The Bishops of the Church of England are recommending Accommodation. They want to accommodate people in gay marriages and the people who campaign for their inclusion. They want to accommodate gay people for whom gay marriage is ungodly and the people who campaign for them. Their current proposal to accommodate both groups is to encourage the Blessing of Gay Marriages.
The Bishops’ proposal has predictably been greeted with outrage by people in both groups. Both extremes argue that it is wrong to accommodate the other side. Both extremes reject the whole idea of Accommodation. How can we have something as flawed and half-hearted as Accommodation, particularly about something as fundamental as human sexuality?
It is time to assert that the God of Jesus and of the Bible accommodates to human sexuality.
Jesus was clear. God’s purpose has always been for one woman and one man for life. How many men were created for a woman? How many women were created for a man? Heterosexual monogamy is and has always been the best practice of human sexuality, has been God’s way.
Has God insisted on His own way? Or has He accommodated to humans?
Jesus accommodated in a remarkable and unacknowledged way. When going through the Gospels for 2. Listening to Jesus | Gay Marriage Maybe (wordpress.com) I missed Matthew 19:11. Jesus has been teaching seemingly strict monogamy. Then he says: ‘Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given.’
Monogamy is not a teaching which should be imposed on everyone. Some people can’t accept it. That’s OK for them. They may find, in the end, that they have a less fulfilled, more fraught, life. But Jesus says ‘Don’t insist on My way. About lifelong monogamy, accommodate.’
Paul honoured this accommodation by teaching that church leaders should be monogamous, other church members not necessarily.
The Old Testament shouts that, in mattes of sexuality, the LORD has accommodated, even in His chosen people. He accommodated to Abraham and Sarah using Hagar and to Abraham in late life taking other wives. Isaac was the exception. (For more on Isaac’s remarkable monogamy see Jacob The Son (laddermedia.co.uk)) From Jacob onwards, monogamy was hardly considered. Polygamy and concubinage was the norm.
Does this apply to Gay Marriage? Probably. It would be very odd of God to accommodate human sexuality in one way and not in another. Accommodating Gay Marriage does not mean accommodating the whole variety of human sexual practice, either heterosexual or gay. Monogamous Gay Marriage is as much a bar to Bisexual practice as Monogamous Heterosexual Marriage.
More positively, we follow the example, the spirit, of our God in accommodating our practice of marriage to gay people. Surely, gay people are some of those to whom Jesus’s teaching on monogamous heterosexual marriage has not been given? We make room for them by blessing their desire to live in a faithful lifelong monogamous relationship.
Is such Accommodation a response to the leading of the Holy Spirit today? Probably. Discernment of the leading of the Holy Spirit is a matter of careful, open, examination by the whole Church. This process has yet to be started. The Church of England has spent years listening to each other about Gay Marriage as well as listening to Leviticus and Romans. Now, we should listen more to the recorded words of Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, who can bring us, today, truths which we could not bear before. 3. Listening to the Holy Spirit | Gay Marriage Maybe (wordpress.com)
Part of our listening to the Holy Spirit is to allow people to follow their consciences and then to see what happens. Does God withdraw His blessing from them? (For a great example of God withdrawing blessing look at what happened to Jacob when he allowed his sons to slaughter the Shechemites, and God ‘went up from him.’ Genesis 34, 35 and following.) Or does He bless them the same as His other children? This was the wisdom of Gamaliel, Acts 5:34-39.
Biblically, we can agree with the Bishops in seeking to accommodate people in gay marriages. We must also agree to accommodate fellow Christians of opposing views. If two thirds of the Church representatives agree to the accommodating Blessing of Gay Marriage, some of the remaining one third may threaten to leave. To these unaccommodating Christians we say a reluctant ‘Farewell.’ Loving, accommodating, our sisters and brothers in Christ, is a clear, unequivocal, Jesus imperative. The minority who cannot accept this imperative will, sadly, have to find another home.
We have an accommodating God. Let’s be His accommodating people.
PS I was expecting the decision on Blessings of Gay Marriage to need a two thirds majority, so I wrote ‘If two thirds of the Church representatives agree…’ I was dismayed that the Bishops had decided not to follow a great Church of England practice – needing a two thirds majority for a significant change. Now I add my voice to those of Church Leaders and Bishops calling for a new vote needing a two thirds majority.
I continue to support the Bishops’ proposal but believe that the unity of the Church is more important. How can we go ahead happily if 40% of our people do not want this development? Disregard for such a substantial minority is neither Anglican nor Christian.
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