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Tag: conscience

  • A Question of Conscience

    by Revd Ruth Harley (Vicar, Cowgate and Priest in Charge, Newbiggin Hall)

    Standing at the font, I smiled at the scene unfolding in front of me. A happily gurgling baby and his two proud parents, surrounded by his new godparents and family and friends, talking and laughing and taking photos. When they had arrived for the Christening, this little lad’s parents had been somewhat nervous, clearly unsure about being in church and whether they and their guests were really welcome. Of course I had done my best to put them at their ease, and it had gone so well (if I say so myself) that now, as they called me over for a photo with the church’s newest member, I found myself thinking “oh crumbs, I do hope they’re not going to ask me to marry them.”

    But hang on – isn’t that a bit of an odd thing for a priest to think? Aren’t we supposed to want people to have such a good experience of church that they want to come back to mark the most significant moments of their lives in the presence of God?

    This has all the makings of a future good news case study for the diocesan website, surely. A couple bring a child for baptism, unsure if church is really for them, and are so warmly welcomed that they decide to get married in church too. Maybe they start exploring questions about faith during the marriage prep course. Maybe they start coming on a Sunday, or bringing their little one to Messy Church. Maybe one or both of them goes on to be confirmed.  Maybe in 5 years they’re on all the rotas and the PCC. Maybe in 10 years this is the story one of them tells at a selection conference for ordination. Maybe… It’s a situation which has potential, anyway.

    So why was I, against all my better instincts, hoping that this couple would not ask me to marry them? Quite simply, because they are both women. And while nothing would give me greater joy than to declare them wife and wife in the sight of God, whose love shines through their relationship on even a brief acquaintance, as a priest in the Church of England I am not permitted to do so. Which means that, every time a same-sex couple asks me to marry them (which, as an ‘out’ lesbian priest, happens not infrequently) I have to act against my conscience.

    In saying ‘no’ – and of course I say it as sensitively and pastorally as possible, but really there is no good way to say ‘no’ to someone’s most cherished and life-giving relationship – I am also, I believe, acting against the best interests of that couple, and of the church, which could be so richly blessed by their presence.

    To act against my conscience, against my understanding of God’s calling both on my life and the life of the couple coming to ask for marriage, against the good of that couple and of the church, is painful. It is a form of moral injury. And done repeatedly, it takes a toll which is spiritual, emotional and physical.

    A great deal has been written and spoken during the LLF process about conscience. The House of Bishops is keen (and rightly so) that no clergy should be forced against their conscience to use the Prayers of Love and Faith, and has offered repeated assurances on this point. However, while much has been made of the consciences of those who believe the PLF go too far, little if any consideration seems to have been given to the consciences of those of us who think the PLF go nowhere near far enough. It is almost as if the House of Bishops doesn’t really believe we have a conscience that is worth considering.

    But we do have a conscience. And we act against it, frequently and painfully, in obedience to the discipline of the church which we have promised to uphold. The cost of acting against our conscience is high, and it is largely unacknowledged.

    Is it too much to ask that, just as the consciences of our colleagues with more conservative views on sexuality is respected, our conscience should be respected too? Apparently it is, if the most recent House of Bishops’ statement on LLF is anything to go by.

    There is no acknowledgement in this statement, and I don’t believe there has been in any of its predecessors, that all over the country hundreds of clergy are already required to act against our conscience, regarding the church’s response to same-sex relationships. Many of us continue to do so, doing our best to serve faithfully within a church which shows startlingly little consideration for our conscience, our integrity, or really our very humanity. Many others have found the cognitive, emotional and spiritual dissonance too great, and have left – either for another province, another denomination, or another path in life altogether. Their going is an enormous loss to the church yet, like the conscience of those of us who stay, has gone almost entirely unacknowledged.

    One of the greatest lies of the LLF process – and there have been many – is that we all approach it on equal terms, with equal power, equal stakes, and equal voices. That is not, and has never been, true.

    That inequality is nowhere more evident than in how our consciences are (dis)regarded.

    For those espousing a conservative position on same-sex relationships, their consciences are named as worth regarding, and assurances given that they will be protected. And when their conscience prompts them to say that they will leave if particular steps are taken, that is weighed as a significant factor in the decision-making of the church. Their consciences are treated as significant.

    For those espousing a progressive position on same-sex relationships, our conscience is not acknowledged: neither the fact that we are currently required to act against it, nor the fact that many of our siblings in Christ have been prompted by conscience to leave a church unwilling to affirm the lives and loves of LGBTQ+ people. Our consciences are treated as insignificant.

    There is a fundamental asymmetry here which has underpinned and undermined the entire LLF process. This has been explored before on this blog by Giles Goddard, in the first of a series of articles on the subject of conscience published here a couple of years ago but which remain as relevant as ever. Until that asymmetry of conscience is acknowledged and addressed, it is hard to see what progress can be made. When the conscience of some is elevated above the conscience of others, and implicitly with it the humanity, discipleship and vocation of some above that of others, that will never be a basis for good theology, nor for a just and faithful ordering of the life of the church.

  • Living in Love and Faith: Where is the Power?

    by Revd Ruth Harley (Vicar, Cowgate and Priest in Charge, Newbiggin Hall)

    Back at the start of the Living in Love and Faith process (LLF), one of the more useful resources to be produced was the ‘Pastoral Principles’ – a set of six concepts intended to enable better conversations across difference. One of the Pastoral Principles was “pay attention to power”. And yet, as we take in the latest update on LLF from the House of Bishops, it seems evident that little if any attention has really been paid to power in the course of the LLF process.

    Power is a slippery thing. It hides in plain sight, and works in ways which can be hard to grasp. And yet, if we do actually pay attention to power, and name how power is being used in in a particular situation, it can be deeply revealing.

    Power is an important theological concept. We speak of God as omnipotent – all powerful. We read Paul’s description of “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” We might hear someone describe “the Holy Spirit moving powerfully” in a particular church or event. But what kind of power is this? Very often we don’t stop to examine it too closely. And unexamined power is always dangerous.

    I am not, here, attempting to offer a fully worked-out theology of power (for that, I recommend Anna Mercedes’ excellent book Power For). But I do want to consider the role of power which has led to this latest set of decisions from the House of Bishops.

    Sometimes it is helpful to separate out the church’s “espoused theology” – what we say we believe – from its “operant theology” – what the things we do and how we do them reveal about what we believe. Where those two theologies are at odds, it can be very revealing.

    The church’s espoused theology of power is one of equality and justice, but also of self-abnegation, servanthood, “God’s power made perfect in human weakness”. The story we tell about how power exists in the church is one of the foot-washing, self-emptying power of love which we see in Christ.

    But very often this is not the operant theology of power in the church, it is not how we really live and relate to each other. Certainly the operant theology of power in the LLF process is something very different, and if we really do pay attention to power, to how it actually works, rather than how it is spoken about, we start to see some of the theological problems underlying this latest set-back in the slow and painful process.

    Firstly, the espoused theology of power contained within the LLF process is one of equality: that we all approach the process from equal positions, with equal power, with equal concerns. This is demonstrably not so. And a failure to acknowledge an imbalance of power always works in favour of those with whom the power already lies. The operant theology of LLF is one in which LGBTQ+ members of the church (and to a lesser extent our allies) simultaneously have less institutional power, and more at stake – our identities, livelihoods, vocations, relationships, in addition to the theological, ecclesial and missional concerns which all parties bring to the LLF process. If this inequality goes unacknowledged, as it largely has, then everything that is built on that espoused theology of equal power will be at best precarious, and at worst false and manipulative.

    Secondly, the espoused theology of power within the church is one in which divine power, and therefore power within the church, functions very differently to worldly power. And yet, the attention paid to money and the threat of its withdrawal by conservative churches during the LLF process suggests a rather different operant theology.

    Thirdly, there is the question of whose voice is heard, and how. The espoused theology of LLF is that all voices are heard equally. And yet… The attention given to threats of schism, threats of diminishing numbers and income, by those promoting a conservative stance on sexuality is vastly greater than that given to the many LGBTQ+ folks and allies who have quietly walked away, or who have bravely spoken about the harm done to them and to those they love by conservative and sometimes openly homophobic church teaching, whose voices remain largely unheard, silenced or ignored. The operant theology of the LLF process is that some voices are worth more than others.

    Finally, there is the question of conscience. The latest update from the House of Bishops is keen to emphasise that the next stage of the process will “respect the conscience” of those opposed to using the Prayers of Love and Faith. Good – I don’t think anyone in favour of greater progress towards LGBTQ+ equality wants people to be forced or coerced into using prayers against their conscience. But the question of conscience, throughout the LLF process, only ever seems to cut one way.

    There are thousands of clergy currently forced to act against their conscience, myself among them. We act against our conscience every time we explain that we can’t marry a same-sex couple who wish to celebrate their love and commitment in the presence of God. We act against our conscience when we constrain ourselves to the meagre offerings allowed by PLF, instead of celebrating and blessing the fullness of what we see God doing in the lives and loves of faithful LGBTQ+ people. The cost of overriding our conscience is a form of moral injury, and a very real harm not only to individuals but to the church as a whole. But our conscience is of no concern to the House of Bishops, it seems.

    Whatever the espoused theology of the church, when the operant theology evident in the actions (or inactions) of its leadership reveals that some voices are worth more than others, some consciences more worth protecting than others, it is hard to escape the conclusion that some people are worth more than others: more fully human, more fully made in God’s image, more beloved.

    That, of course, is not true. And nor is it the church’s espoused theology. But it is too often, including in the House of Bishops’ latest (in)action on LLF, the church’s operant theology. And that operant theology damages the body of Christ because, whatever kind or well-intentioned words may be said, what is felt and known and experienced as the lived reality is a deeply damaging theology of power, which tramples over the lives and loves and the very humanity of LGBTQ+ folks (yet again) in the futile search for a false unity which will allow those who already hold power to hold onto it, without needing to pay any attention at all.