The first part of this article defended the guidance against three prominent criticisms that have been made of it. This second part turns to highlight three areas of ambiguitiy, unclarity or inconsistency before concluding with some thoughts on the challenges we now face.
Questioning, Conscience, Discipleship and Discernment
Prior to their statement about not refusing the sacraments the bishops state that “Those same sex couples who choose to marry should be welcomed into the life of the worshipping community and not be subjected to questioning about their lifestyle” (para 18, italics added). That final phrase is on one reading unobjectionable but on another an alarming precedent.
This guidance likely orginates in the 2005 statement on civil partnerships which said lay people entering civil partnerships “ought not to be asked to give assurances about the nature of their relationship before being admitted to baptism, confirmation and communion” (2005, para 23). The difference here is that someone who marries someone of the same sex is clearly departing from church teaching which is not true for those entering civil partnerships. It may be that this guidance is simply repeating that of 2005 and preventing enforced and intrusive questioning about sexual behaviour, especially towards those who are new church members and who are to be welcomed into a congregation’s life. That is important guidance and it is sad that it needs to be said. However, on the surface, it appears potentially much broader. Those who marry someone of the same sex are, it could be claimed, not to face any questions about that decision within the life of the worshipping community. The danger here is that this sounds frighteningly like – and could be widely heard as - the widespread privatisation of moral decision-making. It can be understood to be saying that to be a welcoming Christian community entails never questioning or being questioned about one’s “lifestyle” even when it is evidently contrary to biblical and church teaching. This is to abandon being a community of moral discernment and moral formation which seeks to enable mutual growth in faithful discipleship.
There can clearly be questioning that is wrong and damaging in tone, substance, timing and intent. Damage is most likely where there is a power imbalance which may be alluded to here with the use of “subjected to”. Nevertheless, respecting the freedom of conscience claimed by someone living contrary to the church’s teaching must not entail refusing to question them about their decision. An appeal to conscience to justify conscientious dissent cannot be separated from an acceptance that each person has a responsibility to train and form their conscience. A key element in that is dialogue with, including being questioned by, those who disagree. This discipline of mutual accountability is true both in society generally and particularly in the church where we all need to learn to be open to question about our lives.
The difficulty with any wholesale rejection of “questioning about lifestyle” is not only that it fundamentally undermines a process whereby individuals may come to recognise and turn from sin in their own lives. It also prevents the church from recognising its own moral errors through ecclesial discernment. If the church is wrong in its judgment about same-sex marriage then how will it come to recognise its errors? Surely in large part through questioning and being persuaded by the answers of those of its members who believe the church is wrong and so conscientiously depart from its teaching in their own lives? If I cannot question someone about why they have done something I consider to be wrong I cannot learn that my conscience is the one which is flawed and in need of reformation.
Although there is a real risk of this privatising interpretation there is a hopeful sign that this is not the case. Reference is also made to “pastoral discussion of the church's teaching” with those who enter same-sex marriages including “their reasons for departing from it” (para 21). This is exactly the sort of “questioning” that needs to be encouraged. The danger is that the guidance may be read as limiting this to a particular set of circumstances, one which raises further questions about the details of the guidance.
Acts of worship following civil same sex weddings
The reference to enquiring about a couple’s actions appears in guidance on “acts of worship following civil same sex weddings”. This heading introduces a new and ambiguous category in episcopal guidance in this area. The 2005 statement on civil partnerships spoke simply of “the blessing of civil partnership” which it then ruled out. The new statement similarly states “services of blessing should not be provided” and that “clergy should respond pastorally and sensitively in other ways”. In doing so it claims that it is following “the same approach as commended in the 2005 statement” but there are at least three significant tensions and unclarities.
First, the decision to apply the same approach in relation to prayer and services is a different method to that used in relation to clergy. There it was held that same-sex marriages and civil partnerships are not equivalent and so a stricter response than in 2005 was required. This difference is never explained or justified.
Second, by referring to “acts of worship”, the guidance could be understood as giving greater freedom to clergy in responding to same-sex married couples than they were explicitly granted for those entering civil partnerships. It remains, however, unclear what is being said here. One reading is that this simply allows some informal recognition in a Sunday service as for other newly married couples, perhaps including them in the intercessions. If so then the statement is pretty rigorist - even this requires "pastoral discussion of the church's teaching and their reasons for departing from it". Another reading is that a specific service, perhaps a "service of prayer and dedication after a civil marriage", will be acceptable as long as it is not a "service of blessing" (what is prohibited are “services of blessing” not “services including blessing”).
Third, although the bishops encourage “more informal kind of prayer” there is not even the clarity of the earlier Guildford advice which refers to “praying with and for such persons informally in a private or domestic context". It would appear therefore that "other ways" of "pastoral and sensitive" response could include "acts of worship following same-sex marriage" as long as these are not "services of blessing". This has certainly been how some have understood and implemented the 2005 guidance although this has been strongly critiqued, for example, by Gavin Foster.
If this is the case then the guidance appears very close to permitting implementation of the Pilling recommendation (though with no requirement to involve the PCC). While not authorising a liturgy (which was never proposed by Pilling) and so able to say “liturgical practice also remains unchanged” (para 20), the guidance could permit public acts of worship to mark (the Pilling Report talked of “mark” and “celebrate” not “bless”) a same-sex marriage. However, were public acts of worship to be arranged after a same-sex marriage there remain serious questions about their legality. Canon B5 is clear that ministers “may on occasions for which no provision is made in The Book of Common Prayer or by the General Synod under Canon B 2 or by the Convocations, archbishops, or Ordinary under Canon B 4 use forms of service considered suitable by him for those occasions”. However, such services “shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter”. Given Canon B30 and the bishops’ appeal to it in this guidance it would therefore appear difficult for any legal service to refer to the couple as married. It is also difficult to see how such a service could be consistent with the guidance and meet the expectations of the couple as the next section explores.
Pastoral accommodation
The statement says what is not permitted in pastoral responses but fails to offer any practical guidance on how best to pray for such a couple in conformity with the teaching and discipline of the church. In my experience this is a major question for many clergy facing the prospect of requests for prayer. How does one speak the truth in love – to the couple in pastoral care and to God in prayer with them and for them – about their decision if the truth is as it is set out by the bishops? Clearly there will be positive intentions and many virtues within the relationship which can be affirmed but, even leaving aside the question of sexual behaviour, if the marriage itself is viewed as a “departure from church teaching” and choosing to enter a way of life not compatible with framing one’s life according to the doctrine of Christ then does that also not need to be acknowledged in some way?
The Pilling Report highlighted the idea of pastoral accommodation. This was defined by Oliver O’Donovan in his evidence as “a response to some urgent presenting needs, without ultimate dogmatic implications” and perhaps “paradoxical in relation to basic moral belief”. In the words of the Faith and Order Commission’s report, Men and Women in Marriage (para 49) the goal is “bearing witness in special ways to the abiding importance of the norm” through an action which can “proclaim the form of life given by God’s creative goodness and bring those in difficult positions into closer approximation to it”.
O’Donovan’s evidence offers examples of “just war” and the church’s provision for marriage in church during the lifetime of a former spouse. The episcopal guidance in relation to the latter he described as being given “to uphold the principle that marriage was essentially a lifelong commitment and broken marriage was a wrong”. He also cites an earlier proposed prayer after abortion. This was not “to invoke the blessing of God on an abortion” because “the text of the prayer acknowledged sorrowfully that a human life had been taken” and sought to sustain “a witness to the meaning of the act that is certainly not maintained by simply taking no notice”.
The difficulty with these examples is clear - After a same-sex marriage are people looking for prayer which, to rework the examples above, would "not invoke the blessing of God" on a same-sex marriage but rather “uphold the principle that marriage was essentially" a union of one man and one woman and same-sex marriage "was a wrong”? Would they welcome prayers which “acknowledge sorrowfully” that their new marital situation places them in a “difficult position” needing to brought “into closer approximation” to “the form of life given by God’s creative goodness” proclaimed in the liturgical action?
Someone involved in the Pilling Report commented to me that the weakness in the abortion example is that it does not deal with a situation of celebration. To my mind the deeper problem is thinking that “pastoral accommodation” as defined above is the proper approach when the pastoral situation is rightly described as one of unqualified “celebration”. This is perhaps at the heart of the pastoral challenge raised by the bishops’ guidance. Even if the church can be faithful to its sexual ethic and celebrate committed same-sex relationships which have many positive qualities (itself an issue of major disagreement), it cannot celebrate such relationships as marriages as long as it upholds its current doctrine of marriage. But celebration of their marriage is precisely what is being sought by those same sex couples who “seek some recognition of their new situation in the context of an act of worship” (para 19).
The challenges
The statement and the responses to it highlight the near-impossible challenges now facing the church. These result from the new marriage law’s incompatibility with the church’s doctrine of marriage and from the church’s internal divisions over that doctrine and how to respond faithfully. The response of the bishops is based on upholding the current teaching. It is marked by
- Continued distancing from and opposition to the state and the law in this area. This is never easy, particularly for an established church. When it is on a matter where church and state have previously been partners in basic agreement and the church retains a special legal responsibility and social function it is even more uncomfortable. If wider society generally comes to accept the state’s definition the stance will be yet more difficult to maintain.
- Clergy upholding church teaching in their lives. The statement that clergy should not marry same-sex partners creates an incompatibility between two public statuses and so makes open confrontation almost inevitable.
- Limited guidance on responding to those who marry a same-sex partner. Here there is a refusal to excommunicate on the one hand and a refusal to marry or allow blessings on the other, both of which have upset parts of the church. Apart from these boundaries, there is, however, little or no practical guidance on how - given the church’s teaching – to respond in relation to training in discipleship, mutual discernment, private prayer or public worship.
One way forward is to see the problem as lying with the current teaching about marriage. Rewrite that, or just make it optional, and there is no need for distance and opposition, clergy can marry their same-sex partners and the church can hold weddings and call on gay and lesbian people to marry as a pattern of faithful discipleship. Many clergy and a number of bishops would welcome or at least tolerate this way forward. The problem is that such a move would now be a radical volte-face, very hard to justify theologically, lead to major divisions in the CofE and Communion, and damage relationships with ecumenical partners.
What then is the alternative? It is to work out and follow through the positive, practical implications of the church’s teaching for its own internal life and its witness in mission and ministry to the nation. The statement begins to do this but it does so more in the form of prohibitions which mark certain boundaries. For those opposed to the teaching these are unacceptable and they have come close to viewing the bishops as like the false shepherds of Ezekiel 34. For those committed to the teaching there is much that is welcome but also elements of concern and a desire for clearer leadership in thinking and following through the practical implications of the teaching. The problem is that such a move is unlikely to come from the bishops, certainly as a House, and it needs to be developed on the ground by learning from experience and sharing of best practice.
One reason that further practical guidance is unlikely from the House of Bishops is that some of its members do not personally believe that the church’s doctrine of marriage as being a union of a man and a woman is true and something which “most benefits society” (para 8). Others, although personally convinced of such a view, are concerned about the implications – in church and wider society - of following that commitment through in church teaching and practice. Those concerns will have been deepened by the strength of criticism they have faced for upholding the teaching and following it through even to the extent they have done.
The sad reality is that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Although it is reported that only one bishop voted against the guidance, it is also being claimed that a significant number, even a majority, are not personally happy with it. The reactions to the guidance make clear just how extensive the divisions are in the wider church and thus how difficult the environment for the facilitated conversations is going to be. They also perhaps highlight two areas where the conversations need to focus their attention but which were largely unaddressed by the Pilling Report:
(1) What doctrine of marriage should the Church have and how should it then bear faithful witness to that in ordering its own life and in mission in a wider society which recognises same-sex marriage? and
(2) What is to be done, what new church structures may be needed, so that those who find themselves unable to accept the conclusions on the doctrine of marriage and its practical implications can faithfully bear witness to their understanding of marriage without undermining the mind of the majority or condemning the Church of England to continuing destructive conflict over this issue?
Dear Jane,
Yes, Holy Week draws near, like a cat on tiptoe. And I’ve never before seen a Lent in which all the repenting was done by striking new balances through changes. Again and again, they have come, happy in themselves, but disruptive just the same, requiring new calibrations on the fly. Those skiers at Sochi who raced down slopes and swooped up to do twists and somersaults in the sky now seem rather penitential. Falling from mid-air, they sometimes landed on their feet and othertimes ‘missed the mark.’ By Pentecost, nothing will be quite the same. But better choppy than floppy.
‘LGBT inclusion’ does sound like what people campaign for, and maybe against, but I pray for something even better– that the fear, anger, self-righteousness, etc on all sides will be ‘demobilised,’ so that a Christ-centred wisdom about sexual virtue for the times God has given us can germinate and flourish instead. There is more to be learned from the Word, the heart, and nature than we have heard, and we cannot learn until our minds are free.
That, as you say, would have to be “under God’s hand and ordinance” so that “our churches [are] the places of safety and refuge they should be.” So you have the last word after all.
Foolishly (narcissistically?), we seem to fixate on Lent, then neglect the season of joyous mysteries that follows– Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost. What is the point of doing that? But you will not make that mistake.
Thank you again for posting, and
Blessings,
Bowman
Dear Bowman
Thank you for your blessings on my Lent; it would seem now that all our Lents are entering choppy waters.
I will close here as I don’t wish to sideline you from involvement in other more pressing conversations. But I feel compelled to give here some final thoughts on this thread (but please do feel free to have the ‘last word’):
If, as some of us believe, the LGBT inclusion process is underway and under God’s hand and ordinance, and even those of us who do not believe such a thing could exist, cannot stop it, and whether we are involved in it or not, we cannot stop it and even if we dig in our heels in to the uttermost, we will not stop it…..
so, in the meantime, could we hear again the church teaching that enjoins us to treat other people as we would ourselves wish to be treated and to forbear from judging others (not even God judges us yet – he will wait until the final day) and to rejoice with the angels when one new person comes to faith (visits our church) and to make our churches the places of safety and refuge they should be.
(If I could represent the token same-sex married couple in every church (I can’t, I’m in a straight marriage) in order for our church people to reassess their responses and attitudes – I would….)
Blessings on you too, Bowman,
Jane
Jane,
We are half-way through Lent; I hope that yours has been blessed.
“How far do these people make same-sex couples who visit their churches feel distinctly lacking in positive qualities? Are these the ‘busybodies’ and ‘gossips’ that Bowman has warned me about?”
Yes, they are.
Thanks for hopping threads and for the link to Richard Beck. Marie Noonan Sabin seems (trys! 😉 to elude those categories– a Jew happily married to a Catholic, her feminism is alert to play amid archetypal difference. More Julia Kristeva than Judith Butler.
I distinguish between ‘registration’ and ‘wedding’ because it is clearer. Since churches– even those that do not yet suspect it– are about to start theologising from scratch, that clarity is useful. It is especially useful to those who like to orient themselves by the scriptures, of course.
There was a moment in the ’90s when those struggling to get underrepresented voices into the established canon of literature discovered that, whilst they had succeeded in championing the unread, they had also disestablished the canon that everyone had thought was their job. In lots of places, for better and maybe for worse– I don’t know– this is a moment like that one. The ’90s did not last forever, but neither will the ’10s, and we are dealing in realities that shape lives ad span generations.
Blessings,
Bowman
Dear Bowman
Thank you so much for your further comments and especially these more recent ones on prayer.
When I find myself in moments of anxiety on behalf of couples I won’t even know in churches I am unaware of, I come back to the realisation that God will salvage all things for his own use and glory. We are all on a journey and our churches too are on a journey – my hope is that the changes in secular society will in the long-term be extraordinarily challenging and catalysing factors in the evolving response in our churches. I was especially encouraged by your words here: “When SSM came to New England, scenarios arose in my circle of acquaintance that I was astonished to find there, even though courses on ethics had posed them in a theoretical way years before. The lives, though others’ to live, were close enough that the real stuff of life infiltrated the old opinions.” I am convinced that we will see similar infiltration here and I must learn a little more patience.
I found your proposal of a choice between ‘weddings’ and ‘registrations’ intriguing but this is a suggestion that may have had some traction in the 80s and 90s but now I’m afraid it’s day has gone. Our evolving social structure where couples who marry are not mandated to have children, nor are couples who have children mandated to marry, indeed all these decisions left to personal choice, has become a shared understanding into which the idea and now reality of same-sex marriage has found its place. The churches should encourage fidelity and discourage damaging and demoralising promiscuity but we meet people where they are, and walk with them as they muddle through to faith. The main point I would make here is that ‘wedding’ and ‘registration’ are but one day in a life, both sets of couples will thereafter commit-to-marriage or not, depending on beliefs, experiences, circumstances, commitments (and this has been true previously of marriages and civil partnerships).
Andrew Goddard writes: “Even if the church can be faithful to its sexual ethic and celebrate committed same-sex relationships which have many positive qualities (itself an issue of major disagreement), it cannot celebrate such relationships as marriages as long as it upholds its current doctrine of marriage. But celebration of their marriage is precisely what is being sought by those same sex couples who “seek some recognition of their new situation in the context of an act of worship” (para 19).”
But the Church of England is not a homogenised unit and if we allowed freedom of conscience on this issue (as we do on many other issues) and the recognition of a Christian sexual ethic that calls all people in committed sexual relationships to marriage, we may see an encouraging number of same-sex couples seeking recognition of their new situation even in their own churches, in a service taken by their own minister and amongst their own congregation who know them, love them and support their decision.
Where Andrew writes that ‘committed same-sex relationships may have many positive qualities (itself an issue of major disagreement)’, I hesitate but feel compelled to challenge myself to discern what he might mean by this: that there are people who believe that same-sex relationships have some positive qualities or that those people believe that they (the same-sex relationships) have no positive qualities. Is this true of all same-sex relationships, even those of many years’ standing, even those of Christian couples, even those which are non-sexual in nature? How far do these people make same-sex couples who visit their churches feel distinctly lacking in positive qualities? Are these the ‘busybodies’ and ‘gossips’ that Bowman has warned me about? Would these people feel that this is similarly true of opposite-sex relationships, especially those which are floundering on the shores of separation or divorce – that they may have some positive qualities but this is still itself an issue of major disagreement?
Your piece on gender and transformation is interesting – may I link to Richard Beck’s blog here:http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/on-masculine-christianity-and.html to add to the conversation.
Of course we pray about this. I can only comment from experience, hoping that it does not bore too much those with more or better experience.
Something interesting about that is that considerations that seem weak as arguments seem stronger as petitions. For example, one might not see the need to relabel civil partnerships as marriages, yet pray for the dignity of those who make life commitments. We have blind spots in prayer as we do in argument, but they are not always the same blind spots. Even when I am almost certainly right about something, I find the best material for prayer– the thoughts that fend off inauthenticity– in those with whom I disagree. None of us see it all.
Sometimes our social selves are drawn to a view of things that is not altogether rooted in our best selves. The former may not be wrong to do as they do– the social world is not heaven– but the difference matters to God and should to us.
And since prayer is ultimately centred on God’s reign rather than our own or others’ action, anxieties about the latter can melt away on our knees. Some of those are about the implicit meanings of actions, others about the social repercussions of them. These are not bad things to weigh in a decision, but when the problem is transposed into real prayer– I don’t mean facile prayer for the victory of this side or that– they have different specific gravities and drift to different levels. If we are honest with ourselves, we take note of this.
They may dissolve some unwarranted certainties. And they may germinate unsuspected ones.
Now that there are married same sex couples there, more of the imagination may cooperate with prayer. That was my experience here. When SSM came to New England, scenarios arose in my circle of acquaintance that I was astonished to find there, even though courses on ethics had posed them in a theoretical way years before. The lives, though others’ to live, were close enough that the real stuff of life infiltrated the old opinions.
God values our prayers more than our opinions anyway.
Is it a general rule that one should spend more time praying about a decision than thinking it through? If so, it has been badly breached on This Topic.
But Lent is a season for repentance. Perhaps others have thoughts on this?
Thank you, Jane, for your timely perseverance. I hope that our discussion is useful to at least a few trying to do the right thing amid change.
Are you attending nuptials today? Perhaps we can put the historic day in perspective.
You detect a subtext in the cautious voices–
“We consider that marriage is holy ground. We can no longer stop you (gay people) from walking upon our holy ground but we can question you as to why you would wish to do so – after all, we have already given you your own ground upon which you may walk. So why do you choose to walk here? Tell us – why?”
Since these voices do share a moment in history, I too hear a subtext–
“Although we highly commend commitment as a virtue in a moral life, we do not see why that would be ‘holy ground’ in a Christian sense for anyone, and await a strong argument that this is so. And however we classify intimate relationships, is is not plain that registering them for the good of civil society is a task for the Church. (We are also thankful for learning, but do not confer degrees, for good driving, but do not license drivers, etc) We do see strong scriptural support for the mandate to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ and for the family relations that arise from it, and that may have warranted the past several centuries of church weddings (although there was never agreement on what that warrant was). But if ‘marriage’ no longer has a widely perceived connection to the scriptural mandate, and if it simply entangles the Church in secular fashions in relationships, then our part in it may have come to an end, returning Christians in societies like ours to the way things were in the first millennium. The idea of same-sex marriage did not pose the question– that was done by a several distinct changes in heterosexual relationships over the past century– but it is the one that finally forced us to see what had happened to the old idea of ‘marriage’ and that it is not reversible.
“Since the British government surprised us all with its enthusiasm for SSM just a few years ago, we have been getting our heads around this, and are muddling through as best we can. Anyone with less perspective than all this will be disappointed by something that we do, and since most people do have less perspective– given the partiality of human interests intelligence is no assurance of it– this gives an occasion to many human foibles. Campaigners on any side distress campaigners on all the others, sometimes luxuriating in the myopia of righteousness well after reason has shown a better path. Busybodies with a compulsive interest in the intimate lives of others do not respond to discouragement in ordinary times– this is how we know that it is compulsive– and any controversy encourages their vice. These are our problems, now as always, but they are not our fault. In the meantime, we must carry on, ensuring we do not deepen that disappointment and distress by talking past one another. Please confer.”
Now it is rare for me to encounter anyone who faces up to all the above with unflinching honesty. But when I do, I still hear a disagreement, although it is a future-directed one with some hope on both sides of it–
(1) Registration of relationships (aka ‘marriages’), now no longer directly related to procreation, can be re-purposed to teach the art of committed relationships. This could be helpful to all couples, but it is urgent for those now in the fragile SSM. Doing so positions the Church to uphold fidelity and oppose promiscuity across the whole of society. In that role, the Church serves as the conscience of society in personal morality.
(2) Rising interest in civil registrations and declining interest in church weddings is a fact that cannot be reversed by anything but evangelism over a long time, and weddings are not an effective vehicle for this. This situation presents the Church with a strategic opportunity to re-purpose weddings, and indeed Christian marriage, with a clearer focus on the scriptural purpose of teaching the art of building families to those couples, only, who intend them. ‘Wedding’ is for those who do intend to have children and need extra pastoral support to face both the perennial battles of the sexes and generations and also such C21 issues as maternal depression, the processes of adoption, reproductive technologies, etc. with informed pastoral support from the Church. ‘Registering,’ whether heterosexual or homosexual, is for couples who do not intend to have children. They should be warmly welcomed in church, but not discouraged from following their impulse to register elsewhere. As they do what they like, the better pattern for ‘weddings’ should gradually take hold.
Although both acknowledge the same realities, they are not wholly compatible. And both are merely proposals to the millions of people who will vote with their feet. But comparison of these two strategies could be more reasonable than what we have thus far seen in cranky debates about authority and equality.
If I had to guess– and I would be basing it on what I see here– I would say that where mere romance is the ideal behind marriage, the enthusiasm for (1) runs high because it seems to ratify that ideal. But in just such places fashionable brides forsake churches for parks, beaches, stately homes, etc which abandons the churches for the full implementation of (2). That is, young Christian brides who are proud that their parishes hang a rainbow banner out for gay couples who want church weddings there are also more likely to want their own nuptials on… oh… why not an island in the harbor where you can see the whales swim past? And why shouldn’t they?
For the present, you suggest a formal ‘honeymoon period.’ Personally, I fear that this would be grievously unfair to those in same-sex relationships– why ever encourage gossips and busybodies?– and yet still irrelevant to the concerns of those who want to see the Church doing something about sex that is robustly scriptural. Over time, it may do the least harm for us all to accept that registering, although encouraged as a step away from promiscuity to mature commitment, is nevertheless not wedding, which is about continuing the cycle of life from generation to generation.
PS– Thinking that your interest in gender might transcend This Topic, I’ve addressed a question to you (along with Angela and Roger) on the Lenten thread.
Dear Bowman
Thank you for your further response, this is very much appreciated.
The House of Bishops’ Statement states: “21. The same approach as commended in the 2005 statement should therefore apply to couples who enter same-sex marriage, on the assumption that any prayer will be accompanied by pastoral discussion of the church’s teaching and their reasons for departing from it.”
Andrew Goddard writes: “Surely in large part through questioning and being persuaded by the answers of those of its members who believe the church is wrong and so conscientiously depart from its teaching in their own lives? If I cannot question someone about why they have done something I consider to be wrong I cannot learn that my conscience is the one which is flawed and in need of reformation.”
Bowman Walton writes: “In fairness, it is not disrespect to ask anyone doing something relatively new and undefined what he s/he means by doing it and what s/he thinks the Church should mean in supporting it. Indeed, it is urgently necessary pastoral work. The alternative is for both parties to go on mere stereotypes of ‘what people like that usually think.’
All of the above might imply a subtext that runs like this:
“We consider that marriage is holy ground. We can no longer stop you (gay people) from walking upon our holy ground but we can question you as to why you would wish to do so – after all, we have already given you your own ground upon which you may walk. So why do you choose to walk here? Tell us – why?”
Meanwhile there are Christian civil partnered couples who have made their committed-to-marriage civil partnerships ‘holy ground’ to a degree that many barely-committed-to-marriage straight married couples would flounder to understand let alone emulate (and no judgment here, just an acknowledgement that marriages vary in their commitment). Thankfully, God is omniscient and knows all hearts, all motivations, all commitments, all marriages. Thankfully, at the end of all things, we are accountable to God and not to the House of Bishops.
I am protective of same-sex couples who find themselves subjected to prickly encounters with church members who feel robbed of something at the centre of their lives but have not been encouraged by their church fellowships to deal appropriately with these feelings. More disturbingly, they have been encouraged by Andrew Goddard to ‘question at will’ (it is not explicitly stated that this should be left to church ministers but I may be missing something here).
Am I right to be concerned? In our church fellowships, how do we talk about our responses to change, our responsibilities in community, our rights to be included and heard, in the interim before ‘Facilitated Conversation’ resources reach our PCCs? Your suspicion that a commonplace outcome will be a challenged and willing-to-be-reformed viewpoint is hopeful but really beside the point – there may be many other outcomes that are not nearly so productive. Could we allow same-sex married couples a ‘honeymoon period’ in our churches in which we allow the witness of their lives and marriages to answer any questions we might have? Would this be beneficial for all parties? Might Fulcrum readers who have stayed with us so far, offer further ideas and options?
Thank you, Jane, for your ‘daring’ post.
“How do we make churches ‘safe space’ for both people who hold to a traditional view of marriage and those who same-sex marry? How do we major on the many tenets of faith that unite them rather than the two or three points on which they diverge? What influence might the traditionally-minded church member have on the same-sex married couple and vice versa if both of them were encouraged to offer the other what the psychotherapists call ‘unconditional positive regard’? How do we make this so?”
Again, you are quite right to reframe the problem as one of supporting discerned calling in Christ. I think, as Craig Uffman has suggested in the Episcopalian debate on the SSM rite being advanced here, that this reframing is itself the essential step. As a corollary, I think that certain sorts of campaign arguments that seem to pre-empt even the occasion of discernment need to be left out in the churchyard, inspiring though they have been to partisans.
“Where some of us will struggle with this new development and not least because we feel that we are being robbed of something at the centre of our lives for the sake of a comparatively shallow materialism by the Church which should be standing with us, how could the Church support us to deal appropriately with these emotions?”
God gives us emotions so that we can better grasp reality, and it is reality that thinking about parenting and procreation have changed in most societies like ours, that churches have been mostly sleepwalking through this transition, and that some souls do feel that. In the short run, it might be helpful to pose this, rather than the expanded civil rights of homosexuals, as the true object of their concern. And once one does that then many possibilities open, both in principle and in practise. There may not be a better church in the world to think this through than the Church of England.
“The onus is NOT on the same-sex married couple to explain why they have chosen to marry. The onus is upon US to accord the same-sex married couple the same degree of respect that we would accord any other married couple attending our church.”
In fairness, it is not disrespect to ask anyone doing something relatively new and undefined what he s/he means by doing it, and what s/he thinks the Church should mean in supporting it. Indeed, it is urgently necessary pastoral work. The alternative is for both parties to go on mere stereotypes of ‘what people like that usually think.’ Whatever the stereotypes, that would be irresponsible. The important onus is the one that opens the conversation, and that is now explicitly on the pastor, as it should be.
And please note Jane, that in the West, weddings for Christians were conducted outside church (eg by the bride’s father) for a bit longer than they have been conducted since in church. The religious reason for doing church-weddings has never been altogether clear, plausible and stable. Protestants and catholics have disagreed about it. You can see from the BCP marriage service that Anglicans have rationalised the practise with a comment on the significance of the act. And at least where I live, far fewer church-going couples now want church-weddings anyway. So one could ask why only homosexuals are to asked what they mean by what they do for themselves and ask of the Church.
“…to ostensibly lead to someone learning that their ‘conscience is the one flawed and in need of reformation’”
I do not know, of course, but I suspect that this will be a commonplace outcome.
“This endorsement of a ‘Licence to Question’… is far more likely (and dangerously) to impose a humiliating and demoralising experience on a married couple with the result that they leave that church (but helpfully taking their ‘departure from church teaching’ with them).”
Jane, you are quite right that this could happen. Doubtless a phrase that sounds merely wooden to many people– a sort of oblique way of saying ‘We have not changed our mind’– could be heard as something hostile by those who understandably expect hostility in the first place. A discussion of how to prevent it is worth having.
But there is also the danger that turning this into a campaigning point may so ‘poison the well’ that couples turn away from churches even without the dreaded experience. A discussion of how to prevent that outcome is also worth having.
Meanwhile, I have enjoyed your contributions to this discussion. Please post again when you can, and have a blessed Lent.
“Surely in large part through questioning and being persuaded by the answers of those of its members who believe the church is wrong and so conscientiously depart from its teaching in their own lives?”
This approach seems to be from the same school of thought that brought us the ducking stool and other trials by ordeal.
Reread as “Come on in and see if you can withstand our questioning long enough for us to work out the right way to love you.”
Dear Bowman
Thank you enormously for your comment above. I dare to reply but (if posted) there is no obligation to read or respond.
Firstly, I’m not sure that people are conditioned early in life to see marriage (generally, let alone same-sex marriage) as they do, as their own experiences and those of others they encounter continually challenge and reshape their views. I contend that it is the ongoing witness of the married lives of civil partnered couples (and especially those that had already committed to many decades of faithful partnership prior to 2005 and those which have successfully and lovingly raised children) that have enabled many people to make the crossing to an inclusive and affirming point of view. I’m afraid that I don’t know about the correlation between family size and support for same-sex marriage but I expect that someone, somewhere, will have undertaken a piece of research on it.
I take your point about the Episcopalian parishes in New England and of course this is hugely saddening – none of our churches should be ‘bad’ churches. However, I would suggest that difficulties arising between factions within a church are amongst those ‘in the family’, between parties who are already ‘in the lifeboat’. When our difficulties arise with a non-churchgoing faction in society generally – a group of people who (in my metaphor) are still floating in the icy water – then we have a totally different degree of ‘difficulty’. Episcopalians unhappy with their church’s policy on property are free to leave and attend another church. LGBT people in our society unconvinced of the Church’s welcome to them are most definitely not attending other churches.
So Lent will not be out before same-sex couples marry – what should be our response? How do we make churches ‘safe space’ for both people who hold to a traditional view of marriage and those who same-sex marry? How do we major on the many tenets of faith that unite them rather than the two or three points on which they diverge? What influence might the traditionally-minded church member have on the same-sex married couple and vice versa if both of them were encouraged to offer the other what the psychotherapists call ‘unconditional positive regard’? How do we make this so?
Where some of us will struggle with this new development and not least because we feel that we are being robbed of something at the centre of our lives for the sake of a comparatively shallow materialism by the Church which should be standing with us, how could the Church support us to deal appropriately with these emotions?
Andrew Goddard writes further “Surely in large part through questioning and being persuaded by the answers of those of its members who believe the church is wrong and so conscientiously depart from its teaching in their own lives? If I cannot question someone about why they have done something I consider to be wrong I cannot learn that my conscience is the one which is flawed and in need of reformation.”
But no! The onus is NOT on the same-sex married couple to explain why they have chosen to marry. The onus is upon US to accord the same-sex married couple the same degree of respect that we would accord any other married couple attending our church. This endorsement of a ‘Licence to Question’ to ostensibly lead to someone learning that their ‘conscience is the one flawed and in need of reformation’ is far more likely (and dangerously) to impose a humiliating and demoralising experience on a married couple with the result that they leave that church (but helpfully taking their ‘departure from church teaching’ with them).
This isn’t a game. This isn’t a cerebral exercise. This is real life and these are real people. We don’t get a second chance to ‘get it right’. And it all happens after Saturday next week!
In response to points in one section of this article:
“The difference here is that someone who marries someone of the same sex is clearly departing from church teaching which is not true for those entering civil partnerships.”
Many of us would view the relationships as essentially the same – a couple committing to a civil partnership will commit to marriage to the same degree that they would commit to marriage in a same-sex marriage. It’s just unfortunate for them that they happen to be committing to marriage at this stage in the 21st century when for some church members in some churches, this ‘departs from church teaching’. For those of us who consider that a couple are committing to marriage whether civil partnered or married, this ‘splitting hairs’ judgement is hardly for the benefit of the same-sex married couple, but for the benefit of those who struggle with this new development.
“Those who marry someone of the same sex are, it could be claimed, not to face any questions about that decision within the life of the worshipping community. The danger here is that this sounds frighteningly like – and could be widely heard as – the widespread privatisation of moral decision-making.”
Or, it could be widely heard as an encouragement to follow the Golden Rule – to accord the same respect to a same-sex married couple’s marriage that you would hope others would accord to your own marriage. I suggest that same-sex couples marry for similar reasons that opposite-sex couples marry – rather than as an attempt, say, to wilfully undermine Ephesians 5:29-31. Also, if you wish to keep same-sex married couples continually accountable to their churches for their decision to marry, how long might those same-sex married couples find their church fellowship in any way tenable? (I appreciate that the couple may then choose to leave their church which instantly solves the problem!)
“It can be understood to be saying that to be a welcoming Christian community entails never questioning or being questioned about one’s “lifestyle” even when it is evidently contrary to biblical and church teaching.”
No, it doesn’t say that to be a welcoming Christian community never entails questioning or being questioned (appropriately, sensitively, confidentially, and supportively) but it may suggest that in this context (same-sex married couples visiting or joining our churches), their decision to marry is not one that deserves questioning – in fact, to do so may be counter-missional. Surely, most congregations will just respect a same-sex married couple’s decision to marry? Straight people committing to marriage never have to justify their ‘lifestyle’ choice, but apparently this is still the case for gay people.
“This is to abandon being a community of moral discernment and moral formation which seeks to enable mutual growth in faithful discipleship.”
Good churches work at supporting people on their journey of faith. Bad churches use guilt, fear, shame and embarrassment, as elements of control and emotional manipulation. Good churches recognise that God convicts of sin by the power of the Holy Spirit and works at each individual’s pace. Bad churches attempt to do God’s work for him in order to encourage compliance with their own specific brand of ‘sinfulness’ and ‘purity’. I generalise here but you may recognise elements of these in churches known to you.
As Pluralist points out above, people can always vote with their feet. A community of moral discernment which does not believe that people should have the autonomy to commit to same-sex marriages, may not see many (or any) same-sex married couples attending their fellowships. The degree to which this undermines our Great Commission is one of the lynchpins of our debate.
Jane, it is a pleasure to read a post from a new voice on this topic.
I won’t bore you with a repetition of my own views– they are more centrist than yours– but I do want to highlight something fresh and important in your post.
First, a look at the divide you address. Some hold a ‘marriage is for lovers’ view, others a ‘marriage is for parents’ view. Usually, a person’s views on marriage reflect her or his experience of marriage, of course, even if the experience is mostly dreaming. In my experience– does yours differ?– the more children someone has, the less enthused about same-sex marriage she or he seems to be (unless there are so many children that one of them is homosexual).
When those who think that they have a lovers’ marriage hear the idea that same-sex partnerships are not quite marriages, they detect an implication that their own marriage (or dream of one) is not quite a marriage either, and they viscerally dislike it. Out of self-interest– though that may not be conscious– they demand equal recognition for all lovers’ marriages, whatever the sexual orientation. This seems to be the majority, and majorities are self-righteous out of sheer majoritarianism, if nothing else. But be it acknowledged, finally– it is a very hard thing for lovers in the contemporary world to be altogether Christian. What supports them in this condition of life?
Fewer now have, or even dream of having, a parents’ marriage of the sort that was usual in both of our countries not very long ago. Those who do are often conscious that they are defying the materialist values of our societies in choosing to prioritise children over careers and consumption and to pledging permanent fidelity rather than just ‘meaningful relationship.’ Because the stakes are so high for people who prioritise responsibility for children, the ‘battle of the sexes’ is among life’s hardest personal challenges. In my country at least, failure in this drives many women into relative poverty, and men into poorer health and lower life-expectancy. To forfend these evils, the status of ‘marriage’ is the one concrete sign that the Church now gives women and men to anchor the heaviest and riskiest commitment of their lives in something more than a ‘lifestyle choice.’ It is not surprising that when they hear that this sign is being redefined around those not so committed to children or fidelity, they feel, not that they are “struggling” to understand something because it is too “new” for their brains to process, but rather that they are being robbed of something at the centre of their lives for the sake of a comparatively shallow materialism by the Church which should be standing with them. The experience of being robbed often makes one long for justice; the experience of being robbed by the Church of something so dear to the heart is beyond description.
I think most people are conditioned early in life to see marriage as they do. This conditioning is not easily escaped, and it comes along with all our other moral notions.
That is why so many argue from the gut as though the bishops were simply mad to be trying to actually read the bible, study scientific facts, and reason about this. Here in Fulcrum, people post their feelings sometimes as though these were breakthroughs in a discussion that had become way too cerebral–
‘Obviously, what I do in my marriage is right, for I, the very centre of the universe, am doing it. Socially-accepted as I am, what I do must be society’s rule for all people of all kinds, and if the Church does not see it my way, then the Church is not as good at this as I am. Those who do not see it my way are somehow defective (though i will politely hint that this is so, rather than saying it).’
But here the ‘healthy narcissism of everyday life,’ as some psychologists call it, is making us self-righteous, pontificating fools. And if we try giving that up for Lent, we won’t get very far, because we need to believe in the lives we are leading to keep up with their exhausting demands.
Plenty of those on both sides have fallen into this trap. When they do, they think that those on the other side are either too stupid to understand the modern world or shallow to see through its false values. The abortion debate in my own country has been polarised in much the same way.
But Jane– finally we get to your point– you hint at a way toward intelligent charity for those stuck in such self-referential loops–
“Good churches work at supporting people on their journey of faith. Bad churches use guilt, fear, shame and embarrassment, as elements of control and emotional manipulation. Good churches recognise that God convicts of sin by the power of the Holy Spirit and works at each individual’s pace. Bad churches attempt to do God’s work for him in order to encourage compliance with their own specific brand of ‘sinfulness’ and ‘purity’. I generalise here but you may recognise elements of these in churches known to you.”
Yes, Jane, I do indeed recognise this in churches on both sides of the divide. That is, among both ‘accepting’ churches with rainbow banners out front and more sceptical parishes still without them, there are some in which the ‘bad’ pattern seems to prevail. Of course, I am describing Episcopalian parishes in New England where SSM has been the law for several years, and both gay and women bishops have been governing us. Society marches on, but social change does not in itself make us better at supporting people.
It would be useful to see discussion here re-focused on how ‘supporting people’ as lovers and parents– and also as women and men– is in fact working, and how those discussing this topic imagine that support working better under both the ‘marriage is for lovers’ view and also the ‘marriage is for parents’ view. For realistically, that will be the task, wherever the Church is faithful, from now on. If we think about this at all during Lent, this surely is the right way to do it. Thank you, Jane, for crystalising this for us.
Postscript– Craig Uffman has written wisely about this–
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/articles/correcting-our-vision/
Jane,
Many thanks for your very eloquent and well-reasoned response to this article. You’ve more-or-less summed up my thoughts far better than I could.
One thing I read recently likened the church’s approach to a person who had rocks, pebbles and sand to fill up a container. Starting with rocks you can fit a load of those, then still fill in the space with pebbles and finally the sand. Sadly, the church leadership feels inclined to fill up the container with sand first, therefore leaving no space for any rocks or pebbles.
If our intention is to fill up the public’s view of the CofE with hatred for our legalistic involvement in their own personal decisions rather than trying to help them grapple with the bigger picture, then we’ve just about succeeded.
‘The difficulty with any wholesale rejection of “questioning about lifestyle” is not only that it fundamentally undermines a process whereby individuals may come to recognise and turn from sin in their own lives’
Surely there’s a difference in approach required here?
“Questioning” sounds a lot like someone in a police cell having the truth beaten out of them. On the other hand approaching someone and saying “Will you tell me about your life so that I can learn?” is, I would suggest, a completely different way of going about things.
What we might regard as another person’s “Lifestyle” is actually their “Life”. By putting issues of sexuality down to lifestyle choices we put it in the same category as “Goes out to dinner often”, “Drives a fast car”, “Attends a local church”. I would suggest that someone’s relationship with a husband or wife is often very far from being about lifestyle and more about who they actually are as a person.
The privatising of interpretation is simply that the lay individual who would be disciplined simply walks away and goes to a different Church. The Methodist Church sees the writing on the wall and is surveying its members; the URC is likely to be more positive. The Church of England is becoming unhooked from the State regarding marriage, into a sort of recognising but not accepting nowhere-land.
Some will campaign and ever campaign to wait for the time lay married will receive at least blessings and for the change to full acceptance of gay marriage, ministry and liturgy. But they have to go through a period of formal denial and informal acceptance before the necessary formalities change, and they may not. Most Anglican liberalism is done on a nod and a wink basis – lax attitudes to creeds and articles that absorb contemporary theology and historical study – but one wonders how this would work without actual change with new rules and choices. My point is that some Anglicans must be incredibly loyal or unable to budge, because there will be religious marriage available from the off, and soon some trinitarian Christian denominations will offer the service. So they ought to leave and go where they are welcome. After all, society is plural, institutions offer choice, and increasingly the restrictions enforced by one particular Church are neither here nor there.
Mike, I think it is unfair to blame the government. The legislation provides the safeguards asked for by the official CofE responses. And the legislation is popular. I don’t know what ‘strong’ popular opinion counts as, but same-sex marriage is supported by a clear majority of the population (and a very large majority of those under 50). See for example the Yougov poll of June 2013, which found that among ‘people of faith’ 58% were supportive. The problem arises from a divergence between the official church teaching and modern society.
I also don’t think that your suggestion of making all marriages civil would please some other denominations (eg the quakers) who have fought for the right to conduct same-sex marriages in a religious setting. The tension belongs to the Church of England, not all denominations.
Thank you Andrew, helpful and careful in teasing out issues.
However, I have a major problem in that I cannot see any theological or societal differences between a civil partnership and same sex marriage. It seems to me to be simply a question of definitions of words and both describe the same relationship. So the standards for one should be the same as for the other.
Maybe a way forward is the much more radical one of removing the right of clergy to conduct marriages of any sort and adopting the model prevalent in many countries where the legal marriage takes place in front of a civil registrar. This would at least remove one area of acute tension.
We have been dealt a problem by a government rushing legislation though without any thought of consequences or, I suggest, even delivering on the basis of strong popular opinion.
“Maybe a way forward is the much more radical one of removing the right of clergy to conduct marriages of any sort and adopting the model prevalent in many countries where the legal marriage takes place in front of a civil registrar. This would at least remove one area of acute tension.”
In the West generally, clergy did not begin to officiate at weddings until early in the second millennium, and they did so then simply because as clerks, they could make a credible record. Theologians of the high middle ages were not in agreement about what if anything done by the officiant was a sacramental act, and especially relevant, some insisted that the consummation of the marriage was the actual sacrament. The C21 debate about the fine distinctions among ‘blessing,’ ‘marking,’ and ‘celebrating’ that Andrew describes takes up old business never quite finished after almost another millennium, even apart from the notion of SSM.
“I cannot see any theological or societal differences between a civil partnership and same sex marriage. It seems to me to be simply a question of definitions of words and both describe the same relationship. So the standards for one should be the same as for the other.”
Abstractly, the difference is between pregnant, hopefully someday, and not pregnant, hopefully ever. Marriage is the state of life for procreation, and civil partnerships are a legal arrangement for lovers. In some places, societies, and their governments and churches, have been treating marriages as civil partnerships for a long time by tacitly or explicitly dropping the expectation of procreation. This is why, when people not constituted to procreate wish to marry, the majorities in those places cannot see why they should have a different status from everyone else.
The prior question is whether a society, state, or church wish to recognise the difference between a couple that is planning for children and a couple that is not. When that is clear, then the place of the church in that recognition, if any, can be sorted out.
There are two deep considerations in that– (1) Should churches be concerned about the declining birthrates of many historically “Christian” countries?; (2) Can the scriptural guidance on sexuality make sense apart from the creation mandate of Genesis 1:28 and 2:18? The first will matter more in the future as the consequences of the decline become clearer. The second is urgent if the main point of the Six Texts was simply to protect the integrity of the couple at the heart of the family, but it remains important for every other area of sexuality. What principle could hold all this together as we find it in scripture, if not human biology, taken to include modern knowledge on the mind and development?
There is an old saying that if you put the big rocks in a box first, even the small ones will fit, but if you start with the small ones, you may not get all the big ones in. We may have been packing the box with the small rocks first.