by Martin Davie
Part 6 of Created for Love is entitled ‘Prayer and Guidance.’
The first essay in this part is by the Revd Charlie Bell and is entitled ‘Created in the Image and Likeness of God: Or are we?
In this essay Bell declares that ten years after the introduction of civil same-sex marriages in the United Kingdom:
‘ … it does not appear that the Church has done anything like the reflection it might have done on the reality of these same sex unions- instead, it has spent much of the time asking whether it might bless such couples or enable clergy to enter into such unions in a dry and abstract way that appears to take almost no notice of the human lives of which it speaks. Still the Church of England remains in a place where forms of abstracted theology (if indeed it is theology rather than warmed up outdated sociology) are made use of in place of a poise of listening to the Holy Spirit and looking for what might be happening in the human lives we are called to enrich and enliven.’ (p.120)
As Bell sees it, at the heart of the problem he has just described:
‘… is a continued failing to engage with what exactly marriage is- and how this essence speaks to who might form part of it. It is only by addressing this that the Church might be able to get itself out of the hole it continues to dig for itself both in its internal debates and its engagement with the world outside. Further to this is a failure to engage with what exactly humankind is – how we each relate to God, to the image and likeness of God, and to one another. Marriage, in other words, is not the starting point – it is a reflection of a deeper truth about relationships, love, companionship, covenant, faithfulness, holiness. These are characteristics of a life lived in God that are not only found in marriage, and yet far too often Christian theology appears to suggest that they find their fulfilment only in this kind of relationship.’ (p.121)
According to Bell, those in the Church of England: