Sarah Coakley Church Times Bring theology back to the parishes
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Full equality in ministry and relationships for LGBTQIA+ people — Unadulterated Love
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Gratification and Power – A Problem for the Church
Helen King Premier Christianity I’m celebrating the UK’s first female archbishop. I don’t care that she is in a civil partnership
I strongly support what Colin Coward wants but I believe that how the demand is phrased matters very much. LGBTQ+ Christians have most certainly been treated disgracefully by the Church of England but they are not the only minority group to feel excluded and unwanted. In a triumph for inclusion and equality a Lesbian woman with a loving partner has just been elected Archbishop of Wales. Archbishop Cherry’s vision and ministry has the capacity to transform the Anglican Communion and I pray that it will. Cherry Vann emphasizes small things: welcome, inclusion, kindness, mutual respect, community and perhaps most important… Read more »
“Inclusion shouldn’t be the exclusive preserve of liberals.”
In my experience, whenever an attempt is made in Anglican circles (and I include my own Episcopal subset) to be inclusive of both liberals and conservatives–especially when it concerns sexuality and/or gender–it is the conservatives who exclude themselves, on the grounds that any meeting with those on the other side will “taint” them.
Try being a gender critical gay man or woman, you’ll experience the inclusion from both sides, it’s great.
‘Transphobe’. The word is ‘transphobe’. Astonishingly, when you’re openly bigoted decent people aren’t keen. Have you tried commiserating with Lawrence Fox?
Jo, you would be more likely to win people to your point of view if you could disagree courteously, and avoid calling people insulting names. As it is, you’ve proved Lorenzo’s point for him.
Do you take that approach with self-proclaimed “race realists”?
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘race realists’, but I don’t resort to calling people names just because I disagree with them.
‘Race realists’ is the label racists hide behind, much as transphobes hide behind ‘gender critical’. Using accurate descriptors isn’t name calling, and I’m not going to indulge the pretence that if we don’t name transphobia it will go away.
Knowing that people cannot change sex is not bigotry. It’s not even a belief, it’s a fact. Reality is not bigoted.
That depends entirely on how you define sex. I’ve never seen a definition that manages to include everyone generally accepted as being a particular sex and exclude trans people who understand themselves to be that sex. Reductive definitions based on chromosomes or presence or absence of particular organs always end up misidentifying cis people too.
The Supreme Court disagrees with you.
The supreme court didn’t address the question. What they referred to as “biological sex” is, in fact, “sex assigned at birth”. Besides which, the judgement only refers to the meaning of sex in the context of the Equality Act 2010 and was bound by the legal principle that legislation cannot be held to use different definitions in different places within the same act. The problem is that the EA is poorly drafted and doesn’t properly address how it interacts with the Gender Recognition Act 2004. The ECHR has long held that trans people should be treated legally in line with… Read more »
Biological sex is determined at birth on observation of the genitalia which are present or absent. This can be confirmed – or otherwise – by chromosomal analysis. Of course there are those who don’t fit neatly into either male or female categories, being intersex or having a mix of male and female organs and chromosomes, or where some organs are absent.
And all of us are a highly individual mix of ‘male’ and ‘female’ characteristics. Stereotyping of male and female characteristics and roles has done a lot of damage.
Sex can also be confirmed, or otherwise, by talking to the person concerned and listening to what they tell you. It is not clear why a person’s sense of self should take second place to what sex you’ve decided they are.
Many people make the distinction between sex, which is biological, and gender which is a person’s sense of self. I have no problem with people whose gender is different from their biological sex. The problem does arise, however, when a person who is male-bodied wants to use protected female-only spaces such as women’s toilets and changing rooms. There is also an issue with those who have gone through puberty as a male, with the advantages of height, reach, and muscular strength that gives them, and then want to compete in sport against biological females. It gives them an unfair advantage.… Read more »
There is, perhaps, an argument at elite level in some sports there is some residual advantage from male-pattern puberty but the evidence is incredibly weak and there is absolutely no need to impose restrictions on recreational sport or chess(!) as we have seen recently. Excluding trans women from all women-only spaces not only places trans women at risk by forcing them into mens spaces (and trans women already experience far higher rates of SA) but is utterly disproportionate to any risk they might pose. The stoking of fears around trans women also makes cis women unsafe because the gender police… Read more »
It can’t be reasonable to force women en bloc to share their women-only spaces with male-bodied people. It seems we need a third category of spaces for trans people. I would support that.
A third category of spaces for people who are scared of trans women would seem more appropriate, seeing as they are the ones making an issue out of it.
And you would include in that category rape victims, sexual abuse survivors, and all women who come from backgrounds (Muslim, Orthodox Jewish, Sikh etc) where the sexes are kept separate?
If you are making the presence or absence of a penis into an idol of “Safety”, you’re badly mistaken. You’re probably more likely to be raped in a bathroom 1) by a cis man (and NOT wearing a dress!), or even 2) a cis woman (regardless of what she’s wearing), than 3) a trans woman.
On a larger level: for Christians, our Ultimate Safety comes from, y’know, God? Before we go around penalizing the Imago Dei Made Trans (and yes: it’s God who creates trans people: not endos or surgeons or psychiatrists—much less other trans people!)
Have you actually ever sat down with a transgendered person and hear their story (without your interrupting them to dismiss them as being unreal)? I’d never know any transgendered persons until just a few years ago. Now I know two, both of whom are very dedicated Christians (one of which is ordained). Both transitioned in their 60s, after struggling with their sexual dysphoria since early childhood. I admit I do not “understand” this subject. But I respect both of them tremendously and trust their honest struggle and ultimate decisions for their lives. It’s their “reality” and no one else has… Read more »
Yes, I have. I’ve met hundreds. I used to raise awareness of AIDS among transexuals, as they were then called, for ActUp. Their self-perception was not the best. It still is not, and society at large will not play along with the delusion; ‘a third category of spaces for people who are scared of trans women,’ will never see the light of day. If I have to explain why this is the case to you, you are so ideologically befuddled that I would waste my time.
I don’t expect to see a “third category of spaces” because once this ridiculous moral panic has blown over people will go back to being completely unbothered by the possibility that the person in the next cubicle might have been born with different genitals to them. Apart from the “ideologically befuddled” of course.
It isn’t just about the person in the next cubicle, nor about a moral panic. I don’t see trans as a moral issue at all. It’s about women’s safety and dignity being compromised, and not just in spaces separated into cubicles.
The moral panic is precisely the claim that trans women are a threat to the safety and dignity of cis women.
Let me clarify. I don’t think the vast majority of trans women are a threat of any kind to cis women. The threat – which is genuine – comes from that minority of predators and imposters who claim to be trans in order to access women’s safe spaces. Such as the nurse who claimed to be a trans woman and made a point of hanging around in the female nurses’ changing room, watching them dress and undress, while boasting about trying to get his live-in girlfriend pregnant. And the rapists who claimed to be trans only after their arrest, in… Read more »
I would fully support measures to safeguard against predators. Prisoners can be and are subject to risk assessment to protect other prisoners, and it’s pretty obvious that regardless of how they identify a rapist should not be housed alongside those they demonstrated a propensity to target. That applies just as much to cis men who have assaulted other men as it does to possibly fraudulent trans women. The nurse you report was clearly harassing people in an egregious way and should have been dealt with through disciplinary procedures; their claiming to be trans shouldn’t come into it. I think it’s… Read more »
Cubicles? The changing rooms I use in gyms and at pools are all open plan and privacy for bodies is essentially non existent without the contortions required when changing on the beach in windy weather. Lots of assumptions being hurled into the argument here.
Given that the current EHRC are dead set on banning trans people from using the appropriate toilet (or, in the case of trans men, any toilet) based on the court judgement Janet has cited with apparent approval, and the transvestigators and wannabe genital inspectors are hounding women who don’t look feminine enough while using the ladies, toilets are a good place to start. As for changing facilities, it’s hard to see why trans women are more of a threat than cis lesbians, and we’ve largely got over that moral panic (which, for a time, hit most of the same talking… Read more »
Ah — “ideologically befuddled.” Sorry, I’m afraid I’m not a warrior in the great Trans-Wars. I have no skin in this game. You have “met” hundreds of “transexuals” in order to protect them from being infected by AIDS. They didn’t have good “self-perception” and were apparently “delusion[al].” The implication I get is that they were sex workers or highly promiscuous persons. The two persons I mentioned are dedicated Christians and highly educated. So perhaps our perceptions are based on our different experiences. Your organization’s self-expressed goal is: “Above all, delenda est Cartago.” The destruction of Carthage involved the killing of… Read more »
Lorenzo, that’s a bit strong.
As an ordinary congregation member (albeit in an English parish, not a Welsh one) I’d firstly like to wish Cherry Vann well in her new post. Comments about her ministry on past TA threads have been universally complimentary, and she sounds to be a very competent and Godly person. I wish we had more like her. In terms of the British church her appointment must be a major ‘first’ simply by virtue of her being a woman archbishop, never mind her marital status or sexuality. In the workaday world I live in the last two are irrelevant; the fact she’s… Read more »
In respect of same-sex marriage, the doctrinal stumbling block is marriage’s third ‘good’: being open to the gift of children. As a priest happy to offer Eucharist for single-sex couples, I still struggle with the question: ‘does this good have the bandwidth to embrace same-sex marriages?’ In 1977 the C of E caught up liturgically with St Augustine in ordering the goods of permanence and fidelity before offspring. Not to rank them, but in recognition of their mutuality: permanence and fidelity providing the foundation in which children can flourish. The procreative purpose of marriage remained – the one good without… Read more »
This is a complex question which needs detailed and nuanced debate. The first question to ask is how has contraception changed the rules of the game. If the “mutuality: permanence and fidelity” of marriage is necessary to provide “the foundation in which children can flourish”, then a ban on sex before marriage can be argued as being necessary if it prevents the birth of children outside marriage. But in these days of widespread contraception then is such a ban still necessary? It seems to me that even within Christian networks the ban on sex before marriage is widely ignored by… Read more »
Simon…
“But in these days of widespread contraception “
just as “data”… I don’t see contraception as a wonderful solution to every circumstance.
in 2022 there were over 250,000 abortions in England and Wales. “…82% of abortions were for those whose marital status was given as ‘single’.
Re: The 82% figure –
“Fifty-one percent were to those whose marital status was given as ‘single with a partner’ “.
Ref: http://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2022/
Surely those abortions point (largely) to the failure (to use) contraception?
It is worth noting in this context that in conservative and orthodox Judaism, being a Jew is inherited through the matrilineal line–if your mother isn’t Jewish, neither are you. Children born of couples where the father is Jewish and the mother is not are required to convert.
And Mary’s age is also highly relevant. Jewish girls in first century Palestine were “betrothed” as soon as they reached puberty. So we can assume Mary was a young teenager, barely more than a child when she gave birth to Jesus. God could have chosen a 30 year old widow but he didn’t.
Do 21 century Christians conclude that teenage pregnancy is a good idea ?
Of course not !
It is only our attitude to Lesbian and Gay sexuality that is set in stone.
Thanks Pat. That’s an interesting comment. Perhaps Jewish matrilineal descent is a throwback to these earlier cultures. But having said that, these earlier “biarchal” cultures (i.e. shared rule, not rule by father or mother) were often both matrilineal and matrilocal. The husband moved to live with the family of the wife. This meant that the wife had significant support within marriage, especially for childcare. Childcare could be a communal, a shared experience with support from siblings, aunts and the wider community. This contrasts with a patrilocal culture where the wife moves to live with the husband’s family, and has significantly… Read more »
Really interesting comments. Whoever the next ABC is, liberal or conservative, they have an important job to do making sure that current church teaching is properly communicated, and that possible effects of alternatives are assessed rigorously before considering making changes. On this strand of comments we have Simon’s comment ‘This contrasts with a patrilocal culture where the wife moves to live with the husband’s family, and has significantly less support. This is why I struggle to accept that Christian teachings around marriage are the optimal way of bringing up children. ‘ The CofE, then, has made a lousy job of explaining… Read more »
Wow, I had never noticed that before. The Adam/Eve snippet you quoted can be read as a matrilocal reference, with the man going to live with his in-laws, rather than the stereotypical patrilocal assumption of the woman leaving her parents to live with the husband’s family.
There are so many little phrases like that in Scripture which can be argued as harking back to these early matrilocal/biarchal times, but which pass us by until we are aware of this scholarship.
Thank you so much.
I think the matrilineal inheritance of being Jewish derives primarily from the fact that it is always obvious who gave birth to a child, but not who contributed the sperm.
Patrilineal descent is demanded by the Samaritans and the Karaites, the Bible-only not-Talmudic Jewish group that emerged in the Middle Ages. I think that matrilinearity was rooted in opposition to the claim of Herod the Geat, the pro-Roman dedicated to works of piety, to be legitimate King of the Jews. It’s not clear that the Gospel writers would have been aware of this principle or this dispute
Mixed marriages would be almost unheard of?
Herod was challenged on that basis but many Jews were ready to accept him, so maybe his father’s mixed marriage wasn’t unique. There are many mixed marriages in the Old Testament
Agreed. That would often be the case in the wider set of matrilineal/biarchal cultures being explored by this scholarship.
Talking about the Zuni Nation (SW USA, 19th Century), Will Roscoe wrote “In a matrilineal system, there was no such thing as an illegitimate child. Children only needed mothers to be ensured membership in a household and a clan.”
There is a fair amount of scholarship around the origin of matrilineality in Jewish thought. I believe the consensus is that it emerged around 10-70AD. See The Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law, Shaye J.D. Cohen, AJS Review, V. 10.1, 1985, 19-53
The blessing of couples in same-sex unions has been achieved within the existing doctrinal framework and without causing schism – noises off notwithstanding. Whether or not this represents a rolling back of patriarchy, it is nonetheless a significant achievement in itself.
I agree with you that same-sex marriage can be argued for within the existing doctrinal framework.
My post was more in response to the texts you cited about Christian marriage and sex and children. I think there is much in that teaching which needs to be re-examined. But such re-examination would benefit heterosexual couples as much as same-sex couples.
My grandmother had to promise to obey my grandfather, her grandmother had to wait until 1882 before she could hold property in her own name. Even the 1753 Hardwicke Marriage Act was as much about property and power as it was about clandestine marriages. Historically, morality around marriage has been informed more than we might care to think by the desire to control conception, women and property. As you say, patriarchy. But you don’t say how our remaining unexamined attitudes could benefit by reference to those societies in which “children could be cared for perfectly well without needing to know… Read more »
It would be a mistake to dismiss the voices of the over whelming majority of the Anglican communion as ‘noises off’ and thinking that the blessing of same sex couples will not cause schism. The Anglican Nigerian church, the largest in the communion has already broken communion with the Church in Wales over the appointment of their Archbishop, so too early to say what will happen in the CofE. As far as the doctrinal framework is concerned the LLF process has yet to complete its theological homework so your statement is premature, but with the LLF marking its own homework… Read more »
The Episcopal Reference Group’s interim findings that the use of the PLF in bespoke services “could impinge directly on the doctrine of marriage” has surely ended the vanishingly slim prospect of such services gaining synodical authorisation. So we’re left with the PLF’s pastoral prayers for couples, but not their unions – and then only during regular services. As you say, sex cannot be mentioned in the process. But this coyness is not exclusive to the PLF. Almost all couples who get married in church are already living together, when it is highly likely that they are sexually active. But, even… Read more »
I remember when a student there was a student couple who asked a RC priest about marriage, but they weren’t sure. They were good friends but did not feel any sexual desire for each other. The priest advised against marriage.
It seems many TA contributors get very excited over ‘gnats’! Understandably, it’s how the CiW got to where it is. So no one is really fooled by this ‘coyness’. Priests and bishops are instructed that they can’t talk about sex as part of the PLF process, and thus they become complicit in breaking down church doctrine rather than upholding it. It is also explains why schism is the elephant in the room on PLF.
We should not be so quick to take the positions of the hierarchy of certain Anglican churches in Africa as representing a unanimous opinion of the continent. I have encountered priests from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere for whom sexuality is not an issue. The Anglican Church of Canada has recently elected two bishops of African origin, Victor-David Mbuyi Bipungo (from the DRC) in Montreal and Nathan Manzongo (from Zimbabwe) in Rupert’s Land. Both dioceses have open LGBT2+ clergy and allow marriage of same-sex couples. I look forward to seeing how their participation and perspectives change the international dialogue… Read more »
Regarding flourishing children, marriage isn’t the X-factor and a ban on sex before marriage made me laugh. Let’s talk about a foundation which includes a reasonable income/absence of poverty, low-conflict relationships, kindness, compassion, respect. Behaviours are important and how we communicate, it’s the quality of the parenting, whoever the parent or parents may be. Married or unmarried.
Nobody even seems to mention that Jesus’s family wasn’t strictly conventional. He was raised by a man who wasn’t his biological father but who was married to his mother when Jesus was conceived. God didn’t need to do that – He could have chosen an unmarried woman to be the mother of Jesus. So Jesus showed that flexibility to adapt to circumstances is allowed.
I am presumably not the only reader, let alone the only person, who has a few friends in same-sex marriages who have, with help from medical science, nonetheless conceived and are raising children. I would like to push back against the assumption that their marriages don’t exemplify that third good just as well as mine.
Thank you, DBD. I don’t want to force invidious comparisons on anyone, still less hide behind ideological purity; which is why I began by saying I’m struggling with this issue – as of course is the Church. What I have been trying to say as a straight man has been put better by the gay RC priest James Alison: “the appropriate liturgical shape by which we bless God for the gift of the love between two same-sex spouses, and beseech God’s blessing to incarnate itself in their lives for us as Church, is something for which we have little jurisprudence… Read more »
Allan, what a wonderful quote by James Alison, thank you for drawing it to my attention. It is the lived witness and experience of same sex couples which will provide the empirical evidence on which to make a judgement as to whether such relationships are equivalent to heterosexual marriage. There is a lot of truth in that statement, but I disagree with Alison that “we have little jurisprudence as yet“, or that we have little existing data on same-sex marriage. I would argue that Christian history is already full of such examples. There are many stories of loving, covenanted same… Read more »
One area which I think the Church of England has totally failed to address (as far as I am aware) are the ethical issues around surrogacy and AID conception by which same sex couples conceive. The issues are complex but we seem to be in a situation where these conceptions are flourishing because the parents want to have children. But what does our theology have to say about this and what are the implications for these young people when they discover their origins and perhaps seek out information about their biological parents
I realise that the Sarah Coakley piece is an edited extract of her lecture, which may explain some of my frustration with it. I’ve read it several times, and am still unclear what, exactly, it is saying. “Bring theology back to the parishes”. So it was once there but has departed. When brought back it must be good theology: “creative, alluring, and deep”; “richly substantive and imaginatively engaging”. No room, anymore, for “condescension, obfuscation, or, indeed, inappropriate ‘dumbing down’” (is there any appropriate dumbing down?). Clergy, she says, “always tend to underestimate the — often extraordinary — intellectual and imaginative… Read more »
Makes sense. All I would request is that the language to communicate is treated carefully. I consider it perfectly possible to talk ‘theology’ without using words which are designed to obscure rather than expose. Even simple words like ‘discernment’. Why use these words (for example when selecting candidates for ordination) when a perfectly simple and understandable word ‘judgement’ or ‘evaluation’ can be used? It does not make the process any more holy or Godly. When I apply for a job, I do not go through a discernment process. I am evaluated and judged. That is a simple example. How much… Read more »
Re “discernment” I think the theology is along the lines of it’s not we who are selecting the candidate, but rather we are trying to discern whether a person is called to the role. So it is a slightly different thing, in theory at least.
Yes, I understand that, and I understand that ‘being called’ is an unnecessary term. I am called to exercise a professional career, but I wouldn;t be pompous as to say to an interview panel ‘I feel called’. I would be shown the door immediately.
The difference is that as Christians we have a declared interest in trying to listen to God, and to that being part of the process. For a secular employer that obviously isn’t the case.
Yes, I understand, I am partly being intentionally provocative. But didn’t St Paul talk about the variety of ‘being called’? It is perfectly normal to listen to God and trust that your gifts are more suited to secular professions.
Going off-topic, but illustrates my issue with churchy language.
When I was churchwarden of a local church and recruiting a new Rector some two-thirds of the 30 applicants wrote that they felt called by God to this particular post!
I think I am being called by God to a position as CEO with a large investment bank and get a salary of £5 million p.a. plus bonuses!
Were you called by God to be a churchwarden? Did you go through a discernment process? Did you have to undergo ‘theology’?
On the original topic, I think the issue of bringing ‘theology’ to the pews is much more fundamental than Sarah Coakley describes. Was not the veil of the temple rent asunder?
I would hope they did! Why else would they apply? But of course that call is submitted to a shared discernment process.
No, they wanted to apply (for whatever reason), and that want was subject to an evaluation process.
Stop this churchy language!
However, in the case of bishops, they do not apply. The panel invites people into a shared discernment process. Those so invited may decline or withdraw — but they cannot put themselves into the process.
My last comment – but it is the same in the secular world, high level positions are not advertised, but people are ‘sounded out’. It is all about your professional network.
I don’t think the selection of a new manager at Tottenham underwent a job advertisement, rather there was a discussion about possible candidates internally at Tottenham, they analysed the direction they wanted to go, and one or two were invited for further discussion.
Just like the way bishops are selected. The new manager at Tottenham was ‘discerned’.
Same in many or most areas of business.
So no words like – faith, disciple, Holy Spirit, will of God, prayer, bible? Not terribly easy (or – frankly – desirable) if you are applying for a job in the church or discussing issues on a Christian website! But no one is asking you to use this language if it doesn’t make sense to you.
Strawman.
OK. More than happy to leave the sound of grinding axes here.
I have never stated or implied that the use of the words you list should not be common language amongst Christians. Hence your accusation is a strawman. Maybe you confused me with someone else?
I was responding to the Nigel Goodwin who mocked those applying for a church post for saying they a sense of being called to the job. When I said I most certainly hoped they did have some sense call, he said ‘No’. And dismissed it all as ‘churchy language’. Perhaps he could explain what he means by ‘churchy language’? I read it as a dismissing of the language of God and faith since he reduced the motivation of those applying to something entirely secular – ‘they wanted to apply (for whatever reason)’ – and with little more integrity than someone after… Read more »
I don’t want to over blow a relatively minor issue, but I was not at all dismissing the language of God or faith, that is a drastic extrapolation of my views. I believe all Christians should regard their ‘calling’ seriously. I start with passages like 1 Corinthians 12:28-29, Romans 12:6-8. I was not mocking the people, I was mocking the language. With regards to ‘discernment’, yes I regard that word as ‘churchy’ word, and not easily understood by the person in the Clapham omnibus (I often catch a Clapham omnibus). There are perfectly good non-churchy words which can replace it,… Read more »
Thanks for clarifying. ‘prayerful evaluation’ sounds even more church to my ears, not less. Each to their own.
I believe we are being called to disagree with each other.
Ha Ha!
Thanks.
Fascinated that you had 30 applicants. Unimaginable in east Kent where in the rural benefices there are often no applicants even on a second advertising.
Completely agree about the language of ‘being called’, Nigel. Thanks for saying that so clearly.
Thanks Helen. I think you may be a good example of someone who is a very reputable theologian, but manages to communicate in everyday language which (intelligent) people can understand? Maybe because you don’t always hang around with priests and other theologians?
My apologies Helen, it seems you are professionally a classicist, rather than theologian, but am sure you can hold your own with 99% of theologians.
She writes much sense but seems to assume all the preachers / leaders / pastors will be clergy. Lay ministry anyone?
To amplify a little, as soon as the word ‘theology’ is used, I don’t have a clue what is being talked about, and it is probably the same for most. It is such a general term it almost becomes meaningless. Wiki states: “Christian theology as the study of Christian belief and practice concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and the New Testament as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Theology might be undertaken to help the theologian better understand Christian tenets, to make comparisons between Christianity and other traditions, to defend Christianity against… Read more »
To be clear, I know what exegesis means, anybody can look it up on google, but it is using jargon when a perfectly simple term could replace it. Language should avoid these barriers. I have read many intelligent biblical commentaries, but they use easily understandable language.
If I study a standard physics text book, I do not carry out exegesis. I carry out an attempt to understand it and apply it.
I even struggled through a book by K Barth when youthful.
Theology means ‘the word about God’, and if the bible is to be read well then theology is important. Behind every sermon there should be theological ‘scaffolding’, but the actual presentation should be appropriate to the audience. Jesus being the exemplar of a good teacher. The occasional miracle also helps break through jargon!
Colin, it’s a step forward that you’re now trying to define a campaign aim (‘Full equality in ministry and relationships for LGBTQIA+ people’) but I’m not sure you’re quite there yet, for two reasons. The first is that there’s no such thing as an LGBTQIA+ ‘person’. It’s a term that conveys precisely nothing. Is/ are they male, female, gay, straight, gender questioning, sex rejecting, transitioned, intersex? Does the term include people who are minor attracted or like to dress up in nappies or animal costumes? I apologise for putting it so bluntly but I for one would want to be… Read more »
Jane – you are right. Thank you for highlighting an error that has only now fully occurred to me. Changing Attitude England’s statement was written to be as terse and succinct and as fully inclusive as possible. Your comment has woken me to the realisation that another category needs to be added for the list to be fully inclusive – straight people. They are discriminated against by the Church of England because of its refusal to recognise and celebrate those who are responsibly and lovingly sexually active outside of a marital relationship. The rest of what you have written seems… Read more »
Colin, I’d proceed in the opposite direction if I were you and begin to separate out some of these strands. Starting with intersex which always seems to me the least well integrated of the ‘letters’. There was a moving post from an intersex person on this platform not long ago but in general there seems to be little attention paid to intersex experience and it never features largely in the usual discussions about these issues. I quite often hear intersex people saying that they’d prefer not to be included or that they’re not comfortable with the way the term is… Read more »
Or how about we just give up on the identitarian project (whose incommensurabilities this thread elegantly illustrates). It’s an anti-Christian Marxian ideology which seeks to enshrine and perpetuate division, claimed victimhood and assertions of priviledge as the permanent and fundamental basis for human interaction. So no surprise that it has become a theatre of internal as well as external conflict. And fundamentally incompatible with a Gospel of peace and the creation of one united humanity. Why not treat people as unique individuals, not items of product needing sorting into the ‘correct’ silo. Listen, judge, guide, challenge, forgive and love them… Read more »
Or to put it more succinctly, Surrealist, why don’t we just give up our attachment to identities and our various addictions and follow the essence of the teachings, life and practice of Jesus?
Colin, I don’t think we can just ‘give up our attachment to identities’. Indeed it looks like efforts to enforce that and declare everything ‘fluid’ are having the opposite effect. All the little boxes with letters and dinky flags are simply an expression of people’s growing anxiety and confusion about who they now are and where they fit in. We’ve tried to sweep away established categories with no real idea of what can meaningfully take their place and the result has been the emergence of all these strange and spurious new ones. For instance, the ‘A’ in the ‘alphabet acronym’… Read more »
I think you’ll find if you talk to actual Marxists they think queer identities should be discarded in favour of class ones. The appropriation of Marx as a boo word is an absurdity.
Gave you the opportunity to say boo to me without engaging with the issue, so maybe not all bad? Should have said neo-marxian, perhaps. In the sense that critical theory (of various kinds) does the marxist/marxian thing of dividing humanity into separate, competing groups and portrays history as an embedded struggle between them. For Marx the groups are the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, with, perhaps, the petit-bourgeoisie and lumpenproletariat thrown in for good measure. For critical race theorists it’s Whites vs. the rest. For queer theorists its the rainbow, and the necessary assertion that liberation never actually comes. These are… Read more »
Critical race theory analyses social structures within a particular context. It doesn’t posit racial differences as either essential or eternal, as you seem to think. Neither does queer theory advocate “endless separation and strife”. You’ve constructed a pair of strawmen and stuck a ‘marxian’ label on them. Marxism doesn’t posit eternal conflict either, it suggests that the oppression of the large mass of the proletariat will inevitably lead to revolution and a classless society. It’s fairly obviously incorrect about that, but your understanding of it is wrong. The classical Christian critique of Marxism is not that it promises eternal conflict… Read more »
That strikes me as an extremely distorted caricature of what “critical race theory” entails.
Actually it’s a pretty accurate account of what it claims. I have read lots by Kendi et al and what Surrealist writes is a correct summary of the genesis of this thought, which really goes back to the Marxists of the Frankfurt school. Have you read Kendi? He certainly isn’t profound but he has had quite a following in American universities.
Exactly this, Jane. This is why we at LGBChristians (and friends) have picked up our marbles and gone home.
Thanks, Lorenzo, for confirming what I assumed was the stance behind Jane’s comment – Lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians are special categories distinct from all the others and in need of special care and attention in the current climate. Picking up your marbles and going home may satisfy you – it certainly doesn’t satisfy me – it sounds very childish and immature.
The issue here is that L F-S opposes the acceptance of trans people. It’s not that he thinks their needs should be dealt with separately but that they shouldn’t be addressed at all. It’s not immaturity, it’s malice.
I wish trans peeps all the acceptance in the world, Jo. I simply don’t think our struggles are aligned, like the Maoris’, the Uyghurs’ or the furries’. You fight your own battles and don’t use us as a shield.
Yes, we are quite distinct from the rest, especially from straight folks who want the church to tolerate extra-marital relationships (sorry, “sexually, lovingly active outside of a marital relationship,” as you put it, which means most straight youths who just sail on to Holy Matrimony without hindrance, let alone impediment to ordination. This hypocrisy reeks to his heaven,
Colin, yes, that’s exactly right. Lesbian, gay and bisexual Christians are special categories distinct from all the others and in need of special care and attention in the current climate. I’m not any of these so I can say it on their behalf. The reason is contained in your proposed campaign manifesto – ‘Full equality in ministry and relationships for LGBTQIA+ people’. Since LGB Christians are currently the only ones who don’t already have full equality in ministry and relationships it stands to reason that they’re the ones you need to prioritise – or else you don’t have a campaign… Read more »
I’m quite taken aback by the suggestion of any doubt that trans people are rallied round the rights of LGB people, not least those who are LGB themselves. (Heterosexuals are a small minority of the trans people of my acquaintance). Nor can I share your confidence in the equal access of transgender inquirers to the discernment process for ordination. It seems to me that clergy who are ordained after publicly transitioning are an especially rare breed (and I don’t pretend my own province’s record gives us any bragging rights over the CofE here). As someone who *is* under the LGB… Read more »
I can’t speak for all contexts, Geoff, but I have been involved in the discernment of a transitioned person who now exercises ordained ministry. If they had been a gay person married to a same sex partner they would not have been able to enter the discernment process.
As to theology in parishes – one of the episodes in my life that had most impact was the sudden transformation of a close friend and fellow-student from committed Christian to quite vocal atheist when he discovered, and pointed out to me, the discrepancies between the Matthew and Luke incarnation stories. I didn’t react as drastically at the time but I often revert to that episode, even six decades later. I have always wondered if my friend’s vicar or pastor had prepared him a bit for the existence of some problems like that the effect of his studying the problem… Read more »