GAY BISHOPS & REPENTANCE

Adelphoi,

In commenting on WHY a lot of seemingly decent church people just accept innovations in morality and doctrine (with reference specifically to the appointment of two men as bishops who have been in "gay partnerships") I offered the following as a major reason:

"If we buy into the popular understanding of human rights (and such is assumed in the language of general culture) then we have to concede that other people - even in the church - have the right to be and to do what we may think (by God's revealed standards) is wrong, even sinful. Christian doctrine is thereby adjusted to accommodate human rights and reasons (tolerance, fairness, compassion etc) are given.

Homosexually active persons [and their supporters] have brilliantly incorporated their demands into the assumptions and language of human rights with the result that many good and decent people feel it is wrong for them to oppose those rights - for in this culture one does not oppose the human rights of another. To do so is the sin of sins."

Perhaps this explanation has more force in New Hampshire, USA, than in the Diocese of Oxford, England.

One of my correspondents in England wrote:

"I suggest a more pragmatical explanation. You might expect that when the church shrinks the faithful remnant will be the most devoted. But when the church shrinks because the bishops are feeble-minded the majority of the minority who don't abandon her are those who don't mind feeble-mindedness, and will take whatever is handed out...

In the case in point, however, as reported by the newspapers, there is perhaps no scandal. The man appointed to Reading is reported to have ceased to practise homosexuality. If so, depending on the state he is thought to be in, there is no reason why he should not be a bishop is there? If he is repentant and is bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance he is in the same state as all Christians. If the church refused penitent sinners there would be no bishops, and Paul and Augustine would have failed at the first hurdle.

But of course the media don't report whether the suffragan-designate is penitent or whether he has just given up his former life through old age or exhaustion."

I comment as follows.

The pragmatical explanation - which relates to bad leadership by the appointed leaders - perhaps applies both in Oxford and New Hampshire (the ECUSA has dropped from 4.5. millions in the 1960s to 2.0 millions in 2003 and the C of E is also down in active membership). Yet as an explanation it can easily sit with the human rights explanation that I offered.

As to repentance. The Early Church had systems of penance (which included suspension from Holy Communion) for clergy and laity alike as part of their U-turn back to biblical doctrine and morality. One could not go straight from a life of open sin or aberration into the status as a communicant and certainly not be promoted to a senior position in the diocese (if ever at all).

Further, in moral theology and canon law there have always been certain offences that, even where the person committing them has repented, prohibit the entry of this person into certain offices of the Church. Here the reason is obvious - the good name of the Church and the possibility of the sin being constantly remembered and used to discredit the ministry of this person. Today, a life in a gay relationship would seem to qualify as a prohibition of being elevated to the office of bishop even where there is repentance and a departure from this partnership - at least because the person in question would be open to publicity and blackmail and all kinds of pressures detracting him from the work. (The same stricture would apply to a man who had been living with a woman who is not his wife.) And, at the very least, even where human rights are prominent in a modern church, there should be a period for the proof of the repentance to be seen! Offer of promotion, and then giving up the life-style of an active gay partnership to fit into it, is hardly appropriate in terms of repentance or holiness or good order. So the appointment of the Bishop of Reading ought to be rescinded.

Apparently the American bishop-elect intends to carry on in his partnership and the effect of this will be to confirm for many people in the USA and elsewhere that the Episcopal Church is more conformed to the world than it is seeking to be conformed to the will of God for the Church. There will be little effective protest within the ECUSA because its bishops and membership are so secularised in their moral thinking. Protests from abroad will last for a while and die out.

Meanwhile the Anglican Communion will survive the pain and better days lie ahead by the grace of God.

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge;
Vice-President and Emissary-at-Large of The Prayer Book Society of America.