What is in Kelvin's Head?

Fact checking Sandi Toksvig

04/08/2022
Sandi Toksvig has published an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that a lot of people are getting very excited about as it seems to be a slam dunk refutation of the wicked, homophobic Archbishop of Canterbury.

The only trouble with the letter is that it is based on a number of claims about the Archbishop and the Lambeth Conference that are not in fact actually true.

For example:
- “You and your other religious pals got together at the Lambeth Conference and the main take away seems to be that gay sex is a sin.”
Well, no, Justin Welby hasn’t said that gay sex is a sin and neither has the Lambeth Conference. You can read his actual words and check: https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/speaking-writing/speeches/lambeth-call-human-dignity-read-archbishop-justins-remarks
- It was a sin in 1998 and you just wanted to make clear in 2022 that no-one in your finely frocked gang has moved on from that.”
Well, actually the Lambeth resolution in 1998 that gave cause to all this never mentioned sin. You can check that out here: https://www.anglicancommunion.org/resources/document-library/lambeth-conference/1998/section-i-called-to-full-humanity/section-i10-human-sexuality

The Guardian and some reports on the BBC suggested this week that the conference reaffirmed that gay sex was a sin. But it didn’t. It actually didn’t do that.

What’s more, the Archbishop’s actual words this week both in his letter to the bishops and in his remarks explicitly spoke of those who had moved on from the 1998 resolution. Indeed, he legitimised them (us!) within Anglicanism. Again, check his own words here: https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/speaking-writing/speeches/lambeth-call-human-dignity-read-archbishop-justins-remarks

Speaking of the churches which have moved to marry and/bless same sex couples, he said, “They have not arrived lightly at their ideas that traditional teaching needs to change. They are not careless about scripture. They do not reject Christ. But they have come to a different view on sexuality after long prayer, deep study and reflection on understandings of human nature. For them, to question this different teaching is unthinkable, and in many countries is making the church a victim of derision, contempt and even attack. For these churches not to change traditional teaching challenges their very existence.”

What Sandi Toksvig says is demonstrably the opposite of what Justin Welby did.
- “Seriously, with the state the world is in, that is what you wanted to focus on? You didn’t have other more pressing matters like, I don’t know, war or poverty?”
Actually the bishops spent just over an hour in a two week conference on this topic. The rest of the time has been spent on things like, oh, you know, war, poverty, climate change, safeguarding etc. Again, this is easily found out by reading the Lambeth Calls document – https://www.lambethconference.org/programme/lambeth-calls/

What Sandi Toksvig says is again demonstrably the opposite of what actually happened.

There’s lots to be cross about when it comes to the way the churches deal with sexuality. If it were me, I’d be cross with the C of E bishops staying silent, particularly those who are suspected of being supportive of same-sex couples being able to marry.

But attacking Justin Welby in this way this week seems grossly unfair, not least in that this week he has spoken of the validity of the churches which have started to marry same-sex couples and stood up to those who want such churches to be thrown out of the Anglican Communion or otherwise disciplined. Again, his own words are published. They are easily checked. https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/speaking-writing/speeches/lambeth-call-human-dignity-read-archbishop-justins-remarks

He actually said:

“I neither have, nor do I seek, the authority to discipline or exclude a church of the Anglican Communion. I will not do so. I may comment in public on occasions, but that is all. We are a Communion of Churches, not a single church.”

I’ve been the first to criticise Justin Welby when I’ve disagreed with him in the past. However, I suspect that Justin Welby’s words this week will pave the way, eventually, to new paths of inclusion within the Church of England when the Living in Love and Faith process that all their bishops are clutching to themselves like so many fig-leaves, fails.

The Anglican Communion has, witheringly slowly, moved a few steps in an inclusive direction this week.

Sandi Toksvig’s argument is a straw man.

She’s got things factually wrong.

7 responses to “Gender Segregation in Universities and Elsewhere”

Nick Brindley

13/12/2013

The issue that Universities UK was advising on wasn’t single sex meetings but segregated seating, which is significantly different. They were talking neither about organisations nor meetings that were closed to members of either sex but of segregation by sex within a single meeting open, on that basis, to all.

This isn’t to say that it isn’t important to think about the issues you raise, just that they are substantially and importantly different from the issues raised by the UUK advice, which in turn are different (as UUK say in this response http://blog.universitiesuk.ac.uk/2013/11/25/external-speakers-guidance-segregation/) from those raised in the subsequent debate)

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  13/12/2013
  
  I also remember about 15 years ago welcoming a straight couple into an Anglican congregation who told me that they had never sat together in church before, it being the custom where they came from in rural Wales for men and women to sit on opposite sides of the aisle in church.
  
  They also told me that it was the custom to put up on a board what everone had given the previous week.
  
  Reply
Kelvin

13/12/2013

Thanks Nick – I wasn’t aware that this was what had caused it. I don’t think my comments are irrelevant to that situation and some of the discussion I heard on Today was broader than simply over seating.

I am reminded of the performances of (I think) Oleana by David Mamet in which the audience was seated in gender segregated seating. It was an interesting experiment and one that made many uncomfortable.

I struggle to think of any situation where I would support gender segregated seating on the basis of the preference of the speaker.

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RevRuth

13/12/2013

In Homerton Hospital 10 years ago they had invested big bucks in a stunning multi-faith chaplaincy centre. Women Muslim patients still said their prayers in the stairwell.

I say No to segregation.

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Nick Brindley

14/12/2013

I certainly wouldn’t want to (try to) introduce segregated seating into my churches but that’s a slightly different question from telling others they’re not allowed to segregate, which is what’s in question in this case. The advice from UUK was that Universities should tolerate meetings being held in their premises where seating was segregated. The advice was not aimed at anyone who wanted to segregate but at the owners of buildings such people might want to use. From the point of view of the Church we’re more likely, I would think, to be in the position of the University than that of the meeting organisers, since segregated seating is more or less unknown in contemporary British Christian settings (as far as I know).

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1. Kelvin
  
  14/12/2013
  
  I’ve only encountered segregated seating in Coptic churches and in Synagogues.
  
  As I said above, I have met people who have lived their lives in the UK in a church which did practise segregated seating.
  
  Reply
Duncan

14/12/2013

Good points, well made.

The thing that does disturb me a little in this debate (refreshingly absent from your piece) is the shrillness of the liberal voices I have heard (particularly on Radio 4) about that fact that, on occasion, consenting adults might want to sit in separate groups.

Listening to them, it was as if one of the 10 commandments had been broken. (“Thou shalt not sit in a group comprised only of members of the same sex where there exists a group of the opposite sex in close proximity.”)

IF there is no coercion, overt or implicit, then surely people are free to sit ‘where the heck they like’ (to quote the University spokesperson speaking on this issue.)

What it did raise for me, however, is the fact that coercion is rarely absent from group gatherings of any sort – where the pressure to conform can be strong. And churches are as ‘bad’ at this as any other group. Group norms – whether voiced by the shrill cry of left-leaning liberals, or conservative Imams, or vicars on Sunday – are stubborn and powerful little blighters. I’m not sure that legislating them in – or out – really works.

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