Debating the Church and same-sex marriage


On Friday 3rd September, at 2.10 pm, I had a phone call from a number I did not recognise. When I answered, it turned out to be from a BBC researcher asking if I would appear on BBC1 on Sunday morning for a debate about the Church of England and same-sex marriage, in the light of the coming vote taking place in the Church in Wales. I have been preaching in different churches, covering for vacancies, but it just happened that this Sunday I did not have a commitment. As I have said elsewhere, when someone makes a media request like this, the first thing to say is ‘Yes’; two days’ notice is fairly standard for this sort of thing, even though it was on national television.

You can watch the discussion on BBC iPlayer here, starting at 25 minutes in, but I have also captured it and put it on my YouTube channel and embedded it below. I offer a few reflections on the discussion.


Andrew Foreshew-Cain made a short opening comment, arguing that this was about ‘welcome’ and about ‘strengthening marriage’. In debate, these two ideas are easy to address, and I picked up immediately on the fact that this wasn’t about strengthening marriage so much as completely redefining it. And, of course, ‘welcome’ does not automatically include shaping what we do to fit the claims and assumptions made by those we seek to welcome.

When I was invited to speak, I began by enumerating the points I wanted to make. I have learnt that this makes it harder for a presenter to cut me off before I have made all the comments that I plan to!

My first point was to note that our current approach in society is a novelty, and is the result of some fundamental changes in the way we think about our bodies, sex, and relationships. I have noticed that the debate often starts with the assumption that belief in same-sex marriage is obvious, natural, and is the final end goal for our thinking about relationships. A little bit of cultural and historical awareness, though, shows that, in comparison with most cultures in most of history, we are very odd; I also want to point out that we have faced very rapid changes in attitudes, and changes are likely to continue in one direction or another. I noticed that Andrew nodded his agreement on this point.

My second point was that the C of E is rooted in the 1662 BCP and the 39 Articles; if we are to change our doctrine of marriage then we will need to redefine the C of E. I went on to make the point I have made previously in various places, that there is a strong consensus of what the Bible says, and to introduce change we do (as Francis Spufford does with honesty) need simply to say that, on this, the Bible is wrong. Andrew seemed to agree with the first of these two, but shook his head on the second.

Delyth’s opening comment was interesting, because she herself introduced the language of ‘contradictory views’ in relation to the recent Methodist motion—and I think she is right!

I felt that David Bennett’s contribution was outstanding, and I did feel a little as though I was playing a supporting role to his contribution! As a gay man himself, he was able to talk about the three issues of valuing gay relationships and making LGBTQ+ people feel welcomed, but alongside that offering a critique of our sex-obsessed culture, and talking from personal experience about the costly commitment that Jesus calls us all to in the life of discipleship. These points are vital in the discussion, but I think they can only be made in this kind of public forum with integrity and credibility by someone, like David, who has had to face the issues personal themselves.


Andrew was invited to respond on the question of division in the Church, and he claimed that ‘division is already there’, and that as an autonomous church we should ‘do what is right in our own context and setting’. I think that is an odd way of understanding ourselves to be part of the ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic’ church as we claim to be, and the language of ‘autonomy’ has been prominent in the comments from the Episcopal Church in America.

Andrew then characterised David’s position as a ‘personal choice’, rather than recognising the claims of discipleship and theology as being communal. He made the false claim that ‘the majority in the Church of England’ believe we should change, picked up from Jayne Ozanne’s faulty survey. (Some people asked me why I didn’t pick up on that; my judgement was that it was too detailed a point, and there were more important issues to address in the short time.) Andrew then criticised David for making it ‘all about sex’, since ‘marriage is about so many other things’. But that is a disingenuous point; if the question of sex was not central, then we would not be talking about same-sex marriage, but about celibate same-sex partnerships!

I wanted to respond to Andrew, so tried to attract the attention of the presenters. I was asked about the Church of England’s role as a state church, which I responded to by correcting common misunderstandings of what that means. I then wanted to make key points about division and mission. On the first, I picked up Delyth’s own language of believing contradictory things; I don’t think anyone outside the Church finds the idea of believing contradictory things at the same time at all convincing!

On mission, I drew my points from the recent article by David Goodhew, in which he notes the decline of many established churches, but the growth in England of ‘new’ churches of various sorts—most of whom are very clear that they believe marriage is between one man and one woman.

I also wanted to say something about the gospel—what it is that we have to offer people. ‘It is not about making the Christian faith plastic and fit the culture—which after all has changed so rapidly’.

Sean then picked up the point about contradiction with Delyth, and I am not sure that I found her answer convincing! The idea that questions of sexuality are ‘periphery’ is incoherent; if it is not central, then why engage in such a divisive debate? And why has the lobby for change been so vociferous?


For anyone who might be involved in media discussion of any kind, four technical points. First, I had been mulling over what needed to be said for the two days running up to it, and (as is my habit) had honed and written down some key ‘sound bite’ phrases, and had them in front of me. On any media, you are given very little time, and it is vital to have a memorable summary to hand.

Secondly, David and I know each other well, so we had a conversation the day before, and agreed that he would talk more personally, and I would talk more about the institutional issues, and I think that worked well as complementary approaches.

Thirdly, in a discussion it is vital to listen carefully to what others are saying, and pick up on a respond to the words they are using. I particularly aimed to do that in response to Delyth’s comments; I was surprised that she was so open about the contradictions that the Methodists had agreed to, but I simply played her language back to her.

I actually thought I was sitting too near the camera; I had adjusted this to match presenters earlier in the programme, but should have sat back more to match the other three in my discussion.

Overall, the presenters handled the process very fairly, and in fact I think gave more time to David and myself than to Andrew and Dyleth. The structured nature of a Zoom discussion actually worked well, since it is not possible for different people to interrupt or talk over each other.

The comments from viewers had been carefully selected, and I thought were fair. Some matched quite well the points David and I had made.

If you would like to explore the question of what the biblical texts say, you might be interested in my Grove booklet, Same Sex Unions: the key biblical texts which is available post-free in the UK and as a PDF ebook.

For more about how to be effective on radio and television, see my previous article.

 


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178 thoughts on “Debating the Church and same-sex marriage”

  1. If there cannot be agreement even that ‘sexuality’ is something of the first importance (and the arguments for its being trivial I have yet to see) then ‘we’re doomed’.

    Reply
    • The trouble is that only one side sees this as a fight to the death for the soul of the Church of England, and it is the side that denies the scriptures. Until the side that affirms the scriptures recognises what it is up against, it will continue to be driven back. At some point the SSM party and its bishops will inform a future secular government that the CoE’s exemption from conducting same-sex weddings is an anachronism that is no longer needed. Then a same-sex couple in every parish will then demand a church wedding, and the game will be up for conscientious objectors among the clergy.

      Reply
      • I hesitate to speak into this echo chamber.

        “The trouble is that only one side sees this as a fight to the death for the soul of the Church of England, and it is the side that denies the scriptures. “

        From where I stand it looks to me as if it is both extremes that see it as a fight to the death. I do not believe that such a fight is reflects a true picture of God to unbelievers. That picture just reinforces the view from the time of the reformation and the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland that religion is just a source of conflict, bitterness and even war! What better ammunition can you give to militant atheists and humanists.

        As for denying the scriptures I think that is a caricature. LLF illustrates a gradation of views. What you would call denial at one extreme and those who call denial at every view but their own at the other. However, many honestly believe that they do affirm scripture, but have a different understanding the words in the context. From some there seems to be an unwillingness to even try to understand the position of others.

        I also fail to see from the whole breadth of scripture that sexual morality is what you describe as a primary. The only argument I have heard is that it is because it denies scripture, but that leads back to what I have said above.

        Reply
        • I did not describe it as “primary”; I prefer to say that the core issue here is what is and is not specified as sinful in the Bible – which I take to specify the viewpoint of God. If you turn a blind eye then you will get a churchful of persons who have not repented and who wish to remake the church after their own views. As to what conclusions are to be drawn from the Bible, I am willing to discuss that matter here with anybody.

          Reply
        • Sexual morality is not primary??

          (1) So the fact that sexual abuse is just about the worst kind and scars a person’s identity and proper development indicates to us that sex is merely a secondary matter?

          (2) So Paul does not major on it in his select vice-lists? But he does.

          (3) So ‘God made them male and female’ is not foundational even though it is one of the few things that comes in the foundational chapter, and (secondly) is also quoted by Jesus?

          (4) So if Mother Teresa or the Pope were to commit sexual immorality that would be just – meh? wotever?

          (5) So the entire imagery of marriage (one of the chief days of one’s life and certainly the best-prepared – and for a reason) is not as important as we thought?

          How many more angles need to coalesce?

          Reply
          • 1) No I do not belittle sexual abuse, but neither do I suggest that all sexual misdemeanours are equal.
            2) No but the vice lists are a small part of Paul’s letters and Paul’s letters are a small part of the Bible.
            3) It is a statement of fact no more. It doesn’t say that God did not create intersex people. I am not clear how you can make this foundational to the Christian faith other than to say God created all people.
            4) No it would not, but neither would it be acceptable if she had committed fraud, somehow many Christians seem to place sexual misdemeanours above others such as financial misdemeanours.
            5) When it comes down to it the Bible says very little about marriage. It recognises that it exists and uses it as a metaphor. The the most the CofE marriage service can find to say about weddings is that Jesus went to a wedding and tries to rather too hard to extrapolate some meaning from it. The most significant (among a few other things) thing the Bible teaches about marriage is forbidding adultery.

          • (1) Well then, if they are not equal, then some are more weighty and important than others. By which you demonstrate from your own mouth that there are weighty and primary issues within sexuality, so it is not something secondary.

            (2) Your answer is not adequate because selection for and omission from vice lists is a peculiarly useful barometer of how important or otherwise various things were held to be.

            As for being a small part, John 3.16 is a small part, the crucifixion is a small part. This is the inaccurate fallacy that we judge by word-count.

            As for Paul, it is worth bearing in mind that he wrote a good proportion of the New Testament and the NT is kinda important for Christians.

            (3) Nonsense – it either always was a statement of fact or it never was.

            The idea that the text should read ‘male and female [ – ”and intersex!” pipes up somebody] created He them’ is Monty Python.

            When you say ‘all people’ you are concerned to play down the male-female distinction. Lovers of science and of romance are concerned to play it up not play it down.

            (4) Ranking sins – a questionable task – does not make lower-ranked ones fail to be bad. But, as we’ve seen, you have not given believable evidence that the larger sexual sins are lower-ranked at all, rather than that plenty of people would wish them to be.

            (5) If the Bible says little about marriage, I can only assume that you’re employing the word-count fallacy again. It begins with Adam welcoming Eve as bone of my bone, speaking of leaving family and becoming one flesh with spouse. It ends with the marriage of the Lamb and the Church. How documents are framed indicates what is important, in fact most important of all, within them.

        • As for ‘echo chamber’, where have you been? I always understood it to be an arena of vehement disagreement. Have you got the wrong place?

          Reply
      • I don’t doubt that they are contradicting themselves, contradicting scripture and contradicting tradition. As long as they are edging toward their goal, they will appear reasonable. I am asking that their opponents recognise *now* that they will brook no compromise, and that unless they are more vigorously opposed then in the foreseeable future parish priests will either have to conduct same-sex weddings or resign.

        Reply
        • I doubt that. If the coe official policy becomes that gay marriages can be done in a church, I think ministers will be given the choice based on their own view.

          Reply
          • ….. except the old argument that the state Church has to do it comes out, whereas it is actually about Christianity and Jesus Christ himself clearly tells us what marriage is, i.e. between one man and one woman for life, and contrary to marriage attitudes of the time Jesus says the married couple form a new unit.

    • For most people sexuality is trivial in an abstract sense (even if individuals take it more seriously when meeting another person face to face). That’s where we are in 2021. No sex act is of any moral significance – unless there’s a lack of consent. It’s useless to seperate same-sex behavior from this wider moral framework. Christians can try to argue otherwise but on the whole they will be met with blank stares.

      Reply
      • I doubt very much that that is true. If a lady sleeps with a man is that not (a) something of significance, (b) something that forms bonds in the brain?

        Why else do they say breaking up is painful?

        Reply
        • I doubt very much that that is true.

          It is true — in theory. Of course the reality is different. But then comes the choice of whether to admit the reality, and take a lonely stand against the dominant theory; or to deaden oneself to the reality, in order to keep faith with the theory, and so enjoy the comfort of being one with all those others who have damaged themselves in the same way.

          Reply
      • You seem to be saying that Christians should just behave like the rest of society and fit in with its ever changing morality. But that has never been the case and should not be. Such a view completely contradicts Jesus’s statement that you either follow the world or God.

        Reply
        • Not at all. But I do think many, if not most, Christians have already absorbed the now dominant secular sexual ethic. The trend is still in the direction of accomodation.

          Reply
          • It’s the ‘liberals’ who are counter cultural, the ‘conservatives are stuck in a modernist neo-liberal worldview.

          • Penelope: “It’s the ‘liberals’ who are counter cultural”

            I know that liberals honestly believe this but it hasn’t been true for at least 30 years. There could hardly be anything more culturally conservative today than waving a rainbow flag.

            It is the conservatism of Pride (now a display of civic virtue held in every small town of the UK) that is eating away at evangelical support for the historical Christian sexual ethic. Evangelicals aren’t the types to do counter-cultural for very long.

          • I know that liberals honestly believe this but it hasn’t been true for at least 30 years. There could hardly be anything more culturally conservative today than waving a rainbow flag.

            I’m particularly impressed by the level of doublethink required to simultaneously believe:

            (a) liberal ideas are the counter cultural ones

            (b) if the Church of England doesn’t hurry up and hammer out a compromise, the government will force it to conform to liberal ideas.

            Here’s a clue: if your ideas are the ones being enforced by the government, then they aren’t in any sense ‘counter-cultural’.

  2. Thank you for the blog and the link to the Youtube post. Shared on the FB page for Salvation Army officers in the UK and Europe

    Reply
  3. Anton is surely correct to remind us that this is not merely a debate in the church: “At some point the SSM party and its bishops will inform a future secular government that the CoE’s exemption from conducting same-sex weddings is an anachronism that is no longer needed.” This has been happening for some time of course – and they have gone further, saying that the exemption is dangerous and harmful.

    The strategy though appears to have shifted from trying head-on to change the C of E’s rules on blessings and marriage, to bringing about a more general ban on ‘conversion therapy’. If such a ban is approved by Parliament with even some aspects of what the LGBT lobby are arguing for, the current position of the C of E on sex and marriage will quickly be seen as unsustainable, and as Anton says “the game will be up”.

    This might be seen as an unhelpfully pessimistic analysis (or optimistic, depending on who is reading this blog!) but even if there is a 10-20% chance of it coming to pass, should there not be some kind of serious scenario planning by the orthodox, rather than talking vaguely about Synod majorities and third provinces, and trusting in people like Ian and David to hold the line for us in the public square?

    Reply
    • I agree, Andrew; and your pessimism is justified! And that’s why it has consistently remained my view that there was nothing to be gained by engaging with LLF except for a short-lived feeling of bonhomie with those who soon enough will present us with a painful ultimatum. The very existence of the process (and therefore engaging in it) has an inbuilt assumption that there is at least a legitimate possibility of changing CofE doctrine; and, as Ian said, that can only mean detaching the church from the Book of Common Prayer and from scripture. For some of us that is unthinkable. While some might say we owe it to the church to make one last heroic stand (engaging in LLF), I would say that, if there is a presupposition of at least some doctrinal movement (even a bit of constructive ambiguity), there are more positive and productive ways to spend precious time and energy.

      I don’t recall Jesus ever running after someone to re-emphasise what he’d already said in many different ways just in case it might inspire a last ditch change of mind! The documents, discussions and ‘conversations’ have continued for far too long already; they’ve exhausted the church and conspicuously failed to change minds on either side. Meanwhile a continuous ratchet of appointments, disciplinary violations and tactical manoeuvres (such as the proposed conversion therapy ban) has pushed the narrative ever further from loyalty to the orthodox position so that some are desperate enough to contemplate the nonsense of a ‘third province’. It might sound like a plausible innovation, but in the real world it could never offer any legal protection to clergy who felt unable to conduct same sex weddings. In any case ‘Good Disagreement’ always has an inbuilt sunset point!

      Such energy and vision as remains to the biblically faithful should be put firstly to an unambiguous presentation of its own position (doctrinally and in relation to its future in the Church of England), and secondly to constructing an Anglican future for itself outside of a heretical CofE. But I fear there is not (and never has been) the necessary unity of purpose under a strong leadership (among evangelicals) for that to happen. As a group we’ve messed up big time and still we’re pulling in different directions. Happy days!

      Reply
      • If evangelicals are forced out in the way I have described then they will describe their opponents as apostates and heretics. But those opponents will not have changed their own position from that which they hold today. Are evangelicals going to use such language only *after* they have lost?

        Reply
        • In short: Yes.

          More expansively: throughout this decade long battle over homosexuality, and for whatever reason, the evangelical constituency has been leaderless. A few individuals, such as Ian here on the theological front, have put up a heroic fight. But no one person or group has offered the kind of leadership (not least in terms of discerning the true intentions of Archbishop Welby right from the start of his tenure) around which everyone could have united.

          No one has called the people to arms by publicly defining the issue for what it is: a battle for the soul of the Church of England. Welby and co have never been publicly called to account for what they have been up to. Consequently, clergy at the local level have kept their heads down and worked their parishes (as they should!) in the naïve hope that somehow things on the national church scene would turn out alright in the end. I don’t say any of this in judgement on individuals because the only choice at that level is to stay or leave. Some people are in much better position than others when it comes to leaving, and true pastors of the flock have an overriding concern for what may happen to their sheep.

          On the other hand, it is God who raises up leaders. He seems to have chosen not to do so, or someone has turned a deaf ear to the call. The comforting situation of a Church of England remaining in perpetuity with a sound biblical basis of belief and mission has never been something on which we could rely. If/when the time comes, God’s faithful people will just move on but, I suspect, not as an orderly group. In contradiction to my ‘short’ response above, they may not even waste their breath describing the institution they leave as apostate or heretical; ‘twould be better spent on declaring the gospel to a needy world!

          Reply
          • Evangelicals should either quit now or fight. If the latter, they should recognise that this will be an intense spiritual battle from the off, and they should start on the spiritual offensive, not the defensive as they have been.

          • But the evangelical constituency has been leaderless for a valid reason. CS Lewis, Billy Graham, John Stott and their successors have taught us that what matters is our own souls and the souls of those we might lead to Christ – the unspoken corollary is that the soul of the Church of England is of secondary importance.

            If you doubt this, then think – when was the last time you heard a preacher in Parish A refer to something the brothers and sisters in Parish B (just down the road) are doing? That’s how little we are connected with one another – how little we care about the soul of the CofE on any issue, not just this one.

            Maybe Lewis, Graham and Stott were a little off-centre here – Jesus told us to pray “May your holy name be honoured” *before* he went on to “May your Kingdom come.” (GNB translation.)

          • If that was what Stott taught, why did he also provide such great and strategic leadership through his many personal initiatives?

          • “Evangelicals should either quit now or fight.”
            The problem is that evangelicals are divided on this issue, as they are over the question of the ordination of women. Most evangelicals have come to regard both questions as adiaphora, and realise that compromise is going to be required.

          • ‘Most evangelicals have come to regard both questions as adiaphora’. Sorry, that’s absolute tosh. You keep making pronouncements about a constituency you don’t appear to understand.

          • I understand that some evangelicals – you included – don’t see some other evangelicals as real evangelicals because they are more sympathetic, or even overtly positive, towards a change in policy.

            There will be greater accommodation and that much is certain. Our best way forward is to find something like the solution we found concerning women in the episcopate. If we don’t, something else will be forced upon us, as even some evangelicals here have suggested.

          • Well, for one, if people call themselves ‘evangelical’, and their approach to and interpretation of Scripture bears no relation at all to anything recognisably evangelical from the past, on what grounds is that label still applicable?

            But my main point is that I don’t think you have very much understanding of a constituency of which I am an active member. How could you, as you are not involved?

          • If we don’t, something else will be forced upon us, as even some evangelicals here have suggested.

            ‘Accept this voluntarily or something worse will be forced upon you’? Isn’t that the logic of the Munich Agreement?

          • I have some understanding as I have worked closely with people from across all of the traditions in a variety of posts. As DDO, as Director of Ministry, as a member of a Diocesan Bishops Staff etc. It is clear that conservative evangelicals don’t regard other parts of the evangelical constituency as real evangelicals. David Runcorn has debated that point very effectively on this website. It is the cause of some concern across the whole church.

          • But why would it be the source of concern if it was easily demonstrable that the other evangelicals had substantially shifted ground?

            Would it be the source of concern for merely diplomatic or social reasons, as opposed to reasons that have to do with reality, the way things really are?

          • It is clear that conservative evangelicals don’t regard other parts of the evangelical constituency as real evangelicals.

            So? Parts of the Christian constituency don’t regard other parts of the Christian constituency as real Christians. The Roman church famously doesn’t regard other churches as real churches. In the absence of any final authority which can decree exactly where the boundaries lie, there will always be disputes.

            It is the cause of some concern across the whole church.

            What business is a boundary dispute within a given constituency of anyone else’s? You might as well say that the issue of whether the Anglican church is a real church or, as the Romans would have it, not a real church. is ‘a cause of some concern across the whole of society’. But actually it’s no business of anyone outside the church where exactly the boundaries of the Church are drawn. Similarly it’s no business of anyone who doesn’t claim to be part of the evangelical community where exactly its boundaries are drawn.

          • Whatever people try to define, they try to define according to evidence, and it is impossible for them to change what they actually think or conclude from the evidence. To do so would be to lie, and obviously that is not an option. Politeness does not come into it.

          • “In the absence of any final authority which can decree exactly where the boundaries lie, there will always be disputes.”

            As you know I prefer not to respond but this is a very sensible comment. Exactly so. And exactly why we will have to find a compromise agreement that enables both parties in this dispute to remain with dignity.

          • As you know I prefer not to respond but this is a very sensible comment. Exactly so. And exactly why we will have to find a compromise agreement that enables both parties in this dispute to remain with dignity.

            Not necessarily. Compromise is one option but not the only one; it might be better to split entirely, as the Church of England and the other Protestant churches did from the church of Rome.

          • The compromise agreement is for liberals to accept that following the transient culture rather than comparing options does not qualify as thought. And then to do those things that do qualify as thought.

          • The compromise agreement is for liberals to accept that following the transient culture rather than comparing options does not qualify as thought. And then to do those things that do qualify as thought.

            Well, I’m sure the liberals would say that the compromise is for the conservatives to accept that they are clinging onto outdated and wrong ideas, and to stop standing in the way of letting the Church of England change to be more like God wants it to be.

            This is why it seems to me that compromise, even if it were possible, would be unhealthy. It would lock all sides together in eternal festering rancour.

            A split, painful as it will be, seems to be the least bad option in terms of where things will end up.

          • This is why it seems to me that compromise, even if it were possible, would be unhealthy

            Mr Goddard keeps referring to the compromise reached on female ‘priests’ and then female bishops as a model, but, as an outsider looking in, it hardly seems to me that this has led to anything but an increased level of distrust, suspicion and paranoia on both sides.

            Would it really not have been healthier, rather than keeping the sore open and periodically rubbing a handful of salt into it, to come down on one side or the other?

      • Totally agree. I wrote a letter laying out my concerns to my Area Dean and then was asked to send this to my Bishop. LLF is just another brick removed in the wall of orthodox belief, until the wall is no longer strong enough to sustain the pressure. We are supposed to have compassion, but seem to have none for children deprived of identity of parents, or lack of a father and an abomination of not knowing who your mother is. Or 200,000 abortions in the UK this year. Christian teaching is clear, marriage is between one man and one woman for life and adultery is sin.
        The response from my Bishop was that we are seeking a way forward. The way forward is for the Bishops to uphold the teaching of the church!

        Reply
        • Compromise between incommensurables is always a backward path not a forward path. Secondly it is always an incoherent path. Thirdly it is never possible to accomplish.

          Reply
  4. An argument may be won, yet the case may be lost. This has long been beyond argument, debate, but a strategy of many headed hydra case making, building, without and within the church and strategic appointments and corporate alliances; marshalled together in a strategic and tactical, scatter gun approach to sexual politics.
    I’d suggest that the Anglican church is seen a a prize target.

    Reply
  5. “Andrew then criticised David for making it ‘all about sex’, since ‘marriage is about so many other things’. But that is a disingenuous point; if the question of sex was not central, then we would not be talking about same-sex marriage, but about celibate same-sex partnerships!”

    That’s an entirely either/or argument Ian. Andrew is right that marriage – any marriage – is about many other things. Sex is simply one of the things. It’s about companionship, about doing things together, about doing nothing together. It’s about home building, welcoming others by offering hospitality, and witnessing to the depth of love that a marriage requires. Sex is one of the things that sustains a marriage, but marriage isn’t ever all about sex, and Andrew is right to spell that out. The focus on sex by those opposed to same sex marriage frequently gives the impression – which I have no doubt is true in some cases – that the acts associated with same sex marriage are thought to be disgusting and unnatural, which of course they are not. I say of course they are not simply because they are acts associated with opposite sex marriage as well. (Added to the fact that those opposed will never state what their opposition to the same sex acts of female-female partners is. They give the impression that it’s only ever about male-male same sex acts).

    The Church gives the impression of being pretty weird about sex – full stop. Those who write well and engagingly about it – like Jo Ind, Adrian Thatcher and Susannah Cornwall among others – are frequently simply ignored. I have no doubt that many church members don’t like to talk or think about sex, regarding it as a private part of a married couple’s marriage. Quite right. I think that Andrew and others who have argued for change – Jeffrey John and Roman Williams are others who spring to mind – regard the sexual relationship as a sacred act that is trivialised by the those who wish to oppose same sex relationships by focussing, as many do, on the sexual aspect of marriage almost to the exclusion of others. Andrew is correct to point out that marriage is about so many other things, not because sex isn’t an important and sustaining part of the whole, but that the focus should not be on the sexual aspect alone. He is also correct to point out that celibacy is a particular calling and a personal choice. It is also a private choice, and not some token of piety to be worn like a badge, which is, I’m afraid, the way it comes across from David and others.

    If those opposed to same sex marriage wish to make their voice seem reasonable to those both inside and outside the church, I would suggest that their focus needs to move away from sex and towards why marriage is not possible between those of the same sex. They should recognise that sex is a private matter.

    Reply
    • The Church gives the impression of being pretty weird about sex – full stop

      Well yes. The Church has a completely different view of what the purpose and meaning of sex is to the wider culture. It works from premises that are completely alien to the culture. That’s bound to come across as ‘pretty weird’.

      The Church also gives the impression of being ‘pretty weird’ about death, given its view of the purpose and meaning of death comes from premises that are utterly alien to those of the wider culture. Does that mean the Church is wrong?

      If the Church didn’t give the impression of being ‘pretty weird’ on a whole host of matters then something would be seriously amiss.

      Reply
      • The Church has a completely different view of what the purpose and meaning of sex is to the wider culture.

        I assume that you are going to say that it is only to do with reproduction, but the arguments used to support this from the Bible do not convince me. From Genesis it is clear that the relationship between Adam and Eve was for companionship. The fact that (natural) reproduction requires a man and a woman is just another fact and I am not convinced that you argue anything about marriage from that fact.

        Reply
        • I assume that you are going to say that it is only to do with reproduction

          Then I would not dream of stopping you from making an ass of you and me.

          Reply
          • A fine argument, but not one that comes from scripture.

            If reproduction is the only reason for marriage, has the church ever refused to marry people beyond reproductive age? No
            Do we say that sex between married people who cannot reproduce is wrong? No

            And where in the Bible does it say you have to go through a ceremony to get married? Why is a couple choosing to live together in a permanent faithful relationship without a legal or religious ceremony not equally valid?

          • If reproduction is the only reason for marriage, has the church ever refused to marry people beyond reproductive age? No
            Do we say that sex between married people who cannot reproduce is wrong? No

            This is like saying, ‘if humans are bipedal, has the church ever taught that people with only one leg, or no legs, aren’t human?’

            That is, it’s nonsense.

            And where in the Bible does it say you have to go through a ceremony to get married? Why is a couple choosing to live together in a permanent faithful relationship without a legal or religious ceremony not equally valid?

            As pointed out last time this discussion came up, that’s a red herring because this situation — ‘a couple choosing to live together in a permanent faithful relationship without a legal or religious ceremony’ — essentially never happens.

          • Nick, who is saying that reproduction is the only reason for marriage? That sounds like an inaccurate caricature to me.

          • Anyway why would it matter if an argument came from Scripture or not? Scripture (like anything else) would be without authority unless it correctly represented *reality*. Consequently so long as the argument comes from *reality*, then we are fine.

          • There is no such thing as ‘marriage’ in nature.
            Marriage is a human construct.

            No it’s not. A ‘human construct’ implies it was made up by humans, and it wasn’t.

          • It is not really a human construct. It is acknowledging that the way families happen biologically is also the way they function optimally: brute facts. And that there is something more to this in the human world than there is in the animal kingdom: another brute fact.

          • Christopher

            i think you are mistaking reproduction for marriage.
            And, of course, families are also a social construct.

          • Parentage is biological not social. Through parentage cells of directly related come into being. That is unavoidable and anthropological and biological, not social. You speak as though no-one would ever have thought of it, whereas in reality it is the very first and most obvious way that things would be organised.

          • Which spirit is it that would constantly speak against or at least limit and cast doubt on family, parents and marriage? Rather than fuelling them?

          • The ability to produce offspring is biological.
            Caring for those offspring in a unit called a family is a social construct.

          • Calling something a social construct is not speaking against or limiting it.
            Wherever did you get that idea?

          • Some things are the stuff of reality; others are socially constructed.The former are bigger than the latter, because the former are the dimensions of the very nature of things. Their scale and their level of reality is larger.

          • Calling something a social construct is not speaking against or limiting it.

            It is obviously limiting it because a social construct only exists within the society which constructs it; it is limited to that society.

      • Children are not always possible in opposite sex marriages. For all kinds of reasons.
        Same sex couples are able to be adoptive parents.
        So I don’t think that argument works.

        Reply
        • Parents, no – (a) the Latin means those who produced and gave birth to the offspring, (b) even if (a) is the etymological fallacy, you surely do not want to leave the rich English language without any word at all for one of the most central realities (fathering/giving birth to a child).

          Stepparents.

          Reply
          • adoptive parent
            noun
            noun: adoptive parents; plural noun: adoptive parents
            a person who adopts a child and brings it up as their own.
            “her adoptive parents died 10 years ago”

            A step parent is quite different

          • Yes, agreed – though the term is an odd one, since obviously not having given birth to someone not only (a) makes you not a parent at all etymologically but also (b) removes from consideration the entire concept of having given birth to someone, its being crowded out by who looks after one as though that were the same thing or the really important thing.

          • The really important thing if you are an adopted child is who looked after you. If nobody did that after adoption, you’d be dead.

        • Burt children are *only* possible in opposite sex relationships. Everybody in a same-sex relationship was conceived in an opposite-sex one. So I don’t think your argument works.

          Reply
        • As an adag, exceptions prove the general rule or principle. They do not negate the principle, which remains intact. Certainly they do not create the rule/principle you seek to attribute, Andrew.

          Reply
    • Well, as someone who has myself been married for 27 years, I am well aware that marriage is about more that sex. It is rather odd that you think this needs pointing out. We are all well aware of that; if you think we are not, then you might need to listen a bit more carefully.

      But sex is the difference between marriage and other relationships, like a covenant friendship. If you or Andrew want to argue that ss relationships should include marriage, then you need to argue why sex is essential. If it isn’t, then you don’t have an argument for marriage. Your ‘impression’ about disgust is pure conjecture.

      I tried to read Adrian Thatcher’s book; I found it bizarre. I think that is why it is not influential.

      The idea that sex is, in and of itself, a sacred act, is a pagan idea which I don’t think is justified by Christian theology. Rowan famously pulled back from the claims he made in The Body’s Grace, and quite wisely.

      Celibacy is not, in scripture a ‘particular calling’ and ‘a personal choice’; that is not what Paul means by vocation. It is presented, both in scripture and throughout Christian theology, as the other calling which complements male-female marriage as one of two options for holy living.

      Sex is not ‘a private matter’; it has, until the extreme privatisation of (post-)modern Western culture, always been regarded as personal (rather than private) but with communal implications at every point.

      Reply
      • Yes, celibacy is a particular calling. To suggest otherwise is just bizarre. That’s why David’s position of wearing it like a badge or medal is simply odd.

        If you don’t find Adrian Thatchers work help, try the other authors I mention.

        The disgust that men feel about same sex activity is not conjecture. It is very evident even on this blog. Sex is important in marriage, as I have pointed out, for sustaining the relationship. You seem to have missed that point. But to put the sole focus on sex is to miss what marriage is about.

        And if you wish to conduct your sex life in public then please go ahead. It’s a private and personal matter. The idea that sex isn’t somehow sacred is extremely bizarre.

        Reply
        • Celibacy is a particular calling for those not calling to male-female marriage. You keep imposing a radical, individual sense of autonomy on the biblical language that I don’t think it there.

          I have; I don’t find them any more persuasive.

          I don’t disagree that men (in particular, but not exclusively) find same sex sex acts disgusting. It would be interesting to reflect on why that is. But you keep reducing theological objections to this disgust, which is unwarranted.

          The pattern of my sexual relating, to my wife, is indeed a matter of public and communal significance, which is why marriage is a public thing.

          The idea that sex is sacred, regardless of context, I find very odd. Do you really mean that? How then do we make sense of Jesus’ and Paul’s stern rebuke relating to sex acts outside marriage?

          Reply
          • Maybe it is considered sacred, as you rightly said in pagan circle’s. Temple prostitution may have been one manefestation.
            There are some secular writers who place sexual activity on the level of transcendant.
            But it reveals who or what is worshipped at the very centre of our being. It is not and never will be our eternal Saviour God, though it may intermittently function as such in the never-ending pusuit of pleasure and happiness, as a God displacement, replacement.
            At it’s source are the disfunctional relationships established and inherent in the Fall, a human attempt to achieve a prelapsarian state God excluded.

          • Where in the New Testament church do we find celibacy described as a calling rather than a personal choice? (and let me say I have friends for who it is a profound calling – but my question is a specific one)

          • Ian

            You may not find Thatcher, Cornwall et al ‘persuasive’ (I am not surprised) but that is not the same as not being ‘influential’.
            Again, I am not surprised if they are not influential in your circles.
            They are in mine.

          • Marriage is, of course, a public thing. But the particulars of a sexual relationship within marriage are not a public thing. They are entirely private, and for the couple to agree between them. The idea that that is public is bizarre in the extreme. You do not not a right to pry into the sexual activity of another married couple.

            And where did I suggest that sex was sacred in any context? I have not said that. I have said that sex within marriage is a sacred act. And so it is.

          • If people merely move in certain *”circles”* rather than seeking out *all* of the most detailed scholarship as is done in universities, then the results will be predictable.

          • But the particulars of a sexual relationship within marriage are not a public thing. They are entirely private, and for the couple to agree between them.

            Um… just the couple? Doesn’t God get any kind of say?

          • Christopher

            I agree. Which is why we should not ignore the work of Susannah Cornwall, Ken Stone, Hugh Pyper, Katie Edwards, Katie Cross, Karen O’Donnell, Anthony Reddie, Deryn Guest, Gerard Loughlin, Mike Higton, Chris Greenough, Marcella Althaus Reid, Karen Bray, Shelly Rambo, Louise Lawrence, Adrian Thatcher, Alex Clare-Young, Sara Ahmed, Teresa Hornby, Tina Beattie, Rowan Williams, Meredith Warren, Marina Rose, Loveday Alexander, Douglas Campbell, Halvor Moxnes, Dale Martin, James Crossley, Johanna Stiebert, Lisa Isherwood, Noel Leo Erskine, Graham Ward, James Alison, Stephen D. Moore…….
            My battery is about to run out.

          • But, fatally, you group authors ideologically or by conclusion. It is difficult not to smell a rat in such circumstances.

            The ways I group authors are by how thorough/footnoted/rigorous they are; how versed in the disciplines; how independent; how historically aware.

          • Christopher

            a) have you read all these authors?
            b) if not, how do you know they share an ideology?
            c) they are quite thoroughly footnoted!
            d) do your evangelical leaders – such as Stott – not share an ideology?

          • (1) Have I read them all? Absolutely not. I believe they are the kind of stuff that your thesis topic requires you to grapple with.

            (2) Share an ideology? Only in the broadest sense. But if one were to make a list of those who were ideologically similar (classified, fatally, according to whether they were or were not ‘affirming’ – meaningless word), then that would be the sort of list one would make.

            (3) They are quite thoroughly footnoted – yes, I know. Because I am not thinking in a binary way in terms of 2 camps. To do so would be thoroughly inaccurate. All that one reads for theses is footnoted, and fulfils that one important requirement. There are others.

            (4) ‘My’ evangelical leaders? Stott is an independent thinker and innovator, unclassifiable and influential. If we are to use the term evangelicalism, then he left evangelicalism different from how he found it, hence it was no longer the same thing, hence we cannot use one and the same word for it.
            As to whether people hold to an ideology, then we need to define carefully what we mean. People will hold to a thought-framework which is the best or most in accord with reality that they have so far discovered. They will not (unless they are dishonest, which alas many are) tinker with their arguments and their conclusions so that they end up fitting their original preferences.

          • Ian, May I comment on a general point you made in your article that we should pay particular attention to lgbt people who are grappling with the issue of purity. It seems to me that is a dangerous half truth. The fundamental arguement is not about same sex marriage. It’s actually about marriage. Every single one of us, inside and outside the church, has a stake in marriage and every single one of us has an equal right and responsibility to comment. You cannot privilege one group because they insist they should be privileged. There will certainly be people who will insist on plural marriage between groups, or people who want to marry themselves and so on. Once marriage means anything is simply means nothing

          • Christopher

            If you have not read them all, then you have no idea whether ‘they are the kind of stuff that my thesis topic requires me to grapple with’. In fact, I grapple with all sorts of scholarship, but I am amused that you find these authors more ‘ideological’ than, say, Robert Gagnon.
            Of course, as in all scholarship, the examples I gave offer all kinds of differing viewpoints, both in biblical studies and theology. I also grapple with secular scholars such as Stuart Hall, Lee Edelman and Judith Butler.

            My point about Stott and his fellow travellers is that, however innovative their evangelicalism, it shared the same ideology.
            Ditto the scholars often cited by others here, such as Tim Keller, Wayne Grudem, Preston Sprinkle et al.
            We all end up preferring the scholars who agree with us.

          • I can have a broad idea what people have written though in only some cases have I read it.

            Your ‘pan-ideological’ stance, as has been said so many times, is multiply impossible. (a) Some scholars are more honest than others – it cannot be otherwise. (b) Some scholars have fewer things to indulge in wishful thinking about than others. (c) Even then, scholars are less ideological than non-scholars. (d) You cannot just dictate that everyone is the prisoner of some ideology – and why would we believe you, least of all believe such a sweeping generalisation. What if they aren’t? There are nearly 8bn people on the planet. Some of these at least are not prisoners of ideology.

            We end up preferring the scholars who agree with us? (a) If we have thought long and hard and (on the basis of that) seen the strength of certain insights and theories, then how can we fail to appreciate the scholars who have also seen the strength of those tested insights and theories as opposed to those who have not? (b) I prefer historically aware meticulous scholars trained in multiple disciplines, but often disagree with them. I still prefer them despite my disagreements. My favourite scholars in NT (who are very many) include Bauckham, Hengel, J B Lightfoot, Beale, Fee, Wright, Watts, Barclay, Moule, C E Arnold, Blackburn, Twelftree, I Beckwith, R Beckwith, Finegan, J Pairman Brown, Edmundson, Casey, Goulder, Farrer, T L Schmidt, Incigneri, C Koester, Bruce, Dunn, R E Brown, Fitzmyer, Cranfield, H B Swete, Aune, P Meier, Gentry. And Keener for his ‘John’. (I note, alas, a bias towards classicists over hebraists, which I must rectify. Not in how much I appreciate them, only in how much I have or have not read them.) I cannot even begin to list the ways in which I disagree with them. They are as the sand of the sea. That is why I think you are trapped in binary thinking?

          • I should never have begun this list of historically grounded meticulous NT scholars, and will end it now, but I can hardly bear to leave out Hemer, Riesner, Van Kooten, Bond, Carlson.

          • Christopher

            Yes, I have read some of these. I very much enjoyed Bauckham’s Gospel Women in spite of his somewhat fanciful conclusion that Joanna and Junia were the same person.
            Would I be right in thinking that all of these (some I’m not familiar with) are evangelical?
            What strikes me most about your list is that they are all white men. (And old, or dead.)

          • I award myself the jackpot for having successfully predicted that you would bring up the topic of gender within one move.

            There is a whole wonderful huge world out there with thousands of dimension, and so often the liberal approach is to stick in the shelter of two well-worn dimensions.

            Helen Bond would be startled to be called male.

            For the rest, ageism is unpleasant and also illogical, which is doubled by including sexism as well. And tripled by suggesting that people’s ideas become less true after they die. How does that work? This final point I really do not understand.

            In order to become a well-known and top scholar it is necessary first to be not too young. First, because you have to do the study first; second, because you have to write the books in the time after you have studied – by which time you are older; and third, because it then takes a further period of time after that for you to become well known.

            Evangelical? One of the nicest words in the language. You will notice an overlap of my list with the authors of the Word Biblical Commentary NT series. Carson’s verdict on that is that some of the authors in that list fit comfortably within the designation Evangelical, whereas it applies to others only by the most generous extension. There was a golden age of NT scholarship and expecially of commentary writing between around 1980 and around 2005.

            So let’s say that Hagner (whose 1 Clement thesis I love but question methodologically) and Bruce fall into the first category. Bauckham and Dunn in the second. Moule like Bauckham has been associated with Ridley Hall which has at times been known for a ‘liberal-evangelical’ tradition. Other Evangelicals whose work I love are P Maier (apologies for earlier misspelling), Winter, Beale, Gentry, R Beckwith, Hemer, Arnold, D Guthrie, France, Twelftree, and often Grudem. Hengel almost became a Lutheran minister. Riesner I don’t know – certainly Protestant and perhaps Lutheran? Craig Koester is Lutheran. Aune is from the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Sterling from the Church of Christ.

            Then we have Brown and Fitzmyer who are fairly obviously Vatican II Catholics and Farrer who is Anglo Catholic, philosophical and literary.

            Goulder and Casey and Tabor are (I should imagine) atheists. Carlson is not known for his Christian affiliation, so far as I know. Van Kooten is Reformed and liberal; Bond is pretty liberal; Alexander is just a good historian who has aligned with some liberal stances. Harnack was a liberal proponent of the social gospel and a fine historian. Incigneri is Catholic charismatic and radically historical. Forbes is charismatic. Fee and Watts are Pentecostal; Turner has Pentecostal roots. Schmidt is evangelical and goes where the text takes him. Wright is a mere Christian broadly respected, and a faithful Anglican and text-led Evangelical. Barclay’s family is Anglican Evangelical. Lightfoot, Edmundson, Swete were good servants of the established Church; Cranfield, Barrett, Hooker and Stanton Methodists. Harnack, a fine historian, was a liberal promoter of the social gospel.
            I suppose it is a characteristic of scholarship that it is more knowledgeable so knows of a variety of sources of information, theories, philosophies, stances, and aims to debate between them. I strongly commend the primarily-historical approach.

          • Christopher

            Yeah, I noticed Brown and Fitzmyer as soon as I had posted! And I missed Bond.
            But, are you not concerned with gender and ethnicity in the academy? Don’t you think that white, male scholars from the global North might not have particular biases? Don’t you think that epistemologies of the South and the East might have something to offer scholarship?
            Don’t you want to read feminist and womanist scholars, decolonial scholars, liberation scholars? You don’t have to agree with what they write, but it helps discentre the western, European worldview which we have inherited.

        • I have repeated this point so often. X may find Y disgusting. There will be instances where that disgust is warranted and others where it is not. But in all circumstances if the statistics stack up against the said act then it is only on the basis of the statistics that the case stands and falls. Arguments are a rational matter. If people import emotional considerations, that shows that they have not yet advanced beyond the emotional level.

          And how often have we reeled off the statistics only for that to be represented as ‘you have an emotional aversion’. How many emotion-free statistics will it take for this non sequitur argument to disappear? Numbers, please?

          Meanwhile the illnesses and premature deaths stack up.

          Reply
          • David R

            It seems to me that people haven’t been reading Paul on celibacy. Nor on marriage!
            I don’t think the texts say what folks want them to say.
            Nor does Genesis, which doesn’t mention marriage (nor procreation until after the Fall).

          • Quite apart from the issue of disgust or not at certain physical activities, there is undoubtedly a natural aversion among an unquantifiable proportion of men to the kind of affected effeminacy which seems to characterise a dominant group among homosexuals. (Women seem quite to enjoy it and find it amusing or even endearing.) I offer this observation while fully conscious that in the opinion of a prominent self-appointed group of opinion formers it is no longer deemed acceptable even to mention such things.

            Most people probably care little about the private life of others so long as they keep it to themselves; but the learnt expression of effeminate mannerisms and speech can amount to an ‘in your face’ challenge – the more so because any honest response by heterosexual males can immediately be denounced as ‘homophobia’ and therefore liable to the kind of aggressive sanctions we all know about.

            Of course most men are now fully aware of the prohibitions to free speech on this subject and therefore are unlikely to voice their true feelings. As a result it’s hard to know or to prove what the true picture is regarding either disgust or psychological aversion of the 98% of males to this particular area of behaviour of the other 2%. It’s also hard to know what is a natural (visceral) male reaction and what is culturally based and therefore capable of changing. And, in circumstances of sanctions regarding free speech, even a notable cultural change in attitudes cannot be taken, of itself, as proof of a change in what people actually think in private

          • Penny,

            You said “nor does Genesis, which doesn’t mention marriage (nor procreation until after the Fall)”.

            I would suggest that Genesis 1:27-28 strongly implies procreation and that through “male and female”. Then, the end of Genesis 2 in describing the leaving, joining and becoming one flesh of a man and woman [sic] seems to describe marriage. Although “becoming one flesh” is debated, it is hard to escape the association with coitus, which does have this tendency with a man and a woman to produce children.

            I find it hard to escape the conclusion that the first two chapters of Genesis describe the formal joining of a man and a woman as being the appropriate context for the fulfillment of the creation mandate to be fruitful and increase.

          • David W

            Oops, I meant Genesis 2!
            Gen. 1 is certainly a mandate for breeding, but not so much for marriage.
            Like a lot of commentators I read the one flesh as describing a new kinship group rather than sexual intimacy, which is, I think, more of a contemporary obsession.
            I also think we fail to note that the society in which Gen. 2 was written had a very different concept of marriage from our own.

          • Penny,

            Even if ‘one flesh’ means a new kinship group, remember that ‘kin’ means blood relationship, compared with ‘kith’. A ‘fruitful’ relationship between a man and woman (pro)creates children who are kin to both parents. Kinship is not companionship. That would be ‘kithship’ (if there is such a word).

            I would agree that a common modern, Western concept of marriage is rather different from that of the past and of other cultures today. But that is the whole point of the discussion: what is marriage for?

            I would say that the point of the institution of marriage in both its civil and religious forms is to recognize, regulate and support sexual relationships between men and women precisely because this kind of relationship is procreative. Other kinds of relationship do not need this support and regulation because they are not procreative.

          • David

            Thank you. Why do you think non procreative partnerships do not need support and regulation? Would this apply to infertile mixed sex couples?

      • Ian. I just watched your contribution on the bbc. You give a clear and fine defence of marriage. Maybe I should be encouraging you rather than being a critic. If my point about the issue being marriage not Ssm is interesting feel free to post – otherwise ignore !

        Reply
      • Ian,

        “Rowan famously pulled back from the claims he made in The Body’s Grace, and quite wisely.”

        What is your evidence for this? Interviewed by Time magazine, when Archbishop, referring to The Body’s Grace he said, “I’m not recanting”.

        In friendship, Blair

        Reply
        • I recall him at one point saying how unwise it was, and how he would not say it the same way again. I think the discontinuity in his views was evident in his lack of support for the idea of same-sex marriage, which was a point of great disappointment for liberals who hoped that he would put it on the table.

          Reply
          • Thanks Ian, but to be honest unless you can find a quote to back that up I’m continuing to suspect you’re overstating this. It’s no secret that RW doesn’t support same sex marriage, he said so on the record, but he remains supportive of committed same-sex partnerships, as previously. I would still challenge you to give quotes to show the “discontinuity” in his views – I think you are suggesting RW has back-pedalled in a way he simply hasn’t.
            In friendship, Blair

  6. Davis B will disappoint you in the end. He makes almost everything about himself. There will come a day when he makes it all about how he has changed his mind.

    Reply
    • David Bennett has, despite being attracted to his own sex, chosen to be celibate for the sake of his relationship with God, and you say that it is all about him?

      Reply
      • David Bennett,
        I recall seeing/ reading his conversion testimony – a life transformed, some years ago now. It truly was a case of, Love Divine, all loves excelling.
        His own testimony is something he should reflect on regularly in all the hostility he faces from the SSM folk in the church and divisive identitarian sects without.

        Reply
        • And so are the testimonies of scores of gay people living faithful, sacrificial lives in covenant partnerships, who have experienced hostility and abuse from society, but more particularly the church.

          Reply
          • Then why are the fidelity rates and the longevity rates both so very low?

            People are individuals – they cannot be generalised about, and least of all to present a preferred picture.

          • But Scripture gives the right perspective. If ‘society’ is not following the best available perspective, that is probably because there are so many perspectives that not all of them have been properly examined. That is where we can help. It is unloving to do otherwise.

          • Penelope

            “They” is simply an abbreviation for a set of people referred to previously, and occurs repeatedly in the Greek of the New Testament in relation to faithful believers. It took me half a minute to find an example in Acts in my interlinear.

            As for who is the apple of God’s eye, see Matt 7:21.

          • Anton

            Them is a way of othering people you believe to be non heteronormative.

            We are all created in God’s image. We may not all be fit for the Kingdom, but I believe God gets to decide that, not us.

          • We may not all be fit for the Kingdom, but I believe God gets to decide that, not us

            None of us are fit for the Kingdom! That’s, like, the single most basic truth of Christianity!

          • Penelope, would you say it is arrogant to suppose you know better than somebody else what they mean when they use a word?

          • S’ comment
            ‘None of us are fit for the Kingdom! That’s, like, the single most basic truth of Christianity!’ hits the nail on the head.
            Because of the Fall ‘It behoves you to be born from above’.
            Phil Almond

          • Anton

            Would you say it is arrogant to deny that you are othering people with your language, even if that was not your original intention?

          • Would you say it is arrogant to deny that you are othering people with your language, even if that was not your original intention?

            Who gets to be arbiter of whether a particular use of the word ‘them’ is ‘othering’ or not? Is there a panel who makes a judgement? Do we have to ask the OED?

  7. Well done for going into the lion’s den and contending for the faith once received. The BBC is a tool of the “progressives”. The Repair Shop is the only programme worth watching.

    Reply
    • I think that’s a bit harsh on the BBC. Most media outlets are the same and reflect society at large. No real surprise there. Vigil is a pretty good drama at the moment!

      Reply
      • But PC1, how does societal change happen?

        Most people know only a few others. It is therefore impossible to have a national grand narrative…

        …were it not for the media.

        This is also confirmed in a second way: It has been demonstrated how intensely many people hate being in a societal minority or a minority among their peers. (Noelle-Neumann, Spiral of Silence). The media present certain things as being normal that are in fact normal among the very specific and atypical demographic of workers in the media (arts and humanities graduates, urban/metropolitan, left-leaning). These are then broadcast to be normal. And many many people hate not to be normal. Job done.

        Reply
      • The media function as a fairground mirror—reflecting back to society certain aspects of what it is, but distorted and exaggerated.

        So it doesn’t encourage anything that isn’t there, but it might shift the emphasis.

        Reply
        • Yet they let you on to give your traditional view, presumably without any distortion, and in fact according to you were given more airtime than the other two.

          Doesnt sound too bad to me.

          Reply
  8. “Andrew then characterised David’s position as a ‘personal choice’”

    My my… I assume he stopped short of characterising David’s sexuality as ‘a personal choice’. Just imagine the vitriol!

    Reply
  9. Thank you once again Ian for your clarity and graciousness on this issue. This debate raises fundamental questions about anthropology which I do not believe are being sufficiently addressed in the discussions. Anthropological understandings inevitably affect our theology as we are, creatures made in the image of God. Are we in danger of selling the pass and effectively deconstructing God into our image?

    Reply
  10. Going at this from a completely different angle, what were the BBC even hoping to achieve with this segment; why did they do it?

    I can’t understand who it was aimed at, or who it was trying to influence. What was the editor trying to illustrate save “here are some people who politely disagree with each other”.

    I am not saying you shouldn’t gone on, but was it really worth it?

    Mat

    Reply
    • Going at this from a completely different angle, what were the BBC even hoping to achieve with this segment; why did they do it?

      They’re the BBC. They have a lot of dead air to fill.

      Reply
    • Well, the programme is geared towards religion, and they were covering it in relation to the news item of the CiW vote the following day.

      Sean is a Christian, and I think might go to All Souls’ Langham Place, so he will be aware what a key issue this is in the C of E right now.

      Reply
  11. Which of the many biblical definitions of marriage are you concerned about redefining exactly? None of them are the same as the model you preach.

    Reply
    • I didn’t know that the Bible ever defined the word ‘marriage’. It is quite impossible that there will not be cultural variants, so that is insignificant; it is the core that we are concerned with.

      Reply
    • I am not sure what you mean by ‘the many biblical definitions of marriage’. There are lots of descriptions of people in a married relationship, but I only know of one or two ‘definitions’.

      Could you point me to the ‘definitions’ you are thinking of?

      Reply
      • Sorry Ian, I should have said models rather than definitions. This is where I’m coming from: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2009/04/the-varieties-of-biblical-marriage/

        Interested to know what your thoughts are on this. It seems to me that marriage as recommended by the church of England is very new in relative terms and so tying it to the Bible seems to be quite misleading. Also the fact that there’s no preference given to any model, the very real fact of unequal gender roles and marriages like interracial ones being forbidden…makes you wonder what foundation marriage really has. Historically you can’t even prove that marriage was even created by the Jews. Even if marriage was proven to be a Jewish-Christian sacrament in origin is there any real difference between agreeing to marry two atheists as opposed to two men?

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        • In all the models of marriage in the reference you quote Jeremy, they are all male-female relationships and never SSM so that model would seem to be a consistent preference would it not?

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          • Chris, absence of models in the Bible doesn’t equate to absence of approval or blessing from God.

            Also it does depend on who you ask; the word “debaq” translated as clung in “Ruth clung to Naomi” is the usually translated as a intimate word with sexual connotations, for example with Adam and Eve in genesis 2:24.

            Personally I like to look at the fruit of a thing, as Jesus taught, if it has bad fruit (oppression, homophobia, high suicide rates etc) then how can it be of God. When the church use the Bible to tell others that their love is forbidden all I can think of is Martin Luther’s promise, “if our opponents allege Scripture against Christ, we allege Christ against Scripture.” I love the thought of Jesus fighting against theologians like Ian.

          • When the church use the Bible to tell others that their love is forbidden

            You would presumably agree, though, that some love is forbidden? Adulterous love, for example?

            I love the thought of Jesus fighting against theologians like Ian.

            When asked about marriage, Jesus’ Immediate response was to say that the reason marriage exists is because God made humans male and female; so I wouldn’t be too sure He would be on your side on this one.

          • if our opponents allege Scripture against Christ, we allege Christ against Scripture

            This is a very odd claim indeed given that Scripture is our only source for what Christ said and did, so any ‘allegation’ of Christ is de facto an allegation of Scripture too, as it must be based on Scriptural evidence; so it can hardly be an allegation ‘against’ Scripture if it is based on Scripture.

          • As for saying ‘their love is forbidden’, Jeremy, you must realise that is utter nonsense. Love is of all things most encouraged. And in equating love with sex lies deep poverty.

        • In the context of marriage and divorce, Jesus referred back to Genesis, in the beginning. And that God’s intention was that a man and woman would become one flesh (regardless of one’s view of that it clearly at least refers to the physical one flesh in intercourse). That is why adultery is so serious as one partner has joined with another and broken that one flesh union, thus breaking from God’s purpose.

          So regardless of one’s definition of ‘marriage’ God’s purpose was for a man and woman to join together to become ‘one’ and for that relationship to last until death. Only exceptional grounds could be used to justify the breaking of that.

          Peter

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          • Whatever is one is one. It can be fractured (though God knows why anyone would want to be so negative as to speak about anything such), but not only (1) does that cause damage but (2) the only way of remedying the damage is mending and restoration.

          • Hm…
            Many scholars do not think that one flesh connotes sex.
            Adultery did not equate to any sex outside marriage, it had a very specific definition.

          • What you say on adultery is true but I can’t see the relevance.
            Why would one flesh need to connote sex (albeit bodily union is a physical reality as is, secondly, the production of babies from the fusion of mum and dad, so…). It in all circumstances connotes union, two becoming one.

          • Christopher

            The reply on adultery was in answer to Peter’s claim that it breaks the one flesh Union.
            It does but not all extra marital sex is adultery.

            Two don’t become one – that’s a sub platonic idea – two become one flesh, i.e. a new kindred group.

          • It does but not all extra marital sex is adultery.

            Could you give two or three examples of extra marital sex that is not adultery, so we know what exactly you was talking about?

          • S,
            In my time as a lawyer, in divorce in order to prove irretreivable breakdown of marriage, adultery was specifically defined as a particular sexual act.
            My understanding
            is that no longer applies as a result of a change in law to bring in ssm, as physically it would be impossible to commit unless it were a male -female sexual organ act.
            I don’t know the current law in England and Wales.
            But this has been highlighted in the comments section on Ian’s blog in the past, a good while ago.

          • In my time as a lawyer, in divorce in order to prove irretreivable breakdown of marriage, adultery was specifically defined as a particular sexual act.

            Okay, but I think we’re speaking morally here rather than in narrowly technical legal terms. Are we not?

            (For instance, joyriding is not technically morally theft — unless you define it as ‘theft of fuel’ — but I think everyone would agree that it’s morally theft, which is why the offence of taking without consent was introduced).

        • How distinctly odd sort of theology from Jeremy.
          Maybe he should tremble in contemplation of Jesus judgement of it.
          And if SSM is not approved by God in scripture, which he heavily implied on the one hand, yet God approved outside scripture, where, when and how has that been made known? References please.
          Scripture, all of it, is not against Jesus, nor he it. He came and will again in fulfilment of it.

          Reply
  12. Quite, S.
    So do we take it Jeremy, that this verse causes you to believe that Ruth was in a lesbian relationship with Naomi and by inference, is evidence from the Bible for SSM? – and that Jesus would regard Ian like -one of the Pharisees say?

    Reply
  13. Jeremy, debaq also is used to describe our relationship with God such as in Joshua 22,5. I’m pretty sure there is no sexual connotation there.

    Reply

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