When we talk about church politics, we are aware that there are many differences between what happens in our national parliament and in the Church of England General Synod. But there are nevertheless some similarities to be noted. It is possible to identify some who debate from a recognisably left-wing position as well as some who argue from what we would describe as the right. While many, if not the majority, of Synod members may have no sense of owning political allegiances in what they have to bring to debates, there are a significant number who do. Speaking very generally and, most likely, inaccurately, those on the left stand for a libertarian approach to Church affairs. They are likely to be focussing on issues such climate change, social justice and a more liberal attitude to sexual matters. By contrast, the right-wing group in Synod will have a more authoritarian approach to such things as doctrine together with an emphasis on personal morality, especially in the area of sexual ethics. A further distinct feature of the right wing in a church context is something that it shares with authoritarian movements right across the spectrum. It has the belief that it owns the truth. As the possessor of the final truth, based on its ‘sound’ interpretation of Scripture, it convinces itself that it should be allowed to be the leader of the whole institution. To do this it is not beyond using various dominating methods, involving the use of fear tactics.
The issue of the moment for the whole Church of England is the publication of the lengthy document Living in Love and Faith (LLF) The document only appeared a few days ago and the hope is that it will enable the whole Church of England to begin to understand better the issues around marriage and same sex relationships. In this way they will find a way to grow together in learning to live with others who have quite different views on this topic. My interest here is not in the topic of the debate or indeed the content of the 480-page document. My concern is for the way that representatives of one politically right-wing group in the Church, known as the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), have rapidly responded to LLF. Their response takes the form of a professionally produced video entitled The Beautiful Story. The images in the video show that it was shot in high summer. In other words, the video can be understood to be a pre-prepared political statement, presenting the views held by those on the right on the issues raised by LLF.
What are we to conclude about the release of this video in terms of political process? Let us imagine a parallel in the political life of the country. Suppose a Labour government is in charge and they have poured massive resources into preparing a bill that will transform the welfare state and make life easier for the unemployed. After three years work, with consultations across many other institutions including universities and welfare groups of all kinds, the Bill is published for discussion. Within a week, the Conservative opposition publish their response. Their document has no point of contact with the Labour one because, at best, it has worked on the principle that it could guess what was going to be in the Labour Bill. The parliamentary debate that follows would be like two men shouting at each other in a dark room. There is no possibility of discussion, debate or even communication. How can the CEEC pre-prepared video engage with a major document like LLF when it was written and filmed so long before its publication? Was there any possibility or even desire to communicate or debate the issue properly?
The arrival of the video, The Beautiful Story, even putting to one side whether we identify with its content, is a clear undermining of the quasi-parliamentary system of working for the Church. The Church of England believes in listening, debating and considering an issue prayerfully before choices and decisions are made. The tone of the video could be summarised as saying this. We (the CEEC) are the only group to read the Bible correctly and we already know the mind of Christ on the topics concerned with sexuality. All further discussion is thus futile. The rest of you must surrender to our interpretation. Otherwise, we may take away our support for the Church. Politically speaking, this mindset is close to a dictatorship complete with the use of fear and threat. Among the comments made in the video, some were distinctly patronising and even offensive. How can a leading evangelical scholar presume to declare what liberal scholars believe about Christ’s attitude to the gay question? We heard more than once that the Bible is ‘abundantly clear’ on the topic. No, the Bible is not abundantly clear on this or any number of other issues to do with personal morality. Jesus spoke far more decisively on the divorce question than he ever did about other matters to do with sex. Conservative Anglicans have been very tight-lipped about enforcing discipline in this area.
If we look at The Beautiful Story through the eyes of a secular political process, it feels like a piece of propaganda from an extreme faction on the right which would like to have total domination over the whole institution. The video smacks of hubris by its implied assumption that the whole LLF process is a waste of time. Those of us who study the power dynamics of the way that this conservative group within the C of E works, have some insight about who in fact makes the political choices in CEEC. It appears not to be either of the two bishops who have speaking parts in the video.
All in all, the power of this conservative faction is being weakened by this expensive piece of propaganda. It probably represents a serious political miscalculation for the CEEC. In the past the teachings of this group did not really impinge on the rest of the Church. Their opinions on the gay issue were known but not widely discussed. The only group who could be relied upon to make the case for the reactionary right-wing point of view, were people in the media. They would wheel on a conservative spokesperson who would give the party line with a predictable soundbite. People outside conservative circles did not seem to take these views very seriously. But now, by publishing this video which clearly identifies a range of individuals alongside their attitudes and assumptions, they are likely to create a far stronger political push-back on the part of those who do not think as they do. Did a diocesan bishop really threaten to leave the Church of England if he and his CEEC group fail to get their own way. Many people, who do not at present see the Church in political categories, may come to have a new insight on the way that power is being deployed. Because of the language of threat and contempt for the bulk of their fellow church members that is revealed in the video, ordinary church people may realise that they need to be better defended from these anti-democratic ideologies represented by the Church’s own right wing.
There is little in the video that convinces me that it is about truth and integrity. What I see is a lot about politics and power. The conclusion I draw from the new video is that the Church’s right-wing faction have become so confident of their power to dominate that they no longer care if they alienate others in the Church. That is a political miscalculation that they may come to regret.
To my mind the video is aimed at people who attend evangelical churches, and I fear it will be quite effective there. With my evangelical background I detected quite a few dog whistles in it.
It starts off quite reasonable – it’s certainly true that the Church has underrated and neglected single people for well over a half century, and probably longer – quite contrary to the 2 millennia of Christian tradition which honoured celibacy. It’s also true that the modern western world over-glorifies sex, and that it’s entirely possible to live a a complete and contented life without sex – contrary to popular assumption. So far so good, and all that needs saying.
Much of the presentation, however, isn’t so reasonable. I felt for the young people who were brave enough to own up to being ‘same-sex attracted’, and said they were committed to a life of celibacy. They have their lives ahead of them – what happens if they fall in love with someone? It’s one thing for the sacrifice to be theoretical, and quite another when it involves someone else’s misery as well as your own. It may be a different story then.
Then there was the leader – I’ve forgotten which one – who claimed that ‘all scholars agree’ the Bible condemns homosexuality, but ‘they think the Bible is wrong’. That’s rubbish and he must know it isn’t true. There is considerable doubt that the Bible addresses committed same sex relationships at all, and debate even over the interpretation of the so-called ‘clobber texts’.
I noted that at least one of the bishops was part of the LLF working party, and therefore must have known the content of the report before it was issued. A lot of t item and expense – and a considerable number of people – were devoted to getting this video out at the same time as LLF. That shows they haven’t kept faith with the process, or the rest of us.
I suspect the video will be effective in evangelical churches in countering any possible liberalising effect of LLF (assuming there might be any). I hope you’re right, Stephen, in alerting a wider section of the Church to the politicking going on. When the next General Synod election take place, people must be prepared for an attempted conservative evangelical take-over.
Hi Janet
Ian Paul didn’t say ‘all scholars agree’ but that there is a significant consensus among many liberal and also secular scholars (Via, Brooten, Crompton, Nissinen, Wink, Pronk, MacCulloch) that the Bible does condemn same-sex sexual activity, and is wrong in doing so.
That’s the evangelical line..but in fact there is no scholarly consensus amongst theologians that the bible condemns homosexuality per se,regardless of context.
In actual fact,there is a substantial body of erudite,even brilliant,theologians who reject the idea that the bible condemns gay love.
James Brownson is one evangelical who changed his views on the issue,as is David Rushee.The astute theologian Bart Ehrlman is probably the most distinguished professor of theology to systematically disprove the idea that the bible has a blanket condemnation of all same sex love.
In addition,in the UK we have the theologian David Runcorn.
Evangelical leaders such as Tony Campolo and Bishop James Jones(former bishop of Liverpool & governor of Wycliffe college),have also changed their views.
I’d agree with Janet to an extent. It is clear that it is aimed at people already inside the tent. On the other hand, I’m not really sure what it is supposed to actually achieve. The kind of audience for which it plays well to are unlikely to pay much attention to the LFF (beyond what they are told from the pulpit).
Janet describes the issues with its interaction with the issues raised by the LFF quite well, so I won’t comment on that.
I’d like to point out that the video fails even within its own context though. The fairly staid world of evangelical Anglican is — even within the New Wine sympathetic bits — fairly bad at dealing with people outside anything like fairly staid nuclear family units (which is why the churches represented are either filled with young families and families who were once young families, or aspire towards that — regardless of the social context in which they exist). Frankly, you are far more likely to have a warm circle of single older friends in a minority ethnic charismatic setting.
This doesn’t even start to touch on the massive hypocrisy in the dismissal of ‘Me Too’ as down to ‘Sexual Liberation’ and ignoring the contribution of at least of the movements represented to ‘Church Too’. It’s also interesting to me that while they look for a restored creation, that ‘restoration’ is narrowly focused on the sexual rather than the racial or economic (I expect the video on racial issues to be largely a wash).
I agree with all of the above and and can definitely relate to the feel of it from my own previous experience in the ReNew network. Even though I disagree with a lot of what is said its tone is almost comforting. Everything is so certain and people speak softly and reasonably.
Some of what was said however is bordering on the bizarre. Can anyone tell me what “Jesus used his sexuality beautifully” even means?
Why is it I feel I can’t enter this blog in defense of orthodox Christian teaching ?
LLF strikes me as being a ‘straight to video’ publication; although it may be used as a reference point by church politicians or by the 0.001% of the population who care about church politics, its wider impact on the population will be zero. What I find deeply strange about the Church is the seeming belief amongst Synod members, and the sort of people who belong to ecclesiastical committees or lobbies that anyone has the remotest interest in anything they think, say or do. A few people – like myself – get agitated about the buildings, but even they are rapidly diminishing number. Most people under the age of 75 (i.e., people who came of age after the de facto shift to state-sponsored cultural pluralism post-1965) will invest churches with about as much spiritual significance as oasthouses, ridge-and-furrow, mill chimneys or other relics in the landscape of modes of living and thought that are now extinct. The afficionados of these buildings – worshipping communities – or whatever we want to call them, are as curious and as relevant to the wider population as steam enthusiasts or stamp collectors.
So when I see the flurry of exchanges in the Church blogosphere about LLF and this absurd and faintly sinister video (on which I wasted about 30 minutes of my life), I am tempted to murmur ‘so what, and what’s new?’. One of the depressing staples of Church life – since the second century – has been the dismal tendency of church politicians to hurl anathemas at each other, and to attempt to gain control – often by means of coercion – over opposing factions. The tactics of this malign cabal, the CEEC, are scarcely different, only in this instance they have garlanded their repulsive package in a slick, Teflon substance; most of the contributors are wearing variants of smart casual apparel, and some of them even have good teeth. Meanwhile the rest of the world walks by.
I am increasingly of the view that the Church has little of value to say about anything, and that on the rare occasions when it attempts to contribute to the formation on public policy its views are so trite and banal as to be not worth making. Moreover, the messages of the ‘conservative/reactionary’ and ‘liberal/progressive’ factions are, respectively, so oppressive/deranged and insipid/meaningless as to make me question whether Christianity is a faith worth bothering with. Well done the Church!
Yes, the Reactionaries are trying to bully the Rest. They have shrewdly discerned that the Rest are collapsing faster than they are, and that the future of the Church is as a smattering of gathered congregations; they therefore want to gain control of the assets and sales proceeds whilst they can. They will need this for their ‘mission’ (including their own incomes), and because they know Rest will soon fade away. So this positioning is important and consequential. And in this, if nothing else, they are probably right, since bigotry is so often mixed with insight.
On reflection, I think that some of my remarks above are very poor, foolish and uncharitable. I agree with Leslie that there ought to be space on any Christian blog for a re-statement of orthodoxy.
Anglican ‘orthodoxy’ is deemed (in the declaration of assent in Canon C (15)) to be scripture, the creeds and the historic formularies of the Church (including the Articles and the BCP).
However, that does not always lead us in comfortable directions. The creeds, for instance, would include the [infamous] damnatory clauses in the Athanasian creed:
“At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies; And shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire.”
The BCP would, amongst other things, include an endorsement of the Good Friday collect: “Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Hereticks, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word;”.
The clergy are somehow supposed to subscribe to this; if they do so (as per Lytton Strachey) ‘with a sigh and a smile’, then they are being insincere and disingenuous in one of the most fundamental decisions they can take.
What, then, is an acceptable ‘orthodoxy’? I cannot claim to know: it has sometimes been *relatively* mutable, but at other times has enjoyed/suffered long periods of stasis. However, I have great sympathy with those for whom the dissonance between the expression of Christianity permitted in the public sphere and that promulgated by the Church’s own teachings is now pretty well intolerable. Society has shifted so profoundly, and so quickly, that it has left the Church (or, rather, ‘orthodox’ expressions of Christianity) as so much a whale beached upon the shifting sands of ‘Acceptable Opinion’. I am sure that many of us will have our own views about the prevailing state of Acceptable Opinion; I do, and they are not always sympathetic.
I suspect that my visceral reaction to a ‘Beautiful Story’ is largely a function of my disaffection with contemporary evangelicalism, and perhaps with the whole tone of modern life, and I suspect that it is as much a stylistic disenchantment as anything else. If we still had evangelicals of the stamp of Henry Wace, Vernon Storr, Stuart Holden, Evan Hopkins, John Battersby Harford, Cyril and Cuthbert Bardsley, Francis and Christopher Chavasse, Handley and Charlie Moule, Thomas Hewitt, Charles Raven, Stanley Greenslade, Donald Coggan, Stephen Neill, Max Warren, Henry Chadwick, Maurice Wood, etc., etc., I would be far more open to evangelical blandishments. However, it seems that we don’t, and so I’m not.
Thanks Froghole. I wanted to reply in a friendly manner to Leslie, and I couldn’t think how to express it. You’ve gone some of the way for me. I’d like to think we would all listen to opposing views. The existence of this video demonstrates that some people won’t listen. We should.
Not to mention Christina Baxter, Joyce Baldwin, Joy Tetley, Elaine Storkey, Mary Evans, Catherine Clark Kroeger, and a whole host of women who were equally good scholars and leaders but were never given the platform given to evangelical men. Some are still with us and doing good work, of course.
Hey Froghole. I love your writing but you a bit too far when you link steam enthusiasts with stamp collectors!
I’m a steam enthusiast, but not evangelical about it!
Neither of them, though, as sad as golf clubs members (I’m not old enough to play golf) or organists. Holy God, organists!
I am enjoying my stamp collecting at present. I have about 2500 GB used out of a possible 4000+. Harmless fun and before you ask, no, I am not addicted!
Hey Froghole. I love your writing but you go a bit too far when you link steam enthusiasts with stamp collectors!
Thanks for this reflection. People will I hope note the widespread condemnation of this video by other evangelicals. I understand the bishop of Penrith has resigned from the CEEC. The CEEc did once try to be a voice for all evangelicals in the C of E but no longer speaks for any but the very conservative wing. In July 2019 the evangelical group on Synod (EGGS) voted to adopt the new CEEC constitution which both states the conservative view n sexuality and closes down any further discussion of the matter. Several of us present urged EGGS not to do this – we held together a variety of views over the ordination of women for decades. EGGS voted to adopt the CEEC constitution and a large group of us either resigned or, in my case, decided not to renew our membership. This pushing out of dissenting voices can be seen in many evangelical groupings over the last few years.
Those of us who were ejected from EGGS have now formed another group where evangelicals can have open discussion of thee and other matters.
Thank you Charles for explaining further about the politics of the evangelicals within the Church of England. It is very hard for an outsider to keep up with it all. For myself I always want to draw a strong distinction between the ideas of evangelicalism and the political games that are sometimes played by some of those in this tribe. Having a strong theological position is one thing but it is when that position is used to belittle or humiliate others (liberals and LBTQ!) that it becomes problematic. To repeat it is not the ideas that I push back against, but the power games (politics) used to further them. A church armed with such weapons of coercion and fear is not attractive or welcoming. Indeed it is repugnant and off-putting.
I do agree about power games, coercion or fear (wherever it comes from!) but when you say “it is not the ideas that I push back against” I have to say, in my occasional dipping into your site, that that is precisely what you push back against and more, feel that it is precisely those ideas that are the cause of the nastiness and coercion and power games you see. I don’t feel that way but I suppose that is where we differ.
I could speak of the power games of a liberal establishment in the Church from where I stand but I suppose that could well be that our backgrounds and experience come from different areas .
Leslie: Many thanks for your comments. My outlook on most things changes with the weather: I am, variously, a lumper and a splitter, a believer that ‘small is beautiful’ and that economies of scale are almost always desirable, a reactionary and a radical, a supporter of free trade and of protection, etc. So too with the Church. I think that Stephen does a wonderful job, but you make a very shrewd observation about contemporary politics (including Church politics) when you write that “it is precisely those ideas that are the cause of the nastiness and coercion”.
Consider the US right now. The nominees of the incoming Biden administration are overwhelmingly long-term advocates of the Washington Consensus, the security state, the ‘forever wars’, etc. Biden himself has characterised it as Obama’s third term (he might have said Clinton’s fifth term). The Sanders/Warren faction have been vanquished utterly (the most consequential part of the 2020 election was the defeat of Sanders by Biden and DNC hacks). Both Sanders and Warren have been told that they will not get cabinet posts because Biden does not wish to lose numbers in the Senate: how convenient. Almost the entirety of the ‘establishment media’ are slavering at the prospect. Amidst this tidal wave of bull it might be noted that many of the fundamental policy objectives of Biden & co. are scarcely distinguishable from those of the outgoing administration, of such evil memory (Trump’s chief offences, of course, were ones of tone). Nor is this all, it seems that a number of social media platforms – wary of the way the wind is blowing – are likely to censor heterodox views more closely than before. Now this will, of course, clear out a lot of dross, but dross has often been bipartisan (viz. the disproven conspiracy theories about Trump and Russia, which were dropped quietly earlier this year), and the censorship that will be applied is liable to be directed mostly to supposed ‘reactionary’ bile.
However, all this risks reviving the very conditions that made Trump possible in the first place. Trump got in chiefly because a large section of the US population emitted a cri de coeur against many of the policy choices made by both parties since at least the late 1970s. For several decades those sentiments were suppressed or smothered by the MSM, Wall Street and the beltway: they were therefore diverted to extremes until they became increasingly impossible to contain.
And so with the Church. I have little time for contemporary evangelicalism, but if the Church rushes after the noise of every passing bandwagon it risks alienating a significant portion of its adherents who are basically Tory, and who are often quite reactionary. I don’t doubt that the Church has a painful dilemma here: its core faithful will be dead within the decade, and their outlook will be radically different from later generations. This is a gap which cannot readily be bridged satisfactorily.
Froghole, I have characterised the Church like a raft with four drums at each corner representing four characteristic Churchmanships keeping the device floating on the turbulent sea of humanity – they are the Traditionalist, the Liberal, the Evangelical and the Charismatic,
If I was a cartoonist I would draw the Traditionalist standing up dressed in clerical garb with Church ordinal in hand, the Liberal would be sitting down amidst a collection of books, glasses in hand, striking an earnest pose, the Evangelical would be standing up in work-day clothes with a well-used (rather large) Bible in hand, the Charismatic would be standing up in colourful clothes, hands held high, looking into heaven.
All four have their place though each tends to claim to be the principal flotation device of the ecclesiastical raft and none are averse to playing the game of attempting to puncture each other’s drum, a recurring ploy to advance the self-righteous claim.
In truth each of us in our small corner (to quote Susan Warner’s old hymn) need the help and support of each other.
As for the American scene, words fail me, it is a psychedelic country whose Church is as garish as the University wall sprayed with “THERE IS NO ABSOLUTE TRUTH” to which someone added in small letters – “except this one”.
Pray and not to faint must be the watchword.
Very many thanks for that striking analogy, Leslie! This is so very true. There was a remarkable four-part TV drama in 1966 called ‘Talking to a Stranger’ about four members of the same nuclear family who were complete strangers to each other; the Church is much the same: the four factions live under the same roof (i.e., share the same institutional structures) and yet have nothing in common and when they attempt to communicate with each other, they are constantly at cross-purposes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P6j1XQDlV4; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgULBOWpv8w; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY1MdGVe2PE; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFIqw2gqw8Y&t=4145s; one of the few masterpieces of the small screen, and I had the pleasure of meeting Margery Mason)
I must also apologise for suggesting that Trump’s failings were of tone. This was often, though by no means always, the case. At any rate his did offend the amour-propre of much elite opinion in the US, even on the Right, which is why there is now such an unseemly rush by so much of that elite to influence the new administration’s direction of travel.
Love the description of the “types” in the church. In one of my plays one of my characters was an evangelical. Before his interview for a job he rolled up his sleeves, was embarrassed that his bible wasn’t quite worn enough and gave it a quick duffing up before he went in.
Was ever thus…
P.S. That was my first post here. I have tried in the past but was obviously not doing the right things. I have been avidly following it for ages.
Feel that I have got to know the regular contributors and love Stephen P with a passion!
Welcome Kate! Glad you managed a comment.
So, do you write many plays, and have they been performed?
Hello Janet
I have written quite a lot, some professionally or commissioned but I have written for many groups without payment just because….
Radius, the religious drama group, have a lot of mine on their books. I don’t think I write religious plays, but they do have spiritual themes, love, life, death. Just the usual stuff.
I find this blog site fascinating not because I have suffered abuse in the church (apart from sexism, of course) but because so much of the cover-up, evasion, lies, is so similar to what I have experienced in the medical world.
Err…? Why have I become anonymous?
Hi Kate, lovely to meet you!
And you, another very familiar contributor.
Thank you
You didn’t fill in the bit at the bottom!
Welcome kate! I recall walking through London as a student bravely carrying my brand new NIV (having moved on from GNB) and being reprimanded by an American evangelist guy on my bible’s pristine condition!
Love it!
Hi Charles! Nice to see you here.
I’m sorry you no longer feel at home in EGGS, but I hope your new group is a success.
Just to fill out Charles’ explanation of the EGGS business: I did a write-up of the story on my blog, you can find it here:
https://bathwellschap.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/scrambled-eggs/
I grew up in a strict conservative evangelical world. Its leadership is controlling in nature, and therefore self-limiting.
Some people will be happy being controlled even, sometimes especially in what they are allowed to think. There is a comfort in certainty with a definitive set of answers for everything. If only life were so simple.
A good many are probably not aware that this is what is happening, but go with the flow, quietly parking uncomfortably rigid doctrine in their mental cul-de-sacs because it doesn’t affect them directly.
A few will rebel against unsustainable bigotry and the shutting out of people who question the narrative, particularly when they discover the set of rules doesn’t actually work in the real world. They self expel or are excommunicated.
Good luck if you’re divorced or not quite heterosexual too.
They’re obsessed with sex, as has been mentioned, even to the point of insisting on it from the pulpit. Generally this is directed at wives who must submit (sexually) to their husbands on demand. Tenderness, romance and spontaneity are squashed by their prescriptions.
Singleness is viewed ambivalently. On the one hand they are suspicious that you might be gay, but on the other hand they view single male leaders as the highest form of godliness.
Sexuality is often pushed underground, so to speak. Many in the conservative evangelical congregations would be the last to realise the repressed homoerotic expression going on with Jonathan Fletcher. The other leaders spotted it of course and tried to delete him from their canon of quotable literature.
Sexuality is a key way they try and control people. Watching this over many decades leads me to have no doubt about the damaging legacy they are leaving.
Overall conevo is self-limiting because a majority don’t like being controlled however sugary the voices are. Recruitment is generally strong, but so is leakage to other more humane churches.
Can they take over the C of E? Not a chance, although I’ve observed at first a kind of reverse takeover. A conevo vicar was snuck in under the radar. People are extraordinarily naive about church recruitment in my experience. The bloke offended many people, especially the key women. 300 people left, 200 because they couldn’t accept him, 100 because they liked him and didn’t appreciate his ousting. This saga was a model in how not to run a conevo takeover.
Now it’s done largely by church “seeding”. Conevo congregations are funded with seed capital and set up outside the parish system I.e. not as Anglican churches. That way they can avoid the quota system and censure by the bishops.
Still I don’t see them getting very far. If anything the exit into conevo enclaves reduces their impact further.
Fascinating Steve. The Puritans of yore were obsessed by sex. Its nothing new. I sometimes think that the current obsession with homosexuality in certain ecclesiastical circles is a displacement activity to cover up the fact nothing much is done about divorce ( as would have been done in, say, the 50s. Perhaps we would gain from a greater psychological understanding of all this. though many cons evo’s are very resistant to this sort of thing. I remember an ordinand of mine dismissing pastoral psychology as ” psycho- babble”.
It has always struck me that while cons evo churches/christian unions are good at getting people in there is a wide back door. The upper reaches of the C of E has many post-evangelicals and as you say they wont take the C of E over. I just wish the Church could articulate better an attractive, intelligent and humane understanding of Christianity which certainly nurtured me in my youth and looking back clearly sustained my parents ( long gone) during their lives. What has happened?
Perry makes an interesting observation about the conevo aversion to “psycho-babble”, a derogatory dismissal of almost any psychological wording or understanding of people. I’ve seen it often.
Society is changing gradually but profoundly away from a inter-war “stiff upper lip” psychology to a fuller and inclusive attitude to mental health. High profile figures, such as footballers and royalty, are coming clean about the struggles they face. Parts of the Church are decades behind this thinking and haven’t realised the risks they face of social ostracism by not embracing it.
There is a tide of growing understanding in the theories behind psychotherapy and group analysis. It is being underpinned by an expanding neuroscience and can no longer be ignored or so clumsily dismissed. Sections of society grasp this and legislation is evolving even to codify the ideas into good working practice.
There will always be psychological Luddites who fight against promising development, but it is a shame that sections of the Church spearhead this resistance.
The church is often following in effect fashion fads that went out twenty years ago in secular life. For example, still talking about vulnerable adults, when adults at risk is better. This makes it easy to mock, as the terms in use may well be out of date, or gobbledygook type jargon.
I think you are largely right in describing the tactics adopted as ‘bullying’, even if I don’t think that strategically most of the ‘reactionaries’ share the same insight.
The reality is that they rely heavily on the Established status of the church as a form of social catchet — and wouldn’t want to deal with the consequences of just another sectarian group (apart from anything else, why would anyone choose to be an Iwernite Ordinand in such a situation).
I am most comfortable on the conservative end of evangelicalism by inclination; but tire of leaders within my wing who don’t want to come to terms with being part of a broad episcopal church. The situation described by Stephen Lynas’ blog below is far too common, and I don’t think it can be distinguished by classing it as an example of ‘gospel’ thinking.
Your comment on Jesus’s clarity in divorce is echoed in the academy. Regularly the core of Jesus’s marriage/divorce words in Mark 10 are included among the best-attested Jesus material. For one detailed discussion, see Casey, Jesus of Nazareth. In addition they are (which is something rare) directly backed up in Paul.
I can only agree with you when observing Evangelical foot-shuffling about this. If we cannot go with Jesus where his words are best-attested, then where can we? It just shows how culturally-influenced and un-objective people can be.
That’s the evangelical line..but in fact there is no scholarly consensus amongst theologians that the bible condemns homosexuality per se,regardless of context.
In actual fact,there is a substantial body of erudite,even brilliant,theologians who reject the idea that the bible condemns gay love.
James Brownson is one evangelical who changed his views on the issue,as is David Rushee.The astute theologian Bart Ehrlman is probably the most distinguished professor of theology to systematically disprove the idea that the bible has a blanket condemnation of all same sex love.
In addition,in the UK we have the theologian David Runcorn.
Evangelical leaders such as Tony Campolo and Bishop James Jones(former bishop of Liverpool & governor of Wycliffe college),have also changed their views.
Many thanks for this, but I imagine that you are probably aware that Professor Ehrman – from whose works of NT ‘lower criticism’ and ecclesiastical history I have profited – has disavowed Christianity (and, indeed, theism) altogether for at least a decade or so, and describes himself as an ‘agnostic atheist’.