Andrew Goddard writes: A recent service at York Minster in which the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) were used for two men who had entered a civil same-sex marriage has ignited controversy, highlighted several problems, and raised the question as to whether people are playing fast and loose (PFL) with PLF.
The initial social media descriptions by the clergy leading and preaching demonstrated the challenge. References to “the Eucharist Thanksgiving for the marriage” of the couple or “Eucharist Thanksgiving…following the gay wedding of couple” were either edited or a clarification issued in order to make clear it was—as on the front of the service booklet—actually a “Eucharist with prayers of blessing following the marriage of” the couple.
Those posts and photos of rings and a wedding reception make clear this was a very special service for the couple and their friends and an encouragement to many in the wider church. That makes me uncomfortable about writing what follows. It is, however, also clear the service has upset many and raises fundamental questions about how the PLF are being used and described and whether clergy are fully aware of, and working within, the constraints of the church’s doctrine and law and the Pastoral Guidance. Without the full order of service it is difficult to make any definitive judgment about the extent to which, either deliberately or in ignorance, the Minster was playing fast and loose with PLF but questions arise in the following four areas:
- Canon B5;
- Pastoral Guidance & Standalone services;
- Legal advice; and
- Doctrine—the Language of Blessing and Marriage.
These are important whatever one’s views on PLF if there is to be respect for the church’s doctrine and law and if clergy officiating at such services are not to put themselves at risk of serious legal challenge or rebuke from their bishop for failure to use PLF as commended. What follows is a summary of a more detailed analysis and argument with further supporting evidence found in this bookmarked PDF.
Canon B5
The inclusion of PLF in any service falls under Canon B5 but it less clear whether, in any particular instance, they are used under Canon B5.1 or B5.2. The former involves making variations in an authorized service, the latter involves a form of service designed for an occasion for which there is no authorised form.
It would appear that the Minster is claiming that this was an authorised regular service of Holy Communion which simply incorporated PLF in line with the Pastoral Guidance under Canon B5.1. However, there are at least three important questions raised by the service booklet:
- In describing the service not simply as “THE EUCHARIST” but adding “with prayers of blessing following the marriage of…” is this not in fact rather a service for an occasion “for which no provision is made” and so an exercise of discretion under B5.2? As explored below this relates to the question as to whether it is, in fact, a form of standalone service.
- If it is under B5.1, can a “variation” in the authorised eucharistic liturgy which is drawn attention to in the name of the service on the service booklet be considered a variation “not of substantial importance” as required by that canon?
- If it is under B5.1, can a “variation” described as “prayers of blessing following the marriage of” two people of the same sex be considered a variation that is “not of substantial importance” given the church’s doctrine of marriage?
Pastoral Guidance & Standalone Services
The Minster was seeking to act within the published Pastoral Guidance so this was not intended as a “standalone service” but the use of PLF materials “in prayers in regularly scheduled Sunday or weekday services” (PG 1.1.1, p. 3). Part of the problem here is that there is considerable ambiguity about what is permitted and what is necessary to constitute something a “standalone service”. At various points in the guidance a “standalone service” or what is not currently permitted are described in different, not wholly compatible, ways.
- A service marked by both its distinctive timing and focus: standalone service “do not fall within the normal, usual pattern of worship for a parish, and are designed primarily around the PLF” (1.1.1).
- A standalone service is, however, is also prohibited elsewhere with the additional constraint that there should also not be “a service whose main or entire focus is the PLF” (1.1.3).
- “More informal use of the PLF as part of regular worship” is permitted (1.1.1) which appears to mean they “may be included in the intercessions or prayers of a regular service” but “they may not be used to construct an entire service whose focus is the PLF” (1.2.1).
- This three-fold definition of a standalone service is offered: “The PLF here would offer a discrete structure for a particular and distinctive liturgical act – a rite for marking a significant stage in a committed and faithful same-sex relationship (1.1.1, italics added).
- Currently legitimate use of PLF is contrasted with where “prayers from the Resource Section may form part of a standalone or special service which follows the service structure provided in the PLF” (1.2.1).
In relation to the context of the Minster service (prayers “after a couple has contracted a civil marriage” (1.2.5) the Guidance is particularly confusing: such prayers can be offered but “Ministers should consult the Notes to the service for advice and guidance in shaping the service”. Although there were proposed Notes for standalone services in earlier drafts of PLF shared with Synod, in the published PLF there are currently no Notes as such for use of PLF resources only for covenanted friendships and for the blessing of a home.
As these selections from the Guidance show, what is and is not permitted is far from clear. It may simply be a matter of whether or not the service is within the regular pattern of services (in which case the Minster service is not a standalone service). However, as the use of PLF in a regular service is also described in terms of these not being “special services” or “designed primarily around the PLF” the formal description of the Minster service as one “with prayers of blessing following the marriage of” two people looks like it may go beyond the Pastoral Guidance. Without more details it is difficult to be sure but it would also appear that the Minster service was likely one which “follows the service structure provided in the PLF” for a Eucharist standalone service using PLF as set out in draft to the November General Synod ie “an outline order for a service within a Celebration of Holy Communion”.
These questions are important both for those currently using PLF who wish to remain within the law and for discussions about what it will mean to commend standalone services at some point in 2025.
Legal Advice
One of the serious problems with the PLF process has been that legal advice has been given to the bishops but they have refused to publish it while placing all the legal risk on clergy using PLF. Clergy have to rely on their own understanding of the key canons and the Pastoral Guidance (both of which as shown above raise questions in relation to a service such as that in York), and the selective summaries of the legal advice presented to General Synod. It seems clear the original public announcements used unacceptable language but the formal description of “the Eucharist with prayers of blessing following the marriage of…” also raises serious questions.
A glimpse of unpublished legal advice
In his speech in the July LLF Synod debate, the Bishop of Bath and Wells gave the first glimpse of some of the legal advice the bishops have received. He stated that
Legal advice given to the House of Bishops last December in paper 2328 [presumably a reference to HOB(23)28] stated that the formal notes which form part of the Prayers of Love and Faith will need to make it clear not only that the Prayers of Love and Faith must not resemble Holy Matrimony but that they must also not resemble any other form of service connected with marriage.
This makes public a snippet of previously concealed legal advice not clearly set out and not explained in the Pastoral Guidance. It would appear that PLF must not resemble a Thanksgiving for Marriage or a Service of Prayer and Dedication after Civil Marriage. The Guidance, however, simply says that use of prayers “should not attempt to resemble Holy Matrimony” (1.3.6) and implies that it can resemble these other forms of service as these “are not services of Holy Matrimony”.
What Synod has been told about legal advice
This quotation from unpublished legal advice is similar to para 9 in GS 2328 in November 2023. This makes clear that:
- “the PLF Resource Section does not treat the relationship of the couple as being Holy Matrimony” and is “not being commended for use in a way that does that or gives that impression”.
- “The material contained in the PLF Resource Section intentionally does not differentiate between couples who have and who have not entered into a civil same-sex marriage”
- This is because “the PLF Resource Section…are not being offered to be used as a thanksgiving for marriage or a service of prayer and dedication after civil marriage and do not refer to, or take account of, a couple’s civil marital status”.
It is clear that the Minster’s service does not conform to this as the couple’s civil marital status is highlighted on the service booklet.
The bishops also explored whether “the use of prayers and other resources for same-sex couples who have entered into a same-sex marriage” would be “contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in an essential matter” (para 10). They refer (GS 2328, para 11) to the fact that “legal advice we received set out both sides of the argument” and highlight the following as significant:
- “The PLF Resource Section does not treat those couples who have entered a same-sex civil marriage any differently from the way they treat a same-sex couple who are in a civil partnership or who have not acquired any formal civil status for their relationship”
- Using PLF for a couple who have entered into a civil same-sex marriage “does not therefore imply that their civil status is something that the Church considers distinguishes the couple from other same-sex couples who wish to dedicate their life together to God”
- “The materials contained in the PLF Resource Section are not a celebration of a couple’s civil same-sex marriage. They are praying with and for two people who love one another and who wish to give thanks for and mark that love in faith before God”.
On this basis it would appear at least prudent and perhaps legally necessary for there to be no reference at all to the civil status of the couple during the service and for the prayers simply to be for a same-sex couple. This is clearly not the case at York Minster.
Unpacking the legal logic and its implications
Tracing back the legal advice behind these statements reveals important elements in their underlying legal reasoning.
In November 2016 the legal advice annexed to GS 2055 stated that
it would not be lawful for a minister to use a form of service which either explicitly or implicitly treated or recognised the civil marriage of two persons of the same sex as equivalent to holy matrimony (para 7)
Legal advice in January 2018 reaffirmed this and drew out its practical implications by stating any service of prayer and dedication after the registration of a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage
would have to omit any reference to the parties’ marriage or their being married; or, if it did contain such a reference, would have to contain explanations and disclaimers as to the nature of the civil marriage and its not amounting to marriage so far as the Church’s teaching was concerned. Either way, such a service might well be considered pastorally unusable in respect of the occasion for which it was intended. It is not clear what such a service would or could actually do. Nor is it clear in what way it would glorify God and edify the people (see Canon B 1.2 for this requirement)
The service booklet description of “prayers of blessing following the marriage of” two men breaches these constraints and at least implicitly treats a civil same-sex marriage as marriage.
More detailed reasoning for these public conclusion was set out in the unpublished 23 page “LLF Analysis of Legal Issues” produced in March 2023 shared with all of us on the 2023 Implementation Groups. Despite requests, neither it nor other legal advice, has been shared with those now advising the bishops. I have wrestled with whether or not to quote from this document here but have decided not to do so. It would be much better if it, and other written legal advice was all published together (with perhaps an accompanying narrative and explanation) rather than being selectively quoted or summarised or paraphrased.
The basic questions relevant to any service of a same-sex couple in a civil marriage do, however, seem to be clear:
- How does the Church of England interpret entering into a same-sex civil marriage?
- What evaluation does it make of such a decision given its doctrine of holy matrimony?
- Is it “contrary to” or “indicative of a departure from” the Church’s teaching?
- Or is it something which is understood to be compatible with its doctrine of marriage?
The bishops have previously stated, in the 2014 Pastoral Statement, that “Getting married to someone of the same sex would, however, clearly be at variance with the teaching of the Church of England” (para 26). Although in October 2023 the House of Bishops voted that “same sex marriage is distinct from Holy Matrimony such that same sex marriage is not seen as impinging on Holy Matrimony in such a way that contradicts the Church’s doctrine” (Answer to Q56) this judgement has never been made part of the rationale for PLF and no justification has been offered for changing the previous clear position. This suggests that the church cannot approve the decision to enter a civil same-sex marriage and so any service should not draw attention to a couple being in such a marriage.
Given the York Minster service, it now becomes more pressing that withheld legal advice is made fully public and the status of the 9th October decision of the House clarified in relation to the clear contrary statement in the 2014 Pastoral Statement.
Doctrine —the Language of Blessing and Marriage
Whatever was said during the Minster service, its framing as “with prayers of blessing following the marriage” raises serious questions about terminology. The most obvious problem is the use of the language of “marriage” which was not even qualified as “civil marriage”. The PLF were apparently only judged legal because they did not use that language of “marriage” anywhere and commended for use simply with a same-sex couple without reference to any legal status they might have. It is clear that the Minster service did not comply with these constraints. The language of “blessing” in the service booklet is also problematic as the blessing is related to the marriage (a case could perhaps have been made for referring to “prayers of blessing on” two named individuals)
Conclusion
Services similar to those at York Minster have, of course taken place for decades “under the radar”. There is also now, I believe, a widespread acceptance (including by those who oppose such developments) that those who wish to welcome and include same-sex couples liturgically and to mark their marriages need to be provided with a way to do so that has legal security and integrity.
This, however requires the bishops to clarify what a same-sex couple are considered by the Church to be doing when they contract a civil marriage and whether this is something that the Church can approve. Their refusal to share crucial legal and theological advice on this matter with the wider church and their decision to bring all these questions to the fore by commending prayers and then leaving individual clergy to follow unclear pastoral guidance as to what is and is not lawful is not defensible. Those committed to the church’s doctrine and concerned about these developments will inevitably scrutinise publicised uses of the PLF such as that at York Minster. They cannot but see some of what is happening as indeed examples of PFL with PLF in practice on the ground now with the tacit acceptance of this by the bishops who commended PLF.
The description of the service offered at York Minster is very difficult to justify as within the law and pastoral guidance. It is, however, likely to be replicated. The situation will then get even more complex and contested once standalone services are commended as there remains some confusion about what exactly will change when this happens but they too will be constrained by the law and doctrine which makes the Minster service problematic.
This will in turn only lead to those unhappy with PLF becoming even more disillusioned with the approach of the bishops and/or those wishing to fully include and welcome same-sex couples feeling betrayed if it is made clear the services they want to provide are in fact not within the law and guidance.
Given this situation, there needs to be an urgent review and revision of the existing pastoral guidance to bring greater clarity, particularly in relation to services following a same-sex civil marriage. It is also now even more pressing that the legal advice which the bishops have received is made fully available so that clergy are not left unclear as to the legal constraints when using PLF.
Perhaps, though, we need a more fundamental “reset” in relation to PLF. PLF has from the start been set up in a flawed manner on the basis that liturgical innovations can be introduced without changes to law or doctrine or ecclesial structures. This is despite all the previous legal and theological advice and is likely only to result in widespread PFL with PLF as, under current constraints, PLF really are an example of PNW (Prayers Nobody Wants). Rather than now simply commending whatever is meant by “standalone services”, do we not need instead to consider afresh questions such as:
- What doctrinal, legal and ecclesial developments needs to be put in place to enable those who wish to do so to offer “prayers of blessing after marriage” or even “Eucharist Thanksgiving” for same-sex couples and to do so with legal security and theological and ecclesial integrity within the CofE?
- Might it not even be possible with such developments for those churches who wish to do so to register with the state so as to provide some form of service which would also constitute the entering into a civil same-sex marriage in church?
- How, given these developments clearly lack the necessary two-thirds support (perhaps now in every House of General Synod), can space be given for this alongside a space with continued legal security and theological and ecclesial integrity acceptable to those within the CofE who reject such developments as clearly contrary to current canons and doctrine and ultimately contrary to Scripture?
Revd Dr Andrew Goddard is Assistant Minister, St James the Less, Pimlico, Tutor in Christian Ethics, Westminster Theological Centre (WTC) and Tutor in Ethics at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He is a member of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) and was a member of the Co-Ordinating Group of LLF and the 2023 subgroup looking at Pastoral Guidance.
Buy me a Coffee
This, however requires the bishops to clarify what a same-sex couple are considered by the Church to be doing when they contract a civil marriage and whether this is something that the Church can approve.
The question that ought to be addressed is: Does the Church of England consider that a same-sex couple, who have gone through a civil ceremony of marriage, are married in God’s eyes? The answer may be as long as the bishops like, but a clear Yes or No should be given.
More pragmatically, is it possible under canon law for anybody to lodge a legal objection to what was done at York and thereby force the publication of legal advice?
They are married in the eyes of the state of which the C of E is established church and in a committed lifelong union in the eyes of God. No, they is no scope to lodge any legal objection to what took place in York as it was entirely in accordance with what the Bishops and Synod approved
Can you explain why the Church should follow the values of a secular state rather than the teaching of Jesus? Is that what you think ‘being established’ means?
The established church must partly follow the values of the state it is established church of. If you don’t think that you should be Baptist or Pentecostal not an Anglican member of the established Church of England. (Not that Jesus ever said anything against prayers for same sex couples married in national civil law anyway!)
‘The established church must partly follow the values of the state.’
Where do the Articles say this?
(Not that Jesus ever said anything against prayers for same sex couples married in national civil law anyway!) He just taught that marriage is between one man and one woman, and like every Jew of his day, rejected same-sex sexual relations as they were ‘porneia’.
‘Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.’ Article 34
The C of E has not allowed same sex marriages in church (despite the fact it already allows divorced couples to remarry in its churches, even in some cases where no spousal adultery which was the only circumstance Jesus allowed for it). Pornea is fornication not monogamous same sex unions as you well know!
‘by man’s authority’ means not aspects of doctrine. ‘to edify’ means to teach the doctrine of the Church. That is why the PLF cannot be ‘indicative of a change of doctrine’, which is precisely why the service at York is in breach of the canons.
Where do you get your understanding of the term ‘porneia’ from?
There has been no approval for same sex marriages in C of E churches, so no change to doctrine. The service in York was not a marriage service but a recognition and celebration of a couple married in English civil law in a cathedral of the established English church.
Porneia it seems can flexibly be extended to included monogamous same sex couples in life long unions by some conservative evangelicals but ignored when it comes to the King or George Osborne who were given full blessings with their former mistress or even a remarriage in the case of the latter despite being divorced in a C of E chapel and church
T1
Whether it claims it or not, the state has no authority to dictate church beliefs – which if you think about it makes it very wise not to have a church in a ‘by law established’ position in the first place. Wrong to be established and if it survives this the church will need to look hard at its state relations; but it ain’t gonna help matters to move even further from God by defying him on sexuality.
The Church of England was created by the head of state, Henry VIII, for goodness sake precisely to be the established church. That is its core purpose. There is no defiance on sexuality except hardline conservative evangelicals who should be in a Baptist or Pentecostal church not the established C of E pushing no recognition at all of same sex couples in their local Parish church despite their being married in UK and English law
We are all expected to be far more impressed by Henry VIII, that model of propriety, than by the little-known Jesus Christ, then?
All Christian churches, Roman Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant were founded to follow Jesus Christ. Only the Church of England though was also founded to follow the scriptural interpretations of Henry VIII, particularly as he dissented from some of the Papal interpretations of scripture
‘Only the Church of England though was also founded to follow the scriptural interpretations of Henry VIII’. wow, Simon, you don’t appear to understand anything of the history of your own Church!
Well that was why the C of E was founded, so Henry VIII could divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn after the Pope forbade him such a divorce
Do you consider Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds to be married in God’s eyes?
The Church of England is established church of a nation where same sex marriage is legal in civil law. The idea the prayers for same sex couples in C of E parishes Synod has voted by majority for in all 3 houses should not make any reference to the civil marriage of same sex couples at all is ludicrous. Indeed in July Synod also voted by majority to approve arrangements for stand alone services for PLF, so what happened in York Minster was entirely within the law.
Conservative evangelicals have got an opt out from PLF in their Parishes and have ensured full services of same sex marriage in C of E churches and cathedrals cannot take place. However, if they start trying to nit pick about even the services of prayer for same sex couples taking place in liberal Catholic C of E churches and cathedrals, they may find liberal Catholics start to wonder whether PLF should not also be allowed in their own conservative evangelical parish churches with no opt out at all
This constant repetition of things which are not true, and have been shown so, is trolling. I would rather not delete your constant reposting, but will do if you continue. Please engage.
I am a member of C of E who attends church every Sunday to and perfectly entitled to post my own views, you don’t win an argument by deleting other viewpoints!
You are entitled to your views. You are not entitled to troll my blog.
“they may find liberal Catholics start to wonder whether PLF should not also be allowed in their own conservative evangelical parish churches with no opt out at all”
Go on, try it, see what happens. You won’t like it.
“Indeed in July Synod also voted by majority to approve arrangements for stand alone services for PLF, so what happened in York Minster was entirely within the law.”
Erm, the vote allowed the bishops to go ahead and publish the guidelines and they have said by the winter, if I remember rightly. The guidelines have not been published ergo no change in law yet.
Well leave liberal Catholic churches in the C of E to perform PLF services too without interference then if you don’t want liberal Catholics to respond in a way you dislike!
Why should those who uphold and believe the doctrine of the Church leave for the sake of those who don’t?
Catholic dogma is immutable. There is no such thing as a liberal Catholic. Heretics promote that line of thought. The C of E was founded by a heretic and in essence is not Christian as it does not adhere to Christian belief.
This kind of liturgy has actually being going on for a while in the Chutch of England, using carefully parsed language. Over in Canterbury diocese two or three yeads ago one of the churchwardens (and a reader) at St Paul’s Church entered a same-sex marriage and the vicar, Rev Noeline Hall, led a special service for them billed as ‘A Eucharist to Celebrate Human Love after the Marriage of X and Y’.
I understand this is the kind of model that Dr Carrell, the Bishop of Christchurch NZ has authorised in his diocese, and he has attended a number of these “blessings” but has not yet conducted one himself. About ten evangelical parishes left his diocese as a result and the vicar of St John’s Latimer Square Christchurch has become their bishop. (Incidentally, the Anglican Church in New Zealand has three separate Provinces or ‘tikangas’ for the different racial groups in NZ, one for Europeans called ‘pakehas’, another for Maoris, and a third for Pacific Islanders, so they are familiar with the idea of different provinces.)
This NZ model is the one that Archbishop Welby would like to see the C of E adopt.
They were clearly careful not to publicise this. Such a service would fall foul of all the same issues as noted above.
I am sure that the split in Christchurch had a major impact on their numbers.
Different congregations for Maori, Europeans and Islanders is sensible only if their services are conducted in different languages. Otherwise it is an intolerable denial of the unity in Jesus Christ of believers.
Anton,
These are not just different language services. Each racial group in the NZ Anglican Church has its own self-governing Province, with their own Archbishops and Bishops and synods – a kind of separate development model.
The Pacific Islanders have a number of different languages (Samoan, Tongan etc), so I don’t know how they get round that one.
The Maori Province is very small, I’m told it’s about 20 congregations or chaplaincies – a far cry from the days when half the Maoris in NZ were Anglicans.
‘separate development’ Wow. I think there is a name for that.
Sounds like a reflection of New Zealand politics and sensibilities: they’ve had separate Maori seats (covering all New Zealand) to ensure Maori representation in their Parliament, and ensure the provisions of the Treaty of Waitangi are met, since the 1860s.
Adam:
No, that’s not how it happened. New Zealand has had separate Maori seats in Parliament since the 1860s. There is a move to get rid of them since there are percentage wise more people of Maori ancestry in Parliament (about 22%) then those who call themselves Maori in the census (17%), but I don’t think this will succeed. Actually nobody in NZ is ‘pure blood’ Maori today and anybody can call himself ‘Maori’ for voting purposes, even if you have no Maori ancestry. You can even win educational scholarships for Maoris if you are one-sixteenth Maori.
The decision to divide the New Zealand Anglican Church into three racially distinct Provinces with their own bishops and Archbishop was only taken in the 1990s.
PSALM 37
37:7 Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him: fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.
37:8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath: fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.
37:9 For evildoers shall be cut off: but those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the earth.
37:10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.
37:11 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
37:12 The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.
37:13 The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is coming.
37:14 The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, and to slay such as be of upright conversation.
37:15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.
37:16 A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.
37:17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.
37:18 The LORD knoweth the days of the upright: and their inheritance shall be for ever.
37:19 They shall not be ashamed in the evil time: and in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.
37:20 But the wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.
Revelation 2:10 – Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.
. The Greek word for crown in Revelation 2:10 is “stephanos.” This is the type of “crown” given to a victorious athlete. It is more a wreath or a laurel. It is given in recognition of an achievement or a victory.
As we are daily witnessing in the Olympic games the ones who wear the crown are those who for years and years endure the loneliness,visesitudes,fastings, endurances,the self sacrifices of arduous phycical pains,they do not fight as those that beat the air
[shadow box]; let us therefore fight the good fight of Faith.
I’m afraid if conservatives want to moan about this then they aren’t really in a position to be holding services like those at St Helen’s or All Souls in London. But then conservatives are not unused to acting with hypocrisy. Even so called orthodox evangelical bishops appoint, license and pay clergy who are in same sex partnerships. And still prefer to turn a blind eye.
Not so in my diocese.
The Priest in Charge of St John’s, Carrington is in a same-sex civil partnership and was once the Chief Executive of the Lesbian & Gay Christian Movement. She doubtless conducts her personal life in accordance with ‘Issues in Human Sexuality’ but to say that there are no clergy in same-sex partnerships in Southwell & Nottingham diocese is inaccurate.
Yes, I am sure that she has given assurances to the bishop, as I think he is quite consistent in this.
Oh he had several partnered gay clergy in his episcopal area in London and had to turn a blind eye…
I have no doubt there were. But I am glad that he is not someone who would engage in a witch hunt. Aren’t you?
Adopting a policy of trusting his clergy to keep their word and honour their ordination vows seems like a good policy to me.
Are you suggesting that such people are not trustworthy and in fact were being deceptive?
do you mean she has assured him she’s not having sexual relations with her partner? I find this very odd, given a sexual relationship is part and parcel of a civil partnership, otherwise why bother?
“Are you suggesting that such people are not trustworthy and in fact were being deceptive?”
No, I am suggesting that if bishops ask ridiculous questions they will get ridiculous answers.
Ah, so asking ‘Are you upholding your vows?’ is a ridiculous question? Why is that? And how about engaging with the actual article?
Oh the reply to the question about upholding vows is easy. Interpreting the meaning of the vows is more complex and opinions differ.
It’s the intensely personal questions about private aspects of a person’s life that I am referring to.
‘Interpreting the meaning of the vows is more complex’. Oh, right. ‘I believe the doctrine of the Church’ means…?? No wonder you think the Church is dying—it does when its clergy cannot keep their word. And that kind of church deserves to.
Ian it is amazing how nuance seems lost on you.
When I was ordained I was quite happy to answer the general questions put to me. But I was clear that the doctrine of the Church was quite wrong on the question of the ordination of women. And I had positively vowed to change that doctrine by all means possible. And that change was successful. You were part of it.
Clergy are always free to work to change things that are wrong doctrinally.
Oh, you mean like William Taylor, Nicky Gumbel, Rod Thomas et al?
John Stott must be spinning in his grave.
Penelope,
Economics is a complex subject and if you think that the main cause of poverty in Britain is the greed of the extremely wealthy and the ease with which they avoid both scrutiny and taxes, you need considerable education which is beyond the scope of this blog. It is likely to be a minor factor. We might actually agree on one of the major factors: the greed and parasitism of the financial sector, i.e. The City, which dominates the economy of (at least) the south-east, to its detriment.
France offered to set up processing on their side of the border. Our government refused.
The French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that “Great Britain needs to open up a legal immigration route” because “at the moment anyone who wants to ask for asylum has no other choice but to cross the Channel.” Nice try.
Once again, why should France, or any other European country, take more migrants than we do?
I’m not asking them to. We should control our borders and they should control theirs.
Distaste for white van man isn’t confined to the Left, Do you think Farage likes him?
I don’t know. But you seem to be admitting what I said, that the Left dislikes its former constituency. White van man put Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan in Number Ten, and voted for Blair in 1997 on an anyone-but-Major ticket.
Anton
And the obscenely rich are usally wealthy becuase of the fianacial markets or because they own large coproartions which avoid tax. If the tax revenue was higher our infrasctructure wouldn’t be so near collapse.
Payinf shareoholders of watercompanies and bosses’ bonuses while the companise are discharging shit into our waterways doesn’t help either.
Economic, financial and social policy has created an underclass, black, brown and white. It simply suits some to engender hated amongst these groups which deflects them from realsiing who the true culrptist are.
Yes, of course, France would expect us to take refugees when they set up processing centres in Calais for the UK. Those arriving on illegal routes are now doing so because legal routes have been closed. Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t welcome any asylum seekers? l am afriad that you haven’t been reading scripture, as I advised.
White van man did not vote in Wilson or Callaghan because, by and large, he didn’t exist in the 60s and 70s. He is a product of Thatcher’s Britain. I very much doubt that he voted Blair in either, though some working class Tories must have turned to New Labour.
All this may seem very irrelevant to the OP. But structural inequalities and systemic racism and Islamaphobia (and anti semitism) seem to me to much more profoundly sinful and in need of both repentance and restitution than what chromosomes and gametes someone has. And much graver than who people fall in love and decide to have sex with.
‘All this may seem very irrelevant to the OP.’ I think it is.
I am not aware of anyone in the C of E who is proposing to make inequality or racism or antisemitism part of the doctrine of the Church.
Penelope,
I have trouble keeping a straight face when you advise me to read scripture. Some things are simpler than you reckon. Others are more complex, such as economics.
And I am very glad to be in a diocese led by a bishop who is so inclusive and affirming, and yet still works within the doctrine of the Church. Aren’t you?
I thought you regarded the accommodation for same-sex couples in civil partnerships as a terrible mistake. Have you changed your mind?
Yes, I think it was a crazy decision by the House of Bishops.
But given that polity, I am not sure that any bishop has room to act unilateral.
Mostly, though, I am amused by someone like Andrew Godsall complaining that evangelical bishops are too inclusive. We clearly don’t fit his stereotypes well enough!
Oh I’m delighted that they are inclusive. I’m more bothered by their hypocrisy – rather like the hypocrisy displayed by yet another self righteous article here.
But what is fascinating is that you have avoided actually engaging with the issues in the article. Would be great if you could do that, and leave off the ad hominem.
(or is the article too difficult to respond to…?)
(and if you are bothered by hypocrisy, are you bothered by those who say they believe the doctrine of the Church and clearly don’t, either in their confession or their life? Or is this is the wrong kind of hypocrisy?)
It was crazy decision but you’re also really glad it’s in place?
Errrr ok then…
‘It was crazy decision but you’re also really glad it’s in place?’ Sorry, where do I say that? at the time it was clear that this was gay marriage by another name, and the bishops were conned.
Ian, the Church in the West as we knew it is over. It’s had its day. The fact that people are even questioning whether we might celebrate the love of two people publicly is laughable.
If Andrew wants to spend yet more time being legalistic then that’s up to him. But I make no apology for pouring scorn on it.
Wow, Andrew, what a desperate thing to say. Not only is it faithless—it is out of touch with reality. The church of Jesus Christ in England is thriving, growing, and seeing people come to faith. But just not in the parts you are in, where the institution has swallowed the values of our post-Christian culture.
The churches which are growing are all ones which have held fast to the teaching of Jesus on marriage, against the tide of sexualisation and gender identity in our culture. I hope one day you will come across this exciting spiritual life for yourself.
Ian, when asked about your bishop appointing a priest who was in a same-sex civil partnership, you said you were “very glad” that he was “so inclusive and affirming”.
It is the bishops who are playing legalistic games in order to try to get their counterscriptural views enacted, Mr Godsall.
Wow, Ian, once again nuance is not your strong suit is it?
My faith is not in the Church but in Jesus Christ. True Christianity will not die. But the kind of power play that has characterised the Church in the West is over. That you still want to be part of it and proudly trump your displays of muscular churchianity says more about your allegiance to the world.
What we need is a peaceful effort to work together for the growth of humanity. Do you think the kind of riots we are witnessing in our country at the moment are a good thing? Because they are a result of the little England mentality that wants to claim power and might rather than human flourishing. And you only need to look across the pond to see what happens when people trump the kind of nationalistic evangelical Christianity you are so proud of.
Andrew G, I am sorry to see you lapse again into ad hominem insults and rebuttal of silly straw men. They add nothing.
Please engage in debate—heaven forbid, engage in the claim of the article—or desist from commenting. Thank you.
Andrew – I’ve mentioned it on Psephizo before: one book that I am finding extremely useful is Peter Oborne: The Fate of Abraham, Why the West is wrong about Islam.
I would strongly recommend it to everybody – and it does show how Muslims have been portrayed as the villain to suit the ‘neo-con’ agenda (with an awful lot of help from the Murdoch press). The riots seem to me to be the unintended, but logical consequence of this.
But I digress – this is a different topic for a different thread. I more-or-less agree with you about the riots – but I think you’re dead wrong about the C. of E. and LLF.
The riots are an illegitimate expression of a legitimate grievance. Most Brits are happy to welcome immigrants who come at a measured rate and who wish to work hard and assimilate. Equally, though, many Brits are unhappy at rates of immigration so great as to make housing unaffordable and the NHS inaccessible, unhappy about taxes going to pay hotel bills for illegal immigrants (rather than to the NHS), unhappy about a particular minority that declines to assimilate and has scriptures licensing forcible political takeover, unhappy about the authorities who long turned a blind eye to the raping of thousands of teenage girls from the poorer sector of the white community in multicultural towns, and perhaps above all unhappy at being told by their so-called betters that they are irredeemably racist if they dare to mention these things.
It suits the government to concentrate on the unlovely thugs currently on our streets rather than the reasons they are there, which they share with many peaceable people who love their country and don’t hate anbody else’s. Unless those reasons are acknowledged and addressed, the country will become further divided and harder to govern.
Jock,
I find that reading the Quran and putting its suras (chapters) into a timeline using the ancient Islamic biography of Muhammad, the Sirat Rasul Allah (Life of the Messenger of Allah, restored and translated by Alfred Guillaume), sheds more light on Islam than Peter Oborne. You can see for yourself how Islam’s founder interprets jihad, for instance.
A better secular take than Oborne is Douglas Murray’s book, “The Strange Death of Europe”. But we are Christians and for a fine Christian view, see the Maranatha Community’s free online booklet, “Islam: An Appraisal”:
https://www.maranathacommunity.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Islam-An-Appraisal.pdf
Even this does not engage with the question that Christians should be asking themselves: If Jesus Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth, and if the Quran denies his divinity and death on the cross (sura
4:157), why is He permitting Islam to rise here? I reckon to know the answer to this question, but I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader.
Anton
Housing is unaffordable and the NHS inaccessible because of fourteen years of asset stripping by corrupt Tory government. Indeed, we’re it not for immigrants, the NHS would be in even greater peril.
The Tory and far right’s cleverest move has been to direct attention away from their inefficiency and corruption and to dress racism and xenophobia as ‘legitimate concerns’. People are in poverty because of the Michelle Mones who have luxury yachts not because of Mohammed who escapes Syria and arrives here on a small boat
If Jesus arrived in England today, he wouldn’t be crucified, he’d be burnt alive in a Holiday Inn.
Penny ‘Housing is unaffordable and the NHS inaccessible because of fourteen years of asset stripping’ perhaps yes. But it is also because over the last 30 years we have increased the population by 20% through uncontrolled legal migration without building 20% extra houses, hospitals, or roads.
The estimate shortage of housing is…20%…by coincidence corresponding exactly to net migration.
The Nationalist far right in the UK, Europe and wider West profess to champion traditional Christian nations against rising Islam, though rarely do they attend church or actually read much of what Jesus taught
‘though rarely do they attend church or actually read much of what Jesus taught’
But according to your other comments, that does not matter! #irony alert
Penelope,
Michelle Mone is rich because she started a successful business. And people coming here illegally from France are not fleeing persecution, are they? Moreover they are nearly all young males – where are the widows and orphans?
But these are diversions. You avoid most of my arguments.
T1: You probably do see the nationalist far right (an overdone phrase) on the streets at present, and they are not a pretty sight. But their concerns are shared by many others who do not riot: concerns which governments continue to ignore. The modern Left actually hate the traditional British working class on whose backs they rose to power. Currently they buy them off with benefits, but culture runs deeper than economics and the future of our politics is deeply uncertain.
Anton
Mone bought her luxury yacht from fraudulent PPE contracts. She is a crook.
Asylum seekers do not have to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach; many of our European neighbours take far more than we do. And if they did all stay in France, how would that help the situation? Think carefully about Christianity before you answer that.
The left do not hate the working class. Many of the working class (including my family) were resolutely left-wing. You seem to think that feral white thugs represent the working class. How very insulting.
Anton
The decision was made by all 3 Houses in Synod.
And if you want crazy legalism, just look to Taylor et al.
Mone bought her luxury yacht from fraudulent PPE contracts. She is a crook.
Actually she and her husband owned that yacht before the pandemic, for an argument between them and another yacht owner became public in 2019. I share your revulsion at the PPE scandal involving her, but *you* brought her up with the absurd claim that “People are in poverty because of the Michelle Mones who have luxury yachts.”
Asylum seekers do not have to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach
And we do not have to grant it to them either if they are coming from a safe country. I counsel the French to patrol their own borders better.
The left do not hate the working class.
The woke Left absolutely despise white van man and his views, and disparage him as racist whenever they find a convenient excuse.
You seem to think that feral white thugs represent the working class. How very insulting.
I said that the thugs currently on our streets share a legitimate concern with the traditional white working class, but are reacting to it in a way that is illegitimate. Again you twist my words.
Anton
You truly believe that the greed of the extremely wealthy and the ease with which they avoid both scrutiny and taxes, has no impact on poverty and deprivation?
France offered to set up processing on their side of the border. Our government refused. I suspect because it suited their agenda morevto create a crisis which could be blamed on migrants rather than on their own policies.
Once again, why should France, or any other European country, take more migrants than we do? Once again, I advise you to reflect on the scriptures before you answer this?
And was it Wilde or Shaw who said that immediately an English man opens his mouth , another English man despises him. Distaste for white van man isn’t confined to the Left, Do you think Farage likes him?
There is some truth in that. But if we had continued to build social housing, we could have accommodated that, especially at a time when the birthrate is falling. Without that legal immigration, the NHS wouldn’t function at all. And the ‘legitimate concerns’ of people like Anton (or which he believes the rioters share) have been created as a smokescreen for government underfunding and austerity economics.
Sorry, that was a reply to Ian at 4.58.
Penelope
Reply posted higher up due to mess-up.
Exactly, you can’t have the rules applied rigidly to liberal Catholics in the C of E but then allow conservative evangelicals in the C of E to ordain who they like even without approval of the diocesan bishop!
Who are you referring to? I am not aware of anyone ordaining anyone else irregularly.
“I see no ships”, he said as he held the telescope to his eyepatch…
Evangelical churches commission people for ministry all the time. You are speaking from ignorance here.
In our church we have a heap of staff, many of them doing things which a generation ago would have been done by curates—student ministry, children’s and young people, asylum seekers, Spanish-speaking community.
Are we ‘irregularly ordaining’ all these people when we pray and commission them? You need to attend to the language.
https://x.com/sthelenschurch/status/1816749073770143966
I replied but clearly in the wrong place since it nested above.
Commissioning people as pastoral visitors, leaders of intercessions etc. is quite different from Ordination. As you, and I am sure William Taylor, know.
Yes it is. That is the point.
Ian
Why then is Taylor (or Thomas or Broadbent) going to license these men to preside at Eucharists?
This seems like either:
lay presidency, or
illegal ordination.
They are not ‘presiding at the Eucharist’.
Ian
Why did Taylor refer to lay presidency?
Andrew, I don’t know who you are referring to here. Please give us the names of the orthodox evangelical bishops doing this. I know that the Dean of Canterbury is in a civil partnership and was appointed by Justin Welby but I don’t think many think of Welby as orthodox evangelical any more. Another bishop appointed the Archdeacon of the Isle of Wight but I don’t think that bishop is an evangelical.
Give us the names, please.
No true Scotsman…
Name names and let sex obsessed self righteous evangelicals go on a witch hunt? You must be joking….
The obsession with sex is from those who are determined to drive the CoE from a scriptural position about it. Evangelicals are simply reacting. We would love to stop talking about it and will do so as soon as the liberals give up.
Liberal Catholics will never give up, why would we when a majority of Synod has already voted for PLF? Evangelicals have been given an opt out from the PLF and same sex marriage was not approved by Synod if they do not settle for that liberal Catholics will in turn react to them trying to hinder PLF services in our liberal Catholic churches
Really? Some of you are reacting to simple pastoral prayers for people whose relationships we (fortunately) know little about by posting hysterical pornographic rants about ‘gay sex’.
‘simple pastoral prayers’. I am not quite sure whom you are trying to fool on this. Yourself? Not us. The idea that prayers which the legal advice has repeatedly stated is ‘indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church’, are nothing to fuss about is dishonest and disingenuous.
Is that the best you can do?
You know very well, Penelope, that the prayers are merely a means toward the goal of conducting same-sex wedding ceremonies in the CHurch of England. The idea that the liberal apostates will stop pushing for that if the prayers are licensed is not credible.
Ian
So, you’ve seen the legal advice then?
Penny, yes, I have read the 2017 legal advice. I also received advice directly as a member of AC. I note the legal comment referred to in Annex A para 17 of the LLF paper from Feb 2023. And the legal comment Michael Beasley mentioned in his speech in Synod.
It is all clear and consistent, and was confirmed unchanged by Martyn Snow, and demonstrates that what happened in York was indeed illegal.
I do hope that equal marriage will one day be possible in the CoE. But my hopes for that doesn’t make these prayers (which have passed in all three houses of Synod) illegal.
Remember that some, like Jayne Ozanne, have left the CoE precisely because these prayers aren’t marriage.
Well said Penelope
Ian,
If that is the case, why are you still complaining that the legal advice isn’t available?
Really? Most liberals couldn’t care less what people get up to in bed.
It’s conservatives like Stephen and Christopher who are obsessed with the pornographic details.
In other words, you’re just making it up. Carry on with thd slurs, Senator McCarthy.
No slurs. Just an accurate description of hypocrisy.
Or maybe some of these bishops are more human than they care to admit to the gallery.
Andrew, they are slurs. You accused evangelical bishops of hypocrisy for knowingly appointing sexually active gay clergy but when asked to substantiate your allegation you failed completely. That’s the very definition of a slur.
By contrast I mentioned the Dean of Canterbury and the Archdeacon of the aidle of Wight but these were not evangelical appointments.
Andrew, don’t you know there is a commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbour? Substantiate your statement or withdraw it.
I’ve no need to withdraw a true statement.
And I’m not going to put people at risk.
“I’ve no need to withdraw a true statement.
And I’m not going to put people at risk.”
Said the Gaslighter as he received the 2024 Joe McCarthy Award for Internet Journalism.
You are perfectly free, Andrew Godsall, not to withdraw your statement if you will not name names. But why should anybody believe you?
So are they being rebellious, strangers to truth, transparency, discipline, integrity? As demonstrated in the cumulative. detailed articles byAndrew Goddard is par for the course, and straight from the revisionists playbook. It is Antichrist in operation; a church of Antichrist, continuing in being established in lies, deceipt, falsehood. shameless in sophistry a denial of a new life rengenerated, redirected in salvation and sanctification in Christ Jesus.
“That makes me uncomfortable about writing what follows.”
I strongly doubt it. If Goddard was so uncomfortable, we might have seen some helpful suggestion of what he’d prefer was written on the Order of Service booklet. But we didn’t. Because he’s not.
Am I the only one who remembers people being worried in the Synod debate that if we weren’t careful folk might find themselves in a service using the Prayers of Love and Faith without expecting it? Now I’m being asked to believe that that’s all been reversed and if the inclusion of the Prayers of Love and Faith isn’t a surprise for the congregation then something illegal might have happened. Give me a break.
Hi – I don’t think we know each other and I’m not sure of your Christian name but I’m intrigued that you think you can judge the truthfulness of how comfortable or uncomfortable I was about writing the piece particularly as the basis you give for claiming I was not telling the truth is false. You claim “If Goddard was so uncomfortable, we might have seen some helpful suggestion of what he’d prefer was written on the Order of Service booklet. But we didn’t. Because he’s not”.
In the blog I wrote in the section on doctrine and the language of marriage and blessing: “On this basis it would appear at least prudent and perhaps legally necessary for there to be no reference at all to the civil status of the couple during the service and for the prayers simply to be for a same-sex couple”. I also said “The most obvious problem is the use of the language of “marriage” which was not even qualified as “civil marriage”. The longer piece which it is noted the blog is a summary of added after this: “Use of “civil marriage” might then appeal to the case for a clear distinction between civil marriage and holy matrimony to argue that the service was not contrary to the doctrine of the church in an essential matter and was a form of service which glorifies God and edifies the people”.
The blog also commented that “The language of “blessing” in the service booklet is also problematic as the blessing is related to the marriage (a case could perhaps have been made for referring to “prayers of blessing on” two named individuals)” and again the longer PDF added some commentary on this.
Putting that together I think it is clear that while some of my concerns would still apply, the service would have been less obviously and seriously contrary to the guidance and what we know of the legal advice if it had been described as “with prayers on blessing on A and B” and perhaps even if it had added “following their civil marriage”.
Darkness do not like the light, does not like being brought into the light.
Taken together, all of Andrew Goddards articles bring matters into the light. Little wonder there is there are rattling and hissing responses.
Corruption? Is that too strong a word for what is being drawn into the light, exposed, laid bare.
And significantly has not brought out any denials, any substantive responses; merely diversionary ploys – evidence enough corroborated by the silence on the many points made by Andrew Goddard.
Corrupt? Systemically riddled, rotted? From the head down.
Won’t get fooled? again?
The heart is deceitful above all things. Are we all convicted by our sin? Do the self-justify to remove guilt and shame? Impossible. Are we dead in our trespasses and sin?
We may scub- up well on the outside, but remain sin stained in all its ugliness.
Won’t get fooled again? Only in the light of Christ.
On our knees, turn to Him in repentance, for forgiveness, for resurrection life. There is no other way.
As Andrew writes, ‘Without the full order of service it is difficult to make any definitive judgment about the extent to which, either deliberately or in ignorance, the Minster was playing fast and loose with PLF.’ Indeed so. It looks like the Minster sought to interpret the guidelines correctly, but may not have done so. We have to assume that was their intention.
Could Andrew now use his huge knowledge of the LLF process to analyse in a similar way the recent services at All Souls’, Lanham Place and St Helen’s , Bishopsgate? E.g. What was their theological/ecclesiological basis? Were they the same kind of commissioning for public ministry? Why two services so close together in churches of the same tradition only a couple of miles apart? It’s very unclear to me what their significance is. The St Helen’s video implies that it was a very significant occasion that marked a decisive moment in the life of the Church of England, indicated by the repeated refrain, ‘If not now, when?’ Clearly it was very high profile with interviews with bishops and other senior figures and commissioning by laying on of hands. On the other hand some say that churches frequently commission lay staff so it was nothing out of the ordinary run of church life. So some critical analysis by Andrew would be great to unpack this . Otherwise it might look as though controversial services (York Minster) which he disagrees with get a full critique but ones he may agree with (All Souls and St Helen’s) receive no analysis.
The difference here is the level of openness and transparency.
The liturgy for the All Souls service was published online, so that there would be no doubt that this was all above board.
And William Taylor made a public comment to clarity what was happening at St Helens.
Both are entirely legal and regular, but both are meeting a need because some of the bishops have acted without honesty and transparency and so left a need for better support and encouragement.
Ian and James, thanks for your responses. I didn’t mention illegality at all either in relation to York Minster or the commissioning services. That wasn’t my point so the presence of KCs, judges, bishops is irrelevant. Nor am I defending what happened at York Minster as I simply don’t know enough to comment on it. If they weren’t sufficiently open or worded things badly then they can learn from that for the future; all of us have to work hard to communicate clearly. And I’m not disputing in any way the need that some feel for additional pastoral support at the moment which the services in London were partly about; informally that exists in all sorts of groups, networks, etc. And, James, I don’t know the answers to my questions, otherwise I wouldn’t ask them so please don’t assume what you don’t know.
I still think it’s perfectly reasonable to ask Andrew Goddard (or someone else) to analyse in detail the 2 commissioning services and there’s no implication that any concerns he raises will be the same as regards York. All three were different types of service for different purposes. The point still stands: some say these were nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal part of church life alongside other such services. But their scale with an accompanying video, the comments made in it by William Taylor and the range of interviews, etc suggest to an outside observer that it was intended to be a very significant occasion. He himself issued the challenge to other parishes several times, ‘If not now, when?’ Also, appearances matter and Andrew uses visual evidence as well as texts to judge the Minster service (‘photos of rings and a wedding reception make clear this was a very special service’.) We can do the same for the other services e.g. laying on of hands is usually reserved for ordinations. Why is it problematic to have a careful analysis done? Otherwise it might look rather like criticism of something we disagree with is OK, but not something we agree with. Someone opposed to PLF and SSM might analyse what happened at All Soul’s or St Helen’s critically and, possibly, highlight weaknesses.
A rather longer response than I intended!
Tim, don’t be so lazy. Do your own research.
The All Souls services are on line, just read them and then you can analyse them yourself.
And read the New Testament.
Laying on of hands is NOT “usually reserved for ordination”; it is used far, far more often for prayers for healing and commissioning. We do it all the time in prayer ministry and in sending youth teams away
on summer missions.
(If you spend five minutes looking up online the answers to your own questions, I promise not to ask you to write my sermons or sort out my finances for me.)
Tim, it has been made very clear that the service at St Helen’s was not in any sense ‘ordination’.
And as others have pointed out, the commissioning at All Souls is public, with the liturgy public and written by a retired bishop.
None of the questions arise which are clearly a concern in this case. I think that is why they don’t merit the same analysis. Unlike this one, they have been open and honest about what is happening.
Certainly, open about commissioning lay presidents and about commissioning ‘overseers’. Where may I find these in the Canons, the BCP, and the 39 Articles.
Tim, you ask a bunch of questions to which you already know the answer.
Men who had trained for ordination were commissioned in St Helen’s to work – as laymen – in some churches which are going to pay and house them (no charge on diocese or central church funds).
This kind of thing happens all the time with youth workers and pastoral assistants. They are always funded by the local church. My church funds two such workers.
In All Souls some persons, male and female, were commissioned to provide spiritual support and counsel to clergy whose pastoral relationship with their bishops is now broken down.
Former judges, bishops, KCs and others were present and commented. Do you think anyghing illegal went on? If so, pleass specify.
Bishop Pete Broadbent spoke up in support of these events. Email him if you think anything illegal has been done
Telling other people what subjects they ought to write about is revealing, but not about Andrew Goddard. If you are that interested, why not do the hard work yourself?
It’s perfectly reasonable to suggest (not tell) that someone who obviously has a huge amount of knowledge on this subject (Andrew has been involved in the LLF process a lot and has written about it on this blog many times) is better placed than many of us to do so. Or perhaps someone else could do it, I don’t mind. It needs someone with sufficient knowledge about the services, the personnel involved, the LLF documents, the decision-making processes behind the services, planning, the video, etc. So I would find it helpful to read a good, critical analysis of the two services in London. And if it came from someone who was supportive of them it would be especially helpful as self-criticism is very often the most important kind. It’s easy to dismiss criticism from those outside our group. You may disagree and might not find it helpful, and that’s fine, but I would ask you to listen to and respect others. Thanks.
Tim, the All Souls service is online.
If you know how to use Google, you can find it in under 30 seconds. If not, ask here and someone can help. Then read it yourself and make up your own mind.
James, I think you miss my point. It’s more than seeing a service it’s all that goes with it and around it and some deeper analysis of that would be valuable.
(BTW, I think I can use Google.)
DIY, Tim.
‘Self- criticism is very often the most important kind.’
Is that a very rich irony alert from any revisionists?
From revisionist who refuse to publish their own legal advice and who have the resources to do so again, both in this matter and St Helen’s and All Souls it is indeed lavishly rich.
No it’s irony at all, as I’m not speaking for anyone else. IMHO most of us join groups that reinforce the views we already hold and we give most credence to evidence that backs up those views and so we’re confirmed in them. (It’s what Kahneman calls ‘confirmation bias.’) Getting outside our views to see them as others do or to entertain the possibility that a different view is correct is very, very difficult. It often meets huge resistance, both within ourselves and from the group we’re in who can also police boundaries very tightly. I can’t say if that’s the case with the house of bishops, the CEEC, Inclusive Evangelicals, or any other group, it’s for them to say. It’s just something I believe all of us need to be on our guard against. We can change our views but it’s often a difficult process when we’re heavily invested in something at an emotional as well as an intellectual level. But your experience may be different.
Tim,
I’m well aware of what confirmation bias is.
As a former lawyer it pays, both the profession, yourself, the case and the client, to know the opponents case, better or at least as well as they know it themselves, strengths and weaknesses on both sides.
In the matter of sss/m/b the points have been more than well rehearsed and reiterated and judgments have been made on both sides, which are mutually incompatible.
Hence the entirely foreseeable fall -out between incompatible convictions based on different, premises. theological, scriptural, philoshical, cultural, secular, telelogical.
After all this, to me one view is fundamentally, self-serving in its nature, its essence. And the more it is prosecuted, the more it dissuades, rather than persuades and the more it confirms the self-serving bias.
But I am biasedvhaving once been an atheist, generalist solicitor converted to Christ as a 47 year old. The before and after bias are in radical opposition, having lived so long in the secular culture, it can now be viewed from both the inside and outside.
All the talking has been done, and nothing is new.
Is your mind not clear, yet. Still persuadable one way or another?
Where does the doubt and confusion remain?
I agree with you Tim. I wrote and asked Andrew if he had actually checked the details with those who took the service. I have had no reply. ‘Without the full order of service it is difficult to make any definitive judgment’, the blog says. Well quite. Why not wait until you have one then? All Cathedral services are printed and available. Better still, talk to the person who organised it. Instead, this blog makes allegations, ‘Playing fast and loose’, and assumes the worst of motives, based on unreferenced social media reporting.
David, you are right. We need to talk to the person who took the service. So I did. And in fact Andrew’s analysis here is much more generous and less damning than it could have been in the light of what the person who organised and led the service said to me.
His own phrasing and exposition was much further in breach of the guidelines than the corrected official line. He even posted on Instagram a picture of him blessing the rings in the Minster prior to the civil ceremony. And also pictures of the ‘wedding breakfast’ following the Minster service.
So I think Andrew has here been very cautious and generous indeed. And I think this all makes the title ‘Playing fast and loose’ quite accurate.
My comment was directed to Andrew. I am content to wait for a reply from him to his blog if he so chooses. Perhaps the title was not his.
Yes it was. Andrew is on holiday, so I am offering an answer in the interim. But Andrew knew what Tim had posted on Facebook, not least because the Minster made reference to it in offering a corrective.
But do please note that Tim’s description of what happened, including his blessing of weddings rings in the Minster, far exceed anything Andrew has commented on here. I hope you can recognise that.
(I also wrote directly and privately both to the Dean and to the Archbishop.)
Interestingly David, I have just checked back on the conversation I had with Tim, raising questions in private and inviting clarification (which he supplied)—and lo and behold, he has deleted all the messages. He has also revised his FB posts. I wonder why that might be?
For those who do not know the people, is the Tim mentioned here, the same Tim, who has commented above? It seems to be unlikely.
What has been descibed by Ian Paul is no small, private confidential matter but a one of true, significant ‘public interest’.
Just to avoid confusion the Tim referred here by Ian is not me but a priest at York Minster, I believe! Much as I always enjoy visiting the Minster I’m not on the staff there.
Thanks for clarification, Tim.
I thought it unlikely.
Hi David. As I have said to you privately, I am away on holiday and so had not seen your message to me until I was alerted to your comment here. I am a little confused why you think I needed to see the service booklet to write what I wrote as all I wrote was focussed on how the service was described on the cover booklet (noting the alternative original descriptions from those presiding and preaching). If that shows the service was outside the canons, guidance or legal advice then I do not need more information.
The fuller piece which the blog summarises as was noted at the start summed up some of the evidence cited by saying (p. 7) that “Although it is unclear what was said during the service at York Minster, the service booklet description of it as including “prayers of blessing following the marriage of” two men breaches these constraints and at least implicitly treats a civil same-sex marriage as marriage”.
You quote the blog as saying “Without the full order of service it is difficult to make any definitive judgment” and comment “Well quite. Why not wait until you have one then?” but you fail to say what I said it was difficult to make the definitive judgment on. This was “about the extent to which, either deliberately or in ignorance, the Minster was playing fast and loose with PLF”.
I would be interested if you or others could respond to any of the points I make in the substantive argument which is focussed on the cover description in the light of the guidance, canons and legal advice as far as we know it. As Ian points out in his reply, I purposefully avoided critiquing other aspects known about the occasion and its context. In short, I think “the extent” and the degree of intentionality (“either deliberately or in ignorance”) and hence motive (about which I say nothing despite your claims) in relation to “playing fast and loose” is not certain (and the title purposefully has a question mark).
However, given the description on the service booklet and the evidence from the guidance, legal advice and Synod papers from the bishops – not at all simply from “unreferenced social media reporting” as you allege – I think that such a service does not fit within the law and doctrine of the church and hope that those who think it does (am I right to assume that you do?) will explain why they think this and correct any errors I have made.
I am also interested in your response to my point at the end that this shows that we therefore need a more honest discussion about the constraints of PLF, openness about legal advice, and consideration of what would need to change to loosen the constraints and allow such services in the CofE. I will try to get back to any further responses (and to your queries Tim re recent services at ASLP and SHB) but probably not until I get back from holiday at the end of the month.
Andrew. Thank you for your trouble in responding. As I said to you privately, I had no wish to break into your holiday – which I had anticipated might be the case. I am too. I will give thought to your line of argument, but will not take it any further on this discussion thread. The relentless rudeness and hostility to folk holding other than conservative views, and particularly the lovelessness and total lack of respect towards those whose lives are at the heart of this discussion, make it completely pointless.
David, I am happy to protect your comments from hostile interrogation.
But you have commented here, offering critical comment about Andrew’s approach, and even challenging the legitimacy of his questions.
When he takes the trouble to give you a careful response, and invites you to substantiate your claims, you decide to withdraw? Seriously? The ‘hostility’ you mention did not prevent you from challenging Andrew in the first place?
This is a strangely one-sided way of engaging, and itself rather hostile. You drop in unfounded criticisms—and then walk away.
It does make me wonder whether you have any serious substance to offer. I will be very happy to be corrected.
Thanks, Andrew. Enjoy your holiday and please don’t reply to anything I’ve written until well after your return.
The PFL saga…..
I just read an amazing discussion between a Pastor and a Lesbian Professor of English and Women’s’ Studies in America; read this and gain an insight into this saga that I am sure will be transformative and probably a key to resolving our current impasse.
Most certainly it is a pastoral provision that will enlighten our darkness and cool our ardours.
.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/an-unlikely-friendship/
Enjoy!
Rosaria Butterfield *was* a lesbian professor of English and Women’s Studies, who experienced a deep conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ some time before this interview. Her testimony, Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, is a remarkable book. I quote: “sexual sin is not recreational sex gone overboard. Sexual sin is predatory. It won’t be “healed”… Sexual sin must simply be killed. What is left of your sexuality after this annihilation is up to God. But healing, to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less.”
Actually she was a ‘political lesbian’ (her own words in an earlier book), gave that mindset up and married a man. I dont think she is particularly representative of gay people. And I find her condemnation of other Christians such as Preston Sprinkle who agree that same-sex sexual relationships are sinful, completely unacceptable.
But hey, she’s making a name for herself on youtube.
Of course she isn’t representative of gay people. She converted to Christianity.
You say she “gave that mindset up”. More accurate is that she was given the power to give it up and she used it. But have you read what it cost her – inwardly as well as externally – and how it would have been impossible if not for the Lord Jesus Christ?
Indeed, Anton.
In the Christian sphere who is the true gay, those who seek sss/m/b or the sexually abstemious.
From a friend who attend the Keswick Convention this year when Vaughan Roberts was a main speaker, it was to a full house.
It must have been like breathing fesh air to Roberts. It was to my friend.
She’s not representative of gay people because she’s not (and never was) gay.
She was sexually attracted to other women. I’m not interested in category-dicing.
Penny, she self-described as gay. Who are you to contradict her self-description?!
Geoff, it’s worth remembering that Butterfield is extremely critical of those who argue gay people should be celibate. It’s the main thrust of her denunciations of people like Preston Sprinkle. Her argument is that gay people aren’t gay (because she wasn’t) and ought to be entering male-female marriages (like she did).
Yes Anton, from what I’ve read it cost RB a lot, formerly living in a lesbian relationship as a high profile professional Queer theorist advocate, strenuously opposed to Christianity, to Christ.
AJB,
That is not Butterfield’s ‘main thrust’ at all. She believes that sexual relations with someone of the same sex are sinful and that sexual relations should be limited to married male-female couples. That is the biblical line.
I have read three books and watched several YouTube clips of hers, and I am not aware that anywhere does she say gay people ‘should’ get married to someone of the opposite sex; please give a reference for that claim. She insists that it is *possible* to be changed, and no doubt this is what attracts such opprobrium from those who believe otherwise and who know not the power of Jesus Christ. But she never said it is easy, as her own testimony stands witness.
Ian
Fair point. She was gay. But not sexually attracted to people of the same sex/gender. So, her orientation (as opposed to her identity) was always heterosexual.
She wasn’t. She was a political lesbian.
Her relationships with other women were through political expediency rather than sexual attraction.
It was quite popular in radical lesbianism at one time.
Penny, I’m completely baffled by your terminology.
I thought the whole point of ‘LGB’ stuff was that one’s identity was primarily derived from the kind of people you are sexually attracted to, i.e. your sexual orientation. There may other stuff associated with being ‘gay’, I guess, but being sexually attracted to those of the same sex is the sine qua non of LGB.
Would you say that a trans woman has the identity of a woman, but they are actually a man as their body is male?
Her [Rosaria Butterfield’s] relationships with other women were through political expediency rather than sexual attraction.
You have found that stated in her public output? Or are you modestly able to know the secrets of all hearts?
Butterfield herself says theres no such thing as a gay person.
It’s difficult to claim she experienced orientation transformation when she doesn’t even believe in orientation. And says that requiring gay celibacy or allowing gay marriage are actually not that different because they are both making the fundamental mistake of acknowledging that gay people exist.
https://www.str.org/w/interview-rosaria-butterfield-openness-unhindered-further-thoughts-of-an-unlikely-convert-on-sexual-identity-and-union-with-christ
Let’s see what she actually said in that interview you posted, Peter. Her point is that the Christian should not base personal identity on personal sexuality.
I really don’t like using the language that would suggest that there is such a thing as a gay person, or a lesbian person, or a bisexual person. Personhood is defined in Genesis 1:26-27, “We are image bearers of the holy God.” There are certainly people who struggle daily with unchosen homosexual desire, but they’re really not a separate category of personhood. Although that very much is what the LGBT rights movement wants you to believe…
In the 19th century, Freud developed a theory that what he thought distinguished human beings from other higher mammals, sexual desires that were separate from the desire to procreate, and that those separate desires had different objects of desire, and that’s what made people different. People were gay, lesbian, bisexual, and that’s what mattered most. Then very quickly after that, the sexual orientation moved from a category mistake in the 19th century to an idol.
…we’re not saying that there aren’t people who have a deep and abiding attraction and affinity, and even a desire that moves into lust and everything else for members of the same-sex. The Bible is saying that doesn’t mean that that’s a separate category of personhood.
This seems to be the core of her difference with Preston Sprinkle.
Actually, Preston would not disagree with that, and it is not helpful to pit them against one another. Preston continues to use the term ‘gay’ simple to facilitate sympathetic engagement with those with whom he might disagree.
Yep, Anton. Adam cited her in a previous thread.
David
Ian made the valid point that Butterfield described herself as gay.
My response was that that may have been the way she described herself but that she wasn’t attracted to women. She was, I think, a political lesbian.
In my day, political lesbians were women who chose to have sex with other women because they didn’t trust/like men. Julie Bindel is one, I think. I don’t know how popular that stance is nowadays.
So what do you think her problem with Preston Sprinkle is Anton? When she says he’s a heretical liar who heads up a heretical organisation, it’s not a compliment.
One of her particular criticisms of Sprinkle (and others like Revoice and CRU), accusess him of saying that people who experience same-sex attraction rarely, if ever, change and therefore should never pursue heterosexual marriage.
AJB,
You ask me what I think Rosaria Butterfield has against Preston Sprinkle’s position. I am familiar with her position but not his, and to answer that properly I’d have to read him extensively in his own words and then read what she has written specifically against him. That involves more work and time than I’m interested in putting in, but here is one website which summarises what it says is some of his views:
https://disntr.com/2024/02/06/rosaria-butterfield-rebukes-the-gospel-coalition-for-supporting-preston-sprinkles-heretical-teachings/
I’ll make another post with a further link (two links put a post into moderation) and further comments of mine.
I’m not sure what she has against Sprinkle’s theology. I’m familiar with her position, but I’d need to familiarise myself with his writings and then see exactly what she has said against him, in context.
Here is the second link I am providing about Rosaria Butterfield and Preston Sprinkle:
https://www.shelfreflection.com/blog/five-lies-of-our-anti-christian-age
From the first link:
his ministry promotes the notion that homosexuals can fulfill their homosexual desires in nonsexual ways by entering into same-sex covenant relationships that essentially mimic marriage arrangements but stop short of bodily penetration. Other false teachings that Sprinkle promotes or endorses on this subject are that one can live their life as a “transgender” person, so long as they don’t “act out” sexually with someone of the same biological sex… Sprinkle is hosting a webinar in January on “Christian Sexuality” on why we need more homosexuals and transgenders in church leadership.
From the second link:
He is not willing to say whether or not intersex conditions are a result of the Fall. In Embodied Preston says, “Maybe using the fall to explain intersex conditions is wrongheaded, to begin with, as many disability theologians have reminded us”… He is also a proponent of using preferred pronouns [for Trans persons].
I have not verified in Sprinkle’s own writings how accurate these statements are, and nor have I read/verified the full passage about Sprinkle in Butterfield’s “Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age”, but there are some matters of concern for the evangelical here.
I think these claims are rather scandalous misrepresentations of his position!
“it is not helpful to pit them against one another”
Maybe not helpful for you Ian, but it has the virtue of accuracy. Butterfield has denounced Sprinkle as a heretic leading a heretical organisation because of what he says on this issue. And she did so in the most public way available addressing Liberty University Convocation last year.
AJB,
Given that you are reduced to quoting a spat between two people who agree that man lying with man as with woman is a sin, I don’t think you are doing very well in this discussion.
OK to all of that, but I still say that you can’t claim she experienced orientation change, when she herself doesn’t say so, her relationships seem to contradict that claim and she herself says that gay and straight are not legitimate classes of personhood (whatever that might mean!)
Her relationships seem to contradict that change? She was living with a woman and has since married a man. You hang a lot on the fact that she had previous boyfriends and you ignore what she wrote after her conversion: “sexual sin is not recreational sex gone overboard. Sexual sin is predatory. It won’t be “healed”… Sexual sin must simply be killed. What is left of your sexuality after this annihilation is up to God. But healing, to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less.”
Anton
But she was also in sexually active relationships with men *before* as well, which seems to suggest she’s probably bisexual, not gay. Her attitude that orientation doesn’t exist or is defined by sexual behavior also suggests that she is someone without personal experience of only being attracted to one sex.
AJB,
Let’s just apply here your ” no true Scotsman fallacy”.
Is she not quite lesbian/gay enough?
Was she not truly transformed by conversion to Christ? Something that was by nature or nuture beyond her?
Was her mind not renewed by the washing of the word? Was the indwelling Holy Spirit not at work in her life, the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead?
She is a trophy of the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
It would appear that some are not happy having “grown up conversations”on this topic.
What is significant to me is the Pastoral relationship dynamic and the realization that RB had not realized “what it meant to be a woman”
I have often felt that, that is a fundamental aspect of such relationships.
Not knowing what a man is engenders much cognitive dissonance.
Now there’s a thing.
RB was now according to PCD a ‘radical … politcal lesbian’
Is that any sort of lesbian at all, even just a tiny bit?
Or not at all?
Is a polictical lesbian a lesbian who is political or any lesbian who is political is not a lesbian at all.
Is a lesbian who politically, ( rights/ equality based) philosophically seeks sss/m/b not a lesbian at all.
Was RB a doyen of radical Queer Theory activism only polictically Queer, never truly queer.
Is Queer theory activism only ever political.
Which are you Penelope? Truely, or politically?
Was RB’s radical conversion to Christ, true or merely political. If political, it certainly wasn’t a political flag of convenience: more the opposite more like political suicide.
Conversion to Christ is what is truely radical, and what unsettles and disrupts. A life before and after, redirected.
Geoff
Who really knows except her and God, but my understanding of it is that she was bisexual, having had multiple sexually active relationships with both men and women and after her marriage to a man, has become someone who is generally used by others to suggest this is clear evidence that gay people can just choose to be attracted to the opposite of sex, even though she herself hasn’t claimed any orientation change.
What I do think is hypocrisy is she is one of a number of women speakers in the conservative church who oppose women in leadership…like herself.
To what congregation does she provide oversight?
Anton
Her wiki page says she taught and practiced ministry at a Christian college and she does regular public speaking which is a form of leadership.
No it’s not. Nobody answers to her.
Anton
My knowledge of her is someone telling gay people they aren’t allowed to be Christians and telling Christians they shouldn’t accept even celibate gay people. Is that not attempting leadership?
She clearly hasnt read Andrew Bartlett’s book then. Her eyes need to be opened.
She was a lesbian. Just not one who was attracted to women!
As for me, I’m straight, white, middle class and old.
That sounds a bit like, “It’s a circle, just not a round one!”
So what is a “political lesbian”? Is it like cosplay, a woman pretending to be sexually attracted to women and having sexual relations with other women but not actually wanting or liking it? Are “political lesbians” frauds, heterosexual women masquerading as lesbians?
What exactly is “political” about this? How is it not erotic? Is it a Marxist thing? Are you sure there is nothing erotic about this?
Why do we never hear of “political gay men”, men who are not sexually attracted to other men but have sexual relationships with men? Or do such men exist somewhere?
Actually all the lesbians I have known were bisexual, and most of them were at some stage married (to husbands) with kids. It does seem to me that lesbianism can often express itself in mid-life to a lot of women, perhaps after a personal crisis or marriage breakdown. I have long taken this to be a sign of the fluidity of sexual desire in human beings. I have never believed in sexual essentialism where erotic desire is concerned but rather that given the appropriate circumstances (a fractured relationship with the parent of the opposite sex, negative feelings about one’s own body, an overly introspective personality, psychic harm, sexual abuse, seduction, great personal stress etc), anybody could develop introverted same-sex attraction. The situational causes of SSA are no doubt complex and no doubt opaque to the individuals themselves.
It’s also interesting that twice as many men as women regularly describe themselves as homosexual. Why this difference in numbers?
It also seems to me that while lesbian relationships are usually exclusive compared to male homosexual relationships, many lesbian relationships become sexless after a few years, reflecting the different sex drives between men and women. Yet most lesbians harbour hopes of motherhood, like most other women.
I’ve told you what a political lesbian is: a woman who chooses sexual intimacy with her own sex, not because she is attracted to them, but because she despises men. A slogan used to be “all men are rapists”; it was a political act not to sleep with men.
I *think* Julie Bindel describes herself as a political lesbian, but they seem to be dying out as a group!
So there is no sexual desire in a “political lesbian? I knew there was a crass popular perception that lesbians were men-haters, and to be fair, I’ve known a couple like that when I worked in academia. But it has never seemed to me that they lacked same-sex erotic desire, quite the reverse. Why don’t we get “political gay men” who despise
women? After all misogyny is common enough but it doesn’t seem to induce men to act gay.
I think it more likely that a “political lesbian”
is a lesbian who happens to be a Marxist and
sees the world through that lens. And as a Christian I consider Marxism and Marxian psychology profoundly false reductionist beliefs. As I said before, sexual desire is much more fluid than “essentialists” imagine because situations and crises in life can shape and direct our lives in surprising ways: for example, women who develop same-sex affections in midlife after their marriages break down; or a man like Huw Edwards, a married churchgoer with five children, who develoos later in life a sexual interest in teenage males – and much worse. As the Lord told Cain, “Sin is crouching at your door and its desire is to master you.”
James
I really wouldn’t know. There must be some desire in order to get them on bed together.
In my experience, there aren’t politically gay men because men have never needed to fear women. There are, however, gay men who really hate women. (You’ll find a few of those amongst anti women’s ordination Anglo Catholic male clergy.)
And that is sadly what happens when you include ‘queer’ and ‘trans’ people into the acronym, straight people self-defining into homosexuality. It backfires.
Of course, for one Rosaria one could line up dozens of conversion therapy reverts who ended up admitting that they never experienced a change in orientation and lied, for Jesus. How many of these organisations will have to shut down…
Lorenzo writes: “And that is sadly what happens when you include ‘queer’ and ‘trans’ people into the acronym, straight people self-defining into homosexuality.”
And just what does ‘queer’ mean? I have said it just seems to be another word for ‘homosexual’ but with a subversive political edge. Or does it mean ‘not really homosexual, just cosplay for women’? If RB is a ‘political lesbian’, where are the ‘political gay men’? Do they exist or has RB’s ‘political lesbianism’ been cancelled? (I suspect what she is saying is more radical than most people want to see.)
Lorenzo, you seem to have a kind of sexual essentialism, as if sexual feelings are as immutable as our skin colour. As that actually true?
Do you think ANYONE is exempt from the temptation to sin? My Anglican faith tells me that simply isn’t true.
Look at the example of Huw Edwards: outwardly a professing churchgoing Christian in the rabidly secular BBC, a married man with five children.
But secretly soliciting sexual relationships with teenage boys and young men at the BBC.
And even worse, a paedophiliac interest in extreme child abuse.
How does a married Christian father end up in such a place?
Perhaps the human heart is more complex and dark and capable of deceiving itself than you imagine?
‘Perhaps the human heart is more complex and dark and capable of deceiving itself than you imagine?’
ain’t that the truth.
I do not think that anyone is free of temptation at all, what a non sequitur. I do however think that, for most people, sexual orientation is not malleable.
Lorenzo writes: “I do not think that anyone is free of temptation at all, what a non sequitur. I do however think that, for most people, sexual orientation is not malleable.”
Not actually a non sequitur, because you fail to recognise homosexual desire as a temptation to sin, you think it’s perfectly OK, just as a heterosexual man might lust after a woman. That was my point about the complexity of the human heart.
And what you also failed to grapple with was the case of Huw Edwards, this married Christian father of five, seeking affairs with young men, and worse. Do you think his desire for same-sex relationships with young men was sinful – or just following his “natural desires”?
When you were a Roman Catholic priest, you learned all about Natural Law and the concept of the proper ends of our desires (and the BCP teaches exactly the same thing). You should study those old books again!
Thank you, James, I remember the old books quite well and no amount of patronising on your part will make we want to open them again. Besides, your argument would only have bite if said Huw Edwards hadn’t been a bisexual man attracted to minors all his life.
Things are not good because they meet the end for which they were devised or bad because they don’t. What’s a good atomic bomb? A bad alligator?
I don’t fail to recognise homosexual desire as a desire to sin because I don’t think it leads to sin, not any more than heterosexual desire anyway.
As I keep saying, there are a great many fundamental questions about gay people and their relationships that the CofE has not even attempted to answer and this is what is causing a great deal of the current strife. In a vacuum of answers from leadership, individuals will make their own minds up
Peter,
It is suggested that you try to t look at RB’s testinomy of radical conversion to Christ, through that lens of conversion, rather than through the narrow single lens focus of gayness. You may not have to hand the lens of your conversion to look through?
I think you have commented in the wrong place here.
Geoff
I’ve probably read more about her and more of her own writings that you have. I am yet to come across anywhere where she claims orientation change. She is used widely by others as proof that its possible to choose to be attracted to the opposite sex, but she doesn’t claim this about herself.
I’m not interested in a “who has the biggest Bible” competition. Im interested in truth.
Well, have you read the numerous publications from the C of E, and texts from respected Anglican commentators?
Which ones?
And in what way are they inadequate?
Ian Paul
Quite a bit of it yes, since I had (and in some senses still do) have flesh in the game, unlike most of the people commenting!
I’ve found nothing definitive on whether the CofE believes that orientation is a chosen state, a dellusion or a inherent characteristic. Lambeth 1.10 deliberately fudged this issue.
There’s didly squit about anything else to do with gay people. It’s all this obsession over sex. Oh wait there’s vague notions of “zero tolerance of homophobia” and “a conversion therapy ban”, but these both seem to be totally meaningless in practical terms and “orthodox” church of England leaders seem completely free to speak out against them.
We are told same sex marriage is wrong, but nowhere says why – and when I suggest that the CofE considers it evil, I get told I am totally wrong.
Quite. Ten years of this theatrical rubbish. I suppose some people think it’s all a price worth paying if they can get the re-shaping and shrinking of the Church they’ve wanted for a long time. You and I, and the lives of men and women like us, are just a ladder to be stepped on. But that’s the grubby reality of Anglican politics these days I fear.
Twenty years ago Andrew Goddard wrote:
“Will we really seek to understand gay people? Will we create Christian communities in which our vision becomes reality and so is not a harsh law but embodied as the gospel of grace? Will we establish a Church where recognition and support to single people and chaste loving friendships and it is demonstrably no longer the case that gay Christians can legitimately say ‘you have offered me in my life no viable strategy for ordering my life’?”
Now we know the answer is ‘no’. But the questions aren’t going to be wished away.
‘Ten years of this theatrical rubbish. I suppose some people think it’s all a price worth paying if they can get the re-shaping and shrinking of the Church they’ve wanted for a long time.’
Yes indeed, Adam. There’s been endless nonsense from those privately pressing for change, claiming that they just want a ‘compromise’, but at last the curtain has been pulled back, and we have learnt that many bishops don’t in fact believe the doctrine of the Church and the teaching of Jesus at all.
It has been very costly, not only for gay people on both sides, but for stressed and demoralised clergy, and now for divided parishes.
Every single church that has gone in this direction has divided and decline, usually catastrophically. Did you read this about the Anglican Church of Canada? https://livingchurch.org/covenant/the-collapse-of-the-anglican-church-of-canada/
If we have failed to attain Andrew’s laudable goal, it will because of dishonesty and sexualisation of relationships on the part of ‘liberals’ as much as anything.
Except the Anglican Church of Canada has never approved same sex marriage nationwide, it never received the 2/3 majority required in its Synod. There are more Roman Catholics in Canada than all other Christian denominations combined however, despite the Pope moving towards blessings for same sex couples similar to those the C of E and ACC have approved
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67751600
Ian
The CofE has divided and declined – you just havent noticed.
Yes, it has indeed declined and divided, and done both in precisely the same period it has been weak and wavering and culturally more conformist on this issue.
“If we have failed to attain Andrew’s laudable goal, it will because of dishonesty and sexualisation of relationships on the part of ‘liberals’ as much as anything.”
Please. Spare us this cant. The stubborn and absolute insistence on the part of the ‘conservatives’ to block even beginning to address Goddard’s goal is what we’ve actually seen. The LLF resources tried to open up a conversation, reflecting different views however imperfectly. The response was CEEC’s Beautiful Story: an exercise is shutting that conversation down as firmly as possible, and making sure whatever we were talking about it wasn’t understanding gay people, any gospel for us, or any strategy for ordering our lives. When the PLF report was put forward, the sections on celibacy and singleness were ignored in Synod. In the PLF debates in Synod we have never seen or heard an argument put forward for ‘conservatives’ seeking to talk to a single one of Goddard’s challenges. Even when people raise the need to replace Issues in Human Sexuality, there is not even a whisper of what that replacement ought to say.
The ‘conservatives’ are not the only problem. As I’ve said before, the Bishops haven’t been trying to form a new teaching answering the challenges posed by Goddard’s questions. Rather, they’ve given up on having a common position on any of that, and instead turned their minds to how to maintain Church unity whilst having different views (or this time of uncertainty as they might put it). In that of course, they are joined by CEEC, EGGS, the Alliance et al, who continually raise the question of having a third province, alternative episcopal oversight etc.. Some go so far as to stand up in Synod and hope that gay Anglicans will be able to married in the Church of England, just as long as they’re able to get their third province.
So far from it being their fault, it strikes me that the ‘liberals’ are the only ones making any effort to understand gay people, consider what a gospel of grace for us might be, and a strategy for ordering our lives. You may disagree with them. I may disagree with them. But they’re the only ones I can see who made any sort of effort on this in LLF. And if you attribute the Bishops’ response and PLF to the ‘liberals’ they’re the only ones who’ve even mentioned chaste loving friendships and the need to think more seriously about singleness and celibacy.
There is a difference and distinction between the very modern (undefined, undefineable ) secularly constructed category of gay, and Christanity and the “called out ones” the church of Jesus Christ.
The CoE does have doctrine of marriage.
Anyone subscribing to the doctrine of the Fall and the doctrine of sin, whether hetero or homosexual, will be be aware of how ingrained sin is and will have an understanding of temptation, and maybe even ‘spiritual strongholds’ so will have some understanding.
The problem: scripture provides answers, which are not liked, denied or rejected. Indeed the Triune God is the answer.
And yet we seem fixated on “doing what is right in our own eyes” a theme that runs throughout scripture, which unfailingly brings God’s judgment.
Why are you bent on breaking the Church for your own selfish reasons and desires?
Incurvatus in se.
We do not live our lives, now, today, in the light of eternity.
Penelope,
It doesn’t take much to to find out more on the theology of singleness such as here (and more is to be found).
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2021/october-web-only/theology-of-singleness-catechism.html
Marriage can be an idol, as can singleness.
We can only ever be complete, and completed in Christ.
Marriage does not take the place of a Christian’s Union (oneness) with Christ.
Singleness, easy? Hardly.
Marrige, easy? Hardly.
Is God enough? In singleness? In marriage?
Geoff
Gay strictly means someone with lifelong exclusive attraction to the same sex.
It’s slightly confusing because it’s also loosely used as an umbrella term for anyone who is LGBT+++.
Im in my 40s and this has been the stable definition of the term all of my life so I am skeptical when “Christians” pretend not to understand what it means.
PJ
Once could it be suggested that this goes beyonnd your life span. And the category, including your disputed definition, (which conveniently for your purposes excludes RB) is a late modern secular one, intensified in the so called sexual revolution and permissive society, of a secular source and roots and its hyper sexualisation. It is not from Christianity.
And yet again you ignore other points of substance in my comment.
You may reply, but it’ll be nothing new, and I’ll not be looking at it if you do.
We are so far from Andrew Goddard’s article. But that remains a revisionists ploy, with scatter-gun argumentation which misses the substance of the target article.
Geoff
Yes words had different meanings before I was born, but that was a VERY long time ago.
I disagree that Christians have or should have different definitions of English words – that’s just an excuse to get away with dishonesty by saying one thing when you secretly mean another.
Do you think that the conservative ‘policy’ (if it can be described as such) of ingnoring singlesnees and celibacy is, because, absent the reverence for a few heroic same-sex attracted people who are used as poster boys and girls for abstinence, there really isn’t a conservative theology of celibacy.
Reform theology has (it seems to me) focussed so much on marriage and childbearing as the ideal, with the Paterfamilias as Pastor of his own household, that singleness and celibacy as either gift or contingency. Consequently the only choices for gay folk are: marry someone of the other sex, or suck it up.
sorry: that singlesness and celibacy as either gift or contingency are ignored.
Thanks Penny,
I do wonder why it’s not felt to be necessary (and before someone jumps in, no the Grove booklets I’ve read on singleness do not address this). The most absurd version tends to come from men who are married, and often have been since their early 20s, trying to tell you that they really do understand celibacy because they have to resist the temptation to cheat on their wives and engage in adulterous affairs.
One aspect I find very striking is that we often see a bundling together of singleness and celibacy as if it’s the same thing. You see this most in the argument that celibacy is no great burden because there are other people who are single and never got married. As someone who was celibate, and would now say I was single, I consider them very distinct. Celibacy is not a single moment in time: when we sit in church on a Sunday, we’re not all being celibate because no one is having sex in the pews. Celibacy is as much about your intent for the future as it is what you’re doing (or not) today. Singleness however, is a moment in time: just because you’re single today, doesn’t mean you will be or expect to be in the future. Hence, when the Bishops wrote Issues in Human Sexuality back in the 90s they were very clear in pointing out the celibacy and singleness were very different, arguing that celibacy had to be freely and deliberately chosen “in order to devote oneself completely to God and his concerns”. They went further to insist that “celibacy cannot be prescribed for anyone”. All this seems to have been forgotten or overlooked, and gives you little confidence that the advocates have a strong grasp on what they’re talking about.
Perhaps some of this explains why after we go through the discussion there comes a point where it’s suddenly revealed that the person in the conversation doesn’t really accept sexual orientation as important (or maybe even real). If you really have a conversation about the reality of celibacy, and the reality of imposing it as a rule of life on some people from 16 onwards, you see a switch to “yeah, but you can be married, as long as it’s a male-female marriage”. Then the whole thing switches to how sexual orientation can probably be changed anyway, and is therefore a choice, or that it doesn’t really matter and should be no obstacle to a heterosexual marriage. But hardly anyone actually starts there, or puts it in such easily understood terms. The shame of the horrendous failure of the ex-gay movement is the most likely explanation I suspect. But it does mean we’re not really having an honest discussion when people pull this sort of bait and switch in the debate.
Finally, I can’t quite shake the suspicion that for some, there’s an unspoken escape clause in Calvinist ideas about limited atonement at play in a country where Christians are a minority. If not everyone is meant to be saved, then why should we care about the potential burden of celibacy on gay people or what it means or whether we should do anything about it? If they’re part of the elect, they’ll be fine with the celibacy, and if they’re not then God didn’t want them anyway. But saying that out loud means owning up to a very harsh view of atonement and believing God is very limited in his love for us.
Thank you for that very rich reflection. In my (limited) experience conservative evangelicals tend to conflate celibacy and singleness, denying that the first is a charism distinct from the experience of being single which is often contingent, not chosen.
My own thoughts are that in much of the contemporary church marriage and families are idolised in a way which would have scandalised the evangelists and Paul (not to say Jesus). I am not suggesting a return to the idolisation of enkrateia in the early church which saw even conjugal sex as sinful, but to a theology which takes seriously the different calls on our lives and which recognises that these may change. There is nothing inherently good in procreation, in being child free, in celibacy, in singleness, in being in committed relationships; it is how we live out these callings.
Hear is the nub of the Issue What does it mean aka “what it means to be a woman”[or a man] RB.
Starmer [lawyer] has great difficulty in defining it.
The absurd suggest that they have the right to claim to be a woman is their right; this absurdity is current in Olympic boxing aka “her passport says
she is a woman” alas “the life is in the blood”futhermore the medical attempt to change the blood is a cosmetic con.
One can identify as a cat, they are very obviously not a cat.
One can claim that God made you that way or emotional traumas or nature or nurture, Gayness is a preference, Jesus Christ offers new life, a better life, a free life, a joyful life, filled with all the fulness of God, to accept or reject His offer is a life choice.
Have you any evidence that Khelif isn’t a woman?
Khelif failed a testosterone test last year. The amount seems to be abnormally high. I don’t know what K’s chromosomes are, whether XY or XX. If K is a female, then she has a gormonal disorder producing too much testosterone. If K is a male, he has a disorder in sexual development, possibly affecting external genitals. Only a chromosome test answers the question.
One thing is clear, however. Women boxing is a horrible idea.
The corrupt IBA says she failed a test. They’ve never said what the test was, or published its results. This “test” and its “results” were only announced after Khelif had beaten a Russian boxer and therefore made it to the final of the 2023 women’s championship. And it’s worth noting that the IBA had previously been suspended and then expelled from the IOC because of corruption.
I’m glad we’re agreed that women boxing is a horrible, horrible thing.
I do not know if Khelif is a woman or not. Only a chromosome test will show this. Have you seen one?
XX means woman. XY means male.
Do you know which Khelif is?
I also know that Khelif has an abnormally high level of testosterone for a woman. Do you know why this is? In the 1970s the East Germans used to give this to girl athletes to cheat at the Olympics. Has Khelif been cheating?
Or is Khelif actually a male with DSD?
Women with Swyer syndrome aren’t women? Are you sure about that?
Do you know Khelif’s testosterone level? How?
Adam, I don’t know Khelif’s testosterone level.
Do you?
I don’t know what Khelif’s chromosomes are, whether XX or XY.
Do you?
If you have information on this, please share.
I know that average young male adult’s level of testoserone is many, many times that of the average female level.
For females the figure is 15-70 ng/dL.
For males the figure is 3000-1000 ng/dL.
Do you know what Khelif’s level is? If so, please share.
That should say ‘300-1000 ng/dL’.
The East Germans of course used to pump girls full of testosterone to win at the Olympics. It gave the girls muscles, body hair and deep voices.
Useful info:
https://x.com/Slatzism/status/1819427537740558848
James
XY alone doesn’t mean male! Do some research before posting your beliefs.
James
Imane Khelif supposedly failed a female gender test, but the people running the test say the test is secret and they wont disclose it.
She herself and the IOC say she is a cis woman.
It’s possible she does have XY chromosomes or something like it.
Cultural conservatives want to paint everyone who physically doesn’t match gender stereotypes as choosing their situation. This sticks to a certain extent with trans and gay people because there’s no clear physical test for genuine trans people and arousal tests arent exactly something you do over Christmas dinner, but it falls apart if there is something physically unusual like a woman who has had a vagina since birth and breasts since childhood, but isnt clearly XX
‘gayness is a preference’ – what do you mean by that?
It SOUNDS as though he means that gays choose to be sexually attracted to people of the same sex, and that they choose not to be sexually attracted to people of the opposite sex. If that really is what he means, it shows that he doesn’t know what he is talking about and would therefore do better to be silent on the subject.
William
As you have said yourself, the gay sex acts are chosen by those who perform them.
However that choice arises out of ‘urges and desires/appetites’ – and the issue here is in effect whether those urges and desires are part of God’s good creation or whether like eg the urges/desires/appetites underlying acts like lying or theft they are part of the disorder in which “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. The God of Christianity would appear to have made that point quite clear in the Bible and those who would choose to disagree with him should also make that a choice to leave the Church rather than to stay in the Church and try and force the Church to disagree with the Bible
Stephen:
Yes, the gay sex acts are chosen by those who perform them, just as the straight sex acts are chosen by those who perform them. (Except, of course, where there is coercion, as in cases of rape.) I have never disputed that, nor has any other sensible person, so your persistent hammering away at it is otiose. And yes, in the case of both gay and straight sex acts the choice arises from sexual “urges and desires/appetites”.
But no matter whether you believe the “urges/desires/appetites” to be part of God’s good creation, or whether you consider them to be disordered, like the impulse to lie or to steal, anyone who asserts that “being gay”, i.e. being sexually attracted to people of the same sex and not to people of the other sex, is a choice simply does not know what he or she is talking about, and would do better to refrain from making such dogmatic, ill-informed statements.
William, you are right, but a couple of things worth noting.
First, only certain acts are available to couples of the same sex. The most common other-sex act is not.
Secondly, there is often a confusion about the whole category of choice. Few of us have choice about the patterns of desire and temperament we have. But that does not mean these are not developmental; our response to them will affect their strength and importance. And of course our sense of giveness does not resolve the question of the moral status of acting on them.
William, I cannot believe that you are still, after all the foregoing discussion, operating with the simple and very inaccurate binary ‘a choice’ / ‘not a choice’. For a start, how are you referring to every stage of a life cycle as though all stages were somehow the same? We exist in time. For example (and this is one example only, among many): What is not even on the radar at one time may be very much a choice at another, and scarcely at all a choice later.
In addition to that, we are at the mercy of our circumstances, of the actions of others, and of our prior experiences. Both those who make regretted choices and those who make unregretted ones are still the products of their prior history.
The picture is so so much more complex than your portrayal of it.
“our response to them will affect their strength and importance”
I’m not sure what you’re driving at in this context. William and I were insufficiently resistant to homosexuality in our youth in some way? Are you suggesting sexual orientation could be changed? What are you talking about?
“our sense of giveness does not resolve the question of the moral status of acting on them”
No. No one has pretended it does. But it ought to inform what the choices actually are, and what an answer that has integrity might be.
Adam: “Temptations, of course, cannot be avoided, but because we cannot prevent the birds from flying over our heads, there is no need that we should let them nest in our hair.” – Martin Luther
(BTW, I am glad that you agree with me that women boxing is a horrible thing.)
Adam and William: the churchgoing Christian man Huw Edwards had a five, five kids and an immense amount of money – and he obviously made some wrong choices. At what point do you think he made a wrong decision?
* ‘wife’ (not five!)
Ian:
Yes, I am aware of all that, but it does not affect the basic fact that while people’s sexual behaviour is a choice, their sexual orientation is not.
William ‘while people’s sexual behaviour is a choice, their sexual orientation is not.’ Yes, I’d agree with you.
Christopher:
When we have made our way through that thicket of largely irrelevant verbiage, the fact remains that, while people choose their sexual behaviour, they do not choose their sexual orientation, i.e. they do not choose whether to be sexually attracted to people of the same sex (as the great majority are), to people of the same sex, or to people of both sexes.
James:
James:
I was aware of the facts which you have stated. Beyond that I know nothing about the details of Huw Edwards’s private life. I could speculate till the cows come home about his sexual orientation and his sex life (if I had nothing better to do), but as I know as little about them as I know about yours, I have no means of knowing the answer to your question.
William
I asked you, When do you think Huw Edwards made a wrong decision?, and you declined to answer. My question wasn’t about his sexual orientation but when he chose wrongly.
And the answer is quite obvious: when he decided to cheat on his wife and started trawling on sex websites and spoke to vulnerable young men.
Every fall starts with a decision to break our promises to God or others.
Replying to William Fisher Aug 9 @ 1.20pm.
William, you wrote “anyone who asserts that “being gay”, i.e. being sexually attracted to people of the same sex and not to people of the other sex, is a choice simply does not know what he or she is talking about”.
Actually I was pretty much saying that often when urges/desires/appetites come into play, sexual or otherwise, there may be little or no choice about those urges etc.
HOWEVER, in Christian terms the point is that the questionable urges etc are the urges etc of people who have “sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. And the point is that by sinning, the people concerned have screwed up their relationship to God, and are out of joint with God’s creation, with the universe in general, with other humans, and even pretty deeply within themselves. Part of this is precisely that they have significantly lost self control in relation to many of said urges etc. It is somewhat like the person who shoots himself in the foot to avoid military service but as a result finds there are many other things he can no longer do because of the injured foot. He indeed has no choice, but the lack of choice is not exactly innocent on his part. His choices in one area have compromised his ability/power to choose elsewhere. I don’t currently have handy a scriptural reference, though I know there is one, but I know many Reformation leaders referred to this as a (self-inflicted) ‘bondage to sin’.
William, it sounds to me as though you have digested almost none of what you call ‘verbiage’. Verbiage means worthless words, and words do not become worthless by virtue of the reader not yet comprehending them. In such an instance, the ball remains in the reader’s court. At present you are blaming the innocent writer for the reader’s shortcomings.
Your position remains untenable because:
– you are treating humans synchronically as though they were the same at all periods of their life,
-secondly because you are effectively speaking as though only older people exist,
-and thirdly because you are ignoring the fact that choice may become virtually impossible later precisely because of former choices made by us earlier at a time when choice was eminently possible.
You are just presenting a hugely simplistic binary which bears no relation to the real world. The more simplistic, the less accurate.
James:
James:
I entirely agree with you that Huw Edwards made a totally wrong decision when he decided to cheat on his wife and started trawling on sex websites and spoke to vulnerable young men. Whether or not that was the first serious wrong decision that he made, I have no means of knowing.
Christopher:
Nothing that I wrote implied that I was treating humans synchronically as though they were the same at all periods of their life. Nor did anything that I wrote imply or depend on the absurd premise that only older people exist. Those are just irrelevant Aunt Sallies which you have erected. That seems to be a favourite diversion trick of yours.
The hypothesis that choice about one’s sexual orientation “may become virtually impossible later precisely because of former choices made by us earlier at a time when choice was eminently possible” is one for which you cite no evidence, but if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there are people for whom choice in the matter has in that way become impossible, then it follows that their sexual orientation is not a choice, doesn’t it?
You can waffle away till the moon fails, but that won’t alter the fact that, while people’s sexual behaviour is a choice, their sexual orientation – whatever its causation – is not.
Yes, Stephen, I have long been aware that you hold those views about homosexual attraction, so there was no need for you to go to all the trouble of expounding them yet again. It’s just that I don’t share them.
William, if someone employs diversionary tactics, they are dishonest. That is an awful way to talk, without evidence, to someone who takes great pains to be nor merely truthful but precise and accurate over and above that.
You are saying that we are living in a world where there is only ‘is’ and no ‘is now’, no ‘has become’.
No, we are not living in such a world, and moreover such a world does not exist. The real world is vast, and there are vasts amounts of ‘is’ and also ‘is now’ / ‘has become’.
Further, it is no good at all merely saying to Stephen you do not share views. Because to say such a thing cites no evidence, and therefore has neither base nor content.
Views are of no worth unless they are evidenced.
Christopher:
I do not need to produce evidence in order to remind Stephen that I do not share his views.
As for the rest of your reply, that is merely further waffling, which has no relevance to the fact that people do not choose their sexual orientation.
The answer and attraction will probably be three different things in 3 different stages in their life. The quite inaccurate presupposition is that everyone is an adult or has at least entered puberty. No-one exists in time; they exist synchronically. Do they? And the elephant in the room is that puberty is precisely when people act at their stupidest and least settled.
I gently suggest you consider what you’ve written here very carefully Alan.
You have suggested that Imane Khelif is a trans woman. That is not true. No one has suggested Imane Khelif has ever been anything other than physically female. The controversy surrounding her stems from the IBA (International Boxing Association), which under its current Russian President Umar Kremlev was suspended from the International Olympic Committee 5 years ago and then expelled last year, because of concerns of corruption and poor governance. The IBA disqualified Khelif before the final of the 2023 women’s world championships, and after she had defeated a Russian boxer in the semi-finals (who had been favourite). The IBA claimed its tests were about high levels of testosterone, and later switched to claiming it had tested for XY chromosomes. But the actual medical evidence has never been published.
Adam, does Khelif have XX chromosomes of XY chromosomes?
Do you know?
She could be female with either XX or XY.
Or maybe he’s a male with DSD (malformed external sex organs). I don’t imagine they know much about these things in Algeria. Nobody wants to tell the truth because the Olympics isn’t about sport and the pious ideals of de Coubertin, it’s about making money in the entertainment and sponsorship business and not health.
In any case, women’s boxing is a hideous thing. Punching another woman in the face is a horrible perversion of “sport”.
Yes, Khelif is most likely a male with DSD (congenital malformation of external sex organs), brought up as a female in Algeria.
Anton’s link is helpful.
I’m glad we all agree that women’s boxing is a hideous thing unworthy of the name of sport.
DSD doesn’t mean malformation of the external sex organs (especially for women). It might mean that for some conditions, but not for others. Perhaps you should go and read up on it.
Adam: you seem to have some difficulty reading. I said “most likely a male with DSD((malformed extrrnal sex organd) and you threw in an irrelevsnt comment sbout women. And then you withdrew that saying “It might mean thet for some conditions”.
Perhaps you should learn some basic logic, as wel as reading carefully.
You don’t seem to know what a woman is – sadly a common problem today.
But at least I am glad that you agree with me that women boxing is a horrible harmful thing and against the nature of sport and true womanhood.
I don’t think anybody on this thread is an endocrinologist or a geneticist. I’m not, but maybe Adam has a doctorate in the discipline and has done tests. If so, he can enlighten us.
But I am glad we all agree that women boxing is an ugly and unpleasant thing and not worthy of the name of sport. Vive la difference!
Boxing is a nasty ‘sport’ whichever sex engages in it.
Which doesn’t change the likelihood of Khelif being a cis female with (perhaps) XY chromosomes. In Algeria, as anywhere else, sex is assigned at birth from external observation, no chromosomal tests are taken. That doesn’t make Algeria any more primitive than western Europe or the US.
Whether I man Kheilif is a biological male with Disordered Sexual Development affecting external genitalia or a female with an improbably high testosterone count (remember how the East Germans used to pump girls with this stuff in the 1960s and 70s so they would win in the Olympics) is impossible to say without honesty and candour from sports organisations. But just like football, they are corrupt because sport isn’t about health, it’s about megabucks.
But I am glad you can agree that women punching each other in the face is repulsive and profoundly anti-feminine, and a man doing it to a woman is just criminal.
Men possess on average twice the upper body strength of a woman because of their greater musculature, height and arm shape. That is why women’s sports based on the natural beauty and grace of the female body, like gymnastics and soccer, make sense, but contact sports based on weight and muscles, like boxing, wrestling and rugby, are unnatural and dangerous. And a man striking a woman is just criminal, even under the guise of DSD.
James
There are females with DSDs too. And it’s differences not disorders.
Males hitting males is just as unpleasant as females hitting females.
It’s equal opportunity unpleasantness.
Penelope: no it’s a DISORDER, not a difference, when the gonads don’t work or the external sex organs are absent or internal or there is an abnormal amount of testosterone in the body, affecting muscle or bone growth.
The whole idea of biology and its subset physiology is that the different parts of the body serve a telos or a goal.
This is a key idea in Natural Law, which you may have heard about in your Roman Catholic upbringing (although classical Protestants also strongly believe in Natural Law). Secularists want to deny nature and efface Natural Law and deny that men and women are biologically different. But the science is clear. A child born without a limb or sight might be ‘different’ but there is certainly a disorder there. Otherwise, as with DSD, there would be no therapy afterwards. People with DSD are more prone to gonadal cancers, for example.
As for boxing, glad you agree that women should not hit other women and men should certainly not hit women.
My objection to boxing is simply about the danger of brain or head injuries, which are quite unnecessary. Otherwise I am fine with men boxing. Boxing, like wrestling, has its origins in military training. Physical fitness and the ability to fight and endure pain are essential to soldiering, otherwise the world is ruled by tyrants crushing the weak (like the Spartans dominating the Helots).
But women are not equipped by nature for physical combat. Their bodies are different in musculature, bone density, height and adipose. The true beauty and grace of the female body is expressed in gymnastics and non-contact sports like soccer, not in pretending to be a weaker version of men.
Men hit men (or grab and slam into them) all the time in rugby. It’s called tackling and you can’t play rugby without it.
So ‘men hitting men isn’t unpleasant’ – that is what contact sports are about. Women’s muscles and bones are not designed for hard contact – they are more easily injured and take longer to recover, if at all.
The Italian girl who left the ring to get away from Kheilif understood that.
Deliberate blows to the head in rugby and neck tackles are streng verboten and get you sent off or even banned.
A long post on X by Carol Hoven explains that Khelif is a biological male with XY-DSD-alpha reductase deficiency. Individuals with this condition have hyperplasia with female-appearing genitalia but internal testicles that produce testosterone. This would explain why Khelif failed the chromosome test and had an abnormally high testosterone level.
You can’t be a biological female with XY and internal testicles.
That’s basic biology.
When a person fails a chromosome test and has abnormally high testosterone for a female, you have a biological male.
A male with Disordered Sexual Development (XY-DSD-alpha reductase deficiency) seems the likely explanation.
Certifyable evidence; It is in the blood
That is nonsense.
What does your preference mean?
Britannica Dictionary definition of PREFERENCE. 1. : a feeling of liking or wanting one person or thing more than another person or thing.
I gently suggest you consider what you’ve written here very carefully Alan.
Thank you for your gentleness, AJ.
Nowhere have I suggested K is a transgender woman or has undergone chemical cosmetic manipulation. Just reporting the facts whether disputed or not.
“this absurdity is current in Olympic boxing”
Just reporting the facts?
More detailed reasoning for these public conclusion was set out in the unpublished 23 page “LLF Analysis of Legal Issues” produced in March 2023 shared with all of us on the 2023 Implementation Groups. Despite requests, neither it nor other legal advice, has been shared with those now advising the bishops. I have wrestled with whether or not to quote from this document here but have decided not to do so. It would be much better if it, and other written legal advice was all published together (with perhaps an accompanying narrative and explanation) rather than being selectively quoted or summarised or paraphrased.
It would be better still if someone posted it on Wikileaks.
Agreed. Let us all see the legal advice which the Church of England paid for.
Ian, please publish the advice. Parishioners of the CofE need to see what is going on.
“Democracy dies in darkness”, as the Washington Post says.
It would appear that the IOC has a lot in common with our erstwhile Bishops, afraid to publish and be damned
[ or exonerated.]
No one has suggested the IOC have anything to publish have they?
Alan
She passed the IOC’s tests and entry criteria.
Another sporting body is saying that she failed a gender test, but they say that it’s a secret which test she failed.
‘She’ is a ‘he’ with DSD.
James
From my point of view, in this olympics there werent any trans women the right could complain about and so they decided to bully a cis gendered woman instead, by lying about her status. She clearly is not trans or a man. She passed the IOC tests to define a woman. She has breasts and female sex organs.
We are now at this wierd stage where the people who claim to care about women’s sports are actually trying to bully cis women out of them
As far as I can work out from the various reports
1) Khelif is not transgender in the sense of having had treatmen to change the state she was born in.
2) It does appear that she has a chromosomal abnormality amounting to a kind of ‘intersex’ condition though not as obvious as when genitalia are ambiguous.
3) Given that one of the reasons for separate women’s sports is that even the most egaslitarian feminists accept that the differences between men and women are such that equal competition in many sports is impractical, it probably is fair that that condition should preclude her from competition as a female.
On trans in general – I believe there is a real issue there, again a variant on the obvious physical intersex conditions, and would accept that occasionally the ‘sex change’ may be appropriate. However, given how drastic that treatment is, and how far short it comes of making a real full woman no matter how much the trans activists scream to the contrary, I feel there should be great caution about that treatment, especially in a society which has achieved considerable equality in gender roles already.
Christians may not be realising, however, that there seems to be a significant problem in the real world situation. Trans has become something of a fashion among teenagers who of course may not be the best judges even of themselves. And worryingly, an unexpectedly large number of teens are presenting as trans who are known to be autistic; which means they are even more confused and naive. Being autistic myself, and high-functioning and hyperlexic so I’ve studied this a lot, I would feel that in most cases these teens would need first a better understanding of their autism to be quite sure what they are doing in this area. And in my experience an overloaded health service and education service is already failing autistic children considerably.
And because overloaded health service many of these teens are going to private companies for treatment; and some of those companies are ‘sketchy’ and also have a rather obvious economic
motive to give less than impartial advice, which may mean unusually vulnerable teens and their families ending up paying large sums for very drastic treatment that wasn’t really needed. Something needs doing about that and churches may be among the best people to do it.
But can I suggest that this issue is not too relevant here, not least because it is conceptually a rather different issue to ‘gayness’ (indeed I fear ‘T’ people may end up regretting their entanglement with the LGB… ).
Stephen
I think the best thing to do for trans, gay and intersex athletes is let competition organizers decide the entry criteria.
Here in the states Trump is promising a national ban on trans and intersex individuals competing. The wording remains to be seen, but do we want a situation where it’s a crime for me to play tennis with my daughter? Do we want a situation where it’s a crime for someone to organize a women’s fun run and allow LGBTI people to enter?
Peter:
I am not aware of anything that Trump has said or planned which would in any way affect the right of gay athletes to be treated exactly the same as other athletes. If you are, please don’t keep it to yourself; let us in on it.
There are no such people as “LGBTI”: that illogical initialism does not stand for any genuine category of persons. A homosexual or bisexual orientation, the delusion or pretence that one’s “real” sex is the other one, and a congenital anomaly of physical sex development are three entirely different phenomena.
Nor am I aware of anything that Trump has said which implies that he would ban “trans” or “intersex” people from competing in sports competitions. If I have understood the reports correctly, he would ban so-called “trans women” from competing in any women’s category, which is perfectly reasonable and fair, since they are men, not women. What games parents play with their children is another matter. I’m sure that that would be left to their own discretion – although I think and hope that most fathers would not regard it as appropriate or safe to play rugby with their daughters. “Intersex” people (the term is widely regarded as out of date and misleading) are still nearly all either male or female, and would presumably be allowed to compete in the category appropriate to their biological sex.
William
If LGBTI people dont exist then who is it Trump wants to ban from professional sports and school sports?
You say intersex people should be allowed to compete in sports – have you missed all the bullying of the Algerian boxer because she *might* be intersex?!
Generally agree with your first sentence; but might reasonably wonder if they did get it right this time, and whether they may have been influenced by some current pressures about this topic.
I think Trump should leave that one to the sporting authorities.
My other point about how transgenderism as a fashion among trendy teens, combined with commercial interests, may be doing real harm is rather serious….
….As was my point that ‘T’ is a different issue to LGB and can we get back to discussing the CofE’s current issues ….
“That is nonsense”.PCD I do love your one liners usualy but this one went over my head I’m afraid.
I’ve more to say on various things above, especially the nature of ‘sexual orientation’ but it looks like this thread has both come to a natural end and also become rather complex and fragmented to easily reply within it. I’m pulling out here and will come back in the next relevant thread. I’ll try to keep my responses basically relevant to that future thread but expect that it will offer opportunities to say those other things. I accept there are some things in my position that I still haven’t made clear enough and I apologise for that.
One technical query though; despite being an ‘Aspie’ I didn’t get the computer genius version of autism (I’m ‘hyperlexic’ instead) and on some computer matters I am ‘a bear of little brain’. It is straightforward to reply to a post that has that ‘reply’ tag under it and my contribution then comes up at least close to what I’m replying to; sometimes there isn’t the reply tag but it’s in a group which another nearby post does have that tag. However sometimes it’s not that simple and a post I want to reply to has neither the reply tag nor a suitable related post near it. Is there a way I can get my reply connected with the original post? I’m possibly missing something obvious that everyone else knows – please laugh kindly! – but a little help on this would be appreciated….
Penelope, AJB, Peter Jermey:
Richard Dawkins loses Facebook account for saying genetic males should not fight females.
Doesn’t the silly man know that you can be XY and female? (That’s what Penelope told us.)
Shouldn’t he lean some biology first?
https: // dailysceptic.org/2024/08/10/ richard-dawkinss-facebook-account-deleted-after-he-posted-that-genetically-male-boxers-should-not-fight-women /
‘learn’
spaces added to web address
Welcome to the World of Woke Censorship where the Truth is what makes a certain group feel better.
I pointed this out to him on Twitter. Which I fear was unkind. He is, or rather was, a distinguished scientist. Maybe his cognitive decline has been aggravated by his stroke.
Did you read Carol Hoven’s post, Penny?
Khelif is most likely a biological male with XY-DSD-alpha reductase deficiency.
You can’t be XY with high testosterone without being a biological male.
I am reminded of the tragic story of David Reimer.
James
I’d be surprised if Richard Dawkins hadn’t heard of intersex people – could it be that he’s been drawn into the cult of the new right? I dont know! I do know that a decade ago he was the popular front of smug atheism and now hes apparently identifying as a Christian, but only the “cultural” part. ie only the part that demonizes minorities
How do you know that she has high T?
How do you know that she is ARD?
Answer: you don’t. This is idle speculation.
Khelif is suing people who have claimed this, so she must think she has a case.
Donald Trump sues people all the time, too, Penny.
Read Carol Hoven.
1) it ain’t a ‘biological fact’. XY chromosomes alone do not constutute maleness. Dawkins should know this, Unless he is cognitively impaired.
2) whataboutery. Trump is a crook. It would be good to see some prominent GC accounts paying out a lot of money.
1. I said biological maleness. What do you think makes biological maleness? Are you a biologist or geneticist, by the way?
2. Threats of legal action are used all the time to silence people. They mean nothing.
You’re full of surprises James. Before today I would have expected you to be firmly against the “sex is assigned rather than observed at birth” crowd, clear that humans are either male or female, and adamant that there’s no such thing as a man with a vulva or woman with a penis.
If you think biological maleness is defined only by chromosomes I suggest you do some further research.
I am not a geneticist nir an endocrinologist, but i can read and think it worthwhile to research before commenting on fairly complex issues.
She may only have wanted to shut people up, she has certainly suffered enough abuse. It seems to have worked. Rowling hasn’t tweeted for six days.
Adam,
I don’t understand your surprise or follow your subsequent comments. Unlike you and Penelope, who are trained geneticists and biologists, my scientific knowledge post-school is based chiefly on my own reading (and I will be interested to read of your research).
I have long been aware that boys can be born not only with undescended testicles but with deformed external genitalia (although I never understood how this happened in utero), and this can lead to a baby boy being taken for a girl. I think the estimates for the XY-DSD alpha reductase deficiency is, extremely rare, something like 1 in 80,000. Carol Hoven’s post (have you read it?) explains how this condition affects both musculature and facial hair.
A baby with this condition will understandably to be taken for a girl and socialised as a girl (all the more so in a country like Algeria). However, if the child is biologically male, the testosterone will inevitably express itself in muscle, bone, height and facial shape, as well as the pelvic bones (which, as you know, differ greatly between males and females).
I don’t know what the expression ‘assigned at birth’ means. If a person has XY chromosomes and internal (undescended) testicles and not ovaries, then we have a biological male.
I note that some scientists are calling for the term ‘intersex’ to be dropped and replaced with DSD.
I would be interested in your thoughts as a geneticist on Carol Hoven’s post.
James, you’ve been making clear that you think sex is defined
chromosomally. Irrespective of the body someone is born with, for you, its the chromosomes and only the chromosomes that define sex. Some things flow from that. Firstly, it means that sex is not observed at birth (no one observes your genes and chromosomes), they can only observe your body and assign your sex based on that (meaning they will be wrong sometimes). It’s one of the core tenets of the trans lobby. Secondly, it means that not all people are either male or female using your argument. If XX is female, and and XY is male, what about the other chromosome combinations such as X (Turner Syndrome), XXY (Klinefelter Syndrome), XYY (Jacobs Syndrome), XXXXY (Fraccaro Syndrome) etc.? Again, not everyone being male or female is core trans lobby belief. Thirdly, because you define men and women according to the chromosomes and not their bodies, you must believe that men can have vulvas and women penises. But that’s obvious because you assert that Khelif is a man.
It’s a pity you didn’t engage with the DSD materials in LLF. You might have found it helpful.
Except, as I pointed out, it is extremely unlikely that Khelif has 5 ARD. Women who do have XY chromosomes have female genitals (hence sex being observed at birth) and sometimes female internal organs (hence being able to give birth).
As I said, you don’t have to be a geneticist to acquire this knowledge. It’s freely available which is how I and I should imagine, Adam, picked it up.
Penelope, unlike Adam, I’m not a geneticist. But Emma Hilton is a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester and she (along with many other signatories) does think this is a case of 5-ARD.
Dr Hilton says in 5-ARD the baby is undermasculinised and lacks external male genitalia but in every other respect is male and when puberty kicks in the testosterone changes the body in the myriad ways that male bodies differ from females (shoulders, muscles, bone density, height, even the angle at which nerves connect to muscles). She also says that 50% of these youngsters, brought up as girls, identify as boys at puberty as the hormones start changing their bodies:
https: // www. youtube.com/watch?v=_9rynD9KlU0
“If XX is female, and and XY is male, what about the other chromosome combinations such as X (Turner Syndrome), XXY (Klinefelter Syndrome), XYY (Jacobs Syndrome), XXXXY (Fraccaro Syndrome) etc.?”
Turner folk are female (no Y chromosome). Klinefelter are male. Jacobs are male. Fraccaro are male.
Watch the Emma Hilton video discussion and give me your opinion as a geneticist.
James
As I said it is extremely unlikely that Khelif has 5 ARD.
But it is extremely amusing that the Gcs are now mving the goalposts. The definition of ‘woman’ used to involve possessing a vagina and the ability to produce large gmetes, now suddenly it’s chromosomes! Without the Sry gene Y chromosomes result in females. No doubt Emma Hilton, as a research associate at Manchester University, knows this.
It is quite important to do research before posting erroneous views online.
Well. Penny, I understand that you’re not a geneticist, although Adam is. I have no idea how you know about Khelif’s body, I suspect you haven’t examined it.
A chromosome test and an x-ray of internal structure (gonads, pelvis, arm bones, nerve connections) should settle most questions. These are all very different in male bodies compared to female because of chromosomes and hormones.
I don’t know what you mean by ‘Gcs’. The definition of a ‘woman’ has not ‘suddenly’ changed, all my life it has meant an ‘adult human female’ and ‘female’ means possessing XX chromosome. I’m talking biology, not sociology or ‘rights’.
If you have listened to Emma Hilton, you will know that the upper limit of testosterone in a female body is much less than the lower limit of a male.
I hope you read Carol Hoven’s post as well.
No, James having XX chromosomes is not the definition of female, even if you have mistakenly thought so all your life. Dr Fond of Beetles may be going on about T. The rest of us (including even the IBA,) aren’t.
GCs are people who are gender critical. They’re not, of course, but that’s how they self identify.
I have no idea how you know about Khelif’s body either. But she does. Her doctors do and so does the IOC.
Penny, you are the one who has expressed your doubts about Khelif being 5-ARD – although you are not a scientist nor have you conducted an investigation.
So your opinion is as valuable (or valueless) as mine.
Adam is a geneticist but hasn’t commented yet.
Emma Hilton and Carol Hoven are scientists, who know more than I do – and possibly you.
As for definitions of female, I am only interested in biological ones and not the mythologies of gender studies. Did you hear what Hilton said about testosterone levels in males compared to females? Your silence on this is very strange.
This needs all of the female boxers to get together and refuse to fight Khelif, so that Khelif wins every tournament by a meaningless walkover. Then the tournament winner can be viewed by them – and by anyone else who cares to – as the other boxer who reached the final. Some decent female boxers will be eliminated early on by being drawn against Khelif, but that is the (temporary) price to be paid to sort this out.