Andrew Goddard writes: in the first of three articles, I highlighted the challenges that now face the post-LLF process in ‘squaring the circle’ of different commitments made in our understanding of blessing, the nature of marriage, and our agreed sexual ethic. In this second one, I explore the question of our disagreements and what might be needed to address them.
One of the features of the bishops’ proposals and the reactions to them is that everyone is now acknowledging that we clearly and deeply disagree. In the words of the Bishop of London to General Synod,
As bishops we have been seeking the mind of Christ in the uncomfortably sharp disagreements that we have about same-sex relationships.
Despite this, and the oft-repeated recognition that the proposals go too far for some and not far enough for others, remarkably little has been said about the nature and the implications of our disagreements.
There has, however, already been much work done on disagreement within the Church of England, notably the 2016 FAOC report on Communion and Disagreement, summarised in the LLF book (pp. 230-4), made the focus of its final conversation, and central to the fifth and final session in the LLF course. This work has acknowledged that conversations often get stuck and it becomes “very difficult for those involved to hear and respond to one another” because “people disagree not only about the issue at hand, but also about the category of disagreement that they are having” (LLF book, p. 231). It also recognises that the issues we are now seeking to make decisions on are exactly this kind of disagreement: one “where we can’t even agree on how deeply our disagreement cuts into our ability to be church together” (p. 232).
In the light of this work on disagreement we could now acknowledge that
all Christians would probably agree that there are some disagreements that do impair our ability to live and work together—disagreements that require some kind of practical differentiation even if we remain in a single church together…
and
…most Christians would probably agree that there are some disagreements that push such impairment to breaking point (p. 233).
We could even also recognise that we are perhaps now finding ourselves in one of these two situations in the Church of England in terms of responses to LLF. The recent Kigali Commitment shows that both GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) view the Anglican Communion as clearly in one of these two places due to the Church of England’s actions.
Instead, however, these matters are, it seems, the proverbial elephant in the room. We avoid talking about the nature and implications of our disagreements by means of repeated calls to “walk together” in the midst of and despite our disagreements. Indeed, one of the arguments advanced for what the bishops are proposing is that this is the best, perhaps only, way to “walk together”. To quote the Bishop of London again:
In proposing our way forward as bishops, what we have done is chart a path that navigates the realities of the disagreements among us in a way that enables us to walk together – acknowledging its discomfort and ensuring that individual conscience is protected. One way of describing this way forward is to see ourselves standing in different places – and finding a point that each of us, by stretching out our arm, can touch and reach the fingertips of the other. It will be uncomfortable for everyone, but it is about creating a space for the Holy Spirit to move among us and to continue to guide us and shape us into the likeness of Christ.
What are our disagreements?
There are, as LLF showed, multiple theological disagreements which feed into these discussions. For example, concerning how we read Scripture and view its authority and also how we interpret particular experiences and patterns of life in the light of our understanding of God’s good purposes in creation and redemption and the effects on humanity of the Fall and our sin. At present, the focus of these disagreements relate to what our doctrine should be in relation to marriage and, as part of that or derived from it, what patterns of sexual relationship should be viewed as a way of holiness fitting for a disciple of Christ. Here those pressing for change wish the church to embrace two new understandings:
(1) a doctrine of marriage as a gift of God that opens marriage up to two people irrespective of their biological sex rather than restricting it to one man and one woman and/or
(2) a doctrine of marriage that does not view marriage between a man and a woman as the divinely intended pattern of relationship for sexual intimacy.
These are the two central issues on which we are currently divided as we seek in the LLF process to navigate different responses among Christians to changing patterns of sexual relationships in society and in particular the introduction of same-sex marriage.
The bishops’ declared intention not to change the church’s doctrine of marriage or marriage liturgy so as to include same-sex couples has removed (1) from the current discussion in terms of the church’s formal teaching. It has, however, not in any sense foreclosed ongoing debate on this within the church. In addition, the question of our understanding of marriage has now become refocused on a new question:
(1a) can the church commend, celebrate and bless civil marriages between two people of the same sex (perhaps claiming that it is only blessing the people in such civil marriages rather than their relationship or legal union) and
(1b) can the church, given those ordained affirm they will “endeavour to fashion your own life and that of your household according to the way of Christ, that you may be a pattern and example to Christ’s people”, allow clergy to enter same-sex civil marriages and treat them simply as legal unions?
In relation to (2) the question can be framed as
(2a) can the church cease speaking of all sex outside marriage as falling short of God’s purposes (or, in other words, as sin) and instead commend, celebrate and bless non-marital, including same-sex, sexual relationships, if they embody certain qualities (again perhaps claiming that it is only blessing the people in such relationships rather than the relationship itself or its sexual aspect) and
(2b) can the church, given the canons require that a “clerk in Holy Orders shall…at all times be diligent to frame and fashion his life and that of his family according to the doctrine of Christ, and to make himself and them, as much as in him lies, wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ” (Canon C26.2) allow clergy to live in such relationships?
These have now become the focus of contention: are these developments consonant with the church’s doctrine? Or are they indicative of a departure from that doctrine and so either cannot happen or require a change in the church’s doctrine of marriage (or canons and liturgy relating to ordination) before they can be approved?
It would appear therefore that the focus is shifting away from what our doctrine should be to what our doctrine actually is and, closely related to that, what actions therefore indicate a departure from our doctrine.
The disagreement is, in other words, now being presented more as a matter of interpretation and application of existing doctrine than a fundamental disagreement over the substance of doctrine. But that is, of course, at best a partial truth. At worst it is a deception sitting uneasily with the pastoral principle of admitting hypocrisy given the underlying fundamental disagreements that clearly exist over what the church’s doctrine of marriage should be.
The challenge is that those who are pressing for changes (1) and (2) in doctrine (and the consequent sexual ethic), having failed to achieve this in relation to marriage as a male-female union, are now arguing that previously prohibited actions are, in fact, not really prohibited by the unchanged doctrine and so can legitimately be introduced into the church.
Thus it is claimed in relation to (1) that the doctrine of marriage has no bearing on the question of entering the status of a same-sex civil marriage. The answer to (1a) and (1b) is therefore that, contrary to all previous legal advice and episcopal statements, the church can now authorise blessings of same-sex marriages and permit clergy to enter them. Similarly, in relation to (2), it is claimed that the restriction of sexual intimacy to marriage is not, contrary to past episcopal statements, actually part of the doctrine of marriage but has always been some lower level category of current episcopal teaching or guidance. The answer to (2a) and (2b), it is therefore being claimed, is that liturgically celebrating non-marital sexual relationships and allowing clergy to enter these is not contrary to or indicative of a departure from that doctrine; these innovations can be introduced simply by the bishops changing their past episcopal teaching or guidance.
What are the practical options going forward?
As the wording of these questions makes clear, these matters lie at the heart of the work of two of the three new working groups: that examining the wording and rubrics of the proposed draft prayers has to consider (1a) and (2a) and that working on the promised new pastoral guidance has to consider (1b) and (2b). How, in the light of our disagreements, might it be best to proceed?
Clarifying doctrine
The most obvious solution is to clarify what our doctrine is, decide whether or not that doctrine should be changed in some way, and then determine whether or not any of the proposals are indicative of a departure from the doctrine.
If the doctrine is to change this is something which the bishops cannot do simply on their own (though it is less clear what the situation is if is claimed that what is happening is simply a reinterpretation and new application of the current doctrine even when that means the working, de facto, doctrine is changed in significant ways). Leading canon lawyer, Professor Norman Doe, explains in his Legal Framework of the Church of England (Chpt 9 at p. 258) that although the bishops have particular responsibilities in relation to doctrine due to their episcopal ordination, they cannot unilaterally alter it:
General Synod is the only authority within the Church of England competent to alter the legally approved doctrines: no doctrinal development may occur unless the three Houses of General Synod consent to it. Indeed, it has been understood judicially that General Synod possesses in law an unlimited power to change the church’s fundamental doctrines, provided the required procedures are followed. The procedures are rigorous and, by requiring the participation of the whole church as represented in General Synod, they give juridical expression to the theological principle that doctrines ought to be derived from a consensus fidelium.
Doe continues to quote the General Synod’s constitution (paragraph 7) whose current wording is reproduced here (in Appendix D). This has a number of detailed checks and balances (including potential separate referrals to Convocations or House of Laity) to prevent doctrine being changed too easily. Illustrative examples of the ways in which there is special protection of doctrine can also be found summarised in the authoritative work of another leading canon lawyer, Mark Hill:
A Canon which concerns worship or doctrine may not be submitted for Royal Assent unless it has received final approval in Synod with a majority in each house of not less than two-thirds of those present and voting (Ecclesiastical Law, 4th edn, 2.26) and
Synod may approve, amend, continue, or discontinue any form of service, provided that it is of the opinion that it does not represent a departure from the doctrine of the Church and that any such decision is finally approved with a majority in each house of not less than two-thirds of those present and voting (ibid, 5.03).
Prayers
Following this logic, in order to clarify the doctrine of the Church, the proposed prayers would best be brought to Synod not with a view to the bishops commending them under Canon B5 but under Canon B2 in order for there to be an authorized form of service. This is because
The final approval by the General Synod of any canon, regulation, form of service, or amendment thereof conclusively determines that the Synod is of the opinion that it is neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter (Hill, 5.01 cf Canon B2.1).
The difficulty for those wishing to proceed with the prayers is that it seems, given the voting at the February Synod, the current Synod falls well short, in both the Houses of Clergy and Laity, of the necessary two-thirds majority to pass the current proposed draft prayers. A refusal to use the Canon B2 route, however, means that whether or not any prayers are indicative of a departure from the Church’s doctrine will remain undetermined even were the bishops to commend them. This is because the bishops alone cannot determine whether this test (inserted, arguably in an even stronger form, in the Cornes amendment at the February General Synod) has been passed simply by stating that it is their opinion the prayers are not indicative of such a departure.
It would also appear, as Russell Dewhurst has argued, that even were the bishops as a House or College to state their collective view that the prayers were neither a departure from the church’s doctrine nor even indicative of such departure, this judgment (unlike that of General Synod by a majority of two-thirds) would not be binding on every bishop. In particular, the question remains unanswered as to how each diocesan bishop – as “the chief pastor of all that are within his diocese, as well laity as clergy…” called to “teach and to uphold sound and wholesome doctrine, and to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions” (Canon C18.1) and “the principal minister” with “the right, save in places and over persons exempt by law or custom, of…ordering, controlling, and authorizing all services in churches, chapels, churchyards and consecrated burial grounds” (Canon C18.4) – would respond.
Canon B5.4 is clear that
If any question is raised concerning the observance of the provisions of this Canon it may be referred to the bishop in order that he may give such pastoral guidance, advice or directions as he may think fit, but such reference shall be without prejudice to the matter in question being made the subject matter of proceedings under the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963
Russell Dewhurst therefore writes of the prayers, if simply commended by the bishops, that “it appears that a bishop may be able to veto their use under Canon B 5(4)” because, in the light of B5(4),
If a question is duly raised and the bishop chooses to give direction, rather than guidance or advice, then the duty of canonical obedience may be engaged. If this is so, then failure to follow the bishop’s direction would be a breach of ecclesiastical law and a disciplinary offence. This would seem to indicate that, if a question is raised, the bishop would be able to direct a minister not to use Prayer of Love and Faith, or indeed any other variations which the bishop believed were inappropriate, in a given context or generally.
If this is the case then the apparent desire of the bishops (expressed in the Bishop of London’s words at General Synod) to bring back to Synod “very clear proposals [of prayers] that can be used consistently across the dioceses in the Church to protect those who wish to use them and those who do not wish to use them” is going to be difficult to guarantee if any bishops believe the prayers are indicative of a departure from the Church’s doctrine of marriage. This may open the question as to whether consideration might be given to some other route such as approval of a service, under certain conditions, by the Archbishops or, if they wish, by any diocesan, under Canon B4 or B5A. The difficulty remains however that these too would also lack any authoritative determination of doctrine as this can only be gained by proceeding under Canon B2.
Pastoral Guidance
The same problem of consistency across dioceses looks like it will also prove difficult to achieve in relation to the new pastoral guidance. This is because the deep disagreements found in Synod and the wider church are also present among the bishops. It is clear that the bishops are keen to develop and implement pastoral guidance which will be “consistent across dioceses and reflect the doctrine and ecclesiastical law of the Church of England” (in the words they use to describe the planned Pastoral Consultative Group that will “lead…the production of the new pastoral guidance” and “support and advise bishops and dioceses on pastoral responses”). But the different and incompatible answers that bishops will give to (1b) and (2b)—for example whether those in a same-sex marriage should or should not be able to be ordained—means that it is very hard to see how any new guidance to replace Issues will be able to be implemented, in good conscience, by every bishop.
This means that we are likely to face not only the difficulty that bishops are not of “one mind” but that they will not be able to agree a way to walk forward together which they can all, in conscience, implement within their episcopal ministries. This could apply in relation to the prayers and/or the guidance. If the bishops, by a majority, reaffirm the current negative answers to (1b) and (2b) then some bishops may nevertheless seek to advance changes within their own dioceses. If the bishops, by a majority, offer new and affirmative answers to those questions (by, for example, permitting the ordination of those in sexual relationships other than marriage) then some bishops may reject such developments. As the Communion Partner bishops have done in North America they may well insist on exercising their own episcopal ministries in conformity with the current understanding of the church’s doctrine of marriage and the mind of the Anglican Communion as expressed in Lambeth I.10.
Furthermore, even if the bishops can agree a uniform way to move forward, whatever it is there are likely to be in all dioceses a (perhaps significant) number of clergy and parishes who will disagree with the proposed outcome. At least some of these are likely – even more so if there are a range of diocesan approaches—to wish to receive their oversight from someone who shares their understanding, whether that is maintaining the current teaching and discipline or wishing to embrace new patterns of liturgy or expectations of how clergy order their households.
This leads into the task of the third working group and suggests that this is not simply going to have to consider “pastoral reassurance” for those clergy deeply unhappy with an agreed nationally consistent way forward. Nor is its work likely going to be restricted to the implications of this for the relationship of clergy and parishes to their bishop(s), itself a significant challenge. This group is likely going to have to consider how the Church of England responds to a situation where its bishops are no longer even claiming to be adhering to a consistent, nationally agreed pattern of episcopal ministry which they all believe is in conformity with the Church’s agreed doctrine in relation to these matters. The next article will explore these questions of differentiation.
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.
The problem is that the Church of England is officially the church for all in England who wish to enter its doors, so it is not going to throw anybody out – even if they wish to contradict what holy scripture states is and is not permissible to man with crystal clarity. It is rare that such people wish to remain in the church but here is a case. What is the result?
A two-minded church is unstable in all its ways.
The problem is that the Church of England is officially the church for all in England who wish to enter its doors, so it is not going to throw anybody out
It has thrown people out in the past. It could do so again.
You mean like in 1662 and 1738? Not the best precedents.
You mean like in 1662 and 1738? Not the best precedents.
Yeah I mean, this time it could throw the right people out
Ultra vires? That is the key question.
Loquacio Loophole Houdinis will seek to extract themselves from the knots they’ve tied themselves in.
But they will nevertheless be subject to the full force of the ultra vires question.
I’d be interested in the canons of construction employed in the interpretation of Canon Law.
Of course we now know better than they knew 2 millennia ago. The natural process of time is that rock turns gradually to sand. Meaning that sand really is rock that has ‘evolved’. We now therefore appreciate better than Jesus, or Paul, or the church fathers, that building on sand is entirely acceptable for today’s church.
Should this have a ‘sarcasm’ alert on it…?
In a recent comment in Martin Davie’s “Reflections of an Anglican Theologian” he wrote:
“In the light of the fact that differences over same-sex relationships are not adiaphora, the CEEC report further argues that this fact points to the conclusion that there needs to be differentiation between those in the Church of England who want to stand by the apostolic teaching and those who wish to depart from it.”
But I would like to ask a question about other aspects of apostolic teaching which are arguably more important than the doctrines of marriage and sexuality, important though those are. I have in mind the doctrines of original sin, the atonement doctrine of penal substitution and the propitiation of God’s wrath by the death of Christ, and the terrible but true doctrine of eternal retribution of the unsaved, which all have a bearing on what the Church believes and teaches about the very doctrine of sin and salvation itself.
It is true that nobody is formally trying to change the Articles and Homilies which speak of those doctrines like the Synod is trying formally to change the doctrines of Marriage and Sexuality. But not only does the liberal Church not believe those salvation doctrines but some evangelicals do not believe them either – for instance the Rev. Dr. Ian Paul and he says in his website that he is not alone.
If the differentiation sought by the CEEC is based on Marriage/Sex alone without addressing these salvation doctrines surely that cannot be satisfactory.
Phil Almond
Your issue really (and speaking as someone who generally does hold “the doctrines of original sin, the atonement doctrine of penal substitution and the propitiation of God’s wrath by the death of Christ, and the terrible but true doctrine of eternal retribution of the unsaved” is that the church universal hasn’t. There are other, historic, doctrines of the atonement (such as ransom, which virtually all of the church fathers held). Is the ransom model of the atonement so wrong that we must declare the fathers of the church apostate and ourseles from them?
What you call ‘doctrines of the atonement’ are mutually exclusive?
Exactly, Christopher.
They are facets, aspects, of the fullness of atonement in Christ Jesus.
In our cleverness, do we no longer sing, “ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven…”?
No longer sing redemption songs?
From memory, Ian wouldn’t sing, “In Christ Alone.”
From memory, Ian wouldn’t sing, “In Christ Alone.”
For rather nitpicky reasons that, if applied consistently, would rule out quite a large proportion of the hymn book where perfectly correct theology is sacrificed for metre and /or imagery, rather than because of any denial of substitutionary atonement theories. If I recall correctly.
S,
I understood Ian’s objection to, “In Christ Alone”, was to the words, “the wrath of God was satisfied.”
But, this is his room, space, in which to correct any misunderstanding I may have, if it misrepresents his position.
The objection is not to the reality/concept of the wrath of God but to the way the thought hangs together.
I understood Ian’s objection to, “In Christ Alone”, was to the words, “the wrath of God was satisfied.”
Yes; but as I understand it he doesn’t deny that there is such a thing as the wrath of God; and he is clear that something was satisfied by Jesus’ death; which together makes him perfectly orthodox.
And as I say there are plenty of other hymns where absolutely scrupulous theological rigour is sacrificed for phrasing. Obviously we shouldn’t sing hymns which contain outright heresy but we do happily sing hymns (especially around Christmas) with far greater theological howlers than this.
There are other, historic, doctrines of the atonement (such as ransom, which virtually all of the church fathers held). Is the ransom model of the atonement so wrong that we must declare the fathers of the church apostate and ourseles from them?
But the ransom model and the substitutionary model are not mutually exclusive, are they? the church fathers may have held the ransom model but that doesn’t mean they denied the substitutionary model in the way that the liberals do nowadays, does it?
If they didn’t deny the substitutionary model but merely held the ransom model in addition to it, then there’s no need to disassociate from them. If on the other hand they denied there was any substitutionary element to the atonement (difficult to do while remaining true to the word of the Bible) then we have a problem.
S – they probably both express some facet of the reality of Christ reaching into the ontological depths of our being to rescue us from our sin. Christ assumed sinful flesh, although he did not sin; it was Nazianzen who said `that which is not assumed is not healed.’ I’d say that assuming sinful flesh and descending to hell on our behalf clearly is some sort of a substitution. Also, if the definition of ‘ransom’ is ‘a redemption from sin and its consequences’ then there is also the idea of ransom. The point is that Christ emerged from the depths of hell as victor, having overcome death on our behalf.
The problem, though, is that the comment which sparked this discussion seems to support the idea of God the Father putting Jesus the Son on the naughty seat and giving him a jolly good spanking to appease his wrath – which doesn’t really put God in a very good light.
the comment which sparked this discussion seems to support the idea of God the Father putting Jesus the Son on the naughty seat and giving him a jolly good spanking to appease his wrath – which doesn’t really put God in a very good light.
It’s much much worse than just ‘not putting God in a good light’ (a trivial peccadillo), it’s dividing the essence.
“Dividing the essence”, S.
Now you are opening the door to a (full?) debate on the doctrine of the Trinity, espoused by the CoE.
It seems from a link I made, on the earlier article, to an Anglican Mainstream piece written by Martin Davie, that the Athanasian creed is still an official CoE creed.
Now you are opening the door to a (full?) debate on the doctrine of the Trinity, espoused by the CoE.
I don’t think one does debate dividing the essence, does one? One simply does not divide the essence.
Does one get it, S?
One does.
Thomas
But the Church of England in her Articles and Homilies IS committed to believing and preaching those doctrines and the CEEC is pressing for differentiation in the CofE.
Phil Almond
The current proposal is that a vicar be free to bless two people of the same sex where he sees that they are in a committed, stable, faithful relationship and affirm that they are in some sense Christians, so that they be ‘welcomed fully into the life of the Church’. That latter phrase is itself troublesome. Does it imply that a conventionally married couple, on being married, are ‘welcomed fully into the life of the Church’ (in practice Church-married couples rarely continue to attend church, let alone participate fully in its life)? Or does it imply that the Holy Spirit of God has chosen to dwell in them and that they are living in accordance with the Holy Spirit?
How should the minister judge whether the relationship fulfils the conditions? When a heterosexual couple ask for a church marriage, he does not consider whether the relationship is committed, stable and faithful, for he does not know them well enough. In the case of a homosexual couple, having been put in this awkward position of having to judge, he will certainly not wish to judge adversely.
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 minister 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 the guidance will very likely be that the minister should treat the fact that they have already exchanged vows in a civil partnership/marriage as evidence that their relationship is committed etc. So there will be a civil partnership/marriage (exchange of vows), followed by a church blessing of the persons composing the relationship. This is merely to split the church marriage service into two stages. The present proposals are thus in effect proposals for homosexual marriage.
To put it another way, what is needed is not only ‘clarification’ of the doctrine of marriage (the definition or preconditions, e.g. being members of the opposite sex), but clarification of the specific actions that result in church-recognised marriage, both on the part of the couple (e.g. vows) and on the part of the representative of the church (e.g. blessing).
Clarification of what it means to be ‘welcomed fully into the life of the Church’ is also needed. At the moment, it is just an undefined equivocation, signifying nothing.
Steven,
It would however, permit, *legitimise* in the eyes of CoE anyone known to the church, and perhaps some in “office” positions, while at the same time offend those who seek full marriage status.
Rhetorical questions.
Does scripture have anything to say about
1. vows
1.1 in general?
1.2. foolish vows?
1.3. particular vows?
2 Rabbit holes?
Rabbit holes! Ha!
How about re-writing Alice in the wonderland of the CxE? A blend of Rip Van Winkle, Alice in wonderland and Pilgrim’s Progress.
Ah, yes Steve.
Water-down Ship.
Crewed by Masters of the Metaphor and Rigourous Riggers, served by a guild of Flaccid Philosophies, kept afloat with the bouyancy and ballast of Worldly Wisdom in the doctrinal Doldrums of Wind/Ruach-less seas of change.
I look forward to reading your book!
Steven
I think these blessings are intended primarily for gay people who are already a part of their parish church. It’s to address the apparent contradiction that people who have nothing to do with the church before or after are allowed to be married there with everyone’s blessing, but the gay couple who keep the road on the show by turning up early, cleaning the hymn books and moping the rector’s brow are rejected as being unworthy.
There’s an emphasis on welcome because the act of denying people a wedding in your church is profoundly unwelcoming. This is intended to fool gay couples into thinking that the church hierarchy values them and their input into church life
I think these blessings are intended primarily for gay people who are already a part of their parish church.
No, that can’t possibly be it; there would be no need to for such people, who are already participating fully in the life of the church, to be ‘welcomed fully into the life of the Church’.
So whatever they are intended for, it can’t be to welcome, as individuals, people who are already part of the life of the church.
Now you may claim that they may have been participating as individuals but they haven’t previously been welcome as a couple and this welcomes them into the life of the church as a couple.
But that can’t be it either! Because the blessings most specifically do not refer to them as a couple, but only to the two people as individuals.
S
With respect I think you dont understand feelings or emotions or why parish churches may want to seem welcoming to parishoners.
With respect I think you dont understand feelings or emotions or why parish churches may want to seem welcoming to parishoners.
Why don’t you explain to me then how you might need to ‘welcome fully into the life of the church’ someone who has already been participating fully in the life of the church for, perhaps, many years.
S
I’m not in favour of these blessings
That’s why the Bishops’ whole idea is nonsense, literally.
It’s not about being unworthy, it’s about 2 men or 2 women together not being recognised as a ‘marriage’. I appreciate you dont accept that but that’s the reality.
You can accuse me of nit-picking and you would probably be right, but it may well go to the heart of the problem. The quotation of the Bishop of London began, “As bishops we have been seeking the mind of Christ …” This is not the first time I have heard a senior cleric use such language and, yes, it sounds very spiritual and just what bishops should be doing. However the phrase “the mind of Christ” only occurs once in scripture at 1 Corinthians 2:16. It reads, “For who has know the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (NASB, referring to Isaiah 40:13)
In my simple way I take that to mean that all believers, young or old in the faith, wise or unlearned, have direct access to God’s thinking, subject to caveats about our current spiritual standing with the Lord. Meanwhile unbelievers, including not a few of the current bishops of these isles, are still groping around in the darkness trying to find “the truth”, a sad state of affairs. Hence the need to keep plugging away with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ian
“If you were a true believer you’d agree with me because my theology is right?!”
What sort of comment is that?
Peter, you have given no inkling here what the content of your theology is. It is only ever about sexuality to the exclusion of all else.
There have been a great many opportunities to contribute comments on Ian P’s many articles on scripture, based on the weekly liturgical readings. But no, nothing.
Geoff
Most people believe their own theology is correct or they would change it. We can’t all be right.
It has now come to me more clearly what is so disturbing about the Archbishop’s statement that “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.”
(1) As early as 2005 the Church issued a pastoral statement that ‘lay people who had registered civil partnerships ought not to be asked to give assurances about the nature of their relationship before being admitted to baptism, confirmation and holy communion, or being welcomed into the life of the local worshipping community more generally. Those same sex couples who choose to marry should be welcomed into the life of the worshipping community and not be subjected to questioning about their lifestyle.’ This policy is known in the US Army as ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. So the Church was already in 2005 signifying that the question was not an issue central to what it means to being a Christian, and that a civil partnership was itself a marriage. The present suggestion that blessing will only be given where ‘we see a committed, stable, faithful relationship’ is therefore duplicitous.
(2) The language of ‘welcoming fully into the life of the Church’ is baptismal language. One repents, believes, gets baptised and receives the Holy Spirit; on that basis one is received fully into the life of the Church. In effect, the Church is characterising the proposed blessing as one in which the homosexual couple are admitted into the body of Christ. Orthodox Christians, informed by the Word and the Spirit, ought to be aghast. A wedding rite of blessing is, in the case of homosexual couples, being equated with the baptismal rite.
(3) In December 2022 the Church issued pastoral guidance on how transgendered people might be recognised and welcomed in parish churches, by reaffirming baptismal vows in their newly chosen name and gender. Implicitly, a putative change of sex and identity were being equated with dying to sin and receiving the new life of Christ. More than 2,000 clergy and senior lay Anglicans wrote an open letter objecting to this innovation, but as far as I know the guidance has not been withdrawn.
Christians in the Church of England need to recognise that the House of Bishops is now apostate.
SR,
Part of my own personal frustration with discussing this topic is that conservatives frequently complain that gay people are not being held to standard X, even though standard X is not actually required of straight people either!
https://www.churchofengland.org/life-events/your-church-wedding/weddings-faqs
Straight people don’t need to be baptized to get married in a Church of England church.
I think Andrew has made a slight mistake. It’s not the case that those arguing for same sex marriage have pushed for these blessings instead. Indeed most people who are arguing for SSM have pretty similar problems with the blessings as conservatives did.
These blessings came from bishops as an attempt to square the two circles of
1. There for everyone, but oppose SSRs, but have same sex couples and their families in their community and don’t really have much of an understanding of why they are meant to be so bad
2. Trying to be respected a moral authority while seeming by secular standards to be morally bankrupt.
The bishops clearly have no faith in their own doctrine of marriage since they are trying to disguise it with these blessings.
Despite Andrew Goddard’s outstanding careful analysis of the Prayers in Love and Faith (PLF) development, the logic falters, when he writes: “the proposed prayers would best be brought to Synod not with a view to the bishops commending them under Canon B5 but under Canon B2 in order for there to be an authorized form of service.”
According the legal note in GS 2055, if the CofE makes no legislative change, then there are two provisos that, if adopted, allow the bishops to persist in commending PLF as Church liturgy. They are:
“1. Make it clear to the clergy that it is not lawful for them to use a form of service which either explicitly or implicitly treats or recognises the civil marriage of two persons of the same sex as equivalent to holy matrimony.
2. Explain that it would be lawful for the clergy to use a form of service which celebrated the relationship between two persons of the same sex provided that the form of service
did not explicitly or implicitly treat or recognise their relationship as equivalent to holy matrimony.”
GS 2055 also stated that the HoB would not be required to publish pastoral guidance emphasising that the proposed prayers do not implicitly or explicitly signify Church affirmation of same-sex marriage, unless its previous guidance on this matter remained unrevoked (e.g., Marriage: a teaching document of the House of Bishops, 1999; Pastoral
1999. which states “sexual relationships outside marriage, whether heterosexual or between people of the same sex, are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings”).
It is now becoming clear that the bishops’ replies at General Synod and the recent CofE report “Love Matters: Report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Families & Households” are all part of a concerted effort to ensure that the Church no longer remains moored to any declaration that will prevent PLF from becoming commended liturgy.
For example, on page 50 of that report, it states (with a footnote reference to a presentation by S. C. Williams at the launch of the Commission): “In the Gospels we find single-person households, friendship groups, siblings living together, people who have been married several times, cohabiting couples, multigenerational households, as well as parents and their children. Jesus affirmed the biological family but also denied it pride of place.”
As a connected recommendation, the report states: “It is critical to recognise and value all kinds of loving couple relationships. Different family structures in which strong, stable and committed loving relationships are central to everyday life should be celebrated, valuing and supporting everyone to flourish.”
Therefore, I’m sure that the House of Bishops will have little hesitation in reversing their support for their former declaration that: “sexual relationships outside marriage, whether heterosexual or between people of the same sex, are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings”. Especially, when that former declaration (derived from church doctrine) is neither believed by the revisionists who hold sway over the majority of them, nor adamantly defended by the minority of bishops who have shown no stomach for adamantly defying PLF, which now amounts to the CofE’s official liturgical connivance at sexual immorality.
Correction: quote is on p. 32: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/H%26F%20report%20DIGITAL%20SINGLE%20PAGES.pdf
Rather, it’s the official liturgical connivance at making those in same sex relationships feel less than human.
Well, bring on the progressive campaign to defeat PLF at the next Synod! I look forward to it!
I think those points were all made in February David.
“all Christians would probably agree that there are some disagreements that do impair our ability to live and work together—disagreements that require some kind of practical differentiation even if we remain in a single church together…”
The kind of practical differentiation that has worked in our disagreements about Eucharistic doctrine has been that some Parishes reserve the sacrament, hold services of Benediction, teach worshippers to genuflect before the sacrament etc, and those Parishes where bits of Mothers Pride are used and given to the birds after the act of worship is finished etc. There are huge doctrinal disagreements at work in this area of our life as a single church. So why not the same kind of practical differentiation in the case of the proposals in front of us with regard to same sex relationships i.e. some Parishes do one of thing, and some another, and no one gets too worked about it.
So why LLF, why the Lambeth and GS shenanigans, why Kigali, why JTallon, why Peter J, why Susannah Clark, why David Runcorn, why PCD and why you, why biblical revisionists, if it is so minor a matter, a matter of indifference?.
Who has made it so?
Conservative Evangelicals have predominantly made it so Geoff – witness what happened concerning Jeffrey John in 2003. Had that appointment gone ahead as planned and agreed by the Crown, the Archbishop and all, then none of the stuff you mention would have happened. We would have simply got on with life in the ways I have suggested.
Quite frankly, that is staggering, stupifying, in its inversion, almost beggering belief. And you don’t see or deny it!
Geoff I find it staggering that you can’t see it. And therein lies the problem. Neither of us sees it the way the other sees it. So the only possible way forward is a compromise.
Neither of us sees it the way the other sees it. So the only possible way forward is a compromise.
No, neither of you sees it the way the other sees it, so the only way possible is a split.
Andrew – I can see it all to clearly. The model you seem to be proposing is one where the C. of E. is an alliance of people who may (or may not) believe there is something up there. I remember the `Spitting Image’ hymn, `you couldn’t meet a nicer bloke than God’ where they sang about the attributes of God that made him so decent ‘he never, never rings you when you’re in the bog’. When I first saw the Spitting Image sketch, I felt that it was written by someone with profound insight into the C. of E..
I’m not a C. of E. man myself – basically for this reason – surely a denomination has to have a firmer basis than that. I’ve never really understood the point of an established church anyway.
S – split? How? If the C. of E. splits, it will split into smithereens – into zillions of sub-atomic particles in a way that the physicists at CERN would be proud of. If the C. of E. starts to split, then this process won’t be long. There are many loose alliances and the SSM issue isn’t the only one.
Jock is absolutely right. Anyone who thinks that it would split into merely 2 or 3 or 4 has not thought things through.
For once I am in absolute agreement with Christopher Shell (and Jock).
The idea that there would be one simple split is just naive. Once that door is upon, all kinds of splits would be required by this or that faction. The only option for the CofE is to find a compromise, as it has done throughout its history.
That does not prevent the Conservative Evangelicals/Puritans going off to form some purer sect. Again, there is historical precedent. Think Free Church of England.
The only option for the CofE is to find a compromise, as it has done throughout its history.
You have a bizarrely selective view of Church of England history. Latitudinarianism, which you seem to regard as the defining characteristic of the Church of England, was a very late development. There was no compromise in 1662.
That comment fails to understand the role of the Puritans in the 16th and 17th centuries or the Act of Uniformity or Elizabethan settlement. Or the history of the term Via Media as it applies to Anglicanism
Geoff
A decade ago in England gay people became legally allowed to marry.
The CofE has spent the last decade trying and failing to decide how to respond to the fact that there will now be gay married couples in the parish, some of them wanting to attend church and to the fact that gay people who are priests, readers, church wardens etc can legally marry.
Begs the question – they’re not “married” in anything but the secular civil law of the UK (most jurisdictions wouldn’t recognise any such thing). 2013 was in fact a significant act of disestablishment.
32 countries allow gay couples to marry worldwide, including the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Most British gay couples will remain residents of the UK their whole lives so to most couples, it is personally irrelevant what other jurisdictions decide, except they may have to choose foreign travel more carefully than straight couples.
So why not the same kind of practical differentiation in the case of the proposals in front of us with regard to same sex relationships i.e. some Parishes do one of thing, and some another, and no one gets too worked about it.
Well, for one reason, nobody turns up to a church that reserves the sacrament and demands to be served normal bread or they will sue. Whereas we all know that if churches are allowed to do their own thing on this issue, within a year a same-sex couple will turn up to a church which doesn’t do such blessings and demand to be blessed (with a flown-in friendly minister if necessary), threatening to sue under equality legislation if they aren’t allowed.
We all know that if clergy are allowed to do their own thing on this issue then any who aren’t willing to do such blessings will be blocked from becoming bishops, will be banned from the dioceses of progressive bishops (which will in time, due to the blocking, be all of them) and will be quietly encouraged to either get with the programme or retire before they are monstered in the press as ‘out of touch vicar refuses to bless this lovely couple’.
This issue also isn’t one confined to individual churches. If you attend a church which does communion one way and moves to a church which does it another, you have to fit in. But if a same-sex couple attends a church which uses these proposals to recognise their relationship as equivalent to a marriage moves to a church which doesn’t so recognise their relationship, it’s the new church which will have a change to accommodate them.
And finally, and most importantly, this issue isn’t just about whether individual churches do blessings or not. This issue is about fundamentals of the faith: the authority and nature of the Bible, the nature of mankind, the reality of sin. The two sides have totally incompatible views on all these issues and these aren’t merely minor elements of doctrine or practice; they are things which mean that the two sides believe in what are, in effect, totally different religions; as different as Christianity is from Quakerism, or Islam, or Mormonism, or Judaism.
A brilliant reply!
S
It’s never happened anywhere in the world where a gay couple has taken legal action to be married in a church that opposes SSM.
Why would any couple want to be married somewhere that doesn’t want them?
It’s never happened anywhere in the world where a gay couple has taken legal action to be married in a church that opposes SSM.
Hardly reassuring — ask Ashers baking.
Why would any couple want to be married somewhere that doesn’t want them?
To prove that they have won.
Ashers is a business, not a religious institution. The customer was attempting to buy a product from them, not having them conduct their marriage.
When we got married we didnt do so because we wanted a legal battle. Thats not why people marry. We even had a photographer travel some distance because we wanted to make sure the photographer would be comfortable with LGBT people. We didn’t ask the opinion of the people we bought the food from.
It’s never happened anywhere in the world where a gay couple has taken legal action to be married in a church that opposes SSM.
Also, there have been civil registrars who have lost their jobs because they refused to do same-sex weddings. They would have been allowed to keep their jobs even if they objected to same-sex marriage as long as they were prepared to keep quiet about their objections and act against their conscience.
So it that circumstance gay couples were perfectly happy to be married by someone who objected to same-sex marriage, and was only doing the ceremony because they had been threatened with the sack if they didn’t.
S
In those cases the civil registrars were required to marry same sex couples by their employer. It wasn’t the couples demanding to be married by a particular registrar who didn’t want to.
Gay people interact with people who are uncomfortable with us on a daily basis. We are used to it. We can handle it. But we don’t want that at on our special day
In those cases the civil registrars were required to marry same sex couples by their employer. It wasn’t the couples demanding to be married by a particular registrar who didn’t want to.
So you’re saying that if a same-sex couple wanted to get married in a particular stately home, whether because they thought it was beautiful or because they have some connection to it, and it was licensed for weddings and opposite-sex weddings were conducted there, but the owner rejected the booking because they didn’t agree with same-sex marriage, there is absolutely no chance that they would go to law to assert their right to be married there?
I’m afraid I find that utterly implausible.
Similarly I find it utterly implausible that there is no chance that a same-sex couple wanting to get married in a particular church, whether because they think it is particularly beautiful or because one of them grew up near it or because they have some other connection to it, but the minister and congregation refused permission because they didn’t agree with same-sex marriage, that there is absolutely zero chance that the couple would go to law to force the church to let them have a different minister who agrees with their marriage to perform the service in that building?
Again I find that totally implausible.
Consider the following plausible scenario:
Someone grows up walking to school each day past a beautiful old parish church.
They go to university and meet someone of the same sex as them and wish to marry.
Their college chaplain, who is totally on board with same-sex marriage, says he would love to conduct the ceremony and offers the use of the college chapel.
But the person says while they definitely want the chaplain to conduct the service, they would much rather get married, for sentimental reasons, in the beautiful old parish church they used to pass every day.
So they approach the minister of the b. o. p. c. She thinks that same-sex marriage is not theologically possible, but says she will take it to the congregation. The congregation agrees, and so they say that the couple cannot get married in the b. o. p. c.
You’re saying there’s absolutely no chance the couple might — perhaps egged on by the college chaplain — go to law to obtain a ruling that the minister and congregation must turn over their b. o. p. c. for the couple to use for their wedding, but that the minister and congregation don’t have to be involved or provide any services?
If you think there’s no chance of that — if you think the couple will definitely just go quietly away and get married in the college chapel instead — then I have a wonderful bridge to sell you, at a very good price.
S
A stately home is different to a church. A business is required to offer the same services to gay and straight people by law. A church is not.
I think if a gay couple wanted a particular stately home and the home said “no gays”. The couple would very likely go elsewhere, but may also sue.
Plausible or implausible, gay people don’t want to get married at the fundamentalist Baptist church! Again the thing you are worried about hasn’t happened anywhere in the world. In the UK there are several denominations in which gay marriage is a local issue and none of them have this problem that you are apparently so worried about.
A stately home is different to a church. A business is required to offer the same services to gay and straight people by law. A church is not.
Actually it is. The Equality Act 2010 applies to churches.
I think if a gay couple wanted a particular stately home and the home said “no gays”. The couple would very likely go elsewhere, but may also sue.
So you admit that legal action is a possibility.
Plausible or implausible, gay people don’t want to get married at the fundamentalist Baptist church!
We’re not talking about ‘the fundamentalist Baptist church’. We’re talking about the position that a Church of England church where the minister and congregation do not agree with the change in doctrine to allow same-sex marriages might find itself in if that doctrine were to be changed.
<iAgain the thing you are worried about hasn’t happened anywhere in the world. In the UK there are several denominations in which gay marriage is a local issue and none of them have this problem that you are apparently so worried about.
None of them has as high a profile as the Church of England; and also most of them only offer wedding services to members, so they are unlikely to have a couple with zero connection to the church rocking up and demanding to be married there. Whereas with Church of England churches that happens all the time.
So the fact that this hasn’t been an issue for, say, the URC, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be an issue for the Church of England, should it choose to go down that path.
S
Under what law? The equalities act doesn’t apply to churches. The current SSM law is explicit in stating that churches do not have to allow SSM
I find it implausible that a gay person could have such a longstanding connection with a church building, but not know that the congregation/priest was so opposed to SSM. And again this has never happened before anywhere in the world
Under what law? The equalities act doesn’t apply to churches.
Yes it does. There are a couple of explicit allowances where, for example, a religious organisation is allowed to require that holders of certain posts be of that religion, but apart from those, all equalities law applies to churches (as well as mosques, synagogues, Quaker halls, etc).
The current SSM law is explicit in stating that churches do not have to allow SSM
Yes, but that is because allowing or not allowing same-sex marriage is not, legally, an equalities issue.
I find it implausible that a gay person could have such a longstanding connection with a church building, but not know that the congregation/priest was so opposed to SSM.
They might well know, and still wish to be married in that building (with a different congregation and minister).
And again this has never happened before anywhere in the world
That’s no proof that it won’t happen in future.
S
Either church marriage is an issue of equality or its not.
If it is an issue of equality then already all churches must offer the same services to gay people as to straight people. We know this isn’t the case in the UK or any other country.
If it’s not then a gay couple would have no law allowing them to sue for discrimination.
The only way the scenario you suggest could happen is if parliament changes the law to require SSM be offered by every parish church. Frankly the refusal to take gay lives seriously by bishops and the majority of synod members is making it more likely that happens
Either church marriage is an issue of equality or its not.
Correct. It’s not. It’s an issue of theology.
If it’s not then a gay couple would have no law allowing them to sue for discrimination.
They would — if the Church of England changes its doctrine.
The only way the scenario you suggest could happen is if parliament changes the law to require SSM be offered by every parish church.
Not true. If the Church of England allows same-sex marriages with just an opt-out for clergy who don’t want to perform them — which is one of the suggestions that has been made here — then a case could definitely be made that the opt-out only allows the minister to recuse themselves on the grounds of conscience, not to deny the use of a church building to a same-sex couple on the same basis as it would be by an opposite-sex couple.
This would be by analogy with other conscience clauses, such as the one which allows pharmacists to refuse to supply the ‘morning-after pill’: they may only do so if the refer the patient to someone else who is willing to supply the drug. So the argument would be that a minister who refuses to marry a same-sex couple in their church should, if not be required to refer them to another minister who would perform the ceremony, at the very least not have a veto over them using the church if the couple can find another minister willing to do so.
Now, I’m not saying this argument would succeed in court. But the mere bringing of the case would bring massive negative publicity to bear on the objecting minister; and if the bishop refused to support the objecting minister’s case (either because they agreed with the plaintiffs, or just out of fear of being tarred with the same negative publicity in the press) it is hard to see how the minister could afford to fight it. This would be a case where the process was very much the punishment.
And even if the minister did prevail, the fight and publicity would likely be so draining that it would discourage any other conscientious objectors from making a similar stand.
S
I still don’t understand which law you are saying that the gay couple could sue under?
If the cofe doesn’t allow churches to opt out then that’s a completely different scenario. That’s not what campaigners are currently asking for, just as there’s no significant move to get the cfe to require all churches to accept women priests or remarry divorcees
I still don’t understand which law you are saying that the gay couple could sue under?
Equality Act 2010, section 29:
‘ (2)A service-provider (A) must not, in providing the service, discriminate against a person (B)—
(a)as to the terms on which A provides the service to B;’
Regarding the Church of England as the service-provider, it could be argued that allowing opposite-sex couples to marry in any church, but same-sex couples to only marry from a specific list of churches which have agreed to that, is discriminatory because the terms on which the service is provided is different.
Obviously theologically this is nonsense — marriage isn’t a ‘service’ offered to the public in this sense — but it’s an arguable legal case.
And the likelihood is someone would be prepared to argue it.
That’s not what campaigners are currently asking for, just as there’s no significant move to get the cfe to require all churches to accept women priests or remarry divorcees
But we have to be concerned not just with what campaigners are currently asking for, but also with what they might move on to ask for if they get what they are currently asking for — what doors might be opened. What slippery slopes we might be stepping onto.
S
But you just said that the equality act doesn’t apply to marriages!
But you just said that the equality act doesn’t apply to marriages!
Whether a religion does or does not offer same-sex marriages is not an equalities law issue.
But if a denomination does allow same-sex marriages then it’s at least an arguable point of law that it has to offer those marriages on exactly the same terms as it does opposite-sex marriages.
That is, to spell it out for the hard of thinking, the Equalities Act cannot be used to force a denomination to change its doctrine.
But if a denomination does change its doctrine to allow same-sex marriages, the Equalities Act may well be held by a court to require that those weddings are ‘offered to the public’ (because the law sees everything in transactional terms) on exactly the same terms as opposite-sex ones.
Do you get it now? Do I have to try to find a way to put it in even simpler terms? As if I am writing to a child?
S
Thank you I understand your point of view now.
I still think you are wrong for three reasons
1. Gay people don’t want to be married in churches that disapprove of their relationship. They want the day to be a celebration, not a forced act.
2. It’s illegal under the equality act to provide services for straight couples that you don’t provide for gay couples. But this is already the case in every denomination in the UK and nobody has sued. The SSM act allowed churches to opt in to SSM and protected religious institutions who did not from being legally forced to offer them
3. Aside from marriage, treatment of LGBT people varies wildly at the local level in the cofe and nowhere are LGBT people treated as the full equals. Legal action for equality is rare against the cofe and in every case the courts have sided with the cofe and against equality.
I will deal with these in turn.
1. Gay people don’t want to be married in churches that disapprove of their relationship. They want the day to be a celebration, not a forced act.
If that were universally true, then no same-sex couple would ever sue to be allowed to marry in a stately home that was owned by someone who disapproved of their relationship. You have already admitted that that might happen, so there clearly exist some same-sex couples who are willing to go to law to force their right to be marriage somewhere where they are dispproved of. So your claim that no same-sex couple would ever do this, is false. Maybe most same-sex couples wouldn’t sue; maybe even the vast majority wouldn’t. But it only takes one, and you can’t guarantee there wouldn’t be one.
2. It’s illegal under the equality act to provide services for straight couples that you don’t provide for gay couples. But this is already the case in every denomination in the UK and nobody has sued. The SSM act allowed churches to opt in to SSM and protected religious institutions who did not from being legally forced to offer them
The fact that this hasn’t happened with other denominations doesn’t mean it won’t happen with the Church of England, because other denominations are in a very different position than the Church of England.
3. Aside from marriage, treatment of LGBT people varies wildly at the local level in the cofe and nowhere are LGBT people treated as the full equals. Legal action for equality is rare against the cofe and in every case the courts have sided with the cofe and against equality.
That’s with the doctrine as it currently is. The whole point I’m making is that chaning the doctrine changes the legal position. At the moment a church asked to perform a same-sex wedding can say, ‘Sorry, the Church of England’s doctrine doesn’t allow us to’. But if the Church of England church up the road does do same-sex weddings (or blessings) then they won’t be able to say that and so the case might well go the other way — but even if it doesn’t, the process of having to fight it will be painful and draining and distracting.
So this is an important possibility that has to be considered and can’t just be dismissed with ‘that’ll never happen’.
You sound, if I might put it like this, like someone last year responding to a critic of the Scottish Assembly’s Gender Reform Bill who said, ‘but what if a rapist claimed to be a woman and sued to be put into a woman’s prison?’ by saying, ‘Don’t be silly, that’s never happened, and anyway rapists are all macho, masculine men, none of them would ever claim to be a woman.’
1. A stately home isnt a church
2. The cofe already discriminates against LGBT people. Allowing gay couples to marry in some churches would be less discrimination, not more
3. I think if the couple respects CofE doctrine then they would also respect the right of the local church to say no?
1. A stately home isnt a church
True; so? The point is there are same-sex couples willing to go to law to override the wishes of the owners / users of places in order to have their weddings there. You can’t guarantee that what happens to stately homes wouldn’t happen to churches.
2. The cofe already discriminates against LGBT people. Allowing gay couples to marry in some churches would be less discrimination, not more
That still doesn’t guarantee that no same-sex couple would ever sue to be allowed to marry in a church against the wishes of its minister and / or congregation.
3. I think if the couple respects CofE doctrine then they would also respect the right of the local church to say no?
Yes, but the Church of England does weddings for couples who don’t respect Church of England doctrine all the time. One of those couples might sue.
Basically you cannot guarantee that this will never happen. It’s a very real possibility that it will. So it must be factored into the decisions.
S
I agree that just because it has never happened anywhere in the world doesn’t mean that it won’t happen in England.
I disagree that allowing parish churches to marry same sex couples will somehow create a more dangerous legal context for churches to be sued under the equality act. It’s more equality than we currently have!
I disagree that allowing parish churches to marry same sex couples will somehow create a more dangerous legal context for churches to be sued under the equality act. It’s more equality than we currently have!
I have explained why it will.
Because at the moment, a same-sex couple cannot sue a local church which refuses to marry them because no Church of England church can marry them while the Church of England doctrine remains as it currently is. Local churches are thus legally ‘sheltered’ under the umbrella of Church of England doctrine. No individual local church has to defend or justify its decision legally.
But if the Church of England were to change its doctrine, that legal shelter disappears. A local Church of England church which refuses to marry same-sex couples when the Church of England church just up the road does will now, legally, have to justify why it does not. Or the Church of England will have to legally justify why it can leave such a decision up to its local branches (after all, a bank couldn’t let its individual branches decide whether or not to serve someone with a protected characteristic, say, whether or not to serve Jewish people).
So the change in doctrine would open up the possibility of legal action which currently doesn’t exist.
Do you understand now?
S
If most Tesco supermarkets served Christians people, but a few did not then thar would be less discrimination than if all Tesco supermarkets refused to serve Christians.
I really don’t understand why you think that discrimination is any more legal if it is corporate rather than local.
I really don’t understand why you think that discrimination is any more legal if it is corporate rather than local.
I don’t understand why you think that is relevant. I have explained how a Church of England church which refuses to conduct marriages now cannot be sued because the Same-Sex Marriages Act bans the church from doing so, and you can’t be sued for not doing something you are legally not allowed to do, and that overrides the Equality Act; but that it the Church of England were to change its doctrine then the Same-Sex Marriage Act would cease to ban the church from conducting same-sex marriages, which would mean the Equality Act could be legally argued to apply; and some chancer is likely to try it.
I don’t know how to put it in simpler terms. Should I find a child and ask them to explain?
Or to put it another way: the whole point of the ‘triple lock’ was to reassure churches that they wouldn’t be sued for refusing to conduct same-sex marriages, by making it illegal for them to do so.
If the Church of England changes its doctrine, the triple lock is removed.
The very fact that the triple lock was necessary to ensure that churches couldn’t be sued proves that if the triple lock is removed then they would be in danger of being sued, doesn’t it?
So the Church of England changing its doctrine, therefore removing the triple lock, would put churches in danger of being sued, wouldn’t it?
You’re sure of that are you? https://www.stowefamilylaw.co.uk/blog/2013/08/07/wealthy-gay-couple-who-want-church-wedding-consider-church-of-england-legal-challenge/
Of course, in 2016, the Pemberton employment appeals tribunal upheld the legality of the Church’s doctrine of marriage, and that forestalled further legal action.
If the church ratifies Prayers of Love and Faith, there is nothing preventing a gay chaplain from taking his bishop to an employment tribunal for initiating disciplinary action against them for entering a same-sex marriage. The plaintiff could rightly argue that the proposed prayers amount to a de facto change in church doctrine.
Forget EJM 1963 because that is what a 21st century legal challenge to Prayer of Love and Faith looks like.
David
Obviously lots of gay people have been involved in trying to get the Church of England to allow same sex marriages. That’s somewhat different than saying gay people would sue local churches who opted out of same sex marriages.
That’s actually the situation right now in the Methodist church, the church of Scotland and (I think) Baptist Union. It’s a local decision.
Jeremy didn’t get married in church. He got black balled for the unforgivable sin of getting married.
The CofE allowing its priests to marry or its readers to marry is a slightly different discussion. I think there would be more legal action if the cofe decides to allow this and then vigilante bishops try to use their office to prevent it. But really what you are arguing against is the status quo where gay people in the church get told X is acceptable and then they do X and face discipline. One of the problems with the status quo is complete lack of honesty and clarity
Question about Jeremy Pemberton. Did he have a previous marriage to a woman? And did he get a divorce? If previously married to a woman, then were there any children?
Because I heard a rumour that there was a previous marriage and that there were offspring from the marriage, yet the wikipedia page on JP makes no mention of it – and this is clearly a point of crucial importance.
(If there was a previous marriage and wiki makes no mention of it, then this is also of extreme importance).
If there was a previous marriage and wiki makes no mention of it, then this is also of extreme importance
No it’s not; you should never believe that anything on the wiki-pædia is either accurate or complete. Any idiot can put anything on there, you know.
S – I get the impression that there are rival factions in the editing-wars for wiki pages. It’s not a game that I’m into, but it does look like great fun.
I’ve not looked at Jeremy Pemberton’s Wikipedia page but where there is an editing war the solution is often to look at the talk page about the subject, because both sides get an airing there.
Pete,
But you’ve insinuated a straw man. Your origami statement wasn’t about gay people suing local churches. Instead, you declared: “It’s never happened anywhere in the world where a gay couple has taken legal action to be married in a church that opposes SSM.”
Clearly, that has happened and to suggest that you were really referring to legal action against local churches doesn’t help your argument.
I’m fully aware that Jeremy Pemberton was civil married. My point was the Employment Appeals Tribunal served to underscore the legality of the Church’s doctrine of marriage and dissuade potential litigation in furtherance of changing that doctrine.
If the proposed prayers are ratified, there aren’t any ‘vigilante bishops’ who will use their office to prevent it.
After all, parish priests have discretion to remarry divorcees in church and there is no evidence of vigilante bishops trying to usurp that discretion.
If anything, if Synod endorses an amended version of Prayers in Love and Faith, it will precipitate structural differentiation, rather than episcopal vigilantism.
I meant ‘original’ rather than ‘origami’
Jock
I don’t know. I also don’t see why it is important. The cofe allows remarriage of divorcees. Famously the Queen consort and the Duchess of Sussex married in church.
JP didn’t marry in church
Famously the Queen consort and the Duchess of Sussex married in church.
Famously, the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles took place in the Windsor Guildhall: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/9/newsid_4872000/4872424.stm
Peter JERMEY – It is important, because Holy Scripture takes a very dim view of divorce, but I don’t need Scripture to tell me that. Any decent child psychologist will tell you that divorce makes their jobs harder. Anyone who instigates a divorce (other than because their spouse commits adultery) really shouldn’t be in any pastoral position in any church at all.
Whether or not JP got married in a church or a registry, whether the second marriage was to a man, woman or elephant, is completely irrelevant here – by his own admission, he divorced a wife (and there was no hint that she was doing anything wrong – he never claimed, for example, that she squeezed the toothpaste from the middle of the tube or anything like that) and, at the same time, there was at least one child.
If the C. of E. permits people who do this sort of thing to remain part of the clergy within the church, then this speaks volumes about the C. of E. – and not in a good way.
I think we all know that people can make mistakes when they marry. Sometimes divorce may be necessary; we should show a degree of charity and lenience. It is always painful.
Those who are responsible should, with humility, sit in the pew and listen rather than be up front teaching; they have been unable to apply the principles that they are supposed to be teaching to their own lives.
David
I apologize. I thought the scenario we were discussing was one where individual parish churches had the option to marry gay couples or not, akin to the current situation with remarriage after divorce.
Of course I acknowledge that gay people and gay rights advocates have tried to pressure many different denominations around the world to allow gay people to marry in their denominations.
I thought the scenario we were discussing was one where individual parish churches had the option to marry gay couples or not, akin to the current situation with remarriage after divorce.
That is not the current situation in the Church of England. Or at least it’s not supposed to be.
Jock
OK but
1. Divorce and remarriage is a different issue
2. I’m almost certain that JPs children would have been adults, possibly with children of their own, by the time of his second marriage
3. If it’s not OK for gays to do this under quite extreme circumstances (see my next point) why is OK for straights to, especially wealthy or powerful straight people? As usual you are attempting to hold gays against a standard that straight people are not held to.
3. (I don’t know JPs specific case, i don’t even know if he is gay or bi so this is not about him) lots of gay men of my generation and older were encouraged by the church to marry women and have children. Obviously in most cases these marriages have collapsed. What’s frustrating is that instead of acknowledging that churches were wrong to encourage these marriages, the church leaders often victim-blame instead. It’s outrageous hypocrisy from a morally bankrupt institution
Peter JERMEY
I’m not holding gays and straights to different standards. If you read my post carefully, you’ll see that I was careful not to do this.
My objection is purely and simply that a divorcee (gay or straight, man or woman) is permitted to continue in the ministry of the C. of E..
I’m not a C. of E. man myself – and for a very good reason – I agree with you about the hypocrisy and double standards within the C. of E..
Jock
JP was barred from ministry when he married for the second time.
JP was barred from ministry when he married for the second time.
I think the point, to which I am sympathetic, is that he ought to have been barred from ministry when he divorced, not when he remarried; and indeed every member of the clergy who divorces should at that moment be barred from ministry, ie, there should be no different treatment here between ‘gay’ and ‘straight’ but rather there should be one rule for all: you initiate a divorce, you lose any position of teaching authority.
S – yep – that’s what I think – anyone who gets divorced should be automatically barred from the ministry.
Even if the divorce is permitted (for example the spouse commits adultery), it does – at the very least – show ill-advised life choices on the part of the divorcee – so that he or she should not be part of the ministry and should have the humility to sit in the pew and listen rather than be up front teaching.
I don’t know so much of the C. of E., but I have a horrible suspicion that Peter JERMEY may be right about the hypocrisy there. I suspect that there may very well be C. of E. clergy who got divorced and then married again – and are still C. of E. clergy, because their second marriage was to someone of the opposite sex (and they don’t seem to have a problem with divorce in the C. of E.).
“ he ought to have been barred from ministry when he divorced, not when he remarried;”
Really? In scripture, where does Jesus prohibit divorce under any circumstances whatsoever?
In scripture, where does Jesus prohibit divorce under any circumstances whatsoever?
Regardless on whether you think divorce is absolutely prohibited, I am sympathetic to the argument that even if it’s not prohibited it indicates a lack of judgement that indicates someone is unsuitable to be teaching others. Those who teach are to be held to a higher standard than simply ‘not doing things which are prohibited’.
David – this has nothing to do with what we are permitted to do; it has nothing to do with concessions made by God because of the hardness of our hearts (which is how Jesus explained the laws from Deuteronomy which permitted divorce).
If we are ‘in Him’, then the apostle Paul makes it completely clear that we can do whatever we like (although if the Spirit really is within us, then what we like will correspond to the ‘law of love’ – doing our best for our neighbour); we are freed from God’s wrath (Romans 5), from sin (Romans 6), from the law (Romans 7) and from death (Romans 8).
Excluding divorcees from the ministry is all connected with suitability for the vocation of the ministry. If a person really has made such a mess of their own lives that they end up getting a divorce then should that person really be in a teaching capacity within the church? Especially when huge swathes of Scripture (especially the Apostle Paul) seems to be about married life. If someone from the clergy really has to get a divorce, then they should admit that they’re not really the best person to be in a teaching capacity – and go and do something else (for example – get a nice job as a computer technology expert – anyone with a good enough brain to do a theology degree also has a good enough brain to learn enough about computers to make a good living – and then have the humility to sit in the pew and listen rather than be up front teaching).
We all know that bad situations can happen, people can make bad life choices, sometimes it is true (as Emil Bruner pointed out somewhere in his Divine Imperative) that one might have to commit one sin to prevent an even greater sin, etc etc ….. we’re aware that sometimes divorce really can be the best way to remedy a bad situation.
So this has nothing at all to do with nit-picking over do’s and don’ts and nobody is trying to say that divorce, in and of itself, bars someone from the kingdom of heaven – there are situations when it happens (although in the way-of-the-world it seems to be ten-a-penny and we don’t want to go down that road). It’s all about suitability for the vocation of being a church person – especially in a teaching capacity – which does involve giving people advice on how to order their lives.
S
Removing a someone from ministry just because they divorced has no scriptural basis.
In the gospels Jesus condemns *remarriage* after divorce, and then not in every circumstance.
However I do think it is gross hypocrisy of the CofE to allow remarriage of divorcees in most circumstances, but not allow gay people to marry once.
Removing a someone from ministry just because they divorced has no scriptural basis.
Yes it does. First Timothy, chapter 3: ministers must be above reproach.
“Ministers must be above reproach”
S, You’re a skilled debater. You know that question-begging (petitio principii) is a fallacy, yet, you’ve done it here by assuming that ‘reproach’ is applicable to the dominical exception in Matt. 5:32. What you haven’t done is to provide evidence that proves that.
In this era of easy and ‘no fault’ divorce, you’d also have to provide evidence that Paul’s disqualification for reproach applies to any undeserved aspersions, including those cast on divorced clergy who have been victimised by an unfaithful spouse who has unilaterally taken advantage of ‘no fault’ divorce laws.
Oh, and, if any and every aspersion (however undeserved) on a minister’s reputation is what Paul meant by reproach in 1 Tim. 3, then that would have disqualified Jesus Himself.
S, You’re a skilled debater. You know that question-begging (petitio principii) is a fallacy, yet, you’ve done it here by assuming that ‘reproach’ is applicable to the dominical exception in Matt. 5:32. What you haven’t done is to provide evidence that proves that.
No I haven’t, but this has already been explained at https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/facing-our-disagreements-on-living-in-love-and-faith/#comment-423806 so I won’t repeat.
Well, S, let’s consider thar comment, especially where it states: “but if he really has such bad judgement that he marries someone who then goes off and commits adultery or who takes advantage of ‘no fault divorce’ – even if he is the innocent victim – it does show bad judgement on his part.”
So, while Jesus didn’t consider Simon Peter’s repeated denials to be a bar to the apostle’s continuation of public ministry, this statement would imply that, for example, candidates for ministry who were married before conversion to Christ, but deserted and divorced by their spouse after conversion (due to the discord that Jesus predicted in Matt. 10:35, 36) have actually exercised bad pre-regeneration judgment which disqualifies them from ministry.
In fact, according to that thesis, to avoid such disqualification, they should have been prudent enough in their unregenerate state to have chosen a spouse who wouldn’t ever divorce them.
That’s just wrong-headed and contrary to the gospel.
So, while Jesus didn’t consider Simon Peter’s repeated denials to be a bar to the apostle’s continuation of public ministry, this statement would imply that, for example, candidates for ministry who were married before conversion to Christ, but deserted and divorced by their spouse after conversion (due to the discord that Jesus predicted in Matt. 10:35, 36) have actually exercised bad pre-regeneration judgment which disqualifies them from ministry.
Simon Peter’s denials weren’t bad judgement though; they were moral cowardice.
I think there may be a category mismatch here. We’re not talking about being disqualified from ministry on moral grounds; such as someone might be if it were discovered that they were an adulterer, or an embezzler. Rather it’s more on competence grounds. For example, if someone were declared bankrupt, that would disqualify them from being a financial advisor, wouldn’t it? Not because their character was in question — becoming bankrupt isn’t a crime — but because if someone can’t manage their own finances, you don’t want them advising other people on how to manage theirs.
In fact, according to that thesis, to avoid such disqualification, they should have been prudent enough in their unregenerate state to have chosen a spouse who wouldn’t ever divorce them.
Yes. Why is that controversial? Regeneration doesn’t magically make someone wiser. If someone was unwise when unregenerate, they are likely to still be unwise when regenerate; and therefore you wouldn’t want them advising others, would you?
David – with your pathological exceptions, you are (of course) correct. Someone lives a dissolute life, during which bad things such as promiscuity and divorce may be involved, then has a life-transforming conversion, heart and mind transformed by the Holy Spirit and from then on is living for Christ. He or she can’t stop talking about what Jesus has done in his or her life and the testimony is instrumental in bringing others to Christ – it would be foolish to bar such a person from the ministry because of the past sinful life.
If one considers the bible as a rule book, laying down hard-and-fast rules, then one is reading it wrongly. If one takes the bible and tries to construct a ‘canon law’ from it, then again one has missed the whole point.
The bible lays down good principles – and in the Timothy passage does, quite sensibly, point out that someone who can’t manage his own family, no matter how intrinsically good that person may be, isn’t suitable for the ministry – not because of any wrong-doing on that person’s part, but because the person doesn’t have the wisdom that the job requires. This applies to someone who is involved in a divorce, even as the innocent victim.
There are (or course) exceptions and we should be prepared to acknowledge this and act when these exceptions occur – just as long as we’re always thinking of the good of the church. Nobody has a God-given right to be in the ministry.
Why is that controversial? Regeneration doesn’t magically make someone wiser. If someone was unwise when unregenerate, they are likely to still be unwise when regenerate; and therefore you wouldn’t want them advising others, would you?
But the requirement to which you referred me (in 1 Tim. 3) is to be “above reproach’.
Through his repeated denial of Christ, despite being a minister of the gospel,, Simon Peter incurred reproach.
So, you can’t assert that because his behaviour resulted from “moral cowardice”, instead of “bad judgement”, he was still (somehow) “above reproach”,
And (of course, if one can exhibit “moral cowardice” and still be “above reproach”, then I’d point you to the disqualifying reproach that Simon Peter incurred for the “moral cowardice” of withdrawing from table fellowship with Gentiles in Antioch (Gal. 2:11)
QED
David – well, as you well know, absolutely nobody is ‘above reproach’. It was S who brought up the ‘above reproach’ – and not me. The Timothy passage also has a verse which appears to me to have nothing whatsoever to do with ‘above reproach’ and hits right at the heart of what the job of a pastor actually is:
‘If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?’
I see nothing about ‘above reproach’ in this verse.
Being `above reproach’ is something that is relative to the sinful state. When teaching children basic Christianity, we teach:
‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’
‘the wages of sin is death’
‘the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ.’
We also take seriously that Romans 7:14-25 (the `wretched man’ passage) is written in the present tense, by a mature Christian (and indeed does not describe Paul’s feelings about himself before the Road to Damascus). Being ‘above reproach’ simply means that the faith you claim to have is expressed in the works you do – and this was certainly true of Peter, even with his denials.
You can concentrate on the ‘above reproach’ requirement in this passage if you want to and – if you’re being totally legalistic in your understanding of it – thus exclude absolutely everybody except for Jesus from the ministry – but the passage also contains a practical verse, 1 Timothy 3:5, which gives purely practical reasons connected with the wisdom and understanding of the person.
Paul is giving several different criteria here, one of which is ‘above reproach’ and another of which is having the wisdom and understanding of human nature to do the job.
“You can concentrate on the ‘above reproach’ requirement in this passage if you want to and – if you’re being totally legalistic in your understanding of it”
To be clear, it was S who directed me to “above reproach” in 1 Tim. 3, by writing: “Yes it does. First Timothy, chapter 3: ministers must be above reproach.”
What’s legalistic is to ‘cherry-pick’ verse 5 out of the entire passage and declare, without scriptural warrant, that the qualification therein is somehow even applicable to a pre-regenerate choice of spouse and then to apply a tortuous rationale to justify Peter’s continuation in ministry: Being ‘above reproach’ simply means that the faith you claim to have is expressed in the works you do – and this was certainly true of Peter, even with his denials.
To be blunt, ‘above reproach’ doesn’t simply mean that at all. That’s just the only meaning that can square with your entrenched position.
I really have no further patience with man-made super-spiritual censoriousness dressed up as ‘holiness unto the Lord’.
David Shepherd – you can consider my point of view sanctimonious if you like, but I should point out that it has been absolutely standard within a huge swathe of Christianity for a long time – at least from the background that I come from.
The situation of `what if someone is the innocent victim of a chancer’ may arise, but this would be unusual in the extreme, since ministry is always (at least in the churches I know about) considered as a husband-wife team. The Salvation Army usually has a man – wife team where both are `officers’ in equal capacity; any Baptist church that I know of who calls a pastor does this understanding full well that the husband – wife both are going to contribute substantially – and that the church is employing both of them. This is one reason why I feel it is very important that women and men are considered equal in pastoral roles; this simply makes ‘de jure’ a situation that has already been ‘de facto’ for a long time (with the difference that women are now permitted to teach from the pulpit what they were teaching in different situations before).
So if one of the couple does turn out to be a chancer who either commits adultery or else avails of ‘no fault divorce’ then an awful lot of people have messed up – those who have accredited both as suitable for the ministry, the church who appointed the pastor, as well as the pastor himself.
We’re dealing with an unusual (and pathological) situation here.
The understanding of 1 Timothy 3:5 that I iterated is merely the standard understanding of it that has been around for centuries – at least in non-conformist circles – other than that (except for the Salvation Army) it was usually the man who was the pastor (and gave the sermons) – with the wife doing most of the one-on-one pastoral work.
Jock,
You wrote: “it has been absolutely standard within a huge swathe of Christianity for a long time”
Also, “the understanding of 1 Timothy 3:5 that I iterated is merely the standard understanding of it that has been around for centuries – at least in non-conformist circles.”
Those are just repeated appeals to (non-conformist) tradition, but you’ve still provided no scriptural warrant in support of that tradition.
Furthermore, I notice that your reply provides no evidence in support of your assertion that ‘above reproach’ “simply means that the faith you claim to have is expressed in the works you do – and this was certainly true of Peter, even with his denials.”
It’s just serves your own argument for you to assert: “If one considers the bible as a rule book, laying down hard-and-fast rules, then one is reading it wrongly” when you have no problem with applying a hard-and-fast rule (and selective meaning of ‘above reproach’) that disqualifies someone from ministry for being the victim of divorce by an unfaithful spouse who they married before conversion.
That position is just hypocritical and unscriptural censoriousness and all the appeals to non-conformist tradition can’t change that fact.
Those are just repeated appeals to (non-conformist) tradition, but you’ve still provided no scriptural warrant in support of that tradition.
Why would one need ‘scriptural warrant’ for something that’s clearly in the realm of simple common sense?
There’s no ‘scriptural warrant’ for not putting someone who can’t keep track of their money, is perpetually broke, keeps having to borrow to make it to payday, in charge of the church’s finances. You just don’t do it because someone like that obviously doesn’t have the skills required for that position. There’s no need for a ‘scriptural warrant’ To tell you that.
And there’s no need for a ‘scriptural warrant’ to tell you not to put someone who can’t put in a screw without injuring themselves, whose house is full of DIY jobs that are nonfunctional when they aren’t actively dangerous, in charge of the church building. Again that doesn’t need scriptural warrant, it’s just obvious.
And you don’t put someone who is constantly disorganised and late, perpetually forgetting appointments and where they are supposed to be, in charge of running the church office. Again, you don’t need scriptural warrant for that. It’s just obvious.
So why does the same principle not apply to the person the church employs to teach? You don’t need scriptural warrant to not appoint someone whose life proves that they don’t have the skills for the job.
David – Can I ask you if you have personal experience? By which I mean – do you know of people in the ministry who have been victim of a spouse who has committed adultery or who has simply used `no fault divorce’? I’d like to know what sort of personal experiences are forming your view.
Usually in the discussions below the line on Ian Paul’s blog, I find that you are often the ‘voice of reason’, with whom I agree – and I’m surprised to find disagreement here over 1 Timothy 5:3 and how it applies to who-is-suitable-for-the-clergy.
I don’t point you to texts or commentaries – you need someone far more knowledgeable than me for that (as you pointed out, S is a skilled debater – I don’t really have the aptitude for it). Also (and much more importantly) I get the impression that we’re dealing with the empty set – because while I have seen quite a few Salvation Army/ non-conformist Baptist set-ups, I simply haven’t seen the situation where the pastor gets a divorce.
As I indicated, in the set-ups I have seen, particularly Salvation Army, it invariably seems to be a man-woman team where the man and woman are husband and wife and they take equal roles. In the Baptist set-ups I have seen, in some of them women have been excluded from giving the sermon, but invariably (whether women are allowed to preach or not) when the congregation calls a pastor, they consider both the pastor and the pastor’s wife as a team.
In the situations I have seen, the question of what-to-do-if-the-pastor-gets-a-divorce simply never arose – the marriages always seemed to be rock-solid. So I’m wondering what informs your view of the situation – is it theoretical considerations (in which case it isn’t worth declaring WW3 over) or does it apply to people whom you know and who are doing a good job in the ministry and who, through no fault of their own, ended up divorced?
“In the Baptist set-ups I have seen, in some of them women have been excluded from giving the sermon, but invariably (whether women are allowed to preach or not) when the congregation calls a pastor, they consider both the pastor and the pastor’s wife as a team.”
Not always the case in a number Baptist churches Jock. Sometimes the wife is unable for a number of reasons including debilitating illness or having to care for disabled family members. This is the case in my own Baptist church.
S,
Certainly, the examples that you’ve provided are not in dispute (and it would be a ‘straw man’ to suggest that they are) because they demonstrate persistent ongoing actual behaviour:
someone who can’t put in a screw without injuring themselves, whose house is full of DIY jobs that are nonfunctional
someone who can’t keep track of their money, is perpetually broke, keeps having to borrow to make it to payday
someone who is constantly disorganised and late, perpetually forgetting appointments and where they are supposed to be
These examples bear no resemblance or relevance to the situation of a candidate for ministry who you assert should be disqualified for being divorced after conversion to Christ by an unfaithful spouse who they married before conversion.
When it comes to resemblance and relevance, your examples are poor. In fact, they only amply demonstrate the wrong-headedness of the supposed “simple common sense” that you think should be applied.
‘Simple’ indeed!
Certainly, the examples that you’ve provided are not in dispute (and it would be a ‘straw man’ to suggest that they are) because they demonstrate persistent ongoing actual behaviour:
[…]
These examples bear no resemblance or relevance to the situation of a candidate for ministry who you assert should be disqualified for being divorced after conversion to Christ by an unfaithful spouse who they married before conversion.
Your objection is not valid because there is no need to demonstrate an ‘ongoing pattern of behaviour’ if someone has once made a mistake of sufficient magnitude to throw their entire judgement in the area in question into permanent doubt. For example if someone had managed to mismanage their money so badly that they had to be declared bankrupt, then I think you would agree, wouldn’t you, that — even should you know nothing else about them, even should the bankruptcy have been years ago — you would know that they should be disqualified from being appointed the church’s treasurer?
If someone has built an extension to their house that then collapsed and it was lucky no one was killed, then you wouldn’t require any ‘ongoing pattern of behaviour’ to not make them the church’s buildings supervisor, would you? The one mistake they made was big enough that you simply cannot trust their judgement in that area ever again.
(Note that this isn’t to do with forgiveness. Of course you can forgive the bankrupt or the cowboy builder. This is about competence, which is totally different.)
And marrying someone who divorces them is clearly an error of judgement of a much greater magnitude than merely having to be declared bankrupt, isn’t it?
So either you say that you should not disqualify someone who has been declared bankrupt in the past from being church treasurer on those grounds; or you have to agree that divorce disqualifies someone form being a teaching elder. Yes?
Chris Bishop – yes – it isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, just something I’ve observed from the Salvation Army / Baptist churches that I’ve seen.
Crucially – I’ll bet your pastor’s wife is thoroughly supportive of his ministry, so he’s getting good moral support at home – and I’ll bet the congregation gives them both good support.
From what you have written previously, it sounds as if you’re involved with a very good church.
Your objection is not valid because there is no need to demonstrate an ‘ongoing pattern of behaviour’ if someone has once made a mistake of sufficient magnitude to throw their entire judgement in the area in question into permanent doubt.
Since the supposed analogies in your previous comment omitted any mention of “a mistake of sufficient magnitude”, then my objection to their irrelevance remains valid.
someone had managed to mismanage their money so badly that they had to be declared bankrupt
Again, your example is not analogous to the example that I provided. So, as a hopeful pre-cursor to a coup de grace, your ‘either-or’ question fails miserably,
Instead, I’ll provide a better financial analogy than those you’ve provided:
A widowed housewife, who was completely impoverished by her deceased husband’s previous business failure, puts herself through business school and eventually sets up and runs a successful business and then sells it for millions.
She converts to Christ and, some years later, when the church advertises for a treasurer, she puts herself forward as a candidate.
My point is that would be a veiled form of ‘guilt by association’ to assert that, despite her track record of successful running her own business, she should be disqualified from being treasurer for marrying someone before conversion who was capable of such a major business failure.
Yet, your blanket disqualification of divorcees from ministry, including those betrayed and deserted by unfaithful spouses, is no less a veiled form of guilt by association.
Instead, I’ll provide a better financial analogy than those you’ve provided:
A widowed housewife, who was completely impoverished by her deceased husband’s previous business failure, puts herself through business school and eventually sets up and runs a successful business and then sells it for millions.
That’s not a good analogy because it was the husband’s business that failed, not hers. Yes, it would be unfair to draw conclusions about her financial acumen from the failure of someone else’s business. She was not responsible for the business.
However in the case of a divorced minister, it was the minister’s marriage that failed, wasn’t it? You can draw conclusions about someone’s wisdom from the failure of their own marriage, for which they are (jointly) responsible.
My point is that would be a veiled form of ‘guilt by association’ to assert that, despite her track record of successful running her own business, she should be disqualified from being treasurer for marrying someone before conversion who was capable of such a major business failure.
Yes because in the situation you posit, she was not responsible for the business failure.
However this is not analogous to a marriage where both parties are responsible.
A better analogy than yours would need one where the business which went bust was an equal partnership which was run by the husband and wife jointly . Because that’s what a marriage is, right? An equal, joint partnership.
And if such an equal partnership went bust then it would be reasonable to hold that as disqualifying her from the treasurer position, wouldn’t it?
Even if the reason for the joint business going bust was the husband draining all the money and running off to Acapulco with the secretary; because part of having good judgement is choosing the right person to go into business with, and choosing someone who ran off with the money shows bad judgement; someone who has been fooled once is more likely to be fooled again and you don’t want as your treasurer someone who fell for a scam artist.
Yet, your blanket disqualification of divor
A better analogy than yours would need one where the business which went bust was an equal partnership which was run by the husband and wife jointly,
That’s incorrect because your construal of equal partnership does not allow one party to be identified as responsible for the break up of the partnership. As you know, it is that self-same rationale of being unwilling to assign fault to one party (for example, an unfaithful spouse) that has been used to justify the introduction of ‘no fault’ divorce.
That’s not a good analogy because it was the husband’s business that failed, not hers. Yes, it would be unfair to draw conclusions about her financial acumen from the failure of someone else’s business. She was not responsible for the business.
Actually, while it was his business that failed, the analogy holds because it was their estate which was impoverished by that failure. Even with a limited company, the deceased’s estate can still be liable for payment of debt (e.g. money owed to an overdrawn director’s account).
So, if you agree with the contemptible rationale behind ‘no fault’ divorce (i.e., because no single party should be held responsible), then you can apportion blame as you’ve done in your last paragraph.
The notion that “someone who has been fooled once is more likely to be fooled again” is fatuous. According to that notion, St. Peter should have been disqualified from ministry after his behaviour incident described in Gal. 2, since: “someone who has exhibited moral cowardice twice is more likely to exhibit moral cowardice again”
Therefore, you’ve proven that your rationale is devoid of the grace that was extended to that apostle.
David – are you trying to say that we should dump 1 Timothy 3 completely, because a rigorous application of the guidelines given by the Apostle Paul in that passage would mean that we were guilty of not extending the grace that was shown to the Apostle Peter?
That’s incorrect because your construal of equal partnership does not allow one party to be identified as responsible for the break up of the partnership. As you know, it is that self-same rationale of being unwilling to assign fault to one party (for example, an unfaithful spouse) that has been used to justify the introduction of ‘no fault’ divorce.
Nonsense. Of course it allows one party to be responsible for the break up of the relationship. To take the analogy of the business partnership that failed because one of the partners ran off with the secretary and the money and is now sunning himself and downing mescal on the Caletilla sands, the crook is clearly entirely responsible for the failure.
But — and this is important — that one party was totally responsible doesn’t mean that the other party isn’t also at fault. In the case of the business, the remaining partner is at fault because they should have been more careful about who they got into business with.
Or, say I leave my front door open and when I come back all my stuff is gone. Am I responsible for the theft? Of course not. But am I at fault? Yes.
Or say a scam artist calls you up pretending to want to fix your computer; and you call for their patter and lose your life savings. Are you responsible for the theft? No, of course not, the thief is solely responsible for their theft. But were you an idiot? Yes you were. Would I trust you with custody of any money, knowing you were that king of easy mark? No I would not.
Actually, while it was his business that failed, the analogy holds because it was their estate which was impoverished by that failure.
No, the analogy doesn’t hold, because the relevant point is not who was impoverished, but who was an idiot. And the person who went into business with an incompetent businessman is also an idiot; but the person who merely married an incompetent businessman is not (necessarily) an idiot.
So, if you agree with the contemptible rationale behind ‘no fault’ divorce (i.e., because no single party should be held responsible), then you can apportion blame as you’ve done in your last paragraph.
I clearly don’t believe in ‘no fault’ divorce; but just because the divorce was the other person’s fault doesn’t mean you weren’t an idiot for marrying them. Morally the other party is not at fault; but you must agree that at the very least the other party has proven themselves to be a bad judge of character, right?
The notion that “someone who has been fooled once is more likely to be fooled again” is fatuous.
Are you claiming that notion isn’t true? Because I assure you it is, and a moment’s thought will make that obvious.
Are you claiming on the other hand that it’s not relevant? In which case again I can just say that it goes to competence.
According to that notion, St. Peter should have been disqualified from ministry after his behaviour incident described in Gal. 2, since: “someone who has exhibited moral cowardice twice is more likely to exhibit moral cowardice again”
What incident described in Galatians 2? I can’t see any incident described there.
Therefore, you’ve proven that your rationale is devoid of the grace that was extended to that apostle.
Grave is not relevant. Grace is about forgiving people for their sins and giving them another chance to do the right thing.
Grace is not to do with competence. If a surgeon kills a patient because they are operating drunk, Grace requires us to forgive her; but prudence means we never put a scalpel in her hand again.
In the case of the business, the remaining partner is at fault because they should have been more careful about who they got into business with.
That’s exactly the rationale behind ‘no fault’ divorce. As the government consultation that explained: “The law does not distinguish between “guilty” and “innocent” parties to the marriage. It cannot vindicate either party. In practice, there may be many reasons for the failure of a marriage.
So, despite asserting “I clearly don’t believe in ‘no fault’ divorce”, you clearly support its rationale of not vindicating one party or the other by assigning blame to both: “Morally the other party is not at fault; but you must agree that at the very least the other party has proven themselves to be a bad judge of character, right?”
In Gal. 2:11, 12, St. Peter is described as incurring reproach for the following reason: “When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.”
This was the same Cephas (St. Peter) who, when overtaken by cowardice, denied Christ three times. Doubtless, further evidence of what you described as ‘moral cowardice’.
So, to paraphrase your disqualification analogy: “someone who has exhibited moral cowardice twice is more likely to exhibit moral cowardice again”.
If a surgeon kills a patient because they are operating drunk, Grace requires us to forgive her; but prudence means we never put a scalpel in her hand again.
In pursuit of hyperbole, your example becomes irrelevant as an analogy. To paraphrase you, that would imply that the early church should have reckoned that: “If an apostle abandons Christ’s flock to judaizing wolves because of moral cowardice (as Peter did), grace requires us to forgive him; but prudence means we never put him in charge of a flock again.”
Presumably, you believe it was imprudent for St. Peter to continue in apostolic ministry after the aforementioned incident in Gal. 2:11, 12.
Jock,
I’m not “trying to say that we should dump 1 Timothy 3 completely”.
Instead, I’m arguing that the guidelines given by the Apostle Paul must be applied with even-handed rigour. So, if we don’t interpret ‘above reproach’ as disqualifying Peter from public ministry, then we certainly should’nt interpreted that as disqualifying someone who was betrayed, deserted and divorced by an adulterous spouse whom they married before conversion to Christ.
David – with that I would completely agree – if someone is converted, their lives are turned around and are now living for Christ, I don’t think anyone would hold their past sins (before conversion) against them; I’d agree entirely that 1 Timothy 5:3 can’t be taken to mean that; I’m sure that that is not what Paul meant.
But I get the impression that you have been arguing something different – the council, where Paul opposed Peter because Peter was wrong, took place long after Peter was converted, long after Peter was supposed to have reached his Christian maturity.
I take the view that 1 Timothy 3 says what it says and means what it says, but it is only giving guidelines and isn’t supposed to be turned into hard-and-fast rules; the principles should be applied with discretion. I also don’t think that Timothy is referring to sins committed prior to conversion; I think he’s referring to bad judgement post conversion.
I also think it’s very difficult to discuss this without referring to concrete examples (the fictitious cases that you and S are throwing back and fore seem to be pathological and not connected with reality) – and since the example that kicked the whole discussion off is ‘in the room’ so to speak, it’s probably best to stop here (except that I believe that in that case, the divorce in and of itself, based on principles of 1 Timothy 5:3 – and nothing to do with sexuality, was a sure fire indicator of unsuitability for the pastorate).
So, despite asserting “I clearly don’t believe in ‘no fault’ divorce”, you clearly support its rationale of not vindicating one party or the other by assigning blame to both: “Morally the other party is not at fault; but you must agree that at the very least the other party has proven themselves to be a bad judge of character, right?”
No, it’s you who are buying into the assumptions behind no-fault divorce by implying that all kinds of fault are equal. You need to realise that there are morally culpable forms of blame and non-morally culpable forms. No-fault divorce does not do this; it says that if there is blame on all sides (as when a marriage fails there almost always is) then the state will not attempt to sort out who was morally responsible for the marriage.
This is wrong and you shouldn’t accept that premise.
Presumably, you believe it was imprudent for St. Peter to continue in apostolic ministry after the aforementioned incident in Gal. 2:11, 12.
It’s hard to work out exactly what Peter did because the description is so brief, but as far as I can make out he stopped eating with Gentiles because he was afraid of what people would think of him. This is indeed indicative of bad judgement. However it’s not anywhere near as big a lapse of judgement as marrying someone who is of bad character. So it should certainly have occasioned Peter to step back from ministry at last temporarily while he considered how he could have gone wrong and learnt from his mistakes.
The bigger the mistake, the greater the foolishness, the longer the period of reflection; until for really big mistakes the rest of one’s life should be spent in reflection.
Let’s move away form analogies about doctors and think about what ministers could do to show a lack of judgement. Say a minister was called by a congregation, and after a while an old friend of the minister’s from school showed up. The old friend had a plan to set up a missionary society and the members of the church, and the members of the congregation, trusting the friend because of his friendship with their minister, supported this with prayer and gifts of money. And then it turns out the old friend was a scam artist and disappeared with all the cash.
There’s no suggestion the minister was at fault; in fact the minister lost more money than anybody, having trusted the friend most. Yet the minister’s judgement was clearly shown to be sorely lacking.
So you would agree, wouldn’t you, that the minister should give up the teaching post? And that the congregation would be justified, if the minister did not go willingly, in removing the minister post? And that other congregations, if the now-ex-minister tried to apply to them, would be justified in not calling the minister on those grounds? The minister has effectively disqualified themselves from ministry.
So the same principle applies to a minister who is unwise in their choice of spouse as one who is unwise in their choice of friends.
S
Why would a new church in a new area have to accommodate a gay couple?
When gay Christians move they usually take great time and effort to find a church where they will be welcome and included. It’s a constant discussion in gay Christian groups “Does anyone know if such a such a church is safe to attend?”
Allowing parish churches (who want to) to marry gay couples would not change this. It would just mean that parish churches which already are fairly inclusive of gay people would be allowed to be almost fully inclusive of gay people
Why would a new church in a new area have to accommodate a gay couple?
Because it’s inconceivable that the rules would allow one church in the Church of England to not recognise services conducted in other churches. The rule would be that you don’t have to do the blessings yourself if you object, but you have to accept them if they are done by someone who doesn’t object.
Which of course is forcing people to accept a totally new doctrine.
Your comments here often seem to assume that the entire objection to same-sex marriage is that they hate gay people and are afraid they might get ‘gay disease’ if they have to stand too close to them or say words of blessing over them, or something equally childish and playground, so as long as they don’t have to do that it should all be fine.
S
But what you are saying can’t possibly happen IS the status quo. We have churches where gay people are unacceptable and churches where gay people are treated as full equals to straight people…and everything in-between!
In both secular and religious settings gay people’s lives are full of a mixture of affirming people and unaffirming people. It’s not impossible to manage. It’s every day life for gays.
It is noticeable, and notable, that you do not respond to the different religion point made by S, have not indicated anything at all about your faith, only a monologue about your true devotion, which is not new but is well known, well rehearsed and reiterative, Peter J.
……………..
(We identify ourselves by what we love which can amount to a cosmological inversion; a recalibration of the order of worship and loves; a self definition of what is good and evil; “idols define what is good and evil”; “moral inversion is precisely the function of idolatry”; “idols redefine reality and morality. But in doing so, they also redefine us. “; “We become what we worship…in this life our hearts remain a factory of idols”)
Snippets from Dr Matthew Roberts book, Pride, chapter of 19 pages, with developed scriptural argumentation; “Who we Are and Who we think we Are. We are made to image what we worship” Full link in a previous comment on the Acts 15 article.
Geoff
Are you talking about it being a fundamental issue? I didn’t respond because, at least in a very broad sense, I do agree with him. I see this more intensely where I live now in the states where mainstream evangelicals are completely unrecognizable to European Christians in terms of faith and behavior. We all read the same book, worship the same God, but come to vastly different conclusions. The question is should there be a split in the organization or not? Where does the split land (the cofe may need 4 successor denominations)? Who gets the resources?
“Well reversed” is right. This debate has been stuck in a time loop with no progress and no decisions made for a decade. If you are irritated with the repetition then imagine how those of us whose lives are directly affected feel!
PJ,
Inversion.
I’m sure you do understand the points made. It is less remarkable that they remain unaddressed.
Scripture revision: It is a false narrative that is being reiteratively peddled in relation to scripture revision and the doctrine of scripture: sin, Holiness, salvation, sanctification.
Scripture may be read, where you are. It is by Jehovah Witnesses. The reading of scripture and talking about it is not a measure of Christian orthodoxy, nor orthopraxy, discipleship.
Geoff
Again you are pushing the logical fallacy of “because I disagree with you therefore I am wrong”
I don’t agree with your theology. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a conservative argument against SSM that seems reasonable. I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you. Feel free to call Mr any name you like, it won’t change my mind.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard a conservative argument against SSM that seems reasonable.”
Could do worse than start with Aristotle:
“There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequals.”
SSRs and OSRs have many things in common for sure, but they are not equal, because one class of relationships is procreative and the other is not. On the other hand I’m not aware that SSRs have anything that OSRs don’t. So given there is no natural equality, neither can there be any legal equality without violating Aristotle’s perfectly reasonable working principle.
“Marriage” has always been the name given to publicly pledged and registered OSRs. Giving the identical name to SSRs implies an equality to which they have no right to lay claim.
In terms of analogies: call an elephant a giraffe, it’s still an elephant. Calling it a giraffe just creates pointless confusion with respect to actual giraffes.
Or more incisively: if you don’t like football you can play tennis, but nothing gives you the right to call tennis football in the name of a bogus concept of “equal footballage”.
Returning briefly to the matter of procreation: most western countries, and many others (especially East Asia) are in increasing trouble with seriously sub-replacement birthrates. As noted, the key difference between SSRs and OSRs is the procreative factor. In view of the looming/mounting demographic crisis, treating this difference as though it counted for nothing, suits our countries like a hole in the head. To be clear, in the present rolling emergency, these arguments, whether “conservative” or otherwise, are not simply “reasonable” but increasingly urgent.
[Anyone who genuinely doesn’t realise what a demographic hole so many countries are now in, should watch “Birth gap” and a couple of similar documentaries/extended interviews.]
None of the above argumentation involves any reliance on belief in the Bible, or Christianity, or theism. It is applicable within a whole range of worldviews and should obtain general acceptance. There’s hardly a moment to lose.
Dan
The procreative argument doesn’t work because the CofE does not require straight couples to be fertile or intend to have children in order to marry. Arguing that gay people cannot marry because they are infertile is holding them to a standard that you do not hold heterosexuals to…and being gay doesn’t make you infertile. Indeed roughly 1/5th of same sex married couples have children, often adopting children that straight people have discarded.
A third reason why this argument is unconvincing is that gay couples aren’t going to magically decide to become straight and have straight babies if they are denied legal recognition. No, they will just remain gay and a couple, just without the legal protections and status that come with marriage.
The procreative argument doesn’t work because the CofE does not require straight couples to be fertile or intend to have children in order to marry.
You are confusing essentials and accidentals here. You do that a lot and should stop.
being gay doesn’t make you infertile.
Indeed it does not; but a same-sex couple cannot produce children of their own.
Indeed roughly 1/5th of same sex married couples have children, often adopting children that straight people have discarded.
While adopting children who need parents is admirable, it is a totally different thing from procreation.
A third reason why this argument is unconvincing is that gay couples aren’t going to magically decide to become straight and have straight babies if they are denied legal recognition.
Nobody suggested they would.
S
I dont really see how there’s any difference between the ‘accident’ of someone being straight and infertile versus gay and fertile.
To impose the “marriage is for procreation” rule, you have to impose it on straights too. And then what do you do with all the leftover children? They cannot be adopted by married couples because married couples have children of their own as a condition of marriage. So then kids who need adopting lose the stability of being raised by married parents.
I dont really see how there’s any difference between the ‘accident’ of someone being straight and infertile versus gay and fertile.
Ah. I see. You don’t understand what essential and accidental properties are in philosophy. You think ‘accident’ here has its everyday meaning of ‘a chance event’.
I suggest you fix this gap in your edication.
Here’s a place to start: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/
To impose the “marriage is for procreation” rule, you have to impose it on straights too.
I would also note that while the Church of England doesn’t ban artificial contraception entirely as the Romans do, it is clear that married couples ought to aim to have children if they can, and that to use contraception to avoid having children altogether (rather than just to plan the timings of pregnancies) is sinful.
So this rule is in fact ‘imposed on the straights’.
S
I understand fine the meaning of accident in this context. I don’t understand why being infertile gets described as accident, but being gay doesn’t
I understand fine the meaning of accident in this context. I don’t understand why being infertile gets described as accident, but being gay doesn’t
If by ‘being gay’ you simply mean ‘being exclusively attracted to members of the same sex’ then being gay is an accidental property if a person.
But the point is that barrenness is an accidental property of an opposite-sex couple. An opposite-sex couple can be either fertile or barren, without affecting the essential nature if the pairing.
Whereas barrenness is an essential property of a same-sex couple. A same-sex couple cannot be fertile without changing the essential nature of the pairing (ie, one of them would have to be the opposite sex, and then it wouldn’t be a same-sex couple).
Both the individuals in a same-sex couple might well be fertile; but the couple is by its essential nature barren. It cannot produce children.
“Safe to attend” = “don’t mention the Bible”?
Anton
At my church which is fully inclusive and welcoming of LGBT people last weeks sermon was on a section of the sermon on the mount. Just because someone comes to the conclusion that LGBT must be welcome in the church and must be allowed to marry does not mean that the Bible is discounted.
It certainly means that the biblical definition of sin is discounted.
Man is not authorised to change that definition.
No I dont think so.
We just dont believe that it is a sin for gay people to get married that’s really the only difference.
We just dont believe that it is a sin for gay people to get married that’s really the only difference.
No one believes it’s a sin for gay people to get married.
The points of disagreement are:
1. Can two people of the same sex be married?
(b) is same-sex sexual activity (inside or outside a ‘marriage’) sinful?
S
Having just been through (not quite complete) immigration such marriages of convenience are only actually quasi legal. In some situations, such as immigration, they are viewed as fraud.
‘This issue is about fundamentals of the faith: the authority and nature of the Bible, the nature of mankind, the reality of sin. ‘
Could not the same be said of women priests in the coe? Both sides of that argument are based on certain Bible passages, and the authority of the Bible/how it is relevant in today’s culture. Those who believe women should not be priests typically quoted Paul, who in some of his understanding of men/women refers right back to Genesis and the Eden story, ie the nature of mankind. And of course those who are against female priests would argue those who are for are sinning because they are going against what they view as clear Biblical teaching, and therefore disobeying God, ie sinning.
So in the same way that women priests were accommodated in the coe, despite the arguments against it, is there any reason why such an accommodation could not happen regarding gay ‘blessings’?
Pc1 I think women in leadership is also a fundamental issue. From what I’ve heard there was nearly a split in GAFCON because some African churches wanted to ordain women.
Personally I would not knowingly attend a church that opposed the ordination of women. I understand the history of it, but to my mind opposing women’s ordination is opposing the authority of the holy spirit. It’s arguably more fundamental than SSM, but again all this relies on different views of theology
So presumably you would support those who would refuse to attend a church which supports gay blessings given their understanding such a move is opposing the Holy Spirit.
Peter: some of us think that the ordination of men is a mistake! Priesthood of all believers and that…
PC1
I support freedom of religion. I disagree that equal rights for gay people is a sin.
So I support their right to their beliefs even if I don’t share them as long as they respect the right of others to freedom of religion
So I support their right to their beliefs even if I don’t share them as long as they respect the right of others to freedom of religion
No one is not respecting the rights of others to freedom of religion. No one is suggesting that every denomination ought not to be free to set its own doctrine.
S
I was answering PC1s question and my own personal views.
It is a different category: sin can not be affirmed, blessed.
S
So you’ve never worn man-made fibres?
Could not the same be said of women priests in the coe?
Not really. Out of the three categories, only one (the nature of mankind) could be said to be at stake in the division over the ordination of women priests. Neither side in that discussion denied the reality of sin or questioned the authority and nature of the Bible, both of which are key planks of the case for same-sex marriage.
And anyway the correct answer to the question of women priests is that a Christian church shouldn’t have any priests at all.
Agreed. Except, all believers are a Royal Priesthood.
Jesus is our High Priest, our vicar, intermediary, and sacrifice.
Last week at the morning service, I wore a purple polo shirt, bought by my wife for me, and was was ribbed for it as if purple in church should only be worn by a bishop! How colourist!
The issues have differences and simularities
In both gender equality and same sex marriage discussions issues have arisen around
1. Is every sentence in the Bible to be taken as a universal command from God or should context and authorship be considered?
2. The expectation that Christianity should treat individuals at least as well as secular culture (love your neighbor as yourself etc).
3. The recognition that every English translation of the Bible has come with a particular theology in mind, both deliberate and through natural biases of the translator
4. That “the conservative position” has shifted even from 100 years ago ad is not as constant as it may seem. Few conservative Christians in the west would oppose women having the vote or would support imprisonment for gay people/gay sex
1. Is every sentence in the Bible to be taken as a universal command from God or should context and authorship be considered?
See the thing is ‘should context and authorship be considered’ when used by the progressive side in this debate it is code for claiming that the Bible is not the Word of God, but rather written by fallible human beings trying to explain their experiences of the divine from within the confines of their culture. And that’s a position incompatible with Christianity.
And while some in the discussion over the ordination of women may have held that heretical position, it wasn’t ubiquitous on one side and the discussion was not held on those grounds.
No all 3 applied. Each side understood the same Biblical passages differently – eg Paul didnt mean what he appears to mean or it was valid then in that culture but not now. If sin is defined as going against God’s will, then by definition each side believed the other was sinning.
But I tend to agree with your last point. Though I do not view priests in the coe or Anglican church in general as ‘priests’ but rather simply leaders/ministers. For me it is in name only and nothing else.
David
` …. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)’
It doesn’t really have much to do with the personal integrity of the clergyman. He might be the best person who ever walked the face of the earth, but if he really has such bad judgement that he marries someone who then goes off and commits adultery or who takes advantage of ‘no fault divorce’ – even if he is the innocent victim – it does show bad judgement on his part. He made a wrong choice to begin with and seems unable to manage his own family.
Nothing to do with the integrity of the clergyman – everything to do with whether or not he has the wisdom to do the job.
I dip into these discussion threads from time to time.
I worship at local Anglican Church where there is excellent teaching, in my view. But would not call myself Anglican.
Much of the discussion on here seems to relate to particulars of Canon Law, I have to confess that I don’t really know what that is, and life is too short IMO to find out.
As regards Scripture, it is clear that there is disagreement depending on theological viewpoint.
It seems to me that marriage involves different aspects, as it has always done. It is a legal contract that has many ramifications to other aspects of the law. It has financial implications and extends beyond the individuals involved, to responsibility for any children they have or adopt.
Marriage has a wider social function, in being a public witness to a relationship commitment.
It can also, but not necessarily for the people involved have a spiritual dimension, and lead to a desire for a religious aspect to a wedding. I do realise that some Commentators here consider that there is a spiritual dimension whether the couple recognise it or not.
In my view a way forward would be for all marriages to be undertaken in a civic institution, recognising the legal contract aspect of the marriage. The couple could then choose, or not, to have a religious, or indeed non religious ceremony in addition. This would have no legal basis, but be the spiritual and community witness of the marriage.
This would then remove much of the triangulation that seems to vex folk so much.
In my view a way forward would be for all marriages to be undertaken in a civic institution, recognising the legal contract aspect of the marriage. The couple could then choose, or not, to have a religious, or indeed non religious ceremony in addition. This would have no legal basis, but be the spiritual and community witness of the marriage.
That’s not a totally mad idea — indeed it is how things already work for all denominations other than the Church of England. It’s effectively partial disestablishment of the Church of England, removing one of its special legal statuses and making it the same as the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, etc.
But it doesn’t actually solve the issue, because the denomination would still have to decide whether it will change its doctrine to allow religious same-sex marriage ceremonies in its churches, wouldn’t it? So there’d still be the bitter fight. Indeed everyone knows that the smaller the stakes are, the bitterer the fight, so lowering the stakes in this way might actually make things ten times worse.
.Rob
I don’t think that would solve the problem. Fundamentally the problem is that most gay people want to be treated the same as straight people and as the equals of straight people and a significant proportion of the CofE, including most of the bishops, believed gay people are Fundamentally evil or disordered
It’s not about ‘equality’ it’s about the definition of marriage.
PC1
It depends who you are talking about. For gay people and gay rights advocates it certainly is about equality and inclusion
Objectively it’s about the redefinition of marriage. That is plain to see.
PJ,
A false point: “believe gay people are Fundamentally evil or disordered”.
We are all sinners, all fallen: all equal.
God gets to define sin and evil.
Otherwise, there is a fundamental cosmological inversion and you haven’t read or understood the Dr Matthew Roberts, cited in a comment I made above.
Geoff
I agree that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but in practice the cofe doesn’t treat gay people as being equal to straight people
Equal sinners? Certainly not if they purport to afirm and bless sin; they are being given preference over all other sin and sinners.
Geoff
Don’t worry the bishops go put of their way to blame us for all the ills of the world
Odd that, Peter. Bishops play no direct role our church congregational life life.
But then we seek to be devoted to Christ, not devoted to our sexual identity.
Tim Keller’s book, “The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness” is instructive to us all.
Geoff
I’ve been in a wide variety of churches my whole life. The implication of your comment that the sexuality, relationships and family if straight people in the church are not dwelt upon is unbelievable. I’d say even if you are attending some sort of monastery! Again I think you have read a book about church life, but never lived it.
Indeed one of my motivations for coming out was that women and mothers of women in my church kept demanding dates and demanding to know why I was single. I think I also got called selfish for not dating several times behind my back.
Indeed one of my motivations for coming out was that women and mothers of women in my church kept demanding dates and demanding to know why I was single. I think I also got called selfish for not dating several times behind my back.
You’re so vain, I bet you think this comment is about you
S, what a give-away. Just how does it go again, Carly!?
Peter,
First it was the Bishops, now it is congreagations.
Now that you have had so much experience, of people, scripture readings, teaching, sermons, small groups, parents teaching in your church life, perhaps you could give us the benefit of all your learning by transitioning across to Ian Paul’s next up discussion on John 14 with your comments.
Anything to say there?
S
I’m not vain. I just have relevant personal experience.
Few people commenting seem to even live in the real world, let alone have any experience of how churches treat gay people.
PJ ,
You have something to say here only about your self-absorbed sexuality, identity.
Real world? Church? Are you for real with your comments.?
For one, I was an atheist lawyer, working in criminal and civil and family courts, have worked in the mental health system as a solicitor and for a charity, and employed in the NHS, before conversion to Christ.
And you have said you’ll not change. How did you come to become a christian, when, where, how, why?
No change there, was there? You’ve said nothing at all about your christian beliefs. Nothing to say?
Bye
I’m not vain. I just have relevant personal experience.
You think people were talking about you behind your back. I assure you they weren’t. Because you’re just not that interesting. People have their own lives. They don’t think about you when you’re not there.
Geoff
I don’t understand what I did to hurt you. I’m sorry if I have. I note again that you are attacking me instead of addressing the subject in question
Geoff
A good chunk of my comments here relate to my Christian beliefs.
I’m happy to answer questions if they are relevant to the topic, but I’ve told you quite a lot about myself already. You seem to want to attack me rather than discuss the disagreement in the cofe over SSRs
S
I’m not saying people were talking about me behind my back.
I’m saying they were saying these things to my face.
I’m not saying people were talking about me behind my back.
I know you don’t read what I write but you could at least read what you write!
‘ I think I also got called selfish for not dating several times behind my back.’
https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/facing-our-disagreements-on-living-in-love-and-faith/#comment-423758
S
OK you win. I apologize most profusely for being called selfish by people at my church for choosing to remain single.
Peter
I understand and agree with you.
Certainly separating civic marriage contract from religious ceremony would not make everything in the garden lovely, but it would possibly make church positions clearer and less ambiguous for gay people wishing to marry in church.
Rob
On the specific issue of “am I allowed to get married in this church” there is no lack of clarity.
There is less clarity on lots of other issues relating to gay inclusion
For the avoidance of doubt: my Wikipedia page (compiled by an unknown author with no reference to me) does mention both that I was previously married and am a father.
What is the difference ….
Hi Chris, I have deleted your comment. It was wholly unnecessary and inappropriate. Please abide by the Comment rules. Ian
Christopher
It’s spelt DIVORCE. It’s ironic that you are too delicate to type out a perfectly ordinary word and yet you have no scruples in commenting publicly and puriently on Jeremy’s life.
You seem to have joined the Foley Beach caste of moral relativism.
Utterly disgraceful.
It’s spelt DIVORCE.
Thank you Tammy Wynette.
Is that a question to me?
Actually, you know nothing at all about the circumstances of the end of my first marriage, so I should be very careful about saying anything about it at all.
Jeremy, didn’t you describe all this yourself (from your point of view, of course) some years ago in a thread on the Fulcrum website?
IIRC, you made the circumstances public knowledge at the time.
Jeremy, quite right. I have deleted Chris’s comment.
Thank you.
I feel that it is incumbent upon us to discern between Equity and Equality as these are often conflated in our minds.
First , we forget that though God created all men equal,
His first judgement was that earthly things will be full of thorns, that is true today; and one should be in subjection to another.
So no equality there.
In the parables of the kingdom of heaven and of God there is a distinct lack of equality.
Also at the end of time there will not be equality of outcomes in the Final Judgement, also there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, and no possibility of appeal.
I suggest for a jumping off points- on Equity 1 Kings 3:16-28,
And for Equality Ezekiel 18 VS 23 – 32 .
Equity seeks first to discern what is objectively true and, consequently, to render a ruling or verdict solely on that basis. Equality, on the other hand, prioritizes pursuing a desired or preferred outcome without regard to what is objectively true.
Followers of Jesus Christ are to judge with truth in mind, not outcome. That principle is emphasized by Jesus Himself in John 7:24, where He says, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
King Solomon applied that principle in his dealings with the two women in 1 Kings 3. His righteous judgment was rendered not on the basis of emotional pleadings or subjective presuppositions, but on the objective and impartial truth—even though it meant that for one of the two women who entreated him the outcome would be other than what she desired.
There are professing Christians today, particularly in America, who, under the guise of “justice” are proffering a “social gospel” of equality over and above a biblical gospel of equity. That reality has become increasingly evident given the current socio-political milieu in which equality, not equity, is regarded as the highest standard of biblical probity and virtue
And yet interestingly, if not ironically, therein lies the rub for many social justice equalitarians today, namely, that equity is no guarantee of outcome; and for social justice equalitarians outcome is everything—everything.
As John Calvin states in his Institutes of the Christian Religion:
“In all laws we must bear these two things in mind: what the law prescribes, and how equitable it is, for it is on equity that the law’s prescription rests. Since equity is natural it is inevitably the same for all peoples. Thus all the laws on earth, whatever their particular concern, should be about equity.
Now as God’s law, which we call moral, essentially bears witness to the natural law and to conscience which our Lord has imprinted on the hearts of all men—Romans 1:19 -32 —there is no doubt that the equity of which we now speak is wholly revealed in natural law. That is why equity must be the goal, the rule, and the finality of all laws.”
Darrell B. Harrison G3 Ministries
https://g3min.org › equity-or-equality
“There are professing Christians today, particularly in America, who, under the guise of “justice” are proffering a “social gospel” of equality over and above a biblical gospel of equity”
Are you thinking of people like Martin Luther King and others who, in the name of Jesus Christ fought for equality?
Or those who have ensured that women have an equal voice and vote in law?
I find your thinking very confused I am afraid.
Are you thinking of people like Martin Luther King and others who, in the name of Jesus Christ fought for equality?
Martin Luther King Jr fought for equality of opportunity; I think ALAN KEMPSTON’s point is that there are people today who instead push equality of outcome.
Or those who have ensured that women have an equal voice and vote in law?
Again that is equality of opportunity, rather than trying to engineer things to achieve equality of outcome.
I find your thinking very confused I am afraid.
Alan
If all men are created equal then why are only straight (and bi) men allowed to marry in the CofE?
All men are allowed to marry a woman. There is no discrimination between ‘straight’ and ‘gay’. Marriage is ‘according to our Lord’s teaching’ a lifelong union of one man and one woman, and is open to all.
It’s an interesting point.
Would the CofE priest be required to go through with a marriage of a man they knew to be gay to a straight woman and would it make a difference if the woman knew or not?
Here is a review of Dr Matthew Roberts’s book, pertinent as the book is to the topic. It identifies the centrality of Christian identity. The reviewer indicates at one point he was thoughtfully challenged.
https://christianconcern.com/comment/review-pride-identity-and-the-worship-of-self/
Thankyou Geoff
https://christianconcern.com/comment/review-pride-identity-and-the-worship-of-self/
Should be required reading onthis topic.
St. Johns last injunction 1 John 5 v 12. was to be aware of idols.
An Idol is but a misrepresentation of God and Man in terms of them being “made in the image of God.” To represent God as only a God of love is to rob God of His Glory
God is Holy and all his known caracteristics flow from that. Even His Hatred flows from that
Those who merely bark from the sidelines are not in the game Phil. 3 v 2
I have a MAJOR issue with this article and the book it reviews because it says that gay Christians must stop calling themselves gay. This is dishonest behaviour. What they are saying is that to become accepted by the evangelical establishment you must lie about yourself, perhaps even pretend to have been miraculously made into a heterosexual.
It is fundamentally dishonest too for Christian leaders to pretend that being gay is “an identity” in and of itself. It actually describes a fundamental human characteristic which people still have to live with, even if the church could succeed in pretending it doesn’t exist.
it says that gay Christians must stop calling themselves gay. This is dishonest behaviour.
Surely it’s just like saying that a Christian who struggles with an addiction to alcohol shouldn’t call themselves an alcoholic? It’s not asking them to be dishonest; they can, and should, be honest that they struggle with particular sinful desires. It’s just saying they shouldn’t let those desires define who they are.
S
Where are the articles telling Christian alcoholics to lie about their condition?
Where are the articles telling Christian alcoholics to lie about their condition?
You haven’t read what I wrote. Advising a Christian with a drinking problem not to identify as ‘an alcoholic’, as if alcohol were the core of their being, is not telling them to lie about their condition. It’s telling them to reframe their condition. To describe themselves as ‘a Christian who struggles with temptations to drink’ rather than ‘an alcoholic Christian’. That’s not lying; it’s being honest.
Likewise asking a Christian who struggles with being attracted to members of the same sex not to describe themselves as ‘a gay Christian’ but rather as ‘a Christian who struggles with temptations to sin sexually’ is not asking them to lie but asking them to be honest.
S
But this article is telling gay Christians to pretend not to be gay.
But this article is telling gay Christians to pretend not to be gay.
I’ve read the article. It isn’t.
S
Quote
it is integral for someone who identifies himself by one of the LGBT+ identities, upon becoming a Christian, to give that identity up
End quote
It then goes on to quite disgustingly cast the heterosexual as monogamous married and the homosexual as having random anonymous sex with whoever will have them.
It’s a vile untrustworthy and dishonest article and conservative Christians who genuinely want to be seen as serious and Godly need to have nothing to do with this dishonest extremist nonsense.
it is integral for someone who identifies himself by one of the LGBT+ identities, upon becoming a Christian, to give that identity up
Yes. Not to ‘pretend not to be gay’. As the article makes explicit in the section about therapy:
‘ Indeed, for many I know in counselling in this area the main breakthrough for them has been the counsellor helping them to no longer identify as gay or same sex attracted anymore (and that doesn’t mean simply declaring oneself straight), something which Roberts advocates as noted above.’
See: it is quite explicit that ‘no longer identifying as gay’ does not mean (as you claim) ‘declaring oneself straight’.
So the article quite specifically says that to stop identifying as gay does not mean to declare oneself to be, or to pretend to be, straight. The article is quite clear that one can stop identifying as ‘gay’ while still being honest that one suffers from sinful desires to have sex exclusively with members of the same sex.
It then goes on to quite disgustingly cast the heterosexual as monogamous married and the homosexual as having random anonymous sex with whoever will have them.
No, it doesn’t. Yet again you seem simply not to have read the things to which you are responding. You do this with me all the time; respond to things which I simply never wrote, which you have made up in your head. Now you’ve done it twice with this article.
S
I think you must be reading a different article
I think you must be reading a different article
It’s possible. I’m reading https://christianconcern.com/comment/review-pride-identity-and-the-worship-of-self/. What are you reading?
‘ It actually describes a fundamental human characteristic which people still have to live with’.
I think you have just described it as ‘an identity’.
Perhaps, but sexuality is fundamental to one’s life. In your own life, Ian, it has been a major determining factor in how your life has played out – youre married with children. Try to imagine how your life would have been if you had not found women sexually attractive, but instead men.
I dont have a problem with calling myself a gay Christian in the context of discussing sexuality. Neither should the church.
Perhaps, but sexuality is fundamental to one’s life.
No more fundamental than a lot of other things. IQ, for example.
I dont have a problem with calling myself a gay Christian in the context of discussing sexuality. Neither should the church.
I think the issue is whether it’s being used as a mere adjective (so is saying ‘a gay Christian’ like saying ‘a red-headed Christian’ or ‘a tall Christian’ or ‘a dark-skinned Christian’) or whether it’s being used as short-hand for something which defines one’s entire self. The former is obviously fine, the latter not.
S
But again, where is the article telling intelligent Christians they should lie about their IQ?
The Catholics make a good point on this:
Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person is the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others. Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.
Ian
I didnt deny it was an identity. The problem is that this article is suggesting that it’s merely a trivial choice like choosing to identify as a Man Utd supporter and ignoring fully that this is actually a description of a fundamental aspect of that human that they didnt choose and cannot choose to change. I do not understand why some who identify as orthodox Christians then act as if it isn’t a sin to lie about gay people.
The problem is that this article is suggesting that it’s merely a trivial choice like choosing to identify as a Man Utd supporter
I have read the article. It doesn’t suggest that.
I do not understand why some who identify as orthodox Christians then act as if it isn’t a sin to lie about gay people.
You keep misrepresenting the article. Either you have a massive problem with reading comprehension, or you are deliberately lying about what it says. I think it’s the former — I think you skim-read things, and if you disagree with them you have an emotional reaction that stops you thinking them in any depth, and then you fill in the gaps in your shallow understanding with your own prejudices and then respond to what you think you read rather than what is actually there — but if it’s the latter then it’s a bit rich of you to claim other people are lying.
Really? We’re recycling the garbage of the ex-gay movement already?
This is going further than the usual rubbish of pearl-clutching over “identity” (although the article hilariously and hypocritically is at pains to assert the authors evangelical identity, and is very clear that your male or female identity is absolutely fundamental). It asserts that sexuality is a social construct: no one is actually gay or same sex attracted, and also no one is actually straight or opposite sex attracted. That’s how they square telling someone to stop being gay, whilst being unable to promise them they’ll be straight. Aside from an ‘interesting’ alignment with some of the most extreme queer theory ideas, it raises a few questions:
If no one has a sexuality in reality, and the idea that you are sexually attracted to women or men is just a mirage of your mind, then what was Jesus talking about in Matthew 19? What is the sin of lust? What’s lust? If it’s all a social construct why did the ex-gay movement fail so spectacularly? It’s unfortunate participants didn’t become straight, but they didn’t stop being gay either, why’s that? Shouldn’t they, more than anyone else, have come to this realisation that sexuality doesn’t exist? Why have they so clearly concluded the opposite?
your male or female identity is absolutely fundamental
Being male or female isn’t an ‘identity’, though, it’s simply a fact about a person.
It asserts that sexuality is a social construct: no one is actually gay or same sex attracted, and also no one is actually straight or opposite sex attracted.
You’re conflating different things here. Specifically you’re conflating whether someone is attracted to members of the same or the opposite sex (a property of a person) with sexuality (an identity )
Sexuality is a social construct, but who someone is attracted to is not. Those are two different things no matter how much some people try to make out that they are one and the same. They aren’t.
That’s how they square telling someone to stop being gay, whilst being unable to promise them they’ll be straight.
No, the point is to decouple the property of being attracted to members of the same sex from the identity of ‘being gay’.
If no one has a sexuality in reality, and the idea that you are sexually attracted to women or men is just a mirage of your mind,
Again you’re linking things that are not the same. You’re claiming that denying the reality of sexuality is saying that no one is really attracted to women or men. But those ideas are not coupled. It is perfectly possible and logically correct to believe both:
a) ‘sexuality’ isn’t real
2. more people are exclusively attracted to members of the opposite sex, some are exclusively attracted to members of the same sex, a few are attracted to both.
Because the latter is about the facts; the former is about the lens through which we view the facts. The latter is objective; the former is subjective.
What is the sin of lust? What’s lust?
Lust is erotic love directed towards an inappropriate object.
(It is not, incidentally, having sex for physical pleasure; that’s gluttony)
It’s unfortunate participants didn’t become straight, but they didn’t stop being gay either, why’s that?
They didn’t stop being attracted to members of the same sex, but at least some of them stopped identifying as ‘gay’, didn’t they?
This is a rather helpful disentangling of the issues involved here. Thanks.
So if something’s factual, it’s not an identity in your book? Hence, your sex isn’t an identity. What about ethnicity? Nationality? Class? Being a northerner or southerner? Being a parent? Being an evangelical? Where are you drawing the line and why is sexual orientation on the ‘wrong’ side of that line, especially when you accept that some people really are attracted to people of the same sex?
If sexuality has nothing to do with whether you’re sexually attracted to men or women (i.e. these ideas are not coupled) what is sexuality? What’s the social construction if who we’re sexually attracted to is factual and ‘real’? I’m intrigued as to what you think being gay means if it’s not being sexually attracted to people of the same sex.
It is amazing to see how far down the rabbit hole of queer theory you’ve gone.
So if something’s factual, it’s not an identity in your book? Hence, your sex isn’t an identity. What about ethnicity?
Ethnicity is obviously an identity. Things like the tone of one’s skin, or one’s genetic makeup, are facts; but ‘ethnicity’ is how one viewed oneself or how one is viewed by others. This is obvious if you think about how different societies draw different lines between ‘ethnicities’.
Nationality?
Nationality isn’t an identity, it’s a matter of law. You either are or are not a British citizen, according to the law.
Class?
Class, like ethnicity, is an identity.
Being a northerner or southerner?
This one depends, obviously. If it just refers to whether one’s birthplace was above or below a certain line of latitude, then it’s a fact. But it certainly can be used as an identity. So you have to check with the person who was using it to answer the question.
Being a parent?
Obviously not an identity; whether or not you are a parent is a fact, either biological or legal (in the case of adoption).
Being an evangelical?
Like ‘northerner’, this one depends on how it’s being used. So you’d have to check.
Where are you drawing the line
Between objective and subjective obviously.
and why is sexual orientation on the ‘wrong’ side of that line, especially when you accept that some people really are attracted to people of the same sex?
Because ‘sexual orientation’ is a particular way of looking at the facts. It is not the facts themselves.
If sexuality has nothing to do with whether you’re sexually attracted to men or women (i.e. these ideas are not coupled) what is sexuality?
It doesn’t have nothing to do with it. The two are obviously related, just not coupled.
I’m intrigued as to what you think being gay means if it’s not being sexually attracted to people of the same sex.
Being gay is a certain paradigm through which to understand the facts of sexual attraction. Obviously one can look at the same facts through a different paradigm.
It is amazing to see how far down the rabbit hole of queer theory you’ve gone.
Well, no. Queer theory would deny that there are any objective facts; queer theory says that there are only paradigms. I am clear that there are objective facts.
So there’s same-sex attraction which is objective and real, but that’s not the same as sexual orientation or homosexuality or being gay, which are all false social constructions? As long as I stick your preferred magic words “sexual attraction”, it’s all fine, but “sexual orientation” or “gay” is all wrong. This is just sophistry and word play.
So there’s same-sex attraction which is objective and real,
Yes.
but that’s not the same as sexual orientation or homosexuality or being gay, which are all false social constructions?
No, they’re not ‘false social constructions’. They’re social constructions. A social construction can’t be ‘true’ or ‘false’ because by definition it’s not an objective thing, it’s subjective. And subjective things can’t be true or false.
They are ways of looking at things.
They can be helpful or unhelpful; they can be more or less accurate in their modelling of the word. But they can’t be ‘’false’ or ‘true’. One objective propositions can be true or false.
As long as I stick your preferred magic words “sexual attraction”, it’s all fine, but “sexual orientation” or “gay” is all wrong.
No, I never wrote anything was ‘all wrong’. I’m just distinguishing between two different types of thing. Neither type is inherently ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, they just make sense in different contexts.
They only thing which is ‘all wrong’ is to make out that two different types of thing are the same type of thing.
This is just sophistry and word play.
The sophistry and word play is actually claiming that because X and Y objective facts exist, then we must look at them through a particular paradigm. That’s what you do when saying that because sexual attraction exists we must cite it through the paradigm of ‘being gay’.
I am actually cutting through that sophistry and showing that the facts and the paradigm through which we view them are different things.
What’s the paradigm?
What’s the paradigm?
That sexual attractions are (a) intrinsic, (b) essential and (c) part of normal human variation.
As opposed to (a) caused by a confluence of complex hereditary and environmental factors, (b) accidental and (c) corruption caused by the Fall, which is another paradigm that also fits the facts.
I’m confused by what you’re trying to argue here. At the beginning you were accepting the reality of same-sex attraction, and it not changing. That would line up with the intrinsic and essential nature, which you are now objecting to.
I don’t see what makes a confluence of complex factors a different paradigm to intrinsic, essential, and part of normal variation. Those can all sit together, unless you’re arguing that the complex factors mean that the pattern of sexual attraction is something that can be willingly changed (‘cured’ if you will) when as you acknowledged earlier the experience of the ex-gay movement shows that is not in fact the case. I have no idea what it means to be accidentally sexually attracted to one sex or the other so I’ll pass over that. I fail to see what being caused by the Fall (or not) changes. After the Fall we’re ashamed of our nakedness, childbirth is painful, and farming is hard work. None of that leads us to conclude Christians ought to be nudists who avoid having children or working in agriculture.
I’m confused by what you’re trying to argue here. At the beginning you were accepting the reality of same-sex attraction, and it not changing. That would line up with the intrinsic and essential nature, which you are now objecting to.
No it wouldn’t. Something can be real and unchanging and intrinsic, or real and unchanging and not intrinsic; something can be real and unchanging and essential, or real and unchanging and accidental. Neither reality nor unchangingness necessarily implies either intrinsicness or essentialness.
I don’t see what makes a confluence of complex factors a different paradigm to intrinsic, essential, and part of normal variation.
Well, a confluence of complex factors is clearly different to being intrinsic, isn’t it? Because ‘intrinsic’ means ‘located within’. So if sexual attraction is intrinsic that means that its cause is located within the person, so it can’t be the result of external factors like the environment. Conversely, if the environment has any part to play in the formation of sexual attraction, then it can’t be fully intrinsic, can it? Because it is affected by external factors and by definition something that is intrinsic is not affected by external factors.
Those can all sit together
Not they can’t, as I’ve just explained.
unless you’re arguing that the complex factors mean that the pattern of sexual attraction is something that can be willingly changed (‘cured’ if you will) when as you acknowledged earlier the experience of the ex-gay movement shows that is not in fact the case.
Whether it can be changed or not is irrelevant. Things can be any one of changeable and intrinsic, changeable and extrinsic, unchangeable and intrinsic or unchangeable and extrinsic.
I have no idea what it means to be accidentally sexually attracted to one sex or the other so I’ll pass over that.
Oh dear, you’re not another one who doesn’t understand the difference between essential and accidental, are you? Seriously folks this is like one of the most basic bits of philosophy. What are they teaching them in schools nowadays? Go read https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/ and educate yourself.
I fail to see what being caused by the Fall (or not) changes. After the Fall we’re ashamed of our nakedness, childbirth is painful, and farming is hard work. None of that leads us to conclude Christians ought to be nudists who avoid having children or working in agriculture.
Again this is basic stuff, theology this time. You understand the doctrine of total depravity, right?
Why does it take so much effort to drag your argument out of you? We’re getting closer, but you haven’t actually explained why your preferred “paradigm” means imposing rules of life-long celibacy or heterosexual marriage on same-sex attracted people is a great idea.
Even if you think an identity is extrinsic, it doesn’t follow you should dismiss or ignore it. Being a Christian is the fundamental identity and life-shaping, but is surely extrinsic as it originates with God’s grace. Maybe you rely on defining sexuality as accidental, and therefore argue it is trivial and can be ignored or at least denying/repressing it is not a serious matter. That is hard to square with Scriptures view of sexuality (Genesis 2, Matthew 19, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 7 etc.). It’s also hard to square with Church teaching. Protestants have historically being extremely wary of celibacy rules (acknowledging that sexuality is very much not trivial) and therefore unwilling to encourage let alone impose a discipline of life-long celibacy despite St Paul saying it is better not to marry. Catholics, although they do embrace such disciplines, actually teach that sexuality “affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul” and that “everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity”.
Why does it take so much effort to drag your argument out of you?
Because I assume basic intelligence on the part of those I engage in discussion with so when they keep asking dumb questions I keep having to work out how to explain things in simpler and simpler terms and that takes time.
We’re getting closer, but you haven’t actually explained why your preferred “paradigm” means imposing rules of life-long celibacy or heterosexual marriage on same-sex attracted people is a great idea.
Because that’s not what we’re discussing. Read https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/facing-our-disagreements-on-living-in-love-and-faith/comment-page-1/#comment-424184 ; you wrote it, or have you forgotten? This discussion is purely about the distinction between a property of a person and an ‘identity’. Until you understand basic distinction that there’s no point in trying to engage with more complex questions. It would be like trying to explain Hilbert spaces to someone struggling with partial differentiation.
Even if you think an identity is extrinsic, it doesn’t follow you should dismiss or ignore it.
That’s another discussion. But if you have now accepted and understood that the property of who someone is attracted to is entirely separable from the identity of ‘being gay’, such that it is possible to be attracted exclusively to members of the same sex, and be aware and honest about that fact, but not identify as ‘gay’ — and that not identifying as such is not ‘pretending to be straight’ or lying about one’s attractions — then I have fully answered the question you posed in the comment to which I linked above and this branch of the discussion is closed.
Gay simply means being exclusively attracted to the same sex. To me it seems dishonest to suggest that it’s somehow evil or powerful or a choice.
The challenge here is that Christians who support this thinking reward people who are willing to lie about being gay and punish people who believe lying is actually a sin.
Gay simply means being exclusively attracted to the same sex
It doesn’t, though. It includes a whole raft of political connotations too.
S
Can you please explain why being female isn’t an identity, but being gay is?
Can you please explain why being female isn’t an identity, but being gay is?
Being female is an objective property of a person. Being gay is a political ideology.
What is the ideology supposed to be?
What is the ideology supposed to be?
That sexual attractions are (a) intrinsic, (b) essential and (c) part of normal human variation.
As opposed to (a) caused by a confluence of complex hereditary and environmental factors, (b) accidental and (c) corruption caused by the Fall, which is another paradigm that also fits the facts.
Sigh. You insist on putting the case in the most complicated way.
Aren’t the Bishops simply creating a dispensation? The doctrine is the doctrine (now anchored firmly, for reasons I cannot grasp, to the end of Ephesians 5) and we preserve the canon law by suspending its rigorous application in particular cases in order to modify the hardship arising.
Aren’t the Bishops simply creating a dispensation? The doctrine is the doctrine (now anchored firmly, for reasons I cannot grasp, to the end of Ephesians 5) and we preserve the canon law by suspending its rigorous application in particular cases in order to modify the hardship arising.
If a dispensation is automatically granted, ie, not in consideration of the special facts in each particular case but just as a blanket for every case in a given class, then it ceases to be a dispensation and becomes a de facto change in doctrine, doesn’t it?
No
No
Actually yes.