Bosco Peters Liturgy Male and Female?
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Looking for the Qualities of Leadership in our Bishops
Save The Parish Bishop of Chelmsford challenges the Church’s ‘Vision and Strategy’
This is a transcript of the Bishop’s Church Times Podcast that I linked to here.
Thank you, Bishop of Chelmsford, for bucking the trend and drawing us back to the Gospel, the life and story of Jesus, and challenging the theology of power, success, and numbers. A more contemplative, loving, and inclusive church seem to me to be closer to the Jesus, crowned with thorns, who hangs upon the cross, and whose male disciples abandoned Him because they could not accept His approach to the re-blessing of God’s creation. We need to unlearn, become humble, and relearn, with love and gratefulness as our guide.
+Guli questions Vision and Strategy’s emphasis on our own power. Maybe it needed an outsider to see the Pelagianism. Not for nothing has it been named the English heresy.
She concludes by saying that “something of my discomfort” with Vision and Strategy is that it has “already defined the outcome.”
This too is heresy.
She too defines what the Holy Spirit might say to us, that seems no less problematic… Basically I don’t agree with her, and am glad to not be in her diocese There are parts I come close to agreement on, and perhaps there are lessons to reframe much of the current emphasis or communication of the vision and strategy team. But I note for example her insisting “you can’t use this money to pay for clergy”. – this is contested by the chair (as it says in the foreword) and I am but 20mins walk from a parish in a… Read more »
Tim, I’m at a loss how to respond to this. The latter part of “Basically I don’t agree with her, and am glad to not be in her diocese” comes over too much like a playground taunt to my ears. Living a comfortable Western life, I won’t presume to comment on the Church in Iran, of which I know almost nothing in any case. As for things nearer home, and irrespective of what +Guli said, I find it most refreshing that the chief pastor of a diocese can speak frankly. Equally, I find it deeply troubling that ‘the centre’ felt… Read more »
I agree with a great deal written in the article, but I also share some of Mr Pollard’s hermeneutic of suspicion. Perhaps I was too close to too many Bishops for too many years. Timing is, as they say, everything, and as others have already noted, there is a race to Canterbury to be run by some unlucky souls just around the corner. It will take more than one article to convince me of commitment and sincerity, however much I welcome seeing it and what is written therein. The Diocese of Chelmsford became a somewhat top heavy institution under her… Read more »
The last diocesan increased the number of archdeacons. + Guli has decreased the number, abolishing one post.
Perhaps it’s best not to look too deeply into motives; instead assume they may be mixed.
I accept I may have gone too far with the second half of that sentence. Essentially I had been trying to draft a reply looking at what I agree with and disagree with and then felt it was best to put up front the simple “overall agree or not agree” rather than being ambiguous. In trying to be briefer I did then remove some of my agreement points which made it out of place… Anyway on a point of substance, you are glad that a bishop can speak their mind – I dare say we’ve seen quite a bit of… Read more »
The idea that churches grow simply by committing to a Vision and strategy, or ignoring the Gospel is nonsense. Vision and strategy relate to the demographics of the area. It means basic questions (who,what, why, where, when, how?) are prayerfully asked about where the church is located who the church is serving, what services and facilities are needed and what resources are required to implement a well thought out action plan within a achievable timescale. Often the demographics of an area has changed, but the church still continues as if it has not and either cannot or refuses to change.… Read more »
Agreed..
Of course sometimes I would say you may have glorious failure (or however you might describe the church in a state of such decline as was/is Iran), but in those cases you stay faithful.
I feel she has come a bit too close to saying “if it’s not working, redefine success as ‘letting it fail'”
Now she does say that it’s not a call to laziness or giving up, but it feels a lot closer to that than something inspiring to help continue when things are tough.
Tim, you write: ‘I feel she has come a bit too close to saying “if it’s not working, redefine success as ‘letting it fail’” ‘ I didn’t hear it like that at all. She was quite rightly correcting the theology of those who make a direct link between numerical success and faithfulness to Christ. Her final words, quoting St David: “Be joyful!” But why should we be joyful if our churches are failing? The C of E is being increasingly dominated by a theology which says that we are joyful because Christ paid the price for my sins on the… Read more »
When it comes to discussions about sex (Bosco Peters: ‘Male and Female?’) it’s not a biologist some of us need but a logician. The expression ‘the exception proves the rule’, while of doubtful provenance, is useful in establishing the premise that the occasional departure from the rule does not overturn it but rather serves to establish its general applicability. To take an example, we used to have an albino blackbird in our garden. It’s not that often that you’ll see one and most people never have but they do exist. Without a doubt they are white and not black. Does… Read more »
Jane, you are right to be cautious and thoughtful here, but this article about genetics is congruent with a huge amount of other recent research in animal and human behaviour, development, biology etc. A lot of it is now well established, and it challenges the traditional idea that there are fixed categories of male and female, which fit within fixed patriarchal ideas of gender relationships with dominant males and nurturing females. Can I recommend two books, The Patriarchs by Angela Saini and Bitch by Lucy Cooke. Saini discusses human anthropology and Cooke discusses animal behaviour, but both give the same… Read more »
Thanks for the book recommendations, Simon, always good to hear what others have found helpful. I’ve been a paid up feminist since my teens (and I’m now in my sixties), and I’ve never believed in fixed patriarchal ideas of gender relationships, or that patriarchy was a natural state, or that it could be defended scientifically. Feminism debunked those ideas long ago. The idea that biological sex in human beings is not binary but somehow fluid is a separate and quite different proposition, I think. Certainly it serves no useful feminist purpose. I’m proud to say that I’ve campaigned across five decades,… Read more »
Thanks for the response Jane. I am totally with you with one part, but much less in agreement with a different aspect. I am totally with you on gender relationships and patriarchy, and the ability of women to take on any role. What I find fascinating is that the gender blind culture we are arguing for now in the European west was the norm in most of the world for most of human history. There are countless reports of matrilineal societies, and women acting as hunters or warriors, and of men nurturing children. Saini describes this basic state as “not… Read more »
“If you have gender dysmorphia and wish to transition your female body to male, the reason is not simply to find it easier to get a better job in a patriarchal world. If they were forced to stay as a woman they could not take their free and full place as their authentic self.”
Fantastic observation Simon.
Thank you.
Transition is about congruity and authenticity, and all the psychological well-being that follows from that, as well as benefit to the community at large.
If we are discussing the science of gender, this may be the time to repost a very wise piece by the late Stanley Monkhouse, who had some experience in this topic as both a professor of anatomy and as a Christian Priest. He wrote this “I’m lying on the sofa watching Shetland and enjoying the worst upper respiratory tract infection I’ve had for a long time. But somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re interested in. I think the institutional churches have no business being involved in sexuality/gender issues. Holy Scripture says nothing that convinces me that they should. I… Read more »
Simon, there’s a great deal of material here and I feel I can’t do justice to all of it so I’ll simply say this. It’s perfectly possible to affirm that gendered roles are artificial and oppressive … and that homosexual people are as much a part of God’s good creation as heterosexual people … and that some people may feel a need to modify their secondary sexual characteristics to protect their psychosocial wellbeing … and that every person’s sense of identity including their experience of gender is unique to them … without trying to argue, in the face of all… Read more »
“Biological sex in human beings is binary” No. That incorrect belief is why you are making so many errors of thinking. For all the reasons Professor Helm articulates (and more), quoted by Bosco Peters, human sex is bimodal. The difference is important: most people lie close to one of the two modes, but others don’t. Society tries to assign them to one of the modes on a very simplistic “which mode do they most superficially look like?” but in some cases, perhaps 1‰, society gets it wrong. It’s totally implausible that society would get it right 100% if the time… Read more »
Kate, I don’t know you but I wish you well. And I truly don’t want to make life more difficult for people who may already be finding their lives difficult. If some of my fellow human beings have come up with a narrative that helps them make sense of themselves to themselves then who am I to criticise? Until you can distinguish between a fact and a belief, though, there’s no rational discourse to be had.
Exactly. It is a fact that sex is bimodal. That’s science. It is a fact that our method of assigning sex at birth is inaccurate in some cases. Those facts are arrayed against transphobic beliefs.
Simon, please, there is no ‘science of gender.’ It’s a sociological concept at best, at worst a churn for homophobic and sexist stereotypes. Could you try to describe what a female ‘gender identity’ is, please? or a male one? Failing that, how you can distinguish one from the other?
Lorenzo, let me explain my own understanding here, whilst acknowledging it may be different to yours and Jane Charman’s. Firstly – to define terms. Taking a definition from “A little Gay Natural History” published by the Natural History Museum London. “Put very simplistically, sex is typically defined as referring to physical, hormonal and genetic characteristics, while gender to an innate sense of self.” When it comes to sex, it seems that the Natural History Museum supports Kate’s definition, as does Stanley Monkhouse’s piece I cited above. “Defining sex itself is also not that straightforward, as it can be dependent on a number… Read more »
Thanks, Simon, it’s been a fascinating thread. As this will be my last post I thought I’d just sum up some of the comments that contributors have made in their own words. You are ‘more interested in gender than in sex’. You define gender as ‘a state of knowing’. It’s difficult ‘to define a mystical experience scientifically’ but you know that you’ve had one. You think that gay men are not men. Instead they are ‘a third gender’. You don’t say anything about gay women but I assume you think they are not women. Kate doesn’t mention mystical experiences, she’s… Read more »
Jane. My thanks to you for engaging so thoughtfully and helpfully. To a certain extent I am using TA to test out my own ideas, a sort of on-line academic seminar room, and so conversation with people like you is very helpful. It was good, for example, to understand how your entirely laudable feminist understandings may be in tension with some of the gender related arguments. I am aware that much of what I am saying conflicts with traditional or typical understandings held by Christians today in the UK, and also struggles to fit inside a more reductionist “science” mindset.… Read more »
Again you seem to misunderstand the science when you say, “This is not based on biological differences of sexual development or variations in sex characteristics…” That’s a bold assertion, and an incorrect one. There’s a very good recent (February 2024) paper by Lafta et al. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2024.1340108/full which discusses how science is starting to find multiple differences between cisgender individuals and those with a transgender or non-binary identity. But to quote just one part: “More recently, a study was conducted on a large sample of transwomen and control males to evaluate several candidate genes (Foreman et al., 2019). The authors found… Read more »
That’s fascinating Kate, thanks for the link. If I understand the article correctly, then in layman’s terms, whether one is cis or trans gendered seems to be significantly associated with genetic variations, or with hormonal variations (presumably during development in the womb). That sits very closely alongside a similar article actually written as part of the work for LLF. This review of current scholarship says that homosexuality may also be associated with genetic variations, or with hormonal variations (presumably during development in the womb). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13558358.2020.1818541#d1e247 Because the article was written within an LLF faith based context it looked at the… Read more »
You could widen your field of study (sorry) to embrace how vocabulary and our perception of reality are intertwined. So, for example, the ancient Greeks didn’t have a word for blue and, to a very real extent, weren’t aware of blue as a distinct colour. From a personal perspective I would say my perception of the number of colours there are has changed (increased) over my life as I learnt to express colours in terms of RGB or CNY. I think the same is true of mystical experiences and gender identity. At present we lack the vocabulary to express properly… Read more »
Thanks Kate, that is a very helpful comment, and congruent with some of my own thoughts when reflecting on the recent debate. You are right that one can struggle to explain one’s gender identity if it does not conform to the stereotypical norm of cis-gendered purely male or female. What words do you use to express a feeling, or a state of knowing, especially when describing that identity to somebody who is hostile and demanding evidence to back up what you are saying? I think the words are there, but it is how one uses them. Perhaps telling human stories… Read more »
Okay, if gender is an innate sense of self. Would you care to describe a male ‘gender identity’ to someone like me who really struggles to believe that we’re are born with an innate sense of gender.
It’s hard but let’s try a basic analogy. Being cisgender is like holding a black sheet of paper against a black background. The sheet of paper is almost impossible to see. The same is true if you hold a white sheet of paper against a white background. But swap them over and hold a white sheet of paper up against a black background or vice versa and it’s incredibly obvious. That’s how being transgender feels. Your physiological attributes of sex are congruent so you don’t notice anything and doubt gender identity exists. In contrast, if someone has incongruent attributes of… Read more »
Kate, like Jane above, I wish you the best and I truly don’t want to make life more difficult for people who live with dysphoria. I know what the difference between black and white is, that’s not the question: it’s the alleged differences between a male ‘gender identity’ and a female one that I suspect boil down to a list of stereotypes.
“it’s the alleged differences between a male ‘gender identity’ and a female one that I suspect boil down to a list of stereotypes.” Have you spent time with trans people before you make such assertions? I doubt it, because they would have told you that isn’t the case. He is sadly dead now, but I had a friend, Charlie, who was one of the women who protested about the nukes at Greenham Common. And went to jail for it. But he knew he wasn’t a lesbian woman and transitioned to live as a man. There was nothing about male stereotypes… Read more »
I used to be ActUp’s man in charge of raising AIDS awareness among transsexuals, as peeps used to be known then, so yes, I’ve met loads of trans people. And the social ‘contagion’ (not my word) is real, it climbed from a dozen people a year being referred to GIDS to several thousand in barely a decade, most of them gay or/and autistic.
Lorenzo, you raise an appropriate question about the seeming increase in people coming forward with questions of gender identity. But the important issue is how do you answer that question. I would argue that a sensible way forward would be firstly to accept the reality of gender variance as a human condition (as evidenced by, for example, Kate’s postings about genetic, chromosomal and hormonal influence, or my anthropological data). And secondly to carry out well-designed investigations into the seeming increase in numbers. Is it simply that in our more open modern culture people are able to come forward when in… Read more »
Good to see the link to Mt. A. University. There are information points about two-spirit people as well which fit the frame of this thread. Here is one from CUPE ( Canadian Union of Public Employees) in Nova Scotia: https://novascotia.cupe.ca/2024/10/03/national-day-of-action-for-missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-girls-and-two-spirit-people/ More biographical perspective here: https://www.tvo.org/article/you-belong-in-this-world-two-spirit-survivors-share-their-stories “Being Two-Spirit is not a mental, emotional, or physical concept, Nolin says — it’s spiritual: ‘Being Two-Spirited means you walk with both the male and female, and you acknowledge both that male and female spirit, and you thank them for the gift that they’ve given you.’ … The things we know about residential school — about… Read more »
Thanks for the links Rod, they are incredibly useful, as have been links you have sent me in the past. I am engaged in researching and teaching the history of these people, whether one calls them 2spirit or third gender or “Intermediate Types” (my chosen umbrella term). I would argue that one cannot understand the history of such people across the world without understanding the brutal suppression, amounting to genocide, which happened under the process of the worldwide colonial takeover. Canada provides a good case study because so much of it is quite recent (a lot of it in living… Read more »
Simon, thanks so much for the link to your You Tube project. Good to know, as you indicated in one of your videos, that some of the experience in and documentation from Canada has been helpful in your research on the subject of colonialism and the connection with suppression of forms of sexual expression. I shall tune in from time to time, and share the link with others I know who are interested in the issues. The reality of colonialism is such a good lens for viewing so many legacy injustices. Charlie Bell looked at it in his seminar here… Read more »
When it’s the exception that’s being discriminated against, it’s worthwhile for those following the example of Jesus Christ to privilege the exception to be heard and respected. Blackbirds, black or white, notwithstanding…
Canadian EP1 contains a line as referenced by Bosco Peters, “You formed us in your own image: male and female you created us”. I noted on a thread many weeks ago that our local parish has changed this to: “You formed us in your own image: wonderfully you created us.” It is a change in the interests of good liturgy in the current social climate in which nonbinary and trans people are targets for polarizing media influencers and politicians. The change is consistent with the original intent of flagging ” male and female” in the first place, over and against… Read more »
Dear Bosco: the biologist you quote must be aware that the DSDs she mentions are themselves sex-specific. True mosaicism is is vanishingly rare. Humankind is sexually dimorphic whether non-binary people like it or not: there is no third gamete beside sperm and ovum. Kindness works both ways: asking people to lie and confess what they know to be untrue is also unkind.
Might just leave my story here as someone born with Variations in Sex Characteristics. I wish people didn’t feel the need to regulate our bodies & dictate how we should label ourselves.
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2019/22-february/features/features/my-intersex-story
Amen, Sara, but transgender people are not intersex. And pace, Simon, a gay man is still very much a man. I do not believe I occupy some ‘third space’ between male and female at all. I was taunted all my youth for not being a ‘proper’ man, a girly boy, whatever; I’m certainly not going to allow the church to preach the same.
Thanks Lorenzo, I hear what you say, and acknowledge the life experience that lies behind it.
I think that is what makes discussing these issues so difficult. We may be faced with a similar question, but perhaps because of different life experiences, or because we may come from different Christian traditions, we may end up with different solutions, and sometimes mutually contradictory solutions.
No. Transgender people are intersex, our science is still struggling to identify quite how, but that’s OK as science can’t explain life either.
“whether non-binary people like it or not . . . asking people to lie and confess what they know to be untrue”
Respectfully, what cisgender people “know” is from their position of privilege, nothing objective re sperms, ovum, gametes, cells, etc, etc, etc.
Whenever this subject comes up, I always want to start by saying that an underlying problem is just how hard we find it to discuss. Why can we not be open to the views of others, and genuinely reflect? If you’re, say, a legislator fair enough but not many of us NEED to know the truth on this matter: we’d just like to, because not knowing is unsettling. Some people seem to want to argue because it’s about their personal identity. But others just because they want the sense of security of having the answers. I don’t know what to… Read more »
a stage of being uncomfortable with their bodies But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about people—even young people—who are [repeat after me] Insistent, Consistent, and Persistent that they are other than the sex they were ASSIGNED at birth. Contrary to the current Republican nominee for President, no one goes to school and comes home having had “sex-change surgery”! No one suddenly decides to “switch sex” from hearing about a classmate or seeing a YouTube video. Someone who can use Power-Over via the state (or church!) to deny the identity of someone who is Insistent, Consistent, and Persistent… Read more »
“Repeat after me”? This suggests that you think I am someone who has difficulty learning things or grappling with complex subjects. Does that not reinforce my point about the problem with the way this issue is often discussed? If someone is ‘insistent, consistent and persistent’ then I’d agree that gender reassignment may be the right thing for them. But that doesn’t mean (it seems to me) that there is not also another, different discussion to be had about the way in which the subject is presented generally, especially to young people, e.g. whether gender reassignment is often, or only rarely,… Read more »
I had a friend a decade or so ago. When she was young, under 10, she knew that although she had been born in a male body that she was really a girl. She told her parents. Their response was to go to court and get a court order requiring everyone to carry on calling her male. That didn’t change her mind so in her late teens her parents got her committed to an infamous mental hospital where she was subjected to electro-shock therapy to make her desist from her trans identity. Shortly before her 18th birthday she escaped and… Read more »
But these are examples of people who have been treated terribly! It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to equate my wanting to discuss this matter (on a website called “Thinking Anglicans”!) with the horrendous way these people were treated. You seem to be saying that the desire even to discuss is to “cause trauma”, even when I made it clear that I am not against some people transitioning. My comment was precisely about (what seems to me to be) the need to be able to discuss it better. Because I’m sure we all know lots of people who simply don’t… Read more »
“I don’t know what to think on the issue itself but I think I can still legitimately make the point that i believe that it’s very common for people, esp young people, to go through a stage of being uncomfortable with their bodies and their sexual identity and that it’s not being bigoted or ultra conservative or whatever to say that in the majority of cases this is a mental issue to work through, rather than necessarily evidence of being neither straightforwardly male or female.” Suppose someone said that straight people wanting to marry was a mental health issue in… Read more »
So are you suggesting that every time a teenager comes home, having heard about transitioning, and says that they think that maybe they are in the wrong body, that they must be encouraged in that belief? Is that the only legitimate response? I would have thought that, when you sit down with them to explore this with an open mind, the fact that it is not unusual for young people to feel uncomfortable in their bodies and/or unsure about their sexuality for a phase is also one of the facts that should also be part of the exploration. That’s not… Read more »
The Bosco Peters’ piece and ensuing discussion here is somewhat timely. Our diocese here is just finishing a multi-event weekend with The Rev. Dr. Charlie Bell. (link). What a terrific expert and prophetic voice this guy is for those of you in the C of E. I was able to attend his seminar Friday past. We were able to hear him preach at the Cathedral this morning. Today’s lections (RCL) included Gen. 2:18-24 and Mark 10: 2-16. Top drawer homily in my view. Coincidently, this morning the Cathedral used EP 1 the text for which The Cathedral has also modified,… Read more »
I am a little unsettled by the pushback here from some against +Guli. I am going through a patch of trying to understand Hillsong, Bethel and Evolution Church. They have been wildly successful at growth. One of the common complaints leveled against them is that they are examples of Word of Faith Ministry: pray sincerely for health, wealth and happiness and it will be yours – and if it isn’t it’s because your faith is lacking. (I’m not convinced it’s an entirely accurate accusation against Hillsong etc, but that’s not important here.) It seems to me that the sort of… Read more »
I am reminded of the following, regretting where I first came across it:
“God answers all our prayers; it’s just that sometimes the answer is ‘no’.”
God is onto a win-win situation in that case .
I’m reminded of the words of an Anglican priest I knew when I was in the Diocese of the Arctic. We were discussing the success of various Pentecostal church groups, and he said, “The reason they are so popular is that we focus on what Jesus did, but they focus on what Jesus does.” A generalization, perhaps, but with more than a grain of truth in it.
I have just come back from attending a wedding in Central Park so am quite late to the party. Sara Gillingham’s story will haunt me – Sara it is so terrible, and I’m really struggling to understand how the body in which people are born is remotely the business of any bishop or the Church of England as a whole. I was privileged to spend a happy time with a group of under 40s Between my son , his partner and their two Best Men the 4 families of origin were 2x Roman Catholic, 1x actively Cof E and 1xChristmas… Read more »
A very, very interesting observation.
Re: my previous comments, if interested you should be able to watch via the link the Sermon The Rev. Dr. Charlie Bell delivered at our Cathedral on October 6th last.
The sermon is at about 22:50 minutes in. As mentioned, the gospel reading was the divorce and children text. Top drawer. The Eucharistic Prayer is the one that has been modified re how we are created i.e. wonderfully!.
https://youtu.be/YI6u99cWAfM