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Michael Burrows- Please Don't Cry

Michael Burrows- Please Don’t Cry

Michael Burrows has the quintessential mix of classic and contemporary that Australia’s Country music scene has to offer.

The brand new single ‘Please Don’t Cry’, taken from his debut EP ‘Turn This Love Around’…

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Australian Singer and Songwriter Michael Burrows Releases Debut Single Please Don’t Cry from EP ‘Turn This Love Around’

Australian Singer and Songwriter Michael Burrows Releases Debut Single Please Don’t Cry from EP ‘Turn This Love Around’ #newmusic #folk #americana #rock #country

Singer-Songwriter Michael Burrows recently released “Please Don’t Cry” the newest single from his debut EP ‘Turn This Love Around’. The song is a unique fusion of Country, Folk, Americana and Rock n’ Roots styles of music. The buzz on the street is that Michael Burrows is bringing “the quintessential mix of classic and contemporary music”, a blend in which Australia’s music scene has been…

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A consideration of the case for marriage equality based on the trajectory of Anglican moral theology and liturgy

By Michael Burrows, Bishop of Cashel, Ferns & Ossory I begin with a simple assertion that this referendum is a rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. The civil law is free to use the term marriage as it chooses (consonant with the evolving understanding of language in the world generally) and even if some of us had any lingering regrets about the current implications of such freedom, I think we should be very careful in suggesting that same sex marriage will somehow weaken the marriages of those who are of opposite sex. Having been married to one person of the opposite sex for well over a quarter of a century, I cannot see how the status and relationship we enjoy will be one whit altered or diminished by this proposal. Proposals to give recognition to so-called pre nuptial agreements would actually worry me much more as they would seem to undermine the permanent intentionality essential to any relationship purporting to be marital. Perhaps the sense that justice will be well served by the application of the term ‘marriage’ to same –sex relationships arises from our inability to find any other equally honourable word that meets the case; perhaps if bodies like churches had been more affirming of civil partnerships when these first came into being the understandable clamour for a move to same sex marriage would have been reduced. At any rate, the churches cannot claim at this point to be the divinely appointed moral guardians of the vocabulary of marriage.

I have long believed that the churches should take the trajectory of human rights law very seriously – all too often we have allowed ourselves to be left behind defending the essentially indefensible. The call for same sex marriage is a logical and timely development in the march of law reform and equality; this is not something which is being proposed because of the raucous demands of a few; rather it stems from a long tradition of using law to explore the implications of equality and fairness. I believe that the Spirit moves in the world which is already God’s as well as in the churches; I believe that often the churches need to seek rather than to muzzle the voice of the Spirit which can use means that are not necessarily overtly religious to lead us into greater truth. (That said, many people whose motivation is primarily religious and Christian are, like me, for precisely that reason supportive of this proposal)

I am persuaded that those in the Church of Ireland who have difficulty with this proposal (and I respect that for them this view may be a matter of conscience) have perhaps failed to consider sufficiently the nature of the march of Anglican moral theology over several centuries. To put a stop to that march now and as it were freeze the picture would not I think be consonant with the way in which Anglicans have reflected on relational ethics over the centuries, not least through the very manner in which the marriage service has articulated the nature and purposes of marriage. Let me deal sequentially with some of the points that come to mind, remembering always that we are concerned with the life long and exclusive loving commitment of one person made in the image of God to another. It is not good for us (apart perhaps from those who have a particular commitment to, or charism of, celibacy) to be alone.

Consider therefore the marriage service, and whether perhaps the legal possibility of same sex marriage as it were ticks more of the boxes of how that service has in practice evolved than we might readily think, or indeed wish to think. In the Preface to the Marriage Service in the traditional language liturgy of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the primary emphasis was on procreation and the bringing up of children in the fear of the Lord. In the more recent marriage rites, procreation, although very important for those who can biologically achieve it (not all can, and this should not be taken to diminish in any way the quality of their marriage bond) is put in a tertiary position, after mention has been made of companionship and sexual intimacy. In the early modern period, with low life expectancy, rampant disease and infant mortality, there was an almost obsessive approach to the production of heirs, especially when family property and inheritance were involved. Many marriages were arranged as much with an eye on succession as on the basis of mutual love (which it was often hoped would follow later, when and after the babies arrived). The logic of all of this is that we need to be careful when we say that what makes marriage distinctive from all other relationships is its focus on children ; continuing to talk in that way is to dwell in an earlier century than our own for we live in a time in which a significant number of people cherish life long marital intimacy without the company of offspring

For some people childlessness is a very difficult and painful reality, and when we speak endlessly of marriage being ‘all about children’ we need to be very careful of what this says to them. There is no doubt that there is a case to be made– for all sorts of obvious reasons – for bringing up children in a secure and stable married environment where they have parents of both sexes as both carers and role models. (In saying this I am emphatically not denying the excellent parenting that many same-sex couples clearly offer, whether the child is the natural child of one of them or both are in an adoptive role- there are of course issues here which do not directly connect with the substance of the coming referendum.) However, such matters apart, we should recognise the pain that for countless couples accompanies childlessness, and Anglicans have long been open, to various degrees, to the insights of science concerning how such persons may be assisted in their longings by techniques of reproductive technology - indeed in the Republic of Ireland we have pressed for a more adequate legislative framework in which practitioners of reproductive technology might operate. Reproductive technology may of course include the use of, for example, donor sperm to assist conception and in this context it must be recognised that seeking the blessing of children may involve the use of biological material drawn from outside the marriage bond. Thus the legal and moral relationship between marriage and parenting is already not always conveniently straightforward.

Perhaps of even greater moral, as well as pastoral significance, is our acceptance of couples who, although they could have children together, for their own personal reasons choose not to and thus embrace a lifetime of companionship and intimacy without parenting. We would almost certainly no longer contend that such intentions ran entirely contrary to the purposes of marriage or that such marriages were less than totally real. If this is so, we have by implication moved towards acceptance of marriage as a relationship between two people who choose to dwell permanently in commitment , love and intimacy but whose relationship is one to one between themselves. All this strikes an obvious chord with what is now being proposed in relation to same sex marriage

The more modern marriage rites regard deep and lasting friendship and companionship as being the bedrock and first purpose of marriage. In former times this was presented as a mere sequel to parenting. Again, the present proposal seems to be in the spirit of more recent liturgical thinking – it is all about giving legal status and recognition to situations where those who wish to share their lives, property and love truly as ‘best friends’ may have the opportunity to do so. In the past Christian tradition did much to honour and celebrate friendship and this has been sadly lost. The private intimacies of adult best friends (a term many married people already use with regard to one another) should not be the subject of inappropriate enquiry or speculation; what surely matters is that lives of integrity are being led and that the quality of the friendship is publicly demonstrated by obvious tenderness and generous love.

The traditional marriage rites of the early modern period regarded the enjoyment of sexual intimacy as somewhat morally problematical – it was all about procreation and when used for that purpose within marriage it at least involved the ‘avoidance of sin’ and the prospect of divine blessing. However, the idea that sexual intimacy for its own sake could be regarded with delight as a means of strengthening the marriage bond deliberately outside of the possibility of procreation would not have been accepted. Right until well into the twentieth century Anglicans tended to condemn ‘artificial’ contraception as interfering with the creative purposes of God and it would have been held that couples of child – conceiving age should have remained open to that possibility on every occasion of intercourse. The arrival of reliable contraception changed many such attitudes, as in Anglicanism did the counsel of the Lambeth bishops in 1958 when at a seminal moment in the development of moral theology they took the view that married couples had a duty to be responsible parents and to bring into the world children whom they were truly in a position to provide for. In that context the bishops also took the view that couples might, taking advantage of the achievements of medical science, use contraception both to regulate family size and also to facilitate sexual intimacy where there was no possibility of conception but which had its own value both as a source of delight and in the strengthening of the partners’ hearts and lives. By the time the Irish Prayer Book was revised at the turn of the last century there was no more talk of the ‘avoidance of sin’ and the making of love in the context of marriage was described as ‘the joy of bodily union’, with a further optional prayer being added to the service which gave thanks for the gift of sexual love explicitly. Thus we have now reached a situation where the sexual expression of committed partners is seen as having moral value in itself, and this insight has to be relevant to the current debate. Furthermore, having uncoupled sexual expression and procreation as inevitable bedfellows, we need to be careful of negative attitudes to the sexual intimacies of same sex couples which are based more on phobic reactions or irrational distaste rather than on consistent ethical thinking

The contemporary marriage rite, having rearranged the purposes of marriage as formerly expressed, in fact adds a fourth purpose – that marriage is all about public commitment in a world which rather tends to underplay commitment, to treat relationships casually, to regard life long intentions as naïve or imprudent. Marriage is of its nature a public event, always contracted in public places before witnesses, and those who are marrying one another are freely making a public statement about why one to one commitment matters, why it should be honoured, why it is a building block of a stable society. It seems irrational and unnecessary that equality of opportunity to do this should be denied to couples whose commitment is of a same sex nature 10. All the above points suggest we have happily travelled a long way in our understanding and acceptance of same-sex relationships since, for example, our ancestors in faith articulated the phrases of the time – honoured marriage liturgy. However, we should I think accept that those ancestors did not provide Anglicanism with a liturgical blueprint which was incapable of change. In subtle and indeed less subtle ways, all through the centuries, Anglican moral theology has pushed out boundaries in relation to the possibilities associated with marriage. Given that for us liturgy is the articulation of doctrine this suggests that our doctrine of marriage is a dynamically developing one. To move it now into the area of same sex commitment is indeed a seismic shift, but I would want to suggest that it is one for which a case can at least be made based on the trajectory of the ethical journey we have travelled thus far.

At any rate, the present proposal in civil law does not require the church to solemnise same sex marriages, and what we are talking about here is of course our attitude to putative future civil ceremonies, not to any instant change in our own internal doctrine. However, I do think that my elucidation of what I hope is a reasonable theological position may make at least some readers more content about the consonance of what the state proposes with how the church’s own mind has in fact tended to work over the course of centuries. However, for the moment – assuming this proposal is passed – what will concern us is the pastoral care of those who are entering same sex marriages and who are also faithful church members. It may be that there is a need to offer some means of marking the moment by appropriate prayer and dedication, perhaps at an occasion where the emphasis is on giving the couple space to pray together alongside their friends about what they in conscience have decided to do themselves, as opposed to the church articulating some official view about the character of their union. I think that it is important, as with current ceremonies when couples civilly married come to church to pray about what they have already lawfully done, that the emphasis is on their own act of prayer and dedication as opposed to the seeking of a ‘blessing’ from the church for their decision. The language of blessing I think is often unhelpfully, inappropriately and divisively overused.

It will of course be said by many that, if the church solemnises opposite sex marriage and refuses to do so with same sex marriage, then it is engaging in unjust discrimination tantamount in the eyes of some to homophobia, and that the civil law by allowing church solemnisers thus to discriminate is conniving at anachronistic injustice. This contention is not without weight, and the state may eventually take the view that religious solemnisers either conduct the weddings of all who are lawfully entitled to marry, or cease to conduct any weddings at all. As we have already seen in the case of civil registrars who claim to have difficulties of conscience in solemnising civil partnerships, it becomes very difficult in these matters to make allowances for individual consciences, and the state could come to the conclusion that it should break with the churches in the area of marriage, thus making a civil ceremony obligatory for all and ensuring equality of access to marriage under the law. Actually, I think there is much to be said for such a development. Again it is a case of due rendering to Caesar. Already all citizens, who carry a PPS number from the state from birth to death (and even beyond) must have their births and deaths civilly certified. Whether they also come to the church to mark those moments notably through baptisms and funerals is a matter of choice. If there were equally a mandatory process of civil marriage and its registration that no longer involved the churches, then citizens could come to those bodies in search of pastoral care and prayer appropriate to the occasion, and it would be entirely up to the churches what they considered they could contentedly and in good conscience offer.

For all of the reasons outlined, some of which have obvious practical relevance to the present civil proposal and some of which strive to indicate that it is not as disharmonious with evolving theological thought as might be assumed, I feel impelled as an (I hope) reflective Christian citizen to vote in support of it. I am convinced that it will be a contribution to a fairer and more truly equal Ireland, and I cannot see any way in which it could be considered repugnant to the common good, or indeed to the vital role of the family in our midst, given our inclination in more recent times to have a wider understanding of varieties of family in practice if not always in law than prevailed in the past. But, more than that, I have come to believe that the rights of gay people have become, very properly, the great justice issue of our time just as the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of women were in the past. I could not vote against this proposal because of my utter abomination of homophobia, and I have to say that behind some (in fairness not all) of the case against same sex marriage lies a kind of intellectual and pseudo respectable homophobia akin to certain of the arguments against the ordination of women which struck me as no better than intellectualised misogyny. I have come to feel that homophobia must be fought in our society as an evil; at the time of the death of Nelson Mandela not long ago I reflected on his analogous view that apartheid must be fought absolutely as an evil. Part of the character of evil is that one simply cannot compromise with it. In a way that distresses me, I often find the church in effect compromising with homophobia by attempts to evade and fudge issues. For example, to claim to cherish someone’s sexuality while suggesting that they should permanently be denied a loving expression of that sexuality, is to me a fudge or indeed a compromise that borders on the immoral. The ‘compromises’ sought of clergy who are gay, for the sake of the outward unity of the church, are similarly morally questionable as – in some places – guarantees are sought that committed partnerships are ‘celibate’, or where different rules are applied to clergy from other Christians in a way that drives their intimate lives into secrecy and fear. The frequent separation between orientation and expression in the case of gay people is, to me, a compromise with injustice that denies the holistic reality of the human person. Because I cannot compromise with, to be absolutely blunt, to-day’s great evil of homophobia, I must recognise the justice of the present proposal for change in the constitution, our basic guarantee of rights, and support it.

A final Biblical insight. Much is made of the divine intention in creation, and the manner in which the interaction and assumed complementarily of the sexes is governed by the supposedly natural law of things. The introduction of same sex marriage does not change the reality that difference of gender is part of the order of creation (although for at least some people gender is not readily assigned or defined); men and women share the image of God equally and relate to each other as it were fearfully and wonderfully. The complexity of the interaction between the sexes is a development from the animal kingdom, where especially among the higher animals same sex attraction too is part of the reality of things. Where the early chapters of the Bible speak of spouses becoming ‘one flesh’ the emphasis here is not necessarily so much on a particular type of private sexual act between a man and a woman, but on the fact that those who marry, over and against their parents and the households from which they come, develop their own bond which we might term a common kinship. In the ancient world this was an important source of respect, security and rights. The present proposal for same sex marriages implies simply that all couples, regardless of gender, have the opportunity to establish a common kinship, to form a family, to provide mutual security, to receive recognition and rights, to share property. These are the issues of both practicality and justice that should concern us most, and private intimacies should be left where they belong . . . in private

I repeat therefore my initial assertion that, while of course I respect the positions of those who differ often radically from me, I believe that a conscientious Christian citizen is not only entitled to support this proposal, but has every right to act as an advocate for it. We are privileged that we are allowed through the ballot box to have our individual say in such a matter, and that duty is to be taken very seriously – we are in the position to be (or not) the first European democracy to introduce same sex marriage by way of referendum. If we do so, it will not simply be because of some whim or fashion or improper pressure – it will be in the context of a long saga of law reform in pursuit of equality, as well as of our search for the wind of the Spirit in the affairs of society, and (for voters such as myself) our reflection on a long and distinctive trajectory in terms of the Anglican theology of marriage. This proposal as I said earlier ticks more proverbial boxes in our edifice of moral theology than is readily acknowledged. It also reflects our tradition of respect for scientific insight concerning human biology and psychology which has illuminated our approach to similar discussions in the past. The passage of the amendment will present the church with consequent pastoral and liturgical challenges for itself, but let us deal with them in due course. However difficult they may be, they do not provide an excuse to oppose this proposal or to stay at home on the day of the referendum, perhaps pleading the ‘doctrine of the inopportune time’. For me in fact, recent experience of the travails of the church and my hope of better times only accentuates my resolve to support the proposal for constitutional change which the Oireachtas, with some measure of courage and in a manner that would have been inconceivable until very recently, has set before the citizens

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