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Category: Culture and Faith

  • Bruised Reeds and Mustard Seeds   

     by the Revd Jody Stowell, Vicar of St Michael and All Angels, Harrow Weald and member of General Synod

                                                          

    The book above has come out of a number of years of struggle and frustration as a parish priest of a smaller church. In the introductory chapter I describe it as a ‘passion project’ and that has been what it is, with bells on! I am utterly convinced that the value, worth and endeavour of smaller churches is one of the most underestimated resources in the Church today, and particularly in the Church of England. Current obsessions with growth in numbers and finance often land squarely on the shoulders of local parish priests and their congregations. My desire for the book is that those who find themselves reading it are uplifted, encouraged and above all feel less isolated and alone in their call to lead, serve in or attend a smaller church.

    The well-being, particularly of clergy has been on my heart for a long time. I’ve had to attend to my own well-being in my ministry, and I know what it is to wrestle with the very real need of finances for a church to function, and the small numbers of congregation who are living in a cost-of-living crisis and who, even if they weren’t, would be unable to pay the standard cost of ministry, which covers the cost of the vicar, including pension, housing and training, as well as more general mission costs of the diocese, and which in my diocese is over £105k. It’s hard to carry the weight of seeing the mission of God through the lens of increase and growth, attendance and finance. Clergy and congregations often find themselves focusing on how to reach the biggest growth, rather on what the Spirit is calling them to.

    The book talks of what ‘small’ means. This is often the first question I get asked, I suspect because many would like my definition not to include them! One way to alleviate anxiety around being a small church is to deny that it includes you. The definition of ‘small’ used in the book is fairly wide and generous, focusing more on the idea of ‘Smaller Church Energy’, and the charisms that are inherent to smaller church communities; for example, nimbleness, attentiveness to the Spirit and belonging.

    I then explore issues around anxiety, aiming to offer comfort and challenge. We inhabit an institution which is highly anxious, and anxiety transmits. When anxiety drives an institution, we can end up with solutions which are about soothing the anxiety that comes from financial insecurity, rather than being a church able to catch unexpected glimpses of the Spirit in places and through people that are undervalued, unseen, invisible in both the institution and the nation. The solutions, programs and conferences offered can act like a drug, a form of self-medication against the anxiety, but which can’t last. So the anxiety is passed on until it often lands on the parish priest to deliver the shiny initiative that will somehow save the Church of England. No wonder clergy are leaving ministry early, often sick, stressed and disillusioned.

    But the smaller church is a gift. Even as we name the challenges, there is a golden thread running through Scripture of God illuminating the places that are weary, marginalised, vulnerable, fragile and small. Bruised reeds and mustard seeds, or Bethlehem the littlest clan. God is drawn to these places, and they are also the places from whence God comes. These places are not simply to be ‘done to’ – to be helped and ‘resourced’ from bigger and better entities – but are also places which can help the anxious institution lay down its anxiety rather than passing it on. Such places can resource their bigger neighbours and teach them how to be faithful in the face of a multiplicity of temptations to focus on success in numerical terms.

    I’ve chosen to dedicate one chapter to clergy well-being, not because I think it is only the clergy who are impacted by this institutional anxiety and obsession, but because they are often the ones who hold the anxiety from ‘above and below’.  Clergy do need to set a tone, or tell the story about who they are again and again to their communities. It is very easy for congregations to be demoralized and anxious themselves. They know that money is required to keep going, and the threat of closing smaller churches can lead to an expectation that somehow their vicar can ‘fix it’. And this is a dangerous place for clergy to be. Edwin Friedman, who wrote on leadership, warns

    The position that is most dangerous to a leader’s health is what I call the “togetherness position,” in which the leader feels responsible for keeping a system together. Such leaders are most likely to suffer burnout, function badly, or suddenly die when forces pulling in opposite directions have stretched their capacity to hold things together to its breaking point. (Friedman, Location 4015)

    Sadly, it can be literally life-threatening not to deal with our institutional anxiety issue.

    There is also a requirement for clergy to choose boundaries and non-anxious responses. In our parishes, we do actually have quite a lot of autonomy. One of the challenges that I offer in this chapter on clergy well-being is for clergy to resist the narrative and begin to be catalysts themselves for the unsticking of this institution that we not only work for, but love, because it is to this part of the Body of Christ that we are called.

    I finish with a chapter which offers some ways forward, although I’m careful not to be offering the ‘quick-fix’ to soothe the anxiety! As this is quite a new conversation, there are not necessarily models to copy, and the reality of smaller church is that it is rightly contextual, even hyper-contextual – and so ‘off the peg’ doesn’t work so well in our places. All offerings will necessarily need re-contextualizing in a new place. However, there are a couple of pathways that are being explored and I offer three of these for pondering. The hope is that this lifts the debilitating fog of isolation that stops us from thinking well, and helps us to recognise that there are others (I would argue most of us!) who are trying to navigate this strange land. One of the pathways being offered, by Bishop Guli to Chelmsford Diocese, is Travelling Well Together. It is undefensive and honouring of the realities of local small parish churches. We are told that

    For the foreseeable future, there will be no more diocesan initiatives outlining common approaches to mission and evangelism. Rather, we are seeking to tip the traditional organisational hierarchy on its head, to enable and empower local churches and worshipping communities to discern for yourselves what it means to be God’s people in your particular part of the world (Chelmsford, 2023).

    Bishop Guli challenges her diocese that, when a community is under threat, something of which she has first-hand experience, it has three choices: fight, flee and take the consequences or strengthen the inner life. She chooses, for herself and the church, the third option and I will leave you with an excerpt from the book on this:

    ‘However, [strengthening the inner life] is not an easy way. Our anxiety is still something we need to own and understand. And that anxiety may not be entirely erased because the external narrative has changed in one area of the institution. So, if we are not given a strategy from the central institution, then we potentially have no one to blame for our failure to live up to the image of success that we still hold. There is no focus to receive, and therefore soothe, our anxiety. If we tried the strategy and it didn’t work, then it is ‘their’ fault. If there is no strategy other than strengthening that inner life, getting closer to God, being faithful in the ministry to which we are called, then that is our responsibility. This is a good thing! It is not easy, but it is not hard in the way that being told to control things outside of our control is hard. It is hard in the way that tilling the earth is hard work, that picking fruit is hard work, that listening well is hard work, that making up a spare room for a guest is hard work. There is satisfaction, rather than frustration.’

  • ‘Evangelical and Inclusive’ – Renewing the Heart of the Tradition

    by David Runcorn, a convenor of the Inclusive Evangelical network and the author of Love means Love – same-sex relationships and the Bible (2020).

    A collection of studies and stories about evangelical faith and belief will be published on 28 April. Evangelical and Inclusive – a future and a hope is significant because it is written by evangelicals who support the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people and their relationships in the life of the church. Their purpose is more than a revisiting of the familiar arguments. For the Inclusive Evangelicals (IE) network the present conflicts are laying bare the need for a renewal of evangelical belief and identity and set the debates within the wider picture of evangelical history and its development.

    The book is not a manifesto, campaign statement or systematic study of faith and doctrine. It is telling a story that is still in the making. The approach is broad. Chapters trace the history and development of this tradition, including its global context. The relationship of faith, culture and mission is explored. Issues of scripture and doctrine are illustrated, for example, through a discussion of the theology of the atonement – so central to evangelical faith.

    ‘But are they really evangelical?’

     The book starts with a very familiar question in the evangelical world. ‘If there’s one thing that defines evangelicals’, writes Mark Vasey Saunders, ‘it’s holding strong opinions over who is and isn’t an evangelical!’ This has painful relevance for the growing number of evangelicals who hold inclusive convictions. We are often told we are not (or are no longer) real evangelicals.

    The evangelical wing of the church has grown remarkably over the last fifty years. In the Church of England its influence now extends to all aspects of its life and leadership. There are good gifts in this. However, over the same period, the oversight of its extensive organizations, networks and resources has increasingly fallen under the leadership of its more conservative wing. That is why, in the current debates, the loudest voices from this part of the church have been strongly conservative ones. This gives a misleading impression of what has always been a diverse and developing faith.

    The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) was founded by John Stott in 1960 to represent and co-ordinate the varied expressions of Anglican evangelicalism. However, in 2014 the CEEC changed its constitution to require members to specifically affirm male-female marriage as God’s ‘unchangeable standard’. The evangelical group on the Church of England’s General Synod and Diocesan Evangelical Fellowships fell in line, along with other groups and organisations. This immediately excluded many who call themselves evangelicals by any historic understanding of the name, but who hold inclusive convictions on sexuality. Theological discussion became narrowed. As well as drawing in the boundaries of membership, the change made a certain belief on human sexuality the test of Christian orthodoxy – something completely unknown in the Bible and the historic creeds and councils of the church. We have now reached the point where the deciding factor in almost every decision or appointment in the church is being determined by declared views on this issue.

    The rapid growth of the IE network after its launch two years ago made clear what we already knew – that there is a significant presence within evangelical churches of those with more open convictions, a desire for more exploratory understanding, and a more hospitable and open expression of a faith which had become too centred on the hard binary lines of evangelical/liberal, biblical/unbiblical, right/wrong.

    All of which means that the CEEC (and the related ‘Alliance’ network) cannot claim to be faithfully representing this historic tradition and its life in today’s church. 

    Evangelicals and the Bible

    The debates over sexuality have been challenging evangelicals to re-visit their understanding of how the Bible speaks to us today. The commitment to the scriptures as our unique authority and guide does not mean that views have never changed, nor that our understanding of what is taught there has not developed. Within our tradition, the unsettling process of re-examining, repenting and re-interpreting even long-unquestioned Biblical convictions, under the compelling of the Spirit and in the light of contemporary questions, is a familiar task. Indeed, our own understanding of scripture requires it. Unless we are willing to do this, we risk only reading the Bible in a kind of ancient time warp. Faith becomes inflexible, dogmatic and unable to respond to new contexts.

    Our twenty-first-century church is facing this challenge as we explore the gift of human identity and relationships. Specifically, we need a hermeneutic with which to translate ancient texts, conditions and concepts into the challenges faced in contemporary life. An example is the repeated claim made by those arguing for a traditional understanding of marriage, that the creation story in Genesis chapter two is a ‘definition of marriage’. This imposes on the text of a richly poetic, ancient wisdom story a very modern and quite literal meaning. To claim we read here God’s definite, eternal, universal ordering of human belonging and relating is to fail to attend to the literature before us, and therefore prevents us from faithfully discerning what story is actually being told, then and now.

    Women and Men

    The evangelical world has yet to become a place where women are fully respected and treated unambiguously as equals. ‘The distrust of women’s voices is hard baked into many women’s experience of evangelicalism’, writes Kate Massey in her chapter, Being a woman and evangelical. By contrast, inclusive evangelicals are committed to offering spaces of mutual welcome where, as Kate writes, ‘we practise and develop more equal ways of engaging with one another, thus hearing and better appreciating one another’s struggles and receiving one another’s wisdom’.  (1)

    In his careful critique of the issues raised by the recent abuse scandals that have unsettled the evangelical world (and beyond), Paul Roberts outlines important challenges to male identity and approaches to leadership in what remains a heavily man-centred tradition. He is concerned at the non-consultative style that presently characterises the leadership of parts of this tradition. By contrast, IEs ‘affirm modes of Christian leadership and management of power based on a New Testament model, that is collegial, consultative, diverse and accountable. The inclusion of a diversity of leadership voices, irrespective of sex or sexuality, is crucial in expressing this model in the present day in order to make the church a safer place.’

    Unity and Conflict

    Simon Butler came out fully as gay in a speech in General Synod. For some years he held one of the most senior roles there – an election he accepted ‘to try to keep the Church of England honest about its sexuality in its senior places’. The sexuality debates there changed him. ‘While evangelicals were arguing about ‘first order’ and ‘second order’ issues,’ he writes, ‘I found myself believing more and more that the unity of the church was the central biblical issue at stake. To deny that unity, to refuse to accept a fellow disciple, is a fundamental and grievous sin’. Nikki Groarke agrees. She describes her experience of managing deep conflicts in Synod and in her ministry as an Archdeacon. She challenges the language of ‘fighting for a cause rather than collaboration’, and the extensive use of emotive videos, letter campaigns and threats to withhold money. She calls her present position ‘optimism with a broken heart’ (Nick Cave). The pain of standing in the midst of this disagreement is deep and costly. Inclusive Evangelicals have a high view of unity. We seek to walk alongside, not apart from, those who disagree with us. The gospel teaches us this is not an issue over which to divide.

    Good fruit

    The most significant, challenging and hopeful voices in the book are from those within the LGBTQ+ community.

    A number of writers share their journeys as gay, lesbian or transgender Christians in the evangelical church. The stories of shaming, excluding and harming make for painful and challenging reading, but their message contains remarkable calls to faith.  

    Baptist minister Rachel Humphrey calls her chapter, How being Gay made me a better evangelical. She insists that LGBTQ+ Christians have grown in faith even through adversity and exclusion. ‘When banned from the worship group, or from praying in public, we continued to worship and in that process we discovered that God was with us in this place too, and thus our faith has continued to grow and develop and mature. My faith isn’t the same as it used to be before I came out. It’s better. By every measure people might use – integrity, confidence, mental well-being, effectiveness in getting things done – it’s more meaningful, more honest, more scriptural, and – more evangelical.’ She insists that evangelical churches are the poorer for excluding the gifts, wisdom and faith of these fellow disciples of Christ. Of course this is so, for in the body of Christ ‘the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you!”’ (1 Corinthians 12.21).

     In Good Fruit Alex Huzzey shares stories of inclusive churches that are growing and flourishing despite opposition and without the benefit of the support and resources readily available within (conservative-led) evangelical networks. ‘In the last few years, a new generation of LGBTQ+ inclusive churches has emerged, retaining recognizably evangelical and charismatic approaches to scripture, worship and evangelism, and most importantly thriving on it.’

    Here is a vision for the renewal of a gifted but much conflicted tradition in the church. This book is written for Christians within the evangelical world who want to understand their own historic tradition better. We have written for those seeking to engage further with the theological and biblical basis for inclusive faith. Evangelical and Inclusive is offered in respect and friendship to evangelicals who, though disagreeing to varying degrees, are open to continuing the conversation. It is offered to those in the wider church who wish to understand better this creative, often perplexingly intransigent, yet life-giving tradition.

    It is offered in faith – for a future and a hope.

    Notes

    1. The issues are explored further in : https://www.inclusiveevangelicals.com/post/male-and-female-he-made-them-celebrating-one-humanity-equal-and-different

     

     

  • All About LLF: the February Synod Debate

    by Felicity Cooke, a lay member of General Synod for Ely Diocese, a former member of the Leicester Working Groups, and a trustee of  Together for the Church of England

    There seems to be some confusion still about what happened at General Synod on 12th February 2026, three long years after the beginning of the journey of Living in Love and Faith (LLF) through General Synod. So here’s an attempt to explain it, from someone who was in the room. A reminder that what’s under debate are two moves towards a fuller welcome for lesbian and gay couples: first, accepting that clergy, ordinands and those exploring their call to ministry can be in same sex civil marriages (they can already be in same sex civil partnerships) and, second, permitting the use of the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) in standalone services. These Prayers were commended by the Bishops back in 2023 but can currently only be used in existing services.

    The motion

    At Synod, we were presented with a Motion from the Archbishop of York which affirmed what had been clear for some months: ‘that the LLF Programme and all work initiated by the February 2023 LLF Motion and subsequent LLF Motions will conclude by July 2026’. The Motion in full read as follows:

    That this Synod:

    (a) recognise and lament the distress and pain many have suffered during the LLF process, especially LGBTQI+ people;

    (b) affirm that the LLF Programme and all work initiated by the February 2023 LLF Motion and subsequent LLF Motions will conclude by July 2026;

    (c) thank the LLF Working Groups for their committed and costly work, which will now draw to a close with the conclusion of this synodical process;

    (d) commend the House of Bishops in establishing the Relationships, Sexuality and Gender Working Group and Relationships, Sexuality and Gender Pastoral Consultative Group for continuing work.

    After nearly five hours of debate on the Motion and on eight amendments, the unamended Motion was passed by Synod by a vote in all three Houses:

    For Against Abstained
    House of Bishops  34 0  2
    House of Clergy 109 62 10
    House of Laity 107 70  9

    That’s interesting because it showed a very clear majority in favour in all three Houses.

    But in favour of what? The end of LLF, or a new beginning?

    To answer that, we first need a diversion into Synodical procedures, as set out in our Standing Orders.

    Doing the numbers

    Before we all voted, a member moved a ‘procedural motion’ asking for a ‘counted vote of the whole Synod’. That was rapidly followed by another member calling for a ‘vote by Houses’. If 25 members stand to support this, it happens. And they did. A ‘vote by Houses’ has often featured in LLF debates and it always trumps a ‘counted vote of the whole Synod’. It means that each House votes separately, so it gives a clearer picture of who thinks what – and as names are registered with votes, that goes to the level of individual voters.

    But this particular procedural motion also makes it harder to pass anything because the motion or amendment must pass in all three Houses, meaning that the main reason to ask for a vote by Houses is if you want it to fail.

    Here’s an intriguing question: what would the result have been if the initial call, for a counted vote of the whole Synod, had succeeded? This is one of the interesting points about that whole long afternoon in Church House. When we put together the results of the three Houses, they show an overall vote in favour of 65.6%, with 34.4% opposed. Is it an irony that this is a bigger margin than in any of the previous successful LLF votes in February 2023, November 2023 and July 2024? Context is all important in thinking about that question.

    Autumn 2025: stalling

    Let’s go back to last October, when the House of Bishops issued a statement which was a precursor of the motion brought to Synod last month. This statement articulated the view of the House that LLF had essentially ground to a halt. Working groups had been set up to advise on process and procedure for the PLF to be used in ‘standalone’ (or ‘bespoke’) services. Meeting in Leicester, these groups had argued for such freedom to use the PLF to be accompanied by ‘protections’ for those who did not wish to do so. But these protections, characterised as ‘Delegated Episcopal Ministry’ (DEM), could not be accepted by the House of Bishops. DEM would mean that a diocesan bishop could ‘delegate’ some of their role to other, more conservative, bishops. But all (or almost all) of the bishops, whether inclusive or conservative, found DEM unacceptable. For some, such provisions were not enough: for others they went too far.

    In addition, the bishops decided that ‘in principle … both bespoke service and clergy same-sex marriage would need formal synodical and legislative processes to be completed before they could be permitted.’ So the PLF can still only be used in a regular service, not a special one.

    The immediate response amongst inclusive or progressive groups and individuals was of deep disappointment. It seemed that years of work both inside and outside Synod were to be abandoned. Over the years since LLF started in 2017, there have only been two small pieces of movement: the permission to use PLF in existing services and jettisoning Issues in Human Sexuality. That’s not much for countless hours spent in debates, discussions and working groups, not to mention an estimated total expenditure on the LLF process of £1.6 million.

    Throughout autumn 2025, arguments were pitched from all sides, some wanting the bishops to embrace a more positive agenda, others to call a halt to everything which Synod had voted for in 2023.

    The responses from those holding inclusive views included powerful sermons from the Deans of Southwark and Canterbury, as well as an Open Letter led by Inclusive Church (IC). In the press release accompanying that Open Letter, IC said:

    The Living in Love and Faith process has shown that the majority of the Church of England, clergy and laity alike, now long for a Church where LGBTQ+ people are fully welcomed and celebrated. Many want to see their grandchildren able to be married in church, their trans family members affirmed, and their Church reflect the generous heart of God.

    The letter was signed by nearly 7,000 lay and clergy people, from 3001 churches across the Church of England.

    Things became particularly intense in November 2025, when the legal advice offered to the House of Bishops was published as the paper GS Misc 1432. Many times in the last few years there had been calls from conservatives for the full legal advice and we were assured that this paper offered the same advice that the bishops had been given before. Not everyone agreed with the paper’s legal interpretation; see for example here.

    Yet another meeting of the House of Bishops took place in December, considering this legal advice and some theological papers. In mid-December, in another powerfully expressed sermon in Canterbury Cathedral, the Dean of Bristol asked the bishops where, among them, were  ‘those who will stand up against legalism, who will expedite processes for standalone services and lifting the ban on clergy entering same sex marriages?’

    2026: the waiting game

    But the bishops did not rise to her challenge. Their January Statement repeated and endorsed the position expressed in October.

    And so we entered yet another waiting game; what would be the actual motion to come to Synod in February? When it arrived in the Synod documents there was deep disappointment, even hostility to the thrust of the motion. The ‘apology’ in clause (a) seemed lacklustre and insincere (as one speaker in Synod said in the debate on the unsuccessful amendment to change this, ‘sorry means you won’t do it again’). As for clause (b), the idea that the LLF Programme could conclude by July 2026 was a slap in the face not only for all the members of the Leicester working groups who had sent a strong message to the bishops to act on their proposals, but to those in Synod who had voted in favour of the motions on LLF passed in February and November 2023 and July 2024. There was deep suspicion about the new working groups which the House of Bishops intended to set up – clause (d) – not only about the terms of reference detailed in GS 2426, but in its proposed membership and how members were to be appointed. There was a widespread feeling that the voices of the normally silent majority had been ignored.

    February: voting for further movement

    Yet, as I explained at the start of this blog post, in February the House of Bishops Motion was passed by a larger majority across the whole of Synod than any other previous LLF motion.

    How did this come about? Perhaps even those most dedicated of Synod watchers would be defeated by a detailed account of the eight amendments which were debated, and fell, during those five hours of debate. In brief, these were an amendment to make the apology more meaningful and sincere, an amendment to acknowledge theological diversity amongst LGBTQI+ (sic) people, one calling on the bishops to apologise for not taking legal advice and thus falsely raising hopes, one to remove the clause bringing the LLF process to a halt, another to allow a conscience clause on the use of the PLF in standalone services, another to remove the clause setting up the new working groups, one to add a means by which the Leicester working groups would be asked to provide a foundation for the work of the new working groups, and finally an amendment asking that the new working groups be organised so as to ensure that a majority of the members would be in favour of standalone services and full inclusion of clergy in same sex civil marriages, with regular reports on progress to Synod. Some of these amendments sought to strengthen the Motion, some sought either to weaken it or even render it meaningless.

    As would eventually happen with the main motion, there were calls for votes by Houses. Each of these amendments fell in the House of Bishops and (for the most part) in the other Houses too. So, given the dissatisfaction with the main motion and the disappointment, if not despair, at the events of the previous six months, what led to its approval?

    It was an odd motion because, as you can see in clause (d), Synod was only ‘commending’ something which the bishops were going to do anyway. They did not need synodical approval. But if Synod rejected the motion, the setting up of more working groups could mean the work was delayed or even abandoned. It would give scope for bishops who were uncomfortable with the proposed scheme of work to argue that it wasn’t needed.

    The initial response of Together for the Church of England, and its supporters, had been to vote against the motion, unless it proved possible to amend it. Another option would be to abstain, to demonstrate the despair with which it was being received. But it became clear that those who were opposed to the LLF process, who were unwilling even to give room for the PLF, were prepared to vote it down. Those of different views knew that putting in amendments could at least give a chance to air their views. Knowing the balance of opinion in Synod (unrepresentative as it is of opinion across the wider Church) the pragmatic decision was to vote in favour, unless the motion was amended so as to make it toothless. That way, at least some work continues.

    Over the course of the debate, the most powerful speeches were those from clergy in faithful and committed same sex relationships, some going back many decades, who spoke of their reactions to the various statements by the bishops; statements which seemed to have lost sight of the real people whose lives go on being affected by this.

    And now?

    Because their motion has passed, the House of Bishops now has a significant majority decision from Synod to support the continuation of the LLF legacy. As I’ve shown, this majority is the largest in any LLF vote across the years from 2023 to now. LLF may be over, but there is a new beginning. The challenge to the bishops is therefore to bring about meaningful change through the ‘Relationships, Sexuality and Gender Working Group’ and ‘Relationships, Sexuality and Gender Pastoral Consultative Group’. Let us hope that the memberships of the two groups are appropriately filled with those whose goal is to not to obstruct the change which so many ordinary people in the Church wish to see with all their hearts.

  • The Cost of Calling: Then and Now

    by the Rev’d Chantal Noppen – National Coordinator of the Inclusive Church Network, North-East based Anglican Priest and member of General Synod for Durham Diocese

    Seventeen years ago, a woman priest was told she would receive zero maternity pay because she might “take the money and run.”

    The assumption was clear: motherhood made her suspect. Her vocation was conditional. At no point in her three years of training had anyone from her diocese spoken to her about maternity provision, even though she had given birth to a baby in her second year of training and was pregnant when she was ordained deacon.

    As she began her curacy: “The first thing the Diocesan Secretary told me was that I would receive my full stipend throughout my maternity leave. I was delighted by the simplicity and generosity of this which I felt reflected my own commitment and a relationship of trust between clergy and Diocese. However, the next day he called me back and said he was very sorry but having consulted with other Dioceses we did in fact have a standard maternity policy which had been adopted from ‘standard business practice’.

    “What this meant was that I received no maternity pay at all. The ‘standard policy’ he referred to (but had 24 hours earlier been completely unaware of) meant that as I had been an ’employee’ for less than 12 months at the time of the leave, I was not entitled to any maternity pay. A clause designed to stop people exploiting maternity pay in the business world perhaps – but a slap in the face when you’ve just given your whole life to God and the service of God’s church in ordination. I was not an employee. Did anyone really feel I was going to take the money and run?”

    Because she had been an actual employee while training part-time for ministry, she was fortunate enough to qualify for Statutory Maternity Pay. Those training full-time were not in this position.

    Two years ago, I co-authored an independent audit of diocesan maternity provision across the Church of England. The report documented inconsistency, opacity and, in some cases, failure to implement the national guidance issued four years earlier. Over 100 recommendations were made. Some dioceses have since improved their policies. That is genuinely welcome.

    But the deeper question remains: what does our system reveal about the actual value of women? The woman whose experience opens this story writes “I felt like as a woman my job was to do it all – to prove it could all be done. It never crossed my mind at the time to ask for more help, better provision or new ways of doing things.”

    At General Synod I asked about the financial provision behind our theological commitments. From 2019–2023 the Church Commissioners spent on average £497,000 per year on stipend and working costs for the four Provincial Episcopal Visitors, plus £67,500 annually in housing costs. The same body provides no funding specifically in support of the ministry of ordained women.

    The only national funding stream directed toward women’s development in 2023 was £73,000 from the Women’s Continuing Ministerial Education Trust, administered by the Archbishops’ Council, not the Commissioners, and available to lay, ordained or religious women, in both the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church. This Trust is independent, and the CofE’s direct involvement is purely through some MinDiv support administratively. So we’re actually looking at over £550,000 versus nothing.

    Budgets are theology with spreadsheets.

    For thirty years we have structurally underwritten dissent. We have not structurally underwritten parity. We safeguard the inequitable status quo and struggle to raise up The Other. Justice isn’t cushioned.

    The maternity audit showed similar asymmetry at diocesan level. National guidelines were issued in 2020, yet implementation varies widely. In some dioceses maternity provision is clearly communicated and proactively managed. In others it depends on local interpretation, overstretched individuals or informal knowledge. While I have not done a similar audit on menopause policies and support, I have heard anecdotally that the same is true there. With the added aspect of the menopause being a far more uncomfortable topic to discuss openly, whereas women having babies is a bit more ‘acceptable’ to acknowledge.

    Policies may exist on paper, but the support to implement them and accountability if they are not, is missing. When I transferred part of my maternity leave as shared parental leave to my partner, whose NHS employer processed it smoothly, my diocese nearly failed to implement its own policy. Papers were misfiled. Approval came ten days before the transition was due. This stress was entirely avoidable.

    These are not dramatic scandals. They are accumulations of inequitable cost. They create stress at moments when clergy are already stretched.

    There is also what we do not measure. We lack robust national data on how many women are steered towards self-supporting ministry, house-for-duty posts, or part-time roles that in practice require full-time emotional and pastoral labour. We know this pattern exists. We hear it repeatedly. But without data, the system remains conveniently deniable.

    Part-time pay rarely equates to part-time expectation.

    Culture compounds structure. Male clergy often receive visible parish care when they become parents (or just arrive in a parish). Women encounter suspicion about their commitment. During maternity leave, some are strongly discouraged from maintaining friendships within their congregations, creating isolation at precisely the moment community is most needed. Add neurodivergent literalism or rigid interpretations of “boundary,” and what might be intended as good practice becomes damaging exclusion.

    None of this is catastrophic in isolation. Together, it is exhausting. It impacts mental health and well-being, and constantly adds burden and cost to day-to-day existence.

    It would be easy to frame this as resentment. It is not. It is about reciprocity.

    When women were first ordained, significant institutional resource was provided for those who could not accept that development. Generous financial settlements were negotiated. Housing was provided. Pensions protected. Some left for Rome. Some later returned. The Church absorbed that cost and continues to do so.

    Women, meanwhile, continue to have to argue and negotiate for clarity around maternity provision diocese by diocese, to have to justify childcare, part-time ministry, and shared leave. Women have absorbed the cost. We’ve been constantly treated as second rate and have to prove ourselves continually in a way that men are not required to.

    If we believe women are equally called, then structural equity is not an aspirational extra. It is an ecclesiological necessity.

    The 2024 audit prompted some positive changes. Several dioceses revised policies before publication. Others have committed to clearer communication and better provision. Scrutiny can work. Transparency and accountability work.

    But transparency must go further. We need national data on patterns of deployment. We need honest examination of whether women are disproportionately steered into precarious or under-remunerated roles. We need systems that do not rely on personal resilience, goodwill, or quiet endurance.

    Motherhood is not a deviation from priesthood. Shared parenting is not radical. Women’s bodies are not a pastoral inconvenience. Gender is not a spiritual failing.

    The question is no longer whether change is possible. It is whether we have the will to pursue it beyond the minimum required to avoid embarrassment.

    We often speak of mutual flourishing. Mutuality requires reciprocity. Flourishing requires investment.

    If our financial structures still cushion objection more consistently than they sustain embodiment, what does that reveal about whose vocation we are most anxious to protect? Who do we more value?

    That is not a rhetorical question.

     

     

  • The Failure of Living in Love and Faith: a Glimpse of the Blindingly Obvious

    by David Nixon, a recently retired priest and Area Dean, a Prebendary emeritus, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Exeter University

    I have just experienced what my sister has always termed a GBO – a Glimpse of the Blindingly Obvious. In other words, blindingly obvious for everyone else except for the one who experiences it, for whom it comes as a penny-dropping moment, another useful phrase. The risk of sharing this with you is that it’s only me for whom this is interesting or startling or revelatory, and everybody else says: “Yep, uh-hah”. But I’m going to take that risk, just in case.

    And the GBO is this: that the failure (and it really ought not to be called anything other than this) of the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) project or process is linked very closely to a particular view of the Church, and its purpose, and thus to an underlying contemporary ecclesiology. I am not saying that there is no prejudice within Church circles about LGBT+ people, no homophobia (a better term would be heteronormativity, that ranking of heterosexuality as ‘better’) out of which spring some of the opposition to LLF; rather, I am saying that alongside these things, beneath them, runs a way of thinking about Church which made and makes progress with LLF almost impossible. This would explain the ability of well-meaning bishops to issues words of condolence, as if on the passing of a dear mutual friend, at the same time as ensuring that LGBT+ people continue to feel as if they are travelling steerage on the ecclesial equivalent of the Titanic. The ecclesiological predisposition of many bishops (and others) means that to act in full favour of LLF would run counter to how they perceive the task and the role of the Church of England now, and so would land them in an uncomfortable contradiction. Better to ditch LLF progress than to have to admit that the ecclesiology might be faulty. To use another image, the bishops’ ecclesiological garment risks being called out as illusory, nothing more than the emperor’s new clothes, whose vanity is always pricked by one of the children, the ‘small ones’. A minor act of infanticide might be worth the opprobrium. Let me explain more fully.

    To be slightly fairer to LLF, by comparison to Issues in Human Sexuality (1991) and the 1998 Lambeth resolutions, having a liturgy to bless same-sex couples as part of an existing act of worship in church and the pastoral letter from bishops in 2026 is a remarkable (albeit slow) achievement. Often overlooked however is the theological process of LLF, which is even more surprising, so much so that this in itself justified a pause if not a halt. One of the many criticisms of Issues is that it positioned differently the voices and experiences of LGBT+ people and those of doctors, psychologists and biologists, so that the latter group were regarded as experts commenting on the lives of others. Later reports ameliorated this to some extent, but the control of the House of Bishops over the debate, and the terms of the debate, remained rigid. Bishop Gene Robinson’s comment on the Lambeth Commission which produced the later Windsor Report in 2004 remains apposite: imagine, he suggested, a commission about sexism composed only of men, or one about racism with no Black people, yet it was deemed acceptable for a commission about sexuality to have no gay or lesbian representatives. By contrast, LLF foregrounded the lives of a range of LGBT+ people, alongside sociological and cultural analysis (‘Paying attention: What is going on?’) within a more expansive theological framework. More technically, this was nearer to the inductive method of Liberation Theology, working from human experience to interpret doctrine, rather than setting out a universal scheme to be imposed deductively on every given situation. The risk, perhaps intended, perhaps not fully understood, was that by contrast to previous reports and commissions, the bishops might lose control of the process.

    And then there are the bigger ecclesiological issues.

    The direction of travel at present in the Church of England is towards a public theology based on discipleship rather than citizenship. This contrasts the Church as a counter-cultural reality not answerable to secular demands with an institution engaged with a pluralist, secular state aiming for the common good underlying universal human principles. Church priorities summarised as ‘simpler, humbler, bolder’ emphasise the growth of numbers of disciples through missionary endeavour, and set a variety of targets. The language of ‘disciple’ and ‘mission’ abounds.

    Superficially, there is nothing to argue with here: who would not want the Church to grow, to become more diverse, and for parishes to be revitalised? Yet a modicum of reflection suggests that this is very Church-centric, institutionally and structurally focussed, and that the parishes and disciples are there to maintain and support the Church as an organisation. There is little here about creating and sustaining loving and compassionate communities which engage the wider world in uncertain times, little also about the Kingdom of God as a purpose and goal, and of the Church as a means of helping to deliver this. Public theology as primarily outwardly focussed, beyond the Church and into (for example) the worlds of work, study and leisure is much diminished. And so ultimately the ministry which the Church envisages and for which it forms its clergy is also diminished. The upshot of this is that the Church becomes an end in itself, another institution (like the Post Office?) whose main task is itself – reputation, growth, survival. This is actualised in the work of the Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board (SMMIB), whose large grants from central funds to cash-poor dioceses are made on the basis of numerical growth and clergy performance management.

    This ecclesiology is weak on two fronts: there is a misinterpretation of both incarnation and eschatology. The concept of Jesus as both human and divine always means that a division of the world into secular or sacred space is flawed, and we have the discomfort of living overlapped in both places, or of being ‘degrounded’ as Judith Butler says. The temptation at a time of greater secularisation, of loss of Church authority and influence, of scandal and financial threat is to withdraw to apparent safety; but as Bonhoeffer insists in his Ethics, there is ‘nowhere to retreat from the world’. It is again Bonhoeffer who points up the eschatological weakness of a Church that appears to be ‘only for its self-preservation, as though that were an end in itself’ (Letters and Papers from Prison). It is not simply the paucity of vision that cannot see beyond its own bounds (an advance parochialisation), but a failure to glimpse the transformations of the Kingdom, and an attempt to restrict God. If the Church is at the centre, God is at the margins, and a neo-colonial mindset seeks to assert control over God too.

    How does this relate to the failure of LLF? A Church focussed internally may mean it is reluctant to engage in the messy territory of human sexualities, not least when there is the scandal of abuse, and deep and acrimonious divisions of opinion. At worst, this can become a reiteration of the purity/pollution trope, in which the disciples who are to be sought and nurtured are there to form a model community of idealised heterosexuals, where all those who fall outside quite a narrow definition are not only unwelcome, but also serve to establish where those boundaries lie – you may think I am caricaturing here, but look at the photos on the Church of England website about Weddings. The Church as counter-cultural institution means that it does not have to follow the direction of society in terms of accepting different sexualities, and rejecting these may be a marker of belonging to an alternative ecclesial reality.

    A retreat to comfort and security (nostalgia even) is understandable, but we are called to so much more than this. Allied to a desire to take charge again of the LLF process, it is hardly surprising that given this predominant ecclesiology LLF has not fulfilled its aims.

    If there is room for hope here, it lies in the continuing rhetoric of a public theology of citizenship, where pastoral care is delivered because there is need, where schools and communities are supported simply because they are there, where lay people and clergy say their prayers within and on behalf of their parishes because they are centred on a God of love, compassion and mercy.

    Although a citizenship model of public theology is probably more favourable to LGBT+ people, there is hope too in the internal contradictions of the contemporary discipleship policy. There is an admirable wish for the Church to be more attractive to families and young people at the same time as a recognition that the Church’s position towards LGBT+ people is deeply off-putting (Pilling Report 2013). Same-sex marriage in a civil context has been available since 2013 so that today’s ‘young people’ have come of age knowing nothing different, and so find it difficult to understand why this is problematic in the Church of England. Parishes reflecting the rich diversity of the communities they serve is again an excellent aspiration, but in terms of LGBT+ people, this can still mean being less than fully included. The Church rightly supports stable long-term committed relationships but explicitly withdraws this support for non-heterosexual marriage.

    The hope is that such weight causes the structure to wobble or topple. I would caution against any thought of ‘the final big push’ over the barricades – rather it is the unwelcome but necessary task of LGBT+ people and their supporters (the cost of our discipleship) to keep saying clearly that present policies are like the emperor’s new clothes: threadbare. Or at the risk of mixing metaphors, like a Jenga tower, from which each piece is being gradually removed.

     

    [I am grateful to Canon Mike Williams for his insights about public theology, but the link to LLF is entirely my own thinking.]

  • Marriage, Sabbath, Creation and Resurrection: A Response to Martin Davie on Marriage, Creation, and Fulfilment

    by the Revd Robert Thompson, Vicar St Mary’s, Kilburn & St James’, West Hampstead; host of Open Table, London; member of General Synod

    This essay is offered as a response to a critique by Martin Davie of my earlier piece, Marriage, Sabbath, Creation, and Jesus’s Embodiment of Justice. I am grateful for the seriousness with which Martin has engaged with the argument. His response is careful, rooted in Scripture, and motivated by a concern for theological coherence. The disagreement between us, however, is not primarily about whether marriage is good, creational, or worthy of honour. It concerns how creation itself is to be understood in the light of Jesus Christ, and how far appeals to “creation” can bear the theological weight being placed upon them.

    Methodological Clarification

    Before turning to the specific points of disagreement, it may be helpful to clarify the theological method at work in what follows. My argument does not proceed by setting Scripture against tradition, nor by privileging contemporary experience over biblical witness. Rather, it reads Scripture canonically and christologically, attending to how creation, law, and human institutions are interpreted and fulfilled in the teaching and practice of Jesus himself. Creation is therefore understood teleologically rather than statically: its meaning is disclosed not only at its origin in Genesis, but in its fulfilment in resurrection and new creation. Within this framework, the goods of creation — including marriage, Sabbath, and sacrament — are affirmed as real and holy, while also recognised as provisional in form. Discernment, on this account, is not a departure from faithfulness but an intrinsic feature of a living tradition shaped by Scripture, oriented toward Christ, and attentive to the Spirit’s work in the Church.

    Creation, Genesis, and the Shape of Human Life

    Martin Davie argues that Genesis 1–2 establishes marriage as a fixed creational institution, such that later Christian discernment must conform to that original pattern. Genesis certainly presents sexual difference, relationality, and companionship as part of God’s good creation (Genesis 1:27; 2:18–24). The question, however, is whether Genesis functions as an institutional charter for marriage in the strong sense being claimed.

    Jewish interpretation itself cautions against reading Genesis so rigidly. Rabbinic traditions preserve interpretations in which the first human (ha-adam) is understood as an undifferentiated or androgynous being, later divided into differentiated bodies (Genesis Rabbah 8.1; Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 61a). Whether or not one accepts these readings, their existence matters: they show that Genesis has not historically been read as offering a single, metaphysical definition of marriage. Rather, marriage emerges within Jewish thought as a covenantal and social ordering of life, shaped by commandment and community rather than ontology alone (Satlow, 2001).

    Appeals to “creation” that treat marriage as fixed, exhaustive, and self-interpreting therefore risk pressing Genesis more rigidly than the interpretive tradition from which Jesus himself emerges.

    Sabbath, Law, and Jesus’s Hermeneutic

    Martin Davie resists the analogy between Sabbath and marriage, arguing that Jesus does not relativise Sabbath law but restores its true meaning. On this point there is significant agreement. Jesus does not abolish Sabbath. But he does refuse to absolutise its form.

    “The Sabbath was made for humanity, not humanity for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). This is not merely a repetition of existing law but a hermeneutical claim about how divine commands function in relation to human flourishing. Jesus repeatedly authorises acts of healing and restoration on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1–6; Luke 13:10–17), insisting that the purpose of the law is disclosed in mercy and life rather than in rigid preservation of form (Sanders, 1985).

    The analogy with marriage does not rest on their equivalence, but on the shared theological logic: both are creational goods whose meaning is disclosed in fulfilment, not frozen at origin. If Sabbath can be both creational and subject to radical reinterpretation in the light of God’s redemptive purposes, then appeals to creation alone cannot foreclose discernment about marriage.

    Marriage and the Resurrection

    This becomes unmistakable when we attend to Jesus’s explicit teaching about marriage and the life to come. In response to a question about resurrection, Jesus states plainly: “In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35).

    This is not a marginal aside. It is a direct claim about the structures of human life before God. Whatever marriage is, it does not belong to the final form of redeemed life. Marriage, on Jesus’s own account, is good but provisional. It orders desire, fidelity, and care under the conditions of finitude and mortality. In the resurrection, those conditions no longer obtain (Wright, 2007).

    This does not diminish marriage; it situates it within a teleological account of creation. Creation is not denied but fulfilled. Fulfilment, however, involves transformation rather than mere preservation. Any theological argument that treats marriage as eschatologically final risks standing in tension with Jesus’s own teaching on precisely this point.

    Creation Read from the End, Not Only from the Beginning

    Martin Davie’s account of creation proceeds largely from Genesis forwards. Christian theology, however, has consistently insisted that creation must be read from resurrection backwards. The Christian hope is not the restoration of Edenic arrangements, but new creation (Romans 8:18–25; Revelation 21–22). As Paul insists, “the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31).

    Creation’s meaning is therefore disclosed not only at its origin, but at its fulfilment in Christ. Marriage belongs to the ordering of life in this age. Its goodness is real and its disciplines are serious, but its form is not ultimate (O’Donovan, 1986).

    Sabbath, Sacrament, and Provisional Holiness

    The same eschatological logic applies to Sabbath, Church, and sacrament. Sabbath is creational, yet Jewish tradition has long described it as a foretaste of the world to come rather than its final form (Heschel, 1951). In the resurrection, Sabbath is not abolished but universalised: what was once a regulated interruption of labour becomes the permanent condition of life lived wholly within God’s rest.

    Likewise, the sacraments belong to the time of pilgrimage. The Eucharist is a real participation in Christ now (1 Corinthians 10:16), but it mediates a presence that, in the life to come, is no longer mediated. Classical Christian theology has consistently held that the sacraments cease not because they are false, but because they have accomplished their purpose (Augustine, City of God XXII).

    Marriage belongs within this same theological pattern: real, holy, and necessary within this age, yet provisional in form. To recognise this is not to weaken marriage, but to take fulfilment seriously.

    Discernment and Ecclesial Responsibility

    Martin Davie suggests that claims of harm only have force if one already accepts the moral legitimacy of same-sex relationships. I disagree. Exclusion, lack of recognition, and enforced invisibility within the Body of Christ constitute real forms of harm regardless of one’s prior moral conclusions. Christian discernment has always involved holding doctrine and lived experience together, rather than allowing appeals to creation to foreclose the process in advance (Williams, 1989).

    Conclusion

    The disagreement between us is not about whether marriage is good, creational, or worthy of honour. It is about whether creation is static or teleological; whether Jesus fulfils creation by preserving its forms unchanged, or by bringing them to their true end.

    Jesus does not deny creation. He fulfils it — and in doing so, he relativises what is provisional without emptying it of meaning. Marriage, Sabbath, and sacrament all belong within that movement from gift to fulfilment. To treat any one of them as eschatologically final is not fidelity to creation, but a failure to take resurrection seriously enough.

     

     

    Bibliography

    • Augustine. The City of God. Book XXII.
    • Davie, Martin. 2026. “A Response to Robert Thompson: Marriage, Sabbath, Creation, and Jesus’s Embodiment of Justice.”

    A response to Robert Thompson, ‘Marriage, Sabbath, Creation and Jesus’s Embodiment of Justice’

    • Heschel, Abraham Joshua. The Sabbath. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951.
    • O’Donovan, Oliver. Resurrection and Moral Order. Leicester: IVP, 1986.
    • Sanders, E.P. Jesus and Judaism. London: SCM Press, 1985.
    • Satlow, Michael L. Jewish Marriage in Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.
    • Williams, Rowan. “The Body’s Grace.” Theology and Sexuality 2 (1989): 7–28.
    • Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope. London: SPCK, 2007.

     

     

  • What is Anglican Sex Anyway?

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

    Everyone knows that the Church of England likes arguing about sex, but in all our recent debates we have been curiously reluctant to define what it actually is. This matters, because there are different answers, and what the Church is telling individual couples is quite different depending on the answer to this question. To make some progress, we need to go back a few decades…

    The ‘Higton Motion’

    The 1987 debate on sexuality has become somewhat mythologised in the history of the subject, though there are people still around, indeed on Synod, who were there. By comparison, I am relying on the Proceedings and contemporary reports, and recognise the limitations of that. However, it is significant that the motion Synod passed was not that originally proposed by the Revd Tony Higton, which had received a record number of 168 signatures in the time between the July and November groups of sessions. As submitted, his motion read:

    ‘This Synod reaffirms the biblical standard, given for the well-being of society:

    • that sexual intercourse should take place only between a man and a woman who are married to each other;
    • that fornication, adultery and homosexual acts are sinful in all circumstances;
    • that Christian leaders are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality, as a condition of being appointed to or remaining in office;

    and calls upon the Church to show Christ-like compassion to those who have fallen into sexual sin, encouraging them to repent and receive absolution, and offering the ministry of healing to all who suffer physically or emotionally as a result of such sin.

    Although not the only element of the motion, the speeches of Higton and his supporters, combined with his document Sexuality and the Church which had been distributed, as if a Synod paper, to all members, make it clear that his major aim was to push the bishops to purge the church of gay clergy.

    It seems that the Bishops were prepared for this. The House of Bishops minutes for the 1980s are now public at Lambeth Palace Library, but mostly do not reveal much, being a bare record of decisions taken. However, in October 1987 they had noted the impending Higton debate, and recorded the proposal of their own Standing Committee that the House should propose as an amendment the following, much milder, text:

    ‘This Synod affirms the Christian tradition that sexual intercourse is only appropriate within marriage; requests the House of Bishops, in the light of the advice it receives from the BSR [Board of Social Responsibility] Working Party, to report to the Synod in due course on issues to do with homosexuality; and calls on all Christians to be exemplary in all spheres of morality including sexual morality.’

    In the event, perhaps following discussion with multiple parties, what actually appeared, following a long speech from Archbishop Robert Runcie which reads as fence-sitting even by his standards, was a detailed amendment by the Bishop of Chester, replacing Higton’s text with the following:

    ‘This Synod affirms that the biblical and traditional teaching on chastity and fidelity in personal relationships is a response to, and expression of, God’s love for each one of us, and in particular affirms:

    • that sexual intercourse is an act of total commitment which belongs properly within a permanent married relationship,
    • that fornication and adultery are sins against this ideal, and are to be met with a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion,
    • that homosexual genital acts also fall short of this ideal,
    • that all Christians are called to be exemplary in all spheres of morality, including sexual morality, and that holiness of life is particularly required of Christian leaders.’

    As well as the generally milder language, it is important to note that this amendment, presumably agreed by the bishops ahead of the debate, drew a distinction between ‘sexual intercourse’ proper to marriage and ‘homosexual genital acts’ as a different category. Traditionally the former refers to the entry of a penis into a vagina, the necessary act for the consummation of a marriage or the act of adultery (and the reason President Bill Clinton famously felt able to deny doing it with ‘that woman, Miss Lewinsky’). I will return to this distinction, though I will abbreviate the latter unlovely expression to ‘HGAs.’

    That was not the end of the matter – an amendment to the amendment was offered by the Revd Dr P.R. Forster, as he then was (subsequently himself the Bishop of Chester) to add to the bishops’ clause three, ‘and are likewise to be met by a call to repentance and the exercise of compassion’, supported by a speech emphasising the pastoral angle of the whole debate. There was almost no debate, +Chester being neutral and Higton supportive in single sentences, and the amendment to the amendment was made, seemingly without much fuss. And it was this text, proposed by the Bishop of Chester and amended by Forster, which the Synod went on to pass by an overwhelming majority, with lasting effect. The Forster amendment is important, because it eliminated the subtlety of the original bishops’ text (which could be read as seeing gay sex as a lesser, but tolerable, thing than married ‘sexual intercourse’) in favour of a moral equivalence to ‘adultery and fornication.’ (The latter term, incidentally, appeared to be taken as read without any debate about what exactly it might include). Other amendments were also debated but rejected.

    Contemporary reports of the Higton debate, however, do not record it as a great moral victory for the conservative cause, but rather a successful defusing by the bishops of a divisive motion. In subsequent Synods, Higton and allies like David Holloway can be found persistently asking official Questions about the application of the resolution to clergy and especially ordinands, making it clear they believed the bishops were still insufficiently vigorous in excluding gay candidates. And whilst they may have been disappointed in the bishops’ rigour, it seems to me that the text of the motion passed influenced the subsequent Issues in Human Sexuality, where the freedom of conscience afforded to lay same-sex couples was not extended to the clergy. Issues also chose not to refer to HGAs, instead adopting “active homophile relationship,” a terminology almost as baffling as it is contentious.

    The distinction between sexual intercourse and HGAs remains significant, however. My sense is that in LGBTQ+ culture, it is accepted that ‘sex’ actually embraces a range of different things, all of which are probably HGAs, but which are different for different couples, with no simple equivalent of the normative status of ‘sexual intercourse’ (and, obviously, for each particular couple, none of anybody else’s business). I am sure lots of straight people will want to point out how varied and interesting their sex lives are too! But it is difficult to ignore the place of intercourse as the legally significant act for centuries, not least as the only sexual act which can lead to the conception of children, and so undoubtedly of primary moral significance.

    Why does this matter now? Well, as I explored in my last blog here, the 1995 debate on Something to Celebrate led to the 1999 Marriage: A Teaching Document which affirms among other things that “Sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively.” It was this text in turn which was included (albeit only as a quotation, not a direction) in the 2012 Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy. If, like surely every strong conservative in the Church of England, we accept the importance of the 1987 motion passed by such a strong majority, making a clear distinction between sexual intercourse and HGAs, then it is clear that the Guidelines are entirely silent on the latter. This will obviously be of significance to all ordinands and clergy in same-sex relationships, since the Guidelines have recently replaced Issues in the discernment process, by uncharacteristically efficient action of the House of Bishops since the overwhelming passage of a Private Member’s Motion sponsored by Mae Christie at General Synod in July 2025. It is just possible that one or two of those who voted for it did not appreciate the full significance of the change.

    This remains important, because the Guidelines are in the process of revision, and a draft has now been published for discussion at the meeting of the Convocations immediately preceding General Synod, on Monday 9th February. The draft text introduces reference to civil partnerships, and wisely maintains silence on HGAs, quoting once again from Marriage: A Teaching Document.

    But those who have drafted the revision still seem to be trying to influence the ongoing debate on sexuality. Otiose references to Canon B.30 (at §7.8) and to the necessity of obeying law (at §8.3) will be read as unbalanced attempts to strengthen the hand of those who wish to act against clergy who have entered same-sex marriages. More seriously, §7.9 enshrines the 2014 House of Bishops statement on same-sex marriage into the Guidelines, but this is necessarily due for replacement on account of its reliance on Issues. No doubt the clergy in Convocation will be able to make their voices heard on these matters, and it seems unlikely that with the present balance of the House of Clergy the draft Guidelines will be endorsed unamended. The existing Guidelines were drafted by a wise and wide committee led by Prebendary David Houlding; from all I hear, such breadth was not sought on this occasion, and the consequences are evident.

     

  • The Archbishop and the Ballot Box: Why 2026 Will Be a Critical Year for the Church of England

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

    When future church historians look back at 2026 and judge what most shaped the direction of the Church of England in that year, two factors will stand out. The first is clear: the arrival of a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, the first woman to hold that role. The second will be the outcome of a critical election in autumn 2026, to the General Synod, which will influence the decisions made in the Church until 2031.

    They are not unrelated. Mullally’s term as Archbishop will largely overlap with the next General Synod, given that her retirement from post will have to take place by Spring 2032 at the latest. While the broad, perhaps too broad, role of Archbishop encompasses far more than being President of the Synod, there is much that the Synod can do to confirm or constrain the policy programme of the national Church that the Archbishop wishes to advance. The flip side of that is the influence of what the Archbishop says when she speaks in a Synod debate.

    The new Archbishop will go through a confirmatory election on 28th January, the only church election this year whose outcome is guaranteed. She will take on a role that brings with it much symbolic power and influence, but less direct power to change the Church than some might think. It is not like being the CEO of a big company, able to hire and fire at will and where a decision in the boardroom is seamlessly rolled out with the rest of the organisation expected to fall into line. The Church of England does not, in itself, exist as a legal entity. Rather it is an umbrella term for a collection of legally independent organisations – National Church Institutions, dioceses, parishes, church schools, theological colleges, religious communities and more. They all have their own systems of governance, a reminder that the most important unit of the Church is the local parish church where 99% of the action happens. But the options available to local churches are determined by national policy – how money is allocated, the safeguarding systems to be followed, what you can do with historic church buildings, and much more besides. How that national context is shaped is very important for mission and ministry in the parishes.

    This brings us to the less certain election of 2026, the General Synod elections, taking place between August and October, in every diocese and for both clergy and lay seats. Elections will be tight, decided by just a few votes one way or the other. I personally know several people on the current Synod who were elected by a majority of just one vote. The current Synod is finely balanced between those who want a more conservative church and those who want a more progressive and inclusive one. This outlook feeds through into many policy areas. One is safeguarding, where more conservative members lean towards keeping church safeguarding ‘in house’ while the progressives are more willing to consider a fully independent system.

    The finely balanced nature of the current Synod is one reason that many policy areas have become stuck, with decisions either fudged or left unimplemented amid calls for more discussion, more advice and more kicking things into the long grass. The extent of independence of safeguarding structures is one area, the mechanism for distributing money from Church Commissioners is another. The clearest example of this impasse is found in Living in Love and Faith where, despite three major votes in favour of progress, the House of Bishops has found ever more inventive ways of delaying the inclusion for LGBT+ people that the majority in the Church want to see. The February 2026 Synod may see the conclusion of the LLF process, but the underlying issue of whether the Church can bring itself to recognise and celebrate the dignity and blessedness of same sex relationships will remain. How that will be managed in future will depend heavily on the outcome of the 2026 General Synod elections.

    So it’s clear that 2026 is a moment of potential change for the Church of England, with a new Archbishop at the helm and a new General Synod waiting to be elected. By the end of the year, we will have a clearer picture of the direction the Church could be taking, and the scope of what might be possible up to 2031. Although many may not realise it, just where that window of opportunity begins and ends is very much in the hands of ordinary members of the Church. Many able to vote in the General Synod elections will not get round to doing so; turnout among the laity is usually only around 50%.

    I have already said that the General Synod elections are often decided by just a few votes. Who forms the electorate? The voters are the members of local Deanery Synods, which by chance also happen to be up for election this year, in the Spring of 2026. Deanery Synods are not usually seen as the most exciting of groups, although they can be a good local forum for sharing experience. But their influence over the composition of General Synod later in the year cannot be over-estimated. Every parish elects at least one person, often more, to the Deanery Synod and many vacancies are left unclaimed. If you care about the direction of the Church, standing for Deanery Synod at your Annual Parochial Church Meeting is one way to make a difference.

    Together for the Church of England works for a more inclusive, diverse and equitable Church. We believe that a national Church with the cure of souls for everyone who lives in the parish should strive to include as many as possible in how it works. Our work focuses on governance, helping to set the rules, processes and structures that determine the freedom that local churches have to be a Christian presence in their communities. We are working with Inclusive Church and others to support candidates who want to stand for election to General Synod, offering advice and guidance through the process. There are local diocesan Together networks across the country, and many of them are holding in person meetings this January so inclusive Christians in your area can meet each other. The local networks are not only important in organising for the Deanery Synod and General Synod elections in 2026 but are also a great way to have solidarity with inclusive Christians in your diocese. If you care about the future direction of the Church, contact your local co-ordinator and be a part of the network. You can also subscribe to the national Together mailing list, an easy way to be kept informed of what is happening. As we look ahead to whatever 2026 will bring, let’s look ahead together, work together and follow Christ together.

  • The Wholly Unnecessary Split in the Anglican Communion: A View from ‘Down Under’

    by Revd Dr Keith Mascord, a Canadian-born Australian. He is retired – most recently from managing the NSW multi-faith prison chaplaincy team. He is an Anglican priest assisting at St John’s Anglican Parish in Taree, in country NSW, and an academic who taught philosophy and pastoral theology at Moore Theological College in Sydney. He is an advocate, and a co-founder of the LGBTIQ+ support group – Equal Voices Australia. He traces his intellectual and spiritual journey in a now completed set of three books: A Restless Faith (2012), Faith without Fear (2016) and An Honest Faith (2025)

    It was a deeply disturbing moment when, on 16 October 2025, a communiqué was posted by Gafcon (the Global Anglican Futures movement) which declared, ‘The future has arrived.’ In what, effectively, was an attempted coup, the Anglican Communion – founded as a fellowship of independent dioceses in 1867 – was declared to have been overtaken by Gafcon. In its own words, ‘We have not left the Anglican Communion. We are [my emphasis] the Anglican Communion.’ ‘Gafcon is [now] leading the Global Anglican Communion.’

    These are audacious claims. The argument of the communiqué was that the formerly constituted Anglican Communion had ‘failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion,’ and, as a result, its four instruments of communion (the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates Meeting) were being replaced by just one – the Bible.

    My discomfort with this news was heightened by discovering where this communiqué had been penned – in Sydney – and by whom. Though signed by Rwanda’s Archbishop Dr Laurent Mbanda, its wording was, I’m informed, a combined effort by a number of the movement’s leaders and ‘founding fathers’ including the former Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen. Peter was my Archbishop during his tenure. Before that, he was my employer, principal and colleague at Moore Theological College where I taught for fifteen years all up. I thus have more than a little interest in what is happening, along with a degree of insider/outsider perspective.

    Hermeneutics

    A few things stood out for me in the communique. The first was the critical role of hermeneutics, which is the science or art of interpretation. The communiqué cites the abandonment of the inerrant Scriptures as the reason for earlier calls for repentance, and for now withdrawing from communion with ‘revisionist’ Anglicans.

    The more I think about it, the more startled I am by this. When I was a student and, later, a lecturer at Moore, only some of the faculty subscribed to inerrancy, with most preferring infallibility or trustworthiness. Not all of the current faculty at Moore adhere to inerrancy. The same applies at the similarly conservative Ridley College in Melbourne.

    Some years ago, at a School of Theology at Moore College, a student publicly asked Archbishop Peter, ‘Don’t you think it is time we gave up on inerrancy?’ Peter’s reply: ‘No, we must not give up on it because of what it safeguards.’ It is a telling reply, which implies an acknowledgement of inerrancy’s weakness as a position. It certainly is that. On the one hand, inerrancy is an unprovable and un-Biblical faith position, especially in the absence of the Bible’s original documents (the autographs), if indeed there ever were such. On the other hand, inerrancy is easy enough to disprove. Anyone who has read and studied the Bible for any length of time, with even a little knowledge of Biblical scholarship, is likely to have encountered inaccuracies, contradictions, anachronisms, contrasting and revising theologies, remnants of polytheism, doubtful claims to authorship, and much more.

    Not so plain sense

    Exacerbating this hermeneutical hurdle is Gafcon’s insistence on a ‘plain sense’ reading of the Bible. The communique is insistent that the Holy Bible must be ‘translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.’ Neither the communiqué, nor the Jerusalem Declaration from which it draws, explains the meaning of these terms. With respect to a plain sense reading, one could well ask, ‘Whose plain sense reading?’ Is it the plain sense reading of an ancient reader, for example, someone well versed in the mythology of those days and of the Bible, and thus not likely to be differentiating between the mythical and the literal? Or is it what seems to be the plain sense to a 21st century reader influenced by modernist and, before that, Lutheran tendencies to read the Biblical stories as straightforwardly factual – including the Adam and Eve, Noah, Patriarchal, Exodus and Conquest stories, which we’ve good reason to believe are mythical and/or legendary.

    Returning to the notion of inerrancy, and yoking it to a plain sense approach, what might a Gafcon Anglican make of St Paul’s apparently plain sense understanding of Genesis 1-3, where an initially deathless and vegetarian creation (Gen 1:26, 27) has death introduced to it by the sins of Adam and Eve? If, as I surmise, ‘canonical’ has been added to ‘plain sense’ to prioritise the interpretation of Scripture by Scripture, this doesn’t help. In fact, it sharpens the conundrum. A plain sense, canonical reading of Romans 5:12-19, which also takes account of how these verses have been understood historically/consensually, flies in the face of current scientific understandings of human and animal origins.

    These are hard and important questions to ask of Gafcon’s hermeneutic. It is questions like these that sent me on a quest to find a hermeneutic that might more helpfully and honestly illuminate the Scriptures. In time, this led me to a hermeneutic, which perhaps surprisingly is not dissimilar to the Second Temple Judaic hermeneutic employed by Jesus and the authors of the New Testament, a way of appropriating Biblical texts, which, in principle, is responsive to new information and experience. I spell this out in detail in Faith without Fear (2016) and An Honest Faith (2025).

    Hard lessons still to be learnt

    Looking back, I am not aware of having been guilty of intellectual or moral failings in this long quest to find improved ways of reading and understanding the Bible. Nor do I think that increasing numbers of evangelical scholars have been irrational or immoral in employing or revising their hermeneutic to arrive at what they consider better conclusions about same-sex marriage. There is therefore no need, I believe, for repentance on their or my part.

    There is, however, more than enough reason for repentance for the two and more millennia-long misunderstanding and mistreatment of our precious LGBTIQ+ siblings. And, tellingly, it is hermeneutics or Biblical interpretation which has been a significant culprit in this abuse. Almost all of the great theologians of the church have, in one way or another, accepted what they took to be plainly taught in the Bible. They have allowed Scripture to interpret Scripture. They have come to similar, now historic, and apparently consensual conclusions. In doing this they have reasoned that women are inferior to men (Luther), that women are ‘defective and misbegotten’ (Aquinas), that they have been ‘born to obey’ and not to lead, with the leadership of women ‘an unnatural monstrosity’ (Calvin). They have, moreover, interpreted Leviticus and St Paul to imply that homosexuality condemns those who rebelliously choose it to be given over to passions that are satanic and to lives that are diabolic, such that they are worse than murderers (Chrysostom), with a vice believed to be ‘an un-paralleled enormity’ (Luther), so unnatural and so evil that they deserve to be banished ‘from all shelter of the church’ (Tertullian). And that is just a sampling of historic Christianity’s vitriol.

    Sadly, some of these ideas linger in dioceses aligned with Gafcon, with Sydney Anglicans still stubbornly restricting the ministry of women, and some African dioceses perpetuating views not dissimilar to those mentioned above. Happily, however, views like this are in retreat with most Anglicans, certainly here in Australia, and including Gafconites. They may not be willing to admit it, but their revised understandings have not been solely guided by their espoused hermeneutic. They have, in fact, had their readings and understandings modified by encounters with equally capable female leaders and preachers and by the thoroughly natural and healthy lives of our LGBTIQ+ fellow citizens. They’ve seen that the children of gay parents are doing as well psychologically and socially as children brought up more traditionally. They’ve witnessed the joy experienced by same sex couples when mutual love can come to full flowering in the blessing of marriage. They’ve seen the deep piety and strong faith of their LGBTIQ+ fellow Christians. They know that arguments against same-sex marriage are weakening, that Moses probably didn’t write Leviticus, that the exegesis of key Pauline passages is contested, that the hermeneutic they’ve relied upon ‘because of what it protects’ is fragile. They know all this, or should. And, deep down perhaps, they know or suspect that their ‘you must repent’ rhetoric is a log in their own eyes preventing them from seeing that it is they who need to repent, at the very least for the disrespect and hubris involved in failing to acknowledge the integrity, love and sincerity of those with whom they differ.

    In writing this article, I reached out to a number of the high profile leaders of the Gafcon movement, including the board of Gafcon-Australia, all but one of whom had taught, worked, or been trained at Moore Theological College. The exception was trained at Ridley. I sought to engage them with the ideas that are now expressed in this article. I was seeking to better understand their movement. Sadly, not one was willing to engage. Was it fear? Was it pride? Was I being cancelled? I don’t know. I will keep trying. My hope and prayer is that Gafcon’s attempted takeover will fail, that the resultant disunity, suspicion and silencing will cease, and that true and humble Christian fellowship will return, strengthened by a willingness to keep learning together.

     

     

  • What Does it Mean to be Anglican in a Post-colonial Communion?

    by Charlie Bell, Fellow in Public Theology and Medicine at Girton College, Cambridge, Associate Vicar of St John the Divine, Kennington, in the Diocese of Southwark, and member of the LLF Vocations and Ministry Working Group

    A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Atlanta, Georgia, with a remarkable group of people for a conference entitled ‘Living Postcolonial Anglicanism: Prospects for a Polycentric Anglican Communion’, hosted by Episcopal Divinity School, and run by two of the foremost postcolonial Anglican scholars, Kwok Pui-lan and Ian Douglas. It is not to overstate matters to say that it was one of the most remarkable events I have ever been to in any Anglican Communion space, not least because of who was – and who wasn’t – there, and what was – and wasn’t – central to discussion.

    This was a gathering that pulled no punches, and which was determined to move beyond the tired, hackneyed arguments around the Communion that have plagued Anglican debates for far too long. The voices in the room were far more female, far more indigenous, far less white, than at any discussion of the Anglican Communion I had ever been to before. Sex and gender were discussed but were anything but pivotal to conversations. Instead, what was at the heart of the gathering was a serious paying of attention to the things that continue, untested and unchallenged, to poison our common life as Anglicans – power, racism, colonialism and re-colonialism, empire, Englishness, lazy stereotyping, authority, money, and silenced voices. Central, too, was a determination to show that Anglicanism was no longer – and had not been for a long time – synonymous with Englishness (either ecclesiological or colonial), and that something new had been birthed, whether the Church of England wished to recognise it or not. And that something is not merely based on opposition or conflict – it is based on doing the work of decolonising and the recognition of a postcolonial reality.

    I should say that, as a white Englishman, I was in the minority – the serious minority. Indeed, at times I felt that I was being asked to justify why I should even be in the room, given the damage that the Church of England has done – and continues to do – to Communion relations. I understood that impulse, even if I felt somewhat conflicted about it. It was a strange experience being the ‘representative’ (unofficially, I should add, but certainly symbolically) of a church in which I frequently feel myself to be an outsider – frankly, in many Church of England spaces I feel like an intruder, an embarrassment, a queer aberration, and many queer people will know the feeling of being exiled that many of us carry around with us. It was uncomfortable then to have the tables turned, and at times I felt somewhat discomfited by the role I was playing in conversations and the way my words landed, with all the hidden context they carried.

    Yet being discomfited is a position that English Anglicans, particularly white men, need to get more acquainted with, if we are to play any useful part in the future of the Communion. So too is a commitment to intersectionality for those of us who remain beyond the bounds of the normative in the Church of England. This is particularly true in a church which offers courses in Anglicanism (both in England and more widely) in almost none of its theological colleges, despite claiming the role of ‘mother church’. Our arrogance is astonishing – yet so all-pervasive that we don’t notice it.

    It has always intrigued me that the Anglican Communion has an official office of representation at the United Nations. I have never really understood how there can be an Anglican Communion position on anything, really, given we are interdependent and autonomous churches in fellowship (of varying degrees) with one another. Yet this conference gave me some hope that there might be a different kind of Communion in the future, one able to tolerate polyphony and indeed embrace it, allowing voices to be heard in the corridors of power that might otherwise be excluded or marginalised.

    So much talk about the Anglican Communion in recent years has focused on shifting power – on re-colonising, establishing new loci of authority and power rather than questioning the whole premise of power itself. Of course, it’s easy as someone who is part of a church which has historically held that power to call for radical divestment of it rather than its assumption by another location, yet I do think that is the only possible future for Anglicanism – whatever ‘Anglicanism’ might be. Our attempts at structural reform have remained endlessly Canterbury-focused, and hence both Church of England-infused and ultimately centralising. Moving to a rotating presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council, for example, is hardly a radical move, and nor is any change to the Communion that leaves a White English bishop as its spiritual head. It does little for the Anglican Communion, and it does little for the Church of England either – not least any attempt to understand its role and identity in twenty-first century secular England.

    Yet the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans and GAFCON have hardly offered change in any serious philosophical way – instead it’s just been a shifting of power from A to B. It’s a failure of ecclesiology, and it’s a failure to really interrogate the colonial mindset that finds new formulations in the contemporary era, including in the queerphobic and racist narrative that suggests that the ‘Global South’ (an unhelpful term, as discussed here by Phil Groves, one whose vagueness is the key to its utility in abstract discussion) has a single and entirely negative view of LGBTQIA people.

    The way that the Church of England should engage with questions around same-sex relationships in the Anglican Communion remains complicated by the refusal to squarely face the colonial history. In any engagement with other provinces on sexual or gender justice, the living spectre of colonialism remains, meaning that the Archbishop of Canterbury – and by extension, English bishops – cannot speak to other bishops of the Communion on a level playing field, because we have refused to address the power imbalances that still exist. This is our fault – and it is entirely within our grasp to tackle it. We just choose not to, shifting chairs around on the Titanic instead. That there were queer, Black Anglican voices in the room from the ‘Global South’, for whom navigating these realities was anything but abstract, should not have been a surprising fact – but it was, given the way the powers-that-be in the Communion so often self-select and silence.

    English Anglicans have a lot to learn from our Communion friends, if only we would listen. I can attest to the fact that that listening can sometimes be hard, and can challenge our ecclesiological, missional, and ministerial assumptions. It is going to require us to change. Yet if we are not willing to listen, the lip service we pay to the Communion – however much we tinker with the structures – will do very little to change how and who we are. We can stick our fingers in our ears and pretend that Anglicanism is the same as the Church of England, and that we have nothing to learn from a global movement that is no longer ours to control – but we will deservedly be laughed out of town.

    There will always, I think, be a tension between unity and diversity in the Anglican Communion. There will also always be a tension in the ecclesiology, theology, and self-understandings of a global Communion. From my experience of this conference, it is polycentrism and a commitment to postcolonial living which offer a rich, enticing, fruitful way forward. Recognising the other as Anglican is the first step. Whether we are willing to embrace this shift in our mindset in England is, of course, another matter – whether we can afford not to is an open question.