ViaMedia

Year: 2023

  • Plotting the Division of the Church of England

    by Nic Tall, member of General Synod and Secretary of the General Synod Gender & Sexuality Group

    If you have been paying attention to the church press recently, you will have a sense of grumblings from conservative parts of the church, disgruntled over prayers of blessing for same sex couples. You may have noticed pronouncements about an “Ephesian Fund” or “alternative spiritual oversight” and wondered what’s going on.

    To help explain current movements within the church I will carefully plot the path that has brought us to this point. This reveals a consistent plan to partition the church which stretches back over years. Does that sound far-fetched? I’d ask you to look at the evidence and decide for yourself.

    This plan to divide the church, with conservative parishes refusing to share resources with the wider church and turning priests and parishes away from the care of their bishop, goes back to 2016. In the aftermath of the struggle to prevent women becoming bishops, some conservatives who opposed equality for women in the church looked to the issue of sexuality as the next place to oppose progressive values.

    A discussion document titled “Guarding the Deposit” was prepared for the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) in October 2016. It considered what would happen if there were moves to support equal marriage or blessing of same sex relationships in the church, and concluded that there would need to be “visible differentiation and division within the Church of England”. The envisaged division took the form of partition within the church, with both affirming and non-affirming Christians remaining within the church but divided into separate provinces. Provinces, in the Anglican Communion, are usually geographic: these wouldn’t be. They would overlap geographically but have separate episcopal oversight.

    Following October 2016, the General Synod had a busy time debating same sex relationships. February 2017 saw the famous “take note” debate, when a paper from the House of Bishops was rejected by Synod. This led to Archbishop Justin Welby declaring “we need a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church”. That response would be explored through a new project, Living in Love and Faith (LLF), producing a suite of resources available and inviting the whole church to explore the issues. LLF would take a few years to gather together these resources, but a sense that they might usher in progressive change was clearly concerning some.

    It is in this context that the CEEC, following that 2016 paper, began to take those ideas about how to divide the church more seriously. CEEC began to prepare for creating conditions where they could be put into practice.

    At its annual Council meeting in January 2019, the CEEC agreed to increase its capacity, seeking to raise extra funds, employ staff and refine options for “visible differentiation”. Until this point its annual income was around £35k, most of which was paid in a grant to a theological consultant. In 2019/20 income doubled to £100k and by 2021/22 it had increased to £176k. The January 2019 meeting also looked ahead on strategic and tactical concerns for the 2020 General Synod elections, another sign of long-term political planning.

    Having resolved to significantly increase capacity in preparation for the debates over LLF, the next part of the plan was to expunge any moderate evangelicals who harboured sympathy for those in same sex relationships. So, at the July meeting of General Synod, the Evangelical Group on General Synod (EGGS) amended its basis of faith to include conservative statements on marriage, sexuality and gender identity. This effectively removed inclusive evangelicals, leading to a split in the constituency.

    Freed up from any internal resistance that would have come from those inclusive evangelicals, the CEEC’s Council meeting in January 2020 prepared to make bolder steps. The first priority on its plan for 2020 was “Visible differentiation for the sake of biblical orthodoxy: development of Permanent Provision options and proposals from Council; development of Principled Protest; liaison across the evangelical constituency.” It also sought to focus on the 2020 General Synod elections, organising locally through Diocesan Evangelical Fellowships (DEFs). The Report and Accounts from 2019-2020 show that further plans were developed to encourage and support evangelical bishops to “be distinctive”. The intention to create division within the church was starting to take shape, using the sexuality debate as a wedge issue and strengthening links across the evangelical constituency, through local diocesan networks and bringing evangelical bishops on board. This was the first time that “principled protest” had been seen as part of the strategy.

    On 26th July 2020 the CEEC published the report “Visibly Different”, 104 pages long and expanding the themes of “Guarding the Deposit”. It spent time working in detail through the proposal for “a provincial way forward”, creating a third province which would be separate from the rest of the church but geographically coterminous. Whether liberal or conservative Christians would be deposited into this third province was a moot point; the critical part of the plan was structural differentiation, with conservatives remaining in the Church of England and enjoying all the financial benefits of doing so.

    While the CEEC was drawing up detailed plans for structural division within the church, the LLF project had been steadily developing its suite of resources for the wider church to explore issues around sexuality and relationships, and these were published on 9th November 2020. Six days later, the CEEC unveiled a 32 minute video entitled “The Beautiful Story”, including content from three bishops. This video undermined the content of LLF, presenting just one perspective, and a deeply conservative one at that. It concluded with John Dunnett, Chair of EGGS, issuing a call: “the General Synod elections in summer of 2021 are massively important and evangelicals need to be thinking now about whether they might be a good candidate”. So instead of engaging in open and honest debate with LLF, the agenda was only to focus on conservative perspectives; no others were worth discussing. It was also linked directly to maximising the political outcomes of the 2021 General Synod election.

    Moving into 2021, the CEEC looked to expand its capacity further to support its plans, employing paid staff for the first time, appointing an administrator in January, National Director in April and a Communications Director in November. In July the CEEC/EGGS National General Synod Elections Team published their guidance for conservative evangelical candidates in a document not intended for public release, but soon leaked. Candidates were assured that the local DEF would make sure “orthodox evangelicals” would vote for them in any case, so election statements should be aimed at another set of voters: those from the “middle ground”. Candidates were advised to conceal their views on same sex relationships, women’s ordained ministry or abuse within the church, but instead “as much as possible, sound as if you are a practising member of the Church of England”. “Sound as if”? On sexuality the advice was “it might be that it is wiser not referred to… talk about listening positively to and respecting the views of others, even when we find ourselves disagreeing.” A further private document on how to handle hustings meetings was distributed, again maintaining the policy of concealing their true views on sexuality and women’s ministry.

    Supported by the resources and organisation of the CEEC, not to mention this deliberate concealment of challenging views on sexuality and women’s ministry, conservative evangelical candidates performed well in the elections. The results saw many independent candidates displaced, along with a reduction in traditional catholic representation, although inclusive candidates supported by Inclusive Church maintained good numbers. Contrary to the CEEC campaign, Inclusive Church had a deliberate policy of transparency, publicly promoting a list of candidates who had signed up to a broad inclusion statement so voters would have clear information to base their decisions.

    With the new General Synod formed in November 2021, the subject of same sex relationships was bubbling away under the surface, but with the LLF materials out for use in the dioceses there was little coming directly to General Synod for discussion. The 2022 Council meeting of the CEEC reiterated the strategic priority linking LLF to differentiation, maintaining a policy that pursued division with sexuality as a wedge issue.

    Later in 2022, the momentum for change from LLF began to build, with feedback from those having done the LLF course indicating a majority wish for liturgical affirmation of same sex relationships. The House of Bishops held meetings to decide a way forward, with much speculation on the direction they would choose. In this atmosphere John Dunnett, Chair of EGGS and at this point Strategy Director of CEEC, issued a document outlining the CEECs position following LLF. The stance was to oppose any change whatsoever, effectively dismissing the whole LLF project and the ignoring the majority in the C of E who saw a place for some change to better accommodate LGBTQIA+ people. However, if that were not possible “differentiation will become an immediate necessity”. Three different options for visible differentiation were explained, with the preferred model involving “the rearrangement of episcopal oversight, dioceses and provinces.” Liberals would be given the option of opting into a “third province”, with conservatives retaining the remainder of the Church of England and relationships with the Anglican Communion.

    Which brings us to the eventful year of 2023. In January, the House of Bishops brought forward proposals for the blessing of those in same sex relationships and new pastoral guidance to replace Issues in Human Sexuality. On 9th February, Synod passed a vote in all three Houses to welcome these proposals, giving the House of Bishops a green light to proceed. This was the signal for the conservative plan to divide the church to move up a gear. Within a week a slick, pre-prepared video titled “We Love the Church of England” was rolled out. It voiced a hope for unity, but also stated that no compromise was possible. The solution presented was “structural rearrangement”, alleged to be desired by those liberals “preaching a false gospel”. Without such an arrangement it was predicted that “we’re going to tear the Church of England right down the middle.” At least five speakers in the video were based in churches that do not accept the ordination of women, and were therefore from the tiny minority of Church of England parishes (less than 5%) who hold to that view. The entanglement between historic opposition to the ministry of women and a wish to divide the church over sexuality was still evident.

    On 16th March 2023 the CEEC issued a statement that it was “compelled to resist” the direction approved by Synod, and called on conservative clergy to sign a declaration to join them. The declaration made no mention of visible differentiation, seeking to draw in as many conservative supporters as possible without spelling out the radical plan of partitioning the church.

    At the same time as stoking up fear among its conservative evangelical constituency, claiming that Synod’s decision would be “extremely distressing for evangelicals in this country”, the CEEC began to forge alliances with other groups. On 7th July, on the eve of the next General Synod meeting, a long letter raising complaints about the LLF process was published, with additional signatories from the Traditional Catholic group on synod (Anglo-Catholics opposed to the ordination of women), New Wine, the HTB Network, Church Revitalisation Trust and Myriad. Traditional Catholics coming on board was no surprise, as they had also opposed the Synod vote in February and had often sided with conservative evangelicals to oppose progressive proposals in the church. However, the inclusion of some charismatic evangelical church planting networks, particularly Holy Trinity Brompton, was a new addition. It had sometimes been assumed that HTB preferred to keep any reluctance around same sex relationships under the radar, given the diversity of views present within its congregations, as demonstrated earlier in the year by letters to the Church Times from LGBT+ affirming Christians who were HTB members.

    But the involvement of HTB and its Church Planting charity The Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT) would now go far beyond being a co-signatory to a letter. On 13th July 2023 a company called “AZ Alliance Ltd” was registered with Companies House, with a stated nature of business being “activities of religious organisations”. The two named directors were originally Sarah Jackson (Chief Executive Officer of the CRT) and Jago Wynne (Vicar of Holy Trinity Clapham, part of the HTB network of churches), with John Dunnett (National Director of CEEC) appointed as a third director in September.

    The involvement of personnel linked to HTB would continue, with former HTB Vicar Nicky Gumbel joining John Dunnett, now National Director of the CEEC, at a meeting in Cairo of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GFSA) in October 2023. Gumbel (recently awarded the CBE for ‘services to the Church of England’) was recorded as attending on behalf of “Alliance UK”, while the meeting of conservative Anglicans issued a statement with the priority of “re-setting the communion according to its biblical and historic roots”. The statement went on to add “We all know and lament that our Communion has entered into a deep darkness of rebellion to the truth of God’s word.”

    In spite of the campaigning by the CEEC to stir up dissent, the General Synod met again in November 2023 and once again voted in all three Houses of Synod to continue the work on LLF, including the consideration of standalone services of blessing for same sex couples. With the CEEC having failed to derail the LLF process, two days after the vote they launched the “Ephesian Fund”, closely followed by plans to create alternative structures of spiritual oversight. These announcements were two pillars of the long-planned structural differentiation, except that they were informal in nature. The Ephesian Fund relied on the fact that payment of Parish Share or Common Fund to the diocese is purely voluntary and cannot be enforced. The aim is that any money entering the fund will only be paid to dioceses with a legal restriction attached; namely that the money can only be passed on to churches committed to a “biblical faith”, meaning those who refuse to use the Prayers of Love and Faith. It is a mechanism to begin the financial division of the church. Arrangements for alternative spiritual oversight would move all discretionary relationships with the diocesan bishop on to an alternative person, such as a retired bishop holding conservative views. While there is no way for a priest or parish to informally absent themselves from legal relationships with the bishop and diocese – such as safeguarding responsibilities – it is intended to undermine the relationship with the diocesan bishop as far as legally possible. These arrangements are currently being described as “a temporary provision which will support evangelicals until a settlement based on structural provision is made available”, a provision which is hoped would be “permanent”.

    So, following two votes in General Synod affirming the PLF, and the direction of travel on LLF moving beyond the CEEC’s red line of no change, the plan for division has now been unilaterally declared, seeking to separate the Church of England as far as possible, without formal legal provision agreed through due synodical process.

    And here is the most recent piece of the jigsaw, showing the extent to which the plan is being pursued. Rather than waiting for disgruntled churches to contact the CEEC and enquire about the financial and oversight arrangements now being developed separately from normal C of E practice, there is a proactive campaign seeking to recruit churches to this split. A proactive campaign with a deep involvement of The Alliance, Nicky Gumbel and the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT; as of December 2023, renamed the Revitalise Trust).

    I have been passed a document from a church leader dated 11th December which had been distributed to all of their church members. The document states that the leader and his wife had been wondering whether to leave the Church of England due to “the blessing of sin” and “allowing in false teaching”. However, the leader then tells of being approached out of the blue to be recruited to join the Alliance:

    Out of the total blue I had an email setting up a phone call with Nicky Gumbel. We are not the sort of people who use our connections to position ourselves near influential people. Though he knows one or two of us from this church, we do not know Nicky Gumbel personally.

    Nicky phoned to ask what we were thinking of doing post-General Synod in November, and having listened to our dismay and despair, he then shared what he is doing through the Alliance. We are going to share this with you now, but what we would also add is that following a call with Nicky, we also had an hour’s call later with further updates on some of the detail of the Alliance with the CEO – Rev. Sarah Jackson – of the Church Revitalisation Trust, which is the active agent leading the bringing together and forward motion of the Alliance.

    Nicky Gumbel talked to us about his vision to open the Alliance to churches to join.

    The vision is to partner nationally by gathering 3000 Anglican churches across the nation, all biblical and all committed to orthodoxy, and together probably representing more than 50% of all English Anglicans. The Alliance will seek to stand in unity as one for orthodoxy.

    NG and the Alliance are working behind the scenes to develop legal protections for orthodox clergy, orthodox ordinands and training institutions, they are already working out how to offer orthodox Bishops to provide biblical oversight to clergy and churches, amongst a range of other developments.

    It’s all fairly live and quite new, but it was important for us to hear that the Alliance are seeking to ensure that spiritual oversight will be offered by orthodox Bishops, thereby giving spiritual safety for clergy and parishes who cannot “walk together” with false teaching and false practice.

    This document was being circulated to the members of the church on the same day that The Alliance wrote to the House of Bishops, asserting that they “are committed to working together with others in the Church of England to enable a flourishing of the whole church for generations to come. We want to do all we can to avoid years of more infighting in our divided church.” However, their actions show that, far from wanting the flourishing of the whole church and a way out of infighting, behind the scenes there is proactive action to split the church, part of a plan for division stretching back years.

    The revelation of the CRT as a central element in driving the plan for division is also striking. The CRT has been the beneficiary of tens of millions of pounds of central church funding, delivered through the SDF fund in various church planting schemes. In their answer to Question 32 at the July 2021 Synod, the Archbishop’s Council estimated that between 2014 and 2020 this funding amounted to roughly £50m for projects led by the CRT or for which they were a partner. That the CRT has received such large sums of central church funding to develop its network of church plants, but is now preparing to use that network to divide the Church of England, is a betrayal of the faith placed in them by the wider church.

    The CEEC and the Alliance know that the formal structural changes they seek can only happen with a legal underpinning agreed by the General Synod. This is very unlikely to happen, particularly in the current General Synod where a 2/3rds majority in all three Houses would be challenging to achieve on such a controversial plan. Having failed to prevent the introduction of the Prayers of Love and Faith, sought by a majority in the church, and aware that formal structural provision is not currently likely, the remaining option is to divide the church as much as possible through informal means. These informal means are designed to make the split that they seek a de facto reality as much as is possible, such that formal legal recognition will seem a straightforward way out of the impasse. The aim of proactively recruiting a quarter of parish churches and half of the church’s members shows the ambition, perhaps hubris, behind the plan.

    I hope this article has documented the long-term factional planning to split the Church of England and alerts the overwhelming majority of church members committed to unity to resist it.

     

     

  • Language, Warfare and Lawfare – Gaza in Perspective

    by the Very Revd. Canon Professor Martyn Percy, Fellow at University of Edinburgh, King’s College London & Harris Manchester College Oxford

    An obvious observation to make is, ‘what perspective?’ There seems to be so little on the current crisis engulfing Gaza and beyond, only noise, solidarity-signalling and fury matched by long silences and the unsaid. There are plenty of points of view, to be sure. But they’re not quite the same as perspectives.

    The terms ‘perspective’ and ‘point of view’ are frequently used as though synonymous. They are not. A point of view is a space or place from which a story is told or unfolds. A perspective, however, is the analysis of the events and actors, and their motivations, beliefs and conduct. Perspectives can take account of worldviews, culture, heritage and experience. While a point of view might assert or argue the ‘when’, ‘who’ and the ‘what’ of history, a perspective should offer illumination on the ‘why’, ‘how’ and intended meanings of sources.

    So when a group of prominent Jewish lawyers recently published a letter (Financial Times, 17 October) and issued a statement from the Balfour Project, it was immediately apparent that this was a perspective worthy of heeding. Lord Neuberger, Former President of the UK Supreme Court, Philippe Sands KC, Sandra Fredman, University of Oxford, with several others, argued that the laws of war must guide Israel’s response to the Hamas atrocity of October 7th:

    We write as Jews, many of us with family and friends directly affected by the tragedy that has befallen Israel. Like so many others, the vile crimes perpetrated by Hamas in Israel have shaken us to our core. We also write in our capacity as lawyers. We do so because, instilled with our Jewish values, we believe that law, and the adherence to the rule of law, provide an invaluable guide to begin to make sense of what we are witnessing and to provide a path to govern responses to it. In these darkest of days, we write to emphasise the importance of international law as a guide to all.

    In their published statement, they go on to say that “one war crime must not…be avenged by committing another”, and that

    …nothing can justify the ‘complete siege of the Gaza Strip’ declared by the Israeli Government. Denying electricity, food, water, medicine and fuel to a civilian population is a war crime committed by a state… All human life is equal.

    The authors note that Gaza is the most densely populated land on our planet and, as the occupying power, “Israel has a clear legal obligation to safeguard the welfare of the civilians” yet by an “unprecedented aerial bombardment and threatened ground offensive, Israel is inflicting horrendous loss of life on over two million civilians”. Others will claim the rules of war allow for an entirely different perspective, and may argue that action in the cause of self-defence, even proactive, is legitimate. That the ends justify the means, no matter the cost.

    Where mediation may yet help all the parties out of this apocalypse, it will be the law that resolves the crisis. The Balfour Project statement was judicious in referring to Jewish law and our shared obligations under international law. At this moment, that emphasis is right and proper. Yet ancient Jewish law also offers a helpful perspective on the present conflict, not least because, at core level, this is part of our shared legal ecology across the developed world.

    In the New University Library at St. Andrews, Fife, affixed to a wall, is a quotation from James Wilson, dating from Philadelphia in 1768. Wilson grew up in Fife. In the New World he became a leading legal authority who helped to frame the independence declared from 1776. His words are bold in their simplicity:

    All men are by nature equal and free. No-one has a right to any authority over another without his consent…lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it.

    Contemporary readers of Thomas Paine’s influential pamphlet Common Sense (1776) are frequently surprised by the amount of space he devotes to scriptural reasoning. Paine, a British-born but pro-American independence politician, noted that, for the ancient Jews, monarchy was an idolatrous delusion contrary to Mosaic Law. In the Old Testament, strong, singular, entitled and unaccountable leadership was forbidden.

    Instead the Israelites’ preferred form of governance was that of the Judges – Joshua, Gideon, Deborah and others – who placed themselves under the Law, clear that it was “the Lord God who rules over you”. Gideon declined to be anointed King (Judges 8), telling the Israelites that kingship was not theirs to bestow upon him. Gideon was opposed to dynastic, inherited kingship, regarding it as ‘heathen’.

    The Old Testament promoted an alternative – a form of ‘positive liberty’ that was based on a just social order (c.f. Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (OUP, 1969), pp. 118-172). Leviticus, for example, demands that those who lose their livelihoods are supported by their neighbours. The lives, lands, and livestock of the vulnerable are protected. The Old Testament holiness code is one that promotes interdependence.

    The holiness code also limited the power of any monarch or ruler. A king must be one of your kin (Deuteronomy 17:14-20), and not above the citizens. Crucially, the only role the monarch has is to study, practice, dispense and obey the law. Please note, our leaders today – whether elected or imposed – should be upholders of the law, not lobbying the Court of Appeal trying to change law in order to secure conservative right-wing political cache.

    Old Testament laws were regarded as directly mediated from God. As the covenant between God and humanity, they transformed a legal code into collective sacred duty. The covenant reminded Israel of its fate when it was denied rights and legal protection:

    …remember when you were a slave in Egypt…God redeemed you from there. I, God, therefore command you to observe and protect the rights of the orphan, widow, alien and vulnerable (Deuteronomy 24: 18-22).

    What was crucial to Jewish identity (and arguably remains the case) is not whether an individual believes in God, but rather, do they observe the law? The obligations to follow the law are fundamental.

    Today, this attitude to law has transmuted into a much wider fundamental respect for judges, legislature and the jurisdiction of the state. We believe it is the law that is the ultimate authority, with politicians, including any President, constrained by their constitution.

    Which brings us to Gaza. Since 1650 BCE it probably ranks as one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in history. In old Arabic, its name means ‘fierce, strong’. Conquered by ancient empires – Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Assyrian, Philistine, Canaanite and Persian – by the time of Jesus’ ministry, it was a model of diversity with a multi-ethnic governing assembly.

    Gaza is cited by name in Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred writings. Sometimes it is just a geographical reference, and no more. The Ethiopian Eunuch – a black, African transgendered individual whose name we never learn, became the first recorded African convert to Christianity (Acts Chapter 8) while travelling in a chariot on the road between Jerusalem and Gaza.

    Over the last two thousand years Gaza city has been held by the Byzantine and Mongol empires, captured by the crusaders, and conquered by Islamic and Ottoman forces. Today, around two million people live there – a mixture of Sunni Muslims and Palestinian Christians, comprising Protestant, Anglican and Roman Catholic. Several hundred thousand live in one of the eight refugee camps in the territory, after exile from the Arab-Israeli conflicts of 1948, 1967 (Six Day War) and 1973 (Yom Kippur War). The Gaza Strip was ceded to the Palestinian Authority under the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accord, with Israel finally vacating possession in 2004.

    In the wider Gaza province and suburbs, the population numbers around two million people, crammed into an area the size of Sevenoaks in Kent. Incidentally, Sevenoaks has a population of 29,000 – and one need not dwell too much on what expanding a Kentish town’s population by close to one-hundredfold might do to a sitting Conservative MP’s prospects at the next election.

    So far as we know, Jesus never visited Gaza. Yet he was well-acquainted with places and peoples who had been subjected to multiple illegal occupation, exile, invasion and domination. One could say that Jesus’ entire ministry is spent among an assortment of the dispossessed, disinherited and decimated. Yet the core proclamation from this young rabbi was essentially one of peace and justice.

    Jesus came from Nazareth (Galilee), but his birth was in Bethlehem, Judea. But had there been no census at Bethlehem, Jesus would have been born in Galilee. This territory was not part of the Roman Empire. Galilee was a ‘client province’ of the Empire, and under the heel of Rome, but allowed to be ruled by the Herodian Dynasty. Herod and his son, Antipas were ‘kings’ in the lifetime of Jesus, but mere puppet rulers there to keep order on the edge of an Empire, granted titles and freedoms in return for loyalty.

    When it came to the trials of Jesus prior to his crucifixion, Pilate washed his hands of the affair because Jesus, as a Galilean, was not subject to Roman law or jurisdiction. Nor was Jesus subject to Judean law. The Sadducees, Scribes and Pharisees wanted Jesus tried under Jewish law, but neither Herod nor Pilate could oblige. The High Priests argued blasphemy should lead to the automatic death penalty, but the only way of achieving that end was to avoid a trial altogether, and judge and condemn Jesus without any due legal process. That is precisely what happens. Remember Caiaphas’ words: “…what need have we of witnesses?!”

    Such was the vengeful hysteria, sentence was passed on Jesus before trial. He was denied due legal process, because were that to have happened, he would most likely have been acquitted.

    The statement from the eminent Jewish lawyers of the Balfour Project is a reminder that the only common ground we stand on in a screaming, violent apocalyptic crisis is uncompromising practice of the law. It is the calm reasoning of human rights and due legal process that need to be heard above the cacophony of shouts for vengeance. The only way to bring about peace – and quiet – is justice.

     

     

  • Agree or Disagree: I’m Still in Communion with my Bishop

    Fr Thomas Sharp is Succentor at Southwark Cathedral, and Parish Priest at St Hugh’s Bermondsey. He is Coordinator of the Young Anglican Theology Project, a Third Order Franciscan, and a member of the Provincial Council of the Society of Catholic Priests.

    When I was at University, one of our lecturers tried to impress on us just how chaotic and disputatious was the early Church. He had us gather in a seminar room, and argue about anything we could think of, so long as it generated plenty of theological insults. It was great fun, if rather a culture shock from the polite University discourse in which we were trained.

    My favourite ‘Christian insult’ was ‘How dare you forsake your Baptism?’ Screamed at the top of one’s lungs. The charge is weighty, vital.  And it helps that ‘forsake’ and ‘baptism’ are immensely satisfying words to spit at a colleague in the classroom.

    The patristic tendency of Christians to levy the charge that opponents have forsaken their baptism has given way in recent years to the charge that they have forsaken communion. Breaking or impairing communion is the ecclesiological offence-du-jour on a range of issues. It remains the great obstacle of ecumenism.

    But the two charges amount to the same thing. Communion flows from our baptism. We are in communion with one another by virtue of the fact that we are baptised into one body. To declare then that communion is broken is, simply, to make a fundamental statement too about baptism, that the sacrament, too, has in some way been broken.

    I have not always agreed with my bishops. Very occasionally, I have thought it might be easier if I could perhaps put myself under a different bishop more closely aligned with my views.

    Feelings of alienation, frustration, and misunderstanding within the Church are not, however, a consequence of broken communion, or a cause of it. They are fundamentally a consequence of our common fallenness – and so point to the grace by which they and we must all be saved.

    The doctrine of salvation by faith and not works renders communion an objective reality: it gives us confidence. In the darkest days of the Reformation, when it seemed that the Church really thought communion was simply about assenting to the decrees of councils and authorities, their blasphemy was to render salvation subjective. They made it seem that salvation rested on nothing firmer than whatever the latest power bloc or prelate thought I should be burned over should I disagree. Under such rule, communion depends on whatever is going on in head of the one who sits in judgment. And hell’s maw yawns open – apparently, not for forsaking God, but for standing up to an earthly ruler, whose mind might change tomorrow. What sinking sand on which to build one’s faith.

    This is a caricature of pre-Reformation thought, of course, but salvation by grace is our safeguard against that caricature becoming real. It defends us against the temptation to put our faith not in God but in earthly councils and secular alliances. Salvation by works says that there’s something you can do to be in with the right crowd or in the right place to earn the mercy of God. But salvation by faith  proclaims healthily and firmly our sinfulness, our inability to save ourselves. It plants our trust firmly on the ground of God’s grace.

    No human being can be righteous enough to earn salvation: it is given through the grace of faith. No human can earn what God gives them – either through ‘right-thinking’ or ‘lifestyle’ -for God gives it freely, as unmerited gift. No human can be good and wholesome enough to merit the blood of Christ: it is medicine shed for the sick.

    My point is this: no Christian minister, no bishop or priest can be stainless enough to earn the pastoral ministry. It is given through the grace of faith. No bishop, no pastor, can teach infallibly (at least, I hold this as an Anglican): each is fallen and saved by grace. No communion with a bishop is so subjective as to depend on what they think about any number of things, or even what they teach or do. If they claim the blood of Christ and confess the Triune God, if they call upon God in their distress for the mercy revealed on the cross, then they are Christians and we are in communion. I do not choose them: Christ died for them.

    When the Bishop of London declared in her speech to General Synod that all members of the Church would be welcome at her table, one might be tempted to see it as a statement of flagrant liberalism, theologically lax if well-intentioned. But I took it as a clear and conservative planting of episcopal feet on a firm foundation: the communion of the baptised which is God’s graceful gift to the Body of Christ.

    My own diocesan Bishop urges us ‘to continue to speak well of each other,’ and again some might be tempted to dismiss this as a well-meaning aspiration. But to speak well of one another, even when we disagree, is to resolve defiantly and determinedly (and against the odds) not to impugn the blood of Christ by which we and they (whoever ‘they’ may be for us) have been saved. By baptism we have been incorporated into one body. If we insult or injure one another, it is that one body – the body of Christ – which we are injuring.

    I did not choose my fellow Christians, those who are called with me to the supper of the Lamb.

    I have not chosen my Bishops, and they have not chosen me. We have been gifted to one another by divine providence and God’s mercy.

    I did not choose the body of which they and I are a part, and I have not built it – for it is God who builds it and elects members to it and feeds it.

    I am tempted, when I disagree with them and any number of my fellow members of the Church, to declare us ‘out of communion’, to insult and write them off.

    But then the Spirit’s voice accuses me: ‘How dare you forsake your baptism?’

  • Press release from the General Synod Gender & Sexuality Group and from Inclusive Groups

    During last week’s General Synod, the chair of the debate on the Living in Love and Faith process rightly noted that it’s not a question of who claps loudest, or for longest. Nor is it a question of how many people sign a petition: none of us wants to start yet another ‘petition war’. But as those leading the various inclusive groups which have been involved in LLF as ‘stakeholders’, some of us meeting with various members of the LLF team over the years, we feel compelled to state our position after Synod’s votes in February and in November to move forward with using the Prayers of Love and Faith.

    The following press release has been agreed by inclusive groups after discussion among their members, trustees or steering groups.

    20 November 2023

    We welcome the decision of General Synod to endorse the proposal of the House of Bishops to authorise the Prayers of Love & Faith for public use, including the trial use of standalone services under the Bishop of Oxford’s helpful amendment, and to continue the wider work of pastoral guidance and provision.  This continues the hopeful direction of travel set by February’s historic vote towards greater inclusion of LGBTQIA+ members of the Church of England.

                Of course, many of us would wish for much greater steps, much sooner, including equal marriage in church.  And we are also saddened by the hostile and negative manner in which many have engaged with the process, including the simplistic use of Scripture and appeal to narrow legal points. We look to the House of Bishops to issue new pastoral guidance for ministry, as agreed by Synod last February, and hope this will make generous space for LGBTQIA+ clergy to marry at their discretion, and for priests whose marriages are recognised in their own Province to be given PTO for England.  We also look forward to engaging with the formal process for permanent authorisation of the Prayers under Canon B2, whereby all dioceses will be drawn into the consultation.  The fuller discussion of all the issues involved can only be better for the integrity and honesty of the Church in all its diversity.

                Our response to that diversity is now inspired by the beautiful concluding speech of the Bishop of London, noting that whilst she was now excluded from others’ tables, they were not excluded from hers, and that if she were to be found with those shut outside the door, she expected to find Jesus there.  We hope to speak for many shut out until now, among whom Jesus is found, and like Bishop Sarah, we look to a table from which none are excluded.

                In that spirit we are committed to continued work in partnership with the House of Bishops and all across the spectrum of the Church of England, to seek the broadest possible space, including pastoral provision for those opposed to change, that does not impair the unity of the one Church under God for all people.

    Signatories:

    General Synod Gender & Sexuality Group, Revd Neil Patterson and Professor Helen King

    Affirming Catholicism, Revd Dr Hannah Cleugh

    Affirming Catholics in Synod, Jacqueline Stamper and Margaret Sheather, co-convenors

    Changing Attitude England, Revd Colin Coward MBE and Revd Robert Thompson

    Church for Everyone, Revd Dr Nicholas Bundock and Revd Augustine Tanner-Ihm

    Clergy Consultation

    Diverse Church, Jade Irwin

    Equal, Revd Nigel Pietroni

    The Evangelical Forum on General Synod, co-convenors Simon Friend, Ven. Nikki Groarke and Ven. Malcolm Chamberlain

    House of Rainbow CIC, Revd Jide Macaulay

    Inclusive Church, Fr Dan Barnes-Davies

    Inclusive Evangelicals, Revd David Runcorn and Revd Jody Stowell

    Modern Church, Professor Elaine Graham

    MoSAIC, Very Revd Joe Hawes and Revd Trevor Wyatt

    OneBodyOneFaith, Luke Dowding and Revd Jo Winn-Smith

    Society of Catholic Priests, Fr. Ian Gomersall, Provincial Rector

    Student Christian Movement, Revd Naomi Nixon

    Women and the Church, Revd Martine Oborne

  • The Dam Has Broken: Synod and Beyond

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington and a consultant to the LLF Implementation Pastoral Guidance Working Group

    There is a moment each morning, as most of the world slumbers, and the deep night seems to be all pervasive, that a tiny, almost imperceptible dot of light can be just about glimpsed on the horizon. Slowly, but surely, the hints of dawn make their presence known – gently, yet increasingly convincingly, until the light warms, and the day begins. And there is no going back.

    There will, surely, be much noise made about what happened at the General Synod this week – much both-sideism, much hand-wringing about the narrowness of the vote, many angry words spat with venom and fury. Yet despite all the noise, all the anger, all the foaming at the mouth – indeed, despite many frustrations from many of us about the ever-so-limited step forward that these blessings are – something has happened. That something is tiny, almost imperceptible, yet it is there on the horizon, and it heralds a new dawn that cannot, however many tricks are played, however many legal actions taken, be turned back. Something has changed – the ceiling has a crack in it, and grace is seeping through. God is on the move, and is calling us all to follow.

    For those of us who are LGBTQIA, observing the debate this week was a bruising experience – more so even than February’s sessions – with language and behaviour that was so far over the queerphobic line as to be utterly unacceptable in any other forum except the one we claim is dedicated to the Lord of love. A particular low point was the use of the phrase ‘target on the back’ of clergy not wanting to use the prayers – not only is it a completely ludicrous, fearmongering, and demonstrably false suggestion that such clergy will be at risk of legal challenge, it is a deeply distasteful thing to make light of such imagery in a world where LGBTQIA people genuinely face violence and hate, not least in parts of the Anglican Communion. Twenty years ago Gene Robinson was ordained bishop whilst wearing a bullet-proof vest, because he really did have a target on his back – loose language like this is well below the dignity of a bishop and should have no place in the silly games of Synod. Let’s be absolutely clear: you don’t get spat at in the street, or stabbed to death, for being a conservative evangelical – and the attempts to invert the reality of victimhood from so many in the Synod chamber was disgusting.

    Of course, there was ultimately no need for this week’s session to take place – the reality being that whether the motion had passed or not, the prayers would likely have been commended and the Pastoral Guidance brought forward. In choosing to bring this motion to Synod – however asinine its content – the bishops made yet another in a series of unforced errors, and allowed the February debate to be rehashed in an even nastier way than before. Listening to speech after speech, it became clear that very few of our opponents had anything to say about the amendments they spoke to, but instead wanted merely to do down the lives and loves of, and yet again ‘other’, LGBTQIA people. What they wanted to do was revoke even the moderate progress of February – and with it, the apology to LGBTQIA people for the way we’ve been treated.

    For whatever one’s theological perspective, this was surely not a debate that made the church proud, and yet despite the endless provocations and bad-faith acting, those arguing for these tiny steps forward showed grace in abundance. Those of us watching on could see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control bursting forth again and again. Judged by its fruits, there was no narrow majority in the debate’s outcome. Similarly, it is clear that the offensive and theologically abysmal accompanying paper GS2328 did not and does not reflect the mind of even the House of Bishops, let alone the General Synod, and can be immediately consigned to history as a vain attempt at influencing debate by those who have no business to do so.

    So where, in practical terms, do we find ourselves. Firstly, we know that the prayers will be commended within the next month or so – about time, and at last. The vicious conservative responses to Wednesday’s motion passing have managed to suggest that both nothing is happening, nothing has changed, and that the change is a great catastrophe, enough to wipe the Church of England off the map. Given the logical impossibility of this faux-outrage, it is probably best just to ignore them altogether – a great boon to one’s mental wellbeing.

    Secondly, we expect that the standalone services of blessing – the only real change in official practice here – will be authorised for use for an experimental period. There is absolutely no reason for this to be delayed beyond silly legal games, so this authorisation should happen as soon as possible, and we should get some clarity straight away as to when this will be.  This authorisation means that we can finally offer people a wedding-blessing-that-we-must-explicitly-make-clear-is-not-a-wedding-blessing, an idea so lacking in pastoral compassion that it surely cannot be taken seriously. What it means in practice is that we can finally offer people a service to celebrate their love, which seems rather uncontroversial to me. It’s a step in the right direction, so let’s embrace that direction in its fullness.

    Of course, there were speeches made at the General Synod which delighted in the idea that these standalone services might be removed in two years once the two-thirds authorisation of Synod fails, which it doubtless will. This gave, perhaps, a rather good glimpse into the utterly uncompromising and pastorally uninterested perspective of those who see their life’s mission as being the opposition of same-sex intimacy in the name of the Jesus who never utters a word about it. In the main, the bishops speaking recognised how pastorally inept this was, and I agree wholeheartedly with the Bishop of Chichester that once these services are introduced experimentally it would be a pastoral catastrophe to remove them – I cannot see this ever happening, and if it did, then we should simply disobey.

    So where do we go from here? Well in the first instance we must hold the bishops to account and get the commendation and authorisation undertaken without delay. We must, too, throw the pernicious Issues in Human Sexuality in the bin and get the Pastoral Guidance released before the end of the year, if at all possible – it is now a matter of simple cruelty and pastoral ineptitude that it is not published and put in place, and it is high time that clergy and ordinands in same-sex marriages should be freed to live out their God-given vocations. It is totally absurd that we will be able to bless forms of relationship yet not enter into them, and I cannot see that Issues is in place in anything more than name since Wednesday’s vote. Good riddance to bad – dangerous – rubbish.

    Secondly, let’s be clear that this is not the end – it is a stepping stone, and there is certainly no going back, but it is most definitely not the end either, and there is much careful and coordinated work to do. Marriage will be opened to people of the same sex, and it is now a question of when and not if. The development of our doctrine, and our reception of this, is inherently part of the way our church does its theology and lives its life, and is not in opposition to it. Our opponents have made it clear that they will not even grant us scraps, pay any attention to simple pastoral need, or allow us to live within our conscience, however much we wish to let them live within theirs. It is time for us – and particularly our bishops – to recognise that, to stop making excuses for them, and to stand firm against their threats and demands for (and attempts at) schism. They will stop at nothing to snatch everything away from us, and we need our bishops to stand alongside us, just as Bishop Sarah did in her summing up. Bishop Sarah, you will always be welcome at our table – not least because it’s not ours, but the Lord’s, and all of us come at God’s invitation. We do not write the guest list – we come as fellow pilgrims.

    And that’s the final thing that we must now work for. For far too long, bishops and LGBTQIA people have been at loggerheads with one another, each, perhaps, feeling in an impossible and difficult position. Finally, and not before time, some – even a majority – of our bishops have had the courage to draw a line in the sand and to say that yes, we, too, are part of the holy and broken body of Christ, in the same way as anyone else, and ‘being in communion’ is never something that should be weaponised. Yes, it has taken far too long. Yes, it is sometimes far too lukewarm. Yes, we will need to encourage them time and again. But the dam has broken and the secret is out – the bishops are with us. Let us never cease to remind them of this simple fact and learn to rebuild the trust that has all-too-often been lost.

    So now let us turn our minds to hope. The light is rising, and so – creakingly, tentatively, in the face of anger and opposition and flailing frustration – the dawn from on high is breaking upon us. Someday, our church will be led into the way of peace and find that its unity is a gift given, and not an idol created. And until then, let us see the water flowing from the right side of the Temple, however much others might deny it or try to stop it, and watch it making abundant life spring forth wherever it goes. All those to whom this water comes are saved and will say ‘Alleluia’, as the ancient hymn goes. That surely is our song, too.

  • Vile Bodies?

    by Adrian Thatcher, Honorary Professor in the Department of Religion and Theology, University of Exeter and a Trustee of Modern Church

    So now we know! While the authorization of same-sex marriages within the Church of England remains a distant dream, ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ for same-sex couples are to be commended by the bishops next month for experimental use in stand-alone services. The Church of England Evangelical Council immediately announced that the proposals ‘depart from a biblical understanding of sex and marriage’.

    One of the main sticking points among conservatives throughout the churches is that ‘biblical understanding’ is unchanging. Was the CofE wrong, then, when in 2004 it changed its doctrine of marriage to permit, albeit ‘in exceptional cases’, divorce and what it called ‘further marriage’? Was it wrong to allow a widower to marry his late wife’s sister; or wrong in 1835 to prevent it; or in 1907 to allow it again, having faced down trenchant opposition from conservatives over several decades similar to the outbursts that have been heard in Synod this week?

    If biblical understanding is unchanging then employing and trading in slaves, killing Jews and crusading against Muslims is fine too. Ephesians is pretty explicit: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ’ (Eph. 6.5). Were Augustine and Aquinas right to deduce from scripture that slavery was instituted by God so that by it certain people could be blessed by learning the virtues of obedience and humility? Were white mainline Protestants biblically sound to invoke the curse of Canaan (Gen. 9.18-27) in summoning biblical support for the convenient prejudice that all black people were cursed?

    Who dares to recall that a favourite proof text of Christian slave owners was the parable of Jesus which illustrates the need for disciples to be watchful for the coming of the Son of Man by means of a slave owner meting out punishment to inattentive slaves, actually cutting one of them to pieces for misconduct (Luke 12.46)? The cutting open of the bodies of slaves by lashing and lynching was a common punishment during the Jim Crow years in the Protestant USA, and the next verse – ‘‘The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows’ (Luke 12.47) – offered a persuasive reason for doing exactly what the saying recommended. Being Christian and cruel is fine, authorized by Christ himself.

    This exegetical cruelty – the shameful shadow side of Christianity almost never acknowledged – persists in the present wranglings where scripture is utilized to reinforce cruel prejudice. It is nothing new. ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (Matt. 27.25), cited Christians, as they hacked innocent Jewish people to death in the name of Christ. Martin Luther’s wicked text, On the Jews and Their Lies, is packed with biblical quotations. Yes, on the basis of scores of proof texts he advised that synagogues be burned, their books confiscated, their worship forbidden, and that they driven from Luther’s country. Yes, if this great Protestant Reformer could advocate these things on the basis of scripture, what confidence can we have in the siren cry, ‘sola scriptura’ heard all around the Anglican communion?

    The time has now come for an investigation into the prior historical and theological causes leading to this Anglican tolerance of prejudice and pastoral cruelty. Such an investigation will uncover that disturbing strand of the tradition that regards particular human bodies as inferior, disgusting, vile, ‘other’. This tradition would explain more than the disdain shown to LGBT people and their arrangements for living in love and faith. It would help to explain the terrible and world-wide abuse of children and vulnerable people by Christian leaders; why the churches covered it up; why racism is still endemic; why women still can’t be ministers or priests in most of the world’s churches; why spiritual abuse operates unchecked; why churches uphold marriage while ignoring the poor quality of life within many of them.

    My new book, just published, has begun this wider, deeper, and necessary investigation. Vile Bodies: The Body in Christian Teaching, Faith, and Practice uncovers an antipathy toward particular human bodies in much Christian theology. It vilifies them, whether the bodies of women, slaves, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, heretics, gays, heathens, people of lower classes. This tradition of thinking about and mistreating bodies is stubbornly entrenched in theology. It manifests itself whenever the church manages to get itself talking about bodies.

    Bridging the distance between biblical times and our own, Vile Bodies examines the psychological abuse of women compelled to see themselves as the downfall of the world; the futile attempts of holy men to deny their sexuality; the elaborate (and entirely biblical) justifications for owning slaves and enslaving whole peoples. It shows how mystical theology plundered the body’s senses in its forlorn attempts to soar above them in the soul’s search for God. It describes the elaborate manipulation of biblical texts to justify the persecution and killing of Jews, soon extended to justifying the crusades, enslaving millions, and colonizing whole peoples.

    Racism, sexism, colonialism, and homophobia follow from the theology that regards some bodies as superior, others as inferior or disgusting. A particular feature of such theology is that it requires self-delusion, constant repetition, the refusal of complexity, and the pretence that cruel and exploitative beliefs and practices are consistent with God’s will. At other times spiritual malpractice appears to be acknowledged (“We sincerely repent”) while the bad theology continues unabated. Alleged fidelity to scripture is substituted for real fidelity to Christ.

    An ‘unknowing’ of this tradition is an urgent task. The inoculation from self-criticism; the priority of apparent unity over the pursuit of truth; the abuse scandals and their concealment to protect the church’s ‘good name’; the hypocrisy that spins pastoral principles while at the same time undermining them; these are the demons awaiting exorcism from the body of the church.

    Vile Bodies: The Body in Christian Teaching, Faith, and Practice, is published by SCM Press on November 30th. Copies at a 20% discount can be ordered here.

  • Reclaiming Orthodoxy

    by Revd Ray Gaston, Team Vicar, S Chad & S Mark, Parish of Central Wolverhampton; Interfaith Advisor, Diocese of Lichfield; Associate Tutor, Ripon College, Cuddesdon

    In response to a recent Ad Clerum from the episcopal team in the Diocese of Lichfield (the diocesan is presently on Sabbatical) concerning LGBT+ chaplaincies, I wrote to the bishops about the use of the term ‘orthodox’ for the non-affirming position in relation to Equal Marriage. Like others, the diocese has set up these chaplaincies with the blurb on the diocesan website saying

    Chaplains available include those from an ‘affirming perspective’ and an ‘orthodox perspective’.

    In my letter to the bishops, I objected to the term ‘orthodox’ being exclusively appropriated for a position that is not required for creedal orthodoxy. I argued that the two positions are more correctly termed ‘affirming’ and ’non-affirming’, as that describes accurately how each position believes the church should respond to those Lesbian and Gay Christians who wish to express their sexuality within a loving monogamous relationship and seek the church’s blessing of that in a marriage rite. I explained that, as I saw myself as being both affirmative of equal marriage and the classic creeds, I didn’t see the two as mutually exclusive.

    I have yet to receive a response from them.

    But when I shared my letter publicly, I received hundreds of responses in support from both within and beyond the diocese. Alongside these came push back from those who argued that they were ‘orthodox’ and we weren’t. When pushed, some of these argued for an understanding of ‘orthodoxy’ that appeared to me to be at odds with classical Anglican understandings of the term and that would return us to Reformation debates about understandings of scripture between defenders of the Elizabethan Settlement and its Puritan critics. The Biblical scholar John Barton (1) has argued  that although these differences – seen to be represented in the debates between the Puritans and the primary theological defender of the Elizabethan Settlement, Richard Hooker – were often framed around church order (i.e. episcopal vs presbyterian forms of order), they also rested on serious differences in the understanding of Scripture and the role it plays in determining the boundaries of faith.

    At my ordination to the priesthood of the Church of England I affirmed several things necessary for the ordering of my calling as understood within the Church of England

    1. I took the oath of allegiance to the Sovereign affirming my acceptance of the church’s ‘national’ as well as Catholic character and its freedom from the authority of the Bishop of Rome
    2. I affirmed my canonical obedience to the Bishop of my diocese, accepting therefore the episcopal form of Church government agreed at the Elizabethan Settlement
    3. Finally I affirmed and declared my belief in ‘the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness’.

    It’s this final point which is important for determining ‘orthodoxy’: ‘the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the Catholic Creeds’. Those two aspects need to be seen together. The faith revealed in the Bible and set forth in the catholic creeds is the story of God’s creative, redemptive and sustaining threefold presence and nature amongst us – it is the story of God we hold in our liturgy. The Bible is a testimony to that story and the creeds present that story and wrestle with interpretations of it. The Apostles’ Creed is a summary of the story and the economy of salvation. The Nicene Creed is a setting of the boundaries for exploration of an understanding of God’s work, particularly in Jesus, and how we understand that. It also concentrates on the boundaries of understanding the immanent Trinity – the relationship between the persons of the Trinity. The Athanasian creed acts as a form of via negativa – via positiva dialogue in helping us understand the trinitarian nature of God, the incarnation of Jesus Christ and what that means and does NOT mean.

    The Bible, according to Article 6 of the Church of England’s 39 Articles, ‘containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation’. This is very important as it says that nothing that is not in the Bible may be demanded to be held to as determining faith. It does not mean that everything in the Bible and everything the Bible commands is necessary for faith. What is necessary for faith is trust in God and the story of salvation as presented in the creeds.

    In addition to that caveat, the Church of England also holds to the doctrine of Prima Scriptura not Sola Scriptura. This means that scripture is the primary source for our faith but not the only source, as alongside it there is also tradition and reason: what became known as the ‘Three Legged Stool’.

    The Creeds determine what we can read from scripture about the nature of God, God’s work in Jesus Christ and doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity. Creedal Orthodoxy does not allow Biblical Unitarianism or Christadelphianism, both of which are heterodox because of what they say or don’t say about Incarnation and the Trinity, although both would also claim to be deriving that from the Bible and the Bible alone. Our incarnational understanding of Jesus and trinitarian understanding of the nature of God are derived from scripture but are formed in the creeds through the dialogue of scripture with tradition and reason in the patristic church. The creeds are essential to setting the parameters of our understanding of the work of God given to us in the story of the Bible and restrict how scripture can be interpreted in this. Therefore the creeds are dealing with first order matters – how we understand the work of God in Jesus Christ and the nature of God as Trinity. The boundaries are set for our exploration of these matters and these are non-negotiable because they lie at the root of how we understand God at work in the world.

    Second order matters are related both to polity – how we should govern the church – and to ethics. These matters are debatable within the broad parameters of Christian Orthodoxy according to the classical Anglicanism that draws from Hooker. And this is where the debate on the doctrine of marriage should reside. There are different positions deriving from the dialogue of scripture, tradition and reason. The attempt to deny this by the non-affirming tradition is similar to the Puritans’ denial of Hooker’s argument that the Bible does not determine a particular church order over their assertion that it does. It is possible to explore marriage in this way and allow space for the expression of both affirming and non-affirming positions, seeing both as sitting within an orthodox Christological and trinitarian doctrine. In fact, some of the best arguments for equal marriage have been made by people drawing upon tradition and scripture and bringing them into dialogue with contemporary understandings of sexuality, to critique both liberal permissiveness and conservative exclusiveness for a renewed theological understanding of monogamous relationship as one path to holiness (2).

    The insistence that only the non-affirming position is ‘orthodox’ develops out of an understanding of orthodoxy that resides more within the Puritan strands of Christianity than classical Anglicanism. Defeated in the English Reformation, this Puritan strand then won out at the time of the commonwealth, only to be defeated again at the Restoration. In the modern world, it has been given a new lease of life with Fundamentalism, a form of reading scripture derived in North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a push-back against Biblical criticism. It seeks to narrow the more generous orthodoxy of the classical creeds by instituting new doctrinal bases (3) that go against the grain of centuries of diverse interpretive trends and understandings of exploring the Bible and instead flatten its meaning. It is a form of interpretation that denies swathes of tradition and interpretative frameworks for a cold and rigid reading of scripture that cannot hold up to serious scrutiny. If this becomes known as the true ‘orthodox’ approach, then we not only continue to marginalise our LGBT+ siblings in Christ but begin to move along the road of destroying our rich theological and interpretive heritage.

    References

    (1) John Barton, ‘Richard Hooker and Puritans: Of sundry things, in the light of reason’, Church Times 14 September 2014

    (2) See Eugene Rogers, Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way into the Triune God (Blackwell 1999)

    (3) See for instance UCCF Doctrinal Basis and Evangelical Alliance Statement of Faith

  • Polluted Ground or Holy Ground? Going Forward to the November Synod

    by the Very Revd Dr Mandy Ford, Dean of Bristol

    I trained alongside men who did not believe that I could be a priest. We were friends, we learned together, we prayed together, we drank gin together. But as our period of training came towards its end and we were about to move to our new dioceses, I started asking the question of them, “When I celebrate the Eucharist, do you think Jesus will turn up?”

    The best of them were honest. Quite simply, the answer was “no”. The Church of England did not have the right, apart from the universal church, to ordain me.

    I’m still here. The Vicar of Dibley jokes have faded. No-one is surprised to see a woman at the altar or conducting a funeral any more. Yet, female colleagues still have to endure being abused or criticised because of their hair colour, tattoos, fashion sense, parenting choices or simply for existing.

    Perhaps I’ve grown more compassionate over time, but I don’t think I’ve ever confronted someone with the question, “Do you think I’m going to hell?”. But as a gay woman in a civil partnership, I probably know the answer.

    My response is the same. I’m still here.

    When we stand on polluted ground, as the theologian James Alison describes it, we do not have to allow ourselves to be poisoned.

    Alison, drawing heavily on Girard’s anthropology of the victim, points us to Jesus. When Jesus was accused by the authorities, he remained silent. When he returned to face those who had abandoned or persecuted him, he did not retaliate. Jesus would not set the cycle of violence spinning round again. He stood on polluted ground but he did not spread the poison around.

    This is a tough space to stand.  Polluted ground can easily become toxic. Misogyny and homophobia become internalised as self-loathing, low self-esteem or victimisation without us noticing.

    What would it feel like to stand on holy ground instead?

    My experience of holy ground is closely tied to my experience of vocation, in coming to mature faith as an adult, in the call to ordination, in my relationship.

    In those things I experience being beloved as a child of God and if I look around, it becomes easier to see others as my sisters and brothers in Christ.

    I have been thinking about the Chamber of General Synod as a toxic space, as polluted ground. Instead, I ought to take off my shoes before I enter.

  • Collateral Damage: How Unjust Treatment of LGBTQIA+ People Harms the Church

    by Ruth Harley, curate in the Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership

    All names and some details have been changed to protect the identity of those whose stories are told in this article.

    Let me tell you about Mary. She’s a woman in her 80s, widowed several years ago. She has come faithfully to church every Sunday for her entire life. She organises the flower rota, and volunteers at the parent and toddler group. She makes the tea, and notices when the tea towels need washing. She comes to the Lent course and makes thoughtful contributions, and apologises that she can no longer help stack the chairs afterwards. She has many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and loves to talk about them. In short, Mary is a very ordinary Anglican. She is the sort of person without whom the church simply wouldn’t function, the sort of person who is part of the backbone of the C of E. She is also the sort of person who seems a million miles removed from LLF, General Synod, and conversations about sexuality and relationships. But she isn’t.

    When my partner and I got engaged, 7 years ago, Mary was among the first and most enthusiastic to congratulate me. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” she said, “Do you have a date for the wedding? And can I do the flowers? Please?” She had, naturally enough, assumed that we would get married in church. And so I had to gently break it to her that not only could we, as a lesbian couple, not get married in the church which Mary and I both loved and served, but also that for clergy marrying a same-sex partner at all was not an option. “But I do believe it will change,” I said. Mary looked me in the eye, and said, “But I won’t be here to see it.” It was the first time I cried about not being able to marry the woman I love.

    I think of Mary whenever people say of the conversation around the place of LGBTQIA+ people in the church: “But that’s not relevant here.” Usually they’re talking about a very ordinary parish church, typically middle-of-the-road with a predominantly older congregation: a congregation full of people like Mary. And I want to tell them – sometimes I do tell them – they’re wrong. It is relevant to Mary, and all the many faithful Anglicans like her, in ways which go far beyond flower arranging.

    Mary and I had many conversations after her initial shock at learning that the church she loved wouldn’t allow the people she loved to marry. Her dismay went far beyond the realisation that she would never do the flowers for our wedding. It was a profoundly destabilising realisation for her: the church to which she had given so much, which had been such a bedrock of her life, such a place of encounter with God, was not what she thought it was. She went on arranging the flowers, reading stories to the toddlers and washing the tea towels, praying each morning and evening and attending church each week, but something fundamental had shifted. The church which she had believed to be a place of abundant love and affirmation – a reflection of God’s unending love for all people – had revealed itself to be… not that.

    And it’s not just Mary, of course. There’s Brian, who invited his friend at work to something at church, and was shocked when his friend asked: “Will it be OK for me to come, as a gay man?” Brian had never considered that question before, but he suddenly realised he wasn’t sure of the answer. There’s Iris, who talks so proudly about her grandson George, but when she participated in her deanery’s LLF course (wondering what all the fuss was about) the couple next to her said quite casually “of course, being gay’s a sin” and she didn’t know how to tell them they were talking about her George. There’s Jean and Steve who struggled to support their daughter through the breakdown of her marriage, and weren’t sure what response they would get if they asked their vicar or their friends at church to pray for their daughter and daughter-in-law. So they kept quiet and struggled on alone. And there are so many more stories I could tell.

    There are people like Mary, Brian, Iris, Jean and Steve in every congregation. There is no part of the church which is untouched by how we treat LGBTQIA+ folks, either directly or indirectly. It is right, of course, that our conversations should centre the experiences of LGBTQIA+ people, who are most directly harmed by the church’s current policies and practices. But we shouldn’t forget the ‘ripple effect’ that harm has on others too. And nobody in church leadership should be claiming that it “isn’t relevant” in their context. It will be. It might just be that the Marys in your congregation don’t feel able to share their stories.

    That ‘ripple effect’ of harm to people who seem far beyond the scope of the questions raised by LLF should not come as a surprise. As Paul says: “if one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Corinthians 12.26). The church’s unjust and unloving treatment of LGBTQIA+ people is not only a cause of pain for those of us most closely affected, it is painful and damaging to the whole body. For someone like Mary, that pain is not only vicarious – the pain she feels because she see that I am treated unjustly – it is also the pain of realising that the body of which she is a part is damaged in ways she had not previously seen. Unjust treatment of LGBTQIA+ people damages the whole church, the whole body of Christ. It distorts the image of God which we present to the world. It is not just an issue for us and our allies, but for the whole church.

    Paul goes on, of course, to say: “if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it”. There will come a time when our suffering turns to rejoicing. When and how is still unclear, but that is the direction in which the Spirit is surely moving the church, however painfully slowly. I do still believe what I told Mary: that change will come, that my beloved and I will marry. But Mary won’t be there to do the flowers.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Same-sex Marriage and the Book of Common Prayer

    by Evan McWilliams; brought up in conservative evangelical non-conformity, he is now Associate Vicar at St Mary Abbots in Kensington

    The Form of Solemnisation of Matrimony, typically called the marriage service, is one of the chief delights of the Book of Common Prayer. Whether conducted in the original English or in one of its many period translations – I had occasion last year to declaim the preface in the French translation of 1665 – the elegant prose elevates even the simplest wedding to a stately, almost courtly, plane.

    Among the many conversations currently underway in the Church of England’s continuing LLF deliberation is the nature of any liturgical resources that would allow the blessing of same-sex relationships. What might such blessings sound like? What theological underpinning might be necessary to acknowledge the validity of those relationships and how, if at all, might this differ from marriage as the Church of England has understood it?

    With the Book of Common Prayer in hand, I cannot help but think that the theological question in particular already has an answer. Stable and legal same-sex relationships can and do already fulfil the causes for which marriage was ordained as outlined in our church’s official liturgy.

    First, marriage ‘was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name.’ Some have argued that same-sex marriages, because they lack procreative potential, are invalidated. It is easy enough to point to the many couples who, by virtue of age or physical condition, cannot by their union produce children. Yet the Church does not refuse marriage to the infertile or the very old, nor does it denigrate their capacity to bring up children in the fear of the Lord. Nurture of children within a life-long, loving relationship is something many same-sex couples long for, and which many already perform.

    Second, marriage ‘was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication.’ What we acknowledge of opposite-sex couples, we ought to acknowledge of same-sex couples: that the temptation to abuse the gift of sex is tempered by the avowed stability of a marriage. Frankly, given how same-sex relationships are portrayed by some in the Church, one would think providing marriage as an answer to promiscuity might be rather higher on their priority list. Preventing same-sex couples from conceiving of their relationships as life-long and exclusive marriages actively promotes a flippant attitude towards sexual relations and fails to promote proper Christian continence.

    Third, marriage ‘was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.’ Though perhaps the most common reason given by opposite-sex couples desiring to marry, this final cause for which marriage was ordained is sometimes best observed among same-sex couples who persist in Christian belief and practice despite not being accepted by some in the Church of England. One may be forgiven for wondering why LGBT+ individuals continue to claim the name of Christ when many of their fellows refuse to acknowledge their belief. Continuing to believe, and to believe together as faithful Christians, sets same-sex couples apart from their opposite-sex counterparts whose relationships, regardless of their belief, are both named and supported by all wings of the Church.

    If the causes for which marriage was ordained can be fulfilled by same-sex couples, there is nothing to prevent the extension of marriage to them. In fact, such an extension would be to practice the theology the Church of England already functionally espouses; marriage is a life-long covenant between two persons intended for the growth in faith of a family, the tempering and channelling of sexual appetites, and for mutual support through good times and bad.

    The necessary theological groundwork for extending the umbrella of Christian marriage has already been undertaken in the context of the ordination of women to the priesthood. That the Creation narrative is no longer understood to set out the immutable subservience of women to men, and that St Paul’s teaching about male headship, both in the Church and the home, has been found to contain within it the germ of true equality should give sufficient building blocks for seeing same-sex marriage as not only a possibility but a necessity.

    The liturgical resources hitherto proffered for consideration, primarily concerned as they are with blessing individuals in relationship without explicit reference to the nature of those relationships, same-sex or otherwise, are not only inadequate but unnecessary. As an intermediate step they actively delay the inclusion of same-sex relationships in the liturgical life of the Church. Far better to recognise that marriage as the Church of England conceives it has room already for both same- and opposite-sex relationships.

    The best way to deal with same-sex relationships is to see them as part of the existing system of teaching set out by the historic formularies. Equal marriage is the only viable solution to the current problem the Church of England faces and if it can be performed in consonance with the noble language of our church’s finest liturgy, so much the better.