How countercultural is Christianity? It's an uncomfortable question. Today’s readings from Ezekiel and Mark 6 are a wake up call. As believers we stand against the tide, so far as faith goes against ‘impudent and stubborn’ unbelievers ready to ‘shake the dust of our feet’ if needs be. And yet our good news is validating for all, believers or unbelievers, not to mention the creation and the cosmos. That’s the nature of God's amazing inclusive love.
As I was praying through today’s readings last week I was reminded I was doing so in the closing days of Pride month at a season when our Archbishops have invited all parishes to digest ‘Living in Love and Faith: Christian teaching and learning about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage’ as the General Synod considers relaxing the prohibition on same-sex marriage. Some of you may have seen my reviewed of the document in ‘Faith in Sussex’. As I prayed I felt led to share something about the document to focus our response to today’s scripture considering the relationship of church and society at a time of enormous change in understanding sexual relationships.
‘Living in Love and Faith’ is written by the House of Bishops. It celebrates the Christian good news looking at what the Bible, Church tradition and contemporary Christian experience have to say about sexuality alongside the social and biological sciences. There is a celebration of marriage, friendship, celibacy and a hard headed, largehearted, unprescriptive engagement with the issues of same sex marriage and gender fluidity represented through life stories. The resource is available free online with materials for group study including a video and podcast.
Here is a discomfiting quotation: ‘In our society, equality with regard to sexual orientation is becoming a litmus test for moral competence. Distinctions made between acceptable sexual behaviour for gay or lesbian and straight people are seen to render the Church of England, and other religious bodies of the same mind, untrustworthy moral guides not only in this but in other areas of human life… For some, the deepest problem is that of sexual abuse. Members of the Church of England, clergy and lay, have been responsible, shamefully, for perpetrating abuse, for mistreating survivors of abuse, and for covering up the activities of abusers. Some of the relevant practices and attitudes have had deep roots in the church’s institutional structures and culture – and some believe that the situation was made worse by aspects of the church’s moral teaching’.
The Bishops do not pull their punches on the gravity of this moral challenge whilst remaining level headed on the challenge to existing teaching set forth by them most recently in 1991. I quote: ‘Homophile orientation and its expression in sexual activity do not constitute a parallel and alternative form of human sexuality as complete within the terms of the created order as the heterosexual. The convergence of Scripture, tradition and reasoned reflection on experience… make it impossible for the church to come with integrity to any other conclusion’ That statement, which binds gay ordinands and clergy to celibacy, is coupled to affirming God’s love being as great for homosexual as for heterosexual people, a truth distinct from the unalterable givenness of marriage. Thirty years on in this new document the House of Bishops provide a catch up on how the world has changed, an outline of new thinking within the Church of England and an invitation to seek the Holy Spirit’s leading for new vistas on the disagreements and differences clearly outlined.
How do Anglicans see authority? ‘Living in Love and Faith’ clarifies the importance of scripture, tradition and Christian experience in building consensus on truth and falsehood, right and wrong. This ‘three-legged stool’ is presented, with clarifications helping explain the heated divisions in the Church and the ecumenical implications of any change in marriage. In 2007 the International Anglican–Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission provided a summary of agreements and disagreements stating: ‘In both our Communions marriage has a God-given pattern and significance, entailing the life-long exclusive commitment of a man and a woman, encompassing the reciprocal love of husband and wife and the procreation and raising of children’. In almost 500 pages the document makes one reference to the ordination of women although those involved in the ongoing discernment in that realm will feel at home with its ambience. It is a struggle to sift sound development from innovation, weighing age old practice against calls for change, in marriage, ordination or other realms. Where if anywhere do we go with the culture? Do we stay counter-cultural?
‘Living in Love and Faith’, which you can access free online, steers evenly through issues with intellectual and spiritual rigour helped by repeated and fair presentations of rival positions. Readers are invited to eavesdrop on a series of conversations at the end of the book between those who disagree on issues of sexuality and check whether they can identify with contributors including celibate and sexually active gays and trans gender folk. Some of the statistics got me thinking: The fall in Church of England weddings by 27% from 2007 to 2017; that 64% of the British public said same-sex relationships were ‘not wrong at all’ in 2016, up from 47% in 2012, and 11% in 1987 near to the last reiteration of Christian teaching by the Bishops. There is an explanation of the ever changing LBTQ+ vocabulary. Though the Bishops do not address trans issues directly they mention the Evangelical Alliance report, Transsexuality (2000). This outlines the dilemma as to whether obedience to Christ for trans Christians means ‘learning to accept and live with their given biological identity because this is the identity which God has given them’ or ‘seeking a new post-operative identity on the grounds that it is this which will enable them to more fully express the person God intends them to be’.
‘Living in Love and Faith’ gives consideration to the misuse of power in sexual relations, sexual abuse and the ascendancy of internet pornography. I quote again: ‘Sin is at work whenever we treat another person simply as a means to our own ends, when we are inattentive to their needs, when we fail to recognize that they, too, are delighted in by their Creator. And sin is at work when we fail to see that we, too, are delighted in by God’. The beauty of the document is its continual return to such tested Christian wisdom in its explanation of ethical teaching alongside the good hearing it gives to people struggling with the restriction of sexual activity to heterosexual marriage.
In inviting debate on how things can develop pastorally the authors admit they disagree on whether there is a clear Anglican approach on sexuality. With echoes of the ordination of women they conclude ‘we see an ongoing and evolving argument in Anglican history about the proper answer to these questions, with different sides marshalling the evidence of Anglican history in different ways, to suit their differing answers’. The future will tell but looking through this document might be a good act of Christian discipleship as it serves to settle misinformation and encourage us to better engagement between church and society. The Lord guide us forward as a parish and as a diocese as we look to be instruments of the all inclusive love of God whilst respecting the proven, age old guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Full review: https://johntwisletonreviews.blogspot.com/
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