Split over Prayers of Love and Faith; sex and gender
From the Revd Paul Burr
Madam, — “What scripture condemns is something that no one in the Church today would advocate”: an audacious claim when that is exactly what Canon Sam Wells and the Revd Lucy Winkett are doing in their open letter (Comment, 9 May).
When the Bible wishes to condemn exploitative and oppressive relationships, it is perfectly capable of doing so. It is equally capable of condemning specific behaviour. “You must not lie with a man as with a woman” is tolerably clear. So is the gravity of the offence. “It is an abomination.” Leviticus is Old Covenant, of course, but the same behaviour is condemned in the New.
In the vision of St John, those who make abomination and the sexually immoral are excluded from the city of God, but so are those who deceive. That advocates of abomination and sexual immorality are excluded along with its practitioners ought to give pause. The Bible knows all about those who corrupt the word of God. “From such”, it says, “turn away.”
The City of God is not as inclusive as it has become fashionable to assume. All are welcome, but none unconditionally. The call to repentance is insistent throughout the New Testament.
Assumption of LGBT anthropology privileges gender identity so that sexual conduct is excluded from the call to repentance. The challenge to the gospel is confrontational, unavoidable, and undermines the very tenets of Christian faith and doctrine. When sin is redefined, it changes even the meaning of the Lord’s Prayer.
“Good disagreement” is blatantly a Trojan horse for the wholesale importation of hostile gender ideology into the Church. To bless what is forbidden is a change in doctrine and liturgy which requires a two-thirds majority in the General Synod. Proceeding otherwise is gross abuse of process.
To deny that the Church is embracing secularism is quite implausible. Ideological assumptions are evident from the Bishops’ continual use of LGBT+ acronyms and arguments, but most especially their anthropology and methodology. Your authors disclose their cognitive bias by making the same assumptions. Like most who embrace the LGBT agenda, their argument is entirely contingent upon their proposed destination.
Gender ideology is highly corrosive of Christian doctrine and catastrophic for church unity and mission. Under Archbishop Welby, the Church suffered institutional capture, with a House of Bishops conspiring to transgress the laws of God and bully the Church into submission. They have failed to deliver what they promised and cannot lawfully do so. Instead of proceeding with the LLF programme, what is needed is not ex post facto rationalisation of an Archbishop’s failed project, but thorough evaluation of all the changes brought in under Archbishop Welby so that the task of leadership is clarified before the candidate to carry it out is identified.
PAUL BURR
The Vicarage, The Common
Swardeston, Norwich NR14 8EB
From the Revd M. Stuart Nattrass
Madam, — Thank you to the authors of their open letter. As with many issues over the years, the disagreement over LLF prayers arises from different approaches to handling and interpreting scripture. What has happened to the Anglican tradition of agreeing to disagree with mutual respect?
Those of us who support LLF prayers do so with deep faith and conviction. The Bible is conditioned by the times in which it was written. Its insights into the nature of God and ensuing values are eternal, but the application of those values is dynamic.
We now know that same-sex attraction is a given, not chosen, characteristic, and is not changeable. It is the way in which God’s evolutionary system has created some people. That is how God has made them. Surely, it is the duty of the Church to help them to use their sexuality responsibly, with the same standards as apply to heterosexual relationships.
Creation of separate structures makes conversation and respect about contentious issues impossible. Withdrawal of Common Fund contributions by previously generous parishes undermines the principle of sharing burdens in the common body of Christ, regardless of churchmanship, and risks harming poorer parishes.
STUART NATTRASS
Address supplied (Pinner, Middlesex)
From Kevin Skippon
Madam, — Nigel Edward-Few says that he is baffled by the “conflation” of the two issues of same-sex blessings and the ordination/consecration of women (Letters, 16 May). While he may make a valid point, I, too, am baffled by his own conflation of what appear to be conflicting attitudes.
On the one hand, he tells us he is “totally against” same-sex blessings and, as a patron, “struggles hugely” with appointing those in favour on the basis that he cannot accept “the sexual nature and lifestyle” (sic) of same-sex couples who love one another and seek God’s blessing; then, on the other hand, he acknowledges that God loves them as much as anyone else, and therefore he welcomes those in “such relationships” (sic) on the same basis as he would welcome anyone else.
What does this kind of equivocating message say to all those in “such relationships”?
KEVIN SKIPPON
Beech Cottage
25 Banks Head
Bishop’s Castle
Shropshire SY9 5JL
From Mr Philip Belben
Madam, — Dr N. P. Hudd (Letters, 9 May) talks about an “untenable position” on sex and gender, and yet Dr Hudd’s attempt to blind us with science contains so many errors that the epithet may be better applied to his own arguments.
To start with, the summary of the genetic issues is woefully incomplete: the gene for maleness, SRY, can appear on chromosomes other than Y, leading to XX men; and the hormonal pathway by which it is expressed can be blocked, leading to XY women.
Second, the identity of phenotype with natal sex is not perfect: natal sex is an assessment made by a doctor or midwife, usually without information on the child’s internal physiology, let alone genetic tests.
Third, this — and, indeed, the whole letter — begs the question whether, and if so why, phenotype should determine legal sex in the first place.
To cap it all, Dr Hudd asserts all this as an “incontrovertible truth”. While the fact of a court decision may be incontrovertible (and bearing in mind that the court decision was about natal sex, not phenotype), science does not, and never should, deal in incontrovertible truths. Science presents theories, which are backed by evidence. A theory backed by much evidence needs even more evidence to overturn it, but it is not incontrovertible. In the matter of human gender, where the relationships between genetics, phenotype, and neurology are still being explored, we can expect theories to be revised constantly.
PHILIP BELBEN
The Chapel, Maitlands Close
Nettlebridge, Radstock
Somerset BA3 5AA
Refusal to help resettle Afrikaners in Trump’s US
From the Revd Dr Steven Horne
Madam, — Earlier in the year, a number of people both in and outside of the Church applauded the Bishop of Washington, the Rt Revd Mariann Edgar Budde, of the Episcopal Church in the United States, as she appealed to President Donald Trump. Bishop Budde was to the point: “Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger.” Five years earlier, she had also addressed him, saying: “As leaders of faith who believe in the sacredness of every single human being, the time for silence is over.”
As a minister who agrees with these sentiments, it troubles me that Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) — to which Bishop Budde is linked — has refused to resettle a small group of White South Africans because of Trump policy (News, 16 May). If our Christian practice is restricted because of our political persuasions, what exactly are we “practising”? Is it that the Episcopal Church believes in “the sacredness of every single human being” unless President Trump believes that they are sacred, too? That’s dangerous.
Equally dangerous, of course, is the idea they can’t be real migrants because they are white. As a “White, English, other” (Romany Gypsy), I can assure you that the dangers of racism don’t skip me because of my lack of melanin. If we truly want to be inclusive and “be merciful to the stranger”, maybe we should stop trying to fit “strangers” into our limited world-view and, instead, listen to those calling out for help.
STEVEN HORNE
Address supplied
Forgotten case for VAT relief for Listed churches
From the Revd Tony Redman
Madam, — I read with interest and some dismay the report (News, 16 May) on the Westminster Hall debate in which Marsha De Cordova made a particularly valid contribution about why churches should be able to retain the benefit of the Listed Places of Worship Grant.
When I moved the original motion in the General Synod in February 1998, encouraging the Synod to lobby government for a change in the way VAT was levied, I made some points that are even more relevant today than they were then, but seem to be overlooked in the current debate. These were that where the tax levied on church buildings has a much wider impact:
First, it is effectively levied on small groups of people who are either struggling to care for much loved community buildings or for ones that are vulnerable owing to lack of use or vision. Their loss would be the cause of significant harm as identified by the current planning legislation. In virtually all other European countries, the State is more cognisant and far more proactive in its approach to local heritage buildings than our Government is here in the UK, although admittedly with some widely differing results.
Second, VAT in this context is effectively a levy on social support. The more churches pay in VAT, the less they can afford to engage in social action. Many reports have demonstrated that the voluntary sector provides social action that is more effective, both beneficially and financially, than care paid for by cash-strapped local councils, which often, incidentally, do not usually have to pay VAT on their heritage-building repairs as statutory undertakings.
Third, VAT is a levy on traditional building skills, which hang on by a knife edge in many areas. At a stroke, by making heritage building repairs zero-rated, the Government can show its commitment to retaining traditional building skills and employment, one of its a manifesto commitments.
Fourth, the bottom-line cost to government is minimal in terms of financial spend, so much so, according to one DCMS official I spoke to in 1998, that it would be missed in the contingency allowance below the bottom line in Treasury accounts. It is a trifling amount to the Government in terms of funding, but potentially a hugely significant benefit in terms of social cohesion and traditional building skills. It is an easy win for the Government, who could reduce administrative costs even more by simply zero-rating such repairs.
But nobody from the Church seems to want to make these points any more. Our vision these days is much more introspective. The benefit of the Listed Places of Worship Scheme grant is not just to our church communities. The way to encourage the Government to sit up and take notice is to look outward and see the real value of the Church to the wider community, as we tried to do in 1998. More than 5000 letters were written to the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, which encouraged him to instigate the grant.
TONY REDMAN
The Cottage, Great Livermere
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk IP31 1JG
Benefits of a youth choir
From Canon A. J. Canning
Madam, — Thanks are due to the Revd Dr Sally Welch and Prebendary Julie Read (In the Parish, 2 May) for extolling the benefits of choirs and music in building up the life of the local church. We rebuilt our multi-cultural church in Coventry by starting a youth choir.
As the young people involved were mainly of West Indian and Asian Christian background, their families were unaccustomed to the importance of choir practice. So we made choir practice into a youth club and borrowed local minibuses so that everybody could be picked up and taken home again. This became a popular activity, and those young people, now grown up, run the church.
JIM CANNING
13 Broadlands Close
Coventry CV5 7AJ
Hymn books can’t keep up with trending songs
From Professor Noël Tredinnick
Madam, — Thank you for including Canon Gordon Giles’s article on the many values of using actual, physical, hymn books (Faith, 16 May). As ever, Canon Giles is compelling, even amusing, and again gets under the skin of both the subject and our susceptibility.
He makes convincing, even unexpected, points about smelling and sensing those congregants who have already left their greasy paw prints on the book that I’m using, or future generations who, I hope, will gaze upon the page that’s occupying me and gain a heavenly dimension. So, much of what he wrote, I like and salute.
What he fails to consider is the plight of the many congregations who don’t just sing hymns and liberally supplement the ones that they do sing with modern Christian worship songs. The hymn book, any hymn book (not even Mission Praise, which doesn’t get a mention), can never compete or have a hope of keeping up-to-date with those.
Again, they are not referred to here but, carefully chosen, vetted, and well led, there is a place in our Sunday collective worship for good, contemporary modern songs (alongside the age-old, valued, hymns). So, the words of these equally need to be made available somehow, and these songs are not to be found in the hymn books mentioned. So the physical, age-old, hymnal in the pews is, sadly, not the whole or only answer.
NOËL TREDINNICK
c/o Guildhall School of Music and Drama
Silk Street, Barbican
London EC2Y 8DT
Balance of representation on CNC needs a review
From Mr Philip Johanson
Madam, — I cannot help wondering whether the long-term plan of Archbishop Welby had been to have a Primate of the Anglican Communion without any diocesan or provincial responsibilities. If so, the first part of that process was to persuade the diocese of Canterbury to reduce their membership on the Crown Nominations Commission for the diocese from six members to three (News, 16 May). The next step was to persuade the General Synod to agree to the decision taken by the diocese of Canterbury, and, at the same time, to agree to increase the membership from the Anglican Communion from one place to five.
We now have a situation in which the diocese for which the Archbishop is the diocesan bishop has only three places and the Anglican Communion has five. The national Church has eight voting members (six appointed by the Synod), together with the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of Norwich, the Communion has five voting members, and the poor diocese of Canterbury only has three. The final member is the chairman appointed by the Prime Minister.
The entire process raises the question of the function of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Is the appointee, first and foremost, a diocesan bishop, who has a national ministry in England and might from time to time visit by invitation other Provinces? Or is the function to be an international Primate with England as a base from which to operate? Does it not make more practical sense for the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, not the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be the person travelling around the Communion?
The current process cannot be changed; surely, however, there must be a major review once the recommendation to the King has been made.
PHILIP JOHANSON
10 Ditton Lodge
8 Stourwood Avenue
Bournemouth BH6 3PN
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