What is at stake for the church and same-sex marriage
Earlier this week I was part of a give-and-take in our church building near the question of aforementioned-sex matrimony. We all began by sharing our own personal interest in the outcome, before tabling our questions. In that location were a good number who had no personal pale—just some had very close family members who were gay, and for whom this issue has closed off the church and faith, and left them aroused and wounded. Information technology was inside that context that we explored some of the questions in the give-and-take.
Other events this week have raised at least two other sets of issues which besides impinge on this debate. The Episcopal Church in the USA made the conclusion to authorise marriage liturgies which remove any reference to the sex activity (gender) of those beingness married. In response to this, Justin Welby issued a strong argument about the Anglican Communion:
The Archbishop of Canterbury today expressed deep concern about the stress for the Anglican Communion following the US Episcopal Church's Firm of Bishops' resolution to change the definition of wedlock in the canons so that any reference to marriage as between a man and a woman is removed.
Not surprisingly, the bourgeois evangelical organisations GAFCON and Reform went further in their objections, focussing less on the process of Anglican controlling, and more on the significance for Anglican doctrine and understanding.
The problems for the rest of the Anglican Communion accept already been noted past the Archbishop of Canterbury. Just the fundamental reason that it is a fault – and the reason why it is so destabilizing – is that it is a significant departure from Holy Scripture. This is a departure which Christians are not at liberty to brand.
With this action, TEC has officially rejected the Anglican Communion'southward standard, Lambeth Resolution 1.10, which expresses the Communion'due south received and historic agreement of marriage and sexual relationships. TEC has now taken the pattern of behaviour which Lambeth describes as 'incompatible with Scripture' and equated it with Holy Matrimony. (GAFCON)
The unity for which Jesus prays is congenital on the foundation of the teaching he revealed and entrusted to his apostles, recorded for united states in the Scriptures. Jesus is not silent on the definition of marriage. "Haven't you read," he said to the religious leaders who sought to redefine marriage in his own day, "that at the starting time the Creator 'made them male and female person', and said, 'For this reason a human will exit his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will go ane mankind'?" (Matthew 19.4-5)
In rejecting this definition of marriage, the bishops of the US Episcopal Church building have rejected Jesus' own teaching. (Reform)
There are several interesting things well-nigh these statements. First, they are actually quite moderate in tone, and they are located non just in a biblicist reading of Scripture, but within the context of previous Communion discussions. Secondly, although the Reform statement is 'authored' by Susie Leafe, there is no doubt that this would have been agreed by Rod Thomas, who is Chair of the Reform council but besides has been appointed as the next Bishop of Maidstone. To that extent, the Reform statement answers my phone call for an episcopal vox countering the thought that the Church building's doctrine of spousal relationship is a 'busted flush.' I even so wish that more moderate voices were willing to put their heads to a higher place the parapet (to mix my metaphors).
(Information technology has been drawn to my attention that the CEEC Call to Prayer was signed by Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, in his capacity as President of CEEC. It includes criticism of both Alan Wilson's role in the Pemberton tribunal, and the determination of York Minster to 'bless' the Gay Pride march. I think it must found the only episcopal comment on these two things thus far.)
(Further update: I sympathize that Justin Welby has asked diocesan bishops not to comment on this outcome in public. I am unclear as to why such restriction has not been practical to suffragans, notably Alan Wilson.)
But if yous doubted that the status of Scripture is a cardinal issue at stake, there is confirmation from some other places. John McGinley, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Leicester and a New Wine regional leader, offers this reflection on the regional Shared Chat in which he took part:
I returned with great concern that the majority of the participants had lost any clear understanding of the Bible equally authoritative in their lives. The approaches were shocking to me, and, as a result, my approach was shocking to them. This confirmed that we are already two churches, 1 which sees the Bible equally a helpful drove of writings from which to depict inspiration but which can be used to say any nosotros desire it to, or just be ignored. The other seeks to submit to Scripture as we interpret it and apply it to our lives and trust in its goodness as God's discussion to us, even when it is painful and challenging. The result of this is that there were many moments of incredulity expressed by people from different positions equally they realised others in the room held a belief so far from their ain.
And expect at this reflection past Mark Vasey-Saunders on Steve Chalke's Open Church event:
Simply, for evangelicals (whose identity is centred around being 'Bible people') to make a very public shift in their biblical interpretation on a controversial issue necessitates having a serious discussion about how we read the Bible, and at nowadays in that location is little sign this is happening.
Given its current official position, the challenge for the Church of England is to hold together these two problems as stake—the pain and rejection felt by those disagreeing with it, and the consistent education of Scripture which underlies the Church building's position. In a sense, the Shared Conversations are aimed at endmost this perceived gap, but all the show I have seen is that they have merely confirmed the distance betwixt ii views, as McGinley highlights higher up. But the problem is more than widespread than that. We appear to be on the edge of a complete failure of communication within both Church and culture. Vasey-Saunders goes on to comment about Open up Church building:
I should say clearly that I would defend to the utmost the demand for gatherings similar this, which are safety spaces for LGBTI Christians and their allies, just information technology concerned me that even the conference organisers seemed unable to recognise the extent to which it was not rubber for others.
(And this is why I declined to nourish.) And this 'lack of safety' has even encroached into the Shared Conversations. John McGinley was taken aback by being taken bated:
I will share one particularly difficult example of this. In a facilitated session i person said that the orthodox position was responsible for their friend's suicide. While I showed concern for their loss, and acknowledged the hurt caused past prejudice and judgemental attitudes within churches, I rejected the direct link between holding an orthodox understanding of sexual relationships and their friend's decision to end their life. I then shared how I felt that the celebration of same-sex activity relationships was securely damaging to society through the confusion information technology brings to bug of identity, relationships, gender, sin, etc. and how it undermines the position of heterosexual matrimony which is God's intended pattern for sexual relationships. Following this facilitated discussion the facilitator approached me privately to say that a complaint had been made confronting me for expressing the above views. The facilitator explained that they had answered the complaint past saying that they didn't call back I had expressed that view and didn't believe I held information technology. When I confirmed that I did they were surprised as they didn't remember anyone would hold such views and then suggested that what I had shared was unhelpful. I suggested this was exactly the purpose of these conversations, to share our views feely, and stood by my views.
Increasingly, in public discourse in that location is no 'middle voice' allowed between two ends of the spectrum. For the wider media, polarisation is the stuff of circulation numbers and sales, and then pitching the argument as between liberated and liberal gay men and women and homophobic, racist bigots makes for good re-create. Merely the trouble is wider than that. In an otherwise intelligent piece on the challenge facing the Church building, Cole Morton manages to avoid any reference to principled, intelligent defence of the Church's current teaching. And this is in a context where Christians in Oregon, USA, were not only fined an eye-watering $135,000 for 'emotional damage' in refusing to back up same-sexual activity matrimony, but were then barred from speaking of their views in public. It is a context where our own Secretary of State for Education reaches for same-sex marriage (at present on the statute books for just over a year!) as the expression of British values, confronting which we should test children for signs of religious radicalisation.
All this is going to make information technology harder to take the discussions we demand to. Every bit recent conversations accept made clear to me, for most ordinary Christians (i.e. non those in total-time ministry) there is however some manner to go to really understanding the problems, permit solitary coming to some sort of decision about them. And the danger here is a loss of confidence in Scripture equally a pastoral document which, on sexuality as on other issues, expresses God's deepest and gracious concern for our lives, for us to be the best that we tin can be.
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