Christopher Landau writes: In some of the cases of marriage breakdown I have known, a crucial moment came when one party no longer believed the marriage could be saved, and so the only option was to proceed to divorce. I fear the Church of England stands on the precipice of such a moment. I hope I am not catastrophising.
I certainly don’t think I’m alone in feeling a sense of weary resignation after last week’s Synod debate on LLF. I found myself amazed at the extent to which a compromise no-one wants was being defended as an ‘Anglican way forward’, where Anglican is an adjective with rather dispiriting implications.
But does this really feel like progress for anyone? Rather than facing the doctrinal elephant in the room head-on, we now have a press release confirming that hours of work will be poured into thinking through the implications of this de facto separation, involving “vocations, training, licensing, finance and all the many other practicalities of ministry”. As a result of the lack of direct Synodical engagement with the key doctrinal questions that lurk in the background of LLF discussions, the Church of England Evangelical Council is taking matters into its own hands, with a ‘Commissioning of Overseers’ service happening today at All Souls Langham Place, for those offering ‘alternative spiritual oversight’.
Meanwhile the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches last night offered its own assessment about the actions of English Anglicans, and how these relate to much of the wider Communion:
With heavy hearts we see with increasing clarity that they will not be deterred from taking a path which is entirely contrary to the teaching of our Lord as held universally by the Christian Churches for two millennia and that they will continue regardless of the hurt and dismay suffered by faithful Churches of the Global South.
How has it come to this? Depending on your perspective, you may have little sympathy for those seeking refuge in alternative structures. But these ports have not been created in the absence of a storm. The Synod knowingly voted in the direction of enshrined division within the church on an unprecedented scale. In effect, it gave the green light to detailed planning for it.
Writing on this site in January last year, I reflected on the different elements of an ecclesial disagreement, and the risk that the LLF process was failing to analyse the constituent elements of this particular disagreement, or regard disagreement itself as a potentially fruitful process of revelation, in the direction of a singular truth. Almost eighteen months on, it feels as though we are living through a collective failure of theological imagination, and from this impoverished perspective we are being asked to have hope for an outcome that delights no-one.
Indeed, at the very point that even bishops are voicing concerns publicly about the outworking of the Five Guiding Principles, and the settlement that enabled women in the episcopate, the Church apparently regards a new kind of settlement, this time on sexuality, as the only workable outcome. Never mind that it represents a further, profound dismantling of how the church universal understands episcopal authority; the notion of a bishop for a geographical diocese looks increasingly shaky as an ecclesiological principle, if these proposals are enacted.
It didn’t need to be this way. But those who have refused to support full Synodical scrutiny of proposals that are plainly controversial need to recognise the part they will have played in the creation of this fractious new landscape. I genuinely believe that CEEC and the Alliance would not have felt the need to commission overseers or threaten a new province if their legitimate concerns had been taken more seriously.
In a piece for the Church Times I suggested that what LLF needed was a ‘landing zone’ – a mutually identifiable space where sufficient agreement could be found between varied perspectives. But to find such a zone requires all voices in a debate to feel as though they have been heard fairly. We know, for example, that ‘conservative’ members of the latest set of LLF working groups felt there was an unacceptably large gap between their work and the recommendations that arrived at Synod; this kind of lack of confidence in the process helps no-one.
The question of ‘standalone’ services, and whether they are indicative of an essential change to doctrine, seems to be the latest front in this protracted battle. Into this arena stepped the Bishop of Bath and Wells, who pithily suggested to Synod, “If our church is one where our doctrine is expressed by our liturgy, then the standalone services look very much like a wedding.” The Guardian’s coverage made a similar point, when it noted, “Now campaigners hope that special standalone services of blessings – which will look and feel very similar to church weddings – are on the cards.”
If the Church is to be taken at its word, and no change in doctrine is being brought forward, a legitimate question emerges: can the nuanced, qualified welcome the Church’s teaching offers to a gay couple (assumed to be sexually active) be expressed through a celebratory gathering of friends and family on a Saturday afternoon, at a service that exists purely as a response to their relationship? Or does a ‘standalone’ service confer a sense of unqualified affirmation which frankly sits in too great a tension with the sexual ethics that the Church claims remain unchanged?
In this sense, is there a parallel between the difference in focus between a ‘private’ family baptism and those undertaken in Sunday morning worship? The former is purely a celebration for the friends and family gathered; the latter is one significant moment among several others in the context of gathered worship, and friends and family form only part of an existing congregation. The primary reason for gathering to worship varies substantially between these two scenarios.
These are, it seems to me, legitimate liturgical questions that Synod should be allowed to consider. Whether that will happen, and when, seems part of the calculated unclarity. And the main arguments for liturgical change now seem to coalesce around a sense that the CofE has compromised on all kinds of issues in the past, and this is just the latest. In effect, conservatives need to get with supporting this latest gradualist change to the programme.
I have noticed the example of the remarriage of divorcees being cited, as an example of doctrine (of marriage being lifelong) not changing, but pastoral accommodation nonetheless being made for divorcees. But there are two ways in which this is surely not an exact parallel. First, the nature of God’s mercy is to forgive repentant sinners, but not to encourage them in sinfulness. A re-married divorcee receives this mercy, and has a second chance to order his life according to church teaching.
Whether we like it or not, the current position of the Church of England remains that any sexual activity outside of male-female marriage falls short of God’s ideal. So unless that doctrinal understanding of marriage changes, it is more than an expression of pastoral accommodation to extend marriage to two people of the same sex. An intrinsic quality of marriage in classic Christian understanding – that it is male-female – risks being undermined if the church’s liturgy becomes indicative of such essential change. Or at least, this is an argument deserving of Synodical scrutiny, given that it lies at the heart of the split it feels as though we are all living through.
Perhaps naively, I do happen to believe there is a totally different way through this wilderness, which would avoid the financial and emotional cost of division affecting many parishes and every diocese. Part of my frustration with the LLF process to date has been the way in which established Anglican approaches to ethical disagreement and discernment have been ignored. The Faith and Order Commission and the Liturgical Commission were both excluded from the original work; it will be very interesting to see how FAOC advises on the nature of doctrinal change in the coming months.
But we have to ask ourselves, why are we facing an unprecedented split within the church at this point, when previously we have managed to hold together in the face of substantial disagreement? Partly this is about the frustration of those who do not see the need for doctrinal change identifying that proper processes are not being followed. But it is also about a loss of theological coherence, and the profound danger of ending up as a church which says it can officially believe contradictory theologies at the same time.
Rather than engaging in exhaustive planning for episcopal delegation, while failing to address the core doctrinal questions, it would be possible for the Church to maintain its current teaching on marriage and sex (which it says it is doing anyway!), while then also having a robust and clear Synodical debate about what kind of liturgical celebration of the goods of a ‘permanent, faithful, stable’ gay relationship can command the necessary level of support. Where proposed change is threatening the fabric of our church, and has already resulted in deeper fractures in the wider Communion, why would we not seek to follow such a course?
I am beginning to explore the notion of ‘compassionate orthodoxy’ as offering a coherent way forward. This would mean maintaining the church’s current teaching (thus conservatives wouldn’t need expensive, divisive parallel structures) while agreeing that at a local level, there would be flexibility about the hospitality being offered to LGBTQIA+ couples.The nature of that flexibility, and thus the nature of doctrinal change being considered, would be debated fairly and clearly within the life of the Synod. I find it difficult to see, in the context of such deep division, why this kind of approach would not be given serious consideration.
I find myself in a curious place in these debates. My passion for Christian unity means I am deeply grieved by the active exploration of separation, even when I am sympathetic to the theological claims that prompt such exploration. Looking at the Synod as a whole, I am amazed to see the church I love take a deliberate vote in the direction of disunity and division, combined with calculated doctrinal unclarity. I hope and pray that a better way forward might yet be found. But I fear some are increasingly tempted to believe that divorce is the better option.
Revd Dr Christopher Landau is the director of ReSource, and author of Loving Disagreement: the Problem is the Solution (Equipping the Church, 2022). He studied theology at Cambridge and worked for the BBC before training for ordination at Ripon College, Cuddesdon. Before joining ReSource, he was an associate minister at St Aldates Church, Oxford, a chaplain with the Oxford Pastorate, and an honorary cathedral chaplain at Christ Church.
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“This would mean maintaining the church’s current teaching (thus conservatives wouldn’t need expensive, divisive parallel structures) while agreeing that at a local level, there would be flexibility about the hospitality being offered to LGBTQIA+ couples”.
???
See my comments in response to Ian’s previous article – a church is not a set of agreements and commitments – it is God’s people gathered. If anyone is allowed to sin when God’s people gather – everyone is responsible. And everyone is allowed to sin – and will.
Please see my various comments below the Sydney Anglican video at the link below. (The issue of how to proceed in a godly manner is not limited to the Church of Engkand).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CqEXXJgFzC0&t=1132s&pp=ygUSdGhlIHBhc3RvcidzIGhlYXJ0
I’m not sure I understand what is being suggested in the following quote, wouldn’t revisionists say that’s what is on offer?
“This would mean maintaining the church’s current teaching (thus conservatives wouldn’t need expensive, divisive parallel structures) while agreeing that at a local level, there would be flexibility about the hospitality being offered to LGBTQIA+ couples”
Thanks Jon. My suggestion is that Synod would debate clearly the nature of that local flexibility and the liturgical provision that accompanies it. At the moment it seems as though Synod may be denied the opportunity to explore the questions about ‘standalone’ services raised by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, for example. So if that hospitality extended so far as to mean an essential change of doctrine, it would need to attract an appropriate level of support. In other words, if we are changing doctrine, let’s be clear about it and let the Synod vote about it!
We aren’t changing doctrine, hence Synod rejected Ozanne’s proposal for same sex marriages in C of E churches
So why are the bishops pushing something which the legal advice has said would be indicative of a change of doctrine?
The legal advice does not say that anywhere and you know it, a change of doctrine would have been full same sex marriages in C of E churches allowed
The legal advice said that in 2017, and it was confirmed in this session that that legal advice remains unchanged. Perhaps you don’t know it?
My suggestion – an amicable split. ‘Orthodox’ people get to keep the documents which show that the C of E’s official beliefs are unchanged – and the bishops get to behave how they like.
Sadly, the bishops won’t agree to that.
I was attempting to make a point and only realised that my point wasn’t clear after posting. (The point is that if those who disagree with the bishops’ current behaviour were given documents which listed the C of E’s past doctrinal affirmations they would have received only pieces of paper. A church’s beliefs are what they say and do – not what they have previously affirmed).
Not just the bishops, the majority of the house of clergy and the majority of the house of laity also voted for PLF
If the Synod voted to disregard the words of Jesus, would the Synod vote or the words of Jesus be the more important of the two?
(By the by, I notice that this is the question that gets avoided, and the very avoidance has four consequents:
-they lose the argument because the other person addressed the issue and they didn’t
-they lost it worse than someone who at least engaged
-they thought themselves ‘above’ having to engage (i.e. were arrogant)
-they showed themselves dishonest, for future reference, through all this, meaning that it is unlikely that anyone would simply accept what they said in a debate without flagging up questions about their integrity.)
By definition how the majority of the Bishops and Synod interprets what Jesus meant in the NT is how the C or E teaches the words of Jesus to be
One issue is that Jesus didnt specifically refer to this. It’s hard to disregard his words on a subject he didnt speak of.
But he did speak specifically on divorce, seemingly giving adultery as the only legitimate reason for divorce. Yet churches routinely have disregarded his words, have they not?
PC1
Yep. An easy fix is just to say to the churches treat gay couples as you would couples on their 2nd or 3rd or 4th marriage and treat single gay people as you would a divorced single straight person
Who’s disregarding the words of Jesus? And which words? Mark 2 when he tells us to consider the purpose of the law? Matthew 19 where he warns against celibacy rules or tells us some harsh laws were provided in the past because “their hearts were hard”?
And in any case when did the Church suggest that the Gospels were the only true Scripture and everything else is OK to be ignored?
Thanks very much for this article, Christopher. It’s one of the most helpful things I’ve read recently on this tortuous topic. Partly that’s because of your eirenic tone and obvious desire to work for a positive way forward, coupled with an absence of strongly worded criticisms of one group/individual or another. The style and tone of our engagement with one another are deeply theological in themselves, not just the logic of our arguments or our orthodoxy. There’s a great deal more I would like to add but won’t post it yet, but I do think there’s a way ahead which is deeply respectful of all involved who are equally brothers and sisters in Christ and doesn’t try to gloss over differences, including the differences over the first order or not first order argument. But to make progress will require visionary, courageous and humble leadership on all sides, a rejection of the finger-pointing blame culture we seem to have developed and a willingness to press the pause button. That will be painful and perhaps sacrificial. So thank you opening the possibility of moving forward rather than dividing.
Actually I think that local agreement happens (as I understand it) in one deanery (elsewhere) that I know of. I guess a lot of parishes are working at a bespoke internal approach rather than totally self-destruct.
Whilst there is an overarching Anglican structure parish churches have a great deal legal autonomy. They certainly do not have to follow the personal individual theological position of their bishop… who, obviously, might be out of step with the established doctrine of the CofE him/her self.
True. But neither do clergy have freedom to act in a way which is indicative of a change of doctrine.
Agreed.. But(right word?) their disobedience isn’t mine? I’d be carrying on normally and doctinally… consistently Anglican.
It’s the Bishop that would concern me, whether they would be truly supportive. I think some would, I’m not convinced it would be universal.
As “retired with PTO” I’m not front line and “nearer to glory” … It’s younger clergy I’m more concerned about.
But dont clergy already routinely behave in a way which does not accord with doctrine, such as clergy in gay sexual relationships who continue in their position, and bishops who either positively endorse such a set-up or turn a blind eye?
It seems they do have such freedom.
Ian Hobbs
I think a glaring danger of PLF is it actually takes local churches backwards in what they are able to do by explicitly prohibiting blessings that previously were allowed (at least informally)
If you use the word ‘backwards’ in this way, then you are enforcing that everyone has to agree what things count as ‘progress’.
What right have you to enforce that?
Why are people not allowed to disagree about what counts as progress?
Conformity to the sexual revolution which splits increasing numbers of precious families is NOT progress: it is clearly regress. Come on, people.
Christopher
I may equally ask you what right you have to question my opinion?!
Firstly, Peter, opinions stand or fall by how much evidence supports them. So I have no need to question it – the evidence itself will do that for me.
Second, my point is about enforcement. You were, unlike me and others, enforcing a particular way of looking at things as though it was non negotiable common coin. Namely – that everyone agrees and must agree what is progress and what is progressive.
How arrogant. But – worse – how inaccurate too.
Christopher
This isn’t my website. I have no power to enforce or limit speech and nor have I tried to.
You speak of evidence, but never supply any for your opinions, which often run counter to the evidence thar is available
Peter, what you say is laughable. I published two chapters in What Are They Teaching The Children? in which proofreaders were pleading for mercy owing to the amount of papers cited in evidence.
You are saying I never cite evidence, but have you bothered to check before saying this? Best thing is, just read my two chapters and come back to me only after that.
CEEC’s alternative overseers are:
-men and women
-complementarian and egalitarian.
-charismatic and conservative.
Due to an administrative oversight they forgot:
-heterosexual and homosexual.
Which means that someone somewhere may end up having the truth of the bible applied to them as a condition of acceptance. Unthinkable!
How could I forget? They also cater for:
-Calvinists (and therefore presumably those who while not calling themselves Calvinists believe in the popular false gospel built on ‘the unconditional love’ of God – where God’s grace covers evil doing)
And non-Calvinists (those who have read the bible and who for some reason have concluded that God is not a monster).
Monster lovers and non-monster lovers – you’re ALL welcome!
Why stop there? How about:
-Arsenal and Tottenham fans
-Badenoch loyalists and Braverman loyalists.
-Angels and fallen angels?
Charlie Skrine has a soft spot for the Bishop of London (he said she was a good person in an interview on The Pastor’s Heart YouTube channel a few months back) – so – last but not least:
-JC Ryle and the Bishop of London?
Not sure how complementarians and egalitarians can co-exist since they disagree on the biblical understanding of male and female and Paul’s teaching. They can’t both be right. I hope that many more women are chosen for this group so that the large imbalance between men and women is righted
I don’t know why people get so precious about this. The only way in which the infernal d-word would need to be used would be if one were a solipsistic Anglican, which would be shockingly narrow position. The Church has had disagreements over numerous matters for all its existence; and those who study these matters are more likely to take a correct position than those who do not (particularly those who are blown by the winds of social change). Further, in the scholarly world there are always minor disagreements on points of detail, which is good, because it proves that precision is valued. The only alternative would be that we knew everything. We don’t – nothing like. And we all know it.
It can hardly be said PLF was a compromise nobody wanted. It was supported by clear majorities in all 3 houses of Synod. It also was a significant compromise on the part of liberals which conservatives refuse to acknowledge. Marriage was confirmed as a lifelong union of one man and one woman for life and conservative evangelicals were given an opt out from both the prayers within services and standalone services. There are to be no marriage services for same sex couples within the Church of England as Anglicans in the US Episcopal Church or The Scottish Episcopal church offer.
Yet still it is not enough for some socially conservative evangelicals. They instead continue to wish to ensure that the established church of a nation where same sex marriage has been legal for a decade offers no services at all for its parishioners who are in a committed relationship. Some of these evangelicals also clearly have no time for what makes the Church of England distinctive, the Book of Common Prayer, the King as its Supreme Governor, Parish ministry offered to all residents of the Parish. Some it seems just want to change the C of E into a Baptist church in all but name.
Well if that is the case then divorce from them may be inevitable and beneficial for both parties. They can leave and join their nearest Baptist, Penetecostal or independent evangelical church and the C of E can continue as it has done as a distinctive denomination and more in touch with the 21st century England it serves as established church
‘It can hardly be said PLF was a compromise nobody wanted. It was supported by clear majorities in all 3 houses of Synod.’ What nonsense. It scraped through by a couple of votes, showing we are completely divided, and liberals voted for it not because they wanted it, but because they knew it was the first step on the way to what they want.
Martyn confirmed this: the ‘experiment’ would be permanent, and it must lead to clergy entering SSM. This isn’t a ‘compromise’; it is a ratchet.
Ian
Liberals voted for it because it was better than voting against it.
I’m sure there are some people who genuinely think this is the ideal compromise position, but I am yet to come across one
It got a majority of over 50% as same sex marriage was rejected by a majority of Synod and no recognition of same sex relationships at all in C of E churches was also rejected by a majority of Synod. So PLF was the median position of the average Synod member
A median amid normal distribution and a median amid highly abnormal distribution are very different things, as you know, Simon.
T1, you are being extremely inaccurate here, and surely you know it. As majorities go, these were about the *least* ‘clear’ that is possible. Could you give some indication that you recognise this fact?
What we actually have is the fatalism (or tyranny/dictatorship) that simply assumes that the culturally-conformist position MUST triumph. TINA (There Is No Alternative). And as soon as it scrapes through, voting abruptly stops, right? No reason, however, is given for this strange stance. It is simply a case of Might Is Right. They must think we are stupid not to notice what is going on.
A majority is a majority for delivery if over 50%, see Brexit which occurred with just 52% in favour
But majorities have existed for 1000s of years before 2016. Is your purview that narrow?
All I said was that it was not to be described as a ‘clear’ majority, since that would imply a substantial majority. With this you agree.
In a democracy all you need is a majority of votes and seats. That is it.
Of course we could go back to fighting religious wars and civil wars which is how arguments were settled before the franchise was expanded to universal suffrage and modern day democracy
I know. Hence lobbying and manipulation. Most good family people do not think politics is where it is at anyway, so we are stuck with those of a lesser philosophy who do.
And who says that democracy is a greater reality than church or than being led by Christ?
As to the majority always being right, that is not a view held by anyone of more than average intelligence.
As to voting making things true, red can be voted green.
And you know it. More thinking required, methinks.
In the Church of England what Synod and the majority of Bishops decide is how scripture is interpreted. You may need a bigger majority to change doctrine but even that can be done with 2/3 of Synod voting in favour
‘In the Church of England what Synod and the majority of Bishops decide is how scripture is interpreted’. No they don’t. This is not the Catholic Church with a magisterium! Again, I am surprised that you don’t understand how the C of E works.
As you know Bishops can introduce new services as long as they don’t change doctrine, if they do under canon B2 a 2/3 majority in each house of Synod is needed to approve them
Lol – how would bishops of a single denomination with various expertises be the correct people to interpret scripture when there were scholars (and also Christians of other denominations) twiddling their thumbs and not being consulted?
Scholars (and also Christians of other denominations) are of course completely irrelevant to the doctrine of the C of E unless they are members of the C of E and elected to Synod
I often wonder why people don’t consider how the church treats heterosexual couples who live together. If such a couple came to a clergyperson and asked for God’s blessing on their relationship, would we give it to them? I’ve never heard of such a thing. So why don’t we apply this to the LGBTQI++ situation?
Of course, hetero couples can move into marriage if they wish, and this option is not open to LGBT++. Even so, I think asking this question is useful for the context of the argument.
Yes, I agree. That was one of the major problems with the PLF proposal in the first place.
If a couple in that situation started attending your church, would you allow them to continue to attend if they made it plain they had no intention of marrying?
Gill
It happens all the time, though perhaps not with a formal service
In practice ‘local flexibility’ means that each individual – clergy or laity – must decide whether he or she chooses a divorce: divorce is not avoided. The reality of that for clergy is twofold.
A) it places every member of the clergy in a vulnerable position in terms of how congregation members (and parishes more generally) will respond to the stance taken, very possibly forcing the choice of capitulate or leave. B) it might well place any member of the clergy who was supported in choosing not to offer PLF at the mercy of a secular court which could judge that a case of discrimination against someone with a ‘protected characteristic’ had occurred. I cannot see how protection against such a judgement, under the quadruple lock agreement in the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, could continue to exist once the Church of England had clearly signalled a de facto change in its doctrine.
That is all true. Except that local provision can only be made in the light of the canons, which do not allow clergy to act in a way which is ‘indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church’ on marriage.
There is actually very little legal, canonical, leeway.
That’s an interesting point. O what a tangled web…
But the tangledness is precisely the point. Not only is Satan the author of confusion and chaos (and one could compare the deviousness of lawyers with the Jarndyce and Jarndyce spirit) but he is ‘subtle’. It is like being tied up in ever-increasing coils. The clarity of a coherent and integrated power-source becomes ever more distant once forces of that nature usurp power.
The warning has been issued a million times that (a) not only are the 2 incompatible, but (b) the latter could not be more tailor made to strangle the former if it is allowed to. So if it is not the infernal plan, it is absolutely remarkable how much it resembles what the perfect infernal plan would be.
That seems to indicate that the Alliance has obtained advice from specialist legal Counsel. It would be odd, not to say remiss, if they hadn’t.
That position evinced by Ian P would align with principles of Equity, such as the doctrine of (proprietory) estoppel, where it is a ‘shield’ (a defence to an action) and not as a ‘sword’ (a claim or cause of an action).
This brings back decades old memory of Equity and Trusts as a distinct topic in an LL.B. and the principles of Equity.
And far beyond my knowledge and experience here is a more recent case representing an application of one Equitable principle.
https://www.debenhamsottaway.co.uk/news/2022/02/doctrine-of-proprietary-estoppel-is-it-always-a-shield-or-can-it-be-used-as-a-sword/
As the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 itself gives an exemption from same sex marriage for religious institutions and the C of E itself specifically confirmed the exemption from PLF for those who wished to opt out
As for the beginning para, the very words ‘could be saved’ are so (a) negative and (b) fatalistic that it is unsurprising that only bad comes from them. The negative attitude is precisely the main problem. In the time such a person spends stewing in a negative attitude, they could hug, kiss and make up a thousand times, and do lots of other positive things.
Worse, the whole thing is written from the point of view of (c) a society where such evil things are presented as norms! They could be regarded as norms only if they were widespread at all times and places, rather than diverging wildly as in reality they do. And, again, if you present something as a norm, don’t be surprised if (i) those under the sound of your voice proceed to regard it as a norm, and (ii) it accordingly becomes a norm, or else [even] more of a norm than it already was.
So a strong thumbs-down for that aspect of the presentation, which however was probably regarded as a throwaway remark. Far from that, it is the key.
Have you considered murder? 😉 It worked for Phineas…
…
In all seriousness, the problem seems ever more intractable each month that goes by, and we can read the weariness with each article that gets written. You are, truly, stuck together until one side is able to force the other to yield. To an outside observer, it feels like watching a wrestling cage match, I hate to think what it’s like inside even if we do get the occasional glimpses.
I’ve said it before, and it bears repeating: this question of SSM is the CofE’s Stalingrad. Part of a wider conflict for sure, but also emblematic of the whole, and it will only end with the destruction or expulsion of one position. Compromise is impossible, and the cost of the conflict will be so great, and the wounds of it so deep, that the victor will go on to shape the landscape of the institution for the foreseeable future.
That’s enough analogy-torturing.
Mat
The reality is that the failure to properly address issues around LGBT people (and related abuse) has already led to a great many people not only “divorcing” themselves from the CofE, but also, more seriously, losing their faith.
While leaders squabble over who gets to wear the pointing hat, ordinary Christians are seeing a church totally disconnected from the teaching of Jesus – in particular dishonest and unrepentant – and LGBT people are once again being told that they are the problem
I don’t know what flexibility at a local level would look like if even blessings are a step too far?
I disagree quite strongly with theology not matching pastoral practice. It necessarily means that priests have to choose between upholding the theology (and therefore knowingly causing harm) or simply saying the theology is wrong. You can’t provide leadership if you are starting out by saying that your theology doesn’t work in practice
No, that is not ‘the reality’.
The reality is that the climate has never been so friendly in 2000 years to such a category (or collection of categories) of people.
Yet the thing which you find complaint-worthy now, no-one in the previous 1900 years noticed or complained about at all. When they would have been even more justified in doing so, if your way of looking at things makes sense.
Hence, we conclude that your way of looking at things does not make sense.
And as for ‘losing their faith’, let God be faithful though every man a liar. What on earth has perceived maltreatment at the hands of humans to do with the existence of God or the work of Jesus? Do they become nonexistent or powerless because of what humans may or may not have done?
Christopher
When the people who you trusted as faithful holy people turn out to have provably lied and/or abused people then of course it can rock someone’s faith. If you are the victim then even more so.
Research tells us that clergy abuse and negative treatment of LGBT people are among the top reasons people stop attending church alongside loss of faith.
What you are perhaps missing is that until around 10-20 years ago mainstream society saw LGBT people as either criminals or a disease and so there would be little or no disquiet at the church treating them as such. The church still wasn’t right to abuse, exclude or discriminate against LGBT people, but there wasnt a general expectation that these were bad things to do. Now few parents want to involve their families in an institution that behaves that way.
I was reading about a certain celebrity who attended a boarding school as a child. He witnessed horrendous abuse that he didnt feel comfortable talking about even now. I don’t for one minute think his parents would have been ok with that, but they didnt know it was going on. Now the whole world has seen the abuses being carried out in the cofe from teaching untrue lies about minorities from the pulpit to sexual abuse of kids. It’s all part of the same problem.
;Research tells us’? Which research? And has there been only one piece of research?
Christopher
When people are asked why they stopped going to church
Health of Congregations Survey by PRRI 2023 – around 5000 adults
Stopped believing 56%
Treatment of LGBT people 30%
Family not religious When a child 29%
Church leaders scandals 27%
Personal traumatic event 18%
Church became too political 17%
Which shows us that the culturally conformist are overlapping strongly with the unconverted. They get their norms and narrative from the media, and are the most likely to be disaffected with Christ (of all people to be disaffected with) than are those who have a more solid foundation. That is entirely predictable and stands to reason.
On a side-issue, why would people STOP going to church because their family was not ‘religious’ when they were a child?
As for church leaders scandals, once again you are being duped by the media.
-There is worse behaviour on average in the secular world.
-If you set the bar higher for some and not others, how is it surprising when a higher bar is not cleared?
-The worse behaviour in church office peaked at a time when norms were worsened through secular rather than Christian impetus.
-It is in the media’s interests (in the spiritual battle in which they are unknowing pawns) to paint things as bad as they can be for Christians. After all, that is the one part of life they (artificially) never mention, and try to screen out. It is the threat to their empire and to the extent to which it is a social engineering empire.
And a further point: recurrently the Christian-leader misdeeds that attract press attention are not of a level to interest police.
In my view, they ought to, but this gives perspective. They gain press attention because press is eager to incriminate Christians and also to highlight their actual failings, not because there are not worse criminal things that do not garner far less attention.
The survey quoted by Peter is of American, not UK, church leavers.
https://www.prri.org/press-release/survey-church-attendance-importance-of-religion-declines-among-americans-overall-yet-regular-churchgoers-largely-satisfied-with-church-experiences/
Interesting findings, but query how applicable to UK context.
Christopher
Denial is not just a river in Egypt
Trevor
British church leaders aren’t asking this question. Id guess they don’t want to know why people are leaving because it would create more pressure to repent from abusive behaviour
Do a bit of lateral thinking, please. The big difficulty here is that the ‘gays’ believe, and have persuaded too many others to believe, that ‘gay’ is something people ‘just are’ in the same kind of sense that people are things like ethnically different or say blue-eyed. In effect, they claim that being gay is like being black and any opposition to gays is therefore the same kind of sin/crime as being racist.
And that is wrong for a very simple reason. People indeed just are things like black; you can neither choose nor do being black, and no urges and desires to do anything are involved. Whereas it is rather fundamental to ‘gayness’ that people are very much doing or wanting to do certain in this case sexual acts, and by any normal standards they choose to do those acts and very much have urges and desires to do those acts. This puts ‘gayness’ in a totally different moral category to ‘being black’ or similar.
OK, that category in general is very wide – things people choose and do because of urges and desires is a spectrum all the way from the saintly to the seriously satanic. But that’s rather the point – nobody can just glibly say “I have such-and-such urges and desires to to such-and-such acts and the mere fact of having those urges and desires means they are natural and I’m entitled to live them out”. Even broadly good urges and desires may throw up complexities about when the acting out is appropriate; heterosexual desires are basically good, adulterous heterosexual desires less so. In this category it is permissible, and not for example ‘hate speech’, to question people’s urges and desires and the resulting deeds; while I’m sure we all know cases where we would really not want to be on the receiving end of certain urges and desires!
And note that (1) this category doesn’t just apply to sexual issues; it is about all human conduct and the underlying motivation, and (2) this is not just an issue about what the Bible says – it is a wider approach involving principles that should be of concern to secularists as well. A case made about this aspect could not be dismissed as mere ‘religious bigotry’.
In simple terms the ‘gay is like being black’ comparison is used to claim that homosexuality is entitled to the same kind of legal protection and support given to for example black people in relation to racism. However, if that comparison does not hold because being gay is in this different category, not of mere ‘being’ but of doing, choosing to do, and having urges and desires to do, then that degree of protection would be inappropriate. OK, in a plural society with much freedom of belief, they would be entitled to some protection as are people of different religious beliefs and practices; that is way below the protection afforded in relation to ethnicity issues and the like.
On the face of it the claim that homosexuals are entitled to ‘equality’ in the church is based on this idea of the comparison to ethnicity etc. And I agree that IF that comparison were sound, that equality would be unavoidable. But since the reality is that homosexuality is in this different category, it is totally legitimate for the deeds, choices, and urges and desires involved to be questioned and found illegitimate in Christian terms like any other sin which the Bible forbids. If those supporting SSM are doing so because they accept the comparison to ethnicity issues they are simply wrong and should be told they are wrong and resisted.
Two further points – Christians need to be clear that non-sexual ‘same-sex relationships’ are acceptable – see for example the case of David and Jonathan, a love described as ‘greater than the love of women’. And there would appear to be serious issues about a church opposed to SSM continuing to be the national church.
Stephen,
I do wish you would stop using the phrase “the gays”
It is recklessly provocative and offensive
I asked him to stop doing that before, as supposed Christians should lead by example and not define people by their sexuality, even if they themselves sometimes use the term. But he’s not listening.
Stephen Langton
It’s my experience and the experience of every gay person I know that “gay” is something you just are.
To be clear Stephen, you think that sexual orientation is either not real or a choice that can be unchosen? That is to say, someone who is gay could simply stop being gay and have a heterosexual relationship and marriage instead, and consequently the Church ought to teach that they should do that.
Why do these bishops pursue such a course?
Because, effectively, they are bewitched.
They genuinely cannot bring themselves to think there is any other possible outcome.
Ask them to rationalise this, however, and they have trouble doing so.
Hence my term.
I am often reminded of the witch’s fire in C. S. Lewis’s ‘The Silver Chair’. Her magical potion thrown into the fire mesmerised the children, making them believe that there was no other world (a denial of nature, only her constructed reality). Only Puddleglum brought an end to the falsehood by stomping out the fire with his bare feet. All this wrangling about how to live with sinners and those promoting sin needs the feet of a Puddleglum that ends the lie. There are only two genders, and they are the biological sexes of male and female. Everything else is a constructed reality by people living a lie.
There are certainly precisely two gametes, and certainly no exceptions to the nature of the dual parenting of everyone that has been born. Our knowledge ought to prioritise findings according to how clear the patterns are.
Yes, what you say is just right. And actually if people read Lewis, Chesterton and Tolkien they would gain an accurate perspective and there would be no more need for this groping in the dark. Most Christians have been shamefully weak when right and truth have both been on their side all along. But such weakness I naturally have never wanted anything to do with.
Most human children have one male and one female parent. That is the current reality.
Sexuality, however, is a whole different ball game. Not all sexually active humans are parents. And even those who are enjoying sexual intimacies that cannot result in reproduction.
Your argument is reductionist.
They do?
‘Most’?
Christopher
My daughter has three Dads.
Peter ‘My daughter has three Dads’ Not biologically she doesn’t.
I almost thought you wrote ‘three heads’.
Yes, Christopher, most. Some have genetic material from another human.
“Hard cases make bad law”. That it is now possible to produce a fertilised zygote using the nuclear DNA from one male and one female gamete, and substituting the mitochondria from another female gamete is very much an edge case. I guess this is what you are referring to.
It something done for the sake of the child, to avoid a congenital disease of the mitochondria. It has no bearing on the fundamental ontological difference between sexual activity between two people of different sex and that between people of the same sex.
Even in organisms with many sexes, like some slime moulds, two entities of the same sex cannot combine to produce offspring. Sex is defined in general by which sex in the interaction gets to pass the mitochondria to the resulting organism.
Ian
This is why church teaching is misfiring. Life is more complicated than you allow for. Through all of human history lots and lots of children have been raised by people other than their biological parents, yet your theology allows no room for it.
In my family we have three kids raised by two different step Dads and two kids raised by adoptive parents…and we are not that unusual.
Do you think Jesus died and rose so his church could be snobby about biological parenthood?
Peter, you glory in confusion here. This is 180 degrees wrong.
Families cannot possibly get as confused as that in normal circumstances unless its members are disturbed or damaged and have hurt or high-handedly excluded [an]other family member[s].
This means, in a high proportion of cases, stealing a child’s mother and/or father from the child. How awful.
Add to this the fact that a high proportion of the broken relationships that led to this mess remain broken and unresolved. This has massive effects on: the would be parent; those cut off (appallingly); and the child[ren].
Come out of her, my people.
Christopher
Telling adoptive parents they’ve “stolen” someone else’s children is part of the moral rot in the church.
Christopher
The Bible is full of queer families – adoptive offspring, half siblings, raped slaves, incest. It is hardly a model of cisheteronormativity! Even Jesus had a step dad and half brothers and sisters.
Families with step children and adopted children (such as that of St Thomas More) are not, themselves, inherently evil; and (Ian) adoptive dads can be far better than biological ones.
‘The Bible is full of queer families – adoptive offspring, half siblings, raped slaves, incest. It is hardly a model of cisheteronormativity!’
Penny—precisely. Scripture describes all sorts of things—but it does not commend then. Odd that you read with this wooden literalism. And even odder that you think others do.
Peter, will you read what I said? I said the children were stolen, not that the people you mentioned had been the thieves.
PCD, the errors are like the sand of the sea again:
‘Queer’: no this is a 20-21st century literary theory word that does not appear in the Bible, or certainly not in that sense.
Things appear in the Bible and therefore they are to be emulated, you say. Yes, Penelope. Cain is to be emulated. Evil-Merodach is to be emulated. Moloch is to be emulated. Satan. Judas. You knew that was a bad ‘argument’ before you said it.
If there were no bad people and deeds in the Bible it would be a dull story, right?
Jesus had a stepdad? Not according to the Bible. Whereas stepdads are two a penny, Jesus’s situation was presented as unique.
But this is the tendency to drag everything down to the lowest level of familiarity: nothing is ever allowed to be special. On which see CS Lewis and Plato’s cave (shadowlands, in other worlds – people imagining that the shadows are all there is).
I can see why people would say everything is special, and they could be right; not why anyone would try to make out that even the special things are not special but humdrum.
In GS2328, there is guidance on the purpose of the prayers for covenanted friendship. It explains why those prayers are in a separate section from the later prayers for same-sex couples in an exclusive relationship that might also be sexual:
“These Prayers for a Covenanted Friendship are available for those who wish to express their mutual love and loyalty before God in a deeper way. The conditions needed are defined by these friends, as are the type of goods they commit to embody. The inclusion of covenanted friendships in the Prayers of Love and Faith reflects the importance of deep friendship, particularly in a world in which commitment is often associated only with sexual relationships. Covenanted friendships embody a type of relationship that is both committed and non-sexual, which is not exclusive, yet deeply meaningful, particular, and seeking to grow in holiness. Use in public worship Covenanted friendships are relationships of an entirely different nature to marriage. Those who wish to seal a covenanted friendship may be of the same sex or opposite sexes. The friends may be married to other people, or unmarried. The friendship is by definition not sexually intimate. It will likely be expressed in practical forms of sharing aspects of life together. As with all friendships, care will need to be taken to identify the nature of the covenant and how the bonds of covenanted friendship will complement other friendships and (where relevant) the bonds of marriage.”
Despite that platonic assumption, even for covenanted friendship, there are glaring resemblances to the marriage rite. For example, (as Ros Clarke of the Church Society has noted), the conclusion to the final prayer is almost a copy-paste from one of the prayers that was added to the Common Worship marriage service:
“may they be bound in your love and promise
all the days of their lives,
seeking each other’s welfare,
bearing each other’s burdens
and sharing each other’s joys;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.”
Also, the dual <nomen nescio (i.e., N. & N.) is another copy/paste from the CofE marriage service that has made the notion that PLF represents “small change … in a matter regarded as doctrinal” unpersuasive. It’s the resemblance to marriage of PLF’s affirmation of couples (whether in a platonic or sexual ) that has led to the prospect of schism.
If advocates of PLF really believed that the prayers “say nothing about sex” (as GS 2358 put it), then they would have no problem with pluralising the <nomen nescio beyond just couples. They would see no connotation of polygamy in that extension to groups of friends. In fact, such a change would eliminate the striking resemblance to the CofE marriage rite.
For example, consider how the following paraphrase of the final prayer for covenanted friendship might resonate with a group of war veterans who had survived several tours of duty together, but had lost precious comrades:
“Faithful God,
In whose love we are called to abide,
Give these comrades in battle, N. and N. and N…, the grace
To dwell in the gift of devoted friendship
may they be bound in your love and promise
all the days of their lives,
seeking each other’s welfare,
bearing each other’s burdens
and sharing each other’s joys;
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.”
As it stands, the PLF wording excludes groups of lifelong friends (like army comrades) who share deep, platonic bonds of mutual devotion. It is that exclusion that inadvertently reveals the ‘Trojan Horse’ sophistry in GS 2358 for the lie that it is.
A better and more unifying approach would have been for PLF to be generalised to affirm a wide variety of covenanted friendships (including the one that I described), while permitting clergy discretion to use such resources as they see fit.
The fact that they exclude army comrades with bonds too deep for tears while simultaneously including everything up to and including pure self indulgence says it all.
The Bishop of Oxford would like to extend a warm welcome to a style of ecclesiastical governance called ‘The Anarchy’ and a chaotic series of schismatrices where it is antinomianism on the rampage and you will need a visa to cross over into the adjoining parish.
I think Helen Lamb’s comment in my previous piece was very telling: ‘to hear that the power that the Bishops hold as ordinaries is non-negotiable whereas the doctrine of the Church is negotiable is a hard thing to hear from our bishops’
The strategy of the Alliance is outstanding – it is based on the “Long March through the Institutions” a phrase attributed to the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) and then coined as a succinct mission statement by Marxist student activist Rudi Dutschke in the 1960s – and it has started with the all-out fiery radicalisation of the CEEC, the launching of the Ephesians Fund, the creation of the Alliance and now the appointment of ‘Overseers’ at All Soul’s Church, Langham Place and an open invitation to all those who voted against the Synod motion on the LLF to rise up and join ‘the Movement’. “The power that the Bishops hold as ordinaries is coming to an end” because super-accelerated numerical collapse, balkanisation, loss of authority, their immediate substitution with Overseers true to the Gospel and Diocesan financial insolvency are all now coming down the line very fast and this is just the beginning…..
On the Alliance see my post
Philip Almond
July 13, 2024 at 10:15 am
on this thread
Phil Almond
Phil, I like the glorious company of Evangelical Divines who have agreed to become ‘overseers’ or Episkopoi [The term was used in early Christianity to refer to overseers of local churches It has often been translated as “overseers,” “pastors,” “shepherds,” or “bishops”] in the CEEC structural differentiation project because they all confess:
1. The Finality of the LORD Jesus Christ.
2. The Centrality of the Cross and the Power of the Blood.
3. The Authority of Scripture.
4. The Necessity of Conversion or Confession of Faith.
5. The Assurance of Salvation.
6. The Priesthood of all Believers.
7. The Dependence on the Spirit and the Spirit Filled Life for Sanctification and the Call to Ministry.
8. The Commitment to Mission and Social Justice.
9. The Call to Holiness and the Healing of the Human Heart.
10. The Triumph of the Resurrection
https://anglicanmainstream.org/ceec-commissions-first-set-of-overseers-2/
Phil in addition to the revolutionary shift in timing, tempo, pace, cadence and dialectical energy of the CEEC – over 2,000 clergy have already rushed forward to join the Alliance and the Call has gone out to many others to put the Gospel, Radical Holiness , Truth and their Calling in Christ first and the numbers are growing – informal networks, cells and conversations are being set up in every diocese – there has been the immediate mass mobilisation of every affiliated movement forming part of the Alliance – there are literally over another 200 ‘Overseers’ ready to step forward., waiting in the wings. Literature, media, campaigns and initiatives are leaving the ‘drawing board’ and swinging into action – LLF was merely a break-point presenting issue, this is a Reformation kicking off. The heterodox elements in the House of Bishops have been the Architects of their own Anarchy and they created the emerging series of complex schismatrices – this statement sums up the future:
https://anglican.ink/2023/08/01/the-oak-tree-and-the-church-of-england/
But my point is whether they all believe and teach that the unsaved face eternal retribution from God on the Day of Judgement, or whether some of them believe in anhialation.
Phil Almond
Does anyone know the legal position of the closed service to create ‘overseers’ currently ongoing at ‘All Souls’?
Yes. But you’re not allowed to see the legal advice.
Well, that made me laugh!
But it is somewhat ironic.
What is a ‘legal position? Doctrine free, is it?
Liturgy reflects our doctrine.
So the question is: is the commissioning of ‘overseers’ in a private service legal?
I would think not. But I’m not a canon theologian.
What’s a canon?
I’ve no idea and don’t move in these circles…
I am uncomfortable about “closed services” though there may be reasons.
As to the legalities… Parishes often set apart people for particular roles (especially pastoral care?) and there’s no other legalities to consider.
Once again, the burden of proof is yours.
I think not Geoff 🙂
One thing I learned before I was ordained in 1983 was that if you want to lead a church, you have to take everyone with you when you want to bring change; my policy was that if anyone on PCC strongly disagreed with something, we would not decide on it without perhaps leaving it for a month and praying for wisdom. If you divide your PCC, you divide your church.
Most of the house of bishops clearly think that they are right, but if you want to avoid division, you have to work towards convincing others that the way ahead is the right one.
We have witnessed the worst leadership of the Church of England possibly in centuries, where they have intentionally decided to divide the church over a matter of clear, in my view, doctrine.
Any church leader with an ounce of common sense and who spent time before God in prayer would never drive something through with a wafer thin majority; God’s people have to operate in a different sphere- “Give us the mind of Christ.” The architects of division are our archbishops – they are NOT the architects of unity, despite their claims.
Jesus said a house that is divided against itself will never stand. You cannot defy God and think you are walking in the Spirit. John Dunnett was correct when he said that they had “thrown a grenade into every parish” in the province.
They have no credibility at all now, sadly; they have engineered the breakdown of trust, and Ian’s column earlier this week spelt out the details succinctly.
When bishops refuse to acknowledge they are wrong, and are unaccountable, it is time for them to consider their positions before God Himself.
Yes, though this is not true: ‘Most of the house of bishops clearly think that they are right’. It is becoming clear that it is not quite a majority.
‘One thing I learned before I was ordained in 1983 was that if you want to lead a church, you have to take everyone with you when you want to bring change?’ If that was the case nothing would ever change in the C of E. There was not even a 100% vote in Synod for remarriage of divorcees and women priests and women bishops.
It was not just a majority of bishops who voted for PLF, a majority of clergy and laity voted for it in Synod too
Yes but if you consider number who voted for out of all those eligible to vote
Bishops 22 out of 46
Clergy 99 out of 207
Laity 95 out of 214
Apologies if I havent quite done the sums right but I bleieve these are the correct figures
So what? Less than 60% of Brits voted on July 4th but Labour still won a landslide majority as only the votes of those who vote count
True, but bizarrely Labour got into power when 2/3 of those who voted did NOT vote for them. That tells me there is something seriously wrong with the system, dont you agree?
‘Fewer than…’
PC1
We have a FPTP constituency system. There’s nothing wrong with it. Labour were the most popular party in most seats. There’s nothing wrong with PR, but Labour were not campaigning for the most votes, but the most seats. If the election system was PR more people would have voted Labour because Labour would have campaigned for the most votes
Peter: Everybody acknowledges that FPTP gives a nonlinear relation between votes and seats, but look at this:
Reform 14%, 5 MPs
LibDems 12%, 72 MPs.
Well John Dunnett has certainly thrown a grenade into the CoE today!
Absolutely agree Ian. On Monday 22 voted for the motion out of potential number of 46 (there are 53 in the House of Bishops and currently 7 vacancies). So in reality there is no absolute majority. 12 voted against and 5 abstained. I wonder what the other 7 are thinking? So far in all the LLF main motion debates the voting I believe the maximum number of votes in favour in the house of bishops has been 23, so probably never more than half. I wonder if the House of Bishops would consider an anonymous vote (I think some of the abstainers and those not voting may be fearful of the consequences to them personally if they voted publicly against) requiring all the bishops to vote yes or no (with no abstention option) to continuing with the proposals. It is such a fundamental matter that it is not unreasonable ask for every bishop to make their decision. That after all is the nature of leadership.
Thanks Simon for this clarification.
I’m unconvinced that those bishops who abstained should be given a “get out of jail” card. If you’re not sure it’s got to be “no”.
Though doesn’t “abstain” mean “unconvinced”? So change – wise it is actually a “no”. Over half the HoB isn’t supportive and simple “more voted for than against” isn’t a complete picture.
i dont know about the church system, but I would think if anyone abstains, ie they havent voted either yes or no, then their ‘vote’ effectively does not count. I think that’s fair. If bishops or others chose to abstain or didnt bother to vote at all only have themselves to blame.
That’s certainly the maths.
My point is that “abstain” isn’t a vote for change. It’s an unconvinced” about a motion before them. And should lead to ” come back with something convincing” . If simple legal majority is all that’s relied on, all well and good. But to suggest the motion is supported by the majority of members isn’t true.
On the “simple maths” basis… If only one person votes “yes” and everybody else abstains where is ground for change? It might be legal but is it reasonable or sensible. It’s not the colour of the paint on the flower-arrangers cupboard walls that’s being discussed in this case, it’s a monumental change.
You think whatever you want, Penelope, but the burden of proof of the claim that the commissioning of overseers is unlawful, is on the claimant.
I look forward to seeing the legal guidance.
Yet again, the burden of proof is yours, and to take the point further any legal advice is confidential and the legal argumentation in defence of the prosecution of a claim of unlawfulness would be made at any tribunal.
This situation can be distinguished from legal advice to the Bishopric who have legal and fiduciary duties to the whole church, to advise and act in accordance with legal advice received.
There has to be a divorce between light and darkness (2 Corinthians 6:14), and the bishops are letting themselves be used by Satan. It is time to tell them so, for if the trumpet gives a muted sound then who will rally to it? This verse (1 Corinthians 14:8) does not apply to the Church of England, but to the true church which is one of its two contending factions.
This divorce has been longer delayed in England than in North America, because like any divorce it gets messy when the division of the household goods is considered; the stakes are higher here, and both sides are more frightened of losing the historic buildings and the right to call yourself the Established church.
If it comes to a forced choice like that the liberals would obviously keep the historic buildings as they have in the US and stay the established church in the UK. Indeed calling same sex relationships Satanic may well be counted as a hate crime in UK law now and certainly will be under Starmer Labour
T1
” Indeed calling same sex relationships Satanic may well be counted as a hate crime in UK law now and certainly will be under Starmer Labour”.
This is where the point I made above becomes crucially important. If ‘being gay is like being black’ then gayness would deservedly be beyond legal criticism and the charge of ‘ ‘hate crime’ would be appropriate. If gayness is instead in that other wider category of things done/chosen because urges and desires, then it would be open to criticism up to and including being called ‘Satanic’.
With all the property but a woolly message the liberal wing of the CofE would be in deep trouble and the ongoing status of ‘established church’ might not mean very much when they are half of what’s already a minority in terms of weekly attendance.
I didn’t call same-sex relationships satanic and, to be explicit in the face of your twisting of my words, I don’t believe it. God abandons people who refuse to knowledge him to themselves, as Romans 1 explains. I said that the bishops are letting themselves be used by Satan, in seeking to change church doctrine away from scripture without having the honesty to say so.
Anton
I too would hesitate to simply call SSM etc ‘Satanic’; but if such conduct is in that “done/chosen because urges and desires” category the description ‘Satanic’ could be used without being criminal, which would not be the case if being gay really were like being black.
The distinction I’m making there is legally important, and from a secular viewpoint as well as what the Bible might say. I think it likely that quite soon lawyers will realise that the current position accorded to ‘gays’ is in fact inappropriate.
Do liberals believe anything is satanic? It is doubted. But if so, how is it identified? Anti-Christ?
Do they believe that there are doctrines of demons?
1 Timothy 4:1
Hotly followed by, 1 Timothy 4:2.
Maybe, book burning is now in order, with Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis being near the top of the pile.
I commented above – or perhaps on the other thread – about what is satanic in the current church. It’s capitulation to neoliberal ideologies of growth, success, resilience and compliance.
Well potential new Tory leader Suella Braverman called public support for gay rights “monstrous” so from my point of view things are swinging back to where politics and social acceptability is with anti LGBT people, not LGBT people. We are once again being told that we are a danger to women and children and denied rights on the basis of Public safety.
This is highly inaccurate and defamatory, Peter – as indeed the majority of the press have also (entirely predictably) been. We know, and can analyse, their games.
What this politician said (check out the quotation) was that the ‘Progress Pride flag’ said to her one monstrous thing: that her conservative Government had presided over the mutilation of children.
So what was she saying was ‘monstrous’?
(1) The mutilation of children;
(2) That her Government, of all Governments, had aided and abetted this.
Your inaccuracy here is so high, that you equate the mutilation of children with what you call ‘public support for gay rights’. Not only is there no equation, there is no obvious connection even.
Do you think the mutilation of children is monstrous or not monstrous? I shall be interested to see.
To think it is monstrous is to have common sense and to care. To say it is not monstrous is both (a) to have no common sense and (b) not to care.
Which camp do you wish to fall in?
Christopher
I’m going off reporting of what she said. I wasn’t at the conference.
The mutilitation of children would be monstrous.
Braverman was, however, lying.
No children in the UK are having sexual reassignment surgery.
Puberty blockers and cross sex hormones do not ‘mutilate’ children.
Such language is inflammatory as well as being deceitful.
It si straight out of the Trump playbook: repeat a lie often enough and it becomes accepted as fact.
She should have the whip withdrawn.
Peter, that is nonsense.
First of all, you could and should check out the text of what she said.
Second, where have you been while the press for decades and centuries have manipulated what people actually said in entirely predictable ways. So predictable, that I would immediately have predicted beforehand that they would have extracted the word ‘monstrous’ and applied it to something else altogether.
There are enough intelligent people in the media to realise this is happening. But their editors and editorial policies censor them from whistleblowing.
Evil.
Of course they do, PCD. They lead to incontinence, infertility, destruction of natural development. That natural smooth development is mutilated. The body is diverted from its natural development.
But, Peter, you did not reply to me. She was saying mutilation of children – say, on their 18th birthday for example – is monstrous. And its aiding by Government is monstrous. Do you agree or not?
2) an 18 year old is an adult. As you know full well
2) puberty blockers have been prescribed to cis children for decades. The are fully reversible. Like all drugs, they have some side effects. Not the ones you are catastrophising over.
To claim that this is mutilation is a brazen lie.
PCD, you blithely accept and affirm the disruption of children’s natural development – you say ”puberty blockers” have been prescribed for ages. Because, of course, the more ages they have been prescribed, the less bad they are. Right.
You are obviously an afficionado of the magic bed theory. You go to bed a child and wake up an adult on your 18th birthday. Similar to the magic birth canal which brings you into existence out of nothing? Kevin the Teenager (difference between 12 years 364 days and 13 years) was a joke; however, some people took it seriously.
Nor is 18 an adult. It is a conventional age for an adult in one culture at one time, and even that culture has had different conventions, and recently at that. You are confusing law/convention with reality.
In reality, by contrast, people’s brains mature more like 25, and their bodies early 20s; and importantly, unlike in law, there is no fixed date.
Of course that age is arbitrary. But it is an age when people can bites, marry etc. I thought you would approve of the latter
In certain cases, young people can make informed medical decisions before that date, although Gillick competence is being eroded. But not gender affirmation surgeries.
Are you suggesting that puberty blockers should be withdrawn for cis children too? It seems an odd decision in order to punish trans children.
Isn’t Wes Streeting Labour Sec of State for Health,now making suggestions to ban puberty blockers?
PCD, you actually think that people all accept these terms you use: ‘cis’ and ‘trans’?
I can scarcely think of anyone who accepted such things before 10 years ago.
You keep trying to smuggle them into the mainstream.
And to enforce that people go along with that worldview.
You know very well that that is the worldview that they reject.
Can you see that this seems underhand on your part, i.e. dishonest?
OK since you want to play word games: would you ban puberty blockers for children who are undergoing precocious puberty (the main and primary reason why they are prescribed)?
Christopher
No she wasn’t speaking only about gender affirming care for minors. She said flying the Progress Pride flag was monstrous. Pride is the global campaign for equality for LGBT+ people.
She was obviously talking about gender affirming care, celebrated under the banner of the progress flag. Stop being tribally LGBTQIA+, lots of gays and lesbians are dead against what passes for ‘gender affirming care,’ and yes, I personally know some 16yo who were castrated after being put on puberty blockers. Talk to us at LGBChristians or the LGBAlliance. Puberty blockers are emphatically not reversible. They will alter your bone density, cognitive abilities and the development of your genitalia, to the point of preventing gender affirming surgery for those who want it later. Read the Cass review before incriminating yourselves. You are encouraging the re-medicalisation of homosexuality under the banner of some indiscriminate ‘public support for gay rights’ which is just as harmful to lesbian and gay teens as the conservative evangelical teaching that you claim to oppose. Do you really believe in ‘trans children’. Where were they all but a few years ago, and why are over 90pc of them same-sex attracted and over 50pc of them autistic? I promised myself never to comment here again but I must say: a pox on both your houses.
It is perfectly obvious from her syntax that what was monstrous was that mutilation of children was being looked on positively and that her own government was facilitating this.
The quotation is as follows. This is the only time she says ‘monstrous’:
‘The progress pride flag says one monstrous thing to me: that I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals.’.
Maybe a third thing was monstrous to her: namely the agonies she had to go through whenever contemplating this.
In no other context is ‘monstrous’ used. Agreed?
Right – now we can move on to ‘occupied territory’.
The ubiquity of this flag and its predecessor (a) where it was not before and (b) as a demarcator of who’s in and who’s out – these chilling things have often been remarked. There are no other comparable instances that one can think of – apart from the worse swastika.
You refer it to LGBT, but aside from the context not supporting that, the term LGBT is too diverse to be properly coherent anyway. It has become an unthought-through cliche.
And, Penelope, puberty blockers are only administered very, very carefully to children who are experiencing premature puberty (not cis-children, there is no such thing as gender identity) because later, natural puberty will allow for proper bone, brain and sexual development. They are allowed to experience natural puberty in time, whereas the poor same-sex attracted teens who are now brought up to believe they have an opposite-sex ‘gender id’ that needs surgical and hormonal affirmation are not. The long-term effects of cross sex hormones suppressing natural puberty are only now coming to light, and it’s not pretty.
Yes, I really believe in trans children. As do all who are involved in their care. Even the writer of the Cass Review.
But I realise that trying engage with someone who supports the inaptly named LGB Alliance is pointless.
From Cass’ own lexicon:
Labels can be confusing; young people sometimes find them helpful and sometimes find them stigmatising. There is no consensus on the best language to use around this subject. The language surrounding this area has also changed rapidly and young people have developed varied ways of describing their experiences using different terms and constructs that are relevant to them.
The Review tries as far as possible to use language and terms that are respectful and acknowledge diversity, but that also accurately describe the complexity of what we are trying to articulate.
The terms used may not always feel right to some; nevertheless, it is important to emphasise that the language used is not an indication of a position being taken by the Review.
A glossary of terms is included. Key definitions are:
Gender incongruence is the term used in the International Classification of Diseases Eleventh Revision (ICD-11) (World Health Organization, 2022) to describe “a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex”. It has been moved out of the “Mental and behavioural disorders” chapter and into the “Conditions related to sexual health” chapter so that it is not perceived as a mental health disorder. It does not include references to dysphoria or dysfunction.
Gender dysphoria is the term used in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR) (American Psychiatric Association, 2022). In the DSM-5-TR definition gender incongruence has to be associated with clinically significant distress or impairment of function. Younger children with gender incongruence may not experience dysphoria, but it commonly arises or increases as they enter puberty.
Gender dysphoria is the more commonly used term in research publications, as well as clinical settings. It is also most likely to be familiar to the lay public since it has been used widely in mainstream and social media. Like depression, it is a label that is used colloquially to describe feelings, as well as being a formal diagnosis.
Within the report, we use the term gender incongruence as defined above, and gender- related distress to describe the feelings that commonly arise or intensify during puberty and lead to a young person seeking help from the NHS.
During the lifetime of the Review, the term trans has moved from being a quite narrow definition to being applied as an umbrella term to a broader spectrum of gender diversity. This report uses ‘transgender’ to describe binary transgender individuals and ‘non-binary’ for those who do not have a traditional gender binary of male or female. The term ‘gender non-conforming’ is used to describe those individuals who do not choose to conform to traditional gender norms and ‘gender-questioning’ as a broader term that might describe children and young people who are in a process of understanding their gender identity. The term ‘trans’ is used as the umbrella term.
Ian, your comments policy requires people to use their full name, both first and surname. Many still don’t do so which creates a no doubt unintentional impression that they wish to remain anonymous whilst making very strongly worded and sometimes personal criticisms of others.
actually it doesnt.
“Do engage with the subject. Please don’t turn this into a private discussion board. Do challenge others in the debate; please don’t attack them personally. I no longer allow anonymous comments; if there are very good reasons, you may publish under a pseudonym; otherwise please include your full name, both first and surnames.”
That’s pretty unequivocal for me. I assume that as ‘PC1’ you must have the aforementioned ‘very good reasons’, but suspect that T1, and others, simply do not see their non-compliance as indicative of a departure from the established doctrine of this blog. 😉
Thanks, Mat. Of course there may be genuine reasons to do with personal safety why someone might not wish to use their full name (e.g. fear of/experience of trolling) , which is perectly understandable – being attacked online is very unpleasant But does that apply to all who don’t use their full name?
Is not the full name not known to Ian Paul?
I know, or do I, the full name of Mat Sheffield ( formerly know as Matt Sheffield?) and Tim Evans but don’t know either of you.
I also know PC1 as Peter, and there are more than one Peter who comment, but they don’t seem to be the same person speaking with the same voice, making differnt points with differing degrees of forthrightness, robustness.
There doesn’t appear to be many ‘hot house flowers’ who comment on either side of the divide.
There are others who comment with initials, who our host seems to know.
Yours in Christ,
Geoff
I do.
By definition it’s not unequivocal nor a requirement if there are legitimate reasons why an individual is able to choose not to use their full name.
The issue of personal criticism of others is separate, and Ian can of course choose to remove particular postings or ultimately ban any individuals from commenting on his blog. As He-man might say – he has the power!
Peter…
For avoidance of doubt, I know the names of both.
Regarding T1, even though I disagree with his stance on gay sexual relations and SSM, I dont get the impression he personally attacks others, rather he just strongly disagrees with them. However there are certainly 3 or 4 who do seem to get into personal spats with each other, but ironically most of their names are shown, though I dont know them from Adam, or Eve!
There are good reasons. In one part of this country (Scotland) there are stringent laws against peaceable free speech about this subject. Persecution is already here, albeit relatively mild as yet.
Hm, I wonder if the law in Scotland is quite as prohibitive as you suggest. I don’t see any evidence on this blog of comments that would fall foul of the intention or the letter of the Scottish law so I don’t think anyone in Scotland need fear prosecution for contributing here. Of course, being trolled or receiving highly personal criticisms is another matter entirely and is very, very unpleasant. And the tone of discussion can sometimes matter as much as the content.
Yes it is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_Crime_and_Public_Order_(Scotland)_Act_2021
It will be enforced selectively, of course – as it arguably already has been.
Yes, I don’ know why they don’t show their names. I know them from the information they enter.
really?
The paramount need of all people everywhere is to hear, believe and obey two vital messages:
The terrible warnings, some from Christ’s own lips, to flee from the eternal retribution from God which the unsaved will face on the Day of Judgment; and the wonderful and sincere invitations and promises to all, some from Christ’s own lips, to repent and submit to Christ in his atoning death and life-giving resurrection, and to obey him for the rest of their lives.
This paramount need is surely more important than the same-sex disagreement, very important though that is!
I have studied the Alliance documents ‘A Theological Vision’, ‘about us’, ‘Dear Bishop Steven, ‘Letter 7’ and ‘The Purpose of the Alliance’.
Do any of them commit the Alliance to believing, preaching and teaching these two vital messages?
Perhaps they consider that
“The Alliance is part of the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church and is committed to our Anglican heritage with a faith revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness.”
is sufficient to ensure that commitment?
I disagree. All the CofE Ministers have made the Declaration of Assent. Has this ensured that these two paramount messages have been believed and preached by the whole Church with the earnestness and urgency promised by those who have made the Declaration of Assent and their ordination vows?
The clear answer to that is “No”. The Alliance needs something much more specific to ensure such commitment, to avoid the danger that members will agree about the same-sex disagreement but not about this more important need.
Philip Almond
Anton wrote above
“… both sides are more frightened of losing the historic buildings and the right to call yourself the Established church….”
I’d suggest that the evangelical/orthodox side should be much less worried about both of those. The upkeep of the historic buildings is often a massive drain on the resources of congregations both in time and money, and objectively many of the buildings actually represent questionable values in Christian terms – nationalism in contrast to the inter- or supranationalism of Jesus’ kingdom, and for example the vainglory of elaborate tombs for the wealthy.
As for establishment, that too is a questionable value; I note that neither Ian at one end of the current issues nor T1 at the other end have been able to show me the New Testament evidence that churches should be established, where I and other Anabaptists are well aware of many NT texts offering a different and I believe more healthy way for Church and surrounding world to be related. Plus the idea of the CofE being meaningfully a ‘national church’ looks increasingly absurd with weekly attendance of only around 2% of the population (and on the figures of current Synod votes a good half of them dubiously Christian anyway….) It also seems likely that the pressures of ‘serving two masters’ (state and God) bear much of the responsibility for the current crisis, pressures a free church would not have.
If it became disestablished you would soon notice the deficit.
Getting to the very heart of society has been a huge gospel advance, historically.
Stephen Langton: I agree with your views about church polity and Establishment, but this is an Anglican blog and you woul not be compromising your view if you were to bang that gong a little less stridently here.
Anton
It’s rather the nature of a blog that one responds to others. I try not to myself initiate exchanges on the establishment issue too often. Recently T1 has been rather provoking my responses….
Christopher
I wonder? Establishment has been a more mixed blessing than its adherents are willing to admit, particularly when it has led to warfare and persecution in the name of Jesus, and I take a wider view than just the supposed benefits to our nation. For instance one of the problems about Russia and its Ukraine war is that Putin is running a nation with an ‘established’ Orthodox church. And have you considered the implications both for church and nation that we have a monarch simultaneously head of the church and C-in-C of the UK’s armies? How does that play to Muslims when UK armies are fighting in Muslim countries? Also note that establishment gives an unnecessary easy target to the likes of Dawkins, who is usually useless when dealing with actual Christian theology but gets to make hay with the problems that arise from the various (unbiblical) forms of establishment….
But – same challenge I’ve given Ian; where are the NT texts supporting establishment, and why do you think it is going to be better to follow a worldly minded “Surely God must want….” rather than follow what the NT tells us God actually wants?
I am leaving out the concept of establishment.
I am speaking only of Christianisation.
It seems to me axiomatic that if a nation has an established church then an absolutely massive amount of Christianisation must have preceded that.
Christianity has permeated right into the mainstream.
If that is not what we are all working towards, what is?
We are – or should be – working towards heaven, working out our salvation with fear and trembling, introducing Jesus Christ to those who do not know him, standing fast against evil wherever we encounter it in our own lives, and showing practical love to those we encounter. If the constitution of our nation permits it then we should promote Christian morality in the public sphere by constitutional means, but that is all. Politicised Christianity is a contradiction in terms, because politics is law and the gospel is grace.
The New Testament makes clear that the (true) church will always be a minority in every land. Neither mediaeval Catholic Europe nor Victorian protestant Britain was an exception, as Leonard Verduin’s seminal book “The Reformers and their Stepchildren” makes explicit. There is no such thing as a Christian country and there never will be until Jesus Christ returns; that claim is vanity. There have been nations that paid lip service to the truth of the Bible and the morality advocated in it, but that is far from being a nation in which the great majority knew and loved the Lord Jesus Christ.
Rather, the mainstream has permeated right into Christianity. Disaster!
Christopher
Christianity in the sense of lots of people born again by the power of the Spirit and voluntarily joining the ‘kingdom not of this world’ of Jesus -YES!!!
Superficial ‘Christianisation’ – definitely not; that’s what got the CofE into its current mess…..
Power of the Spirit? What on earth do you think provided the incredible impetus to make the entire infrastructure of the country a Christian one, when people were living in comparative poverty and giving selflessly?
Modern much-vaunted Spirit filled congregations largely have had to use buildings already put up by others, not showing anything like the same amount of impetus, even in an age when buildings are more easily built.
Plus, there is no need at all for infrastructure churches to be dead, and many are in fact alive. There is no ceiling on the number that can be alive.
Anton, different countries are different to greater or lesser degrees, preferably greater.
Second, there is no ceiling to how Christian they can potentially be.
Third, you think to dictate whether countries can be Christian or not? But who says? And anyway, don’t we want them to be? And will our negative thinking make this more likely or less likely?
If a country reaches the point where its Christianity is the main thing that can be said about it, then of course that is a Christian country.
There can be secular countries, there can be communist countries, but there cannot be Christian ones?
(a) No logic in that; (b) whose side are you on if you allow negative types of country but not positive types?
Or is it more that you are repeating not fully digested cliches without considering enough whether they were ever true or noe?
Christopher,
No need for insults.
In the NT the church is a people called out from every nation. I take the NT to be normative until Christ returns; don’t you? Have you thought through the implications of that statement? Or that every serious believer will suffer for his or her faith (2 Tim 3)? That wouldn’t happen in a genuinely Christian nation, would it?
There is no upper limit in any nation in principle, but we are warned that most will not repent. If we are to discuss this constructively then you had better define what you mean by a Christian country, such that your criteria can be applied to any nation in any era so as to settle whether it is one or not. Please supply such criteria. Such a nation should of course be like heaven on earth to live in – for believers and for the small number of nonbelievers in it alike.
Please give me an example of a Christian country, at a time in history of your choosing, please. Perhaps the effort, and the awareness it ought to bring that in every nation at every epoch there are serious entrenched social injustices and corruption, and widespread immorality, will reveal to you the impossibility of the task. Politics is Satan’s playground to the end of the age.
Politicised Christianity has given us rather a form of Trinitarian Judaism.
Countries are manmade and arbitrary and changeable, but in large scale geographical areas one thinks of – Ugandan revival, The Moravians, Argentine revival, pockets of modern south Nigeria, Welsh revival. And so it goes on. These are examples of society being coloured and defined by one particular characteristic that shines out. You can say not every individual is Christian. Which would be to focus irrationally on the negative, since not every one is not, either. But in many countries at different times it has been most people.
It is arbitrary how to divide up into nations, so whatever can happen in a town can happen in a nation – indeed, a town could be classified as a nation.
None of the above is the ceiling for what is possible. What is possible cannot be defined. So even higher degrees of national Christianity than the above are possible.
To say nothing of 12500 parish churches in the UK, the vast majority way beyond any buildings now being built in an age of greater technology.
The elephant in the room.
Christopher
Biblically there is a Christian nation – that nation is the CHURCH; and the Church is international, supranational, not a kingdom of this world, described by Peter as operating like the Jewish ‘Diaspora’, living as ‘resident aliens (‘parepidemoi’) among the nations of the world. The world’s nations are just that – the world out of which people are called into Jesus’ kingdom……
that is where we reach agreement.
Many Muslims welcome having an established church and bishops in the Lords as without it there would be a further advance to secularism.
Dawkins also has few concerns about the C of E, it is hardline evangelical churches and radical Islam he has said he is most concerned about
T1
Ummm… does it really not occur to you that a position supported by Islam and Dawkins is probably not an actually Christian position?
Plus I think you will find that the hardline evangelicals that concern Dawkins most are precisely the ones who are seeking something like ‘establishment’?
It is even Muslims prefer an established Christian church than aggressive atheism.
No the hardline evangelicals Dawkins doesn’t like are precisely those who don’t like gay marriage or even same sex blessings and are hardline anti abortion etc and put firm social conservatism ahead of being in an established church
I see little point in trying to craft a compromise at this stage. The ‘conservative’ doesn’t want to be associated with any of this. The ‘progressive’ wing doesn’t see a case for differentiation when the changes are so minimal.
We’re blundering about because we’re still inexplicably trying to implement the Pilling Report. We’ve had a lot of conversations, but the rush to work out the extent to which we can agree to disagree has skipped over the part where we work the scope of disagreement.
I don’t think anythings going to change until we get on with the task of rewriting Issues in Human Sexuality. That this needs to be replaced is a rare point of consensus – at the last Synod, Robert Thompson wanted it replaced, and so did Charlie Skrine. The Cornes Amendment was about trying to ensure it really would be replaced rather than deleted.
The votes in Synod on LLF and PLF haven’t been changing. The shifts in numbers look to be about changed Synod members (farewell Jayne Ozanne, hello Helen Lamb) as much as changed minds. Getting into the replacement of Issues would change that. We may have a narrow majority for PLF, but I wonder what the votes would like on questions like whether people can describe themselves as gay, whether they should expect change in orientation, whether they should be encouraged into straight marriages, whether those in same-sex marriages should be told to divorce, whether we should reverse the decision to allow clergy to have civil partnerships, whether celibacy is a rule to be prescribed or a calling to be discerned, etc. etc..
Whilst I expect we’d find more agreement and maybe consensus than we realise, it would clarify the point at which we disagree and whether a suggested third province would be maintaining current teaching and practice or something different (and therefore what those being sold such a province are really being asked to sign up to). There’s a massive difference between having a Synod split between two camps – one arguing for anything goes as long as you’re in love, and other inspired by Rosaria Butterfield to rebuild the ex-gay movement – and a Synod split between those arguing gay people are to live a rule of strict celibacy, and those arguing for sexless marriages (not to mention the two camps may be an illusion covering a wider range of views).
One way to do it would be to split the proposed replacement of Issues in order to have a motion in parts – start with the most basic questions around orientation and build up from there and see how far along Synod can get.
AJB
The most basic question here is “Is being gay the same kind of thing as being black?”
If it really is, then we’re in one kind of discussion and the evangelicals will lose.
But if that isn’t so we are in a very different kind of discussion and the so-called ‘liberals’ will lose. ( And ‘the gays’ will have to settle for real equality rather than the somewhat privileged position they are currently claiming…..
That’s an opaque question.
The more precise, direct, and therefore helpful approach would start with:
Is there such a thing as sexuality and sexual orientation?
Do we understand ‘gay’ or ‘homosexual’ to be a sexuality or sexual orientation?
Is your sexuality and orientation chosen, manipulated or changeable (at will)?
These are the sorts of questions Issues tried to look at to start with when examining the phenomenon of homosexual love.
Shaped by the Gospel? Are we?
How frustrating for Welby that some ultraliberals are too impatient and hotheaded to grasp that he is on their side!
The correct evangelical response to the bishops is: By proceeding with your plans despite our warnings, you are demonstrating that – despite your words – you place higher priority on your agenda than on unity. We place higher priority on ours, too; we are no different in that. But we have holy scripture on our side. What have you on yours, beyond the spirit of the age and the church’s worldly resources, which you are proving unable to preserve based on attendance and donations?
He isn’t, otherwise he would have proposed full same sex marriages in C of E churches
As I said, how frustrating for Welby that some ultraliberals are too impatient and hotheaded to grasp that he is on their side.
‘As I said, how frustrating for Welby that some ultraliberals are too impatient and hotheaded to grasp that he is on their side.’ I think they actually know this, but it is politically inconvenient to admit it.
Welby isn’t, he made clear how even prayers of blessing would create problems with the African church and he is very pro close links with them. If Synod had voted for same sex marriage Welby would likely resign. Remember Welby is from the HTB conservative evangelical wing of the C of E not the liberal Catholic wing
Simon/T1, you don’t appear to have followed what is happening in the Communion at all. The Global South no longer recognise Justin as Primate of the Communion because he has claimed that there are two different doctrines of marriage.
Seriously, did you miss that? Justin has split the Communion. You haven’t noticed? I am amazed.
Have you ever been to HTB? The worship is as deafening as a pop concert. And Welby says that he speaks in tongues privately, which is emphatically not conservative evangelical behaviour.
Since when was loud music with guitars and drums incompatible with conservative evangelical Christianity?
Adam, you don’t appear to understand the dynamics of evangelical belief across the Church of England. I think this explains your missteps in your engagement here…
AJB: Loud pop-style worship is strongly related strongly to worshippers’ feelings, and conservative evangelicalism is against emotionalism. There is no theological incompatibility between an amplified popular music style of worship and conservative evangelicalism, but in the churches of our culture they are strongly negatively correlated.
HTB would be at ease with the description “charismatic evangelical”.
The Anglican communion was split already, the Scottish Episcopal church and TEC in the USA already offer full same sex marriages. African Anglican churches outside S Africa may not offer any recognition of same sex relationships but then in much of Africa homosexuality is illegal.
The Anglican communion was founded 3 centuries after the C of E and is only a very loose relationship anyway. If it splits so what? It is the C of E only in England we should be concerned about. The Primate has no power like the Pope does over RCs worldwide, it is merely a symbolic role, if anything you could just rotate it between leaders of each Anglican province
So you don’t care if the Communion is split, despite the serious signals that sends.
But your comment that Justin had the support of African bishops was a statement of ignorance.
AJ Bell – I always thought of myself as a ‘conservative evangelical’ – and the ‘conservative’ meant that we liked solid hymns by Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, the Scottish metrical psalms and hymns of that kind, accompanied by an organ (the Free Church tried four part a capella – nice idea, but it became clear to me at the Buccleuch Free Church that expecting the congregation to do four part singing without an organ just didn’t seem to work – but we tried anyway – and enjoyed it).
This (at least back in the 1980’s) was what the ‘conservative’ part of ‘conservative evangelical’ actually meant. The ‘evangelicals’ without the ‘conservative’ prefix used more modern worship songs accompanied by guitar.
I have been ‘out of the country’ for 36 years and I appreciate (of course) that terminology may have changed during that time.
It doesn’t send any signals except the Church of England and other western Anglican churches will not be dictated to by churches of African nations where homosexuality is illegal. Nobody is forcing African Anglican churches to perform same sex marriages or even services of prayer for same sex couples but if they throw a strop and threaten to leave the Anglican communion because the established church of a nation where same sex marriage is legal has voted to perform services of prayer for those same sex couples married in UK law then that is up to them.
I never once said anywhere Welby had the support of African bishops, I said he recognised the differences PLF would have in Africa and did not support same sex marriages. Anyway enjoy Welby while you can because he is as conservative evangelical an Archbishop as you will get for the next decade, the next Archbishop will almost certainly be a liberal Catholic on the usual rotation and with the Starmer government approving them
Simon T1, I don’t know how many times we have to repeat this: Justin is not seen as an evangelical by evangelicals. He himself has said he has disowned his roots in that tradition. He is a liberal.
I am much less bothered about the tradition of the next ABC: but what I want is someone honest.
Well who cares, in the Church of England he is on the conservative evangelical wing. Not the liberal Catholic wing.
Yes he may not be a Trump supporting Baptist evangelical but in Anglican terms he certainly is.
‘Well who cares’ whether we are engaging with reality.
You can see from the Alliance letter that no evangelicals see Justin as an evangelical.
Simon, why on earth do we have to accept this odd model of ‘wings’?
As NT Wright said, birds need bodies as well as wings.
The Evangelical Alliance was founded by Baptists and Congregationalists mainly, it is not an Anglican organisation
It is ecumenical. is that bad?
As the C of E is established church so has both a Catholic and Evangelical, liberal and conservative wing
T1
1) You do realise that the reason the world has problems with ‘radical Islam’ is because unlike Jesus Muhammad set up his religion to be an effectively established religion willing to use armies and police powers to spread and enforce it?
2) I think that at any rate Dawkins will be a lot less concerned about ‘hard-line evangelicals’ like me who regard Christianity as voluntary, compared to those who are trying to have their ‘hard-line evangelicalism’ legally empowered and enforced. His relative happiness with the CofE is about its wooliness and relative ‘toothlessness’ as an established religion.
3) Challenge A – can you please show me the scriptures which teach that Jesus’ ‘ekklesia’ is meant to be established or anything similar – as opposed to the many NT texts which teach a different way of doing things…..
4) Challenge B – do you believe that ‘being gay is the same kind of thing as being black’? Despite the actually glaringly obvious differences…..
Islam isn’t an established religion anywhere outside of bits of North Africa and parts of the Middle East and South Asia like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Yemen.
Dawkins despises evangelicals like you, he regards your views on issues like homosexuality and abortion as dangerous. The fact the C of E is more liberal yes does mean he has less concerns about it.
The C of E was set up precisely to be the established church, that is the entire point of it!
Clearly you don’t but the Equality Act does and homophobia can be prosecuted as hate speech under the Public Order Act now as much as racism is
T1
While Islam is not an established religion everywhere it exists, it is still a fact that Muhammad set it up as such and personally fought wars for the faith and persecuted dissenters. The modern ‘radicals’ are essentially just following his example and unlike Christianity there is nothing in the religion to contradict his bad example, so there is a constant risk of such radicalism.
I’m sure there are lots of things in my views that Dawkins would disagree with; but he would disagree even more with evangelicals such as many ‘Trumpists’ in the USA who want to legally enforce their views on society at large. For the record because of my broadly ‘Anabaptist’ beliefs I was one of the few Christians I knew in the early 1970s who supported the decriminalisation of homosexuality even while disagreeing with the practice. And while Dawkins may be cosy about the modern woolly liberal CofE, he certainly wouldn’t have been happy with the past version of the CofE which persecuted peaceable Christians like John Bunyan, let alone Henry VIII’s version which burnt several Anabaptists at the proverbial stake…..
It is kind of true that being the established church is almost ‘the entire point of’ the CofE. But whose point? I’ll repeat the challenge to you (‘A’ above…) to prove it to be God’s/Jesus’ point by producing the scriptures teaching that ANY part of the Church is meant to be established or any of the other versions of state church that have been tried over the centuries. If it’s not God’s point but the idea of the likes of Henry VIII, doing establishment is disobeying God no matter how wonderful a line of ‘apostolic succession’ you can show…..
The level of protection accorded to homosexuality depends on your answer to my second challenge (‘B’)above. “As racism is” should apply only if it is true that homosexuality is comparable to ethnicity; and it ain’t, and UK law, lawyers, and lawmakers will eventually realise that….
Only if Muslims became the majority of the UK population but they are currently just 6% of it.
Even in the UK a number of Baptists or independent evangelicals would agree with Trump on restricting abortion and restricting Trans rights.
The C of E doesn’t need to prove the scriptures teach anything as its members like me are ideologically committed to it remaining the established church (justified as a church of apostolic succession descended from St Peter as first Pope). If like you you don’t believe in established churches you would never be in the C of E, the RC church or indeed any other church of apostolic succession anyway
You may dispute UK law but currently UK law gives as much protection against homophobia as racial abuse
It would seem to me that with the recent appointment of overseers by the CEEC, the divorce has now arrived even if it is in a de facto sense. I cannot see this development being backtracked and will need some kind of formal acknowledgement as the whole LLF spins itself out
Well if they wish to divorce despite an opt out being given them from PLF that just makes same sex marriage in the C of E inevitable as if the conservative evangelicals leave the liberals that remain will get a 2/3 majority by default
T1
2/3 of what is already a laughably small proportion of the population for a supposedly national church….
It is a national church in that the average English person feels closer to the C of E than the RC or conservative evangelical churches. Certainly even Christians who rarely go to church will still often use their local C of E Parish church for weddings and funerals and baptisms
Simon, I don’t think the ‘average person’ feels close to any church.
Plenty do still use them for weddings, funerals and baptisms though, to attend Remembrance Sunday events, even for nurseries, flower festivals, concerts or cafes.
Chris, there is still hope that they can backtrack if the necessary courageous, humble and painful leadership can be shown on ALL sides, but I agree it doesn’t look good. If the language can be toned down and the strident finger-pointing and blame/victim positioning replaced by humility BY ALL then we can find a way through, but not if any group insists totally on it’s way. ‘Twas ever thus in the sorry annals of splits in the church – groups have so often adopted no compromise positions and claimed to be the only ones representing God. Then egos can sometimes get involved and change becomes stymied by the fear of losing face or the need to remain a part of a group. These days I often think that hope is the theological virtue we need more than any!
“there is still hope that they can backtrack if the necessary courageous, humble and painful leadership can be shown on ALL sides,”
Well this is certainly not happening with the Bishops Tim. When Bishop Martyn Snow is asked whether Synod can see the legal advice given to the Bishops on the proposed PLF and replies ‘I don’t see the need’, it reminds me of a situation when having stopped by a police officer when driving , you proffer your driving license and when asked for your insurance you say ‘ I don’t see the need’.
I would have thought as with an insurance document, seeing the legal advice is very needful indeed.
Are not Bishops accountable to Synod or is that just a fiction? In fact, are they accountable to anybody (other than God) – at all?
At least the CEEC are transparent about what they believe.
I think you’ve missed the point there Chris…
The problem with this issue is that there isnt really a ‘compromise position’. As a gay man I fully understand why those who advocate gay sexual relationships do so (it’s not all about sex, it’s often about wanting a loving relationship), but I have yet to see a persuasive argument put forward against the traditional understanding of Scripture. There lies the rub.
If one portion of a church now believes God approves of such relationships whilst the other portion believes He strongly disapproves of them and to enter into such relationships is sinful, where is the compromise position that all would be content with?
The traditional understanding of Scripture is that we should get back to our wives PC…
Adam, I do find it striking that, all through these arguments, ‘liberals’ tell ‘traditionalists’ that they are inconsistent, because they don’t hold to ‘traditional’ readings.
That is, of course, why I don’t call myself a ‘traditionalist’. By historic standards, I look quite liberal, in that I take critical, hermeneutical, reflection on scripture seriously—as do most evangelicals these days.
Such a critical, hermeneutical, reflective approach rejects patriarchal readings of Scripture. But the striking thing is that a similar approach to marriage, sexuality, and same-sex relations continued to confirm that, in Scripture, marriage is between a man and a woman.
Goodness knows why a group is classified as being ‘traditional’. I mean – they hold that everything old is good, do they?? By virtue of being old, it is good?
‘Faithful’ can sometimes amount to the same thing as ‘traditional’.
Why can’t people hold views because they are evidenced, coherent, add up?
Because then we would be shorn of the bifurcated and binary which the Overton window is so keen to promote.
The problem our ‘modern’ world has is that it cannot conceive of a loving, intimate relationship without it being a sexual relationship. Sexual attraction is regarded as love, and other types of love are unregarded.
TI, the Bishops like Croft and Snow have indicated that their goal is SSM anyway, so what have they got to lose?
This is going to get very messy.
Fascinating interview on Radio 4’s Sunday programme this morning with Seth Pinnock. No, I’d never heard of him either! He’s a leading black Pentecostal choir leader with a huge following. He’s just announced that he’s same-sex attracted and he was describing his experience since going public last week and how he now understands things against the background of a church which is ethically and culturally very conservative. Two things really struck me: one was that he said he had received huge support from Generation Z/millennials, but a lot of unpleasant responses from other church members. Secondly, he describes a situation which is so similar to so much of the current reality of the debate in the Church of England and the differing perspectives in it. Clearly this is an issue that every church is wrestling with and on which we would do well to keep the conversation alive, even if that is desperately difficult on all sides at the moment and the pressure is immense to avoid listening. The interview begins at 16.55 at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00213cx
Tim
As of now the ‘liberals’ are too reliant on (or scared by…?) the dubious idea that ‘being gay is like being black’or similar. And they essentially just parrot that and ignore the massive differences in principle between those two thngs.
Unfortunately seems to me that Anglican evangelicals don’t understand that just relying on the Bible or on current church canons etc will not suffice in this case; they need to grasp the point that even in non-Christian terms ‘gay’ is very different to ‘black’ and not only for Christians but for society at large evangelicals need to be clarifying that point.
SL
So do you think this Black pentecostal church leader is choosing to be gay? It’s not very convenient for his career or status in the pentecostal community
Peter, I don’t understand why you keep attacking this straw man. I am not aware of any serious commentator who claims people choose to be gay.
None of chooses the patterns of desires or personality we are born with. What we do have a choice about is what we do with that.
I am not sure why you find this idea so complex.
Where are we drawing the line for “serious commentator”?
Adam, could you point me to one?
This is true, but as you frequently point out (and for the benefit of interlocutors), ‘being gay’ is quite regularly not to be classified among those states that people *are* born with. (Nor could be, of course, since the term refers to sexual or quasi-sexual desires that are only found in people substantially older than those who have just been born.)
Ian
My comment was in response to SL who seems to be stating exactly that. I don’t find it complex. I disagree that anyone chooses to be gay. It’s a largely unchanging personal characteristic akin to skin color or hair color.
Christopher Shell also seems to hold this belief that people choose to be gay.
I’d say you yourself are agnostic on the issue
Peter, to say that being gay is not an ethnicity like being black is not the same as saying that it is chosen. I don’t choose to be bad tempered; does being bad tempered thus become a quasi-ethnic identity marker? No.
It is odd that you think I am ‘agnostic’ on this. I do find it strange that you spend so much time commenting here, and yet still don’t understand what other people think. I don’t quite know why.
I will refer you to my article which I have pointed you to before. Do please read and understand: https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/are-we-born-straight-or-gay/
Peter, you said I ‘hold this belief that people choose to be gay’.
Where? Where did I say such a thing?
First of all, I do not think that ‘be gay’ refers to anything real.
Second, free choice is incredibly constricted from then onwards by formative experiences, circumstances (family and other), society, initial choices that one has oneself made.
Ian’s article represents what I also think the evidence points to; in general, the fullest analyses represent what I also think.
He believes God has been ‘limited’ by incorrect cultural beliefs, such as the view that gay sexual relations are not appropriate. He no doubt thinks it was the cultural norms at St Paul’s time that are expressed in the NT, specifically a Jewish culture, rather than what God thinks. But I wouldnt be surprised if he hasnt read any books by competent authors refuting such a claim.
But it’s a shame that he has seemingly received quite a few rather vile messages from others, presumably mainly from within his church.
In other words, the BBC leaps at the chance of cherry picking the precise individual whose story will reinforce their ideology, with no mention of the larger scale (or even of the smaller scale, since what we have here is the minutest of scales, smaller than small scale) whatever.
Dear Stephen, PC1 and Christopher, Thanks for your responses. I think that the point of listening to the BBC interview for me is that we are committed to listening to the voices of those who are same-sex attracted, both those we agree with and those we don’t, those whom we believe to be prejudiced and those whom we believe to be free from prejudice. Often, of course, those we agree with we believe to be unprejudiced and vice verse. Part of the purpose of this listening for me is so that we can avoid simply telling thosewe agree with their right and those we disagree with their wrong. Many conversations in this debate appear to be one person waiting for the other person to finish so that they can put them right. But it may be that something we hear surprises, challenges or unsettles us so that we need to reflect further. I was surprised, for example, not knowing the black Pentecostal church scene in detail to hear the speaker say how much support he’d received from GenerationZ/millennials. It led me to wonder if that would be true for the white population. I was not surprised, however, to hear he’s received unpleasant attacks because that is true in the Church of England, too on both sides. This issue for some on all sides touches a deeply emotional and angry response that other ones (such as euthanasia, poverty, war, abortion, atonement, the Trinity, sacraments, election, etc) don’t seem to. I continue to puzzle over why that should be the case.
Christopher, it may be BBC bias (we all have them) but I think it is noteworthy when a significant figure in the black Pentecostal church identifies in public as same-sex attracted. My guess is that it was a very carefully thought through decision on his part knowing what the reaction from some would be like. He is also a highly articulate person who is used to the public realm, but he spoke of his vulnerabilities, too.
There is a sense in which the revelation in Scripture is ‘limited/conditioned’ by culture otherwise nothing could be said, so I don’t find it at all troubling to read Scripture trying to take the cultural factors into account and recognising the sometimes massive cultural gap between the worlds of the Bible and our worlds today. I find authors such as Kenneth Bailey very helpful in that; another excellent example would be John Barclay’s opening section in Paul and the Gift where he uses detailed anthropological studies to open up what Paul’s understanding of gift may have been.
Tim
Will need to respond in more detail later but
One factor in the current situation is, as I’ve pointed out, the idea of ‘gay’ propaganda that ‘being gay is the same kind of thing as being black’ thus allowing homosexuality to claim similar legal protection to that afforded to ethnic differences. On the basis of that idea the ‘gays’ have for decades been taking a very aggressive attitude to claiming ‘equality’ and suggesting that opposition to homosexuality is a sin/crime/immorality comparable to racism.
IF that comparison is sound, fair enough and it would be very difficult to deny the gay claims. However, if that comparison is not sound, and if ‘gayness’ is actually in a significantly different category to ethnic differences, then in secular as well as Christian terms they are making a false claim. And that false claim goes way beyond proper ‘equality’; it amounts to a claim that gays are entitled to be effectively up on a pedestal beyond criticism, and allowed to bully, intimidate, and even via concepts like ‘hate speech’ legally prosecute/persecute those who disagree with them. Far from claiming their own proper ‘civil rights’ they are effectively carrying out an assault on everybody else’s civil rights to claim a wrongly privileged position. And a church is of all places a situation where such conduct should be resisted, and where people should not give way to the bullying – not to mention a church should be thinking more deeply and not bow down to the sloppy and superficial thinking involved.
Yet that makes him no more typical/representative than anyone else and also no more or less significant than anyone else.
And – Is the story: Black Pentecostals are part of humanity?
The story, in truth, is pushing a picture of normality that could be accurately gained only statistically.
Having been campaigning for years you get to notice the signs. Like when people mention an atypical (and not particularly large) group called prochoice Catholics but mention none of their opponents. Without stats, any ‘human interest’ story will be quite wrongly be taken as typical. That matters. And to a journalist it should matter double.
I fully agree we must understand the cultural context of every book of the Bible to properly understand it. But that does not mean that everything in it can be reduced to being culturally-specific, and therefore not relevant today.
And on this particular issue Ive found those who advocate gay sexual relations today often misrepresent the cultural context of these ancient writings, such as arguing the likes of Paul was speaking against what we would call child abuse by older men in Roman or Greek culture, when the reality is that same-sex sexual relations between adult men and adult women happened then, the sort of relationships we would recognise today. It wasnt all about abuse or cultic practices.
Thanks for that link. I think I came on straight afterwards—but was pre-recorded so could not comment.
Tim: Seth Pinnock says he has received huge support from Generation Z/Millennials but a lot of unpleasant responses from other church members.
First, do the Millennials he mentions regard themselves as Christians or secular persons?
Second, we have only Mr Pinnock’s word that the responses he received from other church members were unpleasant. This is an area in which anything other than total agreement often gets to be taken personally. I would like to know what was actually said.
The truth is that there are stock responses that people expect to receive. So this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
In addition, this game where it is not specified whether those asked are regular church attending Christians has been played before, e.g. by Ozanne report. It is one of the ways that statistics can be skewed, particularly since nominal Christians are so similar in profile to non Christians.
Just to repeat my main point: we are committed to listening carefully to our brothers and sisters who are same-sex attracted in order to understand them and, therefore, ourselves better. Would we be as doubting and negative if it was someone from our group? If someone who adheres to the CEEC approach (such as the member of GS Ian quoted in his report) said they had received unpleasant emails from a supporter of SSM I hope we would trust that they were telling the truth so why not Seth Pinnock? We don’t have to agree with him to learn from him. And I do think that his context in the black Pentecostal church is significant.
I am not suggesting that Seth Pinnock is saying anything he believes to be untrue. But this is a situation in which one person can send an email to another with genuine concern for the latter’s welfare in his heart and the recipient would take it badly. It happened to Jesus!
Didn’t we have all this with Vicky Beeching?
Having read the learned contributions thus far I wonder
Who or what can one trust in?
Do we trust the process, the bishops, the lawyers, the Synod,
various committees, our founding principles ,our feelings
our own party, public opinion?
Where can we find rest, rectitude?
[morally correct behaviour or thinking; righteousness:]
Proverbs Ch.3 gives a huge hint especially verse 5
Prov 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean[Rest] not unto thine own understanding
Without this reliance on or confidence in God, it is impossible to carry out any of the precepts of religion.
we are to depend upon God and his directing and overruling providence.
PROVERBS 3 v6ff.
In all thy ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make plain thy paths.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes;
Fear Jahve, and depart from evil.
8 Health will then come to thy navel,
And refreshing to thy bones.
Leaning acquires the meaning confidere,
to lean with the whole body on something, in order to rest upon
it, strengthened by על, if one lean wholly. K & D
It is not a mere theoretic acknowledgment that is meant, but earnest penetrating cognizance, engaging the whole man.
The practico-mystical דעהוּ, in and of itself full of significance, according to O. and N.T. usage, is yet strengthened by toto corde.
The heart is the central seat of all spiritual soul-strength; to love God with the whole heart is to concentrate the whole inner life on the active contemplation of God, and the ready observance of His will. God requites such as show regard to Him, by making plain their path before them, i.e., by leading them directly to the right end, removing all hindrances out of their way. ארחתיך has Cholem in the first syllable (vid., Kimchi’s Lex.). K&D.
There remains a Rest for the righteous to enter into.
See ‘Anglican Ink’ for an account of the Commissioning of the National Overseers in All Souls Church last Friday and the names of those who have been commissioned.
We already have the basis for establishing a National Province.
Ian – maybe do a story on this development?
James
Interesting that they have commissioned (at least) one openly gay person. I’m seems a bit of a contradiction to me to be leaving the cofe because you disagree with gay blessings, but then appoint a gay person as a person suitable to choose (and bless?) the leadership of the breakaway faction.
For me it’s always been impossible to understand where exactly the line is for the breakaway faction. They seem to tolerate behaviour amongst some leaders that they then claim is against the historic faith in others
Peter
If the ‘openly gay’ person you refer to is from the group who seek to be scriptural by living celibate lives, this should not be a problem. That group have understandably felt rather left out by the rush to ignore that solution and just accept SSM
Who do you thinks ignoring it?
Clue: not the Bishops…
AJB
They’re also not being ignored by the evangelicals who frequently express concern – so who do you think is ignoring them??
Left out? They have been knifed in the back by those who share their sexual attractions but claim that acting upon them is consistent with Christianity.
Give me a secular active gay for company rather than one of these latter hypocrites any time.
SL
But they don’t accept every gay person who is leading a celibate life. Just certain high profile people. That’s why I find it confusing and hypocritical
Tim Evans
1) I don’t think there will be a resolution on this one till we clear up the gay idea that ‘being gay is like being black’ or similar comparisons. And that’s a bad comparison because it’s right at the heart of homosexuality that people are doing or wanting to do things -sexual acts. Doing is very different to ‘being’ because it also includes ‘choosing’ – unless an insanity defence is being mounted. And further, with things that are ‘done and chosen’ generally (a wide range from the saintly to the satanic) any underlying ‘being’ is not simple stuff like hair colour but complicated stuff like urges, desires and drives. And it shouldn’t take a genius to realise that human urges etc can be seriously messed up and that you don’t necessarily want to be on the receiving end of them. Even the broadly OK drives can have complexities, like when a heterosexual drive, ‘normal’ in many ways, is a temptation to adultery. It really is a completely different ballgame to the simplicity of an ethnic difference.
In effect gays are just making a blanket claim that their urges and desires be accepted as OK without further argument as something they ‘just are’- relative to stuff like ‘being black’ it really isn’t the same thing. But while they refuse to think deeper than this simplistic comparison serious discussion of the issues is virtually impossible. And note as I said that this isn’t just about sexuality, it’s about wide areas of moral issues where it’s important not to be confused.
The basic Christian position is very simple; people are meant to love people, but God has told us rather clearly that sexuality is designed as a male-with-female thing, and preferably in a married context. He hasn’t designed things like anal sex, and nor does he make people do such things as is implied when people glibly say “God makes people gay”.
Note too that “people are meant to love people” is wider than sometimes thought. We are physical beings interacting in a physical world and our feeling and expressions of love can quite properly be very physical short of the attempt to do sex inappropriately.
One often overlooked point here is that particularly in UK/US culture there was a period from about 150 years ago, when there was something of a moral panic about homosexuality, including the very public scandal around Oscar Wilde as a result of which expressions of male affection became somewhat limited unless you wanted to be suspected as a pervert. I think one of the problems of this was that many people could be wrongly led to identify as ‘queer’ when in fact prior to that panic nobody would have had much problem about their feelings and expression of them. We are I think still suffering somewhat from that confusion….
You say that “any sexual activity outside of male-female marriage falls short of God’s ideal”. I think it would help to acknowledge that any sexual activity WITHIN male-female marriage also falls short of God’s ideal. That might help those who feel this is about one group of people telling another group that they are wrong while we are right.
What do you consider God’s ideal to be, and on what grounds, please?
Hi Andrew
The Bible and Christianity in general talk much more about ‘sin’ than about God’s ideal.
One of the two categories you mention they class (broadly speaking) as sinful; the other as not sinful: a fundamental difference.
If no-one were ever allowed to claim that anyone else were wrong, that would certainly be convenient for those who actually were wrong. However, each of us is regularly wrong, and as one who also exposes the wrongs of others, you do not see that as anything but something that is sometimes absolutely necessary.
It would also be nice to be able to exchange ideas on Twitter.
C.
Andrew
Part of the original motivation for the decade of talks about gays in the church was that treatment of same sex attraction, relationships and sex was being treated as serious sin whereas opposite sex attraction, relationships and sex were completely tolerated even when running contrary to official teaching.
We get told that remaining single our whole lives is equivalent to the vicar restraining himself when attracted to women not his wife, but no straight vicar has been forced to undergo exorcism to attempt to rid him of his orientation, no straight person has been banned from playing in the church band because they started dating someone and no straight person has been denied a marriage service at all locations
There is nothing in either the PLF or the Alliances actions that acknowledge this. The existence of the PLF shows that the bulk of the church barely consider gay people worthy of even a blessing and the actions of the Alliance show that even this is too much for them.
Peter
1) As I’ve pointed out above (and in a lot of places elsewhere), not just in Christian theology but in much wider terms the common comparison that ‘being gay is like being black’ does not in fact ‘hold water’. ‘Gay’ at least insofar as there is a Christian objection, involves doing certain sexual acts, ipso facto choosing to do those acts, and with underlying urges, desires and drives which are way more complex than the simple ‘being’ suggested by that common comparison. Not least because clearly human urges and desires cannot be simply assumed good and acceptable just because they exist. And accepting that ‘gay’ is in that different moral category also leads to an importantly different understanding of ‘orientation’ and of how and why human urges and desires are messed up and various implications flowing from that.
2) Different presuppositions or ‘worldviews’ can produce different answers to the issues, and last time I checked we live in what is supposed to be a plural tolerant society in which we try to accomodate many differing worldviews.
3) Taking just two such worldviews, atheism and Christianity (and others are available)….
In atheism there is no creator and no ultimate purpose – things ‘just happen’ for impersonal reasons of physics and chemistry. Humans dance to the tune of their DNA and DNA doesn’t care and indeed isn’t the kind of thing that can care. Sexuality ‘just is’ and in effect anyone’s opinion of the appropriate use of sex isas good as anyone else’s. Mind you, following atheism through really consistently may lead to results
that even atheists might be worried by.
In Christianity there is a creator and there is purpose; and the creator does have a say in how humans should use his creation. And it is rather hard to deny that if there is a creator, the Christian creator or another, he appears to have made sexuality at least primarily heterosexual, what with the complementary anatomy and the decidedly male-with-female role of sexuality in procreation, whereby new humans come into being. And in terms of ‘same-sex sex’ can it be automatically assumed to be appropriate? In Christian terms the answer to that appears to be no; both in terms of what is said in the Christian revelation and also in terms of what “should be there but isn’t” if the Christian God approves of such conduct. By all means believe in some other god if you want – but Christianity does not approve, and making up Christianity to suit what we want is hardly a coherent position…..
4) Although there
As I’ve said elsewhere, if people are not Christian believers then not so much their consensual sexual activities contrary to the Christian revelation are OK, but well, they will have to be pretty weird to be the biggest problem between them and God. But Christianity is very much about trust/faith in God, and claiming that puny us know better than God is pretty much the definition of sin, of choosing the darkness as it is expressed in John 3 soon after the well-known v16. Telling God “I know better” is in general terms what might be called a ‘bad career move’ for a professing Christian; and to have an actual career/paid job in the Christian church while defying God on this would frankly appear to be very ethically questionable…..
Yes there are inconsistencies in much current practice; but I don’t see how they can legitimately be resolved in terms of greater acceptance of homosexuals rather than in stricter expectations of so-called ‘straight’ people.
To end a bit more positively – people are supposed to love people; the issue here is what is appropriate expression of love.
God’s ideal for male-female marriage is set out in Ephesians 5. Husbands are called to model their behaviour on Christ’s love for the Church and wives are called to model their behaviour on the Church’s subjection to Christ. Of course no husbands nor wives have completely mortified their members which are on the earth so that love and that subjection is never perfect. But that love and that subjection is an ideal to aim at in a life-long struggle against sin, the world and the devil.
The Bible rules out same-sex desire and activity because it lacks the essential asymmetry evident both in Ephesians and the Old Testament – God’s relationship with his people.
Phil Almond
We seem to have got off the point somewhat and so the same range of views is being repeated. I’ve just re-read Christopher Landau’s original post and remain convinced that his approach in its tone and eirenic spirit points to a way through this desperate situation. His is one of the very few things I’ve read on this subject which avoids lapsing into accusation and apportioning blame. It’s worth looking at again.
If (and it’s a huge if given the actions & letters of the varying groups in recent weeks) space and willingness can be found to press the pause button then a split can be avoided. But if and only if ALL parties review their approaches and come with a renewed humility and desire to serve each other rather than to prove the other lot wrong ; in other words, all sides need to recognise that the final word on this subject has yet to be written.So much of the debate is couched in terms of ‘they’ are at fault and are the only ones to be mistaken which makes progress almost impossible. Christopher refers to the need for theological imagination and I would add the need for a historical imagination, too.
The essay Making Moral Decisions by Rowan Williams ( no liberal he, of course) is worth a look as he wrestles with a moral dilemma well away from the fraught issue of sexuality.
I should have added that the Rowan Williams’ essay is in the Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics. It explores how we handle profound disagreements with other Christians when their view seems to us to contradict both Scripture and our broader understanding of doctrine. Williams works with one example in mind, but of course, there are and have been many such disagreements in the history of the church and our current one is far from being the most serious or important.
Eirenic – how is that relevant?
It is actually dangerous.
It means that the writer takes for granted (a) that there are 2 main positions, (b) those two are the two we often hear about, (c) things cannot be otherwise, (d) success comes in bringnig these particular two together as far as possible. None of which ways of looking at things is intrinsically accurate or justified.
So all the radicals need to do is to begin with an extreme position, without having to think it through, and any compromise will go half way towards that. And it is proved that they are doing just that. Because why else would they use the name viamedia for a website which is anything but? It is engineering people’s perceptions.
But Christopher’s post was on this site, not on Via Media and I don’t think he’s advocating a ‘radical’ approach, whatever that may be. I can’t speak for him but I wasn’t assuming any of your points a to d.
I think eirenic is usually a good thing in discussion and in our present travails it seems to me to be absolutely essential. Let’s pull back from the overly conflictual and rebarbative language used sometimes on all sides. It’s clearly got us nowhere and very few people seem to have found the arguments of the other sides persuasive. A more eirenic approach might do us all some good.