The announcement from Downing Street that the Revd Nicholas Holtam, currently vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, has been nominated as the next Bishop of Salisbury poses great challenges for traditionalist Anglicans here and abroad, but it also raises serious questions about the functioning of the Crown Nominations Commission, responsible for choosing Anglican bishops.
There have been rumours about Mr Holtam’s appointment for some time, principally because he is married to a divorcee. Oddly enough, although the Church of England imposes certain restrictions on clerical ordination for those in that situation, there was no clarity about the consecration of bishops. At the last General Synod, however, such clarification was urgently sought and the suspicions of many people as to why seem now to have been confirmed.
What is perhaps not realized is that the Church’s historical opposition to divorce goes back to the remarkably hard line taken by Jesus himself. Asked whether divorce was possible for any reason, he answered, “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9, NIV).
Hence even Henry VIII, in his run-in with the Pope, could only seek an annulment — a declaration that his first marriage was invalid — not, strictly, a divorce.
Notice, however, the exception: for “marital unfaithfulness” (literally porneia), which is usually taken to mean adultery — the logic being that a marriage covenant already broken by adultery cannot be broken again.
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If the woman that Mr Holtam lives with as a wife is divorced from her husband for reasons other than adultery on the part of her husband, the Mr Holtam is living with another's wife.
ReplyDeleteBut the Scriptures declare that the husband and the wife are one, this may well mean that the wife's divorce is transmitted to the husband which would make Mr Holtam unqualified for ministry.