There’s something bothering me that I don’t really understand.
Maybe you know and maybe you don’t, there is a big argument rumbling on in the Church of England.
For some long while now, there has been ongoing antagonism about homosexuality. I could take you through a close study of the Bible texts on it, but I won’t because that’s not really what’s bothering me.
The basic antagonism is that some people (some of whom are homosexual, some heterosexual) in the Church of England want same-sex relationships to be acknowledged and accepted, while other C of E members firmly believe that would be morally wrong. Opinion therefore is irreconcilably divided – by which I mean that obviously you cannot believe both those things: you might change your mind, but you’d have to believe one or the other at any given time.
I haven’t read up a huge amount about all this, but I’ve formed the general impression that the people who are in favour of the acceptance of homosexual relationships cite a variety of reasons, but the people who say it is wrong unite on one principal reason – that Scripture says it is wrong. They also sometimes say it is against nature too, but a) that doesn’t hold up for long otherwise there wouldn’t be any homosexuals in the first place and b) that seems to be a secondary reason: submitting to the authority of the the Bible is the big one.
Well, as I said, I could take you through a lengthy Bible study on this, but that isn’t what’s bothering me.
What’s bothering me is this.
The people who are against acceptance of homosexual relationships are conservative Christians who (say they) base their faith and life and practice on the Bible. They also bring the charge that their opponents on this issue are going to split the church: and this they hold against them as a grievous wrongdoing. They say that the pro-gay people are going to split the church because they (the anti-gay people) will leave if homosexual relationships are accepted within the church. Meanwhile, the opponents (the ones in favour of accepting homosexual relationships) are lobbying to be accepted and included within the church.
There are two things here which have been troubling me deeply.
1) The person who leaves the church splits the church. Whatever the provocation, whatever the rationale, still, the person who leaves the church splits the church. ‘They made me do it,’ is always untrue. If you leave the church, nobody made you do it: if you went and you weren't thrown out, you left.
2) The conservative Christians who base their life and practice on the Bible, who submit to its authority and make it the centre of their faith, have presumably read it. If they have read it, they will know that though Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, he taught with great strength and clarity about unity. He begged and pleaded with the Father that we (believers) would be one, that we would hold together in unity. He asserted that it would be through our unity that the world would believe. The Bible’s teaching on unity is not dependent (unlike the teaching on homosexuality) on a few small proof texts scattered here and there: the teaching on unity is an artery that pulses throughout the whole of Scripture, starting with the Hebrew Shema which offers the unity of God as the basis for the unity of the people, and extending right through all the teaching in both Testaments and forming a foundation of the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of Paul.
Brothers, sisters – there is no mandate in Scripture for splitting the Church. And it doesn’t matter how you twist it: it doesn’t matter if you say, ‘Those other people made me do it, it’s their fault:’ it doesn’t matter if you say you had a good reason or those other people over there are disobeying the Bible. If you walk out of the church over any issue, and especially if you encourage others to walk out with you, then the person who has split the church is you, not the people you disagreed with: and you cannot say you are faithful to the teaching of holy Scripture and walk away from the church, because the teaching of holy Scripture is to hold together in unity.
If your understanding of what the Scripture teaches is that homosexual relationships are all, always, wrong, then the way forward for you is eminently clear: do not engage in such relationships yourself. But don't inflate this one issue to such great proportions that you are willing to flout in your own life the teaching on unity that runs throughout the whole of the Scripture, committing the sin of ignoring and disobeying the clear teaching of Jesus, all because you peeked over the fence into someone else’s life and saw them doing something you cannot approve of.
I cannot understand this. I cannot understand at all how people can say they are Bible-believing Christians then go right ahead to do what the Bible says clearly not to do. I could understand it if the pro-gay people wanted to split the church – because in the main they follow a more liberal interpretation of Scripture and usually sit more light to its authority. Yet it is not they who wish to divide the church – on the contrary, they are pressing for unity and inclusion.
And it’s not as if this were the only issue, blaming the pro-gay contingent simply will not wash: conservative Christian groups have a history as fractured as a shattered windscreen. They are forever splitting, always walking out. Anything from ‘God’s moving on,’ to ‘women ought to wear hats,’ to ‘we don’t like the music’.
What’s going on? Haven’t they read this book?
The approach that seeks to divide the church from within, saying we will serve under this bishop but not that one, we will be answerable to this ecclesiastical authority but not the other one, is also incompatible with biblical Christianity - it is the splitting into factions that Paul condemned so strongly, that disgusted him so much that he said 'I thank God that I baptised none of you...'
At the Last Supper, Jesus took the bread in His hands and ripped it apart saying, 'This is my body'. He told us to 'do this' to 'remember' Him. To re-member is the opposite of to dis-member. It was the desire of Jesus that we, the torn and broken body of Christ, gather in humble acceptance of one another with all our unbearable differences and, in our communion with each other and with God enter the mystery of Christ's work of reconciliation on the cross, by which all things in heaven and earth are brought back to God.
If we think we can walk out on this, if we think we can leave, we have failed to grasp the magnitude of what Jesus has done. For His cross now sits at the heart of creation, and by its power he has drawn all things, and all people, to Himself. We do not need to be afraid of the sin we believe we see in others, or disgusted by it, or turn away from them because of it. In Jesus' Name we have both victory and sanctuary. Our only responsibility is to do what He told us to do, which was to love one another, and what He prayed we would do, which was to remain in unity.