As the General Synod started its meeting today, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme had an item on the Bishops’ report on Marriage and Same Sex Relationships, and the forthcoming ‘take note’ debate. The piece featured a discussion between Simon Sarmiento of Thinking Anglicans and Chair of LGBTI Mission, and Susie Leafe, General Synod member and Director of Reform.
The 7-minute discussion can be heard here and begins at 1:21:45 in.
It is impossible to have a sensible dialogue with fundamentalists like Ms Leafe who can’t accept there are valid beliefs different from her own. It is always breathtaking to hear evangelicals claim that their opinions are identical with God’s. Sadly, such extremism now holds sway in the Church of England.
A rather frustrating interview. Refusal to legitimise gay and lesbian sexuality (by refusing gay and lesbian people to marry) is clearly a discrimination that appals secular people and subverts attempts to draw people towards faith. It is the Catch-22 of “Sex outside marriage is a sin, and we don’t allow you to get married, therefore your sex is always sinful.” So Simon, regardless of whether “The Church isn’t ready to marry gay and lesbian couples”, THAT is a key issue… right here, and right now… for the people involved, the lesbian and gay people actually living their lives, and wanting… Read more »
The Church’s Catch-22 (can’t marry therefore can’t have sex) means our love and devotion is perpetually sinful. Would we just acquiesce if this was race, and people were refused marriage on the grounds of colour? Regardless of whether ‘the Church is ready’ or, as you say, ‘isn’t ready’… the half of the Church that conscientiously believes this is simply wrong should plan to take ‘de facto’ action and create a new ‘de facto’ reality in the Church of England. The very assertion (in the bishops’ report) of a one-sided theological uniformity for the Church is an unreality. It needs defying,… Read more »
Good to hear Simon. Susie Leafe sounded more reasonable than I had expected ! But it was a matter of tone, not openness to share. WEll, the bishops’ report requests a new tone — apparently ! If only John Humphries had not taken valuable minutes to share his bemusement ! Among my family, friends and acquaintances, it is fair to say, only a handful attend mass with any regularity or apparent intensity. In fact, a nephew’s wife and children, alone among my family. My husband and his siblings attending RC prep & boarding schools (the boys) and his sisters RC… Read more »
I’m only an irregular Anglican churchgoer but I wanted to have a religious same sex wedding so my husband Ian and I got married in a Unitarian Meeting House. Isn’t a marriage in a place of worship of another denomination a possible solution for Anglicans who want a legal religious wedding?
I thought Susie Leafe didn’t make it at all clear where in the Gospels she finds the basis for the position she is holding.
Susie Leafe comments analysed here
http://www.clatworthy.org/2017/02/what-about-the-bible/
My frustration with Susie Leafe is not that she is a fundamentalist. She is not. The word, as always, needs using with more care. But by taking a stand as ‘biblical’ while using the bible in such an indisciplined way (as Jonathan Clatworthy points out) she discredits the very appeal to scripture she is concerned to commend and that the church itself owns as its foundation. There is actually some very sloppy use or neglect of scripture around in other traditions of the church too. And I recall Jeffrey John addressing a conference of Anglo Catholics a few years back.… Read more »
‘a grudging respect for evangelicals for knowing their bible and saying that his own tradition still had a lot of hard work to do to match them in discipline and rigour.’ (Posted by: David Runcorn on Tuesday, 14 February 2017 at 11:03am GMT) This may be all very well, but in my experience it does not get these disciplined Evangelicals very far; and it did not do much for me as a young person, back in the day, or NOW – a lifetime later. Knowing lots / most of the Bible by heart only gets a person or congregation /… Read more »
I share Jeffrey John’s* respect for the rigor and discipline of evangelical hermeneutic and exegesis. Many leading evangelicals have trained as lawyers, and it shows. Change, when it comes to England, is gonna be driven by evangelicals who apply their talents to arguing an affirming case.
* Aside: I believe it was the same speech in which John attacked liberals, which, considering his own positions and natural allies, was equal parts unfair and politically unwise.
I thought Susie Leafe came across very well in this interview. She was measured and balanced.