SORRY ARCHBISHOP, THIS WILL NOT DO

Thanks to Colin Coward at Changing Attitude for the transcript of an interview with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby by Sarah Julian for BBC Radio Nottingham.  The interviewer asked questions about the recent civil marriage of Church of England Canon Jeremy Pemberton and Laurence Cunnington, which went against the rules laid out in "House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage".  The document states in bold type that despite the fact that same sex marriage is legal in England, Church of England clergy are not permitted to enter into civil marriages.

SJ  So what happens to Canon Pemberton?

ABC  “Well, the Bishop of Lincoln .. he’s actually in Lincoln Diocese .. the Bishop of Lincoln has commented on that and I’ve said all I’m going to say on that, really; I’ve commented on that a great deal recently and I don’t intend to add to it.”

SJ  We’ve not spoken to you here on BBC Radio Nottingham, though, and he actually does live in our diocese and does some work in our diocese so I’d appreciate if you could, you know, reiterate that, then …

ABC  “No, as I’ve said, I’ve said on nationally and it’s been in all the press and on the radio and, and I’m just not going to add to it.”

SJ  So you won’t repeat what you’ve said already?

ABC  “Er, no.

SJ  What will happen in future when more and more priests either do this or bless a gay wedding themselves?

ABC  “Well, the Church is heavily involved at the moment in discussions about policy, organised discussions which will take, er, involving loads and loads of people from all over the world and, er, all kinds of activities and that’s going to take quite a long time to do and as I say, I don’t want to preempt those discussion so I’m not going to comment further on that.”

SJ  But you must have an idea of what the Church should do in these instances ‘cus it’s already happening, you must have had a plan for what will happen to priests who do this.

ABC  “Well, that’s been announced publicly, it’s on the record, erm, but errrr, as I say, I’m not intending to add to what I’ve said previously.”

SJ  And if priests do break the rules, are they going to be kicked out of the Church of England?

ABC  “There’s processes for, errr, what happens and it’s very much down to local bishops and umm, yeah, that’s, err, you need to ask the relevant bishop about that.”

SJ  But you’re the head of the Church of England, they must come to you and ask you those questions, what do you tell them?

ABC  “Well, actually the Church of England doesn’t work that way, we don’t have an Anglican Pope, we operate on a collegial, collective basis and errrr, it’s very much shared, errr, decision making, and there was a paper published at the end of errr January on that.”

SJ  How do you think God feels about gay marriage?

ABC  “Well as I’ve said I’ve commented an awful lot about it, I’m not going to add further to what I’ve said already.”

SJ  But how do you feel about the current situation and the turmoil that this is in and how this looks to the rest of society?

ABC  “One of the things … there’s always disagreements in Church, there’s always been disagreements in Church, it’s, it’s varied over the centuries on different issues; there’s always been disagreement. One of the key things in the Church is that the Church is a family, it’s not an institution, it’s not a political party, erm, it.. it.. the way we operate is that we are bound together by the love of Christ, and in the way we disagree we have to express that love to each other.”

SJ  We have two women here in Nottinghamshire who we’ve spoken to, they are planning to get married, the two of them. One of them actually works for the Church and she wants to become a priest. She feels that she’s had to choose between getting married and her calling to the Church. Is there any hope for her, or how does that make you feel?

ABC  “Well, I can only repeat what I’ve said before, that we’re, there’s a lot of discussion going on, err, we’re listening very, very carefully to people, but I don’t want to preempt that by adding further to the numerous things I’ve said on all kinds of media, including the BBC before.”

SJ  But not here in Nottinghamshire, and these are Nottinghamshire people who …

ABC  “I rather suspect that the BBC does reach in Nottingham, not only through the local radio.”

Kudos to Sarah Julian for not letting the - err - ABC get away with his - err - avoidance tactics. Most interviewers do.  The ABC's responses are beyond pathetic.  What message does Justin send when he refuses even to repeat his own words?  Not everyone in England pays attention each time he speaks.  Is he embarrassed by his words?  If this is the best he can do, perhaps he might consider refusing to grant interviews.

You may wonder about my excessive interest in the affairs of the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury, and you may even call it an obsession if you like, but I have friends in England whose lives are already gravely and adversely affected by the words and direction of the leadership of the English church.  As a fellow Anglican, I care about them and all the others who pay the price for the delay of justice and equality for all members of the church, clergy and laity - the delay seemingly without end.

A SPEECH, A LETTER, AND A LETTER

From Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby's address to General Synod:

We all know that perfect love casts out fear. We know it although we don’t often apply it. We mostly know that perfect fear casts out love. In any institution or organisation, the moment that suspicion reigns and the assumption that everything is zero sum becomes dominant (that is to say that some else’s gain must be my loss, we can’t both flourish) that institution will be increasingly dominated by fear. It is an old problem in game theory. The moment at which something is zero sum, players stop looking so much at their objectives and increasingly look at each other. The more they look at each other, the more they are dominated by fear and the less they are able to focus on their objectives.

The Church of England is not a closed system, nor is the Anglican Communion and most certainly nor is the Church catholic and universal. It is not a closed system because God is involved and where he is involved there is no limit to what can happen, and no limit to human flourishing. His abundant love overwhelms us when we make space to flood into our own lives, into institutions and systems.

From the Church of England House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same Sex Marriage:

20. The 2005 pastoral statement said that it would not be right to produce an authorized public liturgy in connection with the registering of civil partnerships and that clergy should not provide services of blessing for those who registered civil partnerships. The House did not wish, however,  to interfere with the clergy's pastoral discretion about when more informal kind of prayer, at the request of the couple, might be appropriate in the light of the circumstances.   The College made clear on 27 January that, just as the Church of England's doctrine of marriage remains the same, so its pastoral and liturgical practice also remains unchanged.

21. The same approach as commended in the 2005 statement should therefore apply to couples who enter same-sex marriage, on the assumption that any prayer will be accompanied by pastoral discussion of the church's teaching and their reasons for departing from it. Services of blessing should not be provided. Clergy should respond pastorally and sensitively in other ways.

The letter from the House of Bishops is the kind of doublespeak that is soul-destroying to LGBT church members and to those who support their full inclusion in the life of the church. As a fellow Anglican, I read the letter with shock and dismay.  I can only imagine the scope of the fear within the House of Bishops that would lead them to approve sending out such a letter. 

Not only will same sex marriages services be banned in the Church of England, but clergy will not be allowed to "provide services of blessing" to same sex couples who marry but will rather be restricted to "an informal kind of prayer", preceded by a pastoral discussion about why they must follow the church's teaching and settle for something less.  Like Tina Turner, I ask, "What's love got to do with it?"  How will the rules allow for flourishing of LGBT persons in the church?

But, as Archbishop Welby says in his address, "... because God is involved and where he is involved there is no limit to what can happen...", who knows but that when the prayers are said, God will do as God chooses and - Gasp! - provide a blessing, despite the ban by the church.  The phrase itself, "an informal kind of prayer", is a shriveled manner of speaking about invoking the God of abundant and overflowing love. It seems to me idolatrous to attempt to limit the blessings of God for those the House of Bishops deems not quite worthy to receive the full blessing.
 
Episcopal priest, Tobias Haller, wonders why the English bishops did not include a reference to Article XXXII of the Articles of Religion of the Church of England, rather than The Lambeth Conference of 1998.

Bishops, Priests, and Deacons, are not commanded by God's Law, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.

In 2005, The Guardian published an article titled "Stop the Denial"  by Richard Haggis, a priest serving in a London parish:

Many of us long for the sort of union that could be marked by a public ceremony and decent and proper civil rights (from which the bishops have sought to exempt us for too long through their powerful position in the House of Lords). I very much hope to use the new law. I shall not ask permission and I shall not promise to be celibate. If they want to sack me they can, but they must own up to the kind of people they are.
....

To grow up as a church we need to stop pretending and stop lying. There are hundreds of gay priests, archdeacons and bishops. This is a fact. Those who can't accept it need to leave. Those gay clergy do far more for the Good News of God than the ranting nutters who would reject them. But we need help and support. We need to be looked after. And that has not been happening for a very long time. Until we learn to do so, we have no right to be taken seriously by thoughtful people.

And sacked he was, and Richard has not served as a priest in the church in the eight years since he wrote the article.  What has changed since 2005?  Same sex marriage will be legal in England, but the church will not ordain persons in same sex marriages, and clergy in same sex relationships are forbidden, in bold text, to contract a civil marriage. 

27.  The House is not, therefore, willing for those who are in a same sex marriage to be ordained to any of the three orders of ministry. In addition it considers that it would not be appropriate conduct for someone in holy orders to enter into a same sex marriage, given the need for clergy to model the Church's teaching in their lives.

How long will the blatant hypocrisy continue? Whom do the bishop's believe they are fooling?