Over the past few weeks I have taken part in a LLF course run by the Church of England Evangelical Council for the benefit of its members. What follows are my own personal reflections, and should not be taken as representative of the organisation as the whole.
Positively, I appreciated the huge amount of time, prayer, study and input that went into the LLF process. Whatever one’s opinion of the course, the effort needs to be recognised and valued. I also appreciated the attempt to include as many different perspectives as possible, and the presentation was clear and professional. Simply dismissing the work put in is not only ungracious, but fails to appreciate the honest seeking for a way forward in what is a very difficult and painful issue for all sides.
Having said this, I do have some concerns. First of all, the material is by nature complex and the sheer volume of information can appear overwhelming. To simply offer the course to congregations and invite them to make up their own minds will, I believe, simply confuse many, and although the purpose of LLF is to unite the church, I fear the result may only be to divide those who hold opposing points of view. I speak from the experience of a previously large church of another denomination in the same city who attempted a very similar kind of process. The result was a very painful split, the results of which are still being felt several years later.
Secondly, I would wish to question the order of the material – not for any particular theological reason, but simply because the current structure runs the risk of only exacerbating confusion. Session 2 took us straight into the issue of identity which is probably the most contentious and difficult issue of all. It seemed to me that it would be better to start with the general question of how Christians approach disagreement in general (session 5), and I am reminded here of someone who introduced the LLF course by inviting discussion about vegetarianism. Then I would proceed to look at the Biblical teaching about sex (session 4) and then move on to friendship and relationships (session 3), and finally consider the issue of identity (session 2). In this way there could be a gradual movement towards the harder case studies, and those participating would be in a better position to evaluate the material, as they built up their understanding of the issues in question.
Thirdly, because LLF seeks to be comprehensive, it touched on many different issues to do with sexuality, marriage, gender and identity. However because the focus was so much on LGTBI+ I felt there was little real discussion of issues raised such as sex outside of marriage or divorce. I can easily imagine that these would be live issues for many of those watching, and yet there was little or no space to discuss these important issues. The result, intentionally or otherwise, was to skew the whole debate around one or two particular issues, and while these are real and important, it did leave the impression these were far more important than any other. This raises the question of who is driving the agenda, and why they are allowed to do so.
Fourthly, the actual structure of each session seemed to accentuate this particular skew. To be fair, the authority of the Bible was referenced several times, and each session did invite an engagement with Biblical material. But this engagement took place after we had watched two stories, as if the stories themselves were primary. So we read through John 17 after watching a couple where one party had transitioned, or we read 1 Cor 6:12-20 (but not vv.9-11!) after watching a same-sex couple talking about their experience of belonging to a church. Surely we are called within the Anglican tradition to evaluate stories in light of Scripture, and not the other way round. I would also question how some of the Scriptures were used. In session 2 we were called to engage creatively with Genesis 1:27, before in session 3 we saw how Jesus used the very same Scripture in Matthew 19 – I would have thought Jesus’ evaluation of the text would be the priority.
Fifthly, although there were references to individual Bible passages, there could have been more emphasis on the actual Biblical metanarrative. The Bible starts with a triune God who makes male and female in His own image, and ends with the church being presented as a bride to Christ. There is a powerful story running all the way through of the male/female differentiation reflecting the relationship between the Lord and His people, and while we might argue about individual passages, this metanarrative seems to be a compelling reason to take seriously the existing teaching about sexuality and marriage.
Sixthly, the whole LLF material is by and large inward looking. It addresses primarily a UK context and as others have noted, generally does not touch on how this material might be received in other cultures. But there is a more pressing missiological point as well. Certainly in the context where I minister anything the church says on these difficult issues is irrelevant. In general terms, marriage is something you save up for, usually after you have had children, and there is no concept God might have anything to say at all on the subject of relationships or sex.
In a sense this sixth point reflects the failure of the church over many generations to teach or communicate clearly on the issue, and this takes us, of course, back to the purpose of LLF. My fear is that however we engage with the material, we are simply trying to catch up too much on lost time and the world is no longer interested in our internal debates. We have a younger generation who live on social media – not well represented in the course material – and I am not sure the LLF material will speak to them at all. I am, however, happy to be proved wrong, and will continue to participate in these discussions, even as I pray for the Holy Spirit to renew and revive the church for such a time as this.
The Covenant Renewal Blog 