Submissive Marriage

+Kelvin Wright, Bishop of Dunedin, has published a report on a Marriage Hui held there recently. I have now had three reports of the event, none quite agreeing with the other. But then the Dunedin Diocese claims some street cred  'diversity'. One example being their diocesan submission to the Ma Whea Commission - though oddly +Kelvin's post heading is 'My submission ...'. Still, L'etat est moi and all that.

I think the submission makes a good point: diversity can hold together in one group. There is also a nice subsidiary point about leadership :)

Reading Available Light prompts me to link to the Latimer Fellowship submission (co-signed by me as a v-p), and to put up my own submission to Ma Whea:

"A Submission to the Ma Whea Commission, 31 May 2013

From: Rev Dr Peter Carrell. This submission is in a personal capacity as a priest of ACANZP. For the sake of transparency about context I am currently: Director of Education in the Diocese of Christchurch, Director of Theology House, Christchurch, [contact address] , as a stipended role in the church; a Vice-President of the Latimer Fellowship as a voluntary role; and a regular blogger on Anglican Down Under.

I submit with specific reference to the following term of reference of the Commission:

A summary of the biblical and theological work done by our Church on the issues surrounding Christian ethics, human sexuality and the blessing and ordination of people in same sex relationships, including missiological, doctrinal, canonical, cultural and pastoral issues;

Dear Commission,

I wish to make an observation, doing so because, in my experience, this observation is generally not made.

Preamble: Our church is considering formally making change to aspects of its life otherwise spoken to by liturgy and/or canon, that is, to the ‘status’ of same sex partnerships, with specific reference to blessing of relationship and to acceptance of partnered gay persons for ordained service.

Such change would involve the church making an authorization and raises the question of the authority of the church as an authorizing agent on behalf of God. Do we have the authority to, say, approve the divine blessing of same sex relationships or to change the definition of marriage from a man and a woman to any two people?

My observation: Many questions are raised about what Scripture and tradition says about human sexuality. A question is often raised about the relevance of a law in Leviticus to life today. Or a question is raised about whether the silence of Jesus on homosexuality is a sign of divine tolerance for same sex relationships. Answers to such questions may be given (e.g. many laws in Leviticus continue to be relevant to life today; Jesus was not actually silent about homosexuality because he fulfilled the law of Moses). But these counter-responses are then argued against.

The end result of such questioning and debate needs careful assessment. Let us say we doubt the relevance of Scripture and tradition to a changing world. What does that amount to?

I suggest that it only amounts to the existence of doubt about relevance. But in some minds it appears to amount to sufficient grounds for the authorization of change by the church.

This is an unfortunate assessment as it could mean the church arrives at a position where it makes a false promise to its members. The false promise being that it has the authority to perform certain blessings when it has no basis for making the claim. To doubt the relevance of divine prohibition of same sex partnerships is not equivalent to confidence that the opposite is so.

I thank the Commission for considering this. I do not feel a need to explain myself verbally."