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Tag: sex

  • 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.

     

  • When Will the Bishops Think Properly About Same-Sex Marriage?

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

    Amongst the papers presented to this February’s General Synod by the Bishop of Europe on the 13th February are two which include significant amounts of theological reflection on the Church’s understanding of marriage, presented as contributions to the ongoing work of Living in Love & Faith. The first is contained in the long GSMisc1406 paper on many different doctrinal aspects, including an exhaustive summary of many different texts and documents on marriage; unsurprisingly, these show a certain harmony as they are related to one another, and there is limited acknowledgement of the changing social context of marriage to which they applied, or the way in which the mid-20th century texts emerge from a situation of impassioned but ultimately unsuccessful resistance to the acceptance of divorce and remarriage. More concerning, however, is the shorter GSMisc1407 from the seven members of the Episcopal Reference Group, as this is presented as their provisional advice to the House of Bishops and Synod on the doctrinal questions.

    GSMisc1407 is formed of a presentation of ‘Nine Theses’ about the nature of marriage which are asserted to have been held consistently through Anglican history, followed by reflections on areas where specific theses have shifted or been viewed differently over time. It then concludes with a reflection that the ‘envelope’ of marriage has been seen as more or less expansive, and so inviting the bishops to consider whether the envelope is large enough to include same-sex couples, or whether some particular decision could make it so. Naturally, all of us, bishops or not, are likely to line up fairly predictably on either side of whether or not the envelope is, or should be, large enough, or whether that is not possible.

    I wish to respond rather more precisely to one area of the Nine Theses (though there are others which might well be questioned). This is the assertion about the nature of marriage as seen by the Church and in law which appear under Thesis 2: Marriage is God’s gift in creation (pp.6-8). I will leave Adam & Eve to others – my concern is with the claim of the unity of marriage whether contracted in church or civilly – and the way in which this appears to be either a careless or wilful sidestepping of the questions raised on p.7 of GS2289 (the original LLF paper tabled at Synod in February 2023). The starting point is the assumption, which as far as I am aware no-one is challenging, that opposite-sex couples who are legally married are regarded by the Church as married, whether or not that marriage was contracted in a church or civil setting.

    However, the ERG move on to the question of whether or not this fact was changed by the introduction of same-sex marriage in 2014, to which they respond “it did not, however, change the wording or meaning of the civil rite as used by any given man and woman.” There is no reference provided for this assertion. There cannot be, because it is false. The reality in the law of England (though not the Canons of the Church of England, to be sure) is that the meaning of all marriages, including those contracted in churches, was changed by the 2013 Act. Every opposite-sex couple now marrying in England (or indeed the many other states that recognise same-sex marriage) is entering the same legally married state as all the same-sex couples married there. That civil status has various legal consequences, but the most important for the purposes of doctrine is that it is exclusive – being married to someone of the same sex is just as much an impediment to a further marriage (to someone of either sex) as opposite-sex marriage. As far as I am aware, no-one is claiming that the non-recognition of same-sex marriage by the Church allows same-sex spouses to freely commit bigamy by a church wedding to someone of the opposite sex.

    For some opposite-sex couples, of course, they may not feel this to be so – they may believe (whether out of Christian conviction or otherwise) that marriage is only possible between a man and a woman. But they do not make same-sex couples any less legally married. The situation is closely analogous to those committed to the absolute indissolubility of marriage who do not recognise those married after divorce as truly married – a legitimate viewpoint that makes no difference to the real status of those marriages. However, many couples, including practising members of the Church of England marrying in church, recognise with rejoicing that marriage is now open to same-sex couples, whom they are pleased to regard as equal with them in marriage. That the ERG have dismissed their legally correct understanding with a baseless assertion seems rather more ‘pastorally damaging’ than a distinction between civil and church marriage that no-one has been attempting to make.

    The real problem is that both the theological papers have deliberately set out to answer the wrong question, and so produced an answer that is not helping in the present context. By setting out to survey the history of official Church texts and documents on marriage, they have predictably enough delivered a synthesis of a reasonably coherent tradition, with at least some recognition of change over time. The question that needs to be asked, however, is what the Church believes theologically about same-sex marriage. This is not an abstract question about a hypothetical future, as the reports seem to muse. It is a live and urgent question about the thousands of same-sex married people in England now, including faithful church members, members of General Synod, prospective ordinands, clergy both serving and now excluded from ministry, and even the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Appointments Secretary. And it seems very possible that, following a consultation just begun, the Church in Wales may wish to commence same-sex marriages (a possibility provided for in the 2013 Act) and these may need banns to be called in England if couples live there, making it a very live issue indeed.

    It seems to me there are three possible responses that might be considered at the present time, and this at least gives me a chance to return to a more Anglican approach by commending the middle way:

    1. Same-sex marriage is equal in every way to marriage (the secular legal position) and so should be regarded as theologically true also, with same-sex marriages regarded as holy (sacramental, if that is your language) even if contracted civilly. Though I recognise that this will be the personal view of some same-sex spouses in the Church of England, and is the position for which Together in the Church of England would argue in the long term, it seems clear to me that given the present form of the Marriage service and the text of Canon B.30, it is not the current position of the Church of England.
    2. Same-sex marriage is an aberration, because the use of the word ‘marriage’ and the surrounding cultural assumptions make it clear that it exists to formalise same-sex sexual relationships, which are contrary to the teaching of Scripture. The logical response is to systematically warn such couples of their sin, and seek to exclude them from all positions of responsibility. Some in the Church articulate this view clearly, but the Bishops’ Pastoral Guidance of 2014 provided that same-sex married couples should be welcomed, a welcome now more clearly manifested by the authorisation of the Prayers of Love & Faith as a means to celebrate the love of same-sex couples.
    3. The Church does not recognise same-sex marriage as Holy Matrimony (as defined in Canon B.30) but does regard it as a good thing, and following the guidance on the PLF, takes no specific position on sexual activity in such marriages (noting that by definition it will not be the ‘sexual intercourse’ of a man and a woman traditionally recognised as the consummation of an opposite-sex marriage). This follows the distinction suggested in GS2289, though not fully explored there (and against the argument of GSMisc1407) to offer a possible way to accept and celebrate those in same-sex marriages, including clergy, whilst the discussion on theology of same-sex relationships continues.

     

     

  • The Luxury of Marriage

    by Helen King, lay member of General Synod for Oxford Diocese and Editor of Via Media 

    That Southwark Diocese invitation to couples with ‘healthy’ marriages to come away to a luxurious hotel for a weekend to strengthen their marriage further… It’s been doing the rounds on social media and attracting a range of comments, from outrage at ‘healthy’ to surprise at the gap between ‘luxurious’ and the values of the gospel, to suggestions that the ad makes it sound like a swingers’ weekend, to questions about the weird typo where the hotel is described as ‘near’ without saying ‘where’. Since I wrote this blog post this morning, Anna and the Comms team from the Diocese have generously responded to the various complaints (including the typo) saying on X/Twitter “We recognise that some of the language used was clumsy and unhelpful.” All credit there.

    Full disclosure: I write this as someone who took the Marriage Course in 2004 and who has subsequently co-led it. I think it’s a very good course (OK, there are some cringeworthy moments, but they’re the exceptions) and my husband and I both found it very useful in different ways. When he saw the Southwark invitation and its typo, he did wonder whether the omission of the venue was to stop those of us who’ve done the Marriage Course showing up in the hotel bar and staging a really high quality argument in the style of Session 2 ‘Resolving Conflict’.

    Now, I’m not in one, but I entirely understand that clergy marriages are particularly challenged. I don’t know if that’s worse, or better, or just different in the situation where both partners are clergy, but maybe the modified four sections of the Marriage Course are adjusted according to that further potential dynamic. It is interesting, though, that the Southwark version is led by two couples where the man is the clergyperson. I wonder whether the national version also allows couples where both are clergy, or where the woman is the clergyperson, to be leaders?

    When we ran the marriage course, it was explicit in the course materials that this was for ‘couples’; whether or not they were married was not an issue. That is still stated here: “The Marriage Course is for couples who are married or have been living together for more than two years”. However, other websites put it differently. HTB’s site has “designed to help married couples invest in their relationship and build a strong marriage” (online course and in person). Has this been tightened up since we took the course?

    Time for an even fuller disclosure: we weren’t married when we took the Marriage Course. The Pre-Marriage Course wasn’t available locally so we asked the local independent church (offshoot of a Baptist church) if it would be OK to join and they couldn’t see why not. After all, my husband has been married before, just not to me… and it was my idea to do it, since marrying for the first time in one’s late 40s is quite a step to take. And Session 6 is on ‘Good Sex’. Well, there we are. If you aren’t doing the practicals, you can at least get up to speed on the theory elements.

    And the issue of sex brings me to the most disturbing point. When we ran the Marriage Course here, there weren’t any lesbian or gay couples in our church who wanted to take part. Had there been, we would have welcomed them. But the helpers, who served and cleared up the meal, by chance included lesbian and gay people, and they could watch the videos on the big screen. They didn’t raise any objections, and they said they found it all very helpful,

    But, as usual in the current state of the Church of England with its claims for a “radical new Christian inclusion” which don’t play out on the ground, there’s a significant group of people who are excluded from the Southwark Diocese weekend: clergy in same-sex civil partnerships or marriages. Clergy same-sex marriage is of course currently deemed Not OK, and those clergy who have entered such marriages are told they won’t be licensed to minister once they leave their current job. This has already deprived the church of people in good and faithful (and ‘healthy’?) relationships, who are good priests. But those in CPs are, of course, at least officially, supposed to be fine, because there’s no sex in CPs – at least, not according to the Church of England. So maybe it wouldn’t be a smart move to offer people in CPs the Marriage Course ‘Good Sex’ session. But that’s only one of the seven sessions, and the Southwark Diocese weekend is just doing four out of seven.

    So, would a clergyperson in a (perfectly valid) same-sex civil partnership be allowed to attend the Southwark ‘luxurious’ weekend where their ‘healthy’ relationship could be strengthened further?

    Apparently not. This suggests that the word ‘healthy’ is doing two different jobs: it’s making the point that, if your marriage is in difficulty, you should be looking for help from someone who specialises in this situation rather than rocking up to the luxurious hotel, but it also seems to be carrying the suggestion that only straight relationships can be ‘healthy’.

    When the exclusion of same-sex couples was stated on  X/Twitter, my fellow Synod member Benjamin John commented “But clergy can’t enter same sex marriages”? I asked him whether he would support those who enter same sex CPs having “events like this to help strengthen the relationships of such clergy?”

    He replied, “No”.

    Well, there you have it. Lesbian and gay and same-sex attracted clergy, the Church of England fully and explicitly recognises your civil partnerships, entered into according to the law of the land but also in faith and hope and commitment, but you can’t attend a weekend to help keep your relationship strong – and at least one member of Synod wouldn’t support anything that was of benefit to your relationship.

     

     

     

  • All About Power: General Synod and the LLF Debate

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, and Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington

    The General Synod of the Church of England is a strange beast, and this week was no exception. Most of us don’t pay an enormous amount of attention to it most of the time, but this week felt different. This week, our lives and loves were up for debate – once again. And whilst the outcome was – to my mind – a positive, albeit small, step for LGBTQIA+ people in the life of the church, the debate gave us an insight into far more than that.

    In 2017, the bishops were asked to bring something back to Synod that might prove acceptable to the majority, and that might model a better approach to same sex relationships. In many ways, they have done precisely what they were asked to do – their offering ‘passed’. Yet one thing that they – corporately, although there are individual shining examples – cannot be accused of is being courageous. It is absolutely true that the numbers from this synod – a body that is entirely unrepresentative of the wider church, most particularly given the ludicrous method of electing lay representatives – suggest that equal marriage would not have secured the required 2/3 majority in all three houses, a stipulation that Parliament must surely look to change in the coming years. Yet a refusal to even debate it, whatever the result of the vote on the prayers – a refusal backed by the House of Bishops – is frankly pathetic.

    For at the heart of the debate in the chamber, and the endless faux outrage outside, was the outworking of power, and a refusal to dare to let go of it. For years, a relatively small, yet vocal and uncompromising minority have spent their time holding us all to ransom. The motion in front of Synod was one that offered a compromise, that enabled people to hold different views and follow their consciences. It is fascinating – in that light – that the majority wasn’t any larger. The reality is that many people who oppose same sex marriage don’t just oppose it – they oppose anyone being permitted to disagree with their point of view, their theological or Biblical interpretation. This is all about power.

    We saw this in the scandalous employment of endless delay tactics at Synod, whether by appeals to process or the crass disingenuity of some of the amendments tabled. Up popped the same group of people, time and again, to try to bring down any possibility of change and to try to kick this into yet longer grass. Synod, on the whole, saw through this, but it cast a shadow on proceedings in quite a significant way. ‘Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one,’ as we hear in St Matthew’s Gospel. There is no moral get-out on truthfulness – we cannot simply ignore the need to be honest in the small things in order to serve The Truth™. That is not how Christianity works, and I hope those who stood up in an attempt to subvert Synod might reflect a little on how that looked from the outside. The intervention by the Second Estates Commissioner, Andrew Selous MP, was also somewhat unusual – shall we say – in suggesting that the real victims were the conservative MPs who felt unable to speak out in public. This argument is tired and false victimisation is not a good look. Finding it difficult to express a view is not the hard bit; having your entire lives discussed by other people as a matter of abstract debate just might be. Giving up power, too, is hard.

    Many have said that the Church of England is obsessed with sex. I might modify that a little bit – from the outside, the Church of England’s General Synod seems to be obsessed with other people’s sex lives. It was embarrassing to watch, and at times quite infuriating, most particularly when hearing the spurious nonsense that suggested gay people having sex would ruin opposite sex marriages. Sorry, folks, but you’ve ruined marriage quite enough by yourselves – it ain’t us who have increased the divorce rate – and are your relationships really that fragile?! Someone even stood up to say their entire engagement would be rendered a waste of time if gay people were allowed to have sex. Give me strength.

    Of course, this was all because the bishops were remaining silent on sex outside of marriage, and several speakers told Synod that this was an outrage. Well, might I remind those members of Synod who appeared terribly upset about that, that they are the very people who have stopped us even having the conversation about Equal Marriage. You cannot complain that the bishops have to find some kind of pastoral accommodation outside of marriage when you won’t allow the conversation on marriage. But then, they know this already. As I say, it’s all about power.

    There were some key takeaways from the debate. The first was that this Synod, to a large degree, found good in same-sex relationships – for the first time. At last we can face down the usual claptrap about how same-sex relationships, with or without ‘sexual activity’ (whatever that is), are bad in the ‘settled mind’ of the church. They aren’t. It’s over. Issues is gone (or at least soon will be).

    Secondly, the amendment that passed was a total waste of everyone’s time and effort. In effect, it did absolutely nothing – it endorsed the decision of the bishops not to bring same-sex marriage to the chamber on this occasion (unsurprising, albeit absurd), and endorsed their intention (a strange turn of phrase) that the prayers shouldn’t be ‘contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England’. Given that the bishops made that explicit in their accompanying paperwork and given that this is required anyway under canon law, this amendment is totally pointless. Neither did it restate the current position on marriage (and amendments seeking to do this comprehensively failed), nor does it bind any later synod. I suppose the phrase commonly used is ‘virtue signalling’.

    Thirdly, those who oppose same-sex relationships should be careful what they try to amend for. Whilst it might have been a great play at delaying tactics – winsome even – it rather takes the wind out the sails when Synod votes down the wrecking amendments. The final amendment, seeking once more to police the bedroom, was particularly nasty, and there was a delicious pleasure in watching it sink beneath the waves. Synod did not agree with the proposer that the prayers ‘should not be used so as to indicate or imply affirmation of sexually active relationships outside of Holy Matrimony or to invoke God’s blessing on such relationships’. That’s rather unfortunate for those seeking to make the new Pastoral Guidance another prurient, sex obsessed, holes-ridden, tool of oppression.

    So here we are. We can finally, as a church, catch up with God in blessing same-sex relationships. We can finally recognise the role of conscience in debates in which different perspectives have been reached with integrity and with due attention to scripture. And we can finally see the light coming through the ever-so-slightly open door to Equal Marriage.

    This is the beginning and not the end. This Synod, as divisive and tiresome as some of the debate was, has done what no Synod previously has ever been able or willing to do.

    The next step is Equal Marriage, because try as you might, you cannot hold back the justice of God.

  • The Church and the Body: Becoming a Safe Space to Talk about Dating and Sex

    by Andrew Godsall, who was ordained in 1988 and has held various posts in London and Exeter Dioceses. From 2010 to 2017 he was a member of General Synod. He spent the early part of his career with BBC Radio, including as a Producer of Religious Programmes, and it was there that he encountered Monica Furlong. 

     

    The late Monica Furlong – writer and astute observer of all things religious, but especially the Church of England – wrote a wonderful little paperback in 1975 called Christian Uncertainties. Writing about sex she notes: ‘That sex can be healing and joyful (sometimes outside marriage as well as in it), that it can lead to personal growth, that it is a way of knowing God, above all that it is Good, still takes a certain nerve to say in Christian circles’. Has much changed since 1975?

    Whilst it has been possible for many years to meet a potential mate through the personal columns of various newspapers, online dating apps have proliferated that possibility of coupling. Local churches have long been a way for single Christians to meet others and so naturally even Christian dating sites have become a thing. Why do people ‘date’? I want to explore four reasons, though I’m sure there are others that make up the fullness of our desires to ‘couple’.

    Firstly, as a means of intimate companionship. By that I mean a companionship that is different from work colleagues, or friends, or members of a club of some sort. Intimacy is not simply about sex but rather about making a deeply personal connection with another person. It’s a remedy for loneliness, although that can make it sound rather sad. The second chapter of Genesis expresses it like this: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a partner as his helper.’ Whilst Genesis goes on to describe the particulars of the first man’s partner, the general and more inclusive principle is located in the need not to be alone. We seem to have an innate need to couple up.

    Secondly then, in daring to date another and so overcome that sense of being alone, we discover who we really are ourselves. We might find our worth in work. We might find our ability to be part of a team at the club. But we find our intimate selves with a partner as our helper. Too often that phrase from Genesis has been taken to imply that the ‘helper’ is somehow an assistant; the secondary to the primary who is the man. Yet our understanding by the practice of companionship is that help is a truly mutual process. The helper is more truly a partner. Both those who prefer a partner of the same sex, and those who prefer one of the opposite sex, will find that this partner becomes a co-equal helper. The fact that Eve is described as the first helper doesn’t detract from the principle. The blueprint is for partnership, and not subordination. With a partner, as part of a couple, we discover who we truly can be.

    Thirdly we have a need to be desired. In the animal kingdom, birds will often display extreme beauty as a way of attracting a mate. Think of the peacock. It is natural to need to be desired. Even those of us who are shy and reticent about our attractive qualities will want the affirmation that goes along with being desired. Jessica Martin’s wonderful book Holiness and Desire: What makes us who we are? explores some of the theology of desire. She notes that ‘behind all the desires for connection is the desire to be fully known’. That of course echoes the transcendent beauty of St Paul’s assurance to the Corinthians that even though we know only in part, a time will come when ‘I will know fully, even as I have been fully known’. To be desired by someone, especially when we are stripped naked and are particularly vulnerable, gives us some fleeting assurance that our journey of courtship, our coupling, is an echo of a movement towards God. In being more fully known by a partner, we sense what it could be like to be fully known by God. We don’t call sex ‘making love’ for reasons of politeness. In making love we have the potential for transcending the ordinary. As Jessica Martin puts it, ‘desire is our bridge out of the rule of time’. When someone desires us, we glimpse something of the eternal.

    Fourthly, in dating we find the need to express the intimacy of partnership in physical contact. ‘Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh’ is ultimately expressed when bones and flesh are coupled in mutual sexual expression. I don’t know about all the ‘rules’ that Christian dating sites might want to enforce, or at least recommend, about online dating, but I am certain that some would insist that sexual expression is not permitted outside of marriage. Indeed, the C of E officially continues to take that line.

    Monica Furlong was prophetic. ‘That sex can be healing and joyful (sometimes outside marriage as well as in it), that it can lead to personal growth, that it is a way of knowing God, above all that it is Good, still takes a certain nerve to say in Christian circles.’ I am not persuaded that the Bible proscribes a sexual relationship in dating prior to marriage. Marriage was in any case a very different relationship, arranged by families rather than by the couple, and dating in our sense did not exist. I am aware that custom and tradition would make it risky and could cause a couple to be ostracised. That was still true relatively recently, until reliable contraception made sexual intercourse the ultimate intimate expression free from the outcome of childbirth. I am also fully aware that while dating, many people find creative ways other intercourse to satisfy each other sexually, ways which have always been available to the unmarried as well as to the married.

    Custom and tradition have so changed in the last two generations that a guide to intimacy in dating needs to be reclaimed by Christians. I don’t believe that can, or should, be done by forbidding sexual intimacy. I believe it should be done by having the courage to be honest about the healing, and joy, and personal growth and goodness that sexual expression, including before marriage, can lead towards. It can lead towards God. This means that the Church needs to own the myriad of sexual expressions that are viable agents of help for the individual and the couple who are daring to date. It is not good for people to be alone. Especially perhaps because, when it comes to sex, people start alone.

    The Church needs to be a place where people can find the key to not being alone, even if it isn’t necessarily the place where people will find a date. So the Church needs to be a safe space to talk about sex. This is far better in Church than in the playground or online. Just as many parents conclude that they would prefer their children to be having sex safely under their roof rather than in more degrading circumstances, so the Church could offer hospitality for more honest and open conversations about sex and sexuality if it isn’t to face further rejection. Dating and sex are too good and too important to leave to secular society alone.