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On Friday 3rd September, at 2.10 pm, I had a phone call from a number I did not recognise. When I answered, it turned out to be from a BBC researcher asking if I would appear on BBC1 on Sunday morning for a debate about the Church of England and same-sex marriage, in the light … Continue Reading
In my experience, there is a very broad range of answers to this question. It has generally been assumed by moral ‘conservatives’ that the answer is self-evidently ‘yes’; by contrast, it has generally been assumed by moral ‘liberals’ that the answer is ‘no’, since there does not appear to be any specific prohibition in Scripture. … Continue Reading
This morning the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) have released a video entitled ‘The Beautiful Story’ which seeks to set out the case, in accessible terms, for the ‘traditional’ sexual ethic that sex belongs in marriage between one man and one woman, as currently taught in the doctrine of the Church of England. I … Continue Reading
On Wednesday last week, the House of Bishops issued a ‘pastoral statement’ on the status of Civil Partnerships, and it caused something of a stir. What was it about? Why was it needed? And why did it cause a commotion? The background to this discussion began in 2004. The Government passed the Civil Partnership Act, … Continue Reading
This Sunday’s lectionary reading, Third before Advent in Year C, is Luke 20.27-38. Once more, the lectionary makes an odd choice; it would be more natural to read on to verse 40 and complete the pericope. The narrative recounts an exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees, who do not believe in bodily resurrection, and so … Continue Reading
In recent debates about the meaning of marriage, one area of speculation has been whether our differentiated sex identity as male and female (this is biological sex identity, not ‘gender’ as it is often called, which, properly understood, is about social constructions of masculine and feminine identity) will persist into the new creation. Two people … Continue Reading
Will Jones, who has contributed to this blog in guest posts as well as comments, wrote an interesting and challenging piece on the political website Conservative Woman. The website describes its values as being “unashamedly those of faith, married family and nation-state”, though it actually dissociates itself from a direct link with the Conservative party. It … Continue Reading
Last month, behavioural scientist Paul Dolan from the London School of Economics claimed that unmarried women were notably happier than married women, suggesting that, if women wanted to live the most fulfilled life, they should stay both single and childless. We may have suspected it already, but now the science backs it up: unmarried and … Continue Reading
The House of Bishops’ position on civil partnerships and same-sex sexual relationships is defined by three statements. The first is Issues in Human Sexuality, published in 1991 as a ‘discussion document’. When it was published, it had very mixed reactions, and I remember very clearly our whole-college debate about it in the college chapel when I … Continue Reading
Andrew Goddard writes: Motions come for consideration before the General Synod of the Church of England by various means. One such is a Private Member’s Motion (PMM) being proposed by a member of Synod and receiving the support of a significant body of Synod (it needs to be over 100 members) and being included in the … Continue Reading
Erwin Schrödinger was one of the pioneers of quantum theory in the early 20th century, and Schrödinger’s Cat was a thought experiment designed to explain the paradoxical principle of ‘quantum superposition’ in one particular theory of quantum physics. This theory suggested that sub-atomic particles could be thought to be in two contradictory states at the same time, … Continue Reading