‘Valuing All God’s Children’ (VAGC) was first published in 2014 in response to research claiming to show homophobic bullying was something which needed particular attention in Church schools. It was revised in 2017 and 2019, but was the cause of controversy for three reasons. First, it was felt to be implying that children and young people should be encouraged in their gender questioning; secondly, there was evidence that the work receiving funding from Stonewall, and this was confirmed in Synod questions; thirdly, in the list of resources, Stonewall, Mermaids, and other gender-identity pressure groups were listed. This list of resources was then withdraw—but it is now not possible to find VAGC online, as it has been removed from the Church of England website. As a result of this approach, VAGC has been cited in three cases where Christians have been disciplined, lost their jobs, or prosecuted for advocating historic Christian views on sex and marriage.
The replacement for VAGC is called ‘Flourishing for All’ (FFA). Instead of being published immediately, a draft has been published for consultation. It was published on 5th July, and the period for consultation ends on 31st July, next Wednesday; whilst the principle of consultation is good, this is a very short time-frame, and comes just after the General Election, includes the meeting of General Synod, and is just at the time when schools are ending a busy term and many who are affected by this will be off on holiday.
But before considering the content, there is a much more basic question to ask: why is this needed? What does the C of E Education department (and the National Society) to offer in addition to what is already provided? After all, there is already Government guidance on combating bullying in schools, and there is even specific guidance on the vexed question of children claiming to want to ‘socially transition‘, as well as the longer guidance in keeping children safe in education. And what will it add to the agencies already campaigning against bullying which this reports mentions in its appendix?
So what will this CofE document bring? What will it add from a Christian point of view? And why is it so long (58 pages) when the corresponding Government guidance is only 15 pages?
To find answers to these questions, we need to turn to the content of the document.
The problems begin with the assumptions made about the approach to the this issue.
Every child deserves to learn in an environment where they are loved, supported, and respected…All children deserve to love their childhood, finding space for play, exploration, imagination and creativity. They should be surrounded by loving relationships, structures and systems which release and enable life in all its fullness (p 3).
At first, this looks like something everyone can agree with. But a moment’s reflection shows how problematic this is. It assumes that a central part of the role of teachers in a school is to ‘love’ the children. That is to put quite unrealistic and unprofessional demands on our teachers. Of course, no child should feel unloved, but where should this sense of being loved come from? The elephant in the room here is the lack of mention here (or in any documents from Education I am aware of) of the importance of a stable family context for children. Too often schools are expected to repair the damage done to children by broken family contexts, rather than addressing the question of family and parental relationships directly.
Flourishing children are to be loved unconditionally, enabled ambitiously, supported compassionately and championed relentlessly (p 9, citing an earlier document).
This is the role of parents and families, not schools—unless schools are now to be surrogate parents.
The overall approach also buys into the contemporary moral axiom of ‘do no harm.’
Ensuring our children are kept safely from harm and educated in an environment where all God’s children are valued is of the highest priority (p 10, citing an earlier document).
But as Jonathan Haidt has highlighted, in his work The Righteous Mind, this is both an unproductive and potentially harmful basis for moral systems. Environments designed to protect people from any kind of harm deprive them of the possibility of developing character and resilience—the goal of enabling people to cope with challenges is often absent—and have to impose draconian strictures on behaviour in the forlorn hope of creating such an environment. (Note: the opposite of this approach is not allowing harm to happen, but to focus on structural issues which are better in the longer term.)
Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this approach, though, is the dragooning of biblical texts, ripped out of context, and applied to broad social situations. The phrase ‘life in all its fulness’, which has become a mantra for the Education department, it taken from John 10.10:
Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10.7–11)
The context here is of Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees following his healing of the man born blind. Jesus here claims to be the true leader of God’s people, over against those who lead people astray, and it points towards the centrality of following him, since he is he one who has died for us. This is not a text about general social flourishing of all people.
To use it in this way in schools is to strip it of its theological, Christological, and discipleship context. This should be a verse that encourages evangelism in schools—but again, I am not aware of any publications from the Education department that offer guidance on this (though I am happy to be corrected on this). The only serious research that has been done on this question shows that attendance at a Church school had no impact on whether children actually came to faith themselves—which raises a significant question about why we are putting energy into Church schools in the first place.
This universalising and sociological approach can be seen in the language of ‘children of God’. The title of the previous report, ‘Valuing All God’s Children’ assumed that somehow all children and young people were ‘children of God’, and this report makes the same assumption:
A chaplain’s first responsibility will be to safeguard the pupils in the school, understanding that – regardless of their faith position on human sexuality and gender – each is innately precious as a child of God (p 38).
This is completely contrary to biblical language, in which ‘children of God’ specifically refers to those who are disciples, born again by the Spirit (John 3), who know God as Father (Romans 8).
These problems are played out throughout the report.
The claims the report makes about the problem to be addressed themselves raise questions.
The Anti-bullying Alliance survey in 2023 revealed that almost 1 in 4 (23%) of children in England’s schools report being frequently bullied.
If that is true, and bullying is intolerable, then our schools are in serious trouble. The issue here is relying on self-reporting, which might be useful, but is not a reliable guide to quantitative evidence in the way it is being used here.
This report seeks to follow in the footsteps of VAGC, which ‘was always intended to be a specific resource to enable schools to address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying’ (p 5). When I asked a friend what might be the main causes of bullying which might warrant specific resources, the reply was ‘Race? Disability? Autism?’ It is not immediate clear why this specific issue needs such special attention. The report seeks to address ‘the specific nature of that type of bullying within Church schools’ suggesting that Church schools might have unique problems that need to be addressed—but this startling claim is not actually justified anywhere. It almost seems as though Church schools are being targeted as uniquely problematic.
The answer to this puzzle is found in the remarkably broad definition of what constitutes bullying. This include ‘name-calling’ and ‘Sharing of untrue or private information without permission’, and these are put alongside ‘Coercive and harmful sexual behaviour’. What is particularly disturbing is that this catch-all definition of ‘what bullying actually looks like’ is then immediately linked with ‘criminally harmful behaviour’ (despite later noting that ‘bullying is not a criminal offence’, p 18).
The link here is provided by statistics on hate crime:
Around 70% of hate crime is directed at people where race is a protected characteristic. 5.6% was based on religion and 9% based on disability. 16.5% of hate crimes were motivated by homophobia or biphobia, with 3% motivated by transphobia. However, transgender hate crime has increased by 11% compared to the previous year.
This immediately raises the question as to why we do not have a report focussing on racial bullying. Once more, the report is leaning heavily on perception, since the controversial term ‘hate crime’ is defined as ‘Any non-crime incident which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by a hostility or prejudice’ (emphasis added). And there is no clear explanation of what these ‘phobias’ are.
We have now bumped into the elephant in the room, and the one that has led to criminal actions being taken against Christians even in Church schools. Is it a ‘hate crime’ or ‘bullying’ to explain within a school the Church’s own understanding of marriage—that, ‘according to the teaching of our Lord, it is a lifelong and exclusive union between one man and one woman’ (Canon B30)? The report remains silent on this, even though one might think that explaining this teaching would be an integral part of what it meant for a Church school to be, well, a Church school.
The focus on perceived offence becomes seriously problematic in relation to issues around ‘transgender’. What is ‘transphobia’? Does it include the scientific belief that there are two sexes? And the rejection of the unfounded claim that someone can be ‘born in the wrong body’? Here, the report is inconsistent and contradictory. It claims that ‘we only use the term transgender in relation to adults’ and yet repeatedly, throughout the rest of the report, talks of children who are part of, or perceived to be part of the ‘LGBT+ community’ (passing over the questions as to whether such a ‘community’ exists, what LGB has in common with T, and what the ‘+’ stands for).
It now becomes clear (as briefly mentioned in the introduction) that this is the first section of a suite of resources on bullying, covering other protected characteristics. Again, why are we starting with this one—and why is it thought that producing a series of long reports is the best way to be seen to be taking action? This approach is based on ‘intersectionality‘ (p 21), which is presented as a neutral term, without any hint of the origins of this approach in radical feminism and critical theory.
The basis on which this section then develops is highly problematic:
Homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying are the terms used to describe bullying which is motivated by prejudice, intolerance or hate of people who are (or perceived to be) LGBT+. Transphobic bullying can affect transgender adults, as well as people who are non-binary, gender questioning children, pupils who have already socially transitioned at school and pupils who are not gender questioning, but who do not conform to gender stereotypes and social norms (p 27).
These terms remain undefined. What does it mean to be ‘biphobic’, when ‘phobia’ implies an irrational hatred and fear of something? Remember, this material is designed to apply to primary as well as secondary schools. Given the length and complexity of the development of sexuality, what can these terms mean when applied to a playground of five- and six-year-olds? How can this not be read as a sexualising approach to children and young people?
What does it mean for a person to ‘be non-binary’? This whole section looks as though it has taken for granted the approach of Stonewall, Mermaids, or other campaigning groups to claim these categories as unquestionable absolutes.
And it includes name-calling of those ‘who do not conform to gender stereotypes and social norms’ under this broad term ‘HBT bullying’. So if a girl is teased for being a tomboy, this is ‘homophobic bullying’? This is an extraordinary claim—and one which imposes gender identity politics on the school environment, sacrificing the innocence of childhood. The report includes helpful exploration of the problems here:
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams argued that modern society has not protected the ‘latency of childhood’. Childhood should be a time where it is accepted that development is still in progress. Williams comments that in our modern world ‘children are pressed into adult or pseudo-adult roles as fast as possible’. This need to protect childhood from early sexualisation and consumerism has been taken up by the Mothers’ Union in their Bye Buy Childhood campaign.101 It is also a theme in the Bishop of Gloucester’s Liedentity campaign which seeks to protect young people from the damaging influence of social media and promote the message that who you are is more than how you look (p 46).
But the reports imposition of adult, sexualised categories on children and young people fails its own test as expressed here—and this is not the only place this happens.
Outdated terms which no longer have a place in our vocabulary (please refer to the glossary for up-to-date terms) (p 28).
Yet the glossary repeats ideological terms like cisgender as though they were accurate and uncontested, and makes the common error of talking about ‘intersex people’ as though there were people who were not biologically male or female (almost all those with one of the several rare intersex conditions are nevertheless clearly male or female, which is why medical professionals never talk about ‘intersex people’). Worst of all, it repeatedly refers to ‘sex assigned at birth’, which is ideological language from gender identity groups completely at odds with medical and biological reality. Biological sex is real, not something ‘assigned.’
It is more than ironic when the report claims that ‘Remaining silent on the topic, or avoiding it, can send a hurtful message to pupils and/or adults who are LGBT+’ (p 29) whilst it remains completely silent on the Church of England’s own doctrine of marriage and how that might relate to these vexed issues.
A separate, major failure is to attend to the issues around ‘gender questioning’ children. Whilst it gives a nod to new Government draft guidance, it appears to by-pass completely the implications of that. Here, the Government is wiser and more robust than this report:
3. Parents should not be excluded from decisions taken by a school or college relating to requests for a child to ‘socially transition.’ Where a child requests action from a school or college in relation to any degree of social transition, schools and colleges should engage parents as a matter of priority, and encourage the child to speak to their parents, other than in the exceptionally rare circumstances where involving parents would constitute a significant risk of harm to the child.
4. Schools and colleges have specific legal duties that are framed by a child’s biological sex. While legislation exists that allows adults to go through a process to change their legal sex, children’s legal sex is always the same as their biological sex.
5. There is no general duty to allow a child to ‘social transition. (p 6)
In FFA, reference to caution, parental involvement, and the importance of biological sex are notable by their absence.
The ‘particular’ problems in Church schools in the next section (p 33) are never fully spelled out—but the implication is that people having clear views are the problem. The solution to this is to learn to ‘live with difference’, treating all views as equal and equally valid. It does this by drawing very partially on Synod debates, in which it notes there was a lament about the failure to welcome and affirm ‘LGBTQI+ people’—without any mention being made of the continued affirmation of the Church’s doctrine of marriage as between one man and one woman.
It is extremely important to recognise that Church of England schools educate those of all faiths and none, including those with very varied understandings of Christian teaching on a range of subjects (p 34)
Therefore, it is our responsibility to, with sensitivity and care, set out to young people and their parents, that the Church of England has some good news that they need to hear? Far from it!
In order to do this, a school will need to teach pupils how to respect different viewpoints, disagree well in their interactions and understand that families and individuals can hold beliefs that differ from one another yet still live together well…
When supporting the delivery of the curriculum, clergy may find themselves discussing differences that exist within the Church. In these situations, careful use of language such as “some Christians believe”, “other Christians believe” is more helpful when holding a range of views together than absolute language. However, it is critical that viewpoints which are homophobic, biphobic or transphobic are not presented since to do so would be harmful to both pupils and adults.
The shocking implication is that to express the teaching of Jesus on sexuality and marriage as the Church has understood it amounts to being ‘homophobic, biphobic or transphobic’.
In support of this, the report reaches for the Pastoral Principles developed as part of the LLF conversations. But, again, it fails to live them out. It fails to recognise the strong prejudice against historic Christian ethics of marriage and family in our culture. It fails to speak into the silence around what the Church’s doctrine is, and does not address the ignorance of this in our schools. And it fails to recognise the power that has been exercise over children—including in Church schools—by ideological campaigning groups like Stonewall and Mermaids.
And these two failures combine. Without teaching children that there is a better way, it leaves them vulnerable to the power of ‘influencers’ on social media and in our wider culture. Schools should surely be offering protection from harmful influences that will mislead impressionable and insecure young people, but FFA appears to offer none.
This report leaves vital questions unanswered.
What if children and young people need to hear truths that they might at first find difficult? What if simply affirming all patterns of family life, however broken, under the banners of ‘do no harm’ and ’cause no offence’ actually leads to affirming patterns of life which have been shown to harm young people and disadvantage them?
What if the teaching of Jesus on marriage as between one man and one woman, and on sexual continence, is actually in children’s best interests to at least hear and understand? What if explaining this might actually be part of the role of a Church school?
What if the answers to bullying and unkindness arise not from adopting secular language of intersectionality and sexualised categories imposed on children, but from a proper Christian understanding of what it means to be human and to scriptural teaching on responsibility and the use of speech?
All these questions are sidestepped in FFA, as if either or no importance or, perhaps, simply wrong. In the end, this report offers little or nothing which is distinctively Christian, and seems to reduce to the social worker in the Riding Lights sketch from the 1980s of the Good Punk Rocker on the train from London to York: ‘I really care about the kids’.
Church of England, can we really not do better than this? Have we nothing more to offer to the millions of children in our care?
Dear reader, if you think the Church could do better, please be sure to complete the response to the consultation here by Wednesday 31st July.
Buy me a Coffee
I agree with many of the concerns expressed here. But doesn’t the genealogy in Luke 3 imply that everyone is in some sense a child of God (“son of Adam… son of God”)? Having said that, the gospel message doesn’t stop with saying “you are loved unconditionally…” of course it doesn’t.
Thanks Penny. No, because that it tracing the lineage of Jesus. Those who are children of God are the ones who ‘received him’ (John 1), are ‘born again’ (John 3), and have received the Spirit (Romans 8). This is consistent throughout Scripture.
Pasul told the Athenians that all people were God’s children (Acts 17:28).
Nope. He quotes from the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus.
Thanks, Ian. I didn’t have any resources to hand, or at the forefront of this aging mind and memory.
It is a footnote to most Bibles.
In a strict sense, all baptised Christians are (adopted) children of God. In a wider sense, because everyone is made in God’s image and likeness and God desires that all human beings be saved, all human persons can be said to be children of God. To be a creature made in God’s image is a source of great (infinite?) dignity. So in this metaphorical sense, all human beings are indeed children of God.
Scripture doesn’t appear to agree with you.
@Ian Paul
Disagrees on what?
– That (speaking metaphorically) we are all God’s children/offspring?
– That we’re all made in the image and likeness of God?
– That all human’s have an immeasurable worth and dignity?
– That God wills all people to be saved?
That all creation should be called ‘children of God’.
Sure, in a strict spiritual sense (1 John 3). However, in a broader sense we are all God’s children/offspring because we’re all made in His image and likeness and He desires all be saved (1 Timothy 2). To be a child of God is our “primordial vocation.”
No Christian would go around evangelising by describing the unbaptised or those caught in sin as “children of the devil” or “children of wrath.” (well, hopefully not!)
As Pope Francis said in 2021:
Is that really what Paul taught there.? Is it consistent with what he taught elsewhere, such as Galatians 3:16
Is what “what Paul taught”?
Ian, by quoting Acts, was not Anton suggesting Paul was teaching “all people are God’s children.”
In one short, seemingly innocuous, comment Anton has, for me, undermined his model for church, as it as matter of Christian theological substance, doctrine.
Hi Geoff… I simply didn’t quite understand what you were saying…
I agree with your answer below…
Can’t reply in the obvious place!
Paul said to the Athenians, as recorded in Acts 17:28, “As some of your ownpoets have said, We are all God’s offspring [genos].” Therefore all persons are God’s genos – children. To deny this is to deny scripture. But only the faithful are God’s HEIRS.
How greatly encouraged I have been by this article Ian Paul. As a Sunday School teacher who really cares about the little ones in my charge AND also involved in taking Open the Book Bible stories into three local village schools (two are C of E Schools), it is such a relief to read words from you that echo all my own observations and thoughts on what is happening today. I have precious grandchildren and now four great grandchildren, and I weep for them in prayer as I look out upon the world (including much of the church) that they are growing up in. As far back as 2011, one of my precious grandchildren came out of school at the age of 11 with a tear stained face. I was SO concerned, and asked him what was the matter. He couldn’t speak but shed yet more tears. At home, his mother sat with him and eventually he told her how frightened he was in cast he found he was homosexual, “because I don’t like what men to do each other.” It turned out that in the classroom, without his parents’ knowledge or consent, he, and his classmates had been shown four graphic drawings of two men leading up to, and including the homosexual act. I saw these with my own eyes. His parents complained vehemently, but the school said they could not have removed him from that class because, “It is mandatory.” Thankfully, today he is a confident young man in his twenties. He has remained single – his own choice – because he has not yet met the girl he feels drawn to marry. Did that class affect him in some way? I can’t answer that. But I pray for him, because I think it did make him wary of any relationship bless him.
I’m now 82 but want to spend all the days our dear Lord gives me, teaching the little ones He has entrusted into my care in both church and the schools, the good teachings of Jesus and the Apostles, as well as the Ten Commandments. I know these are the values that will help them build their lives upon firm foundations. Above all I pray that Jesus will speak to each of them through His Word and bring them to full faith in Him – following Him all through their lives. A lifetime ago, others did this for me, and I am eternally grateful to God for each of those teachers, and for my parents who also taught me good foundations.
What a great comment, Marian. I’m sure most of us would heartily echo your concern for what our children are facing at least in our Western world which has capitulated so comprehensively to the forces of darkness. Unless things change radically – always possible and impossible to predict – we will bequeath them a horribly bleak future.
But our great Lord God remains sovereign, he sees everything that’s going on and he sees directly into human hearts where the real battle between good and evil is played out. Whatever our age and circumstances we can, through the power of prayer, play as central a part in that battle as do any of the more prominent movers and shakers who appear to eclipse the rest of us through their ability to shape events and trends. Praying for present and future prophets, preachers, and evangelists – and we can never know who they all are or who they will be – may be a quiet or even lonely task but it’s enough to put fear in the Devil’s heart and shake the very foundations of hell. With that in mind, and if only for the sake of our children, we cannot afford nor should we allow ourselves ever to be downcast!
What foolish committee wrote this trash?
I wouldn’t quote Rowan Williams if I were you. On 4th April 2022 he was a signatory to a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson demanding that a ban on LGB ‘conversion therapy’ be extended to Trans persons, stating that “To be trans is to enter a sacred journey of becoming whole: precious, honoured and loved, by yourself, by others and by God.”
I am quoting a comment quoted in the report.
This report needs to be abandoned and whoever the writers were, need to be removed from position and the responsibility given to others who do not have the twisted, dangerous thinking of the world view of those who have written it. Need to start again from scratch and give longer consultation time.
I think I would agree…!
The problem isn’t with the use of the word “love.” The problem is the failure to give expression to what this verb means in a school offering a Christian education.
“Amare est velle alicui bonum,” teaches St Aquinas (To love is to will the good for another.”)
Tosh. I wouldn’t want to be at the receiving end of your idea of good for gay folks. I dare not imagine what it must be like for a lesbian or gay teenager to be taught by the likes of those who comment so kindly and sensitively here that their desire incline towards evil and they ought to resign themselves to a life of perpetual continence ‘pro bonis suis’.
It’s simply untrue that the CofE’s doctrine of marriage is not reasserted. It’s been reasserted over and over again. It’s just that conservative evangelicals don’t want any relationship for SSA people to exist beside.
@ Lorenzo
Tosh. I wouldn’t want to be at the receiving end of your idea of good for gay folks.
You’ve no idea what my view is on a Christian approach to those with same sex desires. Sure, like all orthodox Christians I believe homosexual acts are always violations of Divine and natural law, and also that all sex acts should be confined to a life long marriage between a man and woman. That said, I also recognise that everyone, including those with same- sex attraction, are people who God loves and for whom Christ died.
Homosexual behaviour is a distortion of the way human sexuality is meant to work, but it is not alone. There are many other distortions, including pornography, prostitution, and adultery. People with same-sex attraction suffer from a particular form of temptation. But we are all tempted to do things we should not, and we must all be clear-eyed about this fact and resist temptation. For people with same-sex attraction, as for people with every other temptation, we must as St Paul says, be “speaking the truth in love.”
People who have same-sex attraction have the same inherent dignity as other human beings, and they must be treated with respect – a respect that means we offer them the truth about human sin and the hope for dealing with it that is found in Jesus Christ.
We have not been treated with respect by the Roman Catholic Church wherever or whenever it has had the upper hand or any degree of control on the state, but met with torture or execution.
To be fair the Roman Catholic Church declined to support the Ugandan government’s efforts to execute gay people (unlike their Anglican brothers and sisters).
However, even in the West, when Roman Catholic bishops and apologists have been saying for decades that a homosexual orientation is not itself sinful, the Church continues to be clear that the orientation is a barrier to the priesthood. I’ve never understood why.
The thing is though Jack, what you’ve done there is glide past the question of what’s good for gay folks. Your response is, oddly if I may say, largely about you: that you have to recognise us as people God loves, that you ought not to feel superior to us, and you ought to treat us with respect and dignity. That’s nice, but I’m not sure who’s meant to be on the other side of that argument, and it still leaves Lorenzo and I without a real answer for ordering our lives.
‘It’s for your own good,’ I’ve heard it many times and still don’t believe it was true or even kindly meant.
Lorenzo,
There are some sweeping generalisation in your comments.
Parenting is at the heart of the matter. Teachers stand in loco parentis.
I was raised by one mother and one father and attended local state schools.
I’ll select one example parenting, of my mother physically chastising me for my own good, not because it was one of many, no, but because it was rare and memorable.
I’d been out locally in natures adventure playground trying to get some bullrushes/ reeds on the drying -out edges of a pond. The ground had a dried crust, which gave way to slimy, stinking, sinking and sucking mud, -quick sand. The harder I tried , the more tenacious the grip, the deeper I went. I was terrified, fuelled by TV depictions in Westerns of characters being sucked under.
Escape was at the hands of a friend, who pulled me out. I got myself into life threatening danger. I was helpless to get out of it myself.
We came away with a trophy of a couple of unimpressive, broken, bruised reeds.
I was under ten years old.
‘What have you been doing?’, mother asked, as I stood there covered in dried mud. ‘Nothing’,but she knew better, knew I’d been engaged harmful activitiesand I knew that truth could not be hidden from her. (A metaphor for our relationship with our Omniscient God in Triunity.)
As she washed me down, I still recall her words, even if they made no sense to me at the time, ‘This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you’, as she slapped hard, and painfully, my bare legs.
My mother did know better. Slapping me out of love, did grieve her greatly. Only as I now know better as and adult, do I now that was true.
Lozeno, from other comments, you oppose, modern identitarian, models, such as t, and q?. Is that because you know better and seek their best interests? Or is it because you want to defend and preserve your own self selected, self-interest lgb cohort?
And in doing so how would want the CoE to educate, in matters of sexual morality, even as that category has been gobbled up by that great giant, Gender.
You clearly want lines to be drawn, but where?
I defend them because it is manifestly impossible for anyone to change sex and to ask people to lie on the matter is an obvious wrong. I defend them because liberals are now trying to do what conservatives used to in the not-so-distant past: medicalise homosexuality out of existence.
I have on the other hand never been given any convincing evidence of harm coming from same-sex relationship (other than can also derive from opposite sex relationships). The onus is on the church to explain very, very clearly why they require huge sacrifices from people they have persecuted harshly for centuries. If Christians want us to believe that it was all done for our own good, they’d better change their definition of ‘good’ because it is completely unintelligible, verging on the offensive.
That has been done already at this blog repeatedly, but some don’t wish to know.
Where might you find God’s opinion rather than man’s, and what is it?
Why are you treating the word ‘relationship’ as meaning ‘sexual relationship’?
That is not what the word means.
Is it that you are trying to smuggle in the all important sexual aspect unmentioned?
‘I defend them because it is manifestly impossible for anyone to change sex and to ask people to lie on the matter is an obvious wrong.’
The trans lobby might differ.
Lorenzo
You grumble that we owe it to you to explain things that have been stated at this blog many times before, but when I ask you “Where might you find God’s opinion rather than man’s, and what is it?” you fall silent.
Christopher, either you didn’t *read* what Lorenzo said, or you are showing again that you don’t seem to understand how language works in communication. Or both.
No, Anton, all you and your mates have done is repeat the mantra: no sex outside heterosexual marriage. Not once have I read any morally cogent reason why sexually active, committed homosexual relationships were wrong for those whom marriage as you define it would be a disaster. Or indeed any attempt to show how a life of permanent continence is good for homosexual teenagers and its prospect ‘good news.’ Only that you believe it’s “God’s opinion.”
Lorenzo: Thank you for conceding that evangelicals have in fact been clear about their position. All else you say is that you personally don’t like it and you disagree with it. Duly noted. But again you are silent about where one might find God’s decisive opinion.
You would have affirmed your acceptance of Church of England doctrine when you were ordained. Were you sincere?
Geoff – this doesn’t really reflect too well on your mother – since you had clearly learned all the lessons that were to be learned from such an event. From what you’ve said, I imagine that you were a 9 year old at precisely the time when Spike Milligan (playing Little Jim) said, ‘He’s fallen in the water!’ every week on radio.
Lorenzo you have avoide the burden of my comment.
God’s Omniscience , God himself knows better than you. He knows what os good..
Sin, and the character of the Goodness of God, his Sovereignty and Holiness, Hoy-Lovr and His determination of good and evil, of holiness and sin. His judgement. His justice.
Is that theocentic reality offensive to a anthropocentic world -view, and its God excluding canons of construction. of what it means to be human.
So we have the doctrine of God and then the doctrine of anthropology. And we invert them, look through the wrong end of the telescope and come a cropper, disoriented, dislocated, confused, dissected and dissipated. The heart is deceitful above all things.
No direction home.
Lorenzo you have avoide the burden of my comment.
God’s Omniscience , God himself knows better than you. He knows what is good..
Sin, and the character of the Goodness of God, his Sovereignty and Holiness, Hoy-Love and His determination of good and evil, of holiness and sin. His judgement. His justice.
Is that theocentic reality offensive to a anthropocentic world -view, and its God excluding canons of construction. of what it means to be human.
So we have the doctrine of God and then the doctrine of anthropology. And we invert them, look through the wrong end of the telescope and come a cropper, disoriented, dislocated, confused, dissected and dissipated. The heart is deceitful above all things.
No direction home.
Rubbish Jock. And while I didn’t appeciate it at the my mother in her chastizement, was demonstrating her love for me. And I also learned not to try to cover up the truth, which my mother saw through. Had I really learned my lesson? Would an affirming “there, there” have reinforced my experience or have weakened it? Indeed it was a foundational lesson about truth telling and lying that it would be found out, resulting in harm.
It was not child abuse.
It was a far different era, with no health and safety, and the countrside was an adventure playground for us all, with all its knocks and spills.
And you appear to have missed the main point, and through your own parenting lens have not read it carefully with understanding about what my mother said and did, today from a real life illustration.
You are in no position to judge my mother from afar more than 60 years ago, a little more than decade after the end of WW2, from one isolated incident (I can’t recall my mother smacking me before or again) and with what seems like a very modern take on child discipline.
Geoff – the point is that the sort of punishment you are talking about only works if the person to whom it is being applied is of a mind to continue to perpetrate their behaviour and the only thing stopping them is the threat of punishment. It doesn’t instill a mind-set that abhors bad behaviour in principle.
Hence I think it was a huge mistake to remove corporal punishment from schools – where the only thing that might deter a ‘bad egg’ from behaving badly (and, particularly, from bullying other children) is the threat of getting three of the best from the head master. But in the situation you describe, where your mother punished you when you had ‘fallen in the wah-tah’, I simply can’t see the value or functionality of giving you a jolly good spanking.
Also – in the context of the current discussion with Lorenzo, you can see for yourself, he regards church teaching as punitive and the ‘it’s for your own good’ has done absolutely nothing – and will do absolutely nothing – to change his attitude.
Lorenzo is an interesting character. If my reading is correct, he is a former Roman Catholic priest and teacher of theology (Dominican?) who left his church and became an Anglican vicar and has a same-sex partner, as Richard Coles did, and David Monteith, the Dean of Canterbury, has.
Lorenzo is strongly opposed to Natural Law teaching, which is a bedrock of Thomism. It is understandable why a person with same-sex attraction would reject Thomist Natural Law, because Natural Law focuses on the telos or true end of our bodies, which cannot be physically harmful and anti-health. Lorenzo is also strongly opposed to Transgender ideology, which he sees as preying upon and harming homosexually-inclined teenagers by sowing the idea that boys with gay feelings are “really” girls, and girls are “really” boys.
This, Lorenzo says above that is is “physically impossible” to change sex. Most if not all readers of this blog would agree with this obvious biological fact. But this does put Lorenzo at odds with his confreres in the LGBTQ+ movement and their allies, who assert the opposite- which is why the LGBTQ+ movement has warred against the lesbian sscholar Katherine Stock and J. K. Rowling.
It is interesting that Lorenzo invokes Natural Law against the Trans movement but rejects Natural Law where homosexuality is concerned. What Lorenzo fails to see is that the Trans movement is in fact the logical, even “natural”, outgrowth of the LGB movement.
The blasphemous Drag Queens parody of Leonardo’s “Last Supper” (which included children as well as men dressed up as women) which featured in the Opening of the Paris Olympics is the logical trajectory of the course of modern anti-Christian Europe, and the LGBT movement and Lorenzo’s LGB sub-group are the Trojan horse in the Church. Lorenzo needs to return to Rome and re-read his Thomas Aquinas.
James – I found myself in agreement with Bertrand Russell’s take on Thomas Aquinas (from his History of Western Philosophy), where he basically accuses Aquinas of being a ‘fart and smell’ philosopher (it’s not the fart that kills, but the smell). Basically, he pointed to arguments from Aquinas where no reasonable person would dispute the actual conclusion of Aquinas, but where the line of argument was utterly grotesque and seemed to be a triumph of intellect over any moral decency.
Natural Law is all very well if one starts with the eyes of faith and works from there. From a Christian perspective, Scripture makes it abundantly clear that we are by nature so corrupt that we cannot be brought to faith and understand God simply from observing and studying what He has created.
I didn’t see it; sounds as if the opening of the Paris Olympics was created, approved of and performed by people who are in defiant opposition to the living God (which sounds depressingly typical and the sort of thing we should expect).
“Lorenzo is strongly opposed to Natural Law teaching, which is a bedrock of Thomism. It is understandable why a person with same-sex attraction would reject Thomist Natural Law,” or just perhaps because it is utter nonsense.
It isn’t “utter nonsense” at all, it is the foundation of morality in very many systems of thought and culture, as C. S. Lewis showed in ‘The Abolition of Man’. You need to go back to the Church of our nurture, Lorenzo, and begin to understand what St Thomas Aquinas was teaching, building on Aristotle, the Stoics and the Bible.
If you think Natural Law is “utter nonsense”, then you think science and creation are nonsense, and you take your place with the Drag Queen mockers of nature in the Paris Olympics blasphemy of our Lord.
You don’t realise the contradiction in your own opposition to transgenderism.
If you can’t see Christ in drag queens and trans women I suggest that you really need to think about the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
P.S. it was probably a Bacchanalia. Dionysus doesn’t appear in Da Vinci’s Last Supper as far as I can remember.
Penelope:
It is part of Christian belief that human beings are made in the image of God, or as I believe the Eastern Orthodox put it, that every human being is an icon of God. Beyond that, however, I see no connection between a lot of drag queens and so-called “trans women” (i.e. men masquerading as women) capering around and making public pillocks of themselves, and the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
You can’t see any connection because you don’t truly believe that God loves all humanity and that queer people are also icons of God.
Indeed, all people are “icons of God”. That includes Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Caligula, the Marquis de Sade, the Aztecs who ripped the beating hearts of their victims from their chests, etc. etc.
Yes, God loves all humanity, but that does not mean that He affirms everything about each person. He sent His Son into the world – a word in John’s Gospel which means the system opposed to God – to do something to put right the mess made by us, who bear a fractured and marred image of God.
David
That you equate queer people with Hitler and Pol Pot says a lot more about your theological anthropology than you, perhaps, realise.
Penelope:
That doesn’t mean that every piece of ridiculous behaviour in which they engage reflects or affirms their status as icons of God.
William
Ridiculous in your eyes.
Jesus and his bunch of itinerant disciples looked ridiculous to some contemporary eyes too.
Or is the Kingdom only available for deserving queers?
Penny, none of us can enter the kingdom if we persist in sins which God calls us from.
Ian
If you say so. But the sex workers and publicans will be there before us!
And maybe even before both the deserving and the undesrving queers.
Indeed, one may ask what sin has a fat lesbian cosplaying Apollo committed?
The sex workers and publicans will be before us if they repent and believe. Just like the rest of us. Jesus came to them (and us) because they are sick and need a doctor (like us). you receive this spiritual medicine and healing by turning from the former way of life and following Jesus (as do we). (Luke 5.32).
What sin has she committed? According to scripture and the teaching of Jesus, rejecting God’s creation of humanity as male and female; indulging rather than resisting fantasy and desire; displacing Jesus with another god.
But I am not interested in casting stones. Jesus is our true judge. But he teaches us so that we understand.
Ian
Its a huge assumption that queer people don’t repent and believe simply becuase their repentance doesn’t look like yours.
It’s also a huge assumption that a fat lesbian has rejected God’s creation of humanity as male and female. In what way?
And that copslaying a pagan god is inherently sinful. Or are half the acting profession in Hell according to your soteriology.
I am not asking for anyone’s repentant to look like mine. That’s your assumption, not mine. In the end the Touchstone is the teaching of Jesus.
Penelope:
I am not discussing for whom the Kingdom is available. That is not a matter for me to decide. The ridiculous behaviour of those “queer” crackpots and exhibitionists serves no useful purpose to man or beast. If you are seriously comparing it to the activities of Jesus and his disciples – no matter what anyone thinks or thought of the latter – then your comparison is a singularly inept one.
James:
To begin with, I must point out that the “LGBT(Q)(+) movement” is a 21st century invention, and that – despite the attempts of “trans” and “queer” activists to persuade everyone otherwise – it does not represent all gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Far from it. If Lorenzo is at odds with it, then good for him. So am I.
It is perfectly possible to be sexually attracted only to people of the same sex, and some people are, even if some other people think that they shouldn’t be. It is also perfectly possible for them to form sexual relationships congruent with their homosexual orientation, even if some other people think that it’s wrong and contrary to Natural Law. (I don’t think that it is, but I am not concerned to argue that point here.)
By contrast, it is absolutely NOT possible for anyone born male to be a girl/woman or for anyone born female to be a boy/man, and there is no inconsistency whatever in recognizing that objective biological fact while approving of committed gay/lesbian relationships. No matter what anyone thinks about Natural Law, your assertion that ‘the Trans movement is in fact the logical, even “natural”, outgrowth of the LGB movement’ is simply utter nonsense. Being sexually attracted to people of the same sex and the delusion or pretence of being a member of the other sex are two quite different things, and the notion that the latter follows from the former is a patent non sequitur.
if they can feel attraction against their anatomy, they can also have internal feelings against their anatomy. The two are almost identical. Attraction, after all, IS an internal feeling.
You are saying that two things are very different which are almost identical.
“Against their anatomy”. Another utterly meaningless phrase.
Christopher:
Sexual attraction to people of the same sex is a fact, whether you approve of it or not. Saying that it is “against their anatomy” is merely a way of expressing your disapproval – to which you are, of course, fully entitled – while dressing it up to make it sound as though it were a statement of biological fact, which it is not.
Pretending, or having the delusion, that one’s “real” sex is the other one is indeed a very different thing, just as it is an equally different thing from sexual attraction to people of the other sex. Your assertion that they are “almost identical” is palpable claptrap. (I am not ignoring the fact that the pretence/delusion can be found among people of any sexual orientation or none.)
‘Saying that it is “against their anatomy” is merely a way of expressing your disapproval’ Not necessarily. It clear is. There are medical, social, and psychological consequences of that.
Ian
I am not talking about the consequences of any particular sexual behaviour. There are no adverse medical, social, and psychological consequences of homosexual attraction per se.
James, I left the Roman Catholic Church because I ended up unable to confess and teach publicly what it teaches, not because I met anyone. I do not need to invoke natural law agreement in order to conclude that is it physically impossible to change sex, it is just a material, biological impossibility. Modern biology has nothing to do with natural law theory, in fact adaptive selection, the basis of evolutionary biology, is incompatible with it.
Natural law arguments, obviously
Lorenzo – ?what is ‘natural law theory’?? I’d have thought that ‘adaptive selection’ would be very much in line with the idea of God as creator, who created the natural laws, according to which the universe functions.
If one looks at physics (rather than biology), the idea of a ‘big bang’, from which everything evolves according to a set of physical laws, is extremely appealing from a theological point of view, since it fits right in with the idea of a creator God, who is above and Almighty, who has created a set of natural laws according to which the universe functions.
Other theories, such as ‘intelligent design’ seem to be based on the idea that God made a botched job with His creation and constantly has to keep intervening to set it on the right track. While this may be a reasonable theory (as Woody Allen put it, ‘if there is a god, then he’s clearly an underachiever’, it is in flat contradiction to what I understand by ‘natural law’.
This is not what Aquinas and Aristotle before him meant by natural law, Jock. They defined something much more specific, namely that all beings, humans among them, have a purpose, and that they need to achieve it in order to flourish and achieve eudemonia. Aquinas added that all human beings have natural reason given by God that we use in order to flourish and understand God’s plan, our rational participation in God’s eternal law. It is very difficult to reconcile this with the provable fact that most species have died out, and most adaptations proved impermanent. God creates a lot of waste… Nothing to do with intelligent design, the Big Bang or what you described.
Lorenzo – ah – OK – thanks. Then I agree with your incisive one-word summary (‘rubbish’) which you gave in a previous comment.
You know James, there was a time when talking about someone rather than talking to them was considered rude, cheap, and disrespectful.
Again Jock, you are reading it through your singular focus monocle.
‘Knowing better’ was a point made by Lorenzo.
A main point was that mother saw through lies (sin)and knew better, ( a metaphor for God’s omniscience) and yes I came to understand that it truly hurt her, grieved.
It is suggested that you change your monocle to a wide angle. God sees, God knows better than us, sin will be punished, have consequences.
And Jock should actually read Thomas Aquinas rather than the atheist Bertrand Russell whose hostility to God and Christianity (despite his Christian upbringing) was based on his serial infidelity to his wife. It isn’t just promiscuous homosexual folk and French drag queens who have trouble with Christianity.
God’s ‘natural law’ bears the imprint of God’s character. Moral imperatives are inbuilt.
Little wonder it offends natural/ fleshly humanity -Russel and more -Revisionist, seeking to gag God.
James – Bertrand Russell was much more honest than the LLF crowd. He understood that what he wanted was not just at odds with some ‘clobber verses’ which could be explained away by some intellectual high jinks, but was against the character of God Most High. He also understood that this depraved morality was what his innermost being (Romans 7) desired. His approach (atheism) was much more honest than the LLF approach of remaining within the C. of E. and trying to change the doctrine of matters sexual to something diametrically opposed to what it has always been.
My understanding of Thomas Aquinas is that he is very interesting for people who are well disposed towards ‘Natural Law’. I believe this to be opposed to Christianity, since it doesn’t chime in with salvation ‘by the grace of God through faith alone’. Ultimately, Aquinas was a Catholic – and from what I’ve seen of your comments here, I think you would fit well with Roman Catholicism (you come across – at least to me – as ‘High Anglican’).
Jock, I am very much an evangelical Anglican, not at all ‘High Church’. There are (or were) plenty of evangelical theologians, like Norman Geisler and Ronald Nash and others, who are well disposed toward Thomas Aquinas’s theological method. There are elements in his scholasticism that we find unconvincing (e.g. his theory of transubstantiation and its distinction between accidents and essence), but on his basic understanding of our knowledge of the existence of God, rationality, teleology, and the relationship between reason and revelation, he is strongly affirmed by many evangelical theologians.
I think you need to forget Karl Barth’s ignorant prejudice against natural theology (shared by Emil Brunner) and read a primer about Aquinas first.
Edward Feser has written a brief but densely written book that serves this purpose. G. K. Chesterton wrote a livelier work introducing Aquinas about a century ago (tempus fugit!). Both books are recommended.
Romans 1 points to ‘natural law’. There is no excuse.
Except as found in salvation in Christ.
Jock, if you think Aquinas and natural law is exclusive to Roman Catholicism, think again. It is embraced by protestants, such as here;
https://credomag.com/article/aquinas-among-the-protestants/
Geoff – yes – there is no excuse. In the same way, there really is no excuse why Jesus had to be crucified for our sins. But he did. We are all, by nature, so darkened, that we cannot infer anything either about existence of God, let alone enter into communion with Him, by any natural law argument. You need the eyes of faith to understand these things.
Any time ‘natural law’ enters the game, it looks as if our salvation is a joint work between us and God, where we play our part, God having set the initial conditions and giving us Jesus and the Holy Spirit to push us in the right direction. It does not fit in with the basic understanding that Christians have of (for example) John 3:16 where, having come to believe (entirely by the grace of God), I have entered into eternal life (with the Holy Spirit dwelling in me as a deposit *guaranteeing* what is to come).
Didn’t have you down as a monergist, Jock.
More than interesting though that is, it is well off topic, and probably not a topic our host is keen to host.
And while I certainly don’t know for sure, it is likely that the contributors the the linked, Credo, site are thoroughly reformed and would concur with your stated position on salvation, and stand in opposition to Aquinas on justification, communion and other doctrines, yet through scholarly sifting find merit in some of Aquinas’ work which finds its place in Protestantism.
It is something I was opposed to, and if I were younger might spend some time following up, perhaps starting with a reformed publishing house Crossways, book, Thomas Aquinas for Protestants. Too late for me, not a priority.
“Any time ‘natural law’ enters the game, it looks as if our salvation is a joint work between us and God, where we play our part, God having set the initial conditions and giving us Jesus and the Holy Spirit to push us in the right direction.”
No, it isn’t. Read Romans 2 again. Natural Law doesn’t tell us about eternal life or the atoning sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and the necessity of repentance and faith in the God-man sin-bearer. You need the Bible for that. Human reason was corrupted by the Fall but nor destroyed by it. That’s why we still believe in human responsibility for our actions, quite separately from biblical revelation. Natural law addresses these truths.
You should read C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Abolition of Man’ as an introduction to these ideas. After that, look at Thomas’s Summa Theologia and Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics. It’s all there. Grace completes nature, it doesn’t abolish it. Grace (revelation and the work of the Holy Spirit) shows how our human nature and its longings and desires is perfected in the Beatific Vision of God.
Beatific vision.
Now there something wonderful, James, that the site I linked, Credo, plunged into some time ago. It is probably still findable.
Indeed, it is found here:
https://credomag.com/magazine_issue/the-beatific-vision/
James – Romans 2 (the ‘good pagan’) is precisely the passage that tells us that Natural Law doesn’t work. It tells us that natural law is imprinted on peoples hearts and minds, but is so corrupted that it doesn’t lead them to God.
Let’s just go through some basics in Romans – theme is Romans 1:16,17 a righteousness from God which is by faith from first to last. We then have the ‘bad pagan’, the Don Juan, referred to in the third person, someone of absolute depravity who just doesn’t care. With chapter 2 we move on to the good pagan – who has a law written on his heart and mind – I presume that Romans 2:15 summarises the reference to natural law that you are talking about – but it simply doesn’t work. The outcome of Romans 2:1-16 is condemnation, ‘do you think you will escape God’s judgment?’ We then move onto the ‘religious man’ of Romans 2:17 – Romans 3:20 and again condemnation.
In particular, Romans 2 seems, at least to me, to be stating precisely the opposite of what you are saying; natural law simply doesn’t work. Salvation comes in Romans 3:21-24 and the ‘but’ that introduces Romans 3:21 indicates that Paul is introducing a completely new idea.
Natural law is something that becomes clear to us only after we are saved and brought into the number of the Saviour’s family – it doesn’t play any role in getting us there.
Jock, read Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”, and you’ll understand better what I am saying. Natural Law doesn’t tell us about eternal life and the work of Christ because these things are beyond unaided human reason. But it does tell us about “life under the sun” – things like respect for life and property, honesty in speech, faithfulness in marriage, the sanctity of family life, parental duties to mourish, protect and educate children; reciprocal duties of children to parents; and the right use of our bodies, and so on. Natural Law isn’t perfectly understood because of the effect of sin on our natures, but neither is our nature completely corrupted in every part. Otherwise how would pagans know the difference between good and evil? And they do.
Aquinas’s Treatise on Law understands law to have our dimensions: Eternal Law (how God made the world); Divine Law (revelation in the Ten Commandments and the Bible); Natural Law (correct reasoning about the world, including the design and purpose of our bodies and human relations); and Human Law (specific laws that human beings devise to order their lives better). Natural Law is “the rational creature’s participation in the Eternal Law”: it’s about trying to make sense of the world by using reason to inquire into the ends of things. It is limited in its goals but a universal witness to rationality and morality. See the appendix of “The Abolition of Man”.
@ Jock
Jock, St Aquinas’ achievements were magnificent.
Romans 2:15 indicates the law of God is written on the hearts of all men and can be discerned by reason (our thoughts) and our conscience, albeit both have been wounded by the Fall, hence the conflict.
This law, (i.e. natural law) we are told in Romans 23:21, has been manifested apart from the Mosaic law which expressed it, as did the prophets.
Let me offer a poor analogy. It is a universal truth that 1 + 1 = 2, but how we worked that out is more complicated. Is math is an invented set of tools, or does it exist in some abstract realm with humans discovering its truths? The answer isn’t either/or but both/and – a good Catholic principle! The fact that 1 + 1 = 2, or that there’s an infinite number of primes, are truths about reality that held before mathematicians knew about them – before they “revealed” them. As such, they’re discoveries – but they were made using techniques invented by mathematicians. This required the invention of a proof.
This is what St Aquinas sought to demonstrate in the realm of God’s revealed truth in Scripture.
What this means for evangelising is that we can explain that Christianity isn’t just a set of laws and regulations, arbitrary “dos and don’t’s”, based on a text. The texts reveal our purpose in the universe and how to live according to the truths about ourselves that bring us happiness in this life and the next.
And St Aquinas explains grace at some length and it operates and is necessity for overcoming the damage caused by the Fall.
Hi Jock
‘having come to believe (entirely by the grace of God), I have entered into eternal life’.
How does this fit in with the case of the rich young man who did not want to give up his wealth to enter life? Where was God’s grace for him, given He was standing right in front of him? Given Jesus’ dismay, it would seem he was sad that this individual had refused his conditions, and did not enter into life.
Peter
Peter – you ask good questions and sometimes it is difficult to speculate on them without going beyond Scripture. Scripture does not tell us what ultimately happened to this rich young man – so we shouldn’t be wise beyond Scripture, but there are some pointers. To me, it looks similar to the Apostle Paul before his conversion on the road to Damascus – and the key is that he is downcast and sad. Saul’s religious sensibilities were offended. He came to see that he was ‘kicking against the goads’ in his encounter. At the point where the narrative finishes with the rich young man, he is clearly beginning to understand the truth and logic of the gospel message – and it would seem to me as if the ground is being prepared, just as it was with Saul, for conversion. When one hears the Word of God and is conquered by it, that is faith (to quote Anders Nygren). We see the rich young man when he is still fighting against it …..
There are several occasions when Jesus is dismayed by sin and its consequences – when Adam fell, all of nature fell with him. One example is when Lazarus was dead (through no fault of his own). Jesus wept. It didn’t stop him from raising Lazarus from the dead.
@ PC1
Grace is freely offered to all but can be resisted. Grace can overcome hardened hearts if we open ourselves to its initial promptings. Wealth was considered a sign of spiritual blessing in ancient Israel. Jesus is teaching something different here. If salvation were merely the result of human efforts, then no one could attain it. But, with the grace of God, anything is possible, and the greatest of sinners has the opportunity to become the greatest of saints. This is where the Bible’s warnings about wealth come into play.
The book of Proverbs gives us sound advice: “give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me.” (Prov. 30:8).
Geoff
Even if you think Romans 1 is about gay people. It’s discussing *adults* engaging in sexual promiscuity. This is discussing school children, not sexually active adults.
PC1 The rich young ruler – Was jesus dismayed? It seems rather
the opposite “Who then can be saved? Jesus replied “With God all things are possible”Perhaps this meeting was a prelimenary to a further work of God?
Controversial? Yes, In the context of the article.
Relevant? Highly.
From today:
“The Shape of the Soul” from Ligonier Ministries https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/things-unseen-with-sinclair-ferguson/the-shape-of-the-soul
Thank you, Geoff, for that most illuminating piece @
https://credomag.com/magazine_issue/the-beatific-vision/
I was reminded of Jonathan Edward’s take on the “Beatific Vision”
Certainly, to see and experience the great Love of God is awesome.
However, Edward’s saw in the Holiness of God something far greater.
He saw “The Beauty of Holiness” more ravishing than love
Holiness brought to Edwards “an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness and ravishment to the soul.” It seems that the modern unspoken idea of holiness is a deprivation of all pleasure in exchange for morbid seclusion. Edwards believed that genuine happiness consisted in holiness.
Meditation is the means by which his affections were stirred and cultivated. It would be difficult to write about any of Edwards’ spiritual experiences without mentioning meditation because it plays such a key role. When one considers the abundance of fruit that came from his hours of reflection, it is not surprising that people are struggling spiritually with their five-minute prayers and cursory glances at the scriptures in the morning. Meditation is imperative for a productive Christian life.
The beautiful, loving holiness of this God makes true godliness a warm, attractive, delightful thing. It is not about becoming meaner and more pinched, for this God is not mean and pinched. The Holiness God, said Edwards, “is as it were the beauty and sweetness of the divine nature,” and so “Christians that shine by reflecting the light of the Sun of Righteousness, do shine with the same sort of brightness, the same mild, sweet and pleasant beams.”
Google J. Edwards on Holiness for more of his thoughts on the Beatific Vision
His happiness was to be a partaker in the Divine Nature as it is our Joy and Delight.
These issues are why Steve Chalke says he changed his public views of same sex marriage, despite knowing that he would face a massive backlash from other churches and organizations – roughly 1 in 10 children are LGBT in some form (we can say it’s as low as 5% or as high as 20% perhaps). These kids deserve the same safe environment to learn as non – LGBT children and the church must get out of education if it cannot deliver that.
I think there’s an nuanced discussion about which ages to discuss different aspects of LGBT people with children, but “never” cannot keep being the answer. The CofE seems to be following the Welby doctrine of teaching adults in churches that gay families are evil, but then teaching their kids in schools that gay families are equal to straight families. Clearly this contradiction cannot continue. The CofE cannot put off making clear decisions on gay people forever.
I think there are roughly three options –
1. Hardline anti gay families and get out of the education game
2. Make it a local matter and teach in schools that it is a moral matter for individuals to consider prayerfully
3. Accept that gay people exist and that marriage and family life is a moral good.
Those stats are nonsense, I am afraid. Teenagers will now say ‘I’m gay’ or ‘I’m trans’ to attract attention and sympathy. I have seen it happen!
Check out a country like Denmark, which has long accepted gay relationships. 1.6% of marriages are same-sex.
“be following the Welby doctrine of teaching adults in churches that gay families are evil,”
That’s an absurd statement. The idea that ++Welby would support this is ludicrous.
In which part of England are you, personally, observing this “Welby doctrine” ?
Ian
So why can’t gay people marry if the church teaches gay families aren’t evil? Why cant gay married people serve in every CofE church if the church teaches gay families arent evil? Why are lots of evangelicals threatening to walk over blessings for gay relationships if they dont believe gay families are evil?
“Welby doctrine”… Address your assertion. Stop changing else it appears you are short of substance
What I am calling the Welby doctrine is that gay people are not a problem and must be treated as equal, but they are also responsible for Christians being murdered in Africa and cant have their relationships blessed. It’s the contradictory position of the church of England
‘The CofE seems to be following the Welby doctrine of teaching adults in churches that gay families are evil’
Peter, you clearly have no idea at all what is happening in England, or the Church of England. It is not very helpful for you to comment by attacking these mythical straw men that you have built for yourself in the States.
Ian
Not all LGBT people are gay, right? If I was talking only about gay people I would have suggested 1-5%
As far as I can tell I’m the only person who comments here who is actually impacted by the CofE’s teaching on LGBT people or who has any personal experience of being gay in the CofE.
Ian
You say these are straw men, but the CofE is threatening to split over the issue of whether gay relationships can even recieve a blessing or not. If these relationships are not evil then why the opposition? If gay families are not evil then why are people in gay relationships not allowed to serve in every CofE church? Why have you written this article worrying about what kids in school are taught?
You can’t have it both ways – that’s what Welby is trying to do!
The CofE cannot put off making clear decisions on gay people forever.
Translation: the CofE cannot hold out against persons who don’t give a damn about scripture forever.
It can, actually – if it cares to keep the faith.
Also
I can remember there being homophobic bullying in my primary school in the 1980s. I think same sex sex was still a crime then just about (in Scotland) and Section 28 was in place so teachers were very limited about how they could legally deal with it. I remember various gay slurs being used without really any understanding of what they meant.
So I think A) it’s very obvious to me that homophobic bullying will continue if kids are taught nothing about LGBT people and B) homophobic bullying should not be a separate class of bullying that we have to have separate discussions about. It only is so because lots of the adults in *2024* still think it’s ok to use these terms and treat LGBT as lesser human beings.
Who is saying that gay people are ‘lesser human beings’? Not me.
Ian
It’s implied *every* time there’s discussion that homophobic bullying should be treated as less serious or ignored in schools. It’s implied *every* time there are legal restrictions on what teachers can say about gay people.
I cannot recall anyone proposing that homophobic bullying in schools should be ignored.
And are you saying that, if anyone believes that marriage is between one man and one woman, that is making gay people ‘lesser human beings’?
Ian
I’m not sure. But we are talking about school kids here – not people getting married, right?
In this article there is a whole section quibbling whether homophobic bullying needs to be addressed. When I was at school it was very difficult for teachers to intervene in homophobic bullying because it was illegal for them to “promote homosexuality” and certainly they would not have been legally able to teach kids anything about it or why it wasnt a legitimate reason to turn on other kids. There are similar laws in Russia and the US currently.
Chalke’s plunge into heterodoxy started well before his promotion of same sex. The faith of two women from a church I was part of was destroyed step by step through coming under his insidious teaching who didn’t have the resources to counter his teaching.
The emergent church as developed by McClaren is also founded on heterodoxy and apostasy.
That’s true. Chalke mocked penal substitution years ago as “cosmic child abuse” and in other ways attacked the evangelicalism of his upbringing. He didn’t go as far as Rob Bell in America who has ditched Christianity but Chalke has become very heterodox and increasingly sceptical in his beliefs.
You can see this in the Oasis Network of churches, which are basically neo-Baptist churches led by strong minded women with liberal views on homosexuality along with a big focus on childhood abuse.
Chalke is essentially a onetime successful youthworker who fancied himself as a theologian because he once spoke at Christian conferences. He also began some useful work in trying to turn around some failing schools through the Oasis Trust. I think some of these schools may have improved but others have failed – most notably the dreadful Oasis Academy on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, where Ofsted sacked the Oasis management which had completely lost control of the school.
James
Ian often uses growth as a measure of holiness. Rob Bell grew a church plant from close to zero to 10,000 in a decade by preaching actually from scripture rather than just preaching politics or self help nonsense.
The reason Rob Bell fell from being the hope of reaching my generation to become persona non grata in American evangelism was his ‘sin’ of writing that Christians ought not to want anyone to go to hell. Like it or not a huge amount of the American church runs primarily on fear of hell, rather than faith in Jesus and so teaching that “love wins” is a huge threat to frightening people with eternal punishment if they buy the wrong toothbrush (not too much of an exaggeration!)
Peter, what you have written is nonsense. Rob Bell fell progressively into spiritual error, first by attacking penal substitution, then by embracing universalism and losing sight of the uniqueness of Christ. He was clearly going through some personal crisis.
As for the doctrine of hell, you may not know much about it but if you simply consult a concordance on “hell”, “punisbment” etc you will discover that tbe person in tbe Bible who warns about hell is ….. Jesus.
You probably didn’t know that, did you?
James – I’ve never heard of Rob Bell or Bart Ehrman, but it is important to note that if someone genuinely *loses* their faith, then they never had a Christian faith in the first place (John 3:16 – belief in Him present tense guarantees eternal life future tense). I don’t fully understand what ‘Penal substitution’ is supposed to mean, but unless one is very careful, it can come to mean something that is utterly false and splits the Trinity (it almost looks as if God the Father put Jesus onto the naughty seat and gave him a jolly good spanking for our sins – and then everything was OK, because the punishment beating somehow paid a price for our sins that God the Father was happy with).
Jock (July 31 at 6.48 am) – you need to get out more. EVERYONE on this blog knows who Rob Bell and Bart Ehrman are. And we don’t need to be told you have to be ‘very careful’ in articulating penal substitution – that caveat applies to EVERY SINGLE doctrine you could mention (the Trinity, the Fatherhood of God etc etc). We take it for read that everyone here understands that point – this is a blogsite, not a dissertation website.
No half-educated person believes the parody version.
James – I’d strongly suggest that you try to get in more. Many years ago I decided that ‘interacting with the literature’, by which I mean the more modern literature, in order to articulate where it is wrong – is actually wearying (and soul destroying) even if it does sharpen one up theologically. Learning about all the heretics, who they are, the heretical things they believe is absolutely not spiritually edifying and one can achieve much greater peace with God by remaining ignorant. Try it!
Jock: there are plenty of evils in the world I could wish I knew less about.
For example, until two days’ ago, I didn’t know what a Category A photograph meant in Child Abuse cases (that nice Huw Edwards from the BBC).
But my life in academia and church ministry has been all about knowledge and the Lord’s warning to be aware of wolves in sheep’s clothing. If you don’t even know who Bart Ehrman or Rob Bell is, you are hardly equipped to deal with their ideas when they percolate into the church.
Ignorance is not always bliss – and certainly nothing to boast about.
James – I do accept that the problem is probably with me rather than with you. The problem that you have (for church growth and attracting serious Christians like myself) is that when heretical teaching creeps in, I’m likely to get the feeling that something is horribly wrong – and make a sharp exit. As I indicated before, approximately 23 years ago, when every church in the town I had just moved to looked like a very bad option, I saw through the spiritual blackmail of those who said, ‘if you don’t affiliate with some church then you’re not a proper Christian’. As you say, somebody has to interact with the ’empty philosophies of men’, which are usually dressed up to look like Christianity and which then deceive many. Revelation 13 tells us that the devil is very good at imitating Christ, the dragon speaks with a gentle beguiling tongue and many (who are headed for destruction anyway) follow after this smooth, beguiling, teaching. But this task of interacting with these empty philosophies is dismal and draining. My respect to those of you who are doing this; I decline to join the game.
I do see some cause for concern in what you write, though; you state that someone lost his faith (no caveats). John 3:16 indicates that if it is a real faith (and – yes – Scripture indicates that we can know if we really have faith in Christ alone) then it is not something that can be lost; belief (present tense) means eternal life – where eternal means eternal.
James
I have read the offending book and I used to listen to his sermons from Marshill every week
Geoff
OK but it was the failure of “orthodox” theology to have anything positive to say to LGBT children that he says was the reason he changed his public position on LGBT people
Rob Bell lost his faith because of a personal crisis he was going through. This is sad but he’s not the first person to do this. It happened to Bart Ehrman too.
Even Gene Robinson used to be an evangelical, married with kids, until he left his marriage and took up with another man.
And Richard Holloway used to be a traditional Anglo-Catholic until he embraced liberalism and atheism. That’s the trajectory that sexual revisionism puts you onto. Scripture is like a beautiful garment. If you start picking and pulling at the bits you don’t like, it will soon come apart. That’s what happened to Bell, Ehrman, and Holloway. How are you doing in this task, Peter?
James
I wouldn’t even begin to want to pick apart scripture. I just think that there’s a lot of evangelical belief that isn’t actually in scripture.
You guys claim that scripture is “clear” about gay people, but none of you can state clearly what it has to say about gay people.
Really, Peter?
Evidence please?
His departure was rooted in Higher/Historical criticism it seems to me, and in his denunciation of the atonement, which was in turn rooted in departure from the Triunity of God.
He was removed from the Evangelical Alliance, but not for his views on lgbt.
He also has demonstrated some neo -Marcionism in his series of theses.
His departure was captured in a series debates with Andrew Wilson, on Premier radio. Here is a suggested search for starters;
chalke v wilson premier radio
Geoff
I think two separate things are getting confused here
1. Chalke having disagreements with evangelicals, which I agree started earlier than his support for LGBT children.
2. His public support for full LGBT inclusion in the church, which he has said in multiple interviews he did because he otherwise didnt have an answer for LGBT children in his schools. And frankly the CofE doesn’t either, because if you follow current CofE doctrine, gay children who want to stay in the church are being sold a lonely old life with far less opportunity than their straight friends and a constant glower of suspicion following them around.
https://abravefaith.com/2013/12/10/a-matter-of-integrity/
Interesting statistics here also which are from a decade ago (hopefully much different now)
*Only half of lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils report that their schools say homophobic bullying is wrong; in faith schools it is 37 per cent.
*One in four (26 per cent) lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils – and more than one in three gay pupils in faith schools (36 per cent) – report that teachers who hear homophobic language never challenge it.
*While no gay young people said they experience ‘bullying’ by teachers, 17 per cent say that teachers and other school staff, however, make homophobic comments. This increases to 22 per cent for pupils in faith schools.
*Fewer than a third (31 per cent) of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people say their school responds quickly to homophobic bullying when it occurs. This proportion is even lower in faith schools at 24 per cent.
*Pupils in faith schools are now no more likely to report bullying than those in non-faith schools, even though faith schools are still less likely than schools in general to take steps to prevent and respond to homophobic bullying.
When I was at school in the 80s and 90s nobody was out, nobody. Many of the teachers used homophobic language and homophobic bullying was widespread. The law was that teachers could not “promote” homosexuality, but they could make sure you knew how disgusting they thought it was.
In sixth form college there was one openly gay kid in a college of 2000 students and I knew him as a friend of a friend. I didnt see him being bullied by any students, although he told me on a night out he had been chased by a man throwing bricks at him, but I did see a teacher mocking for being gay in front of an entire class.
Peter Jermey says above: “You guys claim that scripture is “clear” about gay people, but none of you can state clearly what it has to say about gay people.”
This is nonsense. The Scriptures say nothing about “gay people”. The Scriptures say homosexual acts are sinful and don’t belong in a Christian life. Homosexual desire and love affairs were well known – Petronius’s novel ‘Satyricon’ is about three homosexual men in Naples in the first century – but no Christian (or Jew) considered that conduct in keeping with Christian (or Jewish) faith.
Peter, which part of that do you find hard to understand? You keep missing a simple point all the time.
You’re still missing the point James. Perhaps deliberately? It’s quite simple. Try again.
Yes, I am obtuse. Explain to me what the point is.
That people are lonely in the world?
That they struggle with unwanted or unsatisfied desires?
That the path to holiness is difficult but not impossible?
I think I understand those things pretty well.
Spell it out for me.
Then tell me what you think the solution is.