The Episcopal Church and the resistance to conservative claims to a biblical monopoly: towards a biblical gay and lesbian narrative?

Whereas the liberal deconstruction of conservative claims about the Bible “obviously” condemning homosexual practice of any kind has been a great help to Christian and Jewish gays and lesbians seeking to reconcile their sexual and religious identities, it has done little to help them use the Bible in a gay-affirmative way. By being in essence a counter-argument against anti-gay discourse, it still leaves the Bible in a perillously close connection to homophobic imagination. Queer readings of the Bible have come as a welcome remedy. They turn their back on the question of what the Bible condemns, reclaiming the Scriptures as a positive spiritual resource for LGBT people. This is both a political and a deeply spiritual move, and it is empowering gays and lesbians in church and synagogue. Strikingly however, queer Bible commentaries do not seem to have made their way into the institutional debates of as gay-friendly a denomination as the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion. In the recent Episcopalian discussion that has led to authorising the blessing of same-sex marriage, however, one may see the signs of some future full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the grand biblical narrative of creation, redemption and renewal, which is central to Christian identity

Richard Hooker, l’hérésie papiste et un protestantisme anglais de la continuité

En définissant de manière particulièrement étroite les termes de l’hérésie papiste, quelle que soit par ailleurs sa gravité, Richard Hooker (1554-1600) est amené à voir l’Eglise médiévale d’une manière plus positive que ne la considère la tradition argumentative calviniste. L’hérésie de l’Eglise du pape ne l’a pas totalement empêché d’être, pendant la période médiévale, un passeur de la foi catholique et apostolique. Sans renier les intuitions fondamentales de l’orthodoxie protestante, Hooker inaugure ainsi un protestantisme anglais de la continuité, posant les bases d’une compréhension anglicane de la Réforme comme étant dans la continuité historique du catholicisme occidental.By closely circumscribing what papist heresy consisted in, however grievous it might be, Richard Hooker (1554-1600) was able to see the medieval Church in a more positive light than was customary in Calvinist discourse. Papist heresy did not constitute a definitive obstacle for the catholic and apostolic faith to be handed down from the apostolic age to the Reformation era. Without overthrowing the fundamentals of Protestant orthodoxy, Hooker started a brand of English Protestantism emphasising continuity with the past, at the basis of the Anglican understanding of the Reformation as being in the historic continuity of Western Catholicism

How Queer Can Christian Marriage Be? Eschatological Imagination and the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions in the American Episcopal Church

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Promoting Anglican Liturgical Spirituality: Thomas Comber’s Companions to the Book of Common Prayer

International audienceThomas Comber was the Dean of Durham from 1691 to his death in 1699. He is chiefly remembered for his companions to the Book of Common Prayer, published between 1672 and 1699, which constitute the first complete commentary on the Prayer Book for devotional use. Whereas the desire to defend the excellence of the liturgy of the established Church against dissenting criticism is certainly not absent, the devotional dimension of Comber's commentary distinguishes it from previous commentaries, starting with Richard Hooker's in Book V of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. If Comber's aim is clearly to promote the daily frequenting of morning and evening prayer in the parish church by helping the educated laity to understand and love every part of the liturgy better, his commentary is also explicitly presented as suitable for private devotions. In the 16th c. the publication of primers and books of private prayer to complement the Book of Common Prayer had seemed to confine the Prayer Book to public worship. At the end of the 17th c., Comber's commentary was an invitation to use the Prayer Book for private devotions as well. Thanks to his thorough commentaries and his prayerful paraphrase of the entire liturgy, Comber contributed to the spread of a form of liturgical spirituality, whereby every Anglican's devotional life, both personal and communal, was grounded on two books that were not to be separated: the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer

The Difficult Attempt to Separate Reproduction from Sexuality in Anglican Moral Theology

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La Représentation de l'ordre dans le monde anglophone

International audienceDe l'Angleterre d'Henri VIII à l'Amérique de George Bush, l'histoire des représentations de l'ordre (politique, social ou culturel) dans le monde anglophone est marquée par la permanence d'une vision totalisante de l'ordre héritée d'une compréhension religieuse du monde - qui répugne à s'effacer devant une conception qui commence, à partir du XIXe siècle, à le présenter comme parcellaire et relatif. La Renaissance anglaise conçoit l'ordre comme une unité totalisante dont la représentation est propre à guider l'homme vers une participation individuelle et communautaire à l'ordre de Dieu. En témoignent les réflexions politiques et théologiques de Thomas More à George Herbert, en passant par Richard Hooker. Avec les Lumières, dans l'Ecosse d'Adam Smith ou la jeune république américaine de Thomas Jefferson, on passe à une représentation de l'ordre politique et économique dans lequel le Dieu de la théologie chrétienne est moins mis en avant que les principes abstraits et éternels qui sous-tendent sa Création. Cette représentation " philosophique " a des prolongements très importants dans l'Amérique contemporaine. Cependant, le monde anglophone a aussi, depuis les Lumières, fait l'expérience d'une sécularisation et d'une relativisation de la conception d'un ordre qu'on fait apparaître comme construction pouvant être déconstruite. La représentation devient alors une entreprise critique qu'on retrouve autant dans les interrogations historiographiques que dans la création esthétique des deux côtés de l'Atlantique. Ne se donnant plus comme chemin de participation à un ordre totalisant, la représentation devient pouvoir de subversion d'un ordre toujours à reconstruire

Anglicanisme(s): Une communion d’Eglises au risque de la diversité culturelle

International audienceListe des contributionsMark Chapman, Le Covenant et les recherches ecclésiologiques actuelles de la Communion anglicane.Hervé Picton, Eglise établie, Eglise nationale? La question récurrente du désétablissement de l'église d'Angleterre. Marie-Claire Considère-Charon, l'Eglise d'Irlande du désétablissement au risque de déchirure.Amandine Barb, Entre réformes libérales et résistances conservatrices, la crise identitaire et morale de l'épiscopalisme américain au début du XXIe siècle.Richard M. Fermer, L'émergence de l'anglicanisme dans l'hémisphère sud: le cas de l'Angola et du Nigéria.Gwendoline Malogne-Fer, L'Eglise anglicane face a la diversité culturelle en Nouvelle-Zélande.Rémy Bethmont, Homosexualité, loi naturelle et rapport à l'accomplissement eschatologique de l'humain: réflexions sur un aspect négligé du débat anglican sur l'homosexualité

The Episcopal Church and the resistance to conservative claims to a biblical monopoly: towards a biblical gay and lesbian narrative?

Whereas the liberal deconstruction of conservative claims about the Bible “obviously” condemning homosexual practice of any kind has been a great help to Christian and Jewish gays and lesbians seeking to reconcile their sexual and religious identities, it has done little to help them use the Bible in a gay-affirmative way. By being in essence a counter-argument against anti-gay discourse, it still leaves the Bible in a perillously close connection to homophobic imagination. Queer readings of the Bible have come as a welcome remedy. They turn their back on the question of what the Bible condemns, reclaiming the Scriptures as a positive spiritual resource for LGBT people. This is both a political and a deeply spiritual move, and it is empowering gays and lesbians in church and synagogue. Strikingly however, queer Bible commentaries do not seem to have made their way into the institutional debates of as gay-friendly a denomination as the Episcopal Church, the American branch of the Anglican Communion. In the recent Episcopalian discussion that has led to authorising the blessing of same-sex marriage, however, one may see the signs of some future full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the grand biblical narrative of creation, redemption and renewal, which is central to Christian identity

Homosexualité et traditions monothéistes

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