Capitulating to Secular Values?

A letter, sent to the Telegraph, and signed by a number of leading conservatives, not all of whom are Anglican, bemoans the fact that there are now two forms of Anglicanism in England. One of these has capitulated to secular values, particularly in respect of attitudes to homosexuality. The other, describing themselves as faithful orthodox Anglicans, are those who continue to hold the faith ‘once delivered to the saints’. At the same time there is a group of people (some Anglicans and others no longer in the Anglican Church) who are meeting to plan a faithful ecclesial future.

The phrase, ‘once delivered to the saints’, is a favourite of those who take the view that the gospel message cannot be changed. My problem with the use of this phrase is that it can be used against any change. What was once delivered to the saints? It seems to me that that is the fact that Jesus died on a cross, that he rose to new life on the third day and these events are linked to a new age in which the Spirit is being poured out on the world in a way that is transformational. Yet within the pages of the New Testament there is already change, as for example the obvious debate as to whether this is a message only for the Jews, or whether Gentiles too are included in God’s saving plan. It took a century or two before what is ‘orthodox’, in terms of Christian doctrine, was hammered out in the form of the creeds. Oddly, the creeds make no mention of human sexuality.

For me, as an orthodox, bible-believing Christian, the faith once delivered to the saints is totally focussed on the person of Christ. I do not primarily seek to defend any doctrine of the atoning sacrifice of the cross, nor of the historic truth of the resurrection. Rather I am compelled to share my joy at the transforming power of the love of God, mediated to me through the dying Christ, and the reality of the risen Christ in my life. I might read the account of Pentecost but, rather than engaging in an exegesis on these texts, they form a framework for my faith which has led me to a place in which Pentecost is certainly a vital chapter in the history of our faith but, far more importantly, it is my own experience of my life being set ablaze by the power of the Holy Spirit. This radically changed my life. It changed my own-self-awareness. It changed my relationship with every person I meet and indeed with the whole of creation. It changed me so much that one of my relatives said she could no longer recognise me as the same person. That is what it means to be born again. And that transforming, renewing love is what I have preached for this past 40 years. It is the Gospel once delivered to the saints. It is first order stuff. It is the heart of what it means to be a Christian.

So I despair at the sight of fellow Christians seeking to set up alternative structures within the Anglican Church, which take as their core value what people do with their genitals. It appears that they do not like secular values, especially when it comes to questions about human sexuality. And it seems that it is this that has become for them the issue which defines true Christian faith. I have to disagree. It is the transforming reality of Christ, who set my life on fire with the flame of the Holy Spirit, that both defines my life and binds me into one fellowship with every other Spirit-filled person I meet. In fact that fellowship is not so exclusive, for the vision of a world that is drawn into the Kingdom of heaven is what makes me so passionate about mission.

I wonder whether modern views of human sexuality, which accept committed, covenanted relationships between people of the same gender, are quite as secular as is made out. In 2012 I toured some of the Scandinavian Churches of the Lutheran tradition, with whom we are bound through the Porvoo agreement. In several of these countries the church marries people of the same sex. It helps that they do not accept that one can speak of a ‘doctrine of marriage’. For them the core doctrines of the Gospel do not include anything about marriage. But in Sweden, when the debate was running as to whether or not the church should embrace same-sex marriage, the Archbishop made a speech in which she said that the Church should be thankful that Gospel values had finally impacted on secular values and helped to change them. For centuries, she said, we have been preaching that in Christ there is no Greek or Gentile, no slave or free, and finally the secular state has listened and made marriage inclusive.

There is perhaps a warning here that whatever it is that we hold dear is not necessarily THE Christian point of view. Other Christians think differently. Do we really believe that we are preaching the Gospel, if we divide over issues of human sexuality? Are we not making an idol out of this issue, in that we are allowing this, and not Christ, to define and shape our lives?