That's just odd- can anyone explain it?

With H/T to Anglican Curmudgeon we fly this morning to Norway - neutral marriage law since 2008- where the national church has agreed at its latest General Synod to its stance on marriage:

According to this report, the GS votes mean the Norwegian church is:

NOT in favour of same sex couples marrying in a religious ceremony

NOT keen on, in fact rejected "A proposal for a prayer recognizing two equal theological views on same sex marriage and giving the church’s blessing to same sex couples after they married in a civil ceremony".

NOT keen on, in fact shut down also "A plan to introduce a prayer, without acknowledging two equal views"

so, obviously, this church is committed to the status quo that marriage is between one man and one woman ... don't be silly because the General Synod is also

NOT in favour of the status quo that marriage is between one man and one woman.

"It meant there was no clear statement from the Kirkemøtet on Tuesday on the church’s gay marriage stance."

Explanation's of this curious set of votes welcomed in the comments ... it is beyond your blogger with his very small brain :)

Ma Whea? Commission: A nightmare or a mare's nest?

I am going to jot down responses to the Ma Whea? Commission's offering of ten options to General Synod, the report of the Doctrine Commission, with a day by day addition to this post for a week or so.

Key Links re what is being presented

Anglican Taonga Report

Ma Whea? Commission's full report in PDF

The Ten Options

Precis of Doctrine Commission's report

Doctrine Commission's full report in PDF

A blogpost or two worth looking at re response

Making Tracts (Bishop Jim White)

Monday 7 April

Reading around the traps (i.e. posts and comments to the posts) I suggest that one way to reflect on the situation before our church is that of two broad groupings talking past each other because the situation is seen in a completely different perspective by each broad grouping. (Thus the one bit of the reports presented on Taonga which connects with this reality is the news that the Doctrine Commission could not agree on a number of matters).

For one group the issue before us is small (and the group cannot understand why so much energy is expended about it), involving a modest extension of rights within our church, an additional rite for our church and, possibly, a tiny change to our doctrine of marriage by removal of gender differentiation as a sine qua non of marriage. In terms of the ten Options, C, D and I could come to the forefront of consideration with little or no ramifications, according to this line of thinking (as I detect it, reading around the traps ... I might be misreading).

For another group the issue before us is big (and thus a lot of energy is being expended because the future shape and even life itself of our church is at stake). On one point this group would agree with the other group, greater clarity re 'rights' within our church is important. Thus we read in the report on the Doctrine Commission,

'The Commission states clearly that the Church should stand for the inclusion of those who are marginalized, even while the shape of that inclusion is debated.'. 

But for the remainder of matters, this group's thinking runs along these lines: there is nothing 'modest' about a change which decides we can bless in God's name what God has prohibited, nor about removing gender differentiation as core to our understanding of marriage. For that matter even adding a rite to our church's set of rites is not a neutral action for it would raise the question of whether clergy would be disciplined for refusing to offer the rite, to say nothing of the question of people being refused ordination or appointment to licensed positions because of such refusal. I note that under Option I there is a chilling remark to the effect that it is a serious option to refuse to permit clergy to not offer the rite:

'“An exception could be considered to permit clergy to elect not to perform blessings of persons in same sex relationships.”' 

Only, 'could be considered'??

Within this group I detect an alertness to the possibility of naievity. The course of secular debate in Western societies has quickly moved from 'de-criminalization' of homosexual acts, to 'civil unions', to 'gay marriage.' Wouldn't it be foolish to presume that agreement now to Options C, D, or I would settle the matter once and for all? Surely the real agenda of those pushing for change is to secure Option E? Why not 'get it over and be done with it?'

For this group, seeing large rather than small changes before us, of the ten options, J seems the least we could agree to at this time - A would be satisfactory, B plausible but demanding. In ascending order of urgent priority for consideration F, G, and H must be reckoned with if change is going to happen.

But F, G and H are arguably 'nightmare' options. But the reality, whichever way we might go as we reflect on the options is that we have a 'mare's nest' because we have two quite different views at work as to how big or small the issues are.

The mare's nest also involves Option K which the Commission has not presented, and maybe not thought about ... more later.

Tuesday 8 April

Very interesting discussion on the Making Tracts post linked above - please read.

Reading there and elsewhere, and thinking further ... these scenarios/questions strike me:

X: We retain the status quo because we cannot agree on a way forward ... but perhaps also because we recognise that whatever we do, change or don't change, our church will suffer loss, and we cannot work out which is the greater loss if we pursue one option rather than another.

Y: We change (or signal 'change in principle, two years study, change in 2016 in practice') but will we be able to sustain Two Integrities? Will those pressing for change admit safeguards? Will they be permanent or for the time-being? What kind of Two Integrities would we have? Referring back to discussion on Making Tracts (link above) would the Two Integrities be akin to trying to promote both Baptism of Infants of Believers and Baptism of Adult Believers Only (something Anglicans have not done previously) or to living with Military Chaplains and Pacifists in our midst?

Z: We bite the bullet and press for Dismemberment: choose you this day whom you will bless. (At least we might allow ourselves a process through two years for orderly Dismemberment). But would the rump 'gay church' survive? If we pressed for Change Now, Dismemberment Now some very strong parishes (i.e. with many younger generation families) could depart. Almost certainly on such a draconian cleaving of the ways, the Diocese of Nelson (with a theological college in its midst) would walk apart. Perhaps one other NZ Diocese too, along with the Diocese of Polynesia. Many parishes remaining would consist of elderly parishioners incapable of embracing adaptation to the 21st century, unable to put forward candidates for ordained ministry in sufficient numbers to maintain ordained leadership going forward. Within ten years the rump church would be in severe crisis mode re person power in the ministry (though likely not financially as existing trust funds would spread better over fewer ministries). Hmm. Not an exciting scenario. Perhaps General Synod won't go there!

In some ways our church is considering a 'zero sum' game: if we chose one scenario we keep so many and lose so many; if we choose another scenario we lose that much and keep that many. Put another way, our dilemma (arguably, when all is said and done) is whether we wish to include conservatives and marginalise gay couples and their supporters or marginalise conservatives and canonically include gay couples and bring peace to their supporters. We would like to (so to speak) keep both groups happy. We worry that we cannot do so. If there were a simple answer to the dilemma we would not be a church with ten options to consider!

There is also an eleventh Option K to consider which I will think about further while on the road today ... comments may not be posted till late tonight.

Wednesday 9 April

Reading the ten options I do not find any particular sense of reflection on the future of our church in terms of growth and development, in terms of, we might say, riffing off from Option H, 'Planned Memberment.'

The focus, understandably, through the ten options is, 'What will we decide?' and 'How will making a decision, one way or another, affect current membership of the church?'

But we live in a desperate situation for our church, one of widespread ageing and decline of congregations BUT NOT a situation beyond change, transformation and a new day dawning. A new day dawning, however, is about recruiting new members into the life of our church.

None of the ten options addresses the question of what kind of church in the future will new people want to join (whether as Christians transferring from other churches or as new Christians responding to the gospel preached from our ministry unit bases).

In the present context some, of course, are likely to say 'Well, no one will want to join a church out of touch with the times' and others might say, 'Not so. Who would join a church which looks so in touch with the times that all distinctiveness of message and lifestyle is lost?' Personally I would prefer to ask this question:

'What messages being preached in word and deed today are drawing new members into the life of the Anglican church in these islands?'

My Option K is then this: 'We should decide re marriage and the possibility of blessing relationships which are not marriage to make changes (or no changes) which support and foster the messages being preached in word and deed today which draw new members into our churches'.

Would doing anything else foster the continuing decline of our church?

Friday 11 April

Our dilemma as a church is neatly captured by a comment made on Making Tracts - link above - from which I cite a small portion:

"In the NZ society, unlike Australia, there is no official discrimination except in the church. Even the visiting future king attended a playgroup yesterday with a same sex couple and their child. It was harldy big news.Even in my age group of 60 plus I do not experience any discrimination day to day. Most of my friends however do not go near a church.I do not support church missionary activity because I would not recommend any young gay person become involved with the church. That way lies misery."

I suggest that no one on the conservative side of the argument wishes the church to be a place where it is viewed as the only community within society where there is 'official discrimination' against gay members; nor does anyone wish the church to be a place where gay members are 'miserable'.

Yet no one on the conservative side of the argument wishes the church to be a place where our understanding of the will of God is determined by sweeping social change or parliamentary law. Social change expressed in law may be God's will (or at least in accordance with God's will) but shouldn't the church discern whether that is the case or not? And shouldn't our discernment be undertaken in terms of our understanding of Scripture and tradition?

Solomon: what is your cellphone number?

Sunday 14 April

I like this comment by Gail Young on Anglican Taonga's report re the commission (but it needs to be read in tandem with the comment below by Rosemary Neave):

"

Gail Young

Friday 11 April 2014 7:15:52 am

The Catholic and Apostolic Church that was founded by Christ, Matt.16:18, and served by the Apostles and early church fathers as recorded in the Book of Acts calls mankind to define themselves by their relationship to their saviour Christ. Perhaps it is now time for all the modern liberalists who wish to define themselves outside of this doctrine should be like the rest of the modern world and move on too.
Contrary to Rosemary's comments, the church has no desire to throw the "gays" out but like the rest us, their inclusion is contingent upon keeping His commandments John 14:15.
Those attending the General Synod at Waitangi in May would do well to remember that the church and doctrine belong to Christ and not to man and that it is our duty to live in His church for Him and through Him.

rosemary Neave

Sunday 06 April 2014 10:59:57 am

Sigh - is any of this news? As one friend said we could have come up with this list on the back of an envelope over a drink.

I feel a little sorry for the Commission, the Church handed them a hot potato, because they could not come up with a solution themselves. And now it is back in the Church's hands.

For God's sake make a decision! We are so over this, much of the world has moved on, and can not believe we are still debating this.

If the Church decides to kick gays out, then do it, put us out of our misery. Show your true colours.

Justice delayed is justice denied."

Then ...

Mollie Hemingway, in the context of the USA has a stirring column re marriage and debates (or suppression of debate) in her country. Here is the heart of her pro-marriage as it always has been argument:

"Well, I know that we’ve had years of criminally one-sided media coverage, cowardly political leaders and elite cultural views that have conveyed to you that the only reason anyone might think sexual complementarity is key to marriage is bigotry. ... There’s no question marriage has been treated dramatically differently than other relationships by governments and society. Why? Is it that it features a more vibrant or emotional connection? Or is there some feature that is a difference in kind – that marks it out as something that ought to be socially structured? We usually don’t want government in our other relationships, right? So why is marriage singled out throughout all time and human history as a different type of recognized relationship?
Well, what singled it out was that sex was involved. Sex. ... And why does that matter? Well, there’s precisely one bodily system for which each of us only has half of the system. It’s the one that involves sex between one man and one woman. It’s with respect to that system that the unit is the mated pair. In that system, it’s not just a relationship that is the union of minds, wills or important friendships. It’s the literal union of bodies. In sexual congress, in intercourse between a man and a woman, you are literally coordinated to a single bodily end.In every other respect we as humans act as individual organisms except when it comes to intercourse between men and women — then we work together as one flesh. Coordination toward that end — even when procreation is not achieved — makes the unity here. This is what marriage law was about. Not two friends building a house together. Or two people doing other sexual activities together. It was about the sexual union of men and women and a refusal to lie about what that union and that union alone produces: the propagation of humanity. This is the only way to make sense of marriage laws throughout all time and human history. Believing in this truth is not something that is wrong, and should be a firing offense. It’s not something that’s wrong, but should be protected speech. It’s actually something that’s right. It’s right regardless of how many people say otherwise. If you doubt the truth of this reality, consider your own existence, which we know is due to one man and one woman getting together. Consider the significance of what this means for all of humanity, that we all share this."

Tuesday 15 April

 With H/T to a colleague for two of the three links below, I note the following:

A new crisis for the C of E re gay marriage, precisely because a clergyman has married his male partner and thus appears to have flouted C of E rules.

Andrew Brown comments on the delicacies of the situation, including that the clergyman is secularly employed as a chaplain while holding a bishop's licence as a canon. I am not sure that Andrew Brown has a particularly dramatic headline - creaking compromises are what the C of E is made up of!

Then a link to an interpretation of Leviticus. What do you think, brilliant or incorrect?

The politics of Jesus (7 April 2014)

'As proved by the budget, the basic idea is simple enough: they divide society into those who think they can cope with globalisation and those who cannot, and then shower the former with praise and modest enticements – while clobbering the latter in the service of political popularity. Better to be a striver than a benefit claimant. Better, too, to play your part in what David Cameron calls the global race – manifested in George Osborne's beloved infrastructure projects – than to admit its impossibility. For all its awfulness, I understand that version of what lies ahead; indeed, I can almost feel it.'

John Harris, writing in, of all media, The Guardian, argues that the Tories own the future (of the United Kingdom) and the social democrats, let alone the socialists of the Labour Party are trapped in the past. The Tories make up 'they' in the above quote. This is no propaganda piece for the Tory right. But witheringly he asks of their counterparts on the left,

'What Marx and Engels would call the mode of production has long since changed. But have enough people on the left actually noticed?'

A challenge for Christians thinking through the politics of Jesus in 2014 is to work out these politics according to the situation of today. That puts a lot of weight on 'the situation of today'! Harris makes an excellent point that 'today' is not the burgeoning industrialised world of Mark and Engels in the mid nineteenth century. Arguably the only virtue of communism in Soviet Russia and in Mao's China (the two most notable communist experiments of the 20th century) was that they caught up two largely agrarian societies with the mid nineteenth century. If that is a virtue given the ongoing effects of industrialization on our world such as pollution and waste.

Some reference to 'the Left' and to communism is called for when working out the politics of Jesus for today because the core vision of Jesus' politics is remarkably in tune with communism's vision for sharing control of the material things of life and for the outcome of class warfare in which there is only one class of equal people.

Our guide here is Luke, theologian of the poor, when he sets out the life of the earliest days of the church in Acts 2:44-45:

'All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.'

Prior to this Luke has told the story of Jesus preaching the good news of the kingdom of God (i.e. the Gospel according to Luke). That story in Luke's hands has introduced us to a Samaritan caring for a Jew, to Zacchaeus returning his stolen money to the community he has defrauded, to women treated as equals of men, and to the impossibility of the rich entering the kingdom of God. How does that work out in practice, Luke? Like this, Luke says: 'All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.'

Whether or not we go on to say 'but' or 'except' in respect of people earning a living (e.g. Paul making tents during his missionary travels) or continuing to own large houses in the service of churches meeting in them (e.g. Romans 16) or the lack of action in abolishing slavery through direct change (see Philemon for, arguably, changing slavery by indirect action), we should not as Christians engaged in politics, seeking to be faithful to the politics of Jesus himself, let go of the communist core of these politics.

Every time we gather as church, inviting all baptised believers to gather together around the table of the Lord as one body of Christ, we honour the vision of a classless kingdom of the baptised.

What we may not be so good at doing these days is working out the implications of sharing communion together for community life between 11 am Sunday morning and 10 am the following Sunday morning!

POSTSCRIPT: It might be going too far to say that Jesus was a homeless bum at the bottom of society through no choice of his own, as a recent doctoral thesis presented here argues. In this news report of it, I am very pleased to find that the new Dean of Tikanga Pakeha students at St John's College is a person of sensible, orthodox theological views!

Urgent Reading

The great day has dawned. Online are reports and what have you from the Ma Whea Commission and the Doctrine Commission, with options to consider.

The links via Anglican Taonga are these:

Taonga Report on release of MW Commission report.

Ten Options in the Report.

Doctrine Commission's Report.

Your comments most welcome. I have not started reading yet. For overseas readers this is material preparatory to our General Synod in May this year.

I am interested in comments which carefully and thoughtfully review what is in these links and offer insight into what we who belong to our church are thinking in response. I am also interested in reflections from those looking in from outside our church which may help us in our review of these matters.

I am not interested in, and may not publish comments which:
- slag off one side of the debate or the other
- take us onto the merry go round of debate about homosexuality in general terms (we have been there before, we can go there again on another occasion).

I would love to hear which of the ten options you think are viable or not viable or a waste of time debating. Perhaps there is an eleventh option, or even a twelfth which you would like to propose.

No confusion of tongues?

It is great to get robust responses to posts. So my excursion towards Anglican theological coherency has provoked various responses. Here are some reflections:

- 'catholic' seems to me to mean different things to different folks: some lean towards it as valuing 'tradition' with openness to development of the tradition rather than maintaining it in a foxed form; actually change 'some' to 'everyone' commenting here; it seems to be just me who thinks that 'catholic' is about the common life of the church and its value lies in commitment to securing that common life around any development of the tradition.

- a way forward, attractive to me, is for Anglicans to refind and recommit to classical Anglicanism, at least in the sense of renewing our understanding of Anglican coherency at the time of the English Reformation and its aftermath, the coherency which is reflected in the theology of the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty Nine Articles, embedded as they are in Scripture while yet valuing some rules of faith which shape our understanding of Scripture.

Meanwhile, I promised a post on liberalism as a possible way forward for a coherent Anglican theology. I think liberalism is a wonderful way of being coherent theologically. The essence of the liberal approach to theology is to take nothing received for granted and to be open to all new possibilities. That offers great possibilities for a consistent theology as well as all the coherency of liberalism in general, for instance, the coherency of placing humanity at the centre of God's purposes and understanding God as essentially committed to human flourishing.

There is just the slight problem of the word 'Anglican' in the phrase 'liberal Anglican theology' because 'Anglican' begs questions about whether the coherency of a genuine liberal theology fits with implied commitments on the part of Anglicans to taking some received things for granted (Scripture, creeds, liturgies) and to not being open to all new possibilities (as some are bound to clash with what is already agreed).

Anglican Babel?

Can an Anglican talk theology with coherency and integrity or is our theology bound to disintegrate, like language at Babel?

A while I go I made a first stab at this question by considering the coherency of Roman theology and the price it pays when subject to test, specifically the test of coping with the breakdown of marriage. I suggest the price of coherency is too high: annulments of 'marriages' are declared in order for a new marriage to proceed as a genuine marriage and not an 'as if' or 'sort of, sort of not' marriage. But the price of this theological coherency is either dissembling (many a true marriage is determined not to be so (i.e. a marriage ceremony, consummation, bringing of children into the world can be determined to be 'not a marriage')) or injustice (some people through no particular fault of their own, having ended up divorced also end up forbidden to participate in the eucharist - a matter that Pope Francis is clearly intent on addressing).

But can Anglicans do better? We are quite good (in my experience of blogging) at finding all sorts of pitfalls in our diverse attempts at coherent theology.

Evangelical Anglican theology? Pah. It either does not take Scripture seriously, or fails to define 'plain reading', or avoids engagement with the question of the 'what' and 'whose' of Scripture (what is it, who determines it, is it not the church's book more than God's book?) or lacks consideration of the role that reason and tradition play in the understanding of Scripture, or ...[name another fault]. At least that's what some commenters say here in argument against my slavish devotion to evangelical Anglican theology which is both impeccable, irrefutable and irrepressible :)

Catholic Anglican theology? What a disaster that is turning out to be! Or is it? Start commenting now and refute the following ... At the heart of catholic theology (as I understand it) is a concern for finding, forwarding and fostering common theological ground both the commonality of past and present belief. Whether we focus on tradition or on ubiquity of belief (what Christians have always and everywhere believed) that commonality is important. For the present, commonality of belief, when questions arise as belief is challenged to adapt, change or develop, means catholic theologians look for the common if not universal agreement among Christians which favours any proposed adaptation, change or development.

Within the Roman approach to catholic belief the role of the pope is crucial, both as leading upholder of tradition and as authoriser of new developments in belief. That is, the pope (again, as I understand things) is decisive for catholic theology (in Roman perspective) as the one who, finally, after all sorts of consideration, including by the magisterium, determines that from henceforth thus and so will be grafted into the tradition.

For Anglican catholics, united in respect for but not in obedience to the pope, the commonality of belief has been fostered by renewed emphasis on the days of the development of the common tradition (i.e. the works of the Fathers), by acknowledgement of the model offered by Eastern Orthodoxy (no pope, but faithfulness to the tradition within autonomous Orthodox churches) and by determination to read the gospels themselves afresh as the starting point for orthodox, catholic theology. But that approach appears to have run aground.

On the one hand, conservative catholics have largely abandoned ship, heading for Rome directly or the Ordinariate, recognising that the tradition of catholic theology within Anglican churches, revived under the Anglo-Catholic movement has no future when it abandons the tradition  in order to bring about change not agreed to by some common forum such as (in Anglican terms) the Lambeth Conference.

On the other hand liberal catholics, willing to embrace change to theology without regard for even a small commonality factor (no Anglican agreement, let alone Roman or Eastern Orthodox agreement) have effectively denied the word 'catholic' in the description of the approach. Continuing appearances of catholicity such as maintaining common robes and rituals paradoxically forms 'the Emperor's robing' as a cover for the loss of common faith.

Does that leave an unabashed liberal Anglican theology as the unexpected winner of the coherent theology stakes? Let's leave that question for another post.

Tell me my analysis above is wrong. I am desperately keen to find a coherent Anglican theology. Notwithstanding what is said above, I remain confident of the future of Anglican evangelical theology!

The Ugley Vicar

John Richardson, author of The Ugley Vicar blog has not commented here for a while but when he commented it was always gracious, thoughtful and exceedingly clear. I often commented on his blog which unfailingly presented gracious, thoughtful clear thinking from a conservative evangelical perspective on matters theological, Anglican and sometimes cosmological.

Checking Twitter today I learn from Rachel Marszelek that John has died (after being ill for a while). Rachel shares her own experience of engaging with John both in blog and in person. Read her post here. The Anglican Church League has a notice here with a poem written by John.