Bishops, sex and Annus not so Mirabilis .......

The problem with Bishops is that when they create a stir they usually get it pretty hopelessly wrong and when they have no wish to create one they get that wrong too.

So with the recent pastoral letter about christianity and sex and civil partnerships.

Apparently the document was released by accident and what was said was meant to be said in confidence Bishop to Bishop.

But even that doesn't make it right because whether or not the views expressed were intended for private circulation even so, they were, presumably views held by some and shared with all?

During  my first curacy in a pit village in socialist republic of South Yorkshire the village doctor who was also PCC secretary would count me in to the head count of weddings I conducted where I could expect the Baptism to be fairly soon after the wedding.

Now, fifty years later I am often asked to Baptise the baby long before the wedding or even as part of the wedding ceremony!

Clearly Bishops don't change, but the times, as Mr Dylan sang, certainly have.

And of course, apart from declaring sexual intercourse in 2020 as not even having started unless a marriage had taken place, a marriage that is not a Civil Partnership the Bishops had clearly never even read Philip Larkin's poem Annus Mirabilis.

 Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

So definitely out of kilter with the times but also out of kilter with LBGTQIA ideas, commitments and principles. So no inclusion but a great deal of exclusion.

I arrived at my Theological College as a fairly naive 21 year old in 1966.

I very soon wised up to the reality of life amongst a group of young male theological students. My question of one fellow student who it appeared didn't have a girlfriend and didn't seem too bothered: 'Don't you like girls?'

The facts of life were gently explained to me.

But despite what the church at large might say and what the Bishops might require there was little evidence of celibacy in my theological college in the '60's.

I have always thought that the Methodist Report on Human Sexuality published some years ago now, offered a thoughtful, discerning, platform for any discussion about sex.

It's essential point was that Christian reflections on sexuality should take account of Biblical Reading, The Churches Historic Teaching and The Spirit of the Age.

It is perhaps this last criteria that seems to have escaped the attention of the Bishops in their thinking and in their Pastoral Letter which they published to a very critical reception.

Sex in both the old and new testaments is rich and powerful, Job's daughters seduction of their father in Genesis raises many questions which today would be debated endlessly by social workers and safeguarding officers but in the bible was simply an introduction to the genealogy of the Moabites.

The woman caught in adultery, simply forgiven by Jesus.

But it is important to remember that Biblical teaching, theology and the churches teaching are always written and shared and spoken at a particular time and place in history (or herstory) the Bishop's 'pastoral' letter, which was neither pastoral nor (apparently) meant to be a letter at all has managed to unite a number of different groups in opposition. Hopefully it will be quietly withdrawn and due apology made.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Are you sitting comfortably then I will begin ........

  Do you remember  Listen with Mother  the programme always opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin".   My memory of it brings back strong emotions as I recall as a young child how the ritual involved a sense of snuggling down on my mother’s knee to hear the story being read.   In our psalm today, psalm 34 we are invited to say with the psalmist at verse 8, Happy are those who take refuge in him.   The idea of taking refuge involves quite literally hiding yourself in God or in your parents love.   Which is why I found myself transported back in time to the memory of hiding myself in my Mother’s protection as I was asked ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’   This image of a small child wrapped in it’s Mother’s arms, protected, warm, loved, the sense of being happy, as the psalmist invites us to imagine the possibility of taking refuge in God.   Of being protected, warm and loved which brings with it a deep sense of cont...
Read more

To Theophilus friend of God ......

  People who like quizzes might prefer me to begin with a question such as: Who wrote a quarter of the New Testament? The answer is of course St Luke. Luke the Evangelist wrote both the Gospel that bears his name but also the Acts of the Apostles. As an evangelist Luke was writing from the perspective of a historian about events that he had not witnessed personally. However his writing in the Acts of the Apostles suggests that he was describing activities in which he was involved. Luke indicates that he was not an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel he does 'repeatedly' use the word 'we' in describing the missionary journeys that he presumably undertook with Paul and which he describes in the Acts of the Apostles. In Colossians Paul writes: Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.  A near contemporary historian, Epiphanious, suggests that Luke could have been one of the seventy we read about in the Gospel set for the Feast of St Luke. As ...
Read more

Conviviality and a personal history .........

  There are many synonyms:  friendliness, geniality, affability, amiability, congeniality, good humour, cordiality, warmth, warm-heartedness, good nature, sociability, gregariousness, clubbability, companionability, cheerfulness, cheeriness, good cheer, joviality, jollity, gaiety, liveliness, festivity, bonhomie. And one rather sad antonym: unfriendliness.   In interdiac the definition of conviviality has three elements drawn from an understanding of the social and community aspects of life in the Iberian Peninsula where Moslems were able to live freely and openly with their Jewish and Christian neighbours.   The conviviality of life in 19 th  Century Paris with its free and unconstrained conversation.   The work and writings of Ivan Illich in which he described the transformation of relationships between people and their environment and technology.   In Manchester in the early 1970’s I worked in an inner-city environment which was scheduled ...
Read more