Anglican Mainstream

Dr Jeffrey John speaks movingly about the dilemmas of love, or loves: the love of God, the love of mankind. That is not unusual for a clergyman. It is when he talks about, in his case, the love of one man in particular that you realise why his proposed elevation to the diocese of Reading is threatening to tear the Church of England apart.

At Southwark Cathedral, where Dr John, 50, has been working as canon theologian for six years, he has built up a reputation as a man of phenomenal energy, spirituality and inspiration. Above all, he has become a focus of unity in the diocese and has earned the respect of Catholics and evangelicals in his commitment to mission and biblical truth. During his time here, and in his 25 years in the ordained ministry, the three-letter word that the Church can barely bring itself to speak of publicly has indeed barely been mentioned.

But now, thanks to the furore surrounding his appointment, it is all anyone wants to talk to him about. Naturally diffident about his personal life, he nevertheless shows extraodinary courage in talking about the pain of the past few weeks. "I am a reluctant pioneer," he says. "I would not have wanted this to happen. It would have been wonderful if I could simply have proceeded to become a suffragan and get on with the job."

This was not an unreasonable hope. There have certainly been gay suffragans appointed before, which might have been noted with a paragraph or two. But the role of homosexual pioneer has been thrust upon Dr John. "It is not a role I have set out for myself. I do not like it. I have a thin skin. I find all this extremely difficult."

Every day, he is tempted to withdraw. "I am considering it all the time. I did not apply for the job, one does not apply to become a bishop." But he feels that standing down is not his decision. "There are two conflicting things here. It is terrible to feel that I am a cause of division and fragmentation. My instincts are very much those of a Catholic, looking to the whole Church and the unity of the Church. But at the same time I have received huge numbers of messages of support, people saying, ‘You have to go ahead with this for us.’ I have become a symbol of hope for an awful lot of people. It feels like a terrible burden to have, as much of a burden as the opposition. Because either way, whatever happens, whether I go forward or withdraw, people will be hurt."

He is emphatic that issues of sexuality should not become a main plank of his ministry. He is far more interested in mission and church growth. "I have never campaigned about homosexuality. But I have never lied about it or tried to hide it. I have never gone out of my way to talk about it. It is simply there. People gradually catch on. Often people sort of know about it, but they do not want to name it." Dr John and his partner have never lived together, apart from a brief period when he was moving house, because their separate lives have made that impossible. His confessors and canonical superiors have always known about him, and he has always obeyed their direction. He has also said he will abide by the bishops’ teaching, set out in the controversial 1991 document Issues in Human Sexuality, that gay clergy must be celibate but lay people can have gay relationships.

So, naturally, I ask him when the relationship ended and why, curious to know whether the lover was sacrificed for the mitre. "It has not ended," he protests.

This is an astonishing revelation. Dr John goes on to explain: "It is perfectly clear that the relationship is going to last. It is a permanent thing. That must not be denied.

"The relationship is the kind of relationship I have talked about and written about. Therefore it is for life. We have been together for 27 years and we will remain together. But the relationship has not been sexually expressed for years.

This is not unusual, even in heterosexual relationships. The love and commitment are if anything greater."

There is no authorised same-sex blessing for gay couples in the Church of England but several unauthorised versions have appeared over the years. However, Dr John and his partner have never had their relationship formally blessed, and Dr John has never performed such a service for anyone else. Nor will he.

"I would like the Church to bless relationships based on that kind of covenant.

But I stand in a tradition which does respect the discipline and authority of the Church. I would argue for it within the counsels of the Church but the point of consensus has not been reached. We go on to talk about love, and God’s covenanted love for humankind. "The theology of covenant is really crucial to all this. We are made in God’s image. God is a covenanting, faithful God and he loves us in this covenanting way. We are made like that too. There is something deep in us that wants to enter into a covenant of love with another human being. This is something of the pure and best in us, something that reflects God’s image in us.

"The classic way of putting that is that marriage is a reflection of Christ’s marriage to his people or God’s love for Israel. The marriage covenant between two people reflects something of the heart of God and the way God relates to us. And I believe that the mystery of covenant love actually can work for two people of the same sex just as much as it can work for a married couple."

He admits that St Paul does not appear that friendly towards homosexual practice, but says this should be seen in the context of the era he was writing in. "It seems to me that St Paul never addresses the issue of two adult men or women who fall in love, in Christian love, in the way I am talking about. When he talks about homosexuals he is referring to the models of homosexual practice that were most visible in his own society -prostitution and pederasty."

He continues: "I have enormous respect for clergy and Christians who believe they are called to celibacy. Often it is a very positive vocation for them. I certainly do not want to undermine their sense of that vocation. The whole question at the moment is whether for gay people, gay clergy, the Church can come to see that the kind of relationship I am talking about is an equally legitimate framework for love in their personal lives."

By covenanted love, he means the love that God showed the world by giving his son, Jesus Christ, to be crucified and to save.

He explains: "That mystery of love is in the end the mystery of giving youself away. This week we are celebrating the Feast of the Trinity, which is all about God himself existing as a relationship of love in his own nature. God is love.

Love between persons who are individual and yet given completely to the other, is a mystery that reflects God’s own nature.

"People think the mystery of the Trinity is strange but it is not. You do find out in a good relationship, a good marriage, what it really means to lose yourself in the other and somehow find your true self in the process of giving yourself away to the other. That is what the Church should be getting across to people. Finding out that fact of experience is actually finding out something about the mystery of God."

The trouble is that the Church is constantly laying down the rules or quarrelling with itself about this.

Dr John says: "It is never getting across the fundamental joy that we are made in the image of a God who is in our deepest loves, sharing that love. It is costly because it is about giving yourself away, and in this world giving yourself away is painful. But at the end of it all our destiny is to be included in the love of God in the Trinity. That is what we are made for. The Church ought to be a training school, a kindergarten for learning that kind of love."

Dr John was brought up as a nonconformist in the Rhondda Valley and became aware of a calling to the priesthood in his late teens. "I rebelled against my religious background fairly strongly as an early teenager but never really managed to get rid of my belief in God. He seemed not to let me alone. My religious instinct has always been very strong." His sister converted to Roman Catholicism, which inspired him to consider doing the same, although eventually he settled for Anglicanism "as an alternative brand of Catholicism".

He was confirmed at 18 and soon afterwards realised he was being called to the priesthood. "It seemed to be that if I really believed it, I really needed to give my life to it completely." From his comprehensive he had gone to Hertford College, Oxford, to study classics and modern languages, and in his first year became an ordinand.

Through all this, he was battling with the emerging awareness of his sexuality. "I was conscious of it from quite an early age, and that it was probably going to bring problems. I certainly resisted and fought it. I wrestled hugely with it and prayed about it, as I think so many gay people do.

"The issue of celibacy never really arose. I was aware that there was a great deal of homosexuality in the Church, which confused me. I was aware that quite a lot of clergy got into trouble about it and that quite a lot of people led disordered lives. I was determined that I was going to try to work out a viable way of life which would not get me into that kind of mess, a way of life which was honest and which was compatible with faith."

Publicly, however, the Church remained in denial. "There is a great deal of wisdom in the Church about it but it is all in private, mainly through the confessional and through spiritual direction. People would offer celibacy as the safest, most positive, way of living if that was possible. But if it was not, and if it was felt that people were at risk of falling into promiscuity, the next best thing was to find a partner and be faithful and find some security that way.

"But that was the sort of advice that could only be given privately, it could never be stated openly. It seemed there was a private morality, a Christian one, but one that could never be talked about openly. Probably that is the way it has always been dealt with, certainly in the middle Church and with the Anglo-Catholics. But that way of dealing with it has led to the mess we are in now. There have been centuries of double thinking."

He does not want to be distracted from his priorities, which are mission and renewal. Before becoming a canon theologian at Southwark he was vicar of Eltham, where he nearly doubled the congregation. He is from the Catholic tradition currently associated more with decline than growth. In terms of his theology, however, he is relatively conservative. He has more in common with the evangelicals than might first appear the case.

"According to the census, over 72 per cent of people believe in God. People also want to go to church. But they don’t come because they can’t relate to it or feel bored to death." He has been surveying clergy to find out if they would go to their own church, given a choice. Most would rather not.

And to his regret, he will not himself be ordaining gay clergy. "The current discipline of the Church is set out in Issues in Human Sexuality, and that states that a sexually active gay relationship is not compatible with ordination. That is where the Church is. Obviously I regret that personally. As a bishop I will have to abide by that. It is a matter of corporate discipline."

But he admits: "I think the current discipline cannot hold for long because it penalises honesty and openness. It has also affected the number of candidates for the stipendiary ministry. Gay people are now frightened to come forward for ministry." And as anyone who has ever been a regular churchgoer in or around London will known, the Church of England simply could not survive without its gay clergy.

This interview was the T2 cover story on Thursday 19 June 2003.