Joshua Penduck writes: In a striking, and near seeming coincidence, at the same time the Bishop of Oxford’s Letter against the Alliance has been published, a new previously undiscovered letter of +Eustathius of Sebaste to Athanasius of Alexander has been brought to light. Eustathius of Sebaste was one of the leaders of the ‘homoiousios’ party, who claimed the Son was of ‘like being’ with the Father, and argued for a moderating position between the Arians and the Nicaeans.
As you can read from the following (possibly due to his contacts in Oxford), it appears that the Bishop of Oxford has based his letter on Eustathius, almost to the point of plagiarism—including the strange formatting at one point:
Dear +Athanasius,
I write to make a number of points in response to your letter ‘Against the Arians’ 26th June, 358. Your letter makes a series of charges against the bishops of the Church of Christ and I have no doubt has caused hurt to Greeks Christians and their friends and family. Your threat of schism means that we find ourselves in the forefront of conversation in the Imperial Palace on this issue even in the midst of the Emperor Constantius II’s decision for the homoios, when the world faces so many challenges and problems.
1. The extent of the Pro-Nicene Group
You say that your network is supported by countless clergy within the Church of Christ but I see no real evidence that this is the case.
I know that there are many clergy and lay people in our own Diocese who themselves could not in conscience use the revised ‘homoiousios’. They are loved and cherished. I have a deep respect for those who hold these views on a genuinely difficult question of theology and liturgy and am in regular dialogue with them. I also accept that there will be a need to recognise those who hold this view in good conscience in the provision of safeguards and in the provision of specific and defined episcopal ministry.
But the number of clergy and congregations who say they require episcopal differentiation proposed is very small in my experience (sometimes it seems like yourself alone, Athanasius). Almost every congregation contains a range of opinion and for the most part people are content to accept this diversity, solve problems locally and get on with the mission of God. I was just chatting to a baker, who when I asked if I could have a loaf of bread quickly asked if I believed that the Son was as great as the Father; he was mightily relieved when I told him that my views were of the moderate persuasion. If the proposals currently before the Councils are followed there is literally no risk whatsoever that churches and ministers who support the Church’s current teaching would have to act against their conscience or depart from that doctrine.
2. A departure from tradition
You argue that what is proposed in the homoiousios is clearly indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of Christ in an essential matter. I genuinely do not believe that this is the case. The settled position reached after over thirty years of debate and consultation is to make one modest but helpful change towards greater inclusion but builds on existing liturgical practice. This is not a watershed moment.
- The authorisation of ‘homoiousios’ at the coming Council of Sirmium simply gives broader provision to enable Christians of different understandings of this important issue to worship together, namely those in support of both homoousios and homoios.
This proposal therefore does not amount to a change in the Church of Christ’s doctrine. For one thing, the originally proposed ‘homoousios’ cannot be found in any official documentations prior to Nicaea just thirty years. Your refusal to accept this compromise appears simply to be a device for blocking any kind of accommodation.
I readily accept that a new Council would be needed for the Church of Christ to establish homoion views in the Creed. This would be a change of doctrine. I accept that there is not yet a settled majority for this across the Church of Christ. These modest changes are therefore a step towards love and inclusion which enables us to minister in better ways to the whole of our society.
3. Greek elitism?
You level against the bishops again the charge of Greek elitism and ignoring the views of the West, Egypt and Syria. However, your own letter pays no attention to the very considerable consensus under Emperor Constantius about accepting different interpretations on homoiousios yet still walking together. You make no mention of the persecution of supposedly ‘heretical’ Christians in many parts of the world prior to toleration, often tacitly supported by the Church. Nor do you recognise that many dioceses of the Church are genuinely debating these matters and contain a rich variety of views. After all, Arius himself was an Egyptian, like you.
4. Catastrophising language
Once again your letter deploys doom laden and catastrophising language to attempt to put pressure on the Bishops (“Ario-maniacs”; “Of all other heresies which have departed from the truth it is acknowledged that they have but devised a madness, and their irreligiousness has long since become notorious to all men”). I wonder, where is your sense of Scriptural perspective and the themes of mercy, love and joy and the priority of gospel proclamation?
5. Fracturing the body of Christ
You have wrapped your threats in veiled language: “their authors went out from us… they gather not with us, they scatter with the devil… this second sowing of their own mortal poison… harbinger of Antichrist… her father the devil… loathsome heresy… to reckon the traitor Judas still among the Apostles…” – and all this but on page one! You argue that if these extremely cautious and modest proposals are enacted you have will have no choice (but you do in fact have a wide range of choices) but ordain bishops in already existing Dioceses!
I am afraid this has to be named for what it is: a proposal for a deep and disproportionate schism in the life of the Church of Christ and, surely, a proposal which will grieve Christians in every place.
On the one hand you are openly criticizing the bishops for uncanonical processes, writing “for never at any time did Christian people take their title from the Bishops among them, but from the Lord, on whom we rest our faith” – which I must confess is a very weak ecclesiology, Athanasius. However, at the same time, you declare your intention to act unilaterally, outside any formal and transparent process of consultation or Council or legal structure or theological reflection or recognisable ecclesiology but through a set of actions determined in closed rooms.
The mind of the bishops now seems to me to be settling on questions of Creedal reassurance after many decades of uncertainty. There is a now a reluctant acceptance of the need for some regional provision of episcopal ministry to recognise divergent views on the relationship of the Father to the Son, supported by regional Councils. However, the Bishops are also clear that going beyond these arrangements to overlapping jurisdictions, of bishops being ordained in other Dioceses, undercuts the very essence of Catholic ecclesiology and represents a red line we cannot cross.
And finally….
I am sorry to have to write to you in these terms. I do respect your views on the original Nicene Creed and hold you in high regard. However, I believe the letter you have written is a deeply unhelpful and misleading contribution to our present debate. I believe the homoiousios represents a reasonable way forward for the Church in this most difficult of questions, albeit a costly compromise from all perspectives and that the Council of Sirmium should unite behind it.
With kind regards
+Eustathius of Sebaste
A Brief Commentary
This recently unearthed letter helps us to see that the supposedly reasonable position of a moderating compromise has always been on the table in moments of crisis. Also, extreme responses to compromise in later years turn out to be the right course of action. After all, the homoiousion party eventually lost ground to the more extreme homoion party, such that eventually the debate was not between rational and reasonable moderation and Nicene obsessiveness over minor details, but radical Arians and fervent Nicaeans.
Unlike some of his colleagues, this commentator does not believe that the issue of the doctrine of marriage is quite at the level of the Nicene debates – though he does believe that it is of vital importance. However, reading the language and proposals of figures like Athanasius to the supposedly moderate Eustathius – such as ordaining bishops in other Dioceses with a homoion or even homoiousion bishop – should give figures like the Bishop of Oxford pause. After all, in comparison to that great saint of Orthodoxy Athanasius and his proposals, the letter of the Alliance is muted and reserved – and quite moderate.
Joshua Penduck is the Rector of Newcastle-under-Lyme, St Giles with St Thomas, Butterton, in the Diocese of Lichfield. Prior to ordination he was a composer and has written music for the LSO, BCMG and Orkest de Ereprijs. He is married to Shelley, who is also an Anglican minister in Stoke-on-Trent.
Additional Note
Following the publication of the proposals for General Synod to consider this month, July 2024, a group of 11 of bishops (claiming to speak for a larger number) expressed their serious concerns about the direction of travel in a letter here. It is curious that Steven Croft chose not to respond to this letter. Catholic groups in the Church of England have also signalled their disquiet. The Alliance is a coalition of members of the Church of England from a wide range of networks; you can read their letter here, to which Steven Croft is writing in response.
A more direct and robust response to Steven Croft has been written by Dr Lee Gatiss of Church Society, which you can find here. He challenges Croft’s claims about the breadth of concern, and on the question of ‘change of doctrine’ makes 10 key points:
1. Canon Law says that our doctrine is defined by Scripture, the teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils which are accordance with Scripture, and the 39 Articles, Prayer Book, and Ordinal. There is literally zero support for blessing same-sex marriage or allowing clergy to be in such relationships, in those documents.
2. The Book of Common Prayer depicts marriage as between one man and one woman. It also says: “be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God.”
3. Canon B30 says “The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do part, of one man with one woman…’ How can allowing same-sex marriages or blessing them not be a change in doctrine?
4. The 1987 motion passed by General Synod (its last definitive statement on marriage) is clear.
5. The 1991 House of Bishops report Issues in Human Sexuality argues that what it calls a ‘homophile’ orientation and attraction could not be endorsed by the Church.
6. Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference (of all bishops in the Anglican Communion) reaffirmed male-female marriage.
7. The 1999 House of Bishops teaching document Marriage states that: “Marriage is a pattern that God has given in creation, deeply rooted in our social instincts, through which a man and a woman may learn love together over the course of their lives”, and that “Sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy belongs within marriage exclusively.”
8. The Preface to the modern Common Worship marriage service confirms male-female marriage.
9. The 2005 House of Bishops Pastoral Statement on Civil Partnerships also expresses this. This teaching was reiterated (word for word) in the December 2019 Pastoral Statement on same-sex and opposite sex civil partnerships.
10. Finally, the House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same-sex Marriage (2014) stated that the same principles should apply with same-sex marriages as with Civil Partnerships and that in consequence: “Services of blessing should not be provided. Clergy should respond pastorally and sensitively in other ways.”
How is it a “modest” change, to reverse this completely? How? We must be forgiven for being somewhat bemused. The Bishop of Oxford wants us to believe this is a modest step to bring things in line with what is actually happening. But it is actually a wholesale reversal of everything above.
You can read the full article for yourself here.
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Just a small point: The homoions (“the Son is like the Father”) weren’t the extreme Arians but the middle-of-the-road ones. The extreme ones were the anomoions (“the Son is unlike the Father”).
Very much agree, Steve! The problem is that I don’t think there is mainstream parallel to the anomoions in the current debate (the best parallel in the above letter would be found in the Metropolitan Community). In the CofE, the closest we’re going to come to is the equivalent of the homing position.
An astonishing find. Thank you.
I get the point this is making (the headline is pretty obvious) but I’m afraid I find it a bit too clever-clever as a medium. I also appreciate that when we feel we’re defending truth we can allow ourselves to use whatever weapons come to hand, literary or otherwise – certainly back in Athanasius’ day rioting on the streets played its part. But the fact we don’t live in Athanasius’ day is very much part of the backdrop to these discussions… for better or for worse.
It can reveal tactics and use of argumenation even if the circumstances differ.
The the burden of proof is on the revisionists. In this they have failed and pusue schism.
It’s a neat ploy to reverse the buden of proof.
Even Croft in his essay a couple of years ago based the substance of his case on changing culture of today. Dedicated followers of culture.
Hi Pete. I am not sure anyone here is suggesting rioting in the streets!
But I do not know of any denomination which has changed its doctrine of marriage which has not then gone on to divide and decline—to the point of termination.
So we are debating *an* issue here. But actually at stake is the very existence of the Church of England. We have declined by 50% in the last 14 years. Pause—consider that. We are half the size we were.
Where will we be in the next 15 years? There are no real signs of an end to decline—and this issue will accelerate this process.
Ian
So refusing to accept same sex marriage isn’t helping the church keep bums on seats is it?
Even flirting with the idea is part of the cause of decline. The UK churches that aren’t declining are all firmly against it.
One small comment on your claim that, ‘Extreme responses to compromise in later years turn out to be the right course of action.’ Sometimes they do (think Barth, Niemoller, and the Barmen Declaration.) Sometimes they don’t (think Spurgeon and the Downgrade Controversy or the 1843 Great Disruption in Scotland.) At the time all were claimed as first order issues which left people to no choice but to split. But it’s usually very difficult at the time to know which it will be so it’s a matter of judgement not a precise quasi- certainty. Often controversies look quite different 50 or 100 years later. We simply can’t always know and I for one would suggest a time of self-reflection when we can all pause for thought rather than a further drawing of non-negotiable positions.
Hi Tim,
Wait and see isn’t always an option. The Barmen Declaration would not have been useful if the authors had held back publication until 1946.
It is good to take time to reflect on things carefully. I’m sure there are brothers and sisters in your own congregation for whom these issues are personally costly, so I encourage you to take time to fast and pray and search the scriptures for clarity if you feel you lack it. God promises to give wisdom to those who ask.
But please don’t assume that others have not engaged in careful self-reflection.
This is not a fresh controversy followed by a knee jerk reaction. The Gay Christian Movement (now OneBodyOneFaith) was founded in 1976 – nearly 50 years ago. The Gloucester report came out in 1979 and was responded to in 1980 by a book written by Michael Green, David Holloway and David Watson. It reflected the convictions of a very broad coalition of thoughtful evangelicals. They presented a strong case that evangelicals could not accept a change in doctrine or practice in this area.
There has been a lot of scholarship and discussion over the last 45 years – producing a huge number of reports, motions and books. Within evangelical Anglicanism there has continued to be an ongoing and very broad consensus that a move to embrace same-sex relationships would fracture the church. It has featured some very thoughtful people who have engaged in a lot of self-reflection and have faced some serious personal costs for their beliefs.
Personally, I have had very strong incentives to accept the cultural consensus (which I was taught at school), but as I have thought, prayed, read widely and searched the scriptures I have become convinced that the church has rightly understood God’s Word.
The people who can press pause are the ones trying to push change through the Synod. If they don’t push this through, then there won’t be a response. The broad outlines of how serious the response will be has been clear since 1980; they can’t claim to be surprised when it comes.
Do encourage them to pause – that’s what the Alliance is asking them to do.
That highlights an interesting trajectory starting with the outworking of the so called sexual revolution, the permissive society, in the 1960’s and 70’s.
Again it emphasises attempts to make the church fall in line with secular society’s sexual mores.
Nothing has changed other than perhaps greater assimilation of western culture by the church.
Geoff
The youngest generation of adults are now the grandchildren of people who were children in the 1960s. We are not going back to a culture where women are subordinate, abuse within families is socially acceptable or where only white straight landowners have any say in governance.
If the church only appeals to people who yearn for the 1950s it will die off pretty quickly and will deserve to.
“We are not going back to a culture where women are subordinate, abuse within families is socially acceptable or where only white straight landowners have any say in governance”.
No, we aren’t going back to that…because it’s a fallacious appeal to force (argumentum ad baculum) to suggest that those negative characteristics will be the inevitable consequences of refusing to affirm same-sex sex as consonant with God’s will.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum
David
That’s not my point.
My point is frustration at a continual appeal to the supposed utopia of the 1950s, which in reality were not a utopia for the vast majority of people and in practical terms are now almost outside living memory anyway.
The church will not continue if it refuses to exist in the 21st century
“My point is frustration at a continual appeal to the supposed utopia of the 1950s”
Even so. There is no reason to treat opposition to the impact of the 60s sexual revolution on Western mores as being of a piece with support for male chauvinism, social acceptance of abuse within families, or white hegemony.
“The church will not continue if it refuses to exist in the 21st century”
Which part of the 21st century?
The unfolding global ageing/depopulation crisis means that well before 2100, homosexuals and other reproductive refuseniks will be widely scorned as demographic parasites.
Paul
Consider this
There are two different groups A and B – each may contain zero, some of all of the gay people.
Group A are people who are naturally attracted to the opposite sex, but choose to indulge sexual urges by engaging in same sex orgies and gang rape.
Group B are people who are naturally attracted to the same sex and find it impossible in our culture to form legitimate relationships with the opposite sex.
Scripture does not go into great depth on this topic, but when it does give us any detail at all, it references rebellion against nature, orgies and rape. There are no instances in scripture where there are people who are naturally attracted to the same sex and no clear same sex relationships. Scripture only talks of Group A, not Group B.
Modern culture, the medical consensus, genetic evidence, other scientific results, human testimony and Lambeth 1.10 say that there are a small number of people in Group B.
So it seems to me there are only three conclusions here – 1. scripture is mistaken, 2. scripture is talking about a different group of people than we now consider “gay” or 3. reject modern conclusions about reality in favor of scripture.
The problem with picking 3 is it makes Christianity into a cultish fiction, with no bearing on reality. It also excludes the millions of believers who, through no fault of their own, experience attraction to the same sex, because you define Christianity to include the denial of the existence of anyone in Group B. This has the follow on effect of making faith extra difficult for anyone with close friends or family who are gay – they cannot live in full agreement with the church’s theology. But, worse, it justifies abuse of gay people in much the same way left handed children were abused for having the urge to write with the wrong hand.
“Group B are people who are naturally attracted to the same sex”. The A/B dichotomy is a fallacy and “naturally attracted” is a misleading characterisation.
Sexual identities are not manifested from birth and there is no evidence of a causal link between genetics and sexual identity. Also, most history scholars at the forefront of gay advocacy have focused on the profound impact of socio-economic change on Western sexual identities.
Here are some examples:
“We’ve only begun to analyze why, and to date can say little more then that certain significant pre-requisites developed in this country, and to some degree everywhere in the western world, that weren’t present, or hadn’t achieved the necessary critical mass, elsewhere.”
“Among such factors were the weakening of the traditional religious link between sexuality and procreation (one which had made non-procreative same gender desire an automatic candidate for denunciation as “unnatural”).”
“Secondly the rapid urbanization and industrialization of the United States, and the West in general, in the nineteen century weakened the material (and moral) authority of the nuclear family, and allowed mavericks to escape into welcome anonymity of city life, where they could choose a previously unacceptable lifestyle of singleness and nonconformity without constantly worrying about parental or village busybodies pouncing on them.” ( Duberman, Left Out, p. 414 – 415)
“I have argued that lesbian and gay identity and communities are historically created, the result of a process of capitalist development that has spanned many generations. A corollary of this argument is that we are not a fixed social minority composed for all time of a certain percentage of the population. There are more of us than one hundred years ago, more of us than forty years ago. And there may very well be more gay men and lesbians in the future. Claims made by gays and non-gays that sexual orientation is fixed at an early age, that large numbers of visible gay men and lesbians in society, the media, and schools will have no influence on the sexual identities of the young, are wrong.”
“Capitalism has created the material conditions for homosexual desire to express itself as a central component of some individuals’ lives; now, our political movements are changing consciousness, creating the ideological conditions that make it easier for people to make that choice.” (D’Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity, p. 473-474 in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader by Henry Abelove, Michele Aine Barale and David M. Halperin)
“Certainly the gay movement is specialized somewhat to class and urban social formations, and it must be seen from the perspective of the decontextualization of sex. Only by disengaging sexuality from the traditions of family, reproduction, and parenthood was the evolution of the gay movement a social and historical likelihood.” (Herdt, “Developmental Discontinuities and Sexual Orientation Across Cultures,”p. 224 in Homosexuality/Heterosexuality Concepts of Sexual Orientation edited by McWhirter, Sanders, and Reinisch)
Scripture characterises same-sex sex as the nadir of mankind’s rejection and supplanting of God’s inductively self-evident ordering of nature, including the male-female archetype of marriage, which Christ harked all the way back to in Matt. 19.
David
You will note I said that there could be zero people in group B.
My post was not really to contest whether gay people exist or not, but to point out that the group of people we discuss in the 21st century have different characteristics to the group of people condemned in scripture.
FWIW there is genetic evidence for naturally occurring homosexuality. There is no evidence for any other specific cause!
Peter,
Regardless of the actual numbers, your group A/group B dichotomy is still false because (as I explained) “there is no evidence of a causal link between genetics and sexual identity.”
Do feel free to post links to peer-reviewed research that refutes my statement.
What are you trying to infer David? That if there isn’t a “gay gene” then sexual orientation is a choice and changeable at will?
What do you think that the scholars that I quoted (and who spearheaded gay advocacy) were implying by their statements about the profound impact of socio-economic change on Western sexual identities?
Ultimately, there is a difference between actual and constructive immutability, as Professor Rosalind Dixon explained in the Osgoode Law Journal article entitled, The Supreme Court of Canada and Constitutional (Equality) Baselines
For example, Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which was enacted in 1985) prohibits not only discrimination based on enumerated grounds (such as race, national and ethnic origin, and colour), but also prohibits discrimination based on “analogous grounds”, such as citizenship, and pregnancy.
The rule is that “a personal characteristic is considered analogous to the ones enumerated in section 15 if it is “immutable” or cannot be changed or can only be changed at excessive cost”.
Professor Dixon wisely notes that “The immutability test, however, also encompasses a range of “constructively immutable” characteristics (such as citizenship, marital status, and sexual orientation) where there is a much blurrier line between conduct, choice, and status, and where there is little real connection to visibility. Similarly, truly immutable characteristics may or may not be “central” or defining for particular individuals. Often, it is the choice to identify oneself in terms of particular personal characteristics (such as sex, religion, or sexual orientation) that makes the particular characteristic defining, and not the fact that the characteristic is unalterable or given.”
Constructive immutability still doesn’t justify the subversion of the public purpose of marriage (as I have explained in the following article: https://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/articles/reflections-on-the-public-purpose-of-marriage/).
David
You’re misunderstanding my point. My point isn’t that there actually is a group A and a group B. My point is that the people known as gay by current society have a different set of characteristics compared with the people condemned by scripture. You can choose to say that scripture is right and our current scientific consensus is wrong – by all means. My point is not to say you must accept scripture is wrong. My point is to say that the modern understanding of gay people is not the same as the characteristics of people condemned for same sex activity in scripture.
There are no same sex marriages in scripture. There are no same sex romantic couples raising children in scripture. There are no same sex attracted people in scripture who have tried everything to be attracted to the opposite sex. There is no SOCE in scripture.
” My point is to say that the modern understanding of gay people is not the same as the characteristics of people condemned for same sex activity in scripture.”
I absolutely understand the point that you’re making, but I disagree because the fact that (some) modern same-sex couples (1) base their relationship on a romantic attraction and/or (2) enter same-sex marriage and/or (3) raise children does not mitigate the breach of the enduring Genesis archetype of marriage to which Christ harked back many centuries after the Pentateuch was written.
As a parallel example consider Herod’s marriage to Herodias (his brother’s ex-wife). John the Baptist, who Jesus described as a ‘burning and shining light’ (John 5:35) denounced their marriage as illicit based on Leviticus 20:21.
Herodias’ voluntary abdication and self-imposed exile to Gaul where she joined Herod in his banishment (by Caligula) surely demonstrates the kind of exceptional mutual devotion that is “not the same as the characteristics of people condemned for same sex activity in scripture”.
John the Baptist’s denunciation shows that God’s displeasure has nothing to do with mutual beneficence within a relationship, but has everything to do with ensuring that sexual activity accords with God’s will, as revealed through scripture and the normative ordering of nature.
Who defines’extreme positions’?
Are the CoE doctrines extreme positions?
To use a legal analogy, it seems that Croft has used a template (as shown in the article) from the past as special pleadings, to plead his case for schism.
Hi Geoff, no one mentioned ‘extreme positions’ (whatever they are.) Joshua used the phrase ‘extreme responses to compromise,’ and it was that I was reflecting on, nothing more.
This is brilliant. Thank you.
Screwtape stuff from +Oxford!
What would have happened had Croft advocated gay marriage at Nicaea?
St Nicholas would have taken matters in hand.
It is obvious where the Bishop of Oxford wants to go: to same-sex marriage. ‘We are not there yet’ means ‘but that’s where we’re headed.’
The time for hoping-against-hope compromise is over. The orthodox churches must tell Steven Croft: “We do not recognise you as our bishop any longer. We reject your ministrations. Resign.”
And they must enlist orthodox bishops.
but if other ‘non-orthodox’ churches hold a different position, why would he resign if others agree with him? It appears a substantial number of both clergy and members of the CoE have similar views to him on same-sex sexual relationships.
Resign and Repent.
James
It’s clear that the alliance are trying to arrange a situation where they continue to have influence over the rest of the cofe, but where they don’t have to obey the decisions of synod or the bishops. I think they need to either accept they are part of a denomination with a range of views of gay people or leave.
The Church is not a discussion society. It is called to be the ‘bulwark of truth’. Bishops who disagree with the Bible must resign.
James
The Bible doesn’t prohibit gay people from recieving blessings or from getting married. It does warn against false preachers who will try to stop ordinary people from marrying.
“It does warn against false preachers who will try to stop ordinary people from marrying”.
It does, but your extension of that warning to same-sex marriage is ‘begging the question’ and a chronological fallacy. Your statements in support of your proposition (that same-sex marriage is not at variance with God’s revealed will) is taking the proposition for granted.
David
Why is it a fallacy? Only because it doesn’t fit your theology – which is then a circular argument.
Peter,
Because it defies logic for the statements you’ve made to support and prove your proposition (that same-sex marriage is not at variance with God’s revealed will) to treat that proposition as if it was already proven.
Here’s the response of Lee Gatiss of The Church Society to Bishop Steven Croft. The link contains a further link to sign up for the new parallel province which the Alliance wants to set up.
(spaces inserted in link so that this will post):
https:// www. churchsociety.org / resource / responding-to-the-bishop-of-oxford/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0Q4rcBWP1jnzd7AFmHIAR_q1n5v7MoxlXxpvjrpuBnfOiWuW_LdtLh6bw_aem_uLhNZnCmJJ8PB3FqHs_0DA
There is also a letter of response from the Alliance to Croft.
https://anglicanmainstream.org/the-alliance-responds-to-the-bishop-of-oxford-an-attempt-to-avoid-schism/
Also to be found on that site is a link to +Pete Broadbent writing that +Croft’s letter/response to the Alliance, was +Croft “gaslighting” the Alliance in the terminology and expressions used by Croft.
That can be followed through to +Broadbent making and defending the point on Thinking Anglicans. (It’s the first time I’ve looked there.)
It’s always interesting what they don’t say. Not a word on the main thrust of Bishop Croft’s argument that the PLF services could already legally happen, and that we are talking a freedom of conscience that has existed for lay people in the Church for 30 years courtesy of the teaching that is actually in Issues in Human Sexuality.
“we are talking a freedom of conscience that has existed for lay people in the Church for 30 years courtesy of the teaching that is actually in Issues in Human Sexuality.”
Indeed. That’s a valid issue to explore. The legal divide between lay people and clergy is predicated on the fact that the former are official representatives of a religious organisation. And, as Professor Ian Leigh of Durham University explained in ‘Balancing Religious Autonomy and Other Human Rights under the European Convention’ (Oxford Journal of Law and Religion), there are serious repercussions of any state that favours the individual rights of ministers of religion above the Convention rights of the religious organisation to which they belong: (http://ojlr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/01/24/ojlr.rwr015.full ):
He wrote: ‘It might be thought that domestic courts are free to grant additional constitutional protection against non-governmental bodies where Strasbourg would not do so but even this raises potential difficulties. Religious organizations have Convention rights of their own and to tip the balance too far in favour of the individual at the domestic level could leave the state open to challenge by the organization at the Strasbourg level.’
Issues’ approach was excessively focused on the scope of legal restrictions that could be imposed by the Church as a religious organisation. That is the background to the oversimplified clergy-laity divide.
That approach was mistaken because it went no further to explore other lawful sanctions (e.g., relational consequences) that the Church could implement to prevent the tacit promotion of the very thing that ‘Issues’ sought to avoid: the implication that the same-sex marriage is “on a par with heterosexual marriage as a reflection of God’s purposes in creation”.
While Issues’ mistaken clergy-laity over-simplification has led to its stated ‘ethical ideal’ being undermined, that mistake (which has persisted in all subsequent guidance) doesn’t make the case for declaring the ideal itself to be false, or unrealistic and unworkable.
Those seeking a revision to the Church’s teaching on marriage need to look elsewhere to argue for that.
Correction:
‘The legal divide between lay people and clergy is predicated on the fact that the latter are official representatives of a religious organisation.’
“Issues’ approach was excessively focused on the scope of legal restrictions that could be imposed by the Church as a religious organisation. That is the background to the oversimplified clergy-laity divide.”
And yet that isn’t what Issues itself says. Legal arguments about discrimination just don’t feature. Rather the actual discussion Issues has in talking about people in the laity who are in loving and faithful gay partnerships, in intention lifelong, which includes physical expression is that: “in every congregation such homophiles should find fellow-Christians who will sensitively and naturally provide [friendship and understanding] for them. Indeed, if this were not done, any professions on the part of the Church that it is committed to openness and learning about the homophile situation can be no more than empty words.”
“Legal arguments about discrimination just don’t feature.”
The legal argument was not explicit, but when Issues expressed reluctance to ‘be more rigorous in searching out and exposing clergy in sexually active homophile (sic) relationships’, it was echoing the privacy considerations in the Wolfenden Report that had resulted in the decriminalisation of private homosexual acts.
In contrast, while expressing respect for the integrity of lay people who were in ‘active homophile partnerships’, the HoB asserted its ‘duty to affirm the whole pattern of Christian teaching on sexuality set out in these pages and to uphold the requirements for conduct which will bear witness to it’.(5.18).
In contrast with the laity, for clergy, there is an undeniable legal basis (of canonical obedience) upon which the HoB upholds the requirements for conduct.
https : // alliancecofe.org / to access the Alliance website
The editorial by Peter Jensen in the June 2024 edition of the Global Anglican is entitled ‘First Things First’.
The editorial refers to the report ‘Towards the Conversion of England’ issued in 1945 and makes the point that repentance and conversion is still ‘the biggest problem facing our nation’ today.
The editorial largely agrees with the 1945 report, with ‘some hesitations’ – possibly ‘the future of unbelievers is not clear, and I suspect that a form of annihilationism is in play’ and ‘Even if the Report embraced annihilationism. It did not settle on universalism and nor can we’.
In the General Synod meeting this July, the sexuality disagreement will once again be discussed.
This disagreement is important. But far more important is the failure of the Church as a whole to believe and preach what the Bible says about ‘the future of unbelievers’ – that they face eternal retribution from God.
For the unsaved who do not think the God of the Bible exists, their final annihilation, even if it happens after a period of retribution, is God ceasing to exist for them.
The terrible warnings, some from Christ’s own lips, to flee from this eternal retribution is one of the ‘first things first’ that we all need to hear and believe; the second ‘first thing first’ is the wonderful and sincere invitations and promises to all, some from Christ’s own lips, to repent and submit to Christ in his atoning death and life-giving resurrection, and to obey him for the rest of our lives .
Philip Almond
Athansius was correct, compromise should be required, especially in an established church such as the C of E with almost equal Catholic and evangelical, liberal and conservative blocks. PLF did precisely that, ensuring prayers of blessing for same sex couples married in English law while also reserving marriage for opposite sex couples ideally in lifelong unions.
Clear majorities for PLF were given in all 3 houses of synod, clergy, bishops and laity. As Section A6 of the Canons of the C of E makes clear ‘The government of the Church of England under His Majesty, by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and the rest of the clergy and of the laity that bear office in the same, is not repugnant to the Word of God’
Compromise like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWa3LyvFOdc
Ridiculous comparison, blessing monogamous same sex couples married in UK law is hardly Satanism. Indeed Jesus never said anything against such couples and of course marriage and holy matrimony has been reserved for heterosexual couples, ideally in lifelong unions, anyway
Are you gaslighting this blog?
Who said it was a direct comparison?
T1
” ‘The government of the Church of England under His Majesty,…..is not repugnant to the Word of God’
Well they would say that wouldn’t they?? Not at all sure the Word of God would agree with them, though … indeed pretty sure the Word disagrees….!!
Well of course as that has been the case since the Church of England was created in the 16th century to a Catholic but reformed church headed by the Monarch and governed by the Bishops, Clergy and Laity with orders of service determined by the Book of Common Prayer. That is how the Word of God is interpreted too, via the majority of Bishops, Clergy and Laity in Synod.
If you don’t want to be in a Church organised as above and to interpret the Word of God differently then you can leave the C of E and join your local Baptist, Pentecostal or Independent Evangelical church
“If you don’t want to be in a Church organised as above and to interpret the Word of God differently then you can leave the C of E”
That’s ironic… The “you” isn’t wanting to “interpret the Word of God differently”.
#You# do… so, by your logic… why are you not leaving?
I’m not suggesting you should leave. But maybe you think it’s honorable to do so? (winks)
Why would I leave, I believe in a church with the King as my Supreme Governor and the BCP, no other church offers me that!
T1
Four things I guess
1) Reading the NT to find out what God actually wanted you find that as per the promised ‘new covenant’ the Messianic King Jesus set out not to conquer the world (as many Jews had clearly expected) militarily like his ancestor David, but in a different peaceable and voluntary way involving spiritual rebirth and faith – see John18-19 where he explains this to Pilate. Paul adds to this in various ways including saying that the warfare of Christians is not to be with physical weaponry; and Peter (the first ‘Pope’) explains in his first epistle an idea of an inter/supranational Church operating rather like the Jewish ‘Diaspora’ as resident aliens (‘parepidemoi’) in the worldly states in which they live.
2) in a change which occurred over the 4th century CE culminating in Theodosius effectively hijacking Christianity as the official imperial religion (yes that’s a slight simplification) the NT version of things was temporarily overturned by an effective ‘establishment’ of the church which we’re gradually getting out of…. Note that such establishment is NOT based on NT teaching but rather on ‘this-worldly’ assumptions that “God must want….” Christian earthly states.
3) the ‘Henrician settlement’ in England was simply a schism in which Henry VIII kind of the church in England for his own benefit – again, not an idea based on NT teaching. It has always represented a case of the church ‘serving two masters’, which of course Jesus himself pointed out couldn’t ultimately work. The originally ‘totalitarian’ CofE position has been gradually eroded over the years; and right now the conflicting pressures of being a national church are causing too many to want worldly compromise over sexuality issues.
4) faced with the NI ‘Troubles’ last century I re-examined the wider issues of church and state and the idea of ‘Christian countries’, and effectively joined the Anabaptists in going back to the NT version of things. Because of interesting choices by Mennonite missionaries some decades ago ‘Anabaptists’ in the UK are not a separate denomination but a trans-denominational movement spreading the key Anabaptist (ie, New Testament) ideas widely within UK churches. Formally I left the CofE a long time back, but still feel a responsibility to help sort out the ‘establishment’ issue and currently the problems caused by that ‘two masters’ thing about sexuality.
Interestingly even with the unbiblical state entanglement, the vast majority of the church managed to remain biblically faithful on sexual issues till around 100 years ago.
As for the Roman Church, I find it interesting and kind of amusing that for many Anabaptists I Peter is a key text – we just wish the ‘Papists’ would pay better attention to the ‘first Pope’…..
Well if you believe the C of E is unworldly and don’t believe in established churches, I agree that you made the correct decision to leave the C of E!
Gaslighting again?
You really do need to form your own sexual sect, not knowing or able to articulate the Evangel, your ministry and mission is severely restricted, and exclusionary, it seems.
And being inherintly infertile, puts it outside the CoE stated drive to target the young, children and young families.
Homosexual couples can also have children via adoption and surrogates now of course
Geoff
A fifth of same sex couples are raising children
If, T1, you don’t want to be in a church faithful to the scriptures which Jesus Christ affirmed, and prefer the spirit of the age to the Holy Spirit, then you can join the Methodists (for a start). But they are in steep decline. What a coincidence!
No, as I want to be in an established church with the King as Supreme Governor, which excludes the Methodists and they are also too low church for me
Have you considered that what Jesus Christ wants might be more important than what you want?
It’s like you’ve finally discovered the Canons and in your excitement to find one you think supports you, you quote it all over the place.
Newsflash: this canon doesn’t say that the government of the Church of England always produces truth and that we can’t claim that synod are behaving in a way contrary to scripture. Actually, the Canons of the church of England affirm articles XX and XXI both of which suggest that there are limits to what the church can teach.
What this article says is that the structure of the government of the C of E is not itself repugnant to the word of God. Which is to say that if you are a member of clergy of the Church of England you can’t claim that the 3 fold order of ministry, the governership of the monarch, and the synod system are in themselves repugnant to the word of God.
Just because bishops teach something, because synod votes on something, dosn’t make it scriptural and legal – the ultimate arbiter of this is scripture.
Finally, Athenasius argued against compromise – you are misreading the letter. He was successful (after much travail): Non-trinitarians were kicked out of the Church Catholic if they refused to change their belief. Thank God for his faithful witness to truth in adversity.
The ultimate arbiter of how scripture is interpreted in the C of E is by what the majority of Bishops, clergy and laity decide at Synod
No, that is literally nonsense. The ultimate arbiter of what is taught in the church of england is scripture, the creeds, the 39 articles and the ordinal.
If you don’t know what you’re talking about, go read some primers on Anglicanism before embarrassing yourself.
How scripture is determined is by majority of Synod, as the canons affirm, if you don’t accept that you shouldn’t be in the C of E
In the present case this is not about the interpretation of scripture but the authority of scripture. The LLF book itself said that. Jesus Christ regarded the written laws of Moses as the totally authoritative word of his Father and those books are perfectly clear about the subject. You could, of course, question the gospels where they state that Jesus accepted the Pentateuch, but in that case you might as well question his birth to a virgin and his resurrection from the dead.
Nothing in the Ten Commandments given to Moses about same sex couples in monogamous lifelong unions being forbidden either
There is a little more to the written laws of Moses than the Ten Commandments, T1. Another 603 commands, according to some commentators.
“Unlike some of his colleagues, this commentator does not believe that the issue of the doctrine of marriage is quite at the level of the Nicene debates”
I disagree; whilst the calibre of debate i am certain is not comparable to that of Nicea, my own thought is that this too is first order issue of Christology; Jesus is the bridegroom, and the New Adam, thus the doctrine of marriage is interwoven withe doctrines of Creation, Salvation, Incarnation, and of God. To change the doctrine of marriage begins to change all these other doctrines as well.
Jeremy
The secular English speaking world has had same sex marriage for a decade now and it hasn’t caused anyone to have a problem understanding this metaphor. Indeed given churches are mostly male led and Jesus is also male, this divine wedding has never been entirely heterosexual in any case
Entirely agree. God created them male and female. God’s design for humanity and procreative ability. Marriage is the fusing of the two created beings which naturally leads to new human life and male and female parents who are a stable bedrock for raising children. Jesus clearly states this in Matthew 19. The fact that artificial conception can artificially create a child does not make 2 men or 2 women parents of a child. It actually denies a child knowledge of their heritage.
Children aren’t mentioned at all in Matthew 19.
Tricia
What about the kids of gay parents? Short of forcing gay people to have vasectomies, hysterectomies and banning gay people from adopting, these kids are always going to exist. Why don’t they deserve the stability of marriage?
T1
“As Section A6 of the Canons of the C of E makes clear ‘The government of the Church of England under His Majesty, by archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and the rest of the clergy and of the laity that bear office in the same, is not repugnant to the Word of God’”
So for all that huge superstructure from the king down, all you can say of it is that (Whoever passed that canon thinks that) ‘it is not repugnant to the Word of God’. Doesn’t that rather amount to admitting that it actually doesn’t have even the slightest support in the Word of God?? If it did have any support, you’d be able to produce it, show it to us.
And in fact, I’d suggest that quite a bit of it is repugnant to the Word, just starting with the point that the bishops known to the NT are not regional CEOs but just another word to describe the ‘presbyters/elders’. And Jesus’ Church does not need local ‘kings’ or similar to pass laws declaring themselves ‘Supreme Governors’ of the Church in their state – the Church already has a King/Supreme Governor … His name is Jesus, God’s actual anointed ruler. and so on.
It does have support in the Word of God based on how the C of E canons interpret that. Clearly you don’t believe in Bishops, Popes or Kings having any place in religion so you are correctly not Roman Catholic, C of E or in any church with Bishops of apostolic successions
T1
So show me the biblical texts that support all of that. Especially of course the New Testament teachings because we know that the NT can change things that happened before.
I believe what the Bible says; the Bible recognises an international Church with one Messiah/King Jesus. It does not give authority in the Church to local kings of worldly nations – why would it when (in the words of ‘Pope’ Peter) it portrays the Church itself as God’s holy nation, with one KING Jesus and portrays the secular nations as ‘the world’ out of which people are called into that holy nation of the born again??
And ‘episkopos’ is still biblically a synonym for ‘presbyteros’, and so not a regional CEO individual….
The LLF is not a compromise since it doesn’t offer liberals or gay people anything that wasn’t already available. It’s merely a formalization of blessings already allowed.
A better “solution” would be to implement things that there is broad agreement on (at least in theory) – actually ending SOCE in CofE churches, rather than just claiming to have done it and setting clear minimum standards of behavior from priests and church staff towards LGBT people.
This would have a greater impact than bringing in blessings nobody asked for and nobody particularly wants, but it would also be less controversial and be even better for the cofes public reputation
Peter
The minimum biblical ‘standards of behavior from priests and church staff towards LGBT people’ would be a clear statement that same-sex sex is a sin and part of the disorder brought into human life by sin. The Church (all of it, not just the CofE) should not compromise on that.
SL
And having that as the only statement on LGBT people is allowing LGBT people, often who are not sexually active, being spiritually or sexually or physically abused in CofE churches. This is not only harming people in an institution that claims to be for good, but also damaging the church’s reputation and ability to have a voice in public discourse
Peter
“… having that as the only statement on LGBT people …”
NOT the ‘only’ but the non-negotiable minimum. The abuse and other harm is not inherent in Christianity itself but has historically arisen from the business of having ‘established’ or ‘national’ churches with a dynamic of coercively imposing Christian profession and moral standards on society at large, whereas the NT is pretty clear that Christian faith is meant to be voluntary, humanly speaking. The CofE and several other at least nominally Christian institutions need to apologise for that improper imposition, but cannot apologise for upholding what the Bible says about sexuality.
Which it should be pointed out is not just isolated stuff about sexuality; what the faith says about that is part of much wider concerns and a wider understanding of ‘sin’ and how sin works in human life generally. A key issue here is that claim that ‘gay’ is something people ‘just are’ as they may variously be ethnically different or have different hair or eye colour.
Duh, NO! Nobody can meaningfully ‘DO’ or CHOOSE ethnicity and similar, or have ‘urges, drives and desires’ to do things like being black, or brown-eyed. But people definitely do, and choose to do, ‘gay sex’ and definitely have ‘urges, desires and drives’ to do ‘gay sex’, just like people doing other sinful things like murder and theft and lying. It is in a whole different moral category, and pretending ‘gay’ is in the same category as ethnicity is simply an untruth even where it isn’t a deliberate lie (and sorry but the conceptual difference is such that you have to be pretty naive and thoughtless to be telling that untruth and it not be a deliberate lie).
Agreed that the “doing/choosing because urges and desires” thing is not just about sins; as a category it includes the saintly as well, and many things about which there can be different opinions in different worldviews, not to mention complexities in different situations. But it is really important to maintain that unlike things like eye colour, when we are talking about “doing/choosing because urges and desires”, we cannot simplistically say “I’ve got the urges and desires, it must be OK to act them out”.
SL
“Often who are not sexually active”
Your response – banging on and on about gay sex.
This is why the church isnt even discussing abuse and why it’s numbers are dwindling. This is not the church of Christ and it deserves to whither
There is a place where abuse and its cover-up really did bring a large denomination down, and it’s Ireland, not England. Abuse should be shouted from the rooftops and deplored, but the Church of England is in decline because it is a two-minded church about homosexual relations. One of those minds is the mind of Christ. The other is the mind of the Archbishops.
May I add that the CoE never used to ‘bang on’ about this subject. It is reactive, not active.
Anton
Most denominations are in decline across the west – even denominations which have strict rules to exclude gay people (like the Southern Baptists in the US).
Survey results suggest that sexual abuse scandals and negative treatment of LGBT people are some of the major reasons people stop attending church. Churches being too inclusive of LGBT people is not a major reason people leave.
Please quote a quantitative UK survey to that effect.
It does, formal prayers of blessing and certainly stand alone services for same sex couples were not allowed before PLF
T1
You wrote “No, as I want to be in an established church with the King as Supreme Governor, which excludes the Methodists and they are also too low church for me”.
So you want to be in a Church which blatantly defies the Biblical teaching about the proper relationship between the Church and the surrounding world including the local secular state. How does that even make sense? And apparently you also want the Church to defy the Biblical teaching on sexuality. ????????????????!!
In your view, you are a socially conservative evangelical who doesn’t like established churches, I am not but a liberal Catholic Anglican
So is that your replacement, false god of your worship, and the succinct expression of your belief and understanding of the Evangel? It represents idolatry, not the Kingship, not the Lordship of Jesus over all areas of your life.
There is no indication whatsoever of a new birth, transformed Christian life. In any of your comments on this blog, though I’d be pleased to stand corrected.
It was intersting listening briefly in the car to radio 4, where a pollster and cross- bench peer were asked to comment in the general election results.
Both raise the point about lack to trust in politicians ( only 40% voted).
The pollster said that trust had always been low, but on the “veracity index” they use, it was at an all time low.
Outside the bubble of the bishops, outside the navel gazing CoE, the varacity index of the bishops is condemnatory, and to the electorate’s primary concerns in life, the CoE is totally irrelevant.
As opposed to you who essentially take an Oliver Cromwell approach to worship and clearly want to remove all sacred art, high altars, incense and bishops from worship, take out the King as Supreme Governor and replace the BCP and essentially turn the C of E into a Presbyterian/Baptist church as Cromwell tried to do in the mid 17th century.
Many people also still like the idea of having a local Parish church they can be married and buried in
T1
For starters as an Anabaptist I am often quite socially radical – just that as a Christian I recognise the Bible as defining what is Christian and neither I nor any church institution have the authority to make up for ourselves the Christian position on sexuality.
Was there a ‘high altar’ in the kataluma/chamber of the original Last Supper, or for that matter in the communion meals of the Corinthians as described in Paul’s epistle?? Anointing a secular king as a ‘Supreme Governor’ in Jesus’ ekklesia is dangerously close to creating an ‘antiChrist’, a rival to Jesus. Worship in spirit and truth is way more important than and does not actually need sacred art, incense, etc. Many churches I have worshipped in have had ‘bishops’, not of the grandiose man-made variety but simply as the Bible says, another word for the office of presbyter/elder.
Cromwell was still doing the ‘Christian country’ thing, to the extent of being a major inspiration to the Ulster Protestants who caused me to question that principle and go back to the Bible about ‘establishment’. I don’t see him as a great example.
As for “Many people also still like the idea of having a local Parish church they can be married and buried in”, that approach is precisely the confusion of Church and world which is the problem with establishment and produces the attempt at ‘serving two masters’ which has led the CofE into its present mess…..
As I said you are a radical evangelical non conformist who has interest in any church of Bishops of Apostolic Succession. You have no place in any Anglican or Church of England church and certainly no interest in the C of E as established church and its connection to the wider community and have correctly realised that by going Anabaptist
As I said you are a radical evangelical non conformist who has no interest in any church of Bishops of Apostolic Succession. You have no place in any Anglican or Church of England church and certainly no interest in the C of E as established church and its connection to the wider community and have correctly realised that by going Anabaptist
Telling someone what church he should be in is rather an overreach, don’t you think?
So you have no substantive response, T1.
No idea of the Evangel.
Don’t even like the reality of the Evangel.
Is the CoE to be reduced to liking the idea of getting married and being buried? Shameful in its renunciation of Christianity, of Christ himself.
It is sub-Christian; dead and burying itself.
No it is just willing to accept same sex monogamous couples exist and are married in English law and are entitled to have prayers of blessing in churches of the established church
“(only 40% voted)”
Just an aside – you’ve got that the wrong way around. Turnout was 60% (so 40% didn’t vote).
A survey of more than 1,500 people conducted by the conservative Christian organization Voice for Justice UK has reached the conclusion that people who hold biblically orthodox Christian opinions are being increasingly marginalized and treated with contempt within society.
This growing hostility, at times amounting to ‘Christophobia’, or anti-Christian hatred, is evident in every sector of British national life.
This being so, the current debate in the church is not only important for the church but for the entire nation,
if the conservatives acquis and refuse to be counter -cultural it will join the wider capitulation seen in every stratum of our political, media, educational and cultural milieu.
Then who will be the voice of Christianity.
Reformers need to remember their founders
“Here I stand I can do no other”.
Ps 11:3
“If the foundations [of a godly society] are destroyed,
What can the righteous do? “AMPV.
God tests both the righteous and the wicked, but His soul hates the wicked.
Psalm 11 is a profound declaration of trust in the divine refuge, even amidst life’s tumultuous trials. Its author, traditionally believed to be David, vividly portrays the dichotomy between righteousness and wickedness and the certainty of God’s justice and judgement.
For the wider implications I would recommend anything by Cambel at
https://possil.wordpress.com/2024/05/09/without-foundations-the-building-falls/
https://possil.wordpress.com/2024/07/04/to-re-order-society/
Is that it then T1?
Your expression of the Evangel?
Christ excluded; cut-off from Christ.
God’s extant judgement is in full view.
Yours is a paean to whitewashed sepulchres, to Nietzsche.
Latest steps re LLF to be discussed in Synod this afternoon (Monday).
A pre -assessment is here:
https://www.anglicanfutures.org/post/llf-will-it-go-to-penalties
And from today, here:
https://www.anglicanfutures.org/post/llf-the-decision-point
Our troops in World War 1 were described as “lions led by donkeys”. The more I listen – and heed the words about change of doctrine sprung on Synod by the bishops on Saturday – the more I regard the Church of England as sheep led by wolves.
Low on the veracity index, high velocity in the voracious vortex of wolves.
Shepherds:
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Inadequate-Shepherding
There is only one true Shepherd. Compare and contrast: John 10
T1
You wrote above “No it is just willing to accept same sex monogamous couples exist and are married in English law and are entitled to have prayers of blessing in churches of the established church”.
As a believer in the maximum practicable religious and philosophical freedom, I have no great problem with the first part of that, up to “…and….” Yes these people are married in English law and their status is to be respected. At the same time in Christian terms they are wrong and it would be to their benefit to be persuaded – peaceably and non-coercively – to take a different view.
No same-sex couple can be entitled to have their sexual relationship blessed in any Christian church. FULL STOP! Which is one of many reasons why an established church, with the conflicting pressures it faces on such issues, is a bad idea. Of course the biggest reason why an established church is a bad idea is that it is unbiblical and the NT sets forth a very different way for church and surrounding world to relate to one another.
In a Baptist or Pentecostal or independent evangelical church you maybe could do that. The C of E however is clear that conversion therapy is wrong and indeed the newly elected Starmer government is likely to make it illegal anyway given its large majority in the House of Commons.
As the established church Synod has already voted to bless same sex Parishioners within services in C of E churches by majority in all 3 houses. You clearly are a Baptist evangelical not an Anglican of the established church, you may well oppose established churches but you aren’t in one anyway
Are you even Christian? How so?
What is your testimony of conversion? From what to what?
Are you suggesting that when a person converts to Christianity they will see their sexual orientation changed?
AJB
“Are you suggesting that when a person converts to Christianity they will see their sexual orientation changed?”
Depends on how you define ‘sexual orientation’. What I would expect would be a change in behaviour to stop doing same-sex sexual activity…
Stephen Langton:
You must surely know precisely what AJ Bell meant by their sexual orientation, so please don’t pretend otherwise. He meant their ongoing pattern of sexual attraction, not their sexual behaviour. He asked whether it was being suggested that, when a person converts to Christianity, they will see their sexual orientation changed. Do you have an answer to that question? If so, what is it?
T1
Where did conversion therapy get into this? I certainly don’t believe in it. Sure I believe in persuading people – like the Starmer government clearly properly persuaded people to change their political minds. Gayness is a SIN, not a sickness.
Establishment could be argued to be a sickness – over the years it has produced one really high ‘kill count’, it is lucky there were more biblical Christians around to tone down the original lethal totalitarianism of Anglicanism…..
Starmer is going lead a goverment ‘unburdened by doctrine’, see here:
https://www.anglicanfutures.org/post/a-government-unburdened-by-doctrine-what-about-the-church
It is worth reading for this – Starmer’s speech writer worked for 6 years at Lambeth Palace, before joining the Labour team in January and promoting the CoE’s transferable doctrine, sound bite, it seems.
well 2/3 of those who voted didnt vote for Labour, yet they got into power. Something definitely wrong there.
Starmer in his former job as Director of Public Prosecutions failed spectacularly in the application of his newly revealed public policy doctrine! Wonder how the Sexual Offences Act was operated without doctrine, under his governance. In fact, all criminal law, criminal justice.
No doctrine is replacement doctrine; anarchy. Relative and absolute nonsense.
1/3 voted Labour.
But, only 1/4 voted Conservative.
Only 1/7 voted Reform.
Just 1/8 voted Liberal Democrat.
And a mere 1/15 voted Green.
PC1
Both Labour and the Lib Dems ran a voter efficiency campaign. They put few resources into their safer seats meaning some ‘safe’ seats only won by a few hundred votes.
Because of this, helped by widespread tactical voting by people who just wanted the Tories out, Labour have a bigger share of the seats than their vote share, but they still got by far the most votes of any party.
I have no sympathy for small c conservatives complaining about FPTP right now, given we had 14 years of Tory rule based on winning 32% of the vote in 2010! (lower than Labour did this time) Not only did conservatives not complain then, they successfully campaigned against changing the voting system.
Fortunately the CoE doesn’t believe that gayness is a sin, so you’re on your own in your bigoted bubble there.
I have no plans to pray to change anybody’s sexual preference and I acknowledge that this has often been done naively, BUT I’ll pray for whom I like when I like and where I like, and whether Caesar permits it or not.
T1
Further on your suggestion that this involves ‘conversion therapy’. What it definitely involves is this point I keep making about how ‘gayness’ is not about ‘just being’ but is about doing.
The biblical picture is that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. And what that means is that the sinners are ‘out of kilter’ or ‘out of joint’ firstly with God himself and also with God’s world, other humans, and even out of joint within themselves, so that they significantly lose control even of themselves and their various urges drives and desires to do things are messed up and they do all kinds of sinful and inappropriate things. This is in effect the mess from which we need to be ‘saved’ by faith in Jesus.
Sexuality is just one of many areas to which this pattern applies. In all such areas we are not dealing with some special weirdness caled ‘conversion therapy’, but with the ordinary business of calling people to repent of sin.
T1
And yet further the argument I’ve just made is essentially what Paul explains in the early chapters of Romans, and he uses ‘gay sex’ as a major example of how sin puts people out of joint with God and within themselves. Which I find interesting because not only do you seem to be defying scripture, you seem to be specifically rejecting the teaching of Jesus’ extraordinarily appointed apostle Paul – how does that fit with your insistence on and supposed respect for the ‘apostolic succession’?????
Although it’s interesting that St John Chrysostom in his original homily on that passage in Romans was adamant that it wasn’t about gay people (or as you might say, exclusively same-sex attracted). He is very clear that the people being talked about had no excuse that legitimate intercourse was being denied to them. It’s the foundation of his argument.
It is Christianity not Paulianity. Paul also condemned women priests so they would have to be removed from the C of E as would women bishops if you followed everything he said.
Christ of course condemned divorce except for spousal adultery but the C of E already allows that
‘their women’
Synod- a brief report with quotations from our host.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/church.of.england.continues.on.path.towards.same.sex.blessings/141914.htm
Bishop Martyn Snow, lead bishop for the Living in Love and Faith process, …insisted that no one was being forced out of the Church and that introducing the prayers does not amount to a change in doctrine on marriage or sex outside of marriage… The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, …denied that PLF amounted to a change in doctrine
I accuse them of saying what they know to be untrue about doctrine.
Jesus Christ does not go where He is not welcome and it is He who is being forced out of the church. These men have no fear of the Lord and no wisdom. Worse, they take a good salary from the faithful to peddle heresy.
I told Bishop Martyn to his face that this was heresy. And the contempt I have for the Archbishop of York increases by the day. What a sad time for the Church of England. I see that the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham is standing firm – maybe I will have to hop over the Diocesan boundary into his area.
You do know Donatism is a heresy?
Donatism is rigourism, not heresy. Everybody is a Donatist toward somebody else.
Pleased to see Synod has voted by majority in all 3 houses to begin removing restrictions on stand alone services for same sex couples. Entirely correct the C of E as established church offers its homosexual parishioners the chance to have a service of blessing in their Parish church if already married in English law. Of course conservative churches which disagree have an opt out anyway and the doctrine of marriage in church remains reserved to heterosexual couples in lifelong unions
Synod have voted against their own legal provisions and against the word of God. Only trouble will come.
No, the C of E canons make clear its governance by its Bishops, clergy and laity ie Synod is not repugnant to the word of God.
The doctrine of marriage remains unchanged anyway, only services of prayer and blessing not marriage services were approved within C of E churches
For same sex couples
Sad. There was a good argument for saying we need to see the revisions to Issues in Human Sexuality as the next step, and not to effectively sign a blank cheque for documents that may not in fact replace its content but effectively delete it and replace it with noting, as the Cornes Amendment argued. But the Alliance needs to realise that attempting to blackmail the rest of the Church isn’t going to wash with this Synod (or the rest of us).
The Alliance is not trying to blackmail anybody. It is simply insistent on maintaining the biblical and historic position in the face of heresy.
Martyn Snow’s appeal to the emotions for unity is just the latest ploy by the heretics. If he wants unity, he should stick with scripture and the XXIX Articles.
Sticking with Scripture is pretty important. I recommend that Bishop Snow, for this question, pay particular attention to Genesis 2, Mark 2, Ecclesiastes 4, 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Timothy 5, Romans 13, and Matthew 23.
Don’t mention Leviticus – and what it says God’s opinion is.
I suppose you could throw Leviticus in, but I’m not sure it’s the most informative given I’ve yet to see or hear of anyone arguing that if a man (married to a woman) has sex on the side with another man, that doesn’t actually count as sex or an adulterous breach of his wedding vows.
Leviticus 20:13 states that God regards man lying with man as with woman (i.e. for sexual gratification) as ‘toevah’. Check the Hebrew. Nobody is saying the church is under Mosaic Law but this is about an act, not a preference, and does God change his mind?
Now there’s interesting – what do you make of Romans 13?
Romans 13 is key to understanding what we mean when we say that love God and love your neighbour is the fulfilment of the law. It’s therefore key to understanding what is sinful behaviour, since sin the failure in genuine love for God and neighbour.
Do you even know what blackmail is?
And doctrine? Is CoE a doctrine free? As Starmer now claims to be.
Is it Evangel free?
Decapitated from its Head, Jesus.
Was it Norwich Cathedral that hosted a helter skelter? An apt metaphor for the CoE and another hosted Islamic prayers.
A confluence of apostacy, of heresy.
Remarkably, the CoE has irradicated sin and heresy! Except where it displayed in high profile political denunciations, which of course is evidence of the opposite: promotion, and condoning of sin.
1.What is sin? What is its root? How about pride, God excluding human pride., for starters? Doing what is right in our own eyes.
2. What, or who is the Evangel?
You perhaps wouldn’t work yourself up into such a hysterical froth if you bothered to actually read what others had written and engaged with it. Is Issues in Human Sexuality a document setting out CofE doctrine or not? If it is, then it seems I’m the one saying it shouldn’t simply be deleted. If it’s not, then has there ever been any particular doctrine for gay people? And I might be one of the only people here saying we ought to have some.
Turning to your questions:
Sin is a failure in genuine love for God and neighbour. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity.
Some people clearly take a legal view of sin – there are a bunch of rules written down, they’re essentially arbitrary, if you break them that’s sin and needs to be justly punished. This, amongst other problems, opens the door to Pelagian heresy – if this is legal list is created by God, and God is just, then it must be possible for at least some people at least in theory to obey that list of laws. But we know that’s wrong. The Orthodox view I think can be helpful. They tend to view sin instead primarily as a wound or illness separating us from God. Hence, the wages of sin are death because God himself is the source of life.
The root of sin is the heart of man (see Matthew 15 for example). But in the heart also resides charity, the source of good and pure works, which sin wounds.
I’m not sure what you’re driving at with a particular focus on pride. It is of course something that can engender further sinful behaviour. Although I find sometimes in the debate there’s a remarkable hypocrisy around this: assuming that any mention of pride must be sinful (i.e. Pride protests/parades are sinful simply by being called “Pride”) whilst not ever thinking like this on any other area (e.g. I’ve yet to hear anyone suggest the song “God Bless the USA” aka “Proud to be an American” is by definition sinful, or to tell parents they should never say they have pride in their children).
Conscience is an interesting one. Anglicanism is very clear that whilst conscience needs to be informed in the light of God-given moral order, Christian tradition places an emphasis on respect for free conscientious judgement. Conscience is a judgement of reason by which we recognise the moral quality of concrete act. The Roman Catholic Church calls it our our most secret core, where we are alone with God whose voice echoes in our depths. It should not be so lightly disregarded.
The best summary of the Evangel is still (in my view) that given by Christ himself to Nicodemus in John 3: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
Now some for you:
If a person is transformed by faith, does that mean they should expect their sexual orientation to change?
Did God love the world, or only some of the world when He sent His Son? Did Jesus die for all on the cross, or only a predetermined few?
Can celibacy be prescribed, or must it be a free and deliberate choice in response to a calling of the Holy Spirit? Is it distinct from chastity and singleness?
I’ve been thinking about what to say about this pretty disgusting article. Do ever wonder why you keep losing the votes in Synod, despite Jayne Ozanne’s departure, despite the speeches by people like Ed Shaw and Charlie Skrine and Helen Lamb that try to reach out and claim sympathy? Do you think it might be the puerile stunts like this tripping you up? Synod has got into a habit of decrying the lack of trust in the Bishops. But that seems a convenient distraction from the lack of trust the majority of Synod has for CEEC, EGGS, and the Alliance on this issue.
A key argument in Bishop Croft’s letter was what PLF was authorising was already legally possible. Furthermore, and perhaps centrally, he argues that Issues in Human Sexuality gave freedom of conscience to the laity to order their relationships in this way over 30 years ago, and at least in theory no one had a problem. The question Bishop Croft poses is how extending a similar freedom of conscience to the clergy is a change in doctrine in an essential matter.
It’s perhaps worth quoting Issues on this point:
“At the same time there are others who are conscientiously convinced that this way of abstinence is not the best for them, and that they have more hope of growing in love for God and neighbour with the help of a loving and faithful homophile partnership, in intention lifelong, where mutual self-giving includes the physical expression of their attachment… we do not reject those who sincerely believe it is God’s call to them. We stand alongside them in the fellowship of the Church, all alike dependent upon the underserved grace of God. All those who seek to live their lives in Christ owe one another friendship and understanding. It is therefore important that in every congregation such homophiles should find fellow-Christians who will sensitively and naturally provide this for them. Indeed, if this is not done, any professions on the part of the Church that it is committed to openness and learning about the homophile situation can be no more than empty words.”
I am compelled to question, not the first time, whether the Alliance (and its friends/components) have in mind to scrap Issues in Human Sexuality and row back the accommodations it actually provides. Will the third province they crave be one that upholds Issues, or one that re-writes it? Robert Thompson made an astute observation in the Synod debate to the effect that the the use of Issues as a disciplinary document was curiously one-sided. It has been enthusiastically used to ensure LGB clergy toed the line, but the idea that every congregation in the Church is supposed to provide friendship and understanding to people in loving and faithful gay relationships will be news to nearly everyone (not to mention the clear view that sexual orientation is “strongly resistant to modification”).
A key argument in Bishop Croft’s letter was what PLF was authorising was already legally possible
That’s actually debatable – it was not legally permissable to bless gay couples.
Thomas
What’s your evidence that it’s illegal to bless gay couples?
I’ve certainly seen a CofE bishop blessing gay people before 2014, but I can’t remember if he blessed any couples or just single people.
Do ever wonder why you keep losing the votes in Synod, despite Jayne Ozanne’s departure, despite the speeches by people like Ed Shaw and Charlie Skrine and Helen Lamb that try to reach out and claim sympathy?
I know why. The Church of England failed to keep heretics out of ordination a generation ago.
Heretics? You mean like people who embrace donatism?
Donatism is not a heresy, it is ecclesiastical rigourism. Everybody is a Donatist toward somebody else.
Not content with policing language, James has now declared, contra Augustine, what is a heresy.
You couldn’t make it up.
Oh, he just has.
Well, why not, Penny? You are the actual language commissar. You declare what words mean – and get annoyed when someone disagrees with you.
As for Donatism: I said everyone is a Donatist toward others. Roman Catholics don’t recognise my Anglican orders. If I wanted to be a Catholic priest (they wouldn’t have me!), I would have to be (re-) ordained.
Does that make the Catholics Donatists?
The Donatists were not heretical about the Creeds. They were rigourists about how far misconduct disqualified one from the ministry.
Poppe Pius X expelled the Modernists from the Catholic priesthood.
It still happens today: the Vatican has just expelled Vigano from the priesthood.
Does that make Pope Francis a “Donatist heretic”?
Over to you, Penelope.
Yes, probably.
And I don’t decree what words mean, James. Language changes. People invent words. Definitions can only describe the use of a particular term at a particular time.
You are the one insisting that words mean what you want them to mean Humpty.
First, you are changing the subject, as I believe you know. Second, I couldn’t care less who declares donatism a heresy. Tell me what you take it to mean and we might have a constructive discussion.
Changing the subject? You started denouncing people as heretics.
Have you read the scriptures on the subject at issue?
AJ
Yes and the problem with requiring conformity is you then have to have specific answers on questions like “is it a sin to identify as gay”, “gay couples cant have sex, but can they hug?”, “what do we do when we have kids in our Sunday School with same sex parents?” and not everyone will agree. So then you have to have a fourth province for people who think it’s a sin to identify as gay and a fifth province for people who think it’s a sin even to experience same sex attraction.
This de facto third province is going to have to create a fourth creed, which seems ironic when getting in a flap about departing from the catholic consensus, in order to define itself as the home of anti-gay Anglicanism. They’ll have to be careful though. If they get very enthusiastic about the divine plan for everyone to have heterosexual sex, and that marriage is a cosmically significant gift from God without which we cannot understand Jesus and the Church, then it does rather leave singleness and celibacy behind.
You’re right though. It’s all going to get very messy. If the experience on here is anything to go by, it’s quite difficult to get those enthusiastic about denouncing the rest of us to actually say what they think, but if you persist eventually it will come tumbling out.
AJB
You wrote above
“Although it’s interesting that St John Chrysostom in his original homily on that passage in Romans was adamant that it wasn’t about gay people (or as you might say, exclusively same-sex attracted). He is very clear that the people being talked about had no excuse that legitimate intercourse was being denied to them. It’s the foundation of his argument.”
Unless I’ve massively misunderstood, you seem to be trying to make the claim that there are, in effect, ‘gay people’ who God has ‘made that way’ and for whom therefore it is OK for them to do acts of ‘gay sex’. And therefore that Paul and Chrysostom are not condemning those ‘made gay’ people but only condemning straight people who do gay sex. That is an absurd argument on so many levels; and I think if you tried putting that face-to-face to either Paul or Chrysostom their indignant reaction would have you feeling you’d stepped in the way of a nuclear blast!
Of course both Paul and Chrysostom are saying nobody is denying straight sex to anyone. Nobody, that is, except the ‘gay people’ themselves whose choice of ‘gay sex’ is not the innocent choice of people ‘made that way’ by God, but the decidedly not innocent choice of people who as sinners are ‘out of joint’ with God Himself, with God’s world, with other humans, and even within themselves, so that their ‘urges, desires and drives’ are distorted in the same way that other sinners have distorted urges, desires and drives which make them do other sins like lies, theft and murder.
Saying “God makes people gay” implies the idea that having created wonderful heterosexual sex God for some weird reason makes some people unable to do or even want that, and gives them instead the desire to do absurd things like shoving their male members up other men’s bums and down other men’s throats. Does a caring – or even a credible – God really do that to people??
Stephen
To make Romans 1 about gay people you have to completely ignore the context of the letter, the later chapters of the letter and a fair number of verses in chapter 1 itself.
Peter
I don’t “make Romans 1 about gay people”; it is, along with chapter 2, clearly a much wider exposition of sin and its consequences/outworkings. But it is rather hard to ignore that Paul clearly uses ‘people doing same-sex sex’ as his leading example for a significant portion of his wider argument. On the passage as a whole I’m broadly following the way Francis Schaeffer expounded it in his book “Death in the City” – that in effect the initial human rebellion against God puts other things including sexuality ‘out of joint’. I am aware I think of most of the alternatives put forward from the ‘gay’ side and I don’t find them convincing.
What we would today call ‘straight’ men abandoning ‘their’ women for same sex sex.
Doesn’t sound very gay to me.
I am saying there are people who are exclusively same-sex attracted, and for whom this is a fixed orientation. I, being one of these people, call them gay people. I know you find that triggering, so although I won’t allow you to redefine the word for me, I try to clarify using a formulation you might grasp (exclusively same-sex attracted).
I do not have to pretend with an imaginary St Paul or St John Chrysostom, and play the games you seem to enjoy so much. I’m just reading what they wrote, consider what they were writing about in the context they were living, and interpret appropriately. In Romans 1, St Paul is very clear he’s talking about men who abandoned sexual relations with women for men, and women who exchanged sexual relations with men for women. There is an abandonment and exchange. Something, existing sexual relations according to Paul, was abandoned and exchanged. That doesn’t sound much like gay people (exclusively same-sex attracted) to me. And St John Chrysostom underscores it in his homily, where he is adamant that the people described had no excuse that legitimate intercourse was being denied to them.
But this little dialogue does seem to have illuminated your position. You now seem to be suggesting that you just don’t believe in sexual orientation, or at least don’t believe that there are people who are exclusively same-sex attracted (what I would call gay). Instead you insinuate that “urges and desires” as you call them, are essentially a choice. Therefore logically you must think they can be un-chosen. Alas, that runs smack into the reality of the Church’s experience with attempting to get people to un-chose their sexuality: a gargantuan failure, built on decades of lies, as attested to by the movement’s former leading lights like Alan Chambers (Exodus International), Jeremy Marks (Courage) and Martin Hallett (True Freedom Trust).
Stephen
Heterosexual sex (as you absurdly call it) can be wonderful.
Homosexual sex (sex between gay people) can be wonderful.
We understand that, for some reasons, you find the latter distasteful. But there is really no need to parade your peculiar repugnance before us. BTW, heads up, straight people enjoy oral sex too.
TBH, I’ve never heard of a woman enjoying it.
You’ve heard of one now.
T1
and yet again
“No, the C of E canons make clear its governance by its Bishops, clergy and laity ie Synod is not repugnant to the word of God”.
The canons can declare that all they want – but if the Bishops etc take decisions that are repugnant to the Word of God, that simply means that the (humanly devised) canons are wrong.
I’m still puzzled by a person who goes on and on sixteen to the dozen about ‘apostolic succession’ while contradicting the actual teaching of actual apostles in the actual scriptures. If the original apostles (say, Paul in Romans 1) got it wrong, then there’s not much value in being in succession to them. If Paul was right, then people who contradict him are wrong no matter how perfectly they can trace a line of ‘apostolic succession’.
Your problem is that Paul says nothing, in Romans or elsewhere, about queer folk or their relationships.
If you want to read homophobia into the gospel that’s a you problem.
“Queer” is just another word for “homosexual”. It’s like the American custom of inventing new names every few years for people of West African slave ancestry: ‘negro’, ‘Colored’, ‘Afro-American’, ‘African American’, ‘black’, ‘Black’, ‘people of color’ etc. The word adds nothing to understanding (or numbers) by dicing up the 2% under a hundred different names.
Policing language again James?
Not “policing language”, Penny, just observing and correcting errors, as any intelligent and rational person should do.
I am a free speech libertarian, completely opposed to censorship (a radical thought today, I know, and not well known in many university circles). Feel free to continue repeating the nonsense of 21st century cultural Marxist sexual sociologese and I will continue to call out the skubala.
As Confucius said his ‘Analects’, the first task in any society is ‘the rectification of names’: “If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music do not flourish.”
“Queer” is just another word for “homosexual”?
Not actually true of course.
Queer is a broad term for a sexuality or gender identity that runs counter to the established ideas in society of sexuality or gender (the norm). For my money it’s rather too broad, is too easily politicised, and these days may be too complex to be helpful (but then I’m a rather conservative-minded gay man…). I can appreciate the academic utility though.
Like I said, it basically means “homosexual” – but as you say, with a defiant attitude toward “heteronormativity”.
Would you call paedophilia queer? If not, why not?
I don’t call anything queer. It’s not a term I like, and I would not apply it to myself. It’s an umbrella term with fuzzy borders (hence, in my view too broad etc.) so if someone calls themselves queer, that doesn’t necessarily tell you very much: they could be a gay person but essentially very “heteronormative”, or a straight person who wants to make a statement about the unreasonable gender rigidities they perceive in fashion, or anything else. At the other end of the spectrum I can see why paedophilia advocates would argue they are “queer”. I suppose the counter-argument would be around whether paedophilia is a sexuality. (An aside – has anyone ever looked at why same-sex love got the -sexual, whilst child abuse got the -philia?) Is it actually an alternative – i.e. is there a version of saying “I’m not straight, I’m gay”? Or is it a different thing to sexuality – e.g. a man who abuses girls, is heterosexual and has no particular barrier to sexual attraction to adult women, and the child abuse is something else. I’m not sure what the point of this is though. Being labelled queer doesn’t confer anything on them, nor does it say anything about the other people and phenomena that are already labelled queer. It doesn’t change the arguments against child abuse one iota as far as I can see.
But at this point it should be obvious that queer is not simply another word for homosexual.
Penelope
I hope you’ve got some actual, like, evidence for that bizarre statement.
There is no evidence anywhere in scripture for something we would call homosexuality. There is, as I have observed before, some rare proscriptions of some male same sex activity. Reading homosexuality into scripture is a ploy played by some conservatives who wrench texts out of context
Which is quite bizarre.
Luke Timothy Johnson is a conservative?
That will be news to him!
The Bishops cannot take decisions that are repugnant to the Word of God by definition, as how they define doctrine if approved by majorities of C of E clergy and laity is how scripture is then interpreted in the Church of England. Given you think Paul was right in the first place then I assume you also agree with him that women should not be priests and bishops as well?
If someone doesn’t agree to follow the rules set by Bishops of apostolic succession, doesn’t believe in prayers for same sex couples and doesn’t believe in women priests and bishops then what on earth are they doing in the established Church of England? They should have left for their nearest Baptist or independent evangelical church long ago (as to be fair you have)
‘The Bishops cannot take decisions that are repugnant to the Word of God by definition, as how they define doctrine if approved by majorities of C of E clergy and laity is how scripture is then interpreted in the Church of England.’
The idea that scripture means what a particular bishop says it means is bizarre. I think you need to go and read the articles again. ‘Cannot’ here does not mean ‘are not able to’ but ‘are not allowed to’!
‘Given you think Paul was right in the first place then I assume you also agree with him that women should not be priests and bishops as well?’
Paul doesn’t say that, so no! He thinks women can prophesy, teach, plant churches, interpret his letters, be church leaders, and apostles.
No, scripture in the Church of England is interpreted by what most of its Bishops and the majority of its clergy and laity say it means. If you don’t agree with that and don’t agree with the King being the supreme governor of your Church then by definition you cannot be an Anglican within the established Church of England. You are essentially a Baptist or Presbyterian not Church of England.
Paul’s first letter to Timothy ‘”I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.”
T1
In any church the scripture is interpreted by the leaders and laity. However the ultimate test of correct interpretation is the scripture itself, and that is what AIUI the CofE standards say. The leaders and laity must always be open to realising they may have got it wrong and need to revise their interpretation to be more faithful to scripture.
And that could quite properly include a realisation that the link with the state is unscriptural and needs to be changed; and surely a genuinely Christian king would not want to be in an inappropriate position in God’s Church, but would want to obey what scripture says on the matter.
And if the scripture says gay sex is wrong, then neither the CofE nor any other church has authority to change that….
The C of E affirms that is its bishops and Synod who interpret scripture ultimately. So by definition how they interpet it is not wrong in the C of E. The C of E is the established church literally founded by the monarch of the time to have him as its Supreme Governor and has been since its foundation, it has no need of interference from Baptists like you telling it how to organise its affairs!
Scripture says a lot of things are wrong, including eating shellfish and women priests and divorce except for spousal adultery if you take every word of it literally. It also often contradicts itself, how the C of E interprets it is by Synod, again if you Baptists wish to intepret it differently that is your affair!
Although amazingly the Church appears to have instantly forgotten that St Paul thought women could be bishops, and didn’t remember it again until about 30 years ago. And on this question, you seem to be just fine with departing from the view of the Church Catholic.
Where does Paul say women can be “bishops”? No such office, anyway, in thd first century.
T1
You write “The Bishops cannot take decisions that are repugnant to the Word of God by definition”.
Er, NO!! The expressed standards of the CofE are quite explicit that the Word is the standard, and even allow for the possibility that it can be humanly misinterpreted and that the Word should then be used as the check. So in effect it is a totally proper Anglican position to look back at previous decisions, realise they are unscriptural, and revise those positions to be closer to scripture.
By those standards it would be wildly un-Anglican to rely on a humanly devised Anglican canon (or the Articles) to say in effect that the Bishops, like the Pope, are kind-of infallible. As a humanly devised document the canon can only say, in effect, “At the time of writing we believe that our current ideas are according to or at least not opposed to the scripture” – but there are quite a few places that make clear the possibility of having got it wrong and occasionally needing to revise the position to be closer to scripture.
It would for instance be perfectly in order to look at the history of how the office of ‘bishop’ developed, and to decide that parts of that development had been mistaken; and therefore to go back to the biblical definition in which ‘bishop’ is simply a synonym for ‘presbyter’ looking at a different aspect of the office.
On women in ministry one point I’m clear on is that neither women nor men should be ‘priests’ in the Roman Catholic sense, who have developed to be more like a ‘hiereus’ or whatever the Hebrew is for the OT priesthood (and sometimes more like pagan priests). The question is rather whether women can be presbuteroi/episkopoi in the NT sense; and a further question whether the NT as a whole suggests that women in ministry could be a legitimate development (in a similar way to how the teaching on slavery faces certain practical limits in society then, but clearly points to an ultimately anti-slavery stance. I’m with a guy called Tyndale in believing that ‘dumb wooden literalism’ is not always appropriate; the Bible is clearly more flexible than that…..
On apostolic succession you have somewhat made a trap for yourself; as I pointed out above, if Paul or Peter got something right, merely tracing an inst itutional line of ‘succession’ to them would nowhere near justify contradicting them – while if they were wrong, what’s so special about a ‘succession’ to people you’re now going to contradict?? (and briefly answering another point above, yes it is of course CHRISTianity not PAULianity – but it is part of CHRISTianity that Paul as an apostle has authority from Jesus which moderns should hesitate to contradict).
Right now with only a very bare majority for the changes I think ‘conservative’ Anglicans can still justify ‘hanging on’ in hopes to change things back – not sure for how much longer that will be justifiable…..
The canon of the CoE is quite clear that it is governed by its bishops, clergy and laity who then interpret scripture accordingly and their interpretations are not repugnant to the word of God by definition. You are a non Anglican AnaBaptist nonconformist who rejects Bishops of apostolic succession anyway as you have stated again below so what the Church of England does is not really your affair! Stick to your fellow Baptists and leave we Anglicans to organise ourselves thanks!
T1
What my fellow-Christians do is my business.
There is something off-key about your claim that “The canon of the CoE is quite clear that it is governed by its bishops, clergy and laity who then interpret scripture accordingly and their interpretations are not repugnant to the word of God by definition”.
Surely if that is true, then their previous interpretations must have ‘by definition’ been correct and do not need to be changed in the way that is currently being attempted.
Not if they are not of the same denomination as you it isn’t, beyond a very broad ecumenical link. It is up to each new generation of bishops, clergy and laity how they interpret scripture in the C of E as long as it is Synod that takes the final decision
Queer is a secular, atheistic construct. It has no place in Christianity.
Rosaria Butterfield, a Queer stalwart, teacher, renounced and denounced it after conversion to Christ, and renewing of her mind.
Testimony and conversion here:
https://rosariabutterfield.com/testimony-conversion
Do you have a testimony of conversion?
There’s quite a few queer theologians who would disagree with you there Geoff. And Butterfield was never queer, she was a political lesbian who renounced her identity when she found Christ. Which is her choice. Not one she can make for other queer Christians.
“Queer” is just another word for “homosexual”. It’s like the American custom of inventing new names every few years for people of West African slave ancestry: ‘negro’, ‘Colored’, ‘Afro-American’, ‘African American’, ‘black’, ‘Black’, ‘people of color’ etc. The word adds nothing to understanding (or numbers) by dicing up the 2% under a hundred different names.
How are you able to speak for Rosaria Butterfield? Have you ever spoken to her? Why don’t you email her for a chat?
Her website: https:/ /rosariabutterfield.com/
No. It’s not. And queer is an adjective and a verb as well as a noun. Once again, you don’t get to define language.
I’ve read Butterfield’s testimonies, so I’m not speaking for her.
Like I said, ‘queer’ just means ‘homosexual’ – the word doesn’t add any new shade of meaning to ‘homosexual’, but I suppose it’s meant to have a kind of aggressive, affirmative feel to it (by ‘reclaiming’ a derogatory term). All ‘minority-designation’ words are a bit unstable (as I noted, American ‘blacks’ can never decide what to call themselves) and I imagine ‘queer’ will be dropped in a couple of years.
In the end, men are men and women are women, even if they have same-sex attraction. That is why gay men are usually much more sexually active and promiscuous than heterosexual men (marriage, family life, the different emotional needs of women from men, and the risk of pregnancy all tame the male sex drive), while many or most lesbian women still want to be mothers as well. Human nature (as God made us) keeps overriding even disordered sex drives.
You should talk to Dr Butterfield, you might be surprised to learn from her. But there is a danger that she might unsettle your ideas as well.
You might want to listen to what Rosaria Butterfield actually says. Penny has. You should try it.
AJB – I have – and I’ve read her book.
Have you?
Did you miss the bit where Butterfield talks about being heterosexual until she encounters feminist philosophy and LGBTQ+ politics and decided to become a lesbian in her late 20s?
AJB – no, I didn’t miss that bit about her teenage and young adult years before she began a long lesbian partnership.
Actually most lesbians I have known (or read about) have been married at some stage and are mothers, or had heterosexual relationships, like Jayne Ozanne with the priest she wanted to marry, before they moved on to lesbian relationships.
Female homosexuality works on a different dynamic than male homosexuality because of the fundamental differences between male and female personality types. That is why lesbian relationships often become companiate and sexless (but sometimes possessive and violent), while male homosexual relationships are often open and promiscuous. Also male homosexuality is twice as common as female homosexuality. Why do you think there is this great disparity?
It’s discouraging trying to stop James making silly statements about language. But, Penny, thank you for trying.
Bruce: engage with what I said and demonstrate why it is “silly”, otherwise your comment is simply derogatory comment from the peanut gallery. You have claimed before to have some expertise in “how language works”, so let’s see your expertise. I have said “queer” really just means “homosexual”, sometimes with a crusading cultural Marxist edge about “upsetting heteronormative norms” or something similar.
It’s a serious matter for me. For half of my life I have been a priest of the Church of England and have seen many attack the faith and try to change it. A former Roman Catholic turned culture warrior like Penny is one of many, and her false ideas have to be named and refuted. Souls are at stake.
Now if you think that understanding is wrong, correct me.
James – I find it very interesting how a bit of education and ‘scholarship’ can remove people from the real world – and they develop an arrogance with it. Your understanding of language is the ‘plain man’s’ understanding – what those of us who have not done degrees in linguistics and have not gone on to write Ph.D.’s in the subject – all think that English words mean.
The linguistic intellectuals, on the other hand, tell us that we’ve got it all wrong and arrogantly dismiss the plain man’s understanding of language (the way normal people talk – for example, down at the pub over a pint) as ‘silly statements’; we don’t understand what words actually mean unless we’ve spent hours studying the philosophy of Paul Grice.
This (of course) is the bedrock upon which they are able to ‘exchange the truth for a lie’ while preserving a sanctimonious superiority. This sanctimonious superiority is precisely the style of the Bishop of Oxford, which is (quite rightly) being ridiculed in the piece by Joshua Penduck.
Jock, I don’t know if Bruce is a ‘linguistic intellectual’, he may answer for himself. Besides theology, I have taught MFL, Latin, Hebrew and Greek over the years, and done lots of reading in historical and contemporary linguistics and philosophy, so I can follow most arguments about language. John McWhorter and David Crystal are my go-to guys here: actual linguistic intellectuals who can deflate pretentiousness with knowledge.
Recently I have been slowly re-reading Plato’s ‘Symposion’, the longest treatise from the ancient world on eros, and I have been struck by just how much 4th century BC Greek intellectuals considered ‘paiderastia’ – the sexual love of boys by older men – the highest form of eros. And I have asked myself: why doesn’t paiderastia feature in ‘Queer’ thinking and theorising and valorising?
And my conclusion is that it will indeed by publicly and politically defended within 10 years by ‘Queer’ theorists. It’s already happening that way this week in California Senate hearings on penalties for pimping and prostitution.
Jock, you do sort of disparage the idea of people studying linguistics. That this takes them out of the ‘real world’. But what about people who are going to be working in language development, say helping communities do Bible translation or literacy? Should they ‘study’ linguistics? Might that give them an appreciation for what this ‘gift’ of communicating using language is about? Might it give them some added understanding of how languages seem to work and help them realise that all languages don’t ‘work’ the same way, and not just in sounds, vocabulary, structure, but also how hearers/readers are guided in interpreting the thoughts of a speaker/writer?
I’ve taught introductory linguistics for nearly 40 years. And I have discovered that even a four week course in language awareness (some things about how languages ‘work’) discourages them from making certain claims about language(s). Things like (1) etymology showing ‘meaning’, (2) English having one of the bigger inventories of sounds, (3) looking for or at ‘meaning’ in words apart from context (and ‘context’ in a wider sense than surrounding words), (4) that communication is ‘contained’ wholly in the words said or written.
What has Paul Grice to do with what words actually mean?
James, your claim ‘I have said “queer” really just means “homosexual”…’ illustrates this. Because that statement is not true. In *some* contexts, yes, but the *word* only points to a concept which might be broadened or narrowed according to what is being communicated. So you have not commented on Penny’s question about noun, adjective, verb.
The bit that you added after the quote is part of what you understand/assume about this concept in a particular context. Your hearer/reader may not have that as an assumption about the concept. And that has nothing to do with their thinking in general (including theology).
I’m afraid I can’t comment on your understanding of Penny.
Sorry, can I change one of those paragraphs. The changes are marked: *…*
I have discovered that even a four week course in language awareness (some things about how languages ‘work’) discourages them from making certain claims about language(s). *Claims* like (1) etymology showing ‘meaning’, (2) English having one of the bigger inventories of sounds, (3) looking for or at ‘meaning’ in words apart from context (and ‘context’ in a wider sense than *just* surrounding words), (4) communication is ‘contained’ wholly *and only* in the words said or written.
*Paul Grice had nothing to do people down at the pub knowing what words mean or don’t mean. Of course they ‘know’ what they mean! But he did have a bit to do with THINKING about HOW they communicate.*
Do you have a testimony of conversion to Christ?
Or is it mother godess?
It seems that heresy, heterodoxy is a multiplication of BOGF.
Buy one and get one free and so on.
One can be a theologian, without being converted to Christ, God in Triunity, born again/from above.
There can even be atheist theologians.
(1 Who is God?
1.1 What are God’s attributes?
2 What is sin?
3 What or who is the Evangel?
3.1 How?
3.2 Why
3.3 Where?
3.4 When?
4. What is salvation?
4.1 How?
4.2 Why?
4.3 Where?
4.4 When?
5. What is Holiness, sanctification?
5.1 How?
5.2 Why?
5.3 Where?
5.4 When?)
Who sees the serpent, adversary of God, as a truth teller! And may even be dedicated followers of Foucault.
To think Geoff, you once got quite upset when I suggested you had a habit on here of subjecting people to your personal inquisition.
Inquisition? Don’t be daft.
It is notable that you have not answered my questions above.
Questions of faith, of belief, questions of Christian doctrine held by those of position, office, those of influence in or over the CoE, those who have been teachers and what they teach, or have taught.
I’m all agog.
Sorry Geoff I don’t waste my time with trivial inquisition.
BTW atheist theologian is an oxymoron.
Theology is talking about God
Have you never heard of Thomas J. J. Altizer and the ‘Death of God’ theologians? They were all the rage in the 1960s.
Or what about Bishop Richard Holloway, the former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church? He is an atheist. Do you deny that he is a theologian?
Hi Penny…
I really don’t see this… Doesn’t seem your usual accuracy pursuit.
“BTW atheist theologian is an oxymoron.
Theology is talking about God”
Since when was “talking” (or expertise) the same as believing?
Richard Holloway… I thought he would describe himself as an agnostic from his writings. Certainly not a believer in a focussed sense.
Hi Ian
Good point. Theology is God talk not God belief. But most people who ‘do’ theology have some relationship to a deity.
Hence my point that Holloway isn’t an atheist. I agree that he is probably an agnostic. But he still does God talk.
James
If you want to engage with queer theory and to oppose its precepts, it really helps if you understand what its claims are. Playing Humpty Dumpty makes you look silly and ignorant. I am sure you wouldn’t want that.
Penny, I know you think I am silly and ignorant, and to be honest, I can cope with that. I think you are a heretic – but you can cope with that too, so let us dispense with the condescension.
‘Queer’ just means ‘homosexual with a cultural Marxist edge’.
All my life I have been anti-communist and anti-Marxist and I’m not going to change now.
‘Queer theory’ just means calling a deficit in nature and a misuse of our sex organs as ‘good’.
It isn’t that complicated – but it does mean trying to destroy nature and natural law: biology, the design of our bodies, how families work as God intended – the kind of stuff you knew about when you were brought up as a Roman Catholic.
I would add that the next frontier in ‘queer theory’ will be the mainstreaming of ‘paiderastia’ – the sexual love of boys by older men. It is already there in some parts of San Francisco, as this week’s California Senate hearings on prostitution have revealed.
I am in fact reading one of the earliest treatises on ‘queer theory’, Plato’s ‘Symposion’. The intelligentsia of 4th century BC Athens were way ahead of us!
BTW, do you think the atheist theologian Richard Holloway is an ‘oxymoron’?
(I’ve never met an expert in classical paganism who believed in Zeus.)
Well you continue to use the term queer to mean what you want it to mean while the rest of us can continue to use it in the many ways it is currently defined and used.
I don’t have much time for ‘natural’ law’ and have always thought its importance in RC theology to be a mistake.
I had forgotten that you are a believer in the wholly imaginary concept of cultural Marxism.
Have you any evidence that Holloway is an atheist?
Penny, if you can use ‘orthodox’ to mean something most of us (informed by a sound knowledge of the Bible and church history) don’t recognise by that word, then I can continue to use ‘queer’ to mean ‘homosexual with a cultural Marxist edge’.
(And you invoke Humpty Dumpty! Was Lewis Carroll’s love for Alice ‘queer’?)
Have you properly grasped that valorising paiderastia is in fact the next front in ‘queer studies’? I’m sure you know this already – just look at the California Senate hearings this week. Peter Tatchell was ahead of his time!
As for Richard Holloway’s atheism, you can easily verify this for yourself.
I am orthodox as the term has always been properly understood. I am a creedal Christian who believes in the faith once delivered to the saints.
I do not subscribe to innovative and modern ideas about biblical authority or marriage. I do not believe it is a salvation issue.
You, as I have observed, are perfectly free to use queer in whatever way you want. It might make conversations with other intelligent people difficult however.
Holloway writes of a future which contains the promise of God. Not very atheist.
‘I do not subscribe to innovative and modern ideas about biblical authority or marriage.’Jesus appeared to believe that what Scripture said God said.
He also described marriage as between one man and one woman, because of God’s creation of humanity as male and female.
In what sense are these ideas ‘modern’?
Ian
I refer you once again to Michael Casey Saunders.
Vasey
Atheists can and do that.
And your judgement over what is substantive and trivial shows high handed dismissal, a lack of understanding, as the questions are at core of Christianity and what you believe and teach in heterodoxy.
It is an opportunity for you to get to define Christianity, your ‘doctrine free’ oxymoron.
Still no testimony of conversion to Christ.
The Evangel even, you have no definition, or description? Your opportunity to define Christianity.
Incurvatus in se.
Bye, bye