Thank you for your questions, they are most welcome. I’ll try to post an answer in the next couple of days when I have the time to do justice to your comments.

Welcome back to the blogsphere.

I wish to respond briefly to a number of points made and I hope that my comments are taken as I intend them, i.e., in the spirit of humility that has thus far characterised this exchange.

I accept what Kimberly so eloquently says about the inherent tensions within the Christian life. I also accept much of what she says about love. That we can succeed in loving or we can fail and that we often do both, frequenly at the same time! I also accept that many committed gay and lesbian couples love each other very much. That makes this issue so very very difficult.

The question that comes to mind is, “Does God approve of all sincere love relationships because he is, after all, love in His very essence?” I am not so sure. Say, for example, my marriage was in serious trouble and I began to confide in a work colleague. I fall in love with her. I did not love my wife any more. My feelings are sincere and beyond simple lust. Is it right for me to leave my wife to be with the woman I love. What does God call me to do in that circumstance?

I know the analogy is far from perfect but sometimes God may say “No” to love, no matter how sincere, if He does not recognise the “validity” (an awful word, I know) of that relationship.

In response to what Rosemary said (“The church has never held that marriage is the will of God for all people, or that the opposite, celibacy, is always the will of God for all.”) I would only add that the church has never, until recently, and only in parts, recognised the legitimacy of same sex relationships. On the contrary, scripture and tradition have always concluded that same sex relationships are not part of God’s will for His people. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches still maintain a unified rejection of same sex relationships at present.

I would of course appreciate all comments on the points made here. In addition, being a novice blogger and not much of a theologian either, I would also ask for comment on two arguments against same sex partnerships as fully valid expressions of Christian love:

1. The place of Scripture in the debate, especially those portions that deal in purely negative terms with same sex attraction.

2. The issue of natural complimentarity. This is perhaps a simple argument and I would love to know what the other side of the coin is. It is just the old Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve (!) argument…

Again I do not wish to cause offence to anyone, least of all those who are in same sex relationships. I am blogging here to try and understand.

Thanks again for the kind way my post was received.

Yours

PS, for those interested I have resurrected my old blog site, so please feel free to come with me on my journey…

http://stevenmcquitty.blogspot.com

I also think, for what it is worth, that we need to be careful we do not continue this obcession with sex too far. As your own John Sentanamu said recently Jesus really is weeping in the street.

I am sure that you are right that there has been some unattractive behaviour on all sides of the debate — as is almost inevitable in a debate that involves so many thousands of people. But I have also seen humble, prayerful response from people on all ‘sides’ of the issues. The trouble is, the quiet peaceful types are far less likely to be picked up by the media, nor indeed by Google, which prefers the rapidly rising ratings of a hotly contested post.

You raised the same point as I did on the “Announcement” post – albeit more eloquently – which perhaps explains why you have had a response when I didn’t.

Debates between Christians should, in my view, be conducted differently from secular debates.

Most importantly, the participants should not behave as if any acknowledgement of their own fallibility would be perceived as weakness and therefore avoided at all costs and replaced with self righteous certainty.

The reality is that both sides in the debate must be aware of the complexity and difficutly of the issue and the difficulty of discerning God’s will.

The lack of humility in the debate ON BOTH SIDES is in my view, unattractive, unChristian and deeply damaging to the Church as a whole.

Blogging is very much a community and we have the same tensions and fallings out and so on as any other group of people. It is also as important a support to many individuals as anything you will find offline.

I agree with Steven’s comment of “what if….” because I’ve often thought that either of my own Christian faith and of other issues such as same sex relationships or women bishops etc. etc. I think doubts are good because it means we have the ability and proprensity to listen to other view points and sometimes this helps us to our own conclusions too.

I am new to your blog and want to thank you for your words. I too have changed my mind on many things out there in the world. I used to think thre were absolutes but no so much anymore. I also appreciate your words on blogging that it is a community. I agree and I am trying to do that as well, and I blog under my own name as well.

Blessings,

Fr. Peter

In that same way, I have re-visited the idea that two men or two women may find the best way to grow in love in the way God wills in a relationship which is physically consummated. I have re-visited it, but so far always come away with the same answer that I found when I was just becoming adolescent and beginning to understand from the inside that powerful ‘urge to merge’. The answer being that it is the will of God for some people.

Relativism? Not really. The church has never held that marriage is the will of God for all people, or that the opposite, celibacy, is always the will of God for all. It has accepted that God calls people to explore the path of love on different trajectories. Equal value? Who knows! All married people were single once. Were their relationships of equal value as single people with friends? Are those who are abandoned by errant spouses in a place, in a relationship, less valued by God? Are those single by reasons of health, or choice, or self denial? And are happy marriages more valued by him that sad ones? It is an impossible question. How various the will of God can be for one individual – and by implication, how very much more various for a whole community.

I do think it is possible to mistake the confidence of a truth prayed and lived for triumphalism. It ain’t necessarily so.