Abstract
In relation to current tensions in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion concerning the blessing of same-sex unions, this is a very timely book. Addressed to Anglican Evangelicals in particular, it is a sophisticated attempt by one of their own to set the debate between conservative and progressive Evangelicals in a wider historical and cultural context. This is done with a view, not so much to persuade of the rightness of one position over another, as to defuse hostilities, increase mutual understanding, and offer positive ways forward. The central thesis is that ‘the sexuality debate has become weaponized in a culture war over responses to modernity between conservatives and progressives’ (p. 162). In other words, more is at stake than differences over sexual morality. A proxy war is taking place where what is really at stake is an ongoing and uncomfortable negotiation between Evangelicalism and modernity. Among Vasey-Saunders’ main arguments are the following.
First, the claim of conservatives to be defending – against the onslaught of modernity – the understanding of sexuality taught by Scripture and tradition fails to recognize the extent to which its own position, ironically, is indebted to modern insights. A case in point in Chapter 1 (‘Evangelicals talking about sexuality’) is the evangelical acceptance of the modern category ‘homosexuality’ and of homosexuality as a naturally occurring sexual orientation. Related to this, and a further departure from pre-modern Christian mores, is the recognition by Evangelicals (John Stott among others) that homophobia is sinful.
Chapter 2 (‘Evangelicals talking about Scripture’) offers a survey of contemporary evangelical interpretations of what are commonly regarded as key biblical texts. His argument here is not only that Evangelicals differ over what the key texts are and how to interpret them, but – more significantly – that the choices made and interpretations offered are shaped by divergences between conservatives and progressives over doctrine, and the doctrine of marriage in particular, itself a response to developments in modernity such as the equality of the sexes and the advent of contraception. According to Vasey-Saunders, ‘Where conservatives [responding to the advent of contraception] have developed the tradition towards emphasizing the relational aspect of marriage over the procreational, yet kept a strong sense of the importance of sexual difference, progressives wish to go further in de-emphasizing the importance of sexual difference within marriage’ (p. 72). But the main point is that the conservative position, as well as the progressive, represents a development of evangelical teaching in the light of modernity.
Chapters 3 and 4 advance the argument by situating the sexuality debate in wider historical contexts. In Chapter 3 (‘Evangelicals talking to Evangelicals’), Vasey-Saunders argues interestingly that evangelical hostility towards the liberalism of the modern world in the twentieth century generated an identity crisis within Anglicanism. Evangelical estrangement from ‘the world’ became intra-mural, with conservatives at sharp odds with progressives. Against this backdrop, positions on sexual morality (as also on the ordination of women to the priesthood) became a test of faithfulness to the gospel, and debates over sexuality became politicized, even weaponized. To understand the vehemence and toxicity of the internecine warfare, Vasey-Saunders makes valuable use of philosopher René Girard’s account of the typical behaviour of ‘scandalized communities’ in times of crisis and the practice of making scapegoats.
The final stage in the argument comes in Chapter 4 (‘Evangelicals talking about modernity: the question behind the question’). Here, in engagement principally with the cultural analyses offered by American Evangelicals, Vasey-Saunders caps his argument that ‘conflict over sexuality is symptomatic of a far larger and deeper conflict within both church and society about how to respond to modernity’ (p. 115). The question behind the question has to do with an evangelical worldview where modernity is characterized in largely dystopian terms as ‘monstrous’ and ‘spiritually dangerous’, with the sexuality debate as one of a number of fault lines where points of accommodation with, or resistance to, modernity function to distinguish conservatives from progressives. According to Vasey-Saunders, however, an advance beyond the polarizing tendencies of such a worldview is possible; and to good effect he draws the more sanguine and multifaceted cultural analyses of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre into the conversation.
Given that the sexuality debate is a proxy war over evangelical Anglican responses to modernity, a brief concluding chapter offers ‘Advice to a divided church’: avoid peremptory claims about what position constitutes a ‘first order’ issue of faith; depolarize the debate; avoid demonizing modernity; stay humble and listen openly; and recognize the complexity of the conversation. All this sounds eminently sensible and congruent with the argument of the book as a whole.
Vasey-Saunders is to be commended for this insightful work of analysis, contextualization and practical advice. Its relevance extends far beyond the confines of the debates and ruptures in Anglican Evangelicalism. For this reader, it also poses a question which the historical and cultural analysis only hints at – namely, what vision of God is at stake and what theological insights and practices of prayer might help bridge the divides.