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We need first to respond to what is behind all of this – to use the jargon ‘the metanarrative’ or more simply, ‘the world view’ of the new religion. For this world view is undoubtedly that of the pagan religion of ‘selfism’ or ‘the religion of me’. There will be variants; and the selfism can be hidden in the more sophisticated versions but, I expect most will be much cruder. For each person becomes their own ‘god’, or the ultimate decider, theoretically, of everything (or that’s the promise); and not all are Professors at Yale like Kronman!

Actually this new religion had been incubating since the 1960s. And in the UK and USA the conception followed the liberalizing of theology before and after the First World War and the influence of the psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. And before that, its progenitors were influenced by the so called 18th century Enlightenment. But the religion hit the headlines in the United States in 1992 when reasonableness seemed literally to fly out of the window. For the US Supreme Court, in a judgment that prohibited the State from banning most abortions, said this:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

That inevitably would mean that from now on feelings can trump facts and truth. For what you feel comfortable with, or is pleasurable, or in other ways gives you good sensations, or so the public was being told by these senior Judges, is right for you; hence the focus on sex. Yes, you can realize that someone else may feel differently but that is right for them. But how did this actually take place – Judges, some of the most able in the world, coming to agree that:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

One helpful answer has been given by the sociologist, Philip Rieff, in his famous study entitled The triumph of the Therapeutic.

Rieff was really concerned to highlight the contribution of Freud and Freudian psychotherapy to the irrationality that is this ‘selfism’.

Freud, of course, had accepted the Enlightenment idea that all are born perfect and good. It is the human environment that is the problem. Also for Freud, the sexual drive was the engine of the personality. And Freud and his followers were aiming to help his patients feel, as one psychiatrist and expert in transgenderism, Paul McHugh puts it:

a sense of contentment, satisfaction and personal coherence.

To achieve this Freud’s idea was that most people’s cares and worries were due to their unconscious submission to oppressive cultural rules and controls from the human environment. For these came from the influence of the family, the nation and the church. Then Rieff argues that the psychiatric health tradition, until Freud, was based on a Christian culture, where the doctor was aiming to help the patient adjust to that culture and what it understood as being ‘healthy’. But after Darwin and Nietzsche and the ‘death of God’ nihilism, a new tradition grew, where the aim was to help patients not to conform to the culture, but help themselves to transform the culture. As McHugh puts it (I quote):

The psychotherapeutic school of suspicion, now unrestrained, bore down on the time-honoured bearers of authority—family, country, and church—and proposed to justify any therapy claiming to enhance ‘well-being.’ In accordance with the idea that no eternal or commanding truths need be obeyed or even acknowledged, society was gradually reorganized around this new therapeutic imperative: “The best hope for me is me’.

And note, this new religion is archetypally Gnostic. For inner subjective feelings trump the real hard world of objective material facts. That is pure docetic Gnostism – matter and the flesh are nothing but soul and spirit are everything. And such Gnosticism the early church had to fight tooth and nail. For the created world is in principle good but fallen. So this all means in the issue of ‘transgenderism’, when my mind feels I am a woman, while my body says I am a man, I am really a woman because my feelings trump facts. And I now can play God and determine what trumps what. Of course, this a lie and pure madness. For the devil is a liar and the father of lies says Jesus (John 8.44). And that is why Solzhenitsyn would say to us, ‘Live not by lies.’ So how then should we respond to this, now we know it all comes about and what it is?

First, we should name it for what it is – devilish. This is Lent and the Church’s Year encourages us to remember our Lord’s 40 days in the wilderness. And as we do that, it reminds us that Jesus final temptation by the devil was to idolatry and to put someone else, in this case himself, in the place of God? But to put the ‘human self’ in the place of God is a brilliantly wicked strategy. At one stroke it creates millions of idols! For the devil seems to want anything, or, anyone in the place of God. But Jesus did not give in; nor, of course, must we. Matthew 4. 8-11:

Again, the devil took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written“‘You shall worship the Lord your God.and him only shall you serve.’”Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

So we are now living in the midst of an idolatrous world of millions of idols called ‘me’. It is chaos. At Jesmond Parish Church our verse for the year comes from 1 Peter 5.6-7:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

And in 2021 that is so important in the current Covid situation. But as important in this LLF situation, we need, where this religion of ‘Me’ (leading to overturning much of what is forbidden) seems to be increasingly in the church we need to heed the next verses that virtually conclude Peter’s letter. They are 1 Peter.8-11:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

And James 4.7 has the same message in abbreviated form but with the promise that the Devil will flee:

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the Devil and he will flee.

Putting all that together, the message is that resisting the Devil will be costly. But Jesus was tempted just we are. And here in Matthew 4 he had the biggest bribe possible not to worship the one true God:

All these [the kingdoms of the world] I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.

So realize that there is not only a cultural war going on but, behind it, a spiritual war and the devil is real. So heed those words of Paul in Ephesians 6.10-13:

…be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

And Ephesians 6.18:

Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints [including all the people in the church that are being misled, as we saw yesterday, were the followers of Jezebel who could still repent, and among whom are number of laity, clergy and bishops in the Church of England].

So, first, name what is going on for what it is ‘devilish’ in Thyatira they used the Hebrew and named it ‘the deep things of Satan.’

Secondly, we should beware of more discussions that will just harden prejudices. To quote Philip Turner:

what parades as reflection and dialogue [in these sorts of situation] on the whole is no more than impassioned repetition, within a politically controlled space of hardened positions. [And that is because there is an] acquiescence in the co-existence of incompatible views, opinions, and policies chosen because a strategy that tolerates contradictory positions and practices even on matters regarded as essential to a faithful witness to Christ seems a necessary means to life together in a fast unravelling denomination.

In that regard, we need to learn from the Eastern Orthodox. What is going on with us has been paralleled in their churches. There was a conference in Crete in 2016 and this is a conclusion of a report by an attendee of what had been going on in the discussions on sexuality and sexual morality. It was headed A Familiar but Daunting Task Ahead and I quote:

What we behold in the appeals of the trailblazing Orthodox scholars discussed...is a subtle, erudite, but disingenuous public challenge to abandon ancient Christian verities under the guise of a "conversation" or "discussion"…The pattern is unmistakable: first, a call to "transcend" narrow, rigid, archaic dogmas, coupled with an invitation to a "conversation" to share viewpoints based primarily on personal experience and "new" knowledge instead of immersion in the Tradition; that is followed by a summons for mutual forbearance, tolerance, and, ultimately, full acceptance of diverse moralities. Soon enough, the orthodox frog in the gradually boiling pot is fully cooked and no longer a living frog.”

So beware of more discussions that will harden prejudices.

Thirdly, we should follow the example of Abram. What is that all about? Well, we read in Genesis 13.4, that after a disastrous trip to Egypt where Abram had virtually prostituted his wife, Sarah, he journeyed back to Bethel:

…to the place where he made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the Lord.

He there made good his past failure. For he had gone down to Egypt when there was a famine, without building an altar and calling on the Lord and seek his will as was often his practice. He just went, and it was disastrous. So when he came back, the first thing we hear he did was make good that omission. He called upon the name of the Lord. That may be pre De Vos exegesis; but I think we are in an Abram-like situation and we must go back to where we went wrong, namely on the 11th November 1987. For that was the day of the so-called Higton debate in the General Synod about homosexual relations. It had national coverage and was Televised on a main channel. What happened then was that after a key amendment the Bishops’ motion was passed with a huge majority (Ayes, 403; Noes, 8; and Abstentions, 13). And the motion was that:

This Synod affirms that the biblical and traditional teaching on chastity and fidelity in personal relationships is a response to, and an expression of, God’s love for each one of us, and in particular affirms:1) that sexual intercourse is an act of total commitment which belongs properly within a permanent married relationship,2) that fornication and adultery are sins against this ideal, and are to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion,3) that homosexual genital acts also fall short of this ideal, and are likewise to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion,4) that all Christians are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality, and that holiness of life is particularly required of Christian leaders.

However, before that final vote was taken, a fundamental amendment standing in my name was voted on, which was passed in the House of Laity but lost in the Houses of Clergy and Bishops and so was defeated. This would have been section 5) of the motion, which would have read as follows:

5) that if a bishop, priest or deacon, is to be ‘a wholesome example and pattern to the flock of Christ’ (Canon C 4) appropriate discipline among the clergy should be exercised in cases of sexual immorality.               Ayes  NoesBishops  8        14Clergy    82      139Laity      136     84

So, I am proposing that we ourselves go back to then. And in the light of this conference and the teaching of Scripture, not least in Christ’s letter to the Church at Thyatira, ensure that discipline in accordance with the wish of the laity, and in line with bishop’s motion, must be put into effect. That is to say quite simply, in the Church of England all fornication and adultery and homosexual genital acts are always to be treated as sinful, and so call for repentance and appropriate compassion. And in the Church of England in the case of bishops, priests or deacons there needs to be appropriate discipline and repentance. And also, in line with the spirit of that motion, and already according to their Ordinal, all Priests must:

with all faithful diligence,…banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s word;

and in line with the spirit of that motion, and, already according to their Ordinal, all Bishops are also required to do the same. I know doctrinal and ethical matters in reality cannot be dealt with by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure. But necessity and urgency require Bishops to be in impaired communion (or as some call it ‘broken partnership’) with Bishops and Clergy who teach and act, contrary to the Bishop’s Statement in section 2.29 of Issues in Human Sexuality. And we must be in impaired communion (or ‘broken partnerships’) with Bishops and Clergy who do the same. So, we need to go back to that wish of the laity in 1987 for actual discipline in matters of sex and sexuality amongst Church of England clergy and for them to be teaching in line with the Canons and their ordination vows.

And, finally, to conclude can I just say this, fortunately, the Church is not a business, and, Jesus says (Matthew 16.18).

the gates of hell shall not prevail against it

But if it were a business, a consultant might say that the Church of England in the 21st century, as a corporate entity, is in the process of ‘Slow Death’ and with three options before it. Option 1 is ‘Peace and Pay’ and is what the Senior Management (in our case many of the bishops) often want as they wait for retirement. They will solve none of the key problems as they want the quiet life and no one rocking the boat. Their successor can solve any problems. Option 2 is ‘Active Exit’ where the bright things, in our case younger clergy, jump-ship and join another organization - high churchmen, the Romans; evangelicals, AMiE or the FIEC (often only to find that there are problems in the new environment but of a radically different sort). Option 3 is ‘Deep Change’ which is the solution and requiring someone who faces the facts, is inside the organization, is willing to risk his job and will to break some rules [not laws] that are strangling the organization. Also he ‘builds the bridge as he walks on it’ (to use the metaphor of Robert Quinn, the author of the book Deep Change). May we pray that God equips many such deep change agents in the Church of England in the coming days. Amen.