begin* to act rightly….
PB
I’d argue the other way round – that the church treats (“successful”) gay church leaders much better than anyone else, especially if they are evangelical.
If an average gay guy in the pews was known to wrestle young men in their underwear he would be just allowed to get away with it, even if it was consensual. Mike Pilavachi was doing this to young men without their consent for decades, yet because he was seen as successful, he was lauded, not condemned or told he had “openly and defiantly and with a free will choice, pridefully rejected it all, rules for admission to the body of Christ” as has just been said about me.
My autocorrect in helpfully changed a wouldn’t to a would.
The question is: who, in a position to stop Pilavachi, knew what he was doing and when? Until you have answered that question you are not in a position to condemn anybody’s actions except his.
Anton
I think they should name names. The only name that I am aware who has been publicly accused of ignoring abuse is Graham Cray the former bishop of Maidstone
Well PJ,
Did or didn’t you know what extant mainstream Christian denominations taught : sex outside marriage is sin; marriage is only between male and female? (Your main point.)
And you have freely decided it doesn’t apply to you.
As for pride you have in the comments seem to have taken some relish in touching upon sexual activity, as if seeking to shock, and supporting the Pride cavalcades and in all their outlandish highly sexualised displays. (All deduced from your own comments on this blog, and merely drawn attention to. So if you think they are personal attacks, they are attacks on yourself, made by yourself).
Geoff
I don’t think I’ve ever brought sexual activity up! The only time I have mentioned it is to correct myths about gay people.
I’m married. So your assumption about me is wrong.
Even with his suggested typing correction Peter Jermey’s post leaves me confused – since he said he’s arguing for the other way round – but then he gives an example of the kind of favouritism towards those in leadership that I explained exists.
Andrew – well, the debacle restricted to the issues presented here is an Anglican thing and a matter between you Anglicans on whether or not someone with your attitude towards certain matters should have taken the vows you took.
More generally though, I’m not sure you should have been ordained, because I’m not sure what you mean by ‘faith’. Sure, when we come to believe in Him (i.e. come to faith), we then have the Holy Spirit within us as a deposit *guaranteeing* what is to come. Sure – we are then taken on a journey (and sometimes it does feel as if our path is strewn by cow-pats from the devil’s own satanic herd – as Blackadder put it). But the journey itself is not faith – it is our faith – and more importantly the Holy Spirit that comes through faith – that guides us through that journey – a journey that prepares us for the heavenly life to come in communion with Him – but I wouldn’t describe the journey itself as faith. It seems like the wrong perspective – and raises alarm bells.
From all that you have written here (and let us exclude views on sexuality, marriage, LLF) your profession doesn’t really look like that of someone who is ‘in Him’. (I’d probably say the same about several of the ‘conservative’ contributors here – but you are the one who asked about the vows you took).
You’re probably in good company. I remember reading Karl Barth’s short volume ‘Dogmatics in Outline’ where he had several chapters ‘Faith is …’ – faith is this, faith is that, faith is the other – all these things seemed consequent to faith and a corollary of faith, but none of them actually were faith.
Jock – well it’s a good job you aren’t a member of the CofE or have any part of examining or preparing clergy then!
At last, someone else who thinks Barth’s Dogmatik im Grundriss is over-rated waffle! Thank you for saying so.
Blackadder – youre going to steal it (a book)
Baldrick – but then Ill go to hell forever, for stealing
Blackadder – Baldrick, believe me, eternity in the company of Beelzebub and all his hellish instruments of death, will be a picnic compared to 5 minutes with me…and this pencil.
hilarious!
Thanks Jock.
I’ve missed your exchanges on my phone with Andrew Godsall.
I’m always wary of the tendancy today to talk about journeys, with no destination in sight, nor where it leads.
Even more so when faith remains undefined as faith in what or who.
We all live by faith! Even atheists, unbelievers in Christ.
The Christian delineation is life pre-conversion and life post-conversion by and to Jesus the Christ.
Sure there may be a period (47 years for me) of a life BC and a life AD.
But it is now a life in union with Christ, and being indwelled by Holy Spirit, of our Father and of the Son.
Otherwise what can remain is faith in faith which is a dead-end street.
With thanks to the Kinks (it’s worth watching to the end! – a nod to resurrection life, perhaps?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XicSL93pYFY
Geoff – thanks! – and I appreciate your comments here too. I liked the link! (but The Kinks are before my time – this one was from a couple of years before I was born).
Yes – I find the discussions with AG more interesting when they’re not on matters connected with sexuality – but, like you, am somewhat alarmed by this woolly definition of ‘faith’.
I see we have once again lapsed into the same five or six people commenting with great frequency.
Might be it an idea for all those regulars to take a break, and allow room for some more constructive engagement by others…?
I’m regularly struck by the stamina of people who engage in virtually the same round of argument, time after time, when they must realise how remote is the likelihood that they will change anyone’s mind. It may be fun, compelling even, but there must surely come a point when you have to question whether this is time well spent.
Putting aside for a moment the detailed arguments, we essentially we have two sides: one group sees resolving the issue in terms of discerning the mind of God (from scripture and biological reality) which then gives rise to unshakable conviction about what the truth is and where the path of obedience necessarily leads; the other group sets the evidence of scripture and science alongside the moving locus of surrounding culture and, deriving no firm conviction, concludes the only possible solution must somehow emerge from a magical process which can accommodate more than one alleged truth at one and the same time.
I suppose you might call this conviction versus culture. On the one hand are Christians who believe in a sovereign God whose intention for human flourishing has, once and for all, been revealed in unambiguous, sometimes arduous, but ultimately loving terms. On the other hand there are Christians who see the reality of people’s lives around them which pose genuine question about whether what they see presents a side of God (and a possible response) about which the conviction of the first group makes them unaware.
But the question must be asked: is it better to accept what you may experience as bitter but temporary pain because the ultimate prize – eternal peace with God – is so precious, or is the pain so overwhelming that avoiding it is worth taking the risk of getting on the wrong side of God and losing everything? It would be foolish to suggest any of this is easy but there’s no greater importance than getting it right.
But if people avoid simple logic OR study results OR common sense, we do achieve an end and an advance: namely, that they have been identified as not honest, and therefore their place in the debate is forfeited. That is a result and that is progress.
Indeed, Christopher, but we’re dealing with people who have little or no concern for logic, study results and common sense, choosing instead political means to achieve the goals set by an ideology which has captured their minds. Thus they are neither willing or possibly even mentally capable of listening.
Yes. So, because of that, they must be said to lose. To be defeated. To be bested. To be worsted.
(Sorry I couldn’t resist – a recent crossword puzzle had clue ‘best’ and solution ‘worst’).
To claim that commenters such as Jonathan Tallon, David Runcorn, Andrew Godsall, Peter Jeremy and me have not studied scripture, tradition, ecclesiology, and theologies is laughably insulting. Those captured by ideology are the ones who parrot western post 1700 thinking as though they were eternal verities and not a very partial reading of the tradition based on prior commitments to ‘biblical witness’.
Sorry *I*. It’s late and hot and I’m waiting for a delayed plane!
WHEN did Peter study these things?
And if Andrew studied them to anhy significant degree, then what is the point of his being reactive and destructive rather than constructive in his comments? He could bring to bear such study by being constructive.
As for Jonathan Tallon it is now at least 6 times he has been reminded about studies (Blosnich; Turban) which he quoted in his 14.4.23 Church Times letter which refer to the whole of a person’s life which he then assumed referred to the period after their counselling only – a clear mistake; and is it honest not to discuss it?
As for David Runcorn, his propensity to pull out of almost any discussion before it has really got going has been commented on.
Just as a matter of interest, Christopher, what linguistics study have you done? 😉
“And if Andrew studied them to anhy significant degree, then what is the point of his being reactive and destructive rather than constructive in his comments? He could bring to bear such study by being constructive.”
Christopher – I and all the people you mention here have studied these things to quite a significant degree, and other things besides. I am fully aware of that. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the problem with any discussion involving you is a problem with you and not with them? Or maybe a psychodynamic between you and them? I have mentioned before that debate involves emotional intelligence as well as factual matters.
I can’t speak for the others you mention – though I have witnessed them trying to make at least some of these points to you.
1. You have a tendency to use 100 words where 10 will do. Your level of waffle is high.
2. You tend to use complex sentences which obscure the meaning of what you are saying. When people mention this your response is ‘well I was using the word this way and not the way that you were using it’.
3. Your use of language isn’t always straightforward. It can look precise but when analysed it is just vast generalisation wrapped up in flowery language.
4. You tend to make 7 points in response to 1 point and make it very difficult to respond as you then complain that the person didn’t respond to all 7 points. This is a comments section on a blog – not a post grad seminar.
5. Your comments frequently lack any degree of emotional intelligence.
6. Your comments have a self righteous quality masquerading as facts.
7. You won’t allow that there are any facts other than those you put forward yourself.
8. You have minimal awareness of your one cultural prejudices.
I hope this helps – but I doubt it will. But you did ask for reasons. There are 8 of them.
I don’t believe I have done any linguistics studies to speak of. In fact the burden of what I have been saying in the past 7-8 exchanges with you is that you did not accurately understand the points I was making, so wrongly thought that linguistics was relevant to them. Surely you read when I said that, and surely you therefore resolved to understand which points I was in fact making.
However, the idea that one can take one comparatively-random branch of study that is somehow distantly related (as so many branches always are somewhat relevant) and major in on that is certainly a novel way of conducting debate.
Although I have no qualifications at all in linguistics (the direct relevance of which subject escapes me, though of course thousands of things are relevant in some way), I am tertiary-qualified in more different humanities than are any present company (several of which overlap with linguistics, including literatures and philosophy), and in missiology, & have published only in a more social-sciences area. In addition my thesis is multi-disciplinary.
As for Andrew saying ‘You won’t allow that there are any facts other than those you have put forward yourself’, what a preposterous thing for anyone to have said. Which is why I did not say it, and why he is quite inaccurate and possibly dishonest to think I did or would.
How on earth does Andrew know what studies other people often unknown to him have done? It is easy for someone to tell if someone is NOT versed in an area of study, but how would anyone know qualifications by telepathy? They can simply list what studies they have done.
The emotional intelligence ‘card’ is priceless. It’s like someone comes along and says, national insurance has gone up by 2 per cent – but that is before we apply emotional intelligence! Emotional intelligence confirms that the number is really 9 per cent, or else that it does not matter anyway, because whatever the person with emotional intelligence says, that it how it is. Strangely enough people always claim that it is THEY who have EI and not others; even more strangely (and conveniently), EI is impossible to quantify/measure. But even if all that were not the case, EI would still be relevant only in its own sphere. Debate is not its own sphere, because it is about facts that would need first to be researched. EI tells no-one any facts.
Your other points just show that I go into more detail (as better analyses will naturally do): that you do not always understand what I write (as nor do I understand those many who have looked into a given subject more than I have). You do not go into our comparative qualifications. Your speculation that I have less than honest motives (and how on earth would you know? – after all, playground dishonesty is not, to be sure, normal for those who devote years precisely to the pursuit of truth) does you no credit.
Christopher
Priceless! You have just answered all Andrew’s points!
Good try Andrew!
Christopher, if you go back and look at the exchanges we have had, you (hopefully) will notice that they involve arguments that _you_ have brought into the discussion. These arguments (that _you_ have introduced) are about language and how it seems to work in communication. Why should someone trained and interested in linguistics not point out the error (and, sometimes, silliness) in _your_ _linguistic_ arguments?
Thanks for demonstrating all of my points Christopher.
Isolate wherein lies the silliness (as opposed to your own urge that there should be silliness) and then we can all inspect whether silliness it be.
PCD, your exultant unsupported assertion of less than one line re 47 totally diverse and various lines should be framed as an example of your/inadequate method, and secondly as an example of your drive to incriminate, whether rationally or irrationally.
And still you go on demonstrating all of the points I made…..
There is no way we can believe that facile one-liner is true unless you give details. Why are you so shy about details unless because you cannot give them?
Oh look, it turns out people can talk about there being “sides” (and indeed, “two sides”) without you arguing that they’ve invalidated their entire position.
Indeed Don, I would far rather move from talk to action – to get the deceitful heretic bishops out.
Anton, is that realistic?
The process of appointments, to that office, and in the selection of ordinands, along with lack of doctrinal discipline with resulting security of tenure, millitates against that happening, within the foreseeable future. And they know it. It is part of liberal planning, theological training, strategy. It is building unity in their image.
Anton and Geoff, everything that Welby has done, along with those who picked him for the job, and the colleagues with whom he has surrounded himself, has been possible because of the huge financial assets owned by the Church of England. Of course it’s not an infinite resource and not all of it is immediately accessible, but there’s certainly enough there to maintain an illusion of continuing institutional viability at least until the organisation is totally subservient to the cultural Marxists who are notorious for their ruthless but patient persistence in achieving their goals.
Rather like what happens to churches in China, it’s not about the total destruction of Christianity: those who are prepared, when required, to bow the knee to ‘the party’ will be allowed to continue in existence (if they’re willing to do so under such circumstances). They already have a grip on our politicians, educators, police, the legal system, health, finance sector, armed forces – in fact everything that controls our nation and our individual lives. Why should anyone think the established church would be exempted?
Holding what were once sound assumptions that we live in a free, democratic nation is no longer tenable for anyone who has been paying close attention to what’s been going on over the last decade or so, although one does need to look beyond the MSM to get the real picture.
I think many good and faithful Christians in the C of E who lament what’s been happening within their church still don’t realise how it connects with the enormity of what’s happening right across the secular Western world. We’re looking at a massive satanic attack on humanity, and a slim majority of their own (my own) church has already been captivated by the wrong side. I’m not saying it’s Armageddon in our time – that’s not my call! but I certainly think that, very soon, even the most complacent among us will realise that things are never going to be the same again in our lifetimes. As has always been the case when all seems lost, Christians will be calling out to God in prayer like never before. He will answer!
Agreed Don.
It’s no skin of my nose ecclesiastically speaking, as my loyalty nowadays is to congregation, not denomination, and happens today to be to a Church of England congregation. I care nothing for the Anglican *system*, nor would do so even if its hierarchy were not full of hypocrites who take money to peddle doubt.
My best guess is that God is calling time on institutional Christianity. I think evangelicals will fail to campaign strongly. But *if* they did then they’d win, becaue you can’t lose when you have Jesus Christ on your side. Like you I don’t know how such a victory would happen, but I know that it would.
I really don’t know why you bother. You have admitted that you only worship in a CoE church because it’s convenient and you agree with its ecclesiology. Christopher doesn’t care for denominations. Some commenters aren’t Anglicans. It’s a Synodical matter. Let the
CoE get on with its own governance. All this fuss about apostasy is getting really tiresome.
I am in a Roger Forster way rather keen on plural denominations, just like I am keen on plural regimental loyalty, plural school rivalries, supporting plural teams, and plural national costumes. Not the main thing, but great fun.
I bother because I don’t like to see Satan having a ball in any denomination. Including Catholicism, for the avoidance of doubt.
Oh, he’s having a ball. But not in the areas you think!
We can all benefit from your inside knowledge? It reminds me of the hymn line ‘I join the heavenly lays’ – perfectly meaningful but from another angle almost sounds like being on nodding terms with the angel choir members.
“perfectly meaningful but from another angle almost sounds like being on nodding terms with the angel choir members.”
You mean it’s neither precise nor vague?
That was a different discussion.
Sure, but it helpfully demonstrates that language can be neither precise nor vague.
No, not remotely. It is precise in its uncontested meaning. [It is also equally precise in the humorous but clearly impossible second meaning (i.e. bragging about angelic connections) I lightheartedly, not seriously, suggested for it.]
You mean that all language has to be classified as either precise or vague? There are no other ways that language is used?
You might call it conviction versus culture. Or you might call it comforting yourself with a straw man.
If one group are going to claim for themselves an unshakeable conviction about truth, then I’d have thought they could be honest about the real history about how we got here. The “traditional” teaching on homosexuality being defended is, in reality, a novel interpretation that only goes back to the 1970s. A old supposed lynchpin of “traditional” arguments was for many years that homosexuality could be cured with therapy and prayer, and a number of those from the “traditional” side spent their time hawking that message around with folks like Alan Chambers of Exodus International, Jeremy Marks of Courage and Martin Hallett of True Freedom Trust until it all collapsed in the 2000s. It’s the end of the argument that gay people can change their sexual orientation that has presented us with the current debate.
Responding to Ian’s comment this morning, might I try to bring the conversation back to the broader point about truth and unity? How do we try to discern the truth? What is the nature and scope of unity? If there are significant differences in our answers to these kinds of questions, then it is not surprising that there will be presenting issues which will divide us.
Might the historic creeds be the basis for such a discussion? A week or so ago I attended the fairwell service for a local rector who is, sadly, retiring from parish ministry. It was a great service, with the retiree sharing something of his testimony. It was a particular delight to have the full Nicene Creed. At a church which I will not identify, I found in the printed order of service, not used fortunately, a ‘creedal statement’ which was exceedingly deficient in its Christology, and absent of any soteriology.
But I would suggest as a starting point the Eccesiology in the Nicene Creed:
We believe in one holy, catholic and apostolic church.
These words carry a weight. There is certainly a challenge to evangelicals in this, who have had a very weak ecclesiology.
In seeking the truth, to what extent are we doing so in the context of the one church? This challenges denominational boundaries, and geographical and cultural divides. It should be done in the context of the whole Church both in space and time.
The word catholic carries much the same sense. It seems ironic to me that in the discussions, evangelicals are aligned with the traditional catholics, and so are more catholic than the liberal catholics. Some statements here seem to imply that the right context for decisions is the House of Bishops, or General Synod, or that part of the church catholic of which the king is supreme governor.
The church should be holy. It should be distinct from the world, set apart for the purposes of God. This should inform us about what is acceptable and not acceptable within the church, without regard to the views of these things outside of the church.
The church should be apostolic, drawing fundamentally on the witness to the living Word found in the written words of Scripture.
“But Augustine’s doctrine of the Church and Sacraments had not yet given way before his doctrine of grace when he was called away from this world of partial attainment to the realms of perfect thought and life above. It still maintained a place by its side, fundamentally inconsistent with it, limited, modified by it, but retaining its own inner integrity. It is the spectacle of collectivism and individualism striving to create a modus vivendi; of dependence on God alone, and the intermediation of a human institution endeavoring to come to good understanding. It was not and is not possible for them to do so. Augustine had glimpses of the distinction between the invisible and the visible Church afterward elaborated by his spiritual children: he touched on the problem raised by the notions of baptismal regeneration and the necessity of the intermediation of the Church for salvation in the face of his passionately held doctrine of the free grace of God, and worked out a sort of compromise between them.…….He left behind him, therefore, a structure which was not complete: but what he built he built to last. Had he been granted, perhaps, ten years longer of vigorous life, he might have thought his way through this problem also. He bequeathed it to the Church for solution, and the Church required a thousand years for the task. But even so, it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For what was the Reformation, inwardly considered, but the triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church?”
B. B. Warfield, Studies in Tertullian and Augustine. The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. IV, Augustine and his Confessions, p.284.
Phil Almond
If the Bible is anything less than God’s personal words to us, then
treating it as the foundation of wisdom makes little sense.
If it’s just an ancient collection of sacred texts
created by humans to propagate a particular religion,
the Bible would be of little importance.
But the Bible is not just a book.
It is God’s very words to us.
When we read the Bible, we are encountering God himself.
If we love God, we will love his word.
If we fear God, we fear his word.
If we view Jesus Christ as authoritative,
we also view Scripture as authoritative (as Jesus himself did).2
When God speaks, we are obligated to obey. His speech,
and only his, is supremely authoritative.
And Scripture is his speech.
But we humans hate authority.
We don’t like subjecting ourselves to
anyone other than ourselves.
We like to think we are all we need to figure out how to flourish in the world.
Adam’s original sin was a proud intellectual self-sufficiency,
what J. I. Packer describes as the “ability to solve all life’s problems
without reference to the word of God.”3
True faith, argues Packer, means giving up the
notion of intellectual autonomy and recognizing that
“true wisdom begins with a willingness to treat God’s Word
as possessing final authority.”4
Man is not the measure of all things. God is.
God’s word is our most important and indisputable authority.
This is not to say it is the only authority.
R. C. Sproul notes that the Reformation notion of sola Scriptura
does not mean the Bible is the only authority for the Christian,
but that it is the only infallible authority.5
Popes, councils, church tradition, pastors, scholars with PhDs, and
every other human source is fallible, but Scripture is infallible—for
the simple reason that God himself is infallible.
This is important because some Christian traditions place the
authority of Scripture on equal footing with other authorities.
Roman Catholicism, for example, places church tradition
on authoritative par with Scripture.
Some liberal Christians place human reason on par
with Scripture’s authority, suggesting our contemporary values and
subjective interpretations ultimately determine the Bible’s meaning.
But both these approaches break down because they place too much
authority in the flawed interpretations of men.
Again, this is not to say church tradition and human reason
(among other things) are not valuable authorities; it’s just that they
are lesser authorities than the authority of Scripture.
But is Scripture really infallible? Wasn’t it written by fallible hu-
mans? Isn’t it full of seeming errors and contradictions? These are
common objections to treating Scripture as an ultimate
epistemological authority.
Answering them sufficiently would require much
more space than I have here. But the short response is that the focus
must be on God’s infallibility and perfect original communication
to us, not on the imperfection of human copyists, translators, and
interpreters.
Sproul puts it succinctly when he says,
“When orthodoxy confesses the infallibility of Scripture
it is not confessing anything about the intrinsic infallibility of men.
Rather the confession rests
its confidence on the integrity of God,”[ that it is all “breathed
out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16)]
Page 76 The Wisdom Pyramid. Brett McCracken,
Jewish *wisdom* differs from Greek wisdom in that it is a binary choice;
Wisdom as, which will you choose? Good or evil, wisdom or folly, light or darkness, rebellion or submission, sin or holiness.
Greek wisdom is man’s philosophy of life without regards to God.
Note: – 1:20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?…….
1:24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 COR.1
The fundamental problem is which Wisdom are we to chose,it is a binary choice ?
“The creation of humanity, male and female, in God’s image, is a core creedal question and thus male-female marriage has always been a core ethical distinctive of the people of God.”
A creedal question, but one that somehow didn’t make it into the creeds?
“Instead, let’s just focus on the Church of England’s own doctrine, liturgy, and canons. These are completely clear and consistent that marriage is between one man and one woman, and that sexual intimacy outside of male female marriage is sin.”
But you appear to short-circuit the discussion by arguing that the Bishops and clergy are obliged to be against any shift, revision, reinterpreatation or reform. That however, would seem to run into some problems as soon as a step away from this issue. Doctrine, liturgy and canons were very clear that women clergy weren’t permitted until we decided that they were. Doctrine, liturgy, and canons were very clear that remarriage of divorcees wasn’t on, until we decided that they were. Doctrine, liturgy, and canons were very clear that polygamy wasn’t possible, until we decided to make an exception. Doctrine, liturgy, and canons are very clear that infant baptism is a-ok, but we have clergy able to argue against that.
I’m glad that one or two comments have gone to the Nicene Creed.
The CofE position, as I understand, is that the Nicene Creed is the sufficient statement of Christian faith – ie if you can say it without your fingers crossed, then you’re a Christian rather than something else.
And there’s nothing in there about marriage or sexuality.
I disagree with PLF, but I distrust those conservative voices who say that it’s a “gospel issue”. I think the danger of distorting the gospel is on the other side. Canon B30 is essential to being a good Anglican, but if someone claims it’s essential to the gospel, they aren’t being a good Anglican and they may even be adding to the gospel.