Peter’s denial at the centre of St Matthew’s Passion; then, Lord have mercy. And Deventer.

 We have a friend, Thea,  who sings alto in a choir that performs Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion in Deventer, Holland. She is a Bach enthusiast and when my wife told her several years ago that she did not really understand his music, her response was simple: ‘I will teach you’.

 And she did. She hosted us in her home in Zwolle; gave us a tutorial on St Matthew's Passion; and arranged for us to attend the concert in Deventer. 

 Thea explained to us how Bach tied the music tightly to the text. Just a few examples: the voice of the Evangelist rises slightly when he says ‘Hohenpriester’ (high priest); the flute is tear like; the violins bring the whipping; there is staccato for the coins dropping. There are many more. 

 Every year she sings; every year she notices new details, new layers. That's Bach. 

 Most precious of all was her explanation about the structure of the entire work. It is in the form of a cross. The first half of the performance, (1 – 35) is the horizontal bar of the cross, and the second half is the vertical bar (36 – 78). But what happens at the intersection? The answer is Peter’s denial. Jesus prophesies about the denial half way through the first half, and then one third into the second half, the vertical bar, the actual denial happens. 

 And after that terrible human failure we have what is perhaps the peak of poignancy among the many mountains of Bach’s musical genius: the Erbame dich, Lord have mercy.

 That mercy becomes Christ crucified.  

 If Bach is the fifth evangelist, then surely ‘St Matthew’s Passion’ is the fifth Gospel, underlined by this structure. Whether we are believers or unbelievers makes little difference. All of us have a moral compass, and all of us have been where Peter has been. We have denied the truth. Not the functional two plus two truth, that is just information, but truth which has its roots in the Hebrew word Emet and speaks of loyalty, faithfulness, integrity, reliability. No wonder the Erbame dich brings such comfort to so many millions.

 Deventer

 I have attended performances of St Matthew’s Passion in London and Madrid; Derventer, Holland is in a different league. After that first visit in 2016, my wife and I went again last week (Holy Week, 2024). What happened there is etched onto our hearts.

 At the end of the performance, nobody moved. There was an intense, profound silence throughout the church. The idea of cheering – which of course the musicians deserved, and which often happens after a concert – would have been wholly out of place.

 I sat next to a lady who comes every year. She said that Deventer was the best St Matthew’s Passion in the Netherlands, and there are quite a few.

 There are reasons for this.

 First the church. The acoustics are superb, and the musicians can be positioned exactly as Bach intended, with the two orchestras and choirs facing each other, the soloists between them, the Evangelist in the pulpit – and the boys’ choir, in a balcony at the western end. The cross in the music, is there physically.

 Also the church brings immediacy for the audience are all around the central area. This is there as the music happens, and during the break and at the end. There is no backstage. Everyone mingles together.

 There is also the conductor, Klaas Stok. There was no baton, and absolutely no theatre, just his hands and his eyes, bringing it all to life, often from memory. This is an extraordinarily complicated piece, so much depending on pace and fluidity. Stok never let us down.

 During the interval I fell into conversation with a middle-man. He was surprised when he learned that my wife and I had travelled from England to hear this performance. I understood his surprise, but I assured him it was well worth it.

 And it was, for  I cannot remember any other concert that has had such emotional impact on me. In fact, it is not really possible to find words to describe how one feels when the performance ends. 

I think it is very likely we will be going to Deventer again. 

 

 

How many times did Jesus clear the temple? Once

 In the Synoptics Jesus clears the temple in the last week of his life; in John it seems to happen right at the start of Jesus’ ministry.

 What’s going on?

 We have three options.

 1. A mistake

 Either John or the Synoptic writers have made a mistake. There was one clearing of the temple, the Synoptics say it was in the last week of Jesus’ life; John says, that’s wrong, it was very early on in his ministry.

 I don’t think either John or the Synoptic writers would have made such a massive mistake. It is clear that there can be minor mistakes over details in the Gospels, and indeed in the Bible. For example go to the resurrection stories and try and work out how many angels were around. In Matthew there is one, in Mark there is a young man, in Luke and John there are two angels. We should not let these small differences worry us, the main point is that there are angels in an empty tomb.

 But what we have here in John is not a small mistake. To have the clearing at the start of the Jesus story when in fact it happened at the end of Jesus’ life is a big mistake. I do not believe the author is that careless. John is very careful about names and places. Look at the detail he gives in John 5 about where the healing of the lame man happened. Nor are the writers of the Synoptics careless. Luke said he investigated everything carefully. (Luke 1:3)

 The mistake option is not strong..

 2.Two separate events

 There were two cleansings of the temple. One is as John has it, at the start of Jesus’ ministry, the other, with the Synoptics, at the end. So, there are no mistakes. Some scholars like D.A Carson believe this. Many, quite rightly, are not convinced.

 Historically anyone creating mayhem in the temple would be arrested – immediately. The Jews and the Romans had soldiers right there in the temple to do this. In the Synoptics Jesus is not arrested, and we can easily understand why. Josephus tells us that the population of Jerusalem swelled to two million over Passover. That might be Middle Eastern exaggeration, but we are talking about hundreds of thousands of people. And these vast crowds have just welcomed him into Jerusalem calling Jesus the Son of David. Jesus is the true King.  And we are told that the authorities did not want to risk a riot by arresting him in public.

 So, it makes sense for Jesus to be able to clear the temple in the last week and not be arrested. To say it also happened at the start of his ministry makes no sense at all. Jesus was then only well known in Galilee. He did not have a vast following in Jerusalem. So he could have easily been arrested and probably put in prison for a long time.

 Connected to this historical problem, is the competence of the Synoptic writers.  I cannot see how a writer like Luke, who made a ‘careful investigation’ into Jesus’ life, would say nothing about this first clearing of the temple when he wrote about the second one.

 Jesus knows very well that his protest will not change anything. Ultimately it is gesture politics, a definitive statement that the whole system is rotten. Such a dramatic protest only needs to happen once, not twice. If we say Jesus did it twice it means he is the sort of person who likes protest for the sake of pointless protest. That should surely make us a little uneasy.

 There is also an artistic problem. For it is clumsy for there to be two clearings of the temple. It is a massive event. It needs to stand alone. The drama in the Synoptics is perfect. Jesus enters Jerusalem and looks around the temple. Then the next day he clears out the money changers and the traders There is an element of surprise. All that drains away if we think he has already done this at the start of his ministry.

 It's not difficult to understand why most people don’t think it happened twice

 Let’s go to the third option.

 3. John has moved the event forward.

 The clearing happened in the last week, as recorded in the Synoptics; but John has deliberately moved the story forward. This is the option that makes the most sense.

 First of all it’s important to note how close the stories are in both John and the Synoptics, especially Mark. Both take place near the time of the Passover, both have tables being overturned and after the incident, in both accounts the authority of Jesus is challenged.

 And then there is something else that ties this story in John to the Synoptics. More than once in the Synoptics we have the Jews asking Jesus for a sign, even though Jesus has performed many miracles. Jesus refuses to give them a sign and calls them ‘an evil and adulterous generation’.

 They are not sincere. We have the same here in John, 2:18, the Jews say, what sign have you done to give you this authority, but look at v. 23. It’s obvious Jesus has been performing many miracles. So many that Nicodemus talks about them at the start of chapter 3, and the Galileans who were in Jerusalem remember them in chapter 4. So – we have a similar request with a similar background.

 There is something else that shows this is one story, not two. In both the Synoptics and John Jesus refuses to give a sign. But once in reply to the demand for a sign Jesus had given an enigmatic response. He said the only sign they would be given would be the sign of Jonah who spent three nights in the belly of a whale. This is a reference to his death and resurrection. That is the basis of his authority. Now look what we have in John. Another enigmatic response about building a temple in three days – but  it is exactly the same meaning as what we have in the Synoptics. It’s about Jesus’ death and resurrection.

 There is one last point that – for me – settles the matter that what we have here in John 2 is the same story that we have in Mark 11. For in John 2:19 Jesus says, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will rise it up’.

 In Mark 14: 53 – 65 we have an account of Jesus’s first trial before the Sanhedrin. We are told that many people are standing up and speaking against Jesus. We don’t know exactly what they are saying until we come to v. 58. It is almost exactly what we have in John 2. ‘We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’

 In Mark we are not told when Jesus said this, but the idea this was said three years earlier is surely not true. No, this is hot, up to date evidence. Jesus has come to Jerusalem and has said the temple is going to be destroyed – not three years ago, but just a few days before this trial. He has challenged the whole system in front of a vast crowd. The authorities are determined to snuff this out.

 All the evidence points to there being one cleansing of the temple which happened in the last week of Jesus’ life. There was no cleansing of the temple three years earlier at the start of his ministry.

 Someone might say: but it is not right to change the dates even if the author has good reasons.

 But the writer does not change any dates. Look at the text carefully. He never says when the clearing of the temple happened. Unlike in chapter one there is no ‘the next day here’. We just read that the Passover of the Jews was near. And we know from the Synoptics that this was indeed the case. The writer is not changing the chronology at all, in fact he is trusting that his readers know that the story happened at the end of Jesus’ ministry and will understand that he wants emphasize something by placing it by the account of the water changing into wine.

 What then is he wanting to emphasize? The body and blood of Jesus Christ

 Chapter Two is the start of Jesus’ public ministry. And so this is the writer telling us what is at the heart of all Jesus’ ministry. This is the writer telling us how to view all of Jesus’ ministry. This is the lens from how we should view things. The writer is saying – don’t get lost in the detail of this healing or that teaching, remember the big picture. I gave it to you in chapter two.

 And what is that big picture? The story of the wedding in Cana was all about wine, the blood of Jesus. The story of the temple is all about Jesus’ body, how it will be destroyed and raised up after three days. What is the author wanting to say? That the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ stands at the heart of the Gospel story. It is what we had at the heart of the prologue. He came to his own, he was rejected, but to all who believed in him, he gave the right to become children of God. It’s what we had with John the Baptist. Not once, but twice – ‘Behold the lamb of God’. The best wine. The best bread. The death and resurrection. This is the story. This is the anchor. This is where everything beings and where everything ends. God’s love for sinful mankind in the blood and body of his beloved Son Jesus Christ. Lose this and we lose everything. No wonder the writer wants to move the story to the start.

 The actual text, the historical context, the artistry, and above all the theology all point to there being one cleansing of the temple a few days before Jesus’ execution. John has moved it to the start of his account of Jesus’ life confident that his readers will understand that he wants them to see all that happens through the prism of Christ’s death and resurrection.

 

How many people were at the last supper? Almost certainly more than thirteen.

 The assumption is there were thirteen there – Jesus and his twelve disciples. Then twelve after Judas goes into the ‘night’.

 The Bible record points to there being more people there.

 The security situation points to there being more people there.

 The culture points to there being more people there.

 The Bible Record

 The Bible never says there were only twelve disciples in the upper room. Yes, the twelve were certainly there (Matthew 26:20; Mark 14: 17; Luke 22:14); but the Scripture never says it was only the twelve.

 In Mark 14:51 we read about a young man who had been with Jesus and the other disciples in Gethsemane. When the soldiers tried to arrest him, this young man managed to get away, but lost his linen cloth. So, he ran away ‘naked’. Nearly every scholar believes that this was Mark John.

 Mark John was not an apostle; but he was in the garden. You can argue that he came separately and met Jesus and the apostles in the middle of the night. That seems unlikely. It is much more likely that he was in the upper room for the last supper and then left with the others, as the Gospel of John records. Jesus says, ‘Rise, let’s go’. (John 14:31)

 And the Beloved Disciple. He is there at the last supper (13:23). And at the end of the Gospel he tells us that he is the disciple (not the apostle) who is the author of all that we have read, (21:24). Most scholars, for good reason, do not believe that John Zebedee was the author of the Gospel – for more on that see here, https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/02/who-wrote-gospel-of-john-not-son-of.html - so that means that as well as John Mark, we definitely have another non apostle at the table.

 There is one more aspect of the Bible account that points to there being more than thirteen in the upper room. Jesus announces that one of his disciples will betray him (John 13:21). The disciples are confused and Peter makes a sign to the Beloved Disciple to discreetly ask Jesus who the traitor is. Jesus explains about the bread; the bread is offered to Judas, and then Judas leaves. If there are just twelve at the table it would seem that they are descending into a new depth of dumbness. In this type of setting it is absolutely obvious who the traitor is: announcement; signing; whispering; Jesus offers bread to Judas; Judas goes out. Even a three-year-old would be able to work out that the traitor was Judas. But, according to the writer of the fourth Gospel, the disciples have not worked it out. They think that Judas is going out either to buy something for the upcoming Feast of Unleavened Bread, or to give money to the poor who that Passover night would be gathered in some number in the entrance of the temple (John 13:29).

 If we have more in the room, then it is much easier to understand why the disciples did not understand why Judas had left. We have to free ourselves from the paintings, and imagine a room where there are more people and different circles of conversation happening. There is shock with Jesus’ announcement, and then these different conversations start, so very few see either Peter’s sign to the Beloved Disciple, or his whispered conversation with Jesus, or even the bread being offered to Judas.

 That is the Bible record. It never says there were only thirteen; it points very definitely to Mark John and the Beloved Disciple as being there; and the action between Peter, the Beloved Disciple, Jesus and Judas was not noticed by all the guests – because of numbers.

 The Security Situation

 Things were tense in Jerusalem and dangerous for Jesus. This private dinner was a perfect opportunity for the authorities to arrest Jesus so the group needed protection. This was provided by ‘the master of the house’. This man is rich. He owns a house in the capital – with a large upper room. He is probably influential. It is his presence in the upper room which gives the security. The authorities want to arrest Jesus when he is isolated, not when he is with a well to do supporter.

 It is worth noting that some think this well to do supporter is the Beloved Disciple. And if the Beloved Disciple is also the ‘other disciple’ who is mentioned in chapter 18 then we know he is very influential. For we are told that he is known to the high priest. He just has to knock on Caiaphas’ door and not only can he walk in, but he can bring Peter with him. Such a man would definitely give security.

 The Culture

 This was not a culture of fixed social gatherings with guest lists and seating plans. That is a Western idea. A social gathering in the East is more fluid. If people come, their names were not checked. That is why the woman with the difficult reputation was able to be at the social gathering with Jesus and Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7. Already we know that Mark John and the Beloved Disciple (who is possibly the owner) were there. The flow of the culture would mean that if others were ‘insiders’, then they too would have been welcomed. That’s the East. John Mark’s mother could have been there. Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Mary Magdalene. Others.

 There is something else about culture. In the East meals are a serious business. You can’t have people round and just put a pizza in the micro-wave. That is true for all meals – but it is especially true for a meal at Passover time. It is a little like Christmas for Christians.

 So, Peter and John are sent to prepare the Passover meal (Luke 22:8), but do we have to believe they had no help? The menu for the Passover meal is not bread and cheese. It is at least a bean stew, lamb, olives, fish, unleavened bread, dates, the wine - and probably more. There is a lot of work. The culture in the East is that usually more people get involved in the kitchen. It is perhaps more likely that Peter and John were shown a room where they prepared the Passover, and then were helped by close and trusted friends. Martha would have been excellent. 

 So….

 It is of course impossible to say exactly how many people were at the Last Supper, but perhaps a good guess would be between twenty to thirty. Stay with thirteen and we have to have John Mark setting out in the middle of the night to get to Gethsemane; the Beloved Disciple has to be John Zebedee which stirs up a nest of problems; the disciples have to be stupid; the security appalling; and the culture boxed into a rigid dinner party with a strict guest list.

 

Over twelve hours of the extended versions of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. Is there a most moving moment?

 I’ve never done it before, sat on a sofa and watched three major films – in a row. We had two pizza breaks, and over twelve hours in front of a huge TV screen with a superb sound system.

 It’s no good dipping into Tolkien; sinking into his world of wizards and men, hobbits, and elves, and orcs and trolls is surely the best way. And so it was going to be all three extended versions – The Fellowship of The Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King – back to back.

 And after all those epic battles, vicious duels, tense diplomacy, grand deliberations, and slithering Gollum conversations - – is it possible to pin point the most moving moment?

 Yes.

 It is right at the end, at the great gathering outside the chapel at the top of Minas Tirith. The camera draws back and we see our four hobbits standing, and as the returned king Aragorn approaches they start to bow. But Aragorn says that they do not have to bow to anyone, and then the entire company kneels in honour of the hobbits. 

 The seemingly strong honouring the seemingly weak.

 The glamorous and the exotic, kneeling before the Mr Ordinaries.  Not because they are patronizing or even polite, but because after twelve hours we know that the hobbits absolutely deserve it.  They had the perfect rustic life, but they chose to go. And they kept on going.

 So, we are moved because the halflings who should have been easily defeated by the orcs and trolls and Nazgul birds and evil invisible powers - have won.

 We are moved because, though flawed, their loyalty and courage and perseverance, proved stronger than their weaknesses.

 And we are moved because if Frodo and Sam and Pippin and Merry can press on to deal with the evil that came unwanted into their ordinary lives, then we too can do the same in our ordinary lives.

 And, even better, perhaps one day, in a great gathering, we too will be honoured by the returned King.

A Summary Of Edmund Burke's 'Reflections on the French Revolution'

 After reading Burke’s wonderfully robust ‘Reflections on the French Revolution’ I looked on the internet for a summary. I couldn’t fine one, so I wrote my own. Some writing is too good to just leave vaguely in one’s memory.

 In the opening pages Burke explains that he began the book as a correspondence with a young friend in France (Charles Depont) who was seeking his views on the revolution.

 Burke had no doubts about the importance of the question.  ‘The French Revolution’ he wrote,’is the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world’. However opening he has ‘grave doubts on several material points in your late transactions’.

 The French Revolution has no connection with the English Revolution of 1688

 Burke was very opposed to any linking of the French Revolution with England’s Glorious Revolution. He forcefully attacks a sermon given by a member of The Revolution Society in England. The preacher is Dr Richard Price[1], whom Burke dislikes, not only for his unthinking support for the French Revolution, but especially because he argues that it is similar to the English Revolution. Price says the English king ‘owes his crown to the choice of his people.’ Burke tears this apart as being historical nonsense: ‘it affirms a most unfounded, dangerous, and illegal and unconstitutional position.’

 Burke attacks the principle that popular choice is necessary for the legal existence of ‘sovereign magistracy.’ He shows how the Glorious Revolution did not change the fixed rule of succession, but was a pragmatic and exceptional diversion. That’s all. It had nothing to do with a ‘popular choice’. Burke praises England’s 1689 ‘Declaration of Rights’ which was drawn up by great lawyers and statesmen and ‘not by warm and inexperienced enthusiasts.’ Here there is nothing about people being able to choose their own governors. Burke eschewed the idea that the king has legality from popular choice, and asserts England has stuck firmly to the rule of hereditary succession. The men behind the Glorious Revolution knew that anything that looked like an election would be ‘destructive’ of the ‘unity, peace and tranquillity of this nation’. Burke is very hostile to the people who think that kings should be elected. He loathes the idea that the French are some how imitating the English. This is a tissue of lies and nonsense.

 Kings are not servants of the people

 Burke attacks another claim of the Revolutionary Society, the ‘right of cashiering their governors for misconduct’. This argument is made because the English establishment drove James II from his throne. Burke said this was done very reluctantly and only once it had been proved that James II had plans to overthrow the Protestant state. This was more than misconduct. Burke mocks Price’s suggestion that the king should be called a servant of the people. We are to obey the king, not he us. Since you cannot cashier a king without using force, Burke asserts that Price is asking for violence.

 The English like to ‘to receive from their forefathers’.

 Burke also mocks Price’s assertion that the English wanted ‘the right to form a government for ourselves’. Not at all. We want to receive from our forefathers. ‘the fabrication of a new government fills us with disgust and horror.’ English legislators always look back to what has gone before. They reflect. ‘A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views.’ So Burke is earnest in praising what has gone before in Britain, and the attitude this strengthens.

 Castigates the French for not building on what they already had

 Having shown how the British revolution was essentially very cautious and keen to keep as much as the past as possible, Burke now turns to the French Revolution and castigates them for not building on what they had: ‘Your constitution was suspended before it was perfected.’ Burke shows how their constitution was such that it demanded moderation between the conflicting parties. His main charge is that they wantonly destroyed what only needed improving – ‘You began ill, because you began by destroying everything that belonged to you.’ Burke argues that it would have been better if they ‘had kept alive the ancient principles and models of the old common law of Europe meliorated and adapted to its present state’. But instead France has followed ‘false lights.’ Burke is extremely critical about the way France has abandoned religion. He argues that religion and government go together, but ‘France, when she let loose the reins of regal authority, doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness in manners and an insolent irreligion in opinions and practice’ and now, ‘She (France) has sanctified the dark, suspicious maxims of tyrannous distrust.’

 The Revolutionary Leaders have no moral compass

 Burke accuses the revolutionary leaders of deceit as they told the king he had nothing to fear when he called the states together. Burke is shocked at the way the king has been treated, the ‘fury, outrage, and insult’ heaped upon ‘a mild and lawful monarch.’

 Burke says they have reaped what they have sown – anarchy, unrest, no commerce, taxes unpaid, poverty, i.e. the French Revolution is an unmitigated disaster. None of this was necessary. Burke heaps blame on the Revolutionary leaders for ‘authorizing treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaughters, and burnings throughout their harassed land’

 The Revolutionary Leaders do not have the breeding to govern

 Burke says that the people who have come to power in the National Assembly do not have the experience or breeding to govern well. When he looked at the lists he could not find any who had practical experience. Burke is especially dismissive of how the states were merged, and at the preponderance of small-town lawyers who were there.

 ‘The general composition was of obscure provincial advocates, of stewards of petty local jurisdictions, country attorneys, notaries…conductors of the petty wars of village vexation.’ From reading the list, Burke knew what was going to happen. These men were ‘intoxicated with their unprepared greatness’.

 Burke also argues that these lawyers and the investors were out to make money out of all the upheavals. This was the Third Estate, and what Burke thinks is missing is the landed interest. And any control over this Third Estate, now the National Assembly.

 He is astonished that such people should have to write a completely new constitution. Burke is also dismissive of the clergy who had come, for they were village curates who ‘knew nothing of the world beyond the bounds of an obscure village.’

 This is Burke’s conclusion on the Third Estate: a ‘momentum of ignorance, rashness, presumption, and lust of plunder which nothing has been able to resist.’ Burke has focused, rightly, on the weakness of human nature. He is arguing that you have to look to those who have experience in government and who have learned to think properly about how to run things.

 The French have abandoned these people. They are levellers who ‘pervert the natural order of things.’ Burke believes people can rise, but the road should not be easy. There needs to be a season of probation.

 The importance of hereditary property

 Burke insists on the importance of hereditary property, this is the English House of Lords. Burke believes they give solidity to the state, and is contemptuous when they are ‘rashly slighted in shallow speculations of the petulant, assuming, short-sighted coxcombs of philosophy.’ Burke’s problem with France is this: ‘The property of France does not govern it.’ So, the country’s money now is just paper. He predicts, correctly, that The National Assembly will ruin France.

 Politics must be practical and suitable to man’s nature

 Burke now returns to criticising Price’s sermon, attacking the idea that France has been following the cause of liberty. He then lists all the terrible things that have happened. Burke attacks Price who dislikes the ‘inadequacy of representation’ in Britain. For Burke it is adequate because it has worked. Burke despises the way Price and others attack the British system as being unfair and illegitimate. Burke fears they want to destroy both the civil and religious authorities in Britain, and this is why they look to France with ‘passionate enthusiasm’. With the ‘rights of men’, they want to blow up all that has gone before.

 Burke lists what rights we have, they are very practical. But our rights are not equal, they depend on how much we have in the ‘partnership.’ And Burke is convinced that the state has to have restrains for the passions of men. So the subject must obey, otherwise there is anarchy. The state must be built on practical experience, not abstract theories. So, again he emphasizes the importance of respecting the past.

 Here is perhaps the most important sentence in the book, applicable in all generations.

 ‘It is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society.’

 He loathes the political theorists – ‘They are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.’ And he thinks they are construed to give the theorists power.

 And why are the theorists false? They ‘…are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.’

 And – they want blood. That is what makes a revolution proper. A bloodless one for them is ‘vapid.’

 The arrest of the king and queen (October 1789)[2]

 Burke now turns to the capture of the king and queen. He is appalled at how Price and others could congratulate the National Assembly after this. It was ‘the most horrid, atrocious, and afflicting spectacle that perhaps ever was exhibited to the pity and indignation of mankind.’ For Burke what happened was ‘the degenerate choice of a vitiated mind’, because there has been no punishment against those who engaged in the violence of that day. Burke underlines the grim contradiction of the French Revolution.

 ‘Amidst assassination, massacre, perpetrated or mediated, they are forming plans for the good order of future society’.

 Burke’s contempt for the National Assembly continues ‘They act like the comedians of a fair before a riotous audience’. They have power to destroy, nothing to construct. Burke mocks the idea that public benefit can be gained from the murder of the kings’ servants and the attempted assassination on himself and his wife. Burke then describes well what happened on 6^th October, 1789. He then asks, ‘Is this a triumph to be consecrated on altars?’

 Burke is here refusing to surrender to the notion that the end justifies the means. He will go on to argue that the ends, anyway, were paltry and pathetic.

 ‘The age of chivalry is past’ destroyed by the intellectuals

 Burke has great admiration for the royals and the stoicism they are displaying when facing such unjust trials. Regarding the Queen in ages past if threatened ‘ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, but the age of chivalry has gone…that of sophisters, economists; and calculators has come’.

 For Burke it is chivalry which has distinguished Europe ‘to its advantage…without force or opposition it subdued the fierceness of pride and power.’ Now, all this is to be destroyed and condemned as ‘antiquated fashion’. So a king or queen can be murdered and if ‘the people’ gain, then ‘we ought not to make too severe a scrutiny’.

 Burke blames the intellectuals. He is writing in 1789, four years before the terror, but prophetically writes this: ‘In the groves of their academy at the end of every vista you see nothing but the gallows.’ Violence has usurped the ancien regime, so violence will have to maintain the new order.

 The French Revolution has taken away the moral compass. Civilisation rested ‘upon two principles…the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion…’ and these principles were inculcated into the nobility and the clergy, these two groups help maintain these principles. With these there is learning, and this learning then benefits trade and commerce. Take these principles away and France will be a ‘nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and, at the same time, poor and sordid barbarians destitute of religion, honour, and manly pride.’ Burke fears this is going to happen because for the leaders of the National Assembly, ‘Their humanity is savage and brutal.’ The loss of chivalry in France is particularly poignant because England learned these manners from the French.

 Burke makes no apologies for dwelling so long on the assault on Versailles because it was such a tragedy, indeed if it was put on the stage Burke expects he would weep. For this event shows that, ‘Criminal means once tolerated are soon preferred.’ In this even the natural senses of right and wrong were swallowed up. Price referred to this day as a ‘leading in triumph’, Burke has torn this facile assessment apart. Burke asks for proof that Louis and Maria Antoinette were cruel tyrants who were planning on massacring the National Assembly – then their imprisonment would be just. But that is not the case.

 Burke comments that the French do not know the English very well which is due to the sort of newspapers they read, i.e. noisy journalists. Burke insists that England is still governed by the old feelings of chivalry – ‘We are not converts of Rousseau; we are not disciples of Voltaire; Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers…. we still feel within us’. Burke again and again is appealing to morality, and that it is natural for men and women to worship God and respect their seniors in society.

 Burke castigates the French intellectuals – ‘With them it is a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things because it is an old one…they are at inexpiable war with all establishments.’ Burke mocks the thought that the French Revolution has been inspired by the English and says that the English will never take on the teachings of the French Revolution.

 As for atheists who have written in England – ‘At present they repose in lasting oblivion’ Then Burke lists all the names of atheist writers that nobody reads. And in England they never became a cabal. Rather than atheism, Burke says, ‘We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society and the source of all good and of all comfort.’  This is because man is a religious animal and atheism is against not only our reason, but out instincts and that it cannot prevail for long.’ So Burke blames the atheists for the downfall of France. England will never follow.

 The confiscation of church property

 The established church is important so politicians sense they are accountable to God. Burke writes at length on this. Church and state are inseparable. Education strengthens this for it is in the hands of the clergy. And the English do not want the clergy to get a salary from the state. They want it to be independent. And Burke hates the idea that leaders just use religion to subdue the simple and vulgar. No, the leaders are believers. Burke loves the fact that an archbishop goes before a duke in a ceremonial procession.

 After explaining the importance of the church, Burke now castigates the National Assembly for confiscating the property of the church, ‘which it was their first duty to protect’. Burke says that the National Assembly has taken the property of men ‘unaccused, unheard, untried.’ This is the work of a tryant. He calls them the ‘confiscators’ who have helped themselves to the property of others to pay the national debt. Burke looks at other act of theft against those who had an income under the old regime. This lack of good will even extends to treaties. Deals with the attack on the nobility which happened via the attack on the church.

 Burke hates the intellectuals who formed a cabal ‘for the destruction of the Christian religion’. Because of their talents, their ‘evil tendency’ was ignored. ‘These atheist fathers have a bigotry of their own and they have learned to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk.’

 They intrigued with princes, they cultivated the monied interest. They fuelled the revolution and the idea that the church should pay the nation’s debts. The clergy had had nothing to do with the transactions that brought the debts – but they had to pay because of the grim attack of the writers. Burke mocks the impact of these writers when he said that Henry 8^th would not have  needed his survey of all the monasteries. He just had to say, ‘Philosophy, Light, Liberality, the Rights of Man’ and the job was done.’

 The financial situation in France was not so critical

 Burke argues that there was no need for these illegal confiscations of property. The financial situation in France was not so critical. There follows a detailed analysis with the conclusion that the plan of Necker would have worked; and that was has since happened has made France even more impoverished. Burke continually attacks the confiscation of church property. Sees that there is ‘an alliance of bankruptcy and tyranny’. And calls the government an ‘ignoble oligarchy’. Refers to Aristotle who saw that a democracy has ‘many striking points of resemblance with a tyranny’. Burke fears for the minorities in France. Burke admits that the monarchy in France had abuses, but they could have been dealt with. He sees deceit in the story in that none of the people who first came to the assembly of the states ever wanted to pull down the monarchy. Burke shows that France was not in such a bad state – i.e. there was some good in the rule of monarchy. Looks at the population. It was doing well. And at agriculture, again a success story. And other aspects of the economy. So, the idea that the government of France was ‘an absolute evil’ is nonsense. This was a government whose excellence could be improved. That’s all. The monarchy was working towards this. Burke is certain that the French Revolution will not do as well.

 The decent character of France’s nobility and clergy

 Burke is appalled at the way the nobility and clergy have been slandered. What have they done? Burke says that he found the French nobility ‘composed of men of high spirit and a delicate sense of honour’ Not at all violent towards the lower classes. Their main fault was accepting ‘that licentious philosophy which has helped to bring on their ruin’. For Burke, ‘Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. ‘They did not deserve the suffering the French Revolution inflicted on them.

 Same with the clergy. Their treatment was undeserved and Burke suspects some of the persecution was motivated by greed. To condemn the clergy, the atheists have had to go to history, not the present clerics. So they act out the massacre of St Bartholomew to engender more hatred of the clergy. They are perverting history.

 There are weaknesses, but we must bear with ‘infirmities until they fester into crime.’ This had not happened with the clergy. Burke when he visited found ‘the clergy in general persons of moderate minds and decorous manners.’ Impressed by the scholarly nature of the bishops, and some of the senior clergy he had met. Deserve respect. But the National Assembly have a disposition just to plunder the church. Now there is an ‘elective clergy’, i.e. stooges of the government, and Burke believes this is a temporary measure before they stamp out Christianity all together. This is the aim of the ‘philosophical fanatics.’

 The importance of property

 Regarding the confiscation of the church and monasteries’ property, it is justice that is being mocked. And so the National Assembly sits not for the security of property, but for its destruction. Burke blames the atheistic journalists wo have ‘filled the populate with a black and savage atrocity of mind.’ Burke is against any government being able to ‘confiscate’ property. His objection is larger than just the appalling anti clericalism that had swept France. For it means there has been a departure from basic justice.

 Burke is not against reform, but loathes these people who ‘consider his country as nothing but carte blanch – upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.’ Burke is all in favour of inheritance. It is good for some things not to involve money.

 The National Assembly is illegal

 Burke sees the National Assembly as being essentially illegal. ‘A voluntary association of men’ using the opportunity, ‘to seize the upon the power of the state.’ So, ‘they proceed exactly as their ancestors of ambition have done before them’. They are following the ‘formulas of tyranny and usurpation’. Experimenting with other people’s lives on ‘untried speculations’ So, they are ‘ready to cut up the infant for the sake of an experiment.’ Their eloquence, does not have wisdom. They have unleashed destruction in the name of reform

 ‘Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.’ True reform is about a lot more than pulling down the old. Burke all for slow change. ‘We compensate, we reconcile, we balance’. It is all too destructive.

 ‘By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.’

 The new constitution, ‘a puerile and pedantic system’

 Burke considers their constitution. He mocks the way representation works because there is no direct link – as in England – between the citizen and the representative. Instead the system operates via 18 departments connecting to 1,720 districts, connection to 6,400 cantons. Says the representation is unequal It is held together by philosophy, ‘not anything moral.’ He calls the National Assembly ‘alchemistical legislators’, who will only bring the constitution into being through ‘terror’. (He is writing four years before the terror proper). Burke sees the National Assembly really as an arm of the state, not a body that can balance the executive. This means there will be an oligarchy in each department, and this will encourage speculators.

 The constitution will encourage speculators and usurers who know nothing of agriculture – this is because they are selling off church land. For Burke ‘one old experience peasant’ is worth more than all the directors. ‘They will not follow the plough whilst they can direct treasuries and govern provinces.’

 Burke says that these legislators ‘have founded a commonwealth upon gaming’. What is so bad is that ‘all are forced to play, few can understand the game. The many must be the dupes of the few who conduct the machine of these speculations’ So, all the power is going to settle in the towns with the burghers and the monied directors. Burke see that if this ‘monster of a constitution can continue France will be wholly governed by agitators…trustees, agents, attorneys, money jobbers, speculators. Here end all the deceitful dreams and visions of the quality and rights of men’

 Another problem Burke sees with the constitution is the power of the city of Paris. For though the French Revolution wants everyone to be Frenchmen, it is likely that the regions will lose their localities. Burke mocks the idea that we can feel affection for a mere number. All will be controlled by Paris.

 No external control of the National Assembly

 So, the National Assembly has ‘every possible power’, but ‘no possible external control.’ There is no senate. Always there is such a body. Needed for review and steadiness. As for the executive – a downgraded king. Just a channel for the National Assembly. Better if the king had nothing to do with the judiciary for ‘Everything in justice that is vile and odious is thrown upon him.’.

 Burke shows how it is for the good of the state when a king has a councillor who he does not like, but who serves well. But now a minister of state in France has no dignity. These ministers of state in France, ‘they are the only persons in that country who are incapable of a share in the national councils. What ministers! What councils! What a nation! – but they are responsible. ‘So, there is no authority in the executive. Suggests that the king have the prerogative of declaring war and peace, otherwise the other kings will start meddling in the National Assembly.

 The National Assembly has abolished the parliament – which was independent. So they could oppose ‘arbitrary innovation’. A great security to private property. A corrective to the excesses and vices of monarchy.’ None of this in the new system. They could have served as a corrective to the ‘evils of a light and unjust democracy.’

 Also they should have kept the ‘ancient power of registering and remonstrating…all the decrees of the National Assembly. This stops the ‘occasional decrees’. Instead you appoint the judges and tell them what to say. And it’s dangerous if they don’t. Worse, the law makers are exempt from the law. So – the move to oligarchy.

 The army will become a monster

 According to its own minister the army is in a state of anarchy. Burke points out that this will become a political monster, ‘devouring those who have produced it’. This is of course exactly what happened. Burke asks why anarchy has taken over the army, and his answer is because of the violence the National Assembly has sanctioned, which included the killing of soldiers who were guarding the king. It is to do with the assertion of the equality of men, the pulling down of the idea of a gentleman, the abolition of titles…’But M. de lar Tour du Pin is astonished at their disloyalty.’ Burke mockingly suggests that the soldiers are sent the ‘excellent sermons of Voltaire, d’Alembert, Diderot, and Helvetius…’ The National Assembly has weakened the ‘austere rules of military discipline.’

 There must be blood

 ‘Any part of the puerile and pedantic system with they call a constitution’ harms everything it comes into contact with: the crown, the army; the municipality.

 Burke concludes – ‘There must be blood’.

 That has to happen if you mix mutinous soldiers with seditious citizens. There is also the problem that the soldiers have to petition both the court and the National Assembly for promotion. And they have destroyed the principle of obedience. Who should choose the officers, surely the soldiers in the French Revolution. Everything is elective – so why not in the army?

 This means there will be violence because when there is a difference between the National Assembly and the army that is the only option left.

 ‘As the colonists rise on you, the Negroes rise on them. Troops again – massacre, torture, hanging! These are your rights of men! These are the fruits of metaphysical declarations wantonly made…You lay down metaphysic propositions which infer universal consequences, and then your attempt to limit logic by despotism.’

 In this new system where there are no lords the peasants ask, ‘why are we taxed to maintain what you tell us ought not to exist?’

 So the whole system of the equality comes to this: ‘They (the members of the National Assembly) have left nothing but their own arbitrary pleasure to determine what property is to be protected and what subverted’

 The Revolution has bankrupted the country

 After the French Revolution the revenues of the state ‘was diminished by the sum of two hundred million…considerably more than one third of the whole.’ So, the National Assembly have overthrown the nation’s finances. Because each district acted as it felt when it came to taxes. That was because of the ‘government’. They asked for ‘voluntary benevolence’. Now they have to get that benevolence by force.

 ‘The invention of these juvenile pretenders to liberty was in reality nothing more than a servile imitation of one of the poorest resources of doting despotism.’

 Says that the French economy is all about paper money, while in England it is about commerce, solid credit, and keeping political power out of transactions.

 The National Assembly have no lines of credit. Unlike the old government which could raise money. The new just rest on ‘church plunder’. They think this will cure all the evils of the state. All they can do is issue more paper money, assignats, on the basis of confiscated property. For Burke is it madness to replace a working system with one based on confiscated property. Especially when there is no valuation of the said property. And when the cost of maintaining these properties is more than their worth. ‘These are the calculating powers of imposture! This is the finance of philosophy!’.

 Burke continues to criticize their financial arrangements. Especially ‘coining into money the bells of suppressed churches.’

 ‘The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted in payment for a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder.’

 The members of the National Assembly ‘are besieged by no others enemies than their own madness and folly, their own credulity and perverseness.’

 Before July 1789, the finances were sound. Now they are grim.

 Good Order

 ‘Good order is the foundation of all good things. To be enabled to acquire, the people, without being servile, must be tractable and obedient. The magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their authority. The body of the people must not find the principles of natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds. They must respect that property of which they cannot partake. They must labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly do, the success disproportioned to the endeavour, they must be taught their consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice.’

 To talk about liberty without wisdom and virtue means it becomes ‘the greatest of all possible evils.’

 For Burke liberty means reforming what we have, and that requires ‘much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful and combining mind. This I do not find in tow who take a lead in the National Assembly.’

 Instead we have ‘bidders at the auction of popularity’.

 In answer to the question that surely some good much have come from the French Revolution, Burke writes – ‘The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.’

 The importance of understanding human nature

 Burke praises the English constitution where people ‘acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind, let us add if we please, but let us preserve what they have left, and, standing on the firm ground of the British constitution, let us be satisfied to admire rather than attempt to follow in the desperate flights of the aeronauts of France. ‘

 Burke says his views are based on ‘observation and much impartiality.’

 

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[1] Price (1723 – 1791) was a well-connected philosopher, a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Unitarian minister. He became famous for his support for the American Revolution. Burke also supported the colonists. On November 4^th 1789 Price preached a sermon urging support for the French Revolution, which he thought was a child of England’s Glorious Revolution. Burke’s ‘Reflections’ was partially a reply to this sermon.

[2] On October 5^th, 1789 a vast mob led by market women stormed Versailles, demanding that the king and queen live in Paris. Some guards were murdered. Their heads were carried on pikes in the 60,000 strong procession that returned to Paris, with the King and Queen on the 6^th.

Jesse Norman's biography of Edmund Burke is superb; but there is a regrettable omission. Nothing about his Christian faith.

 Jesse Norman’s biography of Edmund Burke is superb in many ways. While the writing is not as colourful or robust as Burke’s (that would be asking too much), still there is a wonderful flow to the prose. In the first half of the book the journey is enjoyable and fascinating as we are taken through Burke’s life. The second half is perhaps even more important as Norman drills into what Burke’s political thinking, even philosophy, amounts to, and how relevant his stance is today.

 If only David Cameron had listened to Burke, the UK would today be healthier.

 Burke would have been appalled at the idea of a referendum on such an important issue as Europe, implying that there is some sort of will of the people out there that should be obeyed. For Burke this was the noxious doctrine of the Jacobins, inspired by the loathsome Rousseau, who sent his own off spring to a certain death. Norman tells us that when Burke was sent by Bristol to be their MP he bluntly told them that he was not going to parliament to represent their views. He was going there to serve the national interest. That was his job. Cameron did not listen and now he will forever stand in history as the man who betrayed the sovereignty of parliament.

 Norman shows us that at the heart of Burke’s thinking is the insistence on the importance of the social order. People are social, and each generation inherits wisdom from their elders, and they have a duty to pass on a working social order to their children. That does not mean resisting all change; it means bringing about necessary change with respect for the social order. Because of the importance of social order Burke is vehemently hostile to abstract theories and rules, any idea that some sort of science can be applied to something as complicated and intricate as a human society.

 Again Cameron did not listen and so went ahead and abolished traditional marriage, an institute that has served Britain well for many generations. It is very likely that Burke would have predicted – as he predicted the terror of the French Revolution – the confusion that would follow from this. See here for an adaption of his ‘Reflections on the French Revolution’ to the LGBT revolution.

 https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2023/10/a-review-of-edmund-burkes-reflections.html

 Norman tells us that Gladstone – a great prime-minister – read Burke nearly every day. Our country would be a lot safer if our present and future prime-ministers followed Gladstone’s example.

 Norman’s book is excellent. However there is one regrettable omission. There is nothing about Burke’s Christian faith. We are told that he abhors atheism, that he is an Anglican, and that he believes in the providence of God. But we are not told how, if at all, his Christian faith impacted his thinking. We are left guessing that probably Burke’s belief in the fall of man meant that it was very dangerous to think that there could ever be heaven on earth. We are left guessing that it was probably the Bible’s insistence on the importance of personal morality that made Burke so hostile to a revolution born out of murder and theft.

 Nor are we told anything about Burke’s personal faith. Again we are left guessing. We have to assume Burke went to church, but which one? Did he hold any office there – a sideman, a church warden, a lay reader? Did he hold family prayers? Burke was a contemporary of John Wesley and George Whitfield. Does he make any comment about their revivalist preaching?

It is possible that Burke was wholly opaque regarding the importance of his faith. But we are not told this. And given that Norman has read so much about Burke, he would be in an excellent position to give us some insight on the relationship of the Christian faith to Burke’s massive contribution to political thinking. Alas, it’s not in this book.

 Perhaps if there is another edition, Norman can include another chapter.

 

 

A review of Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the LGBT Revolution’

 Edmund Burke is recognised as one of Britain’s senior statesmen. He has made formidable contributions to Britain’s policy in Ireland, America, India, and France, as well as to the ongoing discussion regarding parliamentary government. The stance of his most recent intervention regarding the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) revolution has surprised some, but it is entirely consistent with Edmund Burke’s keen awareness of man’s fallibility. Below is a summary of his book, ‘Reflections on the LGBT Revolution’.

Edmund Burke is in no doubt about the importance of his subject. Early in his book he writes that the LGBT Revolution is 'the most astonishing that has hitherto happened in the world’, however he has ‘grave doubts’ as to its benefits.

 No connection between anti-racism and LGBTism

 Before turning to those ‘grave doubts’, Burke demolishes the argument that there was any connection between the cause of coloured people in places like South Africa, and the cause of people who like to use the label ‘LGBT’. This argument has found its way into many speeches and articles, and Burke rightly believes it is wholly mistaken to connect the two causes. They are entirely different. The cause of anti-racism rests on the dignity all men have as creatures created in the image of God, regardless of the colour of their skin. The cause of LGBTism rests on the assumption that all men and women have a right to have orgasms with whoever they want and however they want. One is about racial equality, the other about freedom to have sexual pleasure in different ways. To connect the two just because both black people and people who like to use the LGBT label have faced opposition, is, according to Burke, ‘facile’.

 LGBTism a ‘fabrication’

 Burke now turns to those ‘grave doubts.’ One is that LGBTism is a ‘fabrication’. It has just appeared. There has been no looking back, and receiving from past wisdom. This unnerves Burke. He fears it is new for the sake of being new. This indeed was made clear by the disgraced former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, when he gave his support to LGBTism. His only argument was that marriage had not changed for a long time. Burke writes wisely - ‘A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views.’

 Morally dubious

 Another ‘grave doubt’ that Burke is about the wanton way the LGBT Revolution has destroyed all the old morality surrounding marriage and children. ‘You begin ill’, he writes, ‘because you began by destroying everything that belonged to you.’ Closely connected to this for Burke is the way the LGBT Revolution and in particular their ‘Pride’ marches brazenly reject the precepts of Christianity. Burke accuses the LGBT revolutionaries of doubling ‘a ferocious dissoluteness in manners and an insolent irreligion in opinions and practice.’

 Burke questions the moral decency of the LGBT leaders for he believes they practised a deceit on the British public. Those who respected traditional marriage were told they had nothing to fear from the success of the LGBT cause. That was not true. For now, ‘fury, outrage, and insult’ are heaped upon anyone who in a ‘mild and lawful’ way criticises the tenets of LGBTism.

 Obscure people ‘intoxicated with unprepared greatness’

 In his usual thorough way Burke has researched the background of the leading lights of the LGBT Revolution. He is not impressed. He notes that most of these people come from the entertainment industry where some have made money out of publicising their lewdness. Many were obscure musicians, made rich by the record industry, and they became ‘intoxicated with their unprepared greatness.’ As a group Burke views them as a ‘momentum of ignorance, rashness, presumption and a lust for pleasure which nothing has been able to resist.’ These people want to pull everyone else down to the level of their own sexual morality. They are ‘levellers who pervert the natural order of things.’

 The need for ‘infinite caution’

 Burke, a devout Anglican Christian, is extremely frustrated by preachers, such as the Unitarian Richard Price, and others in West London, whose sermons lend support to the LGBT Revolution. He mocks the idea that this revolution has anything to do with the cause of liberty, listing all the terrible things that have happened since the pink flag has been flying in Westminster. Burke cites incidents such as children being given harmful medication to change their sex, the confusion in schools over what is now a proper marriage, the insults heaped on the great writer J. K Rowling for saying our sex is biological, and, most disgraceful of all, the sending of a male rapist to a female prison in the name of LGBT rights.

 All of this militates against common sense. Burke insists that the rules of society must be based ‘practical experience, not abstract theories.’  He writes, ‘It is with infinite caution that any man ought to venture upon pulling down an edifice which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society’. This is perhaps one of the most important sentences in Burke’s ‘Reflections’. Sadly neither Blair nor Cameron showed ‘infinite caution’ when it came to traditional marriage which has served Britain in a ‘tolerable degree…in the common purposes for society’ for our entire history. Instead they pulled it down, recklessly sending society into wholly unchartered seas where there are no lighthouses, and a great likelihood of wild weather erupting from man’s carnality. He writes that, ‘The LGBT leaders are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.’

 A male rapist is sent to a female prison

 Burke returns in more detail to the case of Adam Graham, the male rapist who decided to pretend he was a woman, and so was sent to a female prison. Burke asks us to imagine the outrage and betrayal the other women would have felt when Graham was brought into their midst. Burke also looks at the case of Andrew Burns, another violent prisoner who pretended to be a woman and who caused great alarm when he was moved to a female prison due to the dictates of LGBTism.

 In perhaps the most eloquent section of his ‘Reflections’ Burke laments that the age of common-sense and chivalry has passed. He mourns for the time when gentlemen would fiercely defend the privacy and dignity of their wives and daughters, and how in previous generations ‘ten thousand swords would have leaped from their scabbards’ to defend them from the onslaught of predators like Graham and Burns.

 Having made sure that his readers have fully taken in the terrible disgrace of these government actions Burke then asks a simple question: ‘In the midst of these insults to common-sense, how can these LGBT leaders claim to be ‘forming plans for the good order of future society?’ The answer of course is that they and their ideology is wholly unfit for contributing to the good of society.

 Civilisation destroyed by intellectuals

 After dealing with these specific cases, Burke then surveys what will happen to Britain because of the LGBT revolution. He asserts that civilisation rested ‘upon two principles, the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion.’ LGBTism relentlessly attacks both principles, and so Burke concludes that Britain will end up as ‘a nation of gross, stupid, ferocious, and, at the same time, poor and sordid barbarians destitute of religion, honour, and manly pride’. For this Burke blames the atheistic intellectuals. They write to destroy, not to build. ‘With them it is a sufficient motive to destroy an old scheme of things because it is an old one…. they are at inexplicable was with all establishments, including the establishment of marriage.’ Indeed Burke believes that this cabal of intellectuals seek ‘the destruction of the Christian religion’ and ‘these atheistic fathers have a bigotry of their own and they have learned to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk.’

 While it is children who are the main victims of the LGBT revolution, Burke highlights the cases of many hard-working professionals – teachers, doctors, clergy, civil servants – who have been hounded out of their work by LGBT fanatics working with the state. Burke has taken the time to interview many of these people and finds them ‘in general persons of moderate minds and decorous manners.’ There is nothing harmful about them, but they have been unjustly harassed because of the LGBT revolution.

'Ready to cut up the infant’

 Drawing to a close Burke asserts that the LGBT fanatics are flirting with illegality because they are experimenting with other people’s lives with ‘untried speculations.’ And especially children. They are not asked whether they want to have two men or two women bringing them up, and yet this is allowed, even encouraged. And research has shown that children are happiest when brought up by a husband and a wife. Burke’s conclusion is damning for adults who play with the lives of children in this way. They are ‘ready to cut up the infant for the sake of an experiment’

 Good order

 In his final paragraphs Burke underlines that, ‘Good order is the foundation of all good things’. And this means that marriage must be honoured and respected. LGBTism has torn apart the meaning of marriage. The fanatics of this creed have talked about liberty, but without wisdom or virtue, which means their cause becomes ‘the greatest of all possible evils.’

 Already Burkes ‘Reflections’ has caused an uproar amongst ardent supporters and sympathisers of the LGBT revolution. He is dismissed as being a bigoted patrician and an enemy of social progress. Some have painted him as the cruel persecutor of all those who struggle with the paradigm of marriage between a man and a woman as being the norm. That is not fair. As in his previous writings, Burke had no hostility towards the down trodden poor of Paris, he wished them well, and that meant ‘good order’, not anarchy, the guillotine, and a military dictatorship that crushed them in the wake of the French Revolution. So now, Burke has no hostility towards those who, do not feel able to marry someone from the opposite sex. He wishes them well, but that means maintaining ‘good order’. LGBTism destroys the foundations of that ‘good order’ and without any caution is trying to build a new society on the sand of untested speculations about human sexuality. Burke sees that this will come crashing down, probably with terrible violence. And in that cruel chaos, both the traditionalist and the radical LGBT supporter will suffer.

Burke was right about the French Revolution.

He is probably right about the LGBT Revolution.

 

 

Correspondence between Rev Paul Kennington and Tom Hawksley regarding Christian marriage.

 In early February this year thirty six UK Anglican bishops at the General Synod voted in favour of apologising to the LGBTIQ+[1] community, and preparing prayers of blessing for anyone in a ‘stable and committed’ relationship.

 Millions of Anglican Christians across the world were appalled. I was one of them and I wrote to the bishops with a paper explaining why their apology and proposal was problematic. None of them  engaged with the arguments I put forward. This was frustrating. I then noticed that the new dean for Chelmsford was going to be Reverend Paul Kennington[2], an outspoken supporter of – in his own words – ‘expanding traditional marriage to include same-sex couples’.

 Would Rev Paul Kennington engage with my arguments?

 The answer was, ‘Yes’. And I would like to say how grateful I am that at least one senior member of the clergy has been willing to give time to this ordinary Anglican. Moreover I have found Paul’s argument’s fascinating, and his passion to expand traditional marriage challenging.

 If this subject is of concern to you I think you will find our correspondence interesting. It is published with Paul’s permission, and I have only edited out parts which might threaten the Christians I serve as some of them live in regions deeply hostile to Christianity.

 Here is our correspondence.

 1. Letter from Tom Hawksley to Rev Paul Kennington, 25h May, 2023

Dear Rev. Kennington, 

 Warm greetings and I hope this finds you well. 

 I am an ordinary Anglican. I became a Christian with Operation Mobilisation in 1977, and grew in my faith at St Aldates' Oxford under Michael Green. I then worked at Simon House[3] in Oxford, which I expect you remember, and in 1982 I went out to Pakistan and was involved in missionary work in Karachi. Here the Anglican Church under Bishop Rudwin had a good presence. For the last nearly thirty years I have worked (word deleted), serving the church (section deleted)

 I write this to let you know that - like many others - I believe with all my heart that the Gospel of Christ is the best news there is for any human being, anywhere. To contaminate this Gospel  is grievous. Hence I am bewildered by the apology of the last General Synod to people who fall under the plus of the LGBTIQ label (Pink News has an exotic list of what this plus sign includes), and the compromise it is proposing. 

 I see that you are committed to gaining acceptance in the church for sexual intimacy outside normal traditional marriage, and so write in the hope that you will be able to offer some reasoned responses to the points raised in the attached paper. Given that you must have been engaged with these sorts of questions for many years, especially as this has affected your life at a very personal level,  I trust this will take very little of your time.

 I hope that you will be generous enough to give that time to consider the points that I raise. 

 Yours truly, 

 Tom Hawksley

An Ordinary Anglican

 The attached paper can be seen here - https://sternfieldthoughts.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-bishops-wanting-to-bless-sexual.html

 2. Reply from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 25^th May, 2023

 Dear Tom,

  I am replying out of courtesy - I am sorry that I do not have the time to give you the full answer that you deserve or desire. 

 We come from a very different starting point .  I suspect you believe that the Bible is clear that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life.  I come from the starting point that the Bible declares something very different and more challenging to the status quo of society.   Let me give brief pointers. 

 1. Is it possible that 2000 years Christianity have been reading the Bible incorrectly?  Yes it is - Christianity has a very bad track record on anti-Semitism, racism, slavery, women's rights and much more. 

 2. Is it possible that the Global majority are wrong and that the Western Minority is right?  Yes it is -  the Bible has a long-standing tradition of the prophetic minority and all advancements in justice have been led by a minority against a majority. 

 3.  Is it possible that the Gospel can bring division in the church -  well yes - Jesus told us that it would divide father, son, daughter, mother-in-law.  And history teaches us that divisions in the church happen in the name of the truth. 

 4. Is it possible that the pastoral care that the church has been giving people has been misguided and that people have made sacrifices which they need not have made?  Yes is it.  You may not believe in remarriage after divorce - but that is surely the most obvious case -  many many people remained in violent, unhappy and abusive marriages because the Church told and still tells them that they must not divorce. 

5. What does the Bible actually say? 

 a)  In Genesis 1, God makes human beings male and female in the same way that God made night and day - - God did not make them male or female, binary, any more than daylight suddenly turns into night.  Just as there is dawn and dusk, so human beings are all on a spectrum of being more or less masculine and feminine.     We all accept that  a small minority of people are born physically with confused gender - people who are hermaphrodite or intersex -  what has happened in modern times is that we now accept that people are not just physical people but we are also very complex psychological and genetic people and some people are born with different gendered psychology.  

 b)  in Genesis 2  the human creature (Adam - Hebrew for human being not male man)  is divided into man and woman because the human being was not happy with animals as partners.   The thing about the woman is not that she is different and complementary, but that she is the same - bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.   To suggest that a man needs a woman to become a whole being is heresy, as it would imply that Jesus is not a whole human being and did not redeem women as well as men. 

 c) Leviticus 18 and 20   -  the English translation is misleading.  The  text is literally  'And a man who lays a male the layings of a woman'    The Jewish Scholars first debated what this actually means way back in the 4th Century, and they had great difficulty defining what 'layings of a woman' might actually mean.   Modern Rabbis still debate what the hebrew means - but the consensus is that it is describing a particular sex act rather than all sex acts.   see  Dorff paper.indd (washington.edu)     That some sex acts are prohibited for heterosexuals does not preclude heterosexuals from all marriage - that some sex acts are prohibited for homosexuals does not preclude them from all marriage either. 

 d) I am not dealing with Sodom and Gomorrah as scholars are pretty well all agreed that this is about gang rape. 

 e) The New Testament has few relevant texts.    The Greek 'porneia' is regularly condemned but never defined.   It has been translated as 'fornication' in the past - but fornication had a precise definition in law - not all sexual acts are fornication.  

When Jesus quotes Genesis 2  (Mark 10,Matthew 19)  he is commenting on divorce and addressing a primarily heterosexual audience.  He is not saying that Genesis 2 is in any way a compulsory universal law for all people -   after all Jesus did not leave his father and mother and cleave to a wife ..... There are alternative lifestyles to Mark 10 and Matthew 19. 

 f) 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1:10    This is the first time we find the word  'arsenokoites'  in any writings - it looks as if St Paul made it up.  Unfortunately that means that we do not know precisely what it means.  The translation 'homosexual' in many modern translations is very misleading - it is much more likely that the term means rapist, or sexually promiscous preditor.  It is possible that it is related to Leviticus 18 and 20  -  or it is possible that it is related to Judges 21:11 which is a much closer hebrew parallel  where it means women who are not virgins who should be slain by the sword.   

 Note that Malakoi in 1 Corinthians 6 is misleadingly translated 'passive gay partner' by many commentators, but when the word appears in the mouth of Jesus Matthew 11, and Luke 7  it means a (rich) man who lives in luxurious surroundings! 

 g) Romans 1:26 etc is a little more complicated.    The text reads not that women gave up natural sex for unnatural sex,  but they exchanged natural use for 'alongside' use.   (The Greek word 'para'  means  along side as in paramedic,  the Greek for against is 'kata' and it does not appear here)   -  it suggests that women engaged in an alternative sex act but doesn't necessarily imply that they did so with other women. 

 As for the next verse - all we know is that men did similar condemned sex acts which are 'shameful'  - 'aschemosune' in Greek    - unfortunately St Paul does not tell us what those acts are ... but he does tell us somewhat cryptically that they receive the reward (consequences? ) of their acts 'in themselves'.   It is a long way to presume that St Paul is thinking of a married gay couple who have voluntarily limited their sex life within certain boundaries. Personally I think St Paul is talking of violent and sado-masochistic fetishes which were prevalent in some pagan cultures of the time, and which we condemn for both heterosexuals and homosexuals alike whether they are married or not!  

 I don't expect any of the above to convince you - but I do hope that you will respect that I have indeed thought about this a great deal, studied the Bible in its original languages and I have come to a very different conclusion to the one you arrived at.  I am afraid that I believe that those who oppose equality for homosexuals are opposing the Gospel, misusing Scripture and denying the Holy Spirit ...  which I know is a serious charge  ....   But I shall l pray for you, as I hope you will pray for me also. 

 yours in Christ

 Paul

 3. Reply from Tom Hawksley to Rev Paul Kennington 26^th May, 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 Warm greetings and thank you so much for your swift and reasoned reply. 

 I have written to all the thirty six bishops who voted for prayers of blessing for sexual intimacy outside traditional marriage, and my own vicar. The answers from Canterbury and York did not address any of the issues I raised; the Bishop of Oxford  said the church had to deal with the pain of homosexual couples, with no explanation as to how Christian theology can have a proper anchor if dealing with human pain is its basis; the Bishop of Chelmsford said that within Anglicanism there was space for different opinions; the Bishop of Bristol said respectful conversation was important; and the vicar of my local church said Christianity is about love and truth, but did not deal with my arguments.

 The other bishops have not replied. 

 So thank you for being the first ordained person to robustly bat back with solid reasons against the points I have raised. And thank you especially for your last paragraph that signals you are in favour of an honest war rather than a sickly peace.

 I will carefully consider your points, and I hope you will have time to read my responses, which will be succinct. 

 Yours truly, 

 Tom Hawksley

An ordinary Anglican 

 4. Further reply from Tom Hawksley to Rev. Paul Kennington 12^th June, 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 

Warm greetings and I hope this finds you well. 

 In the attached I have responded to the points you raised in your reply to me. 

 I hope very much you are able to respond. 

 As ever, 

 Tom

 The attachment is pasted below. My comments on Paul’s points in his last letter are in italics.

 Dear Tom

  I am replying out of courtesy - I am sorry that I do not have the time to give you the full answer that you deserve or desire.

 Thank you for your courtesy, it is greatly appreciated

 We come from a very different starting point.  I suspect you believe that the Bible is clear that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life.  I come from the starting point that the Bible declares something very different and more challenging to the status quo of society.   Let me give brief pointers. 

 I am struggling to see how the Bible is challenging this status quo. There is not a comma that supports the idea that marriage is the union of two men or two women, unlike the way the Bible challenges the status quo of racism or sexism and other systems that demean people.

 1. Is it possible that 2000 years Christianity have been reading the Bible incorrectly?  Yes it is - Christianity has a very bad track record on anti-Semitism, racism, slavery, women's rights and much more. 

 Yes, it is true that the Bible has been used wrongly by churches to support anti-Semitism, racism, slavery, and keeping women in the kitchen making tea.

 2. Is it possible that the Global majority are wrong and that the Western Minority is right?  Yes it is -  the Bible has a long-standing tradition of the prophetic minority and all advancements in justice have been led by a minority against a majority.

 It is certainly true that the minority can be right and the majority wrong, but not always. For the church there must be strong Scriptural support for a radical departure from normal practice. There is such support in the Bible for the ministry of women; there is none for the abolition of traditional marriage.

 3.  Is it possible that the Gospel can bring division in the church -  well yes - Jesus told us that it would divide father, son, daughter, mother-in-law.  And history teaches us that divisions in the church happen in the name of the truth. 

 Yes, the preaching the Gospel and holy living should divide. John Wesley caused massive division which brought great blessing to both the UK and beyond in terms of people repenting and living wholesome lives, and in service to the poor. I cannot see what blessing your divisiveness is bringing except a terrible undermining of traditional marriage, the bedrock of society, and I have yet to see any hospital or orphanage or drug rehabilitation centre sponsored by LGBT Christianity.

 4. Is it possible that the pastoral care that the church has been giving people has been misguided and that people have made sacrifices which they need not have made?  Yes is it.  You may not believe in remarriage after divorce - but that is surely the most obvious case -  many many people remained in violent, unhappy and abusive marriages because the Church told and still tells them that they must not divorce. 

 Here you are rejecting Christ’s command that man should not pull asunder what God has joined together. When reading this my mind went to Mark 7 where Jesus talks about the tradition of men rejecting the commandments of God.

 A Christian man or woman who is in an abusive relationship can separate, but not divorce, unless, as Jesus instructed, they have been betrayed by their spouse. That betrayal is wider than just the physical act of adultery.

 5. What does the Bible actually say? 

 a)  In Genesis 1, God makes human beings male and female in the same way that God made night and day

 ‘in the same way’. This is a strong assertion. How do you know that God made the day and night in the same way as God made mankind? In fact we know it was not ‘in the same way’ because God mane man in his own image. Hence this creation was of a different order for there is nothing about God making the sky of the sea ‘in his own image’.

 - - God did not make them male or female, binary, any more than daylight suddenly turns into night.  Just as there is dawn and dusk, so human beings are all on a spectrum of being more or less masculine and feminine. 

 The evidence points away from these assertions you are making. Genesis 1:27 says, ‘Male and female he created them, that is binary, and then immediately God tells them to multiply, underlining the two sexes.

 Regarding day and night, we are talking about a very small amount of time when it is not clear whether it is daylight or not. It is nearly always either day or night. There is no spectrum here. Likewise, apart from the tiny minority who are born with both male and female parts, there is no physical gender spectrum among human beings.

    We all accept that  a small minority of people are born physically with confused gender - people who are hermaphrodite or intersex -  what has happened in modern times is that we now accept that people are not just physical people but we are also very complex psychological and genetic people and some people are born with different gendered psychology.  

 This is neither historically nor theologically accurate. Historically previous generations have been well aware of psychology, including men who behave in ways more associated with women, and vice versa. Theologically Christianity is robustly physical and, against Greek thinking, has always insisted on the utter reality of the body – as it is. For you to divide the psychological person from their physical body is to place yourself outside the Biblical view of man and soteriology. For the latter hinges on the physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 b)  in Genesis 2  the human creature (Adam - Hebrew for human being not male man)  is divided into man and woman because the human being was not happy with animals as partners.   The thing about the woman is not that she is different and complementary, but that she is the same - bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.   To suggest that a man needs a women to become a whole being is heresy, as it would imply that Jesus is not a whole human being and did not redeem women as well as men. 

 It has never been Christian doctrine that a man or woman has to marry to become ‘a whole being’. Immediately after the creation of mankind as a man and a woman in 1:26 God commands them to multiply; and immediately after the ‘bone of my bone’ poem, we are told they became ‘one flesh’ referring to the sexual act. Of course we can have companionship with those of the same gender, but marriage and children has always been about a man and a woman having sex, in the Bible and throughout history.

 c) Leviticus 18 and 20   -  the English translation is misleading.  The  text is literally  'And a man who lays a male the layings of a woman'    The Jewish Scholars first debated what this actually means way back in the 4th Century, and they had great difficulty defining what 'layings of a woman' might actually mean.   Modern Rabbis still debate what the Hebrew means - but the consensus is that it is describing a particular sex act rather than all sex acts.   see  Dorff paper.indd (washington.edu)     That some sex acts are prohibited for heterosexuals does not preclude heterosexuals from all marriage - that some sex acts are prohibited for homosexuals does not preclude them from all marriage either.

 I would be wary of resting anything on one or two OT texts. We are to see the Bible through the paradigm of the New Testament.

 d) I am not dealing with Sodom and Gomorrah as scholars are pretty well all agreed that this is about gang rape. 

 Fair enough.

 e) The new Testament has few relevant texts.    The greek 'porneia' is regularly condemned but never defined.   It has been translated as 'fornication' in the past - but fornication had a precise definition in law - not all sexual acts are fornication.  

 When Jesus quotes Genesis 2  (Mark 10,Matthew 19)  he is commenting on divorce and addressing a primarily heterosexual audience.  He is not saying that Genesis 2 is in any way a compulsory universal law for all people -   after all Jesus did not leave his father and mother and cleave to a wife .....  there are alternative lifestyles to Mark 10 and Matthew 19. 

 Agreed, there are alternative life-styles, which Jesus refers to with his reference to those who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God. There is though no hint of a suggestion that sexual pleasure outside the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman is ever permissible.

 f) 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1:10    This is the first time we find the word  'arsenokoites'  in any writings - it looks as if St Paul made it up.  Unfortunately that means that we do not know precisely what it means.  The translation 'homosexual' in many modern translations is very misleading - it is much more likely that the term means rapist, or sexually promiscous preditor.  It is possible that it is related to Leviticus 18 and 20  -  or it is possible that it is related to Judges 21:11 which is a much closer hebrew parallel  where it means women who are not virgins who should be slain by the sword.   

Note that Malakoi in 1 Corinthians 6 is misleadingly translated 'passive gay partner' by many commentors, but when the word appears in the mouth of Jesus Matthew 11, and Luke 7  it means a (rich) man who lives in luxurious surroundings! 

 I appreciate that words can be mistranslated; however it does seem odd that so many translators have got this wrong. The issue at stake here though is whether sexual enjoyment outside the covenant of marriage is permissible or not. Given the strong words Jesus has about lust, and given that there was no gay marriage in Jewish society at the time, it is impossible to think that two men or two women masturbating together without any commitment to each other and without any prospect of children would have been deemed acceptable in His eyes. Whether the actual word for homosexuality is used in these passages is secondary.

 g) Romans 1:26 etc is a little more complicated.    The text reads not that women gave up natural sex for unnatural sex,  but they exchanged natural use for 'alongside' use.   (The Greek word 'para'  means  along side as in paramedic,  the Greek for against is 'kata' and it does not appear here)   -  it suggests that women engaged in an alternative sex act but doesn't necessarily imply that they did so with other women. 

 As for the next verse - all we know is that men did similar condemned sex acts which are 'shameful'  - 'aschemosune' in Greek    - unfortunately St Paul does not tell us what those acts are ... but he does tell us somewhat cryptically that they receive the reward (consequences? ) of their acts 'in themselves'.   It is a long way to presume that St Paul is thinking of a married gay couple who have voluntarily limited their sex life within certain boundaries. Personally I think St Paul is talking of violent and sado-masochistic fetishes which were prevalent in some pagan cultures of the time, and which we condemn for both heterosexuals and homosexuals alike whether they are married or not!  

 As I have said above, the heart of the matter is what constitutes a Christian marriage. Your problem is that wherever we turn in the Bible, and two thousand years of church history, the same emphasis is found: sexual intimacy is for the covenant of a marriage between a man and a woman (or in the OT, women), and children are to be hoped for.

 I don't expect any of the above to convince you - but I do hope that you will respect that I have indeed thought about this a great deal, studied the Bible in its original languages and I have come to a very different conclusion to the one you arrived at.

 Thank you very much for your insights. My original email to you was entitled, ‘The wisdom from above is open to reason’. Jettison reason and we are all at sea. As explained your arguments above do not stand up to reason. If you can show that what I have written in response to your arguments is unreasonable I will certainly acknowledge that.

 I certainly respect the hours of study you have given to the Scriptures, but as a priest you have a duty to ensure that the fruit of your study makes reasonable sense to an ordinary Anglican like me. So I hope very much that you will take the time to respond to what I have written here; and also to deal with the points raised in my essay, ‘Exceedingly Problematic’.

  I am afraid that I believe that those who oppose equality for homosexuals are opposing the Gospel, misusing Scripture and denying the Holy Spirit ...  which I know is a serious charge  ....   But I shall l pray for you, as I hope you will pray for me also. 

 I very much appreciate your commitment to your cause. Your robust determination to undermine traditional Christian marriage and launch the Anglican church into uncharted territory in the name of equality is much more refreshing than the half-hearted limping compromise that the General Synod has voted for.

 My prayer is for the church to have a Hezekiah like revival where repentance from all sin (including sexual sin) is preached, the power of Christ’s blood to cleanse us from all impurity is proclaimed, and that the church is filled with Christians whose lives, full of salt and light, threaten our ‘crooked and perverse’ generation. I will certainly pray for you Paul that you commit to this revival of holy living in accordance with the Scriptures.

 As ever,

 Tom

 5. Reply from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 13^th June, 2023

 Dear Tom

  I am replying out of courtesy - I am sorry that I do not have the time to give you the full answer that you deserve or desire.

 Thank you for your courtesy, it is greatly appreciated

 I take this seriously – but I doubt we will change each other’s minds – I am just hoping that you come to see that accusations of not taking the Bible serious are slander..

 We come from a very different starting point .  I suspect you believe that the Bible is clear that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life.  I come from the starting point that the Bible declares something very different and more challenging to the status quo of society.   Let me give brief pointers. 

 I am struggling to see how the Bible is challenging this status quo. There is not a comma that supports the idea that marriage is the union of two men or two women, unlike the way the Bible challenges the status quo of racism or sexism and other systems that demean people.

 The challenge to the status quo of the New Testament, and particularly of Jesus, is the challenge to the current believe that the family is the bedrock of society.  Jesus challenges that directly by 1. Not getting married himself – a failure to obey one of the rabbinical commands.  2. Challenging blood ties by claiming that those who do the will of the Father are his brother and sister and mother not those who are blood relatives.  3. Telling us that the Gospel will set father against son, mother against daughter, etc.  4. Telling us that marriage does not continue into heaven but that we are like the angels – ie marriage is for this life only.  5. Creating a new family which is those who are his disciples.  St Paul expands on this in his theology.  Sadly the Christian Church has elevated family life to be a tenet of faith in direct contradiction to Jesus’s plain teaching and example.

 1. Is it possible that 2000 years Christianity have been reading the Bible incorrectly?  Yes it is - Christianity has a very bad track record on anti-semiticism, racism, slavery, women's rights and much more. 

 Yes, it is true that the Bible has been used wrongly by churches to support anti-Semitism, racism, slavery, and keeping women in the kitchen making tea.

 2. Is it possible that the Global majority are wrong and that the Western Minority is right?  Yes it is -  the Bible has a long-standing tradition of the prophetic minority and all advancements in justice have been led by a minority against a majority.

 It is certainly true that the minority can be right and the majority wrong, but not always. For the church there must be strong Scriptural support for a radical departure from normal practice. There is such support in the Bible for the ministry of women; there is none for the abolition of traditional marriage.

 Some would disagree with you and argue that there is scant scripture support for women’s ministry and even direct prohibition  – see 1 Corinthians 14:34,  1 Timothy 2:12, but as in all things we have to hear what the Spirit is telling us because the Bible is not a dead page with an interpretation set once and for all in the past, it is a living and active word.   There are also clear bible texts to maintain slavery and apartheid as the Dutch Reformed Church attempted to do. 

AND …. We all accept that heterosexual marriage is the ‘norm’  in as much as that is how the vast majority of people will live their lives … it is normal that the Bible should affirm that … the question is whether or not the very small minority who are born with a different sexual psychology are allowed to find any kind of mutual fulfilment with a partner or whether it must be denied them.  I do not believe the Bible speaks on this matter at all, so we must judge from other texts.

  3.  Is it possible that the Gospel can bring division in the church -  well yes - Jesus told us that it would divide father, son, daughter, mother-in-law.  And history teaches us that divisions in the church happen in the name of the truth. 

 Yes, the preaching the Gospel and holy living should divide. John Wesley caused massive division which brought great blessing to both the UK and beyond in terms of people repenting and living wholesome lives, and in service to the poor. I cannot see what blessing your divisiveness is bringing except a terrible undermining of traditional marriage, the bedrock of society, and I have yet to see any hospital or orphanage or drug rehabilitation centre sponsored by LGBT Christianity.

 The divisiveness is coming from those who in a cruel, callous and unkind way are preventing people with a psychologically homosexual gender from having any freedom of sexual expression whatsoever. It is a wicked and cruel judgement.  Traditional nuclear family life was condemned by Jesus – the bedrock of Society is our common humanity, and our Christian Community.

And you should do some research on the remarkable stories around AIDS where the LGBTQI communities sacrificially cared for each other, founded hospitals when much of the heterosexual world, including Christians condemned and failed to visit the sick – a Gospel imperative.

 4. Is it possible that the pastoral care that the church has been giving people has been misguided and that people have made sacrifices which they need not have made?  Yes is it.  You may not believe in remarriage after divorce - but that is surely the most obvious case -  many many people remained in violent, unhappy and abusive marriages because the Church told and still tells them that they must not divorce. 

 Here you are rejecting Christ’s command that man should not pull asunder what God has joined together. When reading this my mind went to Mark 7 where Jesus talks about the tradition of men rejecting the commandments of God.

 A Christian man or woman who is in an abusive relationship can separate, but not divorce, unless, as Jesus instructed, they have been betrayed by their spouse. That betrayal is wider than just the physical act of adultery.

  First of all -  I would say compare your KJV with your modern translation .  Modern translations have cruelly swapped ‘put away’  (apoluo) and ‘divorce’  iphstemi.   Jesus is not condemning those who divorce but those who put away their wives without giving them a divorce – a very common practice in Judaism at the time and still a practice in Islam and Orthodox Judaism.  The man ‘puts away’ but doesn’t divorce his wife – he keeps the dowry – he can get married again but the wife is cast off with no money and no possibility of remarriage.  

  5. What does the Bible actually say? 

 a)  In Genesis 1, God makes human beings male and female in the same way that God made night and day

 ‘in the same way’. This is a strong assertion. How do you know that God made the day and night in the same way as God made mankind? In fact we know it was not ‘in the same way’ because God mane man in his own image. Hence this creation was of a different order for there is nothing about God making the sky of the sea ‘in his own image’.

 Purely talking from the text.   The image of God is male and female, so I presume God is both male and female.   The text reads  ‘male and female’ – Hebrew conjunction  waw,  not male or female  Hebrew conjustion  aleph – waw -   the text says what it means – we are – each one of us - made both male and female in the image of God who is one and is male and female.

 - - God did not make them male or female, binary, any more than daylight suddenly turns into night.  Just as there is dawn and dusk, so human beings are all on a spectrum of being more or less masculine and feminine. 

 The evidence points away from these assertions you are making. Genesis 1:27 says, ‘Male and female he created them, that is binary, and then immediately God tells them to multiply, underlining the two sexes.

 I reiterate that ‘male and female’ means something different from ‘male or female’  - unless you think the text got the conjunction wrong.

 Regarding day and night, we are talking about a very small amount of time when it is not clear whether it is daylight or not. It is nearly always either day or night. There is no spectrum here. Likewise, apart from the tiny minority who are born with both male and female parts, there is no physical gender spectrum among human beings.

 I totally disagree.   First even if there is only a small amount of time which is more day than night, equally day and night, or more night and day – the fact is that there is a fuzzy boundary not a clear cut ‘either or’ boundary – and if you say there is then you are simply not looking at the real world. .  The same is true of people – some people (male and female)  are more masculine looking and some people (male and female) are more feminine looking …  yes the vast majority are cis-gendered ( the right sexuality in the right genital body)  but even if only 0.5% of the population are not that minority they still deserves justice -  even if the percentage is only 0.1%  etc.  Remember Lot’s argument with God.

    We all accept that  a small minority of people are born physically with confused gender - people who are hermaphrodite or intersex -  what has happened in modern times is that we now accept that people are not just physical people but we are also very complex psychological and genetic people and some people are born with different gendered psychology.  

 This is neither historically nor theologically accurate. Historically previous generations have been well aware of psychology, including men who behave in ways more associated with women, and vice versa. Theologically Christianity is robustly physical and, against Greek thinking, has always insisted on the utter reality of the body – as it is. For you to divide the psychological person from their physical body is to place yourself outside the Biblical view of man and soteriology. For the latter hinges on the physical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 Again I totally disagree – it is only relatively recently that we have begun to understand psychology – and even more recently that we have begun to understand how gender and sexuality fit into that.   We are complicated people and for you to claim that the psychological person cannot be at variance with the physical body goes against all medical understanding – which is of course your right, along with believing in 7 day creation and the flat earth – if you so choose.  However ……  claiming that your view is the only valid view is arrogant.

As for psychology being at variance with the body I would suggest you read Romans 7 when St Paul talks quite a lot about it.   

  b)  in Genesis 2  the human creature (Adam - Hebrew for human being not male man)  is divided into man and woman because the human being was not happy with animals as partners.   The thing about the woman is not that she is different and complementary, but that she is the same - bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.   To suggest that a man needs a women to become a whole being is heresy, as it would imply that Jesus is not a whole human being and did not redeem women as well as men. 

 It has never been Christian doctrine that a man or woman has to marry to become ‘a whole being’. Immediately after the creation of mankind as a man and a woman in 1:26 God commands them to multiply; and immediately after the ‘bone of my bone’ poem, we are told they became ‘one flesh’ referring to the sexual act. Of course we can have companionship with those of the same gender, but marriage and children has always been about a man and a woman having sex, in the Bible and throughout history.

 ‘It has never been Christian doctrine’ – is not a biblical argument.   It is blatantly obvious that the normal and natural way to have children is via heterosexual sex – no one is advocating cloning here ... and obviously same sex couples just cannot have heterosexual sex.   It is not what is being asked for.  

 c) Leviticus 18 and 20   -  the English translation is misleading.  The  text is literally  'And a man who lays a male the layings of a woman'    The Jewish Scholars first debated what this actually means way back in the 4th Century, and they had great difficulty defining what 'layings of a woman' might actually mean.   Modern Rabbis still debate what the Hebrew means - but the consensus is that it is describing a particular sex act rather than all sex acts.   see  Dorff paper.indd (washington.edu)     That some sex acts are prohibited for heterosexuals does not preclude heterosexuals from all marriage - that some sex acts are prohibited for homosexuals does not preclude them from all marriage either.

 I would be wary of resting anything on one or two OT texts. We are to see the Bible through the paradigm of the New Testament.

 Indeed :  Galatians 3:28

 d) I am not dealing with Sodom and Gomorrah as scholars are pretty well all agreed that this is about gang rape. 

 Fair enough.

 e) The new Testament has few relevant texts.    The greek 'porneia' is regularly condemned but never defined.   It has been translated as 'fornication' in the past - but fornication had a precise definition in law - not all sexual acts are fornication.  

 When Jesus quotes Genesis 2  (Mark 10,Matthew 19)  he is commenting on divorce and addressing a primarily heterosexual audience.  He is not saying that Genesis 2 is in any way a compulsory universal law for all people -   after all Jesus did not leave his father and mother and cleave to a wife .....  there are alternative lifestyles to Mark 10 and Matthew 19. 

 Agreed, there are alternative life-styles, which Jesus refers to with his reference to those who make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of God. There is though no hint of a suggestion that sexual pleasure outside the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman is ever permissible.

 I think you need to start defining ‘sexual pleasure’ much more precisely   -  when a heterosexual couple of teenagers hold hands in a cinema is that ‘sexual pleasure’

If the deed is OK for unmarried heterosexuals it is OK for same sex couples.  The question is ‘where do you draw the line’?  

 f) 1 Corinthians 6 and 1 Timothy 1:10    This is the first time we find the word  'arsenokoites'  in any writings - it looks as if St Paul made it up.  Unfortunately that means that we do not know precisely what it means.  The translation 'homosexual' in many modern translations is very misleading - it is much more likely that the term means rapist, or sexually promiscuous predator.  It is possible that it is related to Leviticus 18 and 20  -  or it is possible that it is related to Judges 21:11 which is a much closer Hebrew parallel  where it means women who are not virgins who should be slain by the sword.   

Note that Malakoi in 1 Corinthians 6 is misleadingly translated 'passive gay partner' by many commentators, but when the word appears in the mouth of Jesus Matthew 11, and Luke 7  it means a (rich) man who lives in luxurious surroundings! 

 I appreciate that words can be mistranslated; however it does seem odd that so many translators have got this wrong. The issue at stake here though is whether sexual enjoyment outside the covenant of marriage is permissible or not. Given the strong words Jesus has about lust, and given that there was no gay marriage in Jewish society at the time, it is impossible to think that two men or two women masturbating together without any commitment to each other and without any prospect of children would have been deemed acceptable in His eyes. Whether the actual word for homosexuality is used in these passages is secondary.

 It is cruel of you to deny the fact that many homosexual couples have a great deal of commitment to one another and it is cruel of you to suggest that heterosexual couples who have no prospect of children would not be acceptable to Jesus.  

This looks like pure prejudice to me.  We are not talking about sex maniacs, preditors or people who engage in casual sex.  We are talking about people who genuinely love one another, have committed their whole lives to one another, and who are genuinely sexually attracted to one another….. 

  g) Romans 1:26 etc is a little more complicated.    The text reads not that women gave up natural sex for unnatural sex,  but they exchanged natural use for 'alongside' use.   (The Greek word 'para'  means  along side as in paramedic,  the Greek for against is 'kata' and it does not appear here)   -  it suggests that women engaged in an alternative sex act but doesn't necessarily imply that they did so with other women. 

 As for the next verse - all we know is that men did similar condemned sex acts which are 'shameful'  - 'aschemosune' in Greek    - unfortunately St Paul does not tell us what those acts are ... but he does tell us somewhat cryptically that they receive the reward (consequences? ) of their acts 'in themselves'.   It is a long way to presume that St Paul is thinking of a married gay couple who have voluntarily limited their sex life within certain boundaries. Personally I think St Paul is talking of violent and sado-masochistic fetishes which were prevalent in some pagan cultures of the time, and which we condemn for both heterosexuals and homosexuals alike whether they are married or not!  

 As I have said above, the heart of the matter is what constitutes a Christian marriage. Your problem is that wherever we turn in the Bible, and two thousand years of church history, the same emphasis is found: sexual intimacy is for the covenant of a marriage between a man and a woman (or in the OT, women), and children are to be hoped for.

 You have not defined sexual intimacy.   In Jewish Law, and in English law for that matter it is penetration – Instead of telling gay people that they can have nothing – it would be so much better if you worked out what they can have … can they share a house?  Can they cuddle? Can they hold hands?  Can they kiss …..  draw your line, and then enforce that on the heterosexual world before you persecute gay people.. 

 I don't expect any of the above to convince you - but I do hope that you will respect that I have indeed thought about this a great deal, studied the Bible in its original languages and I have come to a very different conclusion to the one you arrived at.

 Thank you very much for your insights. My original email to you was entitled, ‘The wisdom from above is open to reason’. Jettison reason and we are all at sea. As explained your arguments above do not stand up to reason. If you can show that what I have written in response to your arguments is unreasonable I will certainly acknowledge that.

 I certainly respect the hours of study you have given to the Scriptures, but as a priest you have a duty to ensure that the fruit of your study makes reasonable sense to an ordinary Anglican like me. So I hope very much that you will take the time to respond to what I have written here; and also to deal with the points raised in my essay, ‘Exceedingly Problematic’.

 I think you are the one jettisoning objective reason in an attempt to prop up a view of gender and sexuality which is not defensible in the Bible and which is most certainly not defended by modern science.

  I am afraid that I believe that those who oppose equality for homosexuals are opposing the Gospel, misusing Scripture and denying the Holy Spirit ...  which I know is a serious charge  ....   But I shall l pray for you, as I hope you will pray for me also. 

 I very much appreciate your commitment to your cause. Your robust determination to undermine traditional Christian marriage and launch the Anglican church into uncharted territory in the name of equality is much more refreshing than the half-hearted limping compromise that the General Synod has voted for.

 My prayer is for the church to have a Hezekiah like revival where repentance from all sin (including sexual sin) is preached, the power of Christ’s blood to cleanse us from all impurity is proclaimed, and that the church is filled with Christians whose lives, full of salt and light, threaten our ‘crooked and perverse’ generation. I will certainly pray for you Paul that you commit to this revival of holy living in accordance with the Scriptures.

 Can I agree with you here and I long for this too, and this is what I preach … love God with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength and all your soul, and love your neighbour as yourself.     Not a bad Gospel!

I pray that you, Tom, may turn from persecution of an abused minority who live under the death penalty in some countries, and welcome the Good News that the Gospel brings.

 As ever,

 Tom

 And sincerely,

 Paul

 6. Reply from Tom Hawksley to Rev Paul Kennington 23^rd June, 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 

Warm greetings and I hope this finds you well (section deleted) That was grim persecution. 

 May I begin by drawing back to see where we agree, and then suggest what the main disagreement is. 

 We both agree that the Bible must be taken seriously, and, furthermore, I think we both agree that the Old Testament must be seen through the prism of the New.  

 We also agree that the Holy Spirit speaks today, but never contra to the above.. 

 We also agree that Jesus was radical, and, as you highlighted in your last email, this is especially true when it comes to the family. Following Him takes precedence. 

 Despite this agreement we have a disagreement  on how God began the human story. 

 You believe that God has created mankind as 'human beings' who 'are all on a spectrum of being more or less masculine and feminine', so reflecting God's image who is both male and female.  You then believe that some people are created by God with a 'homosexual psychological gender'. 

 I believe that God has created us male and female and, as separate entities, and this reflects God's image. I do not believe God has deliberately created anyone with a  'homosexual psychological gender'.  Indeed the idea that God gives somone one type of body, but another type of 'psychological gender'  casts a shadow over God as a good creator. I believe that something appalling happened at the fall and so, at present, the world is not as it was meant to be. This very much includes sexuality. 

 So we part company because our beliefs about the original design are different. Your creator is not the same as my creator. Since you believe God has deliberately created all these different types of sexual identities this means the church must accept these different sexual practices. To contradict this is 'cruel and wicked' (your words). I believe God's original design, set out in Genesis 2 and underlined by Christ in Matthew 19, is that sexual intimacy is for marriage between one man and one woman, and as Christians, renewed by the Holy Spirit, our lives should point to God's original design. Hence my belief that the church should fiercely defend the sanctity of marriage for Chrisitans; the world will, as always, go its own way. 

 Because you believe God has created split people you say I am 'cruel' because of my views. And I think that you are dangerously accommodating something in the church which God has never sanctioned. I have no doubt that many - especially children - will suffer because of this teaching. 

 Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think this is the heart of our disagreement. 

 I would like now to answer the points you made in your last email. 

 No LGBT Christian hospitals

 Yes, I am sure many people outside the traditional view of sexual morality helped those suffering from AIDS. That is to be applauded. However my point was that I have not heard of any LGBT Christian organisations (not LGBT organisations) who are serving the poor, the sick, and the suffering The list of Christian organisations with traditional views who are would run into the hundreds of thousands.

 Jesus and the family

 All your points are important and correct. However Jesus' teaching is for his followers to understand that the family must not be elevated above devotion to Him. This does not mean He is against marriage and the family per se.

 Women's ministry

 The Reformers said that we must not let what is clear in the Bible be controlled by what is opaque. Paul's teaching about women is surely sometimes verging on the opaque. What is clear is that women - even in Paul's churches - had ministry, and, most important of all, man and woman were equal when originally commissined by God in Genesis before the fall. 

 Mutual fulfillment

 Untold millions are enriched by same sex friendships. This is to be unreservedly celebrated. I don't understand why you insist that these friendships should be allowed to become sexual and imitate marriage. 

 Jesus' sexual morality

 I apologise for conveying the idea that a traditional couple without children would not be acceptable to Jesus. I absolutely do not believe this. However we do know what Jesus - as a Jew - thought about the sexual morality practised in Greek culture, hence my assertion that it is hard to see how He would have approved of any sexual intimacy outside traditional marriage. 

 Divorce

 Thank you for pointing out the distinction between 'putting away' and 'divorce'. I can see how one should be wary of asserting Jesus' hostility to divorce per se on Matthew 5:31 - 32. However in the overall context of Matthew 5 we have the 'You have heard...but I say unto you' structure, so Jesus has to be saying something beyond the law. By insisting that these verses mean that Jesus wanted the woman to be be given the proper papers, fails to go beyond the law. Jesus is simply asking for the Mosaic law to be adhered to, unlike the other sections. And then there is Matthew 19:6. Here the word divorce is not used. Instead the emphasis that sexual union means becoming 'one flesh', and this is an act of God. So this is followed by the famous, 'What God has joined together let not man separate'. This is divine hostility to divorce.  And that is reinforced in v. 8. And, as we agreed to look at the OT through the prism of the NT, in this prism Malachi 2:13 - 16 lights up. Hence, no slander here, I am afraid I think you are rejecting Christ's teaching when you think the church should be flexible about divorce. Divorce is an utter tragedy. It is death-like. The church must preach life. 

 Definitions

 I would define sexual intimacy as being any activity that begins a journey that creates arousal that is likely to end in orgasm. This is completely different to showing physical affection. I think most of us know the difference. As a married man, if I begin to taste a slither of sexual enjoyment from any other source other than my wife, it is my duty, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to immediately put out that fire. We are to 'flee sexual immorality'. On the subject of definitions, how would you define Christian sexual morality? What is a sexual sin? 

 Being open to reason is not persecuting anyone

 I am sad that you twice accuse me of persecuting 'gay' people. If you think that expressing these views amounts to persecuting anyone, then it is difficult for our conversation to be 'open to reason'. I think you are wrong, that's all. I am not persecuting you or any other person who supports your way of thinking. I dislike referring to people as 'gay' or 'straight' as I don't believe it is Christian to define people in such terms. We are much more. 

 Sexual purity for every Christian

  All sexual pleasure outside marriage is sinful for all Christians. Full stop. So the church should insist on sexual purity for everyone whatever attractions they have. It is not just the duty of a minister to welcome people; as we know from both Paul and John, they must also be willing to ask people to leave. I expect you have read about John Wesley and the discipline he insisted on in his small groups. Methodism grew. Churches that have supported sexual intimacy outside marriage have declined. 

 Objective reason

 The only Scripture you have for your assertion that God wants men to have sexual intimacy with men, women with women, is Genesis 1. Otherwise you are batting away the verses that condemn this behaviour. To build a new Christian anthropology on a particular interpretation of one verse is surely unwise. Moreover many people, Christian and non Christian, do not buy into the view that we are created with sexual fluidity, not least because of the science. And the outcomes. It was this ideology that saw a UK government send a male rapist to a female prison. Most ideologies can find academic papers to support their view, but objective reason looking at Adam Graham's case is bewildered and ashamed that common sense was initially ignored for the sake of an LGBTIQ plus dogma. 

 The Gospel

 A part of me loves the Gospel you proclaim, but when Jesus preached, his first word was 'Repent'. As the rich ruler discovered, we only find out how genuine our love for God is when we have to give something up. What sexual sins do you ask your congregants to give up? 

It would be wonderful to hear from you again Paul, especially as to whether you agree with me as to where the heart of our disagreement is. 

 Thank you for being the only member of the clergy, apart from our own local vicar,  ready to engage with me regarding these matters. 

 As ever, 

 Tom

 7. Reply from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 23^rd June, 2023

 Dear Tom

 Thank you for your reply.   I will reply again.  

 The question I think to face though is whether this is a difference worth splitting the Church over.    Many Christians believe the creeds but differ on other parts of Christian faith.   I would say that the Trinity as expressed in the creeds is the red line not our different understandings of human sexuality.  

 I will respond more fully 

 Paul

 8. Reply from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 25^th June, 2023

 Dear Tom

 I think we will probably end up going round and round in circles, and can probably go on for ever.  and I pray almost every day for Christians who face persecution for their faith.  They are courageous people and true witnesses to the power of God. . 

 To answer your points: 

 1.  The Hebrew word  'Adam'  does not mean 'male' it means 'human being' -  that is just a linguistic fact.    In Genesis 2 God 'splits' Adam  (the human being) into 'man and woman'  Hebrew Ish and Ishah -  God names the Ish -Adam - which means human being, and God names the Ishah Hayyah   - which means life. 

 Each human being , male or female, is made in the full image of God - who is Trinity.   so each human being, male or female is body, mind, spirit    (or creator, reasoner, and spiritual)  -  curiously that means that women are made in the image of 'Father, Son and Holy Spirit'    We have to work that one out. 

 Whether or not God the good creator would create people with a homosexual orientation or whether it is a result of the fall is one I concede we can differ upon.   It may be that homosexual orientation is a disability - and God the good creator certainly allows many people to be born with a great many disabilities - in body, mind or spirit -    Modern psychology does not accept this reading -  but if you were to see homosexuality as a disability rather than a chosen sin, then that might give you a way for compassion -  you would not prevent a deaf person from learning sign language, or a paralysed person from using a wheelchair, or even a short-sighted person from having glasses -  we constantly make adaptations so that people can live as full a life as possible with what they are born with. 

 No LGBT Christian hospitals

 You have to remember that homosexuality was illegal in many countries until very recently and gay men and women have been forced to hide their sexualities.   I think that there is very good evidence that Henri Dunant the founder of the Red Cross was gay,  and there is evidence that Florence Nightingale might have been a lesbian.    

 Jesus and the family

 I strongly disagree with you here  -   all human beings have an innate love of their family -  the Gentiles do as much -   Jesus teaches us that the real family is those who do the will of his Father in Heaven.   There is no marriage in heaven, and I think marriage is a social order for this life only.   I also note that although the NT seems to advocate for monogamy, the God of the OT seems pretty unconcerned about polygamy and concubinage -  Jacob is the prime example.   So actually I don't think God gets very het up about marriage - unlike abuse, injustice, violence, betrayal etc. 

 Women's ministry

 I think you are special pleading here because you want to accept women's ministry -  if you are being faithful to the Bible a woman cannot have authority over a man .....     (I actually deal with that text differently -  it all hangs on epitrepo  rather than  epitetraptai ... but I'll let you sort that out for yourself. 

 Mutual fulfillment

 Sexual intimacy is a gift from God for mutual support and indeed for pleasure - it is something to be rejoiced in as a physical expression of love, which is the very nature of God.   Heterosexuals are allowed this -  to deny it to homosexual is, as I have said, cruel and I believe contrary to the will of God -    but I understand that you have to believe that homosexuality is not a choice but a reality.   To suggest that a homosexual man should find a wife and 'make do'  - as some people suggest -  is failing to understand what sexual fulfilment really is , and I would say that it is abusive of the wife.  

 Jesus' sexual morality

 I think Jesus would (and did) condemn adultery, promiscuity and a whole range of Greek / Roman / Pagan sexual practices -    what his pastoral verdict would be on faithful, stable, monogamous gay couples is I think far more than just opaque - I think it's just not there.   What Jesus would allow for eunuchs who are eunuchs by birth - and how those who can should receive it -  would have been a challenging text for 1st Century Judaism -  it looks compassionate to me as if Jesus recognises that some people are sexually different.   And I don't think it's enough to say that eunuch means the same as abstaining from sex -  I don't think Jesus considered himself to be a eunuch.  

 Divorce

  'What God has joined together let not man separate'. is a great and clever line which Jesus uses to confound the pharisees who are trying to trick him into giving either a too permissive or a too restrictive answer..  (very similar to the paying tribute to Caesar dialogue)  It is those whom God has joined together who must not be put asunder,   not those who the Church has joined or who the state has joined.   We all know that it is possible to go through the marriage rite and still not be married in the eyes of God -  that is obvious for incest for example,  The RC church has a whole list of things which can invalidate a marriage ... I agree with them on this one. 

I also think it is possible for a couple to say the wedding vows themselves and be joined by God, even if no church or state recognises it -  God will not be dictated to by church or state !   In the end we never actually know whom God has joined together or not. 

 Definitions

 Over the years different people, states, governments have defined sexual intimacy in different ways -  I think that a kiss is sexual intimacy and is OK for an unmarried boy and girl friend, but I think that heterosexual penetration should be reserved to marriage.  As for sexual sin I think I would measure it by whether it is abusive, exploitative, violent rather than self-giving, loving and in the context of a permanent, stable, monogamous commitment -  marriage  (which as I said above I believe God accepts between two loving people making the vows even if the church or state does not)   So of course, I believe gay people have been married in the sight of God for centuries! 

 Being open to reason is not persecuting anyone

 I would be very careful about this line of argument.   Every wicked regime has used reason to defend wickedness -  the apartheid regime in South Africa, Slavery, and of course the evil Nazi regime - they all have so called reason for their atrocities and they all used the Bible.    We are not told to judge people by their reason, but by their fruits - love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control -  when I see these I see what is right. - the fruits of the spirit trump reason. 

 Sexual purity for every Christian

  All sexual pleasure outside marriage is sinful for all Christians.  -   yes ... but .... in South Africa black people were not allowed to marry white people.  I believe as I said above, that if they made their vows together with sincerity then God would consider them truly married whatever the state might say.   I believe that a gay couple who make those vows together are indeed married in the sight of God, whatever the state or church might say -  God will not be confounded by our human laws.. 

 Objective reason

 What you assert of me is not true - and don't 'thin end of the wedge' me either.   Just because I believe that a faitfhul, loving committed monogamous gay couple should be allowed to marry does not in any sense mean either 1. that I think gay people will ever be anything other than a small minority -   it is obvious that heterosexuality is the norm for the vast majority of people - society is safe in just allowing a few percent to find happiness!   or 2.  that I agree with all the excesses of the LGBTQI world - any more than I agree with all the excesses of the heterosexual world.    

 As for the Bible - I believe that there is nothing in the Bible which either commends or condemns homosexuality - and although heterosexual married couples are described, there is nothing to suggest that it is the only way either.  This to me is an amazing work of the Holy Spirit -  even with my dodgy Hebrew I could have written Leviticus 18 and 20 to give a clear condemnation of homosexuality in all cases -  In my opinion the Holy Spirit prevented the writers from writing what they might have wanted to say, and made them write what God wanted them to say. - that is why the text is more important than any guess work about what the prophets or St Paul for example might have meant - -  Praise God! 

 The Gospel

 I agree 100%  with 'repent -  metanoite . (but don't forget to add the believing the Good News bit) .  it means turning our whole lives around and turning towards God and a new way of living.  I preach that people should give up greed and selfishness, pride, arrogance and material worldliness, that they should give up self-aggrandizement and accept a humble path of service and sacrifice .. - and of course much more.

 On sexual sins (and actually I think that God will be much much more concerned with the fact that 25% of the world's population live on less than $3 a day and that we fight wars, kill and hate each other, and watch each other starve) - I condemn adultery, rape, domestic voilence, abuse, anything  sexual which has not full consent, especially when there is a power differential, sexual practices which demean people's dignity,  - I therefore condemn vigorously forced marriages, the age of consent of women at 14 - or as in Pakistan and Iran no age of consent at all!!!   -  the oppression of women by not letting them let their hair go free and have equal rights with men -   in fact I would hope that these are the sexual sins you are really speaking out against

 I reply to you Tom, not because I just like a good argument, but because I believe that this is a Gospel issue every bit as much as the abolition of slavery and granting women equal rights -  We will one day both stand before the judgement seat and face God on this issue and that is a tremendous thought - we will both do it by grace and through faith in Christ Jesus, not through our deeds or actions or even words.   For that I am grateful -   but I do believe that we will have to account for our deeds and actions and words - and from where I stand I want to be on the side of the people who grant compassion and love (judge not, lest you be judged)  rather than on the side of those who deny compassion and love.   I would like you to embrace the Good News of a truly amazing God who is more compassionate than we are, more loving than we are, and more than either you or I ever can,  wants all people to have life and to have it abundantly. (perisson - even more abundantly than we can imagine)

 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. 

 Paul

 9. A little post-script from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 25^th June, 2023

 You might not realise that in Genesis 1 and 2 when ever you read  'God created man'  the Hebrew is  God created the Adam   -   there is no word for  male 'man' until we have 'ish' in Genesis 2: 23 -   every other time our English bibles write 'man'  it is an incorrect translation of  ha adam  and it should read   God created the human being  .See below

 Genesis Chapter 1

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make the adam (humankind)  in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created the adam (humankind)  in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea

Chapter 2

¹⁵ The Lord God took the adam (humankind)  and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the adam (humankind)  , “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; ¹⁷ but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

¹⁸ The Lord God said, “It is not good for the adam (humankind)  to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the adam (humankind)  to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the adam (humankind)  gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for the adam (humankind)   ^[f] no suitable helper was found. ²¹ So the Lord God caused the adam (humankind)  to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the adam (humankind)  ribs^[g] and then closed up the place with flesh. ²² Then the Lord God made a woman (ishah) from the rib^[h] he had taken out of the adam (humankind)  , and he brought her to the adam (humankind)  .

²³ the adam (humankind)  said,

“This is now bone of my bones
    and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called ‘woman,’  (ishah)
    for she was taken out of man.”  (ish)

²⁴ That is why a man (ish)  leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, (ishah -  his woman) and they become one flesh.

²⁵ the adam (humankind)  and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

10 Reply from Tom Hawksley to Rev Paul Kennington 26^th July, 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 Warm greetings and I hope this finds you well.

 Forgive my radio silence. I have been on two longish trips (section deleted) It was sobering to listen to what this family has suffered. I mention this because you will appreciate that people like (name deleted) would find it difficult to understand why some Christians are speaking in a way which will make ministry in countries lik (names deleted) even more difficult.

 Of course, if this was an issue like the divinity of Christ, then that is what must be preached. However if the issue does not command the support of the majority of the church, surely those who want to see a strong church in countrieslike (names deleted) would focus on what has brought growth in the past - fasting, prayer, sexual purity, hostility to the world, commitment to the Scriptures and bold preaching of Christ crucified.

 During my second trip I was privileged to join with (word deleted) team ministering to twenty-one men (words deleted). Our theme was, ‘A beloved son, not a condemned slave’. We gave almost an entire day to looking at what sexual purity looks like and in the evening, we encouraged them to confess all these types of sins and receive forgiveness. I personally heard some of these confessions. The lists are not short. After this meeting there was a shift in the spiritual atmosphere. Things deepened. I mention this to help you understand how important it is in these sorts of situations to be clear about what sexual sin is. If we had even introduced for a second the idea that some sex outside traditional marriage is not sinful we might have well packed our bags and gone home.

 Let me now address some of your thoughts in your last letter.

 I would see all of our odd sexual feelings and wayward thoughts as being a part and parcel of the fall. It would be hard to know whether it was a disability like being deaf as choice is involved with homosexuality. There is none if you are born deaf. However, given that marriage in Genesis is connected to procreation, then the kindest approach would be to pray for someone with these feelings to be healed. But, as we all know, that might or might not happen. Then, as with Paul's thorn in the flesh, we must accept that God's grace is sufficient. Your insistence that people must have sex to be fulfilled puts a question mark over what Paul teaches.

 The Gay Christian Movement was founded in 1976, that is forty-eight years ago. The fact that in nearly fifty years there does not seem to be a single LGBT Christian organisation in the UK engaged with preaching the Gospel and serving the poor brings to mind Jesus' comment about knowing a tree by its fruit. Plenty of division, but no ministry to the poor and lost. It would seem that Christians with difficult sexual feelings are primarily concerned about fulfilling their own desires. It's all about themselves. Christianity is all about others. 

 Wonderful if you could give some clarification regarding what you are saying about Jesus and the family. Do you strongly disagree with me when I say that 'Jesus is not against the family per se', are you therefore saying that Jesus was in fact against the family? If so that is simplistic. Jesus put God first, and there were tensions with his family. But his mother was near the cross, his brother led the church in Jerusalem, and there is a lovely phrase in Mark 3 – ‘then he went home’.

 I don't think the issue of women's ministry needs to distract our correspondence. I think we are both on the same page here. 

 If we stay with Genesis sexual fulfilment has two pillars. There is ‘one flesh’, that is intercourse. The other is ‘multiply’, which is having children. Two people masturbating together is not there. I agree that God is all for pleasure, there will be plenty in the next life. However there has to be authority for Christians to enjoy legitimate pleasure. You call me cruel, but with millions of other Christians, I cannot see any Biblical authority for two people masturbating together with no possibility of procreation. Shift things to drinking. It's clear Christians can drink, but we can't get drunk. Is it cruel to say that to a Christian who likes to drink a lot? I don't think so.

 You are correct that Jesus’ view on homosexuality is not in the New Testament, but from Paul we get a feel of what the usual Jewish view was. You can find I believe the same disparaging view of homosexual in the writings of Philo and Josephus. You might want to bat back that Jesus was a radical and wanted to move things on from Philo and others. But if he had wanted to do that he would have said so, and surely this would have got into the Gospels. Instead we have, as you say, total silence. A fair conclusion is this. It is likely that Jesus shared the view of his Jewish contemporaries, but  even if he chose to remain silent while wanting to support homosexuality, it is impossible for the church to change its teachings when there is silence.

 I chuckled when I read about your belief in private marriage. We have had a situation like this, a man telling a woman that they were married in the eyes of God. It was pretty clear he wanted the sex and not the responsibilities that come with marriage. They never did properly marry. She suffered, and he married someone else. Your view is very Western and individualistic, the ultimate DIY version of marriage. It’s a long way from what we have in the Bible and church history and the vast majority of human history. Here marriage is first public commitment followed by private consummation. That is the approach of a gentleman. And so we certainly know what God has joined together. It seems to me that rather than holding out marriage as a shining light to a perverted and twisted generation soaked in promiscuity, you are twisting marriage to suit the perverted generation.

 Your statement that you think gay couples have been married in the eyes of God for centuries is, I am afraid, pure speculation. This is your opinion, but that is not enough for the church. There must be the authority of Scripture and church traditions. If we were to follow your thinking it means we can start moving the ancient boundaries whenever we want.

 To jump from my asking you not to accuse me of persecuting you because we are having a calm correspondence to suggesting that my approach can be likened to what kept apartheid and Nazism afloat seems rather dramatic. And of course wrong. Neither of these were upheld by reason. They were upheld by violence, which brooked no opposition. And it was reason allied to morality which brought both systems crashing down. The same can be said for slavery in the USA. However you are correct to emphasize the importance of fruits. If you sincerely believe this then may I suggest that you abandon your support for LGBTism and return to the ancient boundaries. For, as said, the fruits of LGBTism both in the church and the wider society has been absolutely miserable. In the church it has spread grim division, and in the wider society we have teenagers being abused by an anti-Christian ideology which tells them they might have been born with the wrong body. Research shows that the UK was a happier society in the 1950s, despite the suffering of the war years. Then the old morality was undermined, and promiscuity followed by LGBTism has spread. Now we are a miserable and rude society. That’s the fruit of what you support.

 I will skip your next para about sexual purity as I have dealt with this idea that you don’t have to have a public commitment to be married above.

 On the excesses of the LGBT world, as Christians we have to let the world go its own way even though we know that a little leaven can cause havoc. That is what has happened because of the state giving into LGBTism. Our concern is the church. Here we have to root out even the ‘little leaven’. If you read about the Welsh Revival you will see that Roberts was extremely sensitive about anything that was sinful. Or Bakht Singh in India. He once visited a family for dinner and there was a poster of a scantily dressed film star on the wall. Singh said either the poster came down, or he was leaving. By allying yourself to the LGBT cause – not its excesses – you have no authority to deal with the little leaven in the church.

 Regarding your belief on the silence of the Bible about homosexuality, that would strengthen my argument that the church should not make radical changes when there is silence.

 I enjoyed what you wrote about repentance. I have nothing to add. I also respect what you write about us all having to give an account of our lives before God. And I very much appreciate your emphasis on how God is full of compassion and wants us to have life.

 Going back to what I was involved in last week. It was when people brought to the light their sins, especially those of a sexual nature, that their understanding of God’s compassion deepened. There is no grace, unless first we own up to the truth of who we are and what we have done.

 As we do not agree on what the truth is regarding sexual sin, and bar a miracle we probably never will, so our view of grace will be different.

 Thankfully we don’t have to judge each other, and again I would like to say a huge thank you to you for engaging with my arguments.

 I am pondering on posting our correspondence on my blog. Please say if you would prefer for that not to happen. My initial email was given the title that the wisdom from above is open to reason, so I don't think there is any harm in your ideas being available to others. 

 As ever,

 Tom

 11. Reply from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley, 26^th July, 2023

 Dear Tom,

 I will reply some time in the future / life is a bit hectic at the moment. 

 Should you choose to publish our correspondence all I ask is that you publish it in full and do not edit it and of course put my name on it  - and send me a link. 

 Paul

 12. Reply from Rev Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley, 10^th August, 2023

 Dear Tom

 I fear we are going round and round and clearly reading reality differently.  

 I, and the scientific medical profession, do not believe that our sexuality is a choice, we believe it is a given on a spectrum. 

 I and many others see evidence of faithful LGBTQI Christians working selflessly for the good of the poor.  Bishop Tom Butler once said on BBC radio 4 that the gay clergy often served in parishes where  straight clergy would not take their families. I believe this has often been the case. 

 I believe that family life is as marriage is, in the words of Jesus, for this life only and that in the Kingdom of God there is no marriage  and only the human family 

 I believe that the current society where people are more honest about their sexuality is preferable to the hidden domestic violence, racism, and abuse of the 1950s.  I note that most sexual abuse is against girls by heterosexual men.  LGBTQI are not a threat to society. - most (violent) criminals are overwhelmingly heterosexual men 

 I believe that although the Bible says little about homosexuality it says a great deal about love.  Whoever lives in love, lives in God

 I believe that I am not advocating sex outside marriage but I am advocating for a wider understanding of marriage. The church has done this before by widening the list of those allowed to be married, including allowing marriage after divorce.  There is no such thing as ‘traditional marriage’ - it changes from culture to culture and always has.

 Finally, it is truly wicked that people are persecuted and martyred for their faith. But it is axiomatic that the godly quest for justice and truth can never be used as an excuse for the wickedness of men - even if wicked men claim that it is.  Even though the Taliban were to murder Christians because of our belief in the equality of women, for example, we should condemn the violence but maintain our belief. 

 So the real question is not which of us ‘wins’ the argument, but are you willing to allow my arguments enough credibility to accept that I should be allowed to proclaim them and live by them - and leave God to judge between us in the next life.   If the Church allowed the marriage of same-sex couple you would be still free to hold your views and not to accept that. If the Church does not allow same-sex marriage, then I am not free but am obliged to follow your line of argumentation as the only way, compelling me to act against my conscience. 

 Acts 5:39

39But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God.” 

 With all good wishes, and an assurance of my prayers 

 Paul

13 Reply from Tom Hawksley to Paul Kennington 26^th August, 2023

 Dear Paul,

 Warm greetings again and I hope this finds you well.

 Thank you very much for your last email replying to mine.

 Here are my responses to the points you made. I am afraid you are entirely wrong on several points. This is not a matter of prejudice, but reason and evidence. 

 1. Fluid sexuality is not a scientific fact.

 You assert that fluid sexuality is a fact, that our sexuality is not a choice, that it comes on a spectrum. However it is not a scientific fact and you are entirely wrong to make this assertion.

 Just google the question – are people born homosexuals and one of the first links is to an article from ‘Scientific American’ which looks at a study of half a million people. The headline conclusion is that there is no gene or set of genes that mean someone will be born with homosexual tendencies. The second link from ‘Planned Parenthood’ takes your view, but wisely refuses to say, as you do, that this is scientific fact. It says it is ‘likely’ it’s to do with biological factors before birth. Neither of us have the time to trawl through all the websites but to be fair to those who research in this matter you have to conclude, like Wikipedia, that this is still a matter for research.

 LGBT Christianity and the poor – no telephone numbers.

 I am sure that you and others have served the poor. My point is that after nearly fifty years there is not a single Christian LGBT organisation with an address and telephone number that serves the poor. However there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Christian organisations which support traditional marriage – and serve the poor. They are an organisational reality. Jesus’ words, ‘You will know them by their fruits’ must be difficult for LGBT Christianity. After fifty years all we see is a divided church, endless court cases, and for some people a lot of hurt.

 Marriage and family life are only for this life

 As you believe this, then if must follow that the church must do all it can to support the family.

 Man is always violent, honesty makes no difference

 You are right that grim things happened in the 1950s. Sadly, my reading of history tells me that human beings are always violent, especially heterosexual men, regardless of how ‘honest’ they are. The answer is not to preach honesty, as you suggest, but to preach Christ’s salvation, the power of the Holy Spirit – and to uphold the ancient boundaries. Your views are undermining those boundaries.

 Whoever lives in love, lives in God – that means controlling your urges

 Your ‘Whoever lives in love, lives in God’ needs to have boundaries. The Old Testament is full of warnings though about sex outside marriage. The rape of Dinah, Judah and Tamar, Potiphar’s wife and Joseph, Samson, the gang rape of the Levite’s concubine, David and Bathsheba, Amnon and Tamar, Absalom and his father’s concubines. The message is obvious, and severely underlined by Jesus and Paul in the New Testament. Love means controlling your sexual urges. Your ‘Whoever lives in love, lives in God’ could be a creed for an orgy unless you draw up strict boundaries as to where sexual intimacy belongs. In our correspondence you have watered down these boundaries, even at one point saying that a man can sleep with a man or a woman and call this marriage. This is neither honourable or loving.

 No such thing as traditional marriage. Not true.

 You are very wrong to say there is no such thing as traditional marriage. In Western civilisation for at least the last thousand years marriage has been understood to be between one man and one woman. In the Middle East and Africa there is some polygamy, however Pew Research has shown that only about 2% of the world’s population has this arrangement (see, https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/07/polygamy-is-rare-around-the-world-and-mostly-confined-to-a-few-regions/) So your assertion that there is no such thing as ‘traditional marriage’ does not stand up to scrutiny. There certainly is traditional marriage. The vast majority of people all over the world know exactly what is meant by marriage. It is a man and a woman who have made promises to be faithful to each other till death separates them.

 We are not free to preach whatever we believe

 You are very welcome to proclaim your beliefs – but not as a Christian priest in a Christian church, because your beliefs neither have the support of Scripture or the church. Moreover your beliefs are causing terrible division in the church. You are bringing to the UK the grim divisiveness that has torn apart the Episcopal Church in the USA.

 When making a decision R.T. Kendall suggests we use the acronym PEACE. P is for Providence, E for Enemy, A for authority, C for Confidence and E for Ease. He then suggests that we should only move forward if all five of these conditions are met. Your desire to bring homosexual marriage into the church gets a tick for the P. With the bishops vote this is ‘providential’. But it gets an X for all the others. What does the enemy want? Division. That is what this decision is bringing. We should do the opposite, bring unity. There is no Scriptural of ecclesiastical authority for this decision. It is weakening the confidence of the church, especially the mission of the church in Asia and Africa. You are breaking our bats before we get anywhere near the crease. As for ease of heart, it is bringing anguish.

 If LGBT Christianity is from God, nobody will be able to stop its growth.

It’s already been stopped.

 You have already been stopped by the churches in Africa and Asia. You are only supported by some parts of declining denominations in the West. And if a John Wesley or an Evan Roberts or a Charles Finney were to emerge in the next few years where hundreds of thousands were converted to Christ, your stance will be robustly rejected, and then forgotten, rather like most people, thankfully, have forgotten about Positive Christianity.

 As ever,

 Tom

 . Reply from Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley, 27^th August 2023

 This was not a conventional letter.

 Paul pasted an article from Wikipedia entitled ‘Environment and Sexual Orientation’. He highlighted this: ‘Scientists do not know the exact cause of sexual orientation, but they theorize that it is the result of a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. They do not view sexual orientation as a choice.’

 He also posted information about Mark Russell, a supporter of LGBTism, who has served as the leader of the Church Army.

 And a definition of family under the heading, ‘Nothing about heterosexual nuclear family here’.

 And the famous verses from 1 Corinthians 13 with this caption

 Good definition of love here -  for both of us - not your 'it allows rape and orgies definition

 And finally a Wikipedia entry about polygamy which argued that polygamy was common and which also speculated that polyandry was around in pre-history.

 15. Reply from Tom Hawksley to Paul Kennington 28^th August, 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 Warm greetings and I hope you have had a good bank holiday week-end. 

 Thank you for your reply to my email. 

 The cause of sexual orientation. 

 Can we not both agree that at present the jury is out on the cause of sexual orientation? The opening line of the Wikipedia article you sent me said it was a matter of research. However you might well be right that lots of scientists do not think it is a matter of choice. We don't know. What as Christians we do know is that we are born with a severely flawed nature and the norm for most people is to have all sorts of weird sexual desires. Most of them are selfish. That is why I dislike the phrase 'sexual orientation' as it gives the impression that we are born with certain likes that we have the right to fulfill. Christianity says we are born as fallen creatures with a sin orientation which has surely messed up our sexual orientation. Thank goodness for Romans 8:13 where we can experience the Holy Spirit putting to death the deeds of the flesh. 

 LGBT and the poor

 I have never said that Christians who support the LGBT cause have not also served the poor. I am sure you and Mark Russell and many others have done so. But there is no LGBT organisation that serves the poor.The one you mentioned was an organisation that helps people who embrace LGBTism.  Nearly the entire mission effort of the church today, the people who have risked their lives preaching Christ in Afghanistan, the people who serve in hospitals and orphanages and drug rehabilitation centres in Africa and Asia, all of them are working with organisations that reject sexual intimacy outside traditional marriage. As Jesus said, 'You will know them by their fruits'. The fruit of LGBT Christianity is division, court cases, and Christians giving all their energy to talk about a tiny minority instead of preaching the Gospel to the lost and serving the poor. Strong leadership would have shut down this discussion years ago and told people like you who want to advocate for sexual intimacy outside marriage to leave the Anglican Church and go and start their own churches. Sadly there has been weak leadership and the ancient boundaries have not been robustly defended, and unless the grim decision back in February by the General Synod is reversed, we now face an inevitable split in the Anglican Church in the UK.     

 Love

 What can be added to 1 Corinthians 13? If we follow this then we will not want to hurt another or exploit them sexually. So surely this would suggest that sexual intimacy should happen after a public marriage and the initiation of a covenant. That is traditional marriage. 

 Polygamy - Pew Research is pretty good. 

 Your piece about polygamy was  thin. I consider Pew Research to be of the highest standard and their findings showed that polygamy today was not widespread, so disagreeing with the piece in Wikipedia. Also that piece was speculating about the women having many partners. It wasn't very solid. But it did say that life long monogamous relationships have been around for a thousand years, so even with this piece you are entirely wrong to assert there is no such thing as traditional marriage. There is - and it is well worth supporting. 

 Have a great week. 

 As ever, 

 Tom

 16. Letter from Tom Hawksley to Paul Kennington 25^th August, 2023

 This was a link to an article in the Church Times about the decline of membership in the Episcopal Church in the USA which has embraced LGBTism.

 https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/25-august/news/world/us-episcopal-church-heads-for-crisis-in-number-of-ordinands?utm_campaign=Church%20Times%20RSS%20Daily%20bulletin%202.0%20%28ads%20in%20header%20and%20footer%29&utm_source=emailCampaign&utm_content=&utm_medium=email

 17. Reply from Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley, 26^th August 2023

 Hi Tom

 I really don’t think you can put the decline of the more institutional /hierarchical / sacramental churches in the West over those Pentecostalist churches which proclaim personal salvation /faith /direct relationship with Jesus as  the only essential solely at the feet of LGBTQ equality !!

 This is a general individualism across society  which hated experts and believes everyone has a valid opinion on everything.  It is also part of a massive right wing swing across the world which is pretty xenophobic and sees difficult issues as black or white rather than complicated and nuanced.   

 It’s all pretty ugly.    All I can say is that if God is an immigrant hating, capitalist, illiberal, southern baptist (possibly misogynistic and possibly bigoted) Trump voting republican - ( Westboro Baptist)  or even an Erdowan voting Turk, then heaven’s not the place for me . 

 I want to believe God is generous, open, endlessly rejoicing in creation,  sacrificially loving. Etc 

 Best wishes

 Paul

 18. Reply from Tom Hawksley to Paul Kennington, 26^th August 2023

 Hi Paul,

 Enjoyed your robust answer 

 Best,

 Tom

 19. Reply from Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley, 26^th August 2023

 Well as you have learned I’m actually convinced of my liberal stance!

 I’ll share a personal story with you. Over 20 years ago, having run several Alpha courses in my Church. I felt troubled by Leviticus 18 and 20 and homosexuality.  With a sad heart, ready to be convicted by Scripture, I opened my Hebrew Bible  - I was lucky enough to have learned Hebrew at Oxford -  I read the two verses, I then read them again - I became angry because the Hebrew clearly does not say what my RSV said - the translators had, at the very least added the word ‘as’. (A man who lies with a man (as) with a woman)  the word ‘as’ is simply not there in the Hebrew. 

 I then went to see what the ancient Rabbi’s said and they agreed with me that the text is not at all clear. They wrote much about this in the 4th century and the 11th century and have many very graphic descriptions of what men may do with other men.  

 I remain angry that Christian teachers do not share the Rabbi’s fine criticism of the text  and even angrier that translators are able to pass off their personal paraphrase as the Word of God. 

 My study made me convinced that God actually and intentionally prevented the writers of Scripture from condemning Homosexuality  - so that in Leviticus and even in St Paul the writers never actually manage to write a clear condemnation even if they wanted to  - God is Good - and I accept the text as the Word of God, not the presumed/ guessed at mind or opinions of St Paul /. He may have had all sorts of odd views, but what matters is the inspired text on the page - the text and nothing else, certainly not the mind of Calvin or Luther!!!

 And yes I am  sad that  all Jewish boys can read their Scriptures in Hebrew and all muslim boys can read their scriptures in arabic but 90% of Christian clergy cannot read their scriptures in the language God chose for them. 

 I think if we all started taking note of the little footnote on so many pages ‘Hebrew obscure’ we might all think more carefully before we write our sermons 

 Thought for today …… 

 Paul

 20 Reply from Tom Hawksley to Paul Kennington, 26^th August 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 Warm greetings and thank you for your robust email about Leviticus. 

 As we both agreed early on it is unwise to anchor Christian doctrine or practice on one verse in the Old Testament, so I am not sure whether the missing 'as' in the Hebrew is that important. 

 What I have found interesting in our discussion is that while the Bible and the church's view on homosexuality, what has emerged is that this is not the central issue. The central issue is the doctrine of man, and that leads to what is Christian marriage. 

 Regarding the demise of the US Episcopalian Church, yes of course, there are many reasons why church attendance is falling in the West, but whenever a denomination departs from orthodoxy and embraces LGBTism there is decline. See here:

 https://evangelicalfocus.com/features/12757/inclusive-protestant-churches-are-sinking

 Just on the grounds of maintaining unity and working for the growth of the church, common sense says you should abandon your support for LGBTism and return to orthodoxy. 

 I will now reply more fully to the earlier email you sent to me, the last one that is up on the blog. 

 As ever, 

 Tom

 21. Letter to Paul Kennington from Tom Hawksley 29^th August, 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 Warm greetings and I hope this finds you well. 

 I am just going through your emails, and so have re-visited your arguments about Genesis 1:26 - 27. Please correct me if I am wrong, but this is what I have understood. 

 1.. God created a human being in his own image which was both male and female. This creature therefore was a hermaphrodite.

2. Then in Genesis 2, when this hermaphrodite saw all the animals with a partner the human being felt lonely so God put this He/She to sleep and performed a splitting operation whereby the female part separated from the male. 

 If this is what you believe I can't see how it fits into the passage. Because in Gen 1:27 we read 'them'. So we clearly have a man and a woman, two separate entities. This is underlined in 1:28 when God tells them to multiply. 

 I think I might have misunderstood what you have said.

 Surely the traditional reading of these verses makes much more sense. God created mankind (1:26), and mankind was made up of two genders (binary), male and female, and so 'them'. The man and woman are told to multiply. Then in Genesis 2 the camera comes in a little closer to tells us about the creation of man, and alongside procreation we are told that marriage is about companionship, of being different but complementary. 

 No need for a long reply, but great if you can confirm that I have understood you correctly. 

 As ever, 

 Tom

 22. Reply from Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 30^th August, 2023

 come on Tom - There are two creation stories - Genesis 1 (written much much later) and Genesis 2 which is far far older. 

We have been working on Genesis 2, in the main. 

 Genesis 1 does not have anything about the story of the creation of Eve. 

 Gen 1.27  covers that whole story in two phrases 

 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

 First God only created Adam (not man remember)  -  then God created 'them' 

 As to whether or not Adam was hermaphrodite is an impossible question.

If you think Gen 1:27 - 28 is an abreviation of Gen 2:, then the whole question of sexual reproduction was not raised until after the Fall.  ie we do not decay or die before the fall. Indeed Eve was created as a friend and helpmate, not as a sexual reproducer.

 So I suppose I would say that Adam's sexuality before the Fall is akin to  God's, (Father, Son and Holy Spirit  - one God)  - and I don't know what that is. 

 P

 23. Reply from Tom Hawksley to Paul Kennington, 30^th August 2023

 Dear Paul, 

 Warm greetings and many thanks for your swift reply. 

 So, initially one physical being, which is both male and female, then two. 

 I think you still have a problem with Genesis 1:27 because it says 'them' indicating that there is a man and a woman, not one being who is both male and female. 

 Enjoy your day. And since you are in Essex, I hope you get time to go further up the A12 to visit Suffolk, my home country, and especially the Snape Maltings and Aldeburgh. 

 As ever, 

 24 Reply from Paul Kennington to Tom Hawksley 30^th August 2023

 Not nearly as much as a problem as you have if you think that men and women are only 50% each in the image if God 

Love Snape - were friends 

 P

 

 

 

---

[1]: L = Lesbian G = gay (men with men) B = Bi, people are attracted sexually to both men and women T = trans, men who prefer to act as women, women who prefer to act as men. I = intersex, people who are born with physical features that are both male and female Q = Queer. It is rather ill defined, but seems to a letter to protest against seeing sexuality as binary. The plus sign is there to cover anything that does not fit into these letters. For a full list of what the plus sign covers see here: https://www.thepinknews.com/2017/11/27/the-ultimate-lgbt-glossary-all-your-questions-answered/?_gl=1*1w5i6ar*_ga*Mzc1ODc5MjY3LjE2OTE3MDI4Njc.*_ga_BX9CRJ4BBP*MTY5MTcwMjg2Ni4xLjAuMTY5MTcwMjg3MS41Ny4wLjA.#page/1 The writer of Genesis was more concise.

 

[2] Reverend Kennington trained as a priest in Durham. He has served in parishes in Greater London, and from 2010 - 1016 he was Dean of Montreal Cathedral. Paul was married and is the father of three children and a grand-father. He and his wife have divorced and for the last ten years or more Rev Kennington has been living with his civil partner, Jonathan. 

 [3] Simon House was a hostel for homeless people operated by the Oxford Cyrenians