On this morning’s PoliticsHome, in the TimesOnLine links, link 10 was to the Times leader entitled “Honest to God”. The article was about the impending abandonment by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America of its moratorium on consecrating practicing homosexual bishops. The contention of this article was that “The consecration of homosexual bishops is a matter of justice.” Since the break-up of the Anglican communion, which will be the almost immediate consequence of these events, is of obvious political interest, it is clear why PoliticsHome carried the story. I want to explain why I think the Times has it quite wrong.
Note that I don’t propose to go too much into homosexuality in this essay, since the Times leader does not do so, correctly identifying that the issue is not practicing homosexuality per se (which is clearly, obviously, unambiguously, and in all cultures at all times forbidden by the Bible). Instead, the Times sets out the position that must be adopted by those advocating the consecration of practicing homosexual priests and bishops and the related disputed practice of providing church blessings of same sex civil unions. Here is what it says:
Churches that insist on the inerrant word of Scripture, notably the Pauline epistles, will not accept the consecration of open homosexuals. Yet social attitudes to homosexuality have shifted radically in the past generation. The sources of Christian inspiration are diverse. They do not derive only from a private response to Scripture.
This passage correctly identifies that what is at stake here is the status of the Bible, and in particular the Protestant doctrine known as “sola scriptura.”
The sola scriptura doctrine tells us that all other opinions, all other reasoning, all other inspiration drawn from the study of Creation, all supposed mystical insight derived through mediation or through ecstatic utterances whilst under the influence of the Holy Spirit – everything else, insofar as it deals with God’s commands for how we should conduct ourselves, God’s nature, God’s purposes, and our status before God, are all to be interpreted in the light of Scripture. That is to say, Scripture alone is the final authority. If there is conflict between the moral and theological reasoning of man and the teaching of Scripture, it is the reasoning of man that must fall.
The Times leader argues, instead, that “the sources of Christian inspiration are diverse”. In other words, we can draw truth from other sources even when those other sources might lead us into conflict with the Bible. Thus, the Times is asking the Church to give up the idea that the Bible contains a reliable revelation by God of his commands to us for how to live. The Times is asking us to believe that the Bible can get moral teaching plain wrong.
It is worth reflecting for a moment upon the implications of accepting this for Protestant religion (for sola scriptura is a Protestant doctrine, and is not shared by other churches). The sola scriptura doctrine was advanced by Luther and Melanchthon right at the commencement of the Reformation. I consider it fairly obvious that they must have alighted upon the doctrine as a nearly immediate application of the “ad fontes” (back to the fountain or source) dictum of Erasmus and the Renaissance Humanists (of whom Melanchthon was, for a time, a leading light) [for anyone really keen to explore, the dictum probably dates back to St Cyprian]. Erasmus meant by this that we should study the original Latin and Greek texts of classical authors such as Plato and Cicero (many of which had only recently become available or were now available in much more reliable copies) rather than commentaries or references in subsequent debates.
Thus ad fontes was an intellectual best practice. If that were all there were to sola scriptura, it would be difficult to see why we should regard it as defensible in the light of major changes to culture or understandings of biology and psychology. I suspect that many non-Christians understand the doctrine only this far – they think that the point is that people look at the original documents, rather than ideas developed and perhaps corrupted through time. As it happens, I think there is something valuable in a Christian sense even in the ad fontes doctrine, but it wouldn’t be enough by itself.
Christians often attempt to defend the authority of Scripture (i.e. sola scriptura – we’ll often say “authority of Scripture” from here on) on the basis of an argument from Scripture itself (i.e. they contend that Scripture claims itself to be authoritative). Obviously all this can get us is consistency of the doctrine. It can’t show us that it is true. Another Protestant doctrine is that when we read Scripture, the Christian recognises it as true because the Holy Spirit convicts us of its truth. This is all very well, but it is unclear why we should believe that the Holy Spirit does that unless we begin by believing that or unless we actually experience the sense of conviction. Even then, it might be psychologically attractive to believe it, but that wouldn’t make it true.
No. I believe that the key to motivating the sola scriptura doctrine lies in another doctrine: the doctrine of God’s initiative. I think the easiest way to understand this idea begins with God’s holiness. Christians understand God as both the creator of the world and something other than the world. The Christian word “holiness” means that God is separate from his Creation and more than it. Because of this (and perhaps also because of man’s sinfulness, though we don’t need that idea here) we are not able to understand God fully by simply studying Creation or using what is here for us in Creation.
So, we would not of ourselves be equipped to understand God on our own initiative, even were we perfect (and, because of our sinfulness, we may well not seek to do so and would certainly not succeed in doing so, even if more of God’s nature were evident in Creation). Instead, if we are to know God’s nature, his commands, his purposes, and our status versus him, we require his initiative. That is to say, we are only able to understand as much as we can about God because God takes the initiative to reveal himself to us.
The doctrine of God’s initiative places the authority of Scripture in a different light. Now it is not merely a matter of avoiding the accretions and errors of the ages in understanding what is said. No. In Scripture we have God revealing himself to us in ways that would be forever beyond reason or science. That leaves us only with Scripture versus ecstatic utterance or versus mystical insight. There is much that could be said here, but no-one is seriously claiming that the consecration of homosexual clergy is justified on the basis of ecstatic utterances or mystical insight revealing that God is now telling us that such consecrations are appropriate. Hence we shall set aside other sources of God’s initiative. (If we were arguing against Roman Catholics we would have to pursue this line much more, for they broadly share the doctrine of God’s initiative despite denying sola scriptura. But of course Roman Catholics agree that ordaining practicing homosexuals is not allowed...)
So, I have attempted to argue that what is at stake in the debate over the consecration of homosexual clergy is not simply the authority of Scripture, but the entire doctrine that God is holy and what we know about him we know only on his initiative.
So, what Protestant Christians believe is that their only way to know what God has told them about himself, the Bible, tells us (in no uncertain terms) that practicing homosexuality is wrong. If we deny that homosexuality is wrong, we are therefore denying that we have any way to know those aspects of God’s holy nature that go beyond what is evident in Creation. We are denying that we have a revealed religion at all.
You will appreciate, I hope, that this means that a lot is at stake in the consecration of homosexual clergy. It isn’t really about practicing homosexual clergy, per se, for almost no-one seriously denies that the Bible teaches that practicing homosexuality is wrong. It is about whether God has revealed anything about his holy nature to us. The liberals effectively deny this. The conservatives maintain it.
Of course, this places Christians in conflict with what sophisticated opinion regards as loving common sense and justice in this matter. That happens quite a lot with Christians. We denounce avarice when other people regard it as prudence; we claim that even very poor people should give large proportions of their income to the Church when other people call that irresponsibility. We denounce gluttony when other people call it harmless self-comforting or claim that people cannot help it. We denounce divorce and remarriage when other people say it is unhealthy and wasteful to stay in a loveless marriage and cruel to criticise people for going off with those with whom they are in love. We denounce assisted suicide when other people call it death with dignity. We denounce sloth when other people call it relaxation. We denounce envy and covetousness when others call it them thirst for social justice and equality. Christians believe some pretty socially unpalatable things, and always have done. We don’t expect to be popular for it, and it is no surprise that the Times regards rejecting Christian teaching as an imperative of justice.
Incidentally, I saw a hilarious quote last week in the Sunday Telegraph from the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, who was responding to Bishop Nazir-Ali’s comments that practicing homosexuals should repent and change. He said “Homosexuality is not a sin. It is the way many people love each other and is a gift from God. Ordinary people in the pews know this. And they are a lot more theologically aware than the handful of narrow- minded bishops who want to play politics with the Anglican Communion.”
What?? I’ve no idea whom the Rev Dr has been speaking to, but the pews in almost every Anglican Church I’ve ever entered are packed with people enormously more theologically conservative than the clergy. Many of them actually believe that the world was made in six time periods only some tens of thousands of years ago. Virtually all of them think Jesus literally walked on water, literally healed the sick and literally and bodily rose from the dead – ideas most liberal clergy appear to find incomprehensible. The laity believes that those who are saved in Christ will live forever in heaven and at least some of the rest (they get a bit hazy here, particularly about things like babies who died) will go to hell and be tormented for all eternity. They are as certain that practicing homosexuality is wrong as they are that theft is wrong, that adultery is wrong, that bowing down to worship idols is wrong.
The split in the Anglican Church laity (for it is badly split on this question) is between those who believe that practicing homosexuality is obviously wrong, that there are required standards of conduct for priests, and that being a practicing homosexual should mean you cannot be a priest, and those who believe that, even though practicing homosexuality is obviously wrong and that it would be much better if we didn’t ordain homosexual priests, it isn’t something important enough for us to split the church over so if we have to put up with practicing homosexual priests for the sake of peace and harmony then we will.
The problem now is that the option of getting peace and harmony in exchange for putting up with practicing homosexual priests has gone. Now the choice is going to become between a Church that believes that God reveals himself to us in Scripture, and a church that does not believe that God makes any reliable special revelation of himself at all. I know which Church I shall be in.
