The Marriage Files: The purpose, limits and fate of
marriage
Patricia Morgan
Wilberforce Publications £9.99
(978-0-9575725-3-9)
Church Times Bookshop £8.99 (Use code
CT670 )
Covenant and Calling: Towards a theology of same-sex
relationships
Robert Song
SCM Press £16.99
(978-0-334-05188-6)
Church Times Bookshop £15.30 (Use code
CT670 )
More Perfect Union? Understanding same-sex
marriage
Alan Wilson
DLT £9.99
(978-0-232-53125-1)
Church Times Bookshop £9 (Use code CT670
)
THESE books represent opposing views on same-sex marriage. All
three have Evangelical provenance, which is not so surprising,
since opinion polls show Evangelicals disturbed about the issue
while liberal and "broad-church" sectors largely share the
untroubled public acceptance of the 2014 legalisation of same-sex
marriage.
Covenant and Calling: Towards a theology of same-sex
relationships by Robert Song and More Perfect Union?
Understanding same-sex marriage by Alan Wilson both propose a
theology of same-sex marriage, but could hardly be more different
in style and analyses. Robert Song, an academic theologian, served
on the Pilling committee as one of its three advisers; Alan Wilson,
Bishop of Buckingham, is celebrated as an Anglican bishop
announcing his conversion from taken-for-granted disapproval to
acceptance of same-sex marriage. Patricia Morgan believes same-sex
marriage threatens the essence of marriage and the family. In
The Marriage Files: The purpose, limits and fate of
marriage, she presents a secular, social-scientific case
against same-sex marriage, and a spirited defence of heterosexual
"conjugality". The Oxford Centre for Religion in Public Life
commissioned two pieces of research for the study, and its
Director, Vinay Samuel, and Secretary, Chris Sugden, endorse
Morgan's argument.
Wilson's is the most "popular" of the three: chatty,
personalised, rhetorical, seasoned with jokes, and not embarrassed
occasionally to use loaded depictions of opponents. Wilson was
disconcerted by the politics underlying the non-appointment of
Jeffrey John as Bishop of Reading in 2003 as an example of the
Church's evasive handling of divisive issues. As he got to know
partnered gay Christians in the 2000s, he reassessed his opposition
to same-sex partnerships around three points: the moral
implications of scientific evidence about sexual identity; the
"fuss being kicked up" about the literal reading of "a remarkably
small number" of biblical texts; and the growing chasm between the
Church's largely implicit approach to sex and the increasing
openness of people in the "secular" world as "public emotional
repression" lifted.
He notes the rudimentary scientific understanding available to
biblical writers and the Church Fathers who laid down the rules.
Today science regards human sexuality not as a simple genetic
binary, male/female, but as a spectrum combining several
dimensions, and with considerable ambiguity about the precise
balance of "genetic" and "cultural" elements. Individual
differences on these dimensions are myriad, and do not warrant the
depiction of gay, lesbian, and transgendered people as "unnatural",
sick, or deviant.
For Wilson, a problem arises when we treat isolated biblical
texts as definitive rather than recognise that it is the whole text
that is authoritative. Texts need to be read in relation to the
surrounding texts, some of which we ignore, such as the dietary
taboos in the Mosaic Law. The biblical texts seen as definitive
condemnations of homosexuality, the "clobber texts", often pose
knotty problems of translation, and anyway should be approached
with our own time's knowledge and problems in mind, not those of
the ancient Hebrews, or of the Apostle Paul anticipating the End
Time.
In short, Wilson employs the same hermeneutical approach as
Christians have used to revise their interpretation of texts
concerning slavery and race. Marriage is no different: it has
evolved from the autocratic patriarchy of the Old Testament to a
modern Western partnership of equals. The ability to procreate is
not the sine qua non of marriage: Augustine believed that
what made marriage a Christian vocation was not procreation or its
role in inheritance, but its mirroring of God's Covenant with his
people through the sanctification of permanence, stability, and
fidelity. Same-sex marriage is no more than the overdue inclusion
of marginalised people.
Song's Covenant and Calling begins from the theology of
Creation, in which marriage is a created rather than a natural
good. He, too, cites the divine Covenant as the model for the
marriage bond. When God created humans in his own image, he made us
male and female, and co-workers with him in the world. The faithful
and permanent relationship of the partners and their intrinsic
relationality as man and woman are inherent to the structure of
marriage, as is the assignment of a common task that extends beyond
their own intrinsic satisfactions to the procreation and nurture of
children.
But we live in time suspended between Christ's resurrection and
his second coming when there will be no more death and therefore no
need for procreation. In this between-time, celibacy is an
eschatological virtue, but marriage remains a Christian good, and
Song makes a parallel case for covenant partnerships without
procreation. This includes loving, faithful same-sex partnerships
not solely for individuals' satisfaction, but to co- operate with
God in the tasks of the world, such as relieving suffering and
caring for those in need.
Morgan's concerns in The Marriage Files are not
theological, but about the integrity of marriage and the effects of
extending it to same-sex couples. For Morgan, procreation and the
stable rearing of children are definitive, and modern, easily
broken marriages are bad for children. Cohabitation, divorce, and
single parenthood are correlated with higher risks of mental and
physical ill-health, poorer educational and employment histories,
and increases in marital instability in the next generation.
Second, Morgan presents evidence, much of it from the rhetoric
of the early years of the gay-rights movement, about the fluid and
unstable sexual relationships of gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.
Gay campaigners sometimes regard this as superior to dreary
monogamy, but it produces high rates of sexually transmitted
disease, suicide, and mental as well as physical ill health.
Morgan speculates that the demand for equal rights for
non-heterosexuals could well extend to forms of group marriage. She
is unimpressed by the evidence about same-sex parenting. It has
been claimed that once non-heterosexuals can marry the indices of
harm and ill-health will fall, but Morgan finds the evidence meagre
and not reassuring, even for Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage
has been legal for longest. If the state continues to collude with
adult self-concern at the expense of children's welfare,
heterosexual marriage will remain in trouble, and same-sex marriage
will simply import new ills into the institution.
Whether the family and marriage are "in crisis" remains a matter
of debate; but Morgan's is a powerful critique, mainly based on
quantit-ative data. It is a pity that she did not discuss cultural
evidence of retreat from the values of the 1960s, and a (partial)
rehabilitation of the ideals of marriage, or explain precisely how
the state could reverse the trends that she deplores.
All three books are serious contributions to the debate, but
much depends on how you judge changes in the culture of marriage
and sexuality, on the hermeneutic with which you approach biblical
models, and on your theological priorities. Song's conception of
the marriage as a covenant partnership to perform the work of God
in the world is the most morally demanding model that these books
offer, as much for heterosexual as for lesbian, gay, and bisexual
Christians.