A response to Anglican Futures: “What kind of future awaits the faithful?”

I am grateful to Anglican Futures for reviewing my booklet Can we Imagine a Future Together? Intercultural Lessons for Living in Love and Faith.

The review is thoughtful and constructive, and they are kind enough to offer words of personal encouragement to me – I have indeed spent many hours on Living in Love and Faith (LLF) and heard much pain and anger!

And yet the opening analysis is that the booklet “offers little hope” for faithful Anglicans. Unsurprisingly, I take issue with this, not least because I have also received feedback from other “faithful Anglicans” (similarly conservative on issues of human sexuality) saying that the booklet has caused them to think more deeply and to re-engage with a subject about which they have become hugely frustrated. Obviously, it all depends on what you regard as a good outcome to the LLF process!

So, the central premise of my booklet is that there is hope on offer to those who want change and those who don’t. Under the current proposals (now with Diocesan Synods for consultation), those who hold to the current (traditional) view of marriage and sexual intimacy, will find that very little will change. They will not have to participate in the use of Prayers of Love and Faith, neither will they have to endorse the use of the Prayers. Since the proposal is to introduce the Prayers under Canon B5: “Of the discretion of ministers in the conduct of public prayer” each individual minister will have freedom of conscience. So the Reformation principle of conscience, which was so important to Luther and others, remains a fundamental principle.

This is more significant than many might realise. There is great pressure in our society to accept all liberal, progressive values (although President Trump is rapidly reversing this in the USA!) And it is a fine line between holding particular beliefs and expressing them in a way which is a viewed as discriminatory (see recent court cases where employees have claimed unfair dismissal). Whatever the right or wrong of this, the Church of England’s current proposals mean that ministers who hold to ‘traditional values’ and refuse to use the PLF will be protected. Our clearly stated position will be that ministers are free to use the Prayers or not, according to their conscience and we will defend both sets of ministers against any attempt at coercion. This may not sound like much to readers of Anglican Futures, but I can assure you that there are ministers in other parts of the world who have not received this level of protection – their denomination has basically left them to face the courts alone.

However, the review goes on to argue that the only way the booklet can offer hope to all is through an acceptance of plural truth. The reviewer nuances this by stating that they accept that I hold to a higher view of Scripture than many in the Church of England, but still they imply that I am refusing to sit under Scripture and arguing that the church can accept different doctrines of marriage. I want to unpack this argument because for all its simple appeal (rejecting pluralism and sitting under Scripture), I think they have misunderstood my argument.

Firstly, I have always understood the Christian claim to be that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Truth then is a person, and the written word (the Bible) points to the living Word (Jesus Christ). And from my travels and work in different parts of the world, I have come to share Lesslie Newbigin’s view that “Jesus is much more than, much greater than our culture-bound vision of him [and this] can only come home to us through the witness of those who see him with other eyes.”

The quote comes from Foolishness to the Greeks: Gospel and Western Culture. And among Newbigin’s other works are The Gospel in a Pluralist Society and Truth and Authority in Modernity. I think it is fair to say therefore, that it was Newbigin’s life’s work to present the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the truth in a world which accepts multiple truths (particular in the arena of religion). And yet, he can also assert that our “culture- bound vision” of Jesus is somehow limited and needs the witness of those who see him from other cultural perspectives.

So my intercultural lessons are not about presenting plural truths – rather I am clear that there is one objective truth and that is Jesus Christ. But this is not the same as saying that I personally and individually possess the whole truth – indeed I long to grow in my knowledge of the truth and that is why I engage with “those who see him with other eyes”. For me, this is about humility – realising how much of my perspective is “culture-bound”. And it is also about realising that no local church is complete in and of itself – we need our sisters and brothers in the global church if we are to grow in our knowledge and love of God.

But I also want to reiterate that I am not suggesting that different theological perspectives on PLF are merely cultural. No – I am clear in the booklet that there is no equivalence between culture and theology. Rather my primary plea is for us to stay in relationship despite our differences. And the intercultural lessons are intended to help us do this.