Thread by @talkChristianly

Why would clergy entering into same-sex marriages risk splitting the church, in a way that clergy entering civil partnerships has not?

A thread:

First, we need to appreciate one reason why the compromise of the last twenty years or so has (imperfectly) endured. The tendency of ‘conservatives’ to assume that all clergy are living within the stated discipline of the church is (I think) a key, overlooked factor.

Ever since the House of Bishops concluded that civil partnerships were not inherently contradictory to church teaching, and thus clergy were permitted to enter them, two increasingly divergent responses have emerged.

One group continues to teach the traditional teaching of the church, and I would suggest has continued to work alongside openly gay colleagues on the assumption that there is a shared, ongoing commitment to this teaching.

Another group has tended to downplay the church’s continuing teaching on sexual ethics, has quietly ignored it, or has campaigned for that teaching to change – even though many such clergy entered training having assented to ‘Issues in Human Sexuality’.

Given the stance in ‘Issues’, it was hardly disingenuous for ‘conservative’ clergy to assume that all clergy were – to paraphrase the ordination service – fashioning their own life and that of their household ‘according to the way of Christ’.

Serving clergy entering same sex marriages (as the Jeremy Pemberton employment tribunal case proved, even as far as the Court of Appeal) would indicate a fundamental change to the church’s own understanding of its legitimate discipline.

Whatever one’s view, it is surely difficult to describe this as a minor change, or merely something that requires (as ‘Together for the CofE’ has suggested) a ‘pastoral response’.
togethercofe.org.uk/together-write…

There needs to be a depth of honesty: changing this aspect of clergy discipline would be indicative of a change in conviction about the nature of marriage. Otherwise the Pemberton ruling makes no sense.

And to change the current stated teaching on marriage would have implications for everyone, and their deeply personal decisions about what it means faithfully to live out their Christian call – not least in a culture profoundly confused about sex.

We are in danger of seeking to change pastoral practice for some clergy, without first having changed the teaching (or doctrine) that logically informs such practice. Not for the first time, I am praying for theological coherence!