Doctrine, extra-marital sex and the authority of Scripture – A response to David Runcorn

On 20 May the website Thinking Anglicans re-published three articles by the Anglican theologian David Runcorn, ‘What is a doctrine and is marriage one?,’ ‘Trying to talk pastoral sense about ‘sex before marriage’  and ‘What is ‘The Authority of Scripture’?’[1] In this article I shall look at what he says in these three articles and explain why I think his arguments are misleading.

What is a doctrine and is marriage one?

In his first article Runcorn writes that in the current debates about marriage and sexuality in the Church of England:

‘…. ‘the doctrine of marriage’ is often asserted as something clearly defined and fixed. Those supporting the extending of marriage to same-sex couples are told they are dismantling a core biblical, church doctrine.’

He then goes on to question this claim for two reasons.

First, following the work of Mike Higton, he distinguishes between ‘general’ and ‘specific’ forms of doctrine. In his words:

‘When used generally, the ‘doctrine of’, say, creation, refers to the broad cluster of themes that have accumulated around that particular aspect of faith and belief. This view of doctrine is spacious. No one is tied to the finer details of the how and why. When used specifically, the ‘Doctrines of the Church’, for example, refer to more defined expressions of core belief essential to salvation, such as found in the creeds and historic church councils.’

Having made this distinction, Runcorn then argues that marriage should be viewed as a form of general doctrine and that it is a mistake to suggest otherwise. As he puts it:

‘So, is the doctrine of marriage general or specific? It is found in none of the creeds or formularies deemed essential to salvation. Rather, it is under a broad doctrinal umbrella that the varied and evolving expressions of marriage in scripture and church history are found clustered. 

So when the CEEC added a statement about marriage being between a man and a women to its core doctrinal basis of faith it was changing a general doctrine into a specific one. This novel development had the effect of immediately excluding numbers of fellow evangelicals who disagreed with making this a basis of faith, questioned this reading of scripture texts and/or held a more including understanding of marriage. But this belief has also now been elevated by some, becoming the measure of doctrinal and biblical orthodoxy. At the very least this is a stretch.’

Secondly, Runcorn challenges the idea that marriage between a man and a woman: ‘is what marriage is meant to be and no other expression of it is possible, still less Christian.’  The reason he challenges this idea is because in his view:

‘In our time, committed, loving relationships between same-sex couples have become visible in church and society for the first time. This is posing questions we have not had to ask before.’

As Christians we need time to think how to respond to these new questions, and insisting that we can only define the doctrine of marriage in the traditional way restricts ‘our freedom to faithfully imagine and develop our understanding and lived experience of it.’

What are we to make of these two arguments?

In response to the first argument, it is undoubtedly the case that in the history of the Church there have been different beliefs and practices concerning marriage, for example, there have been differences over whether marriage is absolutely indissoluble, whether marriage is a sacrament and whether members of the clergy may be married. However, in spite of these differences there have been three key elements to the Church’s doctrine of marriage which have been accepted by Christians of all traditions throughout the history of the Church on the basis of the teaching of Scripture. These three elements have been (a) that marriage has been ordained by God himself, (b) that marriage is a sexually exclusive relationship between one man and one woman entered into for life and with the procreation and upbringing of children as one of its key purposes, and (c) that marriage constitutes the only legitimate setting for sexual intercourse.

These three key elements as set out in the Prayer Book Marriage service and reflected in Canon B.30 continue to form part of the official doctrine of the Church of England and so in reaffirming them in the face of the current questioning of points (b) and (c) by some members of the Church the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC)  has not done anything novel. It has merely indicated that it is standing by what all Christians have traditionally regarded as the orthodox and biblical doctrine of marriage. Runcorn is free to question this doctrine if he wants to, but he needs to acknowledge that by so doing it is he who is engaging in novelty.

In response to the second argument, it is simply not true that ‘committed loving relationships between same-sex couples’ have only become visible in our day. Committed, loving same-sex relationships (and even same sex marriages) existed in the first-century Greco-Roman world and would have been known about by the early Christians.[2] However, this did not lead the early Church to accept such relationships because they were contrary to the Church’s doctrine of marriage based on the teaching of Scripture. What Runcorn is suggesting is that we now need to have the freedom to revisit and revise that decision. However, the burden of proof lies on him to show that this is the case given that he is  questioning thousands of years of consistent Christian teaching.

In his article Runcorn fails to show this. He claims that Christians should be free to redefine marriage, but he provides no convincing basis for thinking that attempting such redefinition might be a legitimate thing to do.

Trying to talk pastoral sense about ‘sex before marriage’

In his second article Runcorn notes that ‘over the last forty years or more’ there has been a ‘a wholesale change in approaches to relationships and the ways they are expressed’ in British society and that a 2018 survey  ‘found that 82% Church of England or Roman Catholics, and 66% ‘other’ Christians consider pre-marital sex ‘not wrong at all’.’

In the light of these points he then goes on to suggest that we need a discussion about sexual ethics that involves more that ‘than simply re-asserting a clearly minority Christian view of the traditional teaching as given and biblical – that all sex outside marriage is wrong.’

As an alternative to such re-assertion he puts forward four ‘questions and answers’ as discussion starters. These questions and answer are as follows:

• What do we actually mean by ‘sex before marriage’? Is it actually true the bible forbids ‘it’? If so, where exactly, and can we say why? Well, it should firstly be noted that marriage referred to here is exclusively between heterosexual couples. Then we must revisit what we actually mean by that phrase in the first place. Biblically, this requires re-examining key words like porneia, fornication, marriage and much else. There is already so much in the debates about sexuality that warn us we have not always been read carefully and ‘biblically’. Might we have new things to learn here too?
• We must engage with the best of what is out there, not speak in dismissive judgment as if the only relating going on outside what we believe is right is unprincipled, promiscuous and sex obsessed – or that what goes on within marriage is de facto wonderful. There is careful, thoughtful loving integrity out there – and it needs our faithful support and partnership.
• We need a new pastoral ethic with which to engage lovingly and wisely and respectfully with folk trying to work out their relationships in highly challenging and often unsupportive times. In what ways might traditional teaching and assumptions about human relationships and intimacy need to change in today’s social context? What remains core to understandings of Christian love and commitment and how might this wisdom be best commended?  The focus is heard as keeping rules. The context calls for pastoral guidance and spiritual direction.
• If we believe that Christian understandings and expressions of human love, intimacy, commitment and community offers ‘a better way’ to our world we need to be able to say why and how it is expressed. We must do so clearly, courteously and hospitably. Offering a gift rather than stating a judging demand.

In response to the first bullet point it need to be recognised, first of all, that over the past sixty years there has been a huge amount of study concerning what the Bible means by marriage and what it teaches about sexual ethics. The problem for Runcorn’s argument is that the result of this study has been to show that the traditional view that the Bible teaches that marriage is mean to be between one man and one and that all forms of sexual activity outside marriage are contrary to God’s will remains the correct one.[3] Given that this is the case,  what are the grounds for thinking that we need to regard the issue as still open?

Furthermore, we do know what we mean by sex before marriage. Sexual activity involves the penetration of a woman’s vagina by a man’s penis and all other forms of activity that are attempted to accompany or lead to such penetration, or to stimulate the physical pleasure produced by such penetration by some other means such as anal or oral sex. To engage in sexual activity is to engage is the kind of activity just described outside of marriage (which in biblical and Christian terms means a marriage between one man and one woman).

If we ask how we know such extra marital sexual activity is wrong, the answer is straightforward. Not only has the Christian tradition consistently said that they are wrong, but this is also what is taught in the New Testament.  As the CEEC report Glorify God in your Body explains:

‘… the New Testament tells us time and again that sexual activity outside marriage is a sin that Christians are to avoid. Four examples will serve to illustrate this.

First, Jesus lists porneia (RSV ‘fornication’) as one of the things that comes out of the human heart and renders people unclean in the sight of God (Matthew 15:19 and Mark 7:21). Porneia was a comprehensive term which was used to refer to all sexual acts outside of marriage.2 As Michael Brown notes, by using this term Jesus taught that:

‘…all sexual acts outside marriage make us unclean. Yes, heterosexual fornication, homosexual acts, bestiality, incestuous acts, all of these are included by Jesus under the category of ‘sexual immoralities’ and all of them defile us and make us unclean.’

Secondly, St Paul tells the Christians in Galatia:

‘Now the works of the flesh are plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. ‘ (Galatians 5:19-21)

The words translated ‘fornication,’ ‘impurity’ and ‘licentiousness’ (porneia, akatharsia and aselgeia) are all general terms for sexual immorality, which in the New Testament context means sexual activity outside marriage. Paul makes clear that engaging in it will mean losing one’s place in God’s coming kingdom. In later Christian terminology, he is saying that sexual immorality leads to eternal damnation.

Thirdly, the writer to the Hebrews declares, ‘Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled; for God will judge the immoral and adulterous.’ (Hebrews 13:4) F. F. Bruce takes this as an ‘injunction to honour the marriage union and abstain from sexual sin.’  ‘The immoral’ whom God will judge are pornous, which means those who commit porneia. If we want to honour marriage as the context ordained by God for sexual activity, we must not only refrain from adultery, but from all forms of sexual activity outside marriage. The writer warns that those who do engage in sexual immorality will be judged by God, implying that their behaviour will be condemned as part of God’s general condemnation of all human sin.

Fourthly, St Peter writes, ‘Let the time that is past suffice for what the Gentiles like to do, living in licentiousness, passions, drunkenness, revels, carousing, and lawless idolatry.’ (1 Peter 4:3) Converted Christians should no longer live as they did when they were Gentile pagans. They must give up sinful forms of behaviour, including ‘licentiousness’ (aselgeia) which, as in Galatians 5:19, is a general term for sexual activity outside marriage.’ [4]

In response to the second bullet point, Runcorn is right when he says that:

 ‘We must engage with the best of what is out there, not speak in dismissive judgment as if the only relating going on outside what we believe is right is unprincipled, promiscuous and sex obsessed.’

However, if the New Testament says that all sex outside marriage is wrong then we cannot ‘support’ extra- marital sexual relationships, as Runcorn suggests, if what this means is endorsing the sexual activity taking place within them. It can never be right to endorse sin. We can and should give pastoral support to people in such relationships, but not to the relationships themselves.

In response to the third bullet point, the question that arises from what Runcorn writes is why we need a ‘new pastoral ethic.’ If the Bible and the Christian tradition are correct in saying that  God has ordained that marriage should be between two people of the opposite sex and that sex should take place solely within marriage, then the traditional Christian pastoral ethic of teaching and supporting people to live in accordance with these truths, and pointing them to the forgiveness and new start that God offers when they do not do so, is surely still the right one.

In response to the fourth and final bullet point, we need to acknowledge that what Runcorn says in it is correct. This is indeed what we should be doing. However, acting in this way does not require that we revise our Christian sexual ethics. We can and should do everything that Runcorn says here without abandoning the clear and consistent teaching of the Bible and the Christian tradition concerning marriage and the right place for sexual activity.

What is ‘The Authority of Scripture’?

In his third article Runcorn declares that:

‘…. to live under the authority of God’s Word is to find ourselves caught up in a continuing, dynamic, unfolding revelation. In ‘Having words with God – the Bible as conversation’, Karl Allen Kuhn writes, ‘Scripture itself provides no indication that the dynamic nature of God’s instruction is suddenly to cease. To insist, as some do, that all of the specific injunctions of the New Testament concerning particular behaviours must stand for all time is to assign to biblical instruction a role that it has never before performed (my emphasis).’

He then goes on to say:

‘We have been holding this conversation for some time actually. We don’t call divorced and remarried people adulterers and stone them. We do not expect women to be silent in church, only learn theology at home from their (short haired) husbands. They are leaders with men in the church. We give blood, take out bank loans or mortgages and freely choose what we eat and drink. We use artificial contraception and practice family planning. We do not insist that rapists marry their victims. Disabled people are not excluded from worship or ministry altogether. We read the scriptures in our own language, in multiple translations.

In all this we have already moved very significantly beyond the worlds and contexts found in the Word once given, and what the Bible authoritatively ‘says’ on certain issues, without ever clearly revoking those commands.

On what principles have we done this? That the bible is now irrelevant or even wrong? Have we simply sold out to the cultural mores of the day? Or is the truth that the revelation of God to humanity is always communicated in particular times, and places and through particular people and stories. We, in our turn, are to ‘listen’ and ‘hear’ and apply what we discern this calling us to.

In the process of interpretation we have allowed the emerging insights from science, biology and other disciplines to inform our approach to ancient texts, as we engage with the changing world around us and the questions it raises. This is what lay behind the Archbishop’s declaration that led directly to the Living in Love and Faith project in the Church of England. ‘We need a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church. This must be founded in scripture, in reason, in tradition, in theology; it must be based on good, healthy, flourishing relationships, and in a proper 21st century understanding of being human and of being sexual.’

A reading of Evangelical history reveals a tradition that, though often fiercely reactive at first, will move to revise, reverse or adopt ‘including’ positions on important social and ethical issues it previously opposed on the grounds of Scripture. The list would include slavery, apartheid, usury, contraception, divorce and remarriage, and women in society and the Church. The process is commonly marked by moves from text-based arguments to other ways of reaching bible convictions on issues and thus to a change of conviction about what the Bible actually teaches on particular issues, without compromising our high view of scripture.’

What Runcorn says in these quotations is on one level obviously true. It is clearly true that there are biblical injunctions that Christians feel that they no longer need to obey, and it is also true that Evangelicals have changed their positions on various issues. However, the question that Runcorn does not properly address is the appropriate lesson to be drawn from these facts.

The key issue is on what basis it is legitimate to no longer obey biblical injunctions, or to change our view on particular social and ethical issues.

If the basis on which we may do so is our changed individual or communal belief about how it is right to behave, and it is this that allows us to distinguish which bits of the Bible we should still obey and which we can now set aside, then the Bible has really ceased to have any binding authority at all. What is authoritative is instead our current belief about how we should behave.

If, however, the basis on which we decide it is legitimate to cease to obey particular biblical injunctions or to change our view of social and ethical issues is because a more careful reading of the biblical texts shows us that specific biblical commands, such as the ceremonial laws in the Old Testament, no longer apply under the new covenant,[5] or that we have been reading the Bible wrongly in relation to a particular social or ethical issue, then the authority of the Bible is not in question, we have just learned to read it better.

In relation to the current debates in the Church of England on marriage and sexual ethics, those like Runcorn who are advocating a change in the Church’s traditional position need to be clear about which of these two positions they are taking.  

If they want to take the second position, then they need to be able to show that the Bible itself does not teach that God has ordained marriage to be between one and one woman or that the sole place for sexual activity is within marriage thus defined, or they need to show that the Bible itself gives grounds for saying that we are now free to set aside what God has previously laid down on these matters. The problem is that in sixty years of debate no one has yet been able to satisfactorily establish either point.  

This brings us to the final section of Runcorn’s article. In this he writes:

‘… those of us who call ourselves ‘open’ or ‘affirming’ evangelicals do not believe sexuality is an issue over which to divide. The authority of scripture constrains us. To separate over this and no other issue is without precedent and founds our ecclesiology on sex. This has no mandate in the bible, the historic creeds or councils of the faith. 

Scripture teaches that unity among Christians is faithful witness to Jesus. Under that authority we are committed to walking with, not apart from, those we disagree with. We believe expressions of same-sex relationships to be supported by scripture whilst respecting the integrity of those who hold other views from the same texts.

In this we are being biblical and orthodox.’

The first thing to note in relation to what Runcorn argues here is that it true that there is no precedent in the Church of the Patristic period for churches dividing because some people were holding that marriage could be between two people of the same-sex, or that sex outside marriage could be legitimate. However, where this argument falls down is that the reason that the Patristic period provides no precedent for this position is that no one in the patristic period ever put forward these ideas. The lack of Patristic precedent is therefore irrelevant.

The second thing to  note is that we have to ask what kind of unity bears faithful witness to Jesus. The answer that we find in John 17:21 is that the kind of unity that bears such witness is a unity that possesses the same characteristics as the unity between Jesus and the Father (‘that they may all be one, even as thou Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou has sent me’). As the rest of John makes clear, this kind of unity involves truthful knowledge of the Father’s will and obedience to it, which for Christians means truthful knowledge of the revelation given by the Father through Holy Scripture and obedience to it. And if the traditional Christian view of marriage and sexual ethics is correct then this in turn means accepting and obeying the truth that marriage is between men and women and that all sex outside marriage is sinful. 

The third and final thing to note is that Scripture mandates separation from those engaged in sinful sexual behaviour. In the words of the CEEC report Guarding the Deposit:

‘The apostolic witness in the New Testament further tells us that:

• un-repented sexual sin will separate people from the life of God’s kingdom in the world to come (Matt. 5:27-30, 1 Cor. 6:9-11, Gal. 5:18-21, Rev. 21:8).

• Moreover, the Church should make a separation in this world between the people of God and those who practise sexual immorality (1 Cor 5: 1-13).

As Tom Wright notes, Paul teaches that the Church Christian community has the ‘God given right and duty to discriminate between those who are living in the Messiah’s way and those who are not’. This discrimination needs to involve ceasing to associate with those living a life of sexual immorality—both so as to protect the Church from their influence and to make clear to them the seriousness of their behaviour in the hope that they will repent. The apostles also warn against the destructive effect of ‘false teachers’ who teach people to engage in sexual immorality (see Eph. 5:6-8,

Peter, Jude and Rev. 2:19-23). Christians are repeatedly warned against such teaching and the toleration of it within the Church.’ [6]

It follows from this that the ‘biblical and orthodox’ position is not to say that marriage and sexual ethics are matters that are adiaphora and on which Christians can therefore agree to disagree. They are rather matters that call for separation from those engaging sexual immorality or teaching that it is acceptable. The only question is what form this differentiation needs to take. [7]

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[1] Thinking Anglicans, 20 May 2023, Opinion, David Runcorn at https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/

[2] See Thomas K Hubbard (ed) A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2014)/

[3] See for example, Geoffrey Bromiley, Sex and Marriage (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh, – Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007,  Martin Davie, Studies on the Bible and same-sex relationships since 2003(Malton: Gilead Books, 2015), Sean Doherty, The Only Way is Ethics, Part 1:Sex and Marriage (Milton Keynes: Authentic Media, 2015), David Peterson (ed), Holiness & Sexuality (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2004), Todd Wilson, Mere Sexuality (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017).

[4] Martin Davie, Glorify God in your Body, (London: CEEC, 2018), pp. 133-135.

[5] See Article VII of the Thirty Nine Articles.

[6] Church of England Evangelical Council, Guarding the Deposit, pp.4-5 at https://ceec.info/wp- content/uploads/2022/10/guarding_the_deposit.pdf

[7] For a detailed discussion of this point see Church of England Evangelical Council, Visibly Different, at  https://ceec.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/visibly_different_-_dated_26_july_2020.pdf

The bishops and the principle of non-contradiction

There is a well-known and generally accepted philosophical principle known as the law or principle of non-contradiction that tells us that two contradictory propositions cannot both be true. To put it in terms of formal logic, a and not a cannot both be true. Thus, a statement cannot be both a statement of truth and a lie.

What follows from the principle of non-contradiction is that an argument that involves contradictory propositions must be false. For example, it is false to argue (a) a triangle has three sides, (b) shape x has four sides, (c) shape x is a triangle.  This argument cannot be true because for (c) to be true either (a) or (b) must be false.

I was led to thinking about the principle of non-contradiction because of the press-release concerning the most recent meeting of the House of Bishops. [1]

This press release tells us that the proposals from the House of Bishops which were debated in Synod in February and which form the basis for their continuing work in response to Living in Love and Faith were that:

…. that, for the first time, same-sex couples could have a service in church in which there would be prayers of dedication, thanksgiving or for God’s blessing following a civil marriage or civil partnership.

It then went on to say that the proposals ‘would not, however, change the Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony.’

Both these statements are a correct description of the proposals brought to Synod by the bishops. What needs to be noted in addition, however, is that an amendment was added by Synod to the motion brought by the bishops. This stated that Synod endorsed the intention of the bishops that the final version of the proposed prayers ‘should not be contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England.’

Putting these three elements together where we have now got to in the Church of England is that:

a) The bishops are proposing that same-sex couples could have a service in church in which there would be prayers of dedication, thanksgiving or for God’s blessing following a civil marriage or civil partnership;

b) The Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony will remain unchanged;

c) The proposed prayers must not be contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, this doctrine.

The problem with the combination of these elements is that the principle of non-contradiction comes into play. If (b) is true then either (a) or (c ) will not be able to be true.

To understand why this is that case the first thing that needs to be noted is that in both the Book of Common Prayer and Canon B.30 which are determinative on the matter ‘Holy Matrimony’ is simply a synonym for ‘marriage.’ The Church of England’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony is what it believes and teaches about marriage.

The second thing that needs to be noted is that if we consult the ‘historic formularies’ of the Church of England (the Prayer Book, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the 1662 Ordinal), The Second Book of Homilies, Canon B.30 and other recent Church of England documents we find that what the Church of England believes and teaches about marriage can be summarised in the following six points:

1. Marriage is a state of life ordained by God himself at creation as such it is a way of life that applies to all people at all times and everywhere. Any state of life that does not accord with the form of marriage ordained by God is not marriage.
2. Marriage is a serious vocation to which some, but not all, human beings are called by God. Those who are called to enter into it must do so with due thought and reverence for its God given character. Marriage and singleness are two ways of life, neither of which is necessarily more holy than the other.  
3. Marriage is a sexually exclusive relationship entered into for life between one man and one woman, who are not married to anyone else, and who are not close blood relatives.
4. Marriage is a relationship of ‘perpetual, friendly fellowship’ that is not a dominical sacrament in the same way as Baptism or the Lord’s Supper, but is a sign pointing to the loving union that exists between Christ and his Church and a means of grace through which a husband and wife can grow as the people God created them to be.
5. Marriage a relationship that provides the sole proper context for sexual intercourse and which has as one of its key purposes the procreation and nurturing of children to be the next generation of God’s people.
6. Clergy are free to be either married or single depending on the particular vocation to which God calls them, but they must live in a godly way in either vocation.

The third thing that needs to be noted is that if (1) and (3) are true then it follows that a same-sex relationship is not a marriage (even if that is what the law of the land calls it) and if  (5) is true then any form of same-sex sexual relationship (which necessarily cannot be a marital one) is a relationships will falls outside of the God-given limits for sexual intercourse. It is what the New Testament calls porneia, sexual activity contrary to the will of God.

What these three points mean is that the forms of prayer proposed by the House of Bishops are problematic.

 It would make no sense to offer to God prayers of dedication, thanksgiving, and blessing for a same-sex marriage if this relationship is by definition not really a marriage. You would be praying for a non -existent thing. The insuperable problem is that either you have to hold that a same-sex relationship is not a marriage (in which case you cannot rightly pray for it as a marriage) or hold that it is a marriage (in which case you have departed from the doctrine of the Church of England).

In the case of a same-sex civil partnerships, the problem is that you could not pray for such a partnership if it either was, or was believed to be, sexual in nature. According to the doctrine of the Church of England such a relationship would be a form of porneia and you cannot dedicate, give thanks for, or ask for God’s blessing upon, a relationship involving porneia (which is why you cannot pray, for instance, for an adulterous relationships). It would therefore be either contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, Church of England doctrine to offer the sort of prayers proposed by the bishops for any same-sex relationship that was not clearly known to be sexually abstinent.

The bishops therefore have four choices:

a) They can try to change the Church’s doctrine of marriage.

b) They can propose forms of prayer that are contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England.

c) They can restrict the prayers they offer solely to same-sex civil partnerships that are known to be sexually abstinent (and there would have to be some way of making this clear).

d) They can withdraw their current proposals entirely.

The problem with (a) is that there is currently no prospect of getting this through Synod and more fundamentally it is impossible to see how a change of doctrine would meet the Church of England’s threefold doctrinal test of being compatible with Scripture and with the witness to Scripture borne by the Fathers and the Church of England’s historic formularies (see Canons A 5 and C15).

The problem with (b) is thar such prayers would not only go against what Synod has voted for, but they would also be contrary to Canon Law (see Canons B2.1, B.41-3, B.5.3).

The problem with ( c) is that there is no sign of any demand for services of prayer for celibate same-sex Civil Partnerships so what would be point of introducing such prayers?

That leaves (d) as the only other way forward and because it is the only way forward it is the one the bishops should adopt. As we have seen, what the bishops are currently proposing is incoherent. It falls foul of the principle of non-contradiction because you cannot both uphold the Church of England’s current doctrine of marriage and introduce forms of prayer that are incompatible with it. You can do one or the other, but not both.  

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[1] ‘Bishops agree key areas for further work implementing Living in Love and Faith’, 19 May 2023 at https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/bishops-agree-key-areas-for-further-work-implementing-living-in-love-and-faith/

Love Matters – an introduction and response

What is in the report?

Love Matters is the final report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households.[1] The purpose of the report is summarised in the following words from its first chapter:

‘In a time of immense uncertainty in everyday life two key questions need to be urgently addressed:

1. How can we best support every individual and every family to flourish in our complex and ever-changing society?

2. What kind of society do we want to live in?

These challenging questions are at the heart of the Commission on Families and Households, established by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in Spring 2021. The Commission’s task was, first, to draw attention to the pressures and hardships facing families and households in all their diversity in England today and, second, to offer practical ways to deal with those pressures. The Commission was asked to make proposals that would shape public policy relating to families and households across all government departments; and to recommend action by the Church of England, alone or in partnership with other Christian denominations, faith groups and external agencies, that will maximise the support given to families and households in radical new ways.

This report is the Commission’s response to the task set by the Archbishops. Despite the daunting challenges facing families and households in England today, it tells a story of hope, opportunity and love. It is a story that sets a new and sensitive narrative for our country at a moment in time when the unprecedented events of the past three years require us to pause, reflect and re-evaluate how we understand and promote human flourishing amidst considerable uncertainty in the world around us. In the chapters which follow, the thorny issues to be addressed are laid bare, and the opportunities for constructive and lasting change are celebrated, thus laying a solid foundation for hope inspired by a bold new vision.’ (p.12)

The report consists of ten chapters.

1. A story of Hope, Opportunity and Love
2. Understanding ‘Family’, Understanding Flourishing
3. Celebrating Diversity in Family Life
4. Fostering Loving Relationships and Promoting Stability
5. When Love Is Not Enough
6. Every Child Matters

7. Learning and Listening
8. Living in our Time
9. Creating a Kinder, Fairer, More Forgiving Society
10. Reimagining the Future

Chapter 1 is the introduction and chapter 10 presents the overall message of the report. Chapters 2-9 look at different aspects of the life of families and households in Britain today and conclude with key messages from the Commission and recommendations to the Church and the Government.

For example, in chapter 6 the key messages from the Commission run as follows:

‘In this chapter we focused on the vital importance of every child having the best possible start in life, and parents and families being given support at all stages from pre-birth throughchildhood and the teenage years. The aim must be to enable children to live with their biological parents wherever possible and when this is too difficult, to be given the most loving home possible. God requires all of us, irrespective of class, ethnicity, education or belief, to create a world which is fit for children to grow and flourish.

1. Every child matters and deserves the very best start in life.

2. Parenting is demanding and parents need support at different stages in their journey as parents: faith communities can and should support parents with their task.

3. Families provide a protective effect: emotional connection, love and joy; shared experiences of family life; strong positive and enduring relationships; and  the ability to depend on one another for practical and emotional support. A number of factors inhibit this protective effect, and adequate support is needed to ameliorate them.

4. Young carers are especially vulnerable and attempt to hide their caring role, requiring everyone to be vigilant.

5. The children’s social care system is in need of radical reform.

6. The Church of England, other churches and faith communities can provide support for families and for children, irrespective of family structure and parenting arrangements, which is non-stigmatising and non-judgemental.’  (p.117)

The chapter’s recommendations to the Church of England and the Government are then as follows:

‘The Commission urges the Church of England:

Through the National Church
To:

•  Share awareness across the church of the needs of all new parents, including adoptive parents, and ensure that care and support is offered in a non-judgemental way.
  
• Advocate for children and young people in the care system, supporting them to find genuine permanency solutions, to the age of 18, and relational and accommodation support for young people leaving care. This could be done by seeking external funding for a time-limited project for relational and accommodation support for young people leaving care.

• Advocate for young people whose custodial sentences have ended to find genuine permanency solutions.

• Work with government and organisations supporting children and parents to use family-friendly language.

Through its dioceses
To:

• Explore ways to provide loving, caring and non-judgmental support for mothers, fathers and carers to combat adverse childhood experiences.

Through its parishes and deaneries

To:

• Encourage and support current and prospective kinship carers, foster and adoptive parents, and honour, celebrate and offer practical support to those who are caring for children and young people. This could begin through a national online campaign through the Church of England’s digital presence.

• Consider ways to offer accessible and affordable activities for young peoplewithin their community, in partnership with local organisations, local authorities and other faith communities,

• Be especially vigilant in respect of young carers in each community and find ways to support and walk alongside them and their families.

• Provide parenting support through: quality parenting courses, for all stages of childhood, including in partnership with schools; the provision of high-quality toddler groups and similar activities. This should be based on existing good practice and funded through bids for mission funding as this is an essential element of the Church’s mission.

• Take the opportunity when infants and children are brought in for baptismto encourage good parenting, and to support parental relationships, and to consider promoting The Parents Promise.[2]

The Commission urges the Government to:

• Develop a clear cross-government strategy to end child poverty.

• Ensure that all prospective parents, including adoptive parents and guardians, have access to and receive comprehensive information about the supportavailable from professionals working with new parents.

• Portray adoption as a way for children to find the family they need in order to enjoy the security and stability of a loving home in which their wellbeing and happiness is the paramount consideration.

• Implement at pace all of the recommendations of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

• Encourage the imaginative development of different forms of relational and accommodation support for young people leaving care, ensuring that every young person leaving care should have consistent, loving relationships to help them flourish.

• Encourage the imaginative development of different forms of relational and accommodation support for children and young people leaving custodial sentences.

• Ensure that children and young people are protected as far as possible from harmful material online, in conjunction with supporting parents and carers, and to ensure that children and young people are able to navigate social media confidently and appropriately.’ (p.118)

Alongside the specific messages and recommendations in chapter 2-9, the report also puts forward five key messages and gives  an overall answer to the issue of  ‘what kind of society we want to live in now and into the future.’

The report’s five key messages are:

We must:

1. Value families in all their diversity, meeting their basic needs by putting their wellbeing at the heart of Government policy-making and our community life, including religious communities.
2. Support relationships throughout life, ensuring that everyone is able to develop and maintain loving and caring relationships, manage conflict well and promote the flourishing of individuals and families.
3. Honour singleness and single person households, recognising that loving relationships matter to everyone.
4. Empower children and young people, developing their relational skills and knowledge, recognising their value and agency, and protecting them from harm and giving them the best start in life.
5. Build a kinder, fairer, more forgiving society, removing discrimination, division and deep inequality for the sake of every family and household. (p.7)

The report’s answer to what sort of society we want to live in is:

‘We imagine a society that:

• is kind, fair and forgiving, in which every individual, every household and every
  family is able and supported to flourish
• values everyone for who they are, is not discriminatory, and celebrates the rich
  diversity in our society
• seeks the common good and rejects discrimination and inequality

In this society:

• love will permeate our relationships and our daily lives
• each of us will be able to love and be loved
• children and young people will learn how to relate well, receive the loving care that they need to thrive, and have every opportunity to reach their potential
• adults will be encouraged and supported to develop and sustain strong, stable, loving
  and committed relationships however they choose to live their lives
• the Church of England will strive to enable everyone to flourish and live their best life,
  working in partnership with other churches and faith groups, the public and private
  sectors, and government
• all government policies will have the wellbeing of families and households at
  their heart.

We do not believe that our vision is idealised, fanciful or unattainable. Nor does it necessarily require huge financial investment, although we recognise that some of our recommendations to the Church of England and to Government will need to be adequately resourced. We all have a role to play in fostering a change in culture and attitude that allows a different narrative to dominate – a narrative that shows we care for each other and, in biblical terms, demonstrates that we love our neighbour as ourselves.’  (p.218)

What are we to make of this report?

The first thing that has to be said is that there is much that is good in this report. Many of the specific recommendations contained in the report, such as those noted from chapter 6, are ones that everyone should be willing to accept and act upon.

However, the report is also problematic in four respects.

First, the report plays down the importance of marriage. The Bible and the Christian tradition see marriage between two people of the opposite sex as the God given setting for the procreation and upbringing of children, but the report suggests that all types of family arrangement can have equal value. The question is why?  Why were the report’s authors unwilling to say that marriage is the gold standard for family life, given by God and empirically producing the best outcome for children?  In addition, why were they unwilling to say, as the Bible and the Christian tradition have always said, that sexual activity is something that should only take place within marriage?

Secondly, the report plays down the moral seriousness of divorce. The report focusses on the need to ensure that the well-being of children is a central consideration when divorce takes place, but what it does not say is that divorce should not be happening at all. The question again is why? Why were the report’s authors unwilling to say that marriage is created by God to be a life-long relationship and that it is morally wrong to break the marriage bond?

Thirdly, the report is oddly silent about abortion. The report emphasises that every child matters and that every child should be given the opportunity to flourish, but it does not consider (or even mention) how this emphasis is compatible with allowing the deliberate killing of unborn children.

Fourthly, and most fundamentally, the report is silent about the centrality of God for human flourishing. The report emphasises the need for human beings to enjoy loving relationships with their fellow human beings, but it says nothing about the even more fundamental need for human beings to be rightly related to God. If, as the Christian faith tells us, human beings are created to know, love, and serve God why does this fact find no mention in the report?  Why does the report say nothing about the need to encourage and support parents in seeing the development of Christian faith in their children as a top priority for family life?

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[1] The report can be found online at  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-04/H%26F%20report%20DIGITAL%20SINGLE%20PAGES.pdf

[2] ‘The Parents Promise helps parents make a positive commitment to their children when they
are born in case parents subsequently decide to separate and divorce while their children are
still growing up. Parents sign a promise to put their children’s needs first, ensure that both
parents will work together as partners to provide for the children, including not saying bad
things about the other parent, keep them safe, and create the best conditions for them to
thrive. The promise can then be revisited if parents subsequently split up.’ (p.81)

Reflections on Archbishop Stephen Cottrell’s Presidential address to York Diocesan Synod

Introduction

In his Presidential address to York Diocesan Synod on 22 April[1] the Archbishop of York listed three things which he thinks those of us in the Church of England may be in danger of forgetting and which may be ‘particularly relevant’ as we navigate what he calls in a masterpiece of understatement ‘the slightly choppy waters that LLF has created.’

These three things are:

1. ‘We cannot choose our fellow disciples.’
2. ‘The Bible itself gives us the interpretative framework for addressing issues where clear and obvious answers elude us.’
3. ‘You can tell a tree by its fruit (see Matthew 7. 16-20).’

In the remainder of this article, I want to explore what the archbishop has to say on these three points.

We cannot choose our fellow disciples.

The archbishop is correct to say that we cannot choose our fellow disciples. This is because our fellow disciples are those who are drawn to Jesus by the action  of God the Father through the  work of the Holy Spirit (John 6:37, 44, I Thessalonians 1:4-5). This means that our fellow disciples are chosen by God and not by us.

The archbishop is also correct to emphasise that we cannot say to any other member of the body of Christ ‘I do not need you’ (Romans 12. 4-8 & 1 Cor. 12. 12-27) and that we are called to love one another despite our disagreements with one another (John 13:34-35).

However, the important thing to note is that no one in the Church of England debate about marriage and sexual ethics is saying that we can choose our fellow disciples, or that we can say to any other member of the body of Christ ‘I do not need you,’ so these two points by the archbishop are red herrings. 

Some may argue that conservative Anglicans reject people in sexually active same sex relationships as fellow disciples and therefore they are saying exactly these two things. The problem with this argument is that it misrepresents the conservative position. What conservatives reject is not the people themselves, but a particular part of their behaviour. In line with the teaching of the New Testament what they are saying is that porneia, that is all forms of sexual activity outside marriage between one man and one woman (including same-sex sexual activity), is incompatible with Christian discipleship and therefore Christians should not engage in it (Matthew 15:19, Acts 15:20, Galatians 5:19, Ephesians 5:3, Colossians 3:5). This is very different from not welcoming the people concerned into the life of the Church or recognising them as fellow disciples of Christ.

To quote the American writer Stanley Grenz, the conservative position is to be ‘welcoming but not affirming.’ As he puts it:

‘Christ’s community welcomes all sinners, affirming them as persons of value in God’s sight. But like the Master who boldly commanded the adulterous woman the Jewish leaders brought to him, ‘from now on do not sin again’ (John 8:11), the welcoming community of Christ’s disciples steadfastly refuses to affirm any type of sinful behavior.’ [2]

Furthermore, conservatives are not being unloving in taking this position. As The Kigali Commitment recently  issued by GAFCON IV rightly notes:

‘It is not appropriate pastoral care to mislead people, by pretending that God blesses sexually active relationships between two people of the same sex. This is unloving as it leads them into error and places a stumbling block in the way of their inheriting the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).’[3]

To love someone is to desire the best for them and to act accordingly and this would not be true of an affirmation of same-sex sexual activity.

The Bible itself gives us the interpretative framework for addressing issues where clear and obvious answers elude us.

While this proposition is true in itself, what is not true is that ‘clear and obvious answers’ elude us when it comes to the issue of same-sex sexual activity. As we have seen, the Bible is clear that such activity (like all sexual activity outside marriage) is incompatible with Christian discipleship and therefore the clear and obvious answer (which the Christian Church has always accepted until the last sixty years) is that Christians should not engage in it.

At this point the archbishop’s counter argument appears to be that we need to take into account ‘observed lived experience, the goodness and faithfulness that we see and acknowledge in the lives of Christian people which cohere with the signs and work of the Holy Spirit.’ 

This argument is true as far as it goes, but it becomes problematic if it is suggested that because people manifest goodness and faithfulness in some parts of their lives it follows that some other parts of their lives (in this case their sexual activity) cannot be sinful. This is a foolish suggestion because it is true of even the saintliest Christian that their lives are a mixture of goodness and sinfulness, and that the goodness does not somehow cancel out the sinfulness.

For example, it would be perfectly possible for someone to be generous to the poor and needy (which would be virtuous) while being proud and boastful about having done so (which would be sinful – see Matthew 6:1-4). Similarly, it is perfectly possible for people to exercise the virtue of fidelity while at the same time sinning by being in a same-sex sexual relationship.  

The archbishop further argues that in the current dispute over same-sex sexual activity:

 ‘… we are all drawing from and being guided by the same scriptures and with the same faithfulness to scripture and seeking the mind of Christ; not following the whims and fancies of our culture but engaging faithfully with the questions it poses and the faithfulness we see in the lived experience of faithful same-sex Christian couples.’

The problem with this claim is that it does not address the question of why it is only at our particular historical moment that Christians think it may be possible to affirm same- sex sexual activity as something godly, when no previous generation of Christians has ever held this to be possible. The answer is that it is not because anyone has produced a new set of convincing arguments that show that the Bible supports or permits same-sex sexual activity,[4] but because we in the Western world now live in a post Freudian society in which, to quote Carl Trueman there is an ingrained cultural assumption that ‘sex is definitive of who we are, as individuals, as societies, and as a species.’[5]

Furthermore, as Trueman goes on to write, the pervasive influence of ‘Freud’s emphasis on  sexual fulfilment as the essence of human happiness’ leads:

‘…to a reconfiguration of human destiny. The end of human life is no longer something set in the future; rather it is enclosed within the present. To be satisfied is to be sexually fulfilled here and now. The happiest person is the sempiternal orgiast, the one who is constantly indulging his or her sexual desires. That such a figure is now a normative type in our society is a claim that scarcely needs justifying, given the omnipresence of pornography and the general assumption that sexual activity is what makes us authentic human beings.’ [6]

Within this worldview it is clearly cruel to deny anyone the opportunity to find sexual fulfilment and therefore there is enormous social pressure on the Christian community to show that they are not denying people this opportunity. The revisionist re-reading of Scripture as supportive of sexual activity has to be understood historically as a reflection of this social pressure. Only this makes sense of why such a reading has emerged now when it never existed before.

It not the case, as the archbishop suggests, that Christians are now aware of the existence and experience of people with same-sex attraction in the way that they were not before. Christians have always been aware of their existence and experience. Rather, it is that many Christians are now viewing the existence and experience of people with same-sex attraction through the sort of post-Freudian social paradigm that I have just described and are rejecting the teaching of the Bible and the Christian tradition as a result.

To put the matter at its bluntest, even for many Christians Freud has trumped God as the source of their thinking about sex and the LLF debates re a result of this fact.  

You can tell a tree by its fruit.

This is unquestionably true because, as the archbishop notes, it is something taught directly by Jesus himself (Matthew 7:15-20). However, two further points need to be noted.

First, it is not the case, as the archbishop goes on to argue, that we will be judged on our love and not our ‘doctrinal orthodoxy.’ Our orthodoxy will count at the last judgement.

As the Athanasian Creed, which is still an officially accepted Creed of the Church of England, puts it: ‘Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.’

The basis for this statement in the Athanasian Creed is the New Testament teaching that belief brings salvation whereas failure to believe brings condemnation. Mark 16:16 states ‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.’[7]  In similar fashion we are told in John 3:16-18 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.’ For these verses, and for the New Testament as a whole, belief is the thing that is of primary significance (necessary ‘before all things’ as the Athanasian Creed puts it) because, although belief has to express itself in a changed pattern of behaviour, it is belief that places us in a state of salvation. As Romans 3:28 puts it, ‘we are justified (i.e. have a right relationship with God) by faith.’

The link between what is said in these verses from the New Testament and what is taught in the the Athanasian Creed lies in the fact that belief in Jesus leading to salvation means belief in the teaching of the Apostles.  Because Christ has ascended to the right hand of the Father, he no longer presents himself directly to us as the object of our belief as was the case during the years of his earthly ministry. Instead, he is presented to us in the form of the teaching of the Apostles. As Paul says, the Apostles are the ‘ambassadors’ of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20) appointed by him to speak and act on his behalf. This means that our belief or unbelief in the Apostles’ teaching is our belief or unbelief in Christ himself.

The ‘Catholic faith’ to which the Athanasian Creed refers is the teaching of the Apostles as this is expounded in the New Testament and has been handed down in the Church. Doctrinal orthodoxy is simply the acceptance of this ‘Catholic faith’ and it therefore follows that our doctrinal orthodoxy (including our orthodoxy with regard to sexual ethics) will be one of the criteria by which we are judged on the last day. 

Secondly, while we be judged, as the archbishop says, on whether we have loved in response to God’s love for us, love does not just mean affirming what people desire at any given moment. To return to a point made earlier in this aarticle, as Oliver O’Donovan writes, what is meant by love is:  ‘the appropriate pattern of free response to objective reality.’[8] To love God is to freely respond to the reality of God’s wisdom and goodness by living in the way he summons us to live. To love our neighbours is to freely respond to who they are as creatures made by God with particular needs which God calls us to discern and fulfil to the greatest extent that we can.

Love and reason thus go together. It is our reason, attentive to the reality that God has called into being, which shows us what it means to love in any given situation. To take the example of parenting, to love a child involves using our reason to discover their needs and the best way to meet them.

This means that we will not let them drink bleach, and that our decisions about matters such as swimming lessons and bedtimes will be shaped by what is best for their welfare and happiness. Sometimes this may mean saying ‘no’ to what they want to do, not because we are being mean or cruel, but because our reason, working on the basis of who they are, shows us that what they want will not ultimately be good for them.

In similar fashion, to say no to people’s sexual desires, whether these are heterosexual or homosexual in nature, may be necessary as an act of love because reason, instructed by Scripture, tells us that the fulfilment of those desires would not be good for the people concerned either in this world or in the world to come.

To go back to Jesus’ teaching about a tree being known by its fruits, according to Scripture, and the Christian tradition reflecting Scripture, the sort of fruit we should be looking for is a life marked by acceptance of the Catholic faith and the expression of that faith in terms of love for God and other people. The problem for those wishing to promote the acceptance of same-sex relationships is that such acceptance is simply not compatible with the fruit I have just described.  The Catholic faith has always seen marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman and all forms of sexual activity outside such a relationship as sinful. Love for God and neighbour means accepting this verdict and acting accordingly.

In conclusion.  

In conclusion, when carefully considered nothing that the Archbishop of York has said in his Presidential address supports the case for the Church of England shifting its traditional teaching and practice with regard to marriage and human sexuality. The case remains unproven.

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[1] ‘Archbishop’s Presidential Address to York Diocesan Synod’ at https://dioceseofyork.org.uk/news-

   events/news/archbishops-presidential-address-to-york-diocesan-synod2/

[2] Stanley Grenz, Welcoming but not affirming (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p.157.  

[3] The Kigali Commitment at https://www.gafcon.org/news/gafcon-iv-the-kigali-commitment.

[4] For this point see, for example, Michael Brown, Can you be Gay and Christian? (Lake Mary: Frontline 2015),

   Martin Davie, Studies on the Bible and same-sex relationships since 2003 (Malton: Gilead 2015) and Robert

   Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Nashville Abingdon, 2001).

[5] Carl Trueman, The rise and triumph of the modern self (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), Kindle edition, p.243.

[6] Trueman, p.244.

[7] Mark 16:9-20 are generally regarded today as an addition to the original text of Mark and therefore as non-

   Canonical. However, in the history of the Church they have been regarded as the original ending of Mark and

   this historic position can still be defended. See for example J. W. Burgon The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel

   according to S. Mark (Oxford: OUP, 1871) and W. R. Farmer, The Last Twelve verses of Mark (Cambridge:

   CUP, 1974).

[8] Oliver O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order (Leicester: Apollos, 1994), p. 25.

A review of Jonathan Tallon ‘Affirmative: Why you can say yes to the Bible and yes to people who are LGBTQI+’

Dr Jonathan Tallon is an ordained Anglican minister who teaches biblical studies at undergraduate and post-graduate level at the Northern Baptist College and the Luther King centre in Manchester. He has a particular interest in how the teaching of the Bible relates to people who are LGBTQI+ and has a popular website and You Tube channel called Bible and Homosexuality. [1]

What Tallon argues in Affirmative

As Tallon explains in his first chapter, ‘Introduction,’ his new book Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to People Who Are LGBTQI+ is written for the ‘evangelical Christian who is confused or conflicted by the debates over sexuality and gender.’ [2]  As he sees it, the reason evangelical Christians become confused and conflicted by these debates is because:

‘…. many of us have been told that the Bible condemns  homosexuality and transitioning or not conforming to gender norms. You seem to be left with only two stark choices: accept scripture and condemn homosexuality and being transgender; or reject scripture and accept those that are homosexual and transgender.’ [3]

However, according to Tallon this confusion and conflict is unnecessary because:

‘…those are not the only two choices.

In this book, you will see how and why you can say ‘yes’: ‘yes to the Bible and ‘yes’ to affirming those who are gay, lesbian, bi or trans.’ [4] 

In his second chapter, ‘What does the Bible say about homosexuality?,’ Tallon argues that ‘The Bible says nothing about homosexuality.’[5] This is because of the cultural gap between our world and the world of New Testament times:

‘Whilst in our modern world, terms like ‘homosexuality’ might conjure up images of loving couples of the same gender in long term relationships, the ancient world was different. The world of the New Testament had no word for homosexuality and precious little visibility of anything like same-sex couples today. In the ancient world, male-male sex meant pederasty. It meant abuse. It meant rape. Married men were the abusers; the abused were usually enslaved people or prostitutes.

The ancient world’s culture was condemned for this in its day, first by Jewish people, and then by Christians. I would hope all Christians would still condemn it now.

So what does the Bible, written in this ancient world, have to say about homosexuality? As we understand homosexuality today, of loving, equal relationships, it says nothing directly at all.‘[6]

In his third chapter, ‘How should we apply the Bible when our culture is different?’, Tallon explains that the reason why Christians now accept the practice of moneylending when this is prohibited in the Bible is because John Calvin and others at the Reformation concluded that the social situation had changed and so the reason for the biblical prohibition not longer applied. In a similar way we have to ask in relation to homosexuality ‘how similar are the practices condemned in the Bible to the faithful, loving committed relationships that we are addressing today?’[7]

In his fourth chapter, ‘Adam and Steve (and Eve and Niamh),’ Tallon addresses the issue of whether the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 rule out homosexual relationships. He accepts that ‘one could argue that in Genesis the partners are male and female, not male and male or female and female. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve or Eve and Niamh.’  However, he then argues:

‘…. this is what we should expect in a book like Genesis, which paints with a broad brush. throughout human history, this is mostly what happens. Generally, men are attracted to women, women to men, and most couples have children.

But our situation is not about most people. We are dealing with people’s stories that do not fit neatly into the main narrative, whether that is same sex couples, those still looking for a partner, all those who marry but cannot have children.

This is why simply saying that Genesis about Adam and Eve is not a knock down argument against homosexuality anymore that is a knock down argument against being single. God blessing Adam and Eve does not mean condemnation for all who do not fit this pattern.’ [8]

In his fifth chapter, ‘Leviticus, commandments and a new commandment,’ Tallon considers the prohibition of homosexual activity in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13. He contends that this prohibition no longer applies, summarising his argument as follows:

‘There are a variety of possible contexts for the verses in Leviticus, but two prominent ones are intercourse with male shrine prostitutes at temples to pagan goddesses, and intercourse between married men and boys. Neither is similar to the context we are considering today.

However, in any event we do not look to Leviticus for rules to run our lives. Christ has given us the only rule we need: love one another.’[9]

In his sixth chapter, ‘The Sin of Sodom,’ Tallon declares that the account of the sin of Sodom in Genesis 18-19 ‘has nothing to offer us as we consider how we interpret the Bible in the context of loving same-sex relationships.’[10] This is because:

‘The Sodom account is an attempted gang rape. What has this to do with committed, loving relationships? And, in particular, what has it got to do with the gender of those involved?’[11]

In his seventh chapter, ‘The silence of the Gospels,’ Tallon claims that ‘The Gospels say nothing directly about homosexuality.’ [12] He dismisses the argument that as a first century Jews Jesus must have been opposed to homosexuality because the fact that Jesus is God means that one cannot ‘simply assume that Jesus will react the same way as the culture at the time. To do so is to limit God to first century culture.’ [13]

He then goes on to look at three particular passages from the Gospels, Jesus’ discussion of marriage in Matthew 19:3-12, Jesus reference to sexual immorality in Mark 7:17-23,  and Jesus’ healing of a centurion’s slave in Luke 7:1-10.

On Matthew 19 Tallon argues that while ‘Jesus strongly affirms traditional marriage…he does not, by doing this, condemn all alternatives.’[14]  

On Mark 7 he argues that Jesus’ reference to ‘fornication,’ in Greek porneia, refers to sexual immorality in general and ‘not specifically to a group of commandments in Leviticus 18 and 20.’[15] He then further contends that we cannot simply assume that same-sex activity is ‘intrinsically a form of sexual immorality’ [16] and also that Jesus’ declaration that all foods are clean, it is our hearts that make things evil, also applies to issues of sexuality.

On Luke 7 he argues that this passage is not one to which we should appeal because we cannot tell from Luke if the centurion and his slave were in a sexual relationship and, if they were, this would have been a non-consensual relationship which ‘is utterly different to the type of relationship that we are considering today: committed, faithful, loving, consensual relationships.’[17]

In chapter 8, ‘Reading Romans the right way,’ Tallon contends that the most probable interpretation of Romans 1:26-27 is that Paul is referring not to sexual activity by ‘people with a particular sexual orientation’ but to ‘frenzied sexual activity connected with fertility goddess worship’ and pederasty.’[18]  The importance of this is that this sort of activity is quite different from the ‘loving faithful, committed relationships’[19] that affirming Christians want the Church to accept today. 

In chapter 9, ‘The Context of Corinth,’ Tallon argues that the words malakoi and arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians 6:9 refer respectively to ‘those who were morally lax, and those who abused boys’ and that this is ‘an utterly different focus from that of two people wishing to form a faithful, committed, lifelong relationship.’[20]

In chapter 10, ‘Jude the obscure,’ Tallon declares that Jude 7 ‘condemns the people of Sodom and Gomorrah for attempting to have intercourse with angels, just as angels were condemned in 1 Enoch for seeking intercourse with humans. It has nothing to do with homosexuality.’ [21]

In chapter 11, ‘What does the Bible say about Transgender people?’ Tallon argues that:

God made male and female, but he also made people who are intersex and people who are transgender. Scripture does not address these situations directly.

Should our biological sex take priority over our sense of identity? Gender identity turns out to be at least partly biological, but in any case, scripture does not tell us that our bodies must take priority. That is something imposed on scripture.

Is gender confusion wrong? That is a loaded way of asking the question, but even so, transitioning is a way of bringing gender identity, gender expression and biological sex more into line with one another. That is not causing confusion, but rather addressing confusion.’[22]

Tallon sees the prohibition of cross-dressing in Deuteronomy 22:5 as irrelevant to the discussion of transgender because ‘this verse could only be relevant to people who are transgender if you assume that a trans man is ‘really’ a woman or vice versa.’ [23] However, this is precisely the assumption that is in dispute.

Furthermore the verse seems to be addressing pagan idolatry and ‘it is highly unlikely that, either the writer, or the original audience, would have h0ad transgender people in mind.’[24]

In chapter 12, ‘An inclusive Bible,’ Tallon looks at what Acts 10-15 have to say to the contemporary debate in the Church about sexuality. Negatively, he rejects the argument that the Apostolic decree in Acts 15:20 and 29 refers to the prohibitions on sexual conduct in Leviticus 18, including its prohibition of homosexual activity, seeing it instead as a ban on Gentile participation in pagan temple worship. Positively he declares:

‘….that the Acts 10-15 account shows that God’s inclusion was far broader than the first disciples expected. I am claiming that the basis for extending inclusion to the Gentiles was the realisation that people and food considered impure were not considered so by God. I am claiming that seeing God at work in Gentile believers was key to this change. And I am claiming that this change was seen to be in line with a trajectory of scripture, even though it seemed to contradict specific commands in the Torah.

On its own, this does not prove that the Church should accept same sex marriage. But it does provide an authoritative analogy by which to judge the issue.

If we see God at work in gay and lesbian couples, if marriage helps them to flourish and love each other and others, if enabling mutual lifelong companionship is the most loving thing to do, if enabling someone to live as their gender identity is enabling them to live life to the fullest, then Acts gives the Church scriptural warrant for the full inclusion of people who are LGBYQI+.’ [25]

In chapter 13, ‘Learning from history,’ Tallon suggests that the debate about the abolition of slavery indicates that being a ‘revisionist’ is something legitimate since the abolitionists put forward a revisionist reading of Scripture in their day. He then further argues that the debates about slavery indicate the importance of not relying on a handful of biblical verses (such as those that seem to prohibit homosexuality), of listening to people’s experiences, of looking at the context of biblical verses and of considering the overall trajectory of Scripture.

In Tallon’s view it is possible to see:

‘…. An affirming trajectory in scripture. God creates a world with amazing diversity, and proclaims it good. God creates a companion for the first human because it is not good for humans to be alone. And our understanding of the scope of God’s grace widens through Christ to include people who are considered unclean, and to do unclean acts and eat unclean foods. All of this amazing diversity of both humankind is brought together in Christ, in whom there is no male and female.’ [26]

Summarising his argument, Tallon concludes the chapter by declaring:

‘At various moments, Christians have been faced with choosing between an option seemingly prohibited by some scriptural verses, or considering the spirit of scripture and seeing God at work. On the issue  of circumcision for gentile males, an expansive reading of scripture won the day. On the issue of lending money at interest, an expansive reading of scripture won the day. On the issue of slavery, an expansive reading of scripture won the day.

This does not automatically mean that affirming the inclusion of people who are LGBTQI+ is right. but it should, at the very least, make us humble and hesitant before declaring that it must be wrong. Consider whether, on the issue of affirmation, an expansive reading of scripture should win the day.’[27]

In Chapter 14, ‘Conclusion,’ Tallon argues that the Bible does not talk either about loving same-sex relationships or about Gender transition. This means that it does not directly address our current concerns. However, it does:

‘… give us a clear framework for our ethical decisions: love. Do our decisions and action build each other up? Do we see good fruit coming from these actions? Do we see bad fruit from a denial of possibilities?[28]

In the light of this framework Tallon then  goes on to declare:

I cannot see how it is loving to deny the possibility of lifelong, faithful relationships to people of the same gender, to proclaim homosexuality as inherently sinful, or to insist that people try to change their gender identity to fit their physical bodies. The fruit of such approaches are rotten; what results is human misery.

The harm is to those who identify as LGBTQI plus, who are sometimes given the false choice of imposed celibacy, denying their known identity, or walking away from the church.’ [29]

Furthermore: ‘… the harm is also to society at large, who will not listen to the good news of God’s love from what they consider to be a prejudiced organisation.’[30]

The book concludes with a Postscript inviting readers  to consider where they  stand personally and what different viewpoints they can accept as legitimate (even if they don’t agree with them) and an Appendix with suggestions for further reading.

What should we make of Tallon’s argument?

Tallon’s book is a serious attempt to make out a biblical case for a Christian acceptance of same-sex relationships and gender transition and it should be read by everyone who wants to understand why there are Christians who take this viewpoint.

However, in my view Tallon’s arguments for acceptance remain unconvincing for a number of reasons.

First, while Tallon is right to raise the issue of the need to take into account the differences between the biblical world and the world we inhabit today, it is simply not the case, as he suggests, that there was no awareness in New Testament times of the existence loving consensual same-sex relationships. As the CEEC report Guarding the Deposit correctly notes:

‘Various forms of same-sex sexual relationships both between men and men and between women and women—including long-lasting consensual relationships and even same-sex marriages—existed in the first-century Greco Roman world and would have been known about by the early Christians. Theirs was a world with just as much sexual variety as exists today.’ [31]

Secondly, Tallon’s argument that the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 simply gives a description of what mostly happens fails to take into account the way in which in the biblical canon these narratives are seen as having prescriptive authority for human conduct. As Richard Davidson shows in detail in his massive study Flame of Yahweh – Sexuality in the Old Testament,[32]literally  everything that is said subsequently in Scripture about human sexual activity presupposes the fact that God has created two different but sexually complementary sexes, male and female, and ordained heterosexual monogamous marriage as the context for sexual union between them. Godly human conduct is that which reflects this truth and sinful human conduct is that which does not.

Thirdly, contrary to what Tallon suggests there is nothing in Leviticus 18 or 20 to suggest that the prohibition of sexual conduct in 18:22 and 20:13 has to do with ‘male shrine prostitutes at temples to pagan goddesses, and intercourse between married men and boys.’ As Sam Allberry writes in his book Is God Anti-Gay? :

‘…. some suggest these verses are not prohibiting homosexual behaviour in general, but only the cultic prostitution associated with pagan temples. But the language used is not that specific; the passages refer in general to a man lying with a man ‘as with a woman’ without specifying a particular context for that act. Moreover, the surrounding verses in both Leviticus 18 and 20 forbid other forms of sexual scene that are generally nature, such as incest, adultery and bestiality.

None of these have any connexion with pagan temples or idolatry. These things are morally wrong, irrespective of who is doing them and where they are happening. It is also important to see that the second of these two verses (Leviticus 20:13) prohibits both male parties equally. We can’t write it off as prohibiting things like gay rape or forced relationships. Leviticus prohibits even general, consensual activity.’ [33]

Furthermore, the reason why male homosexual activity (and by extension, as Rabbinic interpretation has seen, female same-sex activity as well[34]) is  prohibited is because such activity goes against the divine order put in place by God at creation. As Robert Gagnon notes: ‘All the laws in Lev 18:6-23; 20:2-21 legislate against forms of sexual behavior that disrupt the created order set into motion by the God of Israel.’[35]  God created men and women to enter into sexual union with the opposite sex in marriage. Same sex sexual activity goes against this God ordained pattern for sexual conduct. Hence such activity is forbidden.

Fourthly, the story of Sodom in Genesis 19 is not, as Tallon claims, a story about ‘attempted gang rape.’ As Victor Hamilton notes in his commentary on Genesis,  Hebrew has a vocabulary that is used to describe rape and this vocabulary is not used in Genesis 19:5.^[36] All that this verse tells us, therefore, is that the men of Sodom wanted to have sexual relations with Lot’s visitors. It does not limit what the men of Sodom were contemplating to rape even if the context suggests that that this may have been what the crowd had in mind.

The fact that the text leaves it at that and that it says nothing about the motivation of the crowd, or whether they were homosexual or bisexual is theologically significant. In order to make it clear that Sodom was a gravely sinful place all that the text has to say is that its male inhabitants sought to have sex with (‘know’)  other men. That in itself constitutes a wicked act (Genesis 19:6) which illustrates the more general wickedness for which Sodom, Gomorrah, and two neighbouring cities are going to be destroyed.

Fifthly, in relation to the Gospels, Tallon is correct to observe that we cannot simply assume that Jesus, as God incarnate, shared the prevailing views of his Jewish culture. However, this does not mean that the fact that the Gospels do not record Jesus as saying anything directly about homosexuality means that we have to be agnostic regarding what he thought about the topic. As John Nolland has argued, Jesus’ silence is itself significant:

‘The Jesus who did not speak explicitly of homosexual sex also never warned people of the evils of idolatry! For all his critical engagement with the Jewish tradition of his day, Jesus depended heavily on his basic shared assumptions with that tradition. He took for granted whatever he could take for granted. Some things he reinforced. Some things he opposed. Some things he set out to modify. But failure to comment is to be taken in general as affirmation, not indifference or opposition.

This is not do deny that for strategic reasons something may be, at least for a time, kept back. Nor is it to deny that the significance of specific things is importantly influenced by the weighting that is accorded them (i.e. some things emerge as more important than others) and the connections that are made for them (i.e. where things sit in an overall theological and ethical system matters, as do attitudes and actions that come along with the matters in question). Prostitutes and tax collectors were drawn to Jesus not because he validated their life-style, but because his critical stance was linked with genuine concern and compassion, not with distancing and dismissal (see e.g. Mat 9:13; 21:31; Lk 15:2). In any context of communication there must be a general assumption of implied affirmation of the status quo in relation to connected matters which do not come up for specific comment. It is vital to communication that a great deal is able to remain tacit. The need to say everything is an impossible burden within any communication nexus.

For any proper understanding of Jesus it is disastrous to ignore his context and the shared assumptions with his context that made Jesus intelligible and allowed him to communicate effectively. Jesus challenged those received patterns that he wanted to change. In sexual ethics, for example, he repudiated the double standard that allowed adultery to be viewed only as an offence against a husband and not an offence against a wife. But he also provided sufficient indicators of continuity with the sexual ethics of his Jewish tradition for it to be quite proper for us to fill in the details in relation to matters on which he remained silent on the basis of agreement and affirmation.’[37]

To put it simply, in the case of Jesus and the Jewish sexual ethics of his day it is legitimate to hold that ‘silence means consent’ and that therefore he held same-sex sexual activity to be forbidden by God.

In relation to Matthew 19 it is true that Jesus does not explicitly condemn all alternatives to the form of marriage described in Genesis. However, it is clear that the logic of what he does say does condemn them. This is because the flow of Jesus’ argument in Matthew 19:3-7 is that God’s creation of human beings as male and female (v.4) and his establishment of marriage as a relationship between a husband and a wife (v.5) go together.  What follows from this is that there is no place for a same-sex marriage precisely because it is a union between two people of the same rather than the opposite sex.

In relation to Mark 7, Tallon is wrong to suggest that in the first century context porneia (v23) did not have a specific reference to the forms of  sexual activity prohibited in Leviticus 18 and 20 (including same-sex sexual activity). It did. To quote Nolland again:

‘In the Jewish context of Jesus’ day, and in the Christian context that grew out of it, homosexual coitus would have been automatically embraced within the scope of porneia.

The most common form of porneia would be heterosexual intercourse, whether this involved married people with a partner other than their spouse, including with a prostitute, or those who were not married.15 When one or both parties were married to somebody else porneia was also adultery. If porneia involved an unmarried man and unmarried woman then the prospect of having the illicit sexual activity retrospectively regularised was offered: the man was obliged to marry the woman, unless (given the prevailing patriarchal framework) the woman’s father was absolutely opposed to the match (Ex 22:16-17).

Incest would also be porneia, indeed porneia of a particularly serious kind (Lev 18:6-18; 20:11-12, 14, 17, 19-21).16 There appear to be two orders of incest in Lev 20. The death penalty is involved for the first order (vv 10-16, which covers sex with one’s father’s wife, one’s daughter-in-law, both a woman and her mother) Such porneia is put on the same level as adultery. Lesser or unspecified punishment is involved for the second order of porneia (vv 17-22, which covers sex with a stepsister, an aunt, the wife of an uncle or the wife of a brother). 17

Male homosexual sex belongs here as well, actually being treated (Lev 20:13) in the middle of a set of kinds of first order incest (vv 10-16)). In Lev 18:20-23 male homosexual sex is preceded by incestual sex and child sacrifice and followed by sex with animals.18 Sexual engagement with an animal would also be porneia (Lev 20:15-16).

To speak of porneia without further specification in the world of the Gospels would be to refer collectively to all of these kinds of illicit sexual activity.’[38]

Tallon also mis-applies the truth ‘that all foods are clean, it is our hearts that make things evil’ as if it meant that same-sex sexual activity is not intrinsically wrong but only wrong if it proceeds from an evil heart. The problem with this idea is that in Mark 7:20-23 porneia (including same-sex sexual activity) is seen as something intrinsically evil in the same way that envy, slander and pride are evil.

Where Tallon is right is to say that the story of the centurion’s servant in Luke 7 is is irrelevant to the debate about sexuality. We simply do not have the information that would allow us to say anything about the sexuality of either the centurion or his servant.

Sixthly, Tallon’s contention that Romans 1:26-27 are best understood as referring to the cult of the goddess Cybele (‘‘frenzied sexual activity connected with fertility goddess worship’) and pederasty does not fit with what Romans 1 actually says. As Michael Brown observes, in Romans 1:

‘Paul is not simply referring to sins that people commit in the context of idol worship in a pagan temple. He is referring to the sins of the human race as a whole, which, he explains, are the results of our rejection of the one true God, who consequently gave us over their sins the flesh and since the heart. Stop for a moment and reread the verses just cited. Is there any doubt that Poole was Speaking of the universal nature of human sin? And is there anything on this list -from heterosexual promiscuity to homosexual acts (male and female) to ‘Evil, covetousness, malice’ and ‘envy, murder, strife, deceit, {and] maliciousness’ to people being ‘gossip’s, slanderers, haters of God, incident, haughty, boastful, Inventors of evil, disobedient parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless’ – is there anything listed here that is not sinful wherever it is found, within the context of adultery or the context of everyday life?  Obviously not.

The opposite of this is clear: Paul is not specifically speaking about homosexual acts that took place in Pagan temples as the people worshipped idols and engaged in sexual promiscuity. He was speaking generically about homosexual acts both male and female, and denouncing them as sinful in the strongest possible terms.’ [39]

Furthermore, the way Paul describes female and male homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27 does not work as a description of the worship of Cybele, which did not involve female same sex acts and male same sex acts but combination of homosexual and heterosexual sex acts. Also, the two features of Cybele worship which were best known, male cross dressing and males castrating themselves have no mention in these verses.[40]

The idea that Paul is referring to pederasty is ruled out because pederasty was an exclusively male form of same-sex activity and therefore by bracketing together both male and female same-sex activity Paul shows that pederasty is not the focus of his criticism. In addition, he does not employ the vocabulary used in the first century  to refer to pederasty.

Lastly, because Paul’s argument about same-sex sexual relationships is that they are ‘against nature’ in the sense that they are go against God’s creation of human beings as creatures designed to have sex with members of the opposite sex in the context of marriage,[41] even loving, faithful, committed same-sex relationships would be something that Paul would reject (and probably did reject given that is likely that he knew about them).

Seventhly, Tallon’s argument that in  1 Corinthians 6:9 malakoi and arsenokoitai  refer to  ‘those who were morally lax, and those who abused boys’ goes against the consensus of scholarship on the matter. The scholarly consensus about the matter is supported even by ‘gay affirming’ scholars and the reasons why this is the case are helpfully explained by the distinguished American church historian Eugene Rice (himself supportive of same-sex relationships) in his article on Paul for the online GLBTQ Encyclopedia:

‘At 1 Cor. 6:9–10, Paul lists a heterogeneous group of sinners whom he bars from the kingdom of God. The sexual offenders consist of fornicators, adulterers, and two kinds of men: malakoi and arsenokoitai – the nouns are plural and masculine.

The meanings of these Greek nouns have been the subject of lively debate, largely provoked by gay authors anxious to show that Paul and the early church had not intended to condemn homosexuality per se as harshly as has been traditionally supposed, but only a degraded type of pederasty associated with prostitution and child abuse.

Recent scholarship has shown conclusively that the traditional meanings assigned to these words stand. So do the traditional translations: the Latin translation ‘commonly used in the church,’ and therefore known as the Vulgate, and the English King James Version (KJV).

Malakoi

Malakoi (Latin Vulgate: molles) should have caused no problem. There is ample evidence that in sexual contexts, in both classical and post-classical times, malakos designated the receptive partner in a male same-sex act, a meaning decisively reconfirmed in late antiquity by the physician Caelius Aurelianus when he tells us that the Greeks call malakoi males whom the Latins call molles or subacti, males, that is, who play the receptive role in anal intercourse.

Paul’s malakoi, we can say with certainty, are males – boys, youths, or adults – who have consented, either for money or for pleasure, for some perceived advantage or as an act of affectionate generosity, to be penetrated by men.

Arsenokoitai

The word is a verbal noun, and its earliest attestation is in this verse of Paul’s. It is a compound of arsen = ‘male’ and koités = ‘a man who lies with (or beds).’ And so we have, describing Oedipus, metrokoités, ‘a man who lies with his mother,’ doulokoités, ‘a man who lies with maidservants or female slaves,’ polykoités, ‘a man who lies with many,’ and onokoités, ‘a man who lies with donkeys,’ said of Christians in a graffito from Carthage of about 195.

Arsenokoitai are therefore ‘men who lie with males,’ and the Vulgate’s masculorum concubitores (where masculorum is an objective genitive), renders the Greek exactly to mean ‘men who lie with males,’ ‘men who sleep with males,’ ‘men who have sex with males.’

The source of arsenokoitai is in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible known as the Septuagint (finished around 130 B.C.E. for the use of Greek-speaking Jews). The Septuagint of Leviticus 18:22 reads: Kai meta arsenos ou koiméthés koitén gynaikeian, and of Lev. 20:13, Kai os an koiméthé meta arsenos koitén gynaikos…; Englished we have, ‘With a male you shall not lie the bed/intercourse (koité) of a woman,’ and ‘Whoever lies with a male the koité of a woman, [both have done an abominable thing, they shall be put to death.]’

The dependence of Paul’s arsenokoitai on the Levitical arsenos koitén demonstrates unequivocally its source and confirms his intended meaning. The word was almost certainly coined by Greek-speaking Jews. Understood in the context of what we know about role playing in most ancient same-sex relationships, malakoi are the receptive parties and arsenokoitai the inserters in male-male anal intercourse.‘ [42]

Eighthly, Tallon’s suggestion that Jude 7 refers to the men of Sodom wanting to have sex with angels is unlikely. In the words of Kevin Deyoung, there are still ‘good reasons’ to accept the traditional interpretation of Jude & as referring to homosexual activity:

‘1. This interpretation is in keeping with prevailing Jewish norms in the first century. Both Josephus and Philo not only condemn relations that are “contrary to nature,” they explicitly understand Genesis 19 as referring to homosexual acts.

2. As a striking example of sexual immorality, it would certainly be more relevant in a first century Greco-Roman context to warn against homosexual behavior as opposed to the non-existent temptation to have sex with angels (cf. 2 Peter 2:6).

3. It would be strange to refer to attempted sex with angels as pursuing other “flesh.” Of all the ways to reference angels, the very physical, human, and earthly sarx seems an odd choice.

4. The men of Sodom did not know they were trying to have sex with angelic beings. Even if sarkos heteras could be taken to mean a “different species” (and I don’t think it does), the men of Sodom had no idea that that is what they were pursuing. Isn’t it more likely to think they were guilty of pursuing sex with other men (as they saw them), then that they were guilty of pursuing sex with angels (which they did not understand)?

5. If pursuing “unnatural desire” is a reference to seeking out sex with angels, how do we make sense of the beginning of verse 7 which indicts Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities of this sin? Were Admah and Zeboim guilty of trying to have sex with angels? It makes more sense to think that Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities all had a reputation for sexual immorality and that one flagrant example of such sin was homosexual practice. This is why the parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:7-8 can depict Lot as greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of these cities. They had a reputation for lawlessness which did not rely on angels to be manifested.

In short, the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole region was not just a one-time attempted gang rape of angelic beings, but, according to Jude a lifestyle of sensuality and sexual immorality, at least one aspect of which was exemplified in men pursuing the flesh of other men instead of the flesh of women.’[43]

Ninthly, each of the four points Tallon makes with reference to transgender are problematic.

Tallon claims that God ‘made people who are intersex and people who are transgender’ just as he made people male and female. The difficulty here is twofold. (a) It is not clear that intersex people are in fact a different category from male and female. This is because there is no evidence of the existence of someone who is truly intersex in the sense of being biologically ordered to the production of both sperm and eggs. As Abigail Favele points out, even in the rarest intersex conditions ‘an individual can develop both ovarian and testicular tissue, but even in this case, he or she will produce one gamete or the other, not both. [44] (b) Transgender people also are arguably not a different category from male and female. If being male or female is determined by biology (which is the only coherent way of viewing the matter) then someone with gender dysphoria is simply a man or a woman who has difficulty accepting or living with this fact.  

If we accept then being male or female is a matter of biology it follows that the answer to Tallon’s rhetorical question ‘Should our biological sex take priority over our sense of identity?’ is ‘Yes it should’ because it is our biology and not our feelings that determines our sex.[45] Tallon claims that seeing sex as biological is something ‘imposed on scripture’ but that is not the case. The biological reality of the two sexes is reflected in the biblical references to men and women. In Scripture women are mothers and men are fathers. All modern biology does is fill out the picture by telling us more about why women are mothers and men are fathers.

If being male or female is a matter of biology, then contrary to what Tallon argues gender transition does cause confusion. This because it confuses who someone wishes to be with who they actually are in that in involves a claim that someone wis who they wish to be even though this goes against the God given biological reality of their sex.

If the argument above is correct then it is true that that ‘a trans man is ‘really’ a woman or vice versa.’ This being the case, the prohibition on cross dressing in Deuteronomy 22:5 and Paul’s discussion about head coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 are both relevant to the transgender issue because they both say that people should not blur sexual distinctions by presenting themselves as members of the opposite sex.

Tenthly, contrary to what Tallon suggests, the view that Acts 15:20 and 29 are about Gentile Christians being asked to adhere to the laws in Leviticus 17-18 that prohibit various forms of behaviour (including homosexual activity) to ‘the alien who sojourns in your midst’ sill seem the most persuasive interpretation of these verses.[46]

Furthermore, while Tallon is right ‘that seeing God at work in Gentile believers’ was a major driver for the inclusion of Gentiles as Gentiles into the apostolic Church, what was also key was being able to understand that their inclusion was in line with Scripture and could take place without contravening biblical teaching (which is what Acts 15:12-21 and more broadly Romans and Galatians are about).

Where the analogy that Tallon proposes between the acceptance of the Gentiles and acceptance of LGBTQI+ people breaks down is that while we may well be able to see God at work in the lives of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender no one has been able to show that acceptance of same-sex sexual activity or gender transition has biblical support and does not contravene biblical teaching concerning what it means to live rightly as men and women created by God.

This point also applies to Tallon’s argument that Christian acceptance of Gentiles males not needing to be circumcised and of money lending and Christian opposition to slavery are historical precedents for the full inclusion of LGBTQI+ people in the Church today. In all three cases Christians were able to provide persuasive arguments to show that the developments concerned were in line witn biblical teaching.  No such arguments exist in relation to LGBTQI+ inclusion.

As we have seen, Tallon appeals to what he calls an ‘affirming trajectory in scripture’ which he describes as follows:

‘God creates a world with amazing diversity, and proclaims it good. God creates a companion for the first human because it is not good for humans to be alone. And our understanding of the scope of God’s grace widens through Christ to include people who are considered unclean, and to do unclean acts and eat unclean foods. All of this amazing diversity of both humankind is brought together in Christ, in whom there is no male and female.’

All that Tallon says in this quotation is true. The problem is that none of it shows that the Bible supports same-sex sexual relationships of same-sex marriages or people living in a way that goes against their created sex. that is what Tallon has to show and that is what he fails to show.

Finally, Tallon’s description of the harm that is done by the Church not being inclusive in the way he would favour is seriously one sided. What the evidence actually shows is that there are people who are same-sex attracted and struggle with their gender identity who find living in accordance with the Church’s teaching a liberating and fulfilling way to live, and among them are people who will testify that being in same sex relationships and going through gender transition was something that in the  end did not deliver the happiness that was promised.[47]

Tallon simply ignores this part of the picture as he also ignores the fact that holding to traditional teaching is not necessarily something that prevents the Church engaging successfully in mission. There are plenty of growing conservative churches that would testify to the opposite.   

In conclusion, I would recommend Tallon as a useful resource for those who want to read an able presentation of the liberal position, but for the reasons given above I would not recommend it as a reliable guide to the issues which it covers.

---

[1] The web site and the link to Tallon’s You Tube channel can be found at

Bible and Homosexuality

[2] Jonathan Tallon,  Affirmative: Why You Can Say Yes to the Bible and Yes to People Who Are LGBTQI+

  Richardson Jones Press, 2023), Kindle edition, p.4.

[3] Tallon, p.5.

[4] Tallon, p.5.

[5] Tallon, p.6.

[6] Tallon, pp.17-18.

[7] Tallon, p.22.

[8] Tallon, p.27.

[9] Tallon, p.36.

[10] Tallon, p.40.

[11] Tallon, p.39.

[12] Tallon, p.41.

[13] Tallon, p.42.

[14] Tallon p.44.

[15] Tallon, p.46.

[16] Tallon, p.46.

[17] Tallon, p.50.

[18] Tallon, p.70.

[19] Tallon, p70

[20] Tallopn, p.78.

[21] Tallon, p.81.

[22] Tallon p.92

[23] Tallon, p.92.

[24] Tallon, p.93.

[25] Tallon,pp.104-105.

[26] Tallon, pp.113-114.

[27] Tallon, p.114.

[28] Tallon, p.118.

[29] Tallon, p.119.

[30] Tallon, p.120.

[31] CEEC, Guarding the Deposit at https://ceec.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/guarding_the_deposit.pdf.The report cites Thomas K Hubbard (ed) A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, Wiley Blackwell  2014 as providing evidence to support this position.

[32] Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh – Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007). 

[33] Sam Allberry , Is God Anti-Gay? (Epsom: The Good Book Company, 2013), p.29.

[34] Davidson, p.150.

[35] Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), p.136.

[36] Victor Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 18-50 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), pp.34-35

[37] John Nolland, ‘Sexual Ethics and the Jesus of the Gospels,’ Anvil , Vol 26, No.1, 2009, pp.28-29.

[38] Nolland, pp. 25-26.

[39] Michael Brown, Can you be gay and Christian?  (Lake Mary: Front Line, 2014), p.174.

[40] Tallon contends that 1:27 ‘receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error’ is a reference to Castration, but as numerous commentators have noted the error concerned is idolatry and what Paul is referring to is ‘sexual perversion itself as the punishment for their abandonment of the true God’ (CharlesCranfield, The Epistle to the Romans Volume 1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), pp.126-127).  

[41] For the meaning of ‘against nature see Gagnon chapter 2 and pp. 254-270.

[42] Eugene Rice, ‘Paul, St.’, GLBTQ Encyclopedia, 2015, http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/paul_S.pdf.

[43] Kevin Deyoung, ‘ What Does Jude 7 Mean By “Other Flesh”?’ at

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/what-does-jude-7-mean-by-other-flesh/.

[44] Abigail Favele, The Genesis of Gender (San Francisco: Ignatius Press 2022), p.129.

[45] It is true that there may be genetic factors which together with environmental ones predispose people tobe unhappy with their biological sex. However, this is still a matter of scientific debate and even if true, this does not change the fact that someone is biologically male or female not in regard to their feelings but in regard to their being a person whose body is ordered to produce eggs or sperm.  

[46] See Richard Bauckam, ‘James and the Gentiles James and the Gentiles (Acts 15.13–21)’ in Ben Witherington(ed), History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (Cambridge: CUP 1996), pp.154-184.

[47] For the evidence for this point see the website of Living Out https://www.livingout.org/ and the TrueFreedom Trust https://truefreedomtrust.co.uk/.

What unity does the Church of England require? – A response to the Archbishop of York’s article ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

What is the archbishop’s argument?

In his recent article ‘Water is thicker than blood’ in the journal New Directions[1] the Archbishop of York sets out his vision for the future of the Church of England in the face of its current internal disagreements.

The argument he puts forward in this article begins by noting  that as a consequence of the work of the ecumenical movement the sad history of conflict and division between Christians as a response to the disagreements between them has begun to be replaced by a better approach, at the heart of which has been ‘the recovery of baptismal identity and the recognition of a common baptism.’ This approach, the archbishop writes, ‘has allowed us to make space for one another with disagreements and not in spite of them.’[2]

What the archbishop then goes on to ask is ‘whether we need to apply the same ecumenical theology to some of our own internal disagreements as members of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.’[3] He does not go on to answer this question in relation to the Anglican Communion, but in relation to the Church of England he declares:

‘… that the bonds we have in Christ, and with one another through our baptism fixes us together as the body of Christ in ways that simply do not permit us the luxury of saying, as it were the eye to the hand, I don’t need you. Of course, we live in our tribes, societies, groupings and even denominations. It has ever been thus. And these things can provide many benefits. But baptism is deeper and more binding and cannot be undone. Therefore, I dream for the Church of England a better and more beautiful story where, even with the challenge of our current disagreements, we learn to inhabit a space where, although from time to time, we will be sitting at separate tables, we are still in the same room, recognising the image of the same Christ in one another, delighting in each other’s well-being and flourishing and refusing to give in to the pull of human history and human culture that would drive us apart.’ [4]

As he sees it:

‘Such a way of living with profound disagreement, absolutely requires two things. The first, is that we do not have separate jurisdictions. We are still the one Church of England, but providing pastoral, and, where necessary, sacramental space for those who are unable to conscientiously inhabit some of our more recent developments in faith and order.’ [5]

As a concrete example of what this would mean in practice, he refers to the recent ordination of the new Bishop of Beverley. In this ordination service the archbishop did not take part in the ordination itself or the celebration of the Eucharist in order to make the service acceptable to the new bishop and those to whom he was going to minister. However, ‘the new bishop still pledged ‘due reverence and obedience’ to me in my office, as Archbishop of York and Metropolitan.’ [6]

The archbishop does not expand on why this last point was so important, but what he seems to be saying is that the Church of England can live with disagreement over the ordination of women, and now over the new issues of marriage and human sexuality, on the basis of a common baptism and a single pattern of jurisdiction of which the pledge of ‘due reverence and obedience’ made to the Archbishop of York by the new Bishop of Beverley is an expression.

What are we to make of the archbishop’s argument?

The first thing we need to acknowledge is that the archbishop is right to stress the importance of baptism as a bond which unites us with our fellow Christians whatever our disagreements with them. As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, the unity of the body of the body of Christ is rooted in the one baptism into Christ which all baptised Christians share in common:

‘For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.’

Furthermore, Paul does go on to declare that this unity established in baptism means that we cannot write simply write off another member of the body of Christ and say, ‘I have no need of you’ (see 1 Corinthians 12:14-26).

However, the archbishop arguably veers too far in the direction of suggesting that we can live with disagreement simply on the basis of our common baptism. To argue this is to ignore the other elements which the ecumenical movement has identified as constitutive of the full visible unity of the Church of Christ.

As the Reuilly Common Statement agreed between the Church of England and the other British and Irish Anglican churches and the French Lutheran and Reformed churches explains, what the ecumenical movement has led the churches to understand is that unity needs to include more than simply baptism. As the statement puts it:

‘As the churches grow together, their understanding of the characteristics of full visible unity becomes clearer.  We can already claim together that full visible unity must include:

• A common proclamation and hearing of the gospel, a common confession of the apostolic faith in word and action.  That one faith has to be confessed together, locally and universally, so that God’s reconciling purpose is everywhere shown forth.  Living this apostolic faith, the Church helps the world to attain its proper destiny.
• The sharing of one baptism, the celebrating of one Eucharist and the service of a common ministry (including the exercise of a ministry of oversight, episkope). This common participation in one baptism, one Eucharist and one ministry unites ‘all in each place’ with ‘all in every place’ within the whole communion of saints.  In every local celebration of the Eucharist the Church represents and manifests the communion of the universal Church.  Through the visible communion the healing and uniting power of the Triune God is made evident amidst the divisions of humankind.
• Bonds of communion which enable the Church at every level to guard and interpret the apostolic faith, to take decisions, to teach authoritatively, to share goods and to bear effective witness in the world.  The bonds of communion will possess personal, collegial and communal aspects.  At every level they are outward and visible signs of the communion between persons who, through faith, baptism, and Eucharist, are drawn into the communion of the Triune God. This communion must have practical consequences, in particular a common engagement of the churches in service and mission.

In such communion churches are bound together in confessing the one faith and engaging in worship and witness, deliberation and action, and are united with the Church through the ages, which reaches out to its fulfilment in the coming of the kingdom of God.’ [7]

As the Reuilly Common Statement goes on to explain, this understanding of unity should not be confused with a summons to uniformity. Unity can include diversity. What it cannot include, however, is illegitimate diversity.

‘Full visible unity should not be confused with uniformity: unity in Christ does not exist in spite of and in opposition to diversity, but is given with and in diversity. Both the unity and diversity of the Church are grounded in the Triune God, who is perfect communion in diversity. Diversities which are rooted in the biblical witness, theological traditions, spiritualities, liturgies and expressions of ministry, and in various cultural ethnic or historical contexts, are integral to the nature of communion.  Yet there are limits to diversity.  Diversity is illegitimate when, for instance, it makes impossible the common confession of Jesus Christ as God and Saviour, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13.8).  Diversity is illegitimate when it denies salvation through Christ and the final destiny of humanity as proclaimed in Holy Scripture, preached by the apostolic community and celebrated in the liturgy of the Church. In communion diversities are brought together in harmony as gifts of the Holy Spirit, contributing to the richness and fullness of the Church of God.’ [8]

The current divisions within the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion may perhaps, as the archbishop suggests in his article, involve elements of a struggle for ecclesiastical power.  However, even if these elements do exist, the heart of what the current divisions  are about is the issue of the limits of diversity highlighted in the Reuilly statement. Specifically, what the divisions are about is whether or not it is right to accept different forms of theology and practice with regard to marriage and human sexuality.

In the past, the answer which both the Church of England and the Anglican Communion have given to this question has been ‘No.’ They have both held that it is necessary for Christian churches to hold that God has ordained marriage to be between one man and one woman and that sexual intercourse should only take place between a man and a woman within marriage and to adhere to a form of practice that reflects this belief.

However, since the end of the twentieth century an increasing number of Anglicans have come to challenge this view and to argue that there should be space for Anglican churches, and for individuals within Anglican churches, to believe that marriage can be between two people of the same-sex and that it can be right for people to engage in sexual intercourse with a member of their own sex both within and outside marriage, and that the practice of Anglican churches should be changed to allow this belief to be reflected in practice.

Those on the conservative side of the Anglican divide believe that to go in this direction would be to embrace illegitimate diversity. As they see it, issues to do with sexuality and marriage cannot be placed into the category of what are known as adiaphora, things on which Christians can agree to disagree.

From their perspective the reason that sexuality and marriage cannot be regarded as adiaphora is because they are matters on which the apostles gave clear and binding teaching which the subsequent Church has an obligation to accept. As the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) report Guarding the Deposit puts it:

‘So what did the apostles teach about sexual  practice? Some key texts make clear that they regarded a rigorous sexual ethic as an integral part of apostolic teaching and Christian practice: ‘Finally, brethren, we beseech and exhort you  in the Lord Jesus, that as you learned from us  how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honour, not in the passion of lust like heathen who do not know God; that no man transgress, and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we solemnly forewarned you. For God has not called us for uncleannness, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever disregrds this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.’ (1 Thess 4:1-8).

‘Let marriage be held in honour among all, and let the marriage bed be kept undefiled, for God will judge the immoral and adulterous’ (Heb 13:4).

This is in keeping with St Matthew’s account of Jesus’ own teaching: following Jesus means not only avoiding the act of adultery, but also constraining the desire for adultery (Matt 5:27-30); and divorce is impermissible except where the marital bond has been broken through unfaithfulness (Matt 5:31-32, 19:3-9) [9]

The sexual ethic that is taught in these and other passages is one that is rooted in the teaching of Genesis 1 and 2 about God’s creation of human beings as men and women and about marriage as the setting for sexual union between a man and a woman leading to procreation; and in the observable fact that the bodies of men and women are designed for heterosexual sexual intercourse leading to reproduction (this is a key part of St Paul’s argument in Romans 1).

According to the apostles, therefore, Christian believers we should practise sexual fidelity within marriage and sexual abstinence outside it, and marriage should be marked by a relationship that is patterned on the relationship between Christ and the Church (Eph.5:31-32, 1 Cor 7:1-4).

Because this is the teaching of the apostles, this sexual ethic has been filed ever since by orthodox Christians. C S Lewis speaks for the whole of the Christian tradition when he writes in Mere Christianity: there is no getting away from it; the Christian rule is, ‘Either marriage with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total sexual abstinence.’ [10]

On the issue of same-sex sexual relationships, the report then goes on to say: 

‘ Various forms of same-sex sexual relationships both between men and men and between women and women—including long-lasting consensual relationships and even same-sex marriages—existed in the first-century Greco Roman world and would have been known about by the early Christians. Theirs was a world with just as much sexual variety as exists today. However, the apostolic teaching recorded in the New Testament makes no concession to this variety.

There is instead a conscious and deliberate rejection of it. Following the teaching of Jesus himself (Mark 7:21), it views same-sex relationships as a form of porneia—that is, a form of immoral sexual activity forbidden by God’s law given to Israel in the book of Leviticus. For the writers of the New Testament same sex relationships are:

· a manifestation of the disorder in human relationships caused by humanity’s turning away from its creator (Rom. 1:26-27);

 · a form of behaviour, contrary to God’s law (1 Cor. 6:9-11);

· a form of behaviour that is contrary to the ‘gospel’ and ‘sound doctrine’ (1 Tim. 1:10);

· an example of the sort of sexual immorality that will attract the eternal judgement of God (Jude 7); · a form of behaviour excluding one from God’s kingdom, but from which Christians can be set free by the work of Jesus and the Spirit (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

Richard Hays notes in his study of The Moral Vision of the New Testament:

‘…the New Testament offers no loopholes or exception clauses that might allow for the acceptance of homosexual practice under some circumstances. Despite the efforts of some recent interpreters to explain away the evidence, the New Testament remains unambiguous and univocal in its condemnation of homosexual conduct.’

 There is no specific discussion of same-sex marriage in the New Testament, but there can be no doubt that the Apostles would have seen it as doubly immoral—involving not only same-sex sexual activity, but also creating a parody of the form of marriage ordained by God at creation (see Matt. 19:4-5). This apostolic witness about homosexual conduct has, again, been universally accepted by orthodox Christians until very recent times. As Donald Fortson and Rollin Grams put it, ‘the historic understanding held by Christians for two millennia’ has been that ‘homosexual practice is incompatible with Christian discipleship, and church discipline may be necessary if the practice is habitual.’[11]

In the light of the fact that differences over same-sex relationships are not adiaphora, the CEEC report further argues that this fact points to the conclusion that there needs to be differentiation between those in the Church of England who want to stand by the apostolic teaching and those who wish to depart from it. This is for five reasons:

‘A. First, such differentiation would prevent further conflict over sexuality within the Church by allowing both those who maintain and those who reject the apostolic witness to act in a way that fully reflected their beliefs. Both could thus act with appropriate ‘integrity’. Moreover, neither group would need any longer to use up all its energy trying to seize or maintain control of the Church of England to try to protect their own position. They would no longer be locked in a wrestling- match competition, trying to knock the other ‘out of the ring’. They would instead be in separate rings—indeed no longer ‘fighting’ at all

A good biblical example of a decision to allow such a differentiation can be found in 1 Kings 12:20-24: King Rehoboam was ordered by God to allow the division into two of the kingdom of Israel by permitting the departure of the northern tribes that were in rebellion against his rule under the leadership of Jeroboam:

‘When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was no one who followed the house of David, except the tribe of Judah alone. When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand chosen troops to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon. But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: Say to King Rehoboam of Judah, son of Solomon, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your kindred the people of Israel. Let everyone go home, for this thing is from me.’ So they heeded the word of the Lord and went home again, according to the word of the Lord.’

The division of the kingdom involved the northern tribes sinning greatly by rejecting the God-given authority of the Davidic dynasty and God’s appointment of the Jerusalem Temple as the proper place for sacrifices to be offered by his people. However, allowing such sin is seen as preferable to the continuation of internecine conflict among God’s people.

B. A second reason why a differentiation may be required is the summons to the Christian community by the apostles in the New Testament to be visibly separate and thus ‘differentiated’ from all sexual compromise, disassociating itself from all sexual immorality and from false teaching.

There must be a visible separation from officially sanctioned sexual immorality and false teaching; if not, inevitably there will be a blurring of the distinction between right and wrong. The impression will unavoidably be given—both to those within the Church of England and to those outside it—that forms of teaching and practice that transgress the  apostolic boundary are an acceptable part of the diversity of the Church of England.

There needs to be a way of making clear that this is not the case and that a choice has to be made between two forms of Christianity—one that remains apostolic and one which has ceased to be apostolic on a matter of vital importance and which indeed runs the risk of leading people towards eternal separation from God.

C. Differentiation is also needed for the sake of the future: to ensure that that there is a body of Anglicans who will hand on to future  generations the godly inheritance and ‘tradition’ of apostolic teaching and practice with regard to human sexuality. Only so will there remain in this country a clear witness to this teaching and practice—whatever happens in other parts of the Church or in wider society.

D. Differentiation is also needed for a strictly logical reason. If this disagreement were simply a matter of ‘emphasis’ on a legitimate spectrum, one could hope to achieve a ‘centralist’ compromise solution which would keep all but the ‘extremists’ on both sides happy and content. But we have seen above that this is a disagreement at the most fundamental level: either same-sex activity is right in God’s eyes or it is wrong. There is no ‘grey area’ in-between. No ‘Anglican fudge’ is possible. These views are 180 degrees opposed to each other; they are at essential ‘logger- heads’ with each other.

No single institution can logically hold these two together in some kind of ‘creative tension’ because instead the full forces of each viewpoint, operating with their own integrity, will rip that institution into two. To change the metaphor, no single ‘body’ of Siamese twins could survive if there were such internal forces ripping it apart. Far better then, for the surgeon to make the proactive decision to allow the ‘parting of the ways’ than passively to wait for the body’s internal forces to explode and rip the body in two.

E. Finally, differentiation is needed in order to maintain unity with the majority of Anglicans around the world, who continue to adhere to this apostolic teaching and practice and who would want to be able to relate to a body of Anglicans in England who similarly continued to do the same.’ [12]

In his New Directions article the Archbishop of York also appears to accept the need for some form of differentiation in the Church of England. As we have already seen, he declares in his article:

‘I dream for the Church of England a better and more beautiful story where, even with the challenge of our current disagreements, we learn to inhabit a space where, although from time to time, we will be sitting at separate tables, we are still in the same room, recognising the image of the same Christ in one another, delighting in each other’s well-being and flourishing and refusing to give in to the pull of human history and human culture that would drive us apart.’ [13]

However, in his article he also lays down a limit for such differentiation. In his view:

‘Such a way of living with profound disagreement, absolutely requires two things. The first, is that we do not have separate jurisdictions. We are still the one Church of England, but providing pastoral, and, where necessary, sacramental space for those who are unable to conscientiously inhabit some of our more recent developments in faith and order.’ [14]

In this quotation the phrase ‘having separate jurisdictions’ is rather confusing since there are already numerous separate (in the sense of distinct) jurisdictions within the Church of England and the archbishop is presumably not arguing for their abolition. However, when read in conjunction with the following sentence his meaning becomes clear. What he is arguing against is the division of the present Church of England into two entirely separate churches. He wants the Church of England to stay together, albeit with an appropriate degree of internal differentiation.

This is a point on which both the archbishop and those opposed to any change in the Church of England’s current doctrine and practice with regard to human sexuality, as represented by CEEC, would agree.  As CEEC has repeatedly made clear, its desire is not (except as a last resort) for differentiation to be a achieved by means of a new church alongside the Church of England.

What it is looking for is internal differentiation within the Church of England by means of a reconfiguration of the Church’s current provincial system. This could take the form of a new province for the orthodox alongside Canterbury and York, a new province for the liberals alongside Canterbury and York or a re-working of the two existing provinces to cover the whole country with conservatives in Canterbury and liberals in York. [15]

The key point to note about this proposal is that it is in line with the existing ecclesiology of the Church of England. The Church of England has historically consisted, and continues to consist, as a combination  of two separate provinces, each with their own Archbishop (both of whom have metropolitical authority within their own province and neither of whom is subject to the other), and each having its own provincial synodical structure consisting of a provincial Convocation made up of the two houses of bishops and clergy and an attendant House of Laity.  A meeting of the General Synod is simply a joint meeting of these two provincial synods and the two Convocations retain the power both  to veto legislation proposed in the General Synod and to make provision for matters relating to their province (see Canon H.1 and Article 7 of the Constitution of General Synod).

Adding another province into the mix, or reconfiguring the two existing provinces, would not alter this ecclesiological structure in any fundamental way.[16] What it would mean is that the two (or three)  provinces of the Church of England could continue to take part in General Synod to debate and legislate on matters of common concern, while their provincial synods could legislate to either maintain or change the Church of England’s current teaching and practice with regard to marriage and human sexuality, thus achieving the differentiation called for in Guarding the Deposit.

This would meet the archbishop’s criteria of not establishing a new church alongside the Church of England and not saying to the other side in the current disagreements ‘I have no need of you.’ The Church of England could stay together, but in a way which respected the conscientious convictions on both sides and would prevent the Church of England fracturing entirely.

It would also give long term stability because General Synod would not be able to overrule the approach to marriage and sexuality taken by the provincial synods, and each province could set its own policy with regard to the future selection, training and appointment of clergy.

Obviously, what is proposed is not an ideal solution to the problem of a disagreement within the Church of England about marriage and sexuality. The ideal solution would be that the disagreement did not exist in the first place. However, in thirteen years doing ecumenical work for the Church of England one key thing I learned is that when working for the unity of the Church one has to accept that the ideal will not always be possible, and that one has to work to achieve the best possible good instead.

We are where we are, and the best possible good in this situation is to reach a permanent settlement involving some form of re-configuration of the Church of England’s provincial system. What happened in Synod in February and what has happened since has made it clear that the bishops’ proposals as they stand will not bring peace and unity to the Church of England, but will instead result in a growing number of individuals and church communities feeling that they can no longer be part of the  Church of England.

I believe that that Archbishop of York is sincere in his desire to hold the Church of England together. He does not want to see it fall apart on his watch. Therefore my plea to him is to use his influence as one of the two senior bishops of the Church of England to persuade the House of Bishops to either withdraw the current proposals before the next General Synod in July, or to make their implementation contingent upon agreement between liberals and conservatives, building on the discussions that have already taken place in the St Hugh’s group’s conversations, to move to a permanent settlement involving the sort of provincial re-configuration that I have argued for in this paper.     

At the Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Accra in February the ACC welcomed ‘… the proposal from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) to explore theological questions regarding structure and decision-making to help address our differences in the Anglican Communion.’ [17] The Anglican Communion has realised that the divisions that exist in the Communion mean that its structures need to be looked at again. As the Background paper from IASCUFO puts it: ‘there is no reason not to consider new ways and means of ‘good differentiation’ that may accommodate our disagreements as generously as possible.’[18]

The Church of England needs to come to the same realisation. Please can the archbishop help this to happen.

---

[1] Archbishop Stephen Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood’ at https://www.archbishopofyork.org/news/latest-news/water-thicker-blood.

[2] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

[3] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

[4] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

[5] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

[6] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

[7] The British and Irish Anglican Churches and the French Lutheran and Reformed Churches, Called to witnessand service (London: CHP, 1999), pp.21-22.

[8] Called to witness and Service, pp.22-23.

[9] For other passages, see for example Rom. 13:11- 14, 1 Cor. 5:1-13, Eph. 5:3-14, 1 Pet. 3:1-7, 4:1-6

[10] The Church of England Evangelical Council, Guarding the Deposit, p.2 at: https://ceec.info/wp-

   content/uploads/2022/10/guarding_the_deposit.pdf

[11] CEEC, Guarding the Deposit, pp.2-3.

[12] CEEC, Guarding the Deposit, pp. 10-11.

[13] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’ 

[14] Cottrell, ‘Water is thicker than blood.’

[15] See CEEC Visibly Different at https://ceec.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/visibly_different__dated_26_july_2020.pdf and the CEEC video ‘We love the Church of England’ at https://ceec.info.

[16] Church historians may be aware that between 787 and 796 the Church of England consisted of three    Provinces,  since Lichfield was an archdiocese, and that the United Church of England and Ireland whichexisted from 1800-1871 originally consisted of six provinces, Canterbury, York, Armagh, Dublin, Cashel andTuam. The pattern of two provinces is therefore not cast in stone. It has been different in the past and could be different again.

[17] ACC 18 resolution 3 (a) at https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/495903/en_ACC18_Resolutions-andStatements-of-Support.pdf.

[18] ‘A proposal to the ACC from the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order’ p. 3 at:

Click to access en_dept_IASCUFO_Good-Differentiation.pdf

On not snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory

There is a legend concerning the American Civil War which says that President Lincoln declared after  one battle that the Union General Ambrose Burnside had ‘snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.’  The idea of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory has kept on recurring to me in the past few days as I have looked at the way in which the vote by the General Synod last Thursday on the House of Bishops’ response to the Living in Love and Faith process has been understood.

Viewed objectively, the motion passed by the General Synod was a victory for traditionalist Anglicans in the Church of England. However, the way that the significance of the vote has been understood, or rather misunderstood (including by traditionalist Anglicans), runs the danger of converting this victory into a defeat.

How the Synod vote has been understood

In the immediate aftermath of the Synod vote, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York declared that the vote meant that; ‘For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church’[1] and in a similar vein the official press release from the Church of England concerning the vote had the headline  ‘Prayers for God’s blessing for same-sex couples take step forward after Synod debate’ and went on to state:

‘The Church of England’s General Synod has welcomed proposals which would enable same-sex couples to come to church after a civil marriage or civil partnership to give thanks, dedicate their relationship to God and receive God’s blessing. ‘[2]

Subsequent coverage of the Synod vote has followed the view of it presented by the Archbishops and in the Press release, but has simplified it to say that the Church of England has agreed to bless same-sex couples.

Thus, the BBC report states: ‘The Church of England has backed proposals to allow prayers of blessing for same sex couples.’[3]  In a similar vein the Daily Telegraph’s report runs:

‘The Church of England has approved blessings for gay couples for the first time. In a historic vote, the General Synod, the Church’s legislative body, voted to officially recognise same-sex couples on Thursday.’ [4]

Likewise, the Church Times’ report declares that the Synod voted ‘to endorse blessings for same-sex couples.’ [5]

Traditionalist Anglicans have taken a similar line. For example, the report on the website of the conservative campaign group Christian Concern has the headline ‘Church of England to bless same-sex unions.’[6]

For a second example, the press statement from the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches runs:

‘The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) deeply regrets the decision of the Church of England’s General Synod today supporting the House of Bishops’ proposals to ‘bless’ Same Sex Unions – which goes against the overwhelming mind of the Anglican Communion.’ [7]

For a third example, the statement from the Archdiocese of Sydney begins: ‘The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Kanishka Raffel, has described the decision of the Church of England General Synod to offer prayers of blessing to couples in same-sex marriages and civil partnerships as a rejection of biblical teaching.’ [8]

In spite of the verbal differences between them, what we find in all these later comments on the Synod vote is that they all take at face value the interpretation of what Synod decided that was initially put forward by the Archbishops and then by the Church of England’s press office, namely that Synod had endorsed the idea of the Church of England unreservedly welcoming all forms of same-sex unions and offering blessings for them in church

The problem with this interpretation, however, is that it fails to do justice to the motion which Synod passed. When we look at this motion carefully, we find that what Synod actually voted for makes any general liturgical affirmation of same-sex relationships by the Church of England impossible.

The motion passed by the General Synod.

The motion that was passed by General Synod runs as follows:

‘That this Synod, recognising the commitment to learning and deep listening to God and to each other of the Living in Love and Faith process, and desiring with God’s help to journey together while acknowledging the different deeply held convictions within the Church: 

(a) lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church; 

(b) recommit to our shared witness to God’s love for and acceptance of every person by continuing to embed the Pastoral Principles in our life together locally and nationally; 

(c) commend the continued learning together enabled by the Living in Love and Faith process and resources in relation to identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage;  

(d) welcome the decision of the House of Bishops to replace Issues in Human Sexuality with new pastoral guidance; 

(e) welcome the response from the College of Bishops and look forward to the House of Bishops further refining, commending and issuing the Prayers of Love and Faith described in GS 2289 and its Annexes; 

(f) invite the House of Bishops to monitor the Church’s use of and response to the Prayers of Love and Faith, once they have been commended and published, and to report back to Synod in five years’ time;

(g) endorse the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage, and their intention that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England.’[9]

The implications of this motion

If clause (e) of this motion was taken on its own then what Synod voted for could indeed be seen to mean what it has been subsequently understood to mean. This is because the material contained in GS 2289 as it stands would permit the unrestricted use of prayers for the blessing of all forms of same-sex unions (including same-sex marriages) in Church of England churches.

However, clause (e) does not stand on its own. It has to be read in the light of clause (g) which was added as an amendment to the original motion proposed by the House of Bishops. The significance of clause (g) has been duly noted by the Evangelical Fellowship of the Anglican Communion. They write:

‘We note that the General Synod motion included an amendment, adding paragraph (g): “Endorse the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage, and their intention that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England”.   This means that, when the Bishops come to make a formal proposal, the only prayers which they could legally permit would be those which were faithful to the doctrine.   If they comply with this stricture, it is hard to see which of the draft prayers would survive, without a clear public statement at any service that they MAY NOT be used to bless sexually active relationships.’ [10]

The point they are getting at is that clause (g) highlights the commitment made by the bishops to abide by the Canon law of the Church of England (Canons B2.1, B4.2-3, B5.3) that all new forms of service ‘shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England.’

The doctrine of the Church of England with regard to marriage and human sexuality has been summarised by the bishops themselves in the following paragraphs from a pastoral statement issued by them in 2019:

‘It has always been the position of the Church of England that marriage is a creation ordinance, a gift of God in creation and a means of his grace. Marriage, defined as a faithful, committed, permanent and legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman, is central to the stability and health of human society. It continues to provide the best context for the raising of children.

The Church of England’s teaching is classically summarised in The Book of Common Prayer, where the marriage service lists the causes for which marriage was ordained, namely: ‘for the procreation of children, …for a remedy against sin [and]…. for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other.’

In the light of this understanding the Church of England teaches that “sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively” (Marriage: a teaching document of the House of Bishops, 1999). Sexual relationships outside marriage, whether heterosexual or between people of the same sex, are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings.’[11]

‘Falling short’ here sounds rather mild, but it needs to be read in the light of Paul’s  teaching in Romans 3:24 where to ‘fall short’ and to sin are synonymous. To fall short of God’s purposes means to be in a state of sin, a state which requires confession, repentance and amendment of life from the person or persons concerned.

The forms of prayer proposed by the House of Bishops in GS 2289 currently run contrary to the doctrine summarised in the paragraphs quoted above in two key respects.

First, the bishops propose that it should be lawful to pray for God to bless same-sex civil marriages. The problem with this proposal is that to liturgically mark with prayer in the presence of God a form of life which claims to be marriage but is not marriage as God has ordained it to be, is blatantly ‘contrary to, and indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England.’  It would not be legitimate to pray for a polygamous marriage, because marriage as instituted by God is between two people. In the same way it cannot be legitimate to pray for a same-sex marriage because marriage as instituted by God is between two people of the opposite sex.

Secondly, what the bishops propose makes no distinction between sexually abstinent and sexually active same-sex relationships. However, if, as the doctrine of the Church of England maintains, sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is sinful, then it cannot be right to pray for God to bless sexually active same-sex relationships since this would mean asking for God to bless sin.

In response to this latter point, it has been argued that the prayers proposed by the bishops pray for relationships and do not explicitly refer to sexual activity.However, you cannot simply detach a relationship from the sexual activity within it. The fact that the Church of England would not permit a liturgy to pray for incestuous or adulterous relationships, or for ones involving sado-masochistic activity, highlights this point. Why wouldn’t it allow you to pray for them? Because the type of sexual activity involved makes them wrong. In the same way the sexual element of a same-sex union makes such a union automatically sinful.

What these two points mean is that in order to conform both to clause (g) and to Canon Law by ensuring that ‘the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England,’ the bishops need to revise their proposed material to make it clear that prayers may only be offered for same-sex relationships that (a) do not claim to be marriages and (b) are (and are publicly known to be) sexual abstinent. In other words they may only be offered for celibate same sex friendships.

Two further points that follow from clause (g) relate to what is said in clauses (a) and (d) of the Synod motion. Implicit in clause (g) is the conviction that the existing doctrine of the Church of England is something that those in the Church of England should continue to accept and uphold (without this conviction clause (g) makes no sense)..

In relation to clause (a) this means that the lamentation and repentance referred to in the clause cannot involve lamentation and repentance for upholding, teaching, and commending the doctrine of the Church of England with regard to marriage and sexual ethics. If the doctrine of the Church of England should be upheld and accepted then this is what those in the Church of England ought to be doing. Of course they ought to be upholding, teaching and commending the Church’s doctrine in an appropriately pastorally sensitive way, but they ought nonetheless to be doing it.

In relation to clause (d) this means that the new pastoral guidance to replace Issues in Human Sexuality will need to conform to the Church’s existing doctrine both in respect of the Church’s teaching with regard to marriage and sexual ethics and in respects of the requirement that the clergy live lives that are in accordance with this teaching. This means that the new guidance will need to continue to maintain the present discipline which says that clergy cannot be in same-sex marriages[12] or in sexually active same-sex relationships.[13]

What traditionalist Anglicans need to do now

For the reasons just given the addition of clause (g) to the Synod motion was a great victory. This is because when taken seriously it will mean that the Church of England continues to maintain an orthodox biblical position. However, in order to avoid ‘snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory’ traditionalist Anglicans need to do three things.

First, they need to realise the extent of the victory that the insertion of clause (g) has given them.

Secondly, they need to be vociferous in pointing out that the motion adopted by Synod did not give the green light to the indiscriminate blessing of same-sex unions, but in fact ruled it out.

Thirdly, they need to be willing to subject the future work of the House of Bishops to detailed scrutiny to make sure it takes clause (g) into proper account and to be willing to challenge its work (legally if necessary) if it fails to do so.

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[1]  ‘Prayers for God’s blessing for same-sex couples take step forward after Synod debate’ at: https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/prayers-gods-blessing-same-sex-couples-take-step-forward-after-synod

[2] ‘Prayers for God’s blessing for same-sex couples take step forward after Synod debate’

[3] BBC, ‘Church of England backs plans to bless gay couples’ at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64581421

[4] The Daily Telegraph, ‘Blessings for gay couples approved by Church of England for first time’ at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/09/same-sex-marriage-blessings-approved-church-of-england/

[5] The Church Times, ‘Synod’s same-sex vote’ first reactions,’ at https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/17-february/news/uk/synod-s-same-sex-vote-first-reactions

[6] Christian Concern, ‘Church of England to bless same-sex unions ‘ at: https://christianconcern.com/news/synod-round-up-church-of-england-to-bless-same-sex-unions/

[7] The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches, Press Statement, 9 February 2023 at: https://www.thegsfa.org/

[8] Sydney Anglicans, ‘English Synod decision rejects clear teaching of the Bible’ at: https://sydneyanglicans.net/mediareleases/english-synod-decision-rejects-clear-teaching-of-the-bible

[9] ‘Prayers for God’s blessing for same-sex couples take step forward after Synod debate.’

[10] Evangelical Fellowship of the Anglican Communion, ‘Statement on the vote at the Church of England GeneralSynod on 9 February 2023’ at:  https://efacglobal.com/statement-on-the-vote-at-the-church-of-england-general-synod-on-9-february-2023/.

[11]The House of Bishops, ‘Civil Partnerships – for same sex and opposite sex couples. A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England:’ at : https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/Civil%20Partnerships%20-%20Pastoral%20Guidance%202019%20%282%29.pdf .

[12] House of Bishops, ‘Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage’ para 27 at:  https://www.churchofengland.org/news-and-media/news-and-statements/house-bishops-pastoral-guidance-same-sex-marriage

[13] House of Bishops, Issues in Human Sexuality (London: Church House Publishing, 1991) para 5.17.   

On not blaming God

The argument of the Bishop of London

If you read carefully the transcript of the Bishop of London’s presentation to the General Synod yesterday on the House of Bishops’ response to Living in Love and Faith you will find that that the heart of her argument for what the House of Bishops is proposing lies in the following passage in her speech:

‘Our call is and always will be to seek the face of Christ – yes, in each other, but above all in searching the Scriptures, examining the Church’s tradition, and exercising our reason as we strive to make sense of how truth is to be lived out with grace in our 21st century context.
 
The reality is that as we have done all these things – even among ourselves as bishops – our conclusions about the ‘clear teaching of Scripture’ and the trajectory of the Church’s tradition diverge. We see God at work in each other’s ministries and are forced to acknowledge that somehow, mysteriously, the people of God who seek God’s face and who want to see the Church flourish, disagree.

For some unfathomable reason, God, it seems, has allowed us to continue to disagree – disappointingly refusing to engineer a Damascus road experience for one side or the other, either in the Church of England or across the Anglican Communion.

How can this be?

Perhaps we are all prone to forget that all of us – without exception – “see in a mirror dimly… know only in part”. As confident as we might be that we have heard God’s “answer”, perhaps God is calling us to be humbler – humbler towards one another but, above all, humbler in our humanity towards the God who is above and beyond our understanding and whose love is deeper, higher and wider than we can imagine. Perhaps we need to be reminded not just of the nearness of God but of God’s wholly ‘otherness’.

So if, as it seems, God is calling us to live with our disagreements, how can we do so without causing each other so much pain and bringing the Church into humiliating disrepute? How can we cease to stand in judgment over one another? But most importantly of all, how can we stop adding to the sufferings of Christ, the one who, “opening his arms wide on the cross”, holds us together in his costly embrace?’ [1]

To summarise the argument in this passage, what the Bishop of London is suggesting is that the reason that the bishops, and the Church of England as a whole, continue to disagree about human sexuality is because God wishes to teach those in the Church of England to be humbler in thinking that they can know his will. God is wholly other, so who are we to think that we can be sure that we know the will of God concerning the matters currently under dispute?  This being the case, those in the Church of England need to learn to live with continuing disagreement about God’s will concerning marriage and human sexuality in the best way possible and what the bishops are proposing is a way for this to happen.

How should we respond to the bishop’s argument?

The Bishop of London is correct to remind us of our need to constantly remember that God’s thoughts transcend our own. In the words of Isaiah 55:8-9:

‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
 so are my ways higher than your ways
 and my thoughts than your thoughts.’

She is also right to remind us that we need to constantly bear in mind the contrast that Paul draws in 1 Corinthians 13:12 between the limited insight that we possess in this world and the full and comprehensive understanding that we shall possess in the world to come.

‘For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.’

However, what she fails to note is that we also need to understand that the transcendent God has given us as much knowledge of his will and ways as we need to know in order to live rightly before him in this world so that we may live joyfully with him in the next, knowledge which is imparted to us through the natural order, through Scripture and through the orthodox theological tradition of the Christian Church. As Deuteronomy 29:29 puts it:

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God; but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.’

In the words of the nineteenth century biblical commentator Thomas Scott, God:

‘…hath revealed everything that can be truly beneficial; to his revealed truth and will, man’s inquiries in divine things should be confined; They should reach to the whole, and terminate with them. These belong to us not to increase our stock of barren notions, but to direct, encourage and regulate our obedience, ‘that we may do all the words of this law.’’[2]

When such knowledge has been given to us we do not have the right either to claim ignorance or to disagree with it.

The question that all this raises, is which category issues to do with marriage and human sexuality come into. Are they among the secret things knowledge of which God has kept to himself, or are they among the things that God has revealed to us and to which we need to respond with both individual and corporate obedience?

The answer is that they fall into the second category.

• God’s revelation in nature teaches us that God has created his human creatures as male and female and has designed them to have sexual intercourse with members of the opposite sex.
• God’s revelation in Scripture reiterates the revelation given in nature and also tells us that God has ordained marriage between one man and one woman as the sole legitimate context for sexual intercourse and the procreation of children.
• The orthodox theological tradition of the Church has continuously taught what is thus revealed in nature and Scripture from the earliest days of the Church and has summoned faithful Christians to live accordingly.

The Church of England has concurred with this threefold witness. Its consistent tradition was reiterated by the House of Bishops as recently as 2019:

‘The Church of England’s teaching is classically summarised in The Book of Common Prayer, where the marriage service lists the causes for which marriage was ordained, namely: ‘for the procreation of children, …for a remedy against sin [and]…. for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other.’

In the light of this understanding the Church of England teaches that “sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively” (Marriage: a teaching document of the House of Bishops, 1999). Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings.’ [3]

‘Falling short’ here sounds rather mild, but it needs to be read in the light Paul’s  teaching in Romans 3:24 where to ‘fall short’ and to sin are synonymous. To fall short of God’s purposes means to be in a state of sin, a state which requires confession, repentance and amendment of life from the person or persons concerned.

Because matters to do with human sexuality fall into the second category in the way just described, it follows that it is not right for the Bishop of London to try to pin the responsibility for the Church of England’s current disagreements over marriage and human sexuality on God.

It is not because God intends his human creatures to be ignorant of his will in these areas that the current disagreement exists. The current disagreement exists because some members of the Church of England, including its bishops, under the influence of contemporary culture, have decided to reject, in whole or in part, the orthodox teaching of the Church of England and the divine revelation in nature and Scripture that it reflects.

Contrary to what the Bishop of London suggests, responding to this situation by suggesting that we are uncertain about God’s revealed will is not a matter of humility but rather of pride, pride in thinking that our doubts about what God has said have any standing in the matter. We may subjectively dislike what God has said, but true Christian humility lies in accepting what God has said and acting upon it anyway. To do otherwise is to reject God’s wisdom and to rebel against God’s sovereign authority.

It is also pure sophistry to suggest that we know what nature, Scripture and tradition say, but it is unclear what this means in today’s society. It means what it has always meant, either marriage and sexual fidelity within marriage, or sexual abstinence. This was true in the sexually permissive society of the first century Roman Empire and it remains equally true today.

All this being the case, the proper way forward for the Church of England is not to try to find a way to ‘live with our disagreements’ over human sexuality in a civilised manner. The proper way forward is for it to submit to what God has revealed and to call on those rejecting what God has revealed in their teaching or behaviour to cease to do so.

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[1] ‘General Synod: Bishop of London’s Living in Love and Faith Presentation,’  text at https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/general-synod-bishop-londons-living-love-and-faith-presentation

[2] Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with original notes and practical

  observations, vol 1, on Deuteronomy 29:29

[3]  ‘Civil Partnerships – for same sex and opposite sex couples. A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops

    of the Church of England,’ 2019, paras 8-9, text at https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2020-01/Civil%20Partnerships%20-%20Pastoral%20Guidance%202019%20%282%29.pdf

Failing the Green Test II: A critical examination of the advice from the Church of England’s Legal Office

Introduction

In the midst of the current discussion about the House of Bishops’ response to the LLF process and the new liturgical resources that accompany it,  there is one thing that is agreed on all sides, which is that to be legal what is proposed has to conform to the requirement of the Canons of the Church of England that any liturgical development is ‘neither contrary to, not indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter’[1]

In the legal note on page 22 of the new Prayers we are told that the propose new liturgical resources meet this test:

‘The prayers and forms of service commended here are ‘neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter’ (including, but not limited to, the definition of Holy Matrimony in Canon B 30).’

Yesterday the legal advice from the Church of England’s Legal Office underlying this claim was published as GS Misc 1339 ‘Prayers of Love and Faith: A note from the Legal Office.’ [2]

In my previous paper on the bishops’ proposals[3] I applied what I called the ‘Green test.’ This test, named after the late Canon Michael Green who taught it to me, holds that that there are two key questions that a student should ask of any item on a theological reading list. These two questions are (a) ‘What is this writer trying to sell me?’ and (b) ‘Is this something I should buy?’  In my previous paper I argued that the bishops’ proposals failed this test. In this new paper I want to argue that the advice from the Legal Office likewise fails this test with the consequence that it does not show that what the bishops are proposing is legal.

The advice from the legal office

The starting point for the advice from the legal office is the claim that a service for a same-sex couple would be lawful if it did not treat their civil marriage as ‘Holy Matrimony.’

‘The Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony as being between one man and one woman is set out in Canon B 30. The effect of Canon B 5.3, in the light of the doctrine described in Canon B 30, is that it would not be lawful for a minister to use a form of service which either explicitly or implicitly treated or recognised the civil marriage of two persons of the same sex as corresponding to Holy Matrimony. But it would in principle be lawful for a minister to use a form of service for two persons of the same sex who wished to mark a stage in their relationship provided that it did not explicitly or implicitly treat or recognise the civil marriage of two persons of the same sex as corresponding to Holy Matrimony.’ (Para.3)

In defence of this claim the advice then goes on to say:

‘The Legal Office has carefully examined the draft Prayers. It considers that none of the text contained in the draft Prayers of Love and Faith treats the civil marriage of two persons of the same sex, either expressly or impliedly, as amounting to Holy Matrimony. The Prayers are careful to avoid any such implication. Moreover, the Prayers are framed so that they do not bless civil marriages (or civil partnerships); any blessing is of the couple and the good in their relationship, not of the civil status they may have acquired (bearing in mind that not all will have a civil status – those in covenanted friendships in particular). Note 5 in Notes to the Service specifically states, “Any adaptation or new texts added by the minister here or elsewhere in the service must not involve the incorporation of the blessings contained in the Marriage Service from the Book of Common Prayer or Common Worship.” Accordingly, nothing contained in the draft prayers would amount to, or be indicative of, a departure from the doctrine contained in Canon B30.’ (Para 4)

To put it simply, what the advice is saying here is that the prayers are legal because:

• They do not state or imply that a civil marriage is ‘Holy Matrimony’
• They do not involve the blessing of a civil same-sex marriage as if it was Holy Matrimony (as shown by the avoidance of the blessings of marriage contained in the Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship).

These two points are critical because Canon B.30 ‘Of Holy Matrimony’ holds that marriage is a union of ‘one man with one woman’ and therefore to imply that a same-sex civil marriage was Holy Matrimony, or to treat it liturgically as if it was, would be contrary to this Canon and as such a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England and therefore illegal.

However, these two points are entirely dependent on the proposition that civil marriages are not Holy Matrimony being true. The Legal Office advice argues that this distinction is a consequence of the 2013 Act of Parliament legalising the marriage of same-sex couples:

‘This follows from the terms of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which explicitly provides for a definition of marriage in ecclesiastical law (one man and one woman) which is different from the definition in the general law. The two definitions are mutually exclusive and this can be seen as having resulted in there now being two different institutions by the name of “marriage”. Since the coming into force of the 2013 Act, civil marriage in England has taken no notice of the respective sexes of the parties to a marriage; it has become in effect a ‘gender-neutral’ institution. But Holy Matrimony continues to be defined by ecclesiastical law – not by the changed position in the general law brought about by the 2013 Act – and remains “in its nature a union … of one man with one woman”. The 2013 Act explicitly preserves the position in the Canons of the Church of England. Because the sexes of the parties are irrelevant so far as the general law concept of marriage is concerned, the concept of civil marriage is now of a different nature from the concept of marriage set out in Canon B 30 (Holy Matrimony).’  (Paragraph 6)

As a result of this distinction:

‘The proposed prayers and other forms of service which may be used for a same sex couple who have entered a civil marriage, do not indicate or imply that the couple are considered to be in a state of Holy Matrimony; they recognise that the couple’s relationship has been marked by their entering into a particular civil status (albeit regarded by the State as “marriage”). Provided that the prayers meet the requirements described in the preceding paragraphs, the fact that they are for use – among other occasions – for a couple who have entered into a civil marriage is not indicative of a departure from the doctrine of Holy Matrimony as set out in Canon B 30, just as that would not be the case for prayers for use with a couple who have entered into a civil partnership or a covenanted friendship.’ (paragraph 8).

At the end of the Legal Office’s advice two further points are then made.

The first relates to content of the draft prayers proposed by the bishop. It argues that they are legal because they do not imply that the relationships being prayed for involve same-sex sexual activity.

‘Some people have raised concerns that the draft Prayers of Love and Faith are contrary to, or indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in an essential matter, on the basis that they are for use in connection with relationships that involve sexual relations between persons of the same sex. But a sexual relationship is not inherent in a same sex marriage, any more than it is in a civil partnership. The draft Prayers contain  no implication that what is being celebrated or blessed is a sexual relationship. The argument that the Prayers are therefore indicative of a departure from doctrine so far as sexual relationships are concerned cannot be sustained; they are simply silent on that point.’ (Paragraph 9)

Secondly, what follow from this  is that ‘nothing in the draft Prayers pre-empts what the replacement [for Issues in Human Sexuality} might say on the subject of sexual relationships.’ (Paragraph 10)

Should we accept the Legal Office’s advice?

The first thing to note about the Legal Office’s advice is that it is not derived from anything that is said in the 2013 legislation to permit same sex marriages.

The 2013 Act does not create two different kinds of marriage, religious and civil. There is nothing in the Act to support this claim. Unlike in most European and Latin American countries there has not been a legal distinction between civil and religious marriages and the purpose of the 2013 Act was not to create one. Instead, as the heading to the first section of the Act makes clear, its purpose was the ‘

The 2013 Act does not create two different kinds of marriage, religious and civil. There is noting in the Act to support this claim. Unlike in most European and Latin American countries there has not been a legal distinction between civil and religious marriages and the purpose of the 2013 Act is not to create one. Instead, as the heading to the first section of the Act makes clear, its purpose is the ‘Extension of marriage to same sex couples.’ What is being extended to same-sex couples by the Act is the ability to enter into the one existing institution of marriage, an institution which is recognized as marriage both by the state and by religious authorities.

The first section of the Act then goes on to provide an exemption from this extension for the Church of England and for the clergy of the Church of England and of the Church in Wales:

‘(3) No Canon of the Church of England is contrary to section 3 of the Submission of the Clergy Act 1533 (which provides that no Canons shall be contrary to the Royal Prerogative or the customs, laws or statutes of this realm) by virtue of its making provision about marriage being the union of one man with one woman.

(4)Any duty of a member of the clergy to solemnize marriages (and any corresponding right of persons to have their marriages solemnized by members of the clergy) is not extended by this Act to marriages of same sex couples.

(5)A “member of the clergy” is—

(a)a clerk in Holy Orders of the Church of England, or

(b)a clerk in Holy Orders of the Church in Wales.’

What these three points mean is that the Church of England does not have to amend its Canon Law to reflect the extension of marriage by the state and that the normal duty of the clergy of the Church of England and the Church in Wales to marry suitably qualified couples does not extend to the same-sex couples covered by the extension of marriage in the Act.

The second section of the Act, headed ‘religious protection’ then extends this exemption to other religious bodies and their members. It lays down that:

‘A person may not be compelled by any means (including by the enforcement of a contract or a statutory or other legal requirement)—

(a)to conduct a relevant marriage,

(b)to be present at, carry out, or otherwise participate in, a relevant marriage, or

(c)to consent to a relevant marriage being conducted,

where the reason for the person not doing that thing is that the relevant marriage concerns a same sex couple.’ [4]

The very fact that such exemptions for the Church of England and other religious bodies is required, and therefore provided, shows that there is a single institution called marriage. Were this not so, a Church of England minister, or the equivalent minister in another religious body, could refuse to celebrate the marriage of the same sex couple simply on the grounds that the Church of England or that other body performs ‘Holy Matrimony,’ (or that other body’s equivalent), and not ‘marriage’ and therefore the normal legal requirement to conduct a marriage does not exist. Similarly, the Church of England’ Canon Law could define ‘Holy Matrimony’ as it liked because there would be no possiblity of a clash with the state’s definition of marriage.

In addition, the Government’s own commentary on the legislation specifically states that the Act:

‘Ensures that the common law legal duty on the clergy of the Church of England  and the Church in Wales to marry parishioners does not extend to same sex couples. It also protects the Church of England’s Canon law, which says that marriage is the union of one man with one woman, so that it does not conflict with civil law.’ [5]

Here again there is the presumption that there is a single entity, namely marriage, and not two separate entities, marriage and Holy Matrimony.  If the clergy performed on ‘Holy Matrimony’ and not marriage there could be no normal legal duty on them to perform marriages (and hence no need for exemption) . Likewise if Canon Law defined only the nature of ‘Holy Matrimony’ and not marriage there could be no possibility of its definition of marriage conflicting with the definition of marriage in civil law.

It follows that the advice from the Legal Office is at variance with what the Government thinks the implications of the 2013 Act are.

Furthermore, since 2013 the Church of England has never previously said or implied that there is a distinction between marriage and Holy Matrimony.

The House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage in 2014 (which was presumably drawn up with advice from the Legal Office) has an entire section on the effect of the 2013 Act. This section states:

‘9. The Government’s legislation, nevertheless, secured large majorities in both Houses of Parliament on free votes and the first same sex marriages in England are expected to take place in March. From then there will, for the first time, be a divergence between the general understanding and definition of marriage in England as enshrined in law and the doctrine of marriage held by the Church of England and reflected in the Canons and the Book of Common Prayer.

10.  The effect of the legislation is that in most respects there will no longer be any distinction between marriage involving same sex  couples and couples of opposite genders. The legislation make religious as well as civil same sex weddings possible, though only where the relevant denomination or faith has opted in to conducting such weddings. In addition, the legislation provides that no person may be compelled to conduct or be present at such a wedding.

11.  The Act provides no opt in mechanism for the Church of England because of the constitutional convention that the power of initiative on legislation affecting the Church of England rests with the General Synod, which has the power to pass Measures and Canons. The Act preserves, as part of the law of England, the effect of any Canon which makes provision about marriage being the union of one man with one woman, notwithstanding the general, gender free definition of marriage. As a result Canon B30 remains part of the law of the land.

12.  When the Act comes into force in March it will continue not to be legally possible for two persons of the same sex to marry according to the rites of the Church of England. In addition, the Act makes clear that any rights and duties which currently exist in relation to being married in Church of England churches do not extend to same sex couples.’ [6]

Paragraph 9 here notes the divergence that the Act creates between the understanding of marriage held by the state and that held by the Church of England. However, the guidance does not go on to say that there is therefore a general distinction between marriage and Holy Matrimony such that everyone who has not been married by the Church of England is civilly married but not in a state of Holy Matrimony.  

No subsequent Church of England document prior to the new Legal Office advice has then made this distinction, and such a distinction is contrary to both the Church of England’s practice and its theology.

It is contrary to Church of England practice in three crucial ways.

First, when Church of England clergy marry a couple they act on behalf of both the Church and the state. The one action creates one marriage that both the Church and the state then recognise.

Secondly, the converse is also true. When, with the exception of same sex marriages,  when a couple marries in a civil ceremony (or in a religious ceremony made legal by the presence of a civil registrar) the Church of England automatically recognises that couple as married both in the eyes of God as well as in the eyes of the state. That is why, for instance, the service of ‘Prayer and dedication after a Civil Marriage’ refers to the couple as already being husband and wife. Thus, in the Preface to the service the minister declares:

‘N and N, you stand in the presence of God as man and wife to dedicate to him your life together, that he may consecrate your marriage and empower you to keep the covenant and promise you have solemnly declared.’[7]

The Legal Office’s denial of this reality would mean, for example, that from a Church of England’s perspective a Christian opposite sex couple civilly married in an Evangelical Free Church whose minister was not licensed to act as registrar would not be properly married. Their union would not be ‘Holy Matrimony.’ Really?

Thirdly, the Church of England has never accepted the claim that a couple in a civil marriage can enter into a state of Holy Matrimony without their previous marriage being ended by either death or divorce. Unless either of these two events happens, they cannot enter Holy Matrimony because they are still married and would be committing bigamy.

It is contrary to Church of England theology because of what the Church of England believes about the nature of marriage. To quote the 2013 Faith and Order Commission report  Men and Women in Marriage:

‘Neither the state nor the Church can claim a prior right over marriage, nor does either of them ‘make’ marriages, which is done by God’s providence working through the public promises of the couples themselves.’ [8]

The point being made here reflects the point previously made in the Marriage Service in the Book of Common Prayer which declares that Holy Matrimony (which it also calls ‘matrimony’ or simply ‘marriage’ – the terms are synonymous[9]) ‘is an honourable estate, instituted by God in the time of man’s innocency.’  These words refer us back to the account of the institution of marriage by God given to us in Genesis 2:18-25. In line with Genesis 2:24 (‘Therefore a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two shall become one flesh’) they hold that all subsequent marriages owe their origin to  this institution of marriage by God.

Marriage, that is to say, is state of life (an ‘estate’) created by God which human beings can then enter, and the way that a man and woman enter into it is through an exchange of vows through which they commit themselves to live in it. To quote the Marriage Service again, it is the ‘vow and covenant betwixt them made’ that makes them married before God and by God. The form of their making this vow and covenant, and the subsequent legal recognition of their act by the state or the Church, are secondary matters (which is why a man and a woman stranded alone on a desert island could perfectly properly marry each other).  

All this means is that the Church of England’s recognition of a marriage is precisely that. It is a recognition of an antecedent reality and the basis of this recognition is that the couple have thus entered into the way of life instituted by God and described in Genesis 2. The converse of this is that if they have not entered into this way of life then they are not married. That is the point of the warning in the Marriage Service ‘… by ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful’ (that is, lawful according to God’s law, and not just the law of the state or the church).   

In the light of all this, we have to say that the distinction made by the Legal Office between civil marriage and Holy Matrimony (and on which their defence of the bishops’ proposals ins principally based) has no merit.  The objection to what the bishops’ propose is not that their draft prayers mark civil marriages as if they were Holy Matrimony (as we have seen, in Anglican thought as well as in the 2013 Act no fundamental distinction is made between the two).

The objection is that by allowing the marking in a church service of same sex civil marriages the Church of England would be saying that it is right (in the words of the Preface to the draft prayers) ‘to celebrate in God’s presence the commitment two people have made to each other,’ even when the couple involved are ‘coupled together otherwise than God’s word doth allow.’

As I noted in my previous post, no provision is made in Scripture for same-sex ‘marriages’ or partnerships and there is no theological room within the teaching of Scripture for them to exist. As Michael Brown observes:

• Every single reference to marriage in the entire Bible speaks of heterosexual unions without exception, to the point that a Hebrew idiom for marriage is for a man ‘to take a wife’.
• Every warning to men about sexual purity presupposes heterosexuality, with the married man often warned not to lust after another woman.
• Every discussion about family order and structure speaks explicitly in heterosexual terms, referring to husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.
• Every law or instruction given to children presupposes heterosexuality, as children are urged to heed or obey or follow the counsel or example of their father and mother.
• Every parable, illustration or metaphor having to do with marriage is presented in exclusively heterosexual terms.

In the Old Testament, God depicts his relationship with Israel as that of a groom and a bride; in the New Testament, the image shifts to the marital union of husband and wife as a picture of Christ and the Church.[10]

The basic problem, which the legal advice does not  so much as acknowledge, is that within the framework of Anglican doctrine to liturgically mark with celebration, in the presence of God, a form of life which is unlawful because it claims to be marriage but is not in line with marriage as God has ordained it to be, is something that is never right to do. It is blatantly ‘contrary to, and indicative of a departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England.’

This problem would exist even if the same sex unions in question were completely sexually abstinent. They would still be ‘unlawful.’

However, the fact that the pattern of liturgical practice proposed by the bishops does not distinguish between sexually abstinent and sexually active unions does create another problem. This is because, as I noted in my previous post, both Scripture and the entire Christian tradition declares with one voice that same sexual activity (along with any other sexual activity outside marriage) is sin. Accordingly, as the 1987 General Synod motion notes, this activity has to be met not only with compassion but also a call to repentance.

The Legal Office is probably right when it says that the prayers don’t explicitly refer to sexual activity, but you cannot simply detach a relationship from the sexual activity within it. The obvious point that the Legal Office either hasn’t thought about, or has chosen to ignore,  is that the fact you would not allow any liturgy to pray for incestuous or adulterous relationships or for ones involving sado-masochistic activity highlights this point. Why wouldn’t you pray for them? Because the sexual activity involved makes them wrong.

Two points follow from this. First, there needs to be a distinction, which the draft prayers do not make, between the kind of same-sex relationships which it might be right to pray for (such as non-marital sexual friendships) and those which it would never be right to pray for (any involving sexual activity outside marriage) so that the clergy and others know which they can pray for and which they cannot. Secondly because liturgy is a declarative active which states what the Church believes to be right, the Church has to distinguish publicly between these different categories of same-sex relations (something for which again no provision is made). Without such clarity the proposed liturgies would be ‘indicative of’ a departure from the existing doctrine of the Church of England and therefore unlawful.

Back in 2005 the House of Bishops noted that it would not be right to ‘produce an authorised public liturgy in connection with the registering of civil partnerships’ precisely because of the ‘ambiguity’ caused by the fact that ‘people in a variety of relationships will be eligible to register as civil partners, some living consistently with the teaching of the Church, others not.’ [11] Eighteen years later this point still applies, not just to civil partnerships, but to all forms of same sex unions. Unless the Church of England can make an explicit public distinction between such unions, saying which are licit and which are illicit, and why, it cannot make them the subject of public prayer.

A final point is that because the draft prayers allow for same-sex marriages, and sexually active same sex unions in general, to be celebrated before God through the liturgy this must pre-empt the guidance that will be provide to replace Issues in Human Sexuality.

If such relationships are already allowed to be celebrated how then does this not mean that the Church believes that to do so is right in God’s sight?  

Conclusion

As with the House of Bishops proposals as a whole, for the reasons set out above the advice from the Legal Office fails the Green Test. It is trying to sell us something that we should not buy.  

Appendix – Failing the Green Test II – A Defence

A paper on the EDGE facebook site has criticised my paper ‘Failing the Green Test II’ on the following lines:

‘Unfortunately he’s making the mistake that keeps being made since the release of the Prayers. The bishops (and their lawyers) are NOT saying that only the CofE can perform Holy Matrimony services!!! Why do we keep misunderstanding this point?

What they’re saying, and *it is something that bishops have argued before*, is that there are two overlapping definitions of marriage. It is only at the point at which they depart (namely, where the state marries people of the same-sex) that what the State does is not Holy Matrimony (i.e. marriage as the Church has always understood it). An opposite sex couple that legally marries anywhere and in any way IS entering into a state of Holy Matrimony, and the bishops have not argued otherwise.

Please, please can we stop attacking that straw man.’

While I am grateful for this critique because all criticism is useful in forcing me to think carefully about the validity of my thinking, I nonetheless still think that my argument stands.

The key defence made by the bishops and the lawyers of the legality of the proposed services to mark among other things same-sex civil marriages is that the prayers themselves do not ‘treat the civil marriage of two persons of the same sex, either expressly or impliedly, as amounting to Holy Matrimony.’

This defence absolutely depends on a distinction between ‘civil marriage’ and the entity referred to as ‘Holy Matrimony.’

The problem with this defence is that it fails to engage seriously enough with the fact that there are now two understandings of marriage in this country, which for convenience we shall call understandings A and B.  

Understanding A, which is held by the state, and by some religious bodies and individuals, holds that marriage is a permanent and exclusive relationship between two people regardless of sex.

Understanding B, which is held by the Church of England and reflected in the Prayer Book marriage service and Canon B.30, holds that marriage is permanent and exclusive relationship between one man and one woman.

The Church of England holds that understanding B describes what marriage actually is because it is the form of marriage created by God as recorded in Genesis 2 and endorsed by Jesus in the Gospels. It follows from this that the Church of England holds that all who have entered into this way of life have entered into marriage (the term Holy Matrimony is a red herring because, as I point out in my paper, in both the Canon and the Prayer Book ‘Holy Matrimony’ is a synonym for marriage). This applies whether they have entered into a civil marriage or been married in a Church of England service. Marriage is marriage, is marriage (which is why, as I point out in my paper, the Church of England treats those who are civilly married as married).

Under the bishops’ proposals, however, it would be possible to use individual prayers, or to hold a form of service, to mark a civil marriage between two people of the same sex. According to understanding B their relationship is not a marriage at all. Whatever the state says, they are not married in the eyes of God, and this means that they are not married.

This obviously creates a problem because how can you mark a same-sex civil marriage when according to the doctrine of the Church of England (and in the eyes of God) it is not a marriage at all but a human fabrication which rebels against the order  that God has established for his creation?

The bishops and lawyers try to get round this by saying, ‘Ah but we are not marking it as Holy Matrimony.’ This does not work because as I have indicated, marriage and Holy Matrimony are two ways of describing the same thing.

If you accept that a same-sex couple are married and liturgically celebrate that fact with rejoicing thanksgiving and hope as the bishops suggest clergy and lay ministers should be allowed to do,  then you are saying precisely that they have entered into Holy Matrimony. This in turn means that you are reflecting a type A understanding of marriage rather than the type B understanding held by the Church of England. Consequently, you are breaking Canon law by instituting a form of service that is ‘contrary to, or indicative of a departure from’ the doctrine of the Church of England.

Of course, you could even more desperately try get round this by saying to the couple concerned ‘We think you are not married, but we will pray for you anyway.’  Even if they would accept this (which is unlikely in the extreme) the only legitimate form of prayer for a relationship formed in rebellion against God’s ordering of creation is a form of prayer marked by confession, repentance and absolution and this is absolutely not what the bishops are proposing. To celebrate with thanksgiving an act of rebellion, and therefore of sin, would itself contravene the doctrine of the Church of England.

What all this means is that the bishops and lawyers face a simple choice. Either they persist in trying to distinguish between Holy Matrimony and marriage (which is something that simply does not work given that the two terms are simply synonyms) or they have to concede that what they are proposing is inconsistent with existing Church of England doctrine (and as such illegal).

---

[1] Canons B2.1, B4.-3, B5.3.

[2] GS Misc 1339 ‘Prayers of Love an Faith: a Note from the Legal Office’ at https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/GS%20Misc%201339%20Legal%20Note%20for%20Synod%20Jan%202023_0.pdf

[3] Martin Davie ‘Failing the Green test – A critical examination of the material from the House of Bishops’ at mbarrattdavie.wordpress.com

[4] Marriage (same sex couples) Act 2013, Part 1.1-2 at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/30/contents/enacted

[5] ‘Marriage (Same Sex Couples Act): A Factsheet’ at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/306000/140423_M_SSC_Act_factsheet__web_version_.pdf

[6] ‘House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage’ at https://www.churchofengland.org/news-and-media/news-and-statements/house-bishops-pastoral-guidance-same-sex-marriage

[7] ‘An order for Prayer and Dedication after a Civil Marriage’ at https://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-and-worship/worship-texts-and-resources/common-worship/marriage#mm107

[8] The Faith and Order Commission, Man and Woman in Marriage (London: Church House Publishing, 2013), p.13.

[9]Similarly Canon B.30 refers synonymously to ‘Holy Matrimony.’ ‘marriage’ and ‘marriage’ without distinguishing between them.

[10] See Michael Brown, Can You Be Gay and Christian? (Lake Mary: Front Line, 2014)

[11] ‘Civil Partnerships- A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England,’ paragraph 17, at  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/House%20of%20Bishops%20Statement%20on%20Civil%20Partnerships%202005.pdf

Failing the Green Test – a critical examination of the material from the House of Bishops

The Green test

When I began my study of theology in Oxford in the 1980s  one of my theological mentors was the late, great Michael Green. Among the very many things I learned from him was the ‘Green test’, the two questions that a student should ask of any item on a theology reading list. These two questions are (a) ‘What is this writer trying to sell me?’ and (b) ‘Is this something I should buy?’

In this article I shall apply the Green test to the material produced by the House of Bishops last week as their response to the Living in Love and Faith process.  I shall apply the Green test and I shall argue that (a) the bishops are trying to sell a wholesale revision of Christian sexual ethics and that (b) the Church of England (and specifically the General Synod) should on no account buy what they are selling.

What the bishops have produced

The bishops produced two items last week.

The first item was a report entitled  Living in Love and Faith:  A response from the Bishops of the Church of England about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage.[1]

This report is in four parts.

• ‘A pastoral letter from the Bishops of the Church of England,’ which includes an apology  ‘for the ways in which the Church of England has treated LGBTQI+ people.’ [2]

• ‘About Prayers of Love and Faith,’ which provides an introduction to and a rationale for the new set of liturgical resources produced by the bishops.

• ‘Towards new pastoral resources,’ which gives details of the work that will be undertaken by the members of a new Pastoral Advisory Group’ to  ‘support and advise bishops and dioceses on pastoral responses to circumstances that arise concerning identity, relationships, sexuality and marriage among clergy, ordinands, lay leaders and the lay people in their care.’ [3]  The advice produced by this group will supersede the existing 1991 House of Bishops report Issues in Human Sexuality.

• ‘Areas for the Church to attend to and develop,’ which sets out the further work that that the bishops think that Church of England needs to undertake in the four areas of ‘Human Embodiment.’  ‘Singleness, celibacy, friendship, community, family and household,’ ‘Human identity’ and ‘Everyday faithful relationships.’

The second item was Prayers of Love and Faith.[4]  These are the liturgical resources previously mentioned and their purpose is to provide ‘resources in praying with and for two people who love one another and who wish to give thanks for and mark that love in faith before God.’ [5]

Following a ‘Pastoral Introduction.,’ these resources are in four sections, which are ‘Prayers Acclamations and Promises’, ‘Psalms and Readings, ‘Service Structures’  and ‘Sample Services.’ Among those for whom the resources are intended are same-sex couples who have ‘registered a civil partnership, or entered into a civil marriage’[6] and no distinction is made with regard to whether the relationships involved are sexually active or sexually abstinent.

The motion to be debated at Synod

On 8 February the members of General Synod will be asked to endorse the material in these two items by means of the following motion:

‘That this Synod, recognising the commitment to learning and deep listening to God and to each other of the Living in Love and Faith process, and  desiring with God’s help to journey together while acknowledging the different deeply held convictions within the Church:

(a) lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church;

(b) recommit to our shared witness to God’s love for and acceptance of every person by continuing  to embed the Pastoral Principles in our life together locally and nationally;

(c) commend the continued learning together enabled by the Living in Love and Faith process and resources in relation to identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage;

(d) welcome the decision of the House of Bishops to replace Issues in Human Sexuality with new pastoral guidance;

(e) welcome the response from the College of Bishops and look forward to the House of Bishops further refining, commending and issuing the Prayers of Love and Faith described in GS 2289 and its Annexes;

(f) invite the House of Bishops to monitor the Church’s use of and response to the Prayers of Love and Faith, once they have been commended and published, and to report back to Synod in five years times.’[7]

If this motion is passed, the material produced by the bishops will have been endorsed by the Church of England. So, the question is ‘Should the motion be passed?’  I think the answer is ‘No’ and to explain why I want to move on to look at what the bishops are selling  in their material.

What the bishops are selling

The initial reports about the bishops’ new material in the media, both secular and religious, have concentrated on three things, that the bishops have apologised to LGBTQI+ people, that they have refused to allow same-sex marriages, and that they are going to allow services of blessing for same-sex couples.

All these three points are true, but they do not get to the heart of what the bishops are proposing. As I have said, what the bishops are proposing is a radical revision of Christian sexual ethics. To understand this point it is useful to employ the motion on human sexuality passed by the General Synod in 1987 (the ‘Higton motion’) as a base line since this is still the official synodical teaching on the matter. This motion runs as follows:

‘This Synod affirms that the biblical and traditional teaching on chastity and fidelity in

personal relationships is a response to, and expression of, God’s love for each one of us,

and in particular affirms:

▪ that sexual intercourse is an act of total commitment which belongs properly

within a permanent married relationship;

▪ that fornication and adultery are sins against this ideal, and are to be met by a

call to repentance and the exercise of compassion;

▪ that homosexual genital acts also fall short of this ideal, and are likewise to be

met with a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion;

▪ that all Christians are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, and that

holiness of life is particularly required of Christian leaders.’[8]

That is, officially at least, where the Church of England currently stands. Now compare the 1987 motion with the following quotations from the new bishops’ material.

From A Response from the Bishops of the Church of England.

‘We are united in our desire for a church where everyone is welcome, accepted and affirmed in Christ. With joy we cherish and value the LGBTQI+ members of our churches and celebrate the gifts that each brings as a fellow Christian. We are united in our condemnation of homophobia. We commit ourselves – and urge the churches in our care – to welcome same-sex couples unreservedly and joyfully.’ (p.3)

‘We continue to seek to be a church that embodies ‘the radical new Christian inclusion’ to which the Living in Love and Faith project was called by the Archbishops in 2017: an inclusion that is ‘founded in scripture, in reason, in tradition, in theology and the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it – based on good, healthy, flourishing relationships, and in a proper 21st century understanding of being human and of being sexual.’’ (p.3)

‘We want to find ways of affirming same-sex couples – inside and outside the church – while committing ourselves to respecting the disagreement, in conscience, of those who believe this compromises the Church’s inherited tradition and teaching.’ (p.4)

‘The Living in Love and Faith process has called the Church of England to reflect on the diversity of relationships that we recognise in our worshipping communities and among our friends and families. This has revealed a need for the Church to find ways of responding to the goodness of relationships between two people who are committed to one another in love and faith.’ (p.5)

‘While not explicitly stated in the Church’s Canons, for many years the Church has taught that the only rightful place for sexual activity is marriage. There is disagreement in the Church about how this applies in our culture today. The reality within which the Church now lives is that couples inhabit their relationships differently. Many would say that when two people aspire to be faithful to one another and fruitful in their service of others and of God, these ‘goods’ of relationships are worth recognising and celebrating. The prayers offered here are an attempt to respond by celebrating what is good and asking God to fill these relationships so they can grow in holiness.’  (p.8)

From Prayers in love and faith

‘These Prayers of Love and Faith are commended by the House of Bishops as resources in praying with and for two people who love one another and who wish to give thanks for and mark that love in faith before God. To celebrate in God’s presence the commitment two people have made to each other is an occasion for rejoicing. The texts are offered to express thanksgiving and hope, with prayer that those who are dedicating their life together to God may grow in faith, love and service as God’s blessing rests upon them.’ (p.2)

What we find by comparing the 1987 motion and this new material is that according to the 1987 motion that Church of England holds that same-sex sexual activity, like all other forms of sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage, are sins and are to be responded to not only with that compassion that Christians must show to all sinners in need of the grace of God, but also with a ‘call to repentance.’

The new proposal, by contrast, is that the ‘radical Christian inclusion’ to which the Church is called means that all same-sex couples, even if they are in a same-sex sexual relationship, must be unreservedly and joyfully welcomed affirmed and celebrated by those in the Church on the grounds of the ‘goodness’ to be found in such relationships.

This includes marking such relationships liturgically with thanksgiving and celebration and with prayer that God’s blessing will rest upon them. This is important because the ancient Christian principle Lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of praying is the law of believing) which the Church of England has always accepted means that how the Church prays shows what it believes.[9] It follows therefore that if the new liturgical materials are adopted by the  Church of England then this will mean that the Church of England holds that same-sex sexual relationships, including same-sex marriages, are worthy of thanksgiving and celebration and may be expected to be the subject of God’s future blessing.

Paul Roberts may well be correct in his claim that the service which the Church of England is offering to LGBTQI+ people in the new rites is not ‘comparable to what it offers to heterosexual couples following a civil marriage.’ [10] As someone who is not a liturgical expert, I am prepared to accept his opinion unless shown otherwise. However, even if this is case, that is not the main issue. The main issue is that what the Church of England is proposing is a form of liturgy that must mean that same same-sex marriages and same-sex sexual relationships in general are acceptable before God. If this was not the case they would have to be met with prayers of confession, penitence and absolution rather than with prayers  of thanksgiving and celebration and for blessing.

It follows that the critique applied by J I Packer and Edith Humphrey to the prayers of same-sex blessing introduced by the Canadian diocese of New Westminster back in 2003 also applies to what is being proposed by the bishops:

J I Packer writes:

‘To bless same-sex unions liturgically is to ask God to bless them and to enrich those who join in them, as is done in marriage ceremonies. This assumes that the relationship, of which the physical bond is an integral part, is intrinsically good and thus, if I may coin a word, blessable, as procreative sexual intercourse within heterosexual marriage is.’[11]

Edith Humphrey writes:

‘ What would it mean to bless same-sex erotic arrangements? It would be to declare that these so-called “unions” are in themselves pictures or icons of God’s love, to say that they display the salvation story, to rejoice that that they are glorified or taken up into God’s own actions and being. It would be to declare that they have a significant and fruitful part in creation, and that they are symbols of the in-breaking and coming rule of God, in which the Church now shares and in which we will eventually participate fully. It would be to “speak a good word” about this sort of relationship, explicitly declaring it to be a condition in which the way of the cross and the way of new life come together.’[12]

A number of further consequences also follow from what the bishops are proposing.

First, the other things that the bishops say fill out the content of the apology that the bishops offer to LGBTQI+ people for the Church’s past conduct. This apology runs as follows:

‘We want to apologise for the ways in which the Church of England has treated LGBTQI+ people – both those who worship in our churches and those who do not. For the times we have rejected or excluded you, and those you love, we are deeply sorry. The occasions on which you have received a hostile and homophobic response in our churches are shameful and for this we repent. As we have listened, we have been told time and time again how we have failed LGBTQI+ people. We have not loved you as God loves you, and that is profoundly wrong.’ [13]

In this quotation the precise details of what is being apologised for are not specified. However, if the Church now believes that the proper response to same-sex couples is  unreserved and joyful welcome, affirmation and celebration, it follows that the Church’s failure to do provide this must be a at least part of what the Church is apologising for. That in turn means that all those churches, clergy and laity who have followed the Church’s existing teaching by suggesting that same-sex sexual activity is sinful and requires repentance have been in the wrong and themselves need to apologise.

Secondly, all the future work proposed by the bishops will be governed by the principle of ‘radical inclusion’ understood as outlined above. This in turn means that everything that the Church of England believes and how it acts will gradually be shaped by a belief that same-sex sexual relationships and other items on the LGBTQI + agenda must accepted and affirmed.

Thirdly, although the bishops talk about ‘respecting the disagreement, in conscience’  of those who believe that the approach the bishops are commending ‘compromises the Church’s inherited tradition and teaching’ what will inevitably happen in practice is that these people will find lees and less room to exercise this disagreement because as just noted the Church of England will move further and further in a revisionist direction and those who cannot ‘get with the programme’ will become an increasingly despised minority whose freedom to act in accordance with their conscience will become increasingly restricted (as has happened in all the other churches where developments similar to those the bishops are proposing have been implemented).   

Fourthly, if what the bishops propose becomes the position of the Church of England then there can be no good reason for not holding same-sex weddings in church. If same-sex marriages can and should be marked liturgically with thanksgiving, celebration and prayers for blessing then there is absolutely no theological reason for not going the whole way and celebrating same-sex marriages in the same way as opposite sex-marriages. All that will prevent this is institutional inertia and that will not last for ever.

Should Synod buy what the bishops are selling?

The first reason why it might be argued that Synod should buy this is that it is necessary to uphold the unity of the Church of England. To quote the Synod motion it is needed  so that we can with ‘God’s help… journey together while acknowledging the different deeply held convictions within the Church.’

Obviously, it is important to try to ensure the institutional unity of the Church of England to the greatest extent possible.  However:

• Such unity could also be achieved through action to ensure that in future everyone accepted and acted upon the existing policy of the Church as set out in the Higton motion – an approach which the bishops do not seem to have even considered.
• Unity might also potentially be maintained through the kind of structurally differentiated unity that the Church of England Evangelical Council explores in its paper Visibly Different[14] and which has been discuss by Evangelicals and Liberals together in the St Hugh’s Group – once again an approach which the bishops do not seem to have considered.
• Unity is not an absolute good. As the Elizabethan theologian John Jewel noted in his Apology for the Church of England ‘there was the greatest consent that might be amongst them that worshipped the golden calf and among those who with one voice jointly cried out against our Saviour Jesu Christ, ‘Crucify Him!’’[15] In other words, unity that is based on acting against God’s will is not a unity that is to be desired.

This brings us to the question of whether what the bishops are proposing is for or against God’s will. According to Anglican tradition there are three principal ways to know the will of God. The reflection of reason on the natural order that God has created, the reflection of reason on God’s additional revelation in Scripture (which confirms and supplements what is revealed by the natural order) and the teaching of the orthodox Fathers and Councils of the Early Church and of the ‘historic formularies’ of the Church of England, the Thirty-Nine Articles, The Book of Common Prayer and the 1662 Ordinal (see Canons A5 and C15), which bear faithful witness to the teaching given to us in Scripture. This approach is often summarised by saying that Anglican theology draws on Scripture, reason and tradition.

The bishops give a nod to this traditional approach when they write that:

‘It has been our work as bishops and teachers of the faith to draw on Scripture alongside tradition, reason and prayer to discern the direction we believe God is calling the Church to take regarding same-sex relationships.’[16]

However, all they give is this nod. They make no attempt, and I mean no attempt, to show that what they are proposing is in accordance with the revelation of God through the natural order, through Scripture and through the witness of the Fathers and the historic formularies.

The fact that they fail to ‘show their working’ in this way is of itself a good reason not to give their work approval. More fundamentally, however, even if they had attempted to show that nature, Scripture and tradition support their approach they would necessarily have failed in this attempt.

A study of human nature shows us that human beings have many things in common. As we have seen previously in this series, all human beings have bodies and souls and human bodies have common features such as heads, feet, hearts, and fingernails. However, alongside the things humans have in common there are also differences which allow us to tell one human being from another.

For example, some people have red hair while others are blonde, some have blue eyes while others have brown eyes, and some people are tall while others are short. Such differences enable us to distinguish Frank, who is blonde, has blue eyes, and is tall from Bill, who has red hair, has brown eyes and is short. The most significant of these differences between human beings is that they differ in their sex.

There are various physical and psychological differences between men and women which develop from the moment of conception, but all of these differences are characteristics of people who are fundamentally differentiated by the fact that their bodies are ordered towards the performance of different roles in sexual reproduction and in the nurture of children once they have been born. It is because male and female bodies are ordered in this way that the human race continues to exist. Every human being is in existence because one parent had male physical characteristics and the other had female physical characteristics.

Like nature, Scripture teaches us that there are two sexes, male and female. However, in Genesis 1:26-31 and Genesis 2: 18-25 the Bible gives us additional teaching about our existence as men and women.

First, it teaches us that the division of human beings into two sexes is not an evolutionary accident. It is how God, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, has created human beings to be. ‘Male and female he created them’ (Genesis 1:27).

Secondly, it teaches us that, like everything else created by God, the division of humanity into two sexes is something that is good. ‘And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31).

Thirdly, it teaches us that it is as male and female that human beings are the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1: 26-27). For human beings to exist as the image and likeness of God means that they have the capacity to know and love God, each other, and creation as a whole and the vocation to rule over creation on God’s behalf. However, they can only rightly exercise this capacity and fulfil this vocation as men and women acting together. That is why God says in Genesis 2:18 ‘it is not good that the man should be alone.’

Fourthly, it teaches us that there is a correspondence between the existence of human beings as male and female and the life of God himself. As the plural verb in Genesis 1:26 (‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness’) indicates, God exists as three divine persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who possess both identity and difference. They are identical as God, but different in the way they are God.

As Genesis goes on to say, God has made human beings as persons who are likewise marked by both identity and difference. The identity and difference between men and women (identical in their humanity, differentiated by their sex) is the primary form of this human identity and differentiation from which all other forms of identity and difference then flow.

Fifthly, it teaches us that by creating the first man and woman and then bringing them together in marriage (Genesis 2:22-23) God has established the model for human sexual relationships for all time. As the American Old Testament scholar Richard Davidson notes, the introductory word ‘therefore’ in Genesis 2:24  ‘indicates that the relationship of Adam and Eve is upheld as the pattern for all human sexual relationships.’^[17]

According to this pattern, the context for sexual intercourse is a permanent marital relationship between one man and one woman that is outside the immediate family circle, is freely chosen, is sexually exclusive and is ordered towards procreation in accordance with God’s command that men and women should ‘be fruitful and multiply’ (Genesis 1:28).

In Scripture all forms of sexual activity outside of marriage thus defined are seen explicitly or implicitly as what the New Testament calls porneia – forms of sexual sin which have no place in the life of God’s people. This includes all forms of same-sex sexual activity (see Genesis 19, Judges 19:22–30, Leviticus 18:22, 20:13, Deuteronomy 23:17–18, Mark 7:21, Acts 15:29, Romans 1:26–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–1, 1 Timothy 1:10, Jude 7. [18]

No provision is made in Scripture for same-sex ‘marriages’ or partnerships and there is no theological room within the teaching of Scripture for them to exist. As Michael Brown observes:

• Every single reference to marriage in the entire Bible speaks of heterosexual unions without exception, to the point that a Hebrew idiom for marriage is for a man ‘to take a wife’.
• Every warning to men about sexual purity presupposes heterosexuality, with the married man often warned not to lust after another woman.
• Every discussion about family order and structure speaks explicitly in heterosexual terms, referring to husbands and wives, fathers and mothers.
• Every law or instruction given to children presupposes heterosexuality, as children are urged to heed or obey or follow the counsel or example of their father and mother.
• Every parable, illustration or metaphor having to do with marriage is presented in exclusively heterosexual terms.

In the Old Testament, God depicts his relationship with Israel as that of a groom and a bride; in the New Testament, the image shifts to the marital union of husband and wife as a picture of Christ and the Church.[19]

It is because Scripture is thus clear about the matter that not only the Church of England but also the entire Christian tradition in all its forms has consistently upheld a pattern of sexual ethics based on either heterosexual marriage or sexual abstinence and has rejected same-sex sexual relationships as intrinsically sinful.[20] Space does not allow me to quote the sources in detail but Augustine speaks for the tradition as a whole when in the Confessions he describes the sin of the men of Sodom as ‘shameful acts against nature’ and comments:

‘If all nations were to do such things, they would [equally]be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not so made men that they should use one another in this way.’

Similarly, Thomas Aquinas declares that homosexual acts are ‘…always an injury done to the Creator, whether or not any offence is at the same time committed against one’s neighbour’ (as in the case of adultery, fornication and rape) the reason being that they violate God’s creative intent for his human creatures and the beauty of His work in creating them.

This being the case, there is no place within the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi as Anglicans have understood it for the Church of England to allow for the liturgical affirmation of same-sex partnerships. The marriage service in the Book of Common Prayer declares ‘that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful’ (‘lawful’ not just according to the law of the state, but according to the law of God).

All forms of same-sex sexual partnerships (same-sex marriages included) are examples of relationships ‘otherwise than God’s Word doth allow.’ It is for this reason that the Church of England as a church, with a liturgy based on Scripture, cannot give any form of liturgical affirmation to such relationships.

Because all this is case it follows that we have to say that from an Anglican perspective we have no choice but to say that what the bishops are proposing is contrary to God’s  known will and therefore not something Synod can rightly support.

The reference that bishops make to prayer is irrelevant. Private revelations received by bishops in the course of prayer are not an accepted Anglican authority (particularly when they contradict Scripture, reason and tradition).

It also needs to be further noted that in so far as what the bishops propose is contrary to the established doctrinal tradition it goes against the insistence in Canons B4 and 5 that any liturgical innovations ‘shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter’ and as such is arguably illegal.

It might finally be argued that notwithstanding what has been said, what the bishops propose is necessary in order to show love to LGBTQI+ people. As Christians we are called to show love and this is a way to do it. However, this argument fails to understand the difference noted by Natasha Crain between the modern secular idea of love and the biblical approach. As she explains, the secular view holds that ‘feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal and judging is the ultimate sin, so love equals affirmation.’  In the biblical worldview, however, love is ‘the act of wanting for others what God wants for them’ [21] In wanting to give to LGBTQI+  people what God does not want to give them (i.e. affirmation for sinful behaviour) the bishops are thus proposing not to show them love at all and so this argument too falls.

What follows from all this is that the members of Synod cannot justifiably buy what the bishops are seeking  to sell them. The bishops have failed the Green test.

This means that either the bishops should withdraw their proposals, or that the clergy and laity in Synod should unhesitatingly vote ‘No’ to the motion that they are being asked to accept.

Appendix – response of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a question about the blessing of same-sex unions

This official statement from Rome in 2021 points us to what the bishops should have said.

‘…..when a blessing is invoked on particular human relationships, in addition to the right intention of those who participate, it is necessary that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord. Therefore, only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the Church.

For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan.

Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”

The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same sex is not therefore, and is not intended to be, a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them.’

The full text can be found at: Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium regarding the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sex (vatican.va)

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[1] This can be found at:  https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/FINAL%20Bishops%27%20Response%20to%20LLF%2020%20Jan%2023_0.pdf

[2] Bishops response, p.2.

[3] Bishops response p.9

[4] This can be found at https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01///FINAL%20Draft%20Prayers%20of%20Love%20and%20Faith.pdf

[5] Prayers of Love and Faith, p.2.

[6] P.2.

[7] GS 2283, The Agenda, February Group of Sessions 2023, p.11 at https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-01/GS%202283%20Agenda%20Feb%2023%20v2.pdf

[8] General Synod Report of Proceedings, Vol 18 No 3, London: Church House Publishing, 1987 pp.955-

  956.

[9] See Martin Davie, Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi (London: Latimer Trust, p.,19).

[10] Paul Roberts, ‘Prayers of Love and Faith – The Draft Rites’ at http://digitaltheology.uk/paulsblog/?p=752

[11] J I Packer  ‘Why I walked’  at https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/january/6.46.html.  

[12] Edith Humphrey ‘The New Testament Speaks on Same-Sex Eroticism’

https://www.wycliffecollege.ca/archive/document/new-testament-speaks-same-sex-eroticism

[13] Bishops’ Response, p. 2

[14] Visibly Different at https://ceec.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/visibly_different_-_dated_26_july_2020.pdf.

[15] Quoted in Philip Hughes, Theology of the English Reformers (London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1965), p.254.

[16] Bishop’s Response, p.6.

[17] Richard Davidson, Flame of Yahweh – Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007), p.43.

[18] See, for example, Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), Ch.16; Robert Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice (Nashville Abingdon, 2001); Michael Brown, Can You Be Gay and Christian? (Lake Mary: Front Line, 2014); Martin Davie, Studies on the Bible and Same-Sex Relationships since 2003 (Malton: Gilead, 2015) .

[19] For this point see Brown pp.86-90.

[20] See S, Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2016).

[21] Natasha Crain, Faithfully Different (Eugene: Harvest House, 2022), Kindle edition, p.95.