Church leaders could face the prospect of prosecution for refusing to offer civil partnership ceremonies in church.1
A Christian registrar lost her job after refusing to carry out civil partnerships.2 Legal pressure on Christians, who believe marriage is a unique institution only possible between a man and a woman, seems set to increase.
How then should a Christian respond when a friend, family member or work colleague announces — with joy — that they are entering into a same gender civil partnership?
Despite total annual occurrence of civil partnership ceremonies falling by 12% to just over 6,000 in 2009,3 increasing numbers of people are facing the question of how to respond to an announcement or invitation to attend one. It is understandably difficult to know how to respond to expectations of enthusiasm for a recently legalised arrangement, which by its claim of equivalence erodes marriage’s unique status in society.
Road to freedom?
Our culture has almost lost its collective memory of a Christian understanding of gender and marriage. My wife discovered that when she found that her secular work colleagues were warmly enthusiastic about her friend’s arranged Sikh marriage, but were unnerved at the traditional Christian arrangement we opted for. Legislation for civil partnerships between members of the same gender is merely the next step along a road promising radical freedom from responsibilities and gender which began in the 1960s with the wide availability of contraceptives and abortion. The journey continued with the removal of restrictions on teaching homosexuality to children in schools, the normalisation of cohabitation and spread of pornography. Pressure groups on the feminist and homosexual fronts found common cause. In the popular media they discovered a willing outlet for their propaganda. All of this has brought us to the point where people can (and do) lose their jobs and face fines for saying something that may be perceived as offensive to homosexuals.
It is almost impossible to adopt children4 or hold public office unless you are willing to offer a general affirmation of homosexual practice or, at the very least, passively acquiesce. In such a tense climate, Christians struggle to know how to respond to an invitation to a civil partnership. Much is at stake.
This article makes three suggestions. It is hoped that it will be seen that they flow from Christian love — a love which is robust, surprising, gracious and attractive. When pondering how to respond to a civil partnership announcement, Christians ought to act with:
1. Loving generosity
Our instinct may be to absent ourselves from a civil partnership ceremony believing that it is blessing something God does not approve of. That may be, on balance, the course some Christians wish to follow. Even if it is the approach taken, in every case we should seek ways to express the fact that God gives us astonishing freedom to act with loving generosity.
1 Corinthians 5.9-10 instructs: ‘I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then we would have to leave the world’.
This means that the distinctiveness of Christian living is not a sterile sanctity, and the world’s sexual immorality cannot be quarantined. Christians can, and should, exercise loving generosity when considering how they interact with others. This may lead us to attend a civil partnership ceremony though we disagree with it. The Bible teaches that lack of approval does not automatically legitimise lack of attendance.
Such loving generosity is the natural habitat of effective evangelism. Our gospel presents Jesus who welcomes with astonishing, costly and loving generosity. Sharing that gospel with people is most naturally done in the context of actions which are shaped by loving generosity.
2. Loving clarity
As we act with loving generosity, Christians are called to share loving clarity. That is, we must gently, kindly and lovingly bring God’s perspective into a situation.
In the context of same gender civil partnerships, that will mean finding a way to communicate that we believe God has designed marriage to be solely between one man and one woman. It would mean that if we attended the ceremony, we would, in the appropriate setting, gently make clear that we believe it to be something God disapproves of. In the long-term, the practice of both generosity and clarity has the best hope of securing repentance. The practice of generosity alongside clarity means we communicate more than merely a prohibition — that would radically truncate the gospel message. Rather, loving clarity with generosity seeks to make repentance attractive by showing that the love of Jesus is deeply beautiful and draws us out of behaviours which are barriers to relationship with God.
Such loving clarity was practised by Paul when he proclaimed: ‘The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent’ (Acts 17.30). With loving clarity we say that God commands all of us to turn from lifestyles and attitudes which he disapproves of.
Loving clarity about our views of marriage and vision of God prevents loving generosity being misinterpreted as acquiescence or unqualified approval. It need not be an exhaustive explanation of the Bible’s teaching. Nevertheless it is an essential component of our witness.
Generosity and clarity are inseparable and only together do they amount to Christian love. Loving generosity questions absence; loving clarity forbids silence.
3. Loving solidarity
The simple practice of loving generosity and clarity in modern Britain will increasingly lead to suffering on the part of Christians. Thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money is spent by the government paying for homosexuals to sue Christians, investigating Christians’ compliance with ever more intrusive laws and promoting homosexuality to children. People have already lost their jobs. Families are put under immense stress and there is a general atmosphere of tension and unease.
There has been some debate about whether or not Christians in the UK are persecuted. Perhaps it is helpful to recall that the early church faced two kinds of state oppression. The better known was the violent massacre of believers under the emperor Nero. That sort of suffering is not what is happening in our country. However, there was another period of suffering which happened under the reign of the emperor Trajan. He passed laws which devolved power to decide in individual cases against Christians. The laws were not immediately clear, permitted a range of interpretations and were not enforced universally. As a result, in some regions of the Roman Empire, churches thrived without any opposition. In other areas, there was considerable suffering.
The current experience of Christians in the UK is akin to that under Trajan. Laws are being enacted which do not enforce a universal reign of suppression and persecution, but provide the framework within which some Christians are tested to an extraordinary degree. Circumstance, location, job, financial means and family connections are all affected when an individual suffers for being a Christian.
In such a situation it is imperative that churches show loving solidarity. Every Christian must be assured that, should they face suffering for expressing loving generosity and clarity in our world, they will not stand alone. We will not win every legal case; injustices will continue. However, if a Christian suffering the stress and fear of losing their job were to face that without spiritual and financial backing from their church, it would amount to a public denial of the gospel.
Since suffering will come in seemingly unpredictable and inconsistent ways, it will be tempting for those not experiencing opposition to assume all is well. Loving solidarity demands that we remain informed about what others are experiencing. We should ask our fellow Christians how they really feel at work — do they feel free to act with loving generosity and clarity? Are they nervous about the consequences of being a Christian in public?
Credible call
By God’s grace, the practice of loving generosity and loving clarity may lead to some people turning from lifestyles which God forbids to embrace his love. If somebody doing that turns away from homosexuality, they need to be assured that the Christian family will stand in solidarity with them, no matter what opposition and suffering they face as a consequence of following Jesus.
Love demands nothing less than fulsome generosity, clarity and solidarity. Practising all three of these simultaneously will be difficult. However, it is only by so doing that the church will be able to credibly call people to Jesus in increasingly difficult times.
Footnotes
1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8584339.stm
2 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/7399275/Christian-registrar-denied-leave-to-appeal-gay-wedding-refusal.html
3 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1685
4 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8352017/Christian-couple-lose-foster-ruling-over-views-on-homosexuality.html
