The Ecstasy of Desire: Some Notes on Asceticism and the Church of England's Living in Love and Faith

The Transcendent Capacities of Desire

Before analysing the LLF resources as such, we will begin by exploring in more detail the theological foundations of Christian ascetic praxis, especially as they pertain to theological anthropology and the character of human desire. The theological exposition of this section forms the basis of our critique of the LLF resources in section three. Let's begin by considering Thomas Aquinas:

It is evident the measure of desires appointed by a rule of human reason is different from that appointed by a divine rule. For instance, in eating, the measure fixed by human reason is that food should not harm the health of the body, nor hinder the use of reason; whereas divine rule requires that a man should chastise his body and bring it into subjection [1 Cor. 9.27], by abstinence in food, drink and the like. ⁷

What I take from Aquinas in this is the insight that human beings are capable of realising multiple goods with respect to their material or bodily needs and desires: there is a natural good—a good suited to us as the kinds of biological and social animals we are—that can be realised in eating and drinking with moderation but there is also a different, theological good which can be realised through the body via ascetic practice. Human reason suggests one kind of moderation when it comes to food, but divine rule suggests a different kind of limit, namely an ascetic limit. This ascetic limit does not follow automatically from the requirements of natural well-being because it rests upon theological premises. Food is a good for us when enjoyed in appropriate measure, but our natural desire for food can also—through ascetic practice such as fasting—be a channel for something more: for the ecstatic journey of desire toward its transcendent end in God. Hence, it is not just some moral good—such as minimising the environmental impact of meat production—which provides a reason for restraint when it comes to food but also the theological truth about the supernatural end of human life. ⁸

Mark Wynn, commenting on the earlier quoted passage from Aquinas, expresses a similar thought with respect to food and drink: ‘My habits of eating and drinking are also capable of realizing another kind of good [i.e., some God-related good] where it is some theological truth rather than my human nature which provides the standard for the appropriateness of my practice’. ⁹ Wynn expresses an important intuition, although in his use ‘the theological truth’ which provides the standard for an ascetic practice is seen as distinct from ‘my human nature’. In my understanding, however, it is precisely the theological truth about my human nature—that is, the consideration of the fullness of human nature both in its natural and supernatural dimensions—which provides the appropriate standard. Ascetic practices—such as fasting and celibacy—reflect this; theological goods can be realised in connection to the body when the truth about the supernatural fulfilment of human life rather than just some conception of natural well-being provides an ascetic standard for one's bodily practices.

The argument of this article is that it is this kind of theological asceticism that gives Christian ascetic spirituality and practice its distinct character, and it is this theological dimension the LLF resources fail to fully consider, despite references to restraint and discipline. Hence, with its emphasis on moral and natural goods the LLF resources fail to consider how the material realities of our existence as biological and social animals are relevant to the supernatural purpose of that same existence. It fails to show how human sexual habits can realise—and not simply be harmonious with—theological goods. This realisation takes place through ascetic practice: ascetic practice can realise theological goods by unravelling, through redirection and intensification, the transcendent capacities of human desire. The fact that human life also has a supernatural end in God indicates that the end of all human wanting is God: our capacity for desire is ultimately made for God and find its consummation in him. Hence, like the power of a rapidly flowing river, human desires can be harvested as energy to feed a more consuming love for God, deeper closeness with him, more intense enjoyment of him. ¹⁰ So, for example, according to Gregory of Nyssa:

It seems to me that this is – true with the human mind; if it flows in all directions, it scatters itself by running towards what is pleasing to the senses, and has no worthwhile force for its journey to the really good. But if it were called in from all sides, collected unto itself, brought together, it would move with its own natural energy and nothing would prevent it from being borne upwards and fastening itself upon the truth of reality. Just as water in a pipe, when constrained by force, often goes straight up, unable to flow elsewhere, even though its natural movement is downwards; so, also, the human mind being constrained from all directions by self-control, as by a kind of pipe, will somehow be taken up by the nature of the movement to a desire for what is above, there not being any place for it to run to. It is never possible for what has been put into eternal motion by its Creator to stop and to use its motion for useless purposes once it has been controlled and made incapable of not going directly to the truth, being kept on all sides from what is not suitable for it. ¹¹

The context of this passage is Gregory of Nyssa's treatise on virginity. As John Behr and others have argued, virginity, for Gregory, does not simply indicate a lack of certain kinds of sexual experiences but rather an inner disposition—a purity of heart dedicated to ‘unmixed pleasures’—which manifests in outward chastity. This inner disposition—‘spiritual virginity’—does not seek permanence and security in the transient things of the world, such as romantic love or sexual pleasure, but rather in God. As such spiritual virginity is—perhaps counterintuitively—compatible with a married state; the married ‘virgin’ is the one who exemplifies this ‘general attitude of non-attachment’. ¹² In our fallen state, Behr writes,

we have come to view these natural needs [for pleasure, sexual intimacy, offspring, company] as a necessity, or more precisely, we have become habituated to seeking the pleasure which accompanies the satisfaction of these natural needs for the sake of the pleasure itself. By doing this, the pleasure ceases to be finite, and takes on the infinite character of our desire; turned in on ourselves and our desires, they become a black hole. ¹³

Spiritual virginity as a disposition of non-attachment, liberates desire, allowing ‘the channelling of one's energies and erotic power, symbolized as water, in order to dry up and deny life to what is a mistaken form of attachment to impermanent things’. This results in purity of heart which reveals ‘the true and natural good of the soul’ in God. ¹⁴ In this sense, ascetic practice is also a kind of revelation: the reorientation of erotic energies through denial and limitation creates a kind of ‘appetitive stillness’ in which we might discover a deeper undercurrent of desire. This desire, being an infinite desire for the infinite God—indeed, being the desire of God's own Spirit within us—points toward the final fulfilment of our human nature in God. Hence, fruitful ascetic practice is irreducibly pneumatological, as Sarah Coakley has argued: ‘The Spirit is the vibrant point of contact and entry into the flow of this divine desire, the irreplaceable mode of invitation for the cracking open of the crooked human heart. The Spirit is the constant overflow of the life of God into creation: alluring, delighting, inflaming, in its propulsion of divine desire’. ¹⁵

What I would like to suggest in this context, then, is that desire toward God is written into human nature but not as an innate capacity that we possess and ‘use’, but rather as a grace and a gift; it is innate precisely as a longing and a lack. It is an openness that the Spirit of God takes up, directs, and transforms. As such this desire is a fundamental element of our being—it is ontological. Hence, on a phenomenological level this desire might be experienced quite differently from other desires; it might not be similarly ‘obvious’ in its immediate urgency. The phenomenological availability of this desire might require, therefore, the denial of precisely that which seems immediately urgent. Through Spirit-led ascetic practices, the deeper ontological layers of human desire can be revealed.

This reality is vividly depicted in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce in the scene in which the narrator, in the antechambers of heaven, observes a Ghost—that is, an inhabitant of hell/purgatory—who has a lizard attached to his shoulder. The lizard symbolises lust, obsessed with lesser pleasures. This lust keeps the Ghost from entering heaven and although an Angel who has come to meet the Ghost offers to kill the lizard for him, the Ghost is reluctant, afraid that the death of the lizard would be his death, too. All the while, the lizard keeps whispering to the Ghost, desperately trying to convince the Ghost to let him live. More specifically the lizard attempts to convince the Ghost that the kinds of desires and pleasures that are fit for heavenly beings are not fit for humans, that the best human beings can hope for are the ephemeral pleasures of an immanent and manageable kind. The lizard, in effect, wants to narrow the Ghost's conception of what human beings are really fit for and what kind of goods human bodies and desires are capable of realising. The lizard wants to deny that human beings are made for a supernatural end:

He [i.e., the Angel] is only a cold, bloodless abstract thing. It may be natural for him, but it isn't for us. Yes, yes. I know there are no real pleasures now, only dreams. But aren't they better than nothing? And I’ll be so good. I admit I’ve sometimes gone too far in the past, but I promise I won't do it again. I’ll give you nothing but really nice dreams—all sweet and fresh and almost innocent. ¹⁶

Despite the lizard's best attempts, the Angel manages to convince the Ghost to let him kill the lizard and so, finally, the deceptions of disorderly desire come to an abrupt end. What follows is an amazing transformation: the Ghost becomes a real human being again, solid and fleshy, and the lizard is transformed into ‘a great stallion’, ‘silvery white but with mane and tail of gold’:

The new-made man turned and clapped the new horse's neck. It nosed his bright body. Horse and master breathed each into the other’s nostrils. … In joyous haste the young man leaped upon the horse’s back. Turning in his seat he waved a farewell, then nudged the stallion with his heels. They were off before I well knew what was happening. There was riding if you like! I came out as quickly as I could from among the bushes to follow them with my eyes; but already they were only like a shooting star far off on the green plain, and soon among the foothills of the mountains. Then, still like a star, I saw them winding up, scaling what seemed impossible steeps, and quicker every moment, till near the dim brow of the landscape, so high that I must strain my neck to see them, they vanished, bright themselves, into the rose-brightness of that everlasting morning. ¹⁷

Lewis's intuitions are, I think, correct and in line with those of Gregory of Nyssa: in order that human appetitive powers might carry us to heaven, these powers must be redirected, liberated from obsession with what is immediately visible, from being wrapped around lesser goods. This transformed human desire, directed toward its proper transcendent end, is capable of ‘scaling impossible steeps’. The body is not discarded in the process, but rather it, too, is transformed; it is embodied desire which carries the new-made human being into heaven. The aim of ascetic practice, therefore, is not that desires disappear, but rather that they are purified and transformed, intensified, harnessed into the service of the supernatural end of human life. In this way desires are made true to what we are. This requires, however, that the mere lizard of lust must go; there must be a denial of what the lizard wants, a denial which will be its death, sometimes painful. Only then can there be transformation.

The theological truth about the supernatural end of human desire, then, provides a distinct standard for human sexual practices and these standards, I shall argue, are ascetic. It is through ascetic practice that we harvest desire for its true transcendent end and it is therefore through ascetic practice that we also cultivate desire in service of our ultimate happiness. It is through ascetic practice also that the body can realise theological goods, be caught up in the ecstatic movement of desire toward God. Hence—against a perhaps common misconception that asceticism is about minimising desire and neglecting the body as a mere hindrance—ascetic practice is about the embodied intensification of desire by forcing, through denial and limitation, its redirection toward higher ends. We have reason to deny ourselves some things we want not just because it would harm our neighbour or diminish some natural goods, but because giving in would be wasteful: it would mean spending our desires, our energies, for lesser ends than those that are our true happiness.

It is, of course, possible that denial and limitation of desire, especially when received as external requirements that are not properly internalised by the practitioner, yield bitter fruit: resentment, repression, hatred of the body and ultimately the self. It is possible, therefore, that distorted ascetic practice becomes as destructive as unbridled and untrained desire. It is hence worth noting that the kind of ascetic discipleship which cultivates our embodied capacity for desire toward theological goods usually requires participation in practices of communal discernment; it is together with others that we learn to discern how to live with our desires constructively rather than destructively. Such practices of communal discernment, in turn, presuppose communities that are appropriately formed by their ascetic traditions—communities that are living carriers of those traditions. Part of the argument of this article is that the Church of England has to some extent neglected its call to form this kind of community, and this lack of communal ascetic practice is one reason for its current intractable disagreements about sexual ethics. In addition, however, this lack of communal practice also makes it more difficult for individual members to engage in fruitful ascetic practices. Thus, in order that an ascetic understanding of human desire and its transcendent capacities could be made practically available for participants, a simultaneous communal revitalisation of the Church's ascetic practices is required. ¹⁸

The distortive potential of ascetic practice is also why spiritually fruitful asceticism requires involved agency: the practitioner must care about the goods involved in the practice. I will discuss this in more detail in the section that concerns true limits. For now, I will just note that the moral life requires that our desires are not simply bridled like an alien force but that they are formed according to reason and thereby harnessed toward all good things in the right order. The end goal of such formation according to reason is that the agent's desires and emotions become integrated affections which do not compete with but rather aid the agent's flourishing. Formation of such integrated affections requires involved agency; the practitioner must be free and willing to enter into these practices. ¹⁹ Another, perhaps more traditional way of putting this, would be to say that these practices are about love: a Spirit-prompted erotic desire, often at first only half-guessed, half-felt, draws the practitioner in.

While the fallen flesh still fights the Spirit's promptings (cf. Gal. 5.16-26), asceticism is the necessary pattern of this life of love; it requires a denial and limitation of desire which shoots toward lesser goods so that it can be reorientated toward higher goods. There is therefore an element of struggle in Christian spirituality and life of sanctification, but this struggle is one of Spirit-led freedom. Discovering this freedom and learning to discern when one's practices are truly Spirit-born and Spirit-led is itself part of ascetic formation, the goal of which is that one's asceticism becomes ‘a continual ascent to God and through God in order to become like God’. ²⁰

It would be mistaken, however, to assume that this emphasis on theological goods and the ascetic standards they provide, would leave moral goods out of the picture. Theological asceticism isn't a rejection of ethical asceticism, but rather its expansion. As LLF notes, virtue and well-being also require asceticism. For example, that one's spouse is a person and therefore always an end in itself means that the spouse's body is not freely available to one, to be used for purposes of one's own pleasure alone. Realising this truth requires asceticism; a denial, sometimes, of one's immediate desire and its redirection toward love. Even more so, however, such frustration of desire allows for the opportunity to direct one's desires still further toward their theological end. Hence, denials and frustrations of desire can be welcomed by the agent as opportunities for ascetic formation toward both a virtuous life with respect to immanent flourishing—including other human beings—and with respect to final flourishing.

The aim of Christian sexual ethics then is not merely that we should be well-behaved or maximise human well-being only in natural terms, but that we should be formed into the kinds of agents who are able to realise a full range of human goods as the embodied beings we are—and ultimately reach a state of final flourishing. The aim is to foster a life of fullest possible human flourishing in which our desires and loves are well-ordered so that the goods that are constitutive of our happiness can be appropriately maximised. When it comes to sexual practices, this maximal realisation of a full range of human goods—based on a holistic understanding of human life as directed both toward natural and supernatural ends—requires asceticism. In the next section I will specify this ascetic requirement by arguing that, for maximal efficiency, it must include true limits.

True Limits and the Wisdom of the Church's Ascetic Traditions

Here, then, comes perhaps the most contested part of my argument which also links these ascetic concerns with the question of marriage more specifically: the wisdom of the Church's traditional teaching on marriage as the most appropriate place for sexual intimacy lies in the insight that efficient ascetic praxes require true limits. By true limits I mean limits which are not set by the agent herself. Mere externally set limit, however, isn't sufficient for ascetic formation because such formation requires active engagement on the part of the agent and not just behavioural compliance. Hence, the external limit also has to be something the agent chooses freely because she is invested in the kinds of goods those limits promote and protect.

Effective ascetic limits, then, are externally given and voluntarily chosen: when it comes to true ascetic limit, we exercise autonomous agency in our desiring by choosing to submit ourselves to limits we have not chosen. Autonomous here does not mean wholly detached or even independent of any external causal factors. Rather, autonomy ‘is essentially a matter of whether we are active rather than passive in our motives and choices—whether, however we acquire them, they are motives and choices that we really want and are therefore in no way alien to us’. ²¹ In refraining from sexual relationships outside of marriage, then, the agent chooses to submit herself to a limit, but she does not choose the limit itself. The limit itself is given by the community of the church.

Another way to put this is in terms of first- and second-order desires: a person who embraces a true limit exercises their rational agency in choosing to act not on the first-order desire they have—such as a desire for sexual intimacy—but on a second-order desire which they ‘identify with and which expresses what they really want’ (such as the realisation of some higher good than immediate sexual gratification). ²² This separates true limit from forced limitations which do not bring with them ascetic benefits because they are not freely chosen and therefore not something that the agent is actively engaged with by actually caring about and being invested in the goods involved. In other words, true limits require involved agency: acting for reasons the agent wants to act for and with which she therefore identifies, and toward ends the agent wants to have as her aims and with which she identifies. In this sense involved agency is about what one loves. So, for example, a person who lives a celibate life due to circumstances beyond their control and wholly resents their situation is not likely to reap significant ascetic benefits from their celibacy. In fact, since praxis and formation require involved agency, their celibacy would not really be a praxis at all—ascetic or other—rather, simply an unfortunate situation that has befallen them. Notably, however, a person who lives a celibate life due to circumstances beyond their control—because they have not, for example, found a spouse despite their efforts—can embrace celibacy as a true limit as long as they exercise involved agency in freely caring about the goods involved—such as the pursuit of some theological goods—and want to have those goods as their aim.

True limit, then, requires two complementary conditions: (i) the agent exercises involved agency in freely choosing to submit to the limit and (ii) they do not choose the limit itself. For the most efficient kind of ascetic praxes, such true limits are required. It is, perhaps, easy enough to agree with the first condition—it is the second one that requires some elaboration. Why should the limit be set by someone outside the agent? And why should the one setting the limit be the Church (which, after all, is also made up of human beings)?

Let's begin with the first question. Human tendency toward self-deception, rendered intelligible by the Christian doctrine of the fall, is the main reason why such true limits are required and why they should be given by something other than the agent: we cannot trust ourselves enough to leave it to ourselves to decide entirely the limits of our desiring because we have a tendency to justify taking what we want just because we want it while deceiving ourselves with a different story about our motivations. ‘The human heart and mind are deep’ and desires, too, can be deceptive, at times intractable, rarely entirely transparent. ²³ This subtle tendency toward expanding the limits of our desiring would—if left unchecked—undo the whole concept of limit: it is no true limit which can be moved if the agent happens to want it. Hence, it is not enough that the agent exercises involved agency in setting limits to the pursuit of their desires: the agent must exercise that agency with respect to limits they have not chosen.

Human tendency toward self-deception is also the reason the limits should be concrete and clear. While, then, I am very sympathetic to Sarah Coakley's concerns—that rather than focusing solely on arguing about marriage in the Church or blessing same-sex unions we should focus on the deeper theological meaning of desire and its ascetic formation—I think we also need to have concrete rubrics for conduct which, in their concrete clarity, put a check on the subtleties of deceptive desire. ²⁴ We are, after all, capable of masking rogue desire through complex moral musings. Hence, ascetic formation requires that at some point our desires face a concrete wall; something other than ourselves limits them. The ascetic practices the church recommends need to be concrete.

There is some of this, of course, in the sort of sexual ethic that mostly focuses on moral goods and well-being: in the context of sexual relationships the other forms a very concrete limit to our desire. Minimally, we cannot seek the fulfilment of our desires in a way that ignores consent and hence would treat the other as mere means. This, however, does not yet do much from the perspective of desire's formation: two or more rogue desires consensually put together does not yet equal ascetic training of desire toward the full range of available human goods, natural and theological. More maximally, the requirement to treat the other in accordance with certain virtues—such as selflessness or kindness—also concretises the other as a limit. This virtue-requirement has more formative potential but on its own it, too, falls short: since these virtues themselves require some pre-existing ascetic formation we need something (i.e., abstinence well-lived) which gears us toward them before we enter into a sexual relationship with another (i.e., marriage). A person cannot, after all, selflessly prioritise the needs of the other if her untrained desire for the body of the other runs so unbridled that it overrides her moral intentions.

Hence, to specify the second condition of true limit, merely putting two wills together does not yet constitute a sufficiently external limit because we can, of course, be doubly deceived by our desires. Thus, the decision over limits cannot be left to the couple to decide together any more than it can be left to an individual to decide on her own since mutual self-deception is possible. The limits should therefore be external to the relationship.

Now, the central point I wish to make in relation to the LLF resources is that these sorts of true limits make little sense from the perspective of a sexual ethic which conceptualises the goods ascetic restraint is to promote merely in natural and moral terms since—if both partners are consenting and if the virtue requirement is fulfilled—no immediate harm is done to any person and significant human goods can be realised. Viewed from the point of view of natural and moral goods, then, mere ethical asceticism seems sufficient: there is enough restraint and discipline already in the requirement for consent and virtue.

However, if we keep in mind that human bodily practices are also capable of realising theological goods, a different kind of ascetic standard emerges. This theological ascetic standard, as I indicated in the introduction, isn't discerned as straightforwardly as ethical restraints are because it draws its logic and rule from a spiritual vision of the supernatural fulfilment of human life in God. Discerning this limit requires spiritual formation. It is because of the character of this knowledge that the Church as a community rather than just individuals or couples themselves should ‘set the limit’. This is especially so if we have reasons to assume, as I have suggested we have, that real knowledge about human desires—due to our tendency toward self-deception and the moral character of this knowledge in general—is also hard to come by and requires extended practical engagement with lived spiritual praxes. ²⁵ True knowledge about the workings of desire is the kind of moral knowledge that also requires formation.

This is why—to answer the second question—the Church is a trustworthy source for such limits: the collective wisdom about human desires amassed through thousands of years of actual ascetic practice, contemplative hermeneutics, and prayer gives credibility to its traditional teaching. Hence, those who lack the relevant formation themselves can receive this teaching, trusting in the accumulated wisdom and understanding behind it. This traditional teaching, of course, has not emerged out of nowhere but is based upon prayerful reading of Scriptures. Although this practice of communal, contemplative and prayerful reading of Scriptures cannot be artificially severed from the context of the Church's lived tradition—as if one could ever read the Scriptures in a vacuum, over and against tradition—it nevertheless is what grants the Church's teaching its ultimate authority as not mere human wisdom but rather ‘divine rule’ and wisdom.

This also means that it is possible for the Church to undermine its own authority on this issue if it fails to engage with and be formed by these ascetic traditions and practices: it is possible—and to some extent the LLF resources demonstrates this—for the Church to become unmoored from the practical basis of its own teaching about human desires and thereby, often almost imperceptibly, submit its teaching to a different standard. The Church's sexual ethical teaching, then, stems from and is justified not simply by Scriptures but also by the accumulated practical wisdom of the Church's ascetic traditions in light of which these Scriptures are read. It is this ascetic wisdom and understanding concerning human desires that has bequeathed us with the true limits of the Church's teaching on issues of sexuality—i.e., the importance of abstinence, the beauty of celibacy, and the exclusivity of marriage as the only appropriate context for sexual activity—and which also has realised these limits in terms of concrete rubrics.

Hence, I will call marriage, abstinence, and celibacy ‘the rubrics’ of Christian sexual ethics: three sufficiently clearly defined contexts which function as true limits to sexual relationships. For the purposes of this article, I shall define these rubrics as follows:

Marriage: a life-long, faithful and exclusive union between a man and a woman which includes intentional and public commitment. ²⁶

What is noticeable about rubrics is that they are a limitation: they present a true limit to human conduct. That is the central point of the rubrics: they are concrete, true limits which aid us in formation of desire and in realising, through the body, a full range of human goods. Hence, rubrics should be distinguished from virtues and should not be replaced by them. It is not a sufficient rubric for sexual conduct to say, for example, that we should always be kind and selfless because such an exhortation is not sufficiently specific in itself to yield any particular, concrete limitations which would aid in the ascetic formation of desire toward both moral and theological ends. Virtues and considerations of well-being are vitally important for Christian sexual ethics, but they should not replace the rubrics.

The rubrics—and Christian sexual ethics in general—are about formation: the aim of Christian sexual ethics in the Church is to provide guidance for how Christians are to live with their sexual desires in a way that harvests these desires toward genuine human goods, the dual—natural and supernatural—purposes of human life. The emphasis, then, is on becoming particular kinds of desiring agents, the sort whose desires are well-ordered. Another way to put this, and one that will be favoured here, is to say that marriage, abstinence, and celibacy are the three means of sanctification of sexual desire; they are the rubrics for holiness in the area of sexuality in Christian life. ²⁷ And since holiness or sanctification is holistic in its scope—one cannot be holy only in one area of one's life—holiness in the area of sexuality is needed for holiness and sanctification of human life in general.

Holiness is the character of Christian life of discipleship as dedicated or consecrated to God. It is connected, in the biblical context, with Israel's temple cult: a Christian is someone in whom God's own Spirit dwells as in the Holiest of Holies and hence she is ‘not her own’ but rather consecrated to God (1 Cor. 6.19). Therefore, she must live in a way that reflects that holiness. In Romans (12.1), the body of a Christian is likened to the holiness of the temple sacrifice: ‘Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship [λογικὴν λατρείαν]’. ²⁸ The word used by Paul in this context—λατρεία—carries associations of temple cult and worship. I suggest therefore that we understand holiness as consecration: in holy lives the natural and supernatural ends of human beings are aligned, and things that otherwise would have been mere natural goods and basic biological needs (food, drink, sex) are turned into complex goods relevant to not just natural human ends but supernatural ones as well. ²⁹ In this way, holiness is not simply about, say, some external standards of ‘purity’ but the dedication—consecration—of all of human life, including its materiality, to God.

As such consecration means difference, being set apart. ³⁰ This difference isn't a form of arbitrary segregation realised through equally arbitrary rules and regulations, an exercise in playing religion. Israel was given the law for her sanctification; she was sanctified so that she could fulfil her purpose as the Lord's chosen people, chosen for the worship of and fellowship with the Holy One. It was this end which gave Israel's existence its difference, setting it apart. The invitation to a fellowship with the Holy One has been expanded to all peoples now through Jesus Christ, so the Church proclaims, but the pattern remains: it is this final, supernatural end and purpose of our human life which structures sanctification, giving our life in Christ its distinct rhythm. ³¹ Holy lives are lives lived in light of our supernatural end and toward that end; it is the orientation which sets them apart, making them different. Sanctification of desire, then, means just this: its orientation toward the ultimate and letting go of anything which hinders this orientation. Or, as the 1928 Prayer Book put it, desire is ‘hallowed’ and so ‘directed aright’. This is what, as John Webster points out, Calvin called Christian ‘philosophy’, wisdom for living: ‘It is chiefly known as giving place to God, submission and subjection which corresponds to the fact that the inflamed, proud, competent self, full of that jumble of desire and anxiety which is the sinner's grief, has been killed at the cross, and so can, and must, be abandoned’. Through sanctification we become ‘renewed for the active life of holy fellowship with God’. Hence, ‘it is the renewal of the relation to God which is the heart of holiness’. ³²

The Argument

It is at this point that we can finally assess more specifically the significance of my argument for blessing same-sex couples and unions in the Church of England. More specifically, the argument that emerges from the discussions in previous sections is three-fold. First, (i) in order to be able to discern together a way forward, the Church of England should revitalise its own ascetic traditions and the kinds of practices these traditions entail because these practices do not merely exemplify a certain kind of theological understanding but rather they constitute theological understanding that might not be otherwise available. Second, (ii) this revitalisation of ascetic spirituality and practices does not inevitably yield conservative results; it is possible that same-sex unions could be included in the ascetic framework as a fourth rubric. The second part of the argument, then, is about what this kind of inclusion would require. Third, (iii) the current practice of blessing same-sex couples in the Church of England undermines (i) and fails to fully consider the ascetic dimensions of (ii). Notice, however, that (ii) is not intended as an argument for the moral and theological validity of same-sex unions as such. Such an argument would require extended discussion of a variety of issues that are beyond the scope of this article. Instead, the scope of this argument is more limited: the point is to ask what it would take for same-sex unions to be included as a fourth rubric if we were to think of them as morally and theologically valid. ⁵⁶ Although the main focus of this article is the Church of England, this argument can be extended, with appropriate modifications, to other churches that face similar issues. The Church of England, then, is here taken as a kind of case study to highlight some of the relevant issues and how they play out in concrete contexts.

The Revitalisation of Ascetic Traditions

We will begin, then, with the first part of the argument that our discussion of asceticism and true limits has yielded: the revitalisation of ascetic traditions. When viewed through the ascetic lens, we might discover that the central issue with blessing same-sex unions goes deeper—and beyond—than that of mere gender. The issue of theological asceticism concerns both same-sex and heterosexual non-married partnerships. More specifically, what both conservative and liberal sides of the debate might have neglected is that the defining issue might not be (only) gender but rather the ascetic core of Christian sexual ethical teaching and the kind of holistic theological anthropology it indicates. Here the need for the Church to rediscover its teaching on marriage and abstinence for all its members becomes centrally important. Rediscovery in this context cannot mean simply some kind of half-hearted restatement of the traditional teaching but rather a renewed, lived engagement with the ascetic spirituality and praxes that teaching presupposes.

More profoundly, without such revitalisation of the relevant teaching and practices, the Church might be unable to discern a way forward when it comes to welcoming and making visible queer persons within it. It is not simply that the Church has become unmoored from the theological framework which would yield its traditional sexual ethical teaching intelligible. It is, rather, that the Church has lost the kind of spirituality and praxes which used to yield that framework itself credible, accessible and intelligible; the traditional rubrics are, it seems at times, practical remnants of lost theological understanding, divorced from the tradition which gave them credibility. ⁵⁷

It is this loss of a shared tradition which also engenders intractable disagreements. Plausibly this is so because the relevant kind of ethical knowledge is to a significant degree constituted by the appropriate praxis. In this view, certain types of ethical knowledge are not constituted in abstract principles or rules and simply embodied in the corresponding ethical practices like a house embodies the plans of its architect—plans which, presumably, are readily available and intelligible regardless of whether one has ever seen the house that embodies them. Rather, ethical knowledge constituted by practice is only available and intelligible through the relevant practices, sometimes non-discursively, and the loss of the relevant practices results in the loss of the kind of ethical understanding they constitute. ⁵⁸ It might be the case that not all ethical knowledge works this way, but knowledge of the workings of human desire and its limits would, in my view, present a credible candidate for such knowledge.

Thus, the Church's loss of its traditional practices concerning abstinence, celibacy and marriage is not incidental to its current struggles with certain theological disagreements. The primacy of praxis as constitutive of ethical understanding indicates that, perhaps, ultimately the Church is not so divided on the issue of same-sex relationships because different parties disagree on theological points—although that, too, is important. Rather, underlying these profound theological disagreements is an even more profound rift: loss of common praxes and the kind of shared—albeit often implicit—ethical understanding and scriptural hermeneutics they engender. This shows up in the way the Church now struggles to find some kind of shared ground for theological reasoning about the matters of sexuality and Scriptures: we encounter such a struggle because the required theological reasoning rests upon shared praxes which themselves constitute shared understanding. Having lost the ascetic framework and praxes which used to provide, often implicitly, shared ground for theological reasoning about these matters, the Church is now at loss as to how to proceed with its process of discernment.

Including Same-Sex Unions as a Fourth Rubric

Traditionally, of course, the Church's ascetic traditions have thought of same-sex relationships as illegitimate, and hence it has been taken as a given that they cannot be included into the ascetic rubrics of Christian sexual ethics. However, the kind of revitalisation this article advocates for does not need to be taken as a form of covert conservativism; revitalisation implies, in my meaning, a tradition-embedded but contextually attuned creative engagement with ascetic theology, spirituality and practice. Hence, it embodies what Peter H. Sedgwick has called ‘the habitus of Anglican moral theology’ as pastoral and seeking accommodation. ⁵⁹ He writes:

The link between moral theology and pastoral care is central in marking out an Anglican approach to moral theology. In Roman Catholicism norms often take on an absolute status because they can always be watered down in pastoral practice. Anglican moral theology at its best was and is written by those with a pastoral concern for parishioners, or those for whom there was chaplaincy provision. Moral norms which do not mesh with life are rejected, but there is no ‘built-in tendency towards accommodation and dilution’. Both approaches have their merits, but it is important not to be apologetic about the reluctance in Anglicanism to assert absolute norms. ⁶⁰

Hence, it is not inevitable in the Anglican context that the revitalisation of ascetic traditions leads to nothing more but the reaffirmation of the traditional three-fold rubrics. It is also possible for the creative revitalisation of ascetic traditions to lead to the inclusion of same-sex unions as a fourth rubric. This can be done in a way that stems from a renewed understanding of the significance of the Church's ascetic traditions. The conservative side, then, does not have a monopoly on tradition and limit; further inclusion of same-sex couples does not require sacrificing asceticism. What is required, instead, is—as Robert Song has argued—‘a major reimagination of the churches’ relation to the culture, one that no longer secretly draws sustenance from clinging to past settlements and that harbours no surreptitious hopes for returning to them’. As Song affirms, however, ‘such reimagination emphatically does not mean endorsement of current trends’. Rather, ‘it requires working out of the Church's own deepest and best understanding of its own resources, recognizing that its own part-marginality affords it the opportunity to step back and think creatively about how it is to engage’. ⁶¹

More specifically, the appropriation of same-sex unions as a fourth ascetic rubric would require articulating clearly defined, concrete limits for faithful and life-long covenantal same-sex unions—limits which would parallel those of heterosexual marriage, including also abstinence as the ideal state for a person who is yet to enter such a covenantal union. This, in turn, would—as was argued earlier—require the revitalisation of the Church's ascetic practices and traditions more generally. Without such a revitalisation of certain ascetic requirements for all persons, requirements of abstinence for Christian same-sex couples whose unions have not been blessed by the Church will smack of hypocrisy.

PLF, the Church of England, and Asceticism

The theological considerations of the previous sections take us to the last part of the argument: that in its current form the Church of England's decision to bless same-sex couples undermines the revitalisation of ascetic traditions, thereby making further discernment concerning same-sex unions more difficult. In its current form, the Church of England's response also fails to fully consider, especially in ascetic terms, what it would require to fully appropriate same-sex unions as a fourth rubric. In order to understand how this might be, a brief comparison with the Roman Catholic Church's recent official document on similar themes, Fiducia Supplicans, can be helpful and I will hence structure this section in dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church's official position on the issue. ⁶²

Fiducia Supplicans and the Church of England's Living in Love and Faith Pastoral Guidance both affirm that the marriage doctrines of their respective denominations remain unchanged. According to Fiducia Supplicans, the Roman Catholic Church's doctrine of marriage ‘remains firm’: marriage is ‘the exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children’ (4). It also a sacrament and hence a source of special grace and blessing. The document therefore affirms that marriage remains the only context in which ‘sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning’ (4). The Church of England's bishops’ letter of response also reaffirms the Church's traditional teaching on marriage (for now, at least): the Holy Matrimony is ‘a union permanent and life-long—of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all the others’, rooted in creation, open to procreation and recognised as a source of particular blessing, sacramental albeit not a sacrament. ⁶³ TPI and other LLF resources also reaffirm the Church's teaching on marriage as the most appropriate context for sexual intimacy: ‘The introduction of PLF [Prayers of Love and Faith] does not change the shape of marriage in the Church's doctrine nor its understanding of the place of sexual intimacy within marriage. Those with responsibility for teaching the faith should continue to articulate the Church's doctrine’. ⁶⁴

Given that the Church of England's traditional teaching on marriage has not changed, the question arises what the theological foundations are for offering these prayers of blessing for same-sex couples who, presumably, live in sexual relationships that do not constitute a marriage in the Church's understanding. TPI and other official LLF documents attempt to skirt this issue by presenting The Prayers of Love and Faith and the proposed standalone services which are based upon them as pastoral responses. Unlike in case of the Rite of Holy Matrimony, then, ‘the PLF fall short of speaking of the entire relationship as a way of life’ and avoid any language that could be seen as affirming the goodness of the sexual relationship between the two persons as such. PLF, instead, are ‘more restricted, more modest, and acknowledge what we can unambiguously affirm as good: faithfulness, lifelong commitment, mutual love and flourishing, fruitfulness, stability’, remaining ‘silent on those things on which the Church has not found a place of consensus’. ⁶⁵

In the Church of England's bishop's letter of response there are also reflections upon blessing which seem to suggest the possibility that blessing does not always entail affirming that those who are blessed ‘live good lives or make good choices’; a blessing does not always imply approval. ⁶⁶ Fiducia Supplicans makes a similar point, but more clearly: ‘The request for a [non-liturgical] blessing—expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy and closeness to God’ and is hence ‘a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered’ (33) and which therefore, like liturgy, expresses a trusting attitude toward God ‘even in the midst of our sins, lack of merits, weaknesses, and confusions’ (34). Thus, ‘when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it—[and] those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection’ (25).

The LLF resources and Fiducia Supplicans share, then, the view that blessing does not necessarily indicate an approval of the whole way of life of those who are blessed. However, unlike Fiducia Supplicans, the LLF resources leave the actual moral status of same-sex sexual relationships ambivalent while affirming that these relationships can be a source of various human goods. Fiducia Supplicans, on the other hand, is not predicated upon a disagreement about the moral status of same-sex relationships nor does it seem similarly open to genuine disagreement in the Roman Catholic Church with respect to the issue. While there are, of course, Roman Catholics who take the moral status of life-long, faithful same-sex sexual relationships to be equal to marriage, such views are outside the bounds of official Roman Catholic teaching. Hence, while also intended as a pastoral rather than doctrinal response, Fiducia Supplicans takes a more cautious approach to blessing same-sex couples. This becomes evident in the practical and liturgical implications of it. Fiducia Supplicans is quick to make good of its affirmation of the Roman Catholic Church's traditional teaching on marriage by asserting that the blessing of same-sex couples should not take place in a way that could be confused with marriage—or in a way that would indicate blessing the union of the persons involved. To avoid such confusion the form of this blessing should not be ‘fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities’ (31). Instead, the form should remain non-ritualised, left to the practical discernment of the priest (37). These blessings should therefore be ‘spontaneous’ (38) and non-standardised so as to avoid them becoming ‘a liturgical or a semi-liturgical act’ (36). More specifically, ‘this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them. Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding’ (39). Instead, these blessings may find their place ‘in other contexts, such as a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a prayer recited in a group, or during a pilgrimage’ (40).

Church of England's General Synod's official documents also assert that Prayers of Love and Faith do not ‘treat the relationship of the couple as being Holy Matrimony’ and ‘are not being commended for use in a way that does that or gives that impression’. The prayers do not, for example, ‘refer to, or take account of, a couple's civil marital status’. ⁶⁷ Nevertheless, there are no strict guidelines in TPI or elsewhere as to things like clothing and the liturgical resources of PLF are also intended to be used in standalone services. The PLF standalone services also include gestures which are reminiscent of the Rite of Holy Matrimony, such as exchange of rings, and prayers which mention words like ‘commitment’ and ‘covenant’. ⁶⁸ In contrast to Fiducia Supplicans, then, the Church of England's new resources for blessing same-sex couples are intended as at least a semi-liturgical resource, offering prayers and an outline structure for a service of blessing. Hence, unlike in Fiducia Supplicans, in the LLF resources the blessings offered to same-sex couples are intentionally meant to differ from the kind of spontaneous blessings a priest may offer in a variety of circumstances.

However, despite the fact LLF has resulted in a liturgically more robust response than Fiducia Supplicans, it is not accompanied by an equally robust theological and ethical response. Rather, the LLF resources insist that the Church of England's doctrine of marriage, including teaching concerning it as the most appropriate context for sexual relationships, remains unchanged. As a result, a gap emerges between the Church's official doctrine and its practice. The LLF resources attempt to bridge this gap by framing PLF as a pastoral response: blessing, as the bishops suggested, need not indicate approval. This pastoral response argument, however, would work better in the context of something like the kinds of informal, non-liturgical blessings Fiducia Supplicans affirms as valid; it is less clear how it works in the context of PLF. ⁶⁹

As such PLF puts pressure on the Church of England's doctrine of marriage and the kinds of true limits it entails. It introduces a kind of grey area, unstructured by any clear rubrics, to the Church's sexual ethical teaching. This, unfortunately, could potentially result in further loss of the kind of practices that could provide ascetic formation for human desires, and thereby undermine attempts to revitalise the Church's ascetic traditions and spirituality. While Fiducia Supplicans, then, might be considered an inadequate response for a variety of reasons, it at least can be thought to succeed in its own terms by gesturing toward broader inclusion of LGBTQ + persons in a way that is consistent with upholding the Roman Catholic Church's teaching on marriage. In this way, with its clarity, Fiducia Supplicans also upholds a sense of ‘true limit’, embodied by the traditional ‘rubrics’ of marriage, abstinence, and celibacy, which is vital for the ascetic formation of human desires. However, the price of this seems to be that its gains in terms of actual inclusion of LGBTQ + persons remain meagre.

In their current form, then, PLF and its attendant practices do not constitute a full inclusion of same-sex unions as a fourth ascetic rubric because they are predicated upon theological vagueness. Part of the reason why the LLF resources—especially the official General Synod documents—are so ambivalent about the status of blessed same-sex couples is that one of their main aims, in addition to inclusion, is to preserve unity; offering resources for blessing same-sex couples is also, if we are being honest about it, a kind of compromise which somewhat intentionally leaves the moral status of their unions in an ethical limbo. Especially the General Synod legal documents, then, are in many ways an attempt at a political compromise. The unfortunate theological and practical consequence of this compromise is an ambivalence that seems to be suggesting that the best the Church can offer for some of its members is an ethical limbo without any clear rubrics for how they might pursue a life of holiness.

In order for same-sex unions to be included as a fourth rubric, then, this vagueness would have to be corrected. We should note, however, that this, of course, gets to the very heart of the debate that currently divides the Church: the moral status of same-sex relationships and whether they can actually be morally on par with abstinence, celibacy and marriage. There might, however, be a way of balancing clarity with disagreement if the Church can reach back toward more fundamental agreement on the nature of desire and human flourishing and reground itself in the relevant ascetic traditions. It could be sufficient for the Church to agree that difficult disagreements persist and there are two recognised, legitimate approaches to same-sex partnerships—blessed, covenantal, exclusive, life-long unions for those who think that the moral status of these relationships is on par with heterosexual marriage and celibacy for those LGTBQ + Christians who cannot reconcile their ethical convictions with living in a same-sex relationship. The Church could thereby have two clearly defined rubrics for same-sex attracted members and although these rubrics would be based upon some differing theological convictions, they would also have significant points of agreement. They could, first, agree on the kind of full conception of human flourishing which has been articulated in this article and both would therefore be attentive to the full range of human goods—natural, moral and theological—that this framework entails. This theological and ethical framework, in turn, would yield an understanding of the importance of ascetic formation of desire, aiding the revitalisation of the distinct ascetic patterns of Christian life of desire.

One might ask, of course, how the Church is capable of achieving even this level of ‘agreement in disagreement’ if it lacks the kind of shared ascetic spirituality and praxis that common discernment about these themes would require. The revitalisation of asceticism, however, should not be considered as something which must chronologically precede any process of discernment and decision making concerning the rubrics (and indeed, given that the LLF process has been going on for some time already, this wouldn't even be possible). Hence, there is a possibility that the decision to appropriate same-sex unions as a fourth rubric could be a part of this commitment to revitalisation rather than simply its end result. However, in order to see whether this is possible, the Church needs to fully consider the significance of true limit and the kind of clarity it requires; it would need to commit itself communally to seeking theological discernment through intentional revitalisation of ascetic practices and limits, even amid disagreements, confusions and incomplete understandings.

This kind of dual rubric strategy, then, could be a way of balancing between two realities: the fact of disagreement as to the moral status of same-sex unions in the Church and the fact that keeping same-sex relationships in a perpetual ethical limbo is both practically unsustainable and wrong toward LGBTQ+ Christians. This would also accord with the Living in Love and Faith process’s aim of hearing LGTBQ + persons and paying attention to their lived experiences. However, this dual strategy would also go beyond just listening to LGBTQ + persons by also empowering them to exercise communally embedded, autonomous agency in choosing how to live out their (queer) identities within limit-providing formative rubrics. ⁷⁰ At the same time, the challenge for the dual rubric strategy would be to navigate it in a manner that avoids relativising both options since in the understanding of the participants, both ways of living—celibacy and covenantal unions—express moral absolutes and not just personal preferences. Treating them as anything less would be hurtful for both sides. ⁷¹

For the dual rubric strategy to succeed, then, the theological rationale for both options—covenantal unions and celibacy—should be made clear and both should be kept as live options and neither option should thought of simply as a political act or a form of activism; there must be an element of vocational grace in both. This requires that the Church should also make space for those LGBTQ + Christians who have chosen celibacy and who discover the distinct gift of their vocation through it. The Church should also support its members in discerning between the two options of covenantal union and celibacy, and in living in their chosen vocations. Fortunately, LLF does address this issue somewhat and provides some promising resources for this such as liturgical resources for covenanted friendships. The task for the Church now is to elicit a broader cultural shift where celibate vocations are recognised. Such recognition of celibate vocations—also for unmarried heterosexual Christians—should be accompanied by intentional efforts to build communal ways of life which make such vocations liveable. ⁷²

In addition to these, the Church of England also needs to do constructive theological work on rethinking the significance of the body. It is through the body after all, as John Paul II famously argued in his Wednesday audiences, that the gift of the person is received. ⁷³ It is through the body that we give ourselves to others in love and embark on an ecstatic adventure of desire; through the body we realise our capacity for devotion, whether in covenantal relationships or in celibacy, liberated from the self-enclosed existence of the fallen self. It is through the body, therefore, that we and our loves become visible.

This is the body's gift, its blessing, waiting to be realised. Already now our desire beckons us toward this gift. The final gift of our embodied humanity, its fellowship with God who himself became enfleshed, God whose Spirit now desires in us this final life of love, lies beyond our natural capacities and can therefore only ever be received freely, by grace, never grasped or possessed. In this way our desire, seeking its fulfilment beyond itself, carried beyond its capacity into God's own Trinitarian ecstasy, signals our lack of self-sufficiency. And yet this transcendent source and end of our desire isn't immediately obvious for us who are fallen; it unfolds through a process of purification. Hence, through an ascetic pilgrimage of denial and deferral our desire is stretched, made more capacious. Its transcendent capacities unravel:

The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire. Now what you long for, you do not yet see: howbeit by longing, you are made capable, so that when that has come which you may see, you shall be filled. For just as, if you would fill a bag, and know how great the thing is that shall be given, you stretch the opening of the sack or the skin, or whatever else it be; you know how much you would put in, and see that the bag is narrow; by stretching you make it capable of holding more: so God, by deferring our hope, stretches our desire; by the desiring, stretches the mind; by stretching, makes it more capacious. Let us desire therefore, my brethren, for we shall be filled. ⁷⁴