The CofE: A house divided against itself?

The Church of England has got itself into a complete muddle. This will come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention over the past few years. The latest fiasco is ‘GS 2055’, the document which sums up what the Bishops have come up with after 2-3 years of ‘shared conversations’. Unsurprisingly, the document has pleased nobody. Although it does uphold Canon B30 – that marriage is the lifelong union of a man and a woman – it is somewhat ambiguous about pastoral practice. You can read a good analysis of the document from Martin Davie on his blog. He is one of many commentators who have written about the report, so I’m not going to talk about it here.

What I do want to do is take a step back and question whether the whole idea of trying to please everybody is possible. It reminds me of this episode from the gospel of Mark:

22 And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.’
23 So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: ‘How can Satan drive out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. 26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. 27 In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.
Mark 3:22-27

People were accusing Jesus of driving out demons by the power of Satan. Jesus answers them by giving them a logical objection: how can Satan drive out Satan? If Satan’s kingdom is divided against itself, it cannot stand. This is, of course, obvious: any nation, organisation – any group whatsoever – divided against itself is doomed to fail.

Although Jesus’ remarks were in a different context, I think it still applies in the context of the CofE today.

Let’s consider the two ‘sides’. Some believe that opposition to ‘equal marriage’ is wrong, even evil. In fact, you could say that some believe that opposition to ‘equal marriage’ is the work of Satan. The only reason people would oppose it is sheer bigotry and prejudice – evil.

On the other hand, some – including myself – believe that the Bible clearly teaches marriage is between a man and a woman, and anything else is false teaching. False teaching which comes from Satan (see 2 Corinthians 11:13-15, for example).

So: in the red corner, we have people who believe that marriage should be offered to same-sex couples equally, and withholding it is evil. In the blue corner, we have people who believe that the definition of marriage should not be changed, and that any attempt to change it is evil.

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

The church has to choose what it regards as evil. Christians should hate what is evil (Romans 12:9). It is simply impossible to have two groups within the church who think the other side are actually evil and agents of Satan. It is not possible to walk together. The GS 2055 document is trying its hardest to maintain a traditional line on marriage while being as accepting as possible of those with the other view. But that’s just not possible. The document hasn’t satisfied anyone, because what it is trying to do is a logical impossibility.

How has the church managed to get itself into this position? The CofE seems to have lost its concept of holiness and righteousness. The attitude seems to be that God doesn’t really care about sin. “God’s all about love, he’s basically a nice sort of chap. He’ll probably let you into heaven.”

This is not the gospel, and this is the crux of the issue. At our chapter meeting the other day we were talking about the Church Growth Research report. One of the interesting things about that report is that there is a deafening silence when it comes to theology. It talks about everything else, but nowhere does it actually say what the gospel we should preach actually is.

Rather than spending time trying to do the impossible and reconcile two logically opposed groups, Synod would do far better to spend some time contemplating what the gospel actually is. It might help to spend some time thinking about some of Jesus’ words from the Mark’s gospel:

If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell 
Mark 9:44-47

Jesus tells us that sin is such serious business that it is even better to enter life maimed than be thrown into hell. Jesus came to save us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). Perhaps if the CofE really took this teaching to heart, it would be in a better position to evaluate what God considers to be evil.

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