Via VirtueOnline

LAMBETH SCHOLAR CALLS RESOLUTION 1.10 A 'DOG'S DINNER'

By Julian Mann
March 10, 2011

'Dog's breakfast' may have been the term the Revd Professor Richard Burridge used to describe the majority view of confessing Anglicans around the world on human sexuality.

But certainly one of those terms passed the lips of the Dean of King's College London and Professor of Biblical Interpretation in the afternoon seminar at the Bishop of Sheffield's annual Shrove Tuesday lecture at the Victoria Methodist Mission in the city centre.

It is important to note that it was Professor Burridge's commentary on John's Gospel that was selected by the Archbishop of Canterbury as the recommended book to accompany the preparatory Bible study for the bishops before the 2008 Lambeth Conference.

On Shrove Tuesday morning Professor Burridge gave lectures on "Being Biblical: Using the New Testament in Ethical Dilemmas Today" and on "Money, Sex, Power, Violence, the Meaning of Life: Towards a Method".

In his first session, he suggested that Resolution 1.10 was contradictory in its double affirmation that sex should be reserved exclusively for heterosexual marriage and that people with homosexual orientation are full members of the Body of Christ.

It was when asked to clarify his earlier statement that the professor made reference to a canine nosh-up, whether in the morning or evening or possibly lunch-time.

Listeners to the lecture, including clergy and readers in Sheffield diocese, did not have the benefit of the full text of Resolution 1.10 in front of them. That - included below - makes three things absolutely clear:

1). The Resolution faithfully upholds the teaching of Holy Scripture and the standard of biblical holiness to which all of us who profess the faith of Christ are called.

2). It distinguishes very clearly between the temptation to sin and sin itself. The listening it commends is manifestly not the kind that condones Christ-dishonouring conduct by the members of His Body. Rather, it is the kind of listening that fosters thankful acceptance of God's revealed will that sex is for faithful man-woman marriage or not at all.

3). Had the clear biblical teaching expressed by the Resolution been adhered to by the Anglican Churches of the United States and Canada, the current and tragic divisions in our Anglican Communion would have been avoided.

So, the dog's dinner (or breakfast) is being served up by those who obfuscate the clarity of Lambeth 1.10 and use its listening provision as a pretext to undermine its moral authority within the Anglican Communion.

Lambeth 1998 Resolution 1.10 'Human Sexuality'

This Conference:

* commends to the Church the subsection report on human sexuality;
* in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;
* recognises that there are among us persons who experience themselves as having a homosexual orientation. Many of these are members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God's transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of relationships. We commit ourselves to listen to the experience of homosexual persons and we wish to assure them that they are loved by God and that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ;
* while rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively to all irrespective of sexual orientation and to condemn irrational fear of homosexuals, violence within marriage and any trivialisation and commercialisation of sex;
* cannot advise the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions nor ordaining those involved in same gender unions;
* requests the Primates and the ACC to establish a means of monitoring the work done on the subject of human sexuality in the Communion and to share statements and resources among us;
* notes the significance of the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality and the concerns expressed in resolutions IV.26, V.1, V.10, V.23 and V.35 on the authority of Scripture in matters of marriage and sexuality and asks the Primates and the ACC to include them in their monitoring process.


---Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibidge, South Yorkshire and acts as press officer for Reform Sheffield.