Don’t mention the Scottish sex-play

I believe …

It tends to be the case that people who have done something wrong try to deny it if they can. Either we learn this in childhood, or it’s evidence that the myth of original sin still has something important to say.

In institutions the tendency to lie one’s way out of trouble is compounded by questions of group loyalty. This leads to an instinct for cover-up. We’ve seen it in the collapse of the News of the World, in parliamentary expenses, and in the churches’ paedophilia scandals, to name but three.

People who dislike, deny or can’t cope with aspects of their own behaviour tend to be more critical of that behaviour in others. We see it in trivial day to day examples of office clashes as well as in larger stories.

People who suppress aspects of their character often find themselves ambushed by their shadow side when they are in situations of stress, depression or isolation. It’s a commonplace of therapy and counselling.

If the world was full of people whose only moral aspirations were things they could easily achieve, we would probably all be a lot worse off. In character and behaviour, as in so much else, it’s not a bad thing if our reach exceeds our grasp. 

I don’t know which of those are the more accurate observations regarding Cardinal O’Brien. Nor, despite the column inches of speculation, does anyone else.

It’s bad and sad for those with whom he abused his position of power in apparently unwanted sexual contact (although the extent of the abuse seems open enough for people to read a range of possibilities into it). We know O’Brien failed in his responsibility to them. It looks as though others did also by making it hard for them to tell the truth. But we may never know whether others failed in their responsibility to O’Brien – his spiritual director, those who put him forward for promotion, even his friends.

But I’m struggling to read a much bigger lesson out of it than one man’s fallibility, and one institution’s group loyalty. There will be plenty of other examples of both to be found wherever human beings hold power, and organise themselves.

If there is a lesson for the church and for O’Brien, it’s a reminder that true spirituality is meant to lead to self-knowledge, and not provide a romantic or theological facade behind which we can hide from the truth about ourselves. But that’s easier to know than to do. 

A tentative word on the government’s gay marriage proposals

I have pondered whether it is worth saying anything more on the topic du jour: marriage between those of the same sex. But I have been surprised by a) the number of times I have been asked around the parish by non-churchgoers what I think of “gay marriage” (their term) and b) fascinated to find that all who have asked me have wanted me to oppose it. That’s obviously a self-selecting group, but I note it for whatever it’s worth.

I repeat the conclusion of my piece back in March:

There is a sense (to adapt Marx on religion) in which the criticism of marriage is the premise of all social criticism. Does the new gay desire for marriage represent the death of queer criticism and the triumph of hetero-normativity? Will only a celibate Catholic clergy, sworn to preach the virtues of marriage, be the last bastion of a lived out critique queering domesticity and romantic love? That would be irony indeed.

There are, in short, new queer as well as old straight voices insisting that the two relationships are not the same kind of thing. Whether these relationships should be given equality in the same institution, or be given two equal but different institutions is a serious and genuine question.

I still think that question has failed to get the attention it deserved and deserves. And I haven’t really changed my mind. I still tend to think that gay and lesbian relationships are sufficiently different to need a distinctive but legally equal institution.

In a curious kind of way, the government’s proposals try both to maintain the rhetoric of the same institution – marriage – for both relationships, while changing the actual details of relationships for gay people. The language may be “equal marriage”: the legislation is not. The detail of the legislation rather seems to agree that the institution needs to be different, even while it applies the same name to it.

It is not just that gay people will have the option of two institutions, civil partnership and marriage, whereas straight people will only be able to choose one. It is that the grounds of divorce are significantly different (if I have understood the proposals rightly) for marriage between people of the same sex. 

I grant that it might have been rather tricky to define “consummation” either for gay men or lesbians, but it seems rather more straightforward to define adultery. The fact that adultery is not a ground for divorce in a same-sex marriage raises very big problems for the definition of all marriage as an intentionally life-long exclusive commitment, if we are presuming to talk about the same institution. for both gay and straight couples.

In other words, the legislation itself seems to be proposing that marriage for gay people is not the same as marriage for straight people, and undermines its own rhetoric about equality.

In part, the church has made a rod for its own back by first (at the official level whatever it claims now) offering a heel-dragging and grudging acceptance of civil partnerships. It has made the situation worse by refusing to explore whether and how to create a liturgy to bless them, in case that made it look like marriage. The paralysis of internal politics has driven out any chance of creative or generous responses to social change or pastoral need. But I wonder whether a generous acceptance of civil partnerships might have strengthened the institution sufficiently that it was seen as good in its own right and appropriate to the distinctive nature of the relationship.

Either way, we are where we are now, which seems to me the worst of all possible worlds, applying the language of marriage equally to relationships which are being treated in the detail of the law as having differences and distinctions between them. 

What would disestablishment mean?

One question quite frequently raised in the aftermath of General Synod’s inability to agree legislation making women eligible for episcopal orders is that of disestablishment. Some are proposing removing bishops from the Lords; others are protesting about the naked Erastianism of Parliament telling Synod to get with the programme.

I’m pondering what in practice disestablishment might mean. I don’t see the Welsh situation as a precedent, since it was cocooned in the established churches of the greater part of the state (England and Scotland).

In a nutshell, the vision behind establishment was that the Crown in Parliament governed her subjects under God, entrusting the charge for their spiritual peace to the bishops and clergy and their temporal peace to the magistrates.

Historically that was probably a late mediaeval polity which was being applied to an early modern nation. (Theologically the kindest thing that can be said about it is that it was a seriously over-realized eschatology.) It is unsurprising that it failed early on, yet was sufficiently substantial for everyone to act as if had succeeded. Over the succeeding centuries Parliament removed one legislative slice of the salami after another, until today it is at least as much illusion as substance.

However, the tendrils of establishment are wrapped around a great many things, and to talk of disestablishment is to ask which ones definitely need to be cut away. Essentially it would seem the answer must include those which presume the Church of England has a unique place in the constitution, and conversely those which presume being an English citizen is to be a member of the Church of England.

I think that list would have to include removing the following:

1. the place of the Crown as Supreme Governor and Defender of the Faith, and instead giving the monarch and consort the right to make any faith commitment or none.
2. the ex-offcio presence of bishops in the House of Lords, the provision of an Anglican Speaker’s chaplain, and Anglican prayers before each parliamentary session
3. any presumption of Anglican (perhaps Christian) chaplaincy in the Armed Forces, prisons and  hospitals, together with compulsory church parade etc.
4. any presumption of Anglican (perhaps Christian) leadership on national occasions such as Remembrance Sunday and royal events.
5. the right of any person to be baptized or married in their parish church solely by virtue of residence in the locality rather than membership of the church
6. the right of any person to be buried in the churchyard of the parish where they die

Are there other things which are essential to undoing the compact of establishment which treats an English citizen as a member  of the English Church, or are some of these not as essential as I think they are?

Update

As Cranmer reminded me on Twitter, I have somehow ignored the elephant in the room. Surely any move to disestablishment would also need a negotiated property settlement: to whom do the church buildings belong?

The academic failure of fundamentalism

Firing college staff for not being quite fundamentalist enough seems to be becoming something of an epidemic in the US. I was sorry to hear that Michael Pahl, like me an alumnus of Birmingham, blessed with Mark Goodacre’s supervision, is the latest to feel the fundamentalist wrath and be dismissed from his post.

Looking at the doctrinal statement of his “University” (it really is a different world, eh?) I found myself pondering how any institution with such a statement can actually call itself a university.

For me the core of the problem (leaving aside my disagreements with the doctrinal stance) is epitomised by clause 4:

We believe in the literal 6-day account of creation, that the creation of man lies in the special, immediate, and formative acts of God and not from previously existing forms of life

This moves from a believing or philosophical commitment (however arguable) to a blanket refusal to admit the validity of another discipline, a rejection of the rigorous examination of empirical evidence, and a denial that a literary work can be subject to any form of literary criticism.

Is it possible, in the light of such an inability to recognise either the integrity of the arts or the sciences, for such a narrow-minded institution to call itself a university? I don’t think so.

Bless this atheist

So, the other day this person introduced himself to a friend of mine who’s a priest. Early in the conversation he announced “I’m an atheist.” Later on he asked my friend to bless his wedding ring.

This is an unusual kind of atheism, to say the least.

This encounter made me wonder just what is behind the increase in people identifying in polls as atheist. Perhaps not all have followed the same process of rigorous thinking. 

It seems at least possible that there may be rather more people than this one individual who are using the word in ways which are quite a way off a rational, well-thought through rejection of God or gods.

Perhaps we should consider the  explanation that being “atheist” is becoming a kind of “cultural default” for some people who might, say, a quarter of century ago, have identified themselves as “C of E”. It is a reflex response, the easiest thing to say without thinking about what you believe.

If that is so, then it is an indicator of how far “cultural Christianity” has receded, which for some will be a cause of mourning and for others a rather more exhilarating and challenging opportunity. Either way, it may be well worth investigating.

Gay marriage and moral inconsistency

There’s been a huge amount today on the blogs, on Twitter and around the interwebs generally about the Church of England’s official submission to the Government’s consultation (their word, not mine) on same-sex marriage. Apparently it could be the end of the world as we know it.

It needs to be said that in this semi-rural town in Worcestershire, I haven’t heard a single flesh and blood person mention it all day. I suspect that, whatever vociferous proponents and opponents think, this is not a front-page issue for most people.

There are quite a few people who seem terribly indignant that they, as members of the Church of England, were not consulted on this response. However, while I’m sure there could have been greater transparency about the process of responding, the document  explicitly roots itself in the most recent agreed statement the Church of England has made on marriage, and one which virtually all clergy will have repeated several times already this year. It’s called the marriage service. It might need challenging, but it’s a democratically approved corporate view.

Personally, I think the question is much more open than the official response does. As I argued a while back, the key question is whether a committed loving relationship between people of the same sex is sufficiently like one between those of the opposite sex to be included within the institution of marriage. There are queer arguments against it as well as Christian ones. (As there are gay and Christian arguments for it.) Some, particularly those who are aware of the ways in which marriage has continued to change and grow as a social institution, will agree that it can and should now include gay couples. Others, particularly those who resist relativism and prioritise some kind of traditional ontology over cultural construction, will feel (at the very least) that it is a sufficiently different relationship to need a different kind of social institution.

Currently in the UK we have different institutions implying different types of equal relationship which give the same legal rights to those who have entered them. The existence of civil partnerships makes it harder, I think, to justify the arguments for gay marriage on the basis of equal rights. It is an argument, rather, about what sort of institution marriage is.

The fact is that procreative relationships regularly – perhaps normally – take place with little or no relationship to the institution of marriage. It is equally true that a very large proportion of marriages, including a great many conducted according to the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England, are “lifelong” as a romantic dream rather than a worked out and hard-headed commitment. The Church of England’s understanding of marriage has a fairly tenuous connection with a lot of actual marriages, or the ways people have and raise children.

A significant part of the pressure for including gay relationships within the institution of marriage is because in practice the institution has already been redefined as a romantic commitment between two individuals for as long it lasts, and wouldn’t it be nice if it was happily ever after. Indeed, the Church of England’s own Wedding Project has openly embraced a consumerist model of marriage. No longer are people signing up to a hallowed common institution in which each marriage is one and the same, but encouraged to request a personalised experience tailored to the uniqueness of their relationship.

Not all that many years ago, Michael Nazir-Ali called down a storm of opprobrium on his head (what’s new?) for calling couples who wanted marriage without children “self-indulgent”. But actually, he was at least being consistent, and, indeed uncomfortably but truly traditional, in his understanding of marriage.

It is genuinely a problem that there are a great many people who want to uphold “traditional marriage” (whatever exactly that is) when discussing same-sex marriage, but who don’t wish to “moralise” about the relationships of straight people. It is the inconsistency which gives rise to a lingering suspicion of “homophobia”.

Personally, I think there’s a serious conversation to be had. I just don’t see anyone – individual or organisation – really interested in doing anything other than getting their own way.

Stephen Sizer, the CCJ, and the accusation of anti-semitism

When it comes to Israel and Palestine (even to using those names together), most people are either biased or confused, or in some measure both. Most sites which discuss the topic tend to be partisan on one side or another. Looking especially at the comments on such sites, it is easy to accuse them of either anti-semitism or Islamophobia (or simply anti-Arab sentiment).

One prominent Christian activist who regularly gets accused of anti-Semitism is Stephen Sizer, an evangelical priest in Guildford Diocese. Certainly he is outspokenly pro-Palestinian, and to say the least, he has a record of keeping very dubious company. Nonetheless many of the attacks on him come from Zionist sympathisers and sites whose commenters are rabidly anti-Palestinian. That makes it easier for Sizer’s supporters to dismiss them, whatever the strength or weakness of their case.

However yesterday, the moderate and mainstream Council of Christians and Jews issued an unusual press statement, following criticism in the Jewish Chronicle and elsewhere, which effectively called for Stephen Sizer to be disciplined for posting a Facebook link to an unquestionably anti-semitic site.

What makes it so unusual is that the Bishop of Manchester (the Chair of CCJ) implicitly criticises the inaction of his fellow Bishop of Guildford. Nigel McCulloch of Manchester calls Sizer’s behaviour conduct “unbecoming a clergyman”, and the CCJ’s press release finishes by saying they have referred the incident to Surrey police as a hate crime.

Until recently I would have said Sizer was not anti-Semitic, and it is important to point out that he repudiates the accusation. I further note that only last autumn, I heard the CEO of the Board of Deputies of British Jews saying that he didn’t think Sizer was anti-Semitic, although he certainly kept anti-Semitic company because of his pro-Palestinian campaigning. (He is obviously not a Sizer supporter!)

Sizer does have some theological questions to put to the Christian Zionism more common in his conservative evangelical circles that ought to be considered – as Christian theology. It is an inescapable part of recognising that the New Testament and the Mishnah largely grew out of a contest between two visions for the future of Judaism, and that both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity were the squabbling children of Second Temple Judaism. I don’t agree with many of the ways Sizer answers those questions, but they need to be faced.

In my view, however, his voice has moved so far to an uncritical support for Palestinians that it has also become an unthinking criticism of Israel. An awful lot of criticism of (as well as an awful lot of support for) Israel is uncritical. However, Sizer has seemed to align himself more and more not only with the unthinking, but with the racist and prejudiced rhetoric of some of Israel’s most vociferous enemies.

He may not have used it himself, but he links to it without criticism. He may not say it himself, but he seems willing to appear on platforms where other speakers indulge in it, and he does not seem to distance himself from it or them. I think that passes the point where it looks like guilt by association and looks more like guilt by complicity.

There may or may not be a case against him. If Surrey police think there is, his bishop can act. If they don’t then, given the labyrinthine law of the Church of England, and its protections for political and theological dissent, his bishop probably has no action available to him. It is not irrelevant also that Sizer’s church is at best semi-detached from the Church of England and wealthy enough to show the bishop two fingers.

Nonetheless, this will remain a story worth watching, for a very particular exploration of when anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian support is held to tip over into anti-Semitism. The CCJ thinks Sizer has crossed that line. I fear they may be right.

(Note: in the interests of transparency I should state that I am a member of CCJ, and that I also once (some 25 years ago) occasionally attended the church where Sizer was curate. His theology was too conservatively evangelical for me.)