Christianity: Relationship or Dogma?

Another excellent article from Giles Fraser in this past week's Church Times: Are you Anglican or C of E?

My question, for all Christians is a closely related question: Is Christianity about relationships or about dogma? For my money, St. Paul answered this question in a number of places, particularly in Galatians and in his magisterial poem on love: 1 Corinthians 13 which is not primarily about romantic love, but is part of the argument that if you say you have religion but you don't have love, you are but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

In our still-modern, post-modern world, we are always tempted to make Christianity about dogma: about knowing the 'right' dogma, teaching the 'right' dogma, believing the 'right' dogma. The problem is that true Christianity is not so much about what ideas we have, but how we relate to other people and to God. When we make any issue more important than agape love, we have lost our way.

1993 Resolutions on Human Sexuality

I have just received some summary documents from The Annual Conference of The British Methodist Church. I note that one of the resolutions we passed was

'...the need to transcend the common habit of discussing the 1993 Resolutions as if they were solely about homosexuality.'

This got me wondering how many Methodists have actually read the resolutions? Because homosexuality isn't really their main focus. They are - as the title suggests - about human sexuality.  

Here is a link to the resolutions on the official Methodist Website: Human Sexuality The page also includes a bit of further discussion and some links.

As I understand the 'debate' about reviewing these resolutions within our denomination, there are people on 'both sides' of the homosexuality issue who want the possibility of individual interpretation closed on the matter of homosexual acts. Some want a clear condemnation of all homosexual acts. Others want a clear permission to bless Civil Partnerships in church.

Why were these resolutions not reviewed?  I was present at Conference when the possible review of the resolutions was discussed. Conference had asked for written responses from the Methodist people and the response was huge by normal standards.  I don't remember the exact number, but David Gamble said that on most consultations if they received 5 responses from churches or Methodist members, this could be considered 'a deluge of opinion'. There were apparently hundreds of responses to the consultation request on Human Sexuality ('Pilgrimage of Faith') and the results indicated that views were about equally divided on both sides of the homosexuality issue.  Results also indicated that most respondents did not want to review the Resolutions.

In light of what is happening at Lambeth, our decision not to review might seem contentious, but it didn't seem that way at the time at Conference.  The mind of Conference seemed to be that the most preferable solution was to hold Methodism together.  

I agree with this decision because I believe that the ability to live peaceably with those with whom we don't agree is actually a more important issue of discipleship and behaviour than the sexual activity (or not) of members.  Sex is, of course - er - a 'sexier' topic than reconciliation and being able to get along with each other.  Of course, as human beings, we resist being disciplined for the sin of refusal to reconcile because we all want to save other people from themselves.  And we all commit the sin of non-reconciliation.  

(And before anyone asks, yes, this does mean that I hold myself accountable for civil interaction with people with whom I disagree.)

Sermon - The Dishonest Servant

I've posted tomorrow's (!) sermon on my sermon blog: The Dishonest Servant.

Sermon - Trinity Sunday

I've just published last week's Sermon for Trinity Sunday on my sermon blog.

I had another baptism today, in a different church than the baptism a fortnight ago. Today's sermon was simply a reworking of that sermon and so I will not publish it on the sermon blog.