May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O LORD

I can say “thank you for the warm introduction" but I think instead I’ll say "thank you for the invitation", that’s far more charitable. It’s a genuine pleasure to speak here this evening, it really is. I am happy to be back at the Oxford Union. It wasn’t too long ago that I was based here myself and I’m very happy to be part of an organization that is still standing up for free speech, still standing up for diversity of thought and opinion, going against the approved narrative of Academia in the 21st century, so well done to you all for that.

Now, I genuinely struggled with this one. I’ve struggled sleeping this week, actually. I don’t get stage frights, I’d never get nervous when I go on television, I recently debated at the Cambridge Union and the Durham Union no problem whatsoever. But this, there’s something different about this one. It’s been causing me anxiety. So someone kindly sent me Luke chapter 12, verses 11 to12, saying “And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

I know there’s something a bit ironic about me coming here with a speech after that, but why do I feel anxiety about this? Well, we are up against the authorities – three bishops from the Established Church. That means either I am wrong –and Christians have been teaching incorrectly for the last two thousand years– or Jews and Christians for the last four to six thousand years, or we have Church leaders attempting to drag the Church into apostasy. Neither way is good.

The consequences are severe. This debate is not just happening in this chamber, this debate is happening in real time in the House of Bishops as we speak. There’s a growing number of vocal bishops who want to change the Church’s teaching on marriage, the result being the spiritual neglect of Anglicans up and down this country.

Now, I may have trained at the last remaining sound Anglican seminary, up the road, at St Stephen’s House, but I am a newbie deacon, so perhaps I am wrong on this. Let’s consult people wiser than myself, starting with the Church Fathers.
 
St Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, quite clearly identifies Matrimony as being between one man and one woman, beneficial for “begetting of children” and for the good of offspring for both educational and developmental purposes “necessary for the perfection of the community” and for the worship of God.

St Paul describes marriage as, “Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.” in which he is mirroring the language of Genesis, where God tells man and woman to “Be fruitful and multiply”.

Both Aquinas and Paul refer to Matrimony as a Sacrament. A holy mystery in which one man and one woman are joined together in conjugal union with the potential to be blessed by the grace of God with children, to start a family for the worship of God.

People will often argue in this debate, “we know more about homosexuality now than we did then”. Maybe so. But are we really going to suggest that God knew less than we do now? For either all Scripture is God-breathed, or it isn’t. Either we believe Christ, or we don’t.

Let’s refer to another source, the Book of Common Prayer, one of the Anglican formularies, an authority of liturgy and catechism in the Anglican Church. The Prayerbook lists three ordained reasons for Matrimony:

•    First, it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nature of the Lord, and to praise his holy name.
•    Second, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication; that such persons as have not the gift of continency, might marry and keep themselves undefiled members of Christ’s body.
•    And thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

If we look wider abroad, to the Church Catholic, which defines in the Catechism of the Catholic Church matrimony [as]:
"The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring; this covenant between baptized persons has been raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a sacrament."
This is referred to as marriage in God’s plan.

So are we looking to alter the catechism of just the Anglican Church, or the Catholic Church too? Should they all ‘get with the times’?

2,000 years of Christian doctrine cannot be altered at the whim of a few liberal bishops. What is God-ordained cannot be adjusted to suit our new liberal progressive views. Marriage is heterosexual and monogamous and should be open to the possibility of children.

The Bible backs all of this up. It’s very clear throughout on this matter. Whether it’s nine verses or 32 000 verses, marriage is between one man and one woman for the purpose of procreation. Sex outside of marriage is a sin. And that is the same for heterosexuals as it is for homosexuals. Although, the Bible is also very clear that same-sex sexual relations are abhorrent.And before some smart aleck starts asking me the question of whether I’m wearing mixed fabrics – there is a difference between moral laws and ceremonial laws. And Christ did come to fulfil the Old Laws. Both the issues of marriage and homosexuality, however, are still addressed in the New Testament: in Paul’s epistles, but also in the Gospels. Jesus does talk of marriage in Mark and Matthew, both in the context of heterosexual union.So my question to the bishops would be, do we not believe in the authority of the Scriptures any more? Can we pick and choose which parts of the Gospel we adhere to?The Church after all is Christ’s bride, as we heard earlier; Jesus is described as the bridegroom, so that we may know how he relates to us. Two grooms would be pointless; Christ is already in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit; it’s us he is inviting in. Two brides is what we’re looking at here; the Church is attempting to marry itself and to leave Christ out of the picture.We are directly talking about undermining God's plan as he has revealed it to us. We're replacing his authority with our own. If marriage is no longer between one man and one woman, are we open to the idea of polygamy? We disregard the heterosexual aspect, so why not the monogamous aspect too? If “love is love”, as we keep hearing, who is to say that three men loving each other is not more love that two men loving each other? Shame, and heresy!And I'm sure someone in this chamber has echoed the words “love Is love” tonight, and this is not about “love being love”, this is about marriage, the sacrament of holy matrimony. It is directly connected to love, but it's not the definition of love. Too many people utter those words and confuse the meaning of Love. “Agape”, the Biblical context of love, is a divine love, it's a sacrificial love, it's not lustful. People often conflate sex with love, it's very disingenuous; we've heard quite a bit of that. But then of course, atheists often parrot the words “God is love” and we've heard that one tonight too, again without any understanding. Yes, God is love, but he sets the terms, not us. Another one we've heard plenty of is “inclusivity”. Should the Church be more inclusive? Again, it's a play of words. It's virtue-signalling. This is “to appear good” rather than “to be good”. The Church should absolutely be inclusive. Christ spent time with tax collectors and prostitutes, but it is they who went away changed, not Christ. We are fallen, therefore we are all sinners. The Church is open to sinners, of course it is! That's the purpose of the Church, but it should not be to encourage people to continue to sin. Our duty as clerics is to help lead people to Christ, to lead them away from sin, not to embrace it, not to affirm it. I know many LGB people who live lives in Christ. They abstain from sexual gratification to be closer to God, and it's not easy, it really isn't. it's perhaps not fair, but it is right and it is good. And these people are being let down. I've had people crying, saying “I could have got married but I did what the Church taught me was right, and now the Church is saying they were wrong all along. I've wasted my life”. As Christians we're called to be in the world but not of the world. The trap that we’re falling into in this debate is looking at the Church through the eyes of the World, rather than through his Kingdom. In the secular world we already have equality in law. People can enter civil partnerships or even “gay marriage” outside of the Church and that's their prerogative. However, the faith is inherently discriminatory. God is discriminatory. He sets conditions on us entering his Heavenly Kingdom. It is not a free-for-all; we must turn away from sin, repent and follow Christ.And I want to specify: it is the sin that is the problem, not the sinner. Every single person is loved by God, and God forgives all of us of our depravity, but we have to turn away from our sins and turn toward him, and it seems the panel opposite me has forgotten to separate the sin from the sinner. One can denounce sin while still welcoming the sinner. So as I wrap up, my message to the proposing side is: Do not lead us astray. Do not lead people astray. Do not be the wolves in sheep's clothing. Do not be the false teachers that the Bible warns us about. Remember your obligation to defend the faith. Stop teaching about diversity, inclusion and equality and get back to teaching about Redemption and Salvation.This is spiritual neglect. Help people by telling them the truth. Be kind to people by supporting them through their struggles and reminding them that Christ suffers with them. And be compassionate by beading them to Christ when the world tries to lead them away from him. The Church is imploding and the faithful masses have stopped turning up on Sundays, and we are seeing the most rapid decline of Christianity in this country that we may have ever seen. Do not accelerate it with heresy.You do not have the authority to bless sin! When I hear the bishop of London on record saying: “These new prayers will mean priests can bless same-sex relationships, some of which may be sexual in nature”, I hear the devil at work.Bishops are promoting the idea of sacramental sodomy. Let them be anathema! Repent!And to the rest of you, I have no doubt that some of you will consider me a bigot, or a transphobe, or a homophobe. But I am neither of those things, I’m none of those things. I am simply a follower of Christ. A Christian. And we are naturally counter-cultural, and if so-called liberals were truly diverse and tolerant, they would embrace us just as they embrace everyone else.And the point has been made, but [there’s a] growing christophobic attitude around this public debate. And the ugly level of hypocrisy is that we rarely see people hold Muslims and people of other faiths to the same expectations that they hold Christians to. Who is calling, except my good friend here, for Islam to engage gay marriage? Who is calling for the Quran to be updated to modern societal norms? It is the same /ꟷ*** ꟷMind your language/ it is the same patronising attitude of people: to patronize people of other faiths, while being intolerant towards Christians at the same time. It’s a shame! But in the words of St Athanasius of Alexandria:

“If the world is against the truth, then I am against the world.”