THE Church of England tried to catch up with the 21st century yesterday with a report celebrating the joy of sex between unmarried couples and denouncing debt and the culture of spin.

The Church’s authoritative Doctrine Commission has grappled with the difficult issues of sex, money and power to offer guidance on day-to-day living to modern Christians. It said that the Church of England should throw off its image as a prudish Victorian institution and celebrate the sexiness of Christianity.

“The secular world needs to know more clearly that the Church regards sexuality as essentially a joy and a blessing,” said the Rt Rev Stephen Sykes, chairman of the Doctrine Commission, a committee of eminent Anglican bishops and theologians who lay the groundwork for church policy. “The Church should joyfully and openly declare that human sexuality can be a matter of grace.”

The commission, which took seven years to prepare the report, called Being Human, blamed the Church for what it sees as today’s unhealthy climate of sexual permissiveness.

If previous generations of church leaders had extolled the pleasure and spirituality of sex, then perhaps fewer young people would have abandoned its teachings on the matter, it said.

“The development of sexual permissiveness in our society can perhaps be seen as one of the long-term consequences of the failure of Christians to maintain a positive Christian view of sexuality as a gift of God in creation,” the report said.

The report is remarkably relaxed about the idea of non-married couples, which may lead to liberalisation. Gone are any references to “living in sin”, or stern warnings to wait for the wedding night. It encourages “sexual delight” within “covenant relationships”, but the definition of such a relationship is left deliberately vague.

When asked at the publication of the report at Church House in central London yesterday whether a covenant relationship could describe an unmarried couple, Professor Sykes, the former Bishop of Ely and Principal of St John’s College at the University of Durham, said that he thought it could.

“That is a very difficult question,” he said. “If we are talking about a relationship where man and woman are committed ‘till death do us part’, I would say they are in a covenant relationship.”

But he added that, from the Church’s point of view, there was still “something lacking if they hadn’t made a socially endorsed vow to each other”.

Professor Sykes said that it was difficult to change the Church’s prudish image. “The Church has a reputation for being negative about sex. We want to say it is a wonderful gift from God, but it is difficult to be heard,” he said.

The commission also spoke out against the “explosion” in credit, which encouraged people to get into spiralling debt. Professor Sykes said that people should be careful that vast debt did not dominate or ruin their lives.

The report attacked the Government’s enthusiastic use of private finance initiatives (PFIs) to build schools and hospitals by entering into mortgage-style agreements with companies. Professor Sykes said that PFIs illustrated the problem with debt, because the need to make repayments could take precedence over the needs of pupils or patients.

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