What theological issues are at stake in our doctrine of marriage?


Joshua Penduck writes this open letter to Steven Croft in response to his argument for change in the Church’s doctrine of marriage.


Dear Steven,

It’s always difficult to put one’s head above the parapet when confronting the controversial issues of one’s time. It takes courage to do so – and for that I admire you in writing your statement. I too would much rather keep my head safely below the trench-line. I don’t enjoy conflict and would normally go out of my way to avoid it. Nevertheless, I feel that a response is needed to your statement.

I am not a conservative evangelical. In many ways it is better to call me a liberal evangelical in the line of Vernon Storr, Max Warren, and John V. Taylor – a line of missional evangelicalism going back to Simeon and the irenic Protestantism of Hooker and Jewell. I learnt this kind of evangelicalism through a curate at my church who helped me discover that there was a kind of evangelicalism called ‘Open’. He gave me several of your books to introduce me to that fresh way of thinking, something for which I am forever grateful. It has helped me develop a theological mindset that is fruitfully in conversation with other Christian traditions, open to the insights of the sciences and the humanities, open to the discoveries of modern biblical criticism, passionate about the missional interaction between evangelism and social justice.

It has also helped me recognise that Scripture has some contradictory traits which are often falsely harmonised. Sometimes we must recognise that the Bible is polyvocal. Sometimes we can see traits which emerge through the dialogical play of different voices which may guide us in making ethical or doctrinal decisions – I would argue the Anglican orders, the homoousion and female ministry belong to this category of thought. On other occasions and issues, we must be honest and admit that Scripture does not speak with one voice. In which case we must draw on other voices from outside of Scripture, namely reason, tradition and culture.

Sola Scriptura

I am both open and evangelical. I am a proud son of the Reformation, in which one of the core battle cries was ‘Sola Scriptura’. This is core contention that in the Bible we have before us in some sense the word of God—God speaking to us. Through the cultural context of the time, God has communicated himself (in? through? under?) these holy pages. They therefore must be taken with utmost seriousness. To do otherwise would be to claim that the Bible is not the word of God. Too often sola Scriptura has been taken out of context to mean ‘nuda Scriptura’ or ‘naked Scripture’. Originally, the doctrine did not mean that there can be no insights outside of Scripture, but rather that Scripture is to be the foundation of all doctrine. All tradition, all reason, all culture must be tested by Scripture. Anything that is contradictory to Scripture, cannot be embraced by the Church. Anything that Scripture is not clear about or does not talk about should not be made a core article of faith.

But how can I believe in sola Scriptura after listing the sometimes polyvocal and dialogical phenomenon that is the Bible? Is this not simply building a foundation on sand? It is at this point that I return to the Reformers, who also recognised Scripture is not always as clear as we would hope. Yet the principle that the clearer parts of Scripture interpret the unclear parts gives us much illumination. Recognising the mountain of insights from hermeneutical scholars, unless we are to recognise that our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters were correct all along, we must claim (perhaps in faith) that Scripture can perspicuously tells its main story.

This includes such key doctrines as revelation, monotheism, creation, imago dei, sin, atonement, incarnation, resurrection, Pneumatology, parousia and so on. For instance, we know that the universe exists; human beings can discern that there may be an uncaused cause ‘behind’ this. Plato, Aristotle, Vishishadvaita and Dvaita Vendanta have all come to the same conclusions through reason alone. But only through reading Scripture can we discover that this uncaused cause is deeply concerned with the world ‘he’ has caused (notice that ‘he’ – gender exclusive language aside, it indicates that God is personal, something else which can only be perspicuously discerned through Scripture). Scripture gives us the lens through which we understand the world. It gives us the narrative structure through which we can discern what is of God and what is not. Contrary to some radical Barthians and fundamentalists, Scripture is not in contradiction to nature nor creation; rather gives us the clues for discerning nature and creation. This is, and always has been, the mainstream of Anglican thought (beautifully expressed in Hooker’s Lawes).

Something isn’t right

For example, we know from our conscience that there is evil in the world; we instinctively know that something ‘isn’t right’ even with human beings. We can use the full powers of reason to help us understand what has gone wrong. Evolutionary theory can help us explore where certain impulses have come from. However, there are limits to this: after all, why is it that humans are the only species which specialise in wiping one another out? As such, reason can take us only so far (once again, I speak here in harmony with Hooker, and his own muse Aquinas). To understand this problem further, from a Christian perspective we turn to revelation as articulated in Scripture. Genesis gives us the clue to this with its quasi-mythological account of the Fall of humankind. What does this ‘reveal’ about our predicament? That despite the claims of Heidegger, the Fall is not ontological, but rather historical. Questions of evolutionary history aside, the revelation is that God had an intention for humanity and that we have ‘fallen’ away from this. We have ‘rebelled’ and ‘gone our own way’. Indeed, the cause of the misery caused by human to human is ultimately because of this Fall. We call this ‘sin’. As ‘sin’ is a different quality of term to ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ in that it brings God into the picture, we would not know of its impact or true nature without Scripturally narrated revelation.

The Protestant Reformation built on the insights of Augustine and other Church Fathers by recognising that the Bible speaks of sin in holistic terms. Unlike the scholastic theology of the Medieval era, reason was not exempt from sin. The unfortunately named ‘total depravity’ did not mean that humans are completely depraved without any redemptive qualities; rather it meant that each part of our faculties, both mind and will, have been corrupted by sin. We have become almost like a computer hard drive corrupted by a scratch: it doesn’t stop doing computer-like things, but it may cause strange displays on the monitor. This is why the Reformers were in such strong disagreement with the Roman Catholics over concupiscence. Whereas the latter claimed it more as a human instinct which must be resisted, the Reformers argued that it had the character of sin, that is, it was a manifestation of our corrupt nature. God did not intend concupiscence. Later thinkers especially in the 20th Century have extended the Reformational insight by recognising that sin does not just affect individual souls but rather societal structures. Liberation, Feminist and Black theologies have demonstrated how unjust structures in society are not simply tendencies that need to be resisted, but the corruption of God’s intentions for human society (and therefore have the character of sin).

By introducing ‘sin’ as a revelatory category through which we can view the world, it gives us certain lenses for reading creation. Not everything that exists is intended by God. Not every human action is blessed by God. Not every human instinct is ontological. Furthermore, rather than seeing sin simplistically as wrong choices or missing the mark, the Augustinian tradition helps us see it more as an innate disposition from the corruption of the Will (or, in Pauline language, the problem of the ‘flesh’). This helps with making certain distinctions. For example, the disposition to lose one’s temper is an example of sinful corruption; this means that though losing one’s temper is itself sin, we can look at the person with sympathy recognising that though they may be the instigator of that sin, they are also a victim of it. Alternatively, depression is a consequence of sinful corruption; but to be depressed is not ‘committing a sin’ but rather the victim of our human predicament. In both circumstances, a disposition may be nurtured by the surrounding culture, which can help it become more or less prevalent. This helps us as a Church understand in what way we can participate in divine blessing: one cannot bless that which is against God’s intentions; it is a contradiction in terms in that all blessing has its roots in the ontology of divine blessing. We cannot bless the losing of the temper or the depression; we can bless the person who loses their temper or is a victim of depression.

The ethics of instinct

This is a principle that can extend across a variety of ethical issues. If we know that not all human instincts are ontological and blessed, but that they suffer from the consequences of corruption and fallenness, we need to prayerfully use our reasonable faculties to discern that which we bless. For example, is war part of God’s intentions for creation? No – it is an outworking of concupiscence which has the nature of sin. Nevertheless, as the just war tradition has noted there are occasions when war is necessary. The role of the Church is not to bless the war, but rather to offer pastoral support and comfort in the face of sin; we can indeed give a blessing to those soldiers who fight in the war as persons without necessarily blessing the war itself. This is why the Church does not ‘bless’ a divorce nor ritually celebrate it (even if as priests we may sometimes rejoice that a divorce has taken place after an abusive marriage). Instead we will offer support and comfort those who suffer the divorce. The Church of England has felt that as marriage is part of God’s revealed good intentions for creation (which we see through Scripture’s positive recognition of a natural instinct), remarriage is possible and therefore to be blessed when appropriate. The divorce as a tragic consequence of sinful corruption is not blessed; the God-intended marriage is.

This leads us onto discernment of sexual sin. It is clear that there are sexual evils; this is universally recognised. Every culture has sexual taboos which range from being considered as mere bad or perverse behaviour to genuine evil. For example, we are uncovering in the West the horrific extent of the paedophilic sexual evil. A Christian response, based on the theological principle of the revelation of sin corrupting nature, means that we must make an account of sexual sins too. It would be easy simply to lapse into conformity to the norms of Western culture of the day, which is to say a sexual evil is to do non-consensual sexual harm to another person. There is a truth to this: at the very least, I think this is in conformity with Scriptural revealed notions of the free dignity of human beings. But we must be careful: if sin does consist of total depravity, that is, the corrupting impact of sin in every faculty, this means that culture itself is suspect to sinful corruption. As such, we must be careful in simply confirming to cultural norms; they must always be read through the lens of Scripture. Furthermore, unlike Western culture, Scripture is not simply concerned with sexual evil, but more with sexual sin: that which is in contradiction to God’s good intentions for creation.

Whereas the fundamentalist may reduce our discernment of sexual sin to direct Scriptural citations, a classical Anglican approach would rather look at the structures of creation read through the lens of Scripture. Scripture indicates that sin has a moral impact; the body is left structurally untouched. In the creation myths, we only witness the gradual devolution of human decisions into barbarism; we do not read of any changes to the human body. The body is still (structurally) good; it is the Will which is corrupted. Sin has not caused the sprouting of extra arms and legs, but the distortion (and therefore ambiguity) of desire. Therefore, when approaching the questions of sexual sin, we must first acknowledge that the body itself is not structurally corrupted.

God’s intentions for sexuality

If we are to understand what God’s intentions for human sexuality are, we therefore cannot first look at sexual desire. A sexual desire may be innate; but that may be a consequence of concupiscence, rather than God’s intentions for human sexuality. Instead, if the body is not structurally corrupted we can look at the human body as a ‘clue’. And if we are looking at the problem of God’s intentions for sexuality, the focus of this clue lies in the sexual organs. It should not be problematic to claim that the functional purpose of the sexual aspects of genitalia is procreation. This is why they exist. If they didn’t exist for this purpose, they would not exist at all. Furthermore, procreation can only happen through male with female sexual acts. We can ‘read’ from the human body the clues for divine intentions for sexuality despite the consequences of fallenness. However, it is also clear that sexual acts are pleasurable. They are not merely functional. There is a ‘surplus’ to the act. From here develop questions about the extent of that surplus: can sex be only about the function with the surplus as a by-product? Hence, is artificial contraception against divine purposes? Are the function and surplus of equal weight? However we come to answer these questions, it should be clear that the surplus does not destroy the structure of the function: the sexual act structurally remains being between male and female. The goodness of God in adding pleasure to the function does not mean we are at liberty to apply the surplus outside the gendered context in which it was divinely intended. Therefore, at the very least we can see through the ‘clue of the body’ that God’s intentions in making these organs as functionally sexual was that male and female have pleasure (a surplus) when copulating. Sex is structurally designed by God for male and female. To put it crudely: the body tells the truth; the Will lies. If the body tells the truth, it is good, for a deceptive body would not be good. In that the body is good, we can see God’s good intentions for human sexuality through this basic fact.

If the principle of revelation of creational purposes means anything, it must mean this. Anything that goes away from this basic principle cannot be considered as part of God’s original intentions for human sexuality. Any desire which does not conform to this is ultimately a matter of concupiscence, the corrupting influence of sin. There are ethical questions that go outside of this basic principle nevertheless: is male/female non-reproductive sex permissible (i.e. what about birth control)? What about polygamy? What about divorce? What about consensual sadomasochistic sex? What about IVF? What about surrogate pregnancy? Although some may have direct Scriptural citations, others require Scriptural principles in combination with Scriptural citations (such as polygamy or divorce) or require rational thinking alone which though based on Scriptural principles cannot directly be informed by Scriptural citations (e.g. birth control, IVF and surrogate pregnancy). Nevertheless, all these ultimately still fall under the basic category of sex being exclusively for male/female coupling.

Creational structures in Scripture

If this is the case, then we would expect the rest of Scripture to follow this principle. And yes, we find it does. Whether that be Genesis, Leviticus, Jesus’ reference to creational structures regarding marriage, or Pauline narrations in Romans 1, the structure remains the same: the consequence of sinful corruption is a sexual distortion of the creational standard witnessed in Genesis 1 and 2. Despite the sometimes ingenious interpretations of liberal and queer hermeneutics, the supposed ‘clobber’ passages do fit into this creation-fall pattern. Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice nearly exhaustively runs through how Scripture repeatedly rejects same-sex practice as being against God’s purposes for sexuality. Though Gagnon does not always convince (and the book is somewhat pastorally blunt to the degree of offensiveness), the overall argument works. Indeed, Gagnon demonstrates how all Scriptural injunctions against sexual sins nearly always harmonise quite easily with the creation-fall principle.

Liberal and queer hermeneutics tend to take the individual ‘clobber’ passages and divorce them from this pattern of revealed creation and fallenness. The argument usually goes that the passage may not indicate that same-sex desire is an example of concupiscence and may refer to something else (inhospitality, pederasty, same-sex rape etc). Once this is done, other Scriptural principles are brought in (hospitality, justification by faith, eschatology etc) to ‘override’ the classical interpretation and/or indicate that the traditional pattern of marriage is destabilised by Christian sexual ethics (especially the removal of procreation from the soteriological economy, thereby paving the way for non-procreational sex). Finally, modern notions of same-sex relationships are argued to be compatible with Christian notions of holiness.

Where this always fails, however, is:

  1. there are no Scriptural citations or narratives in favour of same-sex desire (despite ahistorical attempts to make particular passages, such as David and Jonathan, pliable to such an interpretation);
  2. it goes against the whole principle of the goodness of creational structures despite the sinful corruption of the Will. It becomes a kind of eisegesis: not simply in the sense of reading something more into the passage than is immediately on the page, but rather reading an alien hermeneutical structure into the text. For example, Jesus’ inclusive ‘open table’ is often used as a hermeneutical principle which ‘overrides’ the supposed ‘clobber’ passages. And yes, Jesus radically shared meals with the prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors. It demonstrates the astonishing breadth of God’s grace. But the ‘open table’ principle does not mean ‘open approval’: Jesus does not bless prostitution nor teach a ‘kingdom inclusive’ form of the world’s oldest profession. Why? Because as the Kingdom is never in contradiction to the creational intention, Jesus invites repentance.

As such, liberal and queer hermeneutics destabilise the whole creation/fallenness principle. If, as orthodox theology has always maintained, creation and soteriology are not separate dogmatic loci but part of one great canvas, then we should not be expecting God to have changed his mind about creational purposes. This is why William Webb’s notion of Scriptural trajectories works so well: slavery and patriarchy cannot be creational goods in that they are contrary to the structural principles seen in Genesis 1 and 2: they are consequences of the Fall. Likewise with sexuality. Indeed, despite the polyvocal nature of Scripture on many issues, this is not one of them. Scripture’s voice is fairly consistent. If we read the more difficult passages of Scripture in the light of the clearer ones, then our understanding of sexuality must come through God’s creational intention seen through Genesis 1 and 2. Any eschatological interpretation cannot hide this fundamental fact. If we read same-sex desire as a creational good, then Heidegger is right: fallenness is ontological not historical, in that our sexual desires are naturally in contradiction to our created bodies. From a Christian perspective this must mean that God has created our will split from our physicality. God intended disharmony between body and soul for some unfortunate individuals. What is more, it implicitly makes an ontologically radical statement: the bodily structure cannot be relied on to help us discern God’s good intentions for sexuality. At best, the body would be ambiguous; at worst, the body would be deceptive. Either way, we could not claim that the body is ‘truthful’, and therefore not good.

Creation and redemption

Yet such an interpretation upsets the final axis of Scriptural interpretation: redemption. If the fall disjoints our wills and desires from our embodied created intentions, the incarnation and atonement brings harmony. The disjunction between body and soul is healed through the Cross and redemption of Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit. Our eschatological future – ‘like the angels’ – is the completion of this original, pre-lapsarian trajectory of creation. The mark of this age is still the form of marriage as expressed through Genesis 2 (as Jesus argued). This still applies as God’s intention despite the Fall. It is possible to live in the light of the eschatological future, but what this indicates is that (if anything), our eschatological ethical preparation should mean more celibacy, not less, let alone forms of sexual activity outside the range of the original divine intention for this age. (This is where I find Robert Song’s otherwise ingenious interpretation fails, and unintentionally undermines his brilliant work theologically critiquing transhumanism.)

What convinced me most that this is the case is that in the early Church, despite ample opportunity to do so, there was no consideration given for blessing same-sex activity. It is not difficult to imagine the early Church looking at the wicked examples of pederasty in Greek culture and arguing, ‘there are holier ways of practising same-sex love’. Examples could easily have been given of loving same-sex couples in the Greek world. Furthermore, the argument could easily have been made that considering the eschatological non-procreational issues of sexuality raised by Jesus’ reference to being ‘like the angels’, early Christian theologians could have Christianised same-sex activity through notions of faithfulness and covenant. Considering the strangeness of Christian practice in comparison to the Mediterranean world as witnessed to by the contextually bizarre practices of virginity and celibate marriages, notions of same-sex blessing and even marriage could easily have developed in such an environment. It may even have helped with evangelising many a Greek man.

Yet we never find this. Despite many examples of Christian theologians speaking the philosophical and ethical language of Greek society, we never see them do so for sexuality. Indeed, quite the opposite: the language used is often harsh and uncompromising. Why? Because of the creation-fall-redemption principle. Though the early theologians did not work with the developed Augustinian framework of fallen corruption, it was nevertheless still there in embryonic form. Indeed, the answer to sexual desire which did not conform to the creational standard was stark: heterosexual marriage or (preferably) celibacy. There was no alternative.

Living in a post-Christian society

Then why only now are we facing the call for a change to Christian ethical practice on this matter? Simply because we are living in a post-Christian society. This means that we are living in an ethical system which is historically grounded in Christian principles (and therefore is sometimes eerily similar) but which has nevertheless taken some drastic turns away from its heritage. This is much the same as how Islamic ethics is rooted in both Christian and Jewish ethical practice but has nevertheless made some significant detours. As such, what we can call the Western Liberal metaphysical-ethical framework is not Christian though it shares some similarities. Like its Christian parent, the secular framework believes in the ontological dignity of the person. This fundamental agreement may mean we are sometimes blind to the fundamental disagreements. After all, unlike the Christian framework the secular framework is without reference to transcendence (namely the imago dei). Instead, we can define the secular framework as the worship of immanence. I use the term ‘worship’ deliberately here: secularism (perhaps paradoxically) is a religion, or perhaps more accurately a cluster of religions. It has its own metaphysics, practices, symbols, and ethics.

This might surprise people; but this is because we have too often defined religion by post-Reformational confessional standards. Robert Bellah in Religion in Human Evolution has argued that religion has a fundamental role to play in human evolution – it cannot simply vanish, but rather changes. It is anthropologically impossible to have a non-religious society. Tomoko Masuzawa has argued in The Invention of World Religions that religion has been defined by Western standards, which tend to emphasise supernatural beings, a pattern which does not fit into the patterns of many religions. According to this interpretation, religion has been badly defined. Charles Taylor in A Secular Age has mapped the genealogy of secularism out of the unintended consequence of the Franciscan revival – demonstrating its religious genetics. Neo-Calvinists such as Abraham Kuyper, Herman Dooyeweerd and James K.A. Smith, liberal Implicit Theology studies, and Radical Orthodox theologians such as John Milbank have all demonstrated the religious motivations of secularism. If it is impossible to not be religious, and secularism has religious roots and motivations, and secularism is not Christianity, then it is a non-Christian religion. And once again like the Christian Middle East suffering from the cultural pressure to become Muslimesque Christians in the centuries after the Arab invasions, Christians are facing the pressure to convert or adapt Christianity to this new faith.

The worship of immanence

If secularism is the worship of immanence, one of the consequences is that the Will rather than the body becomes the location for discerning truth. (Paradoxically, the Will is smuggled in as the new location of transcendence.) This has a genealogy that stretches from Hume (‘reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions’), Fichte and Schopenhauer, via Nietzsche through to Heidegger, Sartre, Foucault and Butler. In this view, the body is ambiguous and not to be trusted; it is the Will which is true and good. As this has gradually permeated into the ethical and liturgical life of secularism, sex has become a sacrament for immanent fulfilment in that the desires of the Will are liberated through sex. To deny someone Willed consensual sex – however that is expressed – is considered not only a denial of their personhood, but offends the deepest convictions of the most prominent secular spirituality: that fulfilment can only be found in the immanent frame mediated through the Will. In contradiction to Christianity, the sexual surplus defines the function; the body must conform to the Will. If the meaning of personhood can be found in immanence, and sex acts in a sacramental function within this framework, then it is no surprise that same-sex activity is seen to be so important: it is the perfect realisation of self-fulfilment through sexual practice in that the sexual function is completely subsumed by the Willed surplus. Sex has no reference here to bodily function but is an autonomous mode of pleasure.

Therefore, when faced with the cultural pressure to recognise (or in theological language, ‘bless’) this secular-sacramental function, we must remember that it does not come from a Christian framework. There is no sense of the creation-fall-redemption narrative which structures Christian ethics. Indeed, it contradicts this framework: the Will rather than body is now the arbiter of truth and goodness. To put it bluntly, to bless same-sex activity is a call to syncretism. It combines aspects of secular metaphysical ethics – human sexual desire is blessed and sanctified in the consensual sexual act – with Christian metaphysics – human sexual desire is God-given. Were we missionaries freshly encountering a foreign culture dealing with the cultural pressure to conform to their religious framework, though we would listen we would recognise the core ethical principles that separate us. But we are not fresh missionaries; we are witnessing the collapse of Christianity in the West to a more successful religion, akin to the collapse of Middle Eastern Christianity to Islam between the 7th and 11th Centuries. Therefore, we are more likely to heed this call to fundamentally adapt Christian ethics to the secular framework: massive loss is always psychologically more difficult to cope with than meagre gain. This is doubly difficult in that we are the church established by law.

Reading secularism theologically

Perhaps by putting it in such stark terms, I may make some scoff. But if we do not read secularism as religious then we are buying into the claims secularism makes of itself rather than reading it theologically. That said, like pagan Platonism before it, we should not read secularism in a Manichaean sense: there are things that secularism has done which has opened our eyes to the Scriptures in new ways. Secular Feminism, for example, has forced us to re-evaluate our understanding of what Scripture says about women’s ministry; we have discovered that it can function well within the creation-fall-redemption framework (that patriarchy is a sign of fallen corruption, and equality between the sexes is a creation intention). Similarly, secularism has forced us to re-evaluate how we treat our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters. Indeed, it has exposed our cruelty, our hypocrisy, our horrendous and even demonic lack of Christian love. Thank God that he has used secularism to open our eyes! And for this my own Evangelical constituency must come to a place (and is gradually getting there) of unreserved repentance for the ways in which we have spoken with tongues of poison rather than love, the ways we have ignored LGBTQ+ voices and narcissistically enjoyed the echoes of our own; the ways we have isolated and excluded the members of this community for whom Jesus died, the ways we have caused excruciating existential angst when causing people to go through such awful practices as conversion therapy. May God forgive us.

In light of our sinful practices listed above, it is understandable that we would do anything to make amends. It is why I would consider myself a ‘reluctant conservative’ on this question. But nevertheless, our cultural surroundings in modern secularism cannot trump revelation. Radical cultural dislocation is no reason for changing doctrine – even if it causes problems with evangelism. If this were the case, then we must be consistent: we must accept that Christian opposition to the caste system poses evangelistic problems in Hindu India; that our defence of the equality of women poses evangelistic problems in the Muslim Middle East; that our opposition to polygamy poses evangelistic problems to sub-Saharan Africa. To say otherwise is to make the more problematic and tone-deaf statement that Western culture is innately superior to others. In which case, a century of post-colonial theory has been ignored; we have returned to Victorian imperialism; we are, to quote the prophet Elijah, no better than our ancestors.

But if we are to be consistent, we must also claim that the Fathers were wrong for interpreting the creation-fall-redemption framework to mean that same-sex relationships could not be blessed. Further back than that, we must claim that Paul was wrong for interpreting same-sex activity as a sinful consequence of human rebellion. Let us be brutally honest: Jesus was wrong for grounding Christian marriage in Genesis 1 and 2. We must upset the whole balance of the creation-fall-redemption revelation: body-soul disjunction is ontological not historical. We allow our cultural framework to judge what is ‘fallen’, not what Scripture declares. We must accept that for the Gospel to be culturally viable, it must submit to the ethical norms of its host culture. It is not difficult to imagine Western culture change its views on polygamy in future years and placing the same cultural and psychological pressure for Christians to adapt its ethics to such a framework. We would currently say ‘No’, but thirty years ago we would have said the same for same-sex relationships. To be logically consistent, we must succumb to that pressure too if it comes. And it is a strong possibility: we are already seeing the stirrings of people wanting polyamorous relationships to have some kind of recognition. Because we will have given up on the creation-fall-redemption revelatory framework outlined in Scripture, we are building on the sands of secularism.

The ethics of creation-fall-redemption

If the principle of creation-fall-redemption revelation witnessed to in Scripture is to have any meaning at all, it is in this ethical area. If the Bible is to have any authoritative standard other than as an advisory textbook, we cannot bless that which is the consequence of fallenness, a symptom of concupiscence, a disposition tragically imposed by the corruption of the Will. We cannot bless that which God has not blessed. It may seem ridiculous to the secular world that this – of all issues – could cause such divisions, especially in a religious purported to be about love. But then again, the controversy over the proposition for adding a little iota to the Nicene Creed would seem ridiculous to the pagan world, and to all the Edward Gibbons ever after. Yet that little iota was the chasm which separated orthodox Christianity from Arian syncretism.

Of course, through God’s grace he can work his love through fallenness – otherwise the Cross would have no meaning! Gay couples can express the deepest love and commitment which should shame many a heterosexual couple. They can be a channel of grace to those scarred by the cruelty of a sinful world. But this channel of grace does not mean that the Church can bless that which is a consequence of the Fall, anymore than can it bless Buddhist teaching – though it can bless the grace and compassion found in Buddhism. We can rejoice that God can demonstrate his redemptive love through a gay couple as much as through a Buddhist monk; indeed, arguably more so when the couple are faithful Christians. This is where your argument for ‘knowing them by their fruits’ becomes confusing: I believe that the fruits found in the lives of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela are a foretaste of the Kingdom; does this mean I should bless their respective adultery and polygamy too? Of course not – we are able to distinguish the fruit of their lives without condoning aspects which are not. A gay couple can undoubtedly bring good fruit; it does not mean that we should bless the relationship as a marriage.

We must ultimately interpret the gay couple’s relationship not as marriage or a blessed quasi-marriage. Rather we must see it as friendship. Not the shallow, secular notion of friendship; rather the deep friendship love seen in Jesus Christ (and classical tradition before him), a friendship that is a love stronger than death, a friendship which surpasses understanding. Yes, this means recognising that same-sex activity within this friendship is not as God intended for creation; but this does not mean separating this friendship. Instead, we must have patience in allowing God’s grace to make it a place of holiness. We must walk alongside gay couples in pastoral care, not hiding the Church’s teaching, but also not cruelly condemning. It’s a difficult balance to make, and will take decades to work out. But in a similar way to how indigenous African Christianity is working out how to teach Christian monogamy in a polygamous culture, and how indigenous Indian Christianity is learning to teach Christian equality in a caste-ridden culture, we must allow a new indigenous Western Christianity to emerge which preaches to a secular religion of sexual sacramentality. We are already seeing this with some of the brilliant theological work being done by ‘Side B’ Christians which demonstrate one can live as a LGBTQ+ person and draw even on Queer theology yet still be faithful to classical Christian teaching. But this is still in embryonic form: much more work must be done.

Living in exile

I know that in writing this letter it will cause hurt and pain to many of my dear, dear friends who have faithfully and exhaustively searched the Scriptures and found a different answer to my own. It will also cause much disappointment to many of my gay friends, whom I dearly love. For causing this hurt, pain, and sadness I am sorry. Yet I hope through this letter to you, Steven, that the reasons for why I have felt the need to respond to your call to change church teachings. To sum up, it destabilises the creation-fall-redemption revelatory pattern by making the Will, not the body, the location of truth and goodness, in contradiction to orthodox teaching. We are considering this change as a Church because of the pressures of a newly dominant secular religion. To make this change in Church teaching would therefore be syncretism with the ethical and metaphysical principles of a pagan faith. We are in a difficult time, not seen in Christianity since the breakdown of Christendom in the Middle East after the Arab invasions. Like how the Babylonian exile taught Israel the error of their ungodly ways, our cultural exile through the rise of a secular faith has illuminated us to the cruel and ungodly ways we have treated members of the LGBTQ+ community. But we cannot reject scripturally-expressed, God-given revelation. Instead, like Daniel ministering in Babylon, we must serve our culture faithful to faith handed down to us. Even if it does mean on occasion being thrown into the lion’s den.

Yours in Christ,

Joshua

Joshua Penduck

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. This article was originally published at Fulcrum.


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274 thoughts on “What theological issues are at stake in our doctrine of marriage?”

  1. Though I am socially liberal, I have mentioned Joshua’s piece before, as probably the most persuasive case I have read, from the ‘conservative’ viewpoint. It’s really well-written and reasoned. He speaks a language I can understand. His style and manner also make liberal readers more likely to engage.

    All that said, I suspect as far as the Church of England is concerned, the horse may have already bolted from the stable.

    But credit where’s credit’s due. We need people like Joshua ‘at the table’ in church discussions. Come to that, we also need the whole evangelical tradition in the Church of England, as I am often pointing out to more absolutist socially liberal Christians. Of course, there are dangers at the other end of the spectrum too, from ‘absolutist’ evangelicals.

    Joshua’s thinking is more respectful and inclusive, less demonising, and at the same time very intelligent indeed.

    Reply
      • The C of E would certainly suffer loss if evangelicals (including yourself, Ian) ultimately moved away to find ‘home’ in a different religious set up. Evangelicals, like more catholic members of the Church of England, are so precious. I should hate to belong in a Church of England totally dominated by a new secular puritanism that demanded uniformity on the acceptance of gay sex. Letters like Joshua’s, and indeed arguments you have presented, demonstrate your theological seriousness, and that deserves respect and protection within the Church of England. However, in realpolitik terms, your position is threatened, and there is risk of you effectively being driven out through pressure on your conscience, or ‘oversight’ proposals that are unacceptable to you. You know my liberal beliefs, but I do not want to see the fragmentation of the Church of England. I am criticised by vocal liberals for wanting compromise and co-existence. I am criticised by conservative evangelicals like you for wanting compromise and co-existence. But for many years I have been urging a way out of the impasse the C of E has, because we are approaching the crisis point. To hold us all together, in realpolitik terms (as I think you will see), the ‘my way or the highway’ absolutist route will divide the Church of England in half in a split. I suspect, because of secular fashion, that the conservative evangelical part will come out of that worse, and marginalised off into AMiE, or somewhere away from what would then become a ‘liberal’ mainstream in the National Church throughout the geographical dioceses.

        I don’t want that.

        I want the Church of England to avoid such a split. I want a Church of England that may no longer be able to avoid the real ‘de facto’ deep divisions of opinion on sexuality, but which manages a settlement so it is still – in this land – a national Church of evangelicals, ‘Reform’ churches, liberals, catholics, charismatics, contemplatives, social gospel advocates, monastics, new plants…

        …ALL of us. Because, here in England, we are ALL ‘Church’. We have diverse traditions, and I’ve been struggling to try and hold all these (well, not me obviously, but the Church)… and I’ve faced destructive and hostile negativism from people demanding a kind of puritanical ‘absolutism’ at either end of the spectrum. I deeply value the evangelical part of the Church of England. It is my family’s roots. My missionary daughter’s framework. My other two children’s upbringing and coming to faith through evangelical grounding and real pastoral love.

        I do not want all these horses to ‘bolt’ from the stable, but that is the real danger if all parties are too belligerent, albeit driven by convictions and conscience and love of God.

        It is fine to hold our beliefs (each of us) but we also need reality wake-up, and to stare realpolitik straight in the face, and we are heading towards train crash, because we’re running out of track.

        I wish you could understand that in some ways I am fighting your own cause, insisting on the evangelical right to be a lively gift to the C of E, with coherent theology that deserves respect. You may not want ‘compromise’ or think it’s possible, but I’m just being honest that I think that is where things are going, and I appeal: please don’t leave, please contribute to any settlement, please make the case for lively evangelical presence in what would otherwise be a diminished church that heads towards a uniformity of secular puritanism and absolute insistence on a 100% ‘gay church’.

        Is that really what you want for this country? Are you really willing to abandon ship? So I urge you to exercise your stamina and to ‘hold ground’ as evangelicals, even if that involves realpolitik compromises that seem less than ideal. Otherwise you may just cede all the ground to those you disagree with, who press for 100% conformity to their views within a diminished homogenous ‘liberal’ Church. Departure from a ‘lost’ C of E would make that outcome for the National Church more likely.

        There must be ways to work round the head-on impasse, and protect your own integrities within your own church communities in the continuing Church of England. Just giving way to meltdown may end up being a loss to all parties. We *need* evangelical presence in the Church of England, with its unique position in the life of this land, and its wide distribution of contacts through the parishes and churches. We *need* evangelical message and the way that touches people’s hearts. The way it touched my own. But we also need to recognise: we are a diverse Church with different views, and we either work with that, through love and grace – I suspect Joshua would understand that – or we get marginalised from the reality of who we are, collectively, as ‘Church’ in the Church of England. Grandstanding against these realities of views may end up opening the stable door still wider, and the evangelical horse might bolt… leaving the socially liberal ‘absolutists’ to eat up all the food in there… or to depart the metaphors, to take over all the Church of England.

        I suggest that people like you and Joshua have heavy responsibilities for shaping the continuing Church of England (because it WILL continue) so it retains a strong evangelical presence. I think you owe that to the country. But just walking out wouldn’t cut it. I believe God has journeyed with the Church of England, even though it is not Puritan or Calvinistic. God has journeyed with it, in its diversities, its traditions, and its varieties. If evangelicals refuse to compromise at all, I believe the loss will be suffered by non-Christians who in generations to come need to hear the gospel and the evangelical witness, ideally in their local Church of England churches as well.

        On the theological issues at stake over marriage, I suggest it boils down to two different ways of reading and receiving the Bible. I have set that out in what is presently the penultimate comment (in response to Professor Grimble) here:

        https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/what-is-the-bishop-of-oxford-thinking/#comments

        Reply
        • The C of E would certainly suffer loss if evangelicals (including yourself, Ian) ultimately moved away to find ‘home’ in a different religious set up.

          Whether some given group leaves or not is totally irrelevant. What would cause the Church of England to suffer loss is if it abandons the quest to find truth based on the authority of God’s Word, the Bible.

          If it maintains that quest it has not lost anything, even if half or more of its members leave.

          But if it abandons that quest it has not only lost everything but it itself is lost, even if not one person leaves, even if attendances double or triple or increase tenfold.

          Reply
        • I’m afraid your vison simply won’t work for practical reasons.
          First, and most importantly, it will force the current national debates to a parish level and cause constant turmoil – every time someone wanted a blessing in my parish, I would refuse and cause pastoral harm. At the moment they know that it’s not possible: As an orthodox minister I am sheltered somewhat by the wider church. This would no longer be the case. If you are suggesting that there should be some sort of right to blessing/marriage that overrides my conscience, and I would have to ask for a local liberal to come and take the service, then you would be forcing this on churches and congregations that do not want it, and it really wouldn’t be an affable solution.
          Second, there is no way that chaplaincy posts could ever be held by orthodox ministers: secular authorities will want SS affirming ministers as chaplains.
          Third, as with the five guiding principles, the claws would be out (as Martyn Percy’s claws were out) the moment we had signed on the dotted line. There would be no orthodox leadership within 10 years.
          Practically this won’t work. It’s wishful thinking. And I don’t particularly want it either. I don’t see a convincing reason to unhitch the C of E from its formularies.

          Reply
          • “ I don’t see a convincing reason to unhitch the C of E from its formularies.”

            There is no unhitching from any formularies required. The declaration of assent was changed specifically many decades ago so that the formularies are not things that bind people. We are free to approach the formularies in a variety of ways.

            You would be perfectly free to say no to couples asking for a blessing, just as you are perfectly free to say no to couples, one of whom is a divorcee, who ask for marriage. It would be exactly the same.

            Conservative Evangelicals have got to come up with more than ‘it isn’t orthodox’. So much of what the C of E stands for at its very heart isn’t orthodox. If you truly wish to be orthodox there are Orthodox churches who will be glad to welcome you.

            The debate has also got to be better than ‘I find the idea of gay sex a bit icky’. Get over what people of all kinds of sexualities do in the privacy of their own relationships.

          • There is no unhitching from any formularies required. The declaration of assent was changed specifically many decades ago so that the formularies are not things that bind people.

            Scripture is, though; however the Church of England has changed on the question of its ‘formularies’, you have been unable to point to any decision it has made to change on the binding nature of Biblical authority (and your claim that the Church of England has never held to Biblical authority is clearly false, and based on an ahistorical reading-back of the de facto (but never de jure) triumph of latitudinarianism to long before it was even suggested.

            You would be perfectly free to say no to couples asking for a blessing, just as you are perfectly free to say no to couples, one of whom is a divorcee, who ask for marriage. It would be exactly the same.

            But being able to say ‘no, I won’t do it’ is pretty meaningless if there is a legal duty to then allow some other minister to come in and use the church to do what you objected to, against the wishes of the minister and the congregation, isn’t it?

            Especially if, once the deed is done, you would then be required to treat the couple in question as if they were married — and clearly you would be (for example, you would be forbidden from saying they should not take on leadership positions, exactly as you would if they were an opposite-sex couple living in sin).

          • It is not a question of ickyness
            Whatever the arrangement is called the Church would in reality, be approving, celebrating even, a lifelong vow, commitment to sin unless there is no consummation.

          • Whatever the arrangement is called the Church would in reality, be approving, celebrating even, a lifelong vow, commitment to sin unless there is no consummation.

            More than that; rather than just approving of one particular sin, the reasoning required to get there would require the Church of England to adopt the position that all human desires are intrinsically holy — that evil is merely a matter of acting on good desires in the wrong way or at the wrong time — and thus deny the whole existence of sin itself. That’s the point of the article above: if the author thought it was just a matter of whether one particular thing was sinful he would back the change, but because doing so would undermine the concept of sin, and thus the Church’s whole mission to rescue people from the consequences of sin by getting them to see their need to repent and accept God’s gift of salvation, he reluctantly must resist.

          • But nobody made the ‘icky’ point in the debate in the first place.

            Certainly anything that is so unhealthy that (a) is associated with such high disease levels and (b) cannot be conducted without contraception (which means that in eras before contraception-science it could not be conducted safely at all, and is even today associated with high levels of unsafety) will always be near the bottom of the acceptability list. People are precious and should be kept from harm and risk.

            It is one of the things that would not occur to anyone to associate with Christianity – they are chalk and cheese. Another such thing is the emphasis on privacy. That has never been a Christian emphasis – it was derived from elsewhere.

          • There is no unhitching from any formularies required. The declaration of assent was changed specifically many decades ago so that the formularies are not things that bind people.

            Whether or not the change to the declaration of assent has achieved what you think it has, (and I think you are plain wrong on this) Canon A2, A3 and A4 still bind you to the 39 articles and the historic formularies.

          • Christopher

            Once again you are writing egregious nonsense.
            Only mixed sex couples capable of reproduction ‘need’ contraception if they intend to avoid pregnancy.
            Gay male couples and gay female couples do not ‘need’ to use contraceptives of any kind.
            And this has absolutely nothing to do with Joshua’s arguments or, indeed, anyone’s arguments about the telos or holiness of same sex sexual intimacy.

          • Gay male couples and gay female couples do not ‘need’ to use contraceptives of any kind.

            Um there was a rather big government information campaign disagreed with you there. Think the tag was something like ‘Don’t die of ignorance’, maybe you remember it?

          • Thank you, Penelope, for explaining why sexual activity between a man and a woman is different in essence from that between two men and two women. From this it follows that what might be called Same Sex Marriage is different in essence from Marriage between a man and a woman.

          • David

            It isn’t really different in essence unless you think sexual reproduction is the telos, or primary good of marriage.
            When the church accepted the admissibility of contraception, it accepted that sexual intimacy could exist for pleasure and that this is a good of marriage. Of course, that has always been understood because churches marry infertile and post menopausal people.

          • It isn’t really different in essence unless you think sexual reproduction is the telos, or primary good of marriage.

            Nonsense. It is entirely possible to think that the possibility of procreation is one of the essential attributes of a marriage without thinking that it is the singular ‘primary good’.

            And of course even thinking of marriage in terms of ‘goods’ rather betrays a human-centric, rather than a God-centric focus.

            Of course, that has always been understood because churches marry infertile and post menopausal people.

            Something can of course be part of the essential nature of a thing without necessarily being present in every case. It is part of the nature of human beings to have two legs, but that doesn’t mean that someone who has lost a leg is no longer human. It just means that they express their nature imperfectly.

          • “Canon A2, A3 and A4 still bind you to the 39 articles and the historic formularies.”

            I suggest you read the Canons a little more carefully. And bear in mind this:

            “In 1968, a report on Subscription and Assent to the 39 Articles was produced by the Archbishops’ Commission on Christian Doctrine. Focusing in particular on the approach to Scripture set out in the Articles, it called for the then current Declaration of Assent to
            be changed, so that it would ‘not tie down the person using it to acceptance of every one of the Articles’, and would leave open ‘The possibility of fresh understandings of Christian truth’, while also leaving room ‘for an appeal to the Articles as a norm within Anglican theology’

            “In response, in 1975, a new form of Declaration of Assent came into force in the Church of England.”

          • that it would ‘not tie down the person using it to acceptance of every one of the Articles’, and would leave open ‘The possibility of fresh understandings of Christian truth’, while also leaving room ‘for an appeal to the Articles as a norm within Anglican theology’

            Can anyone explain how something can possibly be appealed to as a norm if people aren’t tied to accept it? Because that seems like logically incoherent nonsense to me, but maybe I’m missing something. Anyone?

          • Penelope, you know very well that contraception is used (a) for disease prevention as well as (b) for the prevention of something which obviously is very far from being a disease. Unbelievably you are writing with awareness of (b) only. (a) applies to all men who have ‘sex’ with men (not something they should be doing), but has never been a feature for married couples.

          • Christopher

            Is it ? You clearly know a great deal more about gay male sex than I do.

            Anyway, it certainly isn’t the case with gay female sexual intimacy. Which is probably the safest sex you can get. No cervical cancer. No pregnancy. Difficult to make a ‘medical’/ nature case against that.

          • It is adulterous against the intricately evolved purpose of the way their bodies are formed – as prepared for through all those millions of years of plant and animal development.

          • “But nobody made the ‘icky’ point in the debate in the first place.”

            Nobody needed to explicitly make the point. It is implicit in comment after comment by conservatives. It’s another thing that conservative evangelicals need to address if they are to be taken seriously: being prudish about human sexuality doesn’t help you.

          • being prudish about human sexuality doesn’t help you.

            Define ‘prudish’.

            Because if ‘prudish’ means ‘not thinking that all consensual sex is ipso facto morally good’ then to not be prudish would be to allow the other side to set the terms of the debate, and of course you shouldn’t do that.

            Is being against, say, fornication prudish?

          • “I suggest you read the Canons a little more carefully”

            Yes, lets.

            A2: “The Thirty-nine Articles are agreeable to the Word of God and may be assented unto with a good conscience by all members of the Church of England.”

            There are two clauses here, the first that the 39 articles are agreeable to the Word of God (i.e. the scriptures). The second is that they may be assented unto… by all members of the Church of England. Presumably you argue that they also ‘may not’ be assented to. However, this would clearly render the canon utterly nonsensical. The plain reading is that the 39 articles, being agreeable to the word of God, are normative to members of the Church of England.

            A3: This article also has two clauses, which effectively says the same thing about the BCP and the ‘doctrine’ within. All members may use it with a good conscience. Again, the ‘may’ is clearly not making it optional: rendering it ‘may not’ would make the canon nonsense.

            In any case, even if they were written to allow you some wriggle room in your conscience, Canon A5 clearly dosn’t allow such wriggle room.

            A5: Declares that the doctrine of the Church of England is grounded first in the Scriptures, then in such teachings of the Fathers and Councils which is agreeable to the Scriptures. It then declares that the doctrine may particularly be found in the 3 documents previously discussed – 39 Articles, Ordinal, BCP.

            In other words, to deny the doctrine contined therein is agreeable with the scriptures is contrary to the canons of the Church of England. You are free to leave the CofE to do so, but to stay in and declare that it is optional is, at best, duplicitious.

            The C of E is clearly still held fast to its historic formularies.

          • A Godsall claims the power of divination, so that he can see what is not actually there but is claimed to be ‘implicit’.
            (a) Honest people say things up front in the first place if that is what they want to say. He is therefore assuming a norm of dishonesty. Derived from where? What milieu has dishonesty as a norm? There are plenty.
            (b) The idea of being sure about what is implicit is a contradiction in terms. being implicit means it is not overtly present. So how on earth does he know?
            (c) He must assume everyone’s thinking works the same way as his. It doesn’t. How could it? Hence it is not possible to render others’ unvoiced thoughts. But most people knew that anyway.

          • It certainly is (on an extremely trivial level) icky, but that scarcely occurs to one, being overshadowed by its danger to precious souls.
            That trivial point was not a step in the argument. But when one considers it, it is still true. And still not a step in the argument.
            That the trivial level is presented as the norm is telling.
            It is a cosmetic perspective, to do with image and emotions, not with factual physical danger which is after all the point.

          • Thomas I’m sure the Canons are carefully worded to allow for latitude. Indeed I think everything the CofE produces is carefully worded simply because of the historic tensions between Catholic and Protestant that remain within the CofE despite the Elizabethan Settlement. Evangelicals frequently disregard the Canons when it comes to liturgical dress. Catholics push the boundaries when it comes to reservation of the sacrament and associated liturgical practice. Not for nothing is the CofE called a broad church.

            Your own take on the rigidity of the Canons you quote needs to be set in the context of this quote concerning the Doctrine Commission’s work several decades ago. Note that they focussed on the approach to scripture.

            “Focusing in particular on the approach to Scripture set out in the Articles, it called for the then current Declaration of Assent to be changed, so that it would ‘not tie down the person using it to acceptance of every one of the Articles’, and would leave open ‘The possibility of fresh understandings of Christian truth’, while also leaving room ‘for an appeal to the Articles as a norm within Anglican theology’.

          • Christopher

            I think you should ask some lesbians about the telos of their sexual intimacy before pronouncing it adulterous. Which is both offensive and risible.

          • it would ‘not tie down the person using it to acceptance of every one of the Articles’, […] while also leaving room ‘for an appeal to the Articles as a norm within Anglican theology’.

            Again can somebody explain to me how this is not just a logically incoherent mess? If something can be appealed to as a norm, then people must be bound to accept it. If they aren’t bound to accept it then appealing to it as a norm is meaningless because you’re free to ignore it.

          • I think you should ask some lesbians about the telos of their sexual intimacy before pronouncing it adulterous.

            What has the telos got to do with it? If it’s sexual activity outside a valid marriage then it’s adulterous, whatever the telos is.

          • Who on earth is going to care if it is either offensive or risible, so long as it is true?

            Everything is image for some people, nothing substance.

          • “Again can somebody explain to me how this is not just a logically incoherent mess? If something can be appealed to as a norm, then people must be bound to accept it. If they aren’t bound to accept it then appealing to it as a norm is meaningless because you’re free to ignore it”

            S you are especially dim about this. But as you can’t grasp the broad nature of the CofE it isn’t surprising. The CofE has a both/and approach. It is both Protestant and Catholic. So with this matter people – and especially clergy as they are the ones taking the oaths – are free to appeal to the articles as a norm, but are also free to say that some of the articles no longer apply. And there are clergy of both opinions within the CofE as is clear from this exchange.
            But you also don’t seem to understand the concept of a norm. It is the norm for temperatures to be around 10C in November, but last week they were 15C. A norm is what might usually be expected but variations are permitted and to be expected.

          • S you are especially dim about this.

            Then perhaps you can help me understand.

            So with this matter people – and especially clergy as they are the ones taking the oaths – are free to appeal to the articles as a norm, but are also free to say that some of the articles no longer apply.

            This is what I don’t get. What force does an ‘appeal to a norm’ have?

            If people are free to just say, in response to any appeal to a norm, ‘well, I don’t think that applies any more’ then it seems that the norm has no force whatsoever. So really these ‘norms’ aren’t norms at all, if they have no actual force behind them. They’re more like observations.

            But on the other hand if people aren’t free to say ‘well, I don’t think that applies any more’ then they are norms, but on the other hand, you’ve lost the other side of your claim, that people aren’t tied to accept them.

            So again, maybe I am being dim, but I still can’t see how those two things — they are norms, but people can ignore them if they like — can both be true.

            But you also don’t seem to understand the concept of a norm.

            I think I do understand the concept of a norm. It is a norm, for example, that people working in certain occupations dress smartly, in a suit and tie or equivalent.

            Variations are allowed and accepted, but only with a good reason. For example someone might have a religious reason to wear something that ordinarily wouldn’t be permitted by the norm, or to not wear something that would ordinarily be required.

            But the key thing is that you have to have a good reason that the norm doesn’t apply to you. You can’t just say, ‘well, I don’t think that norm applies to me any more.’ You can’t just decide one day that you are going to wear jeans to court and ignore the norm, just because it’s only a norm.

            That’s what makes something a norm rather than just an observation or a suggestion. It has force. It can’t just be dismissed out of hand as being outdated, no longer relevant.

            Whereas you seem to be saying that the Church of England says that its historic formularies can just be dismissed as outdated, no longer relevant; that people don’t have to give a good reason why they dissent from this or that article, they can just say, ‘Well, the Church of England says I am not tied to believe that any more, so I don’t.’

            In which case I don’t see how they can also be norms.

            Perhaps as you say I am being dim. So can you help me out? Have I misunderstood what a norm is?

          • Christopher

            Well, it isn’t true either is it?
            A lesbian couple is not being adulterous unless one of them is married to a man.
            So, risible. And offensive. And mendacious.

          • Christopher, in your 17 November 12.11pm you say:
            ‘(b) The idea of being sure about what is implicit is a contradiction in terms. being implicit means it is not overtly present. So how on earth does he know?’
            I guess the ‘he’ is A Godsell, whom I guess is Andrew Godsell, but since ‘being sure about what is implicit is a contradiction in terms’ how can I know?
            Possibly because that’s the way human communication seems to work?

      • I cannot accept that the “good fruit” of harmonious gay couples can be seen as actual Kingdom fruit, regardless of whether it seems to make a contribution to society in general. I suppose you could argue it is better than them being horrid to one another, but it still does not contribute to the Kingdom. Being kind in appropriate measure to those that practice homosexuality is of course admirable and gracious, but let’s don’t pretend that this means their actions are advancing the gospel.

        Reply
  2. Some discourse analysis of a response to an a wide ranging and cumulative weighty article bringing together many strands. The response in order of priority?:
    ” socially liberal… conservative viewpoint… liberal readers more likely…to engage…”
    But:
    “the horse may already have bolted from the stable…”
    But “we need …at the table…the whole evangelical tradition…absolutist social Christians…spectrum…absolutist.. evangelicals…respectful…demonising … inclusive… intelligent.”

    Susannah, I find that your comment is patronising.
    Thanks for engaging with a thinking intelligent Anglican. The tragedy is that the whole thrust of the article, including the stopping off points, while not new, may not have been considered, are indeed new to the influencers, or have been dismissed ab initio.

    Reply
  3. Yes Chris, Joshua’s article is very well-written and coherent.

    To you all, my posts today (this is the final one) are my last posts on this site. I realise some will be glad to hear that. I’ve made my points enough times, and while I thank Ian for his hospitality here, I’m sure I have probably overstayed my welcome. My other reasons are health-related, and the pressure of other commitments, personal and other.

    I should like to thank, in leaving, everyone here who has engaged with me in courtesy. I also want to express appreciation specifically to: John Thomson, Penelope Cowell Doe, Andrew Godsall, David Runcorn and Simon Ponsonby.

    May the grace of God be with us all.

    Reply
  4. Could I ask Susannah Clark: what do you think the point and purpose of the Church of England is? What is it for ?

    Please answer in 100 words or less because often when you write half a dozen lengthy paragraphs it is hard to wear through the fluff and distill them down to the actual point.

    Reply
      • Not sure how Susannah would answer but for me the purpose is for like minded people to get together and serve the local parish as an outworking of our Christian faith. So, for example, the church I’m part of runs a food bank, a library, a school, an inner city farm, all in the local parish. We form friendships as we work alongside each other which encourage us in our daily lives.

        How is it for you?

        Reply
        • the purpose is for like minded people to get together and serve the local parish as an outworking of our Christian faith.

          Okay, so you think the Church of England is just basically a charity?

          Reply
  5. Yes, the core question is whether homosexual desire is part of God’s original design plan or a consequence of the Fall. Joshua Penduck answers this question by pointing out that the New Testament prescribes how to redeem heterosexual marriage but is utterly silent on homosexual relations, which Paul condemns.

    To this argument there is another, which attempts by LGBT ‘theologians’ will have difficulty refuting. The Church’s present position is held because Jesus Christ affirmed that the written laws of Moses are given by His Father, who created the human race and understands it best. In those laws God describes homosexual activity as toevah, a Hebrew word whose meaning can easily be checked for oneself. The same passage also condemns further sexual practices of the Canaanites and outlaws them for Israelites; there is no further context. Although the laws of Moses do not apply within the church, God does not change his opinion of these practices. To question that opinion is to question whether the gospels record Jesus Christ correctly. But if the gospel accounts are in question then so is Christ’s Resurrection, in which case our faith is in vain.

    The New Testament draws its line between believers and unbelievers, not in any other way. Accordingly, it commands that we show deep love to nonbelievers regardless of their behaviour. Those inside the church who will not repent, in contrast, it forcefully condemns and shows the door. Joshua Penduck makes the assumption that Bishop Steven seeks no more than good debate and will listen to other points of view. I canot speak for one bishop, but in general this assumption is too generous toward church liberals. Evangelicals are going to use the terms of heretic and apostate of their opponents only after they have lost the battle, at least in worldly terms. That’s too late.

    Reply
  6. The article is right to say that body comes ahead of desire. But the article is misdirection in giving the impression that to rightly understand marriage and man and woman we only need to rightly order these two things. To rightly understand sexuality, marriage, man and woman – we must work from left to right through THREE things:

    Spiritual union (Christ and the church) – physical union (earthly marriage) – desire.

    When we do it becomes clear that earthly marriage is a spiritual union before and as well as a physical union – these together instead of being defined by desire. Therefore our understanding of man and woman must be drawn from what we learn about both the spiritual union of Christ and the church (Ephesians 5, Revelation 19) as well as the physical union of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2). Since the author considers only the bodily union not the spiritual union he makes two wrong conclusions in the article – that “that patriarchy is a sign of fallen corruption, and equality between the sexes is a creation intention” (those who believe – the church are the spiritual descendants of the man Jesus – a perfect definition of patriarchy). And earthly marriage is an earthly mirror of that spiritual patriarchy. And then later – again due to his having not including spiritual union – the author says that we should view same sex relationships – though sinful in their expression of desire – as being friendship. But this ignores what these relationships mean in terms of spiritual union (or disunion) – obedience to God requires that these relationships must cease altogether based on the basis on which they begin – namely either same sex marriage or the open intention to cohabit (sexually). The only possible means by which such relationships can be viewed as friendship is if they cease altogether for long enough for them to recommence on a new basis.

    Reply
  7. It seems to me that the primary Genesis reason is companionship – ‘not good to be alone.’ This is before fruitfulness and procreation.
    So what follows from this primary reason? A lot of prioritisation of procreation and fertility which doesn’t honour the Creation priority of intimate relationship, of the intimacy of God’s self.

    Reply
    • It seems to me that the primary Genesis reason is companionship – ‘not good to be alone.’

      Depends on why you think it wasn’t good for the man to be alone. Was it because he was sad, poor thing, or was it because a singular creature didn’t hold the image of God anywhere near as well as one that was split into two halves, so that when the halves came back together they could sub-create new life from themselves, in an echo of how God created life and the universe from nothing?

      Given the first centres human feelings and the second centres God I know which one I think is more likely to be correct.

      Reply
      • I dont think it’s appropriate to refer to ‘halves’, as if a single human is only really half. Did Jesus not fully reflect God, despite being a single man? Why did Paul favour people remaining single if he too believed they werent really doing what they should be doing, ie joining with another? I think your words reflect the typical mindset of the church today, that it’s all about families.

        God did not ‘split’ anything in half. He made 2 complimentary people.

        Reply
        • I dont think it’s appropriate to refer to ‘halves’, as if a single human is only really half.

          It is, but it’s not the (forgive the pun) whole story.

          Human beings are made for a purpose, right? And that purpose is to reflect the image of God.

          But the key thing is that they reflect that image in multiple ways, not just one way.

          And one of the ways human beings reflect the image of God is by having the two complementary sexes come together to form one whole flesh. So in that context it does make sense to refer to the sexes as halves of humanity that combine to make the whole image of God.

          But that’s not the only way in which human beings reflect the divine image, and other ways — such as by being creative (rather than procreative) as God is creative — are ways in which each individual can reflect the entire divine image.

          God did split humanity into two complementary halves. But He also made two complete persons. These things are both true.

          The way I think of it is that each person is a complete person, reflecting the image of God — no one needs anyone else to ‘compete’ them.

          But some people do enter a marriage with someone of the opposite sex, and when that happens, according to God’s plan, the ‘one flesh’ thus formed, also reflects the image of God, in a different way to how each individual does. When a man and a woman marry it’s not two half images combining to create a full image of God, it’s two full images combining to create a new, third, full image.

          You’ll note that I always refer to humanity being split into two halves, and never to any individual being half — except Adam and Eve, who are types of humanity, and Adam is in fact literally in Genesis, split in half: Eve is literally, in the story, torn out of him, so when she comes back to him it is literally the missing piece of him being reunited with what it used to be part of. That’s what ‘bone of my bone’ means. The stuff Eve is made of literally used to be a part of Adam.

          So even if the story is a parable rather than historical, what it tells us is that the two sexes are halves of the same whole, so their coming together makes ‘one flesh’ just as Eve coming to Adam was Adam’s own rib coming back to the body where it belonged.

          But this doesn’t mean that they aren’t also each complete in their own right! That’s part of what I mean when I say Genesis isn’t a stupid romcom where Adam mooches around depressed, increasingly unsatisfied with all the pets God tries to distract him with, until finally he has his meet-cute with Eve.

          So…

          God did not ‘split’ anything in half. He made 2 complimentary people.

          … actually He did both. He made two complete individuals; but He also split humanity (the species, considered in a spiritual sense, as typified by Adam, rather than each individual) in half.

          Reply
        • The halves point is irrelevant, and look at the genre in which it originated. In that genre truths (such as the fact that we all come from one man and one woman fitting together, both parties being essential, no other parties contributing) are expressed pictorially.

          Reply
      • I prefer to go back to Genesis 1:27 which makes a lot of sense to me. The assumption seems always to be made that it is a single human being which is made in God’s image. In fact the text says
        So God created mankind in his own image,
        in the image of God he created them;
        male and female he created them.
        It is male and female together who reflect the image of God. I think this strengthens even further the case for marriage being heterosexual only. But I don’t think it helps when we’re thinking about homosexual sexual partnerships – I agree with Joshua that it’s not ‘marriage in all but name’ and although I really like the friendship motif it doesn’t fully address it.

        Reply
        • Why would there be exclusive partnerships of only 2 people?
          There is only one reason in nature: the production of young.
          There is no other reason for 2 to be an important number.
          This makes behaviour which is designed to mimic marriage and so make marriage less exclusive ( I want what they have, not because I necessarily want it though I may, but more in order to be even with them and take away their exclusivity) a parody and structurally parasitical.

          Reply
          • Christopher – quite so. Since homosexual unions ae intrinsically infertile, there is no intrinsic reason why they should be exclusive twosomes. I have read that some male homosexual couples don’t consider sexual exclusivity essential to their relationship, and why should they? Lesbian couples, otoh, are often seen as more exclusive – and sometimes with a propensity for violence, according to Gavin Ashenden in his ecent video on how he changed from being a champion of same-sex relations for 20 years to opposing them.

          • But there is a reason – so that they can grab and not be left out of the party.

            It is precisely the same as feminism – the idea being that men have been allowed to do all kinds of things that women were not, so the thing is for women to grab all the things that males could do (even if they were not good things to do!!) just to prove that they can do it too, even in instances where they do not want to.

            This ‘That’s Mine’ attitude belongs to a specific stage of early childhood.

          • Never have I seen such a total misunderstanding of what feminism is. Did the ‘Way of life’ course at Harrow teach you nothing?

          • James

            There is no reason why mixed sex marriages should be twosomes. Polygamy is more efficient since one man can father more children than one woman can bear.
            So, a ridiculously poor argument.

          • The Way of Life course at Harrow taught me nothing. It was begun shortly after I left, and heavily invested in by my housemaster and wife. I learnt a great deal before I ever set foot there and a great deal more before we watched the Shaeffer ‘How Shall We Then Live?’ videos, which were good but not a major influence.

          • Well it’s very clear you learned nothing about feminism.
            The film ‘Made in Dagenham’ is an excellent introduction.

          • But I did not give a comprehensive analysis of feminism in a few words! I pointed out one large narrative within it.

        • Actually Gill, just to be pedantic. Gen 1 reads

          So God created mankind in his own image
          In the image of God he created HIM (my emphasis)
          Male and female he created them.

          Reply
    • The primary reason is procreation, I think. This comes from Genesis 1, where the order is: (a) Male and female he created them. And (b) God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Implicitly (b) is an explanation of (a).

      “It is not good that the man should be alone” could be interpreted as referring to the good of procreation as well as the good of companionship, but I agree that Genesis 2 places the emphasis on companionship and mutuality. “Eve is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” There is no mention of procreation. Nonetheless, Genesis 1 comes before Genesis 2.

      That is the beauty of the Genesis account. Succinct, non-didactic, but still making God’s purposes clear, the two chapters together give us understanding of both aspects. All this, of course, on the basis that God really did create man from the dust of the ground, before there were any other animals, and did create Eve from the man’s rib. Otherwise “It is not good that the man should be alone” and “Eve is bone of my bones” are meaningless.

      Reply
      • I agree that Genesis 2 places the emphasis on companionship and mutuality. “Eve is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.”

        That’s not companionship. That’s about male and female being two havles of the same image; two sides of the same coin. The same essence, divided into two forms.

        It’s not like some soppy romcom going, ‘you complete me’.

        Otherwise “It is not good that the man should be alone” and “Eve is bone of my bones” are meaningless.

        They’re not meaningless though because Genesis is not a stupid romantic comedy about a guy who is lonely and sad and adopts various pets but finds that each in turn doesn’t make him happy until eventually he gets a girlfriend and then everything’s okay.

        Reply
        • I stand by what I said. Judaeo-Christianity is based on revelation – its ethics, its teaching on salvation, its eschatology, everything. Its very claim to be true is based on revelation, whether the revelation be in the form of historiography or as private communication subsequently passed on (as in Paul’s case). The Spirit’s role of assuring that the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints’ in writing remains true to what was originally revealed is part of what the concept encompasses. Theologians who argue that the foundations of Judaeo-Christianity, including the truth about marriage, are ‘quasi-mythological’ may as well pack their bags and go home. They are building their house on sand.

          The resurrection of Christ really did happen. So did the Exodus, the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, the call from Abraham to quit Babylonia, the Cataclysm in the days of Noah, the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib, in the absence of which God could not have said “It is not good that man should be alone” or Adam have said “Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”, and the creation of Adam, without which God could not have said “Be fruitful and multiply”. If Christians believe that sexual reproduction began with the first eukaryotes two billion years before man, they may as well admit that the biblical understanding of marriage has no basis in reality and man is free to copulate and choose his sex at will. That’s why there is this push from the world to be free from traditional norms and why Bishop Croft’s position is more coherent than Rector Penduck’s.

          The foregoing is itself little more than an elaboration of what Paul himself said in Romans 1. I stand by what he said.

          Reply
        • I stand by what I said. Judaeo-Christianity is based on revelation – its ethics, its teaching on salvation, its eschatology, everything.

          Yes.

          The Spirit’s role of assuring that the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints’ in writing remains true to what was originally revealed is part of what the concept encompasses.

          Yes.

          The resurrection of Christ really did happen. So did the Exodus, the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai, the call from Abraham to quit Babylonia,

          Yes, yes, yes, yes.

          the Cataclysm in the days of Noah,

          Maybe.

          the creation of Eve from Adam’s rib,

          Again, maybe.

          If Christians believe that sexual reproduction began with the first eukaryotes two billion years before man, they may as well admit that the biblical understanding of marriage has no basis in reality and man is free to copulate and choose his sex at will.

          No, doesn’t follow.

          I would elaborate but this is off topic and if I respond I get in trouble even though nobody ever gets in trouble for going off topic.

          Reply
  8. This was a good article, though far too long and taking on a few too many targets en passant (exegetical, historical, philosophical) that deserve, indeed cry out for separate treatment that not many Protestant theologians today show competence or interest in handling.
    In the first instance, it offers a good restatement of natural law theology, something Protestants used to know better but have become ignorant and suspicious of (perhaps this is a downside of Barth’s poor exegesis of Romans 1). The best exponent of natural law I have read in recent years is the Anerican philosopher J. Budzsizweski, who grew up a Baptist, became an atheist and then returned to faith as an Episcopalian – only to become a Roman Catholic a few years ago. I sometimes wonder if evangelicals fear that taking natural law seriously means they will end up becoming Catholic! Proponents of same-sex relationships do find natural law a rock of offence and try to bypass it. Does Steven Croft know anything about natural law thinking?
    In the second instance, the article recognises that Robert Gagnon has decisively shown that the Bible from Genesis to Revelation (an historical period covering perhaps 2000 years and nuerous civilisations) is uniformly negative about same-sex sex. Is there any evidence in Strven Croft’s book that he has engaged with and refuted Gagnon?
    The discussion of the “truth of the body” and the triumph of the will put me in mind of John Paul II said in his “Theology of the Body”, and Carl Trueman in his recent book on how “the transgender moment” came upon us. It is certainly the case that modern secular humanism is a religion in its own right, albeit one that guises itself as a non-religion. What Croft fails to see is that embracing homosexuality as a Christian option meqns not the liberation of the Church from false consciousness but actually its destruction by sin.
    This is why Steven Croft should repent of his false teaching or resign.

    Reply
    • James – well, you start by stating that the article is good – and then go on to trash the heart and guts of the article. I read the first few sections – and found them extremely useful, the theological train of thought from the early fathers, the key ideas which influenced reformation thinking – which aspects were of prime importance in shaping the Anglican approach. He used some boxes such as ‘fundamentalist’ which I would have considered ‘straw man’ if I hadn’t seen posters such as Phil Almond and Philip Benjamin posting here.

      I didn’t read the article through to the end, since I find the whole SSM business quite depressing and, since nobody has been able to give a serious explanation of how a playboy Prince and divorcee were able to have a C. of E. church wedding, I feel that the C. of E. doctrine of marriage is non existent or, at the very least, a total joke in any case.

      I have no idea what a ‘radical Barthian’ is supposed to be – his work tends to be way above my IQ so I don’t imagine many people understand him – let alone sufficiently well to be radical about it. Although I have one acquaintance who studied with Barth – and I don’t imagine you can get more radical about it than that.

      But on the ‘natural law’, Barth was probably right. Possibly the main reason he exploded at Brunner’s ‘On Grace and Nature’ with his ‘No!’ was the way that the principles of natural theology had been used to create a theology whereby the German church seemed much more sympathetic towards Hitler than it should have been (and Brunner’s work and Barth’s response was at approximately the time of the Barmen declaration). We can see the same thing today where the Russian church has not been negative about Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine – much of it stems from natural law and how these people perceive the divine order (in the same way as Olof Rudbeck did). As far as I can see, ‘natural law’ could quite easily be turned to something that is supportive of same sex carnal activities, depending on whom you are talking to.

      Reply
      • Jock, if you read my comment carefully, you will see that I do not “trash” Penduck’s article, far from it, I find lots of good material in it – although I also think he has made some gratuitous swipes at first rate evangelical scholars that he should withdraw, he falls into the trap of glamourising gay relationships (Welby does this as well) and he mades confusing comments about ‘friendship’ that he should revise.
        Penduck makes a very useful comment on the apostolic church’s rejection of same-sex relationships which were very common in educated circles in the Helenistic world and were beginning to be valorised to some extent in Italy in the first century BC. It is wearisome to read that “Paul knew nothing of same-sex relationships that were not exploitative etc” – people who write thet stuff don’t know first century classical literature.
        I don’t think you have accurately depicted how natural law thinking works, but I should have said that natural theology (rather than law) was Barth’s target – and I think he was wrong on that. Whethr this has much relevance to Russia and Ukraine I can’t say.
        What Penduck has rightly observed is that our bodies have a structure and teleology towards their proper health and flourishing – which is basically what natural law says.
        Homosexual acts are by definition “kata phusin” because they misuse and potentially harm the body and violate the created order. Human beings are not hermaphrodites as Ron Smith, an Anglican priest in Peter Carrell’s diocese of Christchurch NZ, apparently believes. (His understanding of the text on “eunuchs from birth etc” is also bizarre and heretical, but he has been repeating it for years so it has now become his own “personal truth”.)
        For the record, let me also say that certain sexual acts between men and women can also be “kata phusin” and degrading.
        Like you, I find the subject depressing, but doubly so because it is now being actively promoted in British schools through Stonewall’s propaganda. Visit any British secondary school and you will see posters extolling homosexuality and even transgenderism- in the name of “diversity” – but nothing about the Gospel and Jesus Christ. Penduck is right to observe this.
        And that is why Steven Croft should either repent or resign.

        Reply
        • James – thanks for this. I haven’t read so much about this, but I did read Brunner’s On Grace and Nature – and Barth’s response to it. It wasn’t until much later, when I read Torrance’s book about Barth (Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian) that I saw the connection between Natural Theology and the support of (or rather lack-of-opposition to) Adolf Hitler and the German church; at some point in that book Torrance points out that this (from Barth’s point of view) made Brunner’s embrace of Natural Theology and, particularly the timing of it (early 1930’s) much worse.

          I’m not a Barthian – I don’t understand most of it and disagree with much of it that I think I do understand, but I was inclined to agree with him on Natural Theology.

          Thankfully, our son’s schooling isn’t in the UK – so we don’t have those problems to think about (or at least not yet).

          Reply
      • Hi James

        I fear it is you who are ignorant of first-century views on same-sex sexuality. This can be remedied by reading Professor Helen King on Pausanius and Agathon. It’s availabel online if you google it.

        Your reading of natural theology is also woefully thin and you accuse Fr Ron of something he has never argues – hermaphroditism or cmapaigning for hermaphroditiosn. It is my sincere hope that you do not really understand this term, for if you di, you would see how inapt, and indeed offensice, it is.

        I might add that if you are presuming to judge which sexual acts go beyond nature for mixed-sex couples you are going a long way beyond the Bible.

        Reply
        • Penelope, I have been an Anglican priest for most of my life, I have a published PhD in biblical theology (specialising in Hebrew) and I taught theology and Classics for several years.
          But clearly you understand the Classical world and classical languages far better than I do, so I thank you deeply. If only queer theory had been around all those years ago, I could have skipped all that Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, philosophy and historical theology and gone directly to the Pierian spring …

          Reply
          • James

            Yes, I am always surprised that you are a priest.

            But, I wasn’t of course, suggesting that you took ‘my word’ for it. I was recommending an article by a Professor Emerita of Classiscs which takes an entirely different view on 1st century sexuality from yours.

            I often read hermeneutics I disagree with – even from queer theorists and theologians – it helps shape one’s understanding. Even after one has studied for a PhD!

    • Well I think you’re right, and the explanation is a phenomenon we’ve seen right across society: the insidious nature and spread of cultural Marxism. By now you’d have to be a hermit not to have noticed how this satanic ideology has infiltrated every part of society with neither violence nor announcement of its arrival or intention. Suddenly it’s ubiquitous; except that we know it’s really been a ‘long slow march through the institutions’ – including the Church of England. It seems not so much to be proselytised or promoted so much as caught – a bit like a virus! A striking characteristic is its subtle manipulation of language: if you can get people to start using the language unawares, they’re already vulnerable to capture without even realising it.

      But you know all this already, Anton. I only mention it (yet again!) because it’s still noticeable that there are Christians who have yet to grasp what’s happening – or should I say happened.

      Reply
  9. I really enjoyed this excellent article, but for me it raised the question of whether we can in fact divide off the body from the will in this way. Granted the will is indeed corrupt, the body does not act in a vacuum. Jesus and Paul and James all teach that bodily functions and actions respond to the will of our fallen selves. So that puzzles me.

    Reply
    • By far the most important sex organ is the brain; it’s involved both as the body’s control centre and also as the organ through which the mind, human soul and spirit is expressed. Do I understand it? Absolutely not! But the brain obviously must be the place where desire, fantasy, action, enjoyment and the relevant nerve messages are orchestrated. So when it comes to sex, mind and body are joint players in the process.

      It’s God’s invention so we should rejoice in it rather than get in a state over it, but it sure is a mighty powerful element in the human experience. The Christian’s hope should/will be that he or she will be able to handle it as God intends but, as in everything else, if it can be used to lead us astray or destroy us, the Devil won’t miss the chance to help that to happen. When we say ‘as God intends’ we’re opening up the whole world of male / female difference, complementarity, aspiration, family life and procreation; love and marriage. For me the key to all this is whether or not we are prepared to respect where God has set the boundaries within which the whole thing is designed to work. That’s where the battle of the will is fought.

      I think it’s reasonable to say that we all have our own unique mix of good or bad fortune in what life offers us in terms of our sexual desires and life circumstances. Life isn’t fair but the Christian witness must always be that in obedience to what God has ordained we express our love for him most profoundly; and that thrills his heart and so should thrill ours too.

      Reply
      • ‘The Christian’s hope should/will be that he or she will be able to handle it as God intends ‘

        except that Paul plainly says if you ‘burn’ (with sexual desire/passion) then you need to get married (to avoid sinning). Gay people, for example, dont have that option.

        Reply
        • except that Paul plainly says if you ‘burn’ (with sexual desire/passion) then you need to get married (to avoid sinning).

          No, he says if you burn with passion you should control yourself. And only get married as an absolute last resort if you are completely unable to control yourself. But it would be better to control yourself.

          Reply
        • “…except that Paul plainly says if you ‘burn’ (with sexual desire/passion) then you need to get married (to avoid sinning). Gay people, for example, dont have that option.”

          And the C of E enthusiastically joined the campaign which has now removed the right of people with same sex attraction to seek such therapy as they might hope would help them sort out that problem or at least handle it better. While I make no comment in affirmation of any therapy that might harm people, I view the prohibition of the individual’s right to choose for him/herself as an indefensible abuse. If therapy were only helpful for a percentage of people in the low single figures, what kind of attitude would lead people to deny them that opportunity?

          I think we should also avoid an implied assumption that the 2% approximately of people who are gay are the unique sufferers of pain through not being able to marry. Firstly there’s no prohibition on deep and lasting friendship, although I agree that doesn’t include the unique fulfilment of sexual intimacy.
          But, more generally, I should say there’s a significant proportion of people, who are seldom mentioned in this context, who are denied marriage or a satisfying sexual relationship within it. What about disabled people, physically unattractive people, painfully shy people, widows, widowers, the elderly, simply unlucky people, and all those who live alone for all manner of reasons? I get that this point isn’t going to offer much comfort if you’re one of the frustrated 2%, but at least it places a bit more context in which to handle a disappointment about how you wish things could be; it’s something which is shared far more widely and for a much broader spectrum of reasons than same sex attraction alone. You are very far from being alone.

          And then for the Christian there’s that ‘crown of life’. How much intimacy and good sex for now outweighs the prospect of an eternal life with our God who invented intimacy and sex, yet offers something far more amazing to come for those who remain faithful to him? Is this not what our bishops should be shouting from the rooftops?

          Reply
          • I accept your point, though I wonder how many straight Christian men in their 20s or 30s if they were told sorry folks, but youre to remain single for the rest of your life with not even one close sexual relationship, would have remained Christian into their 40s, 50s and 60s. So no wife/husband and no children. I suspect very few. I think most of the commentators here should ask themselves that.

          • I suspect very few. I think most of the commentators here should ask themselves that.

            I’m sorry, did someone suggest being a Christian would be easy?

          • The notion of interpretation enters only when a text is difficult to understand. Nobody has difficulty comprehending “Do not commit murder” for instance.

          • Anton

            They seem to with do not commit adultery, though.
            And, since there are no texts on ‘honosexuality’, we are left with hermeneutics.

          • Of coure there are texts on homosexuality. God calls man lying with man as with woman toevah. At the cross God changed how he dealt with sin but do you believe he changed his opinion?

            This is the written law code of Moses which Jesus Christ explicitly endorsed. Was he wrong? Or did the gospel writers record his swords wrong? If that, why should we trust them about anything else Jesus said or did? I welcome whatever you wish to say in response but pleaes include clear responses to the binary questions I have asked.

          • Of coure there are texts on homosexuality. God calls man lying with man as with woman toevah.

            Penelope Cowell Doe is now going to claim, bizarrely, that that isn’t about homosexuality because the word ‘homosexuality’ hadn’t been invented at the time it was written.

            I know that makes no sense but it is what is going to happen.

          • Anton

            One particular act was declared abominable.
            Lots of things in Levitical law were declared abominable, that we would not find so today.
            How does this very specific proscription map onto sexual relationships today?
            What does it have to say about lesbianism?
            Why might Israelites and Judahites have found anal sex (if that is what is abominable) problematic?
            Might this be a polemic against neighbouring peoples?
            Do Christians observe the whole of the Mosaic law?
            Do all Jews observe the whole of the Mosaic law?
            Does Christ overturn the Mosaic law?
            Yes. And no.
            Was marriage in Ancient Western Asia anything like marriage today?

          • Penelope Cowell Doe is now going to claim, bizarrely, that that isn’t about homosexuality because the word ‘homosexuality’ hadn’t been invented at the time it was written.

            Called it.

          • Anton

            I answered them. Anal sex (between males) is an abomination.
            This has nothing to say about male, and especially female, homosexuality.
            Jesus abrogated some of the Mosaic laws, and not others.
            The Mosaic laws have never been binding on Gentiles. See Acts 15.

            The Bible says as much about homosexuality as it does about the internal combustion engine.

          • When somebody writes that “Anal sex (between males) is an abomination. This has nothing to say about male… homosexuality” I am happy to leave it to readers to decide for themselves whether this statement is true or not.

  10. Joshua presents a good case for traditional marriage. Unfortunately the fine print is not so welcome. If I read him correctly he will allow the same-sex marriage couple to be members of the church. He will relabel their relationship aa ‘quasi-marriage’ or a ‘friendship’. I’m not sure whether he forbids sexual activity or simply accepts it as unfortunate. In a sense it is irrelevant. It is not simply sexual activity that makes the same-sex relationship wrong. It is wrong because of the love on which it is based. The love is a forbidden love.

    It is impossible to affirm the relationship at any level as God -approved. Moreover, pastorally to approve same sex platonic relationships is crazy. It is akin to inviting an alcoholic to live in a brewery.

    Further, we cannot assume that people who act in heroic ways (Luther-KIng or Mandela) are Christians if there are glaring examples of sin in their lives without evidence of repentance.

    Then again, I am that fundamentalist who looks at a more detailed picture than creation-fall-redemption. I want to see how this plays out in the whole of Scripture so. yes, individual texts will inform my belief. Joshua is clearly very able but I fear his conclusions in some areas are wide off the mark when it comes to dealing with pastoral irregularities.

    Reply
    • “…allow the same-sex marriage couple to be members of the church.” This is an interesting point. Perhaps the first thing to say is that not all churches have a formal membership structure. One can be on the electoral role of a CofE parish simply by being resident within the parish. Everyone who can vote in local elections can vote for church wardens. In general there are three or four levels of association with a church:
      1) attending church services and events
      2) formal membership, where that exists
      3) a public role within the church, such as leading a small group
      4) an (externally) authorized role such as ordained ministry
      For many churches which are opposed to SSM actually put the bar at (3) rather than (2), and have received condemnation as ‘bigoted’ from SSM’s supporters.

      The more general question is how one deals with people in the church who are living sinful lives. This is not a new problem. How do we treat a man and woman living together, perhaps with children, who are not married? This should not be an unfamiliar problem in our modern world. How do we treat a converted muslim who has two wives? How do we treat a man and woman who are married, but it emerges that the man committed adultery with the woman and married her after the divorce from his first wife? Do we welcome into our churches those who work in the shiny temples to Mammon in the City of London?

      Real life is complicated. We all fall short. We all come to the church in need of forgiveness and sanctification. This is why I think the “pentiential prayers” in a service are important. The whole congregation comes together in confession. As we do so, we are prompted to see the ways in which we have “followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts”, etc.

      To quote from the introduction to Morning Prayer from the BCP:

      “And although we ought at all times humbly to acknowledge our sins before God; yet ought we most chiefly so to do, when we meet together…
      Wherefore, I pray and beseech you, as many as are here present, to accompany me with a pure heart and a humble voice, unto the throne of the heavenly grace, saying …”

      Reply
      • David

        Many thanks for this. You have not only ‘raised the bar’ concerning
        those who allow for the possibility of permitting SSM couples church membership while at the same time ostensibly maintaining a biblical stance on human sexuality. Moreover, the remainder of your contribution highlights not only the acute practical difficulties facing both orthodox and revisionist in these matters, it reminds all of us of our own spiritual condition and our standing before God. The issues here are not merely biblical and disciplinary; they are acutely pastoral.”For all have sinned and (continue to) fall short of the glory of God.”

        Reply
      • “The more general question is how one deals with people in the church who are living sinful lives. “

        It is not, I think, possible for a Priest in Charge of a CofE church to exclude anyone from Communion without appeal to the bishop. It is possible, for example, to ask a person who takes an upfront role such as reading in church, or singing in a church choir, to stand back from those activities for a while.

        Reply
  11. “Sex is structurally designed by God for male and female. To put it crudely: the body tells the truth; the Will lies. If the body tells the truth, it is good, for a deceptive body would not be good. In that the body is good, we can see God’s good intentions for human sexuality through this basic fact.” – Ian Paul
    And yet: “In Christ, there is neither male nor female” – Saint Paul

    Now who is right: Paul or +Paul? In the distinction he wants to make not ‘en Christo’? Is the working out of our human sexuality outside of the Kingdom of God? Jesus talks about eunuchs more than he talks about married couples. They, too, are ‘fully human’ and some of them “born from their mother’s womb” (Matthew 19:12) were obviously unable to produce children. The question is: did they have a gift of sexual expression, or not?

    Yes, some eunuchs renounced their capacity for sexual expression “For the sake of the Kingdom of God” – like Jesus; celibate clergy, monks and nuns. It would seem though, that not many evangelical Anglican Clergy in the C. of E. are/were prepared to sacrifice their sexual activity “For the Sake of The Kingdom”. And yet they still judge others for their natural sexual expression.

    According to Matthew’s Jesus, the intentional self-denial of sexual expression of any kind; when denied “for the sake of the Kingdom”, was for those so devoted to God that they were prepared to deny themselves sexual pleasure – even for the purpose of procreation!
    Quite a few ‘Catholics’ and ‘Anglo-Catholics’ are prepared for this self-sacrifice for the ‘Sake of the kingdom; but how many Evangelical theologians are willing to do the same?

    Reply
    • “Sex is structurally designed by God for male and female. To put it crudely: the body tells the truth; the Will lies. If the body tells the truth, it is good, for a deceptive body would not be good. In that the body is good, we can see God’s good intentions for human sexuality through this basic fact.” – Ian Paul

      Actually Joshua Penduck.

      And yet: “In Christ, there is neither male nor female” – Saint Paul

      Yes, ‘in Christ’. Not biologically. Biologically there most certainly is male and female.

      Is the working out of our human sexuality outside of the Kingdom of God?

      Well, yes, duh, of course. In the Kingdom we will be like the angels and not marry. So in the Kingdom we will not have sexuality. So yes the working out of our sexuality is outside the Kingdom. Sexuality is strictly an ephemeral Earth thing and will pass away with the Earth.

      And yet they still judge others for their natural sexual expression.

      Natural, or the product of a will corrupted by the Fall? That’s the very point at issue. To claim all sexual expression is ‘natural’ is begging the question.

      Reply
      • Dear ‘S’;

        At least you do admit that procreation is ‘outside’ of ‘The Kingdom’ for which intentional celibates – not heterosexual Evangelicals – are striving. Should you not be ashamed of yourselves for indulging your sexual nature which – you insist – is outside of God’s Kingdom?

        I’m afraid your splitting of the ‘present’ from the future could be in question here.

        Reply
          • Please find the reference. As I recall he said that people would combine (NOT ‘have sex’) in different ways than here.

          • Well, there’s a certain assumption here that no marriage in the new creation means no sex. I have often observed that because procreation won’t be necessary this doesn’t mean that sex is unnecessary.

          • Well, there’s a certain assumption here that no marriage in the new creation means no sex

            This obviously follows from:

            1. all sex outside marriage is sinful

            2. no marriage in the new creation

            3. no sex in the new creation.

            So if you think there will be sex in the new creation, you must think one of those three is false. Which? You think there will be sin in the new creation?

          • Penelope

            No marriage means no sex in new creation for the only context where sex is valid in the old creation is within marriage. We have no reason to believe that new creation annuls this rule.

            However, the thinking that sees sex as freed from the constraints of marriage in the new creation is just the kind of thinking which shows how far you are from godly thinking. What you perhaps see as creative clever out of the box thinking is an example of profane thinking that cannot rise above the sensual.

          • John

            Did I write that there will be sex in the new creation?
            No. I thought not.
            However, I am interested in hermeneutical potentialities. So it is interesting to interrogate, apropos an earlier post of Ian’s, what does scripture mean by being like the angels? According to some accounts, angels are a randy bunch (cf. Paul’s advice to the Corinthian women prophets). So, being like the angels doesn’t necessarily entail an etiolated ascetic existence.
            As for sensuality, God created that when they gave Adam and Eve erogenous zones.
            And don’t presume to know what Godly thinking is.

          • Its the duty of Christian’s to discern what is godly thinking. There are ways of speaking and thinking that are inappropriate for Christians, even allowing for ‘freedom’. Don’t you see that language like ‘angels are a randy bunch” even if it expressed a biblical truth (which it doesn’t) is simply not appropriate language. There is a casual coarseness/flippancy about it that doesn’t not commend the gospel.

            There is an appropriate sensuality but there is an inappropriate sensuality that marks the false teachers in Jude. The problem is TV has inured us to any sensitivity in this area. Most adverts are an overt appeal to sensuality – cars, perfume etc. We need a life with minimum exposure to media to regain proportion.

          • Did I write that there will be sex in the new creation?

            You wrote: ‘Well, there’s a certain assumption here that no marriage in the new creation means no sex.’

            Which is true but if you were merely observing that then saying so would be totally redundant, as we can all see that.

            By Grice’s conversational maxim of relevance, you wouldn’t have written something totally redundant. So you must have been meaning to imply something other than just making the observation.

            The obvious inference, backed up by your use of the phrase ‘a certain assumption’, is that you were drawing attention to the assumption in order to imply that it was a mistaken assumption.

            If you are trying to say, by implication, that the assumption ‘no marriage in the new creation means no sex’ is a mistaken assumption, then you are claiming that ‘no marriage in the new creation’ does not mean ‘no sex’.

            So yes, you did write that there will be sex in the new creation.

            See what I mean about having to nail down everything precisely? Otherwise Penelope Cowell Doe will do things like imply there will be sex in the new creation, then when picked up on it, try to wriggle out by writing ‘but I never said those exact words, did I?’.

            Always, always, when interacting with Penelope Cowell Doe, be totally precise and leave no room for ambiguity, because it will be exploited. And always make Penelope Cowell Doe specify the meaning of terms precisely too, otherwise deliberate ambiguity will be left and used later, as in this case.

            It’s tiresome yes I know but it’s necessary.

          • Penelope

            I said nothing about whether there would be sex in the New Jerusalem. I have no interest in discussing that. I was saying (from memory) that CS Lewis simply said people would combine there in different ways. I do not recall that he mentioned sex either. Perhaps it is in his chapter on the Trinity.

          • John

            We’ll, John, I am sorry to horrify you, but the writers of Genesis, St Paul, and the Plymouth Brethren seemed to think angels (some angels?) are a randy bunch. So, I’m in good company 🙂

        • I’m afraid your splitting of the ‘present’ from the future could be in question here.

          I’m afraid your getting confused between the transcendent and the immanent (not imminent) may be at fault here.

          Reply
    • “And yet: “In Christ, there is neither male nor female” – Saint Paul”

      Come on Ron! Does context actually mean nothing to you?

      (not to mention, though I will, your continual sniping at Ian Paul. It just comes across to me as petty and a tad nasty. Give it a break.)

      Reply
    • Fr Ron, is your proposal that in the marriage bed there is no male and female?

      This is the superior Christian way of looking at things?

      Not very appetising.

      Reply
  12. Susannah

    I trust the future will bring God’s blessing especially in the form of a return to those evangelical roots you once had. Life is short and is followed by judgement. Let’s strive to be accepted on the day of judgement.

    Reply
  13. Andrew, What exactly did happen to the ‘Shakers’? I have heard that, contrary to the rumour that they *didn’t – well you know what*, they got involved in *condiments*. They found a new way to become the salt of the earth!

    Reply
    • I think there is now only two of them left. They did not believe in marriage and held to celibacy so the end result is extinction, although I believe they did do a good line in furniture

      Reply
      • “They did not believe in marriage and held to celibacy so the end result is extinction, “

        And, according to S (above), this is what St Paul commanded. Apparently St Paul said that ‘if you burn with passion you should control yourself. And only get married as an absolute last resort if you are completely unable to control yourself. But it would be better to control yourself.’

        Reply
        • Yes, Andrew. It does seem as if this is one of (Saint) Paul’s instruction that CON/EVO bloggers are keen to ignore. The ‘passion’ St. Paul wrote about was quite probably something the Apostle himself had problems with (his ‘thorn in the FLESH’?). Is this why he didn’t marry? Or was Paul intrinsically gay?

          Reply
  14. David

    Many thanks for this. You have not only ‘raised the bar’ concerning
    those who allow for the possibility of permitting SSM couples church membership while at the same time ostensibly maintaining a biblical stance on human sexuality. Moreover, the remainder of your contribution highlights not only the acute practical difficulties facing both orthodox and revisionist in these matters, it reminds all of us of our own spiritual condition and our standing before God. The issues here are not merely biblical and disciplinary; they are acutely pastoral.”For all have sinned and (continue to) fall short of the glory of God.”

    Reply
  15. What’s missing from the argument for same-sex marriage is any rationale behind extending marriage’s time-immemorial contingency for joint primary parenthood of jointly produced biological offspring to a type of relationship that is, by its very constitution, incapable of producing biological offspring.

    Oh, and the infertility of specific couples differs from constitutive incapacity of certain types of relationship.

    The WHO describes infertility as “ “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.”

    https://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/articles/reflections-on-the-public-purpose-of-marriage/

    Reply
  16. A few points.

    Joshua refers to the teaching of the early (post-apostolic) church which he notes did not embrace same sex marriage, it is also noteworthy that it did not embrace divorce and remarriage, Divorce and remarriage widespread in the church is a recent phenomenon.

    The impulse to celibacy in the church has an eschatological basis. Celibacy as a calling is eschatologically consistent and desirable.

    I don’t think I have fully understood Joshua’s point about the body. The body he says is ‘structurally good’. Yet Paul speaks of ‘the body of sin’ and we are exhorted ‘let not sin reign in your mortal body to obey its passions… do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness’ (Roms 6). The body is dead cause of sin (Roms 8) seems to locate sin not only in the will but in the body. But I may be misunderstanding Joshua here.

    I think the biblical narrative of creatin-fall-redemption must be finely tuned by the way the Bible employs this narrative and unpacks it throughout the whole of Scripture. It seems to me to do so in ways that are at odds with some of Joshua’s conclusions.

    Reply
    • Mornin’ John,
      I think he is referring to the ‘structure’ of the body as being good like the earth is good. That is, the earth is not like Venus or Mars – totally uninhabitable. The earth is a stable platform that supports life. Likewise the human body is structurally a sound platform to hold the spirit of man — good or bad.

      On another subject,
      All through history the church of England has broadly represented the will of the English people.
      A hundred years ago the church was blessing conscripts to fight and die for Blighty. C.S. Lewis was proud of his contribution as a soldier. He was a man of his time. Today, without such existential threats society has time to fight for finer and finer injustices so that .02% of the population with a sense of injustice can motivate church leadership to swing behind them.
      I get the feeling that the church has not got more corrupt, it has just changed with the times. The establishment and its ‘church’ will always be making noises that it thinks its base want to hear.
      Perhaps it was ever thus, the body/church may be structurally necessary but its life may ebb and flow. One crisis avoided followed by a new set of activirists, theopathogens to disrupt the internal workings.

      Reply
      • Steve

        Yes, I think you’re right. He is simply saying that matter is not evil. Yet I do think he needs to grapple with the nuances of the verses I cited.

        I agree the church just adapts with the times but much of tht adaption is not good for it is simply following the world. I think the age is significantly more corrupt than it was. The iniquity of the Amorites is reaching its Zenith and to embrace this makes the church more corrupt than ever before. It is embracing the unthinkable.

        But God’s church is never the institutions and it will survive.

        Reply
      • “Likewise the human body is structurally a sound platform to hold the spirit of man — good or bad.”

        This kind of thought might be at odds with the Biblical view of nature of humankind as being a unity of spirit and body. The body is not a container, it is an integral part of who we are. There are lots of theological issues here, such as the nature of the incarnation (the becoming-flesh) and resurrection (bodily) and eschatology.

        Reply
        • It depends on what you believe the ‘Biblical’ view is. When a Gospel says ‘Jesus died and gave up his spirit’ or words to that effect, what does that say for Biblical views? Or the commonly held Jewish belief that the ‘spirit’ stayed near the dead person’s physical body for 4 days before ‘departing’. This would explain why Jesus left it for 4 days before raising Lazarus.

          One could easily conclude from just these 2 examples that the physical body does act as some sort of container for the spirit, which leaves said physical body upon death.

          Peter

          Reply
          • One could easily conclude from just these 2 examples that the physical body does act as some sort of container for the spirit, which leaves said physical body upon death.

            My personal theory is that the spirit is to the body as the blueprint is to the building; so the body ‘embodies’, rather than ‘contains’, the spirit. The body ceases to hold the form of the spirit when it ceases to be alive, because the spirit is the form of a living thing, so at that point the spirit is ‘given up’.

            But then I’m a Thomist on these matters.

  17. I have found the posts by Penelope Cowell Doe here (and also Andrew Godsall on previous threads) very useful for understanding what the pro-SSM people actually want. In order to clarify, it might be useful to trawl through these, pull out the main points and present them clearly (using precisely the wording of the pro-SSM people so that they cannot claim that they are being misrepresented).

    We have it quite clearly on this thread – some `logical’ conclusions were drawn by the anti-SSM side, which we all thought were hypothetical-conditional and a mis-representation of the pro-SSM side, but then PCD came along and confirmed that it wasn’t a misrepresentation at all.

    Reply
      • Christopher – well, of course we can probably be pretty sure of the opposite – those who comment below the line here don’t seem to be a random sample by any stretch of the imagination. It would be interesting, though, to gather these comments (e.g. the views expressed by PCD on polygamy – within the context of SSM), put them together (as sympathetically as possible – just make sure that the material content is there) and see if they get either silence or general approval from the pro-SSM people, or if the SSM supporters throw up their hands in horror.

        I note with very great interest that there wasn’t a deluge of comments by pro-SSM people telling us that the conclusions that you and James had reached were utter rubbish. I think this is very telling.

        Reply
        • Hi Jock

          Ah, I see your mistake now. You thought my interrogation of Christopher’s and James’s natural law arguments for procreation a recommendation of polygamy.
          I hold no brief for polygamy, I was simply pointing out to them that if sex is for reproduction, as they both argue from ‘nature’, then the most efficient way of being fruitful and multiplying is through polygamy (1 man, many women) than through exclusive twosomes.
          I don’t believe that procreation is the chief good of marriage, although it is ‘a’ good.

          Reply
          • I might add that James argued that since same-sex couples cannot sexually reproduce there is no reason why there partnerships should be limited to couples, since couples are the ‘ideal’ unit for procreation.
            I find this reasoning (to which Christopher also subscribes) absurd, since the mechanics of human sexual reproduction would make polygyny far more efficient. And thus it would be more ‘natural’ for polygyny to exist than monogamy.

            You do understand that when I write ‘efficient’ or ‘natural’ I do not mean more moral or ethical?

          • You do understand that when I write ‘efficient’ or ‘natural’ I do not mean more moral or ethical?

            So something being natural doesn’t mean it’s moral?

            I assume you will never not argue that same-sex relationships are moral because they are natural for the people involved, then?

            Because if something being natural doesn’t make it moral then that argument is invalid.

            So I suggest everybody bookmark this comment and link to it if you ever see Penelope Cowell Doe argue that the fact same-sex sexual relationships are natural means that they are morally okay.

          • It is not clear that polygamy is more efficient, at least because there are approximately the same number of women as men. The rate of reproduction is limited by the number of women.

            Voices as varied as Desmond Morris and Jonathan Sachs observe that the human infant is utterly dependent for a long time compared with other species. Since the burden of care falls on the mother – who is literally equipped to care for the infant – this also makes the mother vulnerable and in need of support. The ‘most efficient’ way of providing that support is for it to come from a man, and the father has a vested interest in the survival of the infant. Polygamy dilutes the help that the father can give.

            It seems to me that polygamy, therefore, arises partly as a status symbol: “I am a man with the resources to support more than one woman.” Kings and other very rich men have lots and lots of wives and concubines.

            When one considers the privileges and responsibilities associated with marriage in its societal, and later civic, nature, it seems to me that these are all oriented on maintaining the commitment of the father to the mother of his children, for the benefit of the latter, while ensuring that the children of his wife whom he is supporting and who bear his name are his.

            The goods of marriage in the BCP Solemnization of Marriage (not blessing) are, in order:

            1) Children
            2) a remedy for sin
            3) companionship (“mutual society, help and comfort”).

            Penny, you seem to discount (1). From previous comments, I’m not sure that you consider sexual activity outside of marriage a sin. So, presumably (2) is not on your list.

            It seems to me that (3) alone is no reason for the institution of marriage. That in a marriage for (1) and (2) one finds (3) is a definite plus. But why is there a need for an institution to have the goods of companionship?

            Perhaps you could elaborate on the goods of marriage which you see and why marriage is the only way of obtaining these goods.

          • Hi David

            Good points about polygamy.
            I do know that marriage is solemnised in church by asking for God’s blessing.
            CW reorders BCP’s goods so that the delight and tenderness of sexual union becomes the first good. Followed by family (and children).
            These are, I believe the goods of marriage:
            Sexual intimacy
            Nurturing family/being generative
            Companionship and care.

          • These are, I believe the goods of marriage:
            Sexual intimacy
            Nurturing family/being generative
            Companionship and care.

            So you disagree with Jesus, then, as nowhere on that list do I see the reason He gave for marriage.

    • Hi Jock

      I cannot claim that my views on SSM represent any ‘side’. I have no idea what you mean by hypothetical- conditional, but, for clarity,

      I believe that same-sex couples who wish to, and who qualify, should be able to marry in their parish churches.
      I believe that same-sex couples who are civilly married, are married, and that they should be able to have their partnerships blessed in their churches.
      I believe that same-sex couples who do not wish to embrace marriage because they see it as a patriarchal and/or cisheteronormative institution, should be free to not marry.

      Reply
      • I believe that same-sex couples who do not wish to embrace marriage because they see it as a patriarchal and/or cisheteronormative institution, should be free to not marry.

        And would you agree that any sexual activity by such a couple would be sinful, same as any sexual activity by any opposite-sex couple who are not married would be sinful?

        Reply
          • 1 How can you be certain you are a Christian?
            2 Certainly, queer theory emnantes from and remains outside of Christianity. It seeks social strategy and engineering, outside of Christianity, a branch outside of the Vine.

          • How can you be certain you are a Christian?

            That’s too vague a question. People use the phrase ‘to be a Christian’ to mean many different things (be a member of a church; intellectually believe the doctrines of Christianity; be saved; follow Jesus as Lord; etc etc etc). So asking it in that way gives ample scope either for accidental misunderstanding, or for someone to evade the question you meant to ask and answer a different one instead.

            You should ask precisely what you mean instead.

          • The options within usage (usage of course can be dodgy):
            (1) a Christian existentially – an actual transaction has taken place between God and a given human being, with the result that the said human being is now incorporated ‘in Christ’, organically connected with the divine. (Transactions may involve either turning aside from a wrong path or eagerness to continue a path that has always been known to one.);
            (2) a follower/admirer of Christ;
            (3) one who thinks that philosophy is true (or that way of life works) where others fall short;
            (4) one who professes or admits that label for themselves;
            (5) one who inhabits a Christian family;
            (6) one who inhabits a Christian or historically Christian culture.

            Max Turner has done some excellent work on this.

          • In your view Geoff. Other queer theologians would disagree with you.
            Amazing isn’t it. People have different views on what being grafted in means.

          • S,
            I asked the question, as I was interested in a response, to what PCD thinks a Christian is? How she qualifies? Is it the same as * culturally CoE* whatever that means? Is it a class/ intellectual/ social cultural identity?
            It was an open question. From wha evidence is there to support that claim, and what is its source?

          • I asked the question, as I was interested in a response, to what PCD thinks a Christian is? How she qualifies?

            Okay but those are two totally different questions, and it’s possible to answer one while being unclear on the other, and with Penelope Cowell Doe you really do have to nail down precisely what you mean by every question as any ambiguity or opportunity for equivocation or evasion will be firmly grasped and exploited to the full.

          • Wrong. It is not merely a matter of personal opinion, but analysis of the roots and development of the movement. It is a question of truth.
            There is a huge difference to being grafted into Christ, and cut off and burned in the fire, let alone, being outside of him.
            There are also dire warnings to false teachers, which, of course, none of the
            late-modern -post- modern revisionists pay any heed; they disbelieve.

  18. There are no theological matters at stake. This was never driven by a theological matter of doctrine.
    Hard cases make bad law; exceptions prove the rule.

    Reply
  19. I think the word cisheteronormative is cool.

    To think – all us who just thought males and females made babies. Oh we of little sophistication.

    Reply
    • Not as cool as my, reverse baseball cap, bright pink Polaroids, Hawaiian shirt and Bermudan shorts, black mid calf length socks and red Doc Martin’s, that I don’t have, Christopher.
      It is by far cooler than sophistry, laid bare.

      Reply
    • What is this ‘blessing’ all about? How does ‘blessing’ work? Is Brian Blessed? does someone weigh more after a ‘blessing’. I’m not Anglican, just curious.

      Reply
        • It just seems to be the thing that is being fought over here. The need to be blessed by the authority of the CxE. If people saw no need for it, it would stop being a commodity. Could being blessed be juxtaposed with non blessed relationships to reveal a pattern? Then perhaps even chiz ppl could just get a registry office wedding for the purposes of insurance etc then attend church on Sunday, or even a Christian house group, go to the front and announce their marriage and sit down. Bingo. Witnessed. Done in the sight of God. Too many ppl feel the need to spend thousands to feel legit. The reason many fail to marry at all is due to finance and the erroneous belief in priest craft. The fight for recognition of SSM is a fight for the belief that some magic power resides in ‘blessing’. Hey, what if Daniel Defoe had written Robinson Crusoe Meets Girl Friday. Would they have abstained until they got back to London for a Church wedding? Would they not be married in the sight of God as their witness?

          Reply
      • It is cool in the sense that
        -it is the perfect coinage for a comic skit,
        -it shows the degree of knottiness that people inevitably tie themselves in when they are working with the wrong theory.

        Reply
      • Anyway you again reproduce what I said inaccurately. I said I thought the word was cool (in the sense that it is a prodigy, nay a monstrosity) and you inaccurately render that as my thinking the reality is cool. No doubt it may be if I could begin to get my head round it.

        Reply
  20. Here’s are some posers for all those of you who believe that ‘sexual activity outside of marriage is ‘sinful’.

    (1) Would you then consider that our daughter (baptised and confirmed within the Anglican Church) – and living together in a monogamous relationship with her partner (baptised and confirmed R.C.) – has conceived her beautiful daughter ‘sinfully’ outside of a legal marriage? (The state recognises their legal status as a ‘de facto’ partnership)

    (2) Do you consider marriages and civil partnerships contracted outside of the Christian Church to be also ‘sinful’ and outsider the realm of God’s Blessing?

    Reply
    • (1) Would you then consider that our daughter (baptised and confirmed within the Anglican Church) – and living together in a monogamous relationship with her partner (baptised and confirmed R.C.) – has conceived her beautiful daughter ‘sinfully’ outside of a legal marriage?

      Yes, obviously. Why would you even need to ask the question? What else could the answer possibly be?

      (2) Do you consider marriages and civil partnerships contracted outside of the Christian Church to be also ‘sinful’ and outsider the realm of God’s Blessing?

      No, they’re not sinful. They just don’t have any spiritual significance. There’s nothing sinful about going through with a legal state marriage, it just only has legal significance. Render unto caesar, and all that.

      Reply
    • Father Ron Smith – OK – I’ll bite on this one.

      (1) Nope – nothing sinful about this at all. It is quite all right not to recognise `the church’ since ‘the church’ seems to be a bit of a cesspool and it’s quite all right not to recognise `the state’. Just as long as they were and are fully committed to each other (and only they can answer that question), they weren’t fornicating with other people before they met each other and haven’t been fooling about with other people since.

      (2) Nope – tell me what you mean by the `Christian Church’. Do you mean the organisation to which Caiaphas belonged – John 11:49-51? I don’t see why it should be mandatory for any Christian to have an ordained goon involved in their marriage, presumably either telling the couple what to do or else expressing a condescending patronising approval.

      Reply
          • Chris – in a registry. A church wedding wasn’t really open to us – although I admit that this was a relief to both of us.

            I got the ‘certificate of no impediment’ from the British Embassy here. Apparently the application is supposed to be on public display – and indeed they did hang it on a wall for approximately two weeks – in a room which required security clearance to get into.

            On the one hand, I think that getting legally married does put things on a much sounder footing, especially for children. But the approach that Ron’s daughter took does have a certain appeal – if I had done that, then I wouldn’t have had to get various documents translated by an official translator and all sorts of other administrative / bureaucratic nonsense. The whole business was quite a hassle.

        • S – maybe the Donatists were right. Was Paul a Donatist when he shook the blood from his robe and left the synagogue? Anyway, we’re talking about getting-married-in-church here. You can recognise that the church is ordained by God and, at the same time note its deficiencies (e.g. Caiaphas the high priest was responsible for turning Jesus over to be crucified). Also, note that marriage-in-church with some ordained person up front isn’t instituted in Scripture – it isn’t mandatory. How did Isaac and Rebekah get married?

          Reply
          • S – maybe the Donatists were right.

            They weren’t though. Which is obvious if you think about it, because the idea that someone has to be ‘worthy’ to be a minister, or that a church has to be ‘worthy’ to be a church, would mean that there were no ministers and no church, because no human and no institution comprised of humans can ever be worthy.

            Was Paul a Donatist when he shook the blood from his robe and left the synagogue?

            No. And I don’t understand what connection you’re drawing. The Jews Paul got frustrated with were denying Jesus was God. The Donatists were claiming that people who acknowledged Jesus as Lord still couldn’t be ministers because of the sins they had committed. Totally different situation.

            Anyway, we’re talking about getting-married-in-church here. You can recognise that the church is ordained by God and, at the same time note its deficiencies (e.g. Caiaphas the high priest was responsible for turning Jesus over to be crucified).

            You absolutely can, but the point is that you still have to recognise that it is the Church, even in spite of all its deficiencies. Because if it could only be the Church if it wasn’t deficient then it would be impossible for the Church to exist at all.

            That’s what is Donatism: the claim that it’s okay to not recognise the Church because of the Church’s deficiencies.

            Also, note that marriage-in-church with some ordained person up front isn’t instituted in Scripture – it isn’t mandatory.

            In extreme circumstances — like if the two of you were shipwrecked alone on a desert island — then you could make a commitment to God without anyone else present.

            But when it’s practically possible to make that commitment publicly, and you don’t, then the question has to be asked, ‘Why not?’

            And ‘the church is imperfect’ isn’t a good enough answer. Of course the church is imperfect. It’s a Fallen world. Everything is imperfect. We do the best we can. And we certainly do not just do what we want to do. We submit to the church even if we don’t want to, even though the church is imperfect.

            So, to return to the point, yes, ‘self-certification marriage’, when there was the opportunity to get married in church, is not a thing. It evinces a ‘we know better’ attitude that is, frankly, sinful — the sin of pride in one’s own judgement. And so without a valid marriage, sexual activity is ipso facto sinful.

  21. Ron

    Marriage is a civil contract that ought to express creational norms. Thus your daughter is not married but living in a sinful union defiant of the Creator’s revealed will. Given its creational and not redemptive basis it is not tethered to the church.

    Reply
    • Not true. The couple are ministers of the sacrament, not the priest.
      Church weddings have a fairly lengthy tradition – just over 1000 years.
      But, theologically, a priest/minsiter has alwways been unecessary.

      Reply
        • It isn’t one of the two Dominical sacraments but it certainly is one of the lesser sacraments and the CofE has a variety of views about the sacraments. Marriage certainly has the marks of a sacrament.

          Reply
          • Andrew The official Anglican position is clearly summed up in Article 25 of the 39 Articles which says that “there are two Sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord —-Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. Other ‘commonly called sacraments’ — are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel. ”
            Re “Marriage certainly has the *marks* of a sacrament.” Are you not confusing it with circumcision?

          • Colin: that’s one of the reasons why we are not bound by the Articles. That particular article is so prejudiced and of its time.
            I’m not sure what circumcision has to do with it.

          • Thoroughly Orthodox

            You’re saying you’re an eastern Orthodox entryist?

            (It’s very confusing that the Roman Cathlics definitely aren’t catholic and the eastern Orthodox aren’t always othodox. At least Protestants are always protesting.)

      • So your truth, is untrue, as it doesn’t relate to doctrinal reality in the CoE.
        If there is anything that sums this whole, before, during and after the fact activists debacle, really, it is this!
        A classic.

        Reply
        • And now apply *sacrament* – a sign of reality of Christ’s work for the redemption of sinners and Christ’s New Covenant to the very idea of SSM.
          How does that work.?
          Not sure that I’ve seen any developed argumentation of the doctrine of sacrament as it is sought to apply to SSM.
          Is sacrament another doctrine that will be scuppered, holed, by the good ship CoE and all who sail in her?

          Reply
  22. PS

    The fact that the bible describes marriage as a ‘covenant’ reveals it is more than merely leaving and cleaving; it involves some form of formal and binding agreement.

    Reply
  23. A sacrament is a means of grace. Received by faith it draws us closer to God. It therefore belongs to the realm of redemption. Marriage, however, is a creation ordinance. It is for this life only and does not in itself even if received in faith confer any spiritual grace. Like a piece of beautiful music or a beautiful sunset it may evoke wonder but it does not bring us closer to God. A Christian, of course, can thank God for every beautiful thing and every delightful experience and in that sense the experience properly approached will deepen his spiritual experience. The same is true of course of deep suffering, perhaps more so. However, none of these is essentially redemptive. Redemption lies only in the gospel word preached or enacted; God’s word is intrinsically a means of grace. It is life giving and life sustaining.

    Reply
    • A sacrament is a means of grace.

      A lot of this depends on how you define ‘sacrament’. As I understand it, the Romans define a ‘sacrament’ as a ritual that, when done by someone of a particular ontological status, binds God to produce a particular result.

      This is one of the worst bits of the Roman denomination, as another term for ‘ a ritual that, when done by someone of a particular ontological status, binds a supernatural entity to produce a particular result’ is ‘a magic spell’.

      And Christians really shouldn’t be doing magic, and they especially shouldn’t be trying to control God using magic spells.

      Now, I’m sure that God, in His mercy, understands that, misled as they are, they mean well, and will not withhold His grace just because they are impudently trying to force Him to bestow it rather than humbly asking Him.

      But still, it’s not a good thing to be doing, thinking you can bind God, and it’s one of the reasons the Reformation was necessary and why the Articles are still important in ensuring the Church of England remains Protestant and doesn’t get sucked back into those sorts of awful Roman ways.

      Reply
      • Puzzled by your ecclesiastical pedigree S. Not much knowledge of ( or sympathy for) an ordinary RC parish post Vatican 2 or most parishes in the C of E that I know ( having been in it 70 yes( Free Church of Scotland?Brethren? A. Free evangelical church? 0r lick Jock an undenominational unaligned conservative evangelical protestant.

        Reply
  24. ‘S’ said this, about the sacrament that Jesus inaugurated:

    “This is one of the worst bits of the Roman denomination, as another term for ‘ a ritual that, when done by someone of a particular ontological status, binds a supernatural entity to produce a particular result’ is ‘a magic spell’.”

    Obviously not a traditional Anglican understanding of what the Eucharist is really all about. The majority of Christians around the world (mostly Catholic or Orthodox) kiddies can do better than that. You Fundies do need to get some understanding of what actually goes on in this koinonia sacrament where Jesus makes himself present to Believers.

    Reply
    • “Obviously not a traditional Anglican understanding”

      Hilarious… Like not believing same sex marriage is ordained by God then.

      Glad to see your conversion Ron. Welcome to (what you describe) as the “Fundy” side… You do know that these words aren’t the same as actual engagement…

      Others make excellent challenging contributions in this debate…
      But it’s not really worth engaging with your continued ungodly nastiness. So I no longer will.

      Reply
      • Nastiness is as nastiness does! I’m not at all sure that your own contributions to the debate, Ian, are entirely without ‘ungodly’ content. What does annoy me is the absolutist statements of some of your fellow evangelicals on this thread- especially ‘S’, whose own emphatic dogmatism on matters of gender and sexuality and marriage could be said to at least approximate that of the Roman Magisterium, which he, seemingly, cannot abide.

        What does need to be recognized – especially by those who have problems with the ‘Real Presence of Christ’ in the Eucharist – is that the non-Gafcon Churches of the Anglican Communion have an ongoing theological dialogic partnership with our Roman Catholic confreres on the ‘true nature’ of the Eucharist, verified by succeeding and ongoing meetings of ARCIC, the joint Anglican/Roman Catholic organization that has been in existence since Vatican II, which seeks theological convergence, rather than the continuance of inter-denomination strife. (That they may be one, Father…”)

        Reply
        • ARCIC […] which seeks theological convergence

          It doesn’t seek theological convergence at all. It seeks to use fudged language and constructive ambiguity to produce ambiguous statements that both sides can sign up to while meaning totally different things by them.

          Reply
        • If you are emphasising unity, why are you pushing highly divisive minority ill-founded positions like marriages between the same gender?

          I see many Catholics and they think that things like that make Anglicans a joke, not to be taken seriously because of their shallowness and worldliness.

          Reply
          • And of course Roman Catholics find several of the 39 Articles offensive and discriminatory against them. And of course they are. But we understand they are historic and must be seen in a particular political context.

          • If you are emphasising unity, why are you pushing highly divisive minority ill-founded positions like marriages between the same gender?

            Of those the things though, only one (ill-founded) is a reason not to push something. In fact pushing a well-founded, highly divisive, minority position is not only good, its a positive duty — that’s what the Reformers did, after all.

          • And of course Roman Catholics find several of the 39 Articles offensive and discriminatory against them. And of course they are.

            But none of that matters. What matters is, are they correct?

          • S, I agree totally; but all I was saying is that it is incoherent for someone who emphasises unity above truth to be pushing things that are either minority or divisive. Myself, I could not care less whether things are minority or divisive.

  25. While recognising history, it doesn’t mean they aren’t for today. Jesus offends.reptentance, offends. The Good News exclusivity offends, judgment, hell, offends. The Trinity offends, sin offends.
    Praying to saints. offends. transubstantiation offends, purgatory offends.
    Heaven offends, assurance offends.
    That we all have no excuse, offends.
    Just who isn’t offended?
    God?

    Reply
      • The truth shouldn’t simply offend though. It should inspire as well.

        No it shouldn’t. There’s nothing the truth ‘should’ do, offend, inspire, anything. The truth simply is, regardless of its effect on us.

        The truth may inspire us; it may terrify us; it may even bore us. But there’s nothing it should do to us; we are irrelevant to the truth.

        Reply
  26. Let me add a less welcome observation. I do not imagine patriarchy plays a role in homosexual matti age, Yet, properly understood, marriage can only reflect Christ and the church if it is patriarchical. Christ and the church are not in an egalitarian relationship. He is the head and we are the body. The church submits to his loving leadership.

    When we lose patriarchy in marriage we lose an important image of Christ and the church.

    Reply
      • Penelope

        I have read bits of it. Ian reads head as source which doesn’t fit in with a number of Scriptures OT and NT. But even source implies authority. I am the source of my children hence my authority over them. Husband headship or leadership. Is not domination (the fall) but a giving oneself for one’s wife.

        In Gen 1,2 male priority is revealed in that Adam was made first and Eve was made for Adam. This is how the NT reads the narrative. The fall reversed God’s intentions. Eve took the initiative and Adam let her. Yet it is Adam God holds responsible.

        For hundreds of years as far as I am aware this was thee teaching off the church. This should give pause for thought.

        Reply
    • In this I agree with Penelope 🙂

      If one wants to be pedantic, patriarchy is “rule by fathers”. If we take it to mean the subordination of women to men, or at least the subordination of wives to husbands, and the rule of the husband over the wife, that definitely does seem to come in Gen 3:16, and not before.

      The Puritan commentator Matthew Henry famously wrote, in words that were rather advanced for his time: ‘The woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved.’

      The error, I think, is in thinking that the relationship between a husband and his wife is the same in every respect to that between Christ and the Church. If one considers Eph 5:25-32, it is clear to me that what Paul is drawing out of the former relationship is Christ’s self-giving love, his pouring of himself out, in order that His Bride might pure. Christ is our Lord, but he washed the feet of his disciples. That is how a husband should love his wife.

      Reply
      • Yes, but David, the relationship between christ and the church which marriage is intended to model, is not egalitarian. The church submits to Christ. He is her Lord. Peter reminds the women that Sarah called Abraham lord. Surely this is patriarchy.

        The patriarchy of domination begins in gen 3 but God ordained patriarchy of loving leadership begins in gen 1,2. Earlier comments pointed to Adam’s priority in creation and that she was made from and for him – points echoed by Paul. What is this but patriarchy.

        Reply
  27. That’s true Geoff.

    I find myself dismayed at how quickly views that were once mainstream among evangelicals have become barely tolerated minority positions: inerrancy of Scripture; impeccability off Christ; very limited divorce and remarriage; church discipline; patriarchy in marriage; penal substitutionary atonement; eternal punishment and so on.

    Increasingly to hold these marks you out as a dinosaur. It is regrettable for these are important truths.

    Reply
    • John, I don’t think it necessarily marks you out as a dinosaur. It may be that in the past, some of these assertions of biblical truth were only ever mainstream among a certain section of Evangelicals. The advent of the internet and the mass dissemination of knowledge in recent years, has meant that these are much more subject publically to critical and scholarly examination- both good and bad.

      In the 40 odd years I have been a christian I have learnt that there is much evangelical theology that functions like a ‘closed shop’. It does not mean that these truths are necessarily deficient in some way, but one should not be afraid to have your beliefs tested for their robustness and coherence.

      Reply
      • Thanks Chris. I do put them out for scrutiny. Sometimes I get unduly wearied by controversy. Age is prematurely taking its toll (67 years).

        Reply
  28. Dear Andrew – a few thoughts regarding comments emerging from your most recent contributions:
    First, they exhibit a strong tendency to indulge in sweeping generalisations without producing evidence to substantiate them . Secondly, your last two posts incorporate the pronoun “we”. Does this indicate your prominent role in some cultic movement within the C of E? Or even more possibly perhaps are you using it as an abbreviation for the “royal we”? Are you perhaps a modern appendage to “herself “- Victoria that is?
    Perhaps I’m digging too deeply here, given that in (I admit) my acerbic response to your comment that “marriage certainly has the marks of a sacrament”; you failed to see (by your own admission) that the word *marks” is calpable of more than one interpretation! Others in this blog have already voiced the necessity of reverting to reasoned,substantiated, argument; even if the argument is centred not in the teaching of Holy Scripture but on some other foundation. For instance I provided you with one of the foundations of Anglican doctrine; your response(s) highlighting the term *sacrament* showing that your belief system probably has its roots in pre – Reformation Catholicism. The Articles which you so wilfully dismiss were constituted, not for political purposes, but in order to return to the Biblical foundations of the Faith. For example Holy Communion has its roots in the Jewish Pesach(Passover) ; that which Jesus celebrated before his death. The historic transformation of this event and the accretions involved emerged largely through the interrection between Catholic theology and Greek thought ( witness Thomas Aquinas’s embracing of the philosophy of Aristotle).
    There are still those of us whose primary desire is for The Church to recapture its historical, theological and ,supremely,Biblical foundations; not as an escape route into some piestic enclave nor in order to ignore contemporary epistemological issues, but as the cornerstone of *divine* truth .

    And what is the overriding alternative at this time? It seems to me to be a mishmash of conflicting ideas and psychological needs without a rational superstructure; yet all the while desiring to submerge itself in the sinking sands of secular “culture”. It is an edifice not built on the Rock!

    Reply
  29. Colin: please enlighten me as to any cultic movements within the C of E. I don’t know what you are referring to.

    The use of the term ‘we’, as the context shows, is those who take the oaths and declarations with respect to the Articles. Now I don’t think there is an official Anglican view of the Articles. Different Provinces have different approaches. The C of E approach is summed up in something I pasted earlier on in this thread. I am assuming you missed it. So here it is again.

    “In 1968, a report on Subscription and Assent to the 39 Articles was produced by the Archbishops’ Commission on Christian Doctrine. Focusing in particular on the approach to Scripture set out in the Articles, it called for the then current Declaration of Assent to be changed, so that it would ‘not tie down the person using it to acceptance of every one of the Articles’, and would leave open ‘The possibility of fresh understandings of Christian truth’, while also leaving room ‘for an appeal to the Articles as a norm within Anglican theology’

    “In response, in 1975, a new form of Declaration of Assent came into force in the Church of England.”

    ‘We’ are those who make the Declaration. We are not tied down to accepting every one of the articles. But people are free to accept them if they wish to do so.

    My ‘belief system’ as you call it is based on the broad Via Media approach of classical Anglicanism. The book by Stephen Neill simply called Anglicanism is a good read on the history of that.

    As to Marriage having the marks of a sacrament. I didn’t fail to see that the word might have a variety of interpretation. It is simply that I could not see any connection between circumcision and either sacrament or marriage, or the sacrament of marriage. Does anyone have to be circumcised in order to get married?

    There are outward and visible signs of marriage. But Penny is correct to point out that it is the couple who are the ministers of the sacrament. Yet there is a public aspect to marriage, so some of the marks of the sacrament are made publicly.

    I do hope this helps!

    Reply
    • “Does anyone have to be circumcised in order to get married?”

      Certainly not… and it’s inadvisable the day before….

      (sorry… Couldn’t help myself…)

      Reply
    • Dear Andrew
      Thanks for this. It’s what we all need (myself included) ; a disposition which reveals someone who will “fight the good fight”employing the whole armour of God without spending hours in the trenches , waiting for the opportunity to lob the next grenade.
      Just one question: what do you mean by classical Anglicanism? If you read pp 130 and 131 of Neill’s *Anglicanism”, such statements as “It( the Reformation C of E) had restored the Catholic doctrine of the supremacy of Holy Scripture in all matters of doctrine and conduct” – there are many others-then this is whatI understand by classical Anglicanism. A theology which in article 20 of its 39 Articles describes Holy Scripture as “God’s Word written” serves to illustrate where I stand!

      Reply
      • Hi Colin I have always understood classical Anglicanism to have been properly established in the later part of the 17th century after the restoration when the Puritans had failed to take control of the Cof E. The Via Media to which I referred marks a kind of middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism, Arminianism and Calvinism. As I recall, Stephen Neill traces the swing between the two poles very carefully and engagingly.
        Clearly all of this was caught up with the political history of that period. Leading up to that time Richard Hooker is the obvious author to explore what an outworking in the C of E might look like. George Herbert is perhaps the spiritual and pastoral hero of that time.

        What your first paragraph means I have no idea!

        Reply
        • I have always understood classical Anglicanism to have been properly established in the later part of the 17th century after the restoration

          I can’t believe it. Andrew Godsall is literally No True Scotsmanning the Church of England.

          ‘The Church of England has always been latitudinarian.’

          ‘Um, it certainly wasn’t latitudinarian in the seventeenth century.’

          ‘Well, before the end of the seventeenth century it wasn’t truly the Church of England.’

          George Herbert is perhaps the spiritual and pastoral hero of that time.

          I thought your true spiritual hero was the Vicar of Bray, no?

          Reply
      • I suggest for a scholarly and up to date reading of the history of the C of E in the 16 and 17c, the first vol of the Oxford History of Anglicanism ed by Anthony Milton. This would give a better perspective and clear up many errors and loose thinking .

        Reply
        • Yes that’s fair comment. Neill is definitely quite old but is just very readable.

          MaCulloch is also first rate and has a very clear understanding of how Anglicanism fits into the whole Church.

          Reply
  30. At the Last Supper Jesus declared this is my body, this is my blood.
    Can’t get more scriptural than that. Although John’s eucharistic theology does!

    Reply
    • As one contributer to comments here has said, how do you know Jesus even said that!
      What do you do with the rest of Jesus sayings and life eg in John 1-3. The, I am, sayings of Jesus, let alone the whole topic of this article?
      What do you do with the rest of scripture? as you ignore the whole thrust of scripture as highlighted by Colin.?

      Reply
    • Hi Penelope

      Do you think Jesus was using language literally or metaphorically? Would the disciples have heard him speak literally or symbolically?

      Was not the passover meal itself a memorial? It was a symbol which pointed to the true passover. Bread was surely understood symbolically; Christ’s body was not bread.

      When Christ said he was the door of the sheep he was not literally a door. John of course never mentions the Lord’s supper. I don’t doubt the reference to eating his flesh and drinking his blood (a reference to participation in him) finds an echo in the supper.

      Reply
        • As i say, not a reference to the Lord’s supper but to faith in Christ, the relationship which the supper celebrates, John focuses on life in Christ not ecclesiastical ordinances.

          Reply
        • Penelope

          1. At that juncture in John’s gospel a reference to the Lord’s supper would be anachronistic. It would be totally lost on his Jewish audience and was in fact only revealed to the disciples privately (even Judas seems to have been absent).

          2. The language is not quite the same. Flesh instead of body and drinking blood. Jesus is deliberately using language that is abhorrent to Jewish sensibilities. He is stressing the cost of trusting in him – and it is initial faith rather than communion which is in view. Jesus says, ‘ 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

          3. John in his gospel and letters describes the arrival of ‘the life’ in Jesus. He really simply describes this life. He does not get involved in matters to do with church order and practice.

          4. Believers, reading John’s gospel, at a later date, aware of the Lord’s supper would see the connection between the fellowship meal and initial faith in Christ as described by John.

          Reply
          • John’s community would read this as a eucharistic passage, which goes beyond a simple description of the Last Supper to proclaim its theological significance.

            I’m not sure what you mean by Judas not being present? According to the synoptics he shared the Last Supper.

          • The other thing I meant to mention is that if the Last Supper was a Passover Meal we have no idea what that looked like in Second Temple Judaism.

          • John’s community would read this as a eucharistic passage

            But John is reporting something Jesus said before the last supper. So how would Jesus’ hearers have interpreted it at the time (bearing in mind of course that they would only have realised the full significance later).

        • John’s community would see a link but they would not interpret Jesus words as referring to the supper for they clearly refer to initial and ongoing personal union with Christ.

          There is a case for thinking Judas left the passover meal before the supper.

          Reply
    • Not all evangelicals read everything in a woodenly literal fashion 🙂 It is curious that it is the sacramentalists, who delight in the symbolism in the rituals of the Mass, take these words very literally.
      Of course, it was perfectly clear to those at the Last Supper that the bread and wine were not actually flesh and blood. After all, Jesus’ body was not broken nor his blood shed until the next morning.

      Reply
    • Absolutely scriptural Penelope! Except that Jesus also said “I am the door”; hardly material for a literal translation. Moreover Jesus was physically present at the time. Neither is there any indication here of the consecration of the “elements”. In the ESV exegesis of Matthew’s version of the institution, it is recorded as “Jesus took the bread, and after ‘blessing it, broke it. In the Greek, as far as I am aware, there is no “it” after the word blessing. The correct translation is, I believe, He “gave thanks”. One possible OT setting for the expression “This is my body” is the last of the four ‘servant songs’:” — because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sins of many and makes intercession for sinners.” [Isaiah 53:12 b]

      Reply
      • ‘Blessed it’ is (a) saying magic words – a no-no; (b) an inaccurate translation, not true to the Greek; (c) bad theology. ‘Blessed art Thou, Lord God, King of the Universe…’ – blessing is ascribed to the Blessed One because of what he has given, not to the thing that he has given.

        Reply
        • —— and this of course is the Jewish undestanding employed by Jesus during the Last Supper, albeit with the Bracha being reduced in the Gospel accounts to “gave thanks” (or an equivelant). In the context of this post, I incorporated this particular point to counteract the idea of the transformation of the bread .On reflection I should not have used the term “consecration”; a term incorporated into the 1662 BCP. Consecration is often confused with blessing (re the bread and wine); the former referring to purpose (set apart), the latter to essence.

          Reply
          • A high doctrine of the eucharist is not just the preserve of Catholics. Read BA Gerrisg Grace and Gratitude. The Eucharistic Theology of Calvin or Thomas Torronce Theology in Reconciatuon

  31. Article, 9/10. Excellent stuff.

    Comments, 4/10. Largely circular, repetitive and unedifying for many of the participants.

    When are you going to post a tribute to the late Blogosphere Bishop? 😉

    Reply
    • Mat – inclined to disagree. Of course, comments below the line are not up to the standard of a polished article – but they did begin to touch upon an issue that hasn’t really been discussed much – namely the theological significance of getting married in a church (as opposed to a registry – or simply a common law marriage whereby the couple spend 5 years together and are hence recognised as married by the state).

      Also – some interesting comments about natural theology where I might have engaged if it hadn’t been off-topic for the thread. Good book recommend about history of the Anglican church.

      Reply
      • common law marriage whereby the couple spend 5 years together and are hence recognised as married by the state

        Um that is not a thing, at least in the United Kingdom.

        Reply
  32. In no particular order, thanks to David, Colin, John, S,
    and Christopher and to Andrew and Penelope for revealing more of their root beliefs (and drivers?) especially as this moved into the final stage, discussing sacrament or not (of marriage) in Anglicanism. An edifying, taster. Little wonder it doesn’t seem to have been mentioned in support of DSM, even though a service of blessing of ssm would seem to be a first degree relation, a relation which has been brought into service of the ssm/ arrangements.
    On my stuff -o – meter marking system, great stuff, thanks.

    Reply

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