NB: I see that now we have reached 200 comments, that 201 and beyond are on a new thread, which you can reach by clicking on "newest", near to the 200th comment. (Alternatively, if you go straight to the 201st comment you may need to click on something appropriate to get back to the first 200 comments.
Original Post:
At last and in plenty of time for our diocesan synods in a month or two's time, we have the interim report and recommendations from the GS Working Group.
Read the Taonga article here, follow the links, and, obviously, read the full PDF document here. (There is a shorter version here but the details in the appendices are what count).
My verdict: a beautiful Anglican accommodation.
Why?
It gives (many) conservatives and (many) liberals what they have asked for, and makes few demands on the middle of our church.
I do not want to have to submit to the authority of General Synod (because it has approved something I am not happy with)?
I will not have to do that because the declarations will change.
I wish the blessing of a same sex partnership to be able to take place in an Anglican church?
In most, but likely not all, dioceses/hui amorangi permission will be given for priests to conduct such blessings provided the local vestry is agreeable to that happening.
I feel I would have to leave the church if it approved a blessing formulary (because that would mean our church had formally changed its doctrine on marriage). There will not be such a change. Services of blessing will be approved at a more local level - the diocese.
I am worried that I will be disciplined by the church if I conduct a blessing or if I refuse to conduct a blessing. That will be ruled out, both ways.
I am concerned that my parish, when it comes time to choose a new vicar, will be bullied by the Nomination Board into accepting a priest who will reverse my parish's policy on blessing of same sex partnerships. That can be prevented because parishes and individuals will be able to form communities of common accord with other like-minded parishes. Bishops must respect the ethos of those communities in making their appointment, indeed the appointee must come from within the community to which the parish belongs.
I do not particularly care one way or another whether my vicar does or does not conduct blessings of same sex partnerships. Nothing needs to be done. Keep cool and carry on as you are!
I want to be part of a parish which not only teaches celibacy outside of (heterosexual) marriage but which supports those who choose to be celibate and look for the support of their community of faith in being obedient to God in this way. That is not only possible, it is specifically provided for by the proposal: like-minded parishes including common commitment to teaching and discipline may group together in structured communities of faith, supported by a bishop.
Thus in a number of ways this is a beautiful, comprehensive Anglican accommodation of the wide range of views on human sexuality held within ACANZP.
To be very clear: a beautiful Anglican accommodation does not mean that everyone is going to be, let alone has to be happy about what is proposed. There will be disappointment for some.
My argument here is that in a tricky, challenging situation in which we are not agreed, we have a proposal which has a quality of elegance to it, which demonstrates deep listening to speeches at the last General Synod and to submissions made to the Working Group, and, critically, a will to make some significant changes to the way we do things.
And all with a view to holding us together.
I hope this means no one leaves.
But if some do, I believe the losses will be few rather than many.
Postscript:
- for the geeks among readers, this is what I posted re the submission I made to the working group. You will see that a number of things I was keen to see are included in the report/recommendations. (That, incidentally, is not a claim that I had some great influence on the report. Once we failed to secure agreement at GS 2016 there was a logical path to where we needed to go as a church in disagreement, which influenced my submission and, I am sure, directly influenced the working group.)
- Also, Bosco Peters has a considered response here.
329 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 329 of 329Hi Brendan
Opposing views in a church do not of themselves constitute a slippery slope.
Hi Peter; I think Fr Ron's use of the word charism is a bit of a stretch.
Nick
For his sake, Father Ron's lamentation about conservatives touched my heart. But my head suspects that the reality on the ground is very different--
(a) Although talk about homosexuals continues, That Topic ceased to matter to their actual condition when our governments began to register SSM.
(b) Among heterosexuals of a certain generation, That Topic has all along been a proxy for their desire to have their innovations validated by the Church, and the determination of their contemporaries not to let that happen.
(c) SSB is an ink blot in which activists see what they want, but it serves as a shibboleth for the two usual sides.*
(d) Both the desire and determination have a visceral pre-rational quality that does not yield to calm theological discourse. Although the two sides raise important theological issues, a political analysis nearly always explains what synods are doing better than a theological one.
(e) Granted that there is an *odium theologicum* on both sides, it appears to me that the hatred and despair is deepest among revisionists who will have nothing to believe in if they lose. TEC's despotic deposition of conservative clergy was a pathological fanaticism best explained by Sigmund Freud's *narcissism of small differences*. I have not seen actual homophobia in Anglican debate in a very long time, and conservatives have come a long way in their understanding of sexual minorities.
(f) If the ACANZP proposal has broad traction beyond the happy warriors, it is because saner, more normal people see in it an assurance that they can find and keep Anglican parishes where people see relations between the sexes their way.
I used to jest that the Church of England could be governed by con evos and feminists from new sees on the isles of Man and Avalon, respectively. But now, in all seriousness, ACANZP has proposed something very like that. For those above a certain age, it may prove to be the telos of the whole debate.
* As you know, Nick, *charism* means *gift*; to me, Father Ron's use of the former makes semantic sense. It is true that weddings have never been blessings of a charism/gift possessed prior to the ceremony. But since SSB is an ink blot without meaning anyway, who is to say that he is wrong?
Bowman Walton
Hi Nick
I think of friendship as a charism but agree it is a stretch when uncertain about what God blesses and what God does not, to speak of charism about things uncertain.
I have just read this insightful quote from Richard Neuhaus, which has apparently become known as ‘Neuhaus Law’. No doubt it will be familiar to many of you.
"Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_John_Neuhaus
It speaks prophetically to the Anglican church today. We have a situation where orthodoxy is about to become optional in the Anglican church. Once it does, through the enactment of SSB, then ‘marriage equality’ will sooner or later become the proscribed orthodoxy.
I suspect, Nick, that Fr Ron is wanting to extrapolate from 1 Cor 7's use of charisma. Fair enough! And if so, then he is displaying exactly that mix-and-match selectivity of our day in the church. For he clearly wants also to avoid 1 Cor 6 like the plague.
"Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." Richard Neuhaus via Brendan.
What is important about this dictum, I sense, is to review the dynamics over a longer period.
“Belief” in the CoE and its derivatives around the world has for a number of decades been a curate’s egg. Official reports like Christian Believing (SPCK, 1976) clearly show the shift from “belief” as an object to “believe” as a verb, thus allowing for things like the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus to be optional tenets, in themselves, since the actual act of believing appears continuous. However, with shifting behaviours it becomes increasingly hard to cover up the differences. And when those behaviours are in addition sanctioned by the Church - SSM/SSB - the game’s up.
Outward expressions of belief are central to Christianity. We decry any dualism of mind and body; we also decry any separation between individuals and the community, the body of the Church. Just so, any schism between the act of believing and what we believe is fatal. Viz St Augustine: "Certainly we affirm with full truth that the faith which is etched in the heart of everyone who believes … proceeds from a single doctrine, but it is one thing what we believe (ea quae creduntur), and another thing the faith with which we believe (fides qua credentur)" (De Trinitate, XIII, 2, 5). The Latin naturally ‘plays’ better than our English! [The wider context NB is Augustine’s distinction between “knowledge” and “wisdom”, and so between our human apprehension of things temporal and things eternal, and their respective guides to things trinitarian, his real point. For all that: the important distinction and the link between fides qua credentur and fides quae creduntur was born and passed into the Tradition.]
Neuhuas’s Law therefore necessarily extends to orthopraxis - our current, visceral arena.
Hi Peter, I have been approached by Neville Rogers to submit this post on his behalf:
Cricket is a noble game, often staid and ponderous but with innate tradition
and ritual. There are those, however, who believe that the game is unfair
and draconian in its rules about being "out" and who gets to be in the team
and the trajectory of the ball and so on.
This proposal is an obvious solution that accommodates beautifully all who wish to play.
It's simple.
There is one pitch in the field on which the standard game of Cricket is
played by those who wish to align themselves to the known and accepted
rules, and to place themselves under the jurisdiction of the umpire. Next to
that pitch is another on which anyone who wishes may play, and many of the
same rules apply although the "out" rule is flouted, or perhaps flaunted, in
the case of error.
The ball is thrown, the bat is waved, the players amble
up and down the pitch; it looks almost like Cricket. To avoid unfairness,
the game must be inclusive, and players from each pitch may take up a
position on the other at random. Thus a player may bat in one crease, and
pirouette gracefully across to the other, which has the added advantage of
not enforcing the "out" rule. The umpire has jurisdiction over the one
pitch, but since players may migrate between pitches his decisions are
irrelevant; any player may claim to know the mind of Cricket and argue the
true intentions of the game.
New expressions of Cricket, including coloured
clothing, musical accompaniment and height and number of wickets may be
explored. Of course, the one sacrosanct rule applies at tea-time, when the
cucumber sandwiches must be served, and the tea poured, only by a Member of
the Committee.
A Game of Two Pitches. What fun. What a spectacle. What a novelty. What a
farce.
C.S.Lewis used the example of Miss Bingley in Pride and Prejudice who would
have preferred conversation to dancing in order to make a Ball more
rational. Her brother agreed that it would be, "Much more rational, I
daresay, but much less like a ball." So it is with these proposals: the
Church becomes more inclusive, more modern, more adaptable - but much less
like Christianity. What a shame it is that there are those who claim the
name of Christ who care more about the rules of a game like cricket, and
less about the glory of God and the honour due to his name.
1 Peter 1: 13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in
spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the
revelation of Jesus Christ.
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were
yours in your ignorance,
15 but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your
behaviour;
16 because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."
17 If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each
one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on
earth;
18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or
gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood
of Christ.
"Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." Richard Neuhaus via Brendan.
What is important about this dictum, I sense, is to review the dynamics more widely and over a longer period.
“Belief” in the CoE and its derivatives around the world has for a number of decades been a curate’s egg. Official reports like Christian Believing (SPCK, 1976) clearly show the shift from “belief” as an object to “believe” as a verb, thus allowing for things like the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Jesus to be optional tenets, in themselves, since the actual act of believing appears continuous. However, with shifting behaviours it becomes increasingly hard to cover up the differences. And when those behaviours are in addition sanctioned by the Church - SSM/SSB - the game’s up.
Outward expressions of belief are central to Christianity. We decry any dualism of mind and body; we also decry any separation between individuals and the community, the body of the Church. Just so, any schism between the act of believing and what we believe is fatal. Viz St Augustine: "Certainly we affirm with full truth that the faith which is etched in the heart of everyone who believes … proceeds from a single doctrine, but it is one thing what we believe (ea quae creduntur), and another thing the faith with which we believe (fides qua credentur)" (De Trinitate, XIII, 2, 5). The Latin naturally ‘plays’ better than our English! [The wider context NB is Augustine’s distinction between “knowledge” and “wisdom”, and so between our human apprehension of things temporal and things eternal, and their respective guides to things trinitarian, his real point. For all that: the important distinction and the link between fides qua credentur and fides quae creduntur was born and passed into the Tradition.]
Neuhuas’s Law therefore necessarily extends to orthopraxis - our current, visceral arena.
Absolutely brilliant analogy from Neville--now that truly is a 'beautiful' piece of writing! Thank you.
The Austin illustration is also excellent.
Both simply and elegantly demonstrate that the emperor has no clothes.
There are so many slippery words and theological contortions and doctrinal gymnastics going on in this situation that it's like a dizzying circus: how refreshing to have the truth painted with such clarity, through simple pictures, that even a child could understand.
Bravo.
Hello Sam, Brendan, Neville
There is another cricketing picture relevant to the matter at hand.
There are 97 cricketers playing cricket across several pitches, all according to the rules and wearing the right clothes.
There are three people nearby in the park, longing to join in the games and but feeling left out because they do not have the right clothes and they have been told they don't play by the rules.
Might we remember that in making the extraordinary thing we are making about deviation from orthodoxy on sexuality we are taking a tiny minority of human beings and making the course and direction of their lives into a threatening giant which needs fleeing from if not slaying.
Is this disproportionate assessment of threat appropriate to people who follow Jesus, the One who reached out to minorities and marginalised people and brought them into the centre of his movement?
Peter, I can assist you and your three errant cricket players regarding matters of clothing and the rules of the game, both of which are contained in a certain book. First, a little assistance first from the Apostle Paul regarding the rules of the game:
“Similarly, anyone who competes as an athlete does not receive the victor’s crown except by competing according to the rules.” 2 Tim 2:5
And from Jesus with respect to the ‘right clothes’.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless. Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 22:11-14
Peter, as humans we are natural rebels, that is our unredeemed nature. When God says “Brendan you are a rebel” my natural response is “No I’m not.” thereby proving God’s judgement true.
Now the errant cricket players to whom you refer well know the rules of the game, and understand the requirement for appropriate clothing, but note this well, their preference is otherwise.
Jesus continues to reach out to them with the good news of the Gospel through the revelation of Scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit and the good will of His people. Their rejection of the rules, the clothing requirements, and the admonition of those who care about their eternal destiny is not God’s fault, nor is it that of his Church. Full responsibility lies with the rebels themselves.
But then I presume you know this.
In his newsletter for the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Richard John Neuhaus spoke favourably of one of my early ecumenical ventures, and was a generous advisor thereafter. When I was in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, John Shelton Reed was known at the Chapel of the Cross as a flamboyant scholar of US Southern culture with very conservative politics but am interesting book on Anglo-Catholicism in his head. Given my own view of Anglican theological identity, I could not quite agree with either Reed's view of the Oxford Movement, or Neuhaus's later generalisation of that to Neuhaus's Law. But if you want to quote it, you may as well read the source--
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/03/the-unhappy-fate-of-optional-orthodoxy
Bowman Walton
Hi Peter, in reply to Bowman, I have never viewed even marriage as a charism, rather considering a charism to be a spiritual gift for the edification of the Church. Marriage is sacramental (at least in Catholicism) and friendship is common to every garden variety heathen. Nevertheless, I do not claim to be correct. Bryden notes Fr Ron's reliance on 1 Cor 7, though Fr Ron might note that 1 Cor 7 refers to celibacy. I'd agree that celibacy is a charism particularly appropriate for any relationship outside heterosexual marriage.
Nick
Hi Peter,
Speaking of the right clothes...
Matthew 22:
8 ‘Then he said to his servants, “The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, , “How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?” The man was speechless.
13 ‘Then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
14 ‘For many are invited, but few are chosen.’
Not an easy passage, for sure, but is it not germane?
"Marriage is sacramental (at least in Catholicism) and friendship is common to every garden variety heathen."
In reply, Nick, I can do no better than to cite the authoritative responsum from the Anglican Province of Parador, where the truth has been known since the first millennium and theology does not change. It follows.
Bowman Walton
Doctrinal Error Alert
Anglicans in Parador, Christians of all churches, and persons of good will everywhere are cautioned as follows.
(1) In scripture, God blesses procreation, not the individuals who happen to be wedding for that blessed purpose, and not relationships per se. No church anywhere makes it a matter of faith that X and Y have a God-pleasing relationship which it therefore blesses for Him.
Thus it is always in error to say that God has blessed a relationship with a ceremony of any kind.
(2) Protestant churches, including Anglican churches, have no tradition of giving sacramental meaning to church weddings, a civil ordinance conducted in Western churches from the C12 when only clergy could do the paperwork. Even when conducted in the Church of England according to use of the Book of Common Prayer, the ceremony was wholly civil in function; a couple married in court by a judge or at sea by a ship's captain were no less fully married under church canons. Where a marriage has been solemnised by a recognised state today, no further rite has any meaning for Anglicans.
Thus it is always in error to say that any couple registered by the state as married needs a further ceremony to complete what Christ has done and what Caesar has recorded. They err, for example, who say that a couple "are not married in the eyes of the Church" if they have not undergone a special rite.
But see (4) below.
(3) In the first instance, the cure of souls is directed to individuals in Christ who will be judged on the last day. Therefore, pastoral care takes note of marriage as an individual contemplates the state of holy matrimony, his or her call and readiness for it, and his or her disposition toward a spouse, either prospective or actual. Thus the cure of souls is not directed to couples, but to individuals.
Thus it is error to suppose that officiating at a ceremony for the purpose registering a marriage is a form of pastoral care. To the contrary, it may pose an unacceptable temptation to partiality for one officiant to advise both parties to an intended marriage.
Cont'd
(4) The Church is not agreed on the duration of valid marriages. The ancient East believed them to be indissoluble and eternal; the medieval West later supposed that they were lifelong and dissolved by only by death; many Protestants, including Anglicans, have believed that they begin and end as provided by civil law. Individual Christians are free to hold any of these views, but we note here that on the Eastern view, the indissoluble bond is formed ex opere operato when the married couple first receive communion together, even if the ceremony is civil and the eucharist is simply the ordinary Sunday liturgy. Thus although the Byzantine Ordo is beautifully elaborated, even the highest marriage theology in Christendom requires no special rite.
Thus it is an error to say that a high view of marriage requires a special rite administered for each couple. It rather requires that they duly receive holy communion after contracting their union, much as baptism duly follows birth.
(5) Christians daily recite "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth" and live in accord with the created order that he has established. Therefore, each conscientiously attempts to flourish in his or her biological sex with confidence in God's creative purpose in assigning it as he knows every hair on the head. In every life, there are times when this striving will require some discernment and prayer with a pastor. But although the Lord does prize a visibly good life, holy fools have lived to his great glory, his strength is made perfect in weakness, and our hope is in the age to come. The Anglican pastor's distinctive calling is to manifest the Father's unconditional love for all that he has made, to lead the praising of God in all circumstances, and to invite all to offer all their lives to him as sacrifices of thanksgiving.
Thus they err who care for souls according their membership in a hypothesised class, rather than according to their humanity in Christ.
"O taste and see that the Lord is good!"
The Commission for Doctrinal Integrity
The Anglican Province of Parador
Postscript-- Since so few here read Anglican theology in Spanish, Nick, I would not be at all surprised if you have never even heard of the Anglican Province of Parador. Only Brian is likely to remember that she is a South American daughter of the Spanish Reformed Church, which is herself in communion with Canterbury and uses the Book of Common Prayer. The Anglicans of Parador are the ones that Francis recalls so fondly from his time in nearby Argentina.
Despite the infelicities in my translation, the reader will be struck by the clarity of this responsum. Considering that it is an Anglican product, Bryden will be startled that it grasps so many nettles, Peter that it is so matter-of-factly authoritative, and Father Ron that it is all so sadly out of date. Somehow, it says things that are Protestant, but not modern, and magisterial but not papal. How is this possible?
The backstory winds through Latin and Greek, English and German, Spanish and Quechuan, the Pyrenees and the Andes. But the gist of it is this:
(a) Parador understands Protestantism to be a repristination of the faith of the undivided Church of the first millennium. When Luther hammered his theses to the door of the Castle Church, he opened a passage back to the faith as it was before 1054. All of the Reformers believed this, but the English were the most successful in putting this into practise.
(b) Parador's doctrinal commission answers questions in a judicial, not a legislative, capacity. Applications of scripture and of the fathers are not made any more plausible by campaigns, pressure groups, voting, etc. That insight is itself an application of the adjudication theme that runs through the scriptures.
(c) Parador listens to saints, not to synods. The archbishop occasionally summons a convocation to facilitate debate on some problem facing the province. But these informal consultations, although similar to eg the Council of Orange, are very unlike the institutional parliaments of other Anglican churches. And in them, the most influential voices belong to persons with a reputation for heroic sanctity. Indeed, without the backing of a saint, a proposal can go nowhere even if its sponsor is fortunate enough to get a convocation to consider it. This reflects a confluence of patristic and English mysticism with aboriginal Andean culture.
Put another way, the Spanish Reformed missions to the Andes were never the bearers of modernity or empire, and so the Protestantism that took root under the wings of the soaring condor was never burdened with a duty to believe in progress.
BW
Hi Nick
A charism is a gift.
I trust that you, as I do, have the gift of friendship in your life.
Your (internet) friend
Peter
Dear Bowman
Thanks for helpful words (though, to be honest, I do not think I understand every point you are making). What I do understand is that God is not only concerned with individuals. There are tribes, for instance, in the Old Testament (and in Revelation!). Also the coupling of marriage means two individuals become one body; and God does seem somewhat interested in (a) couples and sticking together for the sake of God's plan (so Abraham has to wait for a child through his (main) wife, Sarah); (b) coupling inside formal marriage (1 Cor 7; good) and coupling which makes an informal marriage (1 Cor 6, Paul's concern re fornication with prostitutes; not good).
To be sure BW; where hang the Letters Patent for Parador?! Tho I do delight in the clear conclusions of saintly folk versus our contemporary mob!
Hi Brendan and Sam,
I do know the Scriptures!
Let me try to make my point in a blunter way:
- I am concerned that we conservatives trumpet the teaching of God re homosexuality so that it becomes a form of bullying against homosexuals (97-3);
- I am concerned that we conservatives are so assured of the rightness of our case against any concessions towards homosexuals in the church that we become what we do not want to become: 21st century Pharisees - in Jesus' day, they were the ones who were both right and wrong at the same time.
If you do not find me saying that to be agreeable, you might consider this challenging post from Archbishop Cranmer:
http://archbishopcranmer.com/prison-chaplain-convict-sin-preaching-sensitive/
Dear Peter, while Diana goes off to research the joys of the rijkmuseum, and the other great galleries and museums of Amsterdam, I sit here in the lobby of our hotel perusing,. among others in the Anglican sphere, your blog, A.D.U.
Amongst the many responses on this thread, which concerns the beauty of traditional Anglican accommodation, I found this jewel", referring to your comments on the possibility of ACANZP's acceptance of SSB:
"We are not there yet, but if recent history is any guide we will get there. After all, it is the same spirit that has promoted both gay marriage in the world and SSB in the church." ( remark, perhaps from Brian or Brendan?)
A great truth has (perhaps inadvertently) been expressed here; that the Holy Spirit sometimes makes Her Presence felt in the natural word before informing the enclosed world of the Church! After all, the Church and the World are both creations of Almighty God. Not all of God's Wisdom resides solely in the Church, and sometimes, the official Church closes her ears to the oproclamation of God's will for ALL of God's Creation.
Parsimony is sometimes one of the abiding sins of the Church, which was called into being to perpetutate the story of the Love and Mercy of Jesus Christ. How often does the Church forget her mission, in favour of meting out judgement rather then pastoral care and loving kindness. (Jesus' Parable of the Publican and the Sinner illustrates this abiding truth.)
Sadly, it sometimes takes the world (sinners?) to point the way to God's mercy and loving-kindness towards all His creatures. The Church is not without her sins! She still needs the compassion and mercy of God for the mistakes she makes in judgement.
Thank you, Peter, for your continuing determination for the implementation of justice in the Church.
Peter, in reply to Bowman, the Roman understanding of marriage is that the sacrament arises from the consent of the man and the woman (see for example CCC para 1638). So, a blessing from the priest is not the sacrament. Is Parador an elaborate hoax? I have tried to find it without success. As for the charismatic nature of friendship, Peter, I probably don't know enough Greek to mount a proper argument against your position. Nevertheless friendship to me is not a spiritual gift and "gifts" common to the unsaved (I couldn't resist that) can hardly be charisms reserved for the elect (nor that).
Nick
Peter, the fathers of Parador would be pleased by your concern for a more than individual embodiment of the Body. However, they would see the dominical gospel sacrament of the eucharist as the proper rite for that, not solemnisation, a legal remedy of the C12 which the aboriginal people of the Andes never needed.
Bowman Walton
"They pray their son or daughter will one day bring home someone of the opposite sex to be their life partner, not because they wouldn’t continue to love their child if they didn’t, but it is not their hope or aspiration for their child. – It’s just not." - Brendan McNeill -
Precisely! For parents who abhor the very thought of their chuildren being same-sex oriented, this is a sad statement of fact! However, Brendan, there are millions of same-sex oriented people in this world who have no other way of directing their innate sexual longings - despite your insistence that this is a mere myth, concocted by people intent on destroying your sense of moral propriety.
The Church of England, at its recent York General Synod, petitioned the U.K. Government to ban attempts to subject gay people to what has been called 'Conversion Therapy'; believing that this is not only a travesty of the law of nature for such people, but that it is also a denial of their fundamental psycho-sexual being and therefore a denial of their common human rights.
Despite your persistent protests against same-sex relationships, for a large minority of human beings this is the only way they know to process their God-given gift of sexuality. For heterosexual patriarchalists, whose spirituality is inclined to dismiss the claims of Christian homosexuals that they, too, have a right to live out their lives in a committed same-sex, one-to-one relationship, is to deny their very existence in the world and in the Church. This is the reason that Gays are scared of being active in the life of the Church - because they fear the prejudice that they evoke in those who feel they have no right to a sexual existstence.
One wonders how many conservative heterosexuals would take kindly to the suggestion that - for the sake of purity - they consider celibacy instead of marriage for their own lives. Jesus did mention that amongst his ruminations about celibacy; that some are celibate "for the sake of the Kingdom". If one were really concerned for the future of the Church (in that light) they would surely opt for celibacy rather thatn marriage - like Saint Paul.
Thanks for recent comments ...
Specific responses:
Nick: understood. But I have many friends, and thank God for them all, but there are special friendships - lifelong companionships really - for which I thank God since they are important gifts in my life, though not as important as the gift of marriage.
Bowman (and Nick): I agree that the "rite of marriage" has become interwoven with (lovely) stuff (white dress, processional music, robed priest, etc) to the point where (depending on our tradition) we invest a lot in the presence of the marriage celebrant (but, as pointed out, it is the consent of the couple which counts), or the completion of the whole rite (but the rite is simply a grand ceremony to witness the consent of the couple via declarations and vows), or the blessing of the celebrant (which is excellent, but, as Bowman points out, not necessary, since the church has always counted as "married" the couples who have married according to civil law; though, to be sure, the RCC via its annulment process effectively treats non-sacramental marriages as different to sacramental marriages).
So, agreement from me that the consent of the couple is critical to the occasion. Am not so sure about the requirement of sharing in the eucharist for the church to understand the marriage to have taken place ... that would leave a lot of Protestant couples in limbo for a week or two or until the next quarterly celebration of the eucharist!
Incidentally, speaking of a priest being required for a wedding ceremony in the church: this is not an absolute: I read an article yesterday about a nun being given permission, according to RCC canons, to take a wedding in a remote corner of (I think) Canada. It being possible for a layperson so to do when no deacon or priest is possible!
Ron, you wrote: "For heterosexual patriarchalists, whose spirituality is inclined to dismiss the claims of Christian homosexuals that they, too, have a right to live out their lives in a committed same-sex, one-to-one relationship, is to deny their very existence in the world and in the Church."
I don't understand why you, or other revisionists, hold to the 'committed' and 'one-to-one' (i.e. lifelong and monogamous) dimensions of such relationships. Most young people in our culture find such notions antiquated and incomprehensible. Indeed, some gay people themselves have said publicly that such relationships within the gay community are virtually unknown.
Many men have admitted to being hopeless philanderers--it's just how they are made. Some of their wives, or partners, have admitted that 'it's just who they are' and have accepted that this is the way their relationship works. Many young people would now define marriage, not 'for better or worse, til death we do part', but 'as long as it is mutually convenient. For those who don't want to lock themselves into a mobile phone contract for more than a month, how could they possibly comprehend 'lifelong and monogamous'?
Are you not excluding most of the people that you want to include? Are you not excluding the majority of our young--the future of the church? Are you not excluding the majority of the LGBT community? Are you not excluding people who, by the very pull of their 'God-given' sexual desires seek out multiple partners.Is this not, on your part, "a denial of their fundamental psycho-sexual being and therefore a denial of their common human rights."
Peter, You wrote:
“Let me try to make my point in a blunter way:
- I am concerned that we conservatives trumpet the teaching of God re homosexuality so that it becomes a form of bullying against homosexuals;
- I am concerned that we conservatives are so assured of the rightness of our case against any concessions towards homosexuals in the church that we become what we do not want to become: 21st century Pharisees - in Jesus' day, they were the ones who were both right and wrong at the same time.”
Peter, I find it equally tiring having to defend and explain the Word of God to those in full time Anglican ministry. If you believe I am misusing Scripture, then please refute my argument from Scripture, rather than using emotive language like ‘bullying’.
Jesus condemnation of the Pharisees, to whom you have likened both Sam and myself, was not expressed on the basis of hurt feelings, either on his behalf or on behalf of others. He pointed out their hypocrisy. If you believe we share the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, then please make your case.
The sexual practices of gays are of no concern of mine, except when they seek to have them deemed ‘good’ and ‘blessed’ by members of the body of Christ. Must I remind you that we are instructed to flee sexual immorality, not to bless it; that we are called to a life of holiness without which no one will see the Lord?
Peter, is it possible that many Anglican Bishops and clergy support SSB simply to avoid bearing the reproach of Christ, or appearing discriminatory, or even ‘unkind’, preferring to please men rather than God?
We can worship at the feet of Christ, or Apollo but not both.
Hi Brendan and Sam
I very deliberatively used the word "we" when writing the words you cite, because over the years I have written many words which I wonder may have added more to the woes of gays and lesbians; and even in this thread, with my support for the proposal, I am on the conservative side of this debate and in grave danger (according to some things I am reading around the Anglican globe) of being charged with bigotry because I won't support SSM.
"Pharisee" is not always a synonym for "hypocrite". It was a concern of Jesus that the Pharisees were unnecessarily adding to the burdens of their fellow Israelites. That is the concern I am trying to highlight by talking about the possibility of being "right and wrong" at the same time; and that is the point of giving the link to the Archbishop Cranmer post: in that post he upholds the preacher's commitment to Scriptural truth and questions whether he had to preach on it in the way he did. And Cranmer goes on to express precisely my concern about over burdening gays and lesbians with the weight of Scriptural truth: they figure way too highly among statistics for suicide, self-harm etc.
So, no, I am not denying that your Scriptural knowledge is impeccable nor that your Scriptural concerns are misplaced. But I am asking whether you are (and whether I am) unnecessarily burdening people with that knowledge.
Hi Brendan
I omitted a response to your final question:
in my experience, No.
Our bishops are quite capable of bearing the reproach of Christ (as all of us are) but on the matter of homosexuality, I have found bishops (despite variations in views) to be especially careful to be pastoral, sensitive and caring (as, I hope, all of us are).
Hi Peter
Thank you for the helpful clarification of your position. However, to be completely clear, we agree that homosexual practice is condemned by Scripture, is therefore sinful and if unrepented will end in perdition?
I ask because I’m unsure how someone like yourself, whom I understand to be a compassionate Christian, would allow gay Christians to believe a practice that will condemn them to perdition can be blessed by God?
At best, that would appear to make you and all supporters of SSB an accomplice to a deadly deception?
Maybe you are also a universalist, in which case the question of sin and judgement, repentance and salvation are all moot?
But if as you suggest we agree on the theology of homosexual practice, how can ‘accommodation’ be anything other than a betrayal of both God and man?
Once we clear away that question, perhaps we can move on to the pastoral question for gay and heterosexual Christians who practice sexual immorality.
Hi Peter,
thanks for your comments, and your link to Cranmer's post. It was thought-provoking. Yet, I wonder. Is the high rate of suicide an indicator that we are doing something wrong? Or is it an indication with the inherent danger of homosexual etc. lifestyle?
For a long time now, the LGBT lobby has pointed the finger at our, once, Judeo-Christian cultural morality and blamed us for the prevalence of depression, drug use, self-harm, and suicide within its community. Once upon a time, perhaps. But today? Many suburbs, towns, cities are very welcoming of LGBT people.
This is especially true on the seaboards of the United were research into these tragedies has been done. Suicide amongst transgender people is something like 6 times higher than the rest of society. Yet, recent studies have shown that this rate is almost completely irrespective of how they are treated by society. Transgender respondents who answered that they never feel discriminated against in their day to day life, have almost exactly the same suicide rates as those who do feel discriminated against. This suggests that the troubling problems that transgender people face are more internally that externally generated.
The problem with always pointing the fingers at others, in this case conservative bigots, is that one does not look at other causes. These troubling statistics, and the lives of the people that they represent, are not helped by blaming the church instead of taking a careful look at the LGBT community and see if any contributing factors might be found there.
Hi Peter,
I commend to yourself and your readership (those who might not have seen this), this helpful article by Peter Jensen:
https://www.gafcon.org/blog/the-mythical-middle?utm_source=GAFCON+Communications&utm_campaign=82a31939a9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_08_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ae55802e3e-82a31939a9-90172785
Hi Brendan
Scripture condemns many sins and sinful practices and requires repentance from all of them. A lack of repentance places our salvation in jeopardy and I do not counsel anyone thinking of repenting from sin to delay doing so.
However human nature is a fragile matter, we are broken reeds, especially, for many of us, when it comes to being a sexual being. I have not found that lots of talk of condemnation and perdition for sexual sin is that helpful in caring for those who feel their fragility in these matters. I would never, for instance, get up in a Sunday sermon time and begin musing aloud as to whether the remarried-after-divorce members of the congregation were, actually, re-looking at how tough Jesus' teaching on this is, adulterers and by golly they had better stop it, or else, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. It is not just at that point I am a self-admitted coward; it is also that I have found people to be super easy to hurt through such crass pronouncements.
You, however, are obviously made of tougher stuff than me, so I bow to your own judgment as to how you might proceed in such matters.
Now, as to remaining in a church where some, far from doing their Scriptural duty to condemn homosexual sinners, actually wish to do the opposite, and to bless same sex partnerships, I acknowledge that I might be party to an eternally devastating deception. But, here's the thing, even if I separate as an Anglican from other Anglicans, I won't change a thing about the fact that there are Anglicans who believe what you believe and Anglicans who believe the SSB or even SSM opposite. Schism does not change the potential for people to be confused by fellow Christians believing different things. The fact is, we do, and we will continue to do so. A question, therefore, is whether the fact that Christians believe different things on a matter is a reason to separate or a reason to find a way for those different beliefs to be expressed.
Further, much as I do not find in Scripture that sex between same sexed persons is encouraged by God, I do take on board the best argument I can see for SSB: that Scripture has not spoken against a matter it has not addressed, the intention of two people of the same sex to enter into a faithful, permanent, loving relationship together, as the best way of living out Paul's injunction to men and women not coping with the strength of sexual desire, Better to marry than to burn. It may not be ideal, but might God in God's mercy not hasten to condemn such a development? That is a question which I think the breadth of the Anglican church could permit there might not be a certain answer about.
I daresay you will not agree with what I have written, but there it is. I keep thinking about Jesus' response to two women in John's Gospel, the woman with five husbands and a sixth man who was not her husband, as well as The Woman Caught in Adultery. I do wonder whether that Jesus was something of a prototype for 21st century Anglicans!
Hi Sam
Agreed, it is important to test the evidence of such matters carefully and fairly. But wouldn't it be especially incumbent on the church to take extra care not to be an agent of oppression in these matters?
As for ++Peter Jensen, you don't expect me to take that lying down, do you? :) Responsive post tomorrow!
Dear Peter
You have a penchant for avoiding straight forward questions with responses like: “A lack of repentance places our salvation in jeopardy and I do not counsel anyone thinking of repenting from sin to delay doing so.”
Well, sure.
But if the Anglican church blesses homosexual civil marriage, why would gay Christians even consider repenting such that you might wisely council them ‘not to delay doing so’?
This is not a question of who is toughest but rather whose actions are genuinely loving.
If you approve of a blessing that leads to perdition is that love or betrayal? This is a simple question you have studiously avoided.
Jesus consistently called sinners to repentance, including the woman caught in adultery. That you as a trained Anglican clergy should use that passage in defence of a pastoral blessing of gay sexual relationships should be cause for a moments introspection on your part. Jesus in his ministry never excused or affirmed sinful practice as an act of pastoral care, and for you to imply that he did is deeply disturbing.
Peter if you read Jesus words to the seven New Testament church’s in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, you will see he called five of them to repentance, the only two he didn’t were the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia who were experiencing severe persecution.
Do we have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Anglican church today?
Hi Brendan
Jesus calls us to repentance. I am reminding you that sometimes Jesus omitted the call to repentance (presumably for reasons best known to the Great Pastor of the sheep). I am also not saying that Jesus excused or affirmed sinful practice as an act of pastoral care but I am asking what does it mean that sometimes he made no comment!?
I ask you not to put words in my mouth that I have not said. I have not said that I approve of SSB. I have said that I am in a church in which views on SSB differ and I approve of the possibility that we give room for differing views to be expressed and carried out in practice. That is consistent with being in a church in which, on other matters, there are a variety of views and different practices are carried out.
Dear Peter
You say “I have not approved of SSB” yet you entitled this post in relation to the proposed introduction of SSB:
“Beautiful Anglican Accommodation”.
Hardly a ringing condemnation from someone who does not approve, but I take you at your word.
Even so, you have still not addressed the bigger question. Regardless of what other Anglicans may believe regarding SSB, if you and I agree on the sinful nature of homosexual practice as one that leads to perdition, how can ‘accommodation’ be anything other than a betrayal of both God and man?
A betrayal of God because homosexual practice is condemned by Scripture, and of man because through the practice of SSB the homosexual sinner is denied any basis for repentance, and that through the agency of the Anglican church no less!
You ask me ‘what does it mean that sometimes Jesus made no comment’ (regarding a particular sin?) Again, I’m perplexed that I should get a question like this from Anglican theologian in the context of Homosexual practice. However, once again wearily, let me ask you, how can you imply that Jesus silence on a matter that Scripture explicitly condemns elsewhere contains His possible endorsement?
Does Jesus have to explicitly condemn every proscribed practice in Leviticus to validate the Scripture? What if the Apostille Paul stepped up in his place, would that help?
There is no basis for believing that Jesus ever affirmed someone in their sin or that he considered doing so was an expression of love or compassion. You appear to be otherwise minded, at least to the extent of your willingness to accommodate sexual immorality within the church.
But sure, I appreciate you don’t approve of it personally.
Hi Brendan
I don't think I have ever had a comment from you which appreciates that there might be severe disagreement on these matters between progressive and conservative Anglicans and that some of us, nevertheless, might want to beautifully accommodate both perspectives. Unless you do have that appreciation (and you do not have to have it) then you are going to continue to be frustrated with my responses re the accommodation of difference.
As to Jesus the pastor. My experience of life and of specific occasions for pastoral response to challenging personal situations brought before me has taught me that what "the law" of Scripture says and what "application" of that law might be can be two seemingly very different things. I suspect that Jesus the pastor (e.g. who makes no condemnatory comment in some situations re sin) is at odds with Jesus the upholder of the law, but I am sure he can reconcile the two approaches.
Dear Peter
If it helps, I’m happy to acknowledge there is severe disagreement between the respective parties over SSB. I acknowledge some Anglicans including yourself wish to accommodate both perspectives within the church.
Usually however when Christians disagree over an important matter of faith and practice they revert to Scripture and Church history to discern truth from error. However, in this instance rather than suggest one side or the other may be in error and therefore in need of repentance, some within the Anglican church have sought an accommodation. Better it seems to live with sexual immorality in the church than either:
a) Encourage one party to repent, or
b) Allow it to become a cause of schism.
If this is not a fair representation of your position, then please correct me.
This may be the desire of some or even many Anglicans, but surely that’s irrelevant. I don’t see this pattern replicated in Scripture and especially Paul’s letters, or as I pointed out earlier, Jesus call for repentance to the churches in the book of Revelation. If Scripture is to be any guide Jesus has a desire for purity in his Bride the Church, which is at odds with the Anglican accommodation of sexual immorality as expressed through SSB.
To be clear it’s not difficult to interpret from Scripture that Jesus opposes expressions of sexual immorality from His Bride. I’m with Jesus on this. I wouldn’t want to discover sexual immorality in my bride either. I also wouldn’t want to be found accommodating it beautifully or otherwise.
As to a pastoral response. Those of us who have lived a few years in the church, and have been in positions of pastoral care, have usually encountered the entire spectrum of sin in all its human messiness and misery. Despite decades of experience, I have never encountered a situation where I believed affirming someone’s sinful actions was likely to lead them into a place of grace, forgiveness and liberty.
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Romans 6:1
Paul viewed that as an absurd proposition yet many in the Anglican church, including yourself appear to consider it a ‘beautiful accommodation’. For the record, and contrary to your implied assertion, (3:38) Jesus is not conflicted over anything. It is we who fail to understand him.
Hi Brendan
I think what you are misunderstanding is that we are not a church accommodating sexual immorality (and refusing to call people to repentance). Rather we are a church seeking accommodation - if possible - between those who believe X is immoral and those who believe it is moral. If you persist to see this as accommodating sexual immorality, that is your choice, but that is not how it is seen. Indeed, if you want to pursue that line, the progressives have the counter pursuit that they are being asked to accommodate bigotry and homophobia. I would prefer them to accommodate my different view rather than rail against my alleged prejudices.
There are two other aspects I think you are not allowing for.
First, most gay Anglicans I know have had a thoroughly conservative upbringing. They know their Scriptures, know what repentance is all about, and they may even have gone through a failed experience of reparative therapy. Eventually they have arrived at the position, whatever you think of it, that God loves them and is not cross with them for having a partnership. I suggest it a waste of time calling these brothers and sisters to repentance. I do not see what would be gained by excommunicating them or by telling them that they are the reason a schismatic departure is being planned. It is a tricky situation, requires prayer and wisdom, but being with these brothers and sisters rather than apart from them is the better way of Christ.
Secondly, you are repeatedly calling sexual behaviour between same sex persons "immorality" even when it is in a faithful, stable, permanent partnership. Again, this is your right to do so and has Scriptural foundation. But you will never understand modern Anglicanism if you do not recognise the possibility that a number of Anglicans have come to the view that such partnerships are a special exception to the general Christian position about immorality (that fornication, adultery, incest, etc is wrong behaviour). That is, constantly repeating that SSB is blessing sexual immorality as though fornication or adultery or incest was being blessed cuts no ice with many Anglicans who no longer lump living, permanent same sex relationships in that category. That they might have come to this view because of their experience of their own children or siblings or closest friends clearly makes no difference at all to your point of view. Again, that is your right to hold that point of view. But, again, you will better understand the mindset of many Anglicans if you recognise that Anglicans are not intent on blessing immorality in some general (and decadent, irresponsible) way, but in the special circumstances of their loved ones finding someone to love and to be loved by.
In the end, if you and others who share your views do not want to be part of a church in which people's love of family and friends has led them into error, so be it. But I am suggesting that just possibly people who love God and love one another might be able to find a way through the differences which attend the decisions we have made about what, in a special case, is or is not sexual immorality. I remain of the view that the proposal before us is a beautiful accommodation because it accommodates people who love God and love one another in spite of their differences.
Hi Peter
You have made a very fair summary of the situation, and I would also like to wrap this up with some closing comments and observations.
First the blessing of homosexual relationships is an issue that has both theological and pastoral implications. More importantly however the question goes to the very heart of our understanding about the nature and character of God.
If we believe that homosexual practice is sinful, and I believe you do, then a desire to accommodate it within the church says a good deal about how we believe God views sin when weighed against the comparative good of family, friendship and fellowship in the Christian faith.
Your implicit argument is that the ‘good’ of SSB in the church outweighs the bad – hence the ‘beautiful accommodation’. Your proposition and those who support SSB suggests that God in his infinite mercy, wisdom and grace understands the pain and suffering of those Christians who are same sex oriented, and his explicit condemnation of homosexual practice notwithstanding, chooses to bless gay and lesbian relationships rather than insist upon celibacy.
My difficulty in accepting this is many fold, but let’s just focus for one moment on the justice of God. We agree that God is just, and that we are all going to stand before the judgement seat of Christ where his judgement will be seen to be righteous and true. We already know the outcome of his judgement regarding the five foolish virgins, the wedding guest without a wedding garment, the goats who have been separated from the sheep, those who cried ‘Lord Lord’ and performed many miracles in his name, but whom Jesus never knew.
What then does God say to them on the day of judgement, if he were to excuse those Anglian Christians who have persisted in homosexual practice, despite Scripture declaring they are detestable in his sight?
My fear in all this Peter is that while the proponents of SSB have an excellent understanding of God’s love, mercy and grace, they have chosen to overlook the extent of God’s wrath against sin and all unrighteousness. If sin may be overlooked by God, what was Calvary all about?
If I am correct in my understanding of God’s righteousness and justice concerning sin, and the need for repentance as a prerequisite for salvation, then the Anglican church is about to institutionalise a practice that will invoke God’s wrath, rather than his blessing. For this reason it would be impossible for orthodox believers like myself to remain part of Anglicanism. Keeping in mind, I have not left the church, but the Anglican church has left me.
Thanks Brendan!
Peter, I have to thank you for your comment August 4 @ 22:54. I sense it is the best descriptive summary of not only how you might feel, but also of the dynamic behind the current aspirations of the Interim Report. Whether these aspirations make it through our next GS I’m not prepared to prognosticate. One imagines there are those who hope they do - including yourself, and I imagine there others on either ‘wing’ who seriously hope they do not - each for very different reasons. [And I’m aware now of your new post and its links and comments ...!]
For myself, I remain skeptical your description of this entire thing as “a beautiful accommodation” is the only or best way of assessing matters. And for one reason: it’s an untenable long term solution, being deeply flawed. Any organization which has such an incoherent ideology underpinning its ethos - and of course the Church calls its own ideology “theology” - simply cannot hold it together beyond the immediate term; at least, it’s most unlikely to do so.
Christian theology always expresses itself in forms of life. And when those forms of life are basically contradictory, these cannot but reveal opposing theologies. I’ve suspected for many years now that what undergirds these contradictory forms is not quite as you now describe. While you may use the language of “love” and “accommodation”, it’s about anthropology, and thereafter about the plausibility structures associated with such views of human being. Think too, and crucially, Augustine’s objects of desire.
May I introduce you to Ed Shaw’s The Plausibility Problem: The Church and same-sex attraction (IVP, 2015). The title gives away his main concern, rehearsed via 9 “Missteps” or chapters. Paul Ricoeur too spoke of “the available believable” as a paraphrase for plausibility structures. Our present age has for some decades believed humans can quite legitimately ‘love’ other humans in ways previous generations would have deemed implausible. That does not mean people actually conformed willy-nilly to everything expected of them. Norms were broken; for example, mistresses were kept, adultery engaged in, and homosexual people went about their activities. Yet all or most knew the plausibility structures governing human relations decreed these behaviours indeed to be unviable, and sanctions were even applied (tho not universally...!). Enter the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s (which naturally did not come from nowhere), and the “available believable” surely shifted - profoundly ... To the point that your comment’s description would have been “unavailable” 35 years ago - unthinkable even.
Cont ...
Which leads to one last key resource and assessment: Sherif Girgis, Ryan Anderson & Robert George, What is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense (Encounter Books, 2012). Originally a 2010 article in the esteemed Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, it describes our current social landscape. It contrasts two essentially different views of “marriage”. There is “conjugal marriage”, and then there is “contractual marriage”. The first, traditional and world-wide view is by its nature “effusive”, “flowing out into the wide sharing of family life and ahead into lifelong fidelity.” The second is “revisionist”, where the “bond needn’t point beyond the partners, in which fidelity is ultimately subject to one’s own desires, [... and where] partners seek emotional fulfilment, and remain [together] as long as they find it.” NB the latter definition of ‘marriage’ applies crucially to BOTH heterosexual and homosexual partnerships - a vital description therefore. And like any contract, it may be terminated when it ceases to fulfil its terms.
So Peter: “a beautiful accommodation”? I don’t think so at all. It’s a muddle and a confusion, an incoherent foundation for any church, which is part of the Bride of Christ. It has failed to read the signs of the times, as any good church body should. In fact, as we all know, its brief eschewed - had to eschew - any such exercise. And Romans 12:1-2 is nowhere to be seen. Naturally, this includes Paul’s glorious understanding of “mercy” ... Kyrie eleison ...!
Hi Bryden
I am still concerned that you do not "get" our church!
Take discerning the signs of the times: your argument (which I largely share) is nevertheless but one argument in our church which, as you well know, has another argument about the signs of the times going on, namely that the Spirit is moving ahead of the church by moving in parliament to legalise SSM.
By what authority are you right and (say) Helen Jacobi and the St Matthew's in the City parish wrong?
That authority in our church is still our General Synod (which, arguably, being composed of bishops, clergy and laity, is a safer repository for authority than any one of the three houses, including our beloved bishops).
If that General Synod (for which, incidentally, you could stand for election!), agrees with the proposal, then, at the least, it will be authorising our church to be a safe and accommodating place for both your/my understanding of Scripture, of conjugal marriage, etc and the opposite (and the in-between).
If that holds these competing theological visions together, I remain happier than with the thought that we might have (a) schism (b) progressive hegemony (c) conservative hegemony (because, frankly, realistically, that would only mean continuing, repeated attempts for years to come to overturn it).
So, I remain somewhat defiant about it being a beautiful accommodation, if only because alternatives, IMHO, lead to ugly consequences.
That is not to say that down the track we will not have regrets, etc, but I would still ask, albeit it may be through (so to speak) my ecclesiastical heirs, whether we had a better path to follow at this particular juncture in the life of the church, nation and cultures of these islands.
Peter; I assuredly do get our church. And that was why I began as I did - thanking you for your description, a fair summation of our phenomenological reality. I know folk in all ‘wings’ and the middling middle. I also get the way the ‘practice’ of ‘authority’ works - via synods. Which is why the Interim Report references Kenneth Locke’s The Church in Anglican Theology.
All of which however still requires evaluation ... And my judgment (cf. Bernard Lonergan’s Method) remains: it’s a flawed and failed solution for the Church, any church. Do you get that!
The money line of yours now is this: “If that holds these competing theological visions together, ...” Followed by your last sentence. All of which fails to appreciate that history inevitably follows logic, in the end. For that is how the world works ... Just so, Goodness, Truth and Beauty are necessarily intertwined - for the world God has created, and for the Church, His New Creation, even more so. This phenomenon proposed by the WG is IMHO doomed to historical failure. For all the reasons I've offered.
Nor lastly is this ‘despair’: Jeremiah and Ezekiel are full of promises of both judgment and restoration, all of which find themselves figuring Jesus’ death and resurrection. Amine!
Thanks Bryden
I withdraw the question about you "getting" our church - you do!
Let's suppose the proposal carries the day (in 2018/2020).
I certainly see the possibility (others would say "probability") that we will find ourselves c. 2022 fielding yet another "progressive" push, and on it will go. And at least one person will not resist the temptation to ring me and point out "I told you so!!"
But I also see the possibility that your thesis is proven right in another way: our progressive wing cannot sustain or reproduce itself. The future ends up belonging to the orthodox.
“Our progressive wing cannot sustain or reproduce itself. The future ends up belonging to the orthodox.” Peter Carroll
The problem with your optimistic thesis Peter, is that it assumes Anglicans both young and old are being acculturated by the Scriptures. They most certainly are not.
The BBC reports that in England, more Anglicans support same sex marriage than oppose it.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35447150
That’s Anglicans Peter, not Agnostics or Atheists – Anglicans.
Why is that we ask?
I have concluded that many if not most Anglicans in the West are unaware or indifferent to Biblical teaching on sexual morality, and they are in this position because the church has failed to actively teach or engage on the subject for decades. Anglican leadership in the West has ceded ground to popular culture by failing to realise there was a battle raging beyond their church doors, and if they did realise, they lacked the courage to contend for the hearts and minds of their congregations, or even worse, they agreed with the popular narrative.
It’s one thing to lose the culture war, but entirely something else to lose the church. We need look no further than ourselves for who is responsible.
Dear Peter, I notice from an earlier post of yours that even you (an eirenic Evangelical) have been led into the mistaken idea that the word 'orthodoxy' can be conscripted to mean 'a set code of morality', rather than a basic understanding of doctrinal certitude by one or other party in the Church (usually the most conservative, in most cases).
There has been a good series of arguments on Thinking Anglicans, offered by reputable theologians, that will say that this is woolly thinking. It is interesting that the word orthodox means, basically, 'right thinking', but the question may be asked: "In whose opinion?" The One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is currently divided by such 'opinions'. Who, but God, is able to say which opinion measures up to God's requirements?
Dear bowman, of all the 'B's commenting on this thread (maybe on this site) I find you the most intellectually stimulating and seemingly free from Church party politics. Keep it up. ACANZP needs you.
Hi Ron
Right thinking can extend to ethics as well as doctrine.
It is orthodox, for instance, to subscribe to the Ten Commandments.
It is not orthodox to reject them.
Understood and agreed that on some matters of ethical controversy, the term "orthodox" is used in ways which may assume a certitude does not exist.
It is grammatically/linguistically and historically correct, nevertheless, to say something like, The orthodox position of the church on marriage has been ...., because for millennia the church has had a right thinking, certain view on elements of marriage (disagreement on divorce being the uncertain bit).
To Ron Smith,
I would still like to hear a response to my questions on August 4th, at 8:49am.
The significant thing Sam about those string of questions is this: the language of rights and of sexual expression simply cannot be integrated with the notion of a life-long conjugal commitment.
See Aug 7, 10:58 and those two contrary views of 'marriage' I cite.
Hi Bryden
I must have misread 1 Corinthians 7 when teaching on it this morning.
Paul seems to be able to integrate rights (to each other's bodies) within the conjugal marriage bond!
When the same Paul acknowledges the burden of the sexual impulse on us with his famous phrase, Better to marry than burn!, does that have any bearing on the burden carried by gay and lesbian persons, presumably with similar strength of sexual drive as heterosexuals, now that civil marriage is possible?
Sorry Peter; you a NT scholar need to do better 'readings' than that!
Those rights premised upon autonomous personal subjects, the de rigeur perspective of western societies, are really a tad different to the koinonia of covenant partners within the world of Judaism. Period!
“Paul seems to be able to integrate rights (to each other's bodies) within the conjugal marriage bond!”
Please re-read your above sentence Peter. What IS the ‘conjugal bond?’ And between whom do you think Paul intends that conjugal bond to be?
“When the same Paul acknowledges the burden of the sexual impulse on us with his famous phrase, Better to marry than burn!, does that have any bearing on the burden carried by gay and lesbian persons, presumably with similar strength of sexual drive as heterosexuals, now that civil marriage is possible?”
“But the greatest of these is ‘love’.” I wonder how ‘loving’ homosexuals in our church who .. because they love God have decided that to trust and obey, requires of them celibate lives .. will find your above remark? Loving? Hurtful? Will they think it comes from a brother Christian? You have many of these particular brothers and sisters Peter .. AND YOU KNOW IT. The trust and obedience of these very dear brothers and sisters, puts my own trust and obedience to shame .. and I’m afraid Peter, it washes yours out of the park.
"I don't understand why you, or other revisionists, hold to the 'committed' and 'one-to-one' (i.e. lifelong and monogamous) dimensions of such relationships. Most young people in our culture find such notions antiquated and incomprehensible...such relationships within the gay community are virtually unknown. Many men have admitted to being hopeless philanderers... Are you not excluding most of the people that you want to include?" --Sam to Ron, 4th August, 8:49am.
Christian proponents of SSM are usually social constructivists. They expect that broad acceptance of gay marriage will reduce the incidence and prevalence of sexual sin not only by increasing the incentives for fidelity, but also by reducing the tolerance for infidelity. That many misbehave shows only that better behaviour is not expected or supported. In that way, they agree with conservatives in counting obligations and even penalties as well as liberties among the rights of man. Even if only a few are helped by a new social construct, they believe that warrants the effort.
Emile Durkheim
Hi Bryden
Paul takes a decisive, novel step in 1 Corinthians 7, asserting the equality of husband and wife in marriage, with specific reference to rights responsibilities to mutual enjoyment of each other bodies. Whether or not the Enlightenment had something to say about rights, Paul said something before then.
Whether or not the Enlightenment says anything about rights, human beings, made in the image of God, have yearnings for love, companionship and sexual fulfilment. Again, Paul, some centuries before the Enlightenment, acknowledges in 1 Corinthians 7, that the sexual impulse in human beings is so powerful that his entreaties in the same chapter to consider singleness as a better way are likely to be swept aside. A question gay and lesbians are asking (whether as current Australian citizens), as members of our church, is whether they might take the somewhat conservative step (cf. Emile Durkheim commenting here, I presume that is you, Bowman!) of having that desire for love, for companionship and for sexual fulfilment bound up on a bond which is recognised to one degree or another by society and/or church.
Sure, the Enlightenment and its talk of rights fuels such talk and may contribution unfortunate distortions (e.g. leading to talk about two male parents being indistinguishable from a mum and a dad), but at the heart of discussion here is not whether some people are somewhat "naughty" because their minds are shaped by the Enlightenment rather than by Scripture, but whether human beings, made and shaped in the image of God, with yearnings for love, companionship and sexual fulfilment, all of which are encountered as part and parcel of the creation narratives of Scripture, might be able to do so according to the way they have found themselves made (whatever we make of the Fall's contribution to the experience of human sexuality, the fact is that some brothers and sisters in Christ find themselves constitutionally unable to marry a member of the opposite sex).
By all means raise a question about the poverty of my reading of Scripture, but it is Scripture I am reading as I try to make sense of the human condition. And, yes, just to stave off the most obvious point here, I know what Scripture says about same sex relationships. But I do wonder if Jesus might be more merciful in his application of Scripture than some current conservatives.
Hi Rosemary
You and I are part of a church with many differences among its members.
Many members are faithful to Christ by being celibate, both heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Some members of our church believe it is faithful to Christ to live in a marriage-like relationship with a partner of the same-sex.
I have friends and acquaintances among both groups.
I am sure that many things I have written here through the years have been unhelpful to some from both groups.
I accept entirely your view that my support for the proposal is hurtful to brothers and sisters in the first group.
Do you accept that if I rejected the proposal in favour of absolutely no change to the status quo that I would also be hurtful to brothers and sisters in the second group?
“But I do wonder if Jesus might be more merciful in his application of Scripture than some current conservatives.” – Peter Carroll
Hi Peter, that’s a very fair question. So, in your reading of the Gospels, or of Jesus words in (say) Revelation, can you draw together any support for your ‘wondering assertions regarding Jesus being more merciful than some current conservatives’ and if so, be prepared to present them either on this post, or in a separate article?
And, then for the sake of balance, which I know you love, set about refuting those ‘wonderings’ with other teaching from Jesus?
Then we could ‘weigh your musings in the balance’, as it were. It would also help you resolve what I have sensed for a long time is a deeply felt personal dilemma.
Perhaps as a follow up, you could then search the remainder of the New Testament in line with your ‘wonderings’ and set out the views of the Apostles on this matter, both for and against? I’d settle for Jesus in the first instance, but I think for the sake of completeness, the Apostolic perspective would also be valuable.
Such a work would be greatly appreciated more widely. The fact that you are searching through Scripture to find the answers would be something many of us ‘conservatives’ would also deeply respect.
Well Peter, you certainly give it a good whirl with your post-Enlightenment exegesis, I’ll give you that! But my concern here is with that classic method of ‘reading’ proposed to us by Gadamer’s insistence on two things: that we carefully and clearly distinguish the two horizons of our reading of any text; and that we then dare to fuse these two horizons, so that there indeed be some meaningful reading.
True; both Jesus (see Mk 10:12) and Paul (1 Cor 7, Gal 3:28, Eph 5:21ff) give women a higher status than that normally granted them within contemporary Judaism, so that both they and men are now fully and commensurately responsible within the conjugal relationship of marriage. Exegetically we can agree on that.
But what I still bemoan, and in fact increasingly so in this second attempt at your ‘reading’ 1 Cor 7, is your laziness in NOT probing nearly deeply enough the vast differences between these two horizons. Such a probing is what the guilds of Systematic and Biblical Theology are increasingly endeavouring to do, by cross-fertilizing their approaches. For example here, you employ the word “rights” as if it were merely equivocal in both horizons when it is surely NOT.
And then you shift the discussion to desire. Great move! But here I’d also invoke that ancestor of Western Theology, Augustine, as a glorious aid in our probing all horizons. For he gives us a profound steer on that innate human faculty. Moreover, he is very clear from his own extensive, probing ‘readings’ that desire is often profoundly idolatrous in its ends. Not surprising really, since he learned it from the likes of St Paul, as well as his own condition. May I suggest that you try to place just such an Augustinian lens alongside your comments now on 1 Cor 7. They appear frankly paltry in the light of the likes of his Confessions and On the Trinity.
Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly that Jesus is the fullest embodiment of mercy ever. Yet I’d return directly to St Paul again. Rom 11:32 climaxes his whole argument of those eleven chapters - only then to “exhort” us all at 12:1-2 ... For Jesus does something similar - Jn 8:11b. Any and all pastoral practice that does not have a clear biblical foundation is frankly suspect in the long term.
Hi Brendan
Certainly.
Luke 7:36-50 shows us Jesus who forgives extravagantly.
James 2:13 warns, "For judgment will be without mercy to those who have shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment."
MAtthew 12:20: "He will not break a bruised reed."
I am not arguing that verses such as these men strictures against same sex sexual activity are thereby overturned.
I am arguing that Jesus might understand the plight of homosexuals in a heteronormative world better than we do: with sympathy, empathy and mercy, understanding the difficult burden of being in a tiny minority.
Dear Bryden
It is not idolatrous to desire human companionship, love and sexual fulfilment.
On the last of that list, even Augustine had what could be called a full-ish share of it before embracing a chaste life!
Too many words here chase too few clear and distinct notions.
Rene Descartes
Dear Rene,
Indeed. When sitting by the fire contemplating precise notions, it is nevertheless a fact that the hot coals, flames and smoke mix and intermingle, along with the heat.
When the fire goes out, the philosopher tends to move from positing "I think therefore I am" to "I am cold, where are the matches and paper?"
“I am not arguing that verses such as these mean strictures against same sex sexual activity are thereby overturned.
I am arguing that Jesus might understand the plight of homosexuals in a heteronormative world better than we do: with sympathy, empathy and mercy, understanding the difficult burden of being in a tiny minority.” Peter Carroll
Well, yes of course – but Peter, where does your reflection lead us; into obedience or rebellion?
For your thoughts echo those of Hebrews 4:15 “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.” And, as the writer of Hebrews goes on to remind us: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Surely this is the remedy offered to each of us by a merciful God who empathises with our weaknesses? An encouragement to approach to the throne of grace where we may find help in our time of need?
Or, is it beyond the ability of God to help those tempted by same sex attraction, such that he (and we) should now accept and confirm them in it? Is that the best we can hope for? Does God owe same sex attracted people an apology? That he failed to normalise their desires in Scripture, that he overlooked their burden of being in a tiny minority? That he has engaged in the practice of marginalisation and bigotry?
If he is insufficient to the task of helping same sex attracted people, just maybe he is not sufficient to help me with my failings either? Does he owe all mankind an apology, promising something he is unable or unwilling to deliver?
In the end, isn’t this logically where your musings lead us, where the ‘beautiful accommodation’ has landed?
I realise Peter blogging has its limitations. For all that, this latest response (indeed, responses to both myself and Brendan) betray yet again a failure to address what that cross-fertilization I referred to last time is rightly seeking.
“Theological exegesis” HAS to take into account a richer parsing of the likes of your first, opening sentence @ August 18, 2017 at 7:44 AM. You simply fail to ‘get’ the point either Augustine or I following him are making. And that means you fail to interpret not only Scripture with Scripture (say, I Cor 7 with Rom 1 - a horrid piece of short-hand), but omit the sorts of things the Tradition over the centuries has beautifully brought to bear in its ‘reading’ of canonical Scripture.
Try Confessions I.1.i for starters, with what will be a constant use of the Psalms throughout. This addresses directly our point! (In case you miss it: worship versus idolatry!) It also should propel any due reading of the NT, with its general citation of the Psalms (see now Ben Witherington III’s Psalms Old and New: Exegesis, Intertextuality, and Hermeneutics). For the general spirituality of the Corinthians is what both canonical Letters are addressing, via certain key case studies. Your homing in on 1 Cor 7 is merely one ... And I venture neither Paul nor Augustine would go anywhere near your attempted ‘wonderings’.
PS - I hope Msr Descartes finds his way out of that oven soon ... For then we can hold him responsible for MANY of our contemporary issues!
Hi Brendan
There are many testimonies of people with same-sex attraction receiving help from the throne of grace.
There are also testimonies of people seeking help with such attraction and finding no help is given.
(Ditto, we might observe, with requests for healing.)
The ways of our Almighty God are mysterious.
What I am suggesting is that God might be inexhaustibly merciful to those who have sought help and received none.
Peter,
I don’t see in Scripture where being sick or failing to be healed is deemed to be sinful, you appear to be drawing a deliberate false equivalence here.
When you say: “What I am suggesting is that God might be inexhaustibly merciful to those who have sought help and received none.”
Your statement is an oxymoron.
How is it merciful to withhold help when it is within your power to give it?
Is that the kind of God we serve? You ask for a fish and he gives you a stone?
Dear Brendan,
Two responses:
(1) I have had many occasions when I have sought God's help and none has been forthcoming. In general terms this phenomenon has a theological description, the mystery of suffering.
(2) I am not homosexual but I understand that many homosexuals have sought deliverance from their sexuality and received no help. Beyond that, of course, it is for such brothers and sisters to speak of their experience of God. I am trying as one who has not walked in their moccasins to have some empathy.
Hi Bryden
I quite agree that in developing a full sexual ethic for all times and all places we must read Scripture and theology with the kind of interplay that you draw our attention to.
What I am musing about is in the area of "pastoral pragmatics" (which is what I place the working group proposal in as a category). From that perspective, 1 Corinthians 7 is a fascinating exercise in Pauline pragmatics. E.g. telling us what his rule is for all the churches then outlining four significant exceptions to the rule.
There is a danger, I suggest, that you are bringing a theological battleship to bear on situations concerning people's lives which are akin to a small boat bobbling about in the ocean.
A final observation for now: a question you might consider re the proposal is whether, despite all the theological critique you bring to bear on it, it is in fact a highly acceptable proposal to our church, precisely because it makes sense to a majority of Anglicans - who though they may not be as well formed theologically as you see desirable - nevertheless see good sense in maintaining the doctrine of marriage and permitting those who wish to perform blessings to do so. Not least, I am surmising, the latter is recognised as a kindness to a group of people in our church to whom many of our parishioners are related or friends with. Mostly, Anglicans are kindly people!
In moccasins, we run! Pale faces wear such hard shoes, they can only walk.
Chief Okemos
Three things Peter:
1. If these AC debates signify anything, it's not small boats bobbing around! Rather, we've witnessed since Lambeth 98 (and before in PECUSA) something more akin to ICBMs. Martyn Percy referred to plate tectonics the other day ... Which leads me to my second.
2. Anglicans are surely "nice" (MP) people .... ;-)
3. Yes; we are indeed dealing with a piece of pastoral pragmatics. And precisely because it is such it is merely a wayside station along the road. It's not for nothing that another Church thinks in centuries rather than ordinary years. The AC USED to think similarly. I fear we have succumbed to the contemporary moment as much as to our Kiwi pragmatism. In which case any due theology will almost certainly be/become/occluded ... to our long term peril.
Aha dear Okemos: perhaps we need rather to cite the Last of the Mohicans ...!
Peter,
You have previously said that you cannot support gay marriage, and that you disagree with the conclusion of the progressives. Thus this beautiful piece allows you to remain in fellowship with those with whom you disagree.
Yet, your defence of their position is so strong that I wonder if you aren't a supporter of SSB yourself, who hasn't admitted it to others, or even yourself.
If homosexuals are made this way, if love, companionship and sexual fulfilment really are fundamental human rights, if God has not given SSA persons the grace to be celibate, if SSB recognises a legitimate place in which to avoid burning with lust, if Jesus really might be 'inexhaustibly merciful' and 'will not break a bruised reed', then shouldn't you be in favour of SSB?
I recognise that they are, on paper at least, only your 'wonderings'. But I wonder if, at some point, all your 'wonderings' add up to something a little more substantive.
I, at least, would find you much easier to understand if you were to style yourself as a conservative who is in tentative favour of SSB.
"Mostly, Anglicans are kindly people!"
Speaking dogmatically, we are *hypothetical universalists*. An argument that the scriptures specify a *natural kind* of person who cannot ordinarily be saved is certainly error. While it is certainly hard to defend gay sex from scripture, it is also hard to oppose gay sex without falling into that error.
Likewise, we know that the scriptures are the Word of God for salvation. Uses of scriptures that do not appear to be advancing anybody's salvation are not as authoritative as those that do.
The Anglican Inquisition
Thanks for most recent comments, Bryden, Bowman, Sam.
Sam: no, though I understand why you "wonder" in that direction.
What I am trying to do is this:
1. try harder for myself to understand what is going on in the progressive mind, and what life is like for gay and lesbian Anglicans who wish to see change (gay and lesbian Anglicans who are among my friends both inside and, currently, outside a church, they see as unwelcoming.
2. trying to provoke/challenge/encourage commenters here who oppose the proposal to have a little more sympathy for it. (in tiny measure I think I might be succeeding :).)
Why would I not myself offer to undertake SSBs?
In my own reading of Scripture (which is itself in keeping with most of those commenting here as you and they read Scripture), I could only offer a blessing on behalf of God which I understood was authorised by God (i.e. God was and is clearly in favour of the blessing being given). Since Scripture conveys the mind of God, I do not look for the mind of God outside of Scripture (though I do allow, of course, that which is outside of Scripture, to influence how I read the mind of God [tradition, reason, understanding those as themselves shaped and influenced by the common mind of the universal church]). I cannot get from Scripture to SSBs.
In supporting the proposal, I am allowing that I am a member of a church which has variant views on the role of Scripture in the shaping and sorting of doctrine and practice. I have chosen not to leave this church previously because of those variant views (which, in my experience, have led colleagues and friends into some very strange places theologically (heterodox? heresy?)) and I am choosing not to leave now, uncomfortable though it is that an outcome for colleagues and friends is that they see SSB as consonant with Scripture when I do not.
I think, on the basis of the proposal, that I can continue to sign the declarations which are essential to my continuing to be a licensed minister of the church, particularly because I can continue to teach that marriage is between a man and a woman.
To give a contrast, if we were changing the doctrine of marriage (e.g. to some kind of Scottish equalising of all marriage, with gender indistinct), I would not be able to adhere to such doctrine and therefore would either need to leave or to teach contrary to the changed doctrine until such time as I was excommunicated!
Thanks for your response Peter. I appreciate what you're trying to do in point 1 above: It is certainly right that each side try to walk in each other's shoes to better understand where the other is coming from. I appreciate being pushed, and I feel the comments here have done that.
Regarding point 2, I appreciate what your intentions here, but I still feel that the proposal is highly problematic. I am grateful for your link to Martin Davie's excellent critique of it.
Thanks for being forthright in your description of your own position on SSB, especially your clear and helpful statement: 'I cannot get from Scripture to SSBs'. I imagine that's where most commentators here, including myself, would be in complete agreement. Where we would part ways with you, however, is that we cannot continue to be in union with those who promote as good that which we believe to be sin. If we are right, and SSB is promoting and endorsing that which God believes to be sin, then the church must maintain its voice, imploring on Christ's behalf, that such thinking is erroneous and, like all false teaching, needs to be clearly rejected and eschewed.
I found your final paragraph interesting and revealed your conservative 'line in the sand.' Allow me to give a contrast to my paragraphs above, regarding unity and differences of conviction. The doctrine/sacrament of baptism is one deeply held by most Christians, and yet many brothers and sisters come to different conclusions as to who can be baptised. As a paedobaptist, I support the baptism of infants. But I could happily exist in a church where not everyone agrees with this, even in a Anglican church. I think it is healthy to have a church where both scripturally-established positions are recognised as incompatible but potentially legitimate: we can agree to disagree (not many Baptists view it this way, however!). I would prefer to see a body of believers, being true to their scriptural convictions, maintain unity in the face of this potentially divisive issue, rather than to split. This shows Christian grace, humility, unity and love. I think this is where you are coming from on the question before our church. Yet, for me, this is in a completely different category, for the reasons outlined above.
"...we cannot continue to be in union with those who promote as good that which we believe to be sin."
Peter, Sam has it right: this is precisely why-- even though both practises are proscribed in scripture-- the Anglican Communion is dividing over "just" war and lending at interest. How could there possibly be any doubt about these things?!
As you yourself see, Sam and his friends are not in any sense wrong. God values peace and charity, and disvalues usury and war; in favouring the former and opposing the latter, Sam et al are surely on the safest ground. For can we doubt that it is praiseworthy to value what God values and to disvalue what God disvalues? Nevertheless, even though the scriptures nowhere condone either exception, I will remain in union with those brothers in Christ who fight some wars (those that protect non-combatants) and make some loans at interest (those that enable the poor to acquire necessities).
Venturing beyond the letter as these brothers do entails two serious moral risks-- (a) epistemic and (b) consequential. On one hand, (a), it is possible that God intends for scriptural passages against violence and usury to be read as unqualified prohibitions of actions rather than as general declarations of his will regarding states of affairs. On the other hand, (b), it is already clear that unscrupulous consciences will ski down the slippery slope from warranted exceptions to indiscriminate violence or loansharking. In many comments here, Sam's fellow partisans have not minced words in reminding me of these two hazards. And truthfully, given some prospect of a horrific war in East Asia and the reality of the debt burden that cripples both whole economies and particular families, I cannot easily shake the sense that our loving Father may indeed have absolutely forbidden acts of both kinds.
But some have shaken that sense. Recalling the Lord's words, "You are servants no longer but friends, for a servant does not know what his Master is about" they insist against (a) that the Cross reveals God's character to be one that does not regard human action in a magical way, but rather evaluates the virtuous intent and actual consequences of such actions for God's purposes. Were we given our intimate knowledge of him, so they ask, that we might enjoy it without responsibility? They insinuate that those who will not take the epistemic risks they take either do not really know God, or else lack true confidence in their justification apart from works of the law, or else seek a private salvation apart from others that the scriptures do not know.
And recognising that some instances of violence or usury have countervailed against evil, they argue against (b) that they have done God's will in mitigating what the Creator must by his very nature hate. The creation is groaning for the revelation of the sons of God, they quip, not simply so that it might satisfy its curiosity, but also so that good may be done and evil averted. Not to put too fine a point on it, they insist (again) that there is no salvation without a vocation to care for the world, and that is a risky business.
Obviously, soldiers and bankers have not convinced me that war and usury are good. I do not advocate the wars of the one; nor do I carry the credit cards of the other. But so far as human beings can discern this, I recognise that their venturesome vocations may be in Christ, even if my own is to remain safe in the observation tower with our mutual friends.
Bowman Walton
Hi Sam and Bowman
Bowman is right: depending on one's definition of sin, measured against what the Bible teaches, there are a variety of ways in which we are in union with those who accept as not sin what the Bible teaches as sin. There has been no split because of these instances. Why now? Why this issue?
I add, Sam, this observation: currently you likely have no same-sex partnered clergy in your diocese but in at least 5 of the remaining 6 dioceses, to my knowledge, there are same-sex partnered clergy in licensed ministry, undisciplined by their bishops, with whom your bishop is in communion (even if you do not consider yourself in communion with those clergy, I assume you are in communion with your bishop); also to my knowledge, in those other dioceses there are conservative clergy with similar views to yours and mine re SSB/SSM except none have broken communion with their bishops, and just possibly all continue to share communion with their colleagues at synod eucharists and such like. Why has no breaking of communion occurred when such obvious union with sinning is a feature of our life as a church? Why wait to see whether the proposal is accepted or not? Our church is already in grievous error and false unity, according to your logic above.
According to my logic, supported I suggest by our Lord's own teaching about the tares and the wheat, there is another way. It involves not so much accepting teaching that sin X is not really sin, so much as accepting that lives are messy matters, frayed at the edges, more grays than blacks and whites, and so we jog along together, only too well aware that my faults may not be thine, but we are all faulty, and so we might take care about judging one another, especially in that area where it is so easy to fall (not one but two AB gods, this week, I see). I am happy to be in union with people whose sexuality I do not fully understand, whose understanding of Scripture in relation to their sexuality I do not subscribe to, and to do so in the hope that by staying rather than going I might better understand what it means for God to love these brothers and sisters.
Dear Rene, me thinks thou dost hereafter protest too much now.
Dear Peter
I have reflected a good deal on your most recent revelation that in five of the seven(?) dioceses of the Anglican church in Aotearoa there are ordained clergy living in same sex relationships, presumably with the permission and acceptance of their respective Bishops.
These are dioceses where the church’s doctrine of marriage is observed in the letter but denied in practice. One thing is taught, another is lived.
As you point out, there are still believers like Sam, and surely many others like myself who view this as an egregious dereliction of duty on behalf of those Bishops, and yet we remain in the church. You ask why when the church is already in grievous error?
You then go on to justify this behaviour based upon what you call ‘lives that are messy’ and Jesus parable concerning the wheat and tares in Matthew 13. You assert that this teaching allows for us all to ‘jog along together’ presumably leaving all judgement to Christ at harvest time; the end of the age.
Surely you know full well that this is not what the parable teaches. Jesus explains the meaning of the parable to his disciples later in the chapter. In Matthew 13:38 he explains that the field is the world, not the church.
The field is the world, not the church.
In the church God elicits a different standard, a different practice; a 1 Corinthians 5 practice.
So why do we stay?
Some have left of their own free will, and others have been forced out by their Bishop because they would not recognise the authority of Synod in this matter.
To answer your question, I suspect we stay for now because we wait to see what God will do in this corner of his vineyard. Will he prune it such that it bears more fruit, or will he abandon it to the little foxes.
Hi Brendan
I don't think it much of a stretch to see the principle of the tares and the wheat applying within the church as well as within the world (that is, we wait for future action of God to sought out our messiness re the mix of sin and righteousness). But I am happy to also endorse your line about sticking with the church, waiting to see what the Lord himself does re fruitfulness in the vineyard.
Peter, what is an *AB god*?
Bowman
Hi Bowman
All Black god
See: https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/95955964/all-blacks-had-no-need-to-use-offfield-dramas-to-fireup-for-big-win-over-wallabies
Dear Peter,
'Our church is already in grievous error and false unity, according to your logic above.'
Quite so! That's exactly the point. SSB is simply the presenting issue in a church in which error is rife. I suspect that most of those who have a similar viewpoint to mine already feel a fundamental lack of unity with many Anglicans around the country not, primarily, on the issue of SSB per se, but on the much deeper and significant grounds of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture as the supreme rule of faith in the life and doctrine of the church and its constituent individuals. And it's not all one sided. The liberal wing has little love for the evangelicals and would excise us as quickly as they could were not everyone pretending for the time being that there is unity between us.
Why has this not happened earlier? Probably because the mode of argument has changed somewhat in the past few years as we have turned to arguments based on scripture. I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that the 'scriptural' approach is somewhat new to the liberal camp. My understanding of their arguments, prior to this, was that they would (wrongly) invoke Hooker in support of their stool analogy and (basically) argue that, in this case, reason trumps Scripture, and tradition will reflect this as the church redefines truth.
Their new approach seems to be an attempt to use the same weapons as the evangelicals (and our reformational forebears). This has slowed down the divorce, attempted to mask the differences between us, and lead to the false notion of 'two integrities'. To my mind, however, the liberals have constructed the answer that they seek, via theological and exegetical contortions. I do not view their efforts as sincere, nor their conclusions as remotely legitimate, and, therefore, there are not 'two integrities'.
Should evangelicals have left earlier? Perhaps. When? I'm not sure. Does that mean we should delay in leaving now? Not unless the Lord does indeed intervene in his vineyard and turn us from the path that most in ACANZP seem determined to walk.
Finally, wheat and tares? 'What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?'
Hi Sam
There is a lot of middle ground in our church, in which liberalish moderates love evangelicals and evangelicalish moderates love liberals. I am not sure there is a simple, viable way to separate our church in two, in order to separate conservative evangelicals from liberals, unless one is simply referring to the two edges of the bell curve of theological allegiances, church styles, and varying convictions (remembering that some of the most liberal on SSB/SSM are most conservative about (say) euthanasia and abortion; and some of the most conservative about SSB/SSM nevertheless agree with the proposal, and some of the conservatives who do not so agree are somewhat liberal when it comes to following church rules re robing, authorised services and bishops' lawful instructions, to say nothing of those who are so liberal that they will not entrust all their funds to their Diocesan trustees like they are reqquired to!
As for judging inside the church: there has been quite a bit of that on this thread :)
"It involves not so much accepting teaching that sin X is not really sin..."
This is not accepting teaching that sin X is not really sin.
"...so much as accepting that lives are messy matters, frayed at the edges, more grays than blacks and whites..."
But this actually is what drives the disciplinarians among us crazy: the NT is not this one-sidedly pessimistic about or uninterested in the prospects for a godly life.
"...and so we jog along together, only too well aware that my faults may not be thine, but we are all faulty, and so we might take care about judging one another, especially in that area where it is so easy to fall."
This is a sound argument against trial by internet or rumour, but it is not a sound reason for the office of the keys to be as dormant as it is.
Consider: although Catholics have had some ghastly sinners among their clergy, and some humiliating failures in disciplining them, they have not given up on clerical discipline. Is there a principled reason why contemporary Protestant churches do not do at least as much as Rome?
Some go on and on and on about That Topic when what really bothers them is that "blessed are the persecuted" is incongruous with a culture of easy religion and bourgeois comfort.Is this all there is?
It's enough to make a Christian an existentialist.
Soren Kierkegaard
Dear Soren/Bowman
I have conveyed the impression there might be little or no discipline in a world of ecclesiastical greys!
Let me try to walk that back a little or walk out of it ...
There is (in my experience, observation) continuing strict discipline in our church (according to our rules, processes) re matters such as adultery, abuse of children, stealing the collection, refusing to perform baptisms of infants of believers, substance abuse. (Cf Rome).
There are greyer areas: heterodoxy (if we may distinguish that from heresy); do two (or three or ...) marriages count against a licence?; self-directed changes to the prayer book; and, yes, faithful same-sex partnerships. (Not quite what Rome wrestles with ... save, of course, for the Franciscan question re eucharist and remarriage: now that is a grey area where the rules are crystal clear but Francis has permitted a fudge).
But in the State of Denmark, I imagine, all is well. Hyyge?
Sam, you will not often agree with what I say at ADU-- there are few who can-- but I am yet again glad to have read a candid comment from you about the church you see on the ground.
"I may be wrong here, but it seems to me that the 'scriptural' approach is somewhat new to the liberal camp. My understanding of their arguments, prior to this, was that they would (wrongly) invoke Hooker in support of their stool analogy... Their new approach seems to be an attempt to use the same weapons as the evangelicals (and our reformational forebears)."
I first heard live debate about SSM in the early 1970s in southern Virginia. At the time, proponents argued a three-step, STR case: (a) rightly interpreted, the Six Texts do not stand in the way of SSM, (b) tradition opposing SSM has been set aside with the acceptance of marriage without procreation, and (c) the general Christian ethos for sex is so dependent on marriage-- and rightly so-- that homosexuals cannot be brought under the discipline of the Church without it. Then as now, opponents of SSM cited the Six Texts, but proponents batted them away one by one with exegetical arguments that were proficient for the time. Public discussion of homosexuality was somewhat startling to most people then, but once one was past that, the proponents seemed to have the better case. The bitterness we see today only set in after it became plain to the proponents that winning debates on scripture was not winning changes.
"[Proponents] (basically) argue that, in this case, reason trumps Scripture, and tradition will reflect this as the church redefines truth."
By the '90s, more careful scholarship by Robert Gagnon and others largely undercut the proponents' re-interpretations of the Six Texts. Although the extent of that undercutting is still occasionally debated, proponents did for a time respond to this reversal by arguing the unstable two-legged stool that you describe. The two-legged stool was most plausible to those for whom Anglican tradition is Vatican III Catholicism, and for whom reason is not *evolutionary biology* but *the social construction of reality*.
But meanwhile, biblical scholarship has deepened in ways that have rendered the prior readings of both sides obsolete. A generation that learned the New Perspective on Paul and the New Apocalyptic finds the common ground of the old debates to be somewhat quaint, and the best voices on both sides have necessarily moved on from wooden proof-texting. Learned opponents, for example, now argue a canonical-narrative argument about the eternal correlation of masculinity and femininity that was far beyond the scope of the earlier debates. Proponents now situate the Six Texts in an ancient social history and sometimes a virtues paradigm for ethics that was not well known in the '70s. Richard B Hays's *Moral Vision of the New Testament*, which views homosexuality among other issues through the prism of Community, Cross, and New Creation, remains the most-cited centrist approach to a scripturally-founded ethic for the Church.
As I have noted in earlier comments here, Anglican debate on this issue is complicated by questions about national synods identical to those that surround papal infallibility-- do national synods (or popes) have doctrinal authority in the Church?; if so, of what kind?; how can we know that it has been validly exercised?; who should we follow when synods (or popes) disagree? Of course, one can and should pose the same questions about bishops and by extension primates. The complication is that if one recognises episcopal authority as Anglicans traditionally do, the debate was closed at the last meeting of the primates, and proponents have lost it for ever, but if one insists on national synodal authority, the debate, and any church that entertains it, can only continue with a new, non-Anglican ecclesiology. For that reason, this whole discussion is happening in an as yet uncharted ecumenical space.
Bowman Walton
Hi Bowman
Thank you for the useful overview of the debate around homosexuality and the church. It is interesting to see how the conversation has evolved, and how various sides have pivoted and grown in their understanding of the question.
What I find equally interesting is how many people, Peter included, are mystified as to why SSB is has become a defining issue in the church, and why it is that dissenters cannot simply ‘rub along together’ as we have when confronting difference over issues like women in ministry and divorce and remarriage.
All the more mysterious when, as Peter has pointed out, there are ordained homosexual partnered clergy operating with the blessing of their Bishops scattered throughout the liturgical landscape, and orthodox Christians have not yet left in their droves.
However, it is one thing being asked to ‘pretend’ that partnered gay clergy are celibate, or that they have made a promise to their Bishop along those lines, and we take them at their word. But now, for a section of the church to insist upon the right to invoke God’s blessing on homosexual relationships that are in the form of marriage, is to move the practice into an entirely new dimension.
For many of us, SSB is the moral equivalent of the French revolution’s Cult of Reason installing a prostitute to dance on the alter at Notre Dame Cathedral and demanding the congregation join in the celebrations.
Sure, it plays well to the crowd and many will join in the dance, but is it God honouring; does it reflect his character?
SSB is either as profane as prostitutes dancing on alters, or as God honouring as faithful Christian marriage between a man and a woman. There is no halfway position, no middle ground and certainly no ‘beautiful accommodation’ to be had by anyone.
It is a battle for the soul of the Anglican church, and to think otherwise is to miss the point entirely.
Hear, hear Brendan. Thank you too to Sam and Bryden, I just don't have the wits to deal any longer, so I'm very grateful to you all.
"SSB is either as profane as prostitutes dancing on alters (sic), or as God honouring as faithful Christian marriage between a man and a woman. There is no halfway position, no middle ground and certainly no ‘beautiful accommodation’ to be had by anyone. It is a battle for the soul of the Anglican church, and to think otherwise is to miss the point entirely."
Well, Well, Brendan. Are you now regretting your recent move into Anglicanism, after having the freedom to make tyour own rules in your own church? By the very nature of their constitutions, Anglican (Provincia0l Churches are a lot less hidebound than loosely formed House Churches, whose rules are up to their individual founders. As an Angl;ican, you are now in an institution, whether or not you like that. The only option you have is to stay or to withdraw without trying to chasnge the face of Anglicanism to suit your personal beliefs.
Most Anglican Churches around the world have discovered that being Gay is not an offence against God, but rather one of the infinitely variable factors in Creation that bears no burden of personal guilt with the state. Therefore, in order to deal with the institutional problems of homophobia and sexism, most Anglican Churches are reviewing their traditional stance towards those same-sex couples who are striving - njust like heterosexual couples in the Church - to be faithful to just one person in a relationship of fidelity and mutual supoport.
Now we know that it's hard enough for heterosexual Christian couples to maintain the degree of faithfulness to one another, but we believe that, with the help of God, they can make the grade. However, no all humkan beings are able to initiate a sexual relationship with comeone of the opposite sex (Jesus talks about them in terms of their state as 'eunuchs' in the Gospel - as having been created so - "from their mother's womb"). So that, no longer can the Church presume to judge them as acting against their true nature, but rather, striving to limit their sexcual relationship to one person, rather than imitating those heterosexual people who do not feel it necessary or desirable to limit their sexual relationship to their espoused partner. There is anough evidence of this in the heterosexual world, without our trying to discourage homosexuals from the sin of adultery.
The Church is now, rightly in my opinion, honouring the intentions of those same-sex couples intent on living together in faithfulness for the rest of their lives - in the same way that the Church expects heterosexual couples to honour their own consecrated partnerships. In this mode, the Church is now wanting to encourage such faithful couples to come within the ambience of the Church's influence and to offer the Blessing of God upon their committed monmogamous partnerships - which is what marriage offers to those who contract the more common binary marriage relationships. Love is not confined to heterosexual relationships - although it seems that some hetero Christians would like to think that their sexual orientation gives them some sort of priority as the model of committed two-person entities.
Dear Ron,
I stated clearly that one of the choices for the Anglican Church was to consider SSB ‘as God honouring as faithful Christian marriage between a man and a woman’, which I take to be your position?
If I have misrepresented your views, then I unreservedly apologise.
That I should uphold current Anglican orthodoxy when it comes to marriage should not seem strange to you or to any Anglican Priest, surely? That you as an ordained Anglican priest find my orthodox views unwelcome seems strange to me.
I haven’t reviewed your ordination vows but I imagine you have not renounced them, nor the current Anglican churches doctrine on marriage? Or have you?
If you no longer support the church’s exclusively heterosexual doctrine on marriage, then what are you doing still practicing as a priest in the Anglican church? It seems to me that Anglicanism is an old suit you have outgrown. There is no point sitting around being grumpy about it. Find another one that fits you.
*chuckle*
Hi Brendan and Ron
A small but important point (and, Brendan, your chuckle has not been missed):
please take care not to frame a comment to each other around your past, current, future church allegiance, especially not if it involves hypothesising that the logic of your position should lead to you leaving for another church.
I have published each of your comments on the grounds that you are probing the logic of each other's positions, measured against larger matters of church custom and canons. Let that probing continue but there is no need to attach it to speculation.
"... many people... are mystified as to why SSB is has become a defining issue in the church, and why it is that dissenters cannot simply ‘run along together’ as we have when confronting difference over issues like women in ministry and divorce and remarriage... However, it is one thing being asked to ‘pretend’ that partnered gay clergy are celibate, or that they have made a promise to their Bishop along those lines, and we take them at their word. But now, for a section of the church to insist upon the right to invoke God’s blessing on homosexual relationships that are in the form of marriage, is to move the practice into an entirely new dimension." Brendan at 10:32.
Brendan, I attempt herewith a interpretation of what you mean by the above--
BACKGROUND
(1) Some believe from the scriptures that God requires that Christians disapprove gay sex, and that Christians who do not do so forfeit salvation.
(2) Some believe that God requires that Christians honour the constitutions of other persons as they were created.
(3) Some believe that, with respect to homosexuals, the constitutions of other persons are only truly honoured when they are *affirmed* and when this affirmation is *public*.
Not all hold all beliefs. Beliefs are held with varying degrees of conviction. Few hold all beliefs with equal conviction.
PARAPHRASE
The present case-by-case toleration of gay unions among the clergy is itself tolerable to those who believe both (1) (and (2) because it is covered by the pastoral relationship between bishops and their clergy. It is thinkable that in such case-wise proceedings pursuant to (2) an effort is being made to minimise sin according to (1). In enabling that thought, it allows those who believe (1) a way to honour (2) without lapsing into an approval of that particular sin that would forfeit their salvation. SSB, in abandoning case-wise and private toleration of the sin for public celebration of it implicates those who believe (1) in an approval that God will punish with forfeiture. For a church to thus spread forfeiture of salvation is absurd.
Here endeth the interpretation of Brendan's comment at 10:32.
Bowman Walton
I keep telling myself not to answer a troll, but Bowman, or whatever your name is today, this time you have it wrong. This particular part of the church isn't worried about her own salvation, but the fact that not telling the truth that practising homosexuality is sin, would incur the homosexual's salvation by not giving him or her the chance to repent.
Hi Rosemary and Bowman
Rosemary: Bowman is no troll though he has assumed some historic persona recently. I assume with tongue in cheek.
Bowman: I have published the comment without redaction because its substantive point is substantial in respect of this thread.
Hi Rosemary
I think my response to your comment is something along these lines, but I am thinking out loud a bit!
(1) Will the proposal permit churches who wish to continue to preach and teach the importance of same-sex oriented persons not imperilling salvation by engaging in same-sex sexual activity? The answer is Yes.
(2) Will preaching and teaching about such imperilling of salvation make any difference to some (many?) gay and lesbian Anglicans? In my view no. Most such Anglicans I know have considered 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 etc and have made a choice to understand that such texts do not apply to them. We may think of them as wrong, hard-headedly obstinate, etc, but they hold their position knowing what they are doing. Are we to expel them? Or make some kind of room for them?
(3) Would sticking to the status quo (i.e. rejecting the proposal or any other proposal proposing change) change the situation in (2)? No.
(4) Would departing our church after the proposal is agreed to (if that is what happens), change (1) or (2)? No. On this scenario would there continue to be Anglicans in our church who would wish for (1) or for whom (2) would apply? In my view, Yes.
We are a complex church! I acknowledge that for some who might depart and for some who, remaining, might welcome such departures, future church life might appear to be simpler and more straightforward than if we agree to the proposal and no one leaves.
Hi Peter,
Did my comment from last night not come through, or has it been deemed unsuitable for publication? :)
Hi Bowman
Your interpretation of my post falls well short of the mark.
You state by way of interpretation:
(1) Some believe from the scriptures that God requires that Christians disapprove gay sex, and that Christians who do not do so forfeit salvation.”
Our salvation does not depend upon what we approve or disapprove of in others. It is dependent upon our repentance from sin, faith towards God in Christ, and our continued obedience to his word.
As I have said before, I have little concern about ‘same sex anything’ outside the church, other than when the State decides that our failure to approve of the prevailing ideology requires them to remove our tax exemptions, and close our Christian schools because they are culturally unsafe.
If you don’t think this is coming, then you have not been paying attention.
(2) Your observation makes no sense unless you believe sexual orientation is immutable. This is what the progressives in the Church want us to believe: Sexual orientation is immutable, whereas gender on the other hand multiplicitous and fluid.
If you believe this narrative, then we will endlessly talk past each other.
(3) Some people believe that with respect to homosexuals…. Etc.
Bowman, at one level it doesn’t matter what any of us choose to believe about homosexual relationships, what matters is the Biblical revelation. God clearly condemns homosexual practice in all its various forms and expressions.
If you believe otherwise, and/or that God blessed sexual relationships could include anything other than marriage between a man and a woman as revealed in Scripture, then again we are wasting our time in this conversation.
Furthermore, if the Apostle Paul is a reliable guide, then God expects Bishops and overseers / elders in his church to discipline those who call themselves Christians, or followers of Christ if they practice sexual immorality in any form, including homosexual sex.
Failure by those in leadership to do so is a clear abrogation of their responsibilities before the Lord. This is one reason why the church in the west is compromised, powerless and open to ridicule.
Finally, it’s not just Paul who insists upon church discipline, or who warns against wolves who will devour the flock, or who introduce false doctrines and so on. The church is involved in a spiritual battle against principalities and powers who are committed to its corruption, and destruction.
Now the church will never be perfect this side of eternity. I’m not perfect, and quite honestly outside of this blog post, I spent very little time thinking about this issue. However, we should all be indignant about anything that seeks to compromise the holiness and purity of the Bride of Christ. SSB is just such a thing.
Hi Sam
I am sorry but I cannot see where you have posted that comment (i.e. successfully posted it). I cannot see it on the blogsite itself under comments awaiting moderation (where, sometimes, comments languish, not having been forwarded to me by email) or anywhere that I can trace on my email account.
Could you repost, albeit from memory?
(It is pretty rare that I do not publish a comment!)
Cheers
Peter
Dear Rosemary @ August 21, 2017 at 12:40 PM
You now express the fact that you have reached the very point many of your opponents have been striving for - resignation! My profound sympathies ... 2 Cor 1:3-7.
Of course, in the midst of all this, what with erudition and/or plain idiocy, and all bits in between, the Lord of the Church is not mocked. Nor is He short-changed or non- plused, having seen it all before. And considering Peter is enjoying a bit of a dip into 1 Cor nowadays, let’s not forget 1 Cor 4:1-4, the context for which is Paul’s ideas of spirituality versus those of the Corinthians (where both 1 & 2 Cor play their respective roles).
And curiously, one vital feature remains right on target re our present concerns: the role of the material, including naturally the body - a body compromised surely (sorely?!) by sin, but destined for glorious resurrection; and a body moreover which has long since been also caught up into that singular Corporate Body of Christ, the Church. Paul would have us ‘paint’ and embody our lives with Christ Jesus in the power of the Spirit on a vast, new canvas; and sadly many today are far too small minded, being just too partial - or should that be partisan? Or BOTH?! For to live embodied in the Body is to die to one’s individual body, that both (b)Bodies might become enlivened by the Holy Spirit who brought Jesus back from the dead. But here too we mostly chicken out: real power now?! Surely not! Yet; yes! Real power - NOW - for the sake of the Body!! For the sake of the New Creation God is already bringing into His world. Both Letters are steering their respective ways to their conclusions, 1 Cor 15 and 2 Cor 13.
And if we wish to continue dabbling in the older order of things ... Well; we’ll just lose out, being most to be pitied ... Either way, nothing will actually stop what God has begun!
Hi Peter,
Thanks for getting back to me. I wrote it last night and it was too long to recall right now. It was a reply to Bowman and Ron and I may attempt it again later on
Cheers
Sam
"Your interpretation of my post falls well short of the mark"
Thank you, Brendan, for a rapid reply.
Clearly, it is a very good thing that I made some interpretation of your thought explicit and sought your correction to it. If I had just made assumptions about what I think you think and blundered on, talking past each other might indeed have occurred. And just think what a fine discussion we could have here if everyone was as careful with and respectful of the opinions of others as I am ;-)
It is 3 am here; I will respond tomorrow.
Blessings,
Bowman Walton
Sam, if you are going to reply to me anyway, might I ask you to take a look at my 10:23 am to Brendan about his 10:32 of the day before? I have been trying to understand as precisely as I can how the *beautiful compromise* would change the status quo. Perhaps I misunderstand him, but Brendan seems to me to have nailed it.
Bowman Walton
"Of course, in the midst of all this, what with erudition and/or plain idiocy, and all bits in between..."
Bryden must be talking about a conversation elsewhere. Everyone here makes sense.
Bowman Walton
"Our salvation does not depend upon what we approve or disapprove of in others. It is dependent upon our repentance from sin, faith towards God in Christ, and our continued obedience to his word." - Brendan -
Here again, Brendan, you are putting words into the mouth of God. What you seem to forget is that, at the Incarnation, the WORD became flesh and lived amongst us, at times seemingly flouting the entrenched theology of his fellow Jews. What Christians today have to do, and it may be far too challenging for some; is to interpret the words about God (the Bible in its entirety) in the Light of Christ Who IS The definitive Word of God.
Jesus, in His Incarnate life, spoke parables of the unrelenting love of God for sinners (like ourselves, Brendan), warning only that those of us who are prone to judge others on the matter of their salvation, might just find ourselves outside of the company of the saints. Consider the parable of the Pharisee and the Sinner, reflecting on Jesus' statement about their relative capacity for redemption: "Which of them went away justified".
Another of your dogmatic statements, Brendan, disturbs me. When you say that homosexual love is unacceptable to God, just how do you know this - except for your own interpretation of the 'clobber verses' in the N.T. It should be remembered that Jesus said not one word about Same-Sex Love or Blessings. If God hates Gays, why did Jesus not make this explicit in his own teaching on marriage and relationships in general? On the other hand, Scripture does tell us that: "Where charity and love are; there is God!"
Hi Ron
I rise to Brendan's defence!
Paul writing to the Romans at the beginning of that letter talks about calling people to "the obedience of faith."
Obedience to God's commands, to Christ's commands is an important outworking of the faith which saves us, faith in Jesus' saving act on the cross and faith which receives the new life of the risen Christ within us.
That life is a holy life and we do not honour the risen Christ when we live an unholy life (see, e.g. Romans 6, which makes the point that if we wilfully persist in sinning, then we misunderstand what identifying with Christ's death and resurrection mean).
Now, by all means argue here as to what Christ requires of homosexuals, and it may or may not be relevant to observe that Christ said nothing directly about the matter. (He did of course speak indirectly because he did not derogate the Law except in matters such as food and sacrificial customs; cf the relevant one of the 39A which distinguishes moral, civil and ceremonial law).
But I suggest Anglicans who confess their sins at each service of worship and look for absolution can scarcely be as sanguine about the importance of repentance as your comment appears above!
Cont'd
Father Ron wins at least 10 points for linking the whole discussion of grace to the story of Jesus as the descending-ascending Redeemer who became king. But what of Ron's further emphasis on (4) incongruity?
Bates says little about (4) beyond what I have quoted. It does seem likely that, for Bates as for Ron, the Redeemer's whole descent is motivated by God's desire to reach even those farthest from God. I am tempted to see that aspect of charis or grace in the passages that Peter cited yesterday-- St Luke 7:36-50 and St John 8:1-11-- and also in such healing stories as those in St Mark 5. In St Paul, we would see (4) incongruity in any of the passages in which he stresses that he has received grace despite his unworthiness.
The difficulty is that just as we should not pit the undeservedness of charis against its reciprocity and effectiveness, so we should not pit the incongruity of charis against its reciprocity and effectiveness. Our challenge is to understand what the latter mean where persons have disorders (eg psychopathology) that appear to be constitutive.
Bowman Walton
Hi Peter,
I rise to defend both Grandfather Brendan and Father Ron-- and you!
As you know, I have been reading Matthew W. Bates's Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King (Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition). Among many other points, Bates makes plain, much as Ron does, that all discussion of charis or grace in the NT is anchored in the V-shaped story of the descending-ascending Redeemer who was enthroned by the Father as king of heaven and earth.
To render this notion precise, Bates cites John Barclay's famous six meanings attached to the key word charis or grace (p 104)--
"John Barclay shows that 'grace' (charis) has been susceptible to six differentiable meanings for those who have interpreted Paul’s Letters: (1) superabundance— the size of the gift; (2) singularity— the pure benevolence of the gift; (3) priority— giving at the ideal advance time; (4) incongruity— lack of merit in the recipient; (5) efficacy— the ability of the gift to achieve its intended purposes; (6) noncircularity— the absence of obligation to reciprocate by giving a gift in return."
As I read you all--
Grandfather Brendan is minimising Barclay's (6) noncircularity.
You Peter are emphasising Barclay's (5) efficacy.
Father Ron, is emphasising Barclay's (4) incongruity.
What does St Paul actually say? Turning to the apostle's own use of charis, Bates looks first at Brendan's (6) non-circularity (104)--
"Paul himself does not necessarily 'perfect,' or take to its extreme limit, each one of these nuances of grace. In fact, he does not even include all of them in his own understanding of grace, as noncircularity in particular is alien to Paul. In other words, Barclay has convincingly demonstrated that it is a misunderstanding of grace (gift) in antiquity and in Paul’s Letters to suggest that grace could not truly be grace if it requires obedience as an obligatory return. We are undeserving of God’s gift of the Messiah— shockingly so!— in ancient contexts as well as contemporary. Yet the modern notion of the 'pure gift' (a gift that requires no reciprocation) seeks to perfect grace along the wrong axis and does not align with the ancient evidence pertaining to grace."
Ten points for Brendan! :-) As Bates reads St Paul and the NT as a whole, it is Jesus's enthronement in the ascent of the V-shaped story that suggests our duty to reciprocate.
(Cont'd by Bowman, 2/3) (above are 3/3 and 1/3)
Bates then looks at (5) efficacy in St Paul (104)--
"Contemporary Christian notions of grace also frequently fail to take into account the effective nature of grace. That is, the aim of God’s gift of the Christ is to set us free from our slavery to sin, the law, and evil powers and to transform us so that we become new creatures, righteous in the Messiah (Rom. 5: 20– 21; 2 Cor. 5: 17– 21; Gal. 1: 1– 6; 6: 15; Titus 2: 11– 14). In the Christ, we are ruled by grace, 'grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life' (Rom. 5: 21; cf. Rom. 5: 17; 1 Cor. 15: 10). It is inappropriate, then, to suggest that God’s gift of the Messiah, if the gift is accepted and subsequently held, would be ineffective in bringing about God’s transformative aims."
Ten points for you too, Peter! For Bates, it is Jesus's rising from the dead in the V-shaped story that suggests that grace is transformative for those who give him pistis or allegiance.
He concludes (105)--
"So we should not set grace at odds with the required behavioral changes (good deeds) associated with allegiant union to Jesus the king. In short, we cannot say in an unqualified fashion that final salvation is by grace and by faith apart from embodied obedience, for this misunderstands the nature of both charis ('grace') and pistis ('faith') in antiquity and in Paul’s Letters. We must recognize the bankruptcy of our current selves, especially our self-centered indulgences and ambitions. Through participation in the Christ’s death and resurrection, we must die to our old selves with the Messiah and become new selves, and in so doing follow the road of obedient service that our Lord commands by enacting allegiance. For Paul 'faith' recognizes we are utterly dead and totally undeserving of God’s grace, but the grasping of God’s life-from-the-dead grace demands a trajectory of loyal obedience."
Aha Bowman! I see from your comment @ August 22, 2017 at 7:43 PM that your sense of "sense" is as accommodating at Peter's "Beautiful accommodation". Now a lot more 'makes sense' ...
We're in deeper trouble than I realised!
In response to you all - especially Bryden in his last comment - I invoke the final thoughts of the Apostle Paul, after the recital of his own shortcomings.
"But thanks be to God for the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ" - (over Paul's so obvious shortcomings.)
Why, God might even be able to overcome the effects of entrenched homophobia and sexism in the Church - if only its exponents would accept their own culpability!
"Christ is our corner-stone, on Him alone we build!"
"Of course, in the midst of all this, what with erudition and/or plain idiocy, and all bits in between..."
"Bryden must be talking about a conversation elsewhere. Everyone here makes sense."
"Aha Bowman! I see from your comment @ August 22, 2017 at 7:43 PM that your sense of "sense" is as accommodating at Peter's "Beautiful accommodation". Now a lot more 'makes sense' ... We're in deeper trouble than I realised!"
Bryden, I do not see anything more clearly when people are being called idiots. God will judge all lapses of charity in the Body.
Bowman Walton
"Why, God might even be able to overcome the effects of entrenched homophobia and sexism in the Church - if only its exponents would accept their own culpability!"
Father Ron, please forgive a rather technical question, but the answer may be dear to your heart. In the last century, Roman authors of manuals for confessors (eg H. J. Ward's multi-volume work) were clear that souls can be in a condition of *invincible ignorance*. That was a diagnosis, not an insult; a solution, not a problem.
The C20 manualists reasoned that the formation of the conscience according to natural influences (eg parents, peers, heroes, local custom, etc) is prior to the divine influence mediated through the Church (eg confessors, preachers, teachers, scriptures, etc). Roughly-- below a certain age, you *believe* what your father tells you, but only *consider* what your priest tells you, and humans cannot naturally develop in any other way. So there will be confessions in which adult penitents admit to thoughts or deeds that s/he knows that God or at least the Church disapproves, but for which s/he feels no contrition because of some strong childhood influence.
Two examples. A woman sold sex to support herself and her daughter. (A) Her daughter knows that sex for money is forbidden, but she also reveres her mother and knows that she bought her food, shelter, and clothing with it. Her sentiments of reverence and gratitude intercept her priest's injunction to stop using sex to use men to get what she wants. (B) The daughter has a granddaughter who does not know her grandmother's past. In reaction against her own childhood, the daughter has inculcated in the grand-daughter both a puritanical aversion to sex and a distrustful, instrumental view of men. These sentiments disrupt her marriage, and when her priest challenges them, she finds herself suspicious of the priest as a man rather than able to accept a Christian view of sex, men, and marriage.
The guidance of the manuals was that, provided that the penitent generally respects the teaching of the Church, a contrition that is hollow by reason of *invincible ignorance* is not an obstacle to absolution. For when a soul teeters between a bad influence and a good one, why should one weaken the good one by withholding absolution and communion? The confessor's duty is, not to punish a soul's natural struggles with the truth, but to be consistently clear about what that truth is for as many years as it takes for the penitent to come to the spiritual freedom in which reassessment is possible.
Your comment above (and others with other views) have obliquely invoked cases of conflict between subjective certainties incidental to formation and objective propositions taught in the Body of Christ. My question: did your Anglican teachers agree with the Roman manualists with respect to *invincible ignorance*?
Bowman Walton
Nice comment Bowman @ August 28, 2017 at 3:26 PM
I’ve also read a good bit of Lonergan over the uears, whose desire for wholesome “Method” and spiritual “Insight” worthy of “loving subjects” before the triune God dove-tails rather well with your comment. And finally too: Lonergan’s work has been one of the key influences into my own conclusions regarding That Topic (and others).
Re your other comment @ August 28, 2017 at 2:08 PM.
Apologies Bowman if you object to that word "idiocy" - but I fail to see how it differs from Wisdom Literature's "Folly" and/or "The Fool", about which the Hebrew language waxes most lyrically ...
Dear Bowman and Bryden
An interesting insight into character formation, and the scripting we bring with us into life, and into our lived experience as Christians.
I wonder in the light of those thoughts, what you make of Romans 12:1-2:
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
I’m particularly interested in the aspect of ‘being transformed by the renewing of your mind’ – how do you suggest that takes place? While I have my own views, I’d be interested in yours.
Secondly, Paul implies that renewal of ones mind is not an automatic process that follows salvation, that it appears to involve some agency or choice on the part of the believer. Thoughts?
Third, when someone undertakes the renewing of their mind and therefore begins to approve of God’s good and perfect will, should we think it strange if their teaching and example did not begin to eventually comply at least somewhat more closely to the example of Jesus, and the testimony of Scripture?
To me this passage of Scripture appears to have considerable bearing upon the matter in question, not in regard to how God views same sex anything, but rather how we view it.
Thankyou, Bowman, for your reminder of 'inherited prejudice', which may - or may not - be pastorally considered as a hindrance to the formation of a valid conscience. One excellent example of this was Saint Paul's need of 'conversion', from his formation under the Jewish Tradition - into the grace-filled understanding of Christianity.
One suspects that some of the failings he was able to confess in his newly-acquired conscience - but which he accepted were subsumed into the redemption of Jesus - were mystically dealt with as part of his journey into the Kingdom of God. Thus: "Thanks be to God for the victory in Christ Jesus"
Well Brendan (1/2); you have picked, what for me, is an absolutely seminal pair of verses. Only the likes of Jn 1:14 and 3:16 might compare in density and significance.
First off, I see you have chosen the NIV translation, which has “in view of God’s mercy”. A nice rendering, given these two verses constitute the fulcrum [what’s the “therefore” there for?!] of the entire letter, coming after the fulsome presentation of “Paul’s Gospel” (16:25), which forms chs 1-11. The conclusion of these chapters may be viewed as 11:32.
“I urge” [compare other EVV translations]: Paul often presents his more theological material first, followed by his “hortatory” section, given the second is, in his view, the natural consequence arising out of the first. The ground/basis (of his appeal) comes first; then the appeal itself second.
His “appeal”/“exhortation” is addressed to those whom he knows to be his family in the Lord Jesus, the Household of God - “brothers and sisters” - who share in common the Holy Spirit. We are all in this together; but only so on account of God’s gift and doing, his Grace/Mercy.
“Offer”/“present”: classic Jewish sacrificial language. And what is so offered up is first off most concrete - as befits an Incarnational belief, and the God of Creation. Yet this entire first verse also leads back directly to ch.1 and vv.18ff. There the matter was “false worship”, worship of the creature(s) rather than the Creator (v.25); and the result of such “folly” (v.22) furthermore involves both “hearts” and “bodies”, which will be taken up directly in 12:1-2. Note too “desire” (1:24): Augustine will make much of this human trait, since in his schema the entire point is to desire the God who made us and yet we stupidly seek after instead false objects of worship. I.e. he beautifully paraphrases Paul.
In the OT, “sacrifices” were slaughtered naturally, and so dead (or were vegetable); now, since we Christians are both dead and resurrected in Christ Jesus (Rom 6), we’re able truly to offer our very lives - that supreme gift of God, the Living God, Who Is, is returned to its Source.
Yet here too Augustine (in a sermon) plays delightfully: “the trouble with being a living sacrifice is that it has a habit of crawling off the altar!”
“Holy”: anything given over unto God, as we Christians should now be, was considered holy in the OT.
The “aroma/odour” of any burnt sacrifice in the OT was often described as smelling pleasant or pleasing to God. Cf. 2 Cor 2:14-17.
All of which response ‘accords well’ with what we should be doing: creatures are meant to worship their Creator (Rev 4 & 5). This response is the most “logical/rational”, consistent reaction to what chs 1-11 have displayed: the phrase “true and proper” is thus one translation; another is “spiritual”. And “worship” is one of a pair often used: leitourgia = bringing of offerings or performing ceremonial services; latreia, as here = worship/service of God.
2/3. The neat thing about v.2 is that it echoes delightfully and in passing the NT Catechism. See Eph 4:(17-) 20-24, with v.23 directly paralleling Rom 12:2. [See now my God’s Address—Living with the Triune God: A Scripture Workbook in the Style of Manuduction to Accompany The Lion, the Dove, & the Lamb (Wipf & Stock, 2017).] I.e. v.2 compresses an inordinate amount into its full and real meaning - if we but knew it and heard the full echo that Paul is wanting us to invoke.
“Conformed to this age/world”: adding the word “pattern” in your translation brings out the Greek verb nicely. All that is opposed to God comprises an entire “scheme” - in both senses of that word. And here there’s often a real difficulty. Many folk are simply blind to the fact that there IS such a ‘world’ which is against God (back to 1:21-22 again). This “period” of history in which we currently live as humans consists of two opposing ‘worlds’, or ‘schemata’, one which is under God’s Kingdom and another which opposes his Rule. Cf. Col 1:12-14. The NT simply makes no sense apart from this Apocalyptic dualism. Now; of course it’s pretty fashionable to discount such a scheme of things in the modern, secular West. The world is the world is the world; and that’s all there is to it. And furthermore, it’s but a natural evolutionary process ... This is one enormous temptation for Western Christians. Nor do I sense many of us have managed to quite reconcile either the natural sciences or the social sciences with our Christian Faith very well. The history of theology these past 200 years is instructive. Indeed; I fancy much of what passes for discussion on That Topic has its roots right here.
Next. I write this in God’s Address re Eph 4:20-24. “This archetypal pairing of putting off the old and putting on the new (see too Col 3:1–14), “in the power of the Spirit” (Rom 8:13), via the “renewing of the spirit of the mind”, may be likened to a pair of scissors. Such an instrument is made up of three things: a pair of opposing blades, and a rivet holding them together. This crucial pivot, with a similar contrast of old and new, is exactly what Paul presents again at the turning point of his magisterial Romans, 12:1–2.”
“Mind”: technically, this word nous had uses in popular mysticism and philosophy, as a specific faculty that engaged such things. Paul may or may not be thinking of this here. Overall, the point is clear enough: our ‘human control centre’ is to engage with the significance of what has happened on account of the Gospel, both externally, objectively in history itself, and to each and every Christian by way of their conversion and incorporation into Christ Jesus, Who in Himself, is the New Age. Once more, this ensures our response is “consistent with” the Gospel (as in the last part of v.1). Yet this “transformation” is no instant thing; it is continuous in this current ‘world’. Cf. 2 Cor 3:18. Our “walk in the Spirit”, who does this transformation work within us, is an ongoing business (Gal 5:25, Rom 8:9-13). My most fulsome experience of the sort of thing envisaged here has been my exposure to the work and ministry of Leanne Payne. Her Pastoral Care Ministries and now, after her retirement and death, the Ministry of Pastoral Care Schools were/are quite extraordinary. They are a special and almost unique expression of what this “transformation” is all about, I warrant. And they surely address the very sorts of things Bowman is raising by way of “invincible ignorance”, etc. Actually, firstly, in the power of the Risen Jesus, such things prove to be NOT invincible, although seemingly, previously they might have appeared so; they are also brought to light/into the Light, and so become “known” - as they were always in God’s Sight anyway. And I’m also referring to intergenerational stuff as well ...
3/3
“Then”: so that, the purpose and goal of all this. “Test and approve” unpacks the double sense of the Greek: both prove and approve; approve, having first tested; both discerning that will and then of course following it faithfully, obediently.
And of course such a divine will is three things in this context. For God himself is always “good” and just; and such goodness (of God and God’s purposes) pleases him, brings God pleasure and joy; “perfect” is also “mature/complete” (as in Matt 5:48), and so naturally rounds everything off. There is always a point to all that God does and is!
This running commentary, Brendan, has already begun to address your subsequent questions. These verses are absolutely seminal, as I say, regarding the Christian life in general, and so should be able to bring MUCH LIGHT TO BEAR upon our present Anglican dilemmas. They also govern both confessors and their supplicants, in my experience. To summarize therefore. Christians are sanctified by the patient ministry of word-and-sacrament; by private and corporate prayer; by consistent and persistent “acts of mercy” in their ministry and mission in and to and for the world. Via all these things the Holy Spirit conforms us to the Image of Christ Jesus. I wrote God’s Address as an explicit answer both to making things Trinitarian operational, and to guide folk into reading Scripture via a Trinitarian lens - in a Trinitarian vein, as I say. That very ‘reading’ leads most naturally to an entire set of other things (as the workbook also lays out). For the Triune God works in those Ways he has clearly laid out for us in his written Word. It’s only a case of learning (as a disciple!!) ‘How’ to ‘Read’, and so how to “Perform” such a ‘reading’. The trick is ever becoming a practised, virtuoso performer, following the score of the text of the Word (written and Personal) in the power of the Spirit, unto the Father’s Glory.
Hi Bryden
Thank you for taking the time to make a such a comprehensive response to my question. I agree that they are pivotal verses in helping us understand the process of transformation God seeks to undertake in the mind and the life of the believer.
I agree with the ‘two kingdoms’ understanding of the environment we inhabit, and the battle that is ever present for the hearts and minds of the believer, and ultimately Christ’s Bride, the Church.
Yes, to submitting our bodies as a living sacrifice, and our minds to the transforming power of God’s Word and his Holy Spirit. I am unaware of the life and ministry of Leanne Payne, however she has clearly had a significant impact upon you. The teaching and ministry of Derek Prince had a similar impact on my life as a new believer (and beyond). He came to Christchurch at least once, and had a powerful ministry in the spirit as well as the Word. Many were healed and delivered from demons in his meetings as I recall.
I appreciate that you have also added the sacraments to the Word and the Spirit. This is an emphasis I have begun to appreciate more since my involvement in the Anglican church. Ron, if you are reading this, then I’m sure that will please you!
Over the years, I have had the privilege of seeing many people’s lives transform through the process you have outlined, albeit maybe not as well understood as you have expressed. As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 4:20 “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” (NIV). Surely, this is the transforming power at work in Romans 12:1-2.
Blessings…
Warm thanks to you, Brendan, for another fascinating comment. Your questions at 5:52 are so close to my heart that I have for years considered blogging somewhere about them alone. I will answer tomorrow, as it takes time to write a concise reply. If the result is not also brief, I will post it to a more current thread where Blogger is less likely to inconvenience Peter by misplacing it.
Bowman Walton
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The 'blessing' of same sex couples (as opposed to marrying them) simply condones fornication (they are after all sexually attracted to each other) outside marriage. Okay so sexual activity is now okay outside marriage...but only for same gender couples...not heterosexual couples. Total madness. We clergy need to get out of this unholy mess ASAP.
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