Andrew Goddard writes: In his recent critical profile of Archbishop Justin Welby, Giles Fraser recalls interviewing him in 2012 when he wrote of the then Bishop of Durham whose name was becoming prominent as a likely successor to Rowan Williams,
On the subject of women bishops he speaks of the need to square the circle, reconciling those who think it a theological necessity and those who think it a theological impossibility. How do you do this? “Well, you just look at the circle and say it’s a circle with sharp bits on it.” I laugh. So does he.
It increasingly appears that a similar “look…it’s a circle with sharp bits on it” approach is what has been attempted in the bishops’ response to Living in Love and Faith (on which see Bishop Christopher Cocksworth’s reflection). They are claiming to uphold the doctrine of marriage while introducing developments which until now (as in the earlier proposals of GS2055 back in Jan 2017) have been held to be incompatible with it. In the couple of months since this geometrical novelty was introduced, however, despite the claims of some, more and more are realising that just as mathematically the possibility of squaring the circle was eventually disproved, the bishops’ proposals will likely prove impossible to implement.
There are three “sharp bits” which the bishops introduced in order to address the deep disagreements present among themselves and the wider church and to create the illusion of having squared the circle:
- An account of blessings
- An account of civil marriage and holy matrimony
- An ambiguous unclarity concerning sex outside marriage
Although getting through General Synod, the proposals have failed to convince many (about 45% of the clergy and laity in Synod). Their sharp bits now risk producing a tear in the fabric of the Church of England and perhaps finally shredding the already severely torn fabric of the Anglican Communion (given the response of the Global South, reaffirmed in a recent Holy Week letter from its Chairman Archbishop Justin Badi, and the gathering of GAFCON which though clearly distinct has significant overlap in leadership with the Global South).
1. What does it mean to bless?
First, the bishops in offering draft prayers of love and faith, included prayers of blessing (though initially these were described as “for blessing”).
Here the trick was that although this crosses a red line for many (not least because of the wording of Lambeth I.10), it can be argued that this was simply a blessing of people and need not (despite popular usage of “blessing” in society and the church) imply approval. In the words of an article written for the bishops by Isabelle Hamley and influential in persuading some who were otherwise reluctant to take this step:
- in Scripture “it is people that are blessed primarily…even when their actions might cause concern” (p. 3) and
- “the action of blessing represents a reflection of God’s intent that another person flourish, and a prayer for them to come into God’s life in all its fullness, as defined by God (and therefore ‘holy’)” (p. 5).
- thus “a service of blessing could recognise the goods of same-sex relationships and bless the people within the relationship” (p. 6)
- we would be offering “prayer for growth in holiness” (p. 7)
- without this being “a prayer of blessing specifically over the relationship” which “would imply a judgement that this relationship is in keeping with what we understand of God’s divine purposes” (p. 7).
Looked at in this way it is possible for some still to see the circle of received Christian teaching on the basis that, in the words of the Bishop of London to General Synod, “God’s blessing is an expression of God’s desire to see people flourish. It is not a statement of approval, but of God’s lavish love which we are commanded to channel equally lavishly”.
However, the “sharp bit” of blessing people in non-marital, including same-sex, relationships led to others seeing the square they wanted of the church being more affirming of same-sex unions even if they were not yet called marriage. This was also how many, including the Archbishop of York, encouraged people to view what was on offer, thus alienating those committed to upholding the church’s teaching including, it appears, some bishops initially persuaded to support the proposals.
A key question then becomes “for which patterns of relationship might it be acceptable to use these prayers?”. In particular, there are questions concerning those same-sex relationships which are, in law, recognised as marriage and questions concerning use of the prayers for any sexual relationship which is not holy matrimony as the church understands it. These are the next two “sharp bits”.
2. How does civil marriage relate to church teaching about marriage?
Secondly, the bishops – in a major and largely unexplained volte face from previous statements – sought to offer a new interpretation of civil marriage in the light of it being extended to same-sex couples. Initially there were tentative statements from
- the bishops themselves (“It can therefore be argued that the 2013 Act resulted in there being two institutions in the law of England, both of which for legal purposes amount to “marriage” and have the same consequences in civil law, but which have distinct definitions: civil marriage which is gender neutral and Holy Matrimony which requires the couple to be respectively male and female…It can be argued that a same-sex couple entering into a civil status which does not claim to be Holy Matrimony should not of itself be regarded as challenging or rejecting the Church’s doctrine of marriage as expressed in Canon B30 (Of Holy Matrimony), GS 2289, p. 7, italics added) and
- church lawyers (“because what is capable of constituting a marriage for the purposes of ecclesiastical law (the union of one man and one woman) now differs fundamentally from what is capable of constituting a marriage for the purposes of the general law (the union of two persons without regard to their sex), there is a good case for saying that the institution of Holy Matrimony and the institution of civil marriage are now distinct, even though legal incidents are generally the same for both”, GS Misc 1339, para 5, italics added)
Quickly these became much firmer assertions. A clear distinction is now being drawn between civil marriage and holy matrimony in order to justify public prayers of blessing for couples in same-sex marriages (possibly even immediately after their civil ceremony). Previously the bishops had stated that to enter such marriages was clearly “at variance with” and a “departing from” church teaching (see my fuller discussion here).
This sharp distinction is one which few find convincing for various reasons. The lawyers claimed that now in ecclesiastical law and in general law concerning marriage “the two definitions are mutually exclusive and this can be seen as having resulted in there now being two different institutions by the name of “marriage”” (GS Misc 1339, para 6). This seemed to treat all civil marriages since the introduction of civil marriage as excluded from the church’s definition of holy matrimony.
Contrasting “civil marriage” and “holy matrimony” and thus having no overlap in terminology has become a key feature of this particular “sharp bit”. Nevertheless, this cannot hide the fact that few in church talk of “holy matrimony” rather than “marriage”. Nor can it deny the reality that the vows in the civil ceremony, including for same-sex couples, can take the form ‘I do solemnly declare, that I know not of any lawful impediment why I (your name) may not be joined in matrimony to (your partner’s full name)’.
The new legal advice effectively suggests we treat civil marriages (certainly if they are between two men or two women) as we have treated (not without controversy) civil partnerships. They are simply a legal status between two people with no more connection to the church’s doctrine of marriage than say becoming joint owners of a house. This can certainly “be argued for” but few see it as providing even “a good case for” the proposals let alone a legally and intellectually watertight one. I suspect that even those who wish the church would affirm the square of same-sex marriage do not find this “sharp bit” added to the circle convincing. They seem, however, willing to accept it if it has to be the means of removing the previous legal blockages to the blessing of civilly married same-sex couples within the Church of England without changing its doctrine of marriage.
3. What is our sexual ethic?
Thirdly, the bishops presented the draft prayers and their decision to replace Issues in Human Sexuality with no clarity as to whether the church’s existing sexual ethic (as affirmed for example, in the 1987 General Synod motion and in Synod’s 2007 motion not to do “anything that could be perceived as the Church of England qualifying its commitment to the entirety of the relevant Lambeth Conference Resolutions (1978: 10; 1988: 64; 1998: 1.10)”) would continue to be upheld or altered by the bishops.
The Bishop of London (who is the lead bishop for LLF) said five times in her written answers to questions (Questions 144, 148, 149, 151, 155) at the February General Synod that “the Prayers of Love and Faith are silent about sexual intimacy”. She also, however, made clear that “The draft Prayers of Love and Faith do not change the Church’s teaching on Holy Matrimony” (Q151) and that the House of Bishops “has not retracted” the teaching that “the only rightful place for sexual activity is Holy Matrimony” (Q150).
Here is where there is currently perhaps most confusion as to whether we are really being offered the same circle as before or something which has morphed, or is at least morphing through adding “sharp bits” to it, more into a square.
There were some grounds for thinking such shape-shifting is occurring in the bishops’ paper. In a number of places it could be read as suggesting that they are no longer saying that sex is for marriage and that for the unmarried holy living requires abstinent singleness. Instead it could be understood that the bishops were in the process of making a paradigm shift to focus instead on the qualities and virtues of a relationship as the determinant as to whether it could, in the eyes of the church, legitimately be sexual. This is a possibility in, for example, the following places where they write of:
- how, recognising “the diversity of committed relationships that exist both in the Church and in wider society today” they “joyfully affirm and want to acknowledge in church, stable, committed relationships between two people – including same-sex relationships” (p. 1)
- clergy being able to “pray God’s blessing on two people in an exclusive committed relationship” (p. 2)
- wanting to “find ways of affirming same-sex couples – inside and outside the church” (p. 4)
- “responding to the goodness of relationships between two people who are committed to one another in love and faith” (p. 5)
- the new prayers being “to celebrate committed relationships between two people” (p. 6)
- doing more work on “everyday faithful relationships” which would be affirming of “‘gospel values’ that can orient growth in virtues of all who live in committed sexual relationships: virtues such as love, faithfulness, self-giving, mutual trust and truthfulness” (p. 17)
- enabling people “to inhabit committed sexual relationships in a way that is hopeful and life-giving, and that provides a stable context for the flourishing of family life” (p. 17)
At the press conference launching the prayers the Bishop of London spoke of “a range of views” among the bishops on whether sex should take place only in marriage. She acknowledged that in the various forms of “faithful, lifelong relationship between two people” which the prayers were designed for “some will be sexual, some will not, some will be friendship, and some will be sexual”. The Archbishop of York went further saying “I believe the great gift of sexual and physical intimacy to be cherished belongs in stable, loving, committed relationships. And therefore, I will celebrate the fact that people are living that way and expressing their intimacy that way”. A few days later, asked “Is it still church teaching that gay sex is a sin?” he replied,
Well, what we are saying is that physical and sexual intimacy belongs in committed, stable, faithful relationships and therefore where we see a committed, stable, faithful relationship between two people of the same sex, we are now in a position where those people can be welcomed fully into the life of the Church, on their terms.
He then reiterated that “we believe that stable, faithful, committed, loving relationships are good. They are the place for physical intimacy”.
In contrast to this, however, the bishops are committed not to change the doctrine of marriage and canonically the prayers cannot even be “indicative of any departure from the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter” (Canon B5.3). This condition was supported by Synod in the only amendment it passed to the bishops’ motion and that amendment did not include the canonical qualifying reference to “any essential matter”.
In only November last year the Bishop of London, answered a question (Q38) as to whether Canon B30 “represents the doctrine of the Church” and so “any sexual relations outside of this definition of marriage is a sin” by stating,
Canon B 30 does indeed continue to articulate the doctrine of the Church, including asserting that holy matrimony is the proper context for sexual intimacy.
This answer recognises that the canon does not simply define marriage as “a union…of one man with one woman”. The canon is clear that one of the purposes of this union is “for the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections”. This is presented as “the teaching of our Lord affirmed by the Church of England” and the purpose summed up in those words is simply a restatement of what is found stated more fully in “the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony contained in The Book of Common Prayer” (which under canon A5 is one of the places where the doctrine of the Church of England is to be found): marriage
was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
Past legal advice (appendix to GS 2055, para 9) has been clear (despite the comments quoted above from the Bishop of London and Archbishop of York) that on the basis of current teaching any prayers “should not implicitly or explicitly convey the idea that the Church was sanctioning or condoning a sexual relationship between the two persons” (italics added). In addition, “a service which sanctioned or condoned such a sexual relationship would not meet the requirement that a service must “edify the people” and would probably also be contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in an essential matter”. This was reaffirmed in legal advice in 2018 concerning a diocesan synod motion requesting “the House of Bishops to commend an Order of Prayer and Dedication after the registration of a civil partnership or a same sex marriage”:
the House would need to make it clear that the service was not explicitly or implicitly sanctioning or condoning a sexual relationship between the parties unless the House had decided to change its teaching that sexual relationships outside marriage “are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings”.
The key question here then becomes whether, and if so how, the church’s current sexual ethic can be changed. It would appear that, because of the commitment not to change or indicate a departure from the doctrine of marriage, various avenues are being explored to square this particular circle and add this third “sharp bit”. Some, for example, are now seeking to distinguish between doctrine and teaching. This is despite the difficulties linguistically of doing so and the answer of the Bishop of London last November to General Synod that made clear the teaching about sex being for marriage is part of the doctrine of marriage. However, the Bishop of London in an answer to the London Diocesan Synod, recently stated,
In preparing the Pastoral Guidance bishops will consider exactly how the unchanged doctrine of marriage of the Church of England – as expressed in the Canons and the liturgies of the Church of England – relates to the teaching of the Church with regard to sexual intimacy and marriage. As they stand, neither the Canons nor the liturgies necessarily prohibit sexual intimacy between persons of the same sex on legal grounds. This will be a matter for bishops to decide on biblical and theological grounds. (italics added).
Alongside this, the Archbishop of York and others have recently made reference to the possibility of us witnessing a development of doctrine and this framing of it may then be presented as consistent with having an “unchanged doctrine” from which there has been no “departure”.
Moving forward: Circle? Circle with sharp bits? Square?
The LLF discernment process is now entering a new stage following the bishops’ proposals and reactions to them, particularly in General Synod. Under a fresh co-ordinating group replacing the Next Steps Group, there are now three new groups being formed comprising bishops and advisers. These will be working on revising the prayers, developing pastoral guidance, and discerning what is needed to provide “pastoral reassurance”.
One of the central problems is that it remains far from clear how much the circle of inherited teaching and practice is in the process of being changed by the addition of these three (and perhaps other) significant “sharp bits”. The challenge is summed up in the attempt to argue that the doctrine and law of the church is not being changed but nevertheless significant developments are taking place in practice which have previously been understood as impossible to implement within existing doctrine and law.
In presenting their proposals the bishops seem initially to have believed they had found what has been called a “diversified consensus”. This accepted both the need for some (probably more than minimal) changes and the bishops’ inability (procedurally and politically) to change the doctrine of marriage. More conservative bishops then viewed the proposals as still basically forming a “circle”: they simply enabled those who wished to do so to pray for God’s best for individuals in non-marital relationships with certain qualities (some of which would be civil same-sex marriages) but the fight to keep the church’s doctrine of marriage unchanged had been won. Although these may be sexual relationships, the prayers were silent about that and to pray for blessing on people did not, they were assured, necessary entail approval of any sexual aspect in their relationship.
Other bishops, however, though frustrated in their attempts to secure the “square” of marriage in church for same-sex couples, viewed the proposals as the church finally commending committed non-marital relationships simply on the basis that they embodied certain qualities. These relationships included same-sex marriages and so as these were no longer contrary to the church’s doctrine of marriage and able to be blessed it was thought they must also now inevitably become open to clergy.
In addition, given the decision to replace Issues and the silence about sex, many of these bishops also expected the teaching about sex only being for marriage to be altered in the guidance that was to follow. When, on the publication of the proposals, the statements of the Archbishop of York and others gave voice to this latter view it was inevitable that those committed to the church’s teaching could not but see the sharp bits being added to the circle and conclude that, to many people in the church and wider society, the circle was being made to look too much like a square.
The challenge now is how the groups working on the prayers (particularly their rubrics) and the guidance can best address these challenges and what degree and form of “pastoral reassurance” will be required once the final shape of these becomes clear. These will be explored in two subsequent articles.
Revd Dr Andrew Goddard is Assistant Minister, St James the Less, Pimlico, Tutor in Christian Ethics, Westminster Theological Centre (WTC) and Tutor in Ethics at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He is a member of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) and was a member of the Co-Ordinating Group of LLF.
Given the Church of England not only blesses remarriage of divorcees, including that of the King after his adultery with Camilla and even now marries divorcees, blessings for homosexual couples civilly married and committed to each other were long overdue. It was therefore right the Bishops approved such blessings and Synod has now voted by a majority for them too.
As with blessings for divorcees those Vicars who don’t want to bless homosexual couples can opt out and holy matrimony remains reserved for heterosexual couples in lifelong unions. The correct solution was found
Except that the first is within the teaching of the NT, and the second is contrary to it.
So why, logically, would the one lead to the other? If you can off an argument, rather than continually posting propaganda, that would be welcome.
Divorce is expressly forbidden by Jesus Christ except for spousal adultery. Jesus doesn’t mention anything against homosexual unions in the Bible however. I am sure it is not just pure homophobia your complete opposition to even blessings for homosexual couples while full support of marriage of divorcees but certainly you have little biblical basis for your vehement opposition to the latter but not the former in terms of Christ’s teachings
(The spousal adultery exception may be an inference by Matthew from Jesus’s existing line on adultery. Whatever, it is not in Mark, and generally Matthew has no sources within Markan material besides Mark. And Mark is our primary source.)
No, divorce is not permitted by Jesus ‘for any reason’. See (again) https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/does-jesus-permit-divorce-for-any-reason-in-mark-10/
Jesus doesn’t mention homosexuality just as he does not mention existentialism, fluid mechanics, or any other modern notion. But he does prohibit porneia, which in the first century includes same-sex sexual relationships of all kinds, and does explicitly confirm marriage as between one man and one woman because of God’s creation of humanity.
It is hard for it to be clearer. Every single biblical mention of same-sex sex prohibits it absolutely. Your vehement advocacy of it contradicts the doctrine of the Church ‘according to the teaching of our Lord’ and detaches you from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church which has had a consistent consensus on this question.
Your vehement advocacy of it contradicts the doctrine of the Church ‘according to the teaching of our Lord’ and detaches you from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church which has had a consistent consensus on this question.
Do remember that your addressee has been quite explicitly in the past that his or her loyalty is to the church of our monarch, not the Church of our Lord.
Porneia as you well know is a reference to fornication, not homosexual couples in lifelong unions. As you also well know Jesus only allowed remarriage of a male if his spouse had committed adultery. Yet as you also know full well the one holy catholic and apostolic church ie the Church of England now not only blesses divorcees marriages where there has been no spousal adultery but marries them too.
The Church of England doesn’t even allow homosexuals to marry in its churches, all it has agreed is to allow blessings of homosexual couples married in civil law in Church. I am afraid your vehement opposition to that but vehement support for remarriage of divorcees in Church is not based on the teachings of Christ, just spin and picking and choosing to suit your agenda!
Porneia as you well know is a reference to fornication, not homosexual couples in lifelong unions.
Um. Sex between homosexual couples in lifelong unions is fornication.
No it isn’t. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Couples who may have had multiple sexual partners before marriage are fine if heterosexual, divorcees remarrying is fine but a homosexual couple who have never had any other partners than themselves are not even allowed a blessing?
No it isn’t.
Of course it is. Fornication means any sexual activity outside of a valid marriage.
How untrue can that be? There’s nothing remotely fine about any of those 3 things.
The Church of England as you well know openly marry heterosexuals who have engaged in pre marital sex. The Church of England as you also well know openly marry divorcees even when the divorce was not on grounds of spousal adultery. So for certain evangelicals to complain most loudly not about that but about a mere blessing, not even a marriage, in a Church of England church for homosexual couples in lifelong unions is as I said breathtaking hypocrisy!
The Church of England as you well know openly marry heterosexuals who have engaged in pre marital sex.
As long as they repent of their previous behaviour.
The Church of England as you also well know openly marry divorcees even when the divorce was not on grounds of spousal adultery.
And it should not do that.
T1, for the nth time, you cannot appeal to practice.
Some practice is right, other practice is wrong. You know that as well as I do.
Where does the Church of England ever ask heterosexual couples to repent of pre marital sex before they are married in Church?
Where does the Church of England ever ask heterosexual couples to repent of pre marital sex before they are married in Church?
Doesn’t it? Well I’m sure you would agree that it ought to.
S
I think it depends.
There certainly are church leaders even within the CofE who say it is a sin to identify as gay even if you are not having sex, but I think the official official teaching is that same sex sex is sin. From this they say same sex marriage is sin since it is reasonable to assume married couples are having sex together. That’s why there’s a gritted teeth tolerance of celibate civil partnerships because they don’t involve sex. That’s my understanding of it anyhow.
There was an attempt at a Christian conference here in the US for celibate gay Christians and it was quickly forced to close due to a signed statement against it by lots of big names. Their position was that its sin to say you are gay, so I do think that identity is part of the issue for some conservatives
Only the most hardcore conservative evangelicals. The Conservative Party in the UK now fully supports gay and lesbian marriage, as now even do 55% of US Republicans. The Anglican churches in most western nations at least bless homosexual couples, in the US they even marry them
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/09/1004629612/a-record-number-of-americans-including-republicans-support-same-sex-marriage
T1
In the UK evangelicals are not aligned to the conservative party and they are only about 2 million in number so I don’t think you can infer anything about British evangelicals from these numbers
If British evangelicals mostly supported same sex marriage then we wouldn’t be having this discussion!
At risk of being obvious, Jesus was a Jewish man brought up in the tenets of Judaism and speaking almost exclusively to Jewish people who, at that time, all kept to God’s commands that forbade homosexuality. This was in a society in which homosexuality was rife, probably being even more widespread than it is today.
Jews were unique in this, as they were unique in insisting that God is One.
So your argument from silence about Jesus’ views on homosexualtity carry no weight with me as a Jewish believer in Jesus.
Yes indeed. The idea that ‘Jesus was silent’ is actually antisemitic, since it obliterates Jesus’ Jewish context.
The early church – quickly becoming majority Gentile – continued to uphold Jesus’ teaching about sex. Which was highly surprising in the highly promiscuous sexual context of contemporary Gentile culture. Yet they felt it to be of the essence of their faith, that sex was thought of differently but Christians – only between married couples, comprising a man and a wife. As Gagnon points out in “The Bible and Homosexual Practice”, faithful, lifelong, non-abusive, same-sex relationships did exist in the ancient world. So there was an ‘acceptable’ form of same-sex relationships to point to, had the Church felt that was appropriate – they didn’t.
This was in a society in which homosexuality was rife.
Distinctions need to be made. Pre-Augustan (before Christ) Roman/Latin society had no place for homosexuality. Greek society – if one can generalise when one polis differed greatly from another, and especially before the 3rd century BC – was much more accepting. In post-Augustan, urban society homosexuality was accepted, but equivocally, being associated (at least among Romans who held to the traditional mores) with the effete and effeminate.
This moral degeneracy would have been one of the reasons why orthodox Jews regarded the Gentile nations as unclean.
First-century Palestinian society was a mixture of orthodox Jews (probably the majority), Samaritans who shared their moral outlook, Hellenising Jews, and the occupiers we loosely term ‘Romans’. Jesus’s audience would have been almost exclusively non-Gentile, and among them homosexuality would not have been rife. Unlike now (i.e. it is not a coincidence that the rise of homosexuality coincides with record-low birth rates), a high premium was placed on raising children. Adults married young, and parenthood was esteemed. Outed homosexuals would have been shamed and ostracised, at least as much as those found to be adulterers. It was for this reason that sodomy was not a topic Jesus needed to address.
The point has already been made that all porneia – that is, all sexual aberration, promiscuity and incontinence – was condemned by the New Testament writers, just as it was by orthodox Jewish society at large. New Testament morality was not new. Its only novelty was that the Holy Spirit was now available to inform and sharpen the moral sense and enable the believer to overcome temptation. That needs to be the Church’s (Church of England’s) message today. Instead, it ignores the Holy Spirit (doctrinally considered to be a separate god, with no role to play outside of episcopal/ecclesiastic rhetoric), and consequently the Spirit has departed.
“The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
There’s a huge difference between it being reasonable to assume that someone believed something and us actually having recorded testimony about it. I think it upsets quite a lot of people when church leaders claim Jesus taught against us or against us marrying because it’s not true.
Romans had a completely different attitude to sex and gender than we do. It’s complicated to map these onto modern culture. Certainly gay Romans were not getting married or starting families.
MSM is a far wider category than gay men and not all gay men are MSM. It seems unlikely that a Roman would have been thought of as gay just because he had sex with men, whereas in our culture a man who has sex with men is assumed to be gay
Condemning gay people or same sex marriage using porneia is a circular argument since you are assuming gay people or ssm is immoral, but if it is immoral then you don’t need to prove it is immoral!
Appealing to any special knowledge like having a better understanding of a Greek word than others is not firm enough evidence to tell someone else they must abandon any hope of a relationship or family life.
There’s a huge difference between it being reasonable to assume that someone believed something and us actually having recorded testimony about it.
We have recorded testimony of what Jesus thought about marriage.
MSM is a far wider category than gay men and not all gay men are MSM.
By ‘gay men’ here you mean ‘men who are exclusively sexually attracted to other men’, right? And by ‘MSM’ you mean ‘men who have sex with men’?
In which case we need to say that if that’s the distinction then the Church’s teaching isn’t ‘against gay men’ at all. The Church’s teaching is that men having sex with men is sinful. So the Church’s teaching is that all MSM are committing sin whether or no they are gay; and gay men who don’t have sex with other men are not sinful (in that way, of course they are sinners, as we all are — they just aren’t committing that particular sin).
It seems unlikely that a Roman would have been thought of as gay just because he had sex with men, whereas in our culture a man who has sex with men is assumed to be gay
In Christian terms a man who has sex with men is committing sin whether or not he is gay. Being gay, in the way you have defined it, really is irrelevant from a Christian point of view.
S
If homosexuality is so irrelevant to Christian theology why are so many Christian denominations facing schism over this issue right now?
If homosexuality is so irrelevant to Christian theology why are so many Christian denominations facing schism over this issue right now?
As I have written elsewhere on this page, I don’t think they are. I think they’re facing schism over the idea of whether human beings are fundamentally corrupted, or not. The sexuality issue is just the highest-profile symptom of this underlying cancer, but there are others, such as the rise of the universalist heresy.
The fundamental problem is anyone — gay, straight, anyone — who says, ‘God made me the way I am’. That’s a heretical statement, it’s anti-Christian. You are a sinner, and God didn’t make you a sinner. I am a sinner and God didn’t make me a sinner. Sin made you and I what we are, not God. It’s God who gives us a way to stop being what we are and instead become what He meant us to be, by being washed in the blood that flows from Emmanuel’s veins. But we have to accept that blood, and to do that we have to realise the truth of what we are. Satan wants to stop us realising that, and that’s why so many denominations are facing schism over whether they will hold to the truth or accept Satan’s comforting, fatal lie.
S
Actually from point of view, if a person is homosexual, but claims not to be then that’s a lie, which is pretty comprehensively described as sin in scripture (for example Exodus 20), whereas being homosexual is not described as sin anywhere in scripture.
Actually from point of view, if a person is homosexual, but claims not to be then that’s a lie, which is pretty comprehensively described as sin in scripture (for example Exodus 20), whereas being homosexual is not described as sin anywhere in scripture.
Same-sex sexual activity is described as sinful in several places in the Bible, of course, but none of that has anything to do with anything I wrote.
Apologies, vehement opposition to the former not the latter
T1, that would be true if the step taken for divorcees was a good step, better by comparison than resisting such a move would have been. You have given no points in favour of that. Points against it, of course, are that it ignores the teaching of the one who is the raison d’etre of the church, that this is his best attested teaching, and that it creates lower expectations of fidelity and stability which then have a knock on effect on millions of precious lives. In addition letting this societal thing invade the church (which was meant to show a better way) is a kind of desecration.
From your reasoning we deduce that you think that any policy change that happens must be good.
From which we deduce that in your eyes there is no good or bad at all, since anything in the world, however nonsensical or incoherent, can become a policy change merely by people pressing the appropriate voting-button.
And Ohm’s Law also means that UFOs are not merely in my imagination
I have no resistance to your proposition.
Clearly not some people’s current thinking… Using my inductive powers… Eh watt? 😉
For those who are marrying following divorce, the service, although often informally known as a ‘blessing’, is officially a service of “Prayer and Dedication following Civil Marriage” – I have also known it to be used by a married couple who wish to renew their marriage vows. A significant difference between this service and the marriage service is that this service has explicit acknowledgement of past failure.
The Christian Gospel does offer forgiveness and restoration. The marriage of a man and a woman is itself good, so this kind of service enables the couple to live in this good state, having repented of past failures.
Repentance is, of course, turning away from what you have done, as opposed to being or saying sorry.
Secondly it is putting it right.
To turn away from an abandoned spouse is not only different from that, it is the opposite.
To turn to a 3rd party compounds that.
And to then seek God’s blessing for that further compounds it.
75% of ‘d’s involve an abandoned spouse.
Restoration is just that. As you were.
The logic of the sexual revolution always takes some disentangling.
Is the reference to Isabelle Hamley’s paper an error. The link seems to be dead, and the only paper by her I could find doesn’t discuss ‘blessing’. Walter Moberly’s paper does. Is that what Andrew means?
Hmmm…I will ask.
It is in the LLF library here: https://llf.churchofengland.org/mod/resource/view.php?id=698
But you need to be logged in to access it.
This article makes a big thing that 45% of the General Synod members didn’t agree, but 55% – i.e. the majority – did. We know that any survey of members of the Church of England will find a much larger majority in favour of acknowledging and celebrating same sex relationships.
The often-quoted “one man and one woman” Bible quote comes from a time when marriage was a patriarchally-inspired institution in which women were chattels – and how do we know that the emphasis wasn’t on “one man and ONLY one woman” to prevent polygamy and dowry-gathering ? Since Solomon had 500 wives and Abraham and Moses each had 2, where does this take us ? 1st Century AD marriages were financial and political accommodations, and not driven by love or care.
I remember lots of similar arguments being trotted out against the ordination of women and yet 25 years later the world hasn’t ended and we are blessed with many devout and holy women clergy.
I wish the Church would keep silent on matters of sex where there a relationship is loving and faithful and no harm is being done. What right a priest has (or even a Bishop) to tell people what they may or may not do in the privacy of an intimate, faithful, loving, physical relationship is utterly beyond me.
And ultimately, if you can’t live with what the majority of Western Anglicans feel, go and live somewhere else. I deeply respect the principled decisions of clergy who went to the Catholics over the issue of women’s ordination. What they will do when the Pope authorises women’s ordination (which is coming) I don’t really know.
‘We know that any survey of members of the Church of England will find a much larger majority in favour of acknowledging and celebrating same sex relationships.’ No, we don’t. That survey was propaganda, since it did not ask about attendance, but only those who ‘thought of themselves’ as Anglican.
It is Jesus himself who specifically states that marriage is between one man and one woman, and the C of E Canon B30 explicitly notes that we are following his teaching.
Are you happy for us to disregard the teaching of Jesus because he lived in an age of apparent ignorance?
If you cannot accept the current doctrine of the Church of England, which is also the consensus view of the church catholic in all ages and just about all places, shouldn’t you go somewhere else?
“Are you happy for us to disregard the teaching of Jesus because he lived in an age of apparent ignorance?”
I’d love for us to have regard for the teachings of Jesus. But I fear he’s a bit too liberal and challenging for today’s tastes.
Jesus was a Torah-observant Jew, who called sinners to repent lest they be cast into outer darkness.
I fear he is a bit too conservative and reactionary for today’s tastes.
Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?”
Luke 14:5
Because he is pointing out that, by the principle of ‘from the smaller to the greater’ this is permitted by Torah. So he has not broken Torah in his healing.
“The often-quoted “one man and one woman”
Did any of the men marry a man?
And as a supporter of women’s ordination I cannot fathom your parallel. It’s biblically a gulf apart.
Do you regard two women as parents or two men as parents? Are they interchangeable? God is very sure ‘He created them male and female”. Each has a role in procreation and sexual relationship minus modern intervention leads to children. Children are the ones who are being damaged in your anything goes morality. Fatherless and now even motherless through surrogacy (another slavery of poor women).
God has set the standard for us to follow. We are in the world, but not of it.
“despite popular usage of “blessing” in society and the church”
Despite being popular it isn’t altogether wrong either. I can’t imagine that anyone hearing the marriage blessing thinks for one moment “this does not apply to the couple only to Janet and John individually.” It’s a significant climax in the service… Two have become one.
What seems evident and contradictory is the Bishop’s proposals working flat out to create a theology which (through twists and turns that would delight a figure skater) validates what they think as the popular view.
It’s as concerning as parts of the “true cross “ (honest gov) being used at the Coronation.
Squaring the circle or actually just running it over?
“They allege the same of the Lord’s cross, which is displayed in so many places, privately and publicly, that if all the fragments were gathered up they’d seem the full freight for a ship” – Erasmus, Colloquia: Peregrinatio Religionis Ergo, 1526.
<Where we see a committed, stable, faithful relationship between two people of the same sex, we are now in a position where those people can be welcomed fully into the life of the Church.
‘We’ means the vicar. But how is he to judge whether the relationship fulfills the conditions? When a heterosexual couple ask for a church marriage, he does not consider whether the relationship is committed, stable and faithful. He does not know them well enough. And, having been put in this awkward position, he will certainly not wish to arrive at an adverse judgement.
Moreover, commitment, stability through thick and thin, faithfulness are qualities that primarily characterise marriage itself, not the prenuptial relationship. The couple vow to be committed and faithful. In the present context, will the vicar ask the homosexual couple to privately give him assurances that their relationship is committed etc? This would itself be like going through the marriage ceremony.
In practice he is more likely to treat the fact that they have already exchanged vows in a civil partnership as evidence that their relationship is committed etc (and this is likely to be the guidance given to him from on high). He will be blessing a civil marriage after the fact.
The word ‘relationship’ is being used as though its meaning were clear.
There is all the difference in the world between sexual and nonsexual relationships. To use one word for both is either obfuscatory or thoughtless.
Christopher
As with everything else there is no agreement on this even.
Non sexual relationships are theoretically allowed by the CofE, but there’s plenty of local churches where they would be unacceptable. There are lots of parishes who would not welcome clergy in civil partnerships even though these are also “allowed”. There are lots of parishes who would not welcome female clergy even!
I think there’s no moving forward until the status quo is accepted – that nobody agrees on anything even the definition of terms!
Non sexual relationships are theoretically allowed by the C of E.
Well, that’s a relief, since I have some with my parents, children, friends, pets, enemies….
But that is not the point I was making.
I was kind of agreeing with you.
There’s no agreement on what these terms specifically mean.
There’s no agreement on what these terms specifically mean.
That’s deliberate! It’s all part of the attempt to use constructive ambiguity to create the appearance of unity by coming up with a form of words that everyone can sign up to while meaning mutually incompatible things!
I agree it’s deliberate.
We need clear teaching and clear rules, but that doesn’t suit some church leaders who want to have different rules for the people they like
Christopher
I dont know if you are aware of this but LGBT Christians have been trying to get churches to be clear on their teaching because the deliberate vagueness often leads to people getting hurt or even abused. There is a website Church Clarity, whose entire aim is to get churches to be honest about what their policies and teaching is.
We need clear teaching and clear rules, but that doesn’t suit some church leaders who want to have different rules for the people they like
Wow; normally I’m the most cynical, but I really don’t think that’s the reason. I think they are genuinely trying to hold people who believe incompatible things together. They just don’t seem to realise that a false unity based on lies is never the answer.
I don’t know where to start. The thing is to follow Jesus, not any particular ‘church’. The fact that those churches often speak as though their teaching or doctrinal statements are the first port of call says it all.
S
Being gay in the church opens your eyes to a lot of corruption amongst leaders
Christopher
Everyone is trying to follow Jesus, but there’s disagreement on what that means for gay people
There is indeed disagreement between those who are in thrall to prevailing culture and those who understand how transient and relative that culture is.
What is odd is that Shirley Blackwell says that there is an issue over same sex relationships.
There is not, never has been, and could not be.
The only thing that there is an issue over is same sex sexual relationships.
Is the idea that all relationships are sexual?
If so it is clearly inaccurate.
Is the idea that there is no difference between sexual and nonsexual. Sex is a trivial matter, a secondary issue? That is unChristian and inaccurate, since the union of man and woman is both biologically and sociologically (in terms of families and heritage) and theologically of major importance.
It seems that relationships *not* being sexual is an option that has not occurred. Whereas in the real world most relationships are not. And those that are (for Christians) are not called ‘relationships’ but marriage. The fact that ‘relationships’ language is being used is an indication that the discourse is not Christian. And certainly not at an acceptable level of clarity.
Biologically, sociologically, theologically, and romantically.
Here I agree with you wholeheartedly. It is a measure of the relational poverty of our Western society that the only ‘relationships’ that count are sexual ones. There have been comments here about not permitting SSM is condemning people to lonliness. Do same-sex attracted people not have families? Are they incapable of forming friendships? Kith and kin are the warp and woof of society. They have been abandoned on the altars of individualism and romanticism.
I think it’s actually romantic/partnership relationships that are seen as most important. Sex usually goes hand in hand with that, but isnt the most important part. Couples don’t stop being married when they become unable to have sex.
Couples don’t stop being married when they become unable to have sex.
Yes they do. In the modern view of marriage, it’s considered perfectly okay to leave your spouse if you think you would be happier (inc. sexually) without them; indeed it would be unethical to stay as then you would not be ‘being your authentic self’.
S
Is it?!
My grandparents didn’t divorce when they got elderly or ill. I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who did that
Yes but haven’t they got family?
Haven’t they got friends?
Those are pretty basic things.
Christopher
It’s pretty difficult to have a family if you are baned from marrying or having children
Everyone has a family. They are born into one. How could it be otherwise? These things are basic.
Secondly, two men cannot produce a family. Again, basic. They can take a a child from that child’s mother, but obviously no-one could wish it on any child to be deprived of their mother.
I cannot agree since my daily life contradicts your claims
I cannot agree since my daily life contradicts your claims
You never answered the question at https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/christian-teaching-on-marriage-sex-and-identity-harmful-or-protective/#comment-423023
And this is one of the issues with our strange Modern world, as affected also by the Romantic Movement. The idea of Romantic Relationship, which seems to require sexual activity these days (not so much in the past) has become the idol which is worshipped, to the detriment of other kinds of relationship. I would also suggest that having one ‘significant other’ and no deep relationships which are neither romantic nor sexual actually puts too greater weight on that one relationship.
Kierkegaard wrote a piece call “Works of Love” in which he develops the idea that the human love closest to divine love is love for neighbour. Erotic love is a preferential love. A love for someone who appeals to you, who satisfies some need or longing that you have. To love one’s neighbour is to love them simply because they are next door. There is not necessarily anything about them which is attractive, quite the reverse in some cases. God’s love for us is love for sinners.
David
I’d argue the desire for companionship comes to us due to our being made in the image of God (who is trinity). It is not good for man (or woman) to be alone.
To me, this quotation, above from the B of London gets to the crux of the matter and the Bishops understanding of
1 The Gospel
2 What a Christian church is.
“…we are now in a position where those people can be welcomed fully into the life of the church, ON THEIR Terms.” Emphasis added.
Is this really the size of the Bishops summation of the Gospel literacy?
Did Jesus welcome people on their terms? And fully participate in discipleship?
And, as some of the comments on this site show, it certainly doesn’t, satisfy “their”, terms and conditions for entry and participation.
Neither does Jesus accede to participation into his life on our terms and conditions. Stunningly
offensively, divisivly, the opposite is, irreconcilably, true. And there is no synthesis.
Thanks Geoff but the quote is from the Abp of York not the Bishop of London.
The Government of the UK decided unilaterally to change the law on marriage in this country. There was no referendum or debate and overnight they changed the whole landscape from Christian marriage as known for centuries in this country. They supposedly gave a triple lock to the Church over this issue and we now have MP:s threatening to force the Church to comply with their worldly views. Are they going to force the followers of Islam to change their teaching?
Christian marriage is very clear. It is between one man and one woman for life, with adultery being the only reason for divorce. The procreation of children and the care of a mother and father are the family structure of a Christian teaching.
There is no compatibility between a civil marriage of two people of the same sex and Christian marriage. Love does not make it right – the love of a parent for a child should not be sexual, the love of two brothers or sisters should not be sexual. This facile “love covers all” is infantile nonsense.
Something so fundamental should, more than any other issue, have debate. This was a fait accompli. The Govt has no powers to do faits accomplis.
Tricia
Same sex marriage was made legal by parliament after lengthy parliamentary debate. If we had had a referendum then it would have been overwhelmingly in favour.
The big issue from a secular point of view is that the CofE largely has a monopoly on marriage. If you have a registry office marriage then you are not allowed to mention God etc, even if you are someone of a strong faith. Therefore the people who are gay and have a faith cannot marry according to their faith in England. I had this exact scenario happen to me – the church I attended would not allow me to marry, but my housemate – who didnt go to that church – and his wife were allowed to marry there. It’s ridiculous.
Why can’t “Christian” marriage be between two people of the same sex? Is it due to the fundamental assumption that every person is created attracted to the opposite sex? I think conservatives need to come up with a good answer to this question.
‘The big issue from a secular point of view is that the CofE largely has a monopoly on marriage.’ Er not true. Have you not looked at the stats?
Maybe I should have written “marriage with a religious dimension”?! I wonder if relaxing the rules about what is allowed in registry office marriages etc would go some way to reducing the pressure on the CofE from an equality standpoint? I honestly don’t know if the bishops would object to that happening or not.
Maybe I should have written “marriage with a religious dimension”?!
But that wouldn’t be true either. Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Penecostals, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, all do religious weddings in the UK.
S
I agree and the Methodists are excellent at allowing all members of their community to get married in church. (IDK about the others).
The difference is that straight people living in England have the legal right to marry in church. Gay people living in England do not and cannot access a ceremony with any religious input at a registry office. Their only hope for a ceremony with any religious input is if the Methodists or the Sikhs agree to it.
The difference in rights is why this has become a secular issue of equality as well as a religious issue of the Church of England failing a minority with its teaching
Their only hope for a ceremony with any religious input is if the Methodists or the Sikhs agree to it.
Which they undoubtedly will do if the couple in question are members.
But if they aren’t members of the church and just rock up because they fancy a bit of religious symbolism at their wedding I don’t see why they should have a right to it (and to be honest I think the Church of England should tell opposite-sex couples in a similar situation to get lost as well, or at least, to not allow them to marry in church until they have had a lengthy period of preparation and proved that they understand and are serious about what they are doing, and have shown that by regularly attending).
S
Because it’s a right straight people have, but gay people do not have.
I’d argue that gay people who don’t have faith are less likely to want to get married in a church than straight people who don’t have faith.
Straight people have a right to marry in church. Gay people do not. It’s not equality. That’s why the MPs are involved
Because it’s a right straight people have, but gay people do not have.
Everyone, gay or straight, has the same right to marry in the Church of England someone of the opposite sex.
Personally I think the Church of England should be a bit more demanding of those who wish to exercise that right than it currently is but the right is the same for everyone.
S
It may be your opinion that gay people should marry the opposite sex, but that’s not the accepted standard in equality. I’m just trying to explain why this is a secular equal rights issue as well as one of religious doctrine.
It may be your opinion that gay people should marry the opposite sex, but that’s not the accepted standard in equality.
It’s not my opinion that they should or they shouldn’t, I’m just pointing out that the same definition of marriage is available equally to all.
S
S
I’m not sure even that’s entirely true. I’m not certain that parish priests have to carry out marriages of convenience, but I know that they don’t carry the same weight in law because I’ve just been through an immigration process in which we were scrutinized over several years to make sure we were a genuine couple.
And my point isn’t about your opinion or my opinion. I’m explaining why this has become an issue of equal rights.
And my point isn’t about your opinion or my opinion. I’m explaining why this has become an issue of equal rights.
And I’m explaining how everyone already has the equal right to be married in the Church of England, as the doctrine of the Church of England defines marriage, and that is the current legal position, so there is no issue of equalities law here.
S
But that’s not equality under the widely understood standard. It’s like saying that the library is fully accessible to all, included wheelchair users, when it’s actually at the top of a flight of stairs!
I’m also not sure if anyone has recently tried to have a marriage of convenience in their parish church…are we certain that the church would be required to agree?
It’s like saying that the library is fully accessible to all, included wheelchair users, when it’s actually at the top of a flight of stairs!
It’s not like that at all. In that case there is something that the wheelchair-bound person might want to access, but can’t.
Whereas everyone, whatever their sexual orientation, can access marriage as defined by the Church of England. It’s just some people might not want to access it.
So it’s not like a library at the top of a fight of stairs; it’s like a library with a nice gentle ramp, but that only stocks crime thrillers. Everyone can access the books, but some people just don’t like the books on offer, and so they are demanding that the library starts stocking, say, romance books as well because otherwise romance fans are being discriminated against.
But they aren’t. They aren’t being discriminated against because they are just as free to borrow the books as the Len Deighton fanatics. They just don’t want to.
S
Being gay does not mean you have a personal preference for the same sex. It’s far more far reaching than that
Being gay does not mean you have a personal preference for the same sex. It’s far more far reaching than that
I thought you were defining gay as ‘exclusively sexually attracted to members of the same sex’?
If that’s not the definition you’re using could you give that definition please?
S
That’s how I would define it, yes. But it’s not as simple as a preference.
I prefer butter to mayo. Justin Welby hasn’t said that people will be murdered in Africa because the CofE might agree to bless some butter.
I can survive eating mayo instead of butter. I cannot romantically love someone of the opposite sex. I would have physical difficulty having sex with them
Who you are attracted to and not attracted to impacts so many interactions, impacts your relationship with your parents, siblings, friends, community, church, your domestic life, your work life.
I hope you can try to understand that we are not evil people or people running after a fetish. We are people who just want to be allowed to exist and find happiness – the same as everyone else.
That’s how I would define it, yes. But it’s not as simple as a preference.
But from how you describe it, a preference is exactly how it is.
I prefer butter to mayo.
And I once tried, unwisely, jellied eels when offered them as part of a promotion in a supermarket. I almost threw up in the aisle. Let’s see how my preference not to eat jellied eels compares.
I can survive eating mayo instead of butter.
I can survive not eating jelled eels. It is also possible to survive without having sex.
I cannot romantically love someone of the opposite sex. I would have physical difficulty having sex with them
I cannot eat jellied eels. I would have physical difficulty keeping them down.
Who you are attracted to and not attracted to impacts so many interactions, impacts your relationship with your parents, siblings, friends, community, church, your domestic life, your work life.
No it doesn’t. Who you are attracted to is a private matter. My siblings don’t know who I am attracted to. Neither do my friends, community, church. And certainly I would never dream of having such a personal conversation at work, and I would hope that no one I work with would ever dream of being so unprofessional as to start such a As conversation about themselves! Work is not the place to talk about your personal life!
I hope you can try to understand that we are not evil people or people running after a fetish.
If I have ever suggested you are an evil person, point to it.
We are people who just want to be allowed to exist and find happiness – the same as everyone else.
No one is suggesting you shouldn’t be allowed to exist. As for happiness — the vast majority of people on Earth don’t get happiness, why should you be any different? Jesus never promised His followers would be happy in this corrupt, ephemeral world. Quite the reverse: He promised suffering and rejection. Happiness is for the life to come, when we see clearly.
Peter – but you don’t simply want to exist and find happiness – on the previous thread, you also indicated that you supported ramming sex education down the throats of youngsters – you disagree that the cartoon images they use for teaching purposes are pornographic, but many (myself included) consider them to be pornographic. From my point of view it looks absolutely horrid and I’m very glad I’m living in a country where my own child won’t be subjected to this.
You write about people of the opposite sex ‘I would have physical difficulty having sex with them’. What you don’t seem to appreciate is that Christians (I’m not talking about the world and people who follow the way of the world – I’m talking about people who have been redeemed and transformed by the Holy Spirit) don’t have very much opportunity for such activity. Apparently there are chemicals available that women can ingest if they want to have-it-off without getting pregnant, but pretty much everybody knows that these chemicals can be harmful and Christians avoid them. So having-it-off for purely recreational purposes isn’t something that heterosexual Christians actually do. They don’t do it, because they are constrained by the ‘law of love’ – which basically means that you’re not prepared to see your wife harming herself by ingesting these chemicals.
If the debate were all about companionship, I think there would be much more sympathy towards your position – and also, if it were simply about companionship, towards gay couples being allowed to adopt children and have something that looks like a family life.
But I think we’re all aware (and in your case you seem to be very keen on sex education) that it isn’t simply about companionship, but it really is about having-it-off.
It also looks a bit like demanding-one’s-rights, when this is anathema to Christian thinking. `All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God’, `The wages of sin is death’ – that is our right.
S
I’m not talking about sex. I agree you can live without sex.
I’m also not talking about telling everyone who you are attracted to, although I think it is very wierd to never discuss your attractions with anyone!
Advertising often uses attractive people to sell their products. If you are gay you would be less likely to be influenced by Advertising that’s focused on heterosexuality. Likewise you’d be less likely to fully enjoy a romantic movie or action movie that’s centered on heterosexuality. Those are just two examples of why orientation is way more than just a preference. It’s a really deep and personal characteristic.
Jock
Well I am a parent and, yes, I do agree that children should recieve *age appropriate* sex education and most other parents agree with me.
If you get married then you certainly have an opportunity to have sex. Indeed sex is an implied component of a married relationship, which is why telling me that I can marry someone of the opposite sex is futile – I honestly don’t think I am physically capable of having sex with them. My bits wouldn’t work.
No, gay people dont want to marry just to have sex – I could easily find another gay man to have sex with within a few hours. That’s not why gay people want to marry or raise children.
Advertising often uses attractive people to sell their products. If you are gay you would be less likely to be influenced by Advertising that’s focused on heterosexuality. Likewise you’d be less likely to fully enjoy a romantic movie or action movie that’s centered on heterosexuality. Those are just two examples of why orientation is way more than just a preference. It’s a really deep and personal characteristic.
Those are sim preferences though! Someone who, say, prefers redheads to blondes will be less likely to be influenced by an advertisement that features an attractive blonde than one that features a strategic redhead. But no one claims that hair colour preference is a ‘really deep and personal characteristic’, do they?
And everybody has different types of films they prefer. I personally can’t stand superhero films because they are all the same story and rely on special effects rather than clever plots for their impact. But that isn’t a ‘really deep and personal characteristic’, it’s a preference.
S
No. It’s not the same thing as a preference. If you are asexual and genuinely never experience attraction then Im not sure I can explain. If you are determined not to understand then I wont be able to explain
It’s not the same thing as a preference. If you are asexual and genuinely never experience attraction then Im not sure I can explain. If you are determined not to understand then I wont be able to explain
Well so far you haven’t been able to produce any way it which it differs from a preference, have you? Just your empty blustering denials which are about as convincing as when Donald Trump denies his affairs.
Secular gays have a better understanding of what the Bible says about their sexual practice than bishops do, evidently. They deplore the scriptures, but they understand them better. How educated you have to be to perform sophistry!
The bishops are following in the footsteps of one who asked, “Did God really say…?”. And time is running out for them too, although July’s General Synod is a little nearer than the Second Coming.
Well, you never know…
Nice, but whatever the year it will clearly occur at the time of Tabernacles, in September/October. Tabernacles is the harvest festival, and the only one of the big three festivals for which all able-bodied male Jews were to make pilgrimage to Jerusalem yet to find fulfilment in Christ.
If Lot choose the left, then go to the right. If Lot chooses the right, then go to the left. There is no longer any point to this interminable argument. The Church of England wishes to dash itself onto the rocks with the Gadarene swine. There is no stopping it. So let it follow its own path and separate from it. The testimony of leaving is far greater than the cacophony inherent in staying.
Sigh. Round and round we go. Merrily ignoring the lives of anyone this might affect. Making sure nothing is allowed to get in the way of parading our piety to each other, as we thunder our indignation.
Is it too much to ask for people to start taking their stated positions seriously?
It is not enough to simply parrot that marriage is between one man and one woman, end of story. What is the teaching therefore for gay people? What are they to do?
If you want the teaching to be that they should consider heterosexual marriage (just like everyone else), then have the decency to say so. Tell us you want that to be the alteration to Issues in Human Sexuality, and spell out how that teaching is supposed to be given, what it means for Christian marriages if sexual orientation is to be ignored, and what guidance you want to give to the prayer lives of those you’re giving this teaching to.
If you want the teaching to be that gay people are commanded to celibacy, then take that seriously. Does that mean they have extra responsibilities in the Church given they know they won’t be forming new families? Are they to be the new monks and nuns of the 21st century, what would that mean, what models of mutual support should we be encouraging and developing? What guidance should the Church be giving for having such a conversation with teenagers (tricky given that we currently wouldn’t allow them to actually take vows of chastity like an actual monk or nun)?
If you want the teaching to be that gay people can form covenanted friendships, build close relationships with partners, but must abstain from sex in those relationships, then say so. Can those friendships be blessed? What do we need to do for the Church to accept such friendships are valid? What status do they have? Can a covenant be broken? Is that akin to a divorce?
Don’t shoot the messenger. What do you think the scriptures imply?
Yes, but you know that most cultures and times have not had this category ‘gay people’, yet you take that as a given!
And you take it as a given having not addressed the point since I already made the same point about instrinsic/noninstrinsic above.
And you half assented to it.
All kinds of things can be said if people don’t examine their presuppositions.
Christopher
All cultures and times have had people who go through life with exclusive attraction to the same sex, which is what we mean by gay people.
It is the general acknowledgement of such people by the straight majority that has varied dramatically and has often been confined to the arts.
Exactly! And there are also Mozart loving people. But they were not so as babies, and therefore are not so endemically. Which means that the black-female-gay thing is plain wrong.
Gay unlike the first 2 is (a) unobservable, and (b) unprovable, and (c) undiagnosable. Which makes lumping it with the first 2 propaganda, and makes those who continue to do so identifiable as propagandists.
I disagree that orientation is unobservable, unprovable or undiagnosable.
The easy test for being black is skin color, but there are people who are black with very light skin color and lots of people who are mixed race.
With gay people there are people who are very obviously gay, people who are less obviously gay and people who are bisexual.
There’s no obvious gay gene, but that doesn’t mean that there are no biological differences between gay people and straight people. Our bodies work similarly, but respond to differently to straight people
My point entirely. There are distinctives on average, but these (a) are far from universal, and (b) fall soo far short of those connected with geographical heritage and gender.
Your para on ‘black’ is very confused. It is as though you have started with the categories black and white and then wonder why people don’t fit in them. Common sense dictates that those categories never described the existing spectrum (which you discover to your astonishment) in the first place.
Christopher
I thought you were making the point that gay is not a category of diversity in the same sense as being black or female is?
You know very well that my point was that the other two were intrinsic (and observable, provable, diagnosable) and this one is not, or not to anything like the same extent.
The inaccuracies in what you say are so many.
The word ‘diversity’ is so broad, that anything can be taken to be an example of it. But given that there are 2 genders and 2 gametes, there is not a lot of diversity there. In pigmentation, there is a whole world of diversity, a whole spectrum. In sexual behaviour, people are capable of doing anything. It may not do them much good, but they are still capable. That proves nothing, since we have already always known that people are able to do a whole range of good and bad things.
Christopher
But my point was that I disagree with you.
Being gay is intrinsic, observable, provable and diagonosable
No you don’t, Peter.
Intrinsic is not down to what you or I say. It is down to science. The only way you can thnk different to science is if you have done more research than several lifetimes’ research put together AND that nonexistent research somehow contrives to give an opposite sort of result to all preceding research.
What you mean is that you prefer that stance. Which you will agree is irrelevant since reality has nothing to do with our preferences.
As for the observable, provable, diagnosable, my point was always that the level to which ssa is these things is far lower than it is with gender or geographical heritage or appearance etc.. You are speaking in a binary Yes/No way when reality is that there is a spectrum, which spectrum you are denying.
Christopher
I disagree with you that we don’t have enough scientific research to say that homosexuality is intrinsic. I think we do have enough.
But even if we do not then all we can say is that we don’t have the information, not that it’s a firm no.
I’m not denying that some people are varying degrees of bisexual and in fact they are a far larger proportion of the population than gay people are!
The topic is as you know much-studied. We have oodles of information. How long are people going to kick the ball down the road?
As for bisexuality as such (i.e. neutral preference which is very different to Ancient Greece’s system), it is common only in one sort of society at one time in history: our own western world of the present day. In other words, it is vanishingly rare. It is common now because (a) it is presented as a main option and (b) because the message is the more sexuality the better, so that plenty are identifying as pansexual, again not normal. It is all down to the options being offered and normalised. You are speaking of this rarity as a human constant!
Christopher
People do not choose which sexes they are attracted to.
Self identification of bisexual and homosexual varies with culture because at times there is huge social cost, even fatal cost, to identify as one of these. There are far more heterosexuals than bisexuals, far more bisexuals than homosexuals and far more homosexuals than transgender people. That is all we can really say I think from what I have read of the studies into these.
AJ This has been my exact frustration with the whole discussion of gay people in the last ten years. There’s no attempt to ground this in reality and no attempt to have any sort of engagement with real people.
I’m married with kids and all these proposals and discussions say to me is that the CofE doesn’t know what to make of me. Some gay people have been married for a decade now. Other gay people are starting out in life and are being told they must be single and celibate and not refer to themselves as gay and…basically we would prefer if you could just magic yourself heterosexual because it is all too hard for us to deal with!
I don’t think the C of E doesn’t know; it has a doctrine of marriage, and the role of its leaders is to call you into this life-giving teaching of Jesus.
I don’t think the C of E doesn’t know; it has a doctrine of marriage, and the role of its leaders is to call you into this life-giving teaching of Jesus.
It’s fair enough, though, to point out that while some of the Church of England leadership see it as their role to call people into that life-giving teaching, others see it as their role to actively try to junk that doctrine; this means that neither side can actually develop a fully-worked-out application of their view because they know the other side would never let them teach it; and the end result is indeed that the (leadership of the) Church of England (considered as a corporate body) doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going on this issue, and therefore keeps pumping out inconsistent statements each one of which seems to contradict the last.
Characterising that chaotic mess as de facto ‘doesn’t know what to make of me’ (even if de jure the doctrine is completely clear) isn’t entirely unfair.
Indeed, S. The problem is the failure to show the church door to those who would change a definition of wrong that the people of God have accepted for more than 3000 years.
Ian my point is that
“dont get married”
isn’t very helpful as far as clear comprehensive life advice, especially if you are in the majority of people who are geared towards a long term relationship and don’t really have the resources to live alone.
‘What is the teaching therefore for gay people? What are they to do?’ There are plenty of answers and models of practice from the Living Out group. I would offer:
a. as a church, we need to reject the nuclear model of family and lived in shared households. We do.
b. We need to affirm singleness as a good calling for all.
c. For gay people, they are free to marry people of the other sex, and a number of my gay friends have, happily.
d. We need to treasure non-sexual relationships of friendship at every level.
I think there is a good deal of teaching on this, such as Kate Wharton’s Single Minded, the work of Barry Danilak in the States, and the writings of Wes Hill and his friends. There are plenty of resources and good models out there.
OK but living out has been saying that for at least a decade and yet the church *hasn’t* acted on that advice.
I think there are some baby steps, but it’s not enough to say “we need to reject the nuclear family” as some sort of pat response – you actually have to do it!!! A handful of conservative churches now have some sort of support group for people who are attracted to the same sex and many conservative churches are being a bit nicer to gay people, but that’s nothing like what is needed to properly support lifelong singleness for people who dont have a natural inclination for it.
Where are the young straight people being encouraged to remain celibate and live in shared households? They’re not are they? The straights are still being encouraged to get married as soon as possible and the gays are being told they are evil and responsible for everything from floods to Christian persecution in the Sudan.
Words on a website aren’t enough.
Reply above is to Peter.
Have you forgotten that for centuries the church ran monasteries?
and then we very deliberately got rid of them.
Anton
It still does!
Im not sure any responsible monastery would accept people as novices just on the basis that they were attracted to the same sex and therefore not welcome at the local parish church!
I cannot think of anything worse than rejecting the nuclear family, so called. I know the extended family and open house are both better still.
But the amount of benefit obtained from living in this microcosm of society is incalculable.
In addition, the main enemies of Christianity are very often anti family. Having been often unlucky in their own families they set out to destroy those of others. As though 2 wrongs made a right.
Family is precisely what gives children a head start.
Why align with the anti-family brigade? They are the last people it would be sensible to align with.
I am speechless.
Christopher
But aren’t you rejecting the nuclear family by saying gay people can’t marry or have children?
What twisted thinking is that? The shape of families is well known to you. People know family trees, mums and dads, from a very early age. The entire plant and animal kingdom is of that structure. As you know.
Christopher
It’s your thinking
That is a cheap jibe, but debate is where it is at.
To say ‘gay people’ (and you know that people do not think that adjective can be used for anything innate) cannot marry or have children is biology. Marriage is the formalisation and sacralisation of the instinct to pair off and procreate. So are you speaking against biology? Animal and plant kingdoms already mentioned. How many biology books have equal space devoted to homosexual and what you call heterosexual? You are speaking as though these were 2 equal options with not a thought given to the fact that one is in accord with reality/biology and the other is not.
Christopher
I didn’t intend it as a cheap jibe, but just fact. You are arguing that gay people should not form two parent families. I’m arguing that we should be allowed to
Christopher
Im not a monkey or a penguin or a whale.
I’m asking that gay people should not form 2 parent families?
That gives me credit for creating biological reality.
It is, as you know, impossible for that to happen, even if we accept that ‘gay people’ is meaningful as opposed to ‘presently SSA people’. A parent is someone who produces a child. You are confusing parent with carer. Secondly, you are also saying that the incredibly widespread phenomenon of parent is so trivial that there is no need for it to have its own word. Bonkers.
Christopher
If distance were not an option then I’d invite you round to tea at our house and you’d soon see that there really is not that much different between our family and the families of our straight neighbors.
*problem not option, sorry
Having confused parent with carer you are now compounding it by confusing family with household.
Parents and families are two of the most widespread realities. In your world, with a dictionary of millions of words, you want to deprive these two mega concepts of a single word to describe either of them.
And yes, I have lived all my life under a stone. I have absolutely no idea how people’s daily lives run.
“For gay people, they are free to marry people of the other sex…”
Yes, of course they are, just as straight people are now legally free to marry, or to form civil partnerships with, people of the same sex. In either case, I see no good reason why they should.
“…and a number of my gay friends have, happily.”
Well, that’s OK, just so long as their other-sex spouses were informed well in advance exactly what the score was, viz. that they were contracting an orientation-discordant marriage. For myself, I would NOT happily do so, nor would I consider it justifiable thus to deprive a woman of a genuine heterosexual relationship (assuming that she were not willing to form an adulterous relationship). Playing games of that kind with other people’s lives is not up my street.
William
I know three or four gay men my age who were told, in good faith, by Christians that the best way to become straight would be to marry women. They are all now divorced and this well meaning advice has caused a lot of misery!
The problem is that church leaders are often looked to for advice on subjects they don’t really know much about.
Yes, Peter, you are right. I know that there are plenty of similar cases.
By the way, I strongly suspect that most of those who consider shoe-horning himself into a heterosexual marriage to be an acceptable option for a gay man want him to do it with someone ELSE’S daughter, sister, niece etc. They don’t want him playing that game with THEIRS.
Thanks for replying Ian,
I don’t buy that there’s plenty of Church teaching on this because there are authors with books. LLF is about what the Church ought to be saying and teaching, not what some people in the Church have published.
It is striking to me though that some of what you propose is found within the Bishop’s Report – they explicitly say we need to do a lot more work on celibacy and singleness, and want to do it. Treasuring non-sexual relationships of friendship, does raise of whether that includes the idea of covenanted friendships? Wes Hill, for example, has said he wants to see provision for vowed friendships as he calls them. But this is something that a number of conservatives have rejected as dangerous (see Ros Clarke from the Church Society). I’m unclear why the “conservatives” in Synod, and the debate more widely, aren’t trying to focus discussion onto these topics.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by the Church rejecting the nuclear model of the family for its members (suspect this is one of those phrases that means slightly, but importantly, different things to different people). A husband and wife having and raising children is pretty much the nuclear family isn’t it? Or do you mean something else?
Finally, can the Church teach that gay people ought to enter into mixed-orientation marriages? Some people do clearly, but they’re relatively rare, and don’t we have to have some regard to the horrendous disasters that came out of doing this in significant numbers in the ex-gay movement? Is this to be encouraged?
AJB,
Why don’t you ask the Bishops?
I’m intrigued to know:
1 What is your understanding of the Gospel, Good News of Jesus?
2 your understanding of “piety” – a piety which seem to seek to denigrate and oppose. Does it include
2.1 admission of and repentance from sin
2.2 justification
2.3 sanctification
2.4 Jesus as First Love
In sum, does Jesus have any part in, piety, in devotion and discipleship to him for ordinary Christians?
Why don’t I ask the Bishops what?
I don’t denigrate or oppose piety. I criticise the parading of it, and I particularly criticise making the lives of others an ornament of your own piety. The attitude of, “see what a good I Christian I am, and what a fine church I attend, because of what we make those other people over there do and sacrifice” is repugnant. It puts me in mind of Luke 18:14
Jesus, his death, and resurrection are the centre of my faith, as they are for all Christians. The defining statement of my faith is the Nicene Creed.
I don’t denigrate or oppose piety. I criticise the parading of it, and I particularly criticise making the lives of others an ornament of your own piety. The attitude of, “see what a good I Christian I am, and what a fine church I attend, because of what we make those other people over there do and sacrifice” is repugnant. It puts me in mind of Luke 18:14
Of course such hypocrisy is disgusting and wrong. But remember Matthew 23:3 — just because someone’s a hypocrite doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Jesus, his death, and resurrection are the centre of my faith, as they are for all Christians. The defining statement of my faith is the Nicene Creed.
Funny, I thought that as a Christian the Bible was supposed to be the defining statement of your faith. The Bible, after all, is God’s Word. The Nicene Creed isn’t. Why would you put something written by men over God’s Word?
As I observe from afar what is going on at GAFCON 4 this week, I notice some refreshing differences from both the Lambeth Conference and General Synod. For starters, there is no attempt by a small unrepresentative group to stitch up a final statement before the meeting has started.
Then there is also a refreshing belief that everything that is needful for salvation can be found within the Scriptures.
Finally there is a sense that it doesn’t matter whether you are an archbishop, a bishop or a member of the majority who are neither, all of you have the same voice. Perhaps the Church of England or the Lambeth Conference might like to try the GAFCON idea of putting forward a number of proposals and allowing everyone, clergy or lay, to vote on them anonymously? Of course this might mean that the man at the top doesn’t always get his way but it might mean that the One who is High and Lifted Up might, for once, get His Way.
I do think we have a democratic deficit in the C of E through Synod.
I’m aware that the CoE works through the structure that exists but I’m not sure Christianity is a democracy. Isn’t the laity crying out for Biblically consistent, clear, committed, Good News, leadership ? And the public, unknowingly, have a Christ shaped hole in their lives?
One of our midweek group is this weekend being appointed to a senior role in a Christian Bikers group. He also, at Easter, emailed to some 2000 staff, the meaning of Eater. HR agreed to it. As they had agreed to a Muslim member of staff explaining the meaning of Ramadan, how could they refuse.? He received 50 favorable responses, including thanks from Muslims. There was no mockery, denigration. How could there be?
Does Gafcom not illustrate that where there is unison on the what and who and why of Christianity, the remaining question is how?
Andy
“Finally there is a sense that it doesn’t matter whether you are an archbishop, a bishop or a member of the majority who are neither, all of you have the same voice”
unless you are female or gay.
Also re GAFCON – apparently the archbishop of Uganda used his Easter message to encourage passage a new anti gay bill that includes the death penalty for homosexuality. This is what you get by thinking absolutely everything can be found in scripture. Do you agree with him? Should I be executed for being gay?
I think for non clergy the proposals are a very bad idea.
1. They don’t bring about any sort of equality in the church, arguably taking equality backwards (since I don’t think anyone was previously seriously objecting to gay people being blessed by clergy and now that’s certainly in the mix)
2. They alienate conservatives without giving liberals any reason to stay
3. Worse than offering clear teaching for gay people (in light of SSM becoming legal in the UK – an entire decade ago now) they further muddy the water by kind of admitting that living without relationship really doesn’t work for most people, but without accepting that those relationships are actually good or even the least worst.
I think the CofE would have been better to *either* work on clearer theology around marriage and relationships, which actually created space for single and celebate people of all orientations in every parish OR fully accept SSM as equal to OSM.
These proposals seem almost worse than pretending gay people don’t exist.
Sigh: It is suggested that is somewhat biblically incoherent and incomprehensible: how about sin, repentance, holiness, sanctification, discipleship?
And isn’t there a royal priesthood of all believers.? Biblical indicatives and imperatives apply to all Christians, disciples, followers of Jesus.
There was a time, within living memory, of the Boomer generation (1946 -64) and before when Christianity, the church shaped western society, a time when sexual intercourse outside male and female marriage was known as impermissible fornication, a time when living together without marriage was known as *living in sin*.
A time when the church shaped sexual morals and ethics, and there was a merger between morals and law, but in the post-war spring high-tide a great reversal swept in separating law and morals and then reconfiguring law to new morals and the porous Church was being conformed to society and the spirit of the age(s).
Will it be dissolved, absorbed, washed away?
Or like the oil of anointing, will it be immiscible with societal water(ing- down)?
Geoff
Sorry if I don’t yearn back to a period where gay men had the choice of a life in prison or chemical castration.
That is a disinguent false equivalence.
Between law and morals and consequences.
And my point, as you know, is that it was common knowledge in Western society.
Or didn’t you know, even through your Christian parents?
It’s a false equivalence.
The morality of the 40s, 50s and 60s led to gay men being incarcerated for long periods and tortured.
It’s a not false equivalence.
The morality of the 40s, 50s and 60s led to gay men being incarcerated for long periods and tortured.
So what happened in all the millennia before the 40s?
So you were ignorant Peter and you weren’t taught by your Christian parents?
Sexual intercourse outside of m+ f marriage was known as sinful even after the Sexual Offences Act in the 60’s. You really didn’t know? Really?
And how about answering the first parts of my comment?
Geoff
In England homosexuality was partially decriminalized in the 60s.
It was not fully decriminalized in the UK until the 2000s.
I disagree that society was more moral then.
Peter, your continued avoidance of the questions and your actual comments, to me reveals that either you don’t understand or are deliberately being politically mendacious as you did in fact know that all sex outside m+f marriage was regarded as sinful especially as your parents were/are Christians.
Bye.
How can you disagree? The evidence is there for all to see, in crime figures and family collapse figures. What Are They Teaching The Children? ch10.
You are surely not one of those people who says they disagree and then gives no evidence for their disagreement? Without evidence and argument you can’t have a belief. Otherwise it would be unfair on the beliefs of those who do have evidence and argument.
Christopher
I’ve given my evidence!
It’s immoral to imprison or castrate people just for being attracted to the same sex and therefore I do not agree that English law was more moral before the decriminalization of homosexuality.
When was a single person imprisoned or castrated for being *attracted* to members of the same sex?
Geoff
I don’t understand what point you are making. Lots of British people do indeed consider sex outside of marriage even today. I guess for straight people that has changed a bit, but it’s not within my lifetime and I’m not really that interested in what other people get up to!
I’m saying that I don’t agree with you that the UK had better laws re sexuality in the mid 20c. You seem to be ignoring my responses.
It is a vanity to imagine a previous era of sexual purity. The Victorians were infamously upstanding about sexual ethics in public law, and instituted the modern laws criminalising homosexuality. They also had a society that was rife with prostitution, rape (including in marriage), adulterous affairs, abandonment of children, and the seizure of children from unwed mothers.
What a cliche. The whole thing is presented in a binary manner – past vs present. As though ‘the past’ was one thing.
There is nothing binary in reality. Just graphs and spectra.
It is a vanity to imagine a previous era of sexual purity.
Of course every era is sinful, in its own way.
They also had a society that was rife with prostitution, rape (including in marriage), adulterous affairs, abandonment of children, and the seizure of children from unwed mothers.
Some of those things are still rife now, of course.
But if you take, say, prostitution, although it was rife in Victorian times at least it wasn’t legal . At least the users of prostitutes didn’t try to pretend what they were doing wasn’t wrong. Whereas now we have entire organisations dedicated to ‘removing the stigma from sex work’, providing helpful advise to undergraduates who want to fund their studies by prostituting themselves (and the advice isn’t ‘don’t do it, it’s wrong’), etc.
So while the Victorian era was obviously not some sexual Eden, it’s at least arguable that their professed sexual ethics were superior to ours, even if their actions often fell short of them.
Pete, I think I agree with your assessment here.
In fact, there has been some good teaching around marriage—but some of the bishops appear to have suddenly decided to set that aside, rather than building on it, with no explanation.
Lest the fruitless business of squaring circles should leave faithful Christians here gasping for air, here’s a rather more joyous antidote from Kigali. You will not be disappointed by this 22 minutes of Christian positivity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKV3RR5YWRM
Many thanks for the link, Don.
We were mission partners in N Nigeria for 10 years. One of the hot topics for debate in the indigenous church was that of polygamy. The church believed that when someone becomes a Christian, that involves separating himself from the culture around him, and therefore polygamy was not part of God’s will. It could be a costly decision, but the church believed that what the Bible taught should judge culture, not the other way around. What seems to be happening in the CofE is that culture takes precedence over clear biblical guidance. That doesn’t mean we have nothing to ‘learn’ from our surrounding culture: it does mean that for us, there is an aspect of holiness, which involves separation. I’ve long thought that this whole row is less about sexuality (God loves everyone) and more about what constitutes holy living. The arguments arise because different sorts of Christian draw that line in different places. Maybe the bishops should request some study on what constitutes holy living. Although it wouldn’t get us any further.
Gill
Do you mind me asking what happened to the families of people who were required to divorce when they became Christians?
Peter: The obvious pastoral advice to a polygamist who comes to Christ is: stay with your wives but do not marry any more unless they all die, and then only one. From what verse does the premise of your question come?
Gill
OK I misunderstood what you were saying
I was asking because one of the things the CofE has failed to do is to produce teaching on what gay married couples should do if they become Christian and accept that their marriage is evil. Should they divorce? What if they have children etc?
A couple of questeoins Peter, if I might…
If you believe that the Church of England today is wrong about the divorce/remarriage scriptures, what has that to do about the scriptures about homosexual relations?
and…
If you believe that the Church of England today is right about the divorce/remarriage scriptures, what has that to do about the scriptures about homosexual relations?
Anton
Sorry I don’t understand the questions…
I’m interested in the CofE having real teaching or advice to give real gay people which they have totally failed to produce in a decade of discussion.
Lots of gay people are married with children. I’m wondering what the COFE teaching should say to them. Should they split up and put the kids in care? Or something else
I’m interested in the CofE having real teaching or advice to give real gay people which they have totally failed to produce in a decade of discussion.
You know why that is, don’t you? It’s because the pro-same-sex-marriage faction refuse to give up hope of changing the doctrine, so they block any attempt to develop teaching which rests on the current doctrine.
S
They could still come up with it. Indeed demonstrating that gay people can live full happy fulfilling holy (etc) lives within their understanding of marriage would give significant weight to their argument against allowing gay people to marry.
I guess they have developed this new idea that good fruit only means obedience to scripture and thar obeying scripture doesn’t necessarily mean happiness fulfillment or good mental health. I’ve started to hear that a number of times.
They could still come up with it.
They wouldn’t be allowed to publish it.
I guess they have developed this new idea that good fruit only means obedience to scripture and thar obeying scripture doesn’t necessarily mean happiness fulfillment or good mental health. I’ve started to hear that a number of times.
Like Matthew 16:24 you mean?
S
I don’t see many straight conservatives giving up any chance of a relationship or family life!
I don’t see many straight conservatives giving up any chance of a relationship or family life!
Very many straight conservatives never marry or have children (of course they still have a ‘family life’ as they have parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, cousins, not to mention their church families).
S
Lots of gay atheists never marry either – not a strong argument.
I’m talking about actually doing what they are demanding of others
I’m talking about actually doing what they are demanding of others
Which those straight Christians will never marry are doing.
S
No, they are choosing not to marry. There’s a big difference.
No, they are choosing not to marry.
No, they’re not choosing not to marry.
Then explain to me what is preventing them
Then explain to me what is preventing them
You do realise a person can’t just decide on their own to get married, right? No matter how much they may want to.
S
There’s nothing to stop conservatives coming up with their own teaching even if the wider church rejects it.
But there’s been nothing. In a decade of supposedly discussing this very topic.
The sum total is they’ve moved from saying “don’t get married” to “don’t get married, but if you do you can have a blessing afterwards, but it might not be a blessing for your relationship just you as individuals. Oh hang on a minute we could have already done that already…anyway it’s something we can tell the media is treating gays better and something we can tell conservatives it isn’t any change”
There’s nothing to stop conservatives coming up with their own teaching even if the wider church rejects it.
There’s no way the House of Bishops would authorise any teaching that relied on the current doctrine.
S
I’m not talking about getting approval by the house of bishops.
I’m taking about being able to say what they actually want real life gay people to do!
I’m taking about being able to say what they actually want real life gay people to do!
Which the house of bishops would come down on them like a ton of bricks for, because it would be seen as trying to pre-judge the outcome of the change processes, and only one side is allowed to do that.
The Archbishop of Uganda just called for gay people to be executed and nobody batted an eyelid.
I don’t think a document setting out advice for gay people to live within the current CofE teaching would upset the bishops. I’d wager most of them would welcome it.
https://www.anglicancommunion.org/resources/document-library/lambeth-conference/1988/resolution-26-church-and-polygamy?subject=Marriage
I would suggest that in addition to these reasonable responses, those in polygamous relationships should not be in Church leadership – a reasonable interpretation to 1 Tim 3.
It is interesting to read Lamin Saneh’s biography “Summoned from the Margins”. He grew up in a polygamous (Muslim) household. His experience does not recommend it!
In the context of this present discussion, this is an interesting model. For those coming to faith, polygamy is no barrier to membership of the church. But it is certainly not celebrated nor ‘blessed’.
Gill,
As you can see the question of holiness is unaddressed, a no-no to be avoided by all means possible. None if which are on point of the topic of the article.
In fact all questions of substance relating to sin, salvation, justification, sanctification that have been asked multiple times are to be met by redirection and avoidance of answering direct and relevant questions.
The question of the Holiness, of God and in Christian discipleship, puts a hole in the whole ssm/ blessing enterprise, it is suggested.
The full force of the question is evaded.
Geoff
But if you don’t believe it’s sinful for gay people to get married then it’s not unholy
Subjective nonesense. You are the god you worship and adore.
The full force of the question is evaded.
Well that’s the disagreement at the heart of the CofE and many other denominations currently.
You could easily argue that your pov is subjective nonsense. That’s the point – there is no agreement on this.
In other words – relativism. Every belief is allowable. Clearly not true.
The only foundation for a belief is evidence.
Only science/observation, statistics and logic and commonsense count as evidence.
Christopher/Geoff
Like it or not, this is what a large proportion of Christians believe.
We can say “clearly” too!
The full force of the question is evaded.
You have completely ignored my point. Address it again.
The way you are using ”believe” (which equates to ‘say that they believe’, ‘would like to believe’, ‘prefer’) has not a scrap of evidential basis.
Modes of so-called belief that have evidential basis will always be far superior to those that don’t.
Now do you get the point?
Christopher
I can go through some scriptural, scientific and other evidence that supports same sex marriage, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before
Peter, when people say ‘I could cite…’ and then do not cite a single thing, that is one of the oldest dodges in the book. I pay no attention. When people cite, I start paying attention, and my view of those that don’t cite takes a turn for the worse. Why should I worry with those that will not cite when I can concern myself with those that will?
You can read citations I gathered in What Are They Teaching The Children chapter 11.
As for ‘I’m sure you’ve read them all before’, how would that be possible? Even the world’s best scientist or social scientist, the world’s greatest specialist in such issues, has not read everything. Though like me they will concern themselves primarily with the largest scale random sample studies. What could you possibly mean by this?
OK Christopher
A lot of Christians believe that the Genesis account in chapters 1-3 tells us quite plainly that human beings are created to be in relationships and that it is “not good for man to be alone” and that therefore allowing gay people to marry and have relationships is allowing them to live out their calling as humans created in the image of God.
Biological studies show us that typical brain shapes of gay men are closer to typical brain shapes of straight women than they are straight men. This suggests that being gay is intrinsic to the entire makeup of the person and not some sort of wierd mental delusion that can be changed via therapy
‘Biological studies show us that typical brain shapes of gay men are closer to typical brain shapes of straight women than they are straight men.’ I suspect you are recalling the completely discredited research of Simon Levine which he concocted. (I remember him because we were at the same school in London.)
Cite the study/-ies.
I have no idea what you mean by alone. I have friends and wife and children and parents and aunts and uncles and cousins. Supposing someone had all these save the wife and children, how could they be alone?
Biological studies show us that typical brain shapes of gay men are closer to typical brain shapes of straight women than they are straight men.
Phrenology? You’re basing all this on phrenology? Really?
Do you mean Savic and Linstrom 2008?
The sample was 90, 50 of whom submitted to the 2nd of the 2 tests. What was interesting was that this particular sample (strongly homo-/heterosexual in attraction rather than in the middle of the spectrum) fulfilled the hypothesis so successfully and with so few outliers (the hypothesis being that het- men and hom- women are comparatively similar brain-wise, and likewise hom- men with het-women). It is of course of long standing that hom- identifying people have characterised themselves and/or been characterised as sometimes acting like the other gender.
Brain development is to a high extent postnatal, of course, and depends on postnatal circumstances.
The study was unable to determine whether the bulk of the differences were attributable to pre- or postnatal conditions. But they suspected that hormones played a large part. It would be interesting to see what of this has or has not been replicated since. I have scanned Votinov 2021 too.
Christopher, Ian, Anton
I was defending the claim that there is no evidence to support allowing gay people to marry.
I gave two examples of evidence – one from scripture, one from biology.
You don’t have to agree. You just have to acknowledge that people who support allowing gay people to marry are not doing so without evidence.
What do you mean by saying we don’t have to agree? It is not a matter of preference but of evidence. This is the core point which you need to understand. Any opinion not supported by evidence is wrong. Your scripture point fails because of the category ‘relationships’ which is very vague and is also far broader than you make out. Your biology point is good and it is well worth looking at the full sweep of studies on that.
Christopher
It’s a different argument to say that you disagree with the interpretation of the evidence than saying there is no evidence.
Every gay person walking alive is evidence – they are made in the image of God and God cares about them. They are not a mistake.
Every gay person walking alive is evidence – they are made in the image of God and God cares about them. They are not a mistake.
We are all made in the image of God and God cares about all of us, but none of us are how God intended us to be. We are all broken, corrupted images of God, blighted and tarnished by sin that dirties and stains us so deeply that nothing can remove it but being bathed in the blood of Christ.
This, actually, is the root of the disagreement. It’s not really about sexuality. It’s about whether you realise that we are all horribly distorted and disfigured caricatures of the people God meant us to be, twisted and made hateful by sin; or whether you cling to Satan’s diabolical lie that you are beautiful and God loves you as you are.
Of course if that lie were true, we wouldn’t need to be saved. And that’s why Satan loves it when someone falls for the lie: because as long as they believe they are beautiful to God and God lived then as they are, they won’t accept the salvation God offers them in Jesus’ blood, and they remain bound for Hell.
Peter, unless you stop bludgeoning us with the idea that there is no alternative to accepting that there is a category called gay people, when the point has repeatedly been made that some things are intrinsic and others are not, then one would have to class you with the metropolitan class who thinks everyone alive is between 25 and 55 and has never heard of families.
Just because people are ssa by the time they are adults or teenagers, how does that make them ‘gay’? That is quite a jump. People are smokers and drugtakers by the time they are teenagers. They turn away from God, if at all, when they are teenagers. Teen age is when all the worst decisions /departures get made, some with lifelong consequences.
S
The claim that we are all imperfect is fine.
The problem is that conservatives say gay people are especially imperfect in a way straight people are not so that we are told it is sinful for us to form sexual relationships and/or non sexual relationships and/or even admit to being gay.
If conservative Christians really lived the claim that “all have fallen short of the glory of God” then there would not be these debates because either conservative Christians would support full inclusion of LGBT families into the church OR would have prioritized work to offer alternatives.
Christopher
Gay just means someone who is attracted to the same sex and not attracted to the opposite sex. I dont think it should be controversial to suggest that such people are not a figment of the imagination.
Which is nothing to do with my point, Your failure to get or reproduce points is bound to have adverse effects in people assessing your debate competence.
My point, and now I am repeating, is that people are not sexually attracted to the same sex. *Some* people for *some* of their lives are. That point is simply irrefutable. None of the people you are pointing at was sexually attracted to anyone until they reached a certain age. But by the time they reached that age all kinds of psychological things and formative events had happened to them. So all the people you are referring to are people in the middle part of their lives, with a few older ones. This is what you call ‘people’? Most normal people are in families with different ages and generations of relations.
Are you one of those people, very common these days, who think that children and old people do not exist?
In the starkest terms, your way of looking at things is equivalent to seducer saying to the seduced – This is the way you are now: live with it. And indeed, they now are that way in their history, in their being. People can become all sorts of ways, of which some are healthy and some are not. That is obvious. It is unrealistic and also cruel to expect people to affirm the ways that are not healthy.
Thanks for posting this Ian. Great stuff from Andrew as always. The conceit that it is possible to have two completely contradictory belief systems together is now surely revealed as unsustainable. On which point, will tou be posting anything about the outcome of GAFCON 4? The timing and the location are extremely significant, and the commitment of GAFCON and the Global South to work more closely together seems to be the first tangible step in a total realignment. I’d very much welcome your thoughts on that.
Richard
The archbishop of Uganda has used his Easter message to back a bill that includes the death penalty for gay people. Gay sex is already illegal in Uganda.
Is this something GAFCON agreed on? Will Foley Beach be lobbying congress to have gay people executed in the US?
I also read an article by Susie Leaf praising GAFCON and saying that they just want Lambeth 1.10 upheld. Executing gay people is as incompatible with Lambeth 1.10 as allowing gay people to marry, perhaps more so
God asked the people of Israel whether they would agree to the written laws of Moses and they said Yes. So, apart from the death penalty for murder (Genesis 9), the consent of the people as a whole should be sought concerning the laws they live by – certainly over capital matters. But do you think God was wrong to propose Leviticus 20 to the Israelites?
I don’t support the death penalty for murder, let alone being gay
I don’t agree that Leviticus actually condemns people to death for being attracted to the same sex or even for all cases of having sex with a member of the same sex. I believe it’s being misread to justify really extreme laws.
Wghat you do and don’t agree with or support has nothing to do with what the author of Genesis and Leviticus states.
Anton
The author of Leviticus also bans shaving. We need to take context into account.
Please tell me how context reverses the plain meaning of these scriptures.
The context tells us when they apply.
The context of Leviticus is the creation narratives, and there is no suggestion that there is any abuse or idol worship associated. The prohibition is because it is a breach of God’s creation intention.
There is quite a strong scholarly consensus on this.
Ian
I dont think you are agreeing with what you think you are agreeing with.
We are discussing if Christians should support the death penalty for homosexuality – you’re saying that there is scholarly consensus for this!
No we have to read Leviticus in context and I doubt there’s scholarly consensus for death penalties for anything frankly.
Peter, clearly GAFCON do not support this, since the statement rejects it.
I havent seen any statement from GAFCON rejecting the Archbishop of Uganda, calling him an apostate and declaring themselves not in communion with him. He made these latest statements during the GAFCON conference as far as I can make out
I havent even seen a message saying they disagree with him. I havent seen such a message from the ABC either, come to that (although he has done after media pressure in the past).
When gay people marrying is seen as more serious than executing gay people, is it any wonder that people across the west are leaving the church in droves?!
Why should I trust these people to guide my spiritual life and my domestic life when they either want me dead or can tolerate me being executed more than me being married?
It doesn’t actually reject it. It says they oppose vilification and demeaning of any person. It completely leaves the door open to killing gay people, imprisoning people who say they are gay, penalties for people who say they support gay people etc.. As long as you’re not being abusively disparaging when you talk about it, this is fine by GAFCON. Archbishop Kaziimba is still a Vice-Chairman of GAFCON. He hasn’t rejected the Kigali Commitment has he? He’s signed up to it. And he sees no rejection of what he’s been doing and saying in the Church of Uganda. I don’t think he’s a fool who’s been deceived.
Yes Richard, that is a significant and welcome step.
Gafcom Kigali Commitment is here:
https://anglican.ink/2023/04/21/the-kigali-commitment-gafcon-iv/
I suspect the end result will be squaring the circle – individual Bishops and priests will decide how they view the issue and act accordingly. Bishops will not be allowed to require priests under them to take the same view as them. I dont see a mass exodus from the coe from either party because, apart from anything, each views their own view as the correct and legitimate one and so in each mind it is for the ‘other’ to leave, plus livelihoods are at stake.
If Jesus’ threat of judgment to the churches in Revelation which tolerated sexual immorality was real, and if such a threat continues today, one wonders how that will manifest itself. Or perhaps it was the case then that just about everyone in those churches had a ‘liberal’ mindset rather than just a certain proportion as is the case with the coe. Time will tell I suppose.
Peter
The Book of Revelation was written by John the Apostle not Jesus. Jesus was much more compassionate and recognised humans were fallible
The Book of Revelation was written by John the Apostle not Jesus.
The Book of Revelation is God’s Word.
Jesus is God.
So the Book of Revelation is Jesus’ Word.
Considering the text itself…
The NetBible translation note has for the beginning of v1, “the revelation of Jesus Christ”:
The phrase ἀποκάλυψις ᾿Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ (apokalupsis Iēsou Christou, “the revelation of Jesus Christ”) could be interpreted as either an objective genitive (“the revelation about Jesus Christ”), subjective genitive (“the revelation from Jesus Christ”), or both (M. Zerwick’s “general” genitive [Biblical Greek, §§36-39]; D. B. Wallace’s “plenary” genitive [ExSyn 119-21]). In 1:1 and 22:16 it is clear that Jesus has sent his angel to proclaim the message to John; thus the message is from Christ, and this would be a subjective genitive. On a broader scale, though, the revelation is about Christ, so this would be an objective genitive. One important point to note is that the phrase under consideration is best regarded as the title of the book and therefore refers to the whole of the work in all its aspects. This fact favors considering this as a plenary genitive.
Then, more simply, Rev 1:4-6 has what is a standard letter opening. Note how it names the senders:
“John to the seven churches that are in Asia … and from Jesus Christ …”
So, the text itself claims to be from Jesus Christ.
Indeed, and this claim is reiterated in the epistolary ending.
T1, Your view of the relative merits of Jesus in the gospels in comparison with other parts of scripture is, at one level, neither here nor there.
The Church of England is very clear in the Articles (which according to canon law set out its doctrine) that we may not expound one part of scripture so as to contradict another part, nor may we teach anything contrary to scripture.
The only reason you know anything about Jesus is down to the apostles and other eyewitnesses!
It seems that if Jesus appears to be portrayed in a particular way then you accept that as the ‘real’ Jesus. Otherwise you reject it.
I would rather see the whole picture as portrayed in the NT. That is reality, even if it does not always accord with our own sensitivities. But then we should be wary of creating God in our own image…
From my perspective the CofE’s failure to really deal with sexual and spiritual abuse by church leaders (we heard just yesterday that they are still withholding evidence from their own safeguarding team, let alone any truly independent investigators) is the true sexually immorality, not gay people deciding they cant hack loneliness or dont believe it’s what God is calling them to.
the CofE’s failure to really deal with sexual and spiritual abuse by church leaders […] is the true sexually immorality, not
Why not both?
S
Because I dont personally believe it is sexually immoral for gay people to marry.
Because I dont personally believe it is sexually immoral for gay people to marry.
We know. But not everyone agrees with you.
You mean the church is full of hypocrites? Shocking.
But I dont see how it’s good to be wrong in multiple areas.
‘Don’t believe it’s what God’s calling them to’:
So they are pretty sure they have access to the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe…
and by chance, out of all the possible thought-profiles there might be, those thoughts happen to agree with their own thoughts or desires.
Christopher
You could make the exact same argument about those who oppose same sex relationships on religious grounds.
No such thing as religious grounds. The only valid grounds are evidential. And anything evidential is nothing to do with preference, by definition.
Debate must be very boring otherwise. No-one would believe in truth or discover any. They would just say, you prefer vanilla, I prefer rum and raisin, end of story, QED.
Christopher
The only objections to same sex marriage that I have heard are based on a religious view. There’s often an attempt to bring in biology or sociology, but these are secondary. You oppose my marriage because your theology says it is wrong. That’s your primary reasoning.
You oppose my marriage because your theology says it is wrong. That’s your primary reasoning.
You’re confusing motive and reasoning. The two are totally different. Someone’s motive for opposing same-sex marriage might well be because their theology days it is wrong but that has nothing to do with whether their arguments are sound or not.
When considering arguments you must totally disregard the motives of the person putting them forward, and judge the arguments entirely on their own merits as arguments.
Peter, I am not going to be impressed when people just stick with stereotypes. For the second time, there is no such thing as a religious argument.
Science, natural law, statistics.