Note to those who wish to comment on the Church of England’s official response to the British Government’s ‘Equal Civil Marriage’ consultation: please read the whole thing before firing several rounds of outrage from the hip. At least then you’ll be outraged at what the document actually says, not at what you’ve heard it says (e.g. that gay marriage is the worst threat in 500 years).
P.S. Bishop Nick has read the whole thing. So has Doug Chaplin.
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I read it, I felt sick, I left the church for good.
I’m very sorry, Erika.
Tim, I read through about half of the complete document, and I encountered (I won’t be as polite as the other commentators) such a load of BS, that I could not stand the smell, and I quit. Whoever put statement together should be ashamed. Do they think we are all stupid? Reading half the statement made me very angry. I so understand the English who respond, “Not in my name!” I don’t know if I can go back and read the rest. What would be the point?
I very much understand Erika’s decision, and I see the departure of her and her spouse as very much the church’s loss.
I think you’re both missing my point. Ever since that document was issued I’ve read blog posts condemning it for things it doesn’t actually say, written by people who have obviously only read the summary, if that, and/or the tablet reports.
I’m entirely content for people to criticize it – if they’ve read it. I have criticisms of it myself, mostly to do with the Establishment of the Church of England and all its detestable enormities (to use Cranmer’s phrase). But your view reminds me of evangelical friends who criticized the Anglican/Roman Catholic Agreed Statements of the 1980s without actually having read them. I cannot understand taking it on oneself to criticize a document without reading the whole thing – especially when, as in some cases,the critic then goes on to slam the document for claiming that ‘gay marriage is the biggest threat to the church in 500 years’ – which the document does not say,
I agree with you that it is a great loss to the church that people like Erika and Susan are leaving. I also have had friends leave the Anglican Church, on all sides of this issue, including a fine, prayerful, biblically literate couple who left St. Margaret’s because they could not reconcile their own convictions with the direction they could see the Anglican Church of Canada moving in re.liberalization of our teachings about homosexuality. They were strong leaders in our church and we miss them very much, but I presume you would not say the ACC should change its direction because of their decision. Surely at the end of the day, we’re all responsible for putting into practice the teaching of our Lord as we understand it.
Tim, my two posts on the statement are links to persons who have read the statement. I let them speak to the document. Why should I read the other half? Will the rest of the statement un-BS the first half?
Agreed that we should love God and love our neighbors as ourselves and that we should do as we would be done to.
I haven’t read your posts, Mimi.
Tim,
“They were strong leaders in our church and we miss them very much, but I presume you would not say the ACC should change its direction because of their decision”
I think I need to clarify here that I have not left the church because of its “decision” on gay marriage. I have left it because the terms of engagement are dismissive and without integrity.
It asserts positions as positions of The Church, when many many in the church don’t hold them. When, in fact, there is currently an official process in progress to determine what people in the church actually do think!
It makes statements that even its own lawyers have repeatedly confirmed are false (such that the church could be forced to marry same sex couples).
It claims for itself that it has been supportive of civil partnerships, when anyone who lived through that debate and the subsequent legislation knows for a fact that it was only ever hostile to them and only accepted them because they deliberately did not mention the fact that these partnerships are sexual relationships. It had to allow its priests to enter into them, but initially tried to wriggle out of its obligation to provide pensions to surviving civil partners.
Ask Jeffrey John if he felt supported in his celibate civil partnership by The Church.
It assesses the effect of same sex marriage in terms of how it would impact on straight marriage and its views are full of hyperbolic scaremongering. It never once looks at the effect on gay couples.
And the document isn’t even signed.
It is one of most appalling insults to gay people and our supporters. It feels as if we’re looking at one of those Soviet Union propaganda photo of polititians with Trotzki suddenly erased from the picture.
This is not about different opinions. It’s about how different opinions are played out.
If The Church cannot engage in truth, honesty and with respect and with genuine arguments, if it uses its considerable power to brush inconvenient people and theologies out the picture, it is not a place I want to be any longer.
Tim,
Mimi said she’d read half the document. That’s a bit like reading half a novel and knowing that you really won’t enjoy it so you don’t bother finishing it.
It’s not quite the same is just going by the reviews, on the contrary, it’s a very considered decision based on what the authors have said and how they’ve said it.
It doesn’t take long to work out whether something is respectful or dismissive and spiritually deadening.
I read the entire statement, and I have even more contempt for the document than when I had read just half. The language is soulless legalese, with no evidence that the writers are aware that real people will be affected, and it’s still BS for the all reasons Erika enumerated.
1. In common with almost all other Churches, the Church of England holds, as a matter of doctrine and derived from the teaching of Christ himself, that marriage in general – and not just the marriage of Christians – is, in its nature, a lifelong union of one man with one woman. p.2
Not quite, eh? No mention of divorced persons remarrying in the church.
3. Anyone who is resident in England has a legal right to marry in his or her parish church irrespective of his or her religious affiliation and the minister of the parish (the rector, vicar or priest in charge) is under a legal duty to conduct the marriage.2 The existence of this right is recognised by the Marriage Act 1949 (which governs the procedure for all marriages in England and Wales). p. 7
Unless I’m mistaken, when divorced persons wish to marry in the church, the vicar is not automatically under a legal duty to conduct the marriage. The law can be so written that a vicar is not automatically under a legal duty to conduct a marriage between two persons of the same sex. The writers of the statement, (and it’s quite telling that no names are attached) are no more than a bunch of Chicken Littles running around saying the sky is falling, when no such thing is happening
You know what, I’m giving this up, because I am obviously incapable of making the point I want to make without being misunderstood.
You made the point, Tim. We should read the document before criticising it.
It sounded a little as if, having read it, we would treat it with more kindness.
The people who replied had read it – Mimi had read half, I had read 50%, and I agree fully with every single reviewer – apart from the Independent’s silly “worse disaster for 500 years” that isn’t in the text yet has been widely quoted.
Nick Baines, by the way, hasn’t “read it”, as you write, but unless I am very much mistaken is one of the co-authors.
Sorry, that should have read “I had read all of it”
Faith, Folk and Charity 
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