What does the Oxford Ad Clerum mean?
Last week, the four bishops in the Diocese of Oxford circulated an Ad Clerum ('to the clergy') to all licensed ministers in the diocese; the text can be found on Steven Croft's diocesan blog. There is no doubt that the letter of the alphabet includes comments with which everyone in the Church could and should agree. As Will Pearson-Gee, Rector of Buckingham, says in the (expanded) online edition of the Church Times report:
I welcome everything in the letter of the alphabet that helps our churches be more genuinely welcoming places for all people. I also welcome the way in which the bishops are conscientious to brand the betoken that neither sexual orientation nor gender identity should inhibit anyone from playing a full part in the life of the church.
But I remember there are some ambiguities, omissions and fifty-fifty contradictions in the letter which will heighten some questions, and I suspect for some (within the diocese and exterior it) wonder if it is giving an honest view of what is really intended.
The first term which was unclear was the offering of the reflections of the letter of the alphabet 'with humility'. I am not sure what it means for bishops to write to their clergy and lay ministers 'with humility' when those reading the letter concur the diocesan bishop'due south license. Is this letter inviting discussion, debate or disagreement? To someone outside the diocese, I confess it didn't read similar a discussion document, not least because it sets out specific actions and principles which are to be acted on. And in what sense is humility expressed in echoing the Archbishops' call for a 'radical new Christian inclusion'? Was Jesus not 'radically inclusive' in his preaching of the kingdom of God? And Paul not 'radically inclusive' in seeing those 'excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise' now 'reconciled' with Jews 'in 1 body by the cross' (Eph 2.12, xvi) so that there is now 'neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female person, for you lot are all one in Christ Jesus' (Gal 3.28)? Equally David Baker helpfully commented last year:
You see, the thing is, I've e'er thought the gospel was radically inclusive already. I've e'er believed that 'the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives' – as the famous hymn puts it. And when I expect back on churches of which I have been a part, I recall them including paedophiles, an associate of the Kray twins, pornography addicts, adulterers – and others, including myself, whose middle class respectability masked sins which might have been less obvious simply were equally heart-breaking to God. Nosotros, together, were vile offenders (in the eyes of God'due south police if non of the world) who chose to repent and believe. And gloriously, all of u.s.a. were welcomed and included! When you add in the mind-blowing mix of age, ethnicity and background also, that seems pretty inclusive already.
If the Church has failed to reflect the inclusion of Jesus and Paul, don't we need to return to this, rather than await for a 'new' inclusion? What kind of humility seeks to set this aside? And will the humility here extend to giving space in the diocese and the discussion for those who recall the management the bishops are leading is quite wrong?
The second interesting comment was that 'remaining silent on these issues is not serving the Church well'. Of class, not all in the Diocese of Oxford have really been keeping silent. But this comment is correct on one regard: the (ofttimes shrill) substitution of views on social media and in Synod debates has actually led to a silencing of helpful discussion in the Church building at every level. Local church leaders often feel sick-equipped—afraid even—of speaking or teaching on the subject of sexuality, given the complexity of the issues, the rapidity of alter in culture, and the ease with which many volition take offence. I wonder if the four bishops have colluded in this silence—or whether they might take been expounding the way in which Christian teaching on sexuality offers liberating promise inside a culture which is incessantly sexualised.
Have they been instruction almost the inherent goodness of the body and sexuality when received every bit a gift from the creator God? Almost the impact of the autumn and human sin in distorting this most powerful of human desires? Near God'south souvenir of male-female marriage as the safe place for this desire'due south fruitful exercise? About the importance of faithful marriage as the identify to raise children and provide lifelong support? Nigh the possibility of forgiveness, healing and restoration when things go wrong in this arena of life? About the fact that sex and marriage is not the 'exist all and end all', and the possibility of living a full and rich life in singleness and celibacy? Almost the simply penultimate importance of sexuality, since we will in the age to come 'exist like the angels'? To be silent on this rich and culturally relevant stream of Christian didactics would indeed be a serious failure.
The letter then makes mention of the Pilling Report from 2013, and jumps on to the report of the Business firm of Bishops which was non 'taken note of' by Full general Synod in February 2017. It oddly omits to mention the Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage of February 2022 which fix out so conspicuously the Church's teaching on marriage and sexuality, consistently articulated all the style dorsum to the BCP and reinforced in all subsequent statements.
It is interesting that the letter repeatedly uses the acronym 'LGBTI+' without commenting on some of the problems that might arise from the group together of some quite different concerns (gay atheist Matthew Parris doesn't similar information technology: 'This community does non be. The bolting together of unlike groups distorts agreement. LGBT isn't a club I'chiliad in.') The letter is quite correct to point out that 'LGBTI+ Christians accept always been, and remain, actively involved as clergy and laity in all areas of church life, and at all levels', but this raises a further question. The best inquiry suggests that around 1.5% to 2% of the population experienced settled attraction to those of the aforementioned sex, and the nearly recent statistics on same-sex marriage since the 2013 Equality in Union Act ostend this. But the proportion in the C of E appears to exist much higher. Some have suggested that equally many as 10% of Anglican clergy are gay; a friend told me that they reckoned the figure was xx% in the London area; in Southwark one clergyperson told me that in a deanery of xv, merely five were non gay. (The C of E is in this regard in line with other institutions; the BBC recently reported that 12% of its senior management were LGBT+, as are just nether 9% of MPs in Parliament.)
So why does the letter echo the Bishop of Lichfield's call 'to highlight the need for mission inside the LGBTI+ community more broadly'. Why the need to gear up specialist chaplaincies to support this? Of course, the Church'southward current education is seen every bit offensive to those, within and outside the Church building, lobbying for alter. Merely the Church does not announced to have failed to draw those people into membership. With what other minority group has there been such numerical success? Where are the similar chaplaincies, the mission imperatives, for reaching BAME people, woefully under-represented? What near the national initiatives to appoint with white working-grade men?
Despite this, the letter makes repeated reference to 'inclusion', even though that term is either theologically empty or practically meaningless; every definition of what it means to be 'inclusive' volition exclude those who exercise not accept the definition. This was seen in practice in the diocese recently, with the 'Rainbow eucharist' at Reading Minster. I am not alone in thinking that I could not receive Communion around a table draped with the symbol of Gay Pride, and we need to ask what is happening when the central symbol of Christian conventionalities, the central place of Christian unity, becomes hitched to a detail sexual-political crusade. It begs the question what the phrase 'having a place at the tabular array' ways. The Communion table is a place of radical hospitality, for any and all who 'earnestly repent' and seek to follow the way of Christ, but it is not a social society. Jesus did indeed have any invitation to dinner, because he was invited by those who knew his bulletin was non to the 'well', only to the sick, to telephone call 'sinners to repentance' (Luke five.32). (The just repast at which Jesus acted every bit host was the Final Supper, a meal to which that mixed and motley crowd of those who had responded to his invitation to 'Come, follow me' were welcomed.)
I wonder whether the 'attitude of inclusion and respect for LGBTI+ people beyond the Diocese' will mean giving a prominent seat at the tabular array to people like Vaughan Roberts, Rector of St Ebbe'southward in Oxford, with a significant ministry building to students and immature people (whom the C of Due east is particularly slap-up to reach) and who is aforementioned-sex attracted and celibate in line with the Church's teaching?
The Ad Clerum questions whether LGBTI+ can be 'open up[ly] and authentically themselves', which begs a whole series of questions about what it means to be 'authentic' and 'myself'. Once more, forth with the Bishop of Lichfield, the bishops here reject 'intrusive questioning'. Only what do they hateful by this? Practise they agree with Richard Peers when he implies that most gay clergy either are not able to stay faithful to the 'balls' they have given that they are living within the Church's educational activity, or in fact never intended to in the first place? I agree with Richard that the current policy is untenable, and pastoral both unfair and unhelpful, and the Oxford bishops seems to hold—and then volition they do the only thing that is possible within the Church's current teaching and not license those in Civil Partnerships? Or volition they take 1 of the other options? If so, what does it mean when they say that they will keep to 'work within existing Bishop'south Guidelines on human sexuality' when those guidelines require the 'intrusive questioning' that they decline?
And does 'being accurate' hateful that we should all human activity on our desires and impulses? Jayne Ozanne, a prominent campaigner on this issue who is a lay member of General Synod for the diocese, poured contemptuousness in a Tweet on the notion of 'practising' and 'non-practising', as if information technology was possible not to act on the basis of one's attractions. Practise the bishops take this? If so, this drives a cart and horses through some central ideas in Christian theological anthropology—bug of want, sin, temptation, discipline, and the Pauline distinction between Spirit and flesh. In practice, it ways acting on a whole range of desires, and it is not surprising that Jayne and Vicky Beeching both abet sexual relationships well outside lifelong committed relationships in their recent books. Again, this is characteristic of their position; Mark Regnerus has shown that, taken equally a whole, Christians who have same-sex wedlock are ethically indistinguishable from the culture around them on a range of other problems. Biblical scholar Dale Martin, who is often cited in debates about the meaning of the Pauline texts, talked in 2008 about his wide personal sexual experiences, and argued that a Christian sexual ethic is one in which you should have sex with people in the mode that reflects your level of commitment to them. Nadia Bolz-Weber has recently argued for the Christian use of ethical porn, because it is an authentic expression of erotic feelings.
The bishops believe 'Information technology is important that these debates should be grounded in Scripture, reason and tradition', but that isn't the historical Anglican position, which sees Scripture as having supreme authorization in all matters of religion and conduct. Indeed, a previous Bishop of Oxford, Richard Harries, specifically rejected the popular notion of the 'three-legged stool' when introducing the debate to Synod of the excellentSome Bug in Man Sexuality; follower Hooker, he pointed out that Scripture is our authority, only we read it through the interpretative lenses of 'reason' and 'tradition'.
Taken at its well-nigh positive, that is why we accept been involved in the exhaustive/ing procedure of Shared Conversations, and accept at present embarked on the process known as 'Living in Love and Religion', including the setting upwards of the Pastoral Advisory Group. But it seems that the bishops in Oxford can no longer expect for that to happen. They might want to 'clothe themselves in dearest' but this version of love doesn't include plenty patience to wait for others to catch up with their views.
Depending on the timetable of the national group'southward work, we may look to describe the fruits of our own conversations and reflections together in the brusque term for the benefit of this Diocese.
Andrew Lightbown welcomes this "highly incarnational, non dogmatic, method of doing theology…this method of 'doing theology' is unlikely to atomic number 82 to a 'single universal ethic.'" Only the letter of the alphabet seems unaware of the bug facing such pragmatism, which would take been experienced had the Hereford motility been taken further, and I retrieve has been dogging the Pastoral Informational Group: if pastoral practice is to take any integrity, information technology must exist connected to liturgical coherence and doctrine grounding. If you practise non believe that same-sex sexual relationships are 'a gift of God in creation, a holy style of living, which all should honour' (and electric current C of E doctrine of union does non currently so believe) then you cannot 'bless' such things. The pastoral deed of blessing demands that we change our doctrine of marriage. So to fence for a 'not-dogmatic' pastoral practice here means assertive that in that location is no universal Christian doctrine of marriage.
The bishops appear here to exist following the lead of The Episcopal Church in the Usa, which others in the Anglican Communion believed tore the fabric of the Communion and damaged relations, since TEC finer said 'We are going to practise what we are going to do, and not be hindered by the views of others'. I think the citing of the Church in Wales in the Advertisement Clerum is highly provocative in this regard, since the bishops at that place have decided to offer provision for blessing SSM fifty-fifty where their Synod held dorsum. It seems that the bishops regards Christian unity, both within the diocese and between other dioceses and wider Church building of England teaching as secondary to their want to do something. Once again, it is hardly a position which reflects 'humility' or 'some hesitation'.
The whole letter of the alphabet invites the question: 'Do any of these bishops actually believe in the Church of England'southward current education on wedlock, teaching which, in their ordination vows, they committed non only to uphold, but to teach?' Information technology is difficult to offer any other reply than 'No', and this in turn invites the question of how they expect those who do believe this teaching to respond.
My final curiosity was the framing of the letter in the reading of Paul's letter of the alphabet to the Colossians. A fundamental theme in Colossians is that, though in that location are other forces at work in the cosmos, other spiritual powers and 'elements' (probably borrowing Stoic metaphysical language hither), Christ is cosmically supreme. That means, in plough, that God's people, those who follow Jesus, are to live out their identity as a holy people, socially engaged in, though ethical and theological distinct from, the globe effectually them.
For he has rescued usa from the dominion of darkness and brought u.s.a. into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (1.thirteen–14)
That will involve existence discerning, rejecting attractive but misleading arguments:
I tell you this then that no one may deceive you past fine–sounding arguments…Run into to information technology that no one takes yous convict through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human being tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. (2.4–eight)
And Paul attaches such discernment directly to the person of Jesus and our discipleship following him. And, in typically Pauline fashion, he then sees the piece of work of the Spirit in forming us in ethical living equally a counterpoint to our previous lives, sinful desire and the world around us:
Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, animalism, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You lot used to walk in these ways, in the life you lot once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things equally these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.Practise non prevarication to each other, since you accept taken off your old self with its practice and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one some other if whatever of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive equally the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (3.five–fourteen)
I confess that I searched the Ad Clerum in vain for whatsoever clue that any of this education of Paul had shaped whatever of the thinking that the bishops presented—and since Paul explicitly mentions sexual ideals hither, you might have expected at least some reference to it. For Paul, the inclusive love of God, and our beloved for one another, are rooted in this transformation and call to holiness that nosotros accept met in the face of Christ. The unity of love flows out of this shared agreement of what God has done for united states in Christ, and what we therefore have to offer the world.
The bishops don't appear to ready much store by unity; their calendar takes priority. Holiness doesn't get a mention; what matters is being 'authentic'. The wider view of Christians through history and around the world on this matter cannot agree back their sense of urgency to alter. And the churchly message nosotros find in Paul does not constrain them or shape their thinking, at least as far equally this letter of the alphabet demonstrates.
If they are signalling here that they are parting from the 1, holy, catholic and apostolic church, why would anyone in the diocese who remains part of that church not at present seek culling episcopal oversight? Indeed, one might wonder whether the alphabetic character is not intended to provoke just that.
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