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Tag: Canon B30

  • What is Anglican Sex Anyway?

    by Revd Canon Neil Patterson, Vice-Dean of Bristol Cathedral and Chair of Together for the Church of England

    Everyone knows that the Church of England likes arguing about sex, but in all our recent debates we have been curiously reluctant to define what it actually is. This matters, because there are different answers, and what the Church is telling individual couples is quite different depending on the answer to this question. To make some progress, we need to go back a few decades…

    The ‘Higton Motion’

    The 1987 debate on sexuality has become somewhat mythologised in the history of the subject, though there are people still around, indeed on Synod, who were there. By comparison, I am relying on the Proceedings and contemporary reports, and recognise the limitations of that. However, it is significant that the motion Synod passed was not that originally proposed by the Revd Tony Higton, which had received a record number of 168 signatures in the time between the July and November groups of sessions. As submitted, his motion read:

    ‘This Synod reaffirms the biblical standard, given for the well-being of society:

    • that sexual intercourse should take place only between a man and a woman who are married to each other;
    • that fornication, adultery and homosexual acts are sinful in all circumstances;
    • that Christian leaders are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality, as a condition of being appointed to or remaining in office;

    and calls upon the Church to show Christ-like compassion to those who have fallen into sexual sin, encouraging them to repent and receive absolution, and offering the ministry of healing to all who suffer physically or emotionally as a result of such sin.

    Although not the only element of the motion, the speeches of Higton and his supporters, combined with his document Sexuality and the Church which had been distributed, as if a Synod paper, to all members, make it clear that his major aim was to push the bishops to purge the church of gay clergy.

    It seems that the Bishops were prepared for this. The House of Bishops minutes for the 1980s are now public at Lambeth Palace Library, but mostly do not reveal much, being a bare record of decisions taken. However, in October 1987 they had noted the impending Higton debate, and recorded the proposal of their own Standing Committee that the House should propose as an amendment the following, much milder, text:

    ‘This Synod affirms the Christian tradition that sexual intercourse is only appropriate within marriage; requests the House of Bishops, in the light of the advice it receives from the BSR [Board of Social Responsibility] Working Party, to report to the Synod in due course on issues to do with homosexuality; and calls on all Christians to be exemplary in all spheres of morality including sexual morality.’

    In the event, perhaps following discussion with multiple parties, what actually appeared, following a long speech from Archbishop Robert Runcie which reads as fence-sitting even by his standards, was a detailed amendment by the Bishop of Chester, replacing Higton’s text with the following:

    ‘This Synod affirms that the biblical and traditional teaching on chastity and fidelity in personal relationships is a response to, and expression of, God’s love for each one of us, and in particular affirms:

    • that sexual intercourse is an act of total commitment which belongs properly within a permanent married relationship,
    • that fornication and adultery are sins against this ideal, and are to be met with a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion,
    • that homosexual genital acts also fall short of this ideal,
    • that all Christians are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality, and that holiness of life is particularly required of Christian leaders.’

    As well as the generally milder language, it is important to note that this amendment, presumably agreed by the bishops ahead of the debate, drew a distinction between ‘sexual intercourse’ proper to marriage and ‘homosexual genital acts’ as a different category. Traditionally the former refers to the entry of a penis into a vagina, the necessary act for the consummation of a marriage or the act of adultery (and the reason President Bill Clinton famously felt able to deny doing it with ‘that woman, Miss Lewinsky’). I will return to this distinction, though I will abbreviate the latter unlovely expression to ‘HGAs.’

    That was not the end of the matter – an amendment to the amendment was offered by the Revd Dr P.R. Forster, as he then was (subsequently himself the Bishop of Chester) to add to the bishops’ clause three, ‘and are likewise to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion’, supported by a speech emphasising the pastoral angle of the whole debate. There was almost no debate, +Chester being neutral and Higton supportive in single sentences, and the amendment to the amendment was made, seemingly without much fuss. And it was this text, proposed by the Bishop of Chester and amended by Forster, which the Synod went on to pass by an overwhelming majority, with lasting effect. The Forster amendment is important, because it eliminated the subtlety of the original bishops’ text (which could be read as seeing gay sex as a lesser, but tolerable, thing than married ‘sexual intercourse’) in favour of a moral equivalence to ‘adultery and fornication.’ (The latter term, incidentally, appeared to be taken as read without any debate about what exactly it might include). Other amendments were also debated but rejected.

    Contemporary reports of the Higton debate, however, do not record it as a great moral victory for the conservative cause, but rather a successful defusing by the bishops of a divisive motion. In subsequent Synods, Higton and allies like David Holloway can be found persistently asking official Questions about the application of the resolution to clergy and especially ordinands, making it clear they believed the bishops were still insufficiently vigorous in excluding gay candidates. And whilst they may have been disappointed in the bishops’ rigour, it seems to me that the text of the motion passed influenced the subsequent Issues in Human Sexuality, where the freedom of conscience afforded to lay same-sex couples was not extended to the clergy. Issues also chose not to refer to HGAs, instead adopting “active homophile relationship,” a terminology almost as baffling as it is contentious.

    The distinction between sexual intercourse and HGAs remains significant, however. My sense is that in LGBTQ+ culture, it is accepted that ‘sex’ actually embraces a range of different things, all of which are probably HGAs, but which are different for different couples, with no simple equivalent of the normative status of ‘sexual intercourse’ (and, obviously, for each particular couple, none of anybody else’s business). I am sure lots of straight people will want to point out how varied and interesting their sex lives are too! But it is difficult to ignore the place of intercourse as the legally significant act for centuries, not least as the only sexual act which can lead to the conception of children, and so undoubtedly of primary moral significance.

    Why does this matter now? Well, as I explored in my last blog here, the 1995 debate on Something to Celebrate led to the 1999 Marriage: A Teaching Document which affirms among other things that “Sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively.” It was this text in turn which was included (albeit only as a quotation, not a direction) in the 2012 Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy. If, like surely every strong conservative in the Church of England, we accept the importance of the 1987 motion passed by such a strong majority, making a clear distinction between sexual intercourse and HGAs, then it is clear that the Guidelines are entirely silent on the latter. This will obviously be of significance to all ordinands and clergy in same-sex relationships, since the Guidelines have recently replaced Issues in the discernment process, by uncharacteristically efficient action of the House of Bishops since the overwhelming passage of a Private Member’s Motion sponsored by Mae Christie at General Synod in July 2025. It is just possible that one or two of those who voted for it did not appreciate the full significance of the change.

    This remains important, because the Guidelines are in the process of revision, and a draft has now been published for discussion at the meeting of the Convocations immediately preceding General Synod, on Monday 9th February. The draft text introduces reference to civil partnerships, and wisely maintains silence on HGAs, quoting once again from Marriage: A Teaching Document.

    But those who have drafted the revision still seem to be trying to influence the ongoing debate on sexuality. Otiose references to Canon B.30 (at §7.8) and to the necessity of obeying law (at §8.3) will be read as unbalanced attempts to strengthen the hand of those who wish to act against clergy who have entered same-sex marriages. More seriously, §7.9 enshrines the 2014 House of Bishops statement on same-sex marriage into the Guidelines, but this is necessarily due for replacement on account of its reliance on Issues. No doubt the clergy in Convocation will be able to make their voices heard on these matters, and it seems unlikely that with the present balance of the House of Clergy the draft Guidelines will be endorsed unamended. The existing Guidelines were drafted by a wise and wide committee led by Prebendary David Houlding; from all I hear, such breadth was not sought on this occasion, and the consequences are evident.

     

  • A Sum Total of Nothing: The Prayers of Love and Faith Return to Synod

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington and a consultant to the LLF Implementation Pastoral Guidance Working Group

     

    Well, here we go again. Another set of consultations, conversations, demands that LGBTQIA people make themselves vulnerable, another set of raised hopes, quiet promises, and damned hard work, and…well, nothing. Nothing at all.

    It is almost unfathomable, yet entirely predictable, that we have ended up exactly where we started. This November Synod, where we had been told significant progress would be brought forward, what we are being given is absolutely sod all. Please don’t mistake this for hyperbole – I am speaking in simple factual terms. Nothing has changed. This is nothing, warmed up and then cooled down again, and presented as radical inclusion.

    Not only are we presented with a sum total of nothing, but we are back talking in the way some of us had hoped was now history. The Synod papers have next to nothing positive to say about LGBTQIA people, and we are back to the despicable language of both-sides-ism that the ‘apology’ (which has shown itself to be utterly meaningless) suggested we might have finally grown out of. The motion being presented has inexplicably returned to the language of pain ‘on both sides’, as though there is even a remotely comparable situation for LGBTQIA people and those who oppose us having even private prayers.  The motion doesn’t even mention us – we are once again at best an abstract issue, and at worst simply erased. It is hard to take any other message from this that they wish we didn’t exist, and they don’t really care that we do. We are ‘less than ideal’ (with very uncomfortable echoes of the Higton motion in 1987) – our lives are clearly, in the bishops’ view, a blight on the life of the church.

    The motion states, too, that we are in a ‘period of uncertainty’: we are not, a clear decision was made in February and the House of Bishops is actively choosing to frustrate its clear purpose. There is talk of ‘implementation’. Where, precisely, is this implementation?

    We have been told that we are not to see the results of the Pastoral Guidance until 2025! The bishops are attempting to impose two more years of Issues in Human Sexuality blighting the lives of LGBTQIA clergy, preventing married people from getting ordained, and handing coercive control over our loves and lives to the meanness and lack of imagination of episcopal discipline. The cruelty of this – a decision imposed by an (allegedly) entirely straight House of Bishops on LGBTQIA clergy, with ever-present calls for us to be patient. Enough. We have been patient enough – over thirty years of patience.

    It is a bare-faced lie to say that there is no draft guidance – I have seen it, and it has been presented to the House and College of Bishops. Very substantial votes in favour of change have been registered amongst the bishops. So what exactly is going on? We need to be told specifically what needs to be done for it to be brought back, and we need it to be brought back in February 2024 for final sign off at the very latest. We need, too, for Issues to be rescinded immediately, at this November Synod. As a wise priest friend said to me: what the bishops have done may be legal, but it is not honest. Bishops, it is time you remembered the wording of our ordination vows. Our obedience is not without caveats.

    The commended prayers are – extraordinarily – a backward step. They quite literally amount to no more than our being able to pray for the gays in the intercessions of a regular Evening Prayer – and nothing more. The accompanying document makes it clear that the prayers can be used privately or ‘only in acts of worship where Prayers of Love and Faith are not the principal focus or form’ (and the guidance bizarrely suggests that nonetheless we ought to warn our parishioners in advance in case they want to avoid the beastly homosexuals!). This means that the commended prayers serve no pastoral purpose whatsoever – absolutely nothing has changed. I repeat, nothing – the commended prayers change nothing. So out of years and years of patient work, all we can do is pray for people like we already could do, and now we are specifically banned from holding special services for them. This is a scandal and the General Synod must demand that this ridiculous, offensive, unacceptable stipulation is removed if this motion is to be passed.

    And finally, the accompanying document for discussion in Synod has gone against the express will of Synod by entirely errantly eliding the ‘doctrine of marriage’ (for which we might look to Canon B30) and ‘the place for sexual intimacy’. Laying aside the fact that the bishops have still not actually defined what that means (itself rendering Issues utterly meaningless), the press release from the Church of England contains within it a lie – stating that ‘Synod also voted for no change to the doctrine of the Church of England around marriage and sexual intimacy.’ No, it objectively and absolutely did not, and nor did it agree that the doctrine of marriage included the assertion that ‘marriage between one man and one woman’ is the ‘proper’ place for sexual intimacy.

    The bishops accepted (including alleged ‘affirming’ bishops) – foolishly, as we told them, time and time again – an amendment that stated that Synod ‘endorse[s] the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage, and their intention that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England’. Synod also rejected two further amendments that stated that ‘sexual intercourse as an expression of faithful intimacy belongs within marriage exclusively’ (motion 44) and a motion that required ‘instructions making it clear that [the prayers] should not be used so as to indicate or imply affirmation of sexually active relationships outside Holy Matrimony or to invoke God’s blessing on such relationships’ (motion 68). Synod therefore specifically did not vote for no change on sexual intimacy when presented the opportunity to do so, and nor is there anything in our doctrine that supports the claims made that sexual intimacy and marriage are one and the same thing.

    Whoever drafted, or is ultimately responsible for, the press release and the paper accompanying the Synod motion is attempting to pull wool over the eyes of Synod and the wider church. Throughout the process, we have had long and fruitful conversations about teaching and doctrine, development and refinement, and yet here we are presented with a blunt and dishonest summary.

    Yet why are we surprised? The level of backroom deals, conservative backchannels, central church dishonesty, wink-wink nudge-nudge antics, power-play, poisoning with fear, secret promises, (arch)episcopal grandiosity, and silly letter writing has finally won out. It is now fascinating to see that the sad cabal of bishops who ‘dissented’ ultimately didn’t even want LGBTQIA people to get – nothing at all anyway!

    Well, the bishops should not be allowed to get away with it. The ‘affirming bishops’ need to take a stand, publicly, now. LGBTQIA people have spent quite long enough being the sacrificial lambs on the altar of unity – bishops, find some courage and speak for us, and that right soon. And frankly the ‘oh we don’t really know’ bishops need to recognise that that kind of fence-sitting has never been a Christian virtue, and most certainly is not now. We are real people whose lives are being wrecked by your indecision and refusal to look us in the eye. We carry the image and likeness of God in us, and you are marring God’s image when you slam the door in our faces.

    We have had enough. We have been taken for granted in Synod, and you should know, bishops, that you are no longer guaranteed inclusive votes based on private assurances. You are called to ‘serve and care’ for your whole flock, and that includes us. You are called to have a ‘special care’ for ‘the outcast and those who are in need’, speaking ‘for those who have no other to speak for them’. It is time to do so – and it is time to end this sham once and for all.

    You offered us bread but gave us a stone. You still have time to knead the dough.