“House of Bigots?” - The confusing mess of Love and Faith
“House of Bigots” was one of the signs of protest wielded by clerical membership of the LGBTQI+ group this week, when The House of Bishops rejected the motion to grant same-sex marriage. How the Church of England got to this point theologically is a whole other blog in itself*, but the fact that someone who identifies as Christian, let alone a member of the clergy, feels it is acceptable to label senior clergy who say they have wrestled with these things prayerfully, as “bigots” means we are in trouble.
What's going on?
We are drawing to the close of what the Church of England has called the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) initiative. This was a countrywide consultation about the direction the church should go in when it comes to same sex relationships. Sadly, the process was fairly biased from the outset, with the study material being weak on biblical teaching. I want to take this moment to apologise because, at St Paul’s, we did not engage with the LLF process as requested by the diocese. This was not because LLF by default sees Biblical truth as up for debate, nor was it because I didn't want to waste everyone's time raking over this heresy (it actually would have been quite helpful to understand how the ‘other side’ thinks). We did not enter the LLF process because we were emerging from COVID, and because of my lack of capacity at the time.
As the LLF process drew to a close the Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, seemed to want to pre-empt the result by publishing his booklet (“Together in Love and Faith”) calling for same sex marriage to become Anglican doctrine. The other Oxford bishops agreed with him (St Paul’s PCC have recently written to the Bishop of Dorchester to express our dismay). However, rather encouragingly, only a few Bishops beyond the Diocese publicly stood with Croft. When the House of Bishops met last week to discuss it, I was expecting them to support change in our denomination’s doctrine of marriage; mercifully they rejected this doctrinal shift. Or did they?
Yesterday (Friday January 20th) when announcing that they upheld the Biblical view of marriage, they also announced that they want to offer “the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the churches doctrine of Holy Matrimony” (see Church of England website and follow the links). They will do this via a range of (draft) prayers and blessings called “Prayers of Love and Faith” - a resource that can be used voluntarily by churches to provide a blessing for couples “who have marked a significant stage of their relationship such as a civil marriage or a civil partnership”.
They will also be replacing ‘Issues of Human Sexuality’, a document which binds clergy to celibacy outside of heterosexual marriage, which can only mean bad news.
The justification for all of this continues to rest on the Revisionist’s interpretation of 1 John 4:16: ‘God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him”, the overall message being, “if God loves me then he will want me to be happy and follow my heart”.
Rev. Lee Gatiss in his most recent blog for the Church Society (churchsociety.org) helps us with this point: “It is simply not good enough to throw 1 John 4:16 into this debate like a grenade and think that (1 John 4:16) is sufficient to establish that he approves of same-sex marriage relationships”. This text, often used by the Revisionists pushing for further liberalisation of the Church’s teaching and practise, is rarely unpacked in its context.
“What they seem to want it to mean is that it doesn’t matter who or what you love, God is in you if you love them. But is it possible to be living in sinful love, and to hold on to the true Christian faith? Or does orthodox Christian belief rule out certain kinds of love?”
Some will argue that there is no such thing as “sinful love”, only “love” — defined any way we want. However, 1 John has much to say about what we love and desire. For example, chapter 2 v 15-16 which says “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world”.
I was in a large meeting a few years ago debating these things, and a senior clergyman stood up and, quoting Revelation 2 and 3, said, “We must listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches” (in other words, that the authority of scripture can be overridden by what we discern that the Holy Spirit is saying now). This rejects the Bible’s teaching on how we treat the Bible itself – that it is not something that is to be changed. The Holy Spirit himself comes to convict the world of the Bible’s teaching (besides, if the Holy Spirit was at liberty to alter the Bible’s teaching, who ‘on earth’ discerns what He is saying?). But that’s a reminder that this current debate is just one aspect of a bigger battle regarding authority of Scripture.
The next verse in 1 John 2 says “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever” (v.17). “Doing the will of God” defines what John means by love. Our loves are meant to conform to God’s loves. Lee Gatiss again:
“If our loves, lusts, and desires go against his will, we do not live in God and he in us, and we will not live forever. That’s what 1 John is saying. It chimes in perfectly with the rest of the New Testament which insists that certain behaviour (including certain sexual behaviour, but not only sexual behaviour) will exclude people from the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 5; Galatians 5; Ephesians 5). That’s why this is so serious. We need to know what love is, and what faith is, if we want to live forever. Not all love leads to God.
Back in Genesis 3 it was the serpent who subtly undermines God’s word (“Did God really say…”). To call something that God says is ‘sin’, not a sin - is the serpent’s work. The LLF project was basically questioning the Bible’s teaching (“Did God really say…”)**. Therefore, if I teach my congregation that a certain sin is ‘ok’, I am lying to them and leading them away from God and his Kingdom. This puts me in a perilous position with God because I am leading others into sin. However, rather than teach God’s words which say homosexual sex is something that will lead to death, the Revisionists and indeed our own Bishop herald it as life-giving.
A Change in Doctrine?
In the past, a number of my clergy colleagues have cited change in the Church of England’s doctrine as ‘Crossing the Rubicon’ - the point of no return for them as ministers in this denomination. The statement given by the House of Bishops yesterday stated that the Church will “offer the fullest possible pastoral provision without changing the Church’s doctrine of Holy Matrimony for same-sex couples through a range of draft prayers, known as Prayers of Love and Faith” [Media Press Release www.churchofengland.org ]
A wealth of scripture states sex outside of heterosexual marriage is sinful, a fact that has always been recognised by the universal Church and by our own denomination (most recently in Lambeth 1:10 a legal document “rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture”). So, to provide liturgy to encourage God’s blessing on practising homosexual relationships is a major shift. As Gatiss says “To accept this change is to change our doctrine and practice, because our practice reflects our doctrine”.
The Church of England’s doctrine, as set out in the canons and authorised liturgies – which was reiterated by the House of Bishops yesterday states that “Holy Matrimony is between one man and one woman for life”. However, this proposed new liturgy trounces that doctrine. If I hold to the Church’s’ teaching on the one hand and then practise same-sex blessings on the other – I am not holding to the doctrine of the Church of England. One cannot just say about a spade… “this is not a spade” to make it not a spade (“this is not a change in doctrine” doesn’t make it not a change in doctrine!). It's an embarrassing fudge and shows the bishops to have their fingers crossed behind their backs.
Indeed, whilst the Archbishop of Canterbury is saying that he will not use the liturgy, the Archbishop of York is saying that he will, and that this recent change is ‘a step in the right direction’.
Canon B4.1 states that Canterbury and York may approve of liturgies for which no provision is made in The Book of Common Prayer or by the General Synod under Canon B 2, but must be, in their opinion, reverent and seemly and “neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter.”
This new draft liturgy departs from Anglican doctrine. A spade is a spade. It simply cannot be permissible under canon law.
A confusing mess
Yesterday I heard a radio programme where a lecturer from University College London was taking great pains to describe all the different ways people ‘identify’ as an alternative to being a man or a woman (as well as the pronouns that must now be used). The list seemed endless and made me think of how confused and lost the western world is becoming. No doubt there are many vulnerable and hurting people out there who need to be listened to and shown compassion, but this isn't the place to talk about it here.
The reason why I raise this is because when we start to abandon truth, we have to manufacture our own truth, which can lead to such a desperately confusing mess.
If God is not real and if the Bible is not true, then of course we are at liberty to do whatever we want and be whoever we want to be.
Therefore, if the church departs from its rule book, the Scriptures, it has to manufacture its own rules. (But who has the authority to make those rules? Those with the most letters after their name? Those with the loudest voice, or the most hurts?). Or not have any rules at all. This leads to great confusion, not only for the clergy and for the congregations but also for the public looking on. When people look to the Church for direction, for teaching about God, they are increasingly encountering a confusing mess.
Recently, two non-Christians I know have separately shared how bizarre they find it that the Church is giving up on its ‘rule book’. One simply stated the common-sense truth that ‘if you give up on the instruction manual everything will fall apart!’. The other person, who is fairly liberal minded, in particular sees total logic in God’s teaching on creation, identity and human sexuality - and how illogical it is to believe in or insist on a deviance from that.
As Andrew Tettenborn says in his article in The Spectator, “(until now) we had been led to believe that it was the function of the church to welcome sinners (a term including not only LGBT people but all of us) and give us the chance of forgiveness. Now, apparently, its job is to amend the definition of sin and say that at least in some cases we don’t need forgiveness after all. If this is right, why bother with religion at all?” (www.spectator.co.uk)
A Pastoral Mess
On the ground, it's going to be difficult when couples come to me following their civic same-sex celebration, asking for a church blessing. I don't want to be dramatic, but I foresee local press hunting down and naming the clergy who will and who will not bless same sex couples, labelling some churches and their leadership as bigoted and to be avoided (not to mention the social media backlash). A couple of years ago, I mentioned this potential dilemma to the Bishop of Oxford, asking him, in such a scenario, “who will have my back?”. He did not have a satisfactory reply.
Also, in some churches, the vicar may not have the support of her PCC (or in the case of a multiple benefice parish PCCs) because they take a different view, in which case there will be a breakdown of relationship within that church community (because the vicar is saying ‘no’ to a couple who want a blessing, but the relevant PCC is wanting her to say ‘yes’). Moreover, the staff team of a church may differ on these things, causing further hurt and confusion (which wonderfully is not the case at St Paul’s).
What Now?
In his article cited above, Lee Gatiss brilliantly calls for the whole thing to STOP: “We have been discussing this subject in the Church of England literally for decades…there has been no convincing argument made for us to change our doctrine and practice”.
Even the recent booklet by the Bishop of Oxford offers no real engagement with the biblical argument. So, after all this time, it is unlikely that a new and innovative reading of Scripture can be found and be correct. “It is time for those who have failed to persuade us of the need and biblical basis for changing our doctrine and practice, to move on and move out of the Church of England”.
As for you and me, recent studies in Revelation have surely persuaded us not to be brow-beaten, not to drop our shoulders and give up or give in, but instead…to persevere - to keep partnering with others “in the suffering and Kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus… because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” [Revelation 1:9].
Whatever happens at General Synod next month, or in July, the Lord is on his throne [Revelation 4] and one day he will vindicate his people [Revelation 6] and bring us to a wonderful future [Revelation 7]. Therefore, now we PRAY. We cry out “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true?” [Rev.7:10]
And we pray. we pray for our denomination, our bishops but most of all for our nation - that through the continued witness of the apostolic Church, many many men and women, boys and girls will join us in singing “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” [Revelation 7:10]
Dan McGowan
January 21st 2023
* In short over the last 70 years or so the Bible’s authority has been increasingly undermined in much of the Church’s theological training colleges, as an influx of very clever but liberal lecturers and liberal thinkers have become more common place. Thereby we have a denomination that happily welcomes prospective clergy who have little or no time for biblical adherence as a legitimate expression of faith, and who swear on the New Testament at their ordination do so with their fingers crossed behind their back.
** When news of the LLF project first broke, I was very sympathetic with friends who said they would not get involved with it because to do so was to admit that human sexuality was Biblically a grey area and up for debate in the Scriptures, which it is not.