"Homosexuality and Sin"

A Discussion with Rev. Keith Waters for BBC Radio 4s "Antisocial" Programme.

Today, Rev. Keith Waters and I talked to Adam Fleming about whether Christians are being persecuted for their beliefs in the UK. The programme is here.

Summary and further thoughts from my own perspective:

In answer to the question of whether Christians are being persecuted in the UK, Keith thought calling this 'persecution' goes too far but said 'discrimination' is definitely happening. I agree that discrimination against people with views considered problematic by the Critical Social Justice (CSJ or woke) movement is happening and that this includes views held by *some* Christians (that are also held by some non-Christians). However there is already more legal precedent for protecting deeply-held religious beliefs than deeply-held non-religious beliefs. I do not believe that an ethical position should be worthy of more respect and protection in society if it is related to a God-belief. When working for Counterweight which helped people who were at risk of disciplinary action for holding an idea that ran counter to those of CSJ, it was often easier to convince employers to back off from penalising it if it could be presented as religious. For example, a common problem was a threat of disciplinary action because someone would not affirm the belief that all white people are racist and cannot help being so because of their socialisation. It was easier (particularly in the US) to persuade employers to rethink forcing that affirmation by pointing out to them that this denied the core belief of all three Abrahamic faiths in God-given free will than by arguing for the liberal “Marketplace of Ideas” position that, while we are all influenced by culture, individuals do have the agency to evaluate, accept or reject ideas for themselves, including racist ones.

I would like to see more Christians adopt a broader scope than objecting to discrimination against Christians and defend freedom of belief for everyone. Rev. Waters did do this and referenced cases of discrimination against gender-critical feminists. Speaking of the case of Felix Ngole who was required to ‘embrace and promote’ LGBT rights, he said it would be also wrong to compel me to embrace and promote Christianity (although he wishes that I would). I would argue that this attitude is liberal or, at least, compatible with liberalism but explaining this requires breaking down two uses of the term ‘liberal’ which I will be addressing in my next book.

1. When we speak of a “liberal Christian,” this is commonly understood to refer to someone who interprets their Christian faith in liberal or progressive ways which are inclusive of things like same sex relationships. There is much scope for this within the Christian tradition. St Augustine, in chapter 36 of On Christian Doctrine, writes of the need to interpret difficult passages of scripture with charity and in such a way that builds up love of both God and neighbour. If somebody interprets scripture in such a way that it does not build love, they have gone wrong, but if they do in a way that does build up love, even if they mistaken the true meaning, they have done their best to interpret it with a Christian spirit and are not guilty of wrongdoing. (He says they must still be corrected but as correct interpretations are largely subjective when scripture is not read literally, this results in disagreement rather than definitive answers). It is therefore quite possible to accept same sex relationships as love of neighbour and many British Christians do. (My postgraduate study focused heavily on St Augustine and can be found here).

2. Christians who interpret their faith in a literal way are not liberal Christians in the sense above because the bible is not liberal in that progressive sense. They will continue to believe that homosexuality is morally wrong. However, they can and often do still commit to practicing their faith in a way that is compatible with a liberal society which contains people of many faiths and none. Without compromising their own beliefs at all, they can still accept other people’s rights to believe differently. This is a Christian who will not compromise but will co-exist and can say something like, “I am a Christian, but I defend your right not to be” or “I think your interpretation of Christianity to be wrong but I accept your right to it.” They oppose authoritarianism on principle, often believing that people cannot be brought to belief in this way anyway, but continue to try to persuade people to adopt a literal interpretation of Christianity. Because this attitude is compatible with the core liberal tenet “Let people believe, speak and live as they see fit, provided it does not materially harm anybody else or prevent them from doing the same” they fit under the liberal umbrella and can be supported by liberals who only require people to oppose authoritarianism.

There are some who argue that Christians have a responsibility to reform and update their faith to make it more compatible with the moral consensus of a liberal society, but this is a failure of theory of mind. It is usually suggested by atheists or Christians with a very metaphorical or woolly concept of Christianity. They have not appreciated that literalist Christians believe that God is literally real and that the Bible is his literal word. One does not simply edit or update God and suggestions that Christians do so will seem like astonishing hubris to a literal believer. If God wanted to make another new covenant, he would say so. Unless that happens, assume he has not changed his mind and follow his word as set out in the Bible even if this is difficult. The Bible even warns it will be:

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.  For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

When trying to form a liberal society, it is essential to have an accurate understanding of what different groups within it believe. Liberals who have never believed in a literal God and literal scripture or who have a warm and fuzzy concept of God as a superbeing who just wants everybody to try to be a good person and is currently looking after their departed loved ones until they can join them can be very bad at this. That is a problem because if we want to have productive dialogues with people who believe a great array of different things about how to co-exist peacefully without infringing on each other’s liberties, we need to be able to engage with what others really believe.

An understanding of what literalist Christians believe reveals that it is a much bigger ask to expect them to ‘live and let live’ than atheists. The reasons for this should be obvious, but it seems not to be for many so I shall explain. It is not because Christians are innately authoritarian bullies who want to force everybody to believe what they do so the world looks how they think it should. (Some are, of course, but do not assume this). A liberal atheist may well try to persuade a Christian that there is no good reason to think their God is real because they think the world would be a better place if people stopped thinking they know the divine will of God, but we don’t have to worry too much about the Christian’s wellbeing. If we are right, nothing bad is going to happen to them for having held a false belief. They won’t even know. For a literalist Christian, however, who believes in a literal God and a literal Hell, there is much more at stake. They don’t just have to worry about the state of the earthly realm if people don’t believe in God, but about the eternal souls of all those people. If literalist Christians are right, something bad will happen to me for being wrong. I will definitely know about it.

Imagine a situation in which a blind person is about to walk off a cliff but she will not believe you that the cliff is there no matter how hard you try to persuade her. Instead, she keeps telling you to respect her right to disbelieve in the cliff. Would you respect her right to be wrong and watch her plummet to her death or would you be tempted to rugby tackle her and drag her away from it kicking and screaming knowing she will thank you later when she realises you were right? That is the dilemma that literalist Christians often find themselves in and it is often the most compassionate who will be haunted by it. I know because I was one. I was diagnosed with religious OCD but one does not have to have any kind of obsessive disorder to worry about people going to Hell if one believes that this is the fate of non-believers and also cares about other human beings. Many Christians make peace with this by trusting to God that those who can be reached will be, but many do not and become authoritarian for motives that are essentially good but based (in my view) on a false premise. This is the primary reason I wish to see religion die a natural death. I agree with the famous Steven Weinberg quote, but would expand it to cover more ideologies than religion.

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.

For this reason, I think that, when a literalist Christian is able to live according to their own faith and share their views with fellow Christians while respecting the right of other people to believe differently, liberals should respect that individual as a liberal who has had more obstacles to overcome to reach that position. (Don’t call them a liberal if they understand the term differently. “Anti-authoritarian” may sit better). I also think this is why Touchstone was right to question Felix Ngole particularly closely with regards to his tweets saying that God will “judge all those who indulged in all forms of wicked acts such as homosexuality”. If he is a compassionate individual (and his chosen career as a social worker suggests he is) and a literalist Christian who believes that people who engage in gay sex will go to Hell, it could be very difficult for him not to try to ‘save’ his gay, lesbian or bisexual clients. However, there is no justification for assuming he cannot separate his professional life and personal faith (all information I can find suggest he can and did) and certainly none for requiring him to embrace and promote LGBT issues. An employer has the right to expect certain behaviour from employees, not certain beliefs.

Keith and I agreed that a workplace which supported vulnerable people would have a responsibility to question more deeply somebody who had posted negative views about homosexuality to ensure that they were committed to holding that view privately and behaving professionally in ways that supported gay, lesbian or bisexual people to live their lives as they chose with dignity and respect. This same rule, we agreed, would also apply to me. I have spoken very critically of religion and about the grave concerns I have that it is not good for society. I also worked caring for vulnerable elderly people in their home, most of whom were Christian, some believing Jews and a few Muslims. Would it be responsible for any employer who knew of my posts and essays not to question me quite intensively about how I would facilitate religious believers in going about their daily lives which included religious practices? I don’t think it would. I would need to be able to offer assurances that I would support them to live their lives as they chose with dignity and respect. I have always been able to provide those assurances and have taken clients to church, facilitated prayers and observed dietary rules for those who were too forgetful to do so themselves. I do not think this is generally difficult unless one is filled with an urge to convert or deconvert everybody one comes into contact with. My hijabi Muslim GP was quite able to advise me on alcohol intake when I became concerned mine was creeping up during the year I suffered burnout according to NHS guidelines rather than her religious faith.

Of course, Keith and I disagreed on whether it is a good or bad thing that Christianity is decreasing in the UK because the Reverend believes Christianity to be both true and morally sound while I believe it to be untrue and contain distinctly illiberal content that has real world negative impact. Nevertheless, we somehow survived this and neither my knowledge that Keith believes my previous relationships with women to be against the will of God nor his knowledge that I believe the world would be better off without his faith seems to have made either of us inclined to commit suicide as was suggested as a potential outcome of people discovering that others disapprove of their ideas or actions. We must stop using hypothetical suicides as a reason to stop people from expressing any beliefs others may find offensive or distressing or penalising them for doing so. It is infantilizing of the hypothetical victim and people making these claims are always so selective about whose feelings we should protect. (Minority stress theory was another topic we discussed).

This was a good conversation and I think Antisocial is a particularly valuable and informative programme that I shall be following in future. My views on the claim that Christians are being persecuted in the UK more generally can be summed up like this:

Are Christians, as a group, persecuted in the UK?
No. They are a particularly privileged group whose beliefs have oversized & unwarranted representation and power in many of our most important institutions,

Are Christians ever discriminated against simply for expressing beliefs drawn from their faith?
Yes. This is illiberal and unacceptable (except in rare situations where there is a reasonable expectation that certain beliefs will be held or not held.)

Are these two answers not contradictory?
No. Christians are not discriminated against for being Christians. They are discriminated against for holding certain views (also held by people who are not Christian or religious at all) which are deemed unacceptable by a currently dominant identity-based moral orthodoxy. 

How do we address that?

Non-Christians must support the right of Christians to hold, express and live according to their beliefs even if they disagree with them. Christians should avoid being insular and join the liberal aim for freedom of belief and speech. That is, don't say "I should be able to hold and express these beliefs because they are Christian" but "I should be able to hold and express these beliefs" or ideally "People should be able to hold and express their beliefs." Join those of us opposing authoritarian moral orthodoxies consistently rather than framing the problem in ways that imply a belief that the problem is that it's the wrong moral orthodoxy that is dominant and authoritarian and that they are the only ones being affected by it.