Phill Sacre

Tag: marriage

  • What’s worse than lockdown?

    What’s worse than lockdown?

    Over the last few months I’ve been thinking a lot about the problems of lockdown and its effects. But I believe there was something already going on in our society, the effects of which are (IMO) worse than that of lockdown.

    Links

  • Will there be sex in the new creation?

    A few weeks ago I read a post over on the Think Theology blog called “When I grow up” by Andrew Wilson. I often enjoy his articles and this was no exception.

    He quotes C.S. Lewis:

    I think our present outlook might be like that of a small boy who, on being told that the sexual act was the highest bodily pleasure, should immediately ask whether you ate chocolates at the same time. On receiving the answer ‘No,’ he might regard the absence of chocolates as the chief characteristic of sexuality. In vain would you tell him that the reason why lovers in their raptures don’t bother about chocolates is that they have something better to think of. The boy knows chocolate: he does not know the positive thing that excludes it. We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it.

    The traditional understanding is that marriage will cease in the new creation, largely based on Jesus’ words in the synoptic gospels (which we’ll look at a bit later on in this post). At the risk of being heretical – or at least controversial – I want to question the traditional understanding. I’m a firm believer that if you don’t ask questions, you don’t learn – and I hope this might be an interesting exercise. This question is important because it raises a lot of interesting questions about the future and the new creation.

    Part 1: How life was supposed to be

    Recently in our church we preached through Genesis 1-3 on Sunday mornings. These chapters are absolutely foundational to the Bible and deserve to be studied in some depth. One thing which struck me this time was the way the Garden of Eden is described as a temple – i.e. the place where God dwelt with mankind. In fact, Gordon Wenham makes the suggestion in his commentary that the Garden of Eden, although small to start with, was supposed to expand to fill the whole earth as Adam and Eve fulfilled God’s purposes (filling the earth and subduing it – Genesis 1:27, 28). Of course, sex is a perfectly natural part of mankind’s role of “filling the earth” – procreation is of course one major reason why sex difference exists in the first place.

    Without going into all the details (you can listen to my sermon if you want some more background), the point is that all of life was supposed to be lived in the presence of God, walking with him. There was no “sacred / secular” distinction – everything was sacred. Human beings were to do all the good things which God had created for them (of course including sex), enjoying everything as gifts from a good Creator and giving thanks to him.

    It was a perfect world, human life as it was (and is) supposed to be. A world of love and peace, a world where humans were in harmony with God, creation, and each other. Of course, the Fall spoiled all that. But Jesus came to redeem us and bring about God’s new creation.

    Part 2: God’s new creation

    Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death” or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’

    Revelation 21:1-4 NIV

    When Jesus rose again, he ‘kick started’ the new creation – he began the process by which God is bringing about his new world, his new kingdom. This passage in Revelation is a beautiful poetic picture of what that world will be like: it doesn’t give any details, but it says there will be a ‘new heavens and a new earth’ – a new creation. It will be a place where God dwells – just as he did with Adam and Eve. In other words ‘heaven’ will not be sitting on a harp with a cloud, some kind of ‘super spiritual’ existence, but it will be solid, real, embodied. This is a point which N.T. Wright makes forcefully in his enormous book The Resurrection of the Son of God. I came away from that book with a resolve never to simply speak of ‘going to heaven when we die’ but rather to speak of the Christian hope – as the creeds put it – of the “resurrection of the body”.

    Both my daughters like Kevin DeYoung’s book “The Biggest Story”, which is a book for children explaining the whole story of the Bible, how it fits together. The subtitle of that book is his one-sentence summary of the whole Bible – “How the snake crusher brings us back to the garden”. I think this is a good summary: the serpent crusher – that is, Jesus – brings us back to the Garden of Eden. The Fall excluded us from the Garden, but through the death and resurrection of Christ we may enter in.

    It’s interesting that some of the imagery in Revelation makes an explicit link with the Garden of Eden, e.g. the tree of life from Genesis 2 appears again in Revelation (22:2 – compare with 2:7, ‘To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’) So the future creation is explicitly linked with the Garden of Eden.

    Now at this point, you might be wondering what the new creation will be like. Let’s think about that.

    Part 3: What we know about the new creation

    As we’ve already seen, we know that the new creation will be embodied. Our bodies are not simply meat bags to be discarded, but will be transformed to be immortal (1 Corinthians 15:42). Although the Bible doesn’t go into specifics about what the new creation will be like, I think we can gain a picture from what Jesus says about it as well as what he was like and what he did post-resurrection.

    We know there will be eating and drinking. Jesus often describes the kingdom of God as a ‘banquet’ (e.g. the parable of the wedding banquet – Luke 14:15-24). At the Last Supper, Jesus says to his disciples: “I will not eat it (the Passover meal) again until it finds fulfilment in the kingdom of God.” And then he says: “I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” (Both quotes from Luke 22). In Acts 1:4 we are told “On one occasion, while he was eating with them“ – so Jesus did eat after the resurrection. In fact, according to John’s gospel one of the first things that Jesus does for his disciples after his resurrection is cook breakfast for them (John 21:12).

    So, eating and drinking – more than that, feasting – will be part of the Kingdom of God.

    We could also say that there will be relationships – the disciples all knew Jesus, talked with him – he wasn’t some kind of ghost.

    And we know that, whatever else we can say about it, the resurrection life will be more glorious than anything we can even imagine at the moment:

    What no eye has seen,
    what no ear has heard,
    and what no human mind has conceived’ –
    the things God has prepared for those who love him

    1 Corinthians 2:9 NIV

    Let’s pause a moment to consider. If we were only considering all these verses and themes – without thinking about Jesus’ comments about marriage – do you think sex would be more naturally included, or excluded? It seems to me that sex is (a) part of God’s good, unspoiled, creation in Genesis 1-2; (b) a natural part of the human body (it is one of the things our bodies are designed to do). I don’t think there is any indication from the limited amount here that the resurrection body will be so radically different that sex will no longer be possible / desirable etc.

    Part 4: Obedience to God

    One of the things I’ve been learning over the last few years is that God’s laws are best – in other words, we find life to the full (John 10:10) when we submit to Jesus and his ways. This is why David can say in Psalm 19: “The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes … they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.” He can say that because it is good to obey God. It is not simply morally right but actually best for us in every way.

    God designed us to love him and love others. We are actually happiest when we are doing what we are created to do. Enjoying God is not simply about sitting in a room somewhere enjoying him quietly, but enjoying him by walking with him in his ways.

    Sometimes I think people view ‘heaven’ as about enjoying God in some other way. You can see something of that in what C.S. Lewis said at the start – Heaven ‘will leave no room for [sex]’. But I’m not sure this is a Biblical way of looking at enjoying God, if we take the creation picture of Genesis 1-2 seriously.

    Genesis 1-2 is about life to the full, life lived with God, in full enjoyment of all that God has created, giving thanks to him for everything. Sometimes Christians make out that God’s ways are ‘austerity ways’ – we have to reign back everything in order to obey God. There is a degree of truth in this, in that we have to take up our cross to follow Jesus – but this is about saying no to wrong desires, while at the same time saying yes to right ones.

    Jesus calls all of us to give up everything for the sake of the kingdom, but what we receive back is a hundred times better (Matthew 19:29). I will deal later on with the objection about people who are single in this life. The point that I am trying to make here is that God doesn’t simply want us to ‘enjoy him’ in a sense which is divorced from our ordinary lives. I simply don’t think the Biblical picture is to enjoy God in some sort of disembodied spiritual way which is superior to the ‘creational’ ways that God gave to Adam and Eve.

    Part 5: Jesus’ comments about marriage

    Jesus deals with the question of marriage and the resurrection in the gospels – in fact, it is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). This is often seen as the clincher, and it needs to be taken seriously.

    All of the accounts in the gospels basically match up, so let’s look at Luke’s account from Luke 20.

    27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came up and questioned Him: 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother has a wife, and dies childless, his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children. 30 Also the second 31 and the third took her. In the same way, all seven died and left no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For all seven had married her.”

    34 Jesus told them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to take part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 For they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection. 37 Moses even indicated in the passage about the burning bush that the dead are raised, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 He is not God of the dead but of the living, because all are living to Him.”

    Luke 20:27-38, HCSB

    I have highlighted the key verse – Jesus says at the resurrection people “neither marry nor are given in marriage”. Doesn’t that answer the question and settle the matter?

    Let me make a few observations about this passage.

    The point of the Sadducees asking the question was to logically debunk the idea of the resurrection – they are trying to trap Jesus. They do this by drawing on the Law, which required a man to marry his late brother’s widow if she was childless. In their (very contrived) scenario, a woman was married by seven men. They say: “at the resurrection, whose wife will the woman be?” – they are making the point, “how ridiculous, Jesus! The resurrection is a stupid idea!”

    So the first important thing to observe about this question is that it is a question about the resurrection – not about marriage. Marriage is simply their way of exposing their problem with the resurrection.

    As such, Jesus’ answer is primarily about the resurrection – not about marriage per se.

    The second thing to note here is about death. The Sadducees seemed to assume that a marriage would last beyond death, and used that to ‘prove’ the resurrection was a silly idea. But marriage does not last beyond death, as w know from Romans 7:2 (“by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him.”)

    And, more pertinent to the matter at hand, death is integral to the definition of marriage: “Till death us do part”. Marriage is a “life-long union of a man and a woman”. What would happen to marriage if death was taken out of the picture? Marriage can no longer exist without death – because it can no longer be ‘life-long’.

    I think this is why Jesus moves directly from saying people in the resurrection will not marry to “they can no longer die” – they are logically connected. Marriage, in its current definition, needs death to exist. Then Jesus says “They are like the angels” – which I think is a confirmation of eternal life. At the resurrection we will be like the angels inasmuchas we will have a life which is not limited by death.

    So, here’s the thing: Jesus says that marriage will not exist at the resurrection. I think what he is saying to the Sadducees is, “you haven’t considered what eternal life will be like.” He is not saying that sex will not exist, or any of the other things which go with it (children, for example). I don’t think he is making that point specifically – rather, just answering the Sadducees’ rather contrived point about marriage and the resurrection.

    Part 6: What could the new creation be like?

    I don’t like speculation, because there are many things we are simply not told in the Bible! But sometimes I think that people talk about the new creation in a wistful way, almost as if it will be less than what we have now. This is not the case, as I hope I’ve already shown.

    But let’s consider the matter at hand in the context of life which is unending. Part of the problem is that none of us can really imagine what it would be like to live eternally, to watch a million years go by without having to worry about time running away!

    I wonder if sex and relationships might still exist, even with children. At the moment a marriage is life-long, and that is about the length of time it takes to bear and raise a family. But what if a million years passes? Can we even imagine life extending that long? Could it ever be plausible, for example, in life which exists eternally, to raise a family with someone, have a long time with them, and then remain friends but part ways? Is marriage in its current format a temporary arrangement largely because we are short-lived?

    Part of the majesty and glory and infinity of God is displayed through the relationships that we have with each other. There is so much diversity among people. I have a different relationship with everyone – C.S. Lewis made the point in friendship that each friend brings out something different in us. I think this is true, and I wonder if this is part of what the new creation will be like.

    I don’t want to speculate too much here: God hasn’t given us much detail about the resurrection life for a reason. Still, I think it’s important to have some kind of vision.

    Part 7: What about remaining celibate / single?

    When I discussed this issue a few weeks ago, one of the points that someone made to me was about singleness: isn’t this over-emphasizing sex, while denying the fact that Paul says it is better to be single? I’d like to deal with that question, although with the caveat that I won’t be able to say everything you would want to say. (One of the problems with this whole area is that it touches on some very big issues to do with the Christian life!)

    One of the most important things to understand about the Christian life is that it is a life of sacrifice. It’s not a life of ease – if Jesus wore a crown of thorns, why should we expect a bed of roses? This isn’t to say that we need to all practice self-flagellation, but rather that it should be the normal practice for Christians to give things up for Jesus. He says in Luke 14:33, “those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” The path of following Jesus is the path of denying ourselves and taking up our cross (Mark 8:34).

    Saying this – I think it’s important to remember that Christian self-denial is not simply denying ourselves for the sake of it. Here’s an exchange from a bit later in Luke’s gospel:

    Peter said to him, ‘We have left all we had to follow you!’

    ‘Truly I tell you,’ Jesus said to them, ‘no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.’

    Luke 18:38-20

    Peter says that they have left everything to follow Jesus, and Jesus replies no-one who has left anything “for the sake of the kingdom of God”. This is the first important thing to note: self-denial is not self-denial for its own sake. Its supreme purpose is for the sake of the kingdom of God – to better love God, to better love others, to be able to bring others into his kingdom. Perhaps we give up the idea of a relationship we know is wrong out of obedience to Christ. Perhaps we stay single in order to preach the gospel – there are many throughout history who have remained celibate to devote themselves to the Lord’s service.

    A single man or woman may be in a better position to preach the gospel – would Paul have been able to go on all his missionary journeys if he had a wife and family to look after? I was struck reading Billy Graham’s autobiography how there was a big tension between his ministry and his family. He spent months away from his family at times – it wasn’t easy for any of them. John Stott and Dick Lucas are just two names who remained single for their whole lives (as I write, Dick Lucas is still around – but I doubt he’ll be getting married any time soon!) – and yet think about how God used them to bless many others.

    Jesus goes on to say no-one who gives up anything “will fail to receive many times as much in this age” – so the second thing to note is that there is a blessing received in obedience to God, whatever we may have to give up. God is generous, not measly. God is not a God of austerity! I think this is vitally important to grasp – sometimes we think that God calls us to deny ourselves just because he doesn’t want us to be happy. But the truth is that God’s ways, as we’ve already seen, are always better and always lead to more happiness in the long run.

    C.S. Lewis said this in the introduction to his sermon The Weight of Glory:

    The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.

    I think he’s right: self-denial is not an end in itself. It carries a purpose, a purpose which is actually more fulfilling. And, of course, everyone is called to practice it – those who are married and those who are single.

    Finally, Jesus finishes “in the age to come eternal life” – there is eternal life to look forward to. No-one who misses out in this momentary lifetime will miss out on anything, because there is something so infinitely greater coming that it’s not even worth comparing with our lives now. I find it easier to believe that forsaking marriage now (for the sake of the kingdom of God) doesn’t mean that you’ve missed the only chance you’ll ever have.

    And this goes back to the way that we see eternal life: if eternal life is something radically different to our lives now, then if we can’t do something in this life then we’ve missed the chance forever (even if eternal life is much better!) If, on the other hand, life now is a sort of ‘dress rehearsal’ for the way that things are going to be in eternity, then no-one is going to miss out on anything.

    And – let’s be honest – those who do get married in the here-and-now also have something to look forward to. As a married man, and a father, I can say with certainty that marriage and fatherhood are not everything! Sin spoils everything – every marriage or parent/child relationship is marred by sin. There are moments I wish I wasn’t married or didn’t have children. I, too, don’t believe I have everything in this life – I am longing for the day when faith will be sight and sin will be no more. Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to have a relationship which wasn’t marred by sin?

    It’s the same with everything good in this world: every relationship, every friendship, even our hobbies and pleasures – every good thing is marred by sin. Even as we enjoy them we experience the effects of the fall, and we long for the new creation!

    Conclusion

    I appreciate that this has been a long post and I’ve covered a lot of ground. Let me try to draw things together.

    I don’t think that sex is ultimate – far from it! I do think it is a good gift of God, which he has given us to enjoy. From the evidence I see through the Bible, I don’t see any reason why our lives in the new creation should be so radically different that there is no place for sex. I believe Jesus’ comments in the gospels – the only place in the Bible where it is specifically mentioned – do not necessitate the understanding that sex will be absent in the new creation. I believe he was talking about the institution of marriage in its current, “till death us do part” form – a form which will pass away with death. And those who forsake marriage in this life for the sake of the kingdom do a good, holy and noble thing.

    Could I be wrong about all this? Of course! I am not wishing to be dogmatic about anything here – simply to ask questions and probe into the mystery of the new creation.

    The good news is that, for all who believe and trust in Jesus, there is eternal life to look forward to – whatever we believe about it now!

  • The Bible and (same-sex) marriage: Cutting through to the root issue

    Image by Sabtastic

    Long-time readers of this blog will know that I have blogged quite a few times about marriage, and in particular same-sex marriage. You can see my previous posts under the “marriage” tag. Anyway, it seems we are still talking about marriage: the debate has simply moved from society – where same-sex marriage is now a reality – to the church.

    General Synod recently spent a few days finishing the two-year-long ‘Shared Conversations’ process in which the CofE has been trying to find a way forward on same-sex marriage. As part of that, a number of books have been released and a number of people have written quite passionately in support of changing the church’s current teaching. These include ‘Amazing Love’ by Andrew Davison (reviewed here and here), as well as ‘Journeys in Grace and Truth’ by Jayne Ozanne (reviewed here and here). What is notable about both of these books is that they claim to be orthodox Christian, Biblical accounts of why we should change the church’s teaching.

    If you read the books, and look at the discussion it generates on Ian Paul’s blog (and elsewhere), the discussion often focusses on peripheral issues. It can be very difficult to digest what is actually going on and get to the heart of the issue. I’ve had an interest in this issue for a long time now, and I wanted to write to try and outline the issue at the heart of why I believe marriage can only be defined as the lifelong union of a man and a woman.

    It’s easy to get lost in the details, but to my mind you can boil down the issue to one basic root issue, which is this:

    What does the Bible say positively about marriage?

    It is sometimes claimed that Jesus said nothing about same-sex relationships; however, he did say something about marriage. The Pharisees asked a question about divorce, and he replied with this answer (this is from Mark 10):

    5 ‘It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,’ Jesus replied. 6 ‘But at the beginning of creation God “made them male and female”. 7 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

    So when Jesus was asked a question about marriage, he goes back to creation – he takes us back to Genesis 1-2 and to God’s original intention for mankind.
    What does this teach us about marriage? Marriage was intended from the very beginning of creation to be a permanent relationship (hence why Jesus gave this answer to a question about divorce) – but he also says that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. In marriage, with apologies to the Spice Girls (and to you for putting that thought in your head), two become one.

    Some people claim that Genesis 1-2 is only about a covenant commitment – that the male-female character of marriage is purely accidental. But given Jesus’ words here – the male-female nature of marriage comes across more clearly than being a lifelong union, doesn’t  it? If you argue that the male-female nature of marriage is purely accidental, then so is everything else about marriage from Genesis 1-2.

    And this is the issue. Marriage becomes entirely what the reader thought it was before they looked at the Bible.

    Jeffrey John once wrote a book “Permanent, Stable, Faithful” in which he argued that same-sex marriage was in accord with the Bible – so long as those relationships exhibited the three values of permanence, stability and faithfulness.

    The thing is, where do those values come from? As we have just seen, the Bible doesn’t say “marriages must be permanent, stable, and faithful”. Let’s take permanence, for example: the Bible doesn’t say “marriages should be permanent”, but it does say, “a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”. So permanence is only defined in the context of a male-female relationship.

    Similarly with faithfulness. The Bible says, “Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” (Heb 13:4). But what is meant by faithfulness? Faithfulness, again, is defined in the sense of not becoming “one flesh” with another man or woman (1 Cor 6:16 – it’s interesting that when lawyers were drafting same-sex marriage legislation, consummation could not be defined and so was left out). Faithfulness is, to put it bluntly, not having sex with someone of the opposite sex who is not your spouse.

    Some people define faithfulness as ‘not sleeping with someone else without telling your partner’. In other words, ‘open relationships’ can embody faithfulness – depending on how you define it. I can well imagine someone who had such a view reading Heb 13:4 and it fitting in with their preconceived ideas – because they had an idea of what faithfulness was rather than letting the Bible define it.

    This brings me to my final point. When you abstract your understanding of marriage from what the Bible actually says, marriage can become virtually anything. Almost every argument for same-sex marriage would also work for, say, polyamorous marriage. Or incest. Or ‘open’ relationships. Or time-limited marriages. And so on: the point is that it’s up to you and how you want to define it. Not the Bible.

    That’s the root issue here: either we let the Bible be God’s Word and define what marriage is, or we crowbar the Bible into supporting same-sex marriage and opening the door for virtually anything. Don’t be fooled by fancy words, follow the logic and see where it leads you.

  • Reflections on the same-sex marriage debate within the church

    Reflections on the same-sex marriage debate within the church

    Over the last few weeks, I’ve been involved with a Facebook group set up to discuss same-sex marriage (SSM) within the church. This has been set up as the CofE undergoes a “shared conversations” process to talk about the issue. This has been the first time I’ve really spent much time actually talking with people within the church who believe in same-sex marriage (or ‘affirming’, as I will use in this post as a convenient shorthand). Although I have had brief conversations with affirming people before, most of them have been pretty fleeting so it’s been good to have the chance to engage with people over an extended period of time.

    I thought I’d share one or two observations about the debate as I’ve observed it over the past few weeks. I do think there is a difference in the way the two sides think and approach the question.

    Firstly: the debate is all about the Bible. This one is pretty much a no-brainer. Obviously the debate was going to focus on the Bible, it is the heart of the disagreement: does the Bible call same-sex relationships sinful or not? When I joined the group, I was expecting to spend a lot of time discussing the Bible.

    Having said this, what I’ve found interesting is that the debate has not really been about the Bible texts themselves. We have spent a little bit of time discussing interpretations of the Bible, but in general the group does not spend much time discussing the various interpretations of Romans 1:18-32 (for example). I wonder whether this reflects the fact that there really is very little scope for interpreting the Bible any differently to the way it has traditionally been interpreted. Diarmaid MacCulloch (who is himself strongly affirming of SSM) has said: “Despite much well-intentioned theological fancy footwork to the contrary, it is difficult to see the Bible as expressing anything else but disapproval of homosexual activity, let alone having any conception of a homosexual identity.”

    It seems instead that people would rather talk about almost anything about the Bible other than the Biblical texts themselves. We talk about the Bible’s clarity, interpretation, translation, history of interpretation on slavery and so on… almost anything other than the text of what the Bible actually says.

    This leads me onto the second point (where I contradict my first point, but please stick with it…): the debate is not really about the Bible at all. It seems to me that the debate is not actually about what the Bible says. It’s not even really about interpretation, or any of those other issues surrounding how we understand the Bible.

    The debate is actually about the presuppositions we bring to the table. As we’ve been discussing, what I’ve come to believe is that most affirming people see SSM as a matter of basic justice. When asked for a Bible text to justify SSM, a lot of people come out with “love your neighbour as yourself.” Now unless I’m missing something, Jesus doesn’t here mention marriage – rather, the idea is that the most loving thing to do for our neighbour is to allow them to enter into a SSM if they want to. So SSM is argued for on Biblical principles rather than on the text of the Bible itself.

    I find this interesting because although equality, justice etc. are all Biblical principles – you can’t just extract them from the Bible and use them in isolation from the Biblical context. Especially when those principles are being used to argue against other things the Bible does actually say. So, for example, although I think ‘equality’ is a Biblical principle, it doesn’t stand on its own – it only exists within the larger framework of other things the Bible says about what it means to be human. Similarly, ‘inclusion’ is a Biblical principle – Jesus ate with sinners such as Zacchaeus – but we must also read it in tandem with its radical exclusivity: Jesus’ demand is to repent and believe in the good news. So, in this example we can’t just take ‘inclusion’ as a Biblical principle and apply it in isolation – that would be doing a big disservice to everything else that the Bible says.

    My sense is that most people on the affirming side of the SSM debate come to the table believing that SSM is an inalienable right – that no-one should be denied the right to marriage because of their sexual orientation. In our society this is a hugely powerful idea which draws on a lot of things our culture believes about identity, humanity and romance. Given this foundational belief, when coming to Scripture one essentially has to presuppose the conclusion one wants to draw: because if the Bible did actually call same-sex relationships sinful, that would be wrong. So the answer is already decided before the Bible is even opened.

    Recently someone made the perceptive comment that a theology of SSM is actually highly elusive: although many affirming groups criticise the traditional interpretations of Scripture, there are very few people who actually attempt to go through the Bible and build up a theology of SSM. A few have tried but their efforts haven’t achieved anything like a consensus. Most people seem content to simply point the finger at a range of interpretations, no matter how good or bad those interpretations are – just their very existence validates the fact that at least one of them must be correct (see my third point on this post).

    But I think it serves to highlight the differences in our approaches. Although many affirming folk would claim the Bible as their authority, I think in reality the Bible’s authority is relativised and set aside. Our current cultural narratives about equality, justice, romance etc are taken as axiomatic and take precedence when interpreting the Bible – without any real theological reflection about the nature of equality etc.

    In sum, I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to discuss this issue with people – it’s always good to try to understand other people’s views better, and it has helped me to clarify my own thinking. But it has made me realise even more that there is a huge and unbridgeable chasm between our two perspectives – and I think to affirm both within one church would be absolutely unworkable.

  • Gay marriage and the power of stories

    Image by Sabtastic

    Although same-sex marriage has been legal in the UK now for nearly a year, I still think it’s worth reflecting on the road which brought us to where we are. In fact, I think it’s probably good to reflect on what happened with the benefit of hindsight.

    One thing which is clearer to me now than it was at the time was just how powerful a story can be. The pro same-sex marriage argument would often present itself using the story of someone who wanted to get married. I remember reading and seeing various different stories about a young man or woman, who grew up dreaming of a white wedding, dreaming of a family – only to have those dreams shattered because gay people were unable to marry. Now, whatever your position on marriage – you have to admit, in our culture today, that is a powerful story. A story so powerful, in fact, that I think most people bought into it.

    By contrast, those who were (and are) against same-sex marriage – and I include myself in that camp – had nothing really to compete. That’s not to say that the arguments weren’t sound: I still believe what was said about marriage two years ago (see my blog posts on “What is marriage?”: part one, part two) – but I think by and large people didn’t understand because they didn’t have anything to relate to. Quite a few people who I interacted with simply could not see how same-sex marriage would make any difference at all, and abstract arguments didn’t really help. The argument was mostly won (or lost, depending on how you see it) at the emotional level.

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  • Marriage and ‘Public Theology’

    Image by Sabtastic
    Image by Sabtastic

    I’m doing a course at college at the moment called ‘Public Theology’, which is basically about how theology and the public sphere (e.g. politics, society) interact. Earlier this week I did a seminar on marriage, i.e. how the church should engage society on the topic of marriage. As regular readers will know this is something I’ve written a fair bit about here, so it’s a topic I’m interested in! I focused on the topic of same-sex marriage, because we had limited time and that’s the thing which I think is most relevant.

    Anyway, this course has really made me think through the whys and the hows of engaging culture, and has probably left me with more questions than answers! In particular on the topic of marriage – why is it that Christians should stand up for the ‘traditional’ / Biblical view of marriage?  (more…)

  • Marriage, Part II

    Image by Sabtastic
    Image by Sabtastic

    This is a follow-up to my previous post, “What is Marriage?“

    No-one took the bait on my previous post about godless ethics, so I am forced to write once again about the only subject at the moment which seems to get people going like nothing else.

    I said previously that there was another article on marriage which I was going to write about. The article is, “Redefining Marriage: The Case for Caution” by Julian Rivers. Similarly to the previous article, this is another paper that does not make a religious argument (it is written from a legal perspective); contrary to the previous paper it is actually arguing against same-sex marriage (or at least, the government’s current proposals) rather than for ‘traditional’ marriage.

    As in my last post, I’m going to pull out a few quotes from the article but please read it for the full argument.

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  • What is marriage?

    What is marriage?

    I’ve blogged about the whole ‘equal / same-sex marriage’ thing before (here, for example). I don’t really have anything else to say about the way ‘bigots’ who disagree are being steamrollered out of the way; instead I want to talk about something which seems to have been somewhat missed in this whole debate: what is marriage?

    A few weeks ago I read an excellent paper on marriage: it’s not from a Christian perspective – it’s written by two people who, as far as I know, have no particular religious affiliation (in fact, the church’s position on same-sex marriage comes in for criticism). However, they do talk about this most important question of the very definition of marriage. I’d like to pick up on the points they make, because I think it’s worth spreading these ideas as widely as possible: it seems to me that most people simply have no idea about what same-sex marriage would entail, as far as the definition of marriage goes. I think this just goes to show how far values of ‘equality’ and ‘tolerance’ have permeated our society – in many ways these are good and right concepts, but can be pushed too far. Allow me to explain.

    At the outset, I will say that you shouldn’t read this and think that you don’t need to read the actual document. I am going to be quoting from it, but please read the whole thing yourself! I just want to outline some of the points they make which particularly struck me.

    Their basic premise is that there are two competing ideas of marriage at stake – same-sex marriage indicates one idea of marriage, whereas ‘traditional’ marriage is another. It should also be noted that they are arguing for ‘traditional’ marriage, and not against same-sex marriage (per se).

    From the introduction:

    …there are two competing ideas of marriage at play in the current debate. The first is traditional and conjugal and extends beyond the individuals who marry to the children they hope to create and the society they wish to shape. The second is more privative and is to do with a relationship abstracted from the wider concern that marriage originally was designed to speak to. Some call this pure partnership or mere cohabitation. The latter is what marriage is becoming: a dissolvable contract between two individuals who partner purely for the sake of the partnership itself [my emphasis]. It has little or nothing to do with children, general education or social stability. This is not to say that it is to be wholly resisted – of course not – but it should be incorporated and built up to a conjugal summit, because the loss to society of the conjugal model imposes such high costs on society and the state that neither can be indifferent about its erosion [my emphasis]. The partnership model is one shared by many heterosexuals and wider society, and it is this that has done much harm to the institution of marriage. By the same token, many homosexuals actually fulfil a more conjugal model and it is to be hoped that the civil unions we propose speaks to this and offer same sex couples their own proper version of ‘conjugal marriage’. (p. 5)

    Their basic premise is that a stable society is not built around partnerships only. A stable society is built around a society which also looks to the future – a society where children are actively looked after and catered for. Marriage as an institution has been the way that children have been cared for and raised in the past, the place where children learn to become fully functioning members of society. However, what marriage is becoming – and will be cemented with the same-sex marriage legislation – is “a dissolvable contract between two individuals”. This is not marriage, and this will not be good for society.

    They continue, “Conjugal marriage is fundamentally child-centred and female advancing. Lone motherhood which is bad for both the woman and the child is the evident manifestation of the contemporary separation of marriage and parenthood.” Marriage has formerly been about children as much as it is about relationships: the changing definition of marriage to a contractual basis is what has caused so much ‘lone motherhood’. This is not how it is supposed to be: as they say, “[marriage] provides the sole institution that can successfully cope with the generative power of opposite-sex unions.”

    They then move on to talk about marriage as an ‘ontological change’, if you will – a change “from one mode of being to another”.

    This change of status has the benefit of social recognition. But it comes at a price. And the price has been, in traditional Christian societies, a heavy one: sexual fidelity ‘till death do us part’, and a responsibility for the socialising and educating of the children. As people become more and more reluctant to pay that price, so do weddings become more and more provisional, and the distinction between the socially endorsed union and the merely private arrangement becomes less and less absolute and less and less secure. As sociologists are beginning to observe, however, this gain in freedom for one generation implies a loss for the next. Children born within a marriage are far more likely to be socialised, outgoing and able to form permanent relationships of their own, than children born out of wedlock [my emphasis]. For their parents have made a commitment in which the children are included, and of which society approves … Children of married parents find a place in society already prepared for them, furnished by a regime of parental sacrifice, and protected by social norms. Take away marriage and you expose children to the risk of coming into the world as strangers, untutored by fathers or abandoned by mothers, a condition of effective abandonment in which they may remain for the rest of their lives. (p. 6-7)

    In other words, there are benefits of marriage to the children of such a union, which has a wider impact on society. Degrading marriage to a merely contractual arrangement devalues marriage, potentially impacts on children and so negatively impacts society at large. And, so they argue, this move towards same-sex marriage will further the idea of marriage being a merely contractual arrangement:

    Since then, however, we have experienced a steady de-sacralisation of the marriage tie. It is not merely that marriage is governed now by a secular law – that has been the case since Antiquity. It is that this law is constantly amended, not in order to perpetuate the idea of an existential commitment, but on the contrary to make it possible for commitments to be evaded, and agreements rescinded, by rewriting them as the terms of a contract [my emphasis]. What was once a socially endorsed change of status has become a private and reversible deal. The social constraints that tied man and wife to each other through all troubles and disharmonies have been one by one removed, to the point where marriage is in many communities hardly distinct from a short-term agreement for cohabitation. This has been made more or less explicit in the American case by the pre-nuptial agreement, which specifies a division of property in the event of divorce. Partners now enter the marriage with an escape route already mapped out. (p. 7)

    In other words, marriage has been devalued in society to the point that it is seen as a contractual agreement – it’s so easy to get out of, that ’till death us do part’ has become something of a joke. Although there are many benefits to society of such a union, nonetheless the state has seen fit to make it easy for people to end one. And, in so doing, marriage is devalued and actually discourages people from entering into it: “Just as people are less disposed to assume the burdens of high office when society withholds the dignities and privileges that those offices have previously signified, so too are they less disposed to enter real marriages, when society acknowledges no distinction between marriages that deserve the name, and relationships that merely borrow the title.”

    But “what about equality?”, we may say? How can we live in a society which promotes ‘equality’ while at the same time allowing an institution to exist which is based primarily around the difference of men and women? They say:

    Marriage has grown around the idea of sexual difference and all that sexual difference means. To make this feature accidental rather than essential is to change marriage beyond recognition [my emphasis]. Gay people want marriage because they want quite rightly a variant of the social endorsement that it signifies; but by admitting gay marriage we deprive marriage of its social meaning. It ceases to be what it has been hitherto, namely a union of the sexes, and a blessing conferred by the living on the unborn. The pressure for gay marriage is therefore in a certain measure self-defeating. It resembles Henry VIII’s move to gain ecclesiastical endorsement for his divorce, by making himself head of the Church. The Church that endorsed his divorce thereby ceased to be the Church whose endorsement he was seeking.

    In other words, by making the natural difference between men and women something which is only incidental to marriage, it actual undermines that institution. Marriage is something which exists for the benefit of the unborn – future generations. Its very definition involves the union of a man and woman which no homosexual union can have: redefining it to remove that union essentially redefines marriage out of existence.

    In addition, same-sex marriage would not promote the kind of ‘equality’ which is desired:

    We have profound reservations about same sex marriage not just because of the harm it does to a vital heterosexual institution but also because we reject the implication that in order to be equal and respected homosexuals should conform to heterosexual norms and be in effect the same as heterosexuals. In this sense we believe same sex marriage to be homophobic – it demands recognition for gay relationships but at the price of submitting those relationships to heterosexual definition [my emphasis]. This serves neither homosexuals nor heterosexuals. The former are absorbed into a structure that does not give due credit or recognition to their distinction and difference; whereas, heterosexuals are stripped of any institution that belongs to them qua their heterosexuality. Men and women who marry are denied proper recognition or celebration of their own distinctive union across the sexes and even more importantly any recognition of their role and unique responsibility in creating and nurturing children whose origin still lies exclusively in heterosexual union. (p. 9)

    In other words, ‘equality’ is not something which should obliterate all differences between people! There is a fundamental difference between heterosexual and homosexual relationships which should be celebrated, not brushed under the carpet. By forcing same-sex marriage into the traditional definition of marriage, what the government are doing is creating some kind of colourless, bland institution which does not celebrate difference but instead tries to force everyone to conform. As they say, “The pressure for gay marriage is therefore in a certain measure self-defeating for in seeking equality with something unlike yourself the thing that you join to is no longer what you joined.”

    I’m not going to quote to your their two recommendations – you can read the article yourself for those.

    But I do hope this at least provides some food for thought. I think it’s quite interesting to note how difficult it’s become to disagree with the same-sex marriage juggernaut in this country, but I hope that respectful dialogue will provide insight on both sides. In particular, I’m hoping that this paper will cause some to at least understand that arguing against the same-sex marriage legislation is not bigotry.

    There is also another paper which goes into the same-sex marriage arguments from another perspective, which I will leave for the time being as this post is too long already. But maybe some other time.

  • House, Marriage, and Grace

    Over the past few months, Mrs Phil and I have been watching through “House, M.D.” If you’ve never watched the series before, I can recommend it – it is pretty compelling! That said, some of the time it is a bit frustrating: the series as a general rule seems to buy into many of the popular misconceptions about relationships. One which particularly irks me is the idea that relationships seem to be totally in the hands of fate – “let’s get together and see how it works out.” Which is perhaps fair enough for a while, but after a few years – and even after getting married? No, that’s not how it works.

    I think all of this has got to me a bit more than usual because last year I read Tim Keller’s excellent book on marriage, and then earlier this year I read John Piper’s book “This Momentary Marriage” (which is also excellent, and currently available as a free PDF from that link). Couple that with the government’s discussions to redefine marriage and it seems that this year I’ve been thinking about marriage quite a lot! What does marriage mean? What does it teach us?

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  • Bigoted, Homophobic… and proud?!

    Thought that title would catch your attention! One thing which annoys me about the whole furore surrounding the government’s proposals to redefine marriage (which I’ve blogged about before) is the careless way people use words like ‘bigoted’ and ‘homophobic’. Particularly the first one: these days, if you are opposed to anything which society in general seems to be for, you are ‘bigoted’. For example, Marcus Brigstocke tweeted about a month ago, “Hey The Church – heres a thought – man up and own your bigotry.” Is that fair?

    Let me borrow the definition of ‘bigot’ from the online dictionary:

    a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.

    Many say that because the church don’t want the government to redefine marriage, they are bigots. So they are ‘utterly intolerant of a different belief or opinion.’ The problem is… the idea that marriage should be a lifelong partnership between one man and one woman is an opinion – a belief. But the idea that marriage should be ‘egalitarian’ and allowed between any two consenting adults is also a belief or opinion. Unfortunately, the two opinions cannot co-exist legally – in a country such as the UK, it’s up to the government to pick a position and enforce it. In the past, such opinions have largely been drawn from a Christian view of the world (or at least, quasi-Christian). And many people still have that Christian moral framework in place, even if some of the distinctives have slipped out.

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