An Exercise in the Fundamentals of Orthodoxy

Pastoral Statement Group Announced

By Peter Ould, on December 1st, 2011

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A nice simple press release from the CofE.

The House of Bishops has announced the membership of a Group established to advise it on reviewing its Pastoral Statement issued prior to the introduction of civil partnerships in December 2005. The Group will be chaired by the Bishop of Sodor and Man, the Rt Rev Robert Paterson. The other two members of the Group are the Bishop of Portsmouth, the Rt Rev Christopher Foster, and the Bishop of Dorchester, the Rt Rev Colin Fletcher. The Group will start work in December and report to the House in time for the House to reach conclusions during 2012.

The preparation of the pastoral statement was the last occasion when the House of Bishops devoted substantial time to the issue of same sex relationships. The House undertook to keep that Pastoral Statement under review and announced in July, this year,http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1289380/gsmisc997.pdf , that the time had come for a review to take place.

The House of Bishops also announced in July further work on the Church of England’s approach to human sexuality more generally. The expectation is that the membership of that Group, whose work will be considered by the House during 2013, will be announced in the next few weeks.

Chris Foster was my first suffragan back in St Albans. Good bloke, but not the most conservative. Any comment on the other two names?

So who performs Same-Sex Blessings?

By Peter Ould, on November 30th, 2011

Over at Changing Attitude, a recent blog post caught my eye, not for the coherent argument being made that *technically* the Church of England hasn’t formally made up its mind as to whether its churches can or can’t be use to register Civil Partnerships once the law changes this month. No, what was more interesting was what amounted to essentially “outing” some clergy and bishops as to condoning and engaging in same-sex blessings.

CA reminds Mr Fittall and the House of Bishops that blessings of lesbian and gay relationships already take place in Church of England churches. In the diocese of Southwark they happen in many churches including St Luke’s Charlton, with the formal consent of the PCC and the knowledge of the previous two bishops. They happen in many churches in the Diocese of London including St Martin in the Fields which conducts the public blessing of lesbian and gay relationships with the formal consent of the PCC. The Bishop of London has been informed of this practice. Fees are charged, sent to the diocese saying they are for the blessing of a civil partnership, and are banked by the diocese.

So let’s be clear what Colin Coward is asserting.

St Luke’s Charlton performs same-sex blessings with the knowledge of the incumbent, The Revd Erica Wooff, and with the knowledge of the previous Bishops of Southwark. It is unclear whether Christopher Chessun, the current Bishop of Southwark, is aware (though I suspect that will not be an issue very shortly).
St Martin in the Fields, the previous parish to the now Bishop of Salisbury, performs same-sex blessings. Not only would Nick Holtham have known this, but apparently also the Bishop of London knows this.

I’ll leave it to others to decide what to do with that information. What I find most curious though is that Colin Coward asserts that St Martin in the Fields actually sends the “fees” for such blessings off to the Diocese of London! Surely since there are no statutory fees to be paid for such an (illegal) service, this can be nothing more than a blatant political stunt. This was, I remind you all, at the church which was until recently run by the now Bishop of Salisbury.

I have one more question. Are newly appointed bishops obliged to “sign up” to previous statements / pastoral letters of the House of Bishops, say for instance the 2005 pastoral letter on Civil Partnerships? Perhaps that’s one for the Church Times’ Questions and Answers column.

To expand on that a little, I have heard this same idea expressed by Christians in many false dichotomies. For instance:

It is more important to be loving than to be orthodox

It is more important to be loving than to be truthful

It is more important to care about people than to care about ideas

It is better to walk with Christ than to attend church

It better to be kind than to be right

It is better to live the Gospel than to tell it

Etc. ad infinitum et ad taedium

On the surface, who could argue with any of these statements? The problem is that, unfortunately, they are usually used to evil ends, and they’re diabolically clever. Disagree with any of them, and you seem to be arguing against love, practical Christian living, caring, kindness, Gospel living, Mom, puppies and everything wonderful. Who wants to do (or be accused of) any of that?

However, what all of these statements have in common is that, if pressed, they form false dichotomies.

Going back to Proverbs 21:3, liberals in years past have taken such statements in Proverbs and in the prophets as indicating an anti-Temple faction. One can only get there, however, if one rejects the canonical ascriptions of authorship, which requires (at least de facto) rejection of the inerrancy and authority of the text.

Accept the authority of the text, and we go in another direction: the intent is to help readers/hearers evaluate and identify what most matters to God. One knows at the outset that God cannot be saying “Don’t do sacrifice,” because it was He who enjoined sacrifice in the first place. Likewise, no Bible-believer can imagine that God wants us to reject the teaching of His word in doctrine and theology, or to disdain wrestling intensely for the faith or casting down ideas that oppose themselves to the knowledge of Christ, or refuse to attend church — because it is God Himself who commands that we do such things; and, if we believe Him, we do them, to the best of our ability.

Perhaps we can understand Solomon’s wording and thought better if we can get a better idea of the soil from which this proverb was brought, by God’s Spirit. What lay behind the composition of this particular proverb? Did Solomon have in mind the narrative of Saul, who disobeyed God, then tried to smear the whole over with a gaudy religious act of sacrifice (1 Samuel 15)? Very possibly.

If so, then Solomon is saying to us what God told Saul through Samuel (1 Sam. 15:22-23):

And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.”

…only he said it in a single, pointed, pithy proverb.

Wisdom, and its balances, is hard.

Guess that’s why there’s a whole book in the Canon devoted to it, and to grounding it in the fear of Yahweh.

Almost three years ago I wrote something on a similar vein.

Now in context we see that the Golden Rule is relegated to second place in relationship to another rule which is “the great and first commandment” – to love the Lord your God with everything that you are. Suddenly we are presented with a higher regard than simply the effect of our actions on our neighbours. Jesus only presents such considerations as secondary to the primary concern that your life should be handed over to God in all that you think and say and do.

So the real issue is, what does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart etc? Well, Jesus very clearly says “If you love me you will obey my commandments” (John 14:15). A love of God is a life that lets itself be lived the way God intends it – it is a life that sells its wants and desires and follows Jesus and his path (Matthew 19:16-22). It is a life that realises that simply doing something that doesn’t harm other human beings isn’t enough – the prior question is whether it is something that God would want us to do in the first place. Our ethical decisions aren’t just to be based in anthropomorphic concerns – they have as much to do with God as they do with our fellow human.

What say you? Is there more to following Christ then just “love”?