Kent, UK - A clergyman who sparked a row by calling on wives to be submissive and claiming that modern marriage was in crisis has refused to back down.
After a defiant service at his church in Kent, the Rev Mark Oden claimed that he had received numerous letters backing his opinion, a view that he admitted some people would see as “medieval”.
Two weeks ago the curate delivered a controversial sermon at St Nicholas’s Church in Sevenoaks in which he triggered outrage by partly blaming the high divorce rate on women no longer submitting to their husbands.
“Whatever we do, it [modern marriage] is not working,” he had said. “The Bible’s claim is that God invented marriage. Marriage was God’s idea. God knows how it works.”
Many members of the congregation closed ranks in support of the curate after a follow-up sermon yesterday entitled “Marriage MoT”, in which he admitted that his teachings “might not be palatable” but “we need to hear them.”
Mr Oden, 35, a former Royal Marine commando who is married with three young daughters, has been at the church since his ordination a year ago. He told The Times that no one had approached him directly with their concerns.
“I’m sorry if they have taken offence,” he said. “But I feel my job is to be opening up God’s word and preaching.
“I’ve lost track of the number of texts and e-mails of support, phonecalls and flowers I’ve received. Someone left a bottle of wine on the doorstep.”
Yesterday’s Valentine’s Day sermon was the latest development in the row. One member of the 800-strong congregation told a local newspaper that people were flocking away from the church and that several had retracted their charitable standing orders.
Another claimed that the church’s rector, the Rev Angus MacLeay, had distributed a leaflet in which he allegedly insisted that “women should remain silent” if “questions could be legitimately be answered by their husbands”.
Mr MacLeay, a prominent member of the General Synod, is also a trustee of Reform, a Church of England movement that opposes the ordination of women bishops. He denied the anonymous accusations yesterday. “I didn’t write it,” he said. “It was written four years ago by a woman.”
He added that the vicarage had been deluged with messages of support “from across the country” and that in the past few weeks he had seen “more people than ever” attend his services.
The church treasurer said he had no evidence that any direct debits had been cancelled.
Melanie Stone, 36, who runs the church crèche and is a full-time mother of four, said that female parishioners were in full support of the curate. “There’s huge support for Mark here,” she said.
“Anyone who’s going to take the Bible seriously would be interested in what he is saying.”
She added that there were a “small number” of dissenters. “I wouldn’t see it as a ‘sisterhood’ within the church. Its not men versus women.”
“‘Submission’ is a word that has modern connotations,” said Paul Bachelor, 63, a former warden of the church.
“The suggestion that there is a mass exodus — we find that quite disquieting. The people who were upset chose not to talk to the people who upset them.”
During yesterday’s sermon Mr Oden said he wished to make it clear that he did not believe women were “weaker intellectually” but that it was “an eternal principle that women are physically weaker than men”.
He sought to redress the balance by saying that men should help at home. “Put your briefcase down, walk into the kitchen and put the Marigolds on,” he said. He later had to explain to a male parishioner what Marigolds were.
He also asked The Times not interview his wife about the sermon.