Stand Firm Interviews: The Rev. Timothy L. Jones

The Rev. Tim Jones was born in Leeds, England in 1967. He earned a degree in history from the University of York, and a degree in theology and Diploma in Ministry from Oxford. He was a seminarian at Ripon College, Cuddesdon (one of the three Anglican seminaries associated with Oxford University), was ordained deacon in 1994 and priest in 1995. Jones served as curate in an economically disadvantaged urban area of Middlesbrough until 1996, after which he was a prison chaplain until 1999. In 2002 he became the Vicar of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Corinth, Mississippi. Jones is married; his daughter was born in 2000. I spoke with The Rev. Jones during the week of July 29, 2004.

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Greg Griffith: You hold what I believe to be a unique position in the diocese: Adamant in your advocacy of including homosexuals in the full sacramental life of the church, but equally adamant that General Convention seriously erred in 2003. Can you explain your position in more detail?

Tim Jones: The context for my position is one of having been in the past fairly active in support of gay rights. I have marched in public demonstrations for gay rights, and have written and spoken in the past against the homophobia which gay and lesbian people have to endure in society generally, and often from the Christian church in particular.

I am dismayed by the actions of General Convention. This is for three main reasons, though this by no means constitutes a comprehensive account of my thinking:

First, ECUSA betrayed the trust of our fellow Christians. At the Lambeth Council of 1998 it was agreed not to proceed with any divisive actions concerning human sexuality, to give the Communion a breathing space, time to reflect and pray together about the issues involved and their implications. GC2003 cuts right across those prayers and conversations. The bishops of ECUSA agreed to do one thing, and then did the opposite. It makes any future conversations with fellow Christians anywhere very difficult - why should ECUSA be believed or trusted? Just because we believe we are right about something does not mean we can do what we like.

Second, we have got the cart before the horse; to confirm a non-celibate homosexual person as a bishop bypasses the legitimate debate about the Church's teaching on sex and marriage. The implication of that bypass is that the Church's teaching is not very important, even irrelevant. That is a terrible mistake. From my point of view this diminishes the future possibilities for gay people. Even if we, the Church, one day discern our way to celebrating marriage for gay couples, we have now undermined its importance - indeed, the importance of marriage for all of us, gay or straight. We have said that Church doctrine and discipline doesn't really matter.

Third, we have not, as a Church, done the necessary reading, discussion, prayer and listening. Certainly, much has been written, but how much has actually been read - by the voting delegates to GC2003, much less the people of the Anglican Communion more widely? How much real mutual prayer and conversation had taken place between those of differing viewpoints around the world? Very little, I fear. We had not even reached a stage where we were really interested in what we had to say to each other. In the absence of meaningful education, what development in understanding had those of any opinion about human sexuality, its complexity, and its lack of uniformity? ECUSA took a step which we as a Church were not ready to take, because we saw our own local pressures and needs as more real, more important, than those of other people elsewhere.

Greg Griffith: So, you make a good case for betrayal. What case, if any, do you make for repentance?

Tim Jones: Repentance is a complex affair. In one sense the error was a corporate error, requiring corporate penitence. For that to happen, of course, there would need to be a large group of bishops, clergy and people who change their minds about GC2003. That is a huge task, and I don't see those people being convinced by the argument that the Bible forbids homosexuality (I for one am just not persuaded that it does). Between now and the General Conventions of 2006 and 2009, where the corporate repentance might most probably manifest itself, a tremendous amount of work needs to be done to educate ourselves as a worldwide denomination about the issues involved - including issues of church identity, and of personal identity.

Greg Griffith: It's a common assertion by those who oppose gay marriage that it will devalue all marriage by gutting it of its unique characteristic - the union of one man and one woman. But your observation is intriguing - and disturbing - because it raises even more serious questions. What you're saying, basically, is that ECUSA's actions have devalued the sacrament of Holy Matrimony.

Tim Jones: Yes, in that the Church's witness to the outward and visible part of the sacrament has been damaged. We have said that our teaching can be ignored when it is inconvenient. That is the very cultural norm which renders Christian faith little more than a leisure activity in the West.

In short, we saw the Church's theology as a subordinate part of a civil rights struggle, instead of seeing justice and compassion as contributory factors in the process of theological discernment. This issue is important, and deserves better than fast food theology. All of us should take more time to consider how we might be wrong.

Greg Griffith: Let's say ECUSA had done things in the right order - are you saying that the gay marriage debate rises to one of civil rights?

Tim Jones: No. Civil rights constitute an issue for civil society, informed by the philospohical and theological insights of its citizenry. Gay people are denied many things, including the full protection of the law for dedicated relationships intended to be for life. Civil society habitually uses the word 'marriage' for that, but doing so raises all kinds of problems. 'Marriage' is a religious word, denoting the sacramental union between two people, always understood until very recently as obviously between a man and a woman. It has been used without question in civil society because American society as a whole has been happy to identify itself as Christian. That is becoming ever less true. A civil society may choose to recognize a union between two people for whatever reasons it wants to, and afford that union all kinds of protections and privileges. It does not necessarily, though, accept or promote the union as a sacramental bond.

Strictly speaking, therefore, a free civil society can only recognize civil unions, allowing the free individuals to invest their union with whatever meaning they choose to. In that sense, it seems to me to be discriminatory for a civil society to deny that recognition to people of the same sex, unless it can be demonstrated that such recognition is to the serious detriment of society. I have seen no real evidence at all - only vehement assertions - that affording to gay couples the same financial, fiscal and political rights as heterosexual couples will injure society. In the absence of such evidence, surely a denial to gay people of civil union, by which I mean all that is commonly understood by civil society to apply to 'marriage', is a denial of their civil rights? If gay marriage is dangerous, provide evidence.

Greg Griffith: I have to say I'm surprised that as clear a thinker as yourself would advance the argument that absent any evidence X will cause harm, X must be allowed. I can't speak for everyone, but for many, the opposition to gay marriage in a civil context rests on the belief that to allow it would be to approve an immoral and destructive lifestyle; and that as a society we have not just the right, but the obligation not to do such things.

Tim Jones: I am not saying that X must be allowed. I am saying that in the discussion about allowing X in a free society, those who want to forbid X on the basis of its danger need to show evidence of that danger. The continued absence of such evidence after several decades diminishes the case of those opposed to X. In the case of gay marriage in a civil society separated from the church, quotations of scripture do not constitute sufficient evidence for law making. Civil society is not required to consider the theology of human relationships.

In the Church, the situation is reversed. The Church takes other things into account - our discernment of the will of God through the scriptures, through the wisdom and practices we have inherited from those Christians who have passed their faith on to us, and through our ability to reason. Christian community considers the theological understanding of personhood and relationship. Those who advocate radical change in the Church's doctrine and discipline need to make a compelling case in its favour. But even in such influential 'pro-gay' works such as Countryman's 'Dirt, Greed and Sex', insufficient attention is paid to the transition from historical and theological scholarship to the proposals for change in doctrine. The case has not yet been made.

Greg Griffith: I actually entered this debate last year on the other side. At the time I scoffed at an argument the clarity of which is striking to me now, and that is: Marriage - whether we define it a Christian sacrament or a civil construct - is defined simply as the union of one man and one woman. Thus it is not discriminatory in the least. It certainly does not discriminate on the basis of one's sexual preference: It is not the case that you can't get married because you're gay. Add to that the fact that marriage is not a right, and it's hard to buy the notion that homosexuals' civil rights are being violated.

Tim Jones: Civil society chooses to afford to its citizens certain legal, fiscal and political privileges if they declare themselves to be in loving domestic partnership intended to be lifelong - those are not rights. But if the state denies some of its citizens those same privileges because some other citizens do not like it, then discrimination has occurred. In a free society, such discrimination surely infringes the civil rights of a citizen, unless it can be shown that it in some way protects society from danger.

For the Church, again, the situation is different. Marriage is indeed defined as the union of one man and one woman. The question under theological debate is whether we should change the definition. That is why I think that using the religious word "marriage" in the debate about the civil law is a mistake. Civil law has adopted a word invested with religious meaning, confusing the two distinct debates.

The question facing the Church is whether we can extend our theological understanding of marriage to include homosexual relationships. That would be a radical change from what we as Christians have done before. We need to discern what kind of radical change it is. Is it like recognizing vernacular copies of Christian scripture as authoritative, as Wycliffe, Luther, Cranmer and others argued (i.e., changing our discipline as a church)? Or is it like accepting that the earth goes around the sun (i.e., absorbing previously unknown new information and observations about physical reality into our theology)? Or is it a mistake, an erroneous response to a situation although made with the best motives (i.e., burning at the stake people with faulty theology in an effort to safeguard truth)?

So far the theology employed at the diocesan councils and general councils has been fairly shallow. To caricature the situation, the 'pro-gay' theology seems to be limited to "God made me and loves me, I am gay, so God made me gay and is happy that I'm gay." The 'anti-gay' theology does not go far beyond "Romans 1:26-27 says homosexuality is bad." Neither of those is really a coherent theological position; rather, they are polemical positions.

Greg Griffith: I have to disagree. Surely you've read George Woodliff's essay, and when you and I first met - at the Stand Firm meeting in May - Dr. Kendall Harmon had just given his assessment of the crisis. Do you mean to characterize either of these as theologically shallow?

Tim Jones: Absolutely not. There is a great deal that has been written from both sides of the argument that must be taken seriously. My contention is simply that the more complex theology has not so far been characteristic of the debate as it has been conducted in the decision making councils of the Church.

Greg Griffith: I'd like to explore a line of inquiry that cuts to the middle of a key issue in this debate, and that is the question of how we discern the will of God. There is the idea put forth by some that, from time to time, God's will is expressed not in consensus through careful deliberation, but through rebellion and chaos, that perhaps what is described by some as the lawlessness of General Convention is a case in point. Do you give any credence to that notion?

Tim Jones: No, I think that is a terribly misguided approach. It is of course true that God redeems our human condition; he can take the mess that we make and draw good from it, but that truth in no way constitutes a license to create chaos deliberately. The New Testament deals head on with this matter; through sin God's grace is indeed revealed all the more abundantly, but that categorically does not mean that we should purposefully sin with the intention of making more space for God's grace. One of the words used several times in scripture to describe the idea of evil, or iniquity, or wickedness, is the Greek word 'anomia', the direct translation of which is 'lawlessness'. From the moment of creation, God draws order out of chaos, and sees that it is good; Christian discipleship involves participation in that creative divine endeavour, through Jesus Christ, the Word of God. There is then no excuse for engineering or celebrating anarchy, just because we can see that God has redeemed other occasions of anarchy in the history of the Church and the world.

Posted by Greg Griffith at September 2, 2004 08:54 PM (GMT -6:00)