The Elephant in the Room (Part 1)

I have written a mammoth 4,000 word blog this week as I am on holiday and have been a bit indulgent. So I have split the blog into two parts for the next couple of weeks. I hope that by chopping it in half, it still makes sense... If I leave questions, I hope perhaps to answer them in part 2. You may not agree with my reasoning perhaps, but I hope it inspires you to think through the responses that Christians make of the society we live and work in.

I have had one of those weeks where I am doing a lot of thinking… We have had the Easter holiday celebration where there has been the usual programme that tries to de-bunk popular or traditional thinking of a biblical character or claim made by Christians over the centuries. In the UK @Melvyn Bragg edited and presented a programme about Mary Magdalene. It didn’t state anything new that wasn’t already out in some popular format, such as @Dan Brown’s ‘De Vinci Code’ but its timing on Good Friday could be questioned. 

The programme attempted to relegate Jesus to a position as an everyday guy... He was half Devine and half man, so was in need of the emotional and physical companionship that we all enjoy today. It seemed to me to be the same type of argument that we heard from the Pharisees and teachers of the law, which they raised on the very first ‘Good Friday.’ Namely that Jesus isn’t the man you think he is.

A secondary argument was that the Church, the Emperor Constantine, (The first Caesar to convert to Christianity and make it the religion of the Roman Empire), and the Papacy, all conspired over time to confuse the character of Mary Magdalene and to degrade her status as a female disciple with an equal ability to instruct and teach about the Gospel of Jesus, and to lead the early church. The assumption being that the church starting from St. Peter didn’t want to include the equality of women in leadership and so, reaffirmed the 12 male disciples – you get the picture.

This all added up to a sense that you couldn’t trust the truth told to us by the church because it had been manipulated by the will of a few controlling interests that wanted to create an identity for what our faith looked like to those looking in. 

In a similar way, I have been challenged recently with the debate around the sanctity of marriage and the new law proposed in the UK around gay marriage. There has been a lot of political debate, providing a platform for all with vested interests in the topic to have their say. Part of the churches answer has been on the whole, balanced, if not really given more than a few lines of sound bite in the news edit. The opposing side have conducted a clever argument that they want equality and fairness. There is a sense that those behind the proposal are not bothered by the churches position on the sanctity of marriage because a) they dont believe in God so do not need to conform to that old fashioned principle; b) those against the motion have homophobic tendancies and have a bigotted view; and c) The church only represent a minority of people when those 'for' the proposal are in the majority. I’ve been trying to reconcile in my mind what position I want to take on the issue, particularly as it is so complicated.

Whenever such a big topic that relates to the organisation of society rises up, there are the usual ‘for-and-against’ arguments, each taking political capital over the point’s they can score off each other. I have to say that often I cringe when I see and hear the ‘Christian’ response to the issues involved as much as I feel frustrated at the lack of detail about the motion being proposed. I also become frustrated with sound bite and ‘spin’ from the media in order to entrench the two sides and confuse any sense of reason. But importantly, the same rhetoric you could hear behind the story line of ‘Who was Mary Magdalene?’ is being played out here also.

The argument goes like this…

1)      You haven’t got all the facts – with our modern understanding, there is new knowledge           
        we can bring to bear here.
2)      ‘I think you are wrong…’ Your traditional understanding has no place today.
3)      We have no need for out-dated rules written for a lifestyle we have outgrown.
4)      The church has no right to tell people how they should behave.
5)      People have a right to what they have been denied in the past and the present.
6)      Some form of prejudice (usually religious) created the inequality in the beginning.
7)      In order to establish equality, we need to address this issue to be inclusive of everyone’s need.

There are many groups who push this style of argument towards a fairer secular society free from religious restrictions. When the issue involves the church, those who speak on behalf of congregations around the land are generally considered by some to be an irrelevant voice for a minority of people who shouldn’t expect to have the same influence on society as they had in the past, due to the reduction in church attendance and our increasingly secular lifestyle.

Those that push to separate religion from the state, hold to a view that man will always seek to attain truth through their own endeavours, and will seek to share their understanding in community with each other. These are called humanistic principles: to pursue reason and truth through scientific endeavour; there is no afterlife, so we should seek to live happy and fulfilling lives, in equality with each other.  The truth that God doesn’t exist brings freedom.

The church rightly or wrongly, is accused of being complicit in a large amount of injustice over the years: war; slavery; greed; poverty; wealth… the list is extensive. It is this type of history that has relegated it’s spokespeople in the eyes of those who no longer attend church, as seemingly irrelevant. In our modern world, the actions of the church in the past provide humanists with the ammunition they seek to abolish the privilege they perceive the church has today (There are 26 Bishops in the House of Lords).



So what is truth? Are Christians viewed as being unable to know truth due to their faith in a supernatural God? Do our bodies contain all of the coding (DNA; Gene; meme; phenotype) to make the correct decisions about the direction of our lives, our communities and our descendants? What of our conscience? Is there an absolute right or wrong?

These are all the questions that I am trying to address when looking at what I should think and feel about the idea of gay marriage. The problem that I have is that my thinking and basis for argument are totally rejected by those who sit in the secular camp. My belief in God in the eyes of some, rules out my reasoning…  To reject the argument for greater equality through gay marriage is to deny people of their enjoyment in life and restrict their happiness – their reason for living.

I also have to say at this point that I have a number of gay friends and know of two local church pastors – one who has sought to reject that lifestyle, and one who has recently married in a civil partnership. Now some would argue that no-one should have to make a choice to reject something that they are… but if you were to talk to him, you would find him to be very secure in his own mind, about the choice he has made.

Marriage as we understand it today was instigated in the bible in Genesis 1:26-27; 2:23. Man was given the task of naming the animals of the garden and experienced the loneliness of existence without companionship. God exists in relationship with his Son and the Spirit. Together they created the world that we understand through the joy of their bond to each other… they wanted to express this bond in the most glorious way possible – new life. Gods understanding of family and kinship recognised the need that Adam had for a companion; Adam had experienced loneliness and was thrilled to be given a helper to share in the work they were to do (Genesis 2:18). Without Eve, man could not fulfil his destiny to create new life and continue the work of creation.

In the purity of this creation story we find men and women to be viewed equally by God… therefore they have equality with each other. At the ‘fall’, where man rebelled against God, this equality was immediately broken as both Adam and Eve began to argue (Genesis 3: 11-13). God actually states when they are sent into the world to build a civilisation, that men and women were destined to be in a state of disagreement! (Genesis 3:16).

So there are two threads I could take from this Genesis story… The first being that a man should leave his father and mother to be united with his wife and that in this bond, no other man should seek to separate it (traditional view). From this beginning we have the institution of marriage between a man and woman so that they can begin their own family.



Now for the controversial bit… As a sinful generation who seek out our desire and personal happiness from that which pleases us, is it feasible that a man could view a relationship with another man with the same emotion and conviction of heart as that between a man and a woman? Is it for us to judge the depth of that bond between same sex couples or the validity of their argument, particularly if they do not profess to know God? Didn’t we just read that God recognises that on our own, we are not complete, and that we need companionship? Can we force God’s values onto a secular society, or indeed an ideal that was conceived before the fall of man?

Now before you cry heresy, we read many times in scripture of the need to restrain from all forms of sexual immorality… I am not suggesting any more at this point, just making an observation. Paul is quite clear on how we should deal with our sexuality. In 1 Corinthians 6: 9, Paul tells the early Corinthian church about how ‘they’ – the church, should be conducting their business in public… He puts all of the sin he has heard the Corinthians were involved in, into one big pot: sexual sin; worship of idols; adultery; male prostitution; homosexuality; greedy people; drunkards; abusers; thieves and cheats!

Wow – what a list of stuff he found happening in Corinth at that time! Paul encourages those who call Jesus ‘Lord’, to put aside all things that hinder our faith in God. We are reminded of our witness to others of the grace of God at work in our lives.  In 1 Corinthians 6: 12, Paul observes that just because something is allowed, doesn’t mean it is good for us. This is why in the Christian tradition; we have been guarded around the idea of homosexuality.



Paul says that sexual sin of all kinds (adultery, fornication, and homosexuality) is particularly singled out to Christians because it is something we do to our own bodies… Our bodies and lives have been bought at a high price through the death of Jesus – we need to honour that gift with our lifestyle.


So this is the end of part 1. I have only raised questions at this point with some food for thought. To finish this particular section I have tried to set out the battle going on. The first is about people… Do we value those in same sex relationships, loving our neighbour as ourselves… being able to respond to their needs and any emotional costs that we and they make? The second is about how we accommodate the lifestyle choice they have made against what we know of the word of God? The third is the increasing secularisation of society and the argument being made behind the proposal. Those with an interest in furthering humanism in society want the church to trip itself up in its own values. In doing so, the church as a force for good in society, is further marginalised as we look increasingly isolated by our description of God that has been rejected by some.

So we become salt and light… no longer hidden within the mechanism of the church and state, but exposed and having to answer the questions that have always been asked, but we have been inconsistent in answering