The worst plenary session of all was the first one, and it was very telling that what many view as the most important theological question””what does Scripture say and how should we make sense of it””was the one most badly misjudged. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to describe it as an absolute travesty of process. There were three speakers, one of whom supports the current teaching position of the Church, the other two arguing for change. The first person stayed within the brief, and spoke for seven to eight minutes; the second appeared to ignore the brief and spoke for 17 minutes, without intervention from the chair; the third spoke for 12 minutes. So we were offered 8 minutes on the Church’s current and historic teaching, and 29 minutes on why this was wrong. And the dynamic of putting the ”˜orthodox’ position first meant that, as in all such debates, the advantage is handed to the others. Added to that, the first speaker, whilst eminently qualified in other ways, was not a biblical scholar, whilst the next one advocating change was. There was no voice from a Catholic perspective, engaging with the reception of Scripture within the tradition, and the ”˜orthodox’ view was repeatedly labelled not as the Church’s teaching, but as ”˜conservative’.
Even worse than that was the content of the second and third presentations, and the way the format prevented proper interrogation of the claims made. It was claimed that the givenness of sexual orientation is the settled view of Western culture, when it is contested both within and outside the church, is not supported by social-scientific research, and has been abandoned as a basis of argument in secular LGBT+ debate. It was claimed that all the texts in the NT referring to same-sex activity are in the context of porneia, ”˜bad sex’, which was either commercial or abusive””which is a basic factual error. It was claimed that St Paul ”˜could not have known of stable same-sex relations’ which is not supported by the historical facts. And it was claimed that same-sex relationships were the ”˜eschatological fulfilment of Christian marriage’ since they involved loving commitment without procreation. It was not even acknowledged that many in the chamber would find that a deeply offensive assertion, quite apart from its implausibility. But the format of the presentation precluded proper exploration of these authoritative claims. It felt to me like a serious power play, and I felt I had been subject to an abuse of expert power.
All this was made worse when one of the key organisers, having picked up some negative feedback on this, stood up near the end of the day to tell us (in essence) that if you thought this first session was unbalanced, then you were wrong. It confirmed a basic lack of understanding of the concerns raised by those responsible for the process””concerns not of some extreme group at one end of the spectrum, but concerns of those who simply believe in the Church’s current teaching position.
Read it all (my emphasis).
The conclusion was foregone. The cOC was just trying to belatedly keep up with the times (http://http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/65593/) as the “argumentation” demonstrates.
What an interesting report. Intriguing to see the comments section too.
At this point there seems no substantive difference between the Liberal and Anglo-Catholics. Does Affirming Forwardness exist yet?
The fight for orthodoxy now rests with the evangelicals and I suspect they just don’t have the numbers to win votes in the medium term. As in the reported shared conversations, what the church has taught from Jesus until, well, now, will become one option in a smorgasbord of local options. Then it’ll be derided. Then it’ll be banned.