The Church of England teaching document on sexuality
One of the great reliefs of the last sessions of General Synod in York (on July sixth to 10th) was the absence of whatsoever begrudging debates about sexuality in the main chamber. The Business Commission had taken the bold and commendable decision that, in the light of the planned pedagogy document on sexuality, whatsoever individual members' or diocesan motions on related issues would not exist taken until subsequently the document was produced and discussed. The teaching document was announced after the 'rebellion' in February 2022 when Synod decided 'non to take annotation' of a report from the House of Bishops' study on the country of play in discussions following the long and drawn out (and expensive!) process of 'Shared Conversations'.
In that location had already been an declaration that there was going to be a change in name for the certificate.
Living in Love and Faith: A new name for the Episcopal Educational activity Document
As the work of the Episcopal Teaching Certificate has progressed information technology has become clearer that the discussion 'document' does not do justice to the emerging vision for the resources that the groups working on it envisage. Furthermore, 'teaching' does not reflect the working groups' aspiration to produce teaching materials that volition invite active engagement in common learning. And so, after several months and the participation of many people, a new title for the project has been agreed by the Archbishops: Living in Honey and Faith: Christian Teaching and Learning about Human Identity, Sexuality and Union.
This provided plenty of fuel for the suspicious, that in that location was a retreat from the idea that the Church building of England might actually have a clear position on sexuality that needed 'teaching'. But Justin Welby had said from the beginning that this was going to be a 'mapping' exercise, highlighting areas of agreement, the areas of disagreement and possible means forward—which in itself suggests that this, another plush process, would not lead to any clear resolution. Personally, I was intrigued at the idea that 'teaching' on its on does non 'invite active date in mutual learning', but in fact in Higher Pedagogy it is common to talk virtually a 'didactics and learning strategy', recognising that the focus needs to be not but on what is offered, but likewise on the consequence that information technology has in enabling learning to have place.
So instead of any debate, the Saturday afternoon of Synod was given over to a series of workshops and seminars, some of which focussed on other topics (including digital evangelism) simply which included presentations on the work of the different groups involved in the process (Bible, theology, biological and social sciences, history and a slightly separate Pastoral Advisory Group). I attended the ones on Bible, theology and science, and what emerged was a rather mixed picture of what we might expect from the procedure.
Each seminar session included 3 presentations, accompanied past various opportunities for questions and word. The outset biblical presentation was an splendid overview offered by Dr Isabelle Hamley, currently Justin Welby'south chaplain. She highlighted the fact that the modern agenda is often focussed around questions of identity, whereas 'identity' every bit such was not a subject area addressed directly in scripture. Nosotros therefore needed to ask some interpretive questions which centre on what it means to be human—the question of 'theological anthropology', and she concluded with a helpful series of questions, which included something like this:
Are there aspects of being human which are 'given'?
If some aspects of being human being are 'given', are they given by God?
If they are given, and given by God, are they immutable, that is, can they change or are they stock-still?
My firsthand response to these questions was 'Aye, those are the questions which are central and which thing!' We then turned to our neighbour, and I shared my response with the person sitting next to me, who was a lay person—non a theologian, simply someone with of import lay responsibility in the C of E. When I shared my response, this person replied: 'I have no idea even how you would get to those questions. I have never thought about "anthropology".' This highlighted a fundamental dynamic, which appeared to exist widespread in the room, that the issued being raised, which were adequately bread-and-butter for the theologians present, were issues that many of the lay people in the room had rarely, if ever, thought near.
For me, it explains the nature of conversations I often have about the questions of sexuality being currently debated by the C of Due east. I tin can meet the impact of unlike discussions and decisions, but many (both clergy and lay) struggle to see the problems. I don't mean that to sound patronising or superior; it is only a reflection of differential levels of engagement in some of the central issues. And it highlights the first enormous challenge for the process of producing a 'pedagogy and learning' certificate: there is a vast gulf of understanding and level of appointment that has to be bridged between unlike parts of the Church, even earlier nosotros become on to questions of method. This was highlighted even more in the 2d presentation, a slightly complex analysis of Eph 5, and the third, an eccentric consideration of an academic thesis that the relationship between Jesus and the 'beloved disciple' were in a pederastic homoerotic relationship, where Jesus was theerastes and the disciple was theeramenos. This might have been entertaining as an occasional contribution to a postgraduate seminar—but in this context it was completely ill-judged.
The second session I went to was looking at theology, and particularly the question of what we are doing theologically in unlike aspects of the give-and-take. Mike Higton, Professor of Ministerial Training at Durham (so overseeing the Mutual Awards process for ordination preparation) argued that there has never been a single, agreed, 'Anglican' theological method when it comes to making ethical decisions. At the time I idea his statement quite persuasive. On reflection, I wonder if there is really no common gene in unlike Anglican statements at dissimilar times—I simply do not know plenty about Anglican history to be able to say (do feel free to comment on this beneath if you have a view). Simply I did also wonder why nosotros need to detect anAnglican method. Why are expert disciplines of interpretation and hermeneutics not sufficient? Of course, questions of method in these areas are contested, merely at that place are better and worse ways of reading texts and connecting them with the questions we face today—and a leading authority in this area in a past generation (Anthony Thiselton) is, as information technology happens, Anglican.
The third session I went to, on the biological and social sciences, was the most agonizing. Andrew Davison, Starbright Lecturer in Science and Theology at the Academy of Cambridge, gave a straightforward presentation of the views of Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on the importance of considering what science says equally we recall near our theological position—not least in an apologetic context where we are hoping to persuade others of the reasonableness of Christian claims. My question from this is: what practice we do about the distorting effects of sin, in the form of ideological bias, so that 'science' as we feel it in our social context is not necessarily telling us virtually reality. I cited the fact that it has long been argued that 85% of medical inquiry papers are actually presenting fake results, from a combination of biassed financial interest of drugs companies, and the need for journals and academics to produce positive, rather than 'null' results from research. The answer I got (an airy dismissal) was neither convincing nor reassuring. If the relatively hard science of medicine is hopelessly ideological skewed, what are we going to await in the hotly contested areas of sexuality and the related psychiatry bug?
My concerns were confirmed past the presentation of Chris Cook, Professor of Psychiatry also at Durham. He offered us a series of statistics about sexuality, and appeared blithely ignorant of either the fact that the statistics might be biased ('i.v% of the population is likely to be transgender') or that they tell united states of america more than well-nigh what is happening in civilisation than offering whatsoever objective insight into sexuality ('43% of 16–24 year-olds don't identify as either exclusively homosexual or exclusively heterosexual'). This same naivety (or wilful ignorance?) is evident in what I can merely draw as the abysmal article written past Cook in last calendar week'south Church Times.
Cook begins by claiming:
The Christian debate about human sexuality has primarily revolved around a small number of sexually specific biblical texts. What effect might it have if we were to select our material differently?
It might not be unreasonable to read a subtext here: 'Look at how narrow these evangelicals are in reading the Bible; let me take a broader and more mature arroyo'. But what it actual says is that Melt must accept been hiding under a stone for the last 20 years, or has decided simply not to engage in the debate. Even in my Grove booklet (which is specifically focussed on the 'boo' texts') I await much more broadly, considering issues of the creation narratives and (once again) issues of theological anthropology; I consider the question of Jesus' ministry, and in what sense it was 'inclusive' (as recorded in the gospels); and I go on briefly to explore questions of the way nosotros use texts. I guess Cook hadn't read it. And he can't have read Richard Hays'The Moral Vision of the New Testament, or the arguments about the meaning of friendship, or essays on what does it hateful for us to hope forbodily resurrection, or his colleague Robert Song's argument about covenantal friendship, and critiques of why Song includes a sexual element in this without caption, or questions about what it means for Scripture to exist authoritative in Anglican discussions, or the debate virtually sexuality and relationships in the first century…and so on. How could we have gone through all the pain and fourth dimension—and expense—of the Share Conversations process, and end up with someone on the science group who appears so lamentably ignorant of the breadth of the contend?
Cook and so offers us a well-worn liberal cliché: Jesus, in proclaiming the kingdom of God, was opposing those bigoted religious people who were all concerned almost doing God's will, existence holy and keeping the law, and Jesus showed that they were all wrong. Translation: anyone who is concerned about what the Bible actually says is just beingness a bigoted Pharisee, and we liberals are doing Jesus' work of the kingdom. Perhaps nosotros exercise have to set aside what Jesus actually says, possibly we accept to ignore his axiomatic business concern for holiness of life and purity, including mentions sexual ideals in every one of his ethical exhortation lists, peradventure we have to pass over his explicit merits that he is not 'doing away with the police force, but fulfilling it', we might ignore the terminology of theHoly Spirit, and nosotros could fifty-fifty dislocate Jesus from his historical context, both within a multiplicity of competing 'Judaisms' in the first century, simply also the shared distinctive that all known Jewish movements had from their pagan neighbours, non least in the area of sexual ideals. But do nosotros actually, at this stage in the life of the Church, need to put up with such a thin, caricaturing and patronising argument as this?
The third jumbo error that Cook makes is his association of scientific 'fact' with moral position.
Scientific discipline shows us that homosexuality is not a medical disorder merely a part of the natural variety of God's creation.
Since when has Anglican (or any Christian) moral discourse moved uncritically from what is to what ought to be? Does Melt think we are all stupid, and we never realised that some people appear to be gay for life? Does he think that when Paul uses the language of 'nature' in Romans i, he is only showing what a primitive, pre-scientific idiot he is? Perhaps he does; if then, what on globe is he doing on the science grouping contributing to the pedagogy certificate.
And I suppose information technology means that this group volition avoid looking at the comparative testify of violence and abuse in male same-sex coupling compared with other-sex activity couplings. Or the evidence of widespread multiple sexual partners, even in 'closed' committed relationships? Or the research testify of environmental factors predicting men entering same-sex relationships? Or the instability of cocky-identified sexual orientation, particularly amongst younger women? And the comparative instability of aforementioned-sex marriages? If the 'scientific discipline' grouping doesn't explore these and other primal bug, and I not certain what the point of it is.
I didn't visit the seminar on the Pastoral Advisory group, only was intrigued that the chair, Christine Hardman who is bishop of Newcastle, was adamant in the opening presentation to Synod that the group would exist working inside the current teaching position of the Church—and she emphasised this by drawing a rectangle in the air, and admitting that this would upset anybody, some because they were suspicious, and others because they were disappointed. A friend commented that, in the seminar he attended, the principal thrust of the questions was 'How tin can we get on with irresolute the teaching of the Church building without losingtoo many people who disagree?'
All this shows that the challenges remain immense. The issues around sexuality accept thrown upward a large number of questions. Do Church of England congregations empathise their Bible and know how to read it well? Do we have a shared view on how we move from our authoritative text to our upstanding practise? And are we alert to the ideological abuse that is an ever-present danger in our interpretation of 'science' and the earth effectually u.s.—which is no less of a hermeneutical challenge than our reading of texts?
At the moment, nosotros are still a long way from answering any of these questions in the affirmative.
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