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Re. St. Michael Report (Oakes) |
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"Causes for Encouragement" - A Brief Presentation on the St. Michael Report to New Westminster Clergy, by John Oakes I'd like to begin by thanking Bishop Michael for this opportunity to offer a few thoughts on the St. Michael Report, as well as Dr. Thorne for his enlightening keynote address, and my fellow-panellists for their contributions. After wrestling with the topic of same-sex blessings for decades now in different contexts, and especially within our diocese, I must confess, as many others probably would here today, to a certain intellectual and emotional fatigue with it. But I must also say right from the outset this afternoon that of all the similar national or international documents that I have studied in recent years, I have found the St. Michael Report to be among the most encouraging. I have made no secret of my views on the general issues involved. Basically, I can see strong pastoral and social reasons for encouraging the blessing of same-sex unions in order to affirm and promote greater stability and fidelity in gay and lesbian relationships. But I cannot ultimately support it from a biblical or ethical viewpoint, because I think that the testimony of the Bible specifically defines homosexual acts, although not orientation, as sinful. At the same time, I do not regard the church's traditional stance on this issue as a matter of essential Christian doctrine prescribed by our Creeds or founding formularies. So as long as I have the freedom that I now enjoy to teach and minister according to the dictates of personal conscience on this matter, I do not find it necessary to try to separate myself from our bishop or our diocese, because the blessing of same-sex unions has been authorized locally. Nor do I think that this authorization should necessarily lead to a state of impaired or broken communion between fellow Anglicans who can otherwise affirm the true, credal essentials of our Christian faith. Within this context, the St. Michael Report especially encourages me for the three following reasons: First, it clearly affirms that "the blessing of committed same-sex unions is a matter of doctrine" (Overview:1) and it offers convincing reasons why this is so. The report offers a suitably general definition of doctrine as "that teaching of the Church which is founded on Scripture, interpreted in the context of tradition, with the use of reason" (¶8). It rightly links understandings of human sexuality with the doctrines of soteriology, the incarnation, pneumatology, theological anthropology and sanctification (¶2), and it goes some way towards demonstrating such connections (¶20-37). But one of its strongest arguments is based on the very clear factual premises that the Anglican Church of Canada understands marriage to be a matter of doctrine (¶38), and that - on the well established Anglican principle of "lex orandi, lex credendi" (literally, "the law of prayer is the law of belief") - a liturgy for the blessing of same-sex unions, like any other rite, cannot but represent an expression of church doctrine (¶3). When the Primate's Theological Commission thus concludes that "any proposed blessing of a same-sex relationship would be analogous to a marriage to such a degree as to require the church to understand it clearly in relation to the doctrine of marriage" (¶39), it is making a statement that is not only consistent with such presuppositions. I would argue that this observation has also been born out in practice. Our own diocesan "Rite for the Celebration of Gay and Lesbian Covenants," for example, requires couples to make vows and promises and involves a priestly blessing that are all very similar to those contained in a traditional wedding ceremony. In that sense, same-sex blessings clearly are analogous to rites of Holy Matrimony and since the church has traditionally and canonically viewed the latter as involving matters of doctrine, it must surely understand the former in exactly the same way. The second main feature that encourages me in the St. Michael Report is the strong and in my view, appropriate, distinction that it makes between "core" or "credal" doctrines and "adiaphora" (literally, "matters indifferent") "'upon which,'" according to the terms of The Windsor Report 2004 which it quotes, "'disagreement can be tolerated without endangering unity'" (¶8, citing Windsor Report, §A:36). As I have already noted, I share the opinions of the Primate's Theological Commission that the "blessing of same-sex unions is not a matter of core doctrine in the sense of being credal," and that this should not, therefore, "be a Communion-breaking issue" (¶10). However, I also believe that the St. Michael Report sometimes does insufficient justice to the strength of opinion on this question and that is probably my major criticism of the document. There clearly are differences in importance among secondary or non-essential doctrines, and I personally believe that the blessing of same-sex unions involves matters of sexual ethics that are very important. But I find the labelling of "teachings [which] appear to occupy a place on a scale between core doctrines and adiaphora" as "confessional" to be historically problematic, because I see little basis for this category in the Anglican tradition (¶9). At the same time, the report's statement that "for some on all sides of the issue," the blessing of same-sex unions "has taken on an urgency that approaches the 'confessional' status" is, I think, a misrepresentation of the views of many who actually consider it to involve "core" or "essential" doctrine (¶10). Indeed, this is what divides my position, as I understand it, from that of more radical theological conservatives who definitely regard same-sex blessings as a Communion-breaking issue, however the Primate's Theological Commission has chosen to define their views. Re. St. Michael Report - pg. 2 | ||||||||
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