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Tag: ethics

  • Sex and the Homilies

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

    It feels like some sort of recognition for this blog, and perhaps even this author, to be quoted in an official Question at General Synod, even if the Question is not particularly friendly. For those unfamiliar with the custom, at each General Synod a large number of written Questions are submitted by members. They cover a wide range of the Church’s work, and although some are ruled ‘out of order’ as not being factual or asking bodies which are not responsible to Synod, they are an impressive aspect of accountability in the Church of England. When I first joined Synod, the initial answers were read out fresh, giving an opportunity for quick thinkers to ask a Supplementary that was occasionally interesting, but too often point-scoring. Now both Questions and written Answers are released a few days in advance, and there are fewer pointless Supplementaries. There is still a performative aspect to the whole business, and Synod always runs out of time before all Questions are covered. In recent years LLF has generated very many Questions at every group of sessions.

    The February 2026 Questions included this:

    The Revd Dr Patrick Richmond (Norwich) to ask the Chair of the Ministry Development Board:

    Q228    Given that the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy now serve as a primary document for discernment and discipline, what consideration has been given to the definition of ‘sexual intercourse’ used therein? Specifically, if the term is understood in the narrow sense of biological coitus, as recently argued by the Revd Canon Neil Patterson [https://viamedia.news/2026/01/24/what-is-anglican-sexanyway/] what assessment has been made regarding how the Guidelines reflect the Church’s wider authoritative teaching—such as that in the Book of Homilies warning against ‘all unlawful use of those parts ordained for generation’—and what steps are being taken to ensure that candidates and clergy understand the wider scope of the conduct to which they are committing?

    The Bishop of Chester to reply as the Chair of the Ministry Development Board:

    The replacement of references to Issues in Human Sexuality (“Issues”) with the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct for the Clergy (“the Guidelines”) in the discernment process does not create new obligations for candidates and clergy and nor does it make the Guidelines a primary document for discernment and discipline. The primary documents for discernment are the Qualities for Discernment used before a candidate comes to a discernment panel and the Qualities for Formation, using during training for ordinands. Reference is made to the Guidelines within these processes.

    The primary documents for discipline are set out in the statutory grounds within the Clergy Discipline Measure and the proposed Clergy Conduct Measure.

    As was emphasised by Synod in July 2025 when they called upon the House to replace Issues with the Guidelines, and emphasised again by the House when they decided to make the requested change, no aspect of the Church of England’s theological or ethical understanding of matters relating to sexuality has been changed by the decision to refer to the Guidelines in the process of vocational discernment and training for ordained ministry. Moreover, the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy do not in themselves establish or extend the law, though they do point to the law. They seek to provide a framework for behaviour that reflects the highest standard to which all clergy should aspire.

    Readers will see that the Answer rather sidesteps the Question, and the session ran out of time so Dr Richmond did not have the opportunity to ask a Supplementary. He did not contact me before referring to my previous blog, but here follows an attempt to respond more directly to his interesting Question than did the Bishop of Chester, building on the comments by Helen King in her blog.

    First, why does the Question refer to the Homilies, and perhaps indeed, what are they? The Homilies are a set of sermons, some published in 1547 and others under Elizabeth I, on a range of subjects, intended to be read by clergy who were not able to compose their own sermons, many setting out distinctly Reformed teaching for the new Church of England. I don’t consult my copy as regularly as Dr Richmond may, but the full texts are easily found. I will come on to their status in a moment, but we might first note that I think the reason for appealing to them is that neither Scripture, the Canons of the Church of England, or the authorised liturgies of the Church of England (whether the Book of Common Prayer or Common Worship) offer any direction about specific sexual acts. Indeed, I don’t think there are any direct references to particular sexual acts in the Canons or the liturgies at all. Even Scripture, whilst including the texts about different sexual relationships explored in depth in the Living in Love & Faith book, does not really offer any detail on what happens with particular body parts. Injury to male genitals may disqualify a man from full participation in worship at the Temple (Leviticus 21.20), and draws particular punishment upon a woman causing it (Deuteronomy 25.11-12), and of course there are many references to circumcision. But what happens sexually is not described, and I assume this is the reason for resort to the Homilies as a source of authority. This is far from a ‘wider authoritative teaching’ of which the quotation is a mere sample.

    Before going on to the authority of the Homilies, though, it is worth checking just how little the quotation says. It comes from one of the 1547 Homilies, given on the title page of my copy as ‘Against Whoredom and Adultery’ although at the start as ‘Against Whoredom and Uncleanness.’ As it turns out, the single sentence quoted in the Synod Question is the only one which specifically refers to body parts, and is probably the only such sentence in the whole Homilies (I confess, I have not searched them all). It occurs near the start when the homilist explains that adultery covers not only marital unfaithfulness, but also ‘all unlawful use of those parts ordained for generation.’ This was of course exactly what the General Synod motion passed in 1987 did not say. Even in the Homilies, which – as I shall explain below – are not generally squeamish in their language, the expression is somewhat euphemistic. But I suggest we can paraphrase ‘those parts ordained for generation’ as ‘the human reproductive organs’ in order to be both modern and clear.

    So, this immediately prompts a reflection. Much intimate activity between couples, of whatever sexes, does not involve the reproductive organs at all, at least not of both parties. In particular, as Helen King and others have explained with great clarity, the clitoris is not a reproductive organ but appears to exist solely to create sexual pleasure. And for that we all, especially those who have one, may thank the good Lord for his generous provision. What about ‘unlawful use’? Well, at the time of the Homily, a number of possible uses were outlawed by the Buggery Act 1533, which prescribed punishments for “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery committed with mankind or beast,” subsequently interpreted by the courts to mean penetrative sex between men, or bestiality, respectively. Today bestiality is regarded as an animal welfare offence, but unlawful use of the reproductive organs between people is defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, based on accepted principles around age and consent. No-one in the current debates in the Church of England is arguing for the right of the clergy, or anyone else, to disobey these laws.

    Of course, many will read the expression ‘unlawful’ in the Homily as referring to the ‘laws of God’ but that produces an immediately circular argument. Where are these to be found, for members of the Church of England? In Scripture, the Canons, the liturgy, and perhaps the 39 Articles. And as we have noted, those do not help us reach clarity. Perhaps if a Homily Against Buggery had been written (plausible enough) that would solve it, but it is no more evident than Jesus’ clear and transparent teaching on same-sex relationships. But the 39 Articles do bring us back to the Homilies, even if, as I have pointed out before, the Court of Arches declared some time ago that the Declaration of Assent has relativised their position as a doctrinal authority. But it is there, in Article 35, that we find the Homilies declared to ‘contain a good and wholesome Doctrine’ and suitable to be read in churches.

    No doubt there are still some clergy who read out a Homily from time to time. Most congregations I know would have quite a shock. They follow a fairly consistent pattern, assembling relevant Scripture texts around the theme, reinforced with robust Tudor rhetoric, and that against Adultery is broken into three parts to be useable as a sermon sequence. Whoredom is ‘filthy, stinking, and abominable’ ‘…neither is there a nearer way to damnation than to be a fornicator and an whoremonger’. It draws people away from ‘virtuous studies and fruitful labours’ to ‘carnal and fleshly imaginations.’ It is more repetitive than anything. And it is asserted, rather than shown, that adultery and fornication produce sorrow and poverty in this life, as well as eternal punishment.

    The most disturbing passage, however, occurs when the Homily, like many others, chooses to draw on the then-commonplace knowledge of the ancient world, commending as ‘godly acts’ the laws of various ancient states against adultery or whoredom (not very precisely distinguished). The argument is ‘even pagans thought it wicked.’ But the Homily glories in the various forms of mutilation or capital punishment inflicted by ancient societies – eyes cut out, a thousand lashes, women having their noses cut off to be visibly shamed for life, hands cut off, or death, by stoning, burning or beheading. The ‘Locrensians, Arabians, Athenians, with such other’ are commended for their barbaric laws. In a world where such punishment is associated with only the most violent forms of Islamic extremism, it is difficult to take the Homilies seriously as a source of moral guidance for today’s Church. They have to be interpreted, and once interpretation begins, outcomes are contested, as we all know well.

    So, to repeat the argument made before, the formal teaching of the Church of England does not give us a clear answer on the questions of sexual ethics that are currently the subject of such controversy. Many wish they did, and will no doubt continue to petition the bishops to offer clear answers to matters better judged in context and in private. But, even if they have not shown outstanding strength in setting a positive direction forward, perhaps the bishops will be able to achieve the easier task of resisting calls for easy answers, and allow us to grow into a wiser and less judgmental Church.

  • Celibacy and Conscience

    by Professor Morwenna Ludlow, a historian, theologian and priest, specialising in historical theology. She is Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Exeter and Canon Theologian at Exeter Cathedral

    The question of how Christians understand celibacy has not gone away. Recent debates over Living and Love and Faith (LLF) in the July 2024 sessions of the General Synod of the Church of England show that. But this time, the issue of celibacy seemed to me to be tied to the question of the protection of conscience. It’s this connection I want to unpick here.

    In our General Synod debates, I continue to be moved by the testimonies of those who speak about their conviction that they are called to a life of celibacy. (These have, so far as I recall, all been speakers who have also stated they are sexually attracted to those of the same sex.[1] I would love also to hear testimony about the vocation of celibacy from heterosexual Christians!) I do not think that I am in position to question their sense of vocation. In good conscience, that is not my call to make. As a heterosexual woman in a long, happy and fulfilling marriage, which began with a ceremony in my parish church, there is especially an imperative on me not to be too quick in my judgment.

    Where I baulk, however, is when I hear some claim that their conscience should determine not just their own, but other people’s behaviour. There are two related ideas here. First, there is the idea that a conscientious restraint on one person’s part should be universalised to a demand for restraint by all who find themselves in a similar position – in this case, the idea that all lesbian and gay Christians should commit to celibacy. But, as I argued in an earlier blog, the church’s consistent, scriptural and traditional teaching (i.e. doctrine) of celibacy is that it should be a freely willed response to God’s call, not a demand placed on all. Second, there is the idea – put forward notably by the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) – that the consciences of those who hold the conservative position should be protected by the provision of “a permanent structural rearrangement resulting in visible differentiation” from the rest of the Church of England.[2]

    But this second idea seems to me to involve the unexamined movement between several related positions:

    (a) In good conscience, person x believes that they can neither have an active sexual relationship outside heterosexual marriage, nor take positive steps which would condone or welcome such relationships (e.g. like offering the Prayers of Love and Faith for same-sex couples);

    (b) The conscience of x is troubled by those in their church who do have an active sexual relationship outside heterosexual marriage, or who take positive steps which would condone or welcome such relationships;

    (c) Person x has the right for their conscience to be protected from being troubled in this way.

    Points (a) and (b) are statements of fact; point (c) makes an ethical demand. In brief, I certainly think that the church and its members should acknowledge (a) by ensuring that no-one has to act against their conscience with respect either to their own intimate relationships or in offering prayers of blessing for others (and the current proposals are emphatic on this point). I also think that it would be wise for those like me to recognise the depth of feeling surrounding point (b): I may disagree with the conservative position, but I need to acknowledge the way these questions are bound up with profound aspects of faith like the interpretation of Scripture and understandings of holiness. I can acknowledge the depth of hurt, while considering its cause to rest on a misunderstanding of the gospel. Nevertheless, it is possible to recognise point (b), without conceding the demand in (c). The question is: precisely what purchase should troubled consciences have on the rest of the church? 

    It might be helpful here to reflect briefly on the role of conscience in theological ethics.[3] Broadly speaking, the Reformed tradition has been cautious about the role of conscience seen as a natural faculty because conscience, like other faculties, has been impaired by the fall. My conscience is subject to distortion by pride, selfishness and lack of attention to the other, especially those others who are vulnerable. At best my conscience can skew my moral judgment; far worse, it can become an instrument of ‘godless self-justification’ as I put my ‘personal innocence’ above my responsibility for my neighbour.[4] For this reason, theologians in the Reformed tradition see conscience not so much as a natural faculty but as that point of encounter between God and myself in the time and place I find myself in, in the world. Conscience then becomes the recognition, through grace, of God’s demand on me – or, to put it another way, the discernment of God’s call to be who God wants me to be right here and right now. This call might be addressed to me as an individual or to a community – the church.

    But what if we disagree? This question is sharp because the possession of a troubled conscience is not unique to those holding the conservative position on LLF. My conscience is deeply troubled by the fact that I am not just part of, but I am a priest in a church which I believe not to be including LGBTQIA+ people as I believe it ought. My conscience is troubled by the church’s treatment of people who are very dear to me. My conscience is troubled by the fact that, as a married heterosexual priest, I am part of a system which treats me better than it treats many LGBTQIA+ priests.

    So where might we look to resolve our disagreement on conscience? Reference is sometimes made by conservative evangelicals to Romans 14:14-15 and 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul insists that the conscience of ‘weaker’ believers to be protected. I am not sure that reference to this passage is helpful for our current disagreements. The issue in Romans and 1 Corinthians concerns beliefs circulating about the effects of eating certain kinds of food: some believers thought that eating food sacrificed to idols (or food which might be thought to have been sacrificed to idols) would imperil their salvation. But Paul is clear that he thinks that these ‘weaker brethren’ are wrong in their belief: ‘Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.” …. “It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled’ (1 Cor. 8:4-7). So any use of these passages to urge the protection of one’s position as a weaker sibling is implicitly acknowledging that one might be wrong, whilst also placing a demand on oneself to protect the conscience of those whom one believes to be wrong. Secondly, these passages are about what kinds of food are permissible, which is very different from questions of how to treat our LGBTQIA+ sisters and brothers. Thirdly, Paul begins Romans 14 with an absolutely explicit call for mutual compassion: ‘Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat, for God has welcomed them.’ Fourthly, Paul seems to be addressing issues in local communities, not making pronouncements for the whole church. In essence, the current proposals from the House of Bishops already allow for our ‘weaker’ siblings, in that they clearly allow priests and communities who do not wish to use the Prayers of Love and Faith not to use them.

    Where else might we look to learn about conscience? Because the term ‘conscience’ (suneid?sis) does not appear in the gospels we are perhaps in danger of leaving Jesus out of our accounts. If conscience is understood in God’s call to me, perhaps I should reflect on the way in which Jesus’ words frequently jolt his hearers’ out of their comfortable assumptions about their own virtue (the rich young man, those bringing the woman accused of adultery) or highlight the ever-present danger of hypocrisy and pride (the Sermon on the Mount). (I deliberately use ‘I’ here, for the danger of self-righteousness lies on both ‘sides’ of the debate.) Such encounters explain why theologians in the Reformed tradition write of conscience not as a natural faculty, but as the discernment of God’s demand on us. Conscience in this sense does not come ready-packaged; rather ‘individual moral judgement requires moulding by the believing community and its educative, pastoral, sacramental, disciplinary and therapeutic practices’.[5] This includes our reading and reflection on Scripture and a prayerful deepening of our understanding of the world. On this understanding, conscience cannot be something to be protected; rather, we are called to expose our consciences – to the gospel, to Jesus’ uncomfortable call on us, and to the messy realities of our complicated world.

    By contrast, I am hearing calls from conservative evangelicals for their consciences to be protected. These calls amount in some cases to the demand to be protected from being in full communion with those who are using PLF or who are in same-sex marriages – as if being in full communion places too great a strain on their conscience. This seems to me to be in danger of treating conscience the wrong way. Far from being the place of encounter with the call of Jesus Christ on my life, this view of conscience seems to treat it as a thing of holiness to be polished and protected. This could be understood in two ways (and I suspect that both are in play). First, conscience is understood as a pure thing to be saved from taint. Underlying this are ideas of impurity, which so often creep into Christian discussions of sex – especially when it’s women or LGBTQIA+ people whose sexual activity we are discussing. Does the idea of protecting one’s conscience (‘keeping one’s conscience clean’) presume that in fact all sexual activity, and especially sexual pleasure, is dirty – which is why it must be contained in (heterosexual) marriage and, if at all possible, redeemed by the birth of children? Second, conscience is understood as a fortress to be defended from attack, ‘that inmost citadel of the personality, where the self is… king of its own castle, uncorrupted by the compromises and pressures of the crowd’.[6] On this understanding, the exposure of the self to the ‘crowd’ imperils its very identity.

    Both understandings of why the conscience needs to be protected – a holy thing to be preserved from taint, a fortress to be protected from attack – help explain why feelings are so raw. But neither seem to me to reflect a good theological understanding of conscience as that point of encounter between God and myself. If attention to conscience means responding to Christ’s call on us, I don’t think that God wants us to focus on preserving our holiness – at least, not holiness understood in this narrow sense of protection from taint. God’s holiness does not withdraw from the reality of the world but is immersed in it. Neither do I believe that we need to preserve our identity from attack, for our identity has a sure foundation in our baptism in Jesus Christ.

    God’s call to holiness, it seems to me, calls on us to step into that crowd outside the castle walls, that place where Jesus walked and talked and prayed and ate. Sometimes that means we have to eat with people who disagree with us on issues so painful that our hearts are raw. But if my conscience is found in my encounter with Christ, it is formed precisely in my encounter with all those whom he came to love.

     

    Notes

    [1] I am trying to echo the language they themselves have used in recognition that, while many are happy to identify as LGBTQIA+, for others this is difficult.

    [2] See https://ceec.info/keepingfaith/: “What does the CEEC suggest as a way forward? CEEC remains committed to the highest degree of unity possible within the truth and doctrine of the Church of England. However, we believe that the current proposals will prevent us from walking together and promote disunity, even schism. It is clear that the strength of feeling amongst parties with differing convictions indicates that we have to find a better way forward. CEEC will continue to advocate a settlement, without theological compromise, based on a permanent structural rearrangement resulting in visible differentiation.”

    [3] I approach this topic from the perspective of the Reformed tradition, because that is where the most vocal defenders of the conservative position seem to be speaking from. The issue is treated somewhat differently by ethicists in other traditions. The authors I cite on the topic of conscience should not be assumed to agree with my position on sexual ethics.

    [4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 278, 276.

    [5] John Webster, ‘God and Conscience’, in The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics, ed. Alan J. Torrance and Michael Banner (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2006), 152.

    [6] Henry Chadwick, Some Reflections on Conscience: Greek, Jewish and Christian (London: Council of Christians and Jews, 1968), p. 5, quoted by Webster, 152.

  • Trans Figured: Experience Trumps Theory

    by Sophie Grace Chappell, Professor of Philosophy at The Open University. Her two most recent books are Songs For Winter Rain, a poetry collection, and Epiphanies: An Ethics of Experience.

     

    (an extract from her forthcoming book, Trans Figured)

    I hope to get a wider audience with this book than a philosophy professor might normally expect for most of her writings. But who knows: you yourself, dear reader, might have read some of my more conventional writings in philosophical ethics. (My much more conventional writings in philosophical ethics.) And if you have, you may know this about me as a philosopher: that I think experience trumps theory almost everywhere. Let me say a little bit about why.

    One of my favourite philosophers is Bernard Williams.[1] At the outset of his writing career, Williams took for his own “a phrase of D.H. Lawrence’s in his splendid commentary on the complacent moral utterances of Benjamin Franklin: ‘Find your deepest impulse, and follow that’” (1972: 93). Thirty years later he added, when looking back over his career, “If there’s one theme in all my work it’s about authenticity and self-expression… It’s the idea that some things are in some real sense really you, or express what you and others aren’t…. The whole thing has been about spelling out the notion of inner necessity.”

    Yes, that; very much that, about me and transgender. “I just want to,” but in capitals. An inner necessity, a need to be authentically and above all openly who I actually am, and to be known as who I am by those around me, and accepted and, yes, loved, even so. That is exactly what it’s all been about.

    However, that doesn’t mean that I have a theory of transgender to offer. I tend to steer away from philosophical theories of anything, at least in those parts of philosophy that aren’t best understood as handmaids of science. But even in science, I think the real truth of things often resists systematisation. (And what is being transgender but resisting systematisation?)

    I am never quite sure what a theory of anything outside strict science is supposed to do. Ever since Plato’s Meno philosophers have been saying, and rightly so of course, that the point of philosophy is to change right belief into knowledge: into a state where you don’t just think true things, but also understand, deeply, why they are true. Fine. But is it obvious that constructing a philosophical theory always helps with this? Can we really not have a deep understanding, and an explanatory understanding, that (for example) murder is at least typically and maybe always wrong, or that love is usually a good thing, or that flowers are generally beautiful, or that paedophilia is profoundly wrong, until we have a philosophical theory’s kind of explanation of why this is so? Why is some set of words, arranged in propositions with inferential relations between them, the sole kind of explanation that we need to understand the goodness of love or the badness of murder? For most ethical cases, that seems to me an oddly inappropriate picture of understanding and explanation. In ethical matters understanding can be verbal and articulate, but quite often it isn’t at all; oftener still, the propositional bit isn’t the only bit—and not the most important bit, either. And likewise for explanation: explanations don’t have to be verbal, and often are better if they’re not. (Think of explaining how to do something—by doing it.)

    Science limns the structure of reality, as Quine says in Word and Object. Sure it does, at least if it’s any good. But so does poetry, if it’s any good. There isn’t just one correct way to grasp the deep structure of things. There are lots, because there are lots of things that we might call “the deep structure of things”. Propositional structures are great for the understanding, but experience matters too, and experience is no less cognitive for being, sometimes, non-discursive and not expressible in propositions. All these general considerations about theorising apply in the particular case of transgender: here too it should be experience first, theory later—if at all. In Nietzsche’s famous words, “the will to system betrays a lack of integrity”.

    In any case, and also with particular reference to transgender: trans people don’t owe cis people, or anyone else, an explanation of why they’re who they are. No more than gay people do, for instance, or black people or Jewish people, or any other historically stigmatised minority. Our right to exist as transgender people is not conditional on our being able to prove it, by demonstrating the truth of something called “gender ideology” (our gender ideology, that is, not the rest of society’s). The onus of proof is not on us transgender people at all. It is on those who want to exclude us. By what right do they discriminate against us? By what right do they demonise us, marginalise us, gaslight us, ridicule us, patronise us, in ways that no one would accept for a minute of any other minority?

    We shouldn’t be refused admission to society until we’ve won some abstract rhetorical cage-fight, or arrived at a philosophical theory of transgender that is “satisfactory” (to whom?). Our right to be ourselves, without apology and without explanation, is simply not up for discussion, any more than anyone else’s. We don’t get kindly admitted to equal status once we have satisfied our critics. Like everyone else, we have equal status from the start.

     

    [1] For more from me on Bernard Williams, see https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/williams-bernard/.