1

What Will happen. Same-Sex Marriage and the Churches

Theoretical

Same-sex marriage became legal in Britain in March 2014. This legislation gave religious bodies the
freedom to peform such marriages or not; except for the Church of England, which was prohibited
by law, as the established church, from doing so. Since then, the the Anglicans, the Methodists and
United Reformed Churches have begun processes of conversation and consultation. The Baptist
Union, not a denomination but a union of independent churches, has already clarified its position,
declaring churches free to perform same-sex marriages, if their Church Meeting agrees. Ministers
are also allowed to conduct such weddings, as church officers, without incurring any disciplinary
measures. We therefore see a mixed pattern of affirming and non-affirming responses towards
same-sex mariage within the churches.

This paper does not rehearse the arguments for and against. Instead it asks: what will happen next?
How will this affect the polity of the churches? How will it affect church unity - ecumenically, and
within denominations or congregations? What does it imply regarding continued decline or growth?
How does it relate to contemporary culture? In this respect, although there are global tensions,
especially between Africa and the West, this paper concentrates on the UK and US, because of their
shared culture. For analysis, the options before the church are divided into two: conservative and
liberal. The former is the ‘traditional’ view, that same-sex acts and relationships are forbidden in
Christian morality, and that therefore same-sex marriage is therefore also inappropriate. The latter
represents the emerging viewpoint that same-sex acts, relationships, and marriage, are not against
Christian faith. Is this distinction is absolute, however? Certainly it is possible to be liberal or
conservative on different issues. Liberals, however, are more likely to be consistently liberal on a
range of issues;1 While conservativ are increasingly adopting liberal views on same-sex relationships.
Nonetheless, on this matter, there is a consensus that these terms are helpful. 2 While not agreeing
with Machen that they represent two different religions, 3 there do appear to be two religious
outlooks on same-sex relationships. Earlier mediational guidelines for disagreements 4 will not handle
today’s adversarial contest.

However, are there only two options? Is there no mediating position? Can we not love each other
while disagreeing? Certainly, as Christians, love is paramount. But does this mean agreeing to
diasagree, while remaining in the same denomination or congregation? 5 This entails treating

1
So-called ‘post-liberals’ do not represent an altogether different position from liberals. They do not cease to
be liberals, but build on their gains and seek to go beyond.
2
Adair T. Lummis, “Theological Match between Pastor and Congregation: Implications for Church Growth”, in
Why Liberal Churches are Growing, ed. By Martin Percy and Ian Markham (London: T & T Clark, 2006), 143-159
(p. 143); Richard A. Norris Jr., “Some Notes on the Current Debate Regarding Homosexuality and the Place of
Homosexuals in the Church”, The Anglican Theological Review 90.3 (Summer 2008), 437-411 (pp. 437-438);
another typological contrast might be between ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’, as in Matthew Vines, God and
the Gay Christian (New York: Convergent Books, 2014), pp. 2-3
3
J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1981)
4
Michael Griffiths, “Handling Differences”, Harvester (February 1985), 4-5; and Harvester (March 1985), 4-6
5
Pat Took, “Agreeing and disagreeing – in love?”, Transform 038, 16-17
 2

homosexuality as adiaphora, a matter of indifference. Motivated by fear of disunity and division, 6

any split might, it is feared, undermine the church’s witness, either because of the ugliness of the
argument, or because of the unattractiveness of a conservative stand in a liberal culture. In order to
move the debate forward, it is recommended that churches discuss openly the questions, and search
for, what Matthew Vine calls a ‘third way’. 7

Ecclesial

Open discussion is important. Too often debate is closed down, frequently by conservatives. 8 Either
because of embrrassment about sex, or fear of division, conservatives avoid the topic, hoping it will
go away. However, this means change will occur by default, because people will receive their views
from society not scripture and theology. Conservatives, though, fear open debate, precisely because
it includes the possibilty of changing one’s views. Which criteria or norms will used used in the
debate: scripture and theology, or testimony and emotion? If only traditional authority, a gay person
may feel excluded, because their voice is not heard. If only personal experience, conservatives may
feel labelled as homophobic for interrogating someone’s feelings. In addition, the Baptist Union has
experienced the power of celebrity to shape debate. Steve Chalke, supporting same-sex marriage, 9
against current regulations, gambled that his fame would call the Baptist Union’s bluff. He was
correct; and other liberal ministers emboldened to declare their position, and the Union forced to
modify its policy.

Entrenched presuppositions mean that dialogue will not change many people’s views, 10 although
positions may be clarified. The default for well-meaning Christians will be an eirenic strategy: to keep
talking and remain in fellowship with each other, within the denomination and the local assembly.
This, however, ignores the longterm consequences. In proposing it, liberals are being disingenuous,
and conservatives naïve. Disingenuous because debate is never static, the agenda always moves on.
Naïve for believing one concession will halt change. For example, Anglican agreement on ordaining
women has progressed to debating the ordination of homosexuals; and in society the argument over
same-sex marriage is advancing to advocate equality for trans-people. Although there are nuanced
positions, agreeing to disagree means conceding the liberal case, and same-sex relationships
becoming a matter of indifference. This will lead to the normalisation of the affirming viewpoint, as a
legitimate position within the church. Where conservatives wish to impose orthodoxy, liberals want
merely to open a space of tolerance for their viewpoint. As the next generation enter the church the
theological landscape will slip inexorably in the liberal direction. Synchronic analysis may identify

6
Nancy J. Duff, “How to Discuss Moral Issues Surrounding Homosexuality When You Know You Are Right”, in
Homosexuality and Christian Community, ed. By Choon-Leong Seow (Louisville, K: Westminster John Knox
Press, 1996), 144-159 (p. 148)
7
Vine, p. 165
8
Oliver O’Donovan, A Conversation Waiting to Begin. The Churches and the Gay Controversy (London: SCM
Press, 2009), p. 79
9
Steve Chalke, A Matter of Integrity (abridged). The Church, sexuality, inclusion and an open conversation
(OASIS 2013) < http://www.oasisuk.org/inclusionresources/Articles/MOIabridged> [accessed 17 December
2014]
10
Harriet Harris, “After Liberalism: Fundamentalism in a Post-liberal Context”, Theology C.797 (September-
October 1997), 340-348
 3

multiple ideal positions, but diachronic analysis recognises their historical trend. Al Mohler is
therefore correct when he asserts that there is no middle way. 11

That this disagreement is not wholly due to, or amenable to, rational consideration is suggested by
the difference between age-cohorts. Liberal on a wide range of social and political issues, 12 younger
people are overwhelmingly in favour of affirming same-sex relationships, while the older, parental,
generation are against. Hence we are experiencing what Thomas Kuhn called a ‘paradigm shift’. 13
Millennials prefer inclusivity and flexibility over strictness and discipline. These are loaded terms,
however. Who does not support inclusivity or flexibility? But inclusive of whom? Is there any
behaviour Christians should not include? Should there be expectations of behavioural change in
disciples? Flexibility also depends on interpretation and situation. Should believers be flexible in all
beliefs, in all situations? Are there some conditions where Christians should be inflexible and resist
culture: for example Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa?

The division, however, is already occurring: with a two-way stream, of liberals leaving conservative
churches and conservatives leaving liberal churches, to find more comfortable congregations.
Nevertheless, most ecclesial hierarchies and bureaucracies will seek to hold churches together,
drawing on their respective traditions: for example, Baptist independency, Anglican catholicity. If
there is a split, as Justin Welby thinks possible,14 it will be provoked by conservatives. Although some
liberals may leave their denominations, 15 they usually prefer to work from within as dissenters 16 to
reform the structures; even to resist them. 17 For liberals diversity itself is a virtue,18 which may
extend beyond adiaphora to include fundamental disagreements. 19 Some conservatives may try to
wrest contol from liberals, as happened in the 1970s with the Baptist Maintream network. Among
evangelicals, more are more likely to leave, because of their emphasis on purity over unity, 20 and
their preference for activism21 over boring bureaucratic committees. In practice, parallel structures
will probably develop, inside and outside denominations. Liberals and conservatives will form rival

11
Albert Mohler, ‘There Is No Third Way’ – Southern Baptists Face a Moment of Decision (and so will you)
<http://www.albertmohler.com/2014/06/02/there-is-no-third-way-southern-baptists-face-a-moment-of-
decision-and-so-will-you/> [accessed 17 December 2014]
12
“The strange rebirth of liberal England”, The Economist (1 June 2013), 11; Toby Helm, “Pro-Europe,
optimistic, tolerant: meet Britain’s first-time voters”, The Observer (28 December 2014), 8
13
Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Second Edition, Enlarged. International Encyclopedia
of Unified Science 2.2 (Chicago: ILL: The University of Chicago Press, 1970)
14
The Huffington Post, Anglican Church Suffers From 'Deep Divisions', Warns Archbishop Justin Welby (17
November 2014) < http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/17/anglican-church-suffers-from-deep-divisions-
warns-archbishop-justin-welby_n_6173036.html> [accessed 17 December 2014]
15
John Kruse, “Friendly to Liberty?”, in The Loyal Opposition. Struggling with the Church on Homosexuality, ed.
by Tex Sample and Amy E. Delong (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2000), 183-191
16
Ignacio Castuera, “Dedicated, Disciplined Dissenters”, in Sample and Delong, 151-159
17
Barbara B. Troxell, “Resisting the Church on Homosexuality”, in Sample and Delong, 122-126
18
Andrew Linzey, “In Defence of Diversity”, in Gays and the Future of Anglicanism. Responses to the Windsor
Report, ed. by Andrew Linzey and Richard Kirker (Winchester: O books, 2005), 160-187; Roy I. Sano, “Unity
with Diversity in God’s Mission”, in Sample and Delong, 43-56
19
Vincent Strudwick, “Harmonious Dissimilitude”, in Linzey and Kirker, 60-68 (p. 67)
20
Francis A. Schaeffer, “Practising Purity in the Visible Church”, in The Church Before the Watching World
(London: IVP, 1972), 52-71
21
David Bebbington identifies four characteristics of Evangelicalism: conversionism, activism, biblicism, and
crucicentrism: David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. A History from the 1730s to the 1980s
(London: Routledge, 1989), 2-17
 4

ecclesiolae in ecclesia22contesting each other’s legitimacy, with liberals eventually gaining political
control of the overall ecclesial organisation. This conflict will adversely affect ecumenical or
cooperative action even within denominations, as same-sex marriage trumps other considerations,
and low-intensity civil war smoulders in the churches. The challenge for conservatives is how to
realise Jesus’s prayer for unity; while for liberals it is whether they hold any belief which is non-
negotiable?

It is sometimes said that the church should stop wasting time discussing sex, when there are
pressing matters of mission and evangelism, justice and poverty, to address. The argument cuts both
ways however. Conservative resistance to same-sex marriage may be a distraction from mission, but
so may liberal pressures for equality. So, who should shut up? Nevertheless, one motivation for
accepting same-sex mariage is missiological. Could mission in a changing, liberalising, culture require
affirming same-sex relationships? Such a policy may bring new people into the churches. However,
churches adopted liberal sexual ethics are not noted for their numerical growth. Rather, these are
the ones which have declined more quickly. It is a cliché that liberal churches grow by attracting
disillusioned evangelicals.23 Today’s question is whether they can convert the unchurched.

In the 1980s, Dean Kelley noted that conservative churches were growing, because they were more
‘strict’ than liberal churches. 24 Size, of course, does not indicate the truth of beliefes, only
organisational effectiveness. Recently, however, Martyn Percy and Ian Markham edited a book
suggesting liberal churches might be growing. In reality, however, they reinterpreted growth more
broadly than numerical increase: to include spiritual growth, growth in relationships and growth in
community service.25 Nevertheless, one area of numerical growth included churches affirming same-
sex relationships. These, however, formed a only small ‘niche’ market in urban, cosmopolitan
neighbourhoods, among educated, affluent people. 26 Furthermore, such churches may develop,
unintentionally, into single-issue congregations, or gay ghettoes. The challenge for conservative
churches is whether they can continue to attract people in a culture where affirmation of same-sex
relationships is desired by straight as well as gay people? The challenge for liberals is whether there
is any sin, over which they are willing to defy the culture? Nevertheless, with this attitudinal-
affective shift, liberal churches could be more enticing for spiritual seekers wanting an inclusive
church. If churches opting for compromise and progressive evangelicals are included, liberal
churches will therefore probably outnumber conservative, if only because they are following the
cultural flow, and even if both are declining absolutely. Among Baptists, this may reverse the
preponderance of evangelicals over liberals. 27

22
Meredith B. McGuire, Religion. The Social Context. Third Edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.,
1992), pp. 147-148
23
Ian Markham, “Two Conditions for a Growing Liberal Church: Right Theology and Right Clergy”, in Percy &
Markham, 160-166 (p. 163)
24
Dean M.Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. A Study in Sociology of Religion with a new preface
for the ROSE edition (Macon, Ga: Mercer University Press, 1986)
25
Martin Percy, “Paradox and Persuasion: Alternative Perspectives on Liberal and Conservative Chruch
Growth”, in Percy and Markham, 73-86 (p. 81)
26
Scott Thumma, “’Open and Affirming’ of Growth? The Challenge of Liberal Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual-
supportive Congregational Growth”, in Percy and Markham, 100-118 (p. 114)
27
Philip Clements-Jewery, “Liberal Theology Among Baptists”, The Baptist Ministers’ Journal 313 (January
2012), 9-13
 5

With their traditional evangelistic concern, however, evangelicals especially are faced with the
dilemma of numerical growth or halting decline, in an increasingly liberal culture. How can they
welcome gay people without affirming their sexuality, when this is interpreted as their personal
identity? At a minimum, they will need to avoid homophobic speech, oppose anti-gay violence, and
challenge work-place discrimination. The risk is that evangelical churches will split, 28 gay marriage
one more issue contributing to the ‘divorce’. 29 Many ‘progressive evangelicals’ may abandon church
altogether, because of the reactionary faith they encounter. 30 Another development is that the
meaning of ‘evangelical’ becomes more elastic, ‘affirming’ evangelicals joining the splintering of
evangelical ‘tribes’: post-evangelicals, radical evangelicals, conservative evangelicals. Underlying this
apparent diversity, however, is a bifurcation between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’. 31
Families, friendships and fellowships will be broken apart as evangelicals position themselves on this
epochal issue. Pastors taking stances on either side will find their tenure removed if there is a
theological mismatch with their congregation on the issue.

Entrepreneurial churches, which adopted seeker-driven ‘attractional’ models of mission, face

particular challenges.32 Attractional mission entails reducing the cultural, cognitive, barriers against
people coming to church. This usually involves remodelling corporate worship to be less off-putting
for visitors. This seeker-friendly approach also downplays biblical teaching in favour of life-
application and relevance in preaching. But abandoning distinctive practices to attract the
unchurched may extend to doctrine and ethics. Thus, to welcome gay people, one must affirm their
identity. The problem for evangelicals is whether they can retain their style and ethos while shifting
on this issue. Will they not become a slightly livelier version of liberal Christianity? Moreover, it is
likely that conservative churches which adopt a liberal position on same-sex relationshps will later
adopt liberal views on other moral issues. 33 The power of influence is from the group that they are
joining, rather than the group they are leaving. Traditional evangelical concerns, such as evangelism,
will therefore take a lower position in their strategy, in favour of cooperation with other groups,
religious and secular, over social concerns. 34 While laudable for wider kingdom purposes, this will
displace activity likely to produce church growth. 35

Gay marriage crystallises the prevailing antipathy towards Christianity in a culture where the brand is
toxic. Christianity is considered ‘immoral’ because of its anti-gay prejudices. Attempts to explain
conservative beliefs on sexuality to youngsters are met with incomprehension. Kelley’s lessons may
therefore no longer apply. Kelley himself noted that not all conservative churches grow , 36 and
emphasised that strictness might delay but would not reverse secularisation’s long-term numerical

28
Tony Campolo, Speaking My Mind (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, 2004), pp. 202-226
29
Rob Warner, Reinventing English Evangelicalism, 1966-2001. A Theological and Sociological Study (Milton
Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), p. 233
30
Warner, p. 241
31
Warner, pp. 25-26
32
Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping Of Things To Come. Innovation and Mission for the 1st-Century
Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers Inc., 2003), pp. 18-21
33
Kelley, pp. 95-6; Mark Regnerus, Tracking Christian Sexual Morality in a Same-Sex Marriage Future (Public
Discourse, The Witherspoon Institute, 11 August 2014)
<http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2014/08/13667/> [accessed 17 December 2014]
34
Patrick T. Gray, “Community Organizing as Lived Faith”, in Percy and Markham, 7-12 (p. 9)
35
Kelley, p. 138
36
Kelley, p. 95
 6

decline.37 Furthermore, as the culture changes, might the conservative moment have passed? For a
while, there remained enough cultural capital to simply call people back to church. Attitudes to
homosexuality were shared. Now there is more cognitive distance between church and culture,
might such appeals fall on deaf ears, issued as they are by groups as culturally relevant as the
Amish?

Social

Political and legal pressures are increasing on opponents of same-sex marriage. 38 There are three
particular legal challenges for conservatives. Firstly, despite government claims to the contrary, free
speech is imperilled. Street evangelists have been picked up by police for hate speech. Individuals in
the workplace have been disciplined for sharing their faith, praying for colleagues, and discussing
their beliefs about same-sex relationships. Secondly, in some jobs , a conservative stance is seen as
breaking equal opportunities policies. Some jobs make it difficult for conservative Christians to
remain true to their conscience. Being a Registrar will be impossible; but other professions, like
teaching, will also make open discussion hard. Thirdly, marriage itself has been redefined.
Consequently, one same-sex couple is taking the Church of England to the European Court of Human
Rights for its refusal to conduct their wedding.

These instances are not equivalent to the degree of persecution which Christians undergo in Muslim
or Communist countries. Nevertheless, a new orthodoxy is developing which denies freedom of
conscience and speech. The irony is, of course, the hypocrisy of complaints from conservatives, who
would previously have denied similar freedoms to gay people. However, it does raise questions for
evangelism, about what preachers may say in public. The usual dilemma of when to introduce
controversial teachings about sexual behaviour becomes more pointed where such discipling may be
illegal. In addition, churches could in future have their charitable status withdrawn, if their purposes
are not deemed charitable, because they discriminate against gay people. Certainly, church-based
social projects already have to consider their policies, about hiring staff and teaching programmes,
to receive grants from secular sources. Tightening such regulations could wipe out swathes of
Christian community projects.

Legal support for gay sensibilities means that liberalism is ironically now being enforced by illiberal
means. This is redolent of Herbert Marcuse’s concept of ‘repressive tolerance’. 39 In the 1960s, this
was deployed against Leftist opposition, and now against the Right. Encouraging an apparent
toleration of diverse opinions, a system of totalitarian liberalism actually restricts the breadth of
tolerated viewpoints within an acceptable range. As Frank Furedi has written, tolerance is not
enough for the victim mentality. Instead, affirmation is demanded. But self- worth dependent on
others’ affirmation is always insecure, and must therefore be supported by law. 40 If offence is
deemed to have been given, free speech can legitimately be curtailed. Hence, in some universities

37
Kelley, p. 174
38
Steve Latham, “Opposing Same-Sex Marriage”, The Prisma. The Multicultural Newspaper (27 April 2014)
<http://www.theprisma.co.uk/2014/04/27/opposing-same-sex-marriage/> [accessed 17 December 2014]
39
Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive tolerance”, in Critical Sociology, ed. by Paul Connerton (Harmondworth:
Pengion, 1976), 301-329
40
Frank Furedi, On Tolerance. A Defence of Moral Independence (London: Continuum, 2011), p. 148-150
 7

Christian Unions and pro-life groups have been prevented from meeting on campus, because they
are accused of creating a hostile atmosphere for gays and women. 41 Such pressure will lead to self-
censorship by conservative groupings. Paradoxically, however, liberals are defending individual
liberty, including that of sexual minorities, while restricting free speech for others. Liberal ideology is
therefore being used to strengthen the power of the state 42, by extending its reach further into
sexual areas.43

This change in sexual ethics corresponds to a crisis in the governing hegemonic ideology of advanced
capitalism, which includes the ideological sub-ensemble of Christian theological discourse. 44
Previously, capitalism depended on stable family units to ground production and social order. Today,
the new capitalism demands a different psycho-social character of its functionaries. 45 Instead of
long-term loyalty and stability, staff must be ready to move quickly from one city to another. Family
well-being and local community are irrelevant. Society is becoming atomised, 46 and an atomistic
family system is re-emerging.47 This fictive, mobile, kinship system, which also characterises gay
familial structures, is inherently unstable, but easier to manage. Capitalist reproduction of labour is
therefore not inherently dependent on heteronormativity, but can commodify homosexual relations
as well .48 A fully individualistic system of sexual ethics, indifferent to the object of one’s attraction, is
thus an essential facet of contemporary ruling ideology. Labour and capital are totally free in all
areas, and the neo-liberal ideology of the market extends to all social relationships. 49 As Zygmunt
Baumann indicates, we live in ‘liquid modernity’. 50 Relationships become self-centred business
investments; and partners discarded in the same way labour is released or gadgets traded-in. 51
Today, absolute flexibility is required for economic and personal advantage. Longterm commitment
is passé, permanency not a virtue. The concept of sexual fluidity therefore fits well with this socio-
economic conjuncture.52 Bisexuality and polyamory may be more common among women; but men
too can transfer their love between male and female, during a lifetime of serial relationships.

41
Tom Slater, “The Moral Crusade Against Pro-Life Students”, Spiked Online (26 November 2014)
<http://www.spiked-online.com/freespeechnow/fsn_article/the-moral-crusade-against-pro-life-
students#.VJGLT3t1Am0> [accessed 17 December 2014]
42
Brendan O’Neill, “Gay Marriage and the Death of Freedom”, The Spectator (6 December 2014) <
http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-features/9390702/gay-marriage-and-the-death-of-freedom/>
[accessed 17 December 2014]
43
Judith Butler, “Competing Universalities”, in The Judith Butler Reader, ed. by Sarah Salih with Judith Butler
(Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 258-277, p. 274
44
O’Donovan, p.4
45
Richard Sennett, The Corrosion of Character: Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism (New
York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1999)
46
Charles Taylor, The Malaise of Modernity (Toronto: House of Anansi Press Inc., 2003), pp. 9, 117
47
Carl C. Zimmerman, Family and Civilization (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2008), pp.241-262
48
Mandy Merck, “Sexuality, Subjectivity and … Economics?”, New Formations, 52, 82-93 (pp. 85-6)
49
Jan Rehmann, Theories of Ideology. The Powers of Alienation and Subjection (Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books,
2014), p. 272; Cornel West, “Beyond Eurocentrism & Multiculturalism”, in Prophetic thought in Postmodern
Times. Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism. Volume One (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1993),
3-30 (p. 17)
50
Zygmunt Baumann, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000)
51
Zygmunt Baumann, Liquid Love (Cambridge: Polity, 2003), pp. 13-15
52
Robert A. J. Gagnon, The Bible and Homosexual Practice. Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville, TN: Abingdon
Press, 2001), p. 418; Steve Latham, “Sexual Fluidity”, The Prisma. The Multicultural Newspaper (7 December
2013) <http://www.theprisma.co.uk/2013/12/07/sexual-fluidity/> [accessed 17 December 2014]
 8

With modernity and early capitalism, one’s identity was stable, as one fulfilled one’s role in the
system. Today, role is unstable, identity suspect. There is no longer any career for life. As families
split up, and people frequently move homes, any rootedness of identity or place evaporates. This
postmodern condition53 is thus a late product of capitalism’s tendency to disintegrate every pre-
existing social form,54 including ideas of stable sexual personae. The binary model of sexual identity,
male-female, hetero-homosexual, belongs to a lost world. Cut loose from inherited identities,
capitalism continually produces new subjectivities for people to inhabit. 55 Queer theory, for example,
maintains that sexual identiy is not given in nature, but socially constructed. 56 Some, like Suzanne
Walters, admit an element of choice, as something to be celebrated, in terms of personal autonomy.
57
This, however, is the epitome of liberal ideology. In this respect there is now little to differentiate
conservative accounts of psycho-social causes for same-sex attraction 58 from the pro-gay position:
except in the degree of moral opprobrium. This does not mean nurture outbalances nature in the
aetiology of sexual orientation, or that the sense of identity is any less real for the person. Same-sex
attraction and acts have always characterised human sexual behaviour. However, its
conceptualisation changes. The idea of ‘orientation’ as opposed to ‘behaviour’ was a recent
development;59 the thought that this is the kind of person I am, rather than simply someone
attracted to certain people. The change originated in the nineteenth century with the development
of romantic notions of love and personhood60 and the medicalisation of sexuality.61 Michel Foucault
went so far as to state that homosexuals did not exist before the nineteenth century. 62 The notion
that one was “born this way”, to quote Lady Gaga, is therefore part of society’s ideological
substratum, an attempt to normalise experience, by essentialising it in the guise of ‘nature’. What is
natural is considered scientific, and therefore legitimised. But, as Slavoj Žizek notes, something
claimed as ‘normal’ is an ideological obfuscation concealing its historico-political origins. 63 While
‘homosexual’ identity became possible with the ending of family-based production and the
introduction of free wage labour, a specific ‘gay’ identity emerged in the 1970s, with increased civil
liberties and the anonymity of urban lifestyles facilitating greater personal choice. 64 The disturbing
implication for heterosexuals of this construction theory is that it is also true of them. 65

53
Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991)
54
Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, in Selected Works in One Volume
(London: Lawrence and Wishart Ltd., 1968), 31-63 (p. 38)
55
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia (London: Continuum,
2004), p. 505
56
Suzanna Danuta Walters, The Tolerance Trap. How God, Genes, and Good Intentions are Sabotaging Gay
Equality (New York: New York University Press, 2014), pp. 86-7, 95-6
57
Walters, pp. 117-22
58
Tim M. Brown,”A Psychiatrist’s Perspective”, in The Way Forward. Christian Views on Homosexuality and the
Church, ed. by Timothy Bradshaw (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997), 131-144; Gagnon, pp. 408-418
59
Jesse Bering, Perv. The Sexual Deviant In All Of Us (London: Transworld Publishers, 2013), p. 16
60
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae. Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (London: Penguin,
1992), p. 39
61
Nicola Field, “From Over the Rainbow: Money, Class and Homophobia”, in The Material Queer. A LesBiGay
Cultural Studies Reader, ed. by Donald Morton (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 345-348 (p. 345)
62
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality. Volume One. An Introduction (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981), p.
43
63
Slavoj Žižek, In Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2009), p. 21
64
John d’Emilio, “Capitalism and Gay Identity”, in Morton, 263-271, (pp. 263-269)
65
Tamsin Spargo, Foucault and Queer Theory (Cambridge: Icon Books Ltd., 1999), p. 45; Jennell Williams Paris,
The End of Sexual Identity. Why Sex Is Too Important to Define Who We Are (Downers Grove, ILL: IVP, 2011),
pp. 37-54
 9

In this worldview, changes in family structure are not condemned but celebrated: from adoption by
gay couples, to surrogate motherhood, to artificial insemination of lesbians. Conservatives have,
however, complained that gay marriage will undermine the institutions of marriage and the family.
In response, defenders of gay marriage insisted on their conservatism and their desire to belong
within straight society.66 Consequently, political conservatives, like David Cameron, have embraced
same-sex marriage precisely because of their conservatism, to bring stability by incorporating new
groups within the social order. Conservatives do not always oppose change, but want it to evolve
safely and incrementally.67 Walters, however, perceives it differently. She is personally indifferent to
gay marriage, and even suspicious of it, as an expression of conformity toward middle class
suburban heterosexual norms. However, she believes that the same-sex marriage will, inadvertently
perhaps, open the door to alternative expressions of human sexual relationships. 68 Thus the
conservative nightmare could become reality. As leading-edge gay thinkers, like Walters, accentuate
their libertarianism, there is a strange confluence between conservative and liberal opinion
concerning the likely trajectory of social change.

Liberals seem ignorant, however, that their sexual ethic forms part of a wider liberal sensibility,
which is an expression of advanced capitalist ideology. Whereas early capitalism promoted a
pseudo-protestant ethic of ascetic sexual repression, 69 today’s capitalism requires expressivity, a
desiring subject, who supports the economy by consuming. This ethos includes sexuality. As with
capitalist expansionism in general, the neo-liberal sexual market continually expands to attract
diverse consumers.70 Freedom of choice, including our sexual proclivities, 71 exemplifies the liberal
valorisation of personal autonomy.72 Sexual pleasure even becomes an obligation, our duty, an
injunction of the superego, as Slavoj ŽiŽek terms it. 73 Far from radically threatening the system,
sexual liberation operates as a ‘repressive desublimation’, in which our desires are apparently
satiated.74

The changing class composition of capitalism illuminates this transition. Joel Kotkin has written that a
new fraction of the international ruling class75 has arisen: a techno-oligarchy, controlling the leading
technology companies worldwide.76 Liberal and conservative positions on sexuality within this new
techno-capitalism correspond to Eugen Schoenfeld’s theory of ascending and retrenching classes. 77
An ascending class is typically liberal on social issues, 78 while conservatives represent those who
have have fallen behind. Millennials palpably do not belong to any ruling class, indeed their life-

66
Steve Latham, “Changing Gay Marriage”, The Prisma. The Multicultural Newspaper (9 November 2014)
<http://www.theprisma.co.uk/2014/11/09/changing-gay-marriage/> [accessed 17 December 2014]
67
Kieron O’Hara, Conservatism (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2011), pp. 52-90
68
Walters, pp. 192-205
69
Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1976)
70
Jeremy Gilbert, “What Kind Of Thing Is ‘Neoliberalism’?, New Formations 80/81, 7-20 (pp. 12-19)
71
Norris, p. 457
72
David T. Koyzis, Political Visions & Illusions. A Survey & Christian Critique of Contemporary Ideologies
(Downers Grove, ILL: IVP Academic, 2003), pp. 47, 62-3
73
Slavoj Žižek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009), pp. 310, 188
74
Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (London: Abacus, 1974), pp. 57-77
75
Leslie Sklair, The Transnational Capitalist Class (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2001)
76
Joel Kotkin, The New Class Conflict (New York: Telos Press, 2014), Amazon Kindle e-book (chapter 1)
77
Eugen Schoenfeld, “Militant and Submissive Religions: class religion and ideology”, The Journal of British
Sociology 43 (1993), 111-140, (pp. 113, 119)
78
Schoenfeld, p. 129
 10

chances are worse than for preceding generations. Nevertheless, socialised and educated into this
new techno-culture, they are pre-adapted for today’s proletarianised cognitive labour: relying on
computer skills, and short-term work rather than permanent contracts. In this context it makes little
difference whether an employee is in a stable relationship, or with whom they go to bed, as long as
their work-outputs are maintained. The ethos of flexible short-term work approximates ideologically
to the flexible short-term nature of relationships. It is a Tinder-age fulfilment of Harvey Cox’s
prophecy of the secular city as a switchboard into which inhabitants anonymously plug themselves. 79

Franco Berardi describes the new economy as ‘semio-capitalism’, based on the manipulation of
digital signs.80 Following Baudrillard’s postmodern analysis of simulacra, pure surface without any
referent, Berardi claims the meaning of language, words, is emancipated. 81 But as signified and
signifier part company,82 reality is redescribed without constraint in capitalism’s interests. 83 A
semiology of sexual pleasure and expressivity replaces repression. 84 For Baudrillard, the prime
example of this is the trans-sexual. 85 By prosthesis, a person may transform themselves into a
likeness, a simulacrum, of the opposite sex, and expect to be treated as such. This is fiction.
Biologically, they remain the same. But the notion of gender has thus been separated from biological
sex and orientation, treated as another socio-cultural construct. 86 For Baudrillard, however, all our
identities are necessarily fictive, in a society which no longer tells us who we are are. These
identities, such as trans-sexualism and sado-masochism, are nonetheless constructed through
purchasing the commodified products of capitalist ingenuity.

These Marxist writers, referred to in this section, have acutely critiqued neo-liberal ideology, but not
recognised their own absorption of individualistic liberal sexual ethics. While conservatives and
Marxists both oppose liberalism, conservatives also accuse liberals and Marxists of having roots in
Enlightenment rationalist materialism. 87 This paper turns these Marxists on their heads, just as Marx
claimed to do with Hegel.88 The paradox is that the sexual freedom prized by leftists and liberals is
the consequence of the capitalist system they detest; while the sexual license loathed by
conservatives is produced by that same economic system which they support. Nevertheless,
Marxists would claim a dialectical view of captitalism which recognises its progressive and
reactionary tendencies. The key, for them, is pushing through its contradictions, which include the
emergence of identity-based minorities based on sexual preference, to develop a higher form of the
family.89

79
Harvey Cox, The Secular City (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 53
80
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, The Uprising. On Poetry and Finance. Intervention Series 14 ( Los Angeles, CA:
Semiotext(e), 2012), p. 99
81
Jean Baudrillard, “Symbolic Exchange and Death”, in Jean Baudrillard. Selected Writings, ed. by Mark Poster
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), 119-148 (p. 125); Berardi, pp. 138-9
82
Baudrillard, p. 127; Berardi, p. 101
83
Baudrillard, p. 128
84
Franco ‘Bifo’ Berardi, Precarious Rhapsody. Semiocapitalism and the Pathologies of the Post-Alpha
Generation (London: Minor Compositions, 2009), pp. 109-110
85
Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil. Essays on Extreme Phenomena (London: Verso, 1993), pp. 20-25
86
Bering, p. 160
87
Stephen Holmes, The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 6
88
Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1. 1873 Afterward to the Second German Edition
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm <accessed 5th January 2015>
89
David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (London: Profile Books Ltd., 2011), pp. 128,
131, 137
 11

Theological

Meanwhile, neo-liberal ideology reproduces the conditions for alienated labour to function within a
depersonalised economy.The boundaries of permissable speech are delineated by, what Kotkin calls,
a ‘clerisy’ of academics and media pundits allied to the techno-oligarchy. 90 But democracy depends
on not silencing alternate views. Instead of an easy-going pluralism, which assumes non-abrasive
interactions,91 Chantal Mouffe therefore advocates an approach called ‘agonistics’, a political recipe
for robust argument,92 to challenge the dominant hegemony. 93 Here, conservative Christians may
find strange allies among libertarians, who support abortion and gay rights, but also free speech:
including for opinions they disagree with, like anti-gay marriage and pro-life. 94 Theologically too,
articulate disagreement is essential;95 and this does not mean agreeing to disagree, but disagreeing
to disagree, keeping the argument open. Theologians are not neutral arbiters, but active participants
in fratricidal power disputes.96 Those who want to maintain a spurious unity deliberately forget our
history. All of our churches originated in schism. Sometimes disunity is our duty.

Christian division today lies in the context of post-christendom, and the confused response of
Christians to it.97 Liberals and conservatives may both reject Christendom, but for different reasons:
liberals because of its imposed morality, conservatives because of its compromised morality. John
Yoder referred to Christendom as Constantinianism. Essential to Constantinianism was the desire to
manage society. The problem was that it assumed Christian morality should be applicable to
unbelievers, without the resources of regeneration, the indwelling Holy Spirit, and practices of
discipleship within the saved community. Constantinianism therefore amounts to the dilution of
Christian ethics in order to be relevant. In contrast to a uniform Christendom model, however,
Yoder’s nuanced understanding listed several forms of Constantinianism. 98 Initially, there was
Constantinianism simple, under Constantine himself. Then, ‘neo-Constantinianism’ developed
through the state churches of Europe. When officially dis-established, as in the USA, ‘neo-neo-
Constantinianism’ legitimised American individualistic capitalism as an expression of Christian values.
As culture moved on , ‘neo-neo-neo- Constantinianism’ evolved. As social values were secularised,
and Christian morals weakened, the church adapted itself, to be relevant to everybody, and
therefore adopted secular values to be inclusive. 99 But, as Kierkegaard wrote, the essence of
90
Kotkin (chapter 3)
91
William E. Connolly, Pluralism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005)
92
Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics. Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013)
93
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Scoialist Strategy. Towards a Radical Democratic Politics.
Second Edition (London: Verso, 2001)
94
E.g. Spiked Online < http://www.spiked-online.com/> [accessed 19/12/14]
95
Wesley A. Kort, Bound to Differ. The Dynamics of Theological Discourse (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1992)
96
Stephen Sykes, The Identity of Christianity (London: SPCK, 1984), pp. 76-77; quoted in Robin Gill, Theology
Shaped by Society. Sociological Theology. Volume 2 (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2012), pp. 79-80
97
Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (Carlisle: Paternoster P., 2004)
98
John Howard Yoder, “The Constantinian Sources of Western Social Ethics”, in The Priestly Kingdom. Social
Ethics as Gospel (Notre Dame, I: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), 135-147 (pp. 142-143
99
John Howard Yoder, The Royal Priesthood. Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Grand Rapids, Mich: Wm.
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994), p. 197
 12

Christendom is getting rid of the offence of the gospel. 100 In effect both liberals and conservatives
hanker after different periods of Christendom, according to whether they represent the ascending or
retrenching class.

Perhaps those conservatives who genuinely withdraw from involvement in society may succeed in
surpassing Christendom. If they resist the temptation to impose morality, they may become
dissenters from current social trends. For some this may involve rending the state-church
connection,101 especially the co-opting of clergy as quasi-state officials administering legal marriages.
The state may wish to regularise and regulate peoples’ sexual and relational lives, redefining
marriage individualistically as a voluntaristic contract to include same-sex couples. In this it is
following the market by transforming sexual partners into rational economic actors, their
relationships based not on familial devotion but contractual agreement, the ethical and legal norms
characteristic of a sensate culture.102

Conservatives therefore appear to go against the flow of history. In the future, perhaps they will
become, in Pareto’s terms, a ‘residue’: holding outmoded beliefs from sentiment while ignoring
evidence and experience.103 Conservatives may then inhabit enclaves of the past, while liberals build
enclaves of the future.104 But such temporal analogies mistake temporary trends for permanent
developments. There is no Whig interpretation of (sexual) history. 105 History is not uni-directional.
We are already witnessing a reaction against the sexual license of the 1960s. Permissiveness, hailed
as liberation, is now recognised as child abuse of children and sexual harrassment. Moreover,
Christians sometimes should be oppositional. For example, the early church was an anti-imperial
movement, subverting the Roman Empire by establishing exclusive communities, built on deviational
ethics.106 But part of that unified integrated imperial system included its sexual permissiveness.
Based on power domination of the weak by the powerful, it also exemplified a life of indulgent
luxury among a ruling elite.107 William Naphy correctly asserts that it was Christians who were
abnormal in such a culture.108

Richard Neibuhr’s typology of the relation between Christ and culture helps us further understand
the two positions.109 While both might claim to be transforming culture, in reality liberals correspond
to the Christ of culture, and conservatives to the Christ against culture. Where one risks
accommodating so much that there is no difference, the other risks being so different as to have no
connection at all.110 Where the liberal has nothing to say, the conservative will not be listened to.
Contextualising the gospel is essential for mission. But this must be prophetic critical
100
Soren Kierkegaard, “The Attack on Christendom”, in A Kierkegaard Anthology, ed. by Robert Bretall
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), 434-468 (p. 445)
101
R. R. Reno, “A Time To Rend”, First Things (18 November 2014) http://www.firstthings.com/web-
exclusives/2014/11/a-time-to-rend [accessed 17 December 2014]
102
Harold O. Brown, The Sensate Culture. Western Civilization Between Chaos And Transformation (Dallas, Tx:
Word Publishing, 1996); Pitirim A. Sorokin, The Crisis Of Our Age (Oxford: One World, 1992), pp. 109-167
103
Vilfredo Pareto, The Mind and Society. A Treatise on General Sociology. Volume One: Non-Logical Conduct.
Volume Two. Theory of Residues (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1963), p. 371
104
Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (London: Pan Books, 1971), pp. 353-356
105
Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1965)
106
Richard A. Horsley, “General Introduction”, in Paul and Empire. Religion and Power in Roman Imperial
Society, ed. by Richard A. Horsley (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 1-8 (p. 8)
107
John R. Clarke, Roman Sex 100 BC - AD 250 (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2003)
108
William Naphy, Born To Be Gay. A History of Homosexuality (Stroud: Tempus Publishing Ltd., 2004), p. 269
109
H. Richard Neibhur, Christ and Culture (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 1952)
 13

contextualisation, to avoid imbibing sub-christian values. 111 The dilemma here is which position is
prophetic? Both feel embattled. The difference is who they measure themselves against; liberals
challenging homophobic sentiments in a conservative church, or conservatives resisting the apostasy
of an entire culture?112

Schoenfeld surmises that an ‘alienated class’ will withdraw from social engagement. 113 For
conservatives this could involve embracing a world-rejecting but rebellious sectarianism; 114 while
liberals craving for acceptance present no cultural sharp edges. However, with continuing numerical
decline and skepticism toward their theological, if not their sexological, peculiarities, sectarianism
may be forced upon liberals. Sectarianism is the only ecclesial organisational form adapted to
minority status. This might be presented idealistically as a radical countercultural challenge to the
system, but would be more like a sub-culture in practice. Counter-culture represents a rising critical
challenge to a system; sub-culture represents the declining relics of a once-dominant culture. A
particular danger for conservatives here is falling into a fundamentalist condemnation of all social
engagement. ‘Post-fundamentlist evangelical’ rejection of this separatism enabled a socially-relevant
version to arise after World War Two.115 But fundamentalism’s retrenchment may equally be said to
have been a precondition for evangelicalism’s later resurgence. As evangelicalism becomes
mainstream, transitioning into a ‘post-conservative evangelicalism’, 116 will it retain its
distinctiveness?

Niebuhr’s typology, however, ignores any non-conformist strategy. 117 But by rejecting his totalising
relation to fallen culture, a different culture may, however, be created, through a church embracing
its minority status. By recovering distinctive communal practices of sexual holiness and
consecration, might an alternate social reality be constructed through our culture making, 118 from
which to launch out in mission to a neo-pagan society? The question in this apocalyptic context is
which approach, conservative or liberal, will be able to accomplish this?

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Cornel West, Prophetic thought in Postmodern Times. Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism.
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John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom. Social Ethics as Gospel (Notre Dame, I: University of Notre
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John Howard Yoder, The Royal Priesthood. Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical (Grand Rapids,
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Carl C. Zimmerman, Family and Civilization (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2008)

Slavoj Žižek, In Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2009)

Slavoj Žižek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2009)