Church of England report may lead to "further liberalization"
A published report released yesterday by the Church of England's doctrine commission, "could pave the way for further liberalization" of the church's views on sex, The Daily Telegraph says today.

The 138-page document, Being Human: A Christian Understanding of Personhood Illustrated with Reference to Power, Money, Sex And Time (Church House Publishing), was approved by the House of Bishops. The Church of England website says that the book's view on sex is this:

The basic thing to be learnt is that it is created to be 'a whole-person relationship of love and loyalty involving body and self'. We teach a realism about the goodness and joy of sex together with the ways it can go wrong. This is set in the context of God's engagement with the world, and especially the encompassing reality of that engagement: the covenant relationship with God, other people and creation.

The Daily Telegraph, however, says the report is the church's attempt to "shed its puritanical image" by avoiding pejorative language, such as "living in sin." Instead, the article says that the report encourages "covenanted relationships."

The doctrine commission chairman, Stephen Sykes, told the Telegraph that a man and woman making a lifelong commitment to each other form a covenant relationship, regardless if they are married. "The Church will still urge such couples to marry, although it increasingly recognizes that the institution is far from perfect," the articles says.

The new book comes a few months after a report form the church's Southwark Diocese that questioned the church's view on cohabitation and argued that traditional teaching against sex before marriage had been inherited from a different ...