ViaMedia

Category: Human Sexuality

  • Where’s My Bishop?

    by the Revd Robert Thompson, Vicar St Mary’s, Kilburn & St James’, West Hampstead; host of Open Table, London; from 2021-26, member of General Synod

    “Your Father who sees in secret…” (Matthew 6.4)

    The gospels record Jesus speaking often about the relationship between the hidden life and the public life. Again and again Jesus calls the disciples towards integrity, where what is true before God increasingly becomes visible in the way we live before one another. “Your Father who sees in secret…” is not an invitation to secrecy, but a reminder that the God who knows us most deeply also calls us to become people of truth.

    General Synod has its own discipline of accountability. Our debates are public and preserved on YouTube. Our speeches are public. Our votes are public. Then, a week or so after each meeting of Synod finishes, for every vote where a formal count has been requested, a list of who voted for, who voted against and who abstained is also made public. That is not an administrative detail but a substantive expression of accountability. Those of us entrusted with teaching and governing the Church exercise that ministry publicly and we are answerable to the Church we serve.

    For the July 2026 Synod, the lists of those who voted and in what way were published on 23 July. Helen King brought to Synod a Private Members’ Motion on the Christian dignity of those of us who are LGBTQIA+ followers of Jesus Christ, and the defeat of this motion, as amended, by a mere three votes in the House of Bishops has already attracted criticism. The voting patterns of our bishops have especially caused much criticism. People have been asking, “How did my bishop vote?” And now it is possible to see.

    Here, however, I want to focus not simply on how bishops voted, but on what the votes reveal about the Church and the episcopacy itself.

    For seven years the Living in Love and Faith process has invited the Church to “walk together”. We have listened to one another’s stories. We have studied Scripture. We have repented of the harm caused to LGBTQIA+ people. We have created the Prayers of Love and Faith, and allowed them to be used with same-sex couples in existing church services. Like the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7.24–30), many LGBTQIA+ Christians feel they are invited to be grateful for crumbs rather than welcomed to the table itself. The Prayers of Love and Faith have brought real pastoral good. Yet many still experience them not as full recognition but as permission to gather the crumbs which are left over. Ordinands and clergy in relationships, civil partnerships and same-sex marriages still live with uncertainty, and the Church remains unable to articulate a settled pastoral vision, let alone a theological one. This debate was therefore about much more than sexuality.

    The first amendment to Helen King’s motion, proposed by Jamie Harrison, restated where we are after the February vote to set up another working group and would largely have continued the present post-LLF process as one not too dissimilar to that which we have experienced in those last seven years. But Synod declined that route.

    The debate then moved to Christopher Dalliston’s amendment. Helen King has described that amendment – which she supported – and its purpose here. Where Jamie Harrison’s amendment asked whether the process should continue, Christopher Dalliston’s amendment asked a much deeper question: what kind of Church do we already believe ourselves to be? It was not primarily about sexual ethics but about ecclesiology. Christopher invited Synod to affirm that all baptised, believing and faithful people, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ; to delight in the lives and ministries of LGBTQIA+ people; and to recognise a legitimate range of theological conviction across the Church. This last point was a conscious attempt to respond to concerns heard from those who are not willing to affirm what the original motion, and the amendment, described as “committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationships”. This amendment passed in all three Houses. Only then did the amended motion – the same wording as the Dalliston amendment – fail in the House of Bishops.

    The figures deserve careful attention. The House of Bishops has fifty-three voting places. At the time of the vote seven diocesan sees were vacant, and ‘acting bishops’ are not allowed a vote. Perhaps five bishops were unavailable because of illness, suspension or having stepped back from ministry. That left forty-one bishops who could reasonably have been expected to participate. The recorded votes were 11 in favour, 14 against, 4 abstentions, leaving twelve bishops with no recorded vote. Even allowing for two or three bishops on duty in the House of Lords on that day, and one who may be on sabbatical before taking up his appointment, nearly a fifth of those who might reasonably have participated left no recorded vote. Some may have had entirely understandable reasons and perhaps will explain them to those in their diocese. But the numbers still matter, when the difference between those in favour and those against was a mere 3 votes.

    For LGBTQIA+ Anglicans these debates are not abstract constitutional exercises. They concern our relationships, vocations, ministries and families. As a gay priest, I found this high number of non-recorded votes deeply sobering. Not because I presume to know anyone’s motives, but because when questions touch the heart of your vocation, the absence of a recorded position is itself something you notice. Episcopal leadership is also about being willing to be counted. Yet I suspect that observation only scratches the surface. The more interesting question is this: what do we and our bishops believe episcopacy is for?

    One result prompted particularly searching conversations among LGBTQIA+ clergy. Sarah Mullally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, voted against the amended motion. That surprised many queer colleagues because it sat in tension with the pastoral experience some of us have had of Sarah’s ministry. I have no wish to speculate about the reasons. But the contrast raises an important theological question. Do we and do bishops sometimes believe that the office they hold necessarily requires a distinction between the convictions they carry pastorally and the positions they feel able to express publicly?

    Before Synod began, I wrote on behalf of colleagues about the presence at York of campaigning organisations whose activities many LGBTQIA+ members and allies experienced as hostile. My concern was never about silencing disagreement. It was about creating the conditions in which the whole Church could genuinely discern together. In their written response, Sarah Mullally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, agreed that the exhibition stall should not be permitted, while allowing the associated fringe meeting to proceed. The distinction rested on one activity being public and the other being regarded as private. Yet the fringe meeting had already been advertised in the official General Synod fringe programme and published on Synod’s public website. The boundary between public and private proved far less straightforward than it first appeared. That, perhaps, is another reminder that the distinction with which this essay began is never as neat as we imagine. It is also one of the deepest responsibilities of an episkopos to help the Church discern not only where those boundaries lie, but when they have ceased to illuminate the truth and begun instead to obscure it. Perhaps that is why one of the most moving moments of this Synod came when Nicholas Chamberlain, the Bishop of Grantham, spoke publicly about his own life as a gay man. It mattered because truthfulness itself became a pastoral act. In that moment episcopal leadership was expressed not through institutional management but through honest witness.

    The Greek word episkopos means an overseer, one who watches over the Church. A bishop is not simply an institutional governor or constitutional referee. A bishop is called to discern where the Holy Spirit is leading God’s people, to teach the faith, to guard communion and to keep before the Church the horizon of the Reign of God which is both embodied and fulfilled in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Unity matters profoundly. But the purpose of episcopal ministry is not simply to preserve communion. It is to enable the Church to become more fully what, in Christ, it already is. The calling of an episkopos is not simply to keep the Church together. It is to help the Church recognise more clearly the Reign of God already breaking into the life of the world, to help the Church see that reign of justice and peace more clearly and to proclaim and embody it as Christ’s Body.

    But we and the bishops were not simply being asked to affirm the dignity of LGBTQIA+ people as an ethical question. We were being asked a theological question, to affirm what baptism already declares: that LGBTQIA+ Christians are already full members of the Body of Christ, their lives and ministries being offered as gifts to the whole Church. That is why the bishops’ response matters so much. The question before them was not simply ethical but theological. It asked whether the House of Bishops could distinguish questions of sexual ethics from the prior ecclesiological claim made in baptism.

    Earlier this year I found myself asking, ‘What kind of Church are we becoming?’ This Synod has led me to ask a related question: what kind of bishops are we forming? The two questions cannot be separated.

    Let me be clear. This is not an argument that every bishop should have voted as I would have wished. Episcopacy is not measured by agreement. It is measured by faithfulness. My question is a different one. What understanding of episcopal ministry leads so many bishops to conclude that, on one of the defining pastoral and theological questions of our generation, leaving no recorded public position is the most faithful exercise of their office?

    Jesus called his disciples not simply to preserve what already existed, but to proclaim that the Reign of God had drawn near. That remains the calling of every Christian. It surely remains the calling of every bishop.

    After seven years of Living in Love and Faith, perhaps the question is no longer simply: ‘Where’s my bishop?’

    The deeper question is this: What kind of Church do we believe Christ is calling into being—and do our bishops feel free to lead us towards it?

  • The End of the Synod: Grieving for Love

    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

    I will admit that the defeat at this July’s General Synod meeting of the Private Member’s Motion on the lives and loves of LGBTQIA people hit me really hard.

    I think most of us who are hardened ‘campaigners’ – a term I dislike, because it is pejorative, othering, and suggests we are somehow out on a limb whereas we are simply calling for our basic dignity to be respected – are used to being treated poorly in the General Synod. Most of us are used to having to dust ourselves down, get back up, and get back on with it. Most of us are used to being held to higher standards, to turning the other cheek, to forgiving when our so-called shepherds let us down, repeatedly. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t keep at this soul-destroying slog through every obstacle that can possibly be put in the way of queer equality. Yet as the vote came in – laity and clergy in favour, bishops split, and overall, against – I felt, for the first time in a long while, a real sense of grief.

    I felt bereft and betrayed – I knew that people in that chamber, who had pledged apology and change, didn’t value us quite enough to say they loved us. I knew that – whatever the excuses – there were some bishops in that chamber who simply didn’t think we were worth it. There were some who had listened to their brother bishop, the ‘openly gay’ Bishop of Grantham, and said ‘we have no need of you’. We know there are some in the Synod chamber for whom compromise is a dirty word – we’ve seen that time and time again – but there were some who should have had our back, and didn’t. It hurt – a great deal.

    Aggrieved and let down is possibly the best way to describe LGBTQIA members of Synod as many of us ate lunch together that day. It is not a good place to be at the end of a bruising Synod. I do sometimes wonder whether those inside the chamber realise how their words and their actions are heard outside. The very same morning that we were unable to say anything positive about LGBTQIA people in this debate, the ridiculous Synod fringe on what is misleadingly called conversion ‘therapy’ took place – with a decision to allow it to go ahead made on the basis that nobody need attend if they didn’t want to (I did attend – it was unconvincing and sad, but – perhaps surprisingly – just incredibly boring). Most of us were pretty grossed out that this event would be allowed at all, yet the irony was not lost on me after the Synod debate: what was said in the chamber was not said in private in a fringe, but was very much public, very much heard by those outside. And, judging from many conversations in the wake of this car crash, it has done an awful lot of damage.

    One of the things I have become most interested in since getting more involved in the machinations of the church is the underlying psychological dynamics. I would say this, wouldn’t I, but we do love to dress up our decision-making and common life in theological vestments when good old sociology and psychology would do. The current behaviour of the House of Bishops is a good example. The overriding narrative – not one, I should say, that is owned by all members – is that ‘consensus’ is the key thing. It’s like a retreat to the pre-LLF days, where all bishops allegedly thought the same about everything, but couched in different terms (remember the 2017 Take Note debate, where they all voted the same way, except the Bishop of Coventry, who pushed the wrong button).

    There were a remarkable number of different ways to present this new way of inhabiting episcopacy. ‘We have a fragile consensus’, we were told, time and again, which meant that LLF had been ‘concluded well’ in February, and we mustn’t upend that now – dishonest in the extreme. The vapid and erroneous ‘focus of unity’ argument was there underneath the surface, even if nobody had the guts to pretend they believed in it this time. The Working Groups need to be ‘allowed to do their work’ and saying anything more at this stage would ruin that (not, of course, that the chair of the new working group had been asked, however much straight white men decided to speak for her). We are told that there would be difficulties in the Anglican Communion (whatever that is supposed to mean). There was a particularly egregious speech that suggested that the use of the word ‘legitimate’ might ruin everything (not having read, it appears, Section 7 of the LLF book which accepts seven different ways of reading the Bible), and other bizarre speeches suggesting that intimacy was all about sex (beautifully addressed by the final speech by the Bishop of Dover, suggesting we might, as a church, stop our obsession with sex whenever the word intimacy is used). Big beasts of the House stood up and tried to shut down further debate, and the majority of the House of Bishops voted for a wrecking amendment, which the rest of us saw off nicely. Consensus, it seems to me, is yet another word for doing nothing.

    Yet it was clear which way the debate was leaning and how the votes would fall, and it is hard to see the final vote as anything other than a key example of tactical stupidity. As every House accepted the Dalliston amendment – which simply stated facts about the current divisions in the church and synod about same-sex relationships, yet which also dared to suggest that the Synod ‘delights in the lives and ministries of LGBTQIA+ people in the Church of England’ – the final vote offered an opportunity for those outside the chamber to finally hear something positive about LGBTQIA people. Just imagine, if queer young people could have heard us say that we delight in them; if queer people in ministry could hear that we delighted in them. Just imagine if that is how we had ended the last five years of bruising debate. Yet ever able and willing to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, when it came to voting on the motion as amended, the House of Bishops said ‘no thanks’, and chose to sink the whole thing. This might have suited their ‘consensus’, but if they think anyone outside their echo chamber gives a fig about that, then they’re even more deluded than they appeared on the floor of the chamber. We got the message loud and clear – we don’t matter to them.

    The House, of course, has been there before – lest we forget that Take Note debate of 2017 which launched the whole LLF process, where the clergy quite rightly gave the House of Bishops a bloody nose for their offer of ‘same old, but with more smiling’. Yet, and this is why my initial grief has turned to a sense of committed and furious determination, there are key differences this time. Both laity and clergy voted for the motion, in bigger numbers than in any previous LLF debate. And, crucially, the House of Bishops is split. Almost enough of those who were present at Synod that day voted with us to get this thing over the line. The tide is turning, and whilst enough members of the House of Bishops wish to stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it’s not happening, it is. There is a clear direction of travel. And what a time to see a turning of the tide – as General Synod elections come over the horizon.

    Which is why we now have a job to do. It is essential – absolutely essential – that the General Synod be a little more reflective of the Church of England more widely. For years, well-funded, reactionary factions have played their politics hard and flooded the chamber of General Synod with their votes. No more of this. The General Synod might be tedious and tiresome, but it matters – in the next quinquennium we will be voting for new members of the Crown Nominations Commission (currently hugely disproportionately filled with conservative votes) and we will finally be debating whether diocesan Acting Bishops can vote in Synod. The new Working Group on Relationships, Sexuality and Gender will be bringing proposals to the General Synod that could finally end the discrimination faced by clergy in marriages to people of the same sex. And we will find, I imagine, that ‘consensus’ rather changes its spots when the General Synod becomes more decisively inclusive. There will be a chance for us to make concrete steps in the right direction, and to help create a church that truly loves, values, and delights in all its people.

    So, however frustrating, this is not all about bishops.  We do no good spending all our time pointing the fingers of blame, though let us remember the good Anglican polity of bishop-in-Synod, and hold them accountable. Almost half of them stood with us. Once we know who voted which way, we will see who our true allies and friends are – and we must encourage them. The ones who didn’t vote in favour, because they worshipped the idols of consensus or unity, will need to answer to those in their pastoral care, and ultimately to God: are we worth so little that preserving echo chamber consensus is more important? Yet ultimately it is about getting over the grief and channelling the anger and the frustration towards changing the way we are treated. It is even, dare I say, about trying to rise above that anger and striving for the good of the church – a church that is desperate to break free from the reactionary tendencies that have so imprisoned it these long years. A church that can be more what the church should be, by saying to each of its members ‘we have need of you’.

    The General Synod let us down last week. Now is the time to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

  • Creating Family: A Perspective on the Debate on Looked-after Children and Those in Care

    The July Synod agenda went through a few last-minute changes this time, including moving the debate on the Private Member’s Motion on looked-after children and those in care; a motion asking for a lead bishop, who can act as a focus for raising public awareness, and for work within dioceses to support this. I had put in to speak on this one so was very disappointed that the new time set was precisely when I had to see a hospital specialist yesterday morning. The motion was moved by Billy-Jo O’Leary, speaking from her experience as a Synod member who had spent time in care. The points I’d hoped to make were not made, so I have simply edited my draft speech here to add some references to what was said – the joy of being able to watch the debate on catch-up – and changed the tense to take into account of the that the motion was passed – unanimously.

    While I am not always a great fan of ‘let’s have a Lead Bishop for’ whatever concern we have, I think this was a very valuable motion. It highlights the obstacles currently faced by those leaving the care system, but I would urge that the role description for this bishop’s appointment should include promoting what for many is the best route out of the care system: adoption. We should not be put off by the shameful history of the church homes which carried out forced adoption. Adoption has changed beyond recognition and I suspect some of us have no idea what adoption means today.

    Unsurprisingly, based in cultures where adoption of adults was normal, the Bible uses the very strong imagery of all of us being adopted into God’s family; e.g. Galatians 4. If the Church is a family – and that language needs to be used with care, since for some people the family has been the site of the abuse which has damaged their lives – if the Church is a family, then it is a family formed by adoption. The trouble with these references is that they can sound too cosy. They can make adoption sound like it’s very simple. They don’t do justice to the issues raised by adopting a child or young person who may have been through all sorts of trauma, including that of being taken from their birth family.

    Adoption now

    In the debate, Sheila Bissell mentioned how long the process takes, but there is so much more that needs to be said. Like some of those who spoke, I have colleagues and friends who have adopted. So I know that there is a huge amount of vetting, training and support offered to potential adopters, and the support continues after the legal processes are complete. The language of finding one’s ‘forever family’, used by one speaker in the debate, misses the point that there is much more concern than in the past with maintaining relationships with the birth family, where this is possible (and attempts are made to find a kinship adopter before looking outside that family). We must also face the fact that adoption is not always the end of the story; some adoptions are not without pain, and some don’t work.

    But we should all note with concern the decline in the last 5 years in the number of children leaving care and moving into adoption; there are not enough people coming forward to adopt. In her opening speech, Billy-Jo noted that over 100,000 children in the UK are currently in care. We didn’t hear any figures for adoption. Billy-Jo mentioned race but, while the legacy of forced adoption shows us how the idealised model of the white middle-class nuclear family used to dominate, today adopters can’t only be from other racial backgrounds; they can also be single; over 50; and not owning their own homes.

    Sexuality: a significant omission…

    A significant omission from yesterday’s debate was affirmation of those who are LGBTQIA+ and in committed relationships and who have chosen to adopt. This seems to me pretty typical of our failure as a Church to recognise their contributions. Synod needs to know that sexuality is not a bar to adoption. A 2021 article in the journal Child Development concluded that “Given the large number of children in need of adoptive families, adoption agencies should give greater consideration to gay couples as prospective adoptive parents.” In 2025, the agency Adoption Matters had 40% of those approved to adopt identifying as LGBTQ+, pointing out that “What IS important is the commitment, resilience, stability and love that children who have suffered early childhood trauma ALL need.” Department of Education figures for 2025 state that 1 in 5 adoptions were by gay couples. Another agency, Adopt Thames Valley, currently aims to increase applications from the LGBTQ+ community “who are more likely to adopt children who typically wait the longest and are significantly more likely to adopt sibling groups”.

    And these figures exclude gay solo adopters like my colleague who adopted a toddler in 2024. She has written:

    “I think being a queer woman, especially of my generation, has given me quite a helpful perspective on adoption. I spent my formative years under the shadow of Section 28, and left to feel an outsider as a result, as ‘ideal’ family life was always presented as biological and nuclear. I think this experience is helping me put myself in the shoes of a child whose family life doesn’t fit that mould, because of their history and adoption. LGBTQ+ people – many marginalised people – tend to know all too well what it feels like to be seen as different, and to understand instinctively the importance of chosen family. There are positive messages from this we can pass on to our adopted children.”

    The log in our eye

    Finally, I was disturbed in the debate by what came across as self-congratulation on how good Christians are at offering to adopt; Julie Maxwell said that “We need Christians to step up”. We need people in general to step up! And let’s make sure we have seen the log in our own eye. We heard in the debate from Michaela Suckling about how the young person to whom she was the independent visitor was let down by a church youth club. In the Church we make all sorts of assumptions about ‘family’: but it doesn’t require two parents. And, when it comes to solo adoption, this can be difficult for Christians in some sorts of churches; I have spoken to another solo adopter who has felt repeatedly judged by Christian acquaintances who assume that she has given birth to a child without being married.

    Finally, I’d recommend that we don’t overlap the responsibilities by appointing a lead bishop who is also working on the forced adoption apologies: the new lead bishop needs to focus on looked-after children today. She or he needs to take the lead in educating our Church on what adoption, and also ‘family’, means now.

  • The Body We Are Becoming: Ecclesiology, Safeguarding and the Common Life of General Synod

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

    Walking together requires more than making space for disagreement.

    Earlier this week I had the privilege of drafting, on behalf of more than eighty members of the Houses of Clergy and Laity of the General Synod, a letter to the Presidents asking them to exercise their powers under the Church of England’s Fringe Meetings and Displays Policy to withdraw approval for the proposed fringe meeting People Change: Sexual Identity Transformation and its associated exhibition stand before Synod meets in York. This fringe and stand involve speakers from groups who claim to change people’s sexual attraction.

    This letter, shared here, simply asks constitutional, safeguarding and governance questions about the presence of the meeting and the exhibition stand. It is my understanding that only the Archbishops as Presidents can intervene in a situation in which many members believe that the common life of General Synod itself is at stake.

    As I found myself drafting that letter, however, I became increasingly convinced that the questions it raises go beyond what is constitutional or political. While our debates about sexuality take place, what is General Synod becoming?

    Ecclesiology: what is our body?

    The real issues are ecclesiological. While that word can sound like an abstract branch of theology, every decision the Church makes about authority, safeguarding, worship, disagreement and belonging reveals something about what it believes the Church itself to be. Ecclesiology is the shape our common life takes. So the question before us goes beyond whether one particular fringe meeting should proceed. It’s about the kind of Body we are becoming, and how our understanding of the Church shapes the way authority is exercised, disagreement is held and every baptised Christian is enabled to participate fully in the common life of Christ.

    I write not only as the lead signatory to the letter but also as a priest of the Church of England who is also gay and in a partnership. In September, we celebrate our 18th year together. I do not simply accept my sexual orientation, nor have I merely made peace with it after years of struggle: I receive it with gratitude as one of God’s gifts. It has shaped my vocation, enlarged my compassion and deepened my understanding of the Gospel. It has taught me something about exclusion, dignity, grace and the Christ who is so often encountered among those whose place within the community has been questioned. I believe that my priesthood has been enriched, not despite being gay, but partly because of the particular experiences through which God has formed me. That has been further intensified by being in a long-term loving relationship.

    Dignity and participation

    Over recent days I have also heard from a significant number of sibling queer clergy and lay members of General Synod. Not all of them agreed about the best response to this situation; not wanting to write a letter, or wanting stronger language or a different strategy. Yet beneath those differences one theme emerged with striking consistency. Several people told me that the approval of both this fringe meeting and, particularly, the accompanying exhibition stand had left them questioning whether they could arrive in York with the same sense of safety, dignity and belonging as every other member of General Synod. They spoke not in the language of ideology but of participation: whether they could enter the shared spaces of Synod without anxiety, contribute freely to debate and trust that their very presence would not itself become the subject of debate. Those are not peripheral concerns. They go to the heart of whether Synod is experienced as an expression of the Church’s common life. Quite simply, can they move through the shared life of General Synod, its worship, corridors, exhibition spaces, cafés and informal conversation, without reasonably experiencing themselves as the object of theological intervention?

    I understand these concerns because, for me, this is not an abstract discussion. On two previous occasions at York I left General Synod early and completed my work online after being approached by individuals who asked whether I wanted to “become a Christian”. I have no reason to doubt that those conversations were offered sincerely or prayerfully. Nevertheless, they fundamentally altered the way in which I experienced Synod. Instead of simply participating in the Church’s discernment, I found myself unexpectedly defending the legitimacy of my own faith, vocation and ministry within the very community whose life I had come to share. Those encounters were fleeting, but they have remained with me because they revealed how easily the culture of the Church can fail to reflect the theology the Church professes.

    It was through that lens that I first read in the list of fringe meetings the title People Change: Sexual Identity Transformation. My first reaction was not anger but sadness. I come to General Synod expecting robust disagreement. I expect to hear arguments that I believe to be profoundly mistaken. I expect to debate legislation, doctrine, mission, finance, worship and ethics with people whose theological conclusions differ radically from my own. All voices belong in Synod. That is part of the discipline of belonging to a Church that has chosen not to divide.

    But I am a person, not an abstract theological point. What troubles me is the impression that the person God has called to priesthood and elected to General Synod is, by virtue of who I am, someone who ought fundamentally to become somebody else. That moves the discussion from debating ideas to experiencing sibling members themselves as the object of transformation.

    One way of testing whether this is truly an ecclesiological principle, rather than a special plea about sexuality, is to ask the same question of any other group already gathered within the Body of Christ at General Synod. Replace the phrase “sexual identity transformation” with the identity of another group of Synod members – women priests, disabled Christians, or Christians from particular ethnic communities – and ask whether the Church would regard such a fringe meeting or exhibition stand as raising questions about its common life.

    As members of General Synod we are bishops, clergy and lay people who worship together, receive the Eucharist together and seek together to discern the mind of Christ. The quality of that common life is one of the principal concerns of ecclesiology.

    Matters of Policy

    The Fringe Meetings and Displays Policy requires organisers to abide by the General Synod Members’ Code of Conduct, the House of Bishops’ safeguarding policies and the University of York’s own policies on freedom of speech and equal opportunities. It reserves to the Business Committee and the Presidents the right to refuse space where they judge that a fringe meeting would be contrary to the ethos of the Church of England, damage its reputation or be inconsistent with House of Bishops’ safeguarding guidance.

    By including displays, it covers all those informal spaces in which members meet, converse, encounter one another and seek together to discern the mind of Christ. Ordering those spaces, too, is part of the Church’s ecclesiology.

    If we look at General Synod’s own previous decisions, in July 2017 Synod overwhelmingly endorsed the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy, affirming that gay conversion therapy “has no place in the modern world”, is “unethical”, “potentially harmful” and “not supported by evidence”. It also called upon the Church to be sensitive to contemporary expressions of gender identity and called upon the Government to ban conversion therapy. Whatever theological disagreements remained – and remain – they did not prevent Synod reaching institutional conclusions about practices which it believed to be harmful. Those commitments now form part of the context within which later administrative decisions should properly be made.

    Nor is the 2017 motion the only relevant context. Through the Living in Love and Faith process the Church has repeatedly acknowledged the hurt experienced by LGBTQIA+ people and has commended prayers which include a corporate lament and repentance for the ways in which they have been treated in the life of the Church. Those prayers represent an institutional recognition that our common life has, at times, failed to reflect the dignity of those who are already members of the Body of Christ. That acknowledgement should surely inform the way we order our common life today.

    One of the gifts of Christian ecclesiology is that it teaches us to begin not with categories but with calling. Before we are anything else, we are those who have been baptised into Christ and called into his Body. We remain women, men, trans, gay and straight, disabled and non-disabled, people of every race and culture. None of those realities disappears. Yet the Church’s first question is never simply, “Who are you?” It is, “To whom do you belong?”

    Some readers may nevertheless object that Christianity is, after all, a religion of transformation. Of course it is. Every one of us is called to repentance, to holiness, to become more fully conformed to Christ, the One into whose death and resurrection we have been baptised. It is not a movement away from the person whom God has called into discipleship, but the fulfilment of that calling in Christ. The call to holiness is not a call to erase the self but to allow the self to be transfigured by grace.

    This conviction lies at the heart of Paul’s ecclesiology in the First Letter to the Corinthians. In chapter 12 Paul reminds the Church that it is not simply an association of people who happen to share certain beliefs. In the Body of Christ, and every baptised member is indispensable to its life. Those members of the Body who appear weaker are indispensable, and those parts that seem less honourable are to be treated with greater honour. Paul’s point is not merely that diversity should be tolerated. It is that our primary identity rests not in ourselves but in our incorporation into Christ. Ecclesiology begins not with agreement but with baptism.

    That, I suggest, is the theological framework within which the present controversy should be understood. The issue is not simply how General Synod manages disagreement. The issue is whether the structures, decisions and culture of Synod reflect the reality that we already belong to one another because we belong to Christ. Because our meetings are set in the context of prayer and worship, the culture of Synod matters every bit as much as its procedures, because it is part of the Church’s public witness to the Gospel.

    Safeguarding

    And what about safeguarding? The Fringe Meetings and Displays Policy allows intervention if “the subject matter of the fringe meeting or display, or the presence or other involvement of any person at the fringe meeting or display, would be inconsistent with the guidance issued by the House of Bishops on matters relating to the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults”. This is because safeguarding belongs to the Church’s common life; it, too, is an ecclesiological practice. It is one of the ways in which the Body of Christ learns to honour the dignity, vocation and belonging of every one of its members. More than that, safeguarding is not simply about protecting vulnerable people. It is about protecting the integrity of the Body of Christ.

    Impaired communion

    There is another irony which has increasingly struck me as I have reflected on these events. Some of those associated with the theological movements represented by this fringe have, for reasons of conscience, already decided that they cannot always share fully in the sacramental life of General Synod. They absent themselves from Eucharists at which they cannot receive Holy Communion or recognise the ministry of those presiding. I respect the seriousness with which those convictions are held, even though I profoundly disagree with them. Yet they also expose the deeper ecclesiological question before us. If we have become accustomed to forms of impaired communion within our sacramental life, we should be especially careful not to deepen those fractures within the wider common life of Synod.

    Paul returns to these themes in 1 Corinthians 11, where his concern is not simply the manner in which the Eucharist is celebrated but the failure of the Christian community to discern the Body. Too often those words have been heard solely in relation to the sacramental bread and wine. Yet Paul’s rebuke is directed equally towards a community whose divisions prevented it from recognising the Body of Christ present in one another. Eucharistic theology and ecclesiology cannot be separated. The tragedy of General Synod is that we are becoming accustomed to living with forms of impaired communion and sometimes mistake that impairment for normality.

    Does our culture as a General Synod help us to discern the Body of Christ more faithfully in one another, or does it make that task more difficult?

    My hope is not that General Synod becomes a place without disagreement. Such a Church would almost certainly have ceased to listen to the Holy Spirit. My hope is that it becomes a place where disagreement is so held within relationships of trust, generosity, humility and mutual dignity that nobody needs to wonder whether there is a place for them at Christ’s table.

    Every Synod should leave us more deeply conformed to the Body of Christ that we proclaim ourselves already to be. If a decision instead leaves existing members questioning whether they truly belong within that Body, or whether they are regarded primarily as people who ought fundamentally to become somebody else, then the Church’s own policy on fringes and display stands asks precisely the right questions. Is this consistent with the ethos of the Church of England? Is it consistent with the House of Bishops’ safeguarding guidance? Does it build up or diminish the common life of the Body?

    In this instance, they should now be answered. The issue before General Synod is not simply what it chooses to debate. It is what, by those debates and by the way they are conducted, General Synod is becoming, as the Body of Christ.

  • Alternative Ordinations and the Fracturing of the Church

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

    I was brought up in rural north of Ireland, in the Church of Ireland. The Anglicanism that formed me was shaped much more by conservative evangelicalism than by Liberalism or Catholicism. My faith was nurtured not only by Anglicans but by Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians and other Christians whose commitment to Christ was sincere and transformative. I have known the gifts of charismatic renewal, evangelical preaching and faithful discipleship across denominational boundaries.

    Yet my own spiritual home ultimately became the inclusive Catholic tradition of the Church of England. In making that journey, I have been deeply influenced not only by Anglican Catholicism but also by the wider Catholic tradition and by Orthodoxy. I have been drawn to their profound sense of stillness before the mystery of the God in Jesus Christ, their sacramental vision of creation, and their conviction that the material world, the human body and human relationships are places where God’s presence is revealed. At their best, these traditions hold before us a deeply positive vision of human dignity, grounded in the mystery of the Incarnation itself.

    That theological vision has shaped my ministry. It has taught me to seek Christ in other people, to work for reconciliation between divided Christians, and to recognise the dignity of those of other faiths and of none. In the diverse communities of Kilburn and West Hampstead, where people of many cultures, faiths and backgrounds live alongside one another, this is not simply a theological conviction but a practical necessity. Seeing the image of God in one another, and seeking the common good together, lies at the heart of how I understand Jesus in his portrayal in the Gospels and how I am called to follow.

    I found within the inclusive Catholic tradition of the Church of England a vision that was sacramental, rooted in tradition, intellectually serious, socially engaged and capacious enough to hold profound difference. That breadth has always seemed to me one of Anglicanism’s greatest gifts.

    Perhaps that is why a recent article by Andrew Atherstone, examining a further seven Church of England candidates ordained by bishops of the Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa, troubles me deeply [1]. Whatever one’s views on Living in Love and Faith, this is now very clearly no longer simply a debate about sexuality. It is a debate about the nature of the Church itself. The Church of England has always contained disagreement. Catholics, evangelicals and liberals have often disagreed vigorously, sometimes painfully. Yet we remained committed to a common life. We worshipped together, discerned together and ordained together because we recognised that the Church belonged not to any one party or tradition, but to Christ. What Atherstone describes is not an isolated event. Alternative discernment processes, alternative training pathways and alternative ordinations are gradually creating parallel structures of authority. A Church that ceases to trust its own common life inevitably begins to fragment into competing constituencies, each accountable primarily to itself.

    As someone who has spent much of the last few years campaigning for greater independence and accountability in safeguarding, I understand why institutions can lose trust. Institutions sometimes fail. But the answer to institutional failure cannot simply be the creation of alternative institutions whenever we dislike the direction in which the wider body is moving. That path leads not to renewal but to separation.

    My ministry today is exercised in Kilburn, one of the most diverse communities in the country. Here questions of poverty, housing, mental health, migration, loneliness and community cohesion are not abstract policy concerns but daily realities. Our neighbours are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, people of other faiths and people of none. They come from every continent and speak dozens of languages. In such a place, Jesus’ commandment takes on a particular urgency: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself” [2]. The neighbour is not the person who agrees with us. The neighbour is the person God has placed beside us. That is true within the Church as much as it is beyond it.

    When I look at the challenges facing our communities, I find it difficult to believe that the pursuit of theological purity is the primary calling of the Church. The Gospel repeatedly directs our attention towards reconciliation, justice, mercy and the building of communities in which people can flourish together. The New Testament consistently presents unity not as an optional extra but as a gift and calling. Writing to a divided Church in Corinth, St Paul insists that “the body does not consist of one member but of many” and that “the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.” [3]. Diversity is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be embraced within the life of Christ. That biblical image poses a challenge to every party in the Church. If the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”, neither can evangelicals say it to Catholics, nor Catholics to liberals, nor liberals to evangelicals.

    There is a further irony here. The alternative ordinations described by Atherstone are themselves a response to Living in Love and Faith and, more specifically, to the Church’s willingness to commend prayers for same-sex couples who have entered civil marriages. Yet at precisely the moment when some conservatives are constructing alternative systems of discernment, training, ordination and oversight, the Convocations of Canterbury and York, the historic assemblies representing the clergy of the Church of England, are being asked to approve revised Professional Guidelines that remain heavily focused on the conduct of individual clergy, including questions of relationships, marriage and sexual behaviour.?

    Mine is not an argument about discipline. It is an argument about consistency. One side of the present debate is concerned with the regulation of personal conduct. The other concerns the creation of parallel ecclesial structures. One addresses the lives of individual clergy. The other concerns the visible ordering of the Church itself. The development of alternative structures is neither private nor unseen. It is deliberate, organised and public. It is announced in conferences, websites, public statements and ordination services. Whatever one’s views on Living in Love and Faith, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that these developments raise profound questions about the Church’s common life and common order.

    The question becomes even more pressing in the light of the revised Professional Guidelines currently before Convocation. The Guidelines remind clergy that they serve under the authority of the bishop and commit themselves through the Oath of Canonical Obedience. They state that clergy should “respect and abide by the regulations or requests of the bishop of the diocese in which they serve” and insist that “unless and until a law is changed, the existing law must be kept.” The Guidelines are also intended to assist in determining whether conduct meets the standards required of a clerk in holy orders [4]. As a gay priest, it is difficult not to notice the contrast. Considerable energy is devoted to regulating the intimate lives and relationships of clergy, while far less attention appears to be given to the public construction of alternative structures of discernment, ordination and oversight.

    Historically, Anglicanism has sought to hold together right belief, right conduct and right order. Yet contemporary debates often seem to focus overwhelmingly on the first two while paying remarkably little attention to the third. As a result, many clergy will inevitably ask whether the Church’s concerns are being applied consistently. If we devote enormous energy to questions of personal conduct, should we not also devote equal attention to developments that reshape the structures through which we discern vocation, exercise ministry and express communion? The revised Guidelines remind clergy that they are called to promote peace and reconciliation in the Church and in the world and to strive for the visible unity of Christ’s Church [5]. That aspiration seems difficult to reconcile with the emergence of structures whose purpose is increasingly to create a church within a church.

    Of course there are moments when conscience demands resistance. There are times when the Church must reform. Yet Anglicanism at its best has always sought to hold together what others would separate. It has understood that living faithfully with disagreement is often harder, and more Christian, than walking away.

    The question before us, then, is larger than Living in Love and Faith. Can the Church of England remain a Church broad enough to contain genuine theological difference, or are we becoming a federation of tribes, each constructing its own structures whenever disagreement becomes uncomfortable? I still believe the Anglican instinct is the right one. We need one another because none of us alone possesses the whole truth. The tragedy of our present moment is not that we disagree. Anglicans have always disagreed. The tragedy is that we increasingly seem to doubt that disagreement can be held within a common life.

    In the seventeenth chapter of St John’s Gospel, on the night before his death, Jesus prays for his disciples “that they may all be one” [6] It is a prayer not for uniformity but for communion; not for agreement in every matter but for a unity rooted in the love of God. That prayer remains unfinished. It is a calling entrusted to every generation of Christians. Once we cease to believe that Christ can hold together people with whom we profoundly disagree, far more than a debate about sexuality is at stake. We risk losing confidence in the very prayer of Jesus himself. More profoundly still, we risk losing confidence in the God whose creative love is capable of holding together difference itself, the God who creates, sustains and reconciles all things.

    Notes

    1. Andrew Atherstone, “More Alternative Anglican Ordinations”, Law & Religion UK, 15 June 2026.
    2. Mark 12.30–31.
    3. 1 Corinthians 12.14, 21.
    4. Draft Professional Guidelines for the Clergy, Convocation of Canterbury FS(26)4, June 2026, especially sections 1–3 on clergy discipline, canonical obedience, episcopal authority and the obligation to observe existing law. Convocation is the historic representative assembly of the clergy of the provinces of Canterbury and York and is responsible for agreeing the Professional Guidelines for Clergy.
    5. Draft Professional Guidelines for the Clergy, paragraph 3.5: clergy are called to “promote peace and reconciliation in the church and in the world” and to strive for “the visible unity of Christ’s Church”.
    6. John 17.21.

  • ‘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.

  • Sex and the Homilies

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

    It feels like some sort of recognition for this blog, and perhaps even this author, to be quoted in an official Question at General Synod, even if the Question is not particularly friendly. For those unfamiliar with the custom, at each General Synod a large number of written Questions are submitted by members. They cover a wide range of the Church’s work, and although some are ruled ‘out of order’ as not being factual or asking bodies which are not responsible to Synod, they are an impressive aspect of accountability in the Church of England. When I first joined Synod, the initial answers were read out fresh, giving an opportunity for quick thinkers to ask a Supplementary that was occasionally interesting, but too often point-scoring. Now both Questions and written Answers are released a few days in advance, and there are fewer pointless Supplementaries. There is still a performative aspect to the whole business, and Synod always runs out of time before all Questions are covered. In recent years LLF has generated very many Questions at every group of sessions.

    The February 2026 Questions included this:

    The Revd Dr Patrick Richmond (Norwich) to ask the Chair of the Ministry Development Board:

    Q228    Given that the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy now serve as a primary document for discernment and discipline, what consideration has been given to the definition of ‘sexual intercourse’ used therein? Specifically, if the term is understood in the narrow sense of biological coitus, as recently argued by the Revd Canon Neil Patterson [https://viamedia.news/2026/01/24/what-is-anglican-sexanyway/] what assessment has been made regarding how the Guidelines reflect the Church’s wider authoritative teaching—such as that in the Book of Homilies warning against ‘all unlawful use of those parts ordained for generation’—and what steps are being taken to ensure that candidates and clergy understand the wider scope of the conduct to which they are committing?

    The Bishop of Chester to reply as the Chair of the Ministry Development Board:

    The replacement of references to Issues in Human Sexuality (“Issues”) with the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct for the Clergy (“the Guidelines”) in the discernment process does not create new obligations for candidates and clergy and nor does it make the Guidelines a primary document for discernment and discipline. The primary documents for discernment are the Qualities for Discernment used before a candidate comes to a discernment panel and the Qualities for Formation, using during training for ordinands. Reference is made to the Guidelines within these processes.

    The primary documents for discipline are set out in the statutory grounds within the Clergy Discipline Measure and the proposed Clergy Conduct Measure.

    As was emphasised by Synod in July 2025 when they called upon the House to replace Issues with the Guidelines, and emphasised again by the House when they decided to make the requested change, no aspect of the Church of England’s theological or ethical understanding of matters relating to sexuality has been changed by the decision to refer to the Guidelines in the process of vocational discernment and training for ordained ministry. Moreover, the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy do not in themselves establish or extend the law, though they do point to the law. They seek to provide a framework for behaviour that reflects the highest standard to which all clergy should aspire.

    Readers will see that the Answer rather sidesteps the Question, and the session ran out of time so Dr Richmond did not have the opportunity to ask a Supplementary. He did not contact me before referring to my previous blog, but here follows an attempt to respond more directly to his interesting Question than did the Bishop of Chester, building on the comments by Helen King in her blog.

    First, why does the Question refer to the Homilies, and perhaps indeed, what are they? The Homilies are a set of sermons, some published in 1547 and others under Elizabeth I, on a range of subjects, intended to be read by clergy who were not able to compose their own sermons, many setting out distinctly Reformed teaching for the new Church of England. I don’t consult my copy as regularly as Dr Richmond may, but the full texts are easily found. I will come on to their status in a moment, but we might first note that I think the reason for appealing to them is that neither Scripture, the Canons of the Church of England, or the authorised liturgies of the Church of England (whether the Book of Common Prayer or Common Worship) offer any direction about specific sexual acts. Indeed, I don’t think there are any direct references to particular sexual acts in the Canons or the liturgies at all. Even Scripture, whilst including the texts about different sexual relationships explored in depth in the Living in Love & Faith book, does not really offer any detail on what happens with particular body parts. Injury to male genitals may disqualify a man from full participation in worship at the Temple (Leviticus 21.20), and draws particular punishment upon a woman causing it (Deuteronomy 25.11-12), and of course there are many references to circumcision. But what happens sexually is not described, and I assume this is the reason for resort to the Homilies as a source of authority. This is far from a ‘wider authoritative teaching’ of which the quotation is a mere sample.

    Before going on to the authority of the Homilies, though, it is worth checking just how little the quotation says. It comes from one of the 1547 Homilies, given on the title page of my copy as ‘Against Whoredom and Adultery’ although at the start as ‘Against Whoredom and Uncleanness.’ As it turns out, the single sentence quoted in the Synod Question is the only one which specifically refers to body parts, and is probably the only such sentence in the whole Homilies (I confess, I have not searched them all). It occurs near the start when the homilist explains that adultery covers not only marital unfaithfulness, but also ‘all unlawful use of those parts ordained for generation.’ This was of course exactly what the General Synod motion passed in 1987 did not say. Even in the Homilies, which – as I shall explain below – are not generally squeamish in their language, the expression is somewhat euphemistic. But I suggest we can paraphrase ‘those parts ordained for generation’ as ‘the human reproductive organs’ in order to be both modern and clear.

    So, this immediately prompts a reflection. Much intimate activity between couples, of whatever sexes, does not involve the reproductive organs at all, at least not of both parties. In particular, as Helen King and others have explained with great clarity, the clitoris is not a reproductive organ but appears to exist solely to create sexual pleasure. And for that we all, especially those who have one, may thank the good Lord for his generous provision. What about ‘unlawful use’? Well, at the time of the Homily, a number of possible uses were outlawed by the Buggery Act 1533, which prescribed punishments for “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery committed with mankind or beast,” subsequently interpreted by the courts to mean penetrative sex between men, or bestiality, respectively. Today bestiality is regarded as an animal welfare offence, but unlawful use of the reproductive organs between people is defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, based on accepted principles around age and consent. No-one in the current debates in the Church of England is arguing for the right of the clergy, or anyone else, to disobey these laws.

    Of course, many will read the expression ‘unlawful’ in the Homily as referring to the ‘laws of God’ but that produces an immediately circular argument. Where are these to be found, for members of the Church of England? In Scripture, the Canons, the liturgy, and perhaps the 39 Articles. And as we have noted, those do not help us reach clarity. Perhaps if a Homily Against Buggery had been written (plausible enough) that would solve it, but it is no more evident than Jesus’ clear and transparent teaching on same-sex relationships. But the 39 Articles do bring us back to the Homilies, even if, as I have pointed out before, the Court of Arches declared some time ago that the Declaration of Assent has relativised their position as a doctrinal authority. But it is there, in Article 35, that we find the Homilies declared to ‘contain a good and wholesome Doctrine’ and suitable to be read in churches.

    No doubt there are still some clergy who read out a Homily from time to time. Most congregations I know would have quite a shock. They follow a fairly consistent pattern, assembling relevant Scripture texts around the theme, reinforced with robust Tudor rhetoric, and that against Adultery is broken into three parts to be useable as a sermon sequence. Whoredom is ‘filthy, stinking, and abominable’ ‘…neither is there a nearer way to damnation than to be a fornicator and an whoremonger’. It draws people away from ‘virtuous studies and fruitful labours’ to ‘carnal and fleshly imaginations.’ It is more repetitive than anything. And it is asserted, rather than shown, that adultery and fornication produce sorrow and poverty in this life, as well as eternal punishment.

    The most disturbing passage, however, occurs when the Homily, like many others, chooses to draw on the then-commonplace knowledge of the ancient world, commending as ‘godly acts’ the laws of various ancient states against adultery or whoredom (not very precisely distinguished). The argument is ‘even pagans thought it wicked.’ But the Homily glories in the various forms of mutilation or capital punishment inflicted by ancient societies – eyes cut out, a thousand lashes, women having their noses cut off to be visibly shamed for life, hands cut off, or death, by stoning, burning or beheading. The ‘Locrensians, Arabians, Athenians, with such other’ are commended for their barbaric laws. In a world where such punishment is associated with only the most violent forms of Islamic extremism, it is difficult to take the Homilies seriously as a source of moral guidance for today’s Church. They have to be interpreted, and once interpretation begins, outcomes are contested, as we all know well.

    So, to repeat the argument made before, the formal teaching of the Church of England does not give us a clear answer on the questions of sexual ethics that are currently the subject of such controversy. Many wish they did, and will no doubt continue to petition the bishops to offer clear answers to matters better judged in context and in private. But, even if they have not shown outstanding strength in setting a positive direction forward, perhaps the bishops will be able to achieve the easier task of resisting calls for easy answers, and allow us to grow into a wiser and less judgmental Church.

  • Leaving in Love and Faith?

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

    I am writing this piece in Church House, the morning after a five-hour debate on Living in Love and Faith (LLF). As with many lengthy debates, the interpretation of what was agreed and what happens next can be unclear. The public understanding and the reporting by the press has not been helped by the Church House Comms team not having any prepared statement ready in the aftermath of the debate explaining the context and nuance of what happened; one has now been issued. As a result of this void, some of the headlines, such as the BBC’s “Church of England abandons proposals for same-sex blessing ceremonies”, were eye-catchingly negative but also quite wrong. As someone who was in the chamber for the debate, and involved in much of the discussions behind the scenes leading up to it, I offer this to help understand what really happened.

    The House of Bishops had brought forward a motion that did four things. First, there was an apology for all the distress and pain caused during the LLF process, especially to LGBTQIA+ people. Next was a statement that LLF would draw to a close, although I will unpack what that means later. Third was thanks to all those involved in the work of the LLF process. Finally, and most substantially, Synod was asked to commend the House of Bishops’ proposal for what would happen next.

    The Archbishop of York, in presenting the motion, stated how this was a way forward around which the House of Bishops could cohere. That would be important as many of the areas of further work, particularly around clergy equal marriage and standalone services of blessing using the Prayers of Love and Faith, would need the House of Bishops to get behind them if they were to progress.

    For the first clause, the apology, there were several amendments seeking either to strengthen this or to change its focus. The move to strengthen the apology came from Charlie Baczyk-Bell, who in a powerful and emotional speech expressed a direct call from LGBTQIA+ people underlining the failings so far of LLF and the need to acknowledge the ongoing damage to LGBTQIA+ people. While none of the amendments regarding the apology passed, it was encouraging that there were bishops who were moved to vote in favour of strengthening the apology. I know from speaking with some bishops in Church House that the apology offered in the motion is genuine.

    The second clause was a change of methodology, but not of direction. It effectively said that the grand project known as LLF, begun in 2017, would draw to a close. It was not saying that the underlying issues had gone away, nor that no further work would be done, something that only became clear in the final clause. Living in Love and Faith had sought to address LGBTQIA+ inclusion, the measures that could be passed to advance it and the provision necessary for those of a traditional outlook as a result. This has made the process rather heavy and cumbersome, with forward movement in one area stalling because of work in others not being ready. In trying to deliver a whole package of measures together, LLF has buckled under its own weight. This clause in the motion is not, as the press have inaccurately claimed, the end of work towards inclusion. Rather it acknowledges that LLF has run its course, that some measures have passed and others will be taken forward through different, more focussed routes. This has the advantage that some of the most controversial ideas on provision for those opposed to inclusive change are not baked into proposals. The Bishop of Chelmsford spoke in the debate to make clear that it was these divisive measures, such as Delegated Episcopal Ministry, which had made the full package approach of LLF unacceptable to the Bishops, and that future plans would not be dependent on such major structural changes that would undermine our ecclesiology.

    We should not forget that, through LLF, since 2023 we have had commended liturgy of blessing those in a committed same-sex relationship for use in regular services. Some would argue that this liturgy is also available for clergy to use in other contexts under canon law. Following a Private Member’s Motion to Synod, there has also been the withdrawal of the controversial Issues in Human Sexuality document as pastoral guidelines to which clergy have to sign up, something on which the Together on General Synod group led the way in July 2025.

    The third clause thanking members of working groups for their work was uncontroversial, the fourth – detailing the way ahead – being the main point of substance. Before this debate, the point we had reached was there are two outstanding items of business. The first is equal clergy marriage: those in a same-sex marriage currently cannot receive a licence to minister or go into the vocations, training and ordination process. The second concerns questions around the full use of the Prayers of Love and Faith, in particular whether they could be used in “standalone” services.

    The proposal from the Bishops was to continue that work under a newly-formed group. When papers for Synod first came out, many pushed back at this, seeing it as yet another working group, meaning yet more delay. However, there is a subtle difference this time around, as the group will be more focussed on specific issues and tasked with bringing proposals back to the House of Bishops on how to get things done. The papers before Synod had already outlined some options, such as making amendments to the Canons to allows clergy to marry freely. Those of us advocating for inclusive change recognise that the Bishops want to do this with substantial due process, giving any changes the most secure legislative underpinning as possible. If this can be achieved, then the accompanying inclusive change will stand on secure foundations.

    The fact is that, if we want to definitively allow clergy equal marriage, we will require change to the canons. That in turn requires a working group that can evaluate the options, draw up papers and recommend how it could be done. There will then need to be a body, in this case the House of Bishops, to sponsor that change to the canons and present it to General Synod. And then General Synod will need to go through the legal process to ensure the legislation is sound, well drafted and enacts the policy that Synod is wanting to see. That may sound lengthy and laborious, and it will be, but it is also how deep, enduring change is best constructed and embedded into our common life.

    After five hours of debate, we reached a point where all amendments brought were rejected (some by greater margins than others) and we voted on the original motion as brought by the House of Bishops.

    Inclusive members within the Chamber had a choice. We could vote for the motion, and for the journey towards greater inclusion to continue. We could abstain, explaining separately the rationale behind this choice. Or we could vote against and completely undermine any pathway towards deliverable outcomes. That could mean the cessation not only of the LLF process but of any future work on LGBTQIA+ inclusion, for years to come.

    We came into Synod with many on the inclusive side being very uncomfortable in voting for the motion. Over the week, the choice became clearer that we either supported the Bishops in continuing work, or we came alongside conservative voices who wanted it to stop altogether. The key factor in the inclusive group swinging heavily behind work continuing was testimony from LGBTQIA+ members, particularly clergy, that while this had been deeply painful for them they wanted us to keep going. Some courageous and heartfelt speeches from Claire Robson, Rachel Mann, Matt Edwards and others were profoundly moving; do watch them on the Church House YouTube record if you can. I continue to be in awe of the patience and faithfulness of LGBTQIA+ Christians who have every reason to turn their back on the Church, yet persist in solidarity with each other and keep following Christ despite the hostility and pain they are often shown. Speaking as a straight ally, they are an inspiration to me.

    The final motion was passed with 65.6% in favour, indicating a strong mandate for the work to continue. There have been four major LLF debates so far (February 23, November 23, July 24 and this one), and this margin of support is the largest we have seen yet. What needs to happen now is for the House of Bishops, who supported the motion with none voting against, to own this and drive it forward. We have learnt much through LLF, but we need to take that learning and translate it into action. Then it will be for the General Synod to take recommendations and pass them, so that more barriers to full inclusion can be dismantled.

    It will not however be this set of General Synod members who will make those decisions, because there is a General Synod election in late summer this year. Those who long for inclusive change, and hear the call from our faithful LGBTQIA+ Synod members to keep going, need to organise for those elections. Together for the Church of England and Inclusive Church are in partnership on this; do follow us on social media, subscribe to our newsletters and check our websites for more ways to do this. Together has diocesan networks across the church who are organising for the elections. More information on what will be happening and how you can make a difference will be released over coming weeks and months. If we can extend the inclusive membership in Synod, which is already substantial, then the work guaranteed by this most recent vote on LLF will be able to deliver so much more. A more inclusive, diverse and compassionate church is possible, and the way to achieve it is clear. The question is whether the broad inclusive majority in the church can step up and seize the moment.

  • Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

    by Revd Ruth Harley (Vicar, Cowgate and Priest in Charge, Newbiggin Hall)

    When General Synod meets in the coming week, the Archbishop of York will move a motion beginning “that this Synod recognise and lament the distress and pain many have suffered during the LLF process, especially LGBTQI+ people.” This is the start of the motion (coming from GS 2426) which effectively brings the long Living in Love and Faith process to an end, with no progress made towards greater equality for LGBTQI+ people within the Church of England.

    This is not the first time we have seen an LLF motion before Synod which starts like this. Compare and contrast the motion brought to Synod in February 2023 (from GS 2289): “That this Synod… lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church.”

    Recognise, lament, repent… none of these are quite an apology for harm done, though they may be spun that way. And indeed apologies have been given, in statements from the House of Bishops and on the floor of Synod. In the ‘letter to the church’ issued by the House of Bishops in January, they acknowledge that “many, holding a variety of convictions, have felt, and still feel, bruised, hurt or unsafe by the conversations and the discussions we have had, particularly LGBTQI+ people. We are very sorry that the process has become so protracted and painful.” They are sorry, we are assured. But evidently not sorry enough to make any real changes.

    The House of Bishops apparently wishes to “recognise and lament the distress and pain” which this process and the church’s stance on same-sex relationships causes to LGBTQI+ people. But it does not wish that lament to lead to any material changes which might reduce that distress and pain by making a meaningful move towards the much-vaunted “radical new Christian inclusion” which Justin Welby called for (but, again, made no actual moves towards) back at the start of the long, drawn-out and ultimately fruitless LLF process.

    For those of us who have been following the sorry saga of the Church of England’s conversations about sexuality for some time, there may be a bit of a sense of déjà vu about all this. Back in 2017 the report from the House of Bishops on the Shared Conversations (GS 2055), the rejection of which kickstarted the LLF process, proposed “establishing across the Church of England a fresh tone and culture of welcome and support for lesbian and gay people, for those who experience same sex attraction, and for their families, and continuing to work toward mutual love and understanding on these issues across the Church”.  This is even further from an actual apology, but it serves the same function as the apology, lament and repentance we have already considered: it sounds like we are doing something, without actually making any real changes. I wrote about this at the time, and every word of that blog post, written almost a decade ago, could apply equally to the present situation. As I say, we have not made progress.

    The problem with all these apologies and non-apologies, laments and calls for repentance is three-fold:

    1. They are deceptive. They imply something which is not true. They imply that there is a real care and concern for LGBTQI+ people in this process, which has never been there. They also imply a hope for change – because surely if you can see and hear and lament that your siblings in Christ are suffering because of your actions, you will change your actions? – which again is not substantiated by the (lack of) actions of those making these statements.
    2. They devalue the very concepts they claim to espouse: lament, repentance, apology. These are things which should mean something. And when the action undermines the words, that meaning is eroded. Repentance, in particular, is a concept which carries weight in the life of the church. It is about turning away from past sin, from past perpetuation of harm. To claim repentance, and indeed lament, while continuing to perpetuate the same harm is at best disingenuous, and at worst deeply damaging to the body of Christ.
    3. They undermine the integrity and unity of the church. Our integrity is undermined when we do not speak honestly to one another about our present position or our future intentions. To claim, as the House of Bishops did in their ‘letter to the church’ that “we dare to hope that the LLF process will leave a legacy of greater inclusion of LGBTQI+ people in the life of the Church of England” while refusing to act in any way that might give substance to that hope, is deeply lacking in integrity. The unity of the church (repeatedly emphasised as a priority in the LLF process) is undermined when it is build on a fundamental unwillingness to acknowledge the true nature of our diversity and our divisions.

    These are not small issues. A non-apology (or even an apology) which lacks substance, or indeed is undermined by the substance of the motion which follows it, is not just one more slap in the face to those of us faithful LGBTQI+ members of the Church of England who have engaged at such great cost in an ultimately fruitless exercise which has done nothing to move us towards greater justice and equality within the body of Christ, and indeed has (arguably) taken us backwards in some respects. It is also a statement which undermines the integrity of the body of Christ.

    If we are going to move forward together, then we have to start by being honest with one another. An honest apology, lament or repentance will be backed up by real action which leads to real change. Without that, it is worse than meaningless, it is harmful.

    Until that comes, perhaps the best we can do is to pray with the psalmist: “Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt.” (Psalm 123.4)