The House
of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage has drawn fierce
criticism (see TA for a round-up of reactions). Here is an attempt at a more sympathetic reading of the
guidance.
The guidance consists of a letter and a statement. From the letter I
highlight two things. First, while we are not agreed as a church on how to
respond to the introduction of same sex marriage, the House of Bishop is agreed
that “the Christian understanding and doctrine of marriage as a lifelong union
between one man and one woman remains unchanged.”
Secondly, the Bishops re-affirm that same-sex partnerships
can embody crucial virtues and allow that there are questions about “the
meaning, interpretation and application of scripture to which we all seek to be
faithful.” The Bishops do not spell out what brought about the need to
re-consider our doctrine of sexuality. Two factors come to mind. One is that the link between sexual intercourse and procreation has been
severed in our society as a result of more advanced means for (a) preventing
pregnancies and (b) procreating without sexual intercourse. Another is “the
lived experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people” which suggegts the use of sexual activity for strengthening the bonds of friendship
and love without the sort of sexual greed condemned in the Scripture. The greedy
immorality of which, e.g., Ephesians 5 speaks is found within the LGBT
community as well as outside it but not all sexually active
same-sex relationships fall in this category.
The appendix to the letter (the statement) first spells out
the Church of England’s teaching on marriage and homophobia. It then sets out
the effect of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. The Bishops observe
that
there will, for the first time, be a divergence between the general understanding and definition of marriage in England as enshrined in law and the doctrine of marriage held by the Church of England and reflected in the Canons and the Book of Common Prayer.
It could be argued that the increased frequency with which
marriages end in divorce has also changed the general understanding of marriage
in society but it has not yet changed the definition of marriage. It may well
be that before long our society will see marriage as a long-term but temporary
arrangement (different spouses for different phases of one’s life) but this is
not yet the general understanding --people who enter into marriage do so in the hope that it will last for life--and certainly the church still insists that marriage
is for life. Allowing for divorce does not as such redefine marriage if, as at present,
divorce is understood to relate to something having gone wrong.
Declaring sex/gender irrelevant for the purposes of marriage
marks a major departure from the traditional understanding and definition of
marriage. It is completely different from affirming that ethnicity is
irrelevant. (Properly understood, sexual orientation is as irrelevant as
ethnicity. What is relevant in the traditional understanding is that marriage
couples a man and a woman, regardless of their sexual orientation or their ethnicity.)
The introduction of polygamy would not re-define marriage to
the same extent. Even in polygamous societies each marriage covenant is between
one man and one woman. The difference is the permission given, usually to men
only, to enter into more than one such covenant, a permission which the
catholic church never granted even in societies that did.
The Bishops then re-affirm that
the Church of England should not exclude from its fellowship those lay people of gay or lesbian orientation who, in conscience, were unable to accept that a life of sexual abstinence was required of them and who, instead, chose to enter into a faithful, committed sexually active relationship.
The reference to “a faithful, committed sexually active
relationship” sets these relationships apart from, e.g., greed and adultery,
even if these two rarely if ever lead to excommunication either. Same-sex
marriage is not characterised as institutionalising sexual immorality but
treated analogously to what the church’s response might have been if the
government had liberalised the law to allow people to enter into more than one
marriage covenant at the same time.
If there was a serious commitment to sacramental discipline in
the Church of England, this would be a most significant concession. Even with
the Church of England being what it is Thurstan
Stigand fears that it will make it very difficult to exercise pastoral care
in accordance with the received understanding of sex and marriage. He may well
be right. The omission of reference to the General Synod
motion of November 1987 which affirms that “homosexual genital acts” fall short
of the Christian ideal and are to be met “with a call to repentance and the
exercise of compassion” could be significant. But it could be
argued that the advice is consistent with general practice in the Church of
England:
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. Neither they nor any children they care for should be denied access to the sacraments.
In fact, the only group of people of which I am aware to be “subjected
to questioning about their lifestyle” with the consequence of limited access to
worshipping communities are paedophiles and this is done for the protection of
our children more than as a means of pastoral care for the offenders. Are there
many churches in which people are excluded from the sacraments in the hope of
bringing them to turn away from a sinful lifestyle? No. Even so,
turning a blind eye to same-sex marriage may be harder than turning a blind eye
to domestic abuse, as the former is by its nature public. (It could be argued
that we should be more concerned about greed and domestic abuse than sex
outside marriage but to use sacramental discipline as a call to repentance for
some sins but not others is difficult without a reasonably clear concept of
“mortal sins” or their equivalent in Anglican theology.)
The pastoral guidance on “acts of worship following civil
same sex weddings” reminds us that “same sex weddings in church will not be
possible” and reaffirms that no services should be offered which would suggest
that the church’s doctrine of marriage has changed. The new guidance is
explicitly paralleled to the guidance following the introduction of civil
partnerships. The difference is that being a party to a civil partnership is not
in itself contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England, while being a
party to a same-sex marriage is. The assumption is therefore
that any prayer will be accompanied by pastoral discussion of the church's teaching and their reasons for departing from it.
The reiteration of the phrase “services of blessing” is
noteworthy. Chancellor Nigel Seed (and Revd Brian Lewis) argued
that the 2005 pastoral statement, while prohibiting “services of blessing” allowed
for services of prayer and dedication. The argument was not persuasive in
the first place (see here)
and will be harder to make now, as Nigel Seed based on the strict distinction
between civil partnership and marriage. But it is clear that the House of Bishop did not want to give more detailed guidance.
The section on clergy and ordinands in particular has given
rise to accusations
of political naivety and the charge
of hypocrisy and double standards. Let's assume for a moment the government had given us legal permission to enter into more than one marriage covenant at the same time. Surely we would not expect the House of Bishops to lead us in the direction of either excommunicating everyone who is party to more than one marriage or to ignore the number of marriages in which ordination candidates or members of the clergy are involved. Just because something is legally possible would not mean that clergy are free to avail themselves of the opportunity.
The Church of England will continue to place a high value on theological exploration and debate that is conducted with integrity. That is why Church of England clergy are able to argue for a change in its teaching on marriage and human sexuality, while at the same time being required to fashion their lives consistently with that teaching.
This can lead to hypocrisy, as Michael Nazir-Ali fears, but it does not seem to me entirely impossible to uphold the church's teaching, to fashion one's life in accordance with it, and even to preach it, while questioning its validity. If the church prohibited the eating of halal meat, I could abstain from eating halal meat and encourage the congregation to do so, while arguing that it is an unnecessary restriction which should be lifted.
Cranmer is right to say that "it is not what Canon Law prohibits in theory but how the bishops handle disobedience in practice which will determine and define the Church's theology on same-sex marriage" and he is likely also right to anticipate no end to bad publicity (and worse) along this road. But it is possible that the House of Bishops went down this road not naively but because they could not go down any other road with integrity.
