Bishops' Finger

[steepholm]

Can someone explain this to me? I'm genuinely puzzled.

First - okay, so the CofE has come out with a position on gay bishops that I don't like: there's no surprise there. However, if you accept their premise - namely that gay sex is a sin - then I can see why they'd want bishops to refrain from gay sex and repent any gay sex in their past. For the sake of argument, let's take that as a given.

What I want to know is - given all that, on what grounds is anyone still objecting to gay men becoming bishops? If they remain celibate for the future and repent the sins of their past, what exactly is the problem? Can someone please spell it out, or point me to a link that does?

Comments

I haven't a clue but...

[lilliburlero]

...I had a most undignified moment of mirth at "salami-slicing away at the Church's teaching".

Re: I haven't a clue but...

[steepholm]

:) Ah, the Origen solution!

[cmcmck]

Wanting their cake and being allowed to eat it too?

[wolfinthewood]

on what grounds is anyone still objecting to gay men becoming bishops?

Here is the most coherent statement I can find:

"To be in a civil partnership is to be seen as having forged a lifelong bond with someone of the same sex; to have created family ties; and to have engaged in a commitment similar to marriage. A bishop vows to protect the church’s teaching both by what he says and by the way he lives. This is immediately compromised when he engages in a civil partnership. …

There can, of course, be no bar on a person being appointed as a bishop because of their sexual orientation. The issue is what they teach and how they live."

– Rev Rod Thomas, Chairman of Reform, 'an Anglican evangelical network which works for the promotion of the gospel'

[lilliburlero]

I think that just makes it sound even crazier, because of its admission that civil partnership is a lifelong bond bringing with it family ties--so, what? commitment and family ties suddenly become wrong when gay people do them?--how is that not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation?

[steepholm]

Quite - I can see no Biblical injunction against lifelong bonds between men bringing family ties, whether in the Old Testament ("Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women" 2 Samuel 1.26) or the New ("When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!" John 19.26).

[wolfinthewood]

I don't wish anyone to misunderstand me and think I hold any brief for Mr Thomas and his organisation, or for Christian evangelicalism in any form. My parents were Biblical literalists (which Thomas probably is not). I know quite a lot about conservative Christian views on homosexuality. I do not in any way endorse them.

As I take it the key statement Thomas is making is this: 'The issue is what they teach and how they live.' One implication of what he is saying is that to make a primary commitment to someone of the same sex is against Christian teaching. I do not think this is theologically sound, but would not wish to get into an argument about this. Life is too short. And theology is just another Glass Bead Game.

Another implication of what Thomas is saying is that an openly gay bishop, celibate or not, is likely to teach, if only by example, that it is okay to be gay. Mr Thomas and Reform wouldn't agree with this at all. Their views on homosexuality are amply evidenced on the resource pages on their website.

[steepholm]

Don't worry, I didn't imagine that you were endorsing Rod Thomas's views by quoting them. They don't much sense to me, alas, theologically or otherwise.

[wolfinthewood]

Just twenty-five years ago the notorious Section 28 forbade local authorities to 'promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship'. Statements made in Parliament by promoters of this section made it very clear that while they were hostile to gay people in general, they were particularly outraged by any suggestion that gay relationships and families headed by gay parents might in any way be viewed as equivalent to marriage and the heterosexual family.

Not everyone has moved on from this, by a very long chalk.

[lilliburlero]

I didn't think for a moment you were endorsing Thomas's statement! I suppose his "similar to marriage" implies that families formed by gay people are not real, as Section 28 explicitly stated they were "pretended". But if the sentiment is the same, the language has notably softened--reflecting an awareness, even among conservatives, that the introduction of civil partnerships has created a wealth of observable evidence that families formed by gay people are little different in structural terms, and for good or ill, from families formed by straight people? And the more the language softens the dafter it sounds: because you can no longer claim that gay people don't make public, legally-binding commitments of lifelong partnership (because look, if you let them, they do, in droves) you end up in the simply barmy position of saying that this sort of public, legally-binding commitment of lifelong partnership is good, and this one bad, and the only thing that makes them different is the sexual orientation of the people concerned. I suppose in short, isn't this sort of an admission of defeat?

[wolfinthewood]

simply barmy position

Quite. These people are not logical. Their positions on a whole range of issues are 'given': as they would say, by the Bible; as I would say, by a specific tradition of belief and Biblical interpretation. Arguments are assembled purely to bolster these pre-determined positions.

However crazy their positions look from outside, they won't ever admit defeat, because God's On Their Side.

[steepholm]

This does seem a grossly unBiblical position, as mentioned below - but it's amusing how quick they are to find equivalences between civil partnerships and marriage when that can be used to hurt gay people, and so quick to emphasize the differences at all other times!

[cmcmck]

I think what really bugs me is that these bigots claim to speak for all Christians but that may be because I'm just back from Meeting for Worship!

[steepholm]

Ah, Quakers are peripheral, as we know! For unrelated reasons I was looking this morning at the Government line on faith schools in England, and was interested to see that they divide them into "major Christian denominations" (i.e. CofE, Catholic, Baptist and Methodist) and "others" - including not just Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, etc., but "Quakers" and "United Reformed Church"!

Bizarre.

[cmcmck]

It's good here on the periphery. :o)

Shows how out of date 'they' are. We only ever had one school and decided to close it as we consider faith schools flawed.

The 'major' Christian sects continue to lose people whilst we continue to gain them.

Go figure, as our American cousins say.....

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I guess from the lack of answers here (where people are so well informed!) that the answer isn't obvious. The nearest I've been able to find is a comment on the radio news this morning that homosexual bishops couldn't be trusted to be celibate - but that's no argument at all. Would they say the same about Catholic priests?

Besides, I assume this rule will be policed by the very same body that currently monitors straight bishops to make sure they don't masturbate.