8 October 2014 A.D. Church of England’s Entrenched Split on Same-Sex Marriage
8 October 2014 A.D. Church of England’s Entrenched Split on
Same-Sex Marriage
Brown, Andrew. “Church of England’s gay marriage split is as entrenched as ever.” The Guardian. 8 Oct 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/oct/08/church-of-england-gay-marriage. Accessed 8 Oct 2014.
Church of England’s gay marriage split is as entrenched as ever
Brown, Andrew. “Church of England’s gay marriage split is as entrenched as ever.” The Guardian. 8 Oct 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/oct/08/church-of-england-gay-marriage. Accessed 8 Oct 2014.
Church of England’s gay marriage split is as entrenched as ever
As the evangelical Reform
group pulls out of talks after it was accused of homophobia, reconciliation
seems far away
Hopes that the Church of England might be able to discuss
its deep differences over gay people looked sillier yesterday after the
conservative evangelical group Reform pulled out of
conversations. It was upset over the failure to “admonish” a prominent
liberal, while gay protestors led by Peter Tatchell heckled the archbishop of
York over his backing for sanctions against a gay priest who has married his
partner.
Reform’s press
release dropped in first. The group is upset by three things. The
headline is that it wants the bishop of Buckingham, Alan Wilson, to stop calling conservative evangelicals (that would be Reform) “homophobic”,
and to renounce his public support for gay marriage. Then it wants a crackdown
on those priests who have married their partners. This is extremely difficult
legally, as Wilson points out in public and the house of bishops has been told
in private.
The Rev Andrew Cain, the
first gay practising vicar to marry his partner, talks about his wedding
Two priests have so far married their partners, so far as
we know. One, Andrew Foreshaw Cain, holds his job by freehold, which makes it difficult – probably impossible
– to expel him. There is no sign that the diocese of London plans to make the
attempt.
The other, Jeremy Pemberton, works as a hospital chaplain
in Lincoln, and has just been prevented from
taking up a new job in the NHS by the refusal of the
relevant bishop to license him. That refusal, which seems to have been prompted
by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, was the reason for Tatchell’s protest.
It will also be contested in the courts. Pemberton’s marriage was entirely
legal. The NHS is bound by discrimination law, even if the Church of England is
not. Since he has clearly been deprived of the job by the bishop’s actions
because of his sexuality, his lawyers have an interesting case.
But the real sticking point for Reform was the hope
expressed by the bishops at their most recent meeting, “for the Church of
England to live together as a family who disagree with one another.” They are
Calvinists. They don’t want to live together with people who disagree with them
– to be “yoked with unbelievers”, as St Paul put it. You can laugh at their
demand not to be called “homophobic”, although it would be a small thing to
grant them.
You can laugh, too, at the gloriously unrealistic demand
that the church spend millions in legal battles with the equality law.
What is non-negotiable, though, is the group’s demand
that the church deal with disagreement on this matter by expelling its
opponents. It’s certainly a popular demand – on both sides. But it is the one
thing against which the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has set his
face. What he wants is “good disagreement”. For Reform – and, to be fair, for
its opponents – what’s good about disagreement is the moment when the enemy
crumbles.
There is a sense, though, in which events are on the
archbishop’s side. If 30 years of wrangling over gay priests has proved
anything, it is that neither side can force the other out of the church, though
both are certain that God wants them to. Now that gay marriage is legal, the
tide has clearly turned in the direction of equality, but it still has a long
way to go. The most recent Observer
survey showed that 16% of British adults still want gay sex between
consenting adults criminalised. Most Christians would be horrified by that, but
a clear majority of churchgoing Anglicans are opposed to gay marriage, as are
an even clearer majority of the elderly men who make up most of the General
Synod. Any change in church law will take 10 or 15 years.
The argument will clearly continue for that long. It will
probably continue until Christ returns. And whether or not Reform talks to its
opponents, its members are certainly never going to shut up.
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