This July, in the final session of this quinquennium, General Synod is due to debate a Private Members Motion from Helen King suggesting that there are no fundamental objections to committed same-sex relationships. Because of its timing, and the ambiguity of its wording, some have argued it must be opposed.
Andrew Goddard here assesses the motion and, rather than simply rejecting it out of hand, notes seven potential positives about it, around the nature of its language, but also six serious problems, chiefly arising from its ambiguity. Debate could open the door to great clarity and some agreement.
However, LLF was brought to an end because of the deeply damaging nature of the debate, and it would be tragic if, when there is potential for perhaps finding a new and better path going forward, the final meeting of this Synod simply repeated the mistakes of the last three and a half years.
Andrew Goddard writes: At the July 2025 General Synod there was scheduled a debate on a potentially highly divisive Private Members Motion (PMM) from Mae Christie, a known critic of the church’s current teaching. It related to the place of Issues in Human Sexuality in the discernment process for ordination and was originally and rightly seen by many committed to the church’s current teaching and practice as undermining of that teaching. Much to people’s pleasant surprise, as a result of discussions and good will and careful amendment, it resulted in an outcome which secured widespread support across different views on sexuality. This, as Ian Paul noted on this blog, was in part because of the approach of the person who introduced the PMM in Christie’s absence:
Here we have someone who is clear he is campaigning for change in the Church’s doctrine of marriage, but recognises that this cannot be brought about by sleight of hand, and has worked actively with those upholding the Church’s historic teaching to come to a workable and reasonable agreement.
This July, at the final General Synod before the Synod elections, there will be a debate on another potentially highly divisive PMM, this time from Professor Helen King, another critic of the church’s current teaching. At 12th May, as at the end of March, it was just one signature short of being top of the current PMMs with 169 Synod members (up from 161 mid-Feb) supporting it.
Headed “Same-Sex Relationships Compatibility With Christian Discipleship” it reads
That this Synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.
The motion is significant for at least two reasons.
First because of its timing as the LLF process draws to a close but a new process is about to be launched and as elections take place for the next 5-year Synod (which might have been thought to be an argument against scheduling a debate, leaving it for the new Synod to consider the matter perhaps under a new PMM).
Second because of its substance. If it is debated then it will arguably, and surprisingly, be I think the first substantive debate in Synod focused very specifically in its wording on the question of the ethics of same-sex relationships for Christians since the Higton motion back in 1987. This was overwhelmingly passed as a statement of traditional Christian teaching on sex and marriage (for wording and context of that motion see here).
How is the motion to be interpreted? The PMM & Church Teaching
It is clear that given its provenance and wording most who uphold the church’s teaching and believe it to be based on Scripture are very concerned about Synod passing the motion. CEEC reports that “The Evangelical Group on General Synod (EGGS) will be working to defeat the motion in as an effective way as possible”.
Sadly, one contributory factor here is simply the polarisation which has marked this Synod. In some cases it seems the logic almost amounts to: if this motion comes from Helen King and is supported by this group of people then it can only be hostile to the church’s teaching and require opposition from those who support that teaching. But if votes are decided on those terms rather than the wording of the motion and corporate deliberation then we appear to have abandoned all attempt to reason together and instead be willing simply to mimic general “party politics”, forgetting the surprising outcome of a year ago.
So what about the wording of the motion? That has led some to conclude opposition is the only viable approach. Martin Davie, for example, has set out his reasons “Why Faithful Christians Should Reject Helen King’s Private Member’s Motion” (he has since added further reflections supporting his approach and critiquing the motion here).
I want here to explore in more detail Martin Davie’s first reason for taking this position – “that the precise meaning of the motion is unclear” and that the motion “lacks clarity about the precise nature of this relationship”. This raises the question as to whether—by intention or inadvertently—the motion will have the effect, in Ian Paul’s words about the original motion last year, of bringing about a change in the church’s teaching “by sleight of hand”. Davie clearly believes it would and thus it must be opposed.
The motion would have that effect if its wording was opposed to what is stated in the Pastoral Guidance for Prayers of Love and Faith, namely that
The Church of England teaches that Holy Matrimony is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, blessed by God in creation and pointing to the love between Christ and the Church; a way of life which Christ makes holy. It is within marriage that sexual intimacy finds its proper place.
In other words, the current position of the Church of England is that there are “fundamental objections” if a same-sex relationship presents itself as Holy Matrimony or involves “sexual intimacy”. It is these two areas which are the major fault-lines in the church and which have caused so many difficulties in relation to Prayers of Love and Faith and the pattern of life the church expects of its ordained leaders.
It is, however, these two contentious areas on which the PMM is notably silent although its proposer and the overwhelming majority (perhaps even all) of its signatories are known to dissent from the church’s teaching in relation to one or both of these elements. Perhaps inevitably in the current climate this silence but partisan support makes many suspicious that the motion is intended to undermine the teaching and this is all indeed “sleight of hand” or a Trojan Horse. In fact, it will be argued below, that if this is the intention of the motion and the effect of it passing then it risks undermining much more than the church’s current approach to same-sex relationships. But is this the only possible interpretation or is there the possibility that its supporters might, in Ian Paul’s words on what happened last year, “work[ed] actively with those upholding the Church’s historic teaching to come to a workable and reasonable agreement”?
Assessing the motion’s wording: Positives
From the perspective of those who believe the current position of the Church of England is right there are at least the following 7 elements in the motion which I think are acceptable, even positive and encouraging signs and developments given some aspects of recent debates.
Firstly, the motion recognises that a key question we need to be addressing is the proper pattern of “Christian discipleship” and that an account of Christian discipleship includes within it questions concerning same-sex relationships.
One of the many serious weaknesses in the whole PLF process was that it failed to really speak into the question of what was to be seen as a faithful form of Christian discipleship and way of holy living especially for those who identify as gay, lesbian or same-sex attracted.
Secondly, in stating that a same-sex relationship with certain qualities “can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship” it is by implication acknowledging that these qualities, though necessary for compatibility are not in and of themselves sufficient for the relationship to be compatible with Christian discipleship.
The motion could have said that such a relationship “is entirely compatible” with discipleship. This would echo the longstanding statement of OneBodyOneFaith and previously the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) whose members affirm that “it is their conviction that it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex….” (italics added).
That instead it says such relationships “can be entirely compatible with” means that it recognises that such relationships also “can not be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship”. The key question then becomes what are the tests as to whether or not such a relationship, defined in these broad terms, actually is entirely compatible. Here is where there will be deep disagreement but the motion itself remains silent. Strictly speaking the motion says nothing determinative about what constitutes a same-sex relationship that is entirely compatible with Christian discipleship, only that there can be such a relationship and what the minimal conditions are for this to become a possibility.
Thirdly, the motion is expressed in terms of the sex of those in the relationship and does not use common terminology used in relation to sexual identity or refer to sexual orientation.
This motion is thus different from the 2007 motion from Mary Gilbert (which referred to “the nature of homosexual orientation”, “lesbian and gay Christians/people”) or more recent motions that have embraced the language of “LGBTQI+”. This again should be welcomed by those who argue that a biblical and Christian theological anthropology means the key ethical questions here relate to people’s biological sex not to what identity they have embraced or what they believe their sexual orientation to be.
Fourthly, the qualities that the motion highlights (“committed, faithful, intimate”) are all, once properly defined, to be recognised as goods in human relationships (unless the relationship is inherently ordered to wrongdoing) that we should be able and willing to recognise.
The recent controversy has not been over whether such qualities or goods are to be viewed positively or can be evident in same-sex relationships. Controversy is focussed on whether and/or how such descriptors can be appropriately used given there are also certain other important, even integral, aspects of the relationship which the church views as sinful.
There is a risk that simply opposing this motion would appear either to deny that commitment, faithfulness and intimacy are goods or to say that such goods cannot ever be found and so should never be sought in any form of same-sex relationship. This will then easily be portrayed as meaning that those who hold to the church’s teaching are telling those who identify as gay or lesbian that they are to be deprived of commitment, faithfulness and intimacy in a same-sex relationship if they are to remain true disciples.
Fifthly, as many committed to received teaching have argued—such as Ed Shaw in his The Intimacy Deficit (also this article and see this review at CEEC) and Elaine Storkey in The Search for Intimacy)—it is important that we do not as Christians follow many within our contemporary society and conflate or confuse “intimacy” with “sex” or “romantic love”.
Here it is interesting that the Pastoral Guidance quoted above is rightly clear that marriage is the proper place not for “intimacy” (which can be found in various places) but “sexual intimacy”.
It is also I think again significant here that the LGCM/OneBodyOneFaith statement we have already seen this motion echoes but also adapts in its language of “entirely compatible” is significantly different:
It is the conviction of the members of OneBodyOneFaith….that it is entirely compatible with the Christian faith not only to love another person of the same sex, but also to express that love fully in a personal sexual relationship (italics added)
Similarly back in 1979 (debated in General Synod in 1981) the Gloucester Report entitled Homosexual Relationships: A Contribution to Discussion, from the CofE’s Board for Social Responsibility reached the conclusion that
We do not think it possible to deny that there are circumstances in which individuals may justifiably choose to enter into a homosexual relationship with the hope of enjoying a companionship and physical expression of sexual love similar to that found in marriage (para 168, italics added)
These are both statements which those who uphold the church’s traditional teaching, based on its understanding of Scripture’s teaching, could not support. The wording of the motion, however, avoids making any such statement. Is this “sleight of hand” or, to put it bluntly, duplicity? Or is it evidence that the statement is not seeking to address this question but genuinely open to seeing if we can find agreement on a different question across our differences on sexual ethics and the nature of marriage?
Sixthly, although a matter of continuing discussion and discernment, many of those committed to the church’s traditional teaching have wanted to explain that although this teaching does lead to clear ethical boundaries concerning same-sex relationships it does not prohibit all forms of “committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationships”.
Here one might think of the writing of Wes Hill (most fully in Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian), the work of Hill and others such as Eve Tushnet and Mark Yarhouse at Spiritual Friendship, and the work of Gregory Coles especially his paper on “Understanding Celibate Partnerships and Committed Friendships” at Preston Sprinkle’s Center for Faith, Sexuality and Gender.
There is already some level of recognition within the Church of England for relationships meeting this description which, to varying degrees, those who are committed to the church’s teaching, accept: the recognition of a celibate same-sex civil partnership (an option currently open to clergy) and the largely unexplained and unexplored category of “Covenant Friendship” which exists within the Prayers of Love and Faith.
Seventhly, in using the language of “committed” and “faithful” the motion is not using the much more precise and restrictive language that the church uses to define marriage.
If this was meant to be a motion seeking simply to affirm same-sex marriage the terms should be something like “permanent” (or “lifelong”) and “exclusive”. These are what make a male-female union a marriage: “a union permanent and lifelong…to the exclusion of all others on either side” (Canon B30). Once again these broader qualities are necessary for same-sex marriage but they are not sufficient and it is quite possible to affirm the descriptors here but reject the claim that such relationships are a form of marriage and to argue it would be wrong to present such a relationship as a marriage.
Assessing the motion’s wording: Problems
Having said all that, it remains the case that the wording is ambiguous. This then raises a number of problems not only in relation to same-sex relationships but for the church’s wider sexual ethic.
Firstly, in both wider society and much of the church a motion simply stating that “being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship”, is something to which “there are no fundamental objections” and “can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship” will be heard and understood by many to be affirming of sexual same-sex unions perhaps also including same-sex marriage.
That realistic assessment of what will be communicated—and the concern that disseminating this message if Synod passes the motion is the intended aim of at least some of the motion’s advocates—is why the arguments above will appear largely unpersuasive to many who hold to the church’s teaching. To address this will require greater clarity and reassurances from the motion’s supporters and likely, as a year ago, a form of words in an amendment that will address these concerns.
Secondly, if the relationships that are described and commended here in these terms of “committed”, “faithful” and “intimate” do include sexual relationships then some of the positives noted above instead become serious problems.
This makes the motion potentially much more serious in its implications for the church’s teaching about Christian discipleship in relation to sex. The motion is then stating that sex is acceptable for a disciple of Christ within a pattern of relationship which is simply marked by being “committed, faithful, intimate”. If that is the case for a “same-sex relationship” why are different tests required for an opposite-sex relationship?
It must be remembered that one reason for such deep concern about the original PLF proposal in early 2023 was that it was to be offered to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. The paper to Synod (GS 2289) seemed in a number of places to rewrite the church’s sexual ethic so as to be concerned not with marital status but simply these qualities in a relationship. The Archbishop of York, in words again similar to but significantly different from those of the motion, publicly stated in January 2023: “what we are saying is that physical and sexual intimacy belongs in committed, stable, faithful relationships” (italics added).
Unless there is some good reason for there to be a double-standard, if there is “no fundamental objection” to sex within such a committed, faithful, intimate relationship between people of the same sex why should there be any fundamental objection to sex within any such relationship between a man and a woman? A critique sometimes made of traditional teaching is that it unjustly places a more restrictive sexual ethic on gay and lesbian people but if this wording includes sexual same-sex relationships it either rewrites the church’s wider sexual ethic or introduces a more permissive sexual ethic on same-sex relationships than opposite-sex relationships.
Thirdly, this raises the question about the three descriptors that have been chosen in the motion and what they mean, especially if they are to include within their scope sexual relationships.
A classic statement advocating same-sex unions (and later marriage) is that by Jeffrey John which was entitled Permanent, Faithful, Stable. These three terms are also in need of more careful definition but how significant is it that both “permanent” and “stable” are lacking here? What conclusions are to be drawn from the fact they have been replaced simply by “committed” with no explanation as to the nature or level of that commitment?
There has been a long concern about occasional and non-exclusive male same-sex sexual relationships being acceptable, including among gay Christians (see for example the 1997 work of Andrew Yip whose research with gay male Christian couples found “the majority of couples were expectationally and behaviourally non-exclusive; the recently deceased leading campaigner Malcolm Johnson expressed surprise in his Diary of a Gay Priest that “a third are physically faithful—or say they are!”). Leaving that question open is one reason the LGCM statement quoted above offered no criteria as to when expressing love fully in a sexual relationship was entirely compatible with the Christian faith (see Sean Gill, The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (Cassell, 1998), pp. 12-13).
In a world of rapidly changing sexual norms there is now much wider discussion and acceptance of “ethical non-monogamy” (ENM). As briefly explained in this “ethics explainer” from The Ethics Centre this is distinguished from “infidelity” and “cheating”. Here it is not unreasonable to ask whether those in such an ENM form of relationship might nevertheless still be able to be classed as in a “committed, faithful, intimate” form of relationship.
Fourthly, if in fact those who support the motion and wish to include sexual relationships within its ambit believe that sex is for marriage then, as noted above, these descriptors fall a long way short of mirroring the pattern of relationships for male-female relationships which we call marriage.
Once again, the motion is either a sign that the statement does not intend to include sexual relationships or to advocate for same-sex marriage or it means that the motion seriously redefines the proper context of sexual intimacy and rewrites the church’s whole sexual ethic or offers a different (non-marital) sexual ethic for a same-sex couple compared to the (marital) sexual ethic for an opposite-sex couple. The difference between these two options is very significant and cannot be safely left ambiguous.
Fifthly, given the pressure to reject the current prohibition on the ordination of those in same-sex marriages (as one form of “committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship”) the concern of many is that the motion is meant to secure Synodical support to promote that development.
As Martin Davie highlights, the language of “no fundamental objections to” echoes—probably purposefully—the language of the 1975 General Synod motion that paved the way (albeit over 15 years later – a reminder that even once principles are agreed the CofE moves slowly!) for the ordination of women:
That this Synod considers that there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood
If this is the aim then the argument might look something like this:
if
- there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship and
- such a relationship is entirely compatible with Christian discipleship and
- same-sex marriages are a form of such relationship
then
- why is something entirely compatible with Christian discipleship a bar to ordination?
This is, however, slippery. As noted above the motion does not state (2) but rather says they “can be entirely compatible” and so the logic breaks down. That nuance, however, will easily get lost and arguably the “no fundamental objections to” (which is the language taken from that earlier motion on women’s ordination) allows (1) and (3) to be combined to ask a variant of (4): why is something to which “there are no fundamental objections” being made a bar to ordination? Again this is flawed—if the relationship is not just marked by these qualities but is legally a marriage then it is misrepresenting the church’s teaching about the nature of marriage—but not all will recognise this.
A key question therefore remains: if facilitating same-sex married clergy by this motion is the aim then why such “sleight of hand” rather than clarity in the wording of the motion?
Sixthly, these problems with the motion’s ambiguity and the possible conclusions and communications that could arise if the motion is passed by a small majority without amendment and clarification are all a recipe for perpetuating and even increasing misunderstanding, raising false hopes, and deepening distrust.
The whole PLF process has led to this litany of damaging outcomes in the church’s life. We have succeeded in creating increased polarisation with nobody happy. One large part of the church is unhappy that the bishops have not only kept the bar on same-sex married clergy but now prevent what previously many clergy offered (some form of public stand-alone service for a same-sex couple). Another large part of the church is unhappy that the bishops, without a widespread consensus, have now commended prayers and made statements that are indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine.
It was in part because the LLF/PLF has had such damaging effects that the bishops and the last Synod decided to bring it to completion, pause and start a new process. It would be tragic if, when there is potential for perhaps finding a new and better path going forward, the final meeting of this Synod simply repeated the mistakes of the last three and a half years.
Conclusion
There is much to be said for the position that it was unwise for this Synod, which has been so bitterly divided over matters of sexuality, to timetable yet another painful debate and likely polarising vote on these matters in its final session. Would it not have been much better to leave it to the newly elected Synod to come at these questions afresh? This could be in terms of specific proposals (likely from the bishops) on matters left unaddressed by the Living in Love and Faith process when it concluded or, as in this motion, in terms of a substantive statement about Christian discipleship.
This is even more the case should the problems highlighted above not be constructively or adequately addressed especially if it is the case the motion potentially undermines the church’s teaching about sexual ethics and discipleship even more widely than in relation to same-sex relationships.
One option of course would be to do as Synod did back in February 2024 when it was presented with PLF proposals still needing further work: have a debate but move to next business.
But what if the motion’s proponents are not here attempting some “sleight of hand” or final victory (even if only by another 52:48 margin) in the closing session of this Synod?
What if this is offered as a form of wording about same-sex relationships and discipleship which might be able to help Synod find more widespread agreement across the church’s divisions and put questions of ethics and discipleship more to the forefront of whatever process follows the Living in Love and Faith project?
If that is the intention then it may just be possible that, as last year, with careful conversation and agreed amendments, this PMM could enable the Synod to draw to a close in a more constructive way. It may be that it is possible to discern a form of words for a motion that could clarify where there is a wider consensus than we have yet acknowledged.
Our well-known disagreements cannot be avoided for ever but nor do they always need to be made central to every one of our discussions. We need to find ways of considering these matters without generating yet another bruising round in the boxing ring. By not explicitly raising these areas of disagreement this motion could be an opportunity to discern and state a shared positive vision that can be heard as good news. This in turn could also provide a framing for the ongoing discussions in the newly elected Synod. It may also help bring greater clarity as to the areas—including the church’s wider sexual ethic beyond its teaching in relation to same-sex relationships and not just its doctrine of marriage—where our deep disagreements are really to be found.
In these areas what we currently need is not more up-down votes on ambiguous words which sustain and fuel mutual suspicion. What we need is more sustained prayer for honest conversation, greater political wisdom and further corporate biblical study and theological reflection, not least among our constantly changing episcopal leadership and those to be elected to the new Synod this summer.
Revd Dr Andrew Goddard is Assistant Minister, St James the Less, Pimlico, (where his wife Lis Goddard is vicar) 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).
Buy me a Coffee
This is yet another carefully constructed, balanced and well-presented article by Andrew, positing both the positive and negative potential of the forthcoming debate. I believe it is perfectly reasonable to approach it in this positive way, seeking the common ground, clarifying the issues within both sides of the argument and looking for a way forward.
However, in recent years, such outcomes have involved a greater or lesser degree of compromise on the part of those of an orthodox way of thinking, which has not been reciprocated by some on the opposing side. It seems that concessions once won, rather than stabilising situations, only raise further moves to go further in a liberal and progressive direction. This is apparent in the current moves by WATCH to overturn the Five Guiding Principles.
Whereas it may be good to find a way forward in which both sides can live together, there needs to be a sincere acceptance of that balance rather than it being seen as an encouragement to push for more. Is this debate the point, then, when orthodox Christians on General Synod should say “enough is enough”? The line in the sand has been moved so often – and will probably be moved again! – but I feel my personal stance is tending towards “no more”!
Thanks. Whose ‘lines in the sand’ have kept moving?
Mine hasn’t…
Point taken! A poor choice of words on my part, but my point was there seem to have been a number of concessions to progressive thinkers and yet, once received, their desire is for more rather than allowing a status quo. Again, look at the WATCH proposals.
Yes, I agree on that. WATCH appear to be militantly intolerant…
This proposal doesn’t really mean much. Even if passed all it says is commited, faithful, same sex relationships can be compatible with Christian discipliship, hardly controversial given a majority of Synod has already voted for PLF. It doesn’t even mention marriage so still one assumes respects the fact holy matrimony is reserved to one man and one woman ideally for life
Then perhaps we should wonder why we are debating it?
Another kick at can kicking.
For some, it may not be enough to discern that the proposal is “hardly controversial” based on a human vote.
1. I believe that a professor is able to define terms, if so minded.
2. What, who, and how is a disciple of Jesus?
3. 0ne M + One F marriage necessitates sexual intercourse, consumation.
4. It also excludes others. That is, it can not by consent include others no matter how faithful those commitments may be.
5. What are ‘goods’? Is it a balancing act with ‘bads’, where ‘goods’ outweigh ‘bads’. This is theologically, scripturally, ethically, incomprehensible.
6 It now par for the course to avoid questions of sin and holiness, as they bring division, even to the wider question Discipleship to Jesus, let alone the narrower (febrile – yet clothed in todays embrace of sexual ambiguity and drift) anthropological questions of sex and marriage.
‘Intimacy’ has been understood as a euphemism for sexual relations since Victorian times.
It’s pretty obvious what the motion says. Same sex sexual relationships are good and approved by God. Reject it.
This motion is patently a trojan horse. The mischievous timing of its tabling makes clear that those holding the position stated clearly in scripture, and 3000 years of tradition based upon it, must not only assert but enforce their position. Unless the church is cleansed it will rot and die.
You beat me to it.
equo ne credite, Teucri.
quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.
“Ah, wretched citizens, what height of madness is this? Believe you the foe is gone? or think you any Grecian gift is free of treachery? is it thus we know Ulysses? Either Achaeans are hid in this cage of wood, or the engine is fashioned against our walls to overlook the houses and descend upon the city; some delusion lurks there: trust not the horse, O Trojans. Be it what it may, I fear the Grecians even when they offer gifts.”
Warning about free software that is liable to contain viruses: Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.
This is good. The demise of Issues in Human Sexuality has left us without anything setting out what we thought as a church about all this. The idea that we should pretend the Higson motion is the last word on the matter is for the birds. As is pretty clear from Andrew’s analysis, Helen King has stepped away from the standard LGCM formulation to open up a space for consensus to form. It’s remarkable to see people immediately declare this must be a trojan horse.
One of the many serious weaknesses in the whole PLF process was that it failed to really speak into the question of what was to be seen as a faithful form of Christian discipleship and way of holy living especially for those who identify as gay, lesbian or same-sex attracted.
This is the key point. This is where the discussion should have been. But it is not simply a failure of the PLF process. It is a result of organised effort from others to block any open discussion on this question (see The Beautiful Story as an example).
If people think the motion is too vague in its terminology, then suggest an amendment to tighten it. If they think its ethical stance is wrong, then suggest an amendment to correct it. But I would make a plea that we don’t have another sleight of hand amendment as we saw with PLF where the amendment “that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England” is argued by some to mean that in fact any use of the Prayers of Love and Faith at is ruled out.
‘The demise of Issues in Human Sexuality has left us without anything setting out what we thought as a church about all this.’
Er, are you being serious?
What about the canons? The liturgy of marriage? What about previous publications from the House of Bishops, the Doctrine Commission, and not FAOC?
What about ‘Marriage’ (1999)?
What about the repeated pastoral statements?
What about the ‘orthodox’ parts of LLF?
That must all be in error (or irrelevant). Anthony and James are telling me that authentic Christian teaching on this is actually illegal to publish in the UK.
Not to publish (yet), but to preach in public. And you, Adam, have never called for falsely so-called hate speech laws to be repealed so that you could, for instance, complain about the Islamic attitude to homosexuality.
Yes, that is correct. On numerous occasions on the past few years Christian street preachers have been arrested on public order grounds by zealous police officers when they have simply answered provocative questions by homosexual activists. They are eventually acquitted but only after enduring imprisonment, a trial and heavy legal expenses. It’s a deliberate chilling policy by the police.
Just to add
Martin Davie’s response, and the treatment of Sam Allberry in the US, underscore the necessity of a motion like this.
If we follow Davie’s argument, his main thrusts of objection are: that some of our body parts are set aside for procreation, and therefore limited to use in marriage; and that modern society is deceived sexual orientation is either real or important. If we take the first objection seriously, it must go much further than ruling of same-sex marriage and sex. If our body parts are set aside for procreation, then contraception is a problem, any sex other than vaginal intercourse is a problem, even sex after the menopause is a problem. And if we take the ramblings against “expressive individualism” at face value, then we’re denying that there is such a thing as homosexual orientation, and arguing if people just embraced a straight marriage they’d be fine. That of course was tried for decades by the ex-gay movement, with disastrous results. It’s a puzzle to me when Davie and others who take his line never offer an explanation of why that was such a spectacular and damaging failure.
The defenestration of Allberry is a timely reminder that this isn’t parlour game. Some of us have to live with this. What’s remarkable has been although Allberry has been removed from his church’s ministry, had his writings scrubbed from The Gospel Coalition etc., no one is actually clear what he’d done wrong. A line was crossed – what the church previously knew of his past was deemed ok, but when they found some new information it wasn’t. We’re told it didn’t go as far as it could have (does that mean it wasn’t sexual? Who knows?). If you’re watching from the outside as a gay Christian a couple of things are clear, and none of them good. Firstly, whilst there is a serious line, no one is going to tell you where it is. Just make sure you never cross that invisible line. Secondly, if you do cross the line, you’ll be cut off. Even someone as apparently respected and liked as Allberry will be shunned and disposed of, with his colleagues being at pains to say how much they feel the hurt of the congregation but strangely no one able to say anything like “I’ve spoken to Sam, and he’s upset but ok”. Thirdly, just in case you were in any doubt, this is all deemed to be particularly shameful – we can’t talk about it and we’ll use language like “inappropriate relationship” because we think we need euphemisms etc.. Fourthly, it’s brought out of the woodwork all those who it turns out do think the orientation is itself sinful, that celibacy is a false path, and that you really do need to be straight to be a Christian.
Finally, if we are saying that the views of folk like Wes Hill and Eve Tushnet have merit and are valid options, then we need to be able to say so if only so we are actually speaking the truth.
Before you grumble about what evangelicals don’t say, you might bear in mind that LGBT pressure groups lobbied long and hard to get today’s so-called hate speech laws in order to silence us. I’m sure you know what we believe; why should we repeat it in a public forum?
So Adam and his confreres can hit us with the law which his atheist allies in Labour and the Libdems can concoct: if you can’t refute someone, censor them and outlaw them.
That’s how Adam’s allies act.
What Adam keeps ignoring is:
1. no one is compelled to be a Christian.
2. no one is compelled to be an Anglican Christian.
But Adam wants to criminalise evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox. He is deeply intolerant. He really should leave us Anglicans alone and become a Methodist – they need some young blood.
Thank goodness for the recent rain and cooler temperatures this week, else that straw man you’ve built might have caught fire…
Tedious lies are tedious. Remember not to bear false witness James. When have I tried to criminalise evangelicals?
PS: sterling effort in trying to deflect away from the actual argument. Shame about the hypocrisy though.
Adam:
It’s there in what Anthony says above:
“Before you grumble about what evangelicals don’t say, you might bear in mind that LGBT pressure groups lobbied long and hard to get today’s so-called hate speech laws in order to silence us. I’m sure you know what we believe; why should we repeat it in a public forum?”
You know ALREADY what we evangelicals believe – as well as traditional Catholics and Orthodox.
But you try to goad us into saying openly that homosexual acts are sinful, a plain statement of biblical teaching that gets preachers arrested in the streets of Britain today for ‘hate speech’ – even if courts eventually throw out these charges, the damage is done.
But that’s how your atheist allies work (except that they are terrified of Muslims).
You really need to stop your hypocrisy and join the Methodists, Adam.
My atheist allies? What are you blithering on about? I’ve criminalised evangelicals, but the courts never actually convict? I’m supposed to believe that you and Anthony have views that are both godly and Christian, and simultaneously so vile and repellent and ‘stir up hatred’ that they’d fall foul of the 1986 Public Order Act (which I was a cheerleader for despite being a toddler at the time). The Thatcher government accidentally outlawed the gospel 40 years ago, and we’ve only just noticed? This is such nonsense.
I suggest you go and re-read the comments policy on here, have a cup of tea, and then come back when you’ve calmed down.
Adam,
Not the 1986 Public Order Act but amendments to what it encompassed under Blair and Cameron.
Some do get convicted but the punishment is the process; I helped a street preacher in a congregation I was once in, who was arrested after a man lied about what he had said and dialled 999, and was eventually put before a court. That took our defence time, money and worry, and it should not happen. It would also be nice to get police attendance so quickly for a genuine crime.
I’m supposed to believe that you [James] and Anthony have views that are both godly and Christian, and simultaneously so vile and repellent and ‘stir up hatred’ that they’d fall foul of the [Amended] 1986 Public Order Act?
What you believe is up to you, but peaceable expression of views that are entirely biblical do now fall foul of the Act, thanks to various despicable politicians.
If you want to learn more about this subject, may I suggest that you preach a peaceable public warning about the Islamic attitude to homosexuality?
To quote the legislation that you fear you could not comply with:
In this Part, for the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.
How grim must your views actually be?
Adam,
As I accompanied a friend to court I know that two sections of the Public Order Act can be invoked and you don’t say which this applies to. And in any case the process is the punishment, as I explained.
James I have deleted your comment. Please temper your responses. Follow the policy.
Sam Allberry. Anything that isn’t known publicly as fact, is mere speculation, gossip.
What is clear is that church leaders there are publically accountable to a high standard, to their profession of faith at their installation in office.
Likewise the CoE?
(A friend who will be attending the Keswick Convention this year has been informed by Keswick that Sam Allberry has been replaced as speaker.)
Allberry is not the first Christian leader, homosexually or heterosexually inclined, who has failed to live up to his own beliefs, and he certainly won’t be the last.
In the past 2 or 3 years we have seen unhappy revelations about Jean Vanier, Ravi Zacharias, Philip Yancey, Jonathan Fletcher – and before them, John Yoder. And before him Martin Luther King Jr (if you call him ‘a Christian leader’, I don’t). And before him, Karl Barth. Heck, some of these guys had wives!
Being married is no guarantee that you won’t stray sexually.
But I think Adam already knew that.
Are you suggesting Sam Allberry has strayed sexually? No one has reported that. As Geoff says that is just speculation and gossip. All we know is there was some sort of previous relationship or friendship or encounter, previously deemed to be ok, now judged to be a serious problem, but equally did not go as far as it could have. That standard may be high, but it’s about as clear as mud.
Read carefully, Adam: I said Allberry “has failed to live up to his own beliefs” and he seems to have agreed with that in his own resignation. I don’t know what he is supposed to have done; that is between him and his former employers. You can read him in his own words.
My second paragraph, that being married doesn’t guarantee a man won’t stray sexually, is evidently true to anyone who thinks about it. People often think they are morally stronger than they are. This happens in friendships as well.
But why bring up straying sexually at all in this conversation?
This is what gay/SSA people face all the time in the Church. Every relationship, every perceived transgression, is immediately cast a “straying sexually”. And often it seems from those who in the next breath try to castigate us as being obsessed with sex…
And that is precisely why the terminology here needs clarifying.
Adam, are you saying it is helpful to have such ambiguity?
. We don’t distinguish between sexual and non-sexual intimacy?
. We don’t distinguish between two and more in a relationship?
. We don’t explain what we mean by ‘faithful’?
. We don’t specific the exclusive nature of sexual relationships?
. we don’t explain what ‘fundamental’ or ‘objections’ mean?
. We make no reference to the actual doctrine of the Church, which will remain unchanged?
You think all that is helpful??
I think it is helpful to get the conversation into the ethics and “the question of what was to be seen as a faithful form of Christian discipleship and way of holy living especially for those who identify as gay, lesbian or same-sex attracted.” And I think Martin Davie’s essay, and the commentary that’s taken off around Sam Allberry, underscore why that conversation is needed.
I agree that that conversation is needed—though it has been happening quite a lot.
Whether we need a loaded, end of session, ambiguous and therefore provocative motion to do so is another matter.
Such discussion has already been proposed and planned. I don’t see what this is going to add to it, except fodder for the media.
I think it happens less than you think, and it happens in particularly performative and truncated ways that are actively unhelpful.
A discussion may have been proposed and planned. Maybe we’re dealing with the consequence of an erosion of trust.
Yes, we are dealing with an erosion of trust. And the sure way to keep eroding it is to table an ambiguously worded motion.
Not going to be offering amendments? That’s a shame.
Where did I say that?
Sorry, it sounded like you were an outright opponent hoping the motion would simply be voted down. I look forward to your suggestion of amendments to improve it.
I am an outright opponent of unhelpful ambiguity. That which is not clear is not kind.
So are you seeking to amend it or not?
What would James Innell Packer say about this motion, and would he likely vote for or against?
I remember back in the day when I attended the Christian Union at university, there would be each year a talk on “Relationships”. (I remember to this day a brilliant one given by Martin Goldsmith who at the time was principal of All Nations College in Ware.) Such a talk was not about all relationships but about sexual relationships (with no mention of the possibility of same-sex sexual relationships back then).
A good relationship between mother and daughter can be described as “a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship.” If a father has “a committed, faithful, intimate (opposite-sex) relationship” with his daughter that is wonderful. However, should that relationship involve sexual activity, then it is definitely wrong.
For many, an “intimate relationship” will be understood to mean a relationship involving sexual activity. This is actually the core of the problem. People have come to think that to deny of the satisfaction of sexual desire is to deny the possibility of intimacy.
Spot on.
Of course it is. “Intimate” is very frequently a euphemism for “sexual”, as in ‘he was intimate with her’, which doesn’t mean ‘he chatted about his special love of Lord of the Rings’.
The whole motion is deliberately ambiguous – which is what we expect from a politician but from a professed teacher of Christianity is inexcusable and dishonest.
Helen King should be ashamed of this failure to walk in the light as He is in the light, to borrow Johannine language.
I do not think this initiative is going to end well..
Why Chris? Because it doesn’t start well! And with motives that appear to be self-serving of a particular cohort.
And if the response to Martin Davie’s essay ( Adam Bell above) is a thermostat, it is probable that any discussions will be hi-jacked.
I’m not sure it’s hijacking anything to respond directly to Davie’s arguments…
Adam,
The specific matter (which is largely speculatation over the details) concerning Sam Allberry is likely to be a focal point to any discussion. As you have drawn this to the attention here, it is a lived instance, that carries much weight in the advocacy for SSS/M. Hence the suggestion that any so called motion, even within the scope of the terms used by Helen King will be hi-jacked even if Allberry does, in fact, fall outside those terms.
I’m not sure what’s happened to Allberry is going to be the focal point, not least because I think there will be a concerted effort to sweep all that under the carpet and pretend it never happened or that Allberry was a figure of any importance.
But that’s rather beside the point. My argument, and bringing up Allberry, was less about what Allberry did or didn’t do but that the treatment meted out to him and the messages given to the rest of the Church show why we need to have this conversation sensibly and clearly.
Motions are short and carefully worded by their very nature.
The only reason that I can think of that an intelligent person would not word it unambiguously (for there are two very common meanings for ‘intimate’ which are poles apart from each other, and it is impossible that she does not know this) is deliberate baby/bathwater or deliberate Trojan Horse.
If the intimacy of two WWI comrades is thought to be the same thing as copulation that is not to be taken seriously.
If, however, one of these two has not occurred to the proposer, then they have not thought much, so need to return to the drawing board.
If, alternatively, they are dismissing the former with a wave of the hand, then (a) they are engaging in pansexualisation or (b) they are saying something infinitely precious is of no import. (a) and (b) are both very bad things to do.
But in fact this use of ambiguous language is likely to be just that, because we have encountered this pattern before – e.g. in Andrew Davison’s book ‘Amazing Love’.
So it is not clear why anyone is even debating this. Even in the unlikely event that deviousness or dishonesty or cynicism is absent from the final choice of words (and it is instead a lack of thought that is the issue), that final choice of words will still immediately make people think all the above – i.e. quite a few separate damaging thoughts.
Whereas if it is a lack of thought, then by definition the wording needs to be redone.
It is incredible how people chatter and think there is a debate to be had. Given all the above, there is no debate to be had about whether this wording meets the standard. Of course it does not, and it seems to me that the proponent knows it.
There is in fact another possibility: Helen King, Andrew Davison and so on are treating nonsexual and sexual as a single category because anything sexual is a matter of indifference. (This could be supported by the fact that Helen King, like some of her generation, unusually likes to treat virginity as though it were a matter of indifference.)
Since obviously nothing could be less a matter of indifference, or more a matter of consequence, that (supposing it is what they really mean) also immediately fails.
Apart from virginity being a social construct, what is particular about Helen’s generation which is different from yours?
Nothing. It is practically the same. If virginity is a social construct, I expect menarche, first emission, menopause are too.
No. They are biological realities. Virginity is not.
Methinks that generation doth protest too much.
Everybody (apart from them) knows that there is such a thing as penetrative sexual debut, and secondly everyone also knows that blood is an indicator. (Thirdly, I don’t know whether a biologist would deny that hymens exist, but if they did deny this then we can defer to points 1-2.)
Quite. Virginity is a social construct because someone invented the notion that after PIV intercourse a woman ‘lost’ her virginity – something which has no biological reality. Hymens rupture before intercourse, some women bleed, some don’t. They are not reliable markers of ‘lost’ virginity. Unfortunately, for brides whose fate rested on bloodied sheets.
But you still haven’t answered what is particular about Helen’s generation?
They are the generation affected by 1968, Germaine Greer, the opposition to the festival of light, what Greene sowed at the BBC, what Jenkins sowed legislatively, the Age of Aquarius etc.. Advanced. Forthright. Significant. Peak boomers. Peak achievement in the shape of self indulgence.
Your presentation leaves out central parts of the picture, so immediately fails and is suspected of bias. The idea is that penetrative union is of no significance. Is your idea that it is characteristic of all of life 0-100 or of none of life, ever? My idea (which unlike the other makes sense) is that it has a beginning/significant date within the lifespan, rather than having none, i.e. wedding/marriage. Secondly, in effectively prescribing that hymen is of no significance to anyone, you have taken leave of reality in 2 ways: to how many it is (not merely subjectively) of significance, and also how great that significance is. It is the secularists that try to narrow and crush what is sacred. If your theory is not to be partial and therefore inaccurate, these central points will be far from absent from it. What is it about this topic and reactions to it? Seems to be key.
Errr if a girl tears or breaks her hymen whilst horseriding or from using a tampon has something terrible happened? If a woman has sex and her hymen remains intact, have she and her partner done something wrong?
Both PCD and Adam are looking at only one of the many angles (the horse/bike/exercise one), as though all the others (central as they are) do not at all exist. Guess what – it is the cliched angle to look at every time this debate comes up. As though a single angle could be a comprehensive treatment. It is always suspicious what people leave out, especially if it is centrally important.
I already said my focus was on penetrative sexual ‘debut’ more than on the hymen. Read through.
PCD and Adam seem to be arguing as follows. And we applaud the (ahem) logic:
‘Some may tear when exercising; therefore no-one ever has an initial penetrative sexual experience (which is what is commonly meant by loss of virginity).’
There may be someone who can explain what they are getting at?
The term ‘loss of virginity’ is more or less Christian, but its negative slant is not (i.e. the simple unisex term ‘virgin’ would be more enthusiastically embraced by the Christian worldview). Christians focus more on chastity, and that is maintained after marriage.
Ah, my generation. But I thought you eschewed generalisations about people Christopher. You are always accusing others of doing just that.
So, for the record, since we are all individuals, I admire Hugh Greene, believe that Germaine Greer is a nasty paedophile, and that many of those behind the Festival of Light were (as we have discovered) rather shady characters.
Your defence of virginity as something more than a social construct is of course patriarchal and also fallacious. Believe me, there is nothing so significant about a penis that it can enact a magical ontological change It isn’t even necessary for pregnancy – although that state, unlike virginity, is an observable biological state.
Nor is virginity an essentially Christian concept, so accusing me and Adam of having a secularist attitude is simply absurd. For example, it would be entirely possible to believe that sex before marriage was immoral and still argue that virginity is a social construct. Indeed, being a social construct doesn’t make it less real (if that’s what’s bothering you). Money is a social construct but try buying your groceries without it.
The Church of England Bishops, who are the prime teachers in our Church have been quite clear about this matter for decades.
15. In Issues in Human Sexuality the House affirmed that, while the same standards of conduct applied to all, the Church of England should not exclude from its fellowship those lay peope of gay or lesbian orientation who, in conscience, were unable to accept that a life of sexual abstinence was required of them and who, instead, chose to enter into a faithful, committed sexually active relationship.
16. Consistent with that, we said in our 2005 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.
The Church is pretty weird about sex generally. It is a joyous life giving expression and affirmation of human love. Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians are much better at recognising that part of humanity. It’s the ‘no sex please, we are British!’ approach that is another thing that makes the CofE look increasingly silly. Let’s hope Helen’s excellent motion does something to shift the dreadful attitude that so many in leadership positions within the Cof
E have towards sex.
Yes, sex is wonderful between a man and a woman who are married to each other. Outside of that limitation sex can lead to unwanted pregnancy, lies based on adultery, and disease. If the world considers the CofE silly for that limitation then more fool the world (and the Christians who side with it).
What does motion mean? Is it ambiguous?
‘It is a joyous life giving expression and affirmation of human love.’
According to the teaching of Jesus, it is only thus in the context of male female marriage…
And, and if you actually read the whole of IHS, it says that those lay people who cannot in conscience live a life of continence are going against the teaching of Jesus and the consequent doctrine of the Church.
Ian.
Firstly Jesus doesn’t explicitly say what you insist he says. Nowhere. Jesus talks about man and woman becoming one flesh in marriage. An important sacramental point. No mention of sex or of it being ‘exclusively’ for marriage.
Secondly, you are imposing a much later thinking about marriage on to a first century and before understanding. It doesn’t work.
Thirdly, do you really want to bring back a biblical doctrine of marriage? Weddings and betrothals of 13/14 year old girls? Contracts? Women being owned by men? Concubines? Etc etc…
Fourthly, do you exclude all divorced people from Church?
Fifthly, IHS is a discredited document. Full of inconsistencies and ambiguity.
Sixthly, whatever IHS says, for decades the bishops – the teachers and apostles of our Church – have taught what I have copied and pasted above. Quite clear.
Seventhly, for decades bishops have appointed and licensed clergy in same sex relationships. Couples live in vicarages, serve on synods etc etc.
Helen’s motion simply confirms what is already taught, done and dusted.
Andrew, and Jesus does not *explicitly* condemn polygamy or incest either. You are treating the NT as a car maintenance manual.
But read carefully, and in context, that is precisely what Jesus says as a first century Jew. As any decent (including liberal, critical) scholars note: no Jew would countenance sexual intimacy as being in any other context than male-female marriage, and Jesus’ teaching fits precisely in this context.
I am not imposing anything.
All the things you list are not ‘the biblical doctrine of marriage’; you are listing social features which scripture describes, not prescribes. If you cannot tell the difference between these two things, you are reading as a wooden fundamentalist. Most responsible Christians do not read like that.
Why should I exclude divorced people from church? Jesus allows for divorce.
Yes, IHS was of its day—though of course part of the reason for its weakness was that it was written by that great liberal, Richard Harries. He is the cause of many of our problems.
If bishops have taught what you say, they are failing in their ordination vows at the most basic level. The important question is what the doctrine of the Church is, as expressed in canon law and liturgy.
We are not the Roman Catholics. The actions of bishops are not our authority—especially today when so many are leading us into division and decline.
Ian what you said was …
According to the teaching of Jesus, sex is only a joyous life giving expression and affirmation of human love in the context of male female marriage…
Please tell us the verses where Jesus actually teaches this? Where does Jesus use those words? Because it isn’t in the bible.
I have copied and pasted what the bishops says from their pastoral statement! It isn’t me who is saying what they say. You can read it for yourself.
The doctrine of the Church is not some wooden thing. You are absolutely a fundamentalist when it comes to canons and doctrines and prayer books and articles. It is really quite funny! And very odd.
Andrew ‘Please tell us the verses where Jesus actually teaches this?’ In every verse where he talks about adultery and sexual immorality. As John Nolland points out in his article:
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/anvil/26-1_021.pdf
The doctrine of the Church is the law of the land. I am not a ‘fundamentalist’; I am someone who took ordination vows to teach and uphold these, and I take these seriously.
You don’t appear to.
Ian I asked you specifically where Jesus used the words you claim he uses. I see you can’t actually answer. And that’s because Jesus doesn’t actually say such a thing.
If you think that, then you apparently don’t know how to read texts. In which case, I cannot help you.
Yet you say just above that “no Jew would countenance sexual intimacy as being in any other context than male-female marriage” and in the same comment agree that marriage in the bible is observed as having concubines, mistresses, several wives, etc etc. You seem to be embodying the very concept of ambiguity.
Yes. I am contrasting the consensus of first century Judaism with the biblical record of the 1,000 years previous.
That fact is the absolute consensus of (gay) (revisionist, liberal, critical) scholarship.
Was adultery a sexual transgression in first-century Judaism?
Genuine question.
God prescribed polygamy in the HB. And slavery. It is simply ideological sleight of hand to contend that these things are merely ‘described’.
Ian thank you and I am aware of those passages. But I’m asking a question about apples and you are answering your own question about oranges. My question is specific and specifically worded and you have not answered it.
We aren’t making any progress so I will leave it there.
Not so Andrew. You asked about apples, and I answered from apple experts. All responsible commentators are agreed, regardless of their view on the matter: Scripture prohibits all forms of same sex sexual relations.
But for some reason you don’t like their answer, so keep wriggling.
“Responsible” is an interesting caveat to use. Who are the irresponsible commentators?
I’m afraid this just shows your obsession with gay sex Ian. I was entirely thinking about where same sex activity prior to marriage is specifically mentioned in the teaching of Jesus. But I am sure you will find some way to project that issue on to a very general verse as well.
Hardly. You comment at length on my posts which touch on sexuality. On the others, you never comment. Tell me who is obsessed.
Adam
The ones Ian and other conservatives don’t agree with. Though, actually, the responsible commentators don’t quite say what Ian wants them to say. They observe that ‘homosexual activity’ is condemned in scripture. Scripture is, however, silent on orientation and on the licitness of faithful ss relationships. To expect otherwise is to expect anachronism.
Christians think ‘desire gives birth to sin’ (Jas 1.15), and so do observers.
Your sharp disjunction between desire and enactment is hard to argue in favour of, but shows no evidence of having been thought through in the first place either. Mt 5.28 as well.
Christopher
If this is a reply to me I don’t quite see what heterosexual concupiscence has to do with faithful ss marriage.
The topic was ‘orientation’.
Christopher
If that was the topic I fail.to see the relevance of your scriptural citations.
It cannot confirm anything unless it says words that make sense:
-‘Intimate’ is impossibly ambiguous.
-‘Relationship’ likewise makes no distinction between sexual and nonsexual, which could not be a more major dimension.
And as though all that were not bad enough, what makes it worse is that this choice of wording seems clearly on the analysis above to be deliberately ambiguous – i.e., disingenuous and dishonest.
You have not addressed the Trojan Horse point, but it will not go away.
I agree, smacks of deviousness. But if you were to ask the man in the street what does an ‘intimate relationship’ mean, Id guess invariably he’d say ‘theyre having sex’.
But it is telling that the proposer of the motion doesnt just spell it out.
The issue discussed in Andrew Goddard’s article could not be simpler.
The wording of the motion is ambiguous, with the result that the meaning of the motion is uncertain, and it will give rise to arguments later about what it was supposed to mean.
So it is an unsatisfactory motion which should on principle not be supported.
Indeed. You would have thought that there would be a process by which unclear motions were filtered out.
Perish the thought, because that would diminish chatter, increase quality control, and open up time to strategise on parishes and mission.
I doubt if many “ordinary” people including church pew fillers will engage with the many nuances over language that are expressed here. There is a relentless inevitability as one reads the “pros and cons” knowing that the end point will get us back to exactly where we started. And so it does.
And of course that it because the vast majority of us are very conflicted between what we believe to be the truth and what we are prepared to accept both in love and in the need to be accepting of different sexual practice amongst those we know.
Most of us if we will only admit it are confused. We all know of gay clergy who are in some kind of “intimate” relationship (and most of us are worldly enough to know this means sexual in the majority of cases.) But those clergy continue to minister faithfully contravening what we are told in the article to be the policy of the C of E that: “The Church of England teaches that Holy Matrimony is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman, blessed by God in creation and pointing to the love between Christ and the Church; a way of life which Christ makes holy. It is within marriage that sexual intimacy finds its proper place.”
So it is not unreasonable for folk to ask: is this the teaching of the C of E and if so why is not enforced by Bishops who are supposedly the guardians of church teaching? I ask this not as to whether that teaching is right or wrong but only that it is still the orthodox teaching and what’s the point of it as it is not enforced.
But of course we all know why it is not enforced. The Bishops like the rest of us know faithful committed gay people. They may be their friends or family. It’s one thing to pontificate remotely; it’s another thing when a son or daughter comes out and is seen to be living a good life, maybe or maybe not Christian.
Those of us who may find homosexual practices abhorrent nevertheless recognise the right for people to do what they wish in the privacy of their bedrooms. And we will still love and respect them in the areas of life into which we come into contact with them.
The question for the Church is not do we love and respect difference in our personal interactions but whether being a member of an institution which has rules then limits us in what we do in our personal lives?
The obvious parallel is with the Armed Services where people give up all manner of rights (even to having Leave) in exchange for being part of a greater body for a specific purpose. Many many people have to do this in ordinary business life – often compromising over things they are not personally in agreement with – in order to conform and be part of a larger organisation.
Why has the church not done one of two things? Either enforce what is still the legal position – or change the legal position as this amendment is trying to do. It does not need a well written but wordy article to show that this is what this proposal would do.
Bishops are marvellous at stepping in on things that are only a mote – why do they allow this plank to remain?
People are always making the simplistic point that the church doesn’t stand for certain principles any more. In a generation, the C of E has gone from being instrumental in the removal of a King for wanting to remarry to allowing a King to remarry and have that second wife as Queen. Some principles! Which is right? Then or now?
Will the same be true of its attitude to homosexual clergy? Or in practice has it already moved the goalposts and is just waiting for the oldies to die out and change the plebiscite of the Synod?
Meanwhile the “world” yawns and increasingly couldn’t care less what the church thinks and just gets on with life.
Thanks Peter.
‘Bishops are marvellous at stepping in on things that are only a mote – why do they allow this plank to remain?’
Sadly there is another answer to your question: *some* bishops simply do not believe the doctrine of the Church they lead. They are more immersive in the values of our affective individualistic culture than they are in Christian theology.
That is why this debate rumbles on…
Thanks.
Yes, I think you have the crux it there.
However I will say that it’s easy to have strong views on these things when you don’t have to make a decision and much harder to be the one to take upsetting decisions that affect people’s lives and careers that you know personally.
Would we wish divorced people to be ostracised in socciety as they once were or single mums to be confined to those awful institutions and lose their children? And that was all church policy quite recently.
Yes, true. ‘Those furthest from the problem have the clearest solutions.’
That is why we must be both/and. My best friend at the time came out to me during ordination training. A member of my family has ‘transitioned’. And in our church there are several families with gay or trans children.
What they and we all need is the living giving teaching of Jesus—no more and no less.
Inevitably an established church as the C of E is will sometimes move to reflect how the nation it is established church of moves. If homosexuality was still illegal in the UK would even PLF let alone same sex marriages in church be considered by Synod? Almost certainly not. If women were still largely at home looking after their children and doing the chores and cooking and only working part time at most after motherhood would the C of E have ordained women and now have a female Archbishop? Almost certainly not. If the monarch still had to abdicate rather than be married to a divorced woman and be divorced himself would the C of E now remarry divorcees in its churches? Almost certainly not too
Simon
You could hardly more emphatically demonstrate that the ‘Church of England’ is England’s church and not God’s…..
Although some of the most full-throated opponents of “individualism” tend to rather coy about what they actually think themselves…
There’s an interesting question there Peter – how many people in the Church follow an ethical teaching of the Church that they themselves object to and disagree with? What about when that teaching they disagree with is actually quite costly to them? The only people I know who’ve done that have been gay people. Everyone else it seems gets to invoke their conscience.
The conflict for many Christians in the pews (and you get this from the Bishops if you listen really carefully to them) is that our understanding of sexuality has really shifted, now we’ve accepted that a homosexual orientation is different to and not additional to a heterosexual one, and that it isn’t chosen and therefore cannot be unchosen. Whilst we thought of homosexuality as an excess of sexual behaviour, that someone could just pull themselves together and snap out of, an ethical teaching that was (a) don’t do that, and (b) go back to your wife, kinda worked. In a world where the overwhelming social expectation was to marry (opposite sex) for social, procreative, and economic reasons, this also made a degree of sense. Any homosexual relationship was in addition to your marriage, not alternative to it. The question wasn’t should I marry or should I get a boyfriend, but more like do sexual encounters with other men really count as adultery against my wife? (With the clear answer – yes, it does count as adultery, it is a harmful betrayal of her and therefore unloving and sinful). Now that’s all changed. As soon as we recognised we’re talking about gay people, recognising they can’t choose to change their orientation or be ‘cured’ from it, we’re talking about whether same-sex relationships are a better path for them than an opposite-sex marriage.
Those of us who find homosexual practices abhorrent still recognise the right of people to do as they like in the privacy of their own bedrooms?
Peter, I can scarcely list how many ways what you say here is wrong.
1. Speak for yourself.
2. Is it likely that 100pc of ppl agree on the privacy point? 100pc of ppl never agree on anything.
3. It is a parroted, second hand, oft repeated cliche. The last place one would look for actually thought, whereas the rest of your comment is thoughtful. (It is probably a cultural meme initially planted and watered by those who wished it were true, in order to get away with what they were doing.)
4. You actually think that sins and crimes are fine so long as they are private? The reverse- perpetrators make jolly sure that the *worse* ones are private not public, for obvious reasons.
5. You actually foreground trivial things like instinctive revulsion while also forgetting objective and statistical comparative harm?? Talk of putting the cart before the horse.
6. Your presentation is individualism. Nothing to do with Christianity, more like its enemy and opposite. You have come across it in to ur culture and then tried to universalise it as though such a culture was the only one there ever was. Jesus was the opposite. Things done in private will be shouted from the rooftops.
O Galatians, who has bewitched you?
A recurring theme is the unbelievable way in which nonspecialist bishops and synods are elevated above primary documents and above Jesus.
Who could take it seriously?
Now consider this. The idea is that the primary documents need interpretation.
How convenient.
Whereas, for some reason, the bishops’ documents ‘do not’.
How puzzling and suspicious.
Why would the one need more interpretation than the other?
After all, the primary documents are already far more scrutinised than any other. They are also closer to the Founder.
I wish it were that simple. What primary docs are they reinterpreting in your view? The OT ones or the NT? Unfortunately the documents on most practical things are not a lot of help in giving specific guidance which is why we have these problems in the first place.
The C of E is based on the authority of bishops and Synod, if you don’t like that leave the C of E and join another denomination or independent church
The C of E is not based on the authority of bishops and Synod, but on Scripture, as the Articles say clearly.
If you don’t like that Simon, leave the C of E and join the Roman Catholics.
As you well know interpretation of scripture in the C of E is down to the bishops and Synod. In the Roman Catholic church it is just down to the Pope and Vatican, no laity or clergy involvement in deciding scriptural interpretation at all
Simon, I have no idea where you get that idea from. Can you tell me?
Great system. Most of the Synod and bishops are not biblical specialists, and proportionally few know the languages, making them ideal chief interpreters. Scholars shmolars.
The fact that the C of E line on divorce, women priests and same sex relationships and how scripture is interpreted on that has all been decided by Synod
They think en bloc, do they? One brain between the lot of them?
One might beg to differ….
‘NO!’ is a complete sentence.
No.
These evil- sayers and evil-doers; these evil men who have infiltrated the holy church
[I have deleted this post because it is in breach of my comment guidelines.]
Could an amendment be put forward adding the term ‘non-sexual’ after ‘intimate’?
To support such an amendment would be to state the obvious. To oppose it would reveal an intention to incorporate sexual activity into the meaning of intimacy.
Genuine and very specific question: what might non sexual intimacy consist of? Please be very specific in your answers as it will help those who might want to support such an amendment.
Andrew, please tell me exactly how many hairs on my face constitute a beard. Please be very specific in your answer as it will help those who have to work in contexts where beards are not allowed (such as food factories).
The beard is clearly observed Ian. Commenters here are obviously not clear what non sexual intimacy means. Hence a specific definition will be helpful.
You’ve missed the point entirely.
There are many things in life where it is not possible to measure and specify in the way you are asking.
But when something is ‘sexual’, somehow people know it.
I think you are missing the point Ian. People commenting here can’t tell the difference, it seems. So they need help to define what intimate means.
Non sexual intimacy is already agreed for 10000s of years by 100pc of people to be good. Thus, such an amended motion would be almost as poor as the original one.
If it has been agreed for so long Christopher you will have no difficulty being specific? I know you specialise in general answers but they are not helpful here.
But Ian was already right. Most people have no trouble distinguishing between sexual and non sexual. These words have proven useable and understandable for a reason; media can successfully sift content for a reason. If you are worried about the definitional fuzzy edges, then stay a distance from the boundary.
Christopher you are just being squeamish and ‘no sex please we are British’ and can’t say what the difference is between sexual and intimate.
So let me ask…
Hand holding?
Kissing?
Cuddling?
What are those things?
What are those things, Andrew? They are the behaviour of school friends. Family members. Comrades. Lovers. Many.
I suspect it’s not mechanistic or definable in some kind of pharisaical way, though, Andrew, is it? It’s contextual, because actions involving some level of intimacy might be sexual (or potentially sexual) in some contexts, while in others they will always be non-sexual.
To give one example (and I’m going to leave it here) – a consensual hug might be an entirely appropriate moment of some measure of non-sexual intimacy between friends, or parishioners, or family members. But it could in some circumstances have, or develop into, or potentially have, a dimension of sexual attraction or sexual excitement or arousal which would make it problematic and inappropriate.
Because of the different valances which a hug may manifest, it can’t be ruled in, as an action, to a quasi-legal list of ‘allowable’ intimacies, nor consigned to a list of ‘prohibited’ intimacies, can it?
I think wisdom and alertness to context, self-knowledge, and our own reactions and responses – not precise verbal definitions confected or contested on a blog post – will be our best guides to the distinction between ‘non-sexual’ and ‘sexual’.
So wisdom and discernment, and learning from mistakes, rather than simple rule-following, is what is needed in attentive living out of proper non-sexual intimacy with people who are not our husbands or wives. The meaningfulness of the concept of ‘non-sexual intimacy’ is not constrained or nullified by the complexity or otherwise of verbally describing or defining it.
Exactly so Derwyn. You have therefore rather answered your own point here and shown the wisdom of the original wording. And the wisdom of the bishops advice that intrusive questions should not be asked. We must leave it all to the conscience of the individuals and couples as to what may or may not be appropriate in the context of their relationship. Thank you for articulating the importance of that.
Let’s not ask the Greeks whether there are any soldiers inside this horse.
After all, we need wisdom and discernment, and answers are not always clear.
I suspect what is really going on Ian is that you and other conservatives don’t think gay people should be allowed to have intimacy lest they are tempted to go too far. At least Christopher is honest enough to say that it ought to be re criminalised. Both positions are sub Christian
Andrew, what is going on here is that you presume superior knowledge of others, refuse to recognise the absurdity of your question, and also refuse to accept the view of the overwhelming majority of critical scholarship that your reading of Scripture is in error.
I think all people need chaste, intimate, friendships, and many of our churches fail to provide this because we are infected with individualism.
But the sexualisation of relationships by you and other revisionists makes this difficult or impossible for those who are same-sex attracted.
I’m afraid that’s just condescending Ian ….let them eat cake ….
Ian
All my gay Christian friends have chaste intimate relationships. It’s called marriage.
Those are the only friendships that they have, in your presentation of things. I beg leave to doubt the accuracy of that. What you have done is edged out everything non sexual. That is, the majority of reality, and a rich majority at that.
If the Church was successful in creating a culture of friendships as you wish, do you think we’d see noticeably fewer straight Christians getting married?
‘Creating a culture of friendships’? Friendship is some exotic, unheard-of minority pursuit?
‘As you wish’. And as who doesn’t wish?
It seems that the there is a substantial employment of the heap fallacy (or beard fallacy as mentioned indirectly bu Ian above) in the motion, and generally by those advocating sss/m.
As for asking questions of SS relationships, I do not know what took place with Sam Allberry, but something that was previously unknown had come to light and action was taken. Whatever else it was it was a breach of trust, a breach of known conditions, conditions of office holding.
Does the motion argue that all ssm relationships are to be deemed to be sexual! So it is of no practical consequence if they are not.
Yes, the heap fallacy underpins this motion. And is employed in comments above by those advocating for ssm.
Although Allberry’s experience clearly demonstrates we’re not in a heap fallacy. When his church first found out about whatever this relationship was it was not deemed to be a problem. It was only later when they found new information that it was a problem that required them (in their view) to remove him from ministry. And furthermore, they clarified, that the relationship did not go as far as it could have. So there is clearly a line (i.e. not the heap fallacy), it’s just everyone’s reluctant for some reason to say where the line is.
How many living- together ss relationships do not involve sexual activity?, Is it rare in today’s world? It would be rare in m+f marriage. A clear admission that sex is integral to ss marriage is unlikely, hence the terms of the motion- employment of a heap fallacy.
Well there clearly are a number Geoff – Andrew points to the work of Wes Hill, Eve Tushnet, and Greg Coles’ assessment of these celibate partnerships (though I don’t think Greg is actually advocate of them) – even if you don’t believe the clergy in civil partnerships.
Well this is yet another typically angry Psephizo thread which seems to have strayed from Andrew Goddard’s analysis. This touchstone debate is coming at the end of a fractious General Synod quinquennium which has achieved little. The extreme polarity of views, especially on same sex marriage, has spilled over into all areas of the national church, especially the Crown Nominations Commission, a body struggling under the dead weight of tribalism. The motion in its current form will of course gain the support of marriage canon revisionists such as me, but will also gain much wider support based on earlier LLF voting. Regardless of the result, it will set the scene for the forthcoming general election. Finally, I am astonished reading this thread at the obsession with sex (seemingly only in the context of PIV sex, with its consequences for female pleasure). But then this is an almost exclusive male forum. Many covenant faithful relationships, whether by marriage or not, could do with a greater focus on intimacy and connection, rather than just sex (assuming there is any).
Anthony, all common sense and thinking people know that anger is a matter of context. For example, someone who is not angry at a child killing is behaving shamefully. Whereas you are making a blanket assumption that anger is ipso facto a bad thing. The Bible speaks often of God’s righteous anger, and to humans its advice is ‘Be angry but [in so doing] do not sin.’. Do you believe in righteous anger?
Secondly, you cannot tell from words on a page what emotion is or is not behind them.
Thirdly, that makes your dismissal of the debate as angry a cliche. Do you agree or disagree with the substantive points being made or not? That is the issue when it comes to debate.
MLK (to pick one example among thousands) was angry. He was angry because of injustice. So are many saints, precisely because they hate to see justice denied. Was he therefore wrong?
As to the word ‘views’, it is meaningless. It covers everything from hard-won research conclusions to selfish desires! So why would you use it as though it were meaningful?
Finally, there is no such [unified] thing as ‘sex’. Hence Peter J Williams’s Keswick analysis showing that the term was scarcely used before the sexual revolution (and endlessly used after it).
Why? Because it is within marriage and therefore private and not talked about. Whereas anything else is a deviant type and therefore not spoken of within general conversation about ‘sex’ but as a separate category, e.g. adultery.
You however is thinking there is one thing called ‘sex’ whereas in reality that word encompasses everything from sacred to foul. So how could thought of any real level lump all of that in together? In so doing, however, you are going along with the media-led norm. Unthinkingly?
Do you think the Bible and Christian tradition, or kind people everywhere, speak of ‘sex’ as though it were all one sort of thing? Or do they differentiate? Quite sharply, in fact?
And from the perspective of one of the women who still comments here, a largely white, elite, patriarchal, male perspective. Not much nuance here.
Sexist
And racist
And intersectional
And lacking a single substantial criticism.
The single, entirely substantial observation is that most people who comment here are male, white, elite, patriarchal (and some are sexist, ableist and racist as well).
Not all. Most.
These observations are substantiated by the discussions here. There is your evidence.
What was wanted was evidence for the relevance of this. It would be irrelevant unless said categories were worth less on average than others. (Purely by virtue of belonging to one category rather than another.)
I’ve just provided evidence Christopher.
I have said nothing about the worth of such categories.
It is pointing out what people already knew.
That is not the definition of evidence.
Further, most commenters are not known to you, so may not fit the categories you think.
Once you have pointed out what people already knew, you have still not pointed out anything interesting or of significance.
You have however conformed to the cliches of the day (i.e. done something which requires neither thought nor independence). People sometimes do that and think they have done something significant. I doubt you would think that.
Nor in that comment.
Nauseating ad hominem comments from Christopher Shell. He doesn’t like my *anger* motif, but whatever it is he is unable to separate issues from personalities. And only he will be the judge of what he terms so-called cliche ridden comment. That which he finds inconvenient. This really is a deeply unpleasant male dominated blog site. Of course I have to respond with ad hominem comments. Objective readers, if there are any, will understand that. I doubt you will hear from me again. But you might if any respond to the substance of my comment. A failed Archbishops’ Council attempting to preside over important matters, including safeguarding, without the skills and experience to do so. The Helen King PMM could be quite a wake-up call.
Psephizo doesn’t have a like button. Consider this one.
What is subjectively classified as ‘nauseating’ may none the less be objectively true. The subjective reaction is here tested as factual (!) while the objectively true points are not dealt with.
There were four points. Is the point that it is ‘unpleasant’ to indulge in critical thinking?
It may be subjectively unpleasant if that critical thinking reveals shaky foundations.
The four points were:
1. Written words do not contain emotion. Or if they do, there is no way we can tell.
2. Anger is not good or bad in itself but context dependent.
3. ‘Views’ is too broad a word to mean much.
4. ‘Sex’ is not a unified concept.
Does anyone else adjudge that these four entirely logical points are distasteful, unless to anyone unwilling to face up to them?
‘Treated as factual’ not ‘tested as factual’