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Monday, May 17, 2010

Missing the point?

My memory may be playing tricks, but a few years ago I thought I was reading Ruth Gledhill's "line" in her posts on Communion developments as broadly sympathetic to conservative Anglicans' concerns to be faithful to Scripture and tradition.

Well, maybe my aging mind is playing tricks, or maybe the "line" has changed. This is something Ruth has written in the past couple of days (H/T to Preludium drawing attention to it. Italics are mine):

"Some years ago, at the Greenbelt Christian rock festival that takes place every August Bank Holiday near Cheltenham, someone close to the Archbishop of Canterbury told me that a person’s view on homosexuality was now what defined them on the Christian spectrum. What this person of considerable authority and intellect was saying was that it was no longer possible to be both pro-gay and evangelical.

In other words, the infighting over homosexuality means that for the 77 million Anglicans worldwide, more important than the Resurrection, the Crucifixion, the Virgin Birth and the Trinity is what one person does in bed with another.

The lines of Christian belief, in the Anglican world at least, have been redrawn around a battle over gay rights that, in the secular world, ended years ago.

Sexuality figures nowhere in the creeds. It is not mentioned in the church’s liturgies. When godparents bear witness to a baby’s baptism they do not swear to help to raise the infant as straight.

Many of the thousands of young people who never go to church in the UK but who are nominally baptised Anglicans cannot remember a time when sodomy was a criminal offence.

These are the people that Church leaders should be trying to attract. In a world facing the well-documented consequences of consumer and materialist greed the Church’s spiritual message is potentially of benefit to millions. If the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives can do it in Britain, surely the liberals and conservatives in the Christian world can form some sort of coalition to bring new leadership to the Anglican morass. They must put their differences behind them, for the sake of God, themselves and the common good."

Appreciatively many Anglicans can and will agree with some sentiments here. Probably a majority of Western Anglicans would agree that it is absurd that "a person’s view on homosexuality was now what defined them on the Christian spectrum." Surely all would agree that the world we live in today is a world in which we are trying to share the gospel of Christ with young people (say, post 1990) shaped by a world very, very different to the world I grew up in (post 1960) which in various ways has been closer to the world my parents grew up in than the world my children are growing up in. Nothing much had changed, for example, about "gay rights" in NZ between my parents growing up years and my own; but it has been all change since the mid-1980s here.

But some things expressed in Ruth's post bear closer scrutiny than others. This claim, for instance:

"Sexuality figures nowhere in the creeds. It is not mentioned in the church’s liturgies. When godparents bear witness to a baby’s baptism they do not swear to help to raise the infant as straight."

This is misleading in various ways. Something not mentioned in the creeds is likely something which was not being controverted at the time the creeds were formulated rather than something not important. The church's liturgies actually include liturgies for marriage! Moreover the church's liturgies include "appointed readings" from Scripture which teaches ... things which do not always fall into line with modern secular agenda! Godparents at a baby's baptism are offering support in bringing up the child in the way of Christ - the way which Scripture teaches ... does not always fall in line with modern secular agenda.

But particularly egregious I suggest are the words I italicised!

"the infighting over homosexuality means that for the 77 million Anglicans worldwide, more important than the Resurrection, the Crucifixion, the Virgin Birth and the Trinity is what one person does in bed with another"

Unfortunately, it has to be acknowledged, sometimes some Anglican leaders have framed the matter in a way which lends itself to this particular characterization. But these words are offered as a statement covering all ways of framing the matter.

Here is another way.

It has been important for Anglicans that their leaders live in accordance with God's revealed will, including God's will for sexual relationships. This has meant that our leaders have been married or single. It has meant that "what one person does in bed with another" has been important: adultery, being blunt, has been a sackable offence. Moreover, so important has "what one person does in bed with another" been, that notwithstanding huge social changes in Western society, in the particular instance of adultery, I can think of no Anglican church, even in the West, which has lessened its expectations enshrined in things such as canons or codes of ethics of what is important in this aspect of living. I can think of no other profession/vocation/job in which adultery is a sackable offence. God's revealed will trumps changing social mores and social distinctions between "public" and "private" behaviour.

In short, it is important to Anglicans what God's revealed will is. From that revealed will has flowed out beliefs in Resurrection, Crucifixion (significance thereof), Virgin Birth, and the Trinity. Concerning that revealed will, there is now a huge question about whether we understand it correctly in respect of human relationships. The answer to that question is not inconsequential, as Ruth's statement implies. We are not solely talking about whether the church may take up a tolerant attitude in general terms to "what one person does in bed with another" (compared, say, to becoming some kind of intrusive moral watchdog for society). We are talking about whether a traditional, long-standing expectation that bishops and clergy (at least) should be married or single, or otherwise. That is an important matter. I think the matter deserves more credence than Ruth gives it here.

There. I have said my piece about what disappoints me in that post!

Let me conclude on a more positive note: if we might give proper credence to both 'liberal' and 'conservative' approaches to the matter at hand, approaches, that is, that are respectful of both people and the church's teaching, then I agree with Ruth Gledhill's broad aspiration when she writes:

"If the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives can do it in Britain, surely the liberals and conservatives in the Christian world can form some sort of coalition to bring new leadership to the Anglican morass. They must put their differences behind them, for the sake of God, themselves and the common good."

We need "new leadership". Our differences are now too entrenched (IMHO) to think that we are going to finding a point in dialogue when one side will wake up and realise the other side has been right all along. It would be good to find a way to "put their differences behind them".

I am not sure, myself, how this might be done. And I am unclear that the word "surely" applies in the phrase "surely the liberals and conservatives in the Christian world can form some sort of coalition to bring new leadership to the Anglican morass".

In fact a voice in my head reminds me that resorting to the word "surely" in an argument is a sign that the opposite applies. The presumed state of affairs is in fact "unsure"!

PS In thoughtful juxtaposition, you might care to read Walter Russell Mead's latest.

PPS None other than Albert Mohler joins the fray and flays Ruth's argument. But Ruth is sticking to her guns according to this Tweet: "The eminently respectable Albert Mohler admonishes me. I stand by what I wrote. http://bit.ly/djUcLZ"

13 comments:

  1. Peter...I suspect you will be part of that new thinking. I appreciate more and more your willingness to keep on keeping on, and your hope for the Church (one I share).

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  2. Thanks Mark,
    All encouragement appreciated :)

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  3. Ruth Gledhill is a decent eniough if chatty writer but decidely lightweight as a thinker, and being on her third marriage, takes a 'relaxed' view about this side of life. It's sign of the low esteem that The London Times holds religion that a jobbing journalist like Ruth Gledhill (rather than a qualified expert in theoloogy and church history) is their correspondent in this field. Can't imagine they'd o that for sport or economics.
    Outis

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  4. John Sandeman / Obadiah SlopeMay 18, 2010 at 12:03 AM

    One of my editors told me that he was Managing Editor at The Times when Ruth Gledhill came and asked for the job. "Nobody could understand why anybody wanted that job".
    But contrary to Anonymous' point of view journalists make the best religious reporters. (And some of the worst). And church historians make the best historians. (And some of the worst). Ruth is a good reporter. Getting stories into newspapers is not as easy as it looks. Have you ever tried it?

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  5. It's the quality of her argument I was disputing, not her writing style or her nose for a story. The comments at T19 say it well, especially Sarah:
    http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/30091/#comments
    Outis

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  6. Outis I have no difficulty with your critique of Ruth Gledhills argument. But you went much further than that reasonable point. You said that she was unworthy because she was a journalist, rather than a "qualified expert".
    I don't think that the comments at T19 cover that point for you. You will need to make your own defense of what seems to me to be intellectual snobbery.

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  7. “It has been important for Anglicans that their leaders live in accordance with God's revealed will, including God's will for sexual relationships. … adultery, being blunt, has been a sackable offence.”

    Your cautious phrasing and use of the past tense is interesting. When did it stop being possible to say this sentence for all leaders in all Tikanga? When, in each Tikanga, did it cease to be a sackable offence? Can you be equally “blunt” in the present tense please for all Tikanga. Or would such actual bluntness blunten the point of your article?

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  8. [Hi Anonymous. For some reason this comment would not publish in the usual way. So I am publishing it, with response, under my name].

    Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Missing the point?":

    “It has been important for Anglicans that their leaders live in accordance with God's revealed will, including God's will for sexual relationships. … adultery, being blunt, has been a sackable offence.”

    Your cautious phrasing and use of the past tense is interesting. When did it stop being possible to say this sentence for all leaders in all Tikanga? When, in each Tikanga, did it cease to be a sackable offence? Can you be equally “blunt” in the present tense please for all Tikanga. Or would such actual bluntness blunten the point of your article?

    Response: I am not aware of any jurisdiction in the Anglican Communion in which adultery (= accused, tried, convicted) has ceased to be a sackable offence. Are you aware of any?

    My argument here concerns an analysis of matters affecting the whole Communion. It was no purpose of my argument to raise specific matters in any one Anglican jurisdiction. Should you wish to raise such matters - there is a hint of that in your comment - why not start your own blog in order to do so?

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  9. Obadiah, "jobbing journalist" isn't pejorative in my book; as a journalist covering the human angle of things, I think she's pretty good. But when she turns to op-ed, her grasp of biblical and historical issues is not specialist and is in fact fairly personally colored (through the prism of her own life). Like her paymasters in The Times, she wants to retain a gloss of liberal religiosity on late-capitalist, post-Christian Britain and sees western Anglicanism as the vehicle for this.
    Outis

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  10. Outis,
    It is not uncommon for roundspeople to write comment pieces. I will let the readers determine whether "jobbing journalist" was a put-down in your original post.
    And your original criticism was of a jobbing journalist being a "correspondent"- ie having the religion round. You are shifting ground somewhat to claim that your objection was to her writing oped pieces.
    "Paymasters" is an another interesting putdown. While navigating newsroom culture is difficult and the pressures are certainly real I for one think that Ruth's opinions are her own.
    The sad fact is that she is not inventing the function of the CofE giving a religious gloss to "liberal" Britain, but that a good part of the CofE has seen this as their role. It is not hard to find UK commentators who have seen a lukewarm CofE as a way of kleeping more robust forms of christianity at bay in their society. (We probably agree about that bit).
    But I would not ascribe that attitude to Rupert Murdoch the ultimate paymaster of the Times.

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  11. Thank you for publishing my comment twice. Your blog is clearly becoming more popular, and your conversations are increasing. Congratulations. Currently you are only showing five comments in your sidebar. Have you considered increasing that number to make it easier for visitors to follow conversations?

    “I am not aware of any jurisdiction in the Anglican Communion in which adultery (= accused, tried, convicted) has ceased to be a sackable offence. Are you aware of any?” Response: I am not aware of any jurisdiction in the Anglican Communion in which adultery leads to being accused, tried, and convicted. Are you aware of any?

    We are aware of a jurisdiction in the Anglican Communion in which known leadership adultery does not lead to any consequences.

    “My argument here concerns an analysis of matters affecting the whole Communion.” Response: that analysis needs to include why it is that only homosexual issues are “matters affecting the whole Communion” and the people who speak or write so actively about homosexuality do nothing about known heterosexual leadership adultery. My analysis would be that the issue is not about a consistent sexual ethic but about homosexuality in particular.

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  12. Hi Anonymous,
    There are a lot of people around the Communion writing about issues affecting Communion unity at this time. It is interesting that they all appear incapable of writing about sexuality consistently.

    I may be misunderstanding the point you are making, but it seems like because here and there adultery is tolerated, so should homosexual same sex activity. I may not be fairly characterising your point, so I carefully now use the word 'if': if I am interpreting you correctly, the point has an air of justifying one wrong on the basis of another wrong. There is a certain consistency in doing that, but it does not amount to a strong argument in favour of the justification.

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  13. Obadiah wrote:
    '"Paymasters" is an another interesting putdown. While navigating newsroom culture is difficult and the pressures are certainly real I for one think that Ruth's opinions are her own.'
    - so do I, and I think I said so.
    "The sad fact is that she is not inventing the function of the CofE giving a religious gloss to "liberal" Britain, but that a good part of the CofE has seen this as their role. It is not hard to find UK commentators who have seen a lukewarm CofE as a way of kleeping more robust forms of christianity at bay in their society. (We probably agree about that bit)."
    - we do. Who would criticize homosexuality or abortion or the truth claims of Islam in a British newspaper today? You's probably get a visit from the Britsh police for your trouble for stirring up "hatred".
    "But I would not ascribe that attitude to Rupert Murdoch the ultimate paymaster of the Times."
    - "paymaster"? interesting putdown on Australia's greatest export (after The Dame). Where's your patriotism, mate? :)
    Outis

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