Occasionally, I think we should

For all the obvious reasons, I am generally keen to avoid posting on homosexuality and the church. There have been many posts over the years on ADU and the result has been maximum number of reads, maximum number of comments, minimum signs of anyone's views changing.

But, occasionally, we should post, if only to make a potential new point for consideration or a familiar point for new reconsideration.

So, I draw your attention to this essay, by Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, Archbishop of Algiers, published online as "Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco on Gays and Catholics" by Outreach: An LGBTQ Catholic Ministry, and published in print in 

(ET = Gays and Catholics: The Church Put to the Test of Reality, published by Desclée De Brouwer).

I suggest these are the money paragraphs:

"Yes, how difficult it is to put homosexuality into words. It is not an illness; there are no chemical treatments, and attempts at psychological treatments are sickening. It is not a sin, for sin is committed freely, and no one chooses to be homosexual. Nor is it the result of educational or social conditioning, for within the same family where siblings have received the same upbringing, one child may be homosexual while the others are not.

Social acceptance does not make one homosexual, but it makes it easier to acknowledge it, to share it with others, and to live one’s emotional life as serenely as possible. Homosexuality has no obvious reason, and we must accept this element of ignorance regarding God’s creative work.

Nor is homosexuality part of the norm, and in that sense it is not normal—provided, of course, that the opposite of normal is not abnormal. I like the definition given by James Alison in his contribution: homosexual orientation is a regularly occurring non-pathological minority variant in the human condition. This definition places homosexuality within the order of creation and not within that of disorder or pathology. It also places it within the realm of singularity."

Why do I make this suggestion for your possible reading?

Because, in my summary of debates through past decades, at the heart of our differences is not only how we approach the Bible, it is also how we approach homosexuality as a human phenomenon. We seem to do this in two ways:

1. It is "abnormal" or a "disorder" or a "pathology" or a "sin" or "sinful disposition". Essentially we see homosexuality as something which can be fixed or something which should not be and so the holy and heroic thing to do is to overcome it via abstinence and celibacy. (With the consequence that those who propose differently are disregarding the Bible and/or disobeying the teaching of the church, and, thus and so, we cannot have communion across this divide.)

2. It is a variant within the human condition. As the Cardinal writes, 

"I like the definition given by James Alison in his contribution: homosexual orientation is a regularly occurring non-pathological minority variant in the human condition. This definition places homosexuality within the order of creation and not within that of disorder or pathology."

If we agree on 2, then we must revise the way we approach the Bible and the church's teaching on the matter. (There should be no problem doing so: if we are willing to change our understanding of Genesis 1 and 2 (creation did not literally happen per these chapters, but has involved evolution through a long period of time) on the basis of modern scientific knowledge, we could change our understanding of homosexuality from "disorder" (a moral assessment) to "variant within the human condition" (a scientific assessment).)

And if we so revise, we might have civil debates about the ethics of homosexuality (as we do about the ethics of contraception and the ethics of marriage and divorce)?

And if we could have civil debates about the ethics of homosexuality, we might not break communion with each other (as we do not break communion over contraception or marriage or divorce).

I will not necessarily publish every comment submitted here. My attention will be on whether the comment is focused on discussing what I have written (two approaches, how to have civil debates) or ranging more widely and into much discussed matters in past blogs.

Try harder :). 

 

Why did the disciples follow Jesus?

Thank you for an amazing and invigorating thread of comments to last week's post.

This week I am going to "cheat" a little - time is pressing because our annual Clergy Conference begins today, and I am concerned that if I posted something controversial, then there might be many comments to moderate during the next few days when my mind needs to be focused on the conference and our collegiality there.

So, kind of a non-post, but definitely a question, noting the end of the thread to the last post (i.e. on Monday morning NZ time), where the question is posed, Why did the disciples follow Jesus?

That is, what were they hoping would happen (such as the overthrow of the Roman rule over Israel)? What spiritual need was beating in their hearts? What was it about Jesus that drew them to himself (noting, of course, that the same Jesus gathered a significant number of enemies during the days of his mission)?

Answers/suggestions from you will be posted as and when I am able to.

Have a great week.

The Fullness of the Church?

Continuing to roll with thoughts about true church, best church, infiltrators in the church, basis or bases for communion and so forth ...

One challenge with focusing on being "true church" is that a logical consequence is that other churches are "false churches" or, perhaps more accurately "not-actually-churches-because-there-is-only-one-church-and-that-is-the-true-church". A number of  Catholic Tweeters on X are certainly meeting that challenge with zest and joy e.g. cheerfully repeating the mantra that Anglican orders are null and void, for everyone and especially for women who dare to take up roles such as, oh, I don't know, Archbishop of Canterbury, or pouring scorn on all things "Protestant." But others, I sense, are caught between joy in being in the one true church and the agony of not wishing to deem fine Lutherans, Anglicans etc as unfit for heaven.

While an advantage of taking the "best church" approach is avoiding that challenge above, even "best church" people can end up looking askance at members of less than the best churches. 

Driving to one of our parishes recently, a familiar route on a Sunday morning taking me past a well-attended Open Brethren assembly, I got to thinking as follows.

Perhaps the important thing to focus on is the fullness of the church, by which I mean the church grows into the fullness or completeness of what is intended to be in Christ, and Christ continues to fill the church, more and more, with his fullness. Ephesians offers these thoughts on the fullness of Christ in and for the church:

"And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." (Ephesians 1:22-23)

"... the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God." (Ephesians 2:19c - 22)

"I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:18-19)

Can we say of any church, "Ah, that one has reached the fullness captured in these visionary texts?"

I think not. We all fall short, we are all provisional approximations to the fullness of the church envisioned in Ephesians (and in, say, John 17, 1 Corinthians 12-14, 1 Peter, Revelation 4-5). But, every church has something working well within it. Every church has an aspect of the fullness of the church which we can learn from. Here it might be depth of fellowship, there it might be perfection in liturgy, across the town a church may have the best (most devout, most beautiful, most God-honouring) music, and in some places of oppression, there lies the bravest and most faitful church.

Etc.

Rather than look askance at other churches as "false" or "not the best", what if we said, with ecclesiastical humility, "What can I receive from this church? What can I learn?"

Goddard v Avis and a few other things

Introduction

A few days ago, Mark posted this - thank you - in a comment which is worth posting as introduction to this week's post, assisting us in keeping perspective on the importance of the church ... the kingdom may be more important ... and also, brilliantly, connecting the Jesus of history with the Christ of faith:

"One of the great works of the Spirit has been not allowing Jesus’ dream of the reign of God to die. It was the Spirit who enlivened the apostles desolated by the failure of Jesus…[pouring] into them an unexpected and surprising energy for continuing to proclaim what Jesus proclaimed and did. The church as community of the faithful as we have it today is as much fruit of the Spirit as of Jesus. Jesus was seeking the reign and did not intend the church, but with his death a vacuum was created…It is the Spirit who comes to fill this vacuum, generating communities that propose to follow Jesus and attempt to make real his dream of the reign…

Without the Spirit there would be no way to understand the resonance achieved by Jesus in subsequent history. It was the Spirit who led communities to discover that beneath that weak man of working-class stock, itinerant prophet, was indeed hidden the incarnate Son of God. This discovery is still being made today by each generation.‍ ‍

- Leonardo Boff, Christianity in a Nutshell (2013)"

Once again into the NCP foray

Continuing to think about Anglican Communion present and future, with particular reference to the "NCPs", I see that Andrew Goddard's article titled, "The Wisdom of the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals: A Response to Paul Avis" has been re-published on Psephizo. A couple of further reflections by me:

First, I note that a commenter there offers these figures re attendance at ++Sarah's installation as Archbishop of Canterbury: 26 of the 42 global Anglican primates did attend Mullally’s enthronement and a further 6 sent representatives and indeed five African female Anglican bishops were there supporting our new Archbishop of Canterbury. This underscores at least a question if not a rejoinder to the NCPs, do they give too much credence to minority views about the future of global Anglicanism?

Secondly, while I appreciate both Avis (in sum: the proposals are seriously deficient) and Goddard (in sum: the NCPs make the best of a bad situation), I continue to be concerned that the NCPs do give way too much - far too much - by allowing for "historic connection" to the See of Canterbury to have priority ahead of "communion with the See of Canterbury", and prioritzing "baptism" ahead of "communion" as bedrock to being our label on our tin "Anglican COMMUNION" (caps mine!). Ultimately my views do not matter much, but it will be for the forthcoming Belfast meeting of the ACC to carefully consider where we head on this critical issue of communion for the Communion.

Again, into the True Church foray

Then thinking more generally about church life on this planet, not solely about Anglicanism ... the question of 'true church' figures on X again which draws attention to the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (a Catholic order with presence in the Canterbury region in which I live). According to this article, these Redemptorists "have issued a strident statement condemning the teaching of Vatican II, and rejecting the legitimacy of the popes since the council." (This "strident statement" is a 21 page letter issued on 2 May 2026 which may be found here.)

Within the 2 May 2026 letter is this stirring paragraph:

"The problem is, as St Pius X warned, that the structures of the Catholic Church have been infiltrated by men of a different non-Catholic religion. They use the Catholic name, they occupy the Catholic buildings, they know the Catholic culture. From the outside they look to be Catholics, but they do not profess the Catholic Faith as taught through the centuries. In reality, they have been formed as revolutionaries committed to the condemned Freemasonic heresies of Religious Liberty, Religious Indifference and False Ecumenism. Their infiltration has struck a lethal wound to the Catholic religion; they have brought about a major schism from the Mystical Body. We must stand firmly with the Catholic Church and move well away from the camouflage of its counterfeit."

I leave to the Catholic Church their engagement - if they choose - with this particular critique (save for one observation I make below). But what is of Anglican interest is that the above paragraph could be re-written for a certain kind of Anglican perspective (and no doubt, turn and turn about, Baptist ... Lutheran ... Presbyterian ... perspectives), thus:

"The problem is, as St Someone warned, that the structures of the Anglican world have been infiltrated by men and women of a different non-Anglican religion. They use the Anglican name, they occupy the Anglican buildings, they know the Anglican culture. From the outside they look to be Anglicans, but they do not profess the Anglican Faith as taught through the centuries. In reality, they have been formed as revolutionaries committed to the the following heresies ...* Their infiltration has struck a lethal wound to the Anglican religion; they have brought about a major schism from the Mystical Body. We must stand firmly with the authentic form of the global Anglican Church and move well away from the camouflage of its counterfeit."

*From one Anglican perspective, the warmly inclusive, broad Anglicanism of the accommodating Church of England-spread-unto-the-world has been infiltrated by a calculating exclusive, narrow Anglicanism reminiscent of the Puritanism that Richard Hooker so adroitly steered Elizabethan Anglicanism away from. From another Anglican perspective, the doctrinally sound Church of England spread large upon the world, disseminating the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles around the globe has been infiltrated by a cadre of theologians, clever lay synodspersons and errant epsicopoi preaching a message of liberal progressivism which would have Cranmer turning in his grave.

I am reminded, as I write, of an astute observation of St. Augustine (incidentally, formationally significant for Pope Leo XIV) which is noted on the side column of this blog:

"“The clouds of heaven thunder forth throughout the world that God’s house is being built. But these frogs sit in their pond and croak: ‘We’re the only Christians’!”"

Somehow I think Leonardo Boff would heartily endorse St. Augustine on this observation.