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Оглавлениеby the Archbishops of Canterbury and York
‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear’ (1 John 4.18).
Yet, because our love is imperfect, it is often fear that casts out love when we, as individuals and as a church, seek to discern how the church should act on matters that are central to our identity. God in perfect love has created us. In Jesus Christ, God became human and a servant to save us from our sins and to restore in us the image of God. As followers of Jesus we are called to have ‘the same mind … that was in Christ Jesus’ so that we may have relationships of love that look not only to our ‘own interests, but to the interests of others’ (Philippians 2.4-13) and so reflect the holy love of Jesus Christ. Walking in love and holiness means walking together with God, open to the Holy Spirit who keeps God at the heart of our thoughts and desires (Romans 8.5-17).
We seek to understand the mind of God revealed in Scripture, our final authority in which we find all things necessary for salvation. We listen to the Church present and past and universal. We use our reason and understanding, drawing on the best thinking of the natural and human sciences. In that process of threefold listening we commit to learning, from God and through each other, in the spirit and light of that perfect love.
In February 2017, the General Synod of the Church of England debated a Report from the House of Bishops called ‘Marriage and Same Sex Relationships after the Shared Conversations (GS 2055)’. In a very unusual moment, the General Synod declined to take note of the report. Such an exceptional action by the Synod required an equally exceptional response by the Bishops. A few weeks after the vote a joint letter from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York said that ‘we need a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church. This must be founded in Scripture, in reason, in tradition, in theology and the Christian faith as the Church of England has received it; it must be based on good, healthy, flourishing relationships, and in a proper twenty-first century understanding of being human and of being sexual.’ Every word of that sentence was carefully weighed and was, and remains, essential. Inclusion must be radical because the grace of God as expressed in Jesus Christ is radical beyond our imagination. It must be Christian because inclusion has become a term which has become a means of exercising power over one another. And it must be new because we must learn from the mistakes of the past, and not simply reproduce models from secular society.
This is an Anglican method of theological reflection, based around Richard Hooker’s pattern of Scripture, reason and tradition: Scripture read together in the wide and long life of the church, with all the skills that God has given to us. Discernment of the mind of Christ necessitates careful, prolonged and deep reflection. This is especially true in an area that is a source of intense controversy in Christian churches as well as across society here and around the world.
At the same time, we are not discussing abstract concepts, but matters that are of immense sensitivity and often pain to almost every human being. In the Ignatian tradition, discernment involves two key principles: consolation and desolation. We are treading amongst people’s deepest hopes and dreams, where they experience profound consolation and intense desolation. Therefore, the work of discernment has to include the actualities of human experience.
The supreme and unique beauty of the person of Jesus of Nazareth is found not only in that he is the Truth, but also that his truth abounds in grace and love (John 1.14). In Christ, God demonstrated that truth need not damage and hurt, and is not to be used to threaten those who are vulnerable. Truth may often be challenging, but it transforms us ‘from one degree of glory to another’ (2 Corinthians 3.18) as we see the face of the Lord who is the Spirit.
As soon as we begin to consider questions of sexual identity and behaviour, we need to acknowledge the huge damage and hurt that has been caused where talk of truth, holiness and discipleship has been wielded harshly and not ministered as a healing balm. Especially amongst LGBTI+ people, every word we use – quite possibly including these in this very foreword, despite all the care we exercise – may cause pain. We have caused, and continue to cause, hurt and unnecessary suffering. For such acts, each of us, and the Church collectively, should be deeply ashamed and repentant. As archbishops, we are personally very sorry where we have contributed to this.
At the heart of our failure is the absence of a genuine love for those whom God loves in Christ, knowing as God does every aspect of all of our lives. Such lack of perfect love causes us at times to fear and act out of fear. Defensiveness is felt, and aggression is experienced, both by those who long for change and by those who believe, sincerely, that change would be wrong and damaging.
This book arises from the extraordinary efforts of more than forty people, from all dimensions of the debates, with very different life experiences and theological convictions, as well as the close involvement of the bishops of the Church of England. Discernment requires time. Many people wish that we could jump to a quick decision as a church in England. However, in this process, we have been committed to listening to people’s life stories, to being open to questions, and to understanding each other’s views. We acknowledge that we in the Church of England are just one small part of the Anglican Communion and the universal Christian Church, and of the wider human family.
In taking time, and yet moving comparatively quickly (at least in terms of the average speed of change in church history), we have sought both to respect the enormous importance of the questions discussed in this book and the fears, anxieties and pastoral impact on those who have been anticipating its outcomes with growing impatience. Even now, this book does not represent the end of the process, although it is a very significant step. It is intended to enable all those in the Church of England who wish to take part by using this book – and the other Living in Love and Faith resources – to learn and reflect together to help the entire church in its task of discernment.
A model for such engagement has come from the Pastoral Advisory Group under the leadership of Bishop Christine Hardman. The group has established six principles for living well together: to acknowledge prejudice, to speak into silence, to address ignorance, to cast out fear, to admit hypocrisy and to pay attention to power. This careful work gives us a tool to help us to love one another more perfectly, not only in the areas discussed in this book but in all our differences within the church.
Inevitably, many people will read this work with trepidation. They will be anxious in case it causes them more pain or betrays, or seems to them to betray, principles they hold as essential. You will hear testimonies of spiritual growth from people whose convictions and lived experiences seem incompatible. God seems to be present in these opposing circumstances and people of divergent convictions.
This book will be deeply uncomfortable in different places for everyone who reads it sincerely and honestly. It will bring you face to face, as it has us, with Christian people who have been hurt or harmed by the words and actions of the church. It will confront each of us with the realities of the depth and breadth of disagreement that is the experience of all churches, including our own, today. It will remind us of the depth of commitment to holiness that the gospel and the cross call us to, and how short all of us fall from it. We must not pretend otherwise. Only in looking honestly at the fact that we have sisters and brothers in Christ who have vehemently opposed views to ours, can we come in humility before God and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Our vision must be that which Jesus prays for in John 17.21, ‘that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.’ Being one is not in the sense of being the same, but being one in love and obedience and holiness, so that the world may find the knowledge of Christ as Saviour and the peace of God in the experience of God’s Kingdom. There will probably never be a time when we all agree exactly what that looks like, but our prayer for the Church through this work is that collectively we demonstrate the same love to one another that we have experienced from God; the grace that includes everyone whom Jesus Christ is calling to follow him; the holiness that changes the world and the unity that calls others to faith in Christ. The gift of that kind of love for God, for each other, and even for those who oppose us, is, in the words of 1 Peter, a love that covers a multitude of sins and thus leads us to be holy as God is holy (1 Peter 4.8 and 1.16).
Finally, we need to express thanks beyond words to those who have participated in this project. Their names are listed in www.churchofengland.org/LLF. But we are especially aware of the work of the Coordinating Group, led by Bishop Christopher Cocksworth, and of the working groups, led by Bishops Tim Dakin, Sarah Mullally, Martin Warner and Pete Wilcox. We particularly would like to pay tribute to Bishop Christopher and to Dr Eeva John. The journey they have gone through has been immensely painful at times, challenging beyond description, and yet has produced something which, like all human work, will not be perfect but is, nevertheless, an exceptional and unique contribution to the thinking of the church. We offer our appreciation, our love and our thanks.
| ✠ Justin Cantuar: Lambeth Palace, London | ✠ Stephen Ebor: Bishopthorpe Palace, York |
September 2020
Note to the reader
The Glossary at the end of the book contains definitions and brief discussions of words relating to identity, sexuality and gender. We recognize that while it is particularly important to use words with care when we are talking about sex and gender, there are no neutral words. For the sake of flow and consistency, we have generally adopted the formulation ‘LGBTI+’ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Intersex), except when quoting or referring to work which uses other formulations (such as LGB or LGBT). We recognize that ‘LGBTI+’ brings together a variety of people whose interests, characteristics and perspectives are not the same. Some people might wish to use other formulations or words to describe themselves – such as ‘queer’, ‘same-sex attracted’, or having a ‘difference of sex development’, for example. Using ‘LGBTI+’ is not intended to signal a preference for one or other formulations or descriptors.
‘Encounters’ sections appear at the end of each of the book’s five Parts. The people that you will meet and the stories that you will read in them are the result of real encounters that have taken place all around the country. They are taken from transcripts of recorded conversations with people who have risked sharing their stories and their lives with us. The stories offer us a chance to listen in on those conversations and to allow these encounters to take root in our hearts and prayers. Each story has been agreed by the person or people concerned. All the names and places are fictitious. There are many more stories on the website – on film as well as in written form. We are immensely grateful to each person who has given of themselves in this way to the Living in Love and Faith project.
Bible quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) throughout. On the handful of occasions when a different translation is used, the version is given after the quotation.
For simplicity, we have adopted the convention of using ‘Church’ to refer to the universal Church and ‘church’ to refer to the Church of England and to local congregations.
‘Living in Love and Faith’ has been abbreviated to ‘LLF’ in Part Five’s conversations, in the Endnotes and in the website address.
