Murnaghan 6.01.13 Discussion on gay bishops with Giles Fraser and Dr Chris Sugden

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, the Church of England has ruled that gay men in civil partnerships can become Bishops but only if they remain celibate, so is that fair and could it possibly be enforced? I’m joined now by two senior Church of England figures, the former Canon Chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Reverend Giles Fraser and by Canon Dr Chris Sugden from the group Anglican Mainstream, a very good morning to you both. If we can start with you, Giles Fraser, I asked if it was fair and enforceable but the overall views is that it is some kind of policy it seems that has been thought up by some committee and it is going to satisfy no one.

GILES FRASER: It’s the 1st April every day in the Church of England. I mean the idea that you … I mean how would you do this? Would you have CCTV in every bedroom, would you have bishops in chastity belts? I mean it’s absolute nonsense, there is no way in which this is enforceable and actually it’s just plain wrong, this is the serious point, it’s plain wrong. The official line of the Church of England is now something like it’s okay to have gay bishops as long as they’re not gay which is, I mean it’s absolutely nonsense and the church has to grow up, has to get over this, has to read the Bible properly and understand that is absolutely right. We need to be able to affirm permanent faithful stable gay relationships and say they are a jolly good thing and perfectly in line with Christian teaching and that’s what I think.

DM: Over to you, Dr Sugden, can you say that?

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: Well I agree with Canon Fraser very much when he says that it’s a nonsense because on the one hand the Church of England has always said that people who have same sex attraction, who are celibate and chaste, can be bishops, can be clergy, it’s perfectly in line with Christian teaching and doctrine in the Bible. It is, I absolutely agree with him, to say they give assurances, they’re not giving assurances now, Bishops are not asking for assurances, it’s a mess and a muddle already and already you have the Archbishop of Kenya saying this morning that the way to the moral teaching of the Bible and the church cannot be supported by a flimsy proviso that somehow these assurances will be given, we know that they can be …

DM: So you agree on the mess, on the unworkability of the compromise but you differ on the fact that you don’t really think there should be gay bishops at all.

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: Well we’ve got to be careful about language here. The word gay is one of the most misused words in the English language at the moment. It means, and has meant for many centuries, joyous, enjoyable, etc and now it’s been taken over but taken over with greatly ambiguous meaning.

DM: Well let’s be explicit, homosexuals bishops.

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: Well that again is ambiguous, what we’re talking about is same sex behaviour, that is the issue, that is the only thing that those who want to be faithful to the received teaching of scripture and of the Anglican communion are concerned about is the behaviour and to say this behaviour is not the teaching of …

DM: Well come in here Giles, this compromise would seem to satisfy that then because if you don’t follow the pattern of behaviour then it’s okay then.

GILES FRASER: Well that’s not very specific either is it. I know this is a breakfast show but this is, what are we actually talking about here? Everybody wants to talk too much about sex here but the truth of the matter is what we are really talking about is love here, companionship and the way in which that also has a physical expression for many people. It’s about intimacy, it’s about love and it’s about care and all those things should rightly be celebrated and celibacy is a vocation that some people had but it’s wrong to have that as an imposition on a particular group of people because they happen to be gay. That’s just a complete nonsense and an abuse of the whole tradition of celibacy. No, physical love is an expression of overall love and that’s what the church is there to celebrate and so, I mean I think it’s right that we should allow gay people to get married in church and that would actually solve this problem because then we would have the same situation of married people, you have sex inside marriage and not outside marriage and that’s very straightforward.

DM: Well I was going to put that to Chris Sugden but I know you’re not going to accept that but why not accept that narrower point, that if you accept married heterosexual bishops, why can’t it apply to gay ones?

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: Well, the teachings of Jesus is very clear, that marriage is a creation ordinance, that it’s between a man and a woman and the only alternative to that in his teaching, in Christian teaching, is a single life of celibacy, that is very clear and if there’s an imposition then this is a struggle that Giles has to take on with God it seems to me. Secondly, to use the word love in this very, very broad way seems to me again straining language. Parents love their children, we love our friends, we love our relatives but it doesn’t suggest that…

DM: Are you saying that gay couples can’t love each other?

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: Of course they can love each other but to suggest that love means always to have a physical expression in order to be fulfilled and genuine does seem to me to be pushing language to its limits.

GILES FRASER: Well we read the Bible completely differently. I mean the idea that the Bible is a sort of family values manual for 2.4 children and heterosexuality is absolutely not what’s there. In fact, if you actually look at it, Jesus is not what’s there. In fact, if you look at it, Jesus is not particularly family values, Jesus says there is a different sort of family and that’s the people who do what God wants them to do and in fact he is actually quite rude to his parents. It’s not about the sort of thing that Canon Sugden and others want to defend and the problem is that actually the Bible constantly asks us to be surprised by the love of God and what God’s doing and I think the problem with conservatives is that they refuse to be surprised by what God is doing.

DM: I mean people watching this right now might be beginning to ask the question about this, about so many issues that we have perhaps touched on this morning, Dr Sugden, is how much longer can people like you continue to carry on this argument within the same church?

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: Well the teaching of the Church of England is very clear, that its supreme authority is Holy Scripture and as long as the Church of England has that as its supreme authority then it’s perfectly consistent and in line with conscience for us to be part of the Church of England and follow that.

DM: But it doesn’t sound like you are both in the same church, that one or other of you is going to have to go your separate ways.

GILES FRASER: No, no, no. Tony Blair didn’t invent the Big Church, the Big Tent, the Church of England invented the Big Tent. We are a Big Tent and the idea that Canon Sugden and I – and we actually agree on a number of other issues, we don’t agree on this issue but we agree on other things, it is uncomfortable, we row a lot but it’s a family row, I have to tell you it’s a family row and that sort of nature of us as a family, perhaps that’s why it’s so bitter, is because it’s a family row. So yes, we passionately disagree upon this issue but actually I don't think that we inevitably have to split up.

DM: But you have fundamental differences of beliefs about what it says in the Holy Scriptures.

GILES FRASER: And people have done for centuries.

DR CHRIS SUGDEN: And the Church of England has found ways over the centuries to include often diametrically different points of view. You have got to take the Holy Communion that many will have received today – this is my body, that is Catholic teaching, do this in remembrance of me, that is Protestant teaching, we say both but I think on this one there is a moral divide and I think we’re busy crossing it.

DM: Okay, well thank you both very much indeed, Giles Fraser and Canon Sugden there.