Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion

by Oliver O'Donovan

What if the challenge gay men and women present the church with is not emancipatory but hermeneutic? Suppose that at the heart of the problem there is the magna quaestio, the question about the gay experience, its sources and its character, that gays must answer for how this form of sensibility and feeling is shaped by its social context and how it can be clothed in an appropriate pattern of life for the service of God and discipleship of Christ? But suppose, too, that there is another question corresponding to it, which non-gay Christians need to how and to what extent this form of sensibility and feeling has emerged in specific historical conditions, and how the conditions may require, as an aspect of the pastoral accommodation that changing historical conditions require, a form of public presence and acknowledgment not hitherto known? These two questions come together as a single how are we to understand together the particularity of the age in which we are given to attest God's works?

Genres: Theology

134 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

About the author

Oliver O'Donovan FBA FRSE (born 1945) is a scholar known for his work in the field of Christian ethics. He has also made contributions to political theology, both contemporary and historical.

Reviews

[Glenn Wishnew III · Rating 5 out of 5]

damn. OD brings the heat. The most profound treatment of the topic I’ve ever encountered.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful book that I wish I had found years ago. O’Donovan repaves some of the worn and broken road that the church must travel together if it is to come out of the other side of its modern-day crisis - the questions swirling around the homosexual experience and what it means to the church, to the believer (both hetero and homosexual), and to the modern world. O’Donovan reminds us that that we as the church have to create space to successfully journey through these trying times (the same kind of space for dialogue and reflection and prayer as all other trying times have required). That space has been collapsed by our impatience, hubris and technological speed of communications — liberals speak for gay Christians, conservatives speak for God, and those that can authentically speak of the realities of the homosexual experience are not listened to.

O’Donovan lost me in the last chapter when he categorizes the modern-day homosexual experience as a vocation. I think he is on to something about the questions that homosexual Christians must answer for themselves and that this will be an important word to the church, but I don’t see how we can chalk any sexual question up to vocation when our sexual experience is so fundamental to who we see ourselves as humans.

[PJ Whittington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oliver O'Donovan's essays are an essential companion for the Anglican, clergy and layman alike in the broken state of the Communion. This work is somewhat technical, so I may hesitate to recommend it to those who are not used to reading theological works, but for those who are, it is a necessary addition. Regardless of denomination, O'Donovan's account of the rise and influence of liberalism in the West is a helpful beacon to all Christians who are fighting for orthodox belief.

[Nicholas Rogalski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is definitely the result of the very specific events that it seeks to address, and I found myself wishing I could hear O’Donovan speaking more broadly, and to the ways the conversation has developed since 2008, but there were still some passages that literally took my breath away with how incisive they were. I definitely feel exhorted by this book.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Typically thought-provoking. O’Donovan, as an Anglican theologian, has different impulses and leanings than I do (for instance, he is more ecumenical and more willing to appeal to tradition than my tradition has been), but I still learn much from reading him.

[W. Littlejohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book yesterday evening, read it with extreme care and deliberation until past midnight, and picked it up again as soon as I woke up, reading straight through to I finished. Undoubtedly a tour de force of patient ethical reasoning.

However, this book is not four stars. It is either three or five, and for the time being, I have had to say it is four, until I can decide. Minimally it is three stars, because of the outstanding acumen, balance, and sophistication with which O'Donovan tackles all the red herrings, knee-jerk reactions, and false dichotomies that surround this issue. He patiently and thoroughly explores the nature of church unity and authority, Scriptural authority, the liberal agenda, ethical reflection and so on. The book is probably five stars, because I believe the final two chapters, where he begins to get a bit more concrete and to-the-point (though still making mainly methodological points rather than voicing conclusions), are up to the same standard. My own knee-jerk reactions, however, militate against much of what he says, and if they are correct, then it may be true that O'Donovan ends by compromising his argument with relativistic drivel which doesn't know when to call a spade a spade. But I am humble enough to suppose that these reactions are probably not correct. More to come.

*update*
Ok, so I read through the last chapter in, super-slowly. And I think I have to give it five stars. There are, I think, no holes to poke ultimately in what he said. Folks from our background might wish he said more, but he wasn't writing to us, so it's a bit unfair to demand that. Full review should be up on johannulusdesilentio.blogspot.com soon.

**update**
Finally finished the full review, 20,000 words long, on johannulusdesilentio.blogspot.com. The verdict remains; excellent book, 5 stars.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

O'Donovan is never an easy read, but the juice is worth the squeeze. He offers no easy solutions to the sexuality debates facing the Anglican Communion and, indeed, the Church as a whole. However, this resistance is itself refreshing. Whether you are left, right, or somewhere in between, this will be a fruitful read for the pressing controversy of our day. We need more of this kind of nuanced reflection, and less righteous pontificating from all quarters. May his tribe increase.