Category Archives: Sexuality and Marriage

Where I can get married

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As of today the Church of England’s rules on weddings have been relaxed, as the Church Times blog and the BBC report. The result at least for some people is an explosion of choice. For example, if I had got married yesterday, to a woman living in the same parish as me, I would only have been allowed a wedding in just this one parish. But as of today I have the choice of something like 16 parishes where I could be married, quite apart from ones for which my (hypothetical, sadly) bride might qualify:

  • where I was baptised: one parish
  • where I was prepared for confirmation: one other parish (sadly the location of the confirmation service itself doesn’t seem to count, as that might qualify me for a wedding in Canterbury Cathedral)
  • where I have lived for six months or more: about ten more parishes in England (I don’t think overseas locations count)
  • where I have regularly attended public worship for six months or more: no more parishes as I have usually attended church in the parish where I live
  • where one of my parents has lived for six months or more in my lifetime: two more parishes
  • where one of my parents has regularly attended public worship for six months or more in my lifetime: no more parishes as they also attended their local church
  • where my parents or grandparents were married: two more parishes plus one overseas location – but this one has the most interesting implication: I think my maternal grandparents were married in Lincoln Cathedral, in March 1912, so (if I can prove it) even nearly a century later I may now have the right to be married there!

The underlying reason for this change of rules is no doubt an attempt to reverse the decline in church weddings in recent years. In connection with this the Church of England has launched a new church wedding website. One major reason for this decline has been the fairly recent change allowing state weddings almost anywhere, except in churches. This has led to a boom in weddings at country houses and other picturesque locations. I suppose that the Church of England hopes that now people whose local church is not photogenic will find a prettier church to which they have some links rather than go for a state wedding. But it may lead to a loss of weddings in less attractive churches as well as a boom in picture postcard villages.

I remember times, nearly 30 years ago, when the attractive old parish church in the parish where I still live was in use for a wedding every hour on the hour on summer Saturday afternoons. This conveyor belt was kept going with threats that if brides arrived more than ten minutes late their wedding would be cancelled. These days far fewer weddings are held there. But the clergy take their responsibility for each couple very seriously, taking them through a meaningful marriage preparation course. They would not now want to be inundated with the extra task of taking numerous weddings for couples whose only interest in the church is as a pretty background for their photos. But then couples like that, faced with the required course, might well look elsewhere. However, it may well be that these new rules will bring to our parish couples who have a genuine desire to make God part of their marriage. If so, there is a real hope that through the preparation course and the service they can be brought closer to God. And if this happens with just one couple it will make the extra hard work worthwhile.

An averagely muddled Archbishop

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Ruth Gledhill reports, both in The Times and on her blog, on some letters written by Archbishop Rowan Williams in which he compares gay sex with marriage. I must say I wonder why these letters have suddenly come to light – has their recipient, who has left the Anglican church, just now, in the wake of Lambeth, decided to spill the beans? There is also a leader in The Times on this subject, and comment from Mary Ann Sieghart.

In one of the letters, whose text Ruth posts, Archbishop Rowan signs off as follows:

My prayers for you, and my request for prayers for an averagely muddled bishop!

From Archbishop Rowan

Well, I can only agree with him that he is “averagely muddled” in his thinking, maybe not on every issue but clearly on this one. To be fair, I can agree with what he writes in the second letter, from 2001. The following is in fact rather similar to what I have written here:

When I said that I wasn’t campaigning for a new morality, I meant, among other things, that if the Church ever said that homosexual behaviour wasn’t automatically sinful, the same rules of faithfulness and commitment would have to apply as to heterosexual union. Whether that would best be expressed in something like a ceremony of commitment, I don’t know; I am wary of anything that looks like heterosexual marriage being licensed, because marriage has other dimensions to do with children and society.

In other words, homosexual practice, if allowed at all, should be restricted to lifelong faithful unions. Presumably this would imply that homosexual clergy who were not faithful in this way would be subject to the same sanctions as married heterosexual clergy who have adulterous affairs. This means that these lifelong unions, at least among clergy, would have to be declared openly, although I understand Rowan’s reservations about anything like “civil partnerships”. Of course this status, formally entered into at what some have made into “a ceremony of commitment”, didn’t exist in 2001, at least here in the UK.

But where I think Rowan’s thinking is indeed muddled is in his earlier, 2000, letter. Here he writes how he came to agree with the position

that the scriptural prohibitions were addressed to heterosexuals looking for sexual variety in their experience; but that the Bible does not address the matter of appropriate behaviour for those who are, for whatever reason, homosexual by instinct of nature … I concluded that an active sexual relationship between two people of the same sex might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage, if and only if it had about it the same character of absolute covenanted faithfulness.

The problem with this argument is that there is simply no proper exegetical basis for it. In a series of posts Doug Chaplin has conveniently summarised the relevant biblical material. Whatever one makes of 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11, these passages list descriptions of people, not of acts which are not characteristic of them. Just as someone who is normally sober but gets drunk once is not a “drunkard”, someone who is usually faithfully and heterosexually monogamous but occasionally does something different “for sexual variety” is not an arsenokoites, whatever this word might mean. Similarly Romans 1:27 refers to men who “abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another” (TNIV); these are men who have rejected heterosexuality, not ones who are usually heterosexual but looking for “sexual variety”.

I can understand how much the Archbishop wants to find some biblical support for the position which his cultural background is pushing him to accept. After all, my background is rather similar. At Cambridge I studied and worshipped with his wife in the college and chapel of which he later became Dean. Unfortunately there is simply nothing in the Bible, nor in church tradition as he admits, to support his contention that a committed homosexual relationship “might therefore reflect the love of God in a way comparable to marriage”. Sadly he has muddled the teachings of the Bible with the presuppositions of society.

It is interesting that Rowan, writing in 2000, mentioned charging interest and contraception as two things which the church used to consider wrong and now accepts, and suggests that homosexual practice may be a similar issue. But, as his correspondent Dr Pitt points out, the rightness of lending at interest and of contraception is by no means indisputable. David Lang of Complegalitarian has today written openly and movingly about how he and his wife prayerfully came to the decision that contraception is wrong for them. And John Richardson, the Ugley Vicar, questions the whole system of charging interest and notes that Rowan himself is also now questioning it. So here we hardly have two shining bright examples of the church moving in a morally right direction.

Mary Ann Sieghart writes in The Times:

If only more members of the Anglican Communion displayed as much humility as Rowan Williams, who signs himself endearingly in one of these letters as “an averagely muddled bishop”. And if only Dr Williams could display just a little less humility in his job of leading the Church, the current stand-off in the Communion might have more chance of being resolved.

Indeed! I may not agree with Mary Ann on the direction the Communion should take, but if it is to survive it needs to be led in some direction.

Primates 'face extinction crisis'

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This is the headline of a new BBC article, headed by a picture looking rather like Rowan Williams keeping his mouth shut, which starts:

A global review of the world’s primates says 48% of species face extinction, an outlook described as “depressing” by conservationists.

“Conservationists”, not “conservatives”? This is the first clue that this article is actually about monkeys and apes, not the archbishops of the Anglican Communion. But at least according to some press pundits the outlook for Primates of the episcopal kind, in the wake of the recently finished Lambeth Conference, is just as depressing.

So what did the allegedly 666 bishops at the conference achieve? And what now are the prospects for the Anglican Communion?

The main output from the conference was a long and rambling document called Lambeth Indaba Reflections. I have not attempted to read all of this. The most controversial part is in Section K, paragraph 145:

The moratoria

145.  The moratoria cover three separate but related issues: ordinations of persons living in a same gender union to the episcopate; the blessing of same-sex unions; cross-border incursions by bishops. There is widespread support for moratoria across the Communion, building on those that are already being honoured. The moratoria can be taken as a sign of the bishops’ affection, trust and goodwill towards the Archbishop of Canterbury and one another. The moratoria will be difficult to uphold, although there is a desire to do so from all quarters. There are questions to be clarified in relation to how long the moratoria are intended to serve. Perhaps the moratoria could be seen as a “season of gracious restraint”. In relation to moratorium 2 (the blessing of same-sex unions) there is a desire to clarify precisely what is proscribed. Many differentiate between authorised public rites, rather than pastoral support. If the Windsor process is to be honoured, all three moratoria must be applied consistently.

John Richardson, who quoted the words “Episcopal ordinations of partnered homosexual people” apparently from an earlier version of this document (or perhaps from the Church Times blog), has misunderstood the first moratorium as referring to ordinations by bishops. The current version has clarified that the moratorium is restricted to ordination or consecration as bishops, of practising homosexuals. This justifies John’s response to my comment that he may have understood the words he quoted:

If it now means ‘ordinations of’ bishops, then the Lambeth 2008 has been an unnoticed disaster for the traditionalists there, as they have now accepted what Lambeth 1998 1.10 said ought not to happen.

Indeed, section H of the Reflections, on Human Sexuality, while referring to Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10, mentions only that ordination of homosexual bishops goes against this resolution. The document has nothing to say about ordination of practising homosexuals as priests, which in practice now seems to be considered acceptable.

Actually these three moratoria are nothing new. They go back to the 2004 Windsor Report, paragraph 134:

the Episcopal Church (USA) be invited to effect a moratorium on the election and consent to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate who is living in a same gender union until some new consensus in the Anglican Communion emerges;

paragraph 144:

public Rites of Blessing of same sex unions … Because of the serious repercussions in the Communion, we call for a moratorium on all such public Rites …;

and paragraph 155:

We call upon those bishops who believe it is their conscientious duty to intervene in provinces, dioceses and parishes other than their own … to effect a moratorium on any further interventions.

So will these moratoria now provide a basis for healing the rifts within the Communion? They might just do if they were observed. But for four years the second and third of them have been widely ignored. It seems highly unlikely that the North American churches will now start observing the second one. Indeed Susan Russell of the gay lobby group Integrity has already invoked the Boston Tea Party and said:

It is not going to change anything on the ground in California. We bless same-sex relationships and will continue to do so.

And there is no way that the conservatives are going to abide by the third moratorium if the first two are simply ignored. The best that can be hoped for here is a breathing space, nothing more than a “season of gracious restraint” which will in fact not be accepted graciously by many.

So where does this take the Anglican Communion? Ruth Gledhill quotes George Conger, writing on Sunday:

While a blow up is not expected on the final day of the July 16 to Aug 3 gathering of bishops in Canterbury, the prospects for a united Anglican Communion appear less likely now than at the start of the conference.

Is this journalistic pessimism, or, from the point of view of those looking for stories to report, optimism? Well, there are those who claim to be optimistic, like Tim Chesterton who writes:

I’m cautiously optimistic. I suspect that the extremists on both sides will not heed the call for moratoria and will not sign on to any covenant. But I think the majority will, and if that means that we have a smaller communion, based on humility, prayer, a willingness to admit that each of us ‘sees through a glass darkly’ and a determination to seek the will of God together without automatically dismissing those with whom we disagree – well, so be it.

Well, if even an optimist expects “the extremists on both sides” to leave, what does that mean? If “the extremists” on one side are the North American churches and on the other side are those who boycotted the Lambeth Conference, then, according to statistics from Anglican Mainstream, we are talking about 17.5 million (or 25 million) Anglicans in Nigeria, 9.6 million in Uganda, 2.4 million (or 800,000) in the USA, and 740,000 (or 640,000) in Canada. As the total number of Anglicans is variously reported to be between 50 and 75 million, if these “extremists” are in fact a minority they are only just so. Of course not everyone in each of these provinces is an “extremist”, but there are many other provinces with large numbers of “extremists”, in some cases on both sides, as here in England.

So perhaps the BBC’s estimate of 48% is a good one, that 48% not of Primates but of the Anglican provinces and dioceses they serve “face extinction”. The amazing thing is that a conservationist, I mean a conservative, like Tim Chesterton does not find this outlook “depressing” but is still “cautiously optimistic”.

Congratulations to John and Alison Richardson

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Congratulations to John Richardson, the Ugley Vicar, and his bride Alison, who were married this morning. John kept this news very close to his chest. And even on the very morning of his wedding he was still blogging, not just to make the first public announcement of his wedding (meanwhile bizarrely if not accidentally disabling the posting of congratulatory comments), but also to comment on other posts, including this comment and this one in which he writes, concerning ordination of women:

my wife-to-be disagrees with me on this and we’ve managed to stay together a long while without either of us conceding much! …

I think her (Alison’s) arguments are pretty (well, actually totally) unconvincing, but she makes me think, which can’t be bad.

I am glad Alison is making John think, and presumably vice versa. John certainly makes me think, even though I often disagree with him  But it will be interesting to see how long he can actually share the (notional) Ugley Vicarage with Alison before he gradually finds her arguments beginning to convince him.

I wish them a long and happy marriage as they come closer to one another and to Jesus in heart and also in mind!

Did Jesus say Christians will not marry?

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I was startled this evening by a Bible passage quoted by ElShaddai Edwards, even though it is taken from my current favourite Bible translation:

Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. …”

Luke 20:34-36 (TNIV)

I was startled by what this appears to be saying. The contrast is between “The people of this age” (more literally “the sons of this age” but intended to be gender generic) and “those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead” (RSV “those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead”). This sounds at first like a contrast between worldly, sinful people and faithful Christians. After all in Luke 16:8 the same phrase in Greek, literally “the sons of this age”, seems to refer to dishonest people. So this passage would appear to be Jesus teaching that good Christians will not marry. Could that be what Jesus, or Luke, was really saying? Could this be the same teaching, but in stronger form, as Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 7:25-35?

The question cannot be resolved from the parallel passages as they omit this contrast and give much simpler readings:

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Matthew 22:30 (TNIV)

When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Mark 12:25 (TNIV)

But it seems to me that there is a clear but subtle indication that Jesus’ meaning is not what I have suggested. It can be found only in the original Greek, not in English translations. I have checked all the versions of these verses at Bible Gateway and not one of them makes this point clear. The Greek word rendered in TNIV as “considered worthy” is an aorist or past participle, indicating an event preceding what follows. So an accurate rendering of the first part of verse 35 would be “But those who have been considered worthy of taking part”, or more pedantically “But those who will have been considered worthy of taking part”. The Greek clearly means that first they have been considered worthy and only then they do not marry. And the phrase “considered worthy of taking part” cannot be divided up temporally; if they have been considered worthy of taking part, that means that they have already attained this and are taking part in it. Luke uses a similar phrase in Acts 5:41, with the same main Greek verb, which implies that the apostles had suffered disgrace, not that they might do in future.

So, despite the possible misunderstanding in almost any English translation, Jesus’ words as recorded for us in Greek seem unambiguous. The ones who do not marry are not Christians who are looking forward to “taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead”, but those who are already taking part in them, in other words those who have been raised from the dead. Thus Luke teaches the same as Matthew and Mark.

As for “The people of this age”, the ones who do marry, the implication is that this phrase refers to everyone alive in this world, Christian or not. That may have implications for the understanding of the enigmatic passage in which Luke 16:8 appears – although we then have to ask, who are “the people of the light” in this verse?

Ring binding

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No time to post anything long or serious today. I have spent much of the last two days digging up my front garden and re-sowing it with grass seed. It’s only about 20 square metres but even that takes quite a lot of digging, all by hand, to reduce overgrown borders and a lawn which was mostly daisies into a fine tilth for sowing. So I will post some light relief.

Iyov mentions, or makes up, the binding wars between TNIV and ESV Bible versions. Now usually to me discussion of the binding of Bibles is a big yawn. His commenter “NT Wrong” suggests that it is even worse, something satanic. But Iyov’s mention reminded me of the words used at the recent “gay wedding”:

With this ring I thee bind.

Now I wouldn’t dare to describe in detail the image this conjures up in my mind of the gay couple tying one another up with chains, dog collars and the exchanged ring. I’m sure that is not what these words were intended to mean. But apart from that idea the words make little sense as an address from one of the couple to the other. However, they do make sense if addressed to a Bible. Do these gay priests bind their Bibles with rings? A Bible in a ring binder has the useful property that inconvenient passages can easily be removed. I wonder, have Romans 1:18-32 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 managed to fall out of this couple’s ring-bound Bible?

Priests go ahead with gay wedding

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On Saturday I wrote about an American Anglican bishop who has banned church weddings because they do not provide complete equality for same-sex couples. At least he was giving some respect to the international rules that same-sex weddings cannot be performed in Anglican churches.

Only hours after I posted that, the news broke that here in England, in central London, those rules have been blatantly flouted, at least not by a bishop (the Bishop of London has ordered an investigation) but by a priest who performed what has been reported as a wedding ceremony, not just a blessing of a partnership, between two Anglican clergymen. Amazingly, Ruth Gledhill reports that similar services have been “happening regularly” for 30 years despite “breaking all the rules”.

The order of service shows that this is clearly intended as a wedding service, with vows and an exchange of rings, in language clearly deliberately adapted from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The preface, also printed in part and in edited form by the Daily Mail, is adapted from the preface which I quoted in my previous post:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together these Men in a holy covenant of love and fidelity. Such a covenant shows us the mystery of the union between God and God’s people and between Christ and the Church.

The Holy Scriptures point to the offering and receiving of love as the principle [sic] sign of God’s presence; the union of two people in heart, body and soul is intended by God for their mutual joy; for the help and comfort given one another in prosperity and adversity; and that their love may be a source of grace and blessing to all whom they encounter. Today Peter and David wish to commend themselves to each other exclusively and publicly, in making a solemn covenant as a seal and sacrament of their mutual love and devotion. This step has been carefully considered and is not enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God.

The first and last sentences are almost completely from 1662. The middle is partly a pastiche of it – note that “mutual society” has become “mutual joy” – mixed together with some bad theology and bad grammar. Here are the vows, repeated identically except for the names by each partner:

Peter (David), wilt thou take this man as thy partner, in the sight of God? Wilt thou love him, comfort him, honour and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto him, as long as ye both shall live?

Peter (David) shall answer, I will. …

I Peter (David) take thee David (Peter) as my partner, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, and thereto I pledge thee my troth. …

With this ring I thee bind, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. …

Then shall the Minister speak unto the people.

Forasmuch as David and Peter have consented together in a holy covenant, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands, I pronounce that they be bound together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

This is followed by a celebration of Holy Communion.

This Order of Service does avoid the words “matrimony” and “marriage”, instead referring to “a holy covenant of love and fidelity”. Instead of “I thee wed” is the rather odd “I thee bind”, at which some minds might wander to stereotypes of homosexual practices. So I suppose some kind of case can be made that this is not intended as an actual wedding. But I note that the covenant is called “a seal and sacrament of their mutual love and devotion”. So if it is not holy matrimony but is a sacrament, what is it?

Here are a couple of sentences from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer which were not included in this service:

Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace. …

For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful.

In the case of these two men, men ordained to ministry in the Anglican church, there is plenty of “just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together”, according to God’s law and also according to canon law which is the law of the land. For they have clearly been “coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow”. So even if perhaps we should “hereafter for ever hold [our] peace”, God will be their judge.

Bishop bans church weddings

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John Richardson has brought to my attention one of the most extraordinary stories I have seen, even in the whole saga of discussion about homosexuality in the Anglican churches. Bishop Marc Handley Andrus of the Diocese of California (which in fact only “covers the immediate San Francisco Bay Area”), in the Episcopal (Anglican) church, is effectively banning church weddings in his diocese! He writes:

I therefore provide you with the following pastoral guidelines:

  • I urge you to encourage all couples, regardless of orientation, to follow the pattern of first being married in a secular service and then being blessed in The Episcopal Church. I will publicly urge all couples to follow this pattern.
  • For now, the three rites approved for trial use under the pastoral direction of the bishop, adopted by resolution at the 2007 Diocesan Convention (see appendix), should be commended to all couples (again, regardless of orientation) to bless secular marriages.
  • All marriages should be performed by someone in one of the secular categories set forth in California Family Code, section 400 (see appendix), noting that any person in the state of California can be deputized to perform civil marriages. The proper sphere for Episcopal clergy is the blessing portion of the marriage. …

In other words, he is instructing his clergy not to perform weddings, but only to bless secular marriages.

The sub-text here is of course that the bishop, in defiance of internationally agreed Anglican guidelines, is promoting complete equality of same-sex “marriage” with proper marriage between man and woman. Because the Anglican Communion rightly does not allow clergy to perform same-sex “weddings”, the only way this bishop can produce the equality he desires is to forbid his clergy from performing any weddings. Instead he only allows them to bless marriages, and according to a form of service of his diocese’s devising (and still against international rules) which treats same-sex and opposite-sex blessings identically.

The Anglican church has always performed marriages. “Solemnization of Matrimony” is a form of service in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is the official doctrinal standard of the Anglican churches. Here is the opening part of this service (taken from here as surprisingly it is not on the Church of England’s website):

Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man’s innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought, in Cana of Galilee; and is commended of Saint Paul to be honourable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be enterprized, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.

First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.

Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.

Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.

But it seems that the Bishop of California no longer considers “holy Matrimony” between “this Man and this Woman” to be “an honourable estate”. One wonders how he can continue to consider himself an Anglican.

Who are the real Lesbians?

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Paul the apostle must have met some Lesbians when his ship stopped briefly at Mitylene, Acts 20:14. For Mitylene was and still is the main town of the island of Lesbos, whose inhabitants have been known since ancient times as Lesbians (Λέσβιος, Lesbios). And these islanders are not amused that their name has been hijacked by the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece as a description of homosexual women. Indeed they are so incensed that, as the BBC reports, they are taking legal action against that community to stop them using the word “lesbian”. Their spokesman

claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.

The problem with their claim is that this same word, at least in its feminine form (λεσβιάς, lesbias), has very probably (I’m sure some of my readers can confirm this) also been used since ancient times in this sexual sense, referring originally to the allegedly lesbian poetess Sappho. So I can’t see the islanders’ lawsuit being successful, at least outside their native Greece.

Remarriage, homosexual "marriage", and burning passion

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The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

Now to the unmarried [footnote: Or widowers] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

1 Corinthians 7:8-9 (TNIV)

Does this passage have anything to say to us about the issues of remarriage and homosexual practice which I have been discussing? I think it does.

Now I am sure that you will say to me that these verses are not about remarriage or homosexual “marriage”. And no doubt you would be right about the latter. As for the former, I would not be so sure, especially because in verse 15 Paul writes that a brother or sister deserted by their unbelieving spouse is “not bound”, more literally “not enslaved” (ou dedoulotai), presumably meaning that they are free to marry again, as they would be if the spouse had died (verse 39). So Paul would have held that a deserted partner like that should remarry rather than “burn with passion”. Nevertheless, Paul teaches that the best thing for them, as for all unmarried people, is “to stay unmarried, as I do”.

Paul would not of course accept that a Christian person could simply choose to divorce and remarry. He makes this clear in verses 10 to 13. So this is a serious restriction on divorce and remarriage among Christians, one which should continue to be respected. He does not deal explicitly with the issue of those who are divorced, or divorced and remarried, before they become Christians. But the principle of 6:11 suggests that in such cases Paul would let bygones be bygones.

So let’s look back to 6:11 in context:

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor practising homosexuals 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 (TNIV)

So, some of the Corinthian believers were “adulterers [or] male prostitutes [or] practising homosexuals” before they became Christians. (Yes, there is some dispute about the exact meanings of the words for “male prostitutes” and “practising homosexuals” here, but the latter word certainly included in its meaning practising homosexuals even if its full sense was wider.) Among these people were surely some who were remarried after divorce and so living in technically adulterous relationships. It may well also have included some people living in stable long term gay or lesbian partnerships, even if these were not the commonest forms of homosexuality in Corinth.

Let’s look next at Paul’s instructions to new Christians in Corinth. Here there is a bit of a surprise. These people were living in a city notorious for its sinful ways. So one might expect Paul to tell new believers to flee from their old evil entanglements and as far as possible cut themselves off from the world. No, he writes this to them:

Each of you should remain in the situation you were in when God called you.

1 Corinthians 7:20 (TNIV)

As examples of this principle he mentions not only circumcision (verses 18-19) and slavery (verses 21-22), but also engagement to be married (verse 27), and, apparently from the broader context, marriage itself (verses 10-13). He makes no exception for technically adulterous second marriages, nor for homosexual partnerships. So one can easily argue from this chapter that Paul expected gay and lesbian couples who became Christians, as well as divorced and remarried couples, to continue their relationships. He could, of course, have insisted that they split up. But if he had done, they would very likely have been in the position he outlined in verse 9.

On this basis I would suggest that Paul, while not approving of homosexual relationships or of remarriage after divorce, would have considered that, for couples who “cannot control themselves” and remain single as he himself did, either of these is better “than to burn with passion”.