ViaMedia

Year: 2024

  • Halcyon Daze? Nostalgia in the Memory of the Church

    by Martyn Percy, Professor of Religion and Culture at the University of St. Joseph in Macao and Provost-Theologian at Ming Hua College, Hong Kong and Research Professor of Theology at Institut für Christkatholische Theologie, University of Bern, Switzerland. His The Crisis of Colonial Anglicanism: Empire, Slavery and Revolt in the Church of England is just published by Hurst.

    Once upon a time, nostalgia was not just a longing for the past, but a potentially fatal disease. First used as a medical term in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the context of Swiss soldiers and mercenaries, it referred to (nostos is the Greek for homecoming, and algos is a word for pain). Or rather, a sickness for order and things being put back where they once were or belonged. Nostalgia, in this sense, is not a benign sentiment, but an anxiety caused by displacement and dislocation. However, nostalgia is also a dangerous emotion that can lead to self-imprisonment through false memory.

    For those who speak nostalgically of the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion, the debt to the nostalgia narrated by the British Empire and the unity provided by the service of imperialism are obvious. Even recently, Bishops could be heard to speak with wistful admiration of a denomination stretching from Malagasy to Mongolia, from Sweden to South Africa, from India to Tasmania, and from the United Kingdom across the whole of the Americas. The London office for the Anglican Communion also invests in this narrative. Such nostalgia paints a rose-tinted picture of global coverage, as though the extent of the Church of England were akin to every community having a local post office.

    The reality is quite different. Coverage across the Anglican Communion is patchy, and it is increasingly difficult to understand how, in terms of compatibility, coherence, and commonality, the various components constituting this church can claim the label ‘Communion’. Even if the term is used, many who use such language no longer mean the same thing. Furthermore, others regard the term as problematic – either a dangerous fiction or a disingenuous description. ‘Anglicanism’, it seems, is increasingly a term of ascription that is contested and divisive.

    Nostalgia is a vehicle that tries to carry a community through the uneasy conditions of modern and contemporary life and the politics of fear and anxiety. However, it is unlikely to be able to carry any meaningful freight going forward.  The challenges of the present now require a large dose of realism. Otherwise, fantasies and wishful thinking will be mistaken for vision.

    Is there any way past this nostalgic pathology under which the Church of England labours? The only way through this is likely to be rooted in harsh realities. Across the global Anglican Communion, the days when directives from the Church of England freighted authority and power are long gone.

    We live in a post-colonial age. Honesty and clarity about the past can only help. Otherwise, amnesia and myth-making memory will reign unchecked. The roots of the Anglican Communion and the Commonwealth arise from the British Empire, which was driven by trade, consumerism, military action, conquest and imperial expansionism.  This was primarily an English project in which the Church of England served as a legitimating spiritual arm for an empire, capitalising on the territorial expansion, giving it an aura of global territorial catholicity.

    Yet, at present, the Church of England is run by a tiny elite operating a model of leadership that is a hybrid of monarchy and autocracy. Any democratic accountability is strongly resisted and, as clergy and laity repeatedly find, the will of the people barely counts for anything. Like grumbling serfs, however, congregations are nonetheless expected to fund a hierarchy that is aloof, never liable or culpable, and operating as a law unto itself

    With the appointment of a new Second Estates Commissioner there may be an opportunity for a significant change – one that will snap the Church of England out of its self-induced coma. Marsha de Cordova (MP for Battersea) was the confirmed choice. It took almost 100 days for the government to find an appointee, the longest time lag since 1832.

    Perhaps the lengthy lacuna of 2024 reflects the ambiguous nature of the role. In the past, the Second Estates Commissioner has functioned as an apologist for the Church of England when faced with questions and scrutiny from Parliament. But the present demands a different approach, namely making the Church of England accountable to parliament, church members, taxpayers and voters.

    Marsha de Cordova attends a church run by the Holy Trinity Brompton network, which has recently taken the lead in secessionism over the Church of England’s slow, gradual embrace of equal marriage. Yet Marsha has previously served in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities and Shadow Minister (Work and Pensions) (Disabled People). She also served on the Work and Pensions Select Committee and the Petitions Committee.

    It would be hard to find any MP who could, in conscience, act as a parliamentary apologist for the Church of England in the 21st century, with its position being so clearly anomalous and democratically indefensible. With clergy having few employment rights, and LGBTQ+ clergy still discriminated against, it is hard to imagine the Church of England hanging on to its powers and privileges in the next ten years.

    Most citizens expect equality and accountability from their institutions as a prerequisite for trust. Moreover, serious questions must be asked as the number of paid-up members of the church has effectively fallen off the cliff edge—and there is no sign that this decline is temporary. These questions relate to the fitness and role of an established church in one nation, yet within a devolved union of three nations (and Northern Ireland).

    Meanwhile, there are hardly any – indeed, no – examples of the much-vaunted new models of the church making a net contribution to their diocese for the investments they have received.  It is impossible to find one of these new strategic initiatives of the Archbishops’ Council paying its way. Ordinary parishes are funding a fetishised experimentalism that is not subject to any scrutiny, fiscal accountability or even much in the way of legally authorised protocols.

    Meanwhile, stipendiary clergy numbers are set to fall to around 5,000 by 2034. January 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of Reform and Renewal, the much-vaunted strategy document of the Archbishops’ Council. In 2014, General Synod and the Church of England were promised more clergy, more churches, growth and a major turnaround in fortunes. Not one target has been met. In fact, the decline has accelerated.

    If the Archbishops’ Council were a company’s board of directors, the shareholders would have passed several votes of no confidence by now. Indeed, were this a school, it would be in special measures. But the Archbishops’ Council has no accountability. A recent public survey shows that public confidence in ordained ministry has collapsed in just a few decades, as its senior leadership are no longer believed or trusted inside the church, let alone outside. The recent report commissioned by the Archbishops’ Council on the very subject of trust and trustworthiness ran out of time in debate, but not without members of General Synod expressing their lack of trust in the same report’s origins, methodology and political aspirations. That’s right, nobody trusted a report from the bishops that was all about trust.

    Some churches are now breaking away and conducting their own bespoke versions of licensing and ordination. This has been slowly gestating since the 1992 Act of Synod, which sought to appease those aggrieved at the decision to ordain women to the priesthood. Long before Burger King adopted their most famous slogan – “have it your way” – the Church of England turned its reliable set menu into a proverbial buffet car. Take it or leave it, the customer is king.

    The new Estates Commissioner will only be able to be a credible respondent for the Church of England in parliament when it can be demonstrated that bishops are to be held accountable to ordinary secular employment laws and legal provisions on gender, sexuality, data protection, and safeguarding. At present, this is an established church lecturing the world on human rights yet having secured legal opt-out provisions under the Human Rights Act (1997).  This is unconscionable.

    The current situation of weak autocracy is arguably the worst of all worlds. As there are no operational conflicts of interest policy or register of interests amongst the highest echelons of the Church of England’s leadership, concealment of malice, malpractice and incompetence is relatively straightforward. Those who try to speak out will quickly be frozen out – the church created its own ‘cancel culture’ centuries ago. This is an organisation that really knows how to bully its people. It can be brutal.

    The Archbishops’ Council secretariat recently replied to a question put to the previous Second Estates Commissioner, Andrew Selous MP, in December 2023.  In the response from Lambeth Palace, the Church of England’s most senior officer explained there are no plans for independent external review or performance management of the Church of England’s treatment of victims.

    Furthermore, the Secretary General added, supporting victims of abuse in the longer term should be a burden carried by the taxpayer. The invoice for abuses perpetrated by the Church of England should be forwarded to HM Treasury. Ironically, the same body that gives millions of pounds back to the church through Gift Aid.

    Such hubris is breathtaking.  Yet the ruling culture of bishops, courtiers, Synod lawyers, and ecclesiocrats remains unaccountable, mercurial and aloof. Nothing of this can be defended in any democratic parliament in the 21st century. Reform cannot come quickly enough.

     

     

  • Lives Worth Living? Principle and Practice in the Assisted Dying Debate

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington and forensic psychiatrist

    I will admit to being quite surprised that the Assisted Dying Bill passed its second reading.

    Of course, much of that surprise can be put down to the ever-shrinking social media bubbles we all inhabit – mine, for example, seemed full of MPs saying that whilst they might support the principle, they couldn’t support the Bill as it stands. Yet parliament has spoken, and whilst there is still a long way for this Bill to go, it should make us at least recognise that we are in a new place culturally when it comes to matters of life and medicine. It looks, at the very least, like it is now a case of when and not if, when it comes to assisted dying.

    Plenty of ink has been spilt on this debate, with some of the arguments being put forward more charitable than others. There has seemed, at times, to be a wilful refusal to hear – and rather to simply dismiss – the concerns raised by large numbers of disabled people, and in addition the voting figures (and associated speeches) from UKME MPs might also get us thinking. The professionally religious have, in the main, been opposed (with some notable exceptions), but there is interestingly no neat left-right distinction in this debate. The religious opposition has not always erred on the side of kindness, and yet perhaps this is best interpreted as a sign of how concerned many religious people are about the threat this Bill poses to something so central to how many people of faith understand human life to be. It is worth our all remembering that very few people – if any – are coming at this issue with bad intentions, even if their failure to see the consequences (from whichever direction) of their opinions is frustrating!

    It’s not an original thought, but it is worth repeating that there are already grey areas in this debate that we have all learned to tolerate. Whilst the so-called doctrine of double effect – where a death-inducing dose of medication can be given if the intention is to relieve pain not induce death – really doesn’t have much (if any) actual use in contemporary medical practice (because the reality is that such high dosing is vanishingly rarely, if ever, required), nonetheless we know that patients can quite competently refuse treatment if they have decided that enough is enough. Similarly, we don’t simply go ahead and invasively treat patients when the treatment appears futile or actively harmful – there are decisions to be made on the what, where, when, and how in contemporary medical practice that cannot fit into simplistic binary choices. Yet what is being proposed here really is something new, in my mind, because – I think – it changes what it means to be a doctor, and hence what it means to have a doctor. It changes what choices doctors can legitimately be involved in – and what associated actions they can take.

    I think that’s the angle that I’m approaching this debate from, although I am aware that not only am I a psychiatrist – and hence someone who deals in matters of capacity, competence, suicidal thinking, life and death on a fairly regular basis – I’m also a priest. There have been rather silly suggestions that those with faith cannot objectively talk about this stuff – silly because the truth is that none of us, with or without faith, can talk objectively. We’re all caught up in our different (and sometimes internally contradictory) worldviews, and so whatever we have to say about this is going to impact us differently. What I would like to do, though, is offer some reflections on how this whole debate hit me as a practitioner of medicine – one with faith, sure, but primarily one thinking through how my medical life might change in this new cultural landscape.

    The first thing is how many MPs of various stripes, including some of those who were vocally opposed to the Bill, stated that they didn’t like this Bill but that they did agree ‘in principle’ (often in the stated context of poor palliative care provision). I’m not totally convinced that in matters of assisted dying, it’s quite so easy to separate principle and practice (as many disabled campaigners have made clear in their contributions to the debate), but putting that aside for a moment, it’s evident that more people are now willing to say that they think that there is a genuine choice possible between death and life. This is new, and significant, if it is indeed true (that is, unless the ‘agree in principle but not practice’ argument was simply being used because it was easier than to be seen to disagree in principle too). Assisted dying is, in the main, seen as a liberal, progressive cause – an assertion not without possible challenge, but an assertion that seems to have taken on a widely accepted status. Those arguing against assisted dying are doing so on the back foot.

    Which makes me wonder what precisely the principle is that MPs (and the wider public) agree with. One of the difficulties with all this is the strange bedfellows each of us might find ourselves with, where the thing we agree or disagree on is not actually the same in substance even if it is in effect. Definitions throughout this debate have been shaky and unclear – we might think of the word ‘intolerable’, for example, of which more below – and so the grounds on which we agree or disagree can themselves feel shaky and unclear too. The Church of England has felt a little limited in what it has had to offer on all this – something I found when writing a book on despair and dying – which means that much of the official public output, such as it is, has felt rather last minute, unprepared, and shallow. In the church, we’ve forgotten that a vast number of people don’t speak our language, and our words have lost shared meaning.

    Which brings me back to how words in general have lost that shared meaning in society. We have heard a lot about ‘intolerable’ pain during debates, but what exactly does that mean? When life is ‘not worth living’, again, what does that mean? Just as importantly, who makes the decisions about what those words mean, and against what are these meanings measured? As a medic, I feel uncomfortable with saying that some pain is inevitably intolerable, but who am I to determine what that means?

    As a psychiatrist, too, I wonder about exactly what doctors are being asked to make a judgement on. Historically – in medicine and in law – we haven’t really accepted the idea that living vs dying is a legitimate choice for an individual to make for themselves. The Mental Health Act, and various other bits of medical legislation, make that clear – and our practice mirrors that. Meeting someone who is suicidal in clinic or in an emergency situation, I would inevitably err on the side of caution and see this risk as something that is at least an indicator that a deprivation of liberty is appropriate. Yet whilst it is only in very particular circumstances, this proposed Bill changes that, in a way that fundamentally changes the way doctors and patients interact. For all the talk on the content of the Bill, its safeguards and so on, this aspect seems not to have featured nearly enough.

    Yet that also makes me wonder something else about this Bill specifically, which is whether it actually addresses the question its proponents state it aims to. For all the talk of slippery slopes, this Bill claims to only address those with a likely six-month time limit – ignoring, for a moment, the imprecise nature of any such prediction. In my experience, anecdotal though it is, I have infrequently met people with such a limited lime left on this Earth wishing for less – most, in fact, have wanted more. I can think of situations where ‘intolerable’ might make most sense to me – locked-in syndrome, for example, or degenerative diseases, which might be someone else’s tolerable but might be my intolerable – yet these are not included in this legislation. In other words, the arguments around assisted dying might be more palatable when addressing people in the last six months of life, but are they actually practical or necessary in this group of people? If the answer is, in fact, no, then that opens up a lot more questions.

    This debate is not going to go away, and nor is it going to become much easier or clearer. Those of us who have serious and deep concerns about what this does to medical care – where on the one hand I am expected to see all suicidal thinking as suggestive of disorder, whilst on the other hand can now determine someone to be entirely of sound mind despite this thinking – have a duty to engage carefully and thoughtfully with the debate as it progresses, whilst drawing attention to the realities that underpin it. For all the talk of this being one of parliament’s finer hours, I am not convinced – by the principle, or the practical workings out.

     

     

  • Safeguarding and Patriarchy in the Church of England

    by Revd Martine Oborne, Chair of WATCH (Women and the Church), a group that works for gender equality in the Church of England

    The 253-page Makin report on the Church of England’s handling of the John Smyth abuse case – that has brought about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury – has been pored over by many people in recent days. But one part that has so far been overlooked is the section that links the abuse with patriarchy.

    In 9.1.9-10 the report describes the patriarchal culture of the camps at which the abuse took place and how this was conducive to that abuse. Makin says that the camps were entirely run by men and a victim states: ‘…it was an incredibly sexist set up, a group of people called lady helpers, many of whom were either wives of the leaders or female undergraduates. These lady helpers were kept out of sight, out of mind, they’d be doing the cooking in the kitchen…’

    The report goes on to say that clinical psychologist, Dr Elly Hanson, also explores how this patriarchal approach… ‘was a conducive cultural and organisational factor,’ describing the impact in relation to this case as follows:

    “Misogyny and patriarchy: men are seen as in authority over women… men are granted more power than women and treated as having more wisdom and insight. As a result, John’s behaviour and justifications may have been given more legitimacy; his focus on young men was not questioned; and potentially valuable perspectives from women were absent.”

    The Church of England still uses its exemptions under The Equality Act 2010 to discriminate against women on the grounds of their sex. For example, it is still permissible for churches to ask only male candidates to apply for a post as a vicar. It is permissible for such churches to limit women’s ministry and prohibit them from preaching to, or teaching, men. It is permissible for such churches to say that they cannot accept oversight of a female Bishop but need to be overseen by a male Bishop such as a ‘flying bishop’ like the Bishop of Ebbsfleet. There are many such churches in London and big university cities and they include All Souls Langham Place, St Helen’s Bishopsgate, St Andrew the Great in Cambridge and St Ebbe’s in Oxford.

    The flip side of this permission is alarming: no one can be considered for training as a priest in the Church if they want women and men to be treated equally and do not accept the institutional discrimination that has been in place for thirty years, ever since women were first ‘permitted’ to be priests. And those who critique this discrimination find it very hard, if not impossible, to progress to senior posts in the Church. Ironically, the arrangements are referred to as ‘mutual flourishing’ which is shorthand for the expectation that both women and those who don’t fully accept women’s ministry can flourish.

    This ongoing discrimination is an injustice to women who, both ordained and lay, work hard throughout the country serving their churches and communities and who deserve to be treated equally with their male colleagues.

    And it is also unsafe.

    A culture which is essentially an old boys’ club is a fertile environment not only for abuse but also for its cover up, as we have seen in the Church regarding the Smyth case. Furthermore, it is an environment in which one entitled group is facilitated in exerting coercive control over another group.

    The Bishop of Newcastle has shown great integrity and courage in upholding safeguarding standards in the Church, not only by calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign but also by publishing a letter she received from him and the Archbishop of York recently, which was patronising and coercive in trying to get her to adopt a certain position on another safeguarding issue relating to John Sentamu.

    Women are called to show ‘gracious restraint’ in the Church and to accept that some of their colleagues have the right to limit their ministry. This practice is essentially coercive, requiring women to accept a diminished status without complaint and gaslighting them, if they resist, by calling them unkind and saying that they are marginalising others.

    Although, as a result of the Makin report, there is an immediate need to arrange for independent safeguarding in the Church, safety will not be fully addressed without changing the culture that has been an old boys’ club for far too long. One helpful step would be to put an end to institutional discrimination by sex. If the Church won’t do this itself then maybe Parliament should consider removing its exemptions under The Equality Act – so that it would be illegal for the Church to continue discriminating.

    And, hopefully, it could then authentically become the spiritual voice for the nation – both safeguarding the vulnerable and treating all people equally.

     

     

  • Iwerne: The Anglican Trojan Horse

    by Canon Jeremy Pemberton, a retired priest living in the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. Formerly in parochial ministry for twenty-six years, he was an Honorary Canon of Boga and Ely Cathedrals. Latterly, he was a senior chaplain for the NHS. He is presently undertaking doctoral research into the ecclesiology of the decline of the Church of England

    Delayed by years until it seemed it would never arrive, I think few of us reckoned with the seismic impact of the Makin report. There, behind the piety, and yet somehow magnified by it, was the horror of the sadism and cruelty of Smyth’s abusing in England; there, in a tale that is still yet to be told in full, was the more explicitly sexual exploitation of boys in Zimbabwe, and his shadowy career in South Africa. One hundred and thirty victims at least; several deaths; many lives forever altered, spoiled, and tainted; and an abused family who could never get away from this narcissistic tyrant.

    There has been a good deal of discussion of the extent to which Smyth was a Church of England abuser. His background was Plymouth Brethren, and when the family were expelled from that setting, they moved to another very conservative evangelical context. But John Smyth found a new spiritual home and purpose when he was recruited by Eric “Bash” Nash to help run the camps at Iwerne Minster from 1962 onwards. These camps were notionally under the aegis of Scripture Union, a non-denominational evangelical body, but they were effectively Bash’s own fiefdom. Nash was an ascetical, driven man whose unrelenting focus on his mission attracted enthusiastic followers from the top tier of boys’ public schools. His most famous disciple was John Stott, a Rugby pupil.

    Nash, a Church of England clergyman, had graduated to youth work and his famous ‘Bash Camps’ after two curacies. These took place at Clayesmore School in Dorset, in the village of Iwerne Minster, hence their later title, ‘Iwerne’. Nash’s mission was clear and simple, to take over the Church of England for Jesus, and through it the nation, providing it with the best leadership he could, Christian boys from elite public schools. His recipe was an imperialist hangover: but for them to be their best they needed to be Christians after his kind. And ‘his kind’ was simple, direct, and entirely Jesus-focused. Theology was a dirty word to Bash; ABC was all you needed – in his words, Admit your need; Believe that Christ died for your sins; Come to him as your Lord and Saviour.

    The camps were also defined by some other noticeable characteristics: they were single sex (though there was a girls’ Iwerne, Bash had no interest in it – or girls at all for that matter) and sex was something to be strongly discouraged. Nash himself was a confirmed bachelor, and never displayed any interest in that kind of thing. He thought marriage was a regrettable weakness, and homosexuality abhorrent. The whole structure of the work created a semi-secret world; Iwerne provided spiritual support and pastoral mentoring for boys who were, after all, away from home a lot of the time. Intense ‘personal work’, as it was called, consisted of regular meetings for Bible reading and prayer and self-examination, supported by much letter writing. It was easy to start to depend on these people who seemed to care so much. In between the running of house parties or camps at Christmas and Easter as well as in the summer, much of Bash’s life was on the road, visiting his boys at their schools.

    Questioning at Iwerne was discouraged, as was thinking; faith, discipline, overcoming temptation and sharing the message with others became the prime areas for activity, all washed down with lots of games and sport to tire everyone out.

    So there you have it: a simplistic faith, keeping its believers infantilised and unquestioning; a culture that separates itself from the world, for those who believe and turn to Christ are saved, and those who have not yet or who don’t are damned; intense relationships with mentors and colleagues, and close relationships with others discouraged; a shame culture – for the mentors wanted to impress upon you the importance of repentance for your many failings, and what teenager does not fail many times and in many ways? If you had the temerity to think you were not doing too badly then it might be suggested that you were caught in the sin of pride – it was hard to avoid feeling guilty. All of this was, as with lots of youth organisations, wrapped up in Iwerne’s own language and customs, not easily accessible to the uninitiated. If, at this point, you are thinking it sounds rather cult-like, I would not blame you.

    In the hands of Eric Nash, who, by all accounts was a modest and genuinely humble man, the camps flourished and raised up leaders for the evangelical wing of the Church of England. I have suggested that the camps and camp culture was cult-like. But what came next was much worse.

    When Nash grew old, he passed on the running of the camps to The Revd The Hon. David Fletcher, son of a Labour peer and one of ‘his’ boys. By then Nash had already introduced Smyth, who went to a minor public school (and felt acutely let down by his father that he had not gone to one of the best) into the leadership of the camps. Smyth’s own church at the time was for many years an Anglican one, and he trained as a Reader and sought ordination. The cover provided by Iwerne’s culture gave Smyth his opening. Within the oddness of Iwerne, the charismatic Smyth created a complete and effective ‘cult within a cult’ in which he was free to abuse egregiously. He was a slippery character to be sure: as the report says, a narcissist, entitled, grandiose, lacking empathy, someone who took pleasure in inflicting pain, and a man with a strong sex drive which, unnervingly for a homophobe, directed itself in part to teenage boys and young men. When challenged he would strike back, and hard, and if that failed, he was always ready to turn himself into the victim.

    Iwerne managed to nurture not one, but two very questionable leaders in that generation; Smyth, whose activities while ‘hiding in plain sight’ have been compared to those of Jimmy Savile, and David Fletcher’s younger brother Jonathan, who will come to trial for alleged sexual offences next summer. Smyth and Fletcher J. did not like each other; yet so strong is the bond inside the little society of Iwerne, that when Smyth’s world within a world was falling apart, and the news of his crimes was leaking out, Jonathan Fletcher can be found, according to Makin’s report, defending him and trying to hush things up.

    In the period 1980-2010 Iwerne, while seeming to continue as normal, was living through two major changes, one external and one internal. First, in the Church of England, the church of which most Iwerne participants were a part, the increasing dominance of evangelicals meant that men from that tribe, including those raised inside Iwerne, were ordained, and, by sheer force of numbers, started to be appointed to senior positions. In a way, this was the vindication of Eric Nash’s strategy. The fly in the ointment was that men who reached those positions were obliged by the demands of the church as a whole to grow beyond the childish and unnuanced theology of Iwerne, which made them suspect for those who kept alive the flame of Bash’s ‘ABC’. This meant that the church had leaders, or certainly some, who had not truly been raised in the historic Church of England but through a parallel closed society, and who did not instinctively understand or value Anglican theology, liturgy, history, or pastoral theology. When you are taught that Christianity is at heart all about the saved and the lost, and that you have the insight to distinguish between them here and now, then the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, the polity of being a national church, and the practice of parochial and pastoral ministry in all its complexity, subtlety, and opportunity is rather lost on you.

    The second sequence of events, invisible to most in this period, concerned the huge threat posed by Smyth. When his appalling crimes started to become known in 1982, those clergy to whom these things were reported kept the whole business to themselves. When Mark Ruston, the vicar of the Round Church in Cambridge, and a greatly respected preacher and leader, wrote his first report that year and began to circulate it to some chosen colleagues, he was clear that he understood the law to have been broken by what Smyth had done, and cited the Offences against the Person Act of 1861 section 47: assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Rather than report this to the police, these men managed this privately for one overwhelming reason – protecting the reputation of the camps. The correspondence between them is littered with concern above all for what any scandal, should Smyth’s activities get out, might do to ‘Gospel work’. Their job, as they saw it, was reputation management, not justice. They were also deeply concerned for John and Anne Smyth and wanted to help them. And the victims of his crimes? There is, in the reports from that time and in the letters between the leaders, more than a whiff of victim blaming. Smyth, of course, encouraged this by saying that all the complaints from the boys and young men were exaggerated. The victims who started to speak were not really listened to and believed – not, that is, until one attempted to take his own life because he could not face another beating. But their needs were never prioritised. Camp, and ‘the work’, had to be protected at all costs.

    Even when Smyth had been forced to resign from camp, his friends and erstwhile colleagues from the Iwerne network clustered round to help him relocate and start a new life. Coded warnings were sent ahead, but he made it to Zimbabwe and then South Africa and was supported financially by UK and other sources in what Makin calls a ‘lavish lifestyle’ from then until he died in 2018.

    The ‘management’ of Smyth and his criminal activity was complex and multi-layered, but as it began to break down, information leaked out to Church of England clergy beyond the Iwerne network, and even bishops. Yet, somehow, even with victims starting to come forward, no one really grasped the enormity of the crimes before them and acted with the perseverance needed to stop him. Not until after 2010 are proper reports laid before the police and, even after that, poor co-ordination between county police forces and the church meant that Smyth remained at large.

    One of the trustees of the Titus Trust, which ran the Iwerne camps after 1997, acknowledged, in her submission to Makin, that she had failed to report abuse because “of a misplaced loyalty to the Iwerne regime”. That is the point: loyalty to the Iwerne regime. Loyalty to that above all else; loyalty to Iwerne above the demands of justice, charity, love, or truth. Loyalty to that regime, even, ironically, above doing what Jesus would have done.

    That regime, built as it had been on its thin gruel of a theological basis, its snobbery and elitism, and its neglect of the richness of the tradition of the Church of England, had the temerity to market its camps as giving a chance for boys to find out about “The Christian Faith”.  The ocean depths of the faith; of prayer, of thought, of service, of social engagement – none of that was offered. Just a simple ‘gospel’ message, disembodied and uninculturated, and a lot of unpleasant manipulation of vulnerable young men masquerading as pastoral care until they were entangled in Iwerne’s clutches.

    I went to Iwerne to help for two summer camps in the mid 1970s. I was twenty years old and at university. I didn’t like it; it seemed childish and creepy at the same time. Personal pressure was put on me by David Fletcher to keep coming, and that solidified my decision to having nothing more to do with it. When I was there, I saw and heard nothing amiss, and I had no personal contact with either John Smyth or Jonathan Fletcher. But I think my instincts to steer well clear were well advised.

    Theology that makes shame one of its core virtues is no Christian theology at all. The bodily and sexual dishonesty of Iwerne was almost limitless. Bodies were there to be taxed and driven in endless sport, and the world of feeling was to be avoided – it was as if bodily existence itself was an inconvenient accident. The tenderness of the incarnation was trodden underfoot by the transactionality of a two-dimensional salvation. One of the summers I went to Iwerne my visit followed some days of singing at Salisbury cathedral. It felt like taking myself away from the beauty of holiness and into a wasteland. I was told off for singing and told off for talking to the girls in the kitchen – but then, Iwerne was weird about sex. I recall being told, in a talk on sex to senior campers, that what you were looking for in a wife was someone who would be “an angel in the kitchen and a devil in bed.” I thought it was messed up misogyny then, and still do now.

    Overly negative about masturbation, fretful about any engagement between the sexes, terrified of real women, utterly neurotic about homosexual attractions and love, Iwerne’s sickness was played out in the distorted libidos and anxiety-laden fumblings of its devotees. The fear of sinning loomed over bodies in general, and participants in the camp in particular. Iwerne’s legacy of fear, homophobia, and inconsistency still fuels the culture war around Living in Love and Faith.

    At its worst, Iwerne was a haven for a vile abuser and criminal. That its alumni, products of a para-church organisation with questionable theology and loyalty to the Anglican tradition, have risen so high in the life of our church, either as leaders or prominent parochial ministers, is our tragedy. It will be our folly if we don’t see what has been done, and fight to recover the breadth of the Church of England, and its traditions, and its social and cultural engagement, so that, even if much diminished, we can again be a church for the nation, and not an incomprehensible and morally suspect oddity.

     

  • What Have the Bishops Done?

    by Revd Canon Neil Patterson, Vice-Dean of Bristol Cathedral and Chair of Together for the Church of England

    Where do we find the doctrine of the C of E? One answer to that question is: in our liturgy. That is why huge significance has been placed on liturgical texts which have been, or may be, authorised as part of Living in Love & Faith. The claim is often dignified by repetition of the phrase, lex orandi, lex credendi (‘the law of praying is the law of believing’) but this is not found in any formally authoritative source. The situation is in reality a bit more complicated. It might seem to an innocent observer that the 39 Articles of Religion (1571) are a statement of the Church of England’s doctrine. But by the later 20th century it was recognised that these were the product of a particular time and concerns. So, instead, the Worship and Doctrine Measure 1974 enabled the adoption of the Declaration of Assent used at every clergy licensing. This recognises the Articles (alongside the Prayer Book and Ordinal) as ‘witness’ to the faith found in Scripture and set out in the Creeds, and requires the new minister to recognise them as ‘inspiration and guidance’ – but no longer as a decisive statement of faith in every one of their details. It is this understanding which has been recognised in the law of the Church of England by the Court of Arches.[1]

    This absence of a straightforward statement of doctrine, and the reality that an appeal to Scripture only generates competing interpretations, has meant looking to approved liturgical texts as evidence for what the Church does or does not believe, a pattern encouraged by the 19th century era of litigation around liturgical controversy. This is reinforced by the circular theological position set out in the liturgical part of the 1974 measure and the Canons; that various bodies (Synod, Convocations, ordinaries) may authorise liturgical texts which “are neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter.” In the absence of any clear test of what that doctrine is, and the lack of any workable legal means to apply a test, the authorisation of a text is effectively evidence that its content does conform to the doctrine of the Church.

    Curiously, many of those opposed to change have argued at various points that, because any change to the Church’s teaching on marriage and sexuality would be a change in doctrine, this would require the use of the full Synodical process for approving liturgy under Canon B2. This is similar to the legislative process with first, revision, and final stages, and two-thirds majorities required in each House. This was what happened, for example, when the new Eucharistic texts in Common Worship were agreed in the late 1990s, as these are alternatives to the Prayer Book service of Holy Communion. However, all that Canon B2 provides is a mechanism for Synod to approve texts which are (in its opinion) “neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter” – the test referred to above. The Canons do not include a concept that the doctrine of the Church of England ever actually changes in any essential matter, only that it is expressed differently. So neither the ordination of women as priests and bishops in 1994 and 2014 respectively, nor acceptance of the remarriage of divorcees from 2002, were a change in doctrine (which would imply, perhaps, rewriting the Creeds or redefining the canon of Scripture) but merely reorderings of our common life. Even if Synod were to endorse same-sex marriage, this would only confirm that it was “neither contrary to…..” (you know the rest!)

    I am writing whilst the LLF process is still very much underway, and it is increasingly clear following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent podcast interview that it will help everyone if the House of Bishops could achieve some more clarity about what they believe they are doing. Contrary to what it may seem, however, they have done more than argue and procrastinate. Last December they commended the Prayers of Love & Faith as resources for use in regular services, together with a statement denying that these constituted any change in doctrine, or of teaching on sex. I agree that they are not a change in doctrine, but they are a change. In response to the legalisation of civil partnerships in 2005, the then House of Bishops declared that “clergy…should not provide services of blessing for those who register a civil partnership”[2] and on the introduction of same-sex marriage in 2014, repeated the instruction, “Services of blessing should not be provided.[3] Whereas now they have very clearly commended a set of prayers that may be used with those who have formed a civil partnership or same-sex marriage.

    Officially, of course, there is some hairsplitting, that the Prayers do not provide ‘services of blessing’ and so somehow this is not a contradiction. I don’t think anyone is convinced. Even when they are simply used in existing services, the PLF invite a minister to name the specific couple involved, and there are prayers asking God to bless them. And ironically the inclusion of different prayers for covenanted friendships clarifies the matter – because covenanted friendships are explicitly stated to be non-sexual and non-exclusive, that makes it clear that the main Prayers are for what we might try to gloss as one’s ‘central personal relationship.’ The associated Guidance fortunately makes it clear that it is not appropriate, with the PLF as with marriage couples, to ask intrusive questions about the intimate expression of any such relationships.  The Guidance also includes warnings that services should not imitate Holy Matrimony, whilst wisely noting that particular dress and associated trimmings are varied and subject to a range of cultural assumptions.  Since the distinctive mark of Holy Matrimony (as opposed to legal marriage in England today) is that it is between a man and a woman, we do not really need this warning, as the PLF are explicitly for same-sex couples.

    I shall return to the question of what sort of movement in the teaching of the Church on personal relationships this represents below, but first want to be clear about the status of the texts. They are commended by the House of Bishops for use by ministers in their discretion under Canon B5, meaning that the House has determined that they are (guess what!?) “neither contrary to nor &c.” This formula of commendation was devised in the 1980s to introduce new seasonal liturgical material in Lent, Holy Week & Easter (1986), The Promise of His Glory (1991) and much more since, on the basis that if a specific text had been approved under either Canon B2 or B4, that would have become the only permitted text, and stifled the liturgical freedom to devise seasonal services according to local need and custom. I have seen the argument both that this was different from the Prayers of Love & Faith, because it was not controversial, and that texts commended by the House of Bishops have no particular standing in law. Neither of these is true.

    Both Lent, Holy Week & Easter and The Promise of His Glory were presented to General Synod in the form of drafts in reports from the Liturgical Commission, for a ‘take note’ debate. In both cases the motion was passed by show of hands (meaning the level of support was not recorded) and it is possible that there was only modest interest from Synod (in the latter debate someone successfully challenged whether the House of Bishops was quorate!) Nonetheless, elements of the proposed texts were resisted and, more significantly, on both occasions speakers rose to object directly to the proposed method of commendation by the House, arguing that as the new books restored ceremonies which had been deliberately abolished at the Reformation, a full canonical process of approval should be followed. The ‘take note’ format also allowed the Liturgical Commission to go away and revise the texts including responding to comments in Synod, and the texts were then published without Synod having any opportunity to express a view on the final version. Though even then sex was more exciting than liturgy (as in the Higton debate of 1987) it was not without differences of opinion on both content and process. As for the standing of the texts from a legal viewpoint, both have been cited in faculty judgments in support of the acquisition of e.g. processional candlesticks and incense apparatus, as these are envisaged by their rubrics.[4] Although the exact impact of the decision must remain unclear until tested in court, the Prayers of Love & Faith commended by the House of Bishops do say something, as much reaction seems to confirm, even if we are still trying to work out what.

    Allow me a diversion. Readers who are familiar with Yes, Prime Minister may remember the episode in which Prime Minister Jim Hacker is manipulated into appointing a don from Sir Humphrey’s old college as Bishop of Bury St Edmunds in order to ease the latter’s retirement plans. At one point he is presented with an alternative candidate who has strong opinions on matters of public morality – abortion, teenage pregnancy, gambling. Hacker protests that those are matters about which he is trying not to have a policy (by implication, because they are too difficult and controversial) and Bernard Woolley, the Private Secretary, pedantically responds, “Yes, he is against your no-policy-policy” and so he is ruled out, and Sir Humphrey’s plan advances another step.

    It seems to me that perhaps there is some hope that the Church of England is moving, more perhaps by accident than design, to something of a ‘no-policy-policy’ on sexual relationships, in spite of the strong voices who oppose this. Besides anything else, any clear policy is going to have to draw some uncomfortably explicit lines around particular sexual acts, and it is difficult to imagine this turning out anything other than laughable. In other words, it might be that we reach a position where the Church responds to particular circumstances, both locally on an individual basis and commenting on national trends, but finally gives up pretending that the public role of Christianity is to define who is allowed to have sex with whom, as if anyone were really listening to that any more. And this would then be much like our wise resistance to absolute rules on war and peace, or how people spend their money, or the benefits and risks of the AI revolution. And we could get on with worshipping and serving the God who redeemed us in Christ, and whose world needs his love so much.

    References:

    [1] In the case of in Re St Alkmund, Duffield [2013] Fam 158, paras 24(a)-26

    [2] House of Bishops statement on civil partnerships, https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/house-of-bishops-statement-on-civil-partnerships-2005.pdf, §17

    [3] House of Bishops Pastoral Guidance on Same-sex Marriage, https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-11/house-of-bishops-pastoral-guidance-on-same-sex-marriage.pdf §21

    [4] In Re. St John the Evangelist, Chopwell [1995] Fam 254 and subsequent judgments adopting Chancellor Bursell’s reasoning.

     

  • The Sovereignty of God and Pastoral Responsibility in Political Turmoil

    Reflections on Privilege, Inequality, and Justice and the Re-election of Donald J. Trump as the 47th President of the United States of America

     

    by Revd Dr Augustine Tanner-Ihm, OMS, Lead Minister of St. Nick’s Kingsway, Manchester

     

    Growing up in the USA, the Pastor would always say, “God is Good, all the time,” and the response was always, “And all the time, God is Good.” This simple but poetic liturgical language was a reminder that God was good all the time. To be honest, we didn’t need to know that because we already had experienced that through the lives of our grand people and uncles and aunties. It was a cornerstone of the Black experience.

    Now as a pastor with much education and theological reflection, I think of the way in church we respond to things when the world is not good all the time.

    The sovereignty of God—a central doctrine affirming that God holds supreme authority over all creation—poses profound theological and pastoral questions, particularly amid politically turbulent times. During election cycles, religious leaders often assure their congregations that “God is in control.” While well-intentioned, these reassurances risk reducing complex theological truths and overlooking the severe impact that political outcomes may have on marginalized communities. In light of God’s sovereignty, pastors must balance their messages carefully, examining how this core tenet of Christian faith intersects with power, privilege, and politics. This reflection explores the importance of approaching the sovereignty of God with a nuanced, biblically-rooted pastoral theology that attends to the challenges of contemporary governance. Using insights from theologians such as Revd Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Cone, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and Tom Wright, this article considers the pastoral responsibility of responding to right-wing governance, particularly in cases where the clergy’s personal privilege may insulate them from the impact of oppressive policies. It also examines how nationalism and authoritarianism threaten the inclusive witness of the Gospel.

     

     Theological Foundations of God’s Sovereignty

    The sovereignty of God, foundational to Christian belief, asserts that God is the ultimate ruler and authority over all things. Scripture emphasizes this from the creation narrative in Genesis to the redemptive arc spanning the Old and New Testaments. Ephesians 1:11 states that God “works all things according to the counsel of His will” (The Holy Bible, New International Version), underscoring divine authority over human affairs and history. However, the notion of divine sovereignty does not excuse human agency; rather, it reinforces the Christian duty to engage actively in God’s mission through stewardship, justice, and love.

    In his work on the Kingdom of God, Tom Wright argues that God’s reign is not merely a far-off future but a present reality brought near by Jesus’ ministry, inviting believers to participate actively in God’s redemptive work (Wright, 1992). Wright’s theology encourages Christians to resist fatalistic interpretations of divine sovereignty that promote passivity and instead invites them into an active, present-tense engagement with justice and mercy. When pastors appeal to God’s sovereignty amid political outcomes, they should avoid implying that God ordains injustices. As Wright emphasizes, the Kingdom of God is “now and not yet”—a divine reality already breaking into the present, calling believers to reflect God’s justice and compassion (Wright, 2003). This call to action reflects a Kingdom-oriented faith that insists on challenging injustice rather than accepting it passively.

     

    The Pastoral Perils of Simplistic Commentary on Election Outcomes

    Simplistic appeals to God’s sovereignty during times of political instability can hinder rather than empower. While well-meaning, reassurances that “God is in control” may comfort some but seem dismissive to others, particularly to those for whom political shifts directly threaten safety and rights. Pastors must discern how such messages resonate differently across their congregations. James Cone’s Black Liberation Theology warns that the Gospel demands a “preferential option for the poor,” highlighting that Christ’s message is inherently liberative, with a special concern for the oppressed (Cone, 1970). Without careful consideration, pastors may unintentionally obscure or even undermine this liberating aspect of the Gospel.

    The Trump administration’s policies illustrate the impact of right-wing governance on vulnerable communities, including LGBTQ+ individuals. The administration sought to remove legal protections in healthcare, military service, and civil rights, policies that LGBTQ+ advocates describe as discriminatory and harmful (Human Rights Campaign, 2020). To claim God’s sovereignty without a critical reflection on the justice implications of these policies risks trivializing the plight of marginalized groups. Revd Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. emphasized that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” reminding Christians that divine sovereignty calls them not into resignation but into action on behalf of the oppressed (King, 1963). For King, God’s sovereignty was not an excuse for passivity but a mandate for prophetic, justice-driven witness.

     

     Privilege, Power, and Pastoral Commentary

    The privilege of some clergy—whether economic stability, heterosexual orientation, or racial identity—can shape political commentary, often without conscious awareness. For pastors relatively insulated from the negative impacts of government policies, there is a responsibility to speak up for the vulnerable. Gustavo Gutiérrez’s liberation theology emphasizes that “theology begins with the reality of suffering” and insists that Christians adopt a “preferential option for the poor” (Gutiérrez, 1973). Gutiérrez’s theology challenges clergy to avoid complacency, encouraging solidarity with marginalized people who may suffer under right-wing or authoritarian regimes. Privilege can distort pastoral perspectives, underscoring the need for critical reflection on social position and an intentional effort to amplify the voices of those most at risk.

    The rise of White Christian Nationalism illustrates this danger starkly. White Christian Nationalism seeks to blend Christianity with nationalist ideology, often privileging certain racial and social groups over others and thus undermining the Gospel’s universal message of love and justice. Such ideologies, while popular in some circles, not only erode the church’s credibility but also distort Jesus’s teachings on compassion and inclusion (Mark 12:31). The Book of Common Prayer reminds the faithful to “pray for the whole state of Christ’s Church militant here in earth” (Church of England, 1662), calling Christians to an inclusive faith that stands in solidarity with the oppressed, rather than aligning with exclusionary structures of power.

     

    Inequality and the Pursuit of Justice

    Inequality within society exacerbates the harm caused by dismissive pastoral commentary. Policies such as those proposed by Project 2025, which aim to advance conservative priorities in the United States, highlight the potential dangers of government decisions that deepen inequalities and reduce support for marginalized communities (Heritage Foundation, 2023). Pastors who invoke divine sovereignty to explain or excuse such policies risk perpetuating systems of oppression rather than challenging them. Proverbs 31:9 urges believers to “speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy,” reinforcing the call to resist structural injustice rather than acquiescing to it.

    Historically, the Christian church has often been complicit in oppressive systems, from colonialism to the Atlantic slave trade. The resurgence of White Christian Nationalism continues this pattern, weaponizing faith to justify exclusionary and harmful policies. Under such ideologies, LGBTQ+ individuals, among others, face increased marginalization. The LGBTQ+ community faces significant challenges under both nationalist and authoritarian regimes, particularly those that exploit faith for exclusionary purposes. For example, policies under Trump’s administration removed federal protections for LGBTQ+ individuals in various sectors, creating barriers to healthcare, adoption, and workplace equality (Human Rights Campaign, 2020). White Christian Nationalism distorts the Gospel, promoting a version of Christianity that emphasizes exclusion and division rather than inclusion and love. In contrast, the Gospel’s message affirms the dignity and worth of all people (Galatians 3:28).

     

    Pastoral Response to Right-Wing, Authoritarian Governments

    Pastoral care must engage in prophetic critique, particularly of governments that perpetuate inequality or undermine the rights of marginalized communities. Gustavo Gutiérrez’s liberation theology underscores the church’s duty to challenge systems of injustice. While pastors should avoid aligning too closely with any political party, they are called to uphold values of justice, mercy, and compassion as modelled by Christ. This call may necessitate opposing state policies when these violate the inherent dignity of individuals. Pastoral response must move beyond words to involve tangible actions that support those harmed by discriminatory policies. As the Book of Common Prayer encourages, believers are called to confess their sins—both personal and collective—and seek forgiveness, committing themselves to justice and righteousness.

    The legacy of King, Cone, and Gutiérrez emphasizes that discipleship requires courage and a willingness to stand against injustice, even when such resistance may be unpopular. Their witness reminds today’s church of the Gospel’s call to justice, compelling pastors to engage their communities in resisting structures that dehumanize or marginalize others.

    The Anglican Ordinal outlines the pastoral responsibilities of priests and deacons, particularly emphasizing their call to care for the spiritual and material welfare of all people, especially those who are vulnerable or marginalized. According to the Ordinal, priests are called “to preach the word of God, and to administer the holy Sacraments,” while deacons are entrusted to serve and advocate on behalf of the poor and those in need, living as “a sign of Christ’s servanthood.” In the context of political turmoil or policies that harm the vulnerable, this pastoral role calls both priests and deacons to embody the compassionate, justice-oriented heart of the Gospel. Their charge is not to support the status quo but to challenge injustice with the love and mercy modelled by Christ. By attending to the spiritual needs of their congregation while actively resisting policies that deepen inequality, clergy are reminded that their ordination vows include a commitment to advocate for a just society. In doing so, they fulfil the Ordinal’s call to care for all people, reflecting the Kingdom values of compassion, justice, and inclusivity as embodied in their pastoral vocation.

     

    Conclusion: Toward a Faithful, Justice-Oriented Pastoral Presence

    The doctrine of God’s sovereignty affirms God’s ultimate authority, yet it should not be used to justify passive acceptance of injustice. Instead, it calls Christians to embody God’s justice, compassion, and mercy within a world fraught with sin and inequality. As pastors speak of God’s sovereignty, they must remain mindful of their own privilege, ensuring their message does not unintentionally support unjust political systems.

    The witness of the Gospel compels believers into a life of discipleship that embraces the marginalized and resists oppressive powers. Martin Luther King Jr., James Cone, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and Tom Wright challenge the church to live out a faith that reflects God’s justice, recognizing the sovereignty of God not as a license for passivity but as an invitation to active, justice-driven love for all creation.

  • Smoke and Mirrors and the Alliance

    by Nic Tall, National Co-ordinator of Together for the Church of England

    The House of Bishops has just met to discuss, among other things, the latest steps in the drawn out Living in Love and Faith process. Current discussion points include whether clergy should be allowed to marry their same sex partner while receiving a licence to minister, how the Prayers of Love and Faith for blessing couples in a same sex relationship can be implemented, and what provision needs to be made for those of differing views in this complex and contested area. A letter to the Bishops written by a group called the Alliance, who oppose the full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people and their relationships into the life of the Church, has also become public.

    The Alliance letter makes the interesting claim that it “continues to grow numerically with 2360 clergy whose churches currently represent 42% of the Church of England’s average Sunday attendance and 53% of all under eighteen-year-olds within the Church of England.” Some online commentary has been taken aback by these numbers and the suggestion that the Alliance are supported by so many rank-and-file pew-filling Anglicans. But the numbers are not quite what they seem. I therefore thought it would be useful to dig into the numbers, show the unresolved questions around them, and place them into the wider context so you can make your own mind up about the current state of the Church of England and any likely dissent from the use of the Prayers of Love and Faith – prayers which, of course, nobody is obliged to use.

    First, who are the Alliance? Their website describes them as “an informal partnership of leaders from networks within the Church of England”. Most of these networks are of a conservative or charismatic evangelical flavour. In previous letters written by the Alliance there have been around 25 to 30 signatories, with the qualifying statement that “all signatories are leaders of networks/organisations but are signing in their personal capacities, recognising they cannot claim to speak for everyone that they lead.”

    The Alliance are also a limited company, the most recent letter having been signed by its directors. Of those seven directors, two are on the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) including the CEEC National Director, one is a Regional Director with New Wine, three have links to the HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) church planting network and one Chairs the Traditional Catholic Group on General Synod. That balance of directors shows that it is substantially being driven by the HTB network, and one point that is far from clear is how far CEEC statements are also Alliance statements.

    It is a big stretch to get from seven directors and around 30 signatories to 2360 clergy, so where does that figure come from? The Alliance website has a section inviting clergy and laity to “join with the Alliance”. The form to fill out includes the proviso that “we will not assume you speak on behalf of your whole church.” The first page is for personal details, including the church they attend, the diocese it is in and if they are clergy, lay ministers or other laity. The second page has just two questions, only for clergy and licenced lay ministers: “Your church’s average adult Sunday attendance” and “Your church’s average under-18s attendance”. The final page asks them if they agree to the Theological Vision published by seven conservative bishops and if they support the ongoing work of the Alliance.

    I assume that this sign-up form is the source of the 2360 clergy, along with the stats for their congregation and under-18s. In June 2024 the Alliance stated they had “over 2000” clergy, which has now become “2360 clergy” in October 2024; does this limited growth imply that the Alliance numbers are plateauing? And what does “clergy” mean here? It should not be assumed that they are all incumbents leading churches. The number could also include curates, non-stipendiary ministers, chaplains, clergy in other work and retired clergy, who may or may not hold a Permission to Officiate. Given that there are approximately 20,000 active clergy in the Church of England across all roles, that means over 17,000 have not indicated their support for the Alliance. And how many separate churches are covered by the 2360 clergy, given that there can be more than one priest licenced to a church? For example, the National Register of Clergy lists 37 clergy licenced to the parish of Holy Trinity Brompton. So it is difficult to know just what the 2360 clergy represent in terms of their roles or the churches they minister in.

    What we can be sure of is that these clergy do not represent everyone in their churches. The statement at the top of the sign-up form affirmed that. So it’s strange that the latest Alliance letter closely links these clergy of unspecified role with “42% of the Church of England’s average Sunday attendance and 53% of all under eighteen-year-olds within the Church of England”. But it’s clear that not all in a church under conservative leadership share their leaders’ views. The false assumption that they do was challenged in an article in the Church Times in January 2024 about members of HTB network churches; one priest stated how the leadership were ignoring different perspectives, with “many keeping quiet out of fear for repercussions”.

    The statement regarding 53% of under-18s is also strange, given that most toddlers I speak to hold no firm views on church politics or the theology of interpersonal relationships. Yet it is repeated on social media without any challenge. As for the teenagers within that 53%, are they all fully behind the stance of the Alliance? Having met teenagers from Gen Z, I highly doubt it. The notion that young people are staying away from the Church of England because it isn’t homophobic enough doesn’t bear much scrutiny. One reason many conservative churches aren’t open about the vicar’s views on LGBTQIA+ relationships (and sometimes also on women’s ministry) is that they know the younger generation just wouldn’t wear it.

    As for the claim to have 42% of average Sunday attendance, how is that calculated? Do the Alliance add up those figures from the people signing up on their website, compare it with the national statistics for ministry, and calculate a percentage from the two? This is unlikely to be comparing like with like. Some filling out the Alliance form will have given an optimistic estimate, rather than the more detailed count required for the national figures. If two clergy from the same church sign up and give different figures (the Vicar says 150 per Sunday, the curate says 120) which figure is used? The more optimistic one, of course. There is no guarantee that there hasn’t been double counting, adding in the figures given for Sunday attendance for every priest signing up, even if some are from the same church. It is clearly not a reliable percentage, given that the number of people allegedly attending the churches connected to the 2360 clergy are unlikely to have been calculated on the same basis as the national figure for average Sunday attendance.

    The next question is just what have the 2360 clergy signed up to? Page 3 of the sign-up form includes both the conservative theological statement and also support for “the ongoing work of the Alliance”. The theological statement is straightforward enough, but it does not contain a programme of action or assert any of the measures the Alliance say they feel are necessary. And what is that “ongoing work of the Alliance”? There is currently no single document on the Alliance website that lays out their position. There are the letters written, mostly to the House of Bishops, which offer hints reiterating what has been requested in other places (e.g. separate bishops, separate training for ordinands, the formation of a separate province for conservative clergy). Much of this develops over the course of the letters, so it is not clear whether clergy signing in support in the early days would offer support to the measures being requested many months later. So those unhappy with the commendation of the Prayers of Love and Faith, but who have no intention of leaving the Church over them, may not realise that signing is being taken to support demands for formal structural and legal change as a condition of remaining.

    While the Alliance may not have a single paper in the public domain outlining their demands, there is one published by the CEEC from 2024 titled “What do we need”. This lays out their demands clearly and in one document, and some of these are echoed in later Alliance letters. It demands a legally secure structure with separate bishops, separate finance, separate vocations and ordinations, separate training, separate deaneries and dioceses, separate safeguarding, and more. They present this as a plan to maintain “unity” in the Church of England but it reads instead as partition into two separate churches under one roof. The main points of contact between these two entities would be the conservative province retaining access to funding and continuing to be represented on General Synod. It is as if I said to my wife “we can only stay married if I live in another country, never speak to you, but still have access to the bank account”. There is no requirement for the 2360 clergy indicating support to the Alliance to have read, let alone accept, this schismatic programme outlined by the CEEC.

    What we do know, however, is that the scale of ambition of the Alliance is not being met. As I reported at the end of last year, there were grand plans to recruit 3000 churches representing more than half of the Church of England’s worshipping members. Evangelical clergy were receiving direct approaches encouraging them to take part, including signing up for the Ephesian Fund and Overseers schemes launched by the CEEC. These schemes are intended to divide the church, using finance and walking away from diocesan bishops as leverage.

    However, a CEEC newsletter in September 2024 revealed that they had not even reached 500 clergy or churches subscribing to these schemes. John Dunnett, CEEC National Director, wrote:

    “We will be encouraging more churches and clergy to take action to show their concern about the current direction of travel. We would love to see 500 churches paying their parish share through the Ephesian Fund and 500 clergy receiving the alternative spiritual oversight being facilitated by CEEC.”

    It should be noted that signing up for the Overseer scheme, rejecting the pastoral provision of your own diocesan bishop in favour of someone appointed by the CEEC, does not require a priest to receive the approval of their PCC. It is also open to those who already receive alternative episcopal oversight from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet due to rejecting the ordained or episcopal ministry of women. In such instances the CEEC would recommend oversight be provided by the Bishop of Ebbsfleet, who currently has oversight of around 140 parishes. This seems very odd; in order to inflate their numbers to reach 500 parishes opting for extra episcopal oversight, is the CEEC asking those who already receive it from the Bishop of Ebbsfleet to reject the Bishop of Ebbsfleet so they can be assigned to the Bishop of Ebbsfleet and therefore count as a dissenting parish under the Overseers scheme? Yet more smoke and mirrors from the CEEC.

    This autumn, the Ephesian Fund is being further promoted by the CEEC so their “call for negotiation can get louder and more impactful”. Rather than being a last ditch means to facilitate those who feel they can no longer pay their parish share, some 18 months after Synod made a clear vote for LLF in February 2024 the CEEC are having to stir up discontent and persuade parishes that this is something they need to consider. Originally the rationale for the Fund was so that parishes can keep giving financially to the Church of England (although with the money channelled to the “right” sort of churches), but now it is being presented as a way of applying political pressure on the bishops. Concerns about this weaponizing of church finances for political ends have been raised by Together for the Church of England, who have released this briefing paper for PCC members being asked to consider the Ephesian Fund. Such careful consideration is needed; while I was writing this article, I heard of one large charismatic church whose income dropped by £50k after the incumbent announced he was taking the conservative line. PCC members being encouraged down this route should be warned.

    In conclusion, the claims made by the latest Alliance letter need to be questioned and put into wider context. My reading of these claims is that a plateauing number of clergy of undisclosed role from an uncertain number of churches, who do not speak for all their congregations, have signed up to support a conservative theological statement and an unarticulated practical response to the LLF programme. Remember that such clergy are not, and never will be, required to use the Prayers of Love and Faith and will be able to operate in full conscience in the Church of England as they always have done. For most, such assurances are sufficient. Meanwhile the CEEC and the Allianceå are trying to overinflate the impression of widespread dissatisfaction at all levels within the Church, because their aim is to reach a structural split which signals schism in everything but access to resources. That so many have not joined up shows that the Alliance may be a broad coalition, but only a fraction of that coalition are moving to take action in forming the so-called “de facto province”.

    What is so sad here is that the rest of the Church of England, the majority, has already made significant allowances to accommodate differences of conscience over same sex relationships. It really is time we accepted this and moved on. The Church has other issues to deal with. The General Synod has voted by a majority in all three Houses on three separate occasions to implement greater inclusion for LGBTQIA+ people, including welcoming the use of the Prayers of Love and Faith. Fighting a continual last-ditch attempt to restrict the freedom of LGBTQIA+ people to love who they love and to serve in the Church as they are called is not helping anyone.

     

  • The “Failure of the Church”: Why Waiting is Not Neutral

    by Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge; Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington 

    ‘Lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church’.

    So began the motion passed by the General Synod in 2023, in relation to the LLF project. Just look at the state of it now. According to Bishop Martyn Snow, in his recent video, ‘We’re still in the process of working with LGBTQI+ people to look at what that apology really means in practice’. So far, not much.

    I am bored writing about LLF. I am sure you are bored hearing about it. And yet here we are, almost two years on from that motion, and we have moved … effectively nowhere. Yes, some prayers have been commended – which was ‘looked forward to’ in that first motion – and that was a real step forward (although, of course, it really just formalised what was already happening in many parishes). But it happened nearly a year ago now, and although the prayers have been approved as a ‘standalone service’ we are being asked to wait to use them until a ‘registration process’ has been set up. Meanwhile, there have been a love-in residential, endless variations on working groups (with precious little new output), and various half-promises made. Folk wanting some progress for LGBTQIA+ people have given of their time and energy again and again. But in terms of actual change brought about for LGBTQIA+ people, let’s be frank – since that motion, there has been effectively nothing. Zero. Nada.

    This is enough of a disgrace in itself that the endlessly dithering House of Bishops should hang their heads in shame. Yet let’s be absolutely up front and frank here – that is not the half of it. Let’s not pretend: we know that there have been votes amongst the bishops to enable clergy to enter same-sex marriages, and those of us in the process know that Archbishop Justin’s comments on sex being for marriage do indeed reflect the general position of the House and College. Against that background, though, the required withdrawal of the nasty little Issues in Human Sexuality (a withdrawal required, let us remember, all the way back in February 2023), still has not happened – which is completely unacceptable. Similarly, all those in the LLF process know that clergy same-sex marriage is a question of when and not if – such has been said to us by staff, by bishops. The idea it won’t happen is ludicrous – and if that does become the plan, then there is no benefit to dragging it out any longer. Yet still, no decision is made – and we are treated like fools, again, and again, and again.

    Indeed, forty-four bishops called for this decision to be implemented ‘without delay’ in November 2023. Funny definition of ‘without delay’, right, a year on – and with the endless can-kicking, wasted time, and – frankly – wasted vocations.

    Because this isn’t an abstract issue. We have potential ordinands, whose call has been blocked by the absolute impediment that they have fallen in love with someone and have formalised it in law. Similarly, bishops are refusing to license clergy in same-sex marriages, all in the middle of a vocations crisis and the scandal of endlessly overworked clergy. Cases from the Diocese in Europe, where some countries don’t provide the option of civil partnerships, show quite how small-minded, absurd, and nasty this policy is in practice. In some places, bishops are quite inexplicably – and viciously – refusing to license lay people in civil marriages to people of the same sex or gender too. Even Issues in Human Sexuality didn’t go that far.

    So we clergy can pray prayers of blessing for others in such relationships but not enter into them ourselves? Similarly, clergy from other provinces of the Anglican Communion in same-sex marriages cannot minister in the Church of England, but clergy from these provinces who have celebrated such a marriage can? What a load of ecclesiological – and queerphobic – nonsense that is. The whole thing is a rotting ulcer at the heart of our church’s polity – and still, nothing is done. Where is the courage? Where, frankly, is our pastoral heart? How long, O Lord? Why is it that we are so expendable – so worthless – so detested? We asked for bread, were promised a stone – and even that is still withheld.

    The truth is, though, that there has been work done, ‘progress’ on LLF – it’s just that this work has nothing whatsoever to do with LGBTQIA people. LLF is no longer about them – about us. It is about those, a small but rich and powerful minority, who wish to exclude them from parts of church life based on their sexual orientation. It has become yet another tool of the powerful over the vulnerable. Just like Jesus always wanted.

    This is not new. Those who ‘couldn’t accept’ the ordination of women as priests and deacons got a nice pay-off as they swam the Tiber. In today’s arguments over other people using prayers and other people getting married, once again the sole focus has been on those who oppose the majority position. Look back over the reams of papers, debates, and ‘solutions’ suggested for our current predicament – how many of them actually mention, let alone prioritise, LGBTQIA people? Hint: not many.

    Those of us in favour of LGBTQIA inclusion seem to be bending over backwards to ensure those who think we aren’t even Christians should be given absolutely everything they claim they need so that they are not stained by our queerness. Adverts from inclusive churches speak of the need for ‘support’ for those who feel ‘disappointment, discomfort, or distress’ about the use of the Prayers of Love and Faith. While it’s surely good that PCCs are discussing where they stand on their use, and complete honesty about this will help people decide whether a church is for them or not, it’s all very one-sided. Meanwhile, there is precisely nothing about the actual LGBTQIA people about whom this project was supposed to be.

    The entire project has become disproportionate without ever moving anywhere near the ‘radical new inclusion’ promised at the outset. All we are doing now is yielding to threat upon threat from the ‘Alliance’, which has a much louder bark than its bite, and in the process chucking more and more LGTBQIA people onto the pile that says: ‘not important enough’. We appear willing to be agents of injustice to protect the powerful who now claim they are being oppressed. It would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

    Christians and their churches are known by how they treat their weakest members. Jesus said something about that somewhere. The Church of England is standing at a precipice where it must decide whether it really wants to be known for creating a system that looks after the privileged, or whether it actually wants to embed and live the apology to LGBTQIA people that it so far only claims to believe in.

    This time of treating LGBTQIA people like collateral chaff cannot continue. If the bishops do not have the courage to permit us to enter into same-sex marriages and continue to live out our vocations – vocations that have been acknowledged and affirmed by the church – then it is time for them to admit that. This includes every serving Church of England bishop – every single one of whom, at present, agrees to implement the 2014 voluntary agreement. Similarly, if they want to continue the nonsense of ‘yes at Evensong, no at a standalone’ when it comes to the Prayers of Love and Faith, so be it. If that is the church they are proud to lead into the future, then they should own it.

    That is, of course, the church they currently lead. Waiting is not neutral – it is ongoing structural violence. Deciding not to decide is a decision – a decision to support ongoing injustice, and to say, through their actions, that we are not worth the hassle of making oneself unpopular with one’s sibling bishops. Neither handwringing nor can-kicking, nor hoping it will all go away, nor endless agonising about how difficult it all is, is a Christian virtue.

    And until a single bishop is willing to name this injustice, and then actually act justly, then they can – frankly – keep their apologies.

  • Should We Expect Archbishops to Tell the Truth?

    by ‘Graham’

    There have been, in the last ten days, two efforts to address this question. In a letter to the Church Times on 5 October 2024, former General Synod member Vasantha Gnanadoss asks whether there should be “duty of candour” within the church. She suggests a “John Smyth clause” in Church disciplinary legislation. As a victim of John Smyth myself, I have long wished that there might be greater integrity in the statements made by senior figures around the John Smyth abuse scandal.

    This is then picked up by an article in Christian Today on 8 October 2024, when Julian Mann asks whether a duty of candour in 1982 might have saved around 90 African children from the abuser John Smyth. One died: Guide Nyachuru. The article then veers into mandatory reporting, which is a much more complex question – though one that is vitally important.

    And why is a “duty of candour” so important? First, the obvious Christian duty to be truthful. The moral imperative not to “bear false witness” is surely much wider than the secular requirement to be truthful? A wide interpretation would include withholding the truth, when a counter narrative is known. And not actively misleading, by “putting a spin” on things. The Church of England seems obsessed with reputation management, so is prepared to dissemble and give answers that are far from “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. Perhaps, like Colonel Jessup in the film A Few Good Men, the Archbishops feel that their flock “can’t handle the truth.”

    We all will be aware of times when the Church has not been entirely honest. An answer to General Synod may be a half-truth, a disguise, a cover up. The answer given to General Synod in February 2024 by Jamie Harrison, an Archbishops’ Council member, was a supreme example. Asked about “how many reviews had already been commenced” for the “ISB 11” he replied that “Survivors engaging with the IC (Interim Commissioner) have requested that their engagement is kept confidential therefore the IC cannot confirm the number at this stage”. While strictly true, around confidentiality, Harrison must have known – or certainly ought to have known – that at that stage not a single review had been commissioned or started. Not entirely honest?

    This problem with honesty extends to Church of England employees. On 27 April 2022, the NST announced with regard to the Makin Review into John Smyth: “The first phase draft is expected to be with the NST within a month and it will continue to receive drafts over the summer months”. This was either known to be absolutely untrue, or NST had just failed to check that it was true. Had Keith Makin simply lied to them – like a schoolboy concocting a story about why he hadn’t finished his homework?  Or was he in effect lying to himself about his ability to deliver? Either way, the answer given to General Synod was simply untrue.

    And what about the Archbishops? Stephen Cottrell has recently been caught out with regard to statements made to General Synod in July 2023. Subsequent research has shown that his “mistake” was repeated on multiple occasions, in front of people who knew that his statement was just untrue. However, rather than show a “duty of candour” in 2023, or in his apology in General Synod in July 2024, it is “spun” as a “mistake”. No, Stephen, your statement in July 2023 was not just a “mistake”. Whether the words you said were your own, or whether they were given to you to say, they were simply untrue.

    When an MP or a minister is revealed to have misled Parliament, they are required to apologise and correct the record. If they are found to have lied in public, they are usually dismissed by their party or government – or at least they were until the past few years when standards of truth in public life have plummeted. Synod is a statutory body modelled on, and deriving its power from, parliament.  Why is it legitimate to deceive Synod without consequences? Come to that, why is it acceptable for a bishop or archbishop who has been found to have lied in public to remain in the national legislature?

    And so to Justin Welby, who is of far greater interest to victims of John Smyth. Welby has only made two significant public comments on John Smyth: at LBC on 2 February 2017, as the story was breaking, and on 12 April 2019 to Cathy Newman on Channel 4. Now, where do we start?

    At LBC, Justin stated that “I went off to work in France in 1978 … And I was abroad at the time the report was done and had no contact with them at all”. By May 2017 this had been shown to be completely untrue, as evidence had emerged of his attendance at a camp as a speaker in 1979, and that he had received the Iwerne newsletter during that period. “No contact” is simply untrue, and gives the impression of having broken ties with Iwerne. However, his biography states that “Welby was involved in the camps as an undergraduate and again as a businessman and theological college student in the 1980s and early 1990s.” His LBC answer fails the “duty of candour”.

    Then on Channel 4 he stated that, in 2013, “I wrote to the Primate in South Africa”. He has subsequently admitted this was simply untrue. By 2019, he had had two years to recall and reflect upon what happened in 2013. But he told an outright untruth.

    And spin, a failure in the “duty of candour”. On Channel 4 he made the assertion that “John Smyth was not actually an Anglican” and that “Iwerne was not part of the Church of England”. These sound like lines given to him by a crisis management consultant. But in fact John Smyth was an authorised Church of England Lay Reader; he worshipped at Christ Church, Winchester, a Church of England church. In Zimbabwe he worshipped at St Luke’s Greendale, whose vicar was Vicar-General of the Anglican Diocese of Zimbabwe. In Cape Town, he worshipped at St Martin’s Bergvliet, which describes itself as an “Anglican community church”. Any claim that Smyth was not Anglican is simply untrue.

    “Iwerne is not part of the Church of England”? Might one question why, then, the future Archbishop of Canterbury attended for three decades? What did he think he was attending? Referees for Iwerne included Lord Coggan, former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Maurice Wood, Bishop of Norwich. It was run by David Fletcher, holding licence from the Church of England. A victim has identified 58 Iwerne attendees in 1982-83 who were either then ordained, or have subsequently been ordained in the Church of England. Several current, and some former, Bishops attended Iwerne. Justin’s statement that Iwerne was not part of the Church of England fails the “duty of candour”. Perhaps what Justin Welby was really saying was “My job is impossibly hard as it is. I have to try to say things all the time that will keep everybody on board. Please don’t ask me on top of that to tell the truth.”

    The Channel 4 interview spawned the “Fourteen Lies letter” as victims refer to it. I will not here go through all the “untruths” (“the Bishop of Ely contacted the statutory authorities”: untrue; “the allegations didn’t take place at Iwerne”: untrue). The Makin Review will show that many of the statements made to LBC were also simply untrue.

    One of the greatest frustrations for the victims of John Smyth is that we still do not yet have the truth. We need that for a sense of justice, for closure, for the chance to “move on”. We still do not have Justin’s account of what he did or did not know, and did or did not do. This is not just frustrating: it is a deliberate withholding from victims of simple honesty and integrity. This covers not just what is known, but those things not yet disclosed. It has emerged this year in Private Eye (Issue 1628, 18 July 2024) that Justin was a financial contributor to Smyth’s work in Africa. But the Archbishop is hiding behind “wait for Makin” and refusing to answer questions on this subject. He is withholding the truth. Why is this not in the public domain, almost eight years after the Channel 4 expose?

    Back to my title, and “should we expect the Church to tell the truth?” When they are in the pulpit, archbishops expect us to believe that they are telling the truth. But when they are dealing with difficult issues, bishops and archbishops routinely defer to church lawyers, who devise answers that are designed to avoid consequences, and communications advisers, who burnish the answers to ensure that they contain the minimum of actual information. The Church of England spends tens of millions of pounds a year on communications at national and diocesan levels. But for decades, the church has not employed communications specialists. Instead they have chosen to employ Public Relations experts – a very different profession, with an agenda that focusses on reputation management, not on telling the truth.

    The experience of victims, campaigners, allies, and members of General Synod, is that we cannot expect to hear the truth. This is an extraordinary assertion. But victims of Peter Ball, Trevor Devamanikkam, Jonathan Fletcher, Mike Pilavachi, Iain Broomfield are all left feeling they have NOT been told “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.

    And this failure in the “duty of candour” starts at the top: with the Archbishops.

     

  • When Doctrine Meets Dinosaurs

    by Revd David Runcorn, a convenor of the Inclusive Evangelicals network

    An edited version of the keynote address given at the recent ‘Radical Love: being an inclusive evangelical’ conference, hosted by the churches of St James and Emmanuel, Didsbury, Manchester, September 2024.

     

    It began on the beach. Two children sifting the shoreline for shells and fossils to sell – everything helps for a family always on the edge of poverty. That day they stumble on something extraordinary. Buried in the sand is the large, fossilised skull of a creature with huge eyes, powerful jaws and dozens of sharp teeth. It had fallen from the cliffs above. The boy leaves. His twelve year old sister begins a long search for the rest of the fossil in the cliffs. At last she uncovers it. It was seventeen feet long. The local newspaper called it a crocodile, but it was clear this was a creature that no one had ever seen before. It was eventually named Ichthyosaurus (‘fish lizard’), a marine reptile that we now know lived around 200 million years ago. It caused a sensation far and wide. Even the Madras Courier reported it.

    The year is 1812. This is Lyme Bay, Dorset. The girl’s name was Mary Anning. It was the first of a series of discoveries she made. She became a widely sought out, self-taught, expert on fossils and palaeontology, though the public credit was routinely claimed by men. In March, over 200 years later, on International Women’s Day, the Royal Mail produced stamps to commemorate her – only slightly slower in arriving, I observe, than first class post these days.

    Though fossil finds were not new, the nineteenth century discoveries triggered the development of the first properly scientific theories to explain them. They asked wholly new questions about the world. Worryingly, for Christians of that time the answers appeared to contradict what the bible was thought to teach.

    Previous centuries had all contained discoveries that overturned inherited beliefs and understandings. In 1492 Columbus simply sailed off the edge of the known maps of his day. Europe then had no idea of the true size of the planet or even that any land existed south of the equator. The impact of the stories of new worlds he returned with was immense. It was one of the triggers for the imaginative transformation that was The Renaissance. The response was exploratory, adventurous, outward looking.

    Other findings met with fierce opposition though. In the 1600’s when the scientist and astronomer Galileo challenged the ‘orthodox’ belief that the sun and stars revolved around the earth he was excommunicated for contradicting the Bible and the teachings of the church. He spent the latter part of his life under house arrest.

    Now, nineteenth century Britain found itself faced with discoveries that triggered a similar mix of excitement, anxiety, and often fierce opposition by the Christian world. Those unearthing these ‘impossible monsters’ (as local Dorset novelist and clergyman, Charles Kingsley, called them) quickly learned to be very cautious about where they shared their findings. Once under suspicion the consequences could be dire. Patrons withdrew funding. Publishers were threatened with prison. Teaching careers were terminated. Charles Darwin is one of the best known in that era, sailing on the Beagle in 1831 and publishing the Origin of the Species in 1859. But he kept his most controversial theories hidden in a secret diary for twenty years.

    Why was there such resistance? We look back rather baffled, for what they were uncovering has long since become so much common knowledge.

    It centres on what it means to be biblical.

    Nineteenth century Britain was a devoutly Christian nation. The Bible was the authority at its foundations. All claims to human understanding and knowledge must conform to the holy texts and be judged by them.

    Anning’s discovery was problematic because her findings appeared to contradict the creation stories in Genesis, which were believed to be literal accounts.

    Genesis chapter one clearly states that God separated land from water on day three. Creatures were not created until day five. So what is a marine mammal doing on dry land at all? And why is it deep under the ground and not lying on the surface?

    Furthermore, these creatures were no longer in existence. But did not God tell Noah to bring two of every kind into the ark to survive the flood (and marine mammals would have been untroubled by water anyway). Extinction was a hitherto unknown possibility. The very idea seemed to be a blasphemous denial of God’s creating work and the Biblical record.

    The Genesis account states that God made all creatures ‘according to their kinds’. This was understood to mean each species was distinct and fixed. The emerging theories of transmutation or evolution of species – particularly of primates into humans – shocked faithful believers.

    One further factor was the belief about the age of the earth. In 1650 Archbishop Ussher had published his life’s work using the bible record to date creation back to its very beginning. His conclusion was that world began on the night of October 22nd/23rd, 4004 BC. The King James Bible versions began to incorporated Ussher’s chronology into the margins alongside the bible text. This chronology became part of ‘orthodox’ belief everywhere. To challenge it was to question biblical revelation itself and attack the very faith of the church.

    Here was society and church facing amazing new discoveries about the world but with an understanding of the scripture texts that meant the emerging conclusions  had to be resisted as attacks on the Bible and Christian civilisation as a whole. One of Charles Darwin’s most public supporters was nicknamed the ‘devil’s disciple’.

    Faced with the evidence of these discoveries nineteenth century believers reacted in different ways. Philip Gosse was a leading naturalist in his day. Darwin consulted him. He agreed that the visible evidence pointed to evolutionary processes and a world of great age. But, for him, the bible was a higher authority. He believed it taught that God made the world complete, in a moment, but with all the appearance of age – such as rock strata, tree rings and even a navel for Adam. He decided God must be testing our faith by making it look otherwise.

    Others felt they could no longer believe the bible in the light of what they were uncovering. Surely the bible was wrong? What they were rejecting though was not the bible so much as a certain way of reading it – perhaps the only one on offer to them. This may have contributed to Darwin’s personal loss of faith. Only very slowly and unevenly did the necessary discussions begin about whether the bible was ever actually doing history, and pronouncing factually, on these issues in the way so long believed. But by time he died in 1882, the agnostic, Charles Darwin, was granted a final resting place in Westminster Abbey, just around the corner from Archbishop Ussher. Four thousand years is now four thousand million years and counting.

    I find here a parable for faith and church today, facing new questions of its own around issues of human identity, relationships and belonging. The lessons to be learned are very similar. So are the consequences of resisting them.

    The Church of England regularly affirms its mission as being to ‘proclaim afresh in each generation’. This is not simply finding ever new ways of communicating inherited beliefs, though. That is where the nineteenth century church was stuck.  Faith must engage with the challenges of fresh questions and discoveries around us. Unless we are willing to do this it we will end up trapped like our Victorian forebears. The questioning is mutual.

    So what happens with doctrine means dinosaurs? Or to put it another way, how does the Christian church, in any age, in every tradition and expression within it, avoid such defensiveness, using the bible to barricade faith, rather than be trustingly and adventurously open to the new?

    For St Paul biblical faith was always something unfinished and incomplete. ‘Now we see in part’, said Paul – partially, imperfectly. ‘Now we see dimly’, he continued – obscurely (1Cor 13.9-12). Biblical faith does not yet see all this clearly or in its completeness. It never has. Being biblical involves a trusting not knowing. Christian faith is forward looking. There is always more to learn, to discover. This means the unsettling process of allowing the inherited boundaries of faith and understanding to be tested and challenged afresh. Christians need to be very careful about claiming certainty when it comes to the bible text.

    The Living in Love and Faith project reflected this in its quite new way of exploring faith and understanding. It replaced the blocks of theological knowing, of inherited faith and its outworkings, with an approach ‘marked by provisionality and humility, recognising that we are in a time of corporate not-knowing, where mystery remains as to our humanity and how we are to live our lives in a world that we do not always understand, and where God often acts in surprising ways’. (1)

    Being biblical requires the work of ‘double listening’.  

    The great evangelical teacher John Stott constantly urged this. What we need, he said, are Christian minds that are humbly “shaped by the truths of historic, biblical Christianity and also fully immersed in the realities of the contemporary world.” (2). They must meet and talk to each other and be willing to learn from each other. Neither can say of the other, `I have no need of you’.

    We have long had a developing understanding of scripture, in fact. The process of re-visiting previously unquestioned biblical convictions in the light of new questions, is not unfamiliar to us. Often fiercely resisted at first, on the basis of what ‘the bible says’, the list includes creation/evolution, cosmology, science, biology, race, women and men, and divorce and re-marriage.

    • if we don’t call divorced and remarried people adulterers and stone them.
    • if we do not expect women to be silent in church and to learn theology from their husbands at home.
    • if we borrow and lend money on interest.
    • if disabled people are not excluded from worship or ministry.
    • if we think slavery is evil.
    • if we use artificial contraception and make love without intending to conceive life …

    we have already moved significantly beyond what the bible teaches, even commands – and never revokes. Not denying divine revelation, but asking afresh what kind of revelation it is. Not denying its authority, but discerning the nature of its authority, and therefore how it speaks and guides us into the new challenges we are encountering. Each challenge requiring the faithful to revisit their understanding of scripture.

    The revered evangelical theologian, I Howard Marshall urged the need to move beyond scripture, that is, beyond the immediate surface reading of the texts. He knew there were risks involved in this, but he was clear the greater risk was being misled by only reading the Bible in an ancient time warp and refusing to go beyond the letter of scripture (3). When this happens, faith becomes inflexible and fossilized. The nineteenth church offers an example of this. Our twenty-first century church is facing similar challenges as we explore the holy mystery of human identity and belonging.

    Being biblical requires us to read the bible responsibly.

    Rabbi Jonathan Sacks notes there are 613 commands in the Torah but ancient Hebrew had no word for ‘obey’. Modern Hebrew had to create a word for absolute obedience. The Hebrew words shema and lishmoa express a call to hear, listen, attend, understand. ‘Hear O Israel’. Sacks suggests, therefore, that God seeks something more from us than just obedience in the face of the commands – more than just submission and compliance. He seeks our responsibility (4). To discern what ‘following’ and ‘obeying’ means we must first hear, listen, attend and understand. English translations miss this by nearly always translating those words ‘obey’.

    Being biblical means engaging responsibly in careful discussion and dialogue with the text, with God, with our world and with each other – a work of continuing, communal discernment. When the Living in Love and Faith process put story and dialogue at the centre of its approach it could not be more biblical.

    This dialogue is found within scripture itself. For example, the way the wisdom tradition challenges the confident certainties of the dominant Deuteronomic voices – ‘Do good and you will be blessed, do bad and it will go bad’. Excuse me, says Job and others, life is not that simple. Bad things happen to good people and many evil people seem to live a long time with their health and wealth intact! Another example would be the way the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles offer very contrasting and sometimes contradictory assessments on the same era of Israel’s history. A critically discerning conversation or even argument is going on. Whenever the New Testament quotes from or alludes to Old Testament texts they are changed, conceptually or literally, in nearly every case. Jesus reading and preaching from Isaiah at Nazareth is a striking example of this.

    Here is a continuing revelation, in and through the scriptures, under the Lordship of Christ and the compelling of the Spirit, engaged with this emerging world. The scriptures reflect the character of the God who inspired them.  Karen Keen called her book about the inspiration and authority of the bible – ‘The Word of a Humble God’ (5). A humble God speaks a humble word to us.

    ‘The Bible says ….’

    The argument for inclusion and welcome from scripture is an accumulative one. There are no explicit texts and examples on offer. ‘Show me one text’. ‘Give me one example of blessed gay couples in scripture’. There aren’t any. It means on social media and elsewhere we can quickly sound hopelessly vague and attempting to avoid the plain meaning of the text – what ‘the bible says’. ‘Did God say?’  But this is not actually how scripture reveals, teaches and guides.

    To state the obvious – the bible is not a divine encyclopaedia with a text and example for every life question – so if ‘Blessed Gay Couples’ are not found in the index, well, they are obviously not biblical.

    Nor do we literally obey every place in the bible where there are explicit texts and examples. There are no bible texts anywhere condemning slavery, or any condemnation of polygyny, and not one example of a blessed slave-free church in the New Testament. But we would claim our opposition to slavery today is utterly scriptural. There are no examples in the bible of artificial contraception and family planning. There are no stories anywhere in the bible of blessed couples who are divorced and re-married. But in our lifetime the church has believed all this to be consistent with scripture. We have moved beyond the text of scripture believing this to be a faithful, pastoral development of orthodox, biblical doctrine.

    Finally, the church has never been a place where people all believe the same thing – least of all my own evangelical tradition. It has always been a place where there are strong differences and debates going on. It was so in the New Testament where Jew/Gentile divisions run through church life like an unresolved fault line. It was their version of our sexuality debates.

    The christian church is on a journey of understanding, and we are all in different places on the way. In 1997 Richard Hays, published The Moral Vision of the New Testament. He was already a widely respected and influential theologian. The book included a chapter on homosexuality that quickly became the definitive statement for conservative believers about the bible’s opposition to same sex relationships.

    In April this year he announced his understanding had changed and he had written a book explaining why and saying sorry. This sent shock waves through the evangelical world. Within a week two long reviews had appeared explaining why he was wrong. This was quite an achievement in itself because the book was still six months from being published at all. ‘The widening of God’s mercy’ was published last month (6). God’s mercy is always wide but here was a man humbly confessing that on this subject it is wider than he ever knew. We, like Hays, have yet to reach the end of it.

    The challenge to faith in every age is to be open to the new. To walk humbly with our God in this emerging world. For now, we see in part.

     

    It is a journey of understanding in which

    doctrine must meet dinosaurs

    texts must be tested afresh

    certainties must be questioned anew

    where bibles are no longer barricades

     

    It is a journey of faith together,

    from anxiety to adventure,

    beyond entrenchment to transformation,

    from regression to renewal

    from hostility to hospitality

     

    as we explore the ever widening revelation of God’s creating life and love.

     

    It is a biblical journey. This is Orthodox faith. Most gloriously of all, it is where we meet Christ, in the ever-widening community of his radical love.

     

    1. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2023-10/gs-2328-llf-nov-2023.pdf. Annex H p4.
    2. quoted in https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/crucial-reminder-double-listening/
    3. I. Howard Marshall, Beyond the bible – Moving from Scripture to Theology STL. 2004. p78.
    1. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Genesis, the Book of Beginnings, OUP, 2010, p45.
    2. Karen Keen, Eerdmans. 2023.
    3. Richard B Hays. The widening of God’s mercy – Sexuality Within the Biblical Story. Yale. 2024.

     

    David Runcorn is the author of  Love means love – same-sex relationships and the bible (SPCK) and the forthcoming Playing in the dust – a pilgrimage with the creation stories (Canterbury).