Sleepwalking together into radical revisionism?

Oliver O’Donovan is a widely respected Anglican minister, ethicist and academic. In 2013, O’Donovan wrote an incisive critique of the Church of England’s Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality (The Pilling Report).

The concerns expressed in that critique also hold true for the pastoral letter from the House of Bishops that accompanied the draft version of Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) [same-sex couple blessings].

O’Donovan wrote: ‘[It] tells its readers it abides by the church’s teaching, while giving them no reasons for believing that teaching to be true. It avoids any affirmation of the marriage doctrine the bishops are currently committed to, namely, that marriage is between one man and one woman, and yet does not observe the territorial boundary set between it and the Marriage Report when there is a chance of hinting at an alternative. In other words, here is another arbitrary anthology of favourite theological thoughts without a theological structure.’

Further on in that critique, O’Donovan wrote almost presciently regarding PLF: ‘The term “pastoral accommodation” cannot simply be invoked, just to take the sting out of a proposal. Its use has to be proved by an effective design which promises to strike the balance required of it. In the case of the remarriage of divorced people this was to be done by a carefully conceived set of guidelines for pastoral enquiry. Here we are confronting a more radical departure, because the public prayers proposed will be more or less without precedent in the Church of England. Can there be a “public” service in an Anglican church to which the church as a whole is not committed?’

On the Psephizo theology blog, noted evangelical theologian, Dr Andrew Goddard, wrote: ‘While I and others may wish those pressing for change would follow the first option, we also need to recognise that for them to do so would represent another major further sacrifice and frustrate what appears to be the desire of a simple majority in the church to proceed in a way they believe to be right.’

What’s disappointing in this statement is the notion that, in contrast with the two-thirds support required for women bishops, a House of Bishops’ consensus and simple majority at General Synod is all that is required for the Church to treat PLF as a legitimate development and should persuade those who oppose this position to continue to ‘walk together’ with those who support it.

Knowing that, in 2012, a two-thirds majority was required for the CofE to authorise women bishops, we’re left to wonder how it is at all fair to women that General Synod could resort to the low bar of a simple majority to legitimise and officially affirm same-sex sexual relationships (through PLF) as consonant with God’s call to holiness.

Furthermore, if treating this issue as a matter of personal conscience is the main criterion for ‘walking together’, then why wouldn’t that also be the case for further and more radical developments?

In contrast with capitulation to personal conscience, Professor O’Donovan provided a better determinant for ‘walking together’, which is catholicity.

He wrote: ‘A good revision in practice cannot be supported by a “revisionist” theology – on the contrary, it needs a thoroughly catholic and orthodox foundation. By articulating carefully everything theological that two sides in a practical disagreement can say together, we can get the scope of the disagreement in proper perspective and may open the way to agreement on experiments which have a chance of commending themselves in practice. So long as proposals for experiment come with the label of “revisionism”, on the other hand, no church with concerns for its catholicity can embrace them.’

Ultimately, the Cof E needs to decide whether its desire to accommodate differing consciences on sexuality outweighs its concern for its catholicity.

However, there is no ‘walking together’ without catholicity. David Shepherd is an active member of Beacon Community Church in Camberley and was formerly a Deanery Synod Representative in the Diocese of Guildford.