Compromise or cowardice?
I do think I have been involved in making a decision recently which - at root - is probably unjust, so much so, that I am deeply troubled by it. Was it a decision of compromise or was it one of cowardice? Maybe it was both. Given that I am an Episcopalian Bishop, it will not surprise the reader of this blog to know that, of course, I am refering to the issue of ordination of those in same sex relationships and ordained priests who are living in same sex relationships.
When I was chaplain of King's College Cambridge in the mid 1970s, I was asked by a fellow of the College whether I had ever been in love with another man or whether or not I had felt sexually attracted to one. To be honest, I replied that the thought, or the image of such a relationship did not appeal in the slightest. His reply remains with me to this day. 'If you do not understand and even have a little sense of such a relationship, you may find it difficult to be Chaplain in this place.' Now, he may have had a point. After all, Norman St John Stevas in his book on ethics highlighted the reality that all friendships, are 'sexual' at their roots, although they may not be genital.
All I can tell you is that I have made many friends, who remain friends, who were gay then and still are. What is more, my spiritual life has been enhanced and healed through the sacramental and spiritual ministry of priests who are gay. (Yes - I have experienced being 'ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven through their holiness and priesthood) In that sense I have been loved and I do love them.
The question around for me is about the job of being a Bishop, what is rather blandly called: 'a focus of unity'. There are not only voices around me who are, with pale faces, angry at what seems to them a discriminatory approach to the issue, by putting my name to a moratorium on consecrating a bishop who is in a same sex relationship, for the time being..... (The Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 2008 will be having major sessions and hopefully clarity on this issue... if not, my view is the Bishops of the SEC may have to review urgently the moratorium) Because of this explanation, if it is one, I am quite aware that I am no less unjust and - yes - perhaps discriminatory. The trouble is that such descriptions do not get any one very far, except to make me feel a coward, which I may well be. Other voices are with red faces equally suggesting that their valued adherence to a Biblical righteousness is being discrimated against. I am only too aware that because I have articulated these as opposoties, I may seem to be justifying a position of compromise. How can anyone compromise when injustice is being done? Perhaps for some justice seen to be done is more significant and important than the future survival of the Scottish Epsicopal Church as an Anglican Province. Does such an approach make episcopacy almost impossible to practice? Mmmm!?
Even more, I do not pretend to feel that the wincing awkwardness of this is anywhere remotely like the sense of rejection that gay Christians in partnerships feel. Nor do I suggest that my discomfort is anything like what seems a raid on so dearly held Biblical 'truths'. Or as one of my Colleagues has suggested, may be there is a much more deeply seated issue in how we 'see' and articulate God... What is my image of God....? That's for another blog!!
What makes matters more complex comes from the perspective offered by my daughter who has lived and worked among people who are gay for many years. She sees the issue almost exlusievely as a generational one. For her era (she is 29), there is only the scratching of heads and that stuttering laugh that wonders: 'What is the problem?'. Oh yes, the issue is a new one. After all, many of us were around when the actively gay would have been in danger of imprisonment. In the space of 50 years we now have Civil Partnership. Such a shift in consciousness and culture is rapid indeed. The call that I might make for patience may be a blandishment.
I do not have answers. But I do thank my gay friends for their love. Flabby though mine may be, I do return it.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
When I was chaplain of King's College Cambridge in the mid 1970s, I was asked by a fellow of the College whether I had ever been in love with another man or whether or not I had felt sexually attracted to one. To be honest, I replied that the thought, or the image of such a relationship did not appeal in the slightest. His reply remains with me to this day. 'If you do not understand and even have a little sense of such a relationship, you may find it difficult to be Chaplain in this place.' Now, he may have had a point. After all, Norman St John Stevas in his book on ethics highlighted the reality that all friendships, are 'sexual' at their roots, although they may not be genital.
All I can tell you is that I have made many friends, who remain friends, who were gay then and still are. What is more, my spiritual life has been enhanced and healed through the sacramental and spiritual ministry of priests who are gay. (Yes - I have experienced being 'ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven through their holiness and priesthood) In that sense I have been loved and I do love them.
The question around for me is about the job of being a Bishop, what is rather blandly called: 'a focus of unity'. There are not only voices around me who are, with pale faces, angry at what seems to them a discriminatory approach to the issue, by putting my name to a moratorium on consecrating a bishop who is in a same sex relationship, for the time being..... (The Lambeth Conference of Bishops in 2008 will be having major sessions and hopefully clarity on this issue... if not, my view is the Bishops of the SEC may have to review urgently the moratorium) Because of this explanation, if it is one, I am quite aware that I am no less unjust and - yes - perhaps discriminatory. The trouble is that such descriptions do not get any one very far, except to make me feel a coward, which I may well be. Other voices are with red faces equally suggesting that their valued adherence to a Biblical righteousness is being discrimated against. I am only too aware that because I have articulated these as opposoties, I may seem to be justifying a position of compromise. How can anyone compromise when injustice is being done? Perhaps for some justice seen to be done is more significant and important than the future survival of the Scottish Epsicopal Church as an Anglican Province. Does such an approach make episcopacy almost impossible to practice? Mmmm!?
Even more, I do not pretend to feel that the wincing awkwardness of this is anywhere remotely like the sense of rejection that gay Christians in partnerships feel. Nor do I suggest that my discomfort is anything like what seems a raid on so dearly held Biblical 'truths'. Or as one of my Colleagues has suggested, may be there is a much more deeply seated issue in how we 'see' and articulate God... What is my image of God....? That's for another blog!!
What makes matters more complex comes from the perspective offered by my daughter who has lived and worked among people who are gay for many years. She sees the issue almost exlusievely as a generational one. For her era (she is 29), there is only the scratching of heads and that stuttering laugh that wonders: 'What is the problem?'. Oh yes, the issue is a new one. After all, many of us were around when the actively gay would have been in danger of imprisonment. In the space of 50 years we now have Civil Partnership. Such a shift in consciousness and culture is rapid indeed. The call that I might make for patience may be a blandishment.
I do not have answers. But I do thank my gay friends for their love. Flabby though mine may be, I do return it.
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
posted by Martin at 8:46 pm
7 Comments:
"Does such an approach make episcopacy almost impossible to practice?"
Is it not the case that a bishop nowadays is required to be less of a prophetic leader and more of a board member? If you were a wild-haired prophet you'd be able to lead your people with the truth as you saw it - and if that truth was uncomfortable then people would just have to be uncomfortable. You wouldn't necessarily be worried about press coverage or bums on seats, though I don't know how far a wild-haired prophet would feel he had a pastoral responsibility for all his hearers.
Maybe that is the bottom line to the job, Martin - you're trying to hold all of us, liberals and conservatives, gay and straight, in the love of Christ. You don't want to drive any of us away - and yet fear that right now you're having to do that to the most vulnerable. Keep us from sliding into the comfortable apathy of being sure we're right - if we keep our minds open to possibility you'll be doing your job.
Part of it anyway!
I believe that the New Testament is the template of precedent for Christian faith,living and church structure,I don't know what else Christians can use as a model or point of reference.
Could it be there is no answers because there is no precedent.
Do the phrases "rock" and "hard place" seem apposite here?
Many people, some of who I count as very good friends, have made a deep impression on me. However that doesn't mean I agree with or accept everything each does. Just as I wouldn't expect my total behaviour/actions to be acceptable to all my acquaintances.
In many ways the rate of change in all areas of life is such that, imho, we sometimes do need to take a 'time-out' for some sober reflection before agreement on what is 'right' can be reached; and let's also accept that some are so polarised in their views that they will never agree.
This cannot be a cop-out for inaction, as you clearly recognise, but must be a time to review and (re)interpret our beliefs [or possibly lack of them in my case!].
One of the issues for me is the contemporary compulsion to define people in terms of 'sexuality' (see Foucaults critique). Maybe its been off my personal agenda for so long ( sad old bag !)that I don't see the exercise of 'sexuality' per se as fundamental to being human as say, the life of the spirit. Purity of heart is to will one thing, as the man said. so whatever desire diminishes my desire for God ....has to go.
My regret is that the Church seems to be oblivious to changes and advances in the realm of science. This whole sexual orientation 'deal' is no longer one in the worlds of psychiatry and psychology. Why then could it not be the same in the Church?!
Why has the Church been traditionally SO pig-headedly resistant to acknowledging obvious scientific facts over the centuries. It's a mystery to me. Or perhaps it shouldn't be.
Has no one of late been reading The Rt Rev Richard Holloway's books? And what of the equally Rt and Rev John Spong, on the American side of The Pond.
Be that as it may, and in connexion with the obstinate refusal of divines through the ages to acknowledge that anything outwith their own spheres of influence and knowledge might be true as well, puts me in mind of a passage in J Spong's book 'Why Christianity Must Change or Die' (Harper Collins, 1999, pp 7-8.).
With his episcopal wisdom he reminds us that churches have been known to be wrong before as regards scientific advances. Specifically he points to what a respected cleric had to say about vaccination. Here it goes: ''If God had decreed from all eternity that a certain person should die of smallpox, it would be a frightful sin to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination.'
Imagine that the Church was also against women getting some relief whilst giving birth. Sensibly,and despite it all, Queen Victoria requested whatever anaesthetics the science of her day had to offer.
The list could go on for quite a while. But...
Could one not then say, along with the French, that 'plus ça change ...'. Or to base in biblical terms used by The Ecclesiastes: 'There is nothing new under the sun...'
Perhaps the Church will come to its senses anent its edicts on sexual orientation and other matters within the next few hundred years or it will have died ... of irrelevance!
I believe the church will never become irrelevant or die, mostly because there will always be people who will recognize their need for God revealed in Christ. When Christ commanded his disciples to preach the gospel to every creature he was declaring himself to be the greatest need of every man, woman and child on the face of the Earth.
When someone recognizes their need for Christ - all theological squabbles become irrelevent - and even two or three people like this no matter where they meet are a church .
Why do prophets have to be, as chris suggests, "wild-haired"? Can they not be presentable in rochet and chimere? Or jeans and shirt and walking stick?
Fear is the stumbling-block to prophecy.
I do sympathize, if/when a bishop's role is to be a "focus of unity." But that suggests bishops and prophets are opposing tribes. (And hasn't it ever been so.) One is concerned with maintenance, and the other with growth.
We have so many maintainers these days that we have no growth at all.
I think Martin's daughter is probably right; young adults look at the Church and can only shrug.
I also think Martin is right, that the spiritual journey in Christ transforms, converts and redeems.
The Church's failure to teach the journey is perhaps its biggest mistake of all. The Spirit will lead us to all truth if we will follow.
Josh Thomas
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