The Church of England's gay crisis makes clear that that liberal Anglicanism is finished

[...] According to the liberal lobby, the church must return to its natural liberalism, derailed by the rise of homophobic theology in the 1990s. But this is naive. What actually happened in the 1990s is that the church's official teaching (no sex outside marriage) was tightened. So what the liberals actually want is a break with the entire tradition of the church in respect of its teaching on sexual morality. This amounts to a revolution, for churches have always issued moral rules about sex. To say the church should withdraw from sexual moralism is to jeopardise its entire claim to authority. However, the liberal Anglicans cannot admit that this is what is going on.

The liberal Anglican priest (let's call him Father Giles) is bitterly critical of the church's collusion in homophobia. But he fully believes in the authority of the church, and his own authority. He affirms the right of the church to define orthodoxy: the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, is decided by the corporate mind of the church. Likewise a true sacrament is something authorised by the institution. He claims to have authority by virtue of having been ordained into the church. Christianity is not a subjective free-for-all, he insists: it is a communal, traditional thing, with rules.

Yet when the church claims authority to rule on sexual morality his tune changes. This aspect of its teaching is mistaken, he says, and amounts to a betrayal of the Gospel. The problem is that this tradition of sexual moralism is part of the traditional authority of the church, which Father Giles claims to affirm. In other words, he accepts the authority of the church when it suits him and rejects it when it does not.

In my opinion, the gay crisis shakes the foundations of ecclesiology. Organised religion has always been authoritarian, in calling certain moral rules God's will, in saying that moral and doctrinal orthodoxy must be upheld. As I see it, Christianity rejects this; it dispenses with the moral "law". It claims, scandalously, that God wills a new freedom - from "holy morality", from the bossy legalism inherent in religious institutionalism. Liberal Christians should be truly liberal, and see that the concept of an authoritative church has had its day - that God calls us to something new. Read more
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