Melvyn Bragg
And in the personalisation of all politics, including religious politics, the
weight seems to have descended on your head. And it's even more dramatically
exposed in the matter of homosexuality.
Archbishop
Christians thinking about sexuality I guess would begin from what the Bible seems
to say about the fact that our sexual relationships, like other aspects of our
bodily lives, can reveal God or can obscure God. And the New Testament is pretty
clear that the sexual relationship that reveals God is marriage. It’s that unequivocal,
unconditional commitment over time of like opposites or complementary partners,
different people, coming together in covenant, in promised relationship. It reflects
the relationship of God to God’s people, of Christ to the Church. And therefore
marriage has always had that central place in helping Christians understand sexuality.
And on the basis of that Christians have said - sexual relationships that don’t
show that unconditional, lasting, exclusive quality don’t show God in that way.
They may represent turning away from God’s purpose. So that’s the - the starting
point I think for thinking theologically about this. On that basis of course,
through most of Christian history, and certainly in the Bible, it’s been taken
for granted that same sex relationships don’t fit in to that model. What has,
I think, come as a challenge in the last, particularly in the last 20 years,
is people in the United States and elsewhere saying, “Yes, but there are relationships
between people of the same sex which seem to have some of the same quality that
we’re associating with marriage. So what’s wrong with them?” Now putting that
together with what the Bible and the traditions say, putting it together with
how the world-wide Church thinks about it, is not I think a quick or an easy
job. And I think one of the problems we face at the moment is distinguishing
between two rather different things. One is a sort of hesitation which many people
quite rightly feel about moving too quickly to a new scheme which might jeopardise
what’s said about marriage, and so on. And the other is, if you like, plain prejudice
and bigotry about homosexuality as such, of which there is an awful lot in Christian
circles. Now, not many people, either in the Church or out, are always able to
distinguish those two. Sometimes Christians who express doubts of reservations
about changing the scheme are instantly accused of homophobia or bigotry. And
I actually don’t think that’s fair. And sometimes within the Church people oppose
homosexual behaviour on what they think are biblical grounds, but when you scratch
a bit, tend to be rather more social prejudice and inherited ideas. So there’s
a job of discernment, and a long one. That’s why I’m reluctant to see us foreclosing
this by independent decisions which lean on one side rather than the other.
Melvyn Bragg
Is there a theological basis for the distinctions made between different sexual
options? The preferred state has been marriage and it has gone with the marriage
of Christ to the church and God to – and so on. But is there a theological basis
for saying this sort of relationship is acceptable and this sort of relationship
in God's eyes is unacceptable?
Archbishop
The theological basis I think that most people have turned to is a very fundamental
belief that in the order of creation there are men and women, and that the relationship
between men and women - because it’s as I said the relationship of complementary
opposites, physically and in other ways - speaks more, more clearly, of God’s
relation to the world, difference, and yet communion. That’s the basis. That
isn’t spelled out I think in the Bible in those terms, and that’s why these days
it’s - it’s being contested in some quarters. People are saying, “Well is that
actually what the Bible has to mean or is there some other way of coming at it?”
Because you asked about the theological basis, and I’ve tried to look at the
underlying logic of it, but you’ve also got the texts which condemn same sex
activity fairly straightforwardly. So that’s got to be factored in as well to
the discussion.
Melvyn Bragg
But what also has to be factored in are people, aren’t there? And in this country
it was Jeffrey John. That was a very difficult decision for you personally, and
it came right at the beginning of your office.
Archbishop
Yes, it was a difficult decision, and it had to do with weighing up a whole lot
of factors about how - how the Church could hang together in the continuing conversation
about this rather than simply splitting into bits that weren’t going to communicate
with each other. And that continues to be the difficulty we face world-wide.
Melvyn Bragg
You said something very interesting about that, because there’s a split. There
are certain – let's use the Nigerian church as – a very big church – as an example,
which is completely against this – homosexuals becoming priests, bishops. And
you said words to the effect, “Their voices have to be listened to because with
so many things in the world they are marginalised, they are not listened to.
And simply to overrule yet again because a consensus of liberal opinion in the
West, we can't do that. And that becomes a different sort of way to argue, doesn't
it? Because it's not a theological argument, it’s not an intellectual argument,
it’s - it’s an argument about shepherding, about keeping this flock together?
Archbishop
But that I think in itself is a theological thing. If - if St. Paul is right
in saying that in the body of Christ and the church we all need one another’s
perspectives, then shepherding, trying to broker and facilitate relationships
and keep a conversation going even when people want to walk out of the room,
has something to do with witnessing to how the Church ought to behave. We shall
be less of a Church if we lose our neighbours. So what are the conditions for
not losing?
Melvyn Bragg
.....You must have thought of this - what price unity? Don't some people say
to you sometimes, oh look, let it split up, let's go, let's go after what we
believe in and we will go that direction, they will go that direction and there
you are, that’s fine.
Archbishop
If that’s the decision of some bits of the Church that’s - that’s their decision.
My job I think in those circumstances is to say, “But this is the cost; think
about that”. And from where I stand the particular responsibility I have in this
configuration, in virtue of the Office, is to do all I can to hold the conversation
together with integrity. I don’t pretend that there may not come a point where
that’s not possible. But I hope and pray that we carry on with it. But as I say
that’s I think the particular job that an Archbishop of Canterbury has to exercise
in that world-wide context now.
END