Debating the Pemberton Tribunal
At the end of last calendar week I cancelled my planned writing schedule in lodge to enter what felt like a parallel universe equally I was invited to contend with Jeremy Pemberton on BBC 2'southward Victoria Derbyshire program regarding the tribunal ruling that Jeremy had not been discriminated against by the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham. I offering here some reflections on the nature of the discussion, since I recall it sheds important calorie-free on where we are heading as a Church building. A recording on YouTube is linked at the finish of this piece.
Jeremy'due south opening comment was that the verdict was no surprise to him. This was interesting, since information technology contradicted the confident comments of his supporters prior to the sentence beingness announced, and suggests that Jeremy initiated the case non because he would win, but considering information technology would gain publicity. Presumably the same will be true of his planned appeal.
Jeremy and then cited Article XXXII on clergy marriage as warranting his entering a same-sex marriage against the current teaching of the Church and the explicit direction of the House of Bishops.
In our rules we take an Article which says priests tin marry who they want to marry. You can't marry people if it is not legal to marry them only information technology was legal for me to marry. Article 32 of the 39 Articles says it's upward to me to cull who it is I marry not for anybody else to tell me. I think the bishops were wrong to put out guidance that said you can't marry people. That's against our rules.
TheCommodity runs as follows:
XXXII. OF THE MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS
BISHOPS, Priests, and Deacons, are not allowable by God's Constabulary, either to vow the estate of single life, or to abstain from marriage: therefore it is lawful for them, every bit for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, equally they shall judge the aforementioned to serve amend to godliness.
In its historical context, information technology is of grade directed confronting the Catholic requirement of clerical celibacy—its concern is not for clergy to go against their bishops on a matter of censor, just that the ordained are not a degree apart from other Christians. The reference is the educational activity of Scripture ('God'south law'), and this is in a context where homosexual acts were a serious offence. The idea that this article provides whatever grounds for clergy to enter same-sex matrimony requires setting aside any normal rules of reading, and using the text as a kind of cipher. It is similar had we establish a 16th-century text permitting clergy to leave their wagon in forepart of the business firm, and on the grounds of that deciding nosotros had permission to build a railway—since trains take 'carriages'. The Tribunal commented on this explicitly:
168. It was … inconceivable … that the authors of the 39 Manufactures would have had in their contemplation that this provision permitted same-sex union.
Jeremy's position on wanting to conform to 'the rules' seems to run against everything that he later says. (For more detailed discussion of this bespeak, encounter Peter Sanlon's piece.)
Thirdly, Jeremy then misappropriates the word 'discrimination'; the Church had discriminated against him (though the Tribunal said it was allowed to) and people are 'disgusted' by this. Jeremy accurately captures the bulk of public response, but to do so again ignores the actual sentence. The Tribunal was very articulate that Jeremy had not been discriminated against considering he was gay, and that the 'discrimination' of judging whether someone was defying the teaching of the Church was an important one to brand.
270. … we take equally already stated that the Claimant was clearly distressed and felt humiliated and degraded by what had occurred. As to whether his dignity was violated, we are with Mr Linden [the diocese'due south lawyer]. Despite the valiant efforts of Mr Jones [Pemberton'south lawyer], the claimant would accept never been in this position had he not defied the doctrine of the church. In this case, context is all.
Jeremy goes on to cite a common accusation, that the Church has changed its understanding of marriage. Formally speaking, that is not the instance; remarriage later on divorce is a concession in the light of a failure to alive up to biblical and Church teaching. (I think at that place could exist an interesting chat equally to whether aforementioned-sex marriage could be considered under the same kind of rubric, equally a concession in the light of human failure. I am non certain that Jeremy and others would welcome this though.)
At 7.02 on the YouTube video Jeremy makes mayhap the most extraordinary claim: that in that location has been 'no discussion in the appropriate form of whether the Church has a doctrine of same-sex marriage or non.' Only a hermit, hidden in the remotest mountain, could remember that this subject area has not been discussed to decease. The Shared Conversations, which accept prioritised the inclusion of agile gay clergy and laypeople, will have cost the Church something like £350,000 and involved people from every diocese. The chat might not have been on the terms of Jeremy's choosing—simply that is another affair. The Church does accept a position on this question; the debate is about whether it should change that position.
He and so claims that 'all we have had is pastoral guidance from the bishops' which oddly sets aside the explicit agreement of Canon Police force and the spousal relationship liturgy.
He goes on to say that he is a 'priest in good standing in the Diocese of Lincoln'. That is an odd comment to brand, given his diocesan bishop has said to him:
You lot have acted in a way which is inconsistent with your ordination vows and your canonical duty to alive in accordance with the teachings of the Church of England. (cited in para 74 of the judgement).
He also claims that no complaint has been made against him; clergy in Lincoln diocese have been in bear on with me to say that that is non the case, since they did in fact complain to the bishop at the fourth dimension.
Jeremy so asserts that action under the Clergy Subject area Mensurate (CDM) is uncomplicated, and the fact that none has been taken means no-one has a problem with his state of affairs. Over again, anyone familiar with CDM knows that it failed to be such a simple measure, that it was never extended to include doctrine, every bit was intended, and that information technology has turned out to exist not much improve than the previous system of using Ecclesiastical Courts. The threshold for CDM activeness remains very high.
Finally, Jeremy rejects that allegation that he does not live within the teaching of the Church building as 'a fearful slur' and 'outrageous'. Since that is what both his bishop and the Tribunal judge have concluded, and so he must presumably think they are both guilty of such a slur.
The reason for highlighting these things is to identify the strategy of fence. Rather than appoint in what has happened, the strategy appears to be to simply ignore the facts. It is a strategy that works quite effectively in media interviews, since no interviewer is going to know plenty about the Articles, Clergy Discipline, the legalities of licences, or even the state of the debate in the Church to contradict them. This strategy volition never workinside the Church of course, since Jeremy's comments volition exist called to account. The strategy, so, involves having a quite different give-and-take outside the Church from within. Jeremy must have had considerable fiscal and personal back up to pursue this case, presumably from gay lobby groups such as Stonewall and people like Peter Tatchell. Simply I suspect these are people who would also welcome an end to the Church building'southward wider part in gild. [Having written this in the original post, I have been told this is not the case in relation to funding; some of the cost of the case appears to have been borne by the legal teampro bono. Run across Laurence Cunnington'due south comments and my response below.]
Perhaps more worrying for the argue within the Church is the separation of fact from emotion. Jeremy was clearly upset past the end of the discussion, and walked off without speaking to me afterwards. On the Changing Mental attitude Facebook page, Jeremy observed that, unlike him, I have never been an incumbent, and so 'actually know nothing at first mitt about the business of leading a church, of managing the volunteers, of pastoring the flock…' This contains the interesting idea that, in existence an Associate Minister of a church building with a USA of effectually 650, overseeing small groups of 250 people, being for a decade on the staff of a theological higher, all this leaves me 'knowing zippo'. It as well assumes that evangelical and catholic orthodox clergy are either in denial, or are about to come out as changing their minds in the light of 'the realities of pastoral ministry.'
This is not good news for the future of this argue. The supposition of superior insight, detachment from the actual facts involved, and the valorisation of emotionalism suggests that there is little prospect of farther effective conversation, let alone skillful disagreement.
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