What is going on in the Bishops’ comments on Civil Partnerships?
On Midweek last week, the House of Bishops issued a 'pastoral statement' on the condition of Civil Partnerships, and information technology caused something of a stir. What was it about? Why was information technology needed? And why did it cause a commotion?
The groundwork to this discussion began in 2004. The Regime passed the Civil Partnership Human activity, which created a form of relationship that looked very like to marriage, but which the Labour Government of the time insisted was not marriage. It is worth asking why they did this; there is no really plausible reply other than that it was a way to innovate same-sexual practice marriage without introducing something called same-sexual practice spousal relationship. This is confirmed by the inclusion of language of 'prohibited relationships' (consanguinity) based on marriage, and then that (resisting specific campaigning on this question) the Regime refused to allow siblings to enter CPs. At the time the Conservative party was split on the proposal, partly on the basis of personal convictions, and partly because, at the time, the notion of gay union was hardly a vote winner. How speedily times change!
The House of Bishops was now put in a hard position. Would the Church'southward educational activity on marriage equally the context for sexual relationships allow recognition of CPs? Since CPs were specifically designed, in ii significant ways (lack ofrequirement of public vows, and no explicit reference to the relationship being conjugal) to not wait similar spousal relationship, and then there could be no identification of CPs with wedlock, and this is highlighted in their 2005 statement on the matter. In item, since CPs could, in theory, involve a ideal relationship, and then there was no reasonin principle that two people of the same sex activity should not form a CP, including clergy. The bishops were here making a call equally to whether they believed what the Government said, against all the evidence, or chosen their bluff and highlighted the charade. Andrew Goddard, in his Grove bookletFriends, Partners or Spouses?, summed up the trouble:
The regime could have made UK marriage law 'gender-blind' so that ii people of the same sex could ally. Not but did they not follow this grade, they have created a very few—but non insignificant—differences between ceremonious partnership and marriage. In particular, there is no requirement that civil partners be in a sexual relationship although the presumption that a sexual relationship would exist between civil partners is probably the ground for applying the principles of consanguinity. At that place can exist footling doubt that most civil partnerships volition exist sexual and that ceremonious partners will be generally viewed every bit in such a relationship.
In short, the government claims that although it walks similar a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is not actually a duck. A few details in relation to the creature's plumage give technical justification to those experts who make this distinction and deny it is a duck. This means that care must be taken in merely insisting that it is a duck. Nevertheless, to the untrained eye—which includes most of the media and popular stance—it remains a duck.
Just the duck was given a much louder quack with the Union (Aforementioned Sexual practice Couples) Deed of 2013, since it retrospectively recognised CPs as aforementioned-sex marriages, and in fact couples were counted as having been married from the appointment of their CP. And the duck was given extra tail feathers when the Supreme Court ruled, in response to a case brought past a Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan, that information technology was discriminatory not to let contrary-sex activity couples to enter CPs. There is something very of import to note hither: the ruling wasnot on the basis of their sex activity, but on the ground ofsexual orientation, that is, information technology was a ruling nearly being heterosexual, not virtually existence a male and a female. In other words, the ruling causeless that almost if not all CPs will involve a sexual conjugal relationship. But, as with same-sex marriage, there is no legal definition of a bridal sex act for people of the same sex, so at that place is no legal reference to consummation or adultery. Legally, CPs have become desexualised, and marriage is soon to follow with the universal introduction of no-mistake divorce, which will become the norm.
Now that opposite-sex couples can enter CPs, what should the position of the Church be? Legally, nothing has changed, and so the position of the Firm of Bishops should not change either. In fact, when you compare the pastoral statement from last calendar week with the pastoral statement from 2005, they are most identical, and a good number of paragraphs are copied over verbatim. I suspect that is one reason why no-1 supposed that releasing this would crusade much of a stir: in that location is cypher new here.
Marriage is a creation ordinance, a gift of God in creation and a means of his grace. Matrimony, defined every bit a faithful, committed, permanent and legally sanctioned relationship between a man and a woman, is primal to the stability and health of human social club. It continues to provide the best context for the raising of children.
This is what you would hear if you attended whatever matrimony service in the Church building of England. And the argument last week does indeed take many virtues, as (slightly surprisingly) Jeremy Pemberton points out:
The latest pastoral guidance by the Bishops of the Church of England is designed to address the change in the law in England and Wales that has now opened up Civil Partnerships to contrary sex activity couples equally well as same sex activity ones.
In the guidance they have provided, the bishops make one or two things clear:
- Sexual activity is for heterosexual marriage and nowhere else
- That ceremonious partnerships are a form of friendship
- That they should be sexually abstinent, whoever is in the CP
Let's look at the proficient things showtime. Beginning of all, this is articulate guidance. No i can exist in any doubt about where the bishops stand over the question of sexual relationships. Secondly, at least it does not discriminate further against LGBT people – information technology takes precisely the same stance over the sexual lives of heterosexuals equally well. Thirdly, at that place is a certain bravery virtually offering guidance that is so massively at variance with the mores of the fourth dimension. According to a recent survey, but 4% of British people now think that sexual activity should await until marriage in all cases.
All three of these things are of import, not least the fact that the argument treats people of different sexuality in precisely the same style. It is worth noting that, if the bishops had decided to telephone call the Government's bluff at this indicate, and said 'Look this is a duck!', in other words, that the legal differences between CPs and marriage were in fact negligible, then they would have needed to withdraw the previous statement, and ruled that aforementioned-sex clergy couples couldnot now exist in CPs. No-one appears to have noticed this, and I wonder what the response to that would have been, especially at this stage in the Living in Dear and Faith process?
This leads the states into the question of the responses and criticism. The first mutual one was most the timing; why make this statement now, given all that is going on? The unproblematic answer is that the Government inverse the law, and this created a gap in the previous statement. Amend say something at present, before a clergy couple entered a CP and something had to be done retrospectively. Some complained most the closeness to the reporting of the Peter Ball affair—but that is completely spurious, equally there is no real connexion betwixt establishment protection of a someone who driveling young men, and the idea that marriage is the correct place for sexual practice. If anything, the latter is an appropriate response to the former.
But, secondly, in that location were loud howls of protest that a statement was being made whilst theLiving in Love and Religion process was underway—howls based on a bizarre misapprehension. LLF has never involved suspending the current doctrine of the Church building on marriage and sexuality—after all, weddings are continuing, and the liturgy continues to express that doctrine! In fact, LLF is not even designed to be a procedure that revises the doctrine of the Church on marriage. It is a process of review and discussion, producing education materials, which in principle could open up the possibility of discussion about revision of the doctrine of marriage. In other words, if in that location were ever to be a change, information technology would comeafterthe discussion that comesafterthe discussion of LLF. If that sounds like it might take a long time, that is correct. One useful thing this episode has done is expose how lilliputian understanding there is of the process, even amongst those involved—and raises the question of whether such misunderstanding is wilful.
That is just i elements of the level of ignorance that is evidence not just amidst those outside the C of E, but those within information technology, including clergy and bishops. One retired bishop commented to me on Facebook:
I went to Harvard's fascinating seminars on homosexuality/union etc by RC professors in 1998 when studying in U.s.. They were articulate that the context in which Jesus was speaking was so at odds with how nosotros understand marriage today that it throws trivial lite on the institution (in UK the church's understanding and exercise is altogether different from how it was fifty-fifty simply 300 years ago).
He then goes on to explain that the 'scandal of the incarnation' is that information technology is so particular, and thus Jesus offers us a model of how he wrestled with difficult problems in his day, as we wrestle with difficult bug in ours—but his solutions practice not provide united states with any answers to ours. I notice it quite remarkable that a bishop in the Church of England believes that Jesus' teaching on matrimony and sexual ideals has lilliputian or nothing to teach united states of america about the form of relationships. It seems to represent the hubris of the modern age—that we are unique, and history (including the historical Jesus) has little to teach us.
And Gavin Drake, Manager of Communications at the Anglican Communion, comments:
What surprised me nigh all this is discovering the sheer number of C of E clergy who don't know what cadre C of Due east doctrine is. What do they teach at theological colleges if clergy are so uninformed about a position the Church has taken for ii,000 years and for which they are called to expound on at every single wedding ceremony they preside at?
Ane fellow member of the LLF squad, an academic historian, expressed surprise on Twitter that the statement made reference to the BCP, whenCommon Worship appeared to alter the doctrine of union by irresolute the order of the 'goods' of matrimony mentioned in the introduction—plain oblivious of the status of the BCP in defining the doctrine of the Church, and that all subsequent liturgy is strictly alternative to it and should not be read every bit changing its pedagogy.
The tertiary criticism is most the fashion of communication and the associated process. Rachel Treweek, bishop of Gloucester, issued and tweeted an apology for the way the statement was communicated:
I cannot deny seeing the content of the statement at the meeting of the House of Bishops in December and in terms of factual content the statement is reiterating that in the light of the contempo alter in police allowing civil partnerships to be extended to opposite-sex couples, zero has inverse regarding the legal and doctrinal position of the Church of England. There should have been no surprises for anyone in that. However, I am complicit in making incorrect assumptions in Dec and not asking questions near how this statement was to be used. For me, the publication of the statement in cold isolation from anything else, on a seemingly random mean solar day and defective any pastoral 'surround' or mention of the Living in Beloved and Religion' process, has been perplexing and upsetting. This is even more so every bit it has been released but days before the College of Bishops convene once again to focus on 'Living in Dearest and Organized religion' as we stand in the nowadays looking to both the past and the future.
Three things are worth noting here. Commencement, she is mistaken about the lack of mention of LLF; it comes in paras x and 25 of the statement, and explicitly notes that there are different views in the Church. Secondly, she does non dissent from the content, noting there is zippo new here. But thirdly, she refers to process.
This sort of statement would normally arise in the following way. Someone in the legal department volition have noted that, with a change in law, a new state of affairs has been created. Then someone in the Mission and Public Diplomacy team volition likely have drafted a statement for consideration by the House of Bishops. Since there is nothing new here, and it looks close to being an administrative detail, this will have come to the HoB Delegation Commission (who, by the way, are not in any mode dominated by 'conservatives', so the 'bourgeois plot' theory tin can exist ditched). Once the statement has been agreed by them, information technology will exist passed to the House of Bishops as 'deemed business', that is, included in paperwork, and only discussed by the full Firm if someone asks for information technology to be. I understand that this did in fact happen: Chris Cocksworth, bishop of Coventry, asked for a minor alter, which was included. And so every diocesan bishop read this, knew about information technology, and in fact heard it discussed. Given the factors in a higher place, I am not sure anyone can be blamed for failing to anticipate the furious reaction—but if at that place was an omission in thinking well-nigh the style it was communicated, that omission sits with the bishops.
And fury at that place was. I was interviewed on BBC Radio v Live past a fairly hostile Nicky Campbell on Friday, and you can listen here at 2:55. I was besides in discussion with Alan Wilson on BBC Radio 4 Dominicus, and you tin listen here (first item). What I aimed to do was communicate some central messages, and these included:
The Church'south view on sexual practice is far from the strangest thing it believes. We call up that a Jewish man 2,000 years agone was raised from the dead and is the saviour of the world! That is a lot stranger!
The Church is not out of affect—but information technology is out of step. It always has been when a minority in culture.
There is nothing new here; this is the position you volition hear at any church wedding ceremony.
The trouble here was non created by the bishops. They are responding to a problem created by a failure of the Authorities to distinguish matrimony and CPs.
The Church's pedagogy is skillful news by telling people that you don't have to accept sex activity to life a fulfilled life. It is a much better vision than that of Honey Island.
Our bodies thing, and sex activity is nigh giving yourself in vulnerability to another. The right identify for this is in the strong and secure container of a good, loving marriage.
The Church building is not calling people in CPs to celibacy; it is calling them to marriage.
I think I managed to communicate some, but not all of these. A crucial element to note hither is that the statement comes in a vacuum of positive comment about the biblical view of sex activity. I don't think information technology is that hard to articulate in our present culture, when the promiscuous and abusive use of sexual activity is and then widespread, and I have done so on this blog—just anxiety about response has by and large silenced both national and local church leaders. The fury here is, in part, a reflection of that.
Much of the hostility in the wider media came from resentment at the idea that the Church of England should tell anyone anything about their sex lives. After all, everyone is having sexual activity with everyone else, and if you are not, then yous are simply non normal. That appears to be the tenor of reactions captured in this piece in the Huffington Post. This was a timely reminder that many in the media and in wider civilisation are fiercely resentful of anyone appearing to suggest how they should alive their lives, and particular in relation to sex.
But the other main area of hostility was from pro-gay campaigners within the Church building. It was fascinating to hear Jayne Ozanne begin her earlier interview on Radio five Live with the appeal, 'I, similar many of your listeners, volition be appalled…' In other words, the master ally for those arguing for change are people who practise not share organized religion. This commodity in the Independent was warmly welcomed by people on the 'Christians for LGBT+ Equality' FaceBook page—an commodity asserting (against any evidence) that the Church building 'was obsessed with sex' written past an atheist who appears delighted at the demise of the Church and Christian belief, who thinks the main reason immature people are not going to church is that 'God does not exist'.
What is remarkable hither is the extent to which those claiming to represent (a position in) the Church collude with the lies, misrepresentation, and ignorance. On Radio 4 on Dominicus, Alan Wilson, bishop of Buckingham, repeated the tweet claim of Andrew Graystone that 'the argument mentions sex 49 times and never mentions dear once'. That is either a lie, or at best a gross misrepresentation; the reason the statement uses the give-and-take 'sex activity' is in reference to 'same sexual practice' and 'opposite sexual practice' couples. Yet this claim has been circulated widely by people who have not even read information technology. What have we come to when a bishop in the Church repeats such shallow deceits?
And the culling accounts of sexual activity and spousal relationship, such equally those by Jeremy Pemberton and Simon Butler, appear to have no connectedness at all with Christian thinking well-nigh sexual activity, the torso, desire, sin and salvation, or annihilation to do with biblical anthropology, merely instead offering a humanist (and expressive individualist) account of sex where the part of the Church building is simply to align existing practices and assumptions every bit a kind of paternal social guardian. This highlights quite conspicuously that those arguing for a modify on the question of same-sexual activity spousal relationship are not merely asking for existing understandings to be slightly tweaked and extended, but are really concerned for a wholesale revision of Christian sexual ethics. The first casuality of this is celibacy, for which at that place is simply no space in these approaches. That is quite extraordinary, not but given the long tradition of celibacy as a respected spiritual tradition in the Christian customs, but in the low-cal that Jesus and Paul were both single and celibate! How far nosotros have come up from our roots!
Then what practise we learn from all this? The most obvious thing is that, when it comes to meetings, papers and statements, the devil is in the detail. Whatever statement that relates to sexuality, however innocuous appearing, needs some very careful presentation. There is no doubt that this should either accept been issued every bit anAd Clerum rather than a public statement, or had a covering letter exploring the right kinds of pastoral responses to different situations, or both. If our faith communities are going to have porous boundaries, and so nosotros are going to demand to ensure that families where the parents are cohabiting or in ceremonious partnerships are made welcome, whilst also being encouraged to strengthen their relationship as wedlock, for their sake and the sake of their children. But something like 40% of the population is not in a stable relationship, and many of those are celibate, by choice or otherwise. Singleness must exist cherished and celebrated, and the idea of salvation by wedlock repudiated.
Secondly, it is clear that the Church building of England is every bit deeply divided on these issues as e'er, and no corporeality of consultation or word is ever going to resolve that. We take been involved in the formal process including the Shared Conversations for many years now, and the internet outcome is that campaigners for change are even more hostile to the current position of the Church than they ever were—and appear to be willing to do almost anything, including seeing the Church building trashed in the media, and broken if necessary, to push this alter through.
Thirdly, there are elements in our civilisation and media which feel a thinly-bearded visceral loathing for the Church. Some people claim that this is because of the Church'south position on sexuality. But that is just the main point at which, in this cultural moment, the counter-cultural challenge of Christian faith is felt virtually keenly. The same was true in the first century. People don't detest the Church because they disagree on sex; they disagree on sex because they hate the Church.
I think the response to this argument is really quite a proficient wake-up call for the bishops. The kind of hostility that I experienced on Radio 5 is the kind of hostility that ordinary Christian and local church leaders encounter quite often—whenever they dare to speak upwards. Our debates on sexuality are bringing to a head a widening gap between Christian organized religion and a postal service-Christian society. In a strange mode, the LLF process is a test of who we meet as Lord of the Church: Jesus and his teachings in the gospels; or 'contemporary social mores'. This is a test which might, subsequently all, pb to some grade of disestablishment for the C of E. Nonetheless it is communicated, the outcome of LLF will generate this aforementioned kind of hostility if it does anything like offering a rationale for the Church's current doctrine.
For that reason, my prayer for the College of Bishops this calendar week is that, whilst they undergo some serious heart-searching near communication, they will meet these problems clearly, and hear it as a phone call to live faithfully and courageously in the oft hostile culture in which we find ourselves.
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