Why is Sandi Toksvig so interested in the C of E?

[Sausagenbacon]

and why does Justin Welby bother with her?

www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/26/sandi-toksvig-laments-untenable-church-of-england-stance-on-gay-marriage

She's not a christian, but feels entitled to have a chummy chat with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is wet enough to indulge her.

I'm not particularly invested in the subject, and I am an Anglican, but I do think there is something frankly, pitiful about it.

I expect an article in next week's Guardian with a sad-faced Sandy talking about how the local Mosque/Synagogue won't marry her and her partner, and how 'unsafe' she now feels. Or not.

The C of E is entitled to its views, as is any religion- they are based on an interpretation of the Bible. However, if that is their stance on this, you know very well the Bible says many things which the C of E no longer holds to be true because they are outdated and inhumane practices.
It says adultery between two people married to others, should be punished by stoning to death the two parties who commit it, a priest's daughter who has sex before marriage should be burned at the stake, murderers should be killed as punishment, homosexuality should result in the death penalty for both parties, sex before marriage between a betrothed couple should result in the death penalty for both.
The C of E no longer upholds these punishments- its attitude is times have changed and society is more humane and these suggested punishments are barbaric. It would, infact, condemn the punishments now.
It does not seek to know whether an engaged couple have had sex with each other before marriage - it's current and future Heads of the C of E have both done so, living together openly with their future spouse before marriage. It blessed the marriage of one and performed the marriage of the other.
Yet it continues to take a moral stance, for some reason, on homosexuality and to pontificate on it, exclude people because of it and yet expects to be the established church in a country that no longer legally or morally or socially opposes homosexuality on the whole.

It makes no sense. The C of E can no longer tippy toe around this issue- making welcoming sounds but taking the ludicrous position that gay clerics can live together, marry in civil ceremonies, but must not have sex is ridiculous. If the Church welcomes gay members, loves and supports them, accepts them and who they are, is representative of our society's beliefs- it needs to be brave enough to stand up and say so and accept them fully instead of denying them a Christian marriage.

I am not a Christian but I can see it makes no sense. You sound like a bigot OP.

The alternative I see to God , is the commercialism in society. Which I feel totally trapped within. The false creation of problems and capitalisation upon suffering so a solution can be sold and dependency created sickens me. Christianity is the only thing that offers me enough hope to escape that feeling. (Cancer survivor, mother of a dc diagnosed with SN - now at uni, brush with Lymes, bereavement, close to people suffering from MH issues)

@fireflown No idea about their background etc. but they're correct on this.

@tabulahrasa Some parts of the bible are pretty explicit in their meaning, homosexuality is one of those parts. Jesus mentions money lending when he says "Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest". The point about money lending and charging interest is to prevent ripping off the poor and needy and getting them into more debt and an even worse position. Jesus was very vocal about how we should be helping the poor.
The NT verses about hair braiding and wearing jewellery is basically St Paul warning first century Christians about not adopting the Roman customs around them. His point is that Christian women (men didn't dress up in the same way) shouldn't flaunt their bodies for attention but let their inner beauty shine out instead and use their time for good works rather than creating fancy hairstyles. He isn't saying that plaiting hair or wearing jewellery is sinful in itself but rather the pride, vanity, attention seeking, being materialistic etc that can be associated with these things.
Divorcees have only been allowed to get married in C of E churches since 2002 and only at the discretion of individual vicars. This is from their website -

Your church wishes you a lifetime of love that grows within God’s protection. But we recognise that some marriages do fail for all sorts of sad and painful reasons. So in certain circumstances the Church of England accepts that a divorced person may marry again in church and this has been the case since 2002.
The first step is to make an enquiry with the vicar of the church where you’d like to marry. Every vicar will want to help you, though there are some who don’t feel able to offer a wedding to couples where one or both of the partners has been divorced. In any case, your vicar will want to talk frankly about your past and hopes for the future and will then be able to advise you.
Even if it is not possible to do your wedding, they may offer a blessing service after a civil wedding. (As in the case of Charles and Camilla)

The reason for the change in this law is that the rules around divorce are a bit more of a grey area. This is the main Bible verse (Matthew 19 verses 3 to 12) -

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ ?
6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.
9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
Note also Jesus lays out here the foundation of marriage as between one man and one woman.

I've read the lot, ta. Including the bits Martin Luther thought were too internally inconsistent (high bar) and chucked out.

I was simply pointing out the extreme silliness of saying that the Bible has a clear position on pretty much anything.

You're a bit confused, though, on what the text actually says versus second-millennium interpretations of the text. And you'll of course be familiar with the challenges and disputes around translating arsenokoitai and malakoi in the context of the Epistles.

Nah . He was answering a specific question about male/female marriage in a time where that was the only accepted form of marriage.

Remind me what Jesus actually said about homosexual relationships?

@JassyRadlett

You're a bit confused, though, on what the text actually says versus second-millennium interpretations of the text.
Please enlighten me.

And you'll of course be familiar with the challenges and disputes around translating arsenokoitai and malakoi in the context of the Epistles.
I have heard that argument but would be interested in what you think it means.

Where in the Bible does it divide the laws, exactly?

On translations - I'm no Ancient Greek scholar, so what I think it means is pretty irrelevant. More to the point is the fact that there's considerable debate (and internal inconsistency in translation) of what the writers actually meant, versus how they were later translated. So saying that things are clear is... very not correct.

Btw, I'd be perfectly happy for Christians to translate and interpret their holy book any way they like if they would have the decency to keep it out of the lives (and the governments, and the legislatures, and the state apparatus and institutions) of the rest of us.

But as Christianity is the established church, Christian children get preferential school admissions, Christians get seats in our legislative body and Christians seek to influence our laws based on their interpretation of what's in that book, I feel that it's ok to point out the many and varied problems with treating that book as a consistent and divinely inspired anything.

Nah . He was answering a specific question about male/female marriage in a time where that was the only accepted form of marriage.
Remind me what Jesus actually said about homosexual relationships?
@JassyRadlett

This might be helpful (Same sex marriage: biblical considerations) -

It is often noted, correctly, that no recorded saying of Jesus deals with same-sex relationships.
It is sometimes argued, less convincingly, that Jesus’ silence implies a benign or permissive attitude on his part towards sexual relationships between people of the same sex. The opposite is more likely to be the case.
Jesus lived his entire earthly life immersed in the culture of Galilee and Judaea, and he engaged with the controversies of that culture. On a number of occasions he addressed issues debated within his culture and often proposed controversial positions to his followers: on divorce, for example, or Sabbath keeping, or table fellowship with ‘sinners’. Yet for all his willingness to question tradition, Jesus is not recorded as questioning Jewish tradition on same-sex partnerships. Jesus’ Jewish forebears and contemporaries without exception believed that same-sex sexual activity was contrary to God’s revealed will. This was the working assumption of Judaism in Jesus’ day. If Jesus engaged in controversy on so many other fronts, yet said nothing on this – or nothing which any of his followers thought
worth recording – then the most obvious conclusion is that he did not take issue with his contemporaries about it.

So... nothing. Jesus said nothing about same sex-relationships.

Consistency is moot since we all are individuals.

Regarding the 'keep out', how would you feel if Christians said the same regarding atheists? Quite, rightly, not every favourably, I expect. Tbh I feel it might be a safeguard against some of the commercial pulls within society but by no means a guarantee. I rely more on personal prayer than bishops being in the lords...

I don't want to keep Christians out of those things. That would be bonkers. I want to keep the church, and its teachings and beliefs, out of things that are there for all and belong to the citizenry.

What atheist tenets or beliefs would you like to keep out of lawmaking and the offices of the state?

@JassyRadlett Not directly, but he reiterated that marriage is between one man and one woman and quoted from the Old Testament. As noted above, Jesus didn't mention a lot of things but that doesn't mean he approved of them. He also didn't challenge the generally accepted belief at the time with regard to homosexual relationships/activity.

Consistency is moot since we all are individuals.

As a former Christian, the internal inconsistency and mental gymnastics requires to believe that the Bible was divinely inspired and was the text for Christians to follow was the thing that finally tipped me over into realising that I didn't believe in it, at all, and the deeper you looked the less sense it made and the more mental gymnastics were required.

Consistency is pretty important when you're claiming something is truth that should be followed. Martin Luther knew that, that's why he excised a great chunk of the OT and had Strong Views about parts of the NT.

So again - nope. Didn't address the issue. Later people have decided that we know what he would have meant had he chosen to address it, but in terms of what he actually said it's still... nothing. 'Nothing' is the answer to the question I asked.

And like I said, I wouldn't care a jot, and I suspect Sandi Toksvig would also care a great deal less, judging by the words she actually said, if the Christian church (the CofE primarily but the Roman Catholic Church is also heavily enmeshed in state institutions) didn't enjoy a privileged position as the established church.

As a former Christian, the internal inconsistency and mental gymnastics requires to believe that the Bible was divinely inspired and was the text for Christians to follow was the thing that finally tipped me over into realising that I didn't believe in it, at all, and the deeper you looked the less sense it made and the more mental gymnastics were required.

Surely, mental gymnastics is part of the human condition? Since we have knowledge of good and evil?

The very few Christians I know are all horribly selfish bigotted people. Anyone who cites the Bible as some sort of moral authority gets a very wide berth from me!

We cannot eradicate what we are. Human. Imperfect. Conflicted. The Bible recognises this and offers hope.

@Bruuuuhhhh
No idea about their background etc. but they're correct on this.

They are a far-right American hate group who promote things like pray-away-the-gay and the idea that homosexuality leads to paedophilia. Cunts in other words. Although from what I've heard they are mostly the result of the hate filled ramblings of one man who is obsessed with homosexuality and liked to use his young daughters to spread his hate when he wasn't hitting them. But you seem to think the kind of people who frequently compare homosexuality and paedophilia and complain that they cannot legally discriminate against gay people are reputable.

So again - nope. Didn't address the issue. Later people have decided that we know what he would have meant had he chosen to address it, but in terms of what he actually said it's still... nothing. 'Nothing' is the answer to the question I asked.

@JassyRadlett
You're stubbornly ignoring everything I'm saying, as well as missing the enormous point that Jesus was God so im a way he had a fair bit to say on the subject in the Old Testament!

Yeah, nearly as much mental gymnastics as trying to see this as an argument for belief in Christianity.

Perhaps we are using the phrase 'mental gymnastics' differently. How about 'extreme wishful thinking and imaginative subtextual narrative creation' to describe the level of retconning required to make the Bible make sense as a divinely inspired text that should be the basis of a world religion, while not being aware that said retconning has taken place. Particularly once you start to study history of said book/s...

I'm not. I asked a question. You didn't answer it, I pointed out what the actual answer is.

As you say, we don't know what Jesus actually thought about a whole lot of stuff. The best we can do is guess, based on what other men said about him and said he said. Some of them had even met him.

The bible... is not sentient.

But you seem to think the kind of people who frequently compare homosexuality and paedophilia and complain that they cannot legally discriminate against gay people are reputable.
@fireflown

Not at all, just that the explanation above fits with what I would have myself said given the time. I'm not endorsing the entire website and in no way affiliated with them.

Anyway, the whole delightful detour into scripture was courtesy of the OP saying the Bible was very clear on homosexuality.

Interesting but largely irrelevant derail.