Anglican Mainstream

Man and woman have been created in God’s image, together. As Karl Barth has said, that image of God is found in its fullness in a community of men and women together. It is also to be found individually in persons. Creation and creation together is for a common purpose. They have been given a common mission.

There are two aspects. The creation of the family as a basic unit of society ( go and multiply) and stewardship over the rest of creation. They are given a common mission. They are to fulfil each in his or her own way. Christians can never subscribe to the view that that the two genders are completely different (‘men are from Mars, women form Venus’) nor that they are identical. If they are to work together, the similarity and the difference both are relevant.

Complementarity

Complementarity – there is a necessary complementarity in the relationship between men and women. I have been called a gender essentialist. Although biological sex and gender are not the same, I would resist the claim that they have nothing to do with one another.

Sex and gender are closely related. This complementarity is sexual not only biological. Human sex is not solely instinctual, it is motivational – one seeking the other as its true fulfilment. It is social. This does not have to do with gender roles. But with the way in which skills and aptitudes develop. Certain skills develop earlier in girls than in boys – not that one can do one thing and one do another, but their approach to common tasks is different. Complementarity is oriented towards the coming into being and nurture of children. Children relate to fathers in a way that is distinctive from the way they relate to mothers at the very time that legislation is trying to write out fathers from the law of the land.

Complementarity is at the basis of the coming together of a man and woman in the family. A lot of research at the University of Cambridge into the history of population and social structure, has confirmed the Bible’s understanding that a family of mother, father and children is universal. Even in situations of extended families, the unity of the father, mother and children forms the core. This we also know from the households of the New Testament.

The Family Study Centre at Cambridge showed how children need a father and a mother for their nurture.

Christians are not saying that everything we know about the family we know because of the Bible. Christians have emphasised family as a creation ordinance not just sacrament of redemption. As family developed in Europe, for example, insights from Roman law and Germanic custom were integrated into the view of the family.

Augustine

Augustine said three things about marriage.

First, it is a sacrament of permanence. In Ephesians 5. The only thing called a sacrament in the New Testament is marriage. It is a sacrament of permanence.

Second, it is a covenant of commitment. It has to do with man and woman committing selves one to another.

Third, it is contractual, establishing a family for the sake of society.

In later thought he is invoked again and again or used without acknowledgement. John Locke thought of marriage principally as contract for the bringing up of the children. Kant thought of it in terms of Augistine’s idea as unbreakable promise. It was so sad to read in an evangelical publication that marriage is a promise not a prediction. Hegel emphasised that marriage was a sacrament of a mystical union between a man and a woman.

All these have been progressively undermined in this country and culture.

No fault divorce without consent put end to notion of contract. There is no sense of contract if it is a contract from which one party can walk away without penalty. It is easier to get out or a marriage than a mortgage.

There is now no social reward for commitment or disapproval for breaking the contract and commitment.

The sacrament of permanence has been replaced by Anthony Giddens with the notion of pure relationships – which come into being because two people have a desire for one another and so long as they have this desire they continue and not necessarily beyond that. This desire is enough without socio-religious sanction.

This is the kind of view being used for social planning. People will have more transient relationships and more time on their own. Housing needs to be planned for people on their own or in temporary relationships. This is not just about information but the forming of minds.

All three of Augustine’s main view have been progressively undermined. But all the research shows that marriage is by far the best for the bringing up of children. Delinquency is best combated in children in this context and they are more likely to have a balanced relationship with people of both sexes. Those brought up with father and mother in the home do far better than any other group. Marriage also good for the partners themselves.

It is important for self -understanding to know that people have the need to know their own identity. The Human Fertilisation and Embryonic Authority now recognise the need for children born through donors to know who their father is. This shows the importance of the biological family.

The Church of England Report ‘Something to Celebrate’ almost says that in the current understanding of family, family is anyone who shares a fridge. Even if people may be incorporated into a family by adoption, biology remains important even for them.

In “The fragmenting family”, Brenda Almond shows how important the family

is for identity and nurture and to help people to relate to people of both sexes.

Boys need fathers. Fathers relate to sons in ways quite different from mothers.

Sons relate to biological fathers in a way distinctive from other males.

Finding male rôle-models, other than fathers, will not completely fulfil this need. But the legislation will miss out on the distinctive way fathers relate to children and to boys.

What to do about it?

A reaffirmation of the Public doctrine of marriage is needed. One of reasons I opposed the Civil Partnership Bill. was because it mimics marriage and does away with any doctrine of marriage in the country which has been more or less that of the BCP.

If injustices had to be addressed there were other ways of doing that. We put forward amendments to write the wrongs and remove injustice but not to produce a legislation that mimics marriage,

There is a need to know what the nation believes about marriage and the family.

Family is also the most economic way to bring up children. A huge amount of money goes into relationships which are not stable. More and more people are dependent on a state system to support those lifestyles and less and less to support the one system that is sustainable.

Importance of preparation for marriage. More and more people who are getting married in the registry have no preparation at all. Marriage preparation includes practical and biblical material. Two or three things must be part of such preparation.

There should be teaching about the integration of sexual instinct with the instinct for affection and care. If they get out of kilter there is recipe for chaos. This is important for men. Women are more able to keep these aspects together. Men are not. If you allow the male sexual instinct to go off in one direction, instinct for caring withers. In porn sex is separated from affection and care.

Encourage the integration of the sexual instinct especially in men.

Pre-nuptials. Good pre-nups with expectations of marriage into which we are entering.

So often what people think and believe is shallow. Some States in the USA provide pre-nups of this kind. Stipulate under what considerations marriage may break down to provide against no-fault divorce without consent.

Consequence of a public doctrine of marriage would be recognition in the tax/benefits system. There needs also to be vigorous propagation of the goods of marriage in education and in the media.

Question

A good deal of what you said we identify with because we accept the doctrines you put forward – this can easily be marginalised as being for Christians. So we have tended to go the good things that arise from marriage – works out best. It brings you against a large number of people whose experience of marriage and the family is desperately negative. So we apologise to women in Church on Mothering Sunday and torpedo our own marriage practice. How can we present positive pragmatic argument in experience ? For most students family life is experienced as broken and are terrified of getting into that again.

MNA A very large number of people in secondary school, about 90% say they want to get married. This is amazing. The findings are pretty uniform. What happens between school and university? Baby boomers are not going to be held up as the best example; they have taken everything for themselves, for example pensions etc. Creation of non-fault divorce without consent. These children are the victims. People have to be shown what marriage is made of – contract, covenant and sacrament. If you do not understand it like that, you say that you fear for what will happen. Abuse is not argument for lack of proper use.

The Islamic world argues against freedom because of way it is used in the west– we argue not about abuse but proper use.

What is the proper alternative? If people cohabit, they are more than 5 times as likely to break up.

Serial partners. Most sexually transmitted disease in females are because of multiple partners.

Question: How does the adoptive fatherhood of God relate to families with adoptive children? Adoptive may be real. How are we to avoid adoptive parents seeing parenthood as second class? A biological basis is the norm. Adopted children need to find out who their biological father is.

People’s sense of identity has biological ancestry and that it is something to do with biological family. Tendency in Anglo-Saxon cultures to argue from hard cases to the norm. Rather, we should state the norm and then provide for hard cases.

Distinction between puberty and fatherhood from 3 years a century ago to 20 now. We have aped the world in terms of the latency of the gap.

Woman’s time clock is limited and men’s fecklessness is related to this. Women’s time clock runs out. This shows us that unless we have a public view of marriage that takes this into account – men will go off in one direction. It is a matter for teaching and supporting men in the church.

One way that young men can address this is for young men to be committed to supporting other young men – the worst thing is for Christian men to be left alone in this situation.

Women have a responsibility – if men did not get from women what they want they would soon learn. What is there in promiscuity for women?

Q Given many come from single parent homes what possibilities are there to uphold marriage in church schools?

A Single parents are the very people who are the most aware of the need for two parents. Single parents are not going to oppose you if you say two parents are best because they know this.

Have to have a reason for why you do things. All the research is that children of a married mother and father do better in education, in keeping away from crime; economically it not sustainable for this nation to create more any more single parent households.

War between the state and the family – Patricia Morgan

AMW In response to the proposals to allow Civil Partnerships in church premises – concession. What do we do as the church?

We are not allowed to say sex is for marriage in schools. At 15 marriage is a long way away. Girls think have everything now and have marriage later.

Number of girls who move in and move on and wonder why he never asks her to marry him!

Coming of Christianity changed the pagan view of marriage. Cf Augustine.

Now Prof David Martin, the Anglican sociologist, has done a lot of research on the role of Pentecostalism in LA and how Pentecostals are creating the escape from poverty that Liberation Theology was trying to do. When man becomes a Christian he stays at home, does not beat up his wife, trusted by employees. So a cycle of virtue is created which is changing society as such.

The coming of Christian faith to the Auca Indians changed them. Nothing happens if we keep our heads down. Sometimes we have to transcend culture.

Girls have to say no – nothing in it for them save venereal disease. The explosion of statistics show that leads to infertility and has implications for life-chances.

Why are girls not taught that – I am glad that Christians are well organised on the education bill going through in parliament. This has to do with stability of relationships and health of girls and future of society.

Church has to be clear about this. It is quite possible to remove any perceived injustices without passing legislation that mimics marriage.

Government first said the Civil Partnership was about writing wrongs. We asked what about siblings. Then the government admitted it was about homosexuals. Midstream they changed their position.

The Church should say we want justice – and call for a strong affirmation for a public doctrine of marriage which has been the Christian teaching on marriage taken from the Book of Common Prayer. Reinforce their understanding rather than casting doubts in people’s minds.

Books cited:

Marriage and Family in the United Kingdom: An Overview October 2006

Maranatha Community, 102 Irlam Road, Flixton,,Manchester M41 6JT

info@maranathacommunity.org.uk / www.marnathacommunity.org.uk

Brenda Almond: “The Fragmented family, Oxford University Press 2006

Patricia Morgan: “Children as Trophies – examining the evidence on same sex parenting. Christian Institute Newcastle

Patricia Morgan, the War between the State and the Family: (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2 Lord North Street, London SW1P 3LB
 

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