Church of England schools will promote biblical marriage within Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) lessons, its Chief Education Officer has said.
Revd Nigel Genders’ comments came in a blog post explaining the CofE’s response to the Government’s recent RSE consultation.
The consultation, which closed last month, asked for views on how RSE lessons could be improved.
‘Good gifts’
Genders said: “Healthy relationships and sex are good gifts from God and should bring joy”, before explaining that “the Christian understanding of marriage” is the context for sexual relationships.
He said that in Church of England schools, RSE “will be rooted in the teachings of the Church”.
He added that abstinence and celibacy should also be taught as “positive life choices”.
The Church’s consultation response also says that while biblical marriage is “the perfect context” for a sexual relationship, pupils should also be taught about different kinds of sexual relationships, and that different views on sex must be respected.
Church teaching
The Church of England’s official position on marriage, based on Genesis 2, says it is “a creation ordinance, a gift of God in creation and a means of his grace”.
CofE canon law on holy matrimony states: “marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children”.