Jesus and the Law

Rodney A. Whitacre reflects on the story of the woman caught in adultery and brought to Jesus (now mostly at John 7:53–8:11):

‘We see Jesus upholding the law’s teaching that adultery is sin while also setting aside the specific regulations concerning the community’s enforcement of that law. The implication is that the law contains revelation of right and wrong, which is true throughout history, as well as commandments for embodying that revelation in the community of God’s people, which are not true for all times and places. To understand this distinction we must understand that the law as revelation of right and wrong is not an arbitrary set of rules that God made up to test our obedience. Rather, the law is the transposition into human society of patterns of relationship that reflect God’s won character. Adultery is wrong because it violates relationships of faithfulness, and such violation is wrong, ultimately, because God himself is characterized by faithfulness. The morality of Scripture is a pattern of life that reflects God’s won life. This aspect of the law is unchanging, but the law’s prescription for how the community is to embody and enforce the revealed vision of relationships may vary.’

What happened?

The Church of England press release proclaimed Prayers for God’s blessing for same-sex couples take step forward after Synod debate.

The Church of England’s General Synod has welcomed proposals which would enable same-sex couples to come to church after a civil marriage or civil partnership to give thanks, dedicate their relationship to God and receive God’s blessing.

The Anglican Communion News Service reported the event under the headline Church of England Synod endorses bishop’s decision not to change doctrine of marriage. The article points out

During the Synod debate, only one of the tabled amendments to the bishops’ proposal was passed: that the synod endorsed “the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage, and their intention that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England”.

It also points out that the two amendments urging the Synod to move towards acceptance of same-sex marriage had both been rejected in all three houses.

All true as far as it goes, but perhaps neither is telling the true story. I was hoping for generous orthodoxy to prevail and it might still do but things are not looking hopeful. It would require greater transparency and integrity from the House of Bishops than has been on display thus far.

The Church of England appears to be split three ways. There are those who urge a change to our doctrine of sex and marriage on the grounds that the received teaching is unloving and harmful. There are those who feel compelled to resist such a move towards (what they perceive to be) heterodoxy. And there are those who are torn in between and just wish for the whole debate to go away.

And then there are those who wield power, who hope they can hold everyone together by offering prayers that can (a) be said not to be indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine of marriage, and (b) nevertheless be used to bless same-sex couples in sexually active relationships and without regard for whether the couple is in a civil partnership, in a civil marriage, or in a covenanted friendship.

Those who feel compelled to resist such a change are told that they do not have to use these prayers. They only have to accept that those who do use them are faithful, orthodox Christians too.

The first group above is not altogether happy because it is clear that the Church of England is still a long way from endorsing same-sex marriage.

The second group could be happy if it could be convinced that what is on offer is not indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine. Alas, most in this group think it is and that saying otherwise is merely adding insult to injury or lack of integrity to lack of faithfulness. What is asked of them is nothing short of a redefinition of what constitutes orthodoxy. This is why it’s a big deal.

The third group has no reason to be happy. The one thing that seems certain in all the confusion is that this debate will not go away and that the divisions within the Church of England will deepen and solidify.

The Archbishops urge that it is our Christian duty to stick together and show the world that disagreements do not need to lead to walking apart. But you cannot walk together in different directions. There are disagreements with which one can live and others which must divide us. Tolerating injustice is not loving, neither is tolerating heterodoxy. For as long as the Bishops do not succeed in convincing the one group that refusing same-sex marriage is not unjust and the other that the prayers of blessing on offer are not heterodox, the appeal to unity is just so much whitewash. Painting over harmless hairline cracks in the wall is one thing, covering up structural damage with a bit of paint is another.

For Ian Paul's take on what happened see What exactly happened at Synod on the Prayers for Love and Faith? This also includes links to comments on the legality of what the Bishops offered by Philip Jones and by a group of lawyers who are mostly members of General Synod.

UPDATE: Christopher Cocksworth, who led the LLF process, offers his reflections here.

Development of Doctrine

How does one distinguish between a faithful development of doctrine and a change that is corruption? John Henry Newman suggests “seven Notes of varying cogency, independence and applicability, to discriminate healthy developments of an idea from its state of corruption and decay.” These serve as his litmus tests that may be applied to any doctrine.

In a genuine development of doctrine we find

• preservation of one and the same type
• continuity of the same principles
• power of assimilation into the same organization
• logical consequence of an earlier sequence
• anticipation of subsequent phases in its beginnings
• preservation of that which came before
• vigour to endure

John Henry Newman, An Essay on the Development of Doctrine (1845, 1878) 

Generous Orthodoxy

I do not know the origins of the phrase “generous orthodoxy” but it seems to fit the Church of England as it was designed rather well. The Roman Catholic Church was not broad enough in the sixteenth century to include those who held Reformed views. But among Reformed Catholics there was also disagreement which by and large could not be lived with (“good disagreement”) so that Lutherans ended up forming one denomination, while those who followed Calvin and Zwingli formed separate churches. Perhaps only in England did the Reformed Catholic consensus hold so that both those holding Lutheran views and those looking to Geneva (or Scotland) were held together in the one established church. Roman Catholics were of course excluded, as were Baptists, and in the end even Presbyterians (the Great Ejection). So there were clear limits not only to orthodoxy but perhaps also to generosity. The Thirty-Nine Articles circumscribed the parameters, while the Homilies filled it with more content and clearer definition.

The Tractarian movement pushed the boundaries, declaring the Church of England a via media not between Wittenberg and Geneva but between Rome and the Reformation. The English Church moved from seeking and finding doctrinal agreement among the disagreements on details to accommodating strikingly different readings of the same words. But it is arguably liberal revisionism since the 20th century that is killing off generous orthodoxy, making people forget that “generous orthodoxy” requires both generosity and orthodoxy, tolerance and discipline.

The proposed Prayers of Love and Faith were presumably meant and agreed upon as an expression of “generous orthodoxy.” The Christian doctrine of marriage and the Christian ethics around sexual intimacy were left intact, or so it is alleged, and a new freedom was found within this consensus which would allow some to celebrate the good and healthy aspects of same-sex relationships with couples who form a household, and others to refrain from endorsing patterns of relationships that might invite sexual temptation.

Alas, even before the proposals were presented to the public it became clear that this “generous orthodox” line could not hold. A number of bishops argued that the doctrine should in fact change and the claim made by campaigners that the doctrine of the Church of England discriminates against LGBTI+ people remained largely unaddressed.

An analogy may help to explain what might have happened: Imagine the Bishops, in view of concerns about the gendered language of the traditional formula, had allowed for “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” to be regularly replaced by “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer.” Imagine that some Bishops were very uncomfortable with this because the triune God is then no longer spoken of as who He is in Himself from before the creation of the world (the gendered “He” seems unavoidable, even if God is of course not male) but defined in relation to us. But, being generous, they allowed for this provision on the understanding that it does not as such mark a departure from orthodoxy.

Now imagine further that there are people complaining about the discrimination against Unitarians and Jehovah’s Witness and others in the selection process for ordination in the Church of England and there being no official explanation forthcoming why such “discrimination” is in the nature of the thing. Add to this Bishops who argue that the insights of modern philosophy lead us away from a Trinitarian understanding of God. Even without them also adding that “In the name of the Creator, the Redeemer, and the Sustainer” could be used by those who believe that God is one person who has revealed himself in three modes, it is clear that this is not about being more generous within the existing  orthodoxy  but about re-defining what constitutes orthodoxy, given that we all take the Scriptures seriously. Whatever the Bishops think, for those who hold to the received understanding of orthodoxy and have seen no reason to change this, Unitarians and Jehovah’s Witnesses are without question outside the bounds, even if it may be granted that subjectively they hold a high view of Scripture and “merely” read it differently and even if one affirms gladly that they have all the civil rights of other people.

The question whether we can be more generous within our received orthodoxy is one and it relates to attitudes and behaviour and pastoral practice; the question whether in order to be truly “generous” we need to redefine what constitutes orthodoxy is another. Let us distinguish between the two.