I am sorry, but the C of E really must make up its mind about homosexuality
Rod Liddle says that if the Anglicans withdraw from the business of making irksome rules, they will all end up singing from the Monty Python hymn sheet The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has suggested that the Church of England has become obsessed by homosexuals. His implication seems to be that Jesus Christ didn’t go on about them too much and so, really, neither should we. The term ‘obsessed’ is a strong one, but I think justified. If Dr Sentamu had been less tactful, he might have suggested that one half of the Church of England clergy believes homosexuals will burn forever in the fires of Hell and wishes fervently to be on hand in order to help poke down the sodomites with those famous pitchforks, while the other half is more camp than Brownsea Island. That’s a sweeping statement, I admit, but not a million miles from the truth. Sentamu, however, is a tactful man and also careful. He is aware of his unique position as a clergyman drawn from two constituencies within the Church which are proudly, resolutely, homophobic Low Church and black Africa — but also that he stands on the threshold of the Church’s highest office and that there won’t be much of a Church to lead if a schism over homosexuals splits it asunder. And so he pleads instead for the Church to shut up about it all and hope that the problem goes away.
The problem for the old C of E, though, isn’t so much homosexuality itself as the increasing suspicion that it seems to be a fragile alliance based upon two increasingly shrill and hostile camps held together by nothing more tangible than a diminishing disaffection for popery and, by extension, an affection for regional autonomy. The irony, when you think about it, is quite exquisite. The Church of England came into existence precisely because a fat monarch wished for a more liberal interpretation of how he should conduct his sexual and matrimonial affairs and resented being dictated to by the geographically distant and culturally remote head of his Church. And so a new, more amenable Church was expediently conjured into being. Now, that very same Church wishes to impose Canterbury’s liberal interpretation of how people might conduct their sexual (and, who knows) matrimonial affairs upon geographically distant and culturally remote dioceses — Harare, Lagos and the like — which wish for an altogether more stringent interpretation of the Bible and, once again, resent being dictated to. It is truly fascinating stuff, even if you usually find Church politics about as scintillating as an evening in watching Graham Norton on the television. Sentamu is undoubtedly correct is his assertion that the Church is ‘obsessed’ by homosexuality, but vain in hoping that people might heed his advice and give it a rest. Because what people wish to do with their horrible genitalia is far more threatening both to the C of E and organised religion generally than anything else you might care to mention. More than the relentless march of science and atheism, forever chipping away at our sense of mystery at the world, more than the empty pews every Sunday, more than distaste at violence provoked by some hue of religious fundamentalism. And this has always been the case.
Sheik Abu Hamza al Masri, he of the telegenic hooks for hands and the longish stint in Belmarsh prison for inciting one or another kind of hatred, once spluttered in fury to me, apropos of nothing at all, while we waited to record an interview, ‘Rod, you see what your government is doing now? It has reduced the age of sexual consent for homosexuals to the same as what it is for human beings!’ He was, for a moment, quite transfixed with loathing and incredulity. Old Abu’s sense of discomfort is shared by the overwhelming majority of Muslims, Jews and a pretty sizeable majority of Christians, too — although they might be inclined to express their feelings in a more congenial manner most of the time.
The trouble for the C of E is that if it cannot tell us how we should conduct our sexual relations — and thus provide prohibition as well as licence — then what precisely is its purpose? If it withdraws from the realm of issuing stipulations which might prove inconvenient to us, then it is left with nothing grander than Monty Python’s recipe for the meaning of life, taken from the film of the same name: ‘Try to be nice to people, get a bit of exercise now and again and read a few good books.’ Indeed, it is as transient and bland as Richard Dawkins’s own re-writing of the Ten Commandments included in his recent bestselling book The God Delusion — and which contained nothing difficult or inconvenient; nothing, in other words, with which any sane person would disagree.
None of which is to say that the Low Church/black African bloc is morally or even theologically right in its rejection of homosexuality. My own view, for what its worth, is that this bloc is the home of primitive, narrowminded and intellectually challenged bigots and that Canterbury would be far better off without it. Schism? Bring it on — and quickly. But our established Church needs to realise that the debate over homosexuality should indeed be obsessing it and that a theological premise a bit more compelling than ‘Uh, well it’s OK if they remain celibate, I suppose’ should be offered in support of our seemingly ever-expanding gay community. And that there are plenty of other strictures, drawn from Christian belief and potentially inconvenient to the rest of us — those of envy, greed and sloth spring to mind — which it might get tub-thumpingly serious about.
Meanwhile, as the Church of England worries about obsessing over homosexuality, the population of Britain — save for the Daily Mail, Richard Littlejohn and one or two other spittle-flecked recidivists — has forgotten that it was ever an issue. I cannot think, offhand, of a single change in public perception so swift and decisive as that which has occurred with regard to homosexuality. A change in the public mindset which occurred with the passive connivance of the Church of England, rather than with its whole-hearted support or outright opposition. It is somewhat presumptuous to second-guess the behaviour of God, but one suspects that he would be cheered, too, if John Sentamu would climb down off the fence and tell us what side he is really on.
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