For many years, Greenbelt has been one of my favourite Summer festivals - combining great music, stimulating seminars and challenging mission projects.Greenbelt uniquely brings together Christian and secular agencies committed to addressing controversial issues such as international justice, racism, climate change and ending global poverty.
This year will be no exception. I am pleased to know that Sami Awad and Jeff Halper will both be campaigning for peace with justice for Israel and Palestine and an end to the Israeli policy of demolishing Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.
I am disappointed, however, to see that Gene Robinson, the episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire has also been invited. Here is his testimony offered at the 76th General Convention meeting in Anaheim, California.
David Virtue, over on Virtue Online writes,
The pansexual steamroller is underway. "Marriage equality is a reality coming soon to a state near you," Bishop Robinson told an appreciative audience here yesterday.
At a lunchtime gathering at General Convention, Robinson said The Episcopal Church should proudly proclaim itself as the "gay church" and told visitors to GC2009, that "LGBT Equality is a matter of justice." He also said that Resolution B033, which pledges that the Episcopal Church would refrain from consecrating gay bishops or authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions, should be disavowed and diocesan deputies and bishops should "stand up for what is right."
Robinson talked about the "great moveable middle" at General Convention. THAT, of course is a fiction. There is no "via media" any more in TEC. They have been silenced. They have rolled over and, with the departure of most of the orthodox in TEC, it is a clean sweep for all manner of sexualities in TEC led by revisionist bishops and deputies. A genuine liberalism that at once allowed for both sides of the table to hear, listen and work together is dead. Robinson is also on a book-signing mission reinforcing his, and The Episcopal Church's official sexual positions.
History will be made here, Robinson eulogized. He is right, it will be, but it will be a history that TEC will live to regret."
I hope next year Greenbelt will invite one of the orthodox Bishops from the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) who represent the majority of Anglicans and who uphold traditional and biblical views on human sexuality. I hope too that the invitation to Robinson does not reflect the theological position of CMS, one of the main Greenbelt sponsors.
Lisa Nolland, over on Anglican Mainstream, has written on Greenbelt, Gay Evangelicalism and CMS. She has this to say:
"According to its website, ‘Greenbelt is an independent Christian charity working to express love, creativity and justice in the arts and contemporary culture in the light of the Christian gospel.’ It is the largest Christian festival in the UK, almost 20,000 strong, with a fascinating line-up of speakers, subjects, genres and modalities. It also appears strongly pro-gay. Gene Robinson, gay bishop poster boy (although oddly, that information did not make it onto the site) and Giles Fraser, head of Inclusive Church (that bit was also not included) are on the rostrum, along with gay rights advocates Robert Beckford and Paula Gooder. Gay worship groups, OuterSpace and Journey, will be leading in worship while gay bands, Athlete and Royksopp, will be entertaining the crowds. Read here and here, also here
This is rather worrying: it is called the gayification of the church. Almost more insidious is that it exists, cheek by jowl, with other worthwhile, really important and solidly orthodox aspects, lulling those who might otherwise get upset into a false complacency that ‘things are not really that bad!’ I guess it all depends on what ‘bad’ means. That the Gay Pride flag was flown over London’s historic St Martins in the Field to celebrate Gay Pride just days ago and that the Archbishop of Canterbury met with a leading LGBT group in the US, although, oddly, there was no time in his schedule to meet with any of the orthodox being hounded out of their churches (which they have paid for and maintained) or representatives from some of the many wonderful ex-gay groups — two of the most recent examples of gayification — should speak volumes!
At some point we as a church will have to face the music. We have tacitly, incrementally forfeited an agreed-upon Christian sexual ethic (no sex outside heterosexual marriage) which had held for the past millennia. Now, in effect, we accept and promote the ethic that as long as ‘relationships’ are ‘loving’, ‘committed’ and ‘faithful’, they are blessed by God. Though there may be exceptions, it appears to me that this is the dominant sexual paradigm. Perhaps the most recent example is TEC’s Chicago Consultation, Christian Holiness and Human Sexuality, Chapter 4. In 2004, Changing Attitude published a report entitled Sexual Ethics and recently claimed that this report upheld a solid Christian sexual ethic. Please peruse pp 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 in the document and see if you agree!
Though its practitioners interpret the notion of a ‘pure relationship’ in various ways, I believe it is essentially unstable and completely subjective. For a start, what exactly constitutes ‘commitment’ and ‘faithfulness’? Those in so-called open relationships insist theirs are committed and faithful; they just happen to have what for them is an added bonus of being sexually open or non-exclusive (or sexually promiscuous, but that carries pejorative overtones). This ‘pure relationship’ ethic also legitimizes non-binary (three or more) plural ‘committed’ relationships of either a bisexual, gay or heterosexual nature. I have had close bisexual friends who shared with me their domestic situations which for them included male and female lovers during the same period of time. Such situations, known as ‘V’s in polyamory-speak, are not at all uncommon in the literature. Liberal Democrat, Simon Hughes, is perhaps the best known British bisexual today, with his admission that his sexual history involved ‘both homosexual and heterosexual relationships’ which were probably sequential in nature.
If those involved are more ‘traditional’, their ’pure relationship’ might mimic aspects of marriage and even successfully masquerade as marriage but at heart it is post-marital. It is really all about the needs, desires, aspirations and fantasies of the adult individual and her/his ‘partner/s’: they determine the rules of engagement. Anthony Giddens’ The Transformation of Intimacy has proved prophetic. Sadly though, as people live their lives according to this ethic, they get damaged. Their autonomy comes at a very high (but often hidden and pay-later) price, especially for those with the most to lose, their children, whose views are dismissed as kill-joy over-reaction.
Moreover, this ‘pure relationship’ ethic is post-orthodox, and not just post-evangelical (I had forgotten to mention post-evangelical Dave Tomlinson, another important gay advocate who is also speaking at Greenbelt). As Charles Raven observed, ’The score may still be there, but many of the orchestra are making it up as they go along and will continue to do so in the absence of any effective discipline.’
Is this satisfactory? I do not believe it is. I am even more concerned because highly respected Christian organizations like Church Mission Society are sponsors of Greenbelt. Unless it means very little to be a sponsor, surely CMS must be deeply embarrassed at this situation. Please do contact:
Bishop Paul Butler, Chair of CMS: paul.butler@bpsotonoffice.clara.co.uk and
Tim Dakin, General Secretary of CMS: tim.dakin@cms-org.uk with your concerns.
Finally, perhaps most galling is the deeply discriminatory nature of the programme, which presents itself as the antithesis of discrimination. Given the resources and people which such recent events as Sex and the City, The Big Question, and the Moral Maze, showcased, there is no reason why Greenbelt should only push one ideological agenda and only grind one axe, unless it is wanting to slant the argument and deprive its audience of expert opinion on the other side. What about equal air time for it? What about poster boys or girls for the ex (or post)-gay movement being handed the microphone, instead of just Gene Robinson (again), with his sadly amaturish biblical hermeneutic? Given that Greenbelt has invited so many people who strongly promote a different sexual ethic to that of a traditional Christan sexual ethic, the least they could do is allow equal air time for traditional sexual views."
Charles Raven of SPREAD adds,"Significantly, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) is one of the sponsors of this event and its logo appears on every page of the Greenbelt website, yet many in the Global South hold the CMS in high regard for its historic missionary endeavour which did so much to establish the world wide Anglican Communion.
If the distinctive evangelical flavour of one of the great evangelical missionary societies of the Church of England can now be so diluted, does this not warn us of the extent to which the gospel has already been deeply compromised in the Church of England as a whole and, no doubt, in the other Anglican Churches of the British Isles? The GAFCON movement has understandably given its main attention so far to the acute problems facing the orthodox in North America, but with the ACNA now established, the parlous state of the Churches on the other side of the North Atlantic is coming into focus. In these circumstances, the FCA leadership, in the British Isles and overseas, will need to graciously yet firmly resist the old conventions if they are to be faithful to the Jerusalem Declaration; it is very difficult to see how the next stage of the struggle for the future of the Anglican Communion can avoid the Archbishop of Canterbury’s own back yard."
