I’ll admit to feeling increasingly relieved that the PLF are not going to be authorised for ‘bespoke’ use as they currently stand. They are a true postmodern offering in the now familiar ‘ring donut’ configuration – a circle of words with nothing at the centre. This empty space couples, ministers and congregations would be left to populate with their own beliefs and understandings, whatever those are. But it’s a reckless Church that would decide to officially bless anything without a clear and shared understanding of what is being blessed and why. The Church of England Marriage Service anchors our understanding… Read more »
As Colin highlights, where we have ended up is that an ordained minister can use his or her discretion to decide which relationships should, or should not, be blessed. Synod has shown that it is not minded to weigh in on that discretion to give couples a ‘right’ to be blessed, but also Synod hasn’t fettered the discretion of ministers. Both sides are unhappy with the outcome but maybe the outcome that individual ministers (who can see individual circumstances) have the discretion to decide is the mature outcome? It means same sex couples have not gained the right for acceptance… Read more »
Are you then arguing for the Church to be offering straightforward marriage services to same-sex couples (that being the obvious answer to your anxieties about the meaning of marriage)? I feel obliged to note that the ‘LGBTQIA++ umbrella’ (whatever that is) undoubtedly shelters no more variety of relationships than an imagined heterosexual/cis-gendered umbrella – a variety likely found among those being married in church. I have not been required to uncover whether the marriages over which I have (by law) presided have ‘qualities that elevate [them] to something that the Church would wish to pronounce God’s solemn blessing upon’. I… Read more »
Rob, I am not arguing for the Church to be offering straightforward marriage services to same-sex couples. I tend to think, although I’m open to persuasion, that a different sort of service might better serve that need. I am however arguing that whatever is provided for same sex couples should have a theological basis that is also articulated liturgically. The Church cannot offer an authorised public service that is essentially an empty space for people to fill with their own meanings. That would be a contradiction in terms. We really should be clear by now that ‘the LGBTQIA+++ umbrella’ is… Read more »
“the LGBTQIA+++ umbrella now shelters a very wide variety of approaches to relationships” No more or less than exist in heterosexual relationships, the variety of which never fail to astonish me. Nobody seems to have messier or more complicated relationships than opposite sex couples. To suggest that the ‘variety’ of contemporary ‘approaches to relationships’ is peculiar to to LGBT people is both inaccurate and one of the oldest homophobic tropes. There is no ‘LGBTQIA… umbrella’. It’s not a ‘thing’ in the real world, it’s a shorthand way to describe disparate groups of flesh, blood and soul people– who, with all… Read more »
Fr Andrew, I’m consistently surprised by how many people still seem to think that the letters LGBTQIA +++ relate to homosexual as opposed to heterosexual people. It’s a hangover, I suppose, from the days of the original Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement which was founded with the specific intention of securing for homosexual people the same goods of marriage and privileges of ministry which heterosexual people enjoy. That category has long since been overshadowed by the much broader LGBTQIA +++ ‘umbrella’ (it’s too diffuse and fragmented, in my view, to function as a category) which probably contains as many heterosexual… Read more »
Jane. Thank you for your helpful reflections on this. I was involved in the development of the PLF liturgies and the long discussions leading up to their commending. I do not think they are as contentless as you suggest but there was one very particular problem when trying to write them. The CofE has effectively copyrighted any and every word, phrase, image, ritual, bible reading or prayers for the exclusive use in heterosexual marriage celebrations. It made writing these prayers very difficult. Mention of love, joy, commitment, delight or relationship was immediately suspect. Nothing must even hint that it is anything… Read more »
In 1985 the House of Bishops commended an Order for Prayer and Dedication after a Civil Marriage to provide pastorally for divorcees. In the event, rubrics designed to prevent it from looking like marriage (‘Husband and wife should enter together without ceremony. No ring is to be given’) were widely ignored, with the services often taking on the shape of a marriage rite. Seventeen years later, and hastened by the way in which the Order was being used, General Synod finally voted by a margin of over three-to-one to allow divorcees to marry in church. What has this to… Read more »
Allan, you’re right, I think. Even if the PLF are not void of content they are without form, therefore those using them in a bespoke liturgy would have to impose form themselves. The result could be anything from a service that intentionally seeks to suggest a marriage to a service that departs in significant ways from the Church’s pastoral discipline concerning godly relationships. I don’t really see how one gets around this. So long as there is nothing built into the PLF that gives them form it’s hard to see how they could responsibly be authorised as public liturgy.
Jane, thank you for helping to clarify my thoughts. I was always uneasy about standalone services; a feeling that only increased once ‘standalone’ became ‘bespoke’: ‘specially made for a particular person, organisation or purpose,’ as my dictionary defines it, and inviting the question as to what that purpose might be. The absence of form and lack of nuptial content points to one of two options: either PLF as currently authorised, or a fully developed public liturgy – in short, marriage.
Thank you, David, that’s most illuminating. I hadn’t fully appreciated the difficulties the compilers must have been under. A bit like being asked to make a cake without using sugar, butter, eggs or flour. With the best will in the world it would be hard to make anything very nourishing let alone delicious without those.
Jane, I am my own person, developing an understanding of where we are in the Church of England post the House of Bishops’ latest pronouncement. Your post is really helpful and lays out territory that I am having to think about. A later comment compares expectations of same-sex couples coming to be blessed and one day to marry with the stance taken towards heterosexual couples. When I had a licence to solemnise marriages I used my intuition and my own discretion. You provide a framework within which the Church needs to understand the Christian ideals it purports to hold and… Read more »
Allan Sheath
20 days ago
Back in the Spring (fittingly!), German bishops and laity produced an attractively presented handbook: ‘Gebete für Segnungen für Paare, die sich lieben’ (Prayers for blessing same-sex couples who love each other). https://share.google/ZaxRoYxMQ9PnORDyZ
While dioceses are divided over their use, what is remarkable is that many of the prayers, unlike those in PLF, explicitly bless the same-sex union and not only the individuals.
I should add that the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart’s guidelines explicitly allow these pastoral resources to be used in public worship, although not ritualised in a way that would confuse them with the sacrament of marriage.
The German material includes a prayer written in the style of a Eucharistic Preface, and lends itself to such usage. Was this deliberate? The prayers also draw couples away from self-absorption: ‘Let their love bear fruit: in fidelity to each other, in being there for their families and friends, in their commitment in the Church and in the world, in their dedication to your good creation.’ This is something both PLF and CW marriage could be better at. ‘To enter upon marriage,’ in John Milbank’s resonant phrase, ‘is to seek to be as wedded to one’s city as to one’s… Read more »
Bosco Peters makes a good point about the wide spectrum of Anglican beliefs, which even with Hooker developed beyond Cranmer. Anglo-Catholic theology has developed it further. Caroline Divines: Figures like Lancelot Andrewes and Jeremy Taylor offered sacramental theology that affirms real presence without transubstantiation—providing a bridge between the Articles and Anglo-Catholic belief. In fact, Aquinas denied that Christ’s Body is present “corporaliter”—that is, in a physical, spatial, or local manner. He wrote: “The Body of Christ is not in this sacrament as in a place, but sacramentally.” He distinguished between substantial presence (what the Eucharist effects) and quantitative presence (how… Read more »
I think the articles were tilting against the idea the Eucharist change implied the abolition of the substance. Good article by Henry Chadwick “Ego Berengarius” J T S
There’s a similar story told about the cathedral in Orvietto, where the sacrament is also said to have changed – I’m assuming Lanciano is a different place – perhaps there are other stories from other towns too. I assume Aristotle used the word ‘accident’ in a different way to the common one and gave it a very specialised meaning? That makes it harder to discuss these things if one party doesn’t understand the way in which the other party is using a word; I once said to a very evangelical person that I felt there’s a spiritual element to communion… Read more »
I think that Ari’s word ‘symbebekos’ means basically something that ‘goes along with/accompanies’ something else, a substance. The root meaning of ‘accident’ is somewhat the same. I think we understand the common sense idea that some changes don’t really alter the whole nature of a thing and some do – wood changes colour as it dries but is still wood, but if you put it on the fire it is no longer wood but ash. If we tried to draw the boundary between these two types of change in a precise way we might perhaps get puzzled. I don’t think… Read more »
Thanks, Martin. That does make a bit more sense for me – my Knowledge of either Latin or Greek is negligible at the best. (Sic transit gloria mundi = On Mondays Gloria drives a white Ford van….)
To quote my wife, if you actually stop and think rationally about the Gospel message, no-one with any sense would give it any credit – the whole thing is ridiculous. As Msr Panhard said of his crash gearbox, “C’est brutal, mais ses marche” – it does sound ridiculous, but it works!
Hardly even in the later Middle Ages for Lanciano. The first reports are from 1574, well into the Mod Phase. Propaganda against the thinking Anglicans of those days
Fr Dexter Bracey
19 days ago
I’m grateful for Trevor Thurston-Smith’s piece – it makes me feel less bad about the chaos at my own parish’s Act of Remembrance on Sunday!
It made me smile until I reached the account of the appalling bullying of the clergy. Bishops and archdeacons should always make it clear to those who pedantically complain as described that they are out of order and should be ashamed of themselves.
I’ll admit to feeling increasingly relieved that the PLF are not going to be authorised for ‘bespoke’ use as they currently stand. They are a true postmodern offering in the now familiar ‘ring donut’ configuration – a circle of words with nothing at the centre. This empty space couples, ministers and congregations would be left to populate with their own beliefs and understandings, whatever those are. But it’s a reckless Church that would decide to officially bless anything without a clear and shared understanding of what is being blessed and why. The Church of England Marriage Service anchors our understanding… Read more »
As Colin highlights, where we have ended up is that an ordained minister can use his or her discretion to decide which relationships should, or should not, be blessed. Synod has shown that it is not minded to weigh in on that discretion to give couples a ‘right’ to be blessed, but also Synod hasn’t fettered the discretion of ministers. Both sides are unhappy with the outcome but maybe the outcome that individual ministers (who can see individual circumstances) have the discretion to decide is the mature outcome? It means same sex couples have not gained the right for acceptance… Read more »
Do you say the same about heterosexual couples who come to you to be married? I very much doubt it.
The intent to be blessed is surely to live, two together, in a loving relationship
Jane…very well put.
Are you then arguing for the Church to be offering straightforward marriage services to same-sex couples (that being the obvious answer to your anxieties about the meaning of marriage)? I feel obliged to note that the ‘LGBTQIA++ umbrella’ (whatever that is) undoubtedly shelters no more variety of relationships than an imagined heterosexual/cis-gendered umbrella – a variety likely found among those being married in church. I have not been required to uncover whether the marriages over which I have (by law) presided have ‘qualities that elevate [them] to something that the Church would wish to pronounce God’s solemn blessing upon’. I… Read more »
Rob, I am not arguing for the Church to be offering straightforward marriage services to same-sex couples. I tend to think, although I’m open to persuasion, that a different sort of service might better serve that need. I am however arguing that whatever is provided for same sex couples should have a theological basis that is also articulated liturgically. The Church cannot offer an authorised public service that is essentially an empty space for people to fill with their own meanings. That would be a contradiction in terms. We really should be clear by now that ‘the LGBTQIA+++ umbrella’ is… Read more »
“the LGBTQIA+++ umbrella now shelters a very wide variety of approaches to relationships” No more or less than exist in heterosexual relationships, the variety of which never fail to astonish me. Nobody seems to have messier or more complicated relationships than opposite sex couples. To suggest that the ‘variety’ of contemporary ‘approaches to relationships’ is peculiar to to LGBT people is both inaccurate and one of the oldest homophobic tropes. There is no ‘LGBTQIA… umbrella’. It’s not a ‘thing’ in the real world, it’s a shorthand way to describe disparate groups of flesh, blood and soul people– who, with all… Read more »
Fr Andrew, I’m consistently surprised by how many people still seem to think that the letters LGBTQIA +++ relate to homosexual as opposed to heterosexual people. It’s a hangover, I suppose, from the days of the original Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement which was founded with the specific intention of securing for homosexual people the same goods of marriage and privileges of ministry which heterosexual people enjoy. That category has long since been overshadowed by the much broader LGBTQIA +++ ‘umbrella’ (it’s too diffuse and fragmented, in my view, to function as a category) which probably contains as many heterosexual… Read more »
Jane. Thank you for your helpful reflections on this. I was involved in the development of the PLF liturgies and the long discussions leading up to their commending. I do not think they are as contentless as you suggest but there was one very particular problem when trying to write them. The CofE has effectively copyrighted any and every word, phrase, image, ritual, bible reading or prayers for the exclusive use in heterosexual marriage celebrations. It made writing these prayers very difficult. Mention of love, joy, commitment, delight or relationship was immediately suspect. Nothing must even hint that it is anything… Read more »
In 1985 the House of Bishops commended an Order for Prayer and Dedication after a Civil Marriage to provide pastorally for divorcees. In the event, rubrics designed to prevent it from looking like marriage (‘Husband and wife should enter together without ceremony. No ring is to be given’) were widely ignored, with the services often taking on the shape of a marriage rite. Seventeen years later, and hastened by the way in which the Order was being used, General Synod finally voted by a margin of over three-to-one to allow divorcees to marry in church. What has this to… Read more »
Allan, you’re right, I think. Even if the PLF are not void of content they are without form, therefore those using them in a bespoke liturgy would have to impose form themselves. The result could be anything from a service that intentionally seeks to suggest a marriage to a service that departs in significant ways from the Church’s pastoral discipline concerning godly relationships. I don’t really see how one gets around this. So long as there is nothing built into the PLF that gives them form it’s hard to see how they could responsibly be authorised as public liturgy.
Jane, thank you for helping to clarify my thoughts. I was always uneasy about standalone services; a feeling that only increased once ‘standalone’ became ‘bespoke’: ‘specially made for a particular person, organisation or purpose,’ as my dictionary defines it, and inviting the question as to what that purpose might be. The absence of form and lack of nuptial content points to one of two options: either PLF as currently authorised, or a fully developed public liturgy – in short, marriage.
Thank you, David, that’s most illuminating. I hadn’t fully appreciated the difficulties the compilers must have been under. A bit like being asked to make a cake without using sugar, butter, eggs or flour. With the best will in the world it would be hard to make anything very nourishing let alone delicious without those.
Jane, I am my own person, developing an understanding of where we are in the Church of England post the House of Bishops’ latest pronouncement. Your post is really helpful and lays out territory that I am having to think about. A later comment compares expectations of same-sex couples coming to be blessed and one day to marry with the stance taken towards heterosexual couples. When I had a licence to solemnise marriages I used my intuition and my own discretion. You provide a framework within which the Church needs to understand the Christian ideals it purports to hold and… Read more »
Back in the Spring (fittingly!), German bishops and laity produced an attractively presented handbook: ‘Gebete für Segnungen für Paare, die sich lieben’ (Prayers for blessing same-sex couples who love each other).
https://share.google/ZaxRoYxMQ9PnORDyZ
While dioceses are divided over their use, what is remarkable is that many of the prayers, unlike those in PLF, explicitly bless the same-sex union and not only the individuals.
I should add that the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart’s guidelines explicitly allow these pastoral resources to be used in public worship, although not ritualised in a way that would confuse them with the sacrament of marriage.
The German material includes a prayer written in the style of a Eucharistic Preface, and lends itself to such usage. Was this deliberate? The prayers also draw couples away from self-absorption: ‘Let their love bear fruit: in fidelity to each other, in being there for their families and friends, in their commitment in the Church and in the world, in their dedication to your good creation.’ This is something both PLF and CW marriage could be better at. ‘To enter upon marriage,’ in John Milbank’s resonant phrase, ‘is to seek to be as wedded to one’s city as to one’s… Read more »
Protestant or RC?
RC. Sorry for not making that clear.
Bosco Peters makes a good point about the wide spectrum of Anglican beliefs, which even with Hooker developed beyond Cranmer. Anglo-Catholic theology has developed it further. Caroline Divines: Figures like Lancelot Andrewes and Jeremy Taylor offered sacramental theology that affirms real presence without transubstantiation—providing a bridge between the Articles and Anglo-Catholic belief. In fact, Aquinas denied that Christ’s Body is present “corporaliter”—that is, in a physical, spatial, or local manner. He wrote: “The Body of Christ is not in this sacrament as in a place, but sacramentally.” He distinguished between substantial presence (what the Eucharist effects) and quantitative presence (how… Read more »
I think the articles were tilting against the idea the Eucharist change implied the abolition of the substance. Good article by Henry Chadwick “Ego Berengarius” J T S
There’s a similar story told about the cathedral in Orvietto, where the sacrament is also said to have changed – I’m assuming Lanciano is a different place – perhaps there are other stories from other towns too. I assume Aristotle used the word ‘accident’ in a different way to the common one and gave it a very specialised meaning? That makes it harder to discuss these things if one party doesn’t understand the way in which the other party is using a word; I once said to a very evangelical person that I felt there’s a spiritual element to communion… Read more »
I think that Ari’s word ‘symbebekos’ means basically something that ‘goes along with/accompanies’ something else, a substance. The root meaning of ‘accident’ is somewhat the same. I think we understand the common sense idea that some changes don’t really alter the whole nature of a thing and some do – wood changes colour as it dries but is still wood, but if you put it on the fire it is no longer wood but ash. If we tried to draw the boundary between these two types of change in a precise way we might perhaps get puzzled. I don’t think… Read more »
Thanks, Martin. That does make a bit more sense for me – my Knowledge of either Latin or Greek is negligible at the best. (Sic transit gloria mundi = On Mondays Gloria drives a white Ford van….)
To quote my wife, if you actually stop and think rationally about the Gospel message, no-one with any sense would give it any credit – the whole thing is ridiculous. As Msr Panhard said of his crash gearbox, “C’est brutal, mais ses marche” – it does sound ridiculous, but it works!
Hardly even in the later Middle Ages for Lanciano. The first reports are from 1574, well into the Mod Phase. Propaganda against the thinking Anglicans of those days
I’m grateful for Trevor Thurston-Smith’s piece – it makes me feel less bad about the chaos at my own parish’s Act of Remembrance on Sunday!
It made me smile until I reached the account of the appalling bullying of the clergy. Bishops and archdeacons should always make it clear to those who pedantically complain as described that they are out of order and should be ashamed of themselves.