Melvin Tinker takes a Reformation approach to the recent House of Bishops report
It was released on 23 January.
The report from the House of Bishops on Marriage and Same Sex Relationships has its admirers and detractors in equal measure. I want to come at the report and the responses to it from a slightly different angle.
This year marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The picture of Martin Luther nailing up his 95 Theses in Wittenberg may seem light years away from the blog blitz that has resulted from the House of Bishops tentatively presenting their proposals. I want to argue that at least one of the Augustinian monk’s arguments is penetratingly relevant to the current Anglican scene.
A Luther moment
It is there in Thesis 21 of the Heidelberg Disputation: ‘A theology of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theology of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.’
For Luther the theologians of glory extrapolate from what they see in nature to the supernatural being of God. This underlies much of the present thinking of the gay identity problem in the Church. The fundamental stance is that this is the way God has made me, which in turn is confirmed by a secular society’s view that personal identity is not simply connected with sexual identity, but that the latter is the dominant, defining feature. This results in a belief in a god who is very much like us and who, invariably, affirms us.
The resulting god is, in fact, no god at all. As Feuerbach (and Freud) argued, such religion is nothing but an idolatrous, human construction. It is ‘a dream, in which our conceptions and emotions appear to us as separate existences, beings out of ourselves’.
A contemporary theology of glory
The Bishops’ report is a contemporary instance of such a theology of glory. What is singularly lacking is any doctrine of the fallen condition of human beings and the willingness to call a thing for ‘what it is’ – in this case, that homosexual genital relations are sinful. While there is no explicit statement whereby ‘evil is called good and good evil’, the implication is that when it is said that the church needs to ‘welcome and support lesbian and gay people’ it includes those who are actively engaged in homoerotic sexual activity. When this is considered with the permission that clergy may ‘pray with same sex couples’, say, following a civil partnership, then no other conclusion can be drawn but that God is being asked to bless that relationship. In which case the line has been crossed and evil is being called good.
Synod of ’87
The ambiguity of this document contrasts markedly with the General Synod Motion of 1987 which affirmed that: ‘homosexual genital acts also fall short of [the] ideal, and are likewise to be met by a call to repentance and compassion.’
But of course ambiguity is the hallmark of a theology of glory which feels it can construct its own religion. It is at this point that another insight of Luther is pertinent. the In his The Babylonian Captivity of Christian Church Luther argued that the gospel had become captive to the institutional church. However many times the term ‘gospel’ may be used in this report, it seems little more than a ‘hooray’ word, a token which lacks any clear definition but which is assumed will gain everyone’s allegiance.
Theology of the cross
The theology of the cross, by way of contrast to the ‘double speak’ of the theologians of glory, ‘calls a thing what it actually is.’ A theology of glory has an anthropology which lacks any notion of the Fall. Rather, our problem is perceived as social, or maybe metaphysical, but not moral.
But the theology of the cross presents us with a less flattering view of ourselves. In Romans, the Apostle Paul demonstrates that it is humankind’s natural bent to be theologians of glory, making god in our own image and so dethroning him for an idol. We exchange that which is immortal, God, for that which is perishable and non-God (v.23). We exchange the truth about reality that God is the centre of all things, for the lie that we are the centre (v.25). And we exchange natural sexual relations for non-natural (v.26ff). The gay debate is really an expression of this threefold exchange which God’s special revelation presents us with. It is calling a thing what it is, which is missing in this report.
An Elijah moment
But calling a thing what it is will often be met with hostility, because it does not flatter our ego and cuts across our ‘glory’ religion.
This most notably occurred a few years ago at the 2003 National Evangelical Anglican Congress at Blackpool when the Old Testament scholar, Dr Gordon Wenham, pointed out that many modern attitudes, including those towards homosexual relations, were in fact examples of ancient paganism: ‘[Paganism] is raising its head again. Other examples are religious pluralism, abolition of Sunday as universal rest day, abortion, cremation, easy divorce … we should not be intimidated by the charge of being old fashioned: it is the so-called liberals who are really taking us back to the dark ages.’ He was right. The Baal cult (a theology of glory if ever there was) was a fertility cult – very popular in the nations surrounding Israel. Not surprisingly the ‘church’ of the day succumbed to this cultural enticement. But there came the crucial time when the people had to decide who was really Lord: Baal or Yahweh (1 Kings 18.17ff)? Like Luther many years later, Elijah was very much in the minority. But, when the fire came down, people saw the thing for what it was.
Knowing the times
Is this not a time for a Luther and Elijah moment in the Church of England today?
It is bewildering, to say the least, that evangelicals have welcomed this document so positively. That it affirms traditional marriage is no surprise. What did people expect? But what is given with one hand is taken away with the other, as the way is clearly being paved for acceptance without any call to repentance.
There are three options open to those in the denomination, as things stand.
1. Slow Death.This is what is occurring in the Church of England at large, by all the social indicators. It characterises those, including some evangelical Anglicans, who want peace with pay (or even a prelacy) and so will not rock the boat.
2. Quick Exit. Leave the denomination. If things continue along the trajectory as laid down by the Bishops’ report there will be more evangelicals taking this option.
3. Deep Change. There are three features which characterise ‘Deep Changers’: a) They must be willing to break the rules which hinder growth; b) They must risk their jobs, willing to court the opprobrium of the establishment; c) They must be willing to move forward without knowing beforehand what the outcome might be.
Of course, option 3 is the way of Luther and marks the theology of the cross – weak, costly, foolish in the eyes of the world and the ‘Babylonian’ church but, in the economy of God, a genuine manifestation of grace.
The Bishops’ report is a sugar-coated pill which in the long term is poison. The theology of glory which is embedded on every page signals its unacceptability. Evangelicals who wish to maintain their integrity have no option but to embrace the theology of the cross and all that that entails – suffering and rejection.
