This is the text of a paper I presented at a meeting of the Church of Ireland Evangelical Fellowship at St Paul and St Barnabas Church, Belfast, on 14 June 2024.
John Robinson and Honest to God.
Bishop John Robinson was a New Testament scholar and theologian, who was suffragan bishop of Woolwich in the Church of England from 1959-1969. His best-known book is Honest to God,[1] which was published in 1963, and which has remained in print ever since.
In his Preface to this book, Robinson explains that he believes that Christians in the modern world are called:
‘…to far more than a restating of traditional orthodoxy in modern terms. Indeed, if our defence of the Faith is limited to this we shall find in all likelihood that we have lost out to all but a tiny religious remnant. A much more radical recasting, I would judge, is demanded, in the process of which the most fundamental categories of our theology -of God, of the supernatural, and of religion itself – must go into the melting.’ [2]
In Honest to God Robinson attempts the sort of ‘radical recasting’ of traditional orthodoxy to which he refers in his Preface in relation to the five the topics of God, Christology, worship, prayer, and ethics.
About God, Robinson contends that just as we have stopped thinking of a God who exists literally or physically beyond the sky, so we now have to stop thinking of a God who is metaphysically ‘out there’ in the sense of being a :
‘…. supreme Person, a self-existent subject of infinite goodness and power, who enters into a relationship with us comparable with that of one human being with another.’ [3]
What Robinson proposes instead is a new way of thinking in which:
‘To say that God is personal is to say that ‘reality at its very deepest level is personal,’ that personality is of ultimate significance in the constitution of the universe but in personal relationships we touched the final meaning of existence as nowhere else. ‘To predicate personality of God’ says Feuerbach, ‘is nothing else than to declare personality as the absolute essence.’ to believe in God as love means to believe that in pure personal relationship we encounter, not merely what ought to be, but what is, the deepest, veriest truth about the structure of reality. This, in face of all the evidence, is a tremendous act of faith. but it is not the feat of persuading oneself of the existence of a super being beyond this world endowed with personal qualities. Belief in God is the trust, the well-nigh incredible trust, that to give ourselves to the uttermost in love is not to be confounded but to be ‘accepted,’ that love is the ground of our being, to which ultimately we ‘come home.’’[4]
In line with this view of how we should understand God, Robinson rejects as
‘mythical’ the traditional Christian belief in: ‘‘a God’ who ‘visits’ the earth in the person of ‘his Son’’[5] Instead Robinson proposes an alternative Christology in which:
‘Jesus is ‘the man for others,’ the one in whom Love has completely taken over, the one who is utterly open to, and united with the Ground of his being. And this ‘life for others, through participation in the Being of God,’ is transcendence. For at this point of love ‘to the uttermost,’ we encounter God, the ultimate ‘depth’ of our being, the unconditional in the conditioned. This is what the New Testament means by saying that ‘God was in Christ’ and that ‘what God was the Word was. Because Christ was utterly and completely ‘the man for others,’ because he was love , he was ‘one with the Father’ because ‘God is love.’ But for this very reason he was most entirely man, the Son of man, the servant of the Lord.’[6]
Robinson further suggests that we need to reject the traditional Christian belief in ‘a supernatural Being coming down from heaven to ‘save’ mankind from sin’ since such a belief ‘is frankly incredible’ to people today.[7] Instead, he suggests that the grace of God given to us in Jesus Christ:
‘…is the life of ‘the man for others,’ the love whereby we are brought completely into one with the Ground of our being, manifesting itself in the unreconciled relationships of our existence. It was manifested supremely on the Cross, but it is met whenever the Christ is shown forth and recognized in ‘an entirely different mode of living-in-relationship from anything known in the world.’ For there. In however ‘secular’ a form, is the atonement and the resurrection.’ [8]
On worship, Robinson writes that its purpose is to foster a better engagement with the world and the people in it:
‘The purpose of worship is not to retire from the secular into the department of the religious, Let alone escape from ‘this world’ into the ‘other world,’ but open oneself to the meeting of the Christ in the common, to that which has the power to penetrate its superficiality and redeem it from its alienation. The function of worship is to make us more sensitive to these depths; to focus, sharpen and deepen our response to the world and to other people beyond the point of proximate concern (of liking, self -interest, limited commitment, etc,) to that of ultimate concern; to purify and correct our loves in the light of Christ’s love; and in him to find the grace and power to be the reconciled and reconciling community.’[9]
On prayer, Robinson focusses on prayer as intercession and suggests that this means opening ‘oneself to another unconditionally in love.’ [10] This, he says:
‘…may consist simply in listening, when we take the otherness of the other person most seriously. It may not be talking to God, as though to a third person, about him at all. The Thou addressed may be his own Thou, but it may be addressed and responded to at such a level that we can only speak of knowing him in God and God in him.’ [11]
Finally, on ethics, Robinson builds on the work of the American Anglican ethicist Joseph Fletcher and argues that for the Christian there are no moral ‘absolutes,’ but the sort of love shown by Christ.’ This means, he says, that:
‘….nothing can of itself always be labelled as ‘wrong.’ One cannot, for instance, start from the position ‘sex relations before marriage’ or ‘divorce’ are wrong or sinful in themselves. They may be in 99 cases or even 100 cases out of 100, but they are not intrinsically so, for the only intrinsic evil is lack of love.’ [12]
The issue raised by the responses to Honest to God .
The reason I have begun this paper by summarising what Robinson writes in Honest to God is because his writing highlights the issue I want to explore with you this evening.
Robinson was born into an Anglican clerical family and remained a committed Anglican for the whole of his life. In line with this commitment, he believed that what he was doing in Honest to God lay within the parameters of acceptable Anglican thought. As he saw it, he was not departing from Anglican orthodoxy, but re-presenting it in a new way for the secular world he encountered in South London, in which traditional theological language had ceased to make sense.
His critics in the Church of England, however, of which there were many (including the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey), took a different view. They held that the approach to theology and ethics contained in Honest to God transgressed the limits of acceptable Anglican theology.[13]
This difference of opinion between Robinson and his critics raises the question as to which of them was right. Can an Anglican church be sufficiently capacious, ‘broad’ to use the title of this talk, to encompass the theological approaches of both Robinson and his traditionalist critics, or are there limits to how broad an Anglican church can be, limits which exclude the position taken by Robinson?
For the purposes of this paper, and in line with common Anglican usage, I am using the term ‘Anglican church’ to refer to national churches such as the Church of Ireland or the Church of England rather than to Anglican parish churches, although what I say is, of course, relevant to them as well.
Until the end of the twentieth century this issue of how broad an Anglican church can be was primarily raised by the writings and actions of individuals such as Robinson or the radical American Anglican bishop James Pike[14]. From the start of the twenty-first century, however, a new element has entered into the discussion of this issue. This element is the decision of a small but growing number of provinces of the Anglican Communion to accept as legitimate same-sex sexual relationships, same-sex marriages and the adoption of transgender identities and the ordination as ordained ministers (including bishops) of those personally involved in these things.
The actions of these provinces have highlighted the fact that discussion of the question of how broad an Anglican church can be involves not only the question of what forms of belief and practice by individuals can be accepted within Anglican churches, but also what forms of belief and practice by Anglican churches can be acceptable within Anglicanism as a whole.
This latter issue has in fact always been part of Anglican discussion, as a study of the Lambeth Conferences since 1867 shows. What is different today is that this issue is now dividing the Anglican Communion in a way that it has never been divided before, with individual Anglican provinces making unilateral decisions about belief and practice without the agreement of the wider Anglican Communion, decisions which other churches in the Communion are unable to accept as legitimate.
Whether in the case of the belief and practices of individuals, or the belief and practices of churches, the question of how broad an Anglican church can be answered in two ways.
The question can be answered phenomenologically by enquiring what forms of belief and practice are as a matter of fact held by national churches in the Anglican tradition and by the individuals within them. The answer to the question ‘How broad can an Anglican church be?’ would be determined by the sum total of the different forms of theology and practice discovered in the course of this enquiry.
However, it can also be answered theologically by enquiring what forms of theology and practice can rightly be accepted within Anglican churches. It is this latter approach that I am going to take in the rest of this talk.
The criteria for deciding how broad an Anglican church can be.
This second approach raises, of course, the question of what the criteria are for deciding theologically how broad an Anglican church should be. A good way to begin to answer this question is by noting the consensus that still exists within the Anglican Communion about the sources of Anglican doctrine (and therefore also of Anglican practice).
This consensus is expressed in ‘Principle 49: The sources of doctrine’ in the official Anglican Communion report The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion which was published in 2008. Principle 49 states:
‘1.The faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ is taught in the Holy Scriptures, summed up in the Creeds, and affirmed by the ancient Fathers and undisputed General Councils.
2. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain all things necessary to salvation and are the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
3. The Apostles’ Creed represents the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed is recognised as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.
4. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal 1662 are grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teaching of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Holy Sctriptures.
5. The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal 1662 represent the historic sources of lawful doctrine for a church.’[15]
There are three points of clarification to be noted with regard to what is said in this statement.
First, when (3) says that the Nicene Creed is ‘the sufficient standard of the Christian faith’ the wording is taken from resolution 11 the Lambeth Conference of 1888 [16] and means that acceptance of the Nicene Creed is sufficient as a test of the basic Christian orthodoxy of a church (not that it says everything that needs to be said about Christian doctrine).
Second when (4) says that the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer and the 1662 Ordinal are ‘grounded’ in ‘in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures,’ the word ‘grounded’ means ‘based on,’ as it does in the similar declaration contained in Canon A5 of the Canons of the Church of England. What it is saying is that the doctrine found in these ‘historic formularies’ is based on the teaching contains in the Scriptures and those teachings of the Fathers and Councils of the Early Church that faithfully expound what is in the Scriptures. It is for this reason that they are the ‘historic sources of lawful doctrine for a church.’
Thirdly, although the only two creeds that are specifically mentioned in this statement are the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, the authority of the Athanasian Creed is also implicitly recognised since its authority is specifically affirmed in Article VIII of the Thirty-Nine Articles (which says it ought to be ‘received and believed’) and its use is mandated in the Book of Common Prayer in which the text of the Athanasian Creed is also included.
Overall, by saying that Anglican doctrine is based not only on the primary witness of the inspired Word of God in Scripture, but also on the secondary witness of the Fathers, Councils and Creeds of the Early Church and the tertiary witness of the three historic formularies, the statement is saying that if we want to confess the Christian faith in word and deed in our own day, in accordance with the Word of God, we must listen to what those Christians who have gone before us have said on this topic and be willing to learn from them.
Furthermore, the reason why it says this is because there is good reason to listen to these additional theological authorities as well as to Scripture. The evidence of church history shows us that, despite the possibility of error and falsehood to which the Church in this world is perpetually subject (See Article XIX and XXI), God’s providential care for the Church has meant that it is has nonetheless maintained through the centuries a faithful witness to the faith taught by Jesus and the apostles he appointed. It is this faithful witness which we find in these subordinate authorities in addition to the primary witness borne by Scripture.
The existence of these sources of Anglican doctrine is relevant to the question of how broad an Anglican Church can be because it provides the basis for a theological answer to this question. If these sources tell us authoritatively what it means to confess the Christian faith in word and deed, then this tells us positively what Anglican churches are to believe and to do. They are to believe and do those things that are in accordance with what is taught in these sources.
Conversely, it also tells us that there is a limit to what an Anglican church can rightly believe and rightly do. Any belief or practice that goes against what is taught in these sources transgresses the limits that they lay down. This means that any Anglican church that either authorises or permits such belief and practice has become too broad. It has gone too far in what it allows. It accepts what is unacceptable.
Being specific.
It is important to affirm these two points in principle. However, it is not sufficient to simply affirm in general terms the rule that Anglican churches should adhere to those forms of belief and practice authorised in the recognised Anglican sources of doctrine and not otherwise, because for this rule to be effective in the life of Anglican churches it is also necessary to be specific about what these forms of doctrine and practice are.
In the time available to me this evening I cannot explain in detail what these forms of doctrine and practice are. What I shall do, however, is go on to provide a big picture sketch of the key points of belief and practice which we can derive from the recognised Anglican sources of doctrine and what it would mean to believe and act in a way that goes against them.
What and who God is.
If we ask what and who God is, the answer that these Anglican sources tell us is summarised in Article I of the Thirty-Nine Articles. This declares:
‘There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker, and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’
What the use of term ‘Persons’ means is that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost (or as we would say in modern English, the Holy Spirit) each truly exist in their own right with the personal, eternal, existence that is proper to the being of God.
If the Persons are each truly and eternally God, and thus share all the characteristics of God, this raises the question of what distinguishes them. The answer given in Scripture and witnessed to by Fathers such as Augustine, is that what distinguishes them is simply their modes of relationship to each other. In the words of the Athanasian Creed:
‘The Father is made of none: neither created nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers: one Son not three Sons: one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
Because this is what and who God is, Anglican churches are called to believe and confess that this is the case. They are too broad if they say it is acceptable to hold otherwise.’
What God has done and will do.
If we go on to ask what the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit has done and will do, the answer is classically summarised in the Nicene Creed. In the translation in the Book of Common Prayer this declares:
‘I believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible:
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man, And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead: Whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord and giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets. And I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the life of the world to come. Amen.’
What we learn from the Nicene Creed are the basic biblical truths that as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God has created everything that is and is the author of life both physical and spiritual. He has spoken through the prophetic witness of the Old Testament. He has come into the world in the person of Jesus Christ for the sake of our salvation by being born of the Virgin Mary, and as Jesus Christ he has died, risen, and ascended into heaven, and will come again as the universal judge at the end of time. He has created the Church, grants the remission of sins in baptism, and will raise the dead to a new life in the world to come.
Because this is what God has done, is doing and will do, this is what Anglican churches need to believe and confess. They are too broad if that say it is acceptable to do otherwise.
Why salvation is necessary.
Why was it necessary for God to come into the world as Jesus Christ for the sake of our salvation, and why do we need the remission of sins that is given in baptism, and renewed when we confess our sins to God and seek his forgiveness for them? The answer given in the Anglican sources of doctrine is that all human beings, as the descendants of Adam, the first human creature made by God, have a fallen nature that leads them to do evil things that God, being righteous, rightly condemns. This situation is what Christian theologians mean when they refer to the existence of ‘original sin’ and it is described in Article IX of the Thirty-Nine Articles which states:
‘Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fault and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation. And this infection of nature doth remain, yea in them that are regenerated; whereby the lust of the flesh, called in Greek, φρονημα σαρκος, (which some do expound the wisdom, some sensuality, some the affection, some the desire, of the flesh), is not subject to the Law of God.’
If this is the human situation, then Anglican churches need to believe and confess this fact. They are too broad if they say it is permissible to do otherwise by, for instance, denying that human beings have a fallen nature as a consequence of their descent from Adam, or that their nature remains corrupted (and therefore inclined to sin) even when they are born again in Christ through faith and baptism, or that these facts mean that they deserve ‘God’s wrath and damnation.’
The person and work of Christ.
If we ask who God the Son became at the incarnation and how he changed the human situation that we have just described, the answer given by the New Testament and echoed in the witness of the Fathers and Councils of the Early Church, is summarised as follows by Article II of the Thirty-Nine Articles:
‘The Son, which is the Word of the Father, begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and eternal God, and of one substance with the Father, took Man’s nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin, of her substance: so that two whole and perfect Natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very God, and very Man; who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men.’
What this article tells us is that the Jesus who is described for us in the Gospels, and in the New Testament as whole, is one person who is both God and Man and therefore has both a divine and a human nature. Furthermore, this person who is both God and Man sacrificed himself for us on the Cross in order that our sins might be forgiven, and we might be restored to a right relationship with God the Father. An Anglican church which holds that it is permissible to deny these truths (in the way that Robinson, for example, does) is a church that is too broad.
Once again echoing the New Testament and the Patristic witness, Article IV then goes on to say ‘Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature.’ The reason what is said here matters is not only because it is historically accurate (although this is case), but because Christ’s bodily resurrection is the precursor and cause of the coming bodily resurrection of all who belong to him. ‘For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Corinthians 15:22). A church that says it is permissible to doubt the reality of Christ’s bodily resurrection, or what the Prayer Book funeral service calls ‘the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body that it may be like his glorious body,’ is too broad.
Predestination
According to the sources of Anglican doctrine, Christ’s death and resurrection need to be understood within a larger account of the saving purposes of God. This larger account tells us that we are saved through Christ’s death and resurrection because God has decreed from everlasting that it should be so (Ephesians 1:4) , and that what Christ has done for us finds its outworking in a series of further acts of God in our lives, and will culminate in our enjoyment of eternal blessing in the world to come
We can see all this set out in Article XVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles under heading of ‘Predestination:’
‘Predestination to Life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the world were laid) he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honour. Wherefore, they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God, be called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through Grace obey the calling: they be justified freely: they be made sons of God by adoption: they be made like the image of his only-begotten Son Jesus Christ: they walk religiously in good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity.’
If an Anglican church holds that it is acceptable to deny what Article XVII teaches about predestination, or any aspect of it, then it is too broad.
The sacraments
The sources of Anglican doctrine also tell us that two of the key means by which we receive the saving grace of God described in Article XVII are the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In the words of the Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer, through the former, which is properly administered to infants as well as adults[17], Christians receive ‘A death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness; for being by nature children of wrath, we are hereby made children of grace.’ Through the latter they receive ‘The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the bread and wine.’ In both cases, however, these spiritual benefits only follow if the sacraments are received in an attitude of repentance and faith.
If an Anglican church says that it is permissible to say that repentance and faith is not required when receiving the sacraments, or that they do not convey the spiritual benefits just described, or that infants may not be baptised, it is too broad.
The ministry
What we also learn from the witness of the New Testament, the Patristic period and the Anglican formularies is that the primary, although not exclusive, responsibility for the administration of the sacraments, and for teaching and preaching, leading worship, and providing pastoral care for those both inside and outside the church, belongs to those who have been ordained into the three orders of ordained ministry that have existed since apostolic times, the orders of bishops, priests and deacons.[18]
If an Anglican church holds that this pattern of ordained ministry is not apostolic and as such instituted by God himself,[19] or that a church may decide to dispense with it, then it is too broad.
Prayer
One of the key aspects of the life of those who have been called into relationship with God through Christ is prayer, and according to the Anglican sources of doctrine the model for prayer is provided by the Lord’s Prayer, given to us by Jesus himself (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4).
As the Prayer Book catechism explains, what using the Lord’s Prayer as a model for prayer involves can be summarised by saying:
‘I desire my Lord God our heavenly Father, who is the giver of all goodness, to send his grace unto me, and to all people, that we may worship him, serve him, and obey him, as we ought to do. And I pray unto God, that he will send us all things that be needful both for our souls and bodies; and that he will be merciful unto us, and forgive us our sins; and that it will please him to save and defend us in all dangers ghostly and bodily; and that he will keep us from all sin and wickedness, and from our ghostly enemy, and from everlasting death. And this I trust he will do of his mercy and goodness, through our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore I say, Amen, So be it.’
An Anglican church that says it is permissible to hold that prayer is unimportant, or that Christians do not need to pray for the subjects outlined in the catechism, or that prayer need not involve talking to God at all (as Robinson suggests), is too broad.
Living a holy life
According to the Anglican sources of doctrine, living a holy life, or, as Article XVII puts it, walking ‘religiously in good works,’ involves exercising love for God and love for neighbour (Matthew 12:28-34) and the pattern for doing this is provided by the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai (Exodus 20:2-17, Deuteronomy 6:5-21). This is why Anglican churches have traditionally displayed copies of the Ten Commandments, together with the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed in their church buildings.
As the Prayer Book catechism explains, what it means to live according to the pattern of holy living set out in the Ten Commandments can be summarised as follows:
‘Question. What dost thou chiefly learn by these Commandments?
Answer. I learn two things: my duty towards God, and my duty towards my Neighbour.
Question. What is thy duty towards God?
Answer. My duty towards God is to believe in him, to fear him, and to love him, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength; to worship him, to give him thanks, to put my whole trust in him, to call upon him, to honour his holy Name and his Word, and to serve him truly all the days of my life.
Question. What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour?
Answer. My duty towards my Neighbour is to love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the King, and all that are put in authority under him: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt nobody by word nor deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men’s goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me.’
An Anglican Church which says that it is acceptable to depart from this God given pattern of behaviour (or any elements of it), either in teaching, or in practice, is too broad.
Someone might object at this point ‘but surely no one would reject the basic pattern of Christian conduct outlined in the catechism?’ Sadly, however, such as rejection has taken place, and is taking place, in those Anglican churches which are supportive of same-sex sexual relationships and the adoption of transgender identities.
This is because to keep our bodies in ‘temperance, soberness and chastity, ‘ as the catechism glosses the seventh commandment, involves accepting the bodies we have as gifts given to us by God and using them only in ways that are in accordance with God’s will (see Romans 13:13-14 and Colossians 3:5-8).
Adopting a transgender identity is incompatible with accepting the bodies we have as gifts given to us by God, because the bodies we have are either male or female[20] and thus give us a male or female sexual identity. To adopt a transgender identity is to reject this sexual identity, given to us in our bodies, as a gift from God. This is not to deny the reality of the distress caused by gender dysphoria, but it is to say that adopting a transgender identity is not a legitimate way to deal with this distress.
Being in a same-sex sexual relationship or a same-sex marriage is incompatible with using our bodies in accordance with the will of God, for the reasons helpfully summarised in the following quotation from J I Packer:
‘The Bible shows us that God created two genders for heterosexual attraction, with delight, leading to lifelong monogamous marriage for, among other things, the raising of stable and mature families; and he created sex for procreation with pleasure, and for reinforced bonding of the marriage relationship thereby. This is part of the God-given and God taught order of creation, an order that same sex unions directly contravene. So, however high- minded the participants and however faithful to each other they intend to be, same-sex bodily unions may not be viewed as a form of holiness (the Canadian Anglican General Synod of 2004 was wrong to speak of their ‘sanctity’), any more than sex with an animal (bestiality) can be so viewed. God sets limits, and obedience to him includes observing them. Sex is for marriage, and marriage is a heterosexual partnership, whatever modern society may say.’ [21]
What these two points mean is that those Anglican churches which are supportive of same-sex sexual relationships and the adoption of transgender identities are indeed too broad.
What all this means for us.
My argument in this paper has been that the teaching contained in the accepted sources of Anglican doctrine sets down a boundary which Anglican churches need to observe in their teaching and practice. In their teaching and practice they can be as broad as this boundary, but no broader. If they transgress this boundary, or if they say that it is acceptable for individuals to do so, then they have become too broad.
What is important to note is that the boundary set down by the teaching of the accepted sources of Anglican doctrine is not an artificial one. The reason these sources of doctrine are regarded as authoritative is because they bear faithful witness to the reality of who God is, what he has done and will do, and how he wills his human creatures to behave in consequence. The boundary they set is thus the boundary established by the reality of how things are, and it is for this reason that this boundary must be observed.
If this is true then it means five things for those of us who are here tonight.
First, we must personally understand, accept and live within the boundary set down in the Anglican sources of doctrine.
Secondly, we must do all in our power to explain the existence of this boundary to others and to persuade them to accept it as well.
Thirdly, we must object when individuals, groups or entire Anglican churches either propose transgressing this boundary, or actually do so.
Fourthly, we must visibly differentiate ourselves, either as individuals or as groups of Christians, from those who have transgressed this boundary.
Fifthly, we must do all that we can to ensure that a clear witness to the nature of the God given boundary and the need to observe it is maintained within Anglicanism into the future.
What precisely the last two points should mean in practice is, I believe, to be viewed as matter of prudential judgement that is dependent on circumstances. It may mean forming a new Anglican jurisdiction as has happened in the United States and Canada, or it may mean some form of robust structural differentiation at a provincial level, such as the Church of England Evangelical Council has proposed in the case of the Church of England. [22]
In my view neither approach is, in principle, better than the other. What matters is their ability in practice to provide a clear and durable witness to the boundary that Anglican churches, like all other Christian churches, are called to observe in both word and deed to the praise of the one, eternal, Triune God, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen
Appendix : additional Anglican Statements on the sources of Anglican doctrine.
The Anglican Communion Covenant (2007) [23]
Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith
1.1 Each Church affirms:
(1.1.1) its communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
(1.1.2) the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. The historic formularies of the Church of England, forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.
The GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration (2008)[24]
Article 2
We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
Article 3
We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
Article 4
We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
Article 6
We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
Article 7
We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
The Doctrinal Foundation of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (2021) [25]
… the doctrine of their Churches is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer (1662), and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, annexed to The Book of Common Prayer, and commonly known as the Ordinal.
[1] John Robinson, Honest to God, (London: SCM 1963),
[2] Robinson, p.7.
[3] Robinson, p.48.
[4] Robinson, pp.48-49 italics in the original quoting Ludwig Feuerbach in The Essence of Christianity.
[5] Robinson, p.67.
[6] Robinson, pp.76-77.
[7] Robinson, p.78.
[8] Robinson, p.82 quoting John Wren-Lewis in They became Anglicans.
[9] Robinson, p.87.
[10] Robinson, p.99.
[11] Robinson, p.100.
[12] Robinson, p.120.
[13] For a good overview of reactions to Honest to God see John Robinson and David Edwards (eds) The Honest to God Debate (London: SCM 2012).
[14] For Bishop Pike See William Stringfellow and Anthony Towne, The Death and Life of Bishop Pike(Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2007).
[15] The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2008), pp.57-58. The fact that what is said in these four points does indeed reflecta general Anglican consensus is shown by the fact that the Anglican Communion Covenant,GAFCON’S Jerusalem Declaration and the Doctrinal Foundation of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches list the same sources of Anglican doctrine as the statement in The Principles of Canon Law (see the Appendix at the end of this paper).
[16] This can be found Iin Roger Coleman (ed), Resolutions of the Twelve Lambeth Conferences 1867-1888(Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1992), p.13.
[17] Article XVII ‘The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeabl to the institution of Christ.’
[18] ‘It is evident to all men, diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church; Bishops, Priests and Deacons.’ The Preface to the 1662 Ordinal.
[19] For this point see Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book VII.5.2.
[20] As Abigial Favele notes in her book The Genesis of Gender (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2022) thereare no known human bodies that are nor either male or female, including the bodies of people with whatare known as ‘intersex’ conditions.
[21] J I Packer, Taking God Seriously (Wheaton: Crossway, 2013), Kindle edition, p.44
[22] See the Church of England Evangelical Council, Visibly Different at : https://ceec.info/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/visibly_different_-_dated_26_july_2020.pdf.
[23] The Anglican Communion Covenant can be found at: https://www.anglicancommunion.org/media/99905/The_Anglican_Covenant.pdf
[24] The Jerusalem Declaration can be found at: https://www.gafcon.org/about/jerusalem-declaration.
[25] The Doctrinal Foundation of the GSFA can be found at: 64f6cf1ea4f7e1c49c0619c3_GSFA Covenantal Structure (adopted on 15 Oct 2021).pdf (website-files.com).
Reflections of an Anglican Theologian 