There is one other place where I might find myself in some measure of agreement with the Bishops: their dis-ease at objectifying people by talking about their sexuality. I say ‘might’ because I’m not entirely sure what the Bishops mean. If they are saying that their vision of what it means to be human is more than our experience of sexuality, then I suspect I agree. Indeed, one of the isssues I find most disingenuous about our culture is the idea that our experience of sexuality has such power to define us in our entirety, or even in our essentiality. We are inherently sexual beings, but not essentially so. I am not less human if my sexuality never finds expression in sexual activity.
But if it is suggesting that what it means to be human is without reference to our experience of sexuality, that would be a different matter. One of the most tragic elements of the whole debacle surrounding the Bishops’ Proposals has been precisely the reductionism of the debate. Everything has become about our experience of sexuality. Nothing else seems to matter. And worse, it has all been reduced to the very specific experience of sexuality of small minority of Christians. The following from CMF:
Even when studies have attempted to use broadly comparable definitions of 'orientation', rates of SSA appear to vary in different populations. This may be due to unreliable methods used to measure SSA or real differences caused by social, cultural and biological factors; we do not know. Overall, however, studies suggest that significant numbers of people from western populations, around 10-15% of men and 20-25% of women, experience a degree of SSA at some time in their lives. A much smaller proportion appear to be 'predominantly' same-sex attracted, probably about 2.0-2.5% of men and 1.5-1.75% of women.
https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=2078, accessed 080323
And it is always worth remembering that not all of those who are ‘predominantly’ same-sex attracted believe the Church should change its teaching and disicpline. But their voice seems to have been lost in the cacophany of virtue signalling.
One of the pastoral tragedies of the whole LLF process has been the failure of the Church to put this in the context of a much broader discussion about our experience of sexuality, and the range of struggle and depth of complexity of that experience. That aside, I fear that our own Bishops veer to defining our humanity without necessary reference to our experience of sexuality, or indeed gender. That is a strong claim, but it is born out of a part of the conversation that suggested (at the very least) that the vision for marriage as reflecting the relationship between Jesus and the Church (with specfic reference to Eph.5:22-33) is non-gendered.
I suspect it is all too easy to mis-represent the Bishops’ intention or meaning in this part of the conversation. It was brief and almost a throw-away line in the context of a wider reflection on the ‘sacramental nature’ of marriage. I think the point being made was that there was nothing in the sacramental dynamics of marriage (or the covenantal dynamics for that matter) that could not in principle be reflected in a same sex relationship…
But even then, it seems like a very odd thing to say. In part because of the implicit claim that we understand what Paul is saying deeply enough to so confidently dismiss the place of gender in this passage. That would be strange in light of how often we’ve been told that we don’t really know what Paul (and presumably other Apostles, and Prophets) meant given our distance from their cultural context.
But in part because, well it’s an image that runs throughout Scripture, and self-evidently always references a heterosexual marriage. It isn’t as though Paul picked this image out of thin air when writing to the Ephesians. Throughout the entire Bible (OK, almost the entire Bible… from Gen.1:26, through to Rev.21), the same image is repeatedly used, and it is always rooted in the specifically structured experience of a man and woman that is marriage. Not once is it ever reflected in a same-sex relationship. And always it is the Lord who is pictured as a husband / bridegroom, and the Church that is represented by a bride. Whole books are given over to exploring this sacramental analogy (e.g. Hosea!), and it is one that is referred to regularly by the Prophets, and by Christ Himself. And again, never is it protrayed in the context of a same-sex relationship, marital or otherwise. Which is to say at least that the differentiation in marriage is as important in this regard as the unity? And that the expression of our sexualtiy within that covenant (and only within that covenant) is integral to the integrity of that portrayal. For the record my own thinking is that it correlates to worship. But that’s another blog post!
Back to the matter at hand: to suggest that we can dismiss the gender of marriage partners without doing violence to the sacramental / covenantal / analogical or otherwise of marriage contains suggests a depth of insight into the relationship between Christ and the Church that is surely beyond us. I would suggest that we would be better served by allowing the picture of marriage to remain as God intended and presents it, and to allow it as such to teach us what God intended it to teach us. To assume we understand enough of it to change it without (inadvertently?) affecting our doctrine of Christ is inconceivable.
I say inadvertently, but… is there a link here with another proposal that has recently found voice within the Church of England: that we de-gender our vision of God as revealed in Christ (and to be clear, I haven’t heard either of our Bishops propose this!)?. It does seem likely that the two proporsals are in fact symptomatic of a deeper theological crisis. Again, there is a hubris at work that is deeply troubling. The most charitable reading is that we sufficiently understand all that God has revealed Himself to be confident that we can change our language of address to God, without affecting any aspect of our understanding of God.
It is almost to obvoius to point out the irony that whilst there is an intolerance about not using people’s preferred pronouns, we have little angst about disregarding God’s preferred pronouns. The point isn’t entirely facetious. We understand that how we describe ourselves, and each other matters. Langauge conveys our sense of reality. To argue that we can change our langauge about God without affecting our sense of the reality of who God is, is implausible. But not content with that, we are told that we can somehow see ‘behind’ how God has revealed Himself, and who God has revealed Himself to be, to who God really is. And further, that we can be so confident that who He ‘really’ is, is so different from who He has revealed Himself to be that we can change how we speak of Him without affecting the reality of our understanding of Him.
None of which is to undermine the feminine imagery used for God. But in Scripture God is never called Mother, or Queen. The Anglican Church has in this, as in other matters of faith, chosen historically to allow the Bible to shape our approach to God and our address of Him. Jesus himself referred to God as ‘Father’ 170 times in the Gospels. Have we really got to the point where we think we know better than Jesus how to talk about God?
Of course, we are free to change our vision of God and our langauge about God from taht bequeathed by Scripture, and by Jesus… but that would take us into a different religion.
