Introduction
On 2 March I published on my blog an initial response to Professor Helen King’s PMM:
‘That this Synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.’
Now the motion has been scheduled for debate in General Synod in July, I offer this more detailed piece, based on chapter 6 of my book Glorify God in your Body which was commended by CEEC as a resource for the LLF project,[1] as a further explanation of why I believe that faithful Christians cannot vote for this motion as it stands.
1. Everyone is doing it
Everyone is having sex with everyone else, inside and outside of marriage, almost all of the time – or so it would appear from the media today. The notion of abstaining from sexual activity is not on our society’s radar. Relationship education in schools assumes that all young people will be sexually active and that what they need is protection from any psychological or physical harm that may result. When celibacy is mentioned, it is almost always viewed negatively. As Ed Shaw observes,
‘The basic premise of Hollywood comedies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and 40 Days and 40 Nights demonstrates this – this first chronicles a man’s increasingly desperate attempts to have sex for the first time; in the second another younger man struggles to last just forty days and nights without it. In the world around us, celibacy is a bad thing, to be avoided at all costs.’[2]
What is more, the Church often colludes with the culture. Although many churches take a traditional Christian view of sexual ethics and still teach that people should abstain from sex outside marriage, neither they, nor other more liberal churches, tend to teach that people might choose to abstain altogether and follow the path of singleness instead. As Shaw has found, ‘When tackled, singleness is usually spoken of as a temporary problem happily solved by marriage. You’re taught how to survive until your wedding day – not how to thrive as a single person until your dying day. Again, celibacy is a bad thing to be avoided at almost any cost.’[3]
Today’s approach is similar to the cultural attitudes surrounding the Early Church. Contrary to the late Philp Larkin in his poem Annus Mirabilis, sexual intercourse did not begin in 1963.[4]
In the first century world into which Christianity was born, singleness and sexual abstinence were unusual and generally disapproved of.
Within Jewish culture it was extremely rare.[5] The almost universal pattern was that when a Jewish man or woman reached marriageable age, they would enter a marriage arranged for them. They would then have sex, both because sexual intercourse was seen as a blessing from God and to have children to fulfil God’s command in Genesis 1:28 to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ and God’s promise to Abraham of descendants innumerable as the stars in heaven (Genesis 15:5).
Likewise, within Greco-Roman culture, sex and marriage rather than sexual abstinence were the norm. Men were expected to marry and have sex with their bride on order to father legitimate heirs, but they were also expected to prove their virility and pursue sexual pleasure by having sex with multiple partners (both male and female) outside marriage. Respectable women, by contrast, were expected to marry and to have sex, but only within marriage, and only to provide their husbands with legitimate heirs.[6] Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence of married women having extra marital sex and of the existence of what we would call lesbianism.[7]
The unwanted by-products of sexual activity were dealt with by means of abortion and infant exposure.
Things were different amongst Christians. The Early Church challenged the contemporary pagan culture by insisting on the same standard of sexual ethics for both men and woman. The first Christians believed, based on the teaching of Genesis 1 and 2, that marriage was to be between one man and one woman, that marriage was the only legitimate setting for sexual activity and that a single standard of sexual fidelity was required of both men and women.
That is why men are told to ‘abstain from unchastity’ (1 Thessalonians 4:4), why Paul forbids man having sex with prostitutes (1 Corinthians 6:12-20) why a bishop has to be a ‘one woman man’ (1 Timothy 5:9) just as good wives were expected to be ‘a one man woman’ (1 Timothy 5:9).To quote Larry Hurtado:
‘The decisive step taken early Christian sexual teaching was to bring males under the same sort of behavioural requirements that in the larger cultural setting were expected of ‘honourable’ women. In the matter of marital fidelity in chastity, it seems that for early Christians what was good for the goose was also thought good for the gander!’[8]
In addition, the early Christians universally rejected abortion and infant exposure.
In the words of the second century Epistle to Diognetus, ‘They [Christians] marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food but not their wives.’[9]
Thus, far early Christianity was in line with Jewish tradition. However, it departed from the Jewish tradition by also holding that intentional singleness (known then as ‘virginity’), and the celibacy that went with it, was not only acceptable but, in fact, a more excellent form of Christian discipleship than being married.
Thus, Cyprian of Carthage warned every Christian to glorify God in their bodies by observing a strict sexual discipline in his treatise On the dress of Virgins (c.248 AD). His reason, citing Paul, was that the body is God’s temple (1 Corinthians 6:19):
‘Let us glorify and bear God in a pure and chaste body, and with a more complete obedience; and since we have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, let us obey and give furtherance to the empire of our Redeemer by all the obedience of service, that nothing impure or profane may be brought into the temple of God, lest He should be offended and forsake the temple which He inhabits.’[10]
He then praises intentionally single virgins:
‘This is the flower of the ecclesiastical seed, the grace and ornament of spiritual endowment, a joyous disposition, the wholesome and uncorrupted work of praise and honour, God’s image answering to the holiness of the Lord, the more illustrious portion of Christ’s flock. The glorious fruitfulness of Mother Church rejoices by their means, and in them abundantly flourishes; and in proportion as a copious virginity is added to her number, so much the more it increases the joy of the Mother.’[11]
In the words of Timothy Keller, this positive estimation of virginity in the Early Church
‘… de-idolized marriage. There was no more radical act in that day and time than to live a life that did not produce heirs. Having children was the main way to achieve significance for an adult, since children would remember you. They also gave you security, since they would care for you in your old age. Christians who remained single, then were making the statement that our future is not guaranteed by the family, but by God. Single adult Christians were bearing testimony that God, not family was their hope. God would guarantee their future, first by giving them their truest family – the church so that they never lacked for brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, in Christ. But ultimately, Christians’ inheritance is nothing less than the fullness of the kingdom of God in the new heavens and the new earth.’ [12]
3. Jesus’ intentional singleness
Where did this countercultural de-idolization of marriage come from? The answer, as Cyprian made clear, is from Jesus himself.
In the prologue to his Gospel, the Apostle John succinctly expresses the basic Christian belief that, in Jesus, God assumed human nature in order to bring about our salvation by declaring that ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). To grasp the full significance of this declaration we need to note that the word ‘flesh’ (sarx) is also used in the verse immediately preceding, where it means human sexual desire: ‘…who were born, not of blood nor or the will of the flesh [sarx], not of the will of man, but of God’ (John 1:13). Andy Angel, in his book Intimate Jesus, comments that
‘… these two verses are the only places in the prologue which use the term sarx, which makes it rather difficult not to read the usage in v.14 in the light of that in v.13. So, when John describes the physical humanity of Jesus, he does so by using a word which he also uses in the immediate context to refer to sexual desire. Through his choice of words, John suggests that sexual desire was part of God’s human experience.’[13]
He goes on to say that John ‘introduces Jesus’ sexuality in terms that suggest that Jesus experienced sexual desire in all the frailty and weakness of normal people. He had to face his sexuality as any other human being, with all the difficulties that entails.’[14] In the words of Hebrews 4:15, ‘we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, but without sin.’
John, like the other three Gospel writers, describes Jesus as a bridegroom who has come to seek his bride (See Matthew 9:14-17, Mark 2:19-20, Luke 5:34-35).[15] Where he goes further is in his use of explicitly sexual language. In 3:29 he quotes St. John the Baptist declaring that he the friend of the bridegroom who ‘rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.’ Angel argues that the most plausible explanation of ‘the bridegroom’s voice’ is the cry of the bridegroom consummating his marriage: ‘By picturing the Word as making love to his bride, John pictures God consummating his marriage to his covenant people.’[16]
But how did Jesus, as God incarnate, consummate his marriage to his covenant people? All four Gospels agree that he did so precisely by not getting married and not having sex. Jesus was a human male with human sexual desires, yet he chose not to fulfil them in marriage or sexual intercourse. They were precluded if he was going to carry out his mission of service to the kingdom of God in obedience to his heavenly Father.
To return to Angel’s reading of John, he points out that the story of Jesus’ meeting the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:7-42) adopts the standard form of a Jewish betrothal story – boy meets girl at a well (the equivalent of the ‘meet cute’ in Hallmark movies today). What we would normally expect to follow, after various adventures on the way, is a romantic conclusion in which they get married and live happily ever after and have lots of children. However, that is not what happens:
‘In the story of the woman at the well, John sets up a betrothal narrative and hints at a budding relationship, and at one level we expect the romantic ending. Instead, he offers a story of chastity and sexual healing. But surely that is the point. The sexuality of a truly loving person is no less real for abstaining for the benefit of another.’[17]
Jesus abstains from sex and marriage with the Samaritan woman, and anyone else, for the benefit of the whole human race and for the sake of the coming kingdom.
In addition, Jesus reconstructed the normal meaning of family. He established an alternative family to the one he belonged to by birth:
‘While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.’ (Matthew 12:46-50)
Jesus is not repudiating his earthly family (as we know from the New Testament as a whole), but he is showing ‘that there is a tie that is even closer than that of family.’[18] Jesus first commitment is not to his earthly family but to his spiritual family, which consists of everyone who has God as his or her Father through him (Matthew 11:27). It would eventually include his earthly family as well.
What Jesus asks of himself he also asks of his followers, calling them to put their relationship with him before their membership of a human family. In Luke 14:26, for example, we read, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.’ As George Caird explains, the word ‘hate’ is a semitic way of saying ‘prefer less’ (e.g., Genesis 29:30-31, Deuteronomy 21:15-17). Consequently, ‘for the followers of Jesus to hate their families meant giving the family second place in their affections. Ties of kinship must not be allowed to interfere with their absolute commitment to the kingdom.’[19] Just as Jesus put the service of his Father’s kingdom before his relationship with his earthly family, so his disciples must be prepared to do the same.
Jesus also called his followers to consider the possibility of living a celibate life like his own. In Matthew 19:12 he says:
‘For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.’
Making oneself a ‘eunuch’ does not mean literal castration. What it does mean is that there are some people for whom marriage is not on the table because they have accepted God’s call to live a celibate life for the sake of the kingdom of God. In a radical way they put God before the possibility of marriage and family life.
This radical choice of singleness does not, of course, depreciate the value of marriage. As Pope John Paul II puts it, ‘this renunciation is at the same time a particular form of affirmation of the value from which the unmarried person consistently abstains by following the evangelical counsel.’[20] His point is that marriage involves someone making a ‘sincere gift’ of themselves to someone else.[21] The value of that gift is affirmed by those who embrace a single life as a gift of themselves to God.
From Jesus’ perspective, embracing a single life is first and foremost a positive thing. Although it involves renouncing marriage and therefore sex, this is done for the sake of positive obedience to Christ’s call to ‘follow me’. It is in keeping with the willingness to renounce human familial ties. Clearly Jesus acknowledged that not everyone would be able to accept the call to renounce marriage. God calls those who are able to receive it to receive it. ‘Whether one is married or not is not a matter of ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ but of God’s gift which is not the same for all disciples,’ writes Dick France.[22]
In 1 Corinthians 7:32-35 St Paul, who was himself unmarried, emphasises the advantages of remaining single for the sake of the service of God:
‘I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried woman or girl is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit; but the married woman is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.’
Paul’s concern here, writes Geoffrey Bromiley, is that
‘… unmarried men and women are free from the cares and attachments of the married and can thus give themselves with greater devotion to the Lord and the things of the Lord…Other people, relationships and things can, of course, divert Christians from full commitment to Christ. But marriage might be described as the most intimate and demanding of all human commitments. Hence the possibility of a clash or division of interests is especially high at this point.’[23]
In view of these conflicting commitments, Paul concludes that ‘he who marries his betrothed does well; and he who refrains from marriage will do better’ (1 Corinthians 7:38). Like Jesus in Matthew 19:12, Paul recognizes that the call to singleness is a gift given to some people but not to everyone: ‘I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another’ (1 Corinthians 7:7).
The Early Church followed Jesus and Paul in de-idolizing marriage. Marriage was not the only godly way of life; an alternative call to singleness enabled people to give themselves to the service of God in a radically wholehearted way, free of the inevitable responsibilities of marriage and family life.
Furthermore, such singleness also pointed forward to God’s coming kingdom in which those who have been resurrected ‘neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven’ (Matthew 22:30). In the words of Oliver O’Donovan
‘To this eschatological hope the New Testament church bore witness by fostering the social conditions which could support a vocation to the single life. It conceived of marriage and singleness as alternative vocations, each a worthy form of life, the two together comprising the whole Christian witness to the nature of affectionate community. The one declared that God had vindicated the order of creation, the other pointed beyond it to its eschatological transformation.’[24]
As O’Donovan goes on to say, the co-existence of marriage and singleness in the Early Church did not means that the character of either vocation lost its integrity
‘Each had to function as what it was, according to its own proper structure. The married must
live in the ways of marriage, the single in the ways of singleness. Neither would accommodate itself or evoke in the other an evolutionary mutation. Marriage that was not marriage could not bear witness to the goodness of the created order, singleness that was not singleness could tell us nothing of the fulfilment for which that order was destined.’[25]
We can see this distinction between marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 6-7 where there is a clear expectation that marriage will involve sexual intercourse whereas singleness will involve sexual abstinence. Paul denies that those who are married should practice permanent sexual abstinence or that the unmarried may enter into sexual unions.[26]
Although the Church maintained the New Testament pattern of affirming both marriage and singleness, it began to characterize the choice between them as a moral one. For Jesus and Paul the call to singleness is a gift, a state of life to which someone is called by God,[27] and while the recipient ought to live in light of that gift, doing so does not make them morally superior to someone who has been called to marriage. From the Patristic period onwards, however, singleness came to be seen as a morally superior state. An individual might choose singleness as a higher degree of spiritual attainment.[28]
During the Middle Ages this misapprehension contributed to the requirement of clerical celibacy and to the belief that those who embraced a (celibate) monastic way of life won greater merit before God. Becoming a monk or a nun even came to be seen as a ‘second baptism’ wiping away the sins committed after one’s original baptism. The Protestant Reformers rightly rejected these ideas as incompatible with biblical teaching,[29] but what they arguably failed to do was to give any positive account of the value of singleness. They taught Christians to aspire to marriage and family life but treated single people as nothing more than ‘the un-married’.[30] This significant oversight has persisted to the present day in churches shaped by the Reformation, including the Church of England.
A monastic tradition was re-launched in the Church of England in the nineteenth century. It had the positive effect of allowing those with a vocation to singleness to pursue that vocation in the context of structured religious communities. However, it is has unhelpfully associated the call to the single life solely with monasticism and the Anglo-Catholic tradition. There is still little recognition that the call to singleness is something that all traditions within the Church need to consider. Embracing a permanent monastic vocation is only one way of responding to God’s call to singleness.
What would it look like in practice to recognize singleness and marriage as the two possible calls from God?
First, it would mean that those who are unmarried and who feel a positive sense of calling to serve God in the single state permanently should prayerfully pursue that vocation. They should explore whether it should mean simply living as a single person within the normal life of the Church or joining some form of monastic community.
Secondly, it would mean that those who are unmarried and who do not feel a particular sense of calling to the single state, but who have not yet met someone who they feel they could marry, should not anxiously seek to be married, but should be content to accept and to take full advantage of their present state as God’s current call to them unless or until this situation changes.
Thirdly, it would mean that those who are unmarried should be willing to accept God’s call to marry if they do meet someone of the opposite sex in whom they delight (Genesis 2:23), who feel that with God’s help they are able to make a lifelong commitment (encapsulated in Genesis 2:24 and set forth in the promises in the marriage service), and who after prayerful reflection do not feel marriage would conflict with some other form of service that God is asking of them.
Fourthly, it would mean those who are married recognizing that they too may find themselves single again in the future and that therefore they too ned to understand and be prepared to embrace a potential call to a single life.
God calls human beings either to singleness or to marriage, and both these ways of life are undergirded by his call to friendship. The key passage setting out this call is John 15:12-17 where Jesus’ speaks to his disciples on the eve of his crucifixion:
‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do
what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This I command you, to love one another.’
These words are addressed, in the first instance, to Jesus’ first disciples, but they also apply to everyone he calls to follow him and, thus, potentially, to all human beings. They tell us that Jesus is our friend and that he has shown his friendship by laying down his life for us (v.13) and by teaching us all that he has heard from the Father (i.e., making know to us the saving plan of God and our part in it) (v.15). In turn, we are Jesus’ friends if we do what he commands (v.14), which is to love one another as he has loved us (vv.12 and 17).
Jesus’ love for his disciples was clearly not the sexual love between a husband and wife, but neither was it the sexual love between two men accepted and often celebrated in classical Greek culture.
As Angel notes, just as Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan women at the well recalls the Jewish literary model of a betrothal story, so also the Last Supper discourse in John 13-17 recalls the classical Geek institution of the symposium in which a group of men would get together for a meal and after the meal would drink wine, talk about love and engage in homoerotic bonding.
In John 13-17 we also have a group of men gathered together after supper with wine present talking about love and with the ‘beloved disciple’ reclining on Jesus’ breast (John 13:23). To quote Angel:
‘John tells the story of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples in ways that would evoke the homoeroticism of Greek and Roman culture. Placing the disciple Jesus loved in his chest at dinner where Jesus teaches portrays his disciple as the favour of the teacher, and might easily have been ready in terms of the homoerotic bonding of Socrates and his favourite disciples. The scene at a discussion about love at dinner between the teacher and his male disciples invokes the symposium which involved homoerotic bonding of male lovers. The language used to place the beloved discipline Jesus breast en to kolpo to Iesou (John 13:23) also suggest homoerotic liaisons. Taken together all this might suggest that John portrays Jesus es the erastes or lover of the beloved disciple and the love they share as belonging within the world of classical homoeroticism.’[31]
Given that there is no evidence that Jesus and the beloved disciple were in fact male lovers, the question that arises is why John chooses to describe the Last Supper in the way that he does, a way that is very different from the description of it in the other three Gospels and ! Corinthians 11?
To quote Angel once more:
‘The most obvious place to look for answer is in the way he describes the relationship between Jesus and the disciple. Their relationship is marked by love and intimacy; the disciple is called the one Jesus loved. The texts in which he enters and leaves the narrative depict him as lying in Jesus’ chest – an image which notes physical and emotional intimacy. By never portraying them as saying or doing anything sexual with each other, John strips their relationship of the sexual encounters of the classical Greek homoerotic friendship. John has also divested the relationship with any Socratic methods of learning about truth, the good life and ethics. What remains is the ideal of beautiful, shared intimacy between two human beings who love each other passionately and devotedly.
John takes this his model of passionate love and intimate friendship to describe the relationship of the Father and the Son into which they invite all humanity. It finds new content and direction in the belief that the one true God really loves humanity and can save it from all evil. This God of love models self-giving love, and invites humanity to participate in it by enjoying the love of the Father and the Son and by sharing this love with other human beings. Loving behaviour is characterised by obedience to the commands of the Son, which are life giving. And the love Jesus’ disciples experience both with one another and with God is marked by passionate intimacy. Jesus and his beloved disciple model this renewed relationship with God and humanity into which the whole world is invited…
It would be easy to imagine devotees of Greek love criticising John for limiting their sexual freedom redrawing the lines of this love. It would be equally easy to imagine Jewish and Christian traditionalists objecting to what some might now worry sounded like a metrosexual Jesus. John could easily have offended them all but the idea that God so loved the world that men could share this level of intimacy with one another physically, spiritually and emotionally was worth it all for John. He knew the beauty of this love first hand he also knew it was not limited to aristocratic free men (or male disciples) but all could enjoy it, men and women, adults and children, slaves and free, and he wanted to share it.’ [32]
As Jesus makes clear in the verses from John 15 quoted previously, the kind of love in view here is friendship. In our society we tend to contrast love and friendship. Thus, someone might say, ‘I don’t love him. We’re just good friends.’ However, friendship is arguably the overarching form of love, of which the love between husband and wife is one subset. In the twelfth century the monastic writer Aelred of Rievaulx famously paraphrased 1 John 4:16, ‘God is love’, by saying ‘God is friendship’.[33] In light of John 15 he was right to do so; in Christ, God loves us as our friend and in response we are called to love one another as friends.
What does it mean, then, to love one another as friends? Keller identifies three characteristics that mark friendship: constancy, transparency, and common passion. Friends are always there for each other, they are open and honest, and they share a common enthusiasm for something or somethings (in the words of C. S. Lewis ‘even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice’).[34] In the Bible we find that all three of these characteristics apply to the relationships of love that should exist within the life of God’s people.
First, Christians, by virtue of being Christians, share a common vision and passion, a joint enthusiasm:
‘For believers in Christ, despite enormous differences in class, temperament, culture, race, sensibility, and personal history, there in an underlying commonality that is more powerful than them all. This is not so much a ‘thread’ as an indestructible steel cable. Christians have all experienced the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus. We have all had our identity changed at the root, so now God’s calling and love are more foundational to who we are than any other thing. And we also long for the same future, journey to the same horizon, what the Bible calls the ‘new creation.’’[35]
This commonality means that ‘any two Christians with nothing else but a common faith in Christ, can have a robust friendship, helping each other on their journey toward the new creation, as well as doing ministry together in the world.’[36]
Secondly, Christians are called to show spiritual constancy to each other:
‘Christian friends bear each other’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). They should be there for one another through thick and thin (1 Thessalonians 5, 11, 14-15), sharing their goods and their very lives with each other if there is need (Hebrews 13:16; Philippians 4:14; 2 Corinthians 9:13). Friends must encourage one another through honour affirmation (Romans 12:3-6, 10; Proverbs 27:2). They are to identify and call out another’s gifts, strengths, and abilities. They are to build up each other’s faith through study and common worship (Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 5:19).’[37]
Thirdly, they are called to practice spiritual transparency:
‘Christian friends are not only to confess their own sins to one another (James 5:16), but they are to lovingly point out their friend’s sins if he or she is blind to them (Romans 15:14). You should give your Christian friends ‘hunting licenses’ to confront you if you are failing to live in line with your commitments (Galatians 6:1). Christian friends are to stir one another up, even provoking one another to get them off dead centre (Hebrews 10:24). This isn’t to happen infrequently but should happen at a very concrete level every day (Hebrews 3:13). Christians friends admit wrongs, offer or ask forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32) and take steps to reconcile when one disappoints another (Matthew 5:23ff; 18:15ff).’[38]
What all this means, says Keller, is that friendship between Christians is ‘not simply about going to concerts together or enjoying the same sporting event. It is the deep oneness that develops as two people journey together toward the same destination, helping one another through the dangers and challenges along the way.’[39] A classic literary example of this is found in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings where the Fellowship of the Ring, and then just Frodo and Sam alone, journey together to deliver the Ring to destruction in the fires of Mount Doom. Christian discipleship is that kind of serious joint endeavour.
Friendship is something that every Christian needs. This kind of friendship is at the heart of Christian marriage. It is the concrete form of the ‘mutual society, help, and comfort’ referred to in the Book of Common Prayer marriage service. Yet, for all Christians, including single Christians, ‘it is not good that the man should be alone’ (Genesis 2:18). Jesus, as a single man, needed and cultivated a circle of friends; single Christians today have the same need. Kate Wharton, reflecting on her experience as a single Christian, writes,
‘I need other people in my life. I need them to offload to after a bad day; I need them to work alongside me in ministry; I need them to share a bottle of wine with me as we put the world to rights; I need them to point out to me the parts of my character than need working on; I need them to celebrate with me when good things happen; I need them to spend my days off and holidays with. I need them to give me a hug and tell me everything’s going to be OK.’[40]
So where does this discussion of marriage and singleness lead us? Jesus refers to the Church as his alternative family (e.g., Mark 12:30). The Church is called to be the community that offers close and loving friendship to all its members, married and single. Monastic communities help to achieve this goal by providing a framework within which friendship can flourish, but friendship cannot be left to monastic communities alone. All Christians have a responsibility to offer friendship to other members of the body of Christ. Mere casual acquaintance is not enough. It needs to be the kind of deep friendship that we have just described. Obviously, there is a limit to the number of people any one individual can befriend intimately, but the net of friendship should be cast as wide as possible, even as we give particular care and attention to particularly committed friendship relationships.
While the Church rightly stresses the importance of family life and seeks to foster and support it, it must also avoid the opposite danger of seeing friendship as a ‘consolation for those who fail to cross the finishing line of the nuclear family.’[41] The Church’s identity in John 15 is as the community of Jesus’ friends, so friendship needs to be at the heart of its life. This means that the Church ought to be intentional about a range of friendships, encouraging not only friendships between married couples and amongst single people, but also between single people and married people. Jesus, after all, was friends with people who were married.
In light of Wharton’s reference to the value of hugs and St Paul’s injunction to ‘greet one another with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16) Christian friendships need to include opportunities for physical intimacy. Human beings, as embodied souls created by God, need to be able to give and receive love using physical contact. Our culture is cautious about physical contact because we associate it with sexual intercourse. That is why we wrongly suspect a sexual relationship in the physical intimacy between David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 20:41) or when we read St Anselm’s letter to another monk recalling ‘our not-forgotten love when we were together eye to eye, exchanging kiss for kiss, embrace for embrace.’[42] It is also why we are now increasingly wary about physical contact between adults and children. We need to overcome our prejudices and inhibitions and learn to develop appropriate ways of using physical intimacy to convey love, affirmation, support and comfort between friends without it carrying sexual meaning or leading to sexual intercourse.
A final point to note is that the Christian vision of ‘singleness embedded within corporate relationships’[43] is an affirmation rather than a rejection of sexuality. We live in a society that tends to equate sexuality with sexual intercourse, but to quote Jonathan Grant in his book Divine Sex:
‘…. the greater part of sexuality is ‘affective’ or ‘social sexuality.’ Affective sexuality describes our fundamental need for relational rather than strictly sexual, intimacy across a broad range of nurturing friendships. The challenge for Christian identity and daily living is to express our sexual energy in line with this divine purpose, thereby resisting our culture’s misdirection of sexual desire into desire for sex or consumer goods. We need this range of deep and diverse relationships – with parents, friends and elders – to properly affirm our personhood and sexuality. These networks of connections are important for single and married people alike.’[44]
8. What are we to make of the King PMM?
If what has been said so far is correct, then there are a variety of important problems with Professor King’s Private Members Motion:
‘That this Synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.’
This motion could read at face value as an affirmation of the value of same-sex friendships in the Christian tradition. If this is what it is intended to be then are no theological problems with the intention of the motion, but the wording of the motion needs to be almost entirely re-written.
First, it is not only the case that there are ‘no fundamental objections’ to Christians being in same-sex friendships or that these are ‘entirely compatible with Christian discipleship’ it is rather that the whole nature of the relationship between Christians of the same sex should necessarily be one of friendship reflecting God’s friendship with us in Christ. ‘Love one another as I have loved you’ (John 15:14). The wording needs to be changed to reflect this truth.
Secondly. It is not clear what the words ‘committed and faithful’ mean in the context of friendship. If we are talking about marriage then these adjectives would mean permanent and sexually exclusive, but it is not clear what they mean in the PMM. It could mean that that we need to take the demands of loving friendship seriously (‘committed’) and that we are faithful in fulfilling them (‘faithful’) as in the case of Sam and Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. These meanings would be entirely in line with the Christian understanding of friendship as sketched out earlier in this paper, but if this what is meant then the wording needs to be changed to clarify this point.
Thirdly, the meaning of the term ‘intimate’ also needs clarification. The dictionary gives a variety of possible meanings of this word: ‘innermost; internal; close; deep-seated; private; personal; closely acquainted; familiar; in a sexual relationship; engaging in sex.’ [45] If what is meant is ‘close’ or ‘deep seated’ then there is no problem, but if what is meant is ‘in a sexual relationship’ or ‘engaging in sex’ then this is entirely incompatible with the traditional Christian understanding of the nature of friendship between two people of the same sex and the wording needs to be changed to rule out the latter two meanings of ‘intimate.’
It could be the case, however, that King means precisely that ‘a sexual relationship’ between two men or two women can be ‘entirely compatible with Christian discipleship.’ If so, she is contradicting the New Testament and two thousand years of unbroken Christian tradition which has made an absolute binary distinction between marriage between two people of the opposite sex, which is by its nature intended to be a sexual relationship, and all other forms of relationship between people of the opposite sex or the same sex which are intended by God to be sexually abstinent. In the words of C S Lewis; ‘There is no getting away from it: the Christian rule is, ‘Either Marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.’’[46]
What is not clear is what authority King would have to declare this rule to be void.
The familiar appeal is to experience. Experience shows, it is argued, that people cannot live a fulfilled human life without sexual intercourse of whatever sort feels right for the person concerned.
However, as we have seen, John tells us that this is simply not true. Jesus was a male human being with sexual desires like everyone else, but he modelled a perfect human life by not giving in to them, and if he could do it then those who he calls to follow him in the path of being ‘eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of God ‘Matthew 19:12) can and should do it to. Moreover, the whole point of John’s account of the Last Supper, with its deliberate subversion of the Greek symposium tradition, is to say that those who are faithful in living in this way will not lose out. The loving intimacy with God for which all human beings were created (‘Thou hast formed us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee’[47]) of which sexual intimacy in marriage is intended to be an icon can, John says, be experienced by Christian disciples through a loving and obedient relationship with God in Christ. Same sex sexual union is not required.
Of course, people will also say that the experience a closer relationship with God through being in a same-sex sexual relationship. Unfortunately, they are deceiving themselves. In John’s account of the Last Supper Jesus is crystal clear. ‘If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love’ (John 15:10). As the New Testament and the subsequent unbroken Christian tradition testify, these commandments exclude sexual intercourse outside marriage between two people of the opposite sex. It follows that unless we are to say that the Son of God was lying, we have to say that those who are in same-sex sexual relationships have objectively distanced themselves from abiding in God’s love whatever they may feel to the contrary.
What all this means is that members of General Synod should not under any circumstances vote for the King PMM as it stands. Either it needs to be completely re-written along the lines suggested above or it needs to be voted down.
[1] Martin Davie, Glorify God in your body (London: CEEC, 2018).
[2] Ed Shaw, The Plausibility Problem (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2015), p.107.
[3] Shaw, p.107.
[4] Philip Larkin, Annus Mirabilis at: https://www.wussu.com/poems/plam.htm.
‘Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) –
Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
And the Beatles’ first LP.’
[5] Josephus, Jewish War 2:120-121 mentions celibacy among the Essenes, but this is the exception that proves
the rule.
[6] The only recognised exceptions to the norm of sex and marriage were the Vestal Virgins and the eunuch
priests of the cult of Cybele.
[7] Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women – Early Christian Reponses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago:
Chicago UP, 1996).
[8] Larry Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods -Early Christian distinctiveness in the Roman world (Waco: Baylor
University Press , 2016), pp.166—167.
[9] Epistle to Diognetus 5:6-7, in J B Lightfoot, J Harmer and Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers, (Leicester:
Apollos, 1989), p.299
[10] Cyprian of Carthage, On the Dress of Virgins, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol.5 (Edinburgh and Grand
Rapids: T&T Clark/Eerdmans, 1995), p.430.
[11] Ibid, p.431.
[12] Timothy and Kathy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage (London: Hodder & Stoughton 2017), Kindle Edition,
Loc. 2617.
[13] Andy Angel, Intimate Jesus – The Sexuality of God Incarnate (London: SPCK, 2017), p.25.
[14] Angel. p.26.
[15] For a detailed account of the New Testament teaching concerning Jesus as the bridegroom see Brant Pitre,
Jesus the Bridegroom: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (New York: Image, 2014).
[16] Angel p.35. See also William Loader, Sexuality in the New Testament: Understanding the Key Texts (London:
SPCK, 2010) p.37. It should be noted that even if this specific interpretation of John 3:29 is rejected, the
text clearly does refer to Christ as the bridegroom marrying his bride.
[17] Angel, p. 60.
[18] R T France, Matthew (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press), 1985, p.215.
[19] G B Caird, Saint Luke (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971), p. 179.
[20] John Paul II, Man and Woman He created them, (Boston: Pauline Books and Media), 2006 p. 441.
[21] John Paul II , p.442.
[22] France, Matthew, p. 283.
[23] Geoffrey Bromiley, God and Marriage (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p., 59. It is sometimes suggested
that there is a tension between what is said about marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 and Ephesians 5, with the
latter being Paul’s more mature reflections which we should now follow. However, it can be more
plausibly argued that it was precisely because the Apostle held that marriage was the demanding vocation
set out in Ephesians 5 that he believed that there could be a conflict between marriage and unhindered
attention to the service of God.
[24] O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order (Leicester and Gran Rapids (Apollos/Eerdmans, 1994) p. 70.
[25] O’Donovan, p.70.
[26] It is for this reason that we should reject the proposal by Robert Song in his book Covenant and Calling
(London: SCM 2014) for the recognition by the Church of non-procreative, but sexual, unions for those with
same sex attraction. This proposal blurs the line between marriage and singleness.
[27] It is important to distinguish between the objective fact that someone has been called to live in a certain way
by God and a subjective desire to live in that way. Through the circumstances of their lives arranged by the
providence of God someone may have an objective call to live as a single person even if this is not what they
subjectively desire.
[28] This idea of singleness as a higher form of spirituality can be seen, for instance in St. Augustine’s treatise Of
Holy Virginity (The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. III (Edinburgh and Grand Rapids: T&T
Clark/Eerdmans), 1998, pp. 417-38.
[29] See , for instance, Article XXXII of the Thirty Nine Articles and Articles XXIII and XXVII of the Augsburg
Confession.
[30] It is noteworthy for, example, that while the Second Book of Homilies has a homily on marriage it does not
have a corresponding homily on singleness. The single are given no guidance on how they should live godly
lives in the single state.
[31] Angel, p.71.
[32] Angel, pp.80-83.
[33] Aelred of Rielvaux, Spiritual Friendship (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1977), pp.65-66.
[34] Keller and Keller, Loc. 1441-1462 quoting C S Lewis, The Four Loves.
[35] Keller and Keller Loc 1462-1473.
[36] Keller and Keller, Loc 1473.
[37]Keller and Keller, Loc.1483.
[38] Ibid. Loc. 1473-1483.
[39] Ibid, Loc. 1483-1493.
[40] Kate Wharton, Single Minded: Being Single, Whole and Living Life to the Full (Oxford: Monarch, 2013), 173.
[41] Robert Wainwright, ‘Male Friendship and Homosexuality,’ Unpublished paper, 2016, p.83.
[42] Anselm, Epistle 130, quoted in R W Southern, Saint Anselm: Portrait in a Landscape (Cambridge: CUP,
1990), p.146.
[43] Jonathan Grant, Divine Sex (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2015), p.158.
[44] Grant, p.158.
[45] ‘Intimate,’ The Chambers Dictionary (Edinburgh: Harrap, 2003), p.776.
[46] C S Lewis, Mere Christianity, (Glasgow: Fount, 1984), p.86.
[47] Augustine, Confessions 1.1 in The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 1st Series (Edinburgh and Grand Rapids: T&T
Clark: Eerdmans, 1994), p.45.
Reflections of an Anglican Theologian 
