Equal Marriage: crossing the threshold

Today, equal marriage has become law in England. I want to welcome it and offer congratulations, good wishes and prayers to all who will be getting married today and in the coming weeks. It’s been moving to read stories of the very first ceremonies held in the small hours across the country.

I don’t know what I can add to the debate we have had in state and church over the past months, or for that matter, to what I’ve already blogged on the subject. But here are some thoughts from a Christian perspective as we cross this historic threshold.

First, I recognise how hard this has been for many fellow-Christians, some in this country, but especially overseas. It is unfair to dub all who dissent as homophobic: there are many people of integrity for whom equal marriage is hard to accept. It would have been for me at one time. We need to allow time. Our bishops don't find themselves in an easy position here, so I welcome Justin Welby’s realism about this change and his wish for the church not to campaign against it and pursue hostile agendas but at least to call a truce, and more positively to welcome and embrace gay couples in Christ’s name as they find their home in the church.

Secondly, we shouldn’t be afraid of how this development enlarges our understanding of marriage. Some say that equal marriage is an invalid distortion of marriage as traditionally understood. But if it is, so was the 19th century change in marriage law to allow men to marry their deceased wife’s sister (once forbidden as incestuous in the table of kindred and affinity). More recently, remarriage after divorce and the church’s provision of services of blessing were equally contentious at the time. My point is that neither of these changed the nature of marriage: they simply enlarged its scope by admitting to it people who were once excluded. Equal marriage is another stage in the long evolution of an institution that has been reshaped at different times down the centuries. But its essence is what it always was: the covenanted union of two people for life. That has not changed.

Thirdly, I think we need to be more intelligent about thinking biblically in relation to equal marriage. It’s not enough to quote texts by themselves, as if they prove or disprove a particular position: what’s necessary is to understand the direction in which scripture is leading us in the way we reflect on human relationships. I was struck by a conversation the other day with a convinced evangelical who asked: why does the church come across as so hostile to equal marriage when it’s so clear from the Bible that covenanted monogamous lifelong commitment is always better than casual, promiscuous coupling? For the covenanted relationship is precisely how God marries himself to humanity. Shouldn’t the church positively welcome equal marriage as affirming this rich biblical insight into God’s nature and ours? And even if we aren't sure, isn’t it better to risk a more generous way of reading biblical writings rather than a narrower, in the spirit of a text I come back to in so many controversial settings: ‘there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3.28). This is the kind of hermeneutical risk I see Jesus taking with Torah texts in the gospels.

Fourthly, let me acknowledge the pain and anger of gay people who continue to feel excluded by the church’s stance on equal marriage. The recent guidance from the House of Bishops has not reassured them, and it’s now clear that some bishops were far from comfortable with the advice they had issued. However, I do not think that this represents a stable position. As equal marriage becomes accepted by society and, as the indications are showing, by the majority of lay people in the church, we shall see a shift in the official stance. In time, the church will accommodate itself to this development, and recognise that by blessing same-sex marriages and even solemnising them, it is affirming the principle that covenanted unions are fundamental to the way we see (and more important, the way God sees) human love. Precisely the same happened with the remarriage of divorced people in church, and with female bishops. It takes time for change to be received and its theological significance understood. It’s not much comfort to those asking the church for recognition now, but in time I believe we shall get there.

And finally. After today, we shouldn’t talk any more about equal marriage, or same-sex marriage or gay marriage, just marriage. I’m glad that one more layer of discrimination and prejudice has been stripped away. It’s a day to celebrate generosity, justice and love. And while I’m sad that the church won’t officially be part of today’s celebrations, that doesn’t stop us rejoicing with all who rejoice, praying with them and blessing them in our hearts.

'Just In': Inauguration Thoughts

So now he is ‘just in’ as Archbishop of Canterbury. Yesterday didn’t make him archbishop: he has legally held the office since early last month. But the grand ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral was his presentation, so to speak, to the world, his ecce homo at which a new leader of worldwide Anglicanism was launched on his public ministry.

When I trained ordinands more than 30 years ago, I used to say to them: the real rite of passage you need to think about is not ‘getting ordained’ one summer Sunday in a great cathedral.  It’s the next day, the first Monday of the rest of your life when you have to decide what you are actually going to be and do as a new deacon. For the first time, you will wear your clerical collar in the street, catch your reflection in shop windows, sign yourself ‘the Reverend’, realise that many people will treat you differently from now on, whether with respect, adoration, indifference or downright contempt. They will expect you to know about Levitical ordinances, vestment colours and why good people suffer.  That’s the day when it truly dawns on you that you’ve become what you weren’t before – clergy. And maybe you ask, however did I get here?

So I wonder what Justin’s first working day in ‘ordinary’ has been like. I’m not going to speculate.  I’m genuinely interested in how someone I’ve known since he was a curate and recently worked closely with, makes this huge transition. In St Paul’s language, he has shot from being unknown to being well-known, at least as far as his name and his face are concerned. And if we describe it as an ascent, how does he prevent an attack of the bends with such a rapid rise to fame?  That question answers itself, for it will be his modesty, charm, self-deprecatory style, lack of self-importance and above all spiritual integrity that will keep him safe. But he will be the first to say that we need to pray for him, just as Pope Francis did, not just now but far into the future. As I said in a previous blog, the Chair of St Augustine has in our time become a ‘siege perilous’. Who is sufficient for these things?   

I was glad to be at yesterday’s service at Canterbury. It was the last in a series of Justin-ceremonies that I had been present at over the years: his ordination as deacon and priest at Coventry, his consecration as bishop, his installation at Durham Cathedral, the great farewell service there, all too soon, the confirmation of his election at St Paul’s, and now his inauguration. At Canterbury I recognised many of the themes we had become familiar with in Durham. His fanfare arrival at the west door was followed by a dialogue in which he said with touching simplicity that he was Justin who had come to serve among us as a fellow-human being and disciple. There was an act of penitence that reminded us at the outset that we live in a broken world and serve in a broken and divided church. We sang upbeat hymns such as ‘In Christ alone’ and ‘And can it be’, both of which were sung at Durham. The preacher’s voice was unambiguously that of a man whose Christian hope and conviction are unshakeable. Only Christ, he said, can reach out and save us from being destroyed by the storms that threaten to overwhelm us.

So much, so familiar. But I sense a subtle change in some of Justin’s public utterances. To take the most contentious matter our church is facing, homosexual relations and gay marriage, he clearly seems to want to open up a space for dialogue with campaigners like Peter Tatchell.  He has said he wants to understand the issues better for himself.  He speaks of gay couples in civil unions who have a ‘stunning’ quality of relationship. Yes, he does affirm the ‘traditional’ Church position on heterosexual marriage.  But not in a way that closes doors to those who, for principled theological and pastoral reasons, believe that there is more to be said that simply to rehearse the tradition. 

High office can have the effect of shutting down a leader’s capacity for original thought and courageous risk-taking. Or it can affirm his or her individuality, the right - indeed the duty - to ask questions of his or her institution, retain and grow the capacity for reflection and honest criticism. This is all part of theological, emotional and spiritual intelligence.  I have a hunch that Justin will surprise us.  Maybe today, Day One of his public archiepiscopate, will have been the start of the next phase of that journey.

A little personal postscript. What touched me more than anything else in the service happened right at the start. After the great west doors had been flung open and Justin welcomed there, the procession made its way slowly up the nave aisle. The Durham contingent was standing, robed, just by the nave altar.  When Justin drew level with us, he stopped, turned and bowed gravely to us before continuing eastwards.  It was an echo of the times we had bowed him into his stall in Durham Cathedral. None of us were expecting this courtesy, this gentle act of recognition. It was heartwarming not to be forgotten.

Farewell to the Bishop of Durham

We have said farewell to Justin Welby. This time next week he will be Archbishop of Canterbury, exchanging the see of Cuthbert for the see of Augustine. Bishop of Durham for 14 months, he has lived up to his name of being only ‘just in’ as some of us have been quipping at the risk of lèse majesté.  It was a wonderful service; the conventional media epithet of bidding ‘an emotional farewell’ doesn’t begin to do justice to it. Words, music, silence, ceremony, humour and communitas melded into a rather special parting of friends. The full Cathedral was a tribute to the respect and affection he has earned here in the North East after only a year.  

Today, the day after, some choristers have come to the Deanery for tea. I meet each of the year groups annually to help them think about Christian faith and what their involvement in the Cathedral means to them. Over chocolate cakes, I asked them what they had made of the service.  ‘Brilliant!’ they said, which pleased me. Everyone I’d spoken to after the service had said the same, but choristers don’t always enthuse about liturgy. ‘What did you enjoy about it?’ I asked.  ‘The Bishop has a great sense of humour.’ ‘It was funny when he couldn’t unwrap the leaving gifts.’  ‘All the cameras were looking straight at us.’ And then, less whimsically, ‘Love the Kenneth Leighton Magnificat’. 

Then someone said: ‘But I was sad too.’ Another added, ‘Yes, there was a point in the service when I found I was feeling something.’  Some others nodded, recognising that these two lads spoke for them.  I asked what had touched them. ‘When you and the Bishop walked alone up to the high altar with the big gold stick, and disappeared behind the screen, and when you both came out again, it had gone’.  I have to say that the youngsters’ grasp of the power of well-crafted ritual pleased me even more than their enthusiasm had done.

In case you don’t grasp the significance of this action let me explain. It’s about the symbolism of laying down office and leaving behind the responsibilities that go with it. The ‘big gold stick’ is the Bishop’s staff or crozier. Some say that it is a sign of the Bishop’s authority and jurisdiction in his diocese; others that it represents his pastoral care of his people. Either way, he lays it down when he stops being Bishop of his diocese. In Durham, by long tradition, the ‘spiritualities’, as they are called, are ‘guarded’ by the Cathedral Chapter because the Cathedral is the Bishop’s church and houses his ‘cathedra’ or seat.

The slow walk the Bishop and I were making was to Cuthbert’s shrine, the Cathedral’s emotional and spiritual heart.  In the privacy of this hidden, holy place behind the high altar, the Bishop handed the crozier back to me as Dean.  In the name of the Cathedral Chapter (its governing body), I received the crozier and laid it on the shrine, the great black slab that marks the place of his burial. It was a pledge to take good care of it (meaning the office as well as the object) until the next Bishop comes into the shrine to take it up again during his enthronement that marks the beginning of new chapter for us all.

We stayed there silently for a while, each of us alone with our thoughts and prayers. I’m not sure I can put into words the profound significance of that moment. Then we emerged and walked back down the quire to the crossing where he knelt before the Bishop of Jarrow and me.  Bishop Mark Bryant commissioned him to go out to his new work in the spirit of our northern saints; and I blessed him in the name of the people of the diocese. Then Justin blessed all of us, and soon after that it was over.

Too soon, some of us were thinking.  As he said, his farewell sermon should have been ten years in the preparation, not just one. And yet we're proud here in Durham to be sending this good man to Canterbury. And the affection, the thank-yous, the prayers, and the memories will linger for a long time to come. If there had to be a parting, it could not have been better marked than this. And the choristers knew it.