Lambeth 1.10 Needs Revision

Evangelical and orthodox Anglicans continue to hold up Lambeth Resolution 1.10 as the agreed teaching on homosexuality for the Anglican Communion.  They use this to push back revisionists who have no concern for the resolution, let alone Scripture, to achieve their agenda of inclusion in the Church of persons flaunting their internal disorders and sinful actions.  This brief post is a comment on this, not about how unorthodox and post-Christian Anglicans ignore the resolution and press ahead with Western culture's values, but about Resolution 1.10 itself.

Of concern is the second part of resolution 1.10 that states that the Church assures 'homosexual persons that they are loved by God and ... that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ.'

The wording is too open-ended and permits various, heretical interpretations.  We know that orthodox Christians voicing these words mean something like, 'sinners are loved by God, who sent His Son to die for their sins, not leave them in them.' This needs clarification, though, as others can read this to mean that people coming to faith do not need to change their sinful behaviours and have no reason to hope that the power of God that saves is also the power of God that transforms sinners.  This is, at best, only half a Gospel.  

Also, the quote claims that homosexuals 'are full members of the Body of Christ.'  What is this supposed to mean?  First Corinthians 6.9-11 cannot be squared with that statement, where the emphases are: (1) those who continue in their sins are excluded from the Kingdom of God; and (2) believers, with the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit, break away from that way of life.  They have been washed, sanctified, and made righteous (as the Greek should be translated, in my view).

This means that:

(a) we cannot tell people living in sin that they are members of the Body of Christ (Paul told them the opposite in 1 Corinthians 5 as well as 6.9-11); 

(b) we cannot accept the view that Christians retain their sinful identity ('gay Christian,' e.g.; cf. 'blaspheming Christian' or 'rapist Christian'); 

(c) we believe that God's grace is not just forgiving but also transforming, not just touches acts but also transforms hearts (desires, orientations); 

(d) we need an ecclesiology that more closely aligns what we say about the Kingdom of God and with what the Church is (rejecting a view of the Church that more closely resembles the world than the Kingdom or includes the world, as the misreading of the parable of the wheat and the tares has it [the field in the parable is the world, not the Church]), and 

(e) we must not speak of the baptised to include those who willfully retain their sinful, sexual orientation.  Baptism is about repentance and new life, not inclusion of an old life into life in Christ (Galatians 3.27: 'For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ').

Lambeth 1.10 managed to put a stake in the ground for 25 years (it was passed in 1998).  As the Anglican Communion becomes the Anglican Federation at best, if not a totally divided denomination, Evangelicals and orthodox Anglicans need to clarify this resolution.  The clarification needs to exclude the 'Spiritual friendship' heresy touted by people like Wesley Hill that has arisen since then as well (the affirmation of a 'gay' identity without physical intercourse, that accepts the very new notion in Christianity that ethics is limited to acts and is not about the transformation of sinful desires as well).  Lambeth 1.10 might be the finger of the little Dutch boy stuck in the leaking dike, but it will not hold back the ocean for long.


The Pied Piper in the 21st Century

 One of the children's fairy stories that left me, as a child, quite disturbed was that of the Pied Piper.  I once read an interpretation of this that had to do with German immigration to Transylvania--maybe so--but to me it was about a man all dressed up in fancy clothes and with a magical pipe marching through the streets of Hamelin and stealing children.  What a fitting image for Western society in the 21st century.  Satan has revealed their (pronoun choice!) political platform, and it is to steal our children in heart, mind, and soul.

On my mind are issues such as: Abortion, genetic engineering, transsexual sports, drag queen story hours, gay marches, enforced learning about gender and sexuality in schools, sexually perverted book in the libraries, pornography, puberty blockers, sex change operations, making counselling sexually troubled youth identifying as the wrong gender illegal (outlawing 'conversion therapy'), making prayer near abortion clinics (in England) illegal, allowing underage children to seek euthanasia without a parent's consent (in Canada), suicide, social media's impersonal friendships and negative influence, gangs, street violence, taking foster and adopted children away from Christian parents (in Europe), arresting adults (England) or firing adults (US) publicly complaining about these things, attempts to normalise and accept pedophilia, allowing boys and men into girls and women's toilets, locker rooms, and dorm rooms, insisting on our using someone else's pronoun choices, reducing the age of statutory rape, rejecting distinctions between males and females, claiming men can give birth, rejecting a binary and biological understanding of gender and confusing and indoctrinating children about this, premarital sex, cohabitation, homosexual 'marriage,' absent fathers, and the damage done to children from violence in the home and families breaking up.

The Church has much to do in the face of this attack on our children, beginning with praying protection over the children, baptism/dedication of infants, and serious attention to catechism in the faith.  It needs to start and support many, many Christian schools.  It needs to speak up clearly and directly over the noise of the pied piper's pipe.  It needs to be publicly engaged in and stand up in opposition to the institutions and forces of society that would swallow our children.

O, church arise and put your armor on

Hear the call of Christ our captain

For now the weak can say that they are strong

In the strength that God has given

 

('Oh Church, Arise,' by Chris Tomlin, Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty, and Stuart Townend) 


The Case of the Christian Baker versus Compelled Speech

 

A California court has ruled in favour of a Christian baker, Ms. Cathy Miller, who refused to bake a cake for a lesbian wedding on the grounds that this involved compelled, tacit approval against her religious beliefs.[1]  The present reflection on this matter is intended to highlight several issues in this case, including but not limited to issues about the free exercise of religion. The problems with the plaintiff’s case are several and significant, and they need to be identified rather than rest on only one of the issues.

The court’s decision turned on reckoning that the baker’s right to practice her religion was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution.  This is, indeed, a point that needs to be and has often been asserted, thanks to the American protection of speech and the free exercise of religion.  The First Amendment protects both, stating:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

When the amendment was written, the problem in European history was the alignment of the state with a particular religious group—state religion.  In now post-Christian times in America, the importance of this First Amendment can be seen in protecting religious faith against those who would forbid it or shuffle it off to private beliefs rather than practiced convictions.

Furthermore, ‘free speech’ in America is very different from protection against ‘hate speech’ in Europe and the United Kingdom.  Hate speech laws place the burden on speakers to demonstrate that their speech is not hate speech, since anyone can claim that their speech was offensive or hateful.  The American First Amendment does not concern another’s complaint about speech but the speaker’s right to speak.  As such, it is a law protecting speech, not limiting free speech or making subjective determinations about speech.

Another issue from this case was that the baker did not refuse to sell any ready-made cake to a person but that she refused to design a custom cake for the person that would have involved a lesbian theme against her own religious beliefs.  Three important questions arise from this, in ascending order.

·       Under what law is a vendor compelled to sell items to customers? 

Is a sign, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’ illegal?  If vendors are compelled to comply to conditions of sale set by customers, they are restricted in their freedom in such a way that labour is in jeopardy of falling into the area of compelled service, even slavery.  Unreasonable practices are better regulated by the market, not the state, such that the burden rests on the state to prove that it has a compelling interest to intervene in the market’s free operation.  In the case of the baker, she was quite willing to sell to any customer at this level of her business practices, which moves the discussion to the next two levels.

·       Is there a reasonable distinction to be made between the sale and purchase of necessary items for life and health versus luxury items, such as a decorative cake?

One might argue that someone selling essential items of food is under a greater obligation to sell to the population at large than someone selling non-essential items of food or anything else.  One might imagine a desperately hungry person without a shirt and shoes wanting to buy food having grounds to insist that a vendor sell the food to him despite a sign in the window that says, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service.’  One can imagine, on the other hand, a person without a shirt or shoes being reasonably escorted off the premises of a clothing store—or a bakery.  It is incumbent on the plaintiff to prove necessity, not the vendor of a high end bakery to explain her reasons for serving or not serving customers.  Cake is not a necessity of life.  Yet there is a further level to this line of argument.

·       Under what law is an artist making an income from her artistry compelled to design certain kinds of art simply because a patron insists she do so?

This raises the issue of ‘compelled speech.’  The matter is not simply about free speech but also about compelled speech.  (Courts apply the term ‘speech’ to expression in general, not just vocal matters.)  No person should have the right to force an artist to create what she or he wishes.  Should a Michelangelo be compelled to decorate a mosque because he had been paid to paint the Sistine Chapel?  Should he be compelled to do so even if he were of neither faith?

In advancing further in the argument from freedom of speech to freedom in the exercise of religion, we move to the issue on which this particular case turned.  The argument presented here, though, is that, even without reference to religious belief, the baker should not have been compelled to create and sell a cake to someone that she did not wish to oblige.  To compel a person to create a cake that involves celebrating another person’s beliefs involves forcing tacit approval from the baker, the more when the baker’s beliefs are at odds with the customer.  Can one compel a publisher to publish literature that advocates Nazi ideology or another religion with which one disagrees?  To argue that one can be so compelled is to argue not only for compelled speech but also compelled beliefs.

In an ironic twist, the plaintiff in the case, the California Department of Fair Housing and Employment, actually based their suit against Ms. Miller on a 1959 law meant to protect a business from discrimination against it because of race, ethnicity, or religion.  A ‘right to sell’ was, disingenuously, turned into a ‘requirement to sell’ by the prosecution.

The problems in this case do not stop here.  The plaintiff in this case also deposed the accused by questioning the sincerity of her stated religious beliefs.  Several problematic issues arise from their doing so.  On what grounds does the state claim a role in testing one’s religious sincerity?  Even if the prosecution advances such an argument, the court would have to disallow the argument on the grounds that it has no right to adjudicate in the matter.  It is the religious group that has the right to determine the sincerity of its adherents, not the state.  Second, in the plaintiff’s attempt to establish the religious sincerity of the accused, they weighed into the area of theological interpretation.  This, too, is outside the legitimate role of a court or the state to assess.  Making matters still worse, the plaintiff sought to establish the sincerity of Ms. Miller’s faith by exploring her beliefs through their own theological incompetence.  They asked whether she believed in Old Testament food laws, imagining that a negative answer would demonstrate she did not stand on Biblical teaching after all.  This only demonstrates that the problem of the state’s involvement in religious determinations is not only outside of their legal authority but also potentially (and, in this case, definitely) outside of their competence.  A prominent teaching in the New Testament is that Old Testament food laws for Jews did not apply to the Church.  Yet none of this matters in a court of law: the court has no role to play in such questions between a Christian and her Church.

For all these reasons, then, the Christian baker was entirely in her right.  The aggressiveness of the plaintiff, moreover, should be considered harassment, and punitive, financial damages should be awarded to the baker.  The arguments presented here have not had to do with anything specific to Christian faith; they have been more rational arguments and legal arguments.  If one were to raise an argument from a Christian standpoint, it would be that which Peter raised in the first days of the Church.  The Jewish court insisted that the Christians should not speak or teach in the name of Jesus (Acts 4.18).  The Christians continued to do so, since proclaiming their faith was a matter of their faith.  Brought in a second time to the court, Peter and the apostles explained in simple terms, ‘We must obey God rather than men’ (5.29).  Those in our present, post-Christian context who want not only to silence religious speech but to compel Christians to speak contrary to their beliefs will receive the same answer: ‘We must obey God rather than men or women.’  Thankfully, the legal system, at least in America, still recognises the freedom of speech and that the government cannot establish or prohibit the free exercise of religion.  Yet it will make no difference to those who will always obey God rather than government, culture, or any human group trying to enforce others to comply with their wishes against God’s commands.



[1] Jon Brown, ‘California court rules in favor of Christian baker who refused to bake cake for lesbian wedding,’ Fox News (Oct. 23, 2022); available at https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-court-rules-favor-christian-baker-refused-bake-cake-lesbian-wedding (accessed 23 October, 2022).

A Prayer of the Unborn for Life and against Abortion

Though I have not yet sight, O My God,

Look Thou upon my sorrowful estate and bring me Thy help!

For I am vulnerable, oh so vulnerable.

More than the orphan or widow in the grasp of the unrighteous,

I can do nothing to save myself.

I hear others plotting to end my life,

Readying their instruments of death

To destroy me for their own gain.

Though I have not yet my own voice, O My God,

Raise up a cry for me, I pray,

From the lips of the righteous before a just judge.

For my enemies speak evil against my life,

Though I am innocent of wrongdoing;

Even my mother, who might tenderly nurture me,

Has determined to destroy me,

As though her choice to kill, not my very life,

Were a human right!

I know not my father, but I would know Thee, O Father God.

My mother in her brokenness and pain,

Would break me, hurt me, and put me to death.

O LORD, make haste to help me!

O LORD, make speed to save me!

Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether

Who wish to snatch away my tender days

And deny me years of life,

For I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are Thy works, My Father;

My soul knows it full well.

My frame is not hidden from Thee

As I am being formed in secret

And intricately and marvelously woven together.

Thy eyes have seen my unformed substance.

Even before my first day in the womb,

Was I not reckoned in Thy book?

Save me, O God!  Save me

From those whose rights lay claim to my life,

The life that Thou has given to me.

Save me, O my God!  Save me!


(Some wording from Psalms 40, 109, and 139)

Identity Choice and Pronouns

Identity choice is nothing new.  Nor is the awkward insistence that others play along with the little game.  As Plutarch records about a 4th c. BC incident in Greece,

Damis [a Spartan], with reference to the instructions sent from Alexander [the Great] that they should pass a formal vote deifying him, said, ‘We concede to Alexander that, if he so wishes, he may be called a god' (Apophthegmata Laconica 25.1).

One can imagine Alexander insisting, 'You must call me by my divine pronouns: 'Thou, Thee, and Thy.'

Damis's reply is priceless, rejecting any idea that Alexander really was a god and treating Alexander as the pretender he was.


Certain Root Causes and Moral Issues of Immigration in 1905 America


In a brief article written in 1905, Broughton Brandenburg reported his investigative findings on immigration at the beginning of the 20th century.  His reason for writing was that, amidst legitimate immigration to the United States, there were many issues of concern that needed to be identified and not ignored.  A person concerned with ethics and immigration needs to understand the issues.  We might find the following twelve points from over one hundred years ago still helpful in a discussion of the ‘root causes’ and moral issues of immigration, not only in the USA but elsewhere as well.

First, Brandenburg notes that ethnic immigrant groups among the Jews, Italians, Slavs, French, Hungarians, and so forth, viewed other groups as undesirable.  Consequently, they excused undesirable and illegal immigrants from their own ethnic group and opposed the same from other ethnic groups.  Second, undesirable immigrants—thieves, murderers, etc.—tended to strike first among their own ethnic groups.  For example, the Mafiusi (Mafia) illegally entering the US first preyed on other Italians.  The situation could be ‘clarified’ if others from the same group would inform on their illegal compatriots.  Third, the main action society needed was to bring a halt to the underground movement of immigrants.  Fourth, immigrants required a great, charitable response from others.  Brandenburg, writing in 1905 (and before the great governmental social programmes initiated three decades later), stated that there were 80 million persons in the US and 12 million were immigrants.  Of those receiving charitable assistance in the country, 74% were immigrants.  Ninety-five percent of the beggars in Philadelphia were aliens.

Fifth, the situation could explode if certain economic (a rate war), political (the election of Roosevelt), and international (troubles in Russia) factors changed to allow those waiting to immigrate to do so.  This comment points to the problem of an open immigration policy held in check only by other factors than government immigration rules.  Brandenburg noted that he had been ridiculed for predicting immigration at the level of 1 million persons for 1905, but he ended up being correct.

Sixth, America’s industrial prosperity was one of the major factors encouraging immigration.  The more prosperous America, the more immigrants should be expected.  Seventh, Brandenburg raises the question of discriminating among immigrant applicants.  ‘Good’ immigrants were those who were willing and able to earn their own living and who were willing to obey the laws of the land.  ‘Bad’ immigrants were those who were ‘criminals, diseased, physically and mentally deficient, immoral and politically undesirable classes.’[1]  Later in the essay, Brandenburg proposes the shocking suggestion that people with a poor physique should not be permitted to immigrate.  This is not, though, a question of eugenics for him but a concern that immigrants should be able to work.  Notably, he does not discuss immigrants who would earn their living by other means than physical labour.

Eighth, capacity to absorb immigrants needs to be a consideration.  Brandenburg notes that America in his day had a great capacity to receive immigrants: ‘two-thirds of our national material resources remain undeveloped….’[2]  Ninth, similar to the first point mentioned above about ethnic solidarity, Brandenburg mentions the problem of familial solidarity, where a recent immigrant sends a ticket to his ‘thieving cousin.’  He also mentions the increasing numbers of ‘crippled, club-footed, cross-eyed, anemic, scrofulous, decrepit, hollow-chested, and variously diseased recruits to the colony.’[3]  His concern is not with the physically dependent per se but with the possibility that they would become charitable cases.  At the time, immigration officials did screen immigrants to be sure that such persons had relatives who promised to assist them, but the problem still existed that, once these people obtained legal residence, their sponsors left them to the care of charitable services of almshouses, asylums, and hospitals.

Tenth, Brandenburg points out a major concern regarding agents involved in assisting persons to emigrate from their home countries.  Their interest is to assist the immigrants, and so they help to conceal conditions that would disqualify them for immigration.  Brandenburg provides several anecdotes.  One story of significance was that Hungary contracted with the Cunard Line transporting immigrants to take a minimum of 30,000 of their citizens a year, and the result was that many ‘insane and idiotic Hungarians and Australians’ were found wandering about towns in Pennsylvania.  Another anecdote he offered was of an operation in Italy that collected persons from disease-ridden centers in southern Europe and did not inspect their baggage or fumigate them.  It was disclosed on May 12, 1905, that some 42 lodging-houses operated this way.  They the ‘epileptic, periodically insane, crippled, trachomatous, and criminal persons’ to send to the USA.  The European agents involved found the immigration trade lucrative, charging more for more difficult cases but guaranteeing successful immigration.  The agents would doctor up, coach, prepare, and fit the immigrants with papers.

Eleventh, Brandenburg points out the challenge to border control agents along the southern border of the USA.  He found a major breach of the border across the Rio Grande and concluded that, to stem the tide, some 500 mounted inspectors would be required.  The land border to a country raises unique issues to immigration, as Europe, the United States, and certain countries in Africa regularly understand.  A frequent approach in history to help with orderly immigration in such cases, or simply to keep people out, has been to build a wall.  The Roman Empire, for example, built a wall to keep the Germanic tribes out and another wall in northern England to keep out the Picts and other tribes of present-day Scotland.

Twelfth, Brandenburg recommends raising the head tax on immigrants.  This, along with other measures, would help to keep some of the undesirable people out.  This matter is related to what other countries were doing, and Brandenburg argues that America should not be chosen by immigrants because it is the cheaper option but because the immigrants want the best.[4]

This full summary of Brandenburg’s article about immigration to America in 1905 highlights many of the issues of immigration today.  His discussion of qualities of immigrants needs far more nuancing and perhaps correction for moral reasons.  Missing from his description are today’s issues of smuggling, crime syndicates, illegal drugs, sex trafficking, slavery, and the possibility of terrorist infiltration into the country.  Another area needing further consideration, though he touches on it, is the importance of family ties for many immigrants.  The challenges of immigration can be helped where there is a tightly bound family unit that can help one another.  Young persons, on the other hand, might fare well if they arrive with a job offer, but allowing minors to immigrate is a shocking development in our day.

Statistics and generalisations are never adequate grounds for discussing particular cases.  So, I will conclude on a personal note.  Three of my grandparents arrived from Eastern Europe within two to seven years of Brandenburg's article.  They came in stages as they could not afford to leave at the same time.  They were exploited in Europe and in America by those involved in immigration.  One family left via a Jewish underground immigration network out of Russian controlled territory in Ukraine—the sort berated by Brandenburg.  Another left with nothing but a briefcase to avoid suspicion in Austria-Hungary.  In all cases, had they not left, they would have been killed or sent to prison camps within a few decades as the First and then the Second World Wars ravaged the areas of Europe from which they came.  They arrived penniless—they were Brandenburg’s ‘undesirables’ to some measure—but they worked tirelessly for a generation or more.  Two of the families faced terrible disasters within a few years of their arrival, including the loss of two of the breadwinner’s ability to work.  Two families faced hunger.  Some stayed within their immigrant communities, others integrated quickly and well--depending in part on where they lived.  They had to negotiate fundamental challenges to life as they knew it, including their faith (a deepening of it, in our case), their ethnicity (they were Germans, and America went to war against Germany twice), language, Americanised children and grandchildren, and so forth.  Within two generations, two of these immigrant families were living and working in ministry in Africa and South America, and a sizeable number were in ministry in America, giving back to others and bringing hope in Christ to many.  The story of immigration is complicated, to be sure, and simplistic views on immigration are just that, simplistic.  It is not simply an issue of open or closed borders.  The study of Brandenburg helps to outline a number of the root causes of immigration and to identify several moral and practical issues involved, but it needs to be tempered with a theology of hope.  Indeed, there is a divide between ‘good public policy’ regarding immigration, the realities of individuals, and the hope of Christian ministry.



[1] Broughton Brandenburg, ‘Underground Immigration,’ Charities, Vol. 14 (July, 1905), pp. 896-899; available at: https://curiosity.lib.harvard.edu/immigration-to-the-united-states-1789-1930/catalog/39-990100045900203941 (accessed 15 Oct., 2022), p. 2.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., p. 3.

[4] Ibid., p. 6.


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