Is ‘Living in Love and Faith’ just a way to force compromise?

Apr 17, 2021 by

Andrew Symes comments on this article by Andrew Goddard, Psephizo:

This is the second of three articles exploring responses to Living in Love and Faith, particularly among evangelicals committed to the current teaching and discipline of the church. The first piece engaged with the recent detailed account and critique of LLF offered by Martin Davie arguing that his primary objection is that LLF fails because it was wrong to do what it set out to do. A final article will offer ten questions that might help constructive engagement with the LLF resources.

Read here

Andrew Symes writes:

I posted this comment on the blog, on 17 April:

I’m grateful to Andrew for another lucid explanation, from his perspective, of why LLF should be digested and wrestled with rather than dismissed.

Just two points which I don’t think have been mentioned yet:
One is that sexual ethics is not just about personal preferences and behaviour, but central to how we view the human self, creation and the nature of reality itself. Part Martin Davie’s critique of LLF is that it does not take the ideologies of the sexual revolution (with their roots in anti-Christian enlightenment philosophy) sufficiently seriously. It may be that societal insistence on conformity to these ideologies (as we are seeing for example in attempts to ban all forms of ‘conversion therapy’) will make it impossible in the near future for the Church of England to do anything other than change its doctrine and practice. What will be the function of LLF then?

Secondly, is there not a danger of this being a discussion between people in a very small section of English society: middle-class educated white moderate liberal Anglicans talking to middle class educated white moderate conservative Anglicans? Andrew’s strong reaction to, and dismissal of, the contributions from Nigeria and ACNA effectively rules out any wider discussion with Christians around the world, many of whom take position 1 in LLF’s outline of seven approaches to reading the bible – and which LLF rejects. For conservatives in the C of E especially, there might be a problem of painting oneself into a corner if options for dialogue are restricted to theological progressives from the same cultural background.

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