♦ It came in the context of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s refusal to throw his weight behind the push to OK gay-married clergy in the Church of England. Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Martyn Percy isn’t happy. He makes the usual claim that history has spoken. “A theologically conservative church is not an attractive proposition to the emerging generation.” “A non-inclusive church is an evangelistic dead-duck.”
To which fellow Anglican Ian Paul responds:
The palate of the nation is hardly salivating over the idea of repentance, the kingdom of God, Jesus as the embodiment of the very presence of the Holy One of Israel, the cross as God’s atoning work of reconciling sinful humanity, and the horizon of eschatology as the hope for humanity—so what does “being a broad church” mean in this context? Given that the Church’s differences with society on sexual ethics are tied in to each of these, how can this question be dismissed so casually?
Exactly right. We’re living in a therapeutic age, one that promises salvation by affirmation, not by repentance and new life in Christ. The rejection of traditional sexual ethics is an integral part of this therapeutic promise, as its proponents have always recognized. (Read Wilhelm Reich’s The Sexual Revolution, written in the 1930s.) We don’t need to look further than the first chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans to be reminded that sexual morality (unlike tax policies) is closely tied to our relation to God. Percy’s idea that Christians can gain the evangelizing initiative by downplaying biblical teaching about men, women, sex, children, and marriage is risible.
