ViaMedia

Category: Human Sexuality

  • Surprise, Surprise: More Delay on Living in Love and Faith

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

    There is a meme video online, featuring Cilla Black, singing the chorus to her famous ‘Surprise Surprise’. It’s usually in the context of poor customer service, or something else inevitable happening, and out bursts Cilla singing Surprise, Surprise! I wish I wasn’t quite so childish, but when the delay to LLF was announced yesterday, this was the first thing that came to mind. Because if the House of Bishops is one thing, it is predictable – predictably hopeless at doing what General Synod requires of them, again and again, to do. Predictably hopeless at getting on with it.

    Of course, the story behind the delay is a little more complicated than the rather cold press release made out. That press release was a classic of its genre – not a single word there apologising to General Synod members, let alone LGBTQIA people, about the delay. No recognition of how painful this will be. No compassion whatsoever. And, as ever, no context. So perhaps let’s dig into that a bit.

    Firstly, it is abundantly clear that there are forces at play – a blob, if you like – that are determined to slow down and ultimately frustrate any change. This blob is not the central team working on LLF, who are doing their darndest to make stuff happen. The blob isn’t even the official Alliance, who are simply determined to block everything everywhere. The blob is instead silly little bit part players, sitting on papers, stirring the pot, facilitating and fomenting delay. But the House of Bishops is not defenceless and passive in all this – and it is time for them to steel their nerves and force a decision.

    The delaying tactics are now being firmly targeted in the direction of clergy same-sex/gender marriage – the last piece in the jigsaw, and hence the thing to ensure is held up as long as humanly possible. The current clever ruse is endless calls for ‘more theology’. Leaving aside the fact that there is rather a lot of theology already done on this (and bishops might like to remember that this conversation has been had, in many places, including in other Anglican provinces),  and the fact that this is really a matter of policy rather than theology, these calls for more theology are now plainly nothing more than a delaying tactic. I am sick to the back teeth of being in meetings where nice, warm-smiled bishops say, ‘if only we could make a decision, but we need the theology to be done’. Can-kicking of the very best kind.

    There is such a level of dishonesty in all this, and the worrying thing is that – like the emperor’s new clothes – members of the House of Bishops seem utterly unwilling to publicly name it, even though in private no such qualms exist. The goal posts are being endlessly shifted; decision making is being tripped up time after time; intransigence is the name of the game, and each time it feels like we might be getting close to a decision, up pops another ‘reason’ that a decision must be delayed. It’s grotesque. And it’s sheer politics.

    So the reason that a delay in the process has been called is purely and simply because the House is endlessly putting off a decision on same-sex marriage for clergy. The Prayers of Love and Faith are sorted – already commended, in fact, and the ‘request’ not to do them in a ‘standalone service’ is only that, a request (and, of course, a ‘standalone service’ is a made-up nonsense anyway). There is a plan around delegating episcopal ministry – in my view, entirely unnecessary, but it seems this is where the bishops are ending up. But the House knows that this ‘delegated episcopal ministry’ will not get through General Synod unless and until clergy are permitted to enter into same-sex marriages and people in such marriages enabled to enter the vocations process (actually permitted, not some ridiculous ‘in principle’ decision) and the despicable Issues in Human Sexuality is rescinded. It is positive that the House recognises this. The problem is that they need to get on with making a decision – and they seem endlessly unable to do so.

    The thing is, everyone knows that there has actually already been a decision made on this! This is another depressing feature of the LLF process – we are told the sky is green, and despite the evidence to the contrary, everyone seems to nod along. For months we’ve been told that the Pastoral Guidance for clergy entering into same-sex marriage hasn’t been drafted – which is a lie. I know it’s a lie, because I commented on said draft. We are told that it’s just ‘theologians being theologians, and theologians take time’, and this is why papers haven’t been written. It’s simply not true – the truth is that the House, and the attendant blob, keep moving the goal posts.

    Some of you will have received the news with what might best be described as cold, hard, fury. I will admit that this is precisely how I feel. Some of you, however, might meet the news with a shrug of the shoulders, because of course this has happened. I share some of that feeling too. Let’s be honest, it is rather hard to have much faith in the House of Bishops, if any. That is not new.

    What is new, however, is that with this latest delay, the House of Bishops are getting dangerously close to being genuinely faithless. There is only so long that people can hold on to some kind of hope at things getting better, and I fear we are now at breaking point. Synod has spoken, a number of times, and the House has dawdled and engaged in handwringing. Enough is enough.

    What we need now is delivery. We don’t need more prevaricating, we don’t need more meetings, we don’t need more warm smiles, we don’t need more obfuscation, we don’t need more kicking it down the road, we don’t need more anxiety over numbers bleeding into disrespect for the lives and loves of LGBTQIA Christians. We don’t, indeed, need more theology. We need you to get on with it, for the love of God, and for the love of God’s people.

    The House of Bishops first needs to recognise that the way they are engaging in this process is ultimately a question of basic morality, and their approach is immoral. They also need to formally make two decisions – the first being to actively stop any further demand for ‘more theology’ or whatever other delaying tactic is in play, and the second is to corporately rescind the nasty, theologically desperate 2014 statement banning clergy from entering same-sex marriage (which, let’s remember, only a minority even agrees with, and which has essentially zero force beyond ‘good boy’ politics and could be ignored right now if a single diocesan bishop had the nerve), and make the positive statement that same-sex married clergy are a good and holy group of people, able to pastor beautifully and brokenly just like any others, and free them into this ministry. And this needs to be done this year. We all know the most recent piece of ‘theological work’ is nearing completion and a decision can then be made. The bishops need to make a commitment to it and do it.

    It is perfectly possible for there to be a November Synod. It is perfectly possible for them to do this. It would have been perfectly possible, indeed, for them to do this by July – but they baulked.

    Enough of this, now. It is no small wonder that people have lost trust in the bishops and don’t believe a word they say. You can hardly complain people don’t trust you if you endlessly break their trust.

    So, the only path forward is clear. Bishops, commit to a decision on clergy marriage on a specific date the moment the current iteration of ‘theological work’ is done, which we know is soon, and keep to that commitment, come what may. Call a November Synod, and implement that decision then. Put the package to a vote this year. Don’t feed us ‘in principle’ gruel on marriage – the moment this formal decision is made, licences should be restored, ordinands should enter training, and the House should corporately apologise for taking so long to get this done. Legally watertight measures can follow, if necessary, but practical action must be immediate.

    We, LGBTQIA clergy, have played by the rules for quite long enough now. Not a single thing of any substance has been done about the clearly non-canonical behaviours illustrated in the summer. Yet, after years and years of promises, still, capable, holy, decent LGBTQIA people are being barred from ministry and having their licenses smacked away from them because of prevarication and anxiety-laden avoidance. It is dangerously close to feeling more than a little malevolent.

    It’s decision time, folks. Bishops, respectfully, get on with it, now. You really can – but you need to choose to do so. If you don’t, you will turn crisis into catastrophe. And you will only have yourselves to blame.

  • Iwerne: The Anglican Trojan Horse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • What Have the Bishops Done?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    References:

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

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

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

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

     

  • Smoke and Mirrors and the Alliance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • Should We Expect Archbishops to Tell the Truth?

    by ‘Graham’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • When Doctrine Meets Dinosaurs

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

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

     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    It centres on what it means to be biblical.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Being biblical requires the work of ‘double listening’.  

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

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

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

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

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

    Being biblical requires us to read the bible responsibly.

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

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

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

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

    ‘The Bible says ….’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

    It is a journey of understanding in which

    doctrine must meet dinosaurs

    texts must be tested afresh

    certainties must be questioned anew

    where bibles are no longer barricades

     

    It is a journey of faith together,

    from anxiety to adventure,

    beyond entrenchment to transformation,

    from regression to renewal

    from hostility to hospitality

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

     

  • Theological Colleges: Being a Community in the Midst of Disagreement

    by Revd Mark Vasey-Saunders, Centre Head of St Hild Sheffield and author of Defusing the Sexuality Debate (SCM, London, 2023) 

    One of the places where the current Church of England debate over sexuality is being felt quite acutely is in theological colleges. Ordinands may come into training from churches with a variety of different views, and their wider support networks may include people who are heavily involved in the debate. This means that ordinands may be faced with questions from friends and family like ‘where does College stand on this?’ or ‘what teaching are you being given on sexuality?’ where the expectation is that, if the College is not aligned with the ‘correct’ position, the ordinand should distance themselves from them in some way. They will have sponsoring bishops whose views are likely only now becoming clear (and some of whom may have acted politically within the debate in ways that are coming under intense scrutiny.) This can leave ordinands feeling very vulnerable if their bishop (who has the authority to agree or disagree to their ordination) holds a different view than them. For some ordinands towards the end of their training they may already have a curacy set up, but this will have been agreed before the vicar and PCC would have discussed how they want to respond, and views on sexuality may not have come up. Some churches may have since announced they will be using the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF). Others may have announced they will be diverting their share to the Ephesian Fund.

    On top of all this external pressure, ordinands will have their own views. Some will have very clear and decided views already, but these may have been formed before they began their theological training. Part of any educational process is to unlearn some of your earlier assumptions, and this places such ordinands in a difficult position (whether they are progressive or conservative) – do they resist the theological training they are given if they feel it might undermine some of their previous certainties, or embrace it, accepting the risk that this might change them in a way their wider support networks might find difficult? Some will never have given questions of sexuality serious thought before, and are now having to explore these questions in a highly politicised environment. All of this tends to put pressure on theological college communities, which can feel like pressure cookers at the best of times, with students wrestling with the stresses of constantly being assessed whilst going through a process of ministerial formation that often exposes areas of vulnerability and doubt.

    I work within St Hild College, which is a non-residential community training people full-time or part-time for ministry mainly in Lincoln and the three Yorkshire dioceses of Sheffield, Leeds and York. I’ve asked two of our students (names have been changed), who would take different positions on sexuality, to give their reflections on being part of the college community at this time:

    Andrew writes:

    I am entering my third and final year of theological training prior to ordination and have spent the last two years at college. As such, with the initial synod vote on the Prayers of Love and Faith coming in the February of my first year of study, this debate has, in one sense, dominated my time at college. I hold to a conservative theological position regarding gender and sexuality, and arrived at college having journeyed alongside friends who have been exploring these questions in their own lives, and having already done significant theological reflection myself in this area.

    I have found college to be a relative silo in the midst of these wider discussions in the Church of England. I have had the opportunity to re-explore more progressive approaches to gender and sexuality on their own terms through study and through conversations with other ordinands and students. I am thankful for the insight this has given me as I now feel more confident that I am able to explain progressive arguments in their own terms, rather than as a caricature. I have learnt how to better communicate my theological convictions in a way that makes it easier for me to be heard and understood by those who do not share my convictions. Similarly, I think many of my fellow students who hold to a more progressive theology are better able to articulate the conservative argument.

    I think this has been possible due to the relatively unique nature of St Hild as a “scattered” college community. By having lectures on only one day of the week, and not living in a relatively closed community, there isn’t the build-up of pressure around hot button issues that I have heard can occur in residential colleges. This potentially also allows for more direct conversations; we aren’t going to bump into each other tomorrow morning on the way to chapel or beginner’s Greek after a particularly sharp conversation the evening before. Further to this, we are all in our own parishes. Our conversations are divorced from many immediate pastoral situations. We are, in many ways, able to extract ourselves from our pastoral contexts for a day, discuss theoretically with others, and then return to our parishes.

    The most fruitful result of these conversations has been the mutual realisation and agreement that gender and sexuality is merely the presenting fruit of a more fundamental disagreement. I have been encouraged by several conversations that I have had with fellow ordinands who are as liberal as I am conservative, where we have mutually agreed that to truly respect each other we need to acknowledge the deep differences between our understandings of who Jesus is, what he calls sin, and what redemption and salvation look like in the lives of Christians. Not just this, but also that there are significant, potentially mutually exclusive, differences in our basic philosophical and theological presuppositions regarding the nature of God and revelation. This has been accompanied by a mutual dissatisfaction with what we perceive to be the position of the House of Bishops: that these are minor disagreements  and really we can ‘all just get along.’ This feels disrespectful of both of our theological positions, underestimates the differences in how we believe we need to respond pastorally to those most deeply affected by questions of gender and sexuality in our respective communities, and by downplaying all of this is increasing the division we perceive in the church, not reducing it.

    This perception has only increased for me since the July 2024 Synod. The conversations mentioned above initially took place in April 2022. Even then, at the very start of the discussions about PLF, both these self-described liberal ordinands and I knew that legally protected forms of differentiation, as defined by those who would need it, such as transferred episcopal oversight, would now be a necessity. (Though we did not have the precise language at the time.) It is frustrating that, to an outside observer, similar conversations and acknowledgments would not appear to have been forthcoming from the House of Bishops or at General Synod. This is essential not only for the wider Church of England, but also for colleges such as St Hild. The conversations across the breadth of tradition and theology in St Hild that make it a unique place is highly dependent on there being a breadth of tradition and theology amongst ordinands. Unless the House of Bishops take seriously the need for suitable, legal, provision these conversations will quietly cease, not because ordinands don’t want to have them, but because there will not be ordinands of different theological convictions around to have them.

     

    Ben writes:

    There are few things more dangerous on the motorway than a theological debate taking place at 70mph. This is the temptation, however, at 7am on a Monday morning when driving to St Hild Sheffield. With three students in the car, two of whom are Church of England Ordinands, the subject of Prayers of Love and Faith has come up multiple times. Whether it’s the interpretation of scripture, or the drama of a synod debate, there is often something discuss, and each of us in the car holds a different opinion. (Pray for us ordinands when we think this is where we should get our excitement.) There have been no motorway accidents thankfully, but I have learnt that sometimes what it is most important to remember is that we are sharing the same car. Safety for all means keeping your eyes on the road, not scoring a point in the current debate, however heated it’s got. This principle has also applied to discussions of PLF outside of the car too.

     For myself, I have grown up in evangelical churches but also come to a broader view on the issue of LGBTQ+ inclusion than I had 15 or some years ago. For me the question over same sex blessings is not a “first order” or “salvation” issue, and I am happy to let the issue sit with the conscience of each individual. I am also convinced that churches need to be a genuinely safe space for any LGBTQ+ individual who walks through the door.

    While studying, I have found discussing these issues with other students from different perspectives to be hugely beneficial. Conversations have always been respectful and constructive, with nobody’s views being dismissed out of hand. At times, the college has provided guided conversations with updates on PLF too, where tutors with differing opinions have set a tone of understanding and provided context to the debate. As ordinands, questions as big as these do create worry about our future ministry and where we might fit into the Church of England. Many of us will not have publicly declared a position on these debates before, or been asked to make decisions which will change how our church members and communities will see us. I found sharing these worries with other ordinands to be reassuring, especially as we are all still finding our feet. Also, having tutors who can help calm some of these worries and address the wilder speculations on where the church might be heading is essential. This is just as beneficial for those still working out their opinion on PLF, and for those who feel stuck in the middle of the debate, simply worried that a church they love is about to tear itself apart.

     For me, if holding Christian unity over this issue means anything, it means that we must see those with a different view as still loved by God, and accept that God may still be speaking to others, even if they seem to be heading in a different direction to ourselves. A college with a diverse range of students with differing views has been a vital way to model this in a safe environment. My biggest fear in all of this are the calls for structural differentiation of ordinand training, which may create a college environment where ordinands never meet someone from the other side of the debate. After all, once you arrive in a parish, no church is going to hold a uniform view on this either, and the world certainly won’t. If we can’t speak to each other civilly about issues of sexuality, what hope does the church have of speaking to the world?  Similarly, if formation and training is to be a place where we can be made more like Christ, there has to be the possibility that we might get something wrong at times and there needs to be grace for trainees to change our minds.

     

    The St Hild experience may not be the same for all Theological Colleges. The fact that ordinands have been prominent signatories to various statements within the ongoing LLF debates demonstrates that in some places ordinands have felt their very ability to continue training for ministry to be threatened by developments in the wider church. As Andrew notes above, there is something peculiar about the nature of a non-residential college that both creates enough security and sense of shared community to allow vulnerability and genuine conversation and allows enough space for tensions to dissipate. It is part of the nature of theological training to allow and encourage debate and reflection however, and to this extent I suspect that these sorts of experiences are true of many of the Church of England’s TEIs.

    It’s important not to romanticise the kind of discussions both Andrew and Ben describe above as valuable parts of their training. These are costly conversations, and there have been times where that has been felt keenly by the community as a whole. Students with passionate convictions on either side may at times have to carefully weigh up the costs of speaking openly to both themselves and the wider community, and find themselves self-editing or remaining silent as a consequence. Some students are deeply vulnerable in ways others aren’t, and in ways that may not be immediately clear to those around them – not least because when the topic of discussion is sexuality, some students will find themselves the ones being discussed. Staff must carefully weigh up how to frame teaching in these areas in order to allow students of any and all convictions to engage with the strongest exponents of positions they may find offensive or personally threatening, whilst maintaining a safe learning environment. All of this in the knowledge that if they get the balance wrong, and students feel they are being attacked, or a particular view is being forced on them, then the reputational damage to the College can be immense.

    Creating a space where people can learn means creating a space where people feel vulnerable (even if that vulnerability is simply the admission of your own ignorance). But creating a space where people can be vulnerable carries the risk that people can be hurt. To borrow Ben’s metaphor of debating while driving at 70 mph, we want everyone in the car to hold an awareness of the inherent riskiness in what they are doing. The really dangerous thing is for people to not feel that they are in danger. To not have the conversations and pretend none of this stuff matters very much. Or to have the conversations without much awareness that some outcomes will dramatically affect all the occupants of the car you’re driving in.

    There is an extent to which having difficult conversations with a high awareness of risk is what the wider church needs to learn to do. LLF was originally conceived as an invitation to engage in learning together. But in many places LLF courses weren’t run. The difficult conversations didn’t happen. But when we avoid the difficult conversations we don’t avoid risk. We’re just not aware of it. As I reflect on Andrew and Ben’s experience of difficult conversations and what they’ve learnt from them I find myself feeling hopeful for the future of the church. Neither of them have massively changed their mind on these questions through their time at college. But they’ve learned and grown through the conversations they’ve had, and they’ve become a lot more used to talking to people they disagree with and still recognising them as brothers and sisters in Christ. Ultimately, having had difficult conversations once, they are likely to see the value of doing it more in the future and helping to build a church where having difficult conversations is normal.

    We need to get used to church not being a comfortable place. Because, for some people, it never has been.

     

  • Can the Church of England be Mature about Love?

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

    As readers are probably aware, a set of liturgical resources known as the Prayers of Love & Faith (PLF) were commended by the House of Bishops for use in the Church of England in December last year and are available here. Whatever the shortcomings of the texts felt by some, these are important as the first official encouragement to pray with same-sex couples for the flourishing of our relationships. Inasmuch as the Church of England’s doctrine is defined by liturgical texts rather than dogmatic statements, they constitute the decisive point on the Living in Love & Faith journey where the Church has acknowledged that same-sex couples exist and are a good thing, even if we are still corporately a bit unsure what sort of thing that is.

    So it was a delight to recently attend a service where the Prayers were used for two friends of ours at a regular service at a cathedral. It was not quite ‘regular’ to the extent that the congregation was swelled by a substantial number of family and friends, close relatives read the lessons, and the music was provided by a superb choir assembled from friends for the occasion. But liturgically, it conformed entirely to the rubrics for the Prayers – it was a joyful service of Evensong, with the couple sitting in ordinary seats with everyone else, and the short prayers for and by them taking place alongside the intercessions towards the end.

    I do still hope for a Church of England in which same-sex marriage in church happens and, in the short term, for  ‘standalone’ services, i.e. for the use of the PLF to be accepted for a free-standing service devised for a particular couple (though it is already unclear how adding hymns, Scripture readings and other prayers – all of them already permitted in other services – to the commended PLF would render them unauthorised). This is especially important if we are to welcome those for whom a regular liturgy like Evensong would be inaccessible, as well as for the practicalities of time and date. But I reflected that the service I attended felt like a more mature Christian celebration of what was happening than many church weddings I took in my parish ministry.

    What I mean is that my friends were not at the beginning of their relationship – they remembered that, as a very new couple, they had attended my own civil partnership in 2017 – and have shared a house for some time. Their own legal partnership was in fact a little while ago, but this was the occasion when they felt ready to celebrate publicly, with family and friends, and to seek God’s blessing for the years ahead, as devout and serious Christians.  And for that the modest prayers, within a service which was chiefly an act of praise to God, seemed thoroughly appropriate.

    But is this not usually the situation for those marrying in church? I can only recall a single wedding I have taken where the couple were not already cohabiting, and that was because the groom was in the RAF and so (as I understood) not provided with married accommodation. And after marriage there is limited change in legal identity – as far as I can tell there is no pressure from  conservative Anglicans to revert to the situation before the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882, when all property was held in common (but controlled by the husband) or before the case of R v. R in 1991 when a wife’s body was held to belong to her husband (following 1 Corinthians 7) and so he was immune from any charge of rape. Yet we still purport to undertake some sort of existential change in a church wedding, taking two ‘single’ people and making them into something else, but I am not sure that we know what.

    Living in Love & Faith has focussed the attention of the Church with painful rigour on those of us in same-sex relationships, scrutinised as never before and now held by some to be responsible for many ills including, apparently, the decline in vocations to ordained ministry.  But I wonder if in fact we may be pointing the way to a more mature, less fairytale, understanding of all committed relationships. There have been official CofE documents on marriage occasioned by accepting the reality of divorce in 1999, or resisting same-sex marriage in 2013, and both are skewed by their contexts.  The LLF book treats it more widely, but evades the messy reality of forming relationships that leads to marriage. Until we can talk about this more honestly, we will have little credibility on the subject at all.

     

  • Rounding up Sheep or Assembling Cats? Governance in the United Reformed Church and the Church of England

    by Revd Chantal Noppen, elected member of General Synod and National Coordinator, Inclusive Church

    This summer, I had the privilege of attending the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church (URC) as an ecumenical representative. Coming directly from the Church of England’s General Synod, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the two experiences. This reflection offers a personal perspective on these two governance structures, focusing on their inclusivity, decision-making processes, and overall atmosphere. I have had a URC friend read it and their response has added some more comments, included in italics. I’d also like to make it clear that I love being on General Synod and value it immensely; these observations should not detract from that.

    Preparation and Initial Impressions

    Although I had limited prior knowledge of the URC, my background at the Cambridge Theological Federation introduced me to aspects of their worship and governance. I knew the URC had been more progressive in ordaining women, promoting lay leadership, and affirming LGBTQIA+ individuals, but I was curious about how their General Assembly would compare to the Church of England’s General Synod.

    Integration and Inclusivity

    If I were to sum up the URC’s General Assembly in one word, it would be ‘integration’. The URC makes a concerted effort to include diverse voices in their decision-making processes. This integration is evident in everything the assembly does, from the language used in worship to the application of technology and resources. The assembly had a noticeably more racially diverse, age-broad, and disability-aware approach than what I have observed elsewhere. Although there were no visible BSL interpreters, the effort to ensure inclusivity and accessibility was apparent. I have since learned that BSL signers have been provided in the past, but as feedback confirmed no-one was using them, it wasn’t economically sensible to continue. I am confident however that this expense would be willingly covered if the need arose.

    Unlike the Church of England, where youth engagement often feels more like a goal than a reality, the URC directly integrates young people into their assemblies. In the Church of England, we often talk about wanting to ‘hear the voice of young people’ and offer various schemes and projects focused on engaging them, but I’ve yet to be convinced that we are truly committed to this, as it would require a significant shift in the status quo and power dynamics. At the URC assembly, young people are fully present and just as involved and listened to as anyone else. They speak for themselves and are heard as confident, competent members of the assembly.

    More than any other aspect, this stayed with me as a valuable lesson for us in the Church of England, where changing the status quo often meets resistance. I hope the URC recognises the incredible resource they have in these young people and continues to invest in them generously.

    Decision-Making Processes

    One of the most striking differences between the two bodies is the decision-making process. At the URC Assembly, moderators invite members to use coloured cards to quickly gauge opinions on a topic. If there isn’t clear support, the topic is simply dropped. This method contrasts sharply with the Church of England’s lengthy debates over minor wording changes, which can often feel like filibustering. Additionally, the URC’s use of real-time updates on motion wording helps maintain clarity during discussions and is incredibly helpful from an accessibility point of view.

    It was fascinating to see and hear disagreements and alternative views being shared, considered, and decided upon in real time. The speed with which business and policy are addressed seemed far ahead of the CofE. However, the decisions themselves somehow felt a bit less weighty – perhaps because of the more informal feel.

    It would be naive to assume that the URC membership is homogeneous in its opinions; this is certainly not the case. However, there appears to be a strong sense of loyalty to the whole, especially when contrasted with the divisive rhetoric currently present in the Church of England. I later learned that when the topic of same-sex marriage, particularly regarding ministers, was raised, discussions reached an impasse – having already been rather vicious and damaging. Three opposing and distinct, yet valid, views were upheld. Rather than allowing this stalemate to cause further hurt, the URC imposed a seven-year moratorium on formal debates about the topic. This pause created space for personal conversations built on relationships, and when the topic was eventually revisited, it was able to be passed without adding further major trauma. As I understand it, the discussion in the 1990s was incredibly fraught and messy. It is also worth noting that the eventual conclusion of General Assembly was it should be a locally made decision, not one decided centrally. This is remarkably similar to what the CofE is trying to move towards around the introduction of PLF, that is being pushed back against as ‘too much’ from conservative wings.

    Reflecting on this, I can’t help but think of the Church of England’s experience with the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) resources, which were intended to foster open, respectful dialogue. Despite this opportunity, it feels as though we have fallen short. It’s not a simple matter, but one wonders how different things might be if the whole of the Church of England had actively engaged with these resources, focusing on listening and learning rather than defensiveness and division. Where might we be now if that had been the case?

    Leadership and Hierarchy

    Another notable difference is the URC’s approach to leadership roles. Unlike the Church of England, where positions such as bishops and archdeacons are permanent promotions, the URC appoints leaders for a fixed term before they return to regular ministry. This practice seems to reduce the emphasis on personal ambition and status, fostering a model of ministry more focused on service than career advancement.

    I learned that both the URC and the Methodist Church have broad memberships that include individuals with more evangelical or conservative views as well as those with more liberal perspectives. However, the influence of these groups differs from that in the Church of England. It often seems that substantially more resources and support are directed toward the conservative end of the spectrum in the CofE than in the middle. While I have no hard data to hand, it’s a widely acknowledged observation within the church community.

    Key Differences and Similarities

    Both the URC and the Church of England face similar challenges, such as resource allocation and ministerial support. However, the URC’s more collaborative and less hierarchical structure allows for a more unified approach to these issues. However, there was the same complaint about regional variances and unilateral diocesan policies leading to inconsistencies and a lack of equity.

    There is no electronic voting system at Assembly, so there is no way to track who has voted which way on specific items. I can see pros and cons to this, but it matches the overall emphasis on unity and shared investment in the URC. The Church of England is far more individually led and used to spotlighting specific voices and leaders. This is even demonstrated by the close-up camera shots of speakers with their names and numbers on the screen, as opposed to the topic being discussed. Apparently when electronic voting was tried it was a disaster. All critical votes that may be contentious are conducted by secret ballot, there were just none on this year’s agenda.

    The URC is substantially smaller and younger than the Church of England, which is reflected in a number of ways. I found the general atmosphere of pragmatic evolution to be quite inspirational, demonstrated in various initiatives, including the development of the iChurch resource to assist local churches with website development and database management—tasks that many churches struggle to manage internally.

    Personal Reflections

    My experience at the URC General Assembly was eye-opening. While I appreciate the Church of England’s structured approach and accountability mechanisms, I believe we could benefit from adopting some of the URC’s practices, especially those that foster unity and reduce unnecessary debate. However, the practice of offering the opportunity to ask clarifying questions of a motion and its report before it is debated was a simple but incredibly useful nuance. As our understanding and appreciation of neuro-divergent thinking grow, this approach would provide some much-needed clarity to discussions that I think all would benefit from.

    I found myself repeatedly impressed by the diversity of voices heard at General Assembly and the genuine lack of one or two people speaking at every possible opportunity. Speakers are not called by the chair; they simply head toward the mic when they wish to contribute. When a chair does offer gentle intervention, it seemed to be met with respect and acceptance, which is not always true of General Synod.

    However, during one discussion, an older gentleman made a rude, dismissive, and judgmental comment about the ordering of households and relationship statuses. I was saddened to hear it and surprised that it wasn’t challenged on the floor or from the podium. While I’ve heard worse or similar at Synod, I had come to expect better from my reformed peers, so that was rather disappointing. I know that I was not alone in this surprise and shock, and have been encouraged to hear specific pastoral support and follow-up was provided.

    Throughout General Assembly, times of worship and Bible study were woven more integrally than the bookend approach favoured at Synod. However, I think some of this is due to logistical differences and different expectations of worship. The theme of innovation that ran through the worship was especially interesting to consider from the perspective of a creatively minded Anglican who often operates ‘out of the box’, intentionally or otherwise. This often feels like an uncomfortable place to be and is a stark contrast to the reformed mindset that has evolution in its DNA and change written into its foundation.

    The final Bible study, led by Lisa Adejai from Christian Aid, captured much of what I had been reflecting on while also shifting my focus to the “now, next, and so then.” Her core message was an invitation to reimagine, reorder, and renew—a timely encouragement for someone like me, emerging from a challenging period of ministry.

    Lisa spoke passionately about the reordering of power that Jesus calls us to, urging us to broaden our horizons and reach out to the marginalized, challenging assumptions, and refusing to accept the status quo. She referenced a Ghanaian phrase meaning “go back and get it,” highlighting the importance of understanding our past to move forward effectively. As I consider the church’s ongoing discussions around racism, misogyny, homophobia, gender discrimination, and more, I’m struck by our struggle to truly acknowledge our mistakes and commit to doing better. Jesus’ commandment to love God, our neighbour, and ourselves remains central—if we truly lived by this love, our decisions and actions would bear more meaningful fruit.

    Lisa concluded by asking, “What is God calling you to reorder? What power are you being called to give away, share, or amplify in others? Where are you being called to reimagine?” These are questions worth sitting with in every church meeting, as we remain open to God’s guidance and transformation.

    Conclusion

    In case this all feels a bit ‘rose-tinted’, during more direct conversations, I heard some firsthand experiences of how the URC had fallen far short of their intentions and stated priorities around gender justice and pay/benefits provision. While both institutions can seek to silence dissenting voices, which often happen to be those of women, addressing this will perhaps happen more quickly in the smaller organisation. Attending Assembly also helped bring into focus the additional privilege and pressure we have as the state church. Do we consider this as well as we could, or do we prefer to use it as a prop and shield rather than an opportunity to catalyse society?

    I came away from General Assembly simultaneously in awe of certain aspects, like the integration of young people, the principle of taking a consensus and simply not discussing items that didn’t gather enough support, but also feeling a deep sense of relief that the system I “belong” to is a bit more clearly structured. I’m grateful for the transparency of our voting system and the possibility for there to be accountability and questions put to members over their voting decisions. I am heartened that, despite different approaches, both systems allow for a range of views to be presented but that no single person, or incredibly loud minority, can dictate, block or derail votes.

    I greatly valued the opportunity to gain insight into how another denomination is navigating contemporary issues. I think there is much we could learn from each other and I look forward to working more closely with reformed colleagues in the future.

  • Clergy Summer Quiz: the Answers!

    by Anon.

    Thanks to all who sent in answers to this year’s brainteasers. Our quiz received many interesting responses. But now to those all-important answers! If you haven’t yet had time to do the quiz, just go back to it now and see how you do.

    1.  What is the approximate population of your diocese? How many parishes does your diocese have? How many Churches? What percentage identify as Christian? What percentage of Christians are committed in terms of a fraction (i.e., a bit; quite a bit; sometimes; depends on what else is happening this weekend; a lot; “I’m retired”; etc)?

    ANSWER: These figures are all available in the Church of England Yearbook. We don’t give any points for copy-and-paste responses.

    To the nearest 100,000. how many tea lights were used in your diocese last year?

    ANSWER: Only Sodor and Man score under 1,500,000. Over 50% of dioceses score more than 3,000,000. An important indication of the likely number can be found in the most recent Annual Report of the Church Commissioners in their section on new derivatives ventures. Please note that candles do not count as fossil fuels under the policy adopted by General Synod, as nobody ever got warmed up by tealights.

    2.  How many stipendiary clergy are working in the diocese?

    ANSWER: (c) that’s a problem for the Archdeacon (obviously)

    3.  The solemn declaration made before your ordination or first licensing in the diocese that “In public prayer and administration of the sacraments I will use only the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer or a form authorised by lawful authority and none other” means

    ANSWER: it should be (e), ‘What it says’, but we affirm the Anglican Via Media principle in ultimately determining such matters, and recognise that clergy must find a way between the letter of the law and pastoral pragmatism.

    4. True or false, with extra points for naming these authorities: 

    (a) ‘The Church of England is a device for allowing agnostics to remain in the church’   

    ANSWER: True; the quote is from Yes, Prime Minister, with thanks to Sir Humphrey.

    (b) ‘One good thing about being an Anglican is that it doesn’t interfere with your politics or religion’  

    ANSWER: True; Richard Holloway.

    5.  “I can hold my hand on my heart and honestly say that I have obtained a faculty when making changes in a church or in the vicinity of a church”:

    ANSWER: We deducted a point for anyone ticking option (d), ‘Obtained a what?’, but affirm the Via Media principle for answers (a) to (c).

    6.  An Anglican clergyperson requesting permission from the bishop to conduct a burial service for a Baptist should expect the following reply from the Archdeacon:

    ANSWER: (a) “I am currently out of the office…if your matter is urgent please…” (obviously)

    7.  When I see the number 1662, I know that this refers to…

    ANSWER: We are happy to confirm that all the options (a) to (o) are correct. However, we have been asked to make some important corrections and clarifications:

    (e) in inches, normal social distancing at a Cof E BCP 8 a.m.: while this is correct, as readers have pointed out, this is the minimum distance in such services. All eye contact should be avoided, and handshakes are prohibited before, during, or after the service. These were Cranmer’s original rubrics.

    (f) the predicted number of stipendiary clergy left remaining within the CofE by 2034, that being the 500th anniversary of the creation of the national church by Henry VIII (who started it all off with a change to the doctrine of marriage): correct, but as the doctrine of marriage was changed in 1534 by Henry VIII, this has some bearing on how LLF is debated by those claiming the CofE has only ever upheld the ‘traditional’ doctrines of marriage (whatever they are). Henry VIII was married six times. Two marriages were terminated by divorce, one wife died naturally, and one wife survived him. The remaining two were beheaded. The LLF Facilitation Group has yet to consider execution as a means of preserving the traditional teaching on marriage and, though drastic, it plainly avoids divorce so could be commended. However, a working party is looking into this. Henry was the Supreme Head of the CofE, as are his descendants. We did not consider James I’s intimate relationships with other men (e.g., Somerset, Villiers, Lennox and Buckingham, etc) as important, as the king still had eight children by his wife, Anne of Denmark. Clergy completing this quiz should not infer that just because James I shared a bed with many of his male favourites and kissed and caressed them in public, he was in any way bisexual or homosexual.

    The important thing to remember is that as Supreme Head of the CofE James I didn’t divorce his wife, Anne. So after Henry VIII had changed the doctrine of marriage there were no further changes – until Charles II, Mary II, William III, Queen Anne and probably others. But as they (mainly) produced legitimate heirs, LLF does not propose to take a view on what the Supreme Governor and Head of the CofE have got up to after office hours in their spare time.

    After all, Iwerne Camps were full of Real Men, some of whom were married, and some “single for the Lord” (and for the boys), so we don’t need to debate the finer points of marital fidelity in the CofE if the doctrine of marriage is still being upheld. It has always been clear in the CofE. Are we all clear?

    (i) the number of people likely to be employed at your Diocesan HQ, if current trends continue. (Please don’t worry, as this expense is fully covered. That is what the Diocesan Parish Quota Share is for): correct, though I have been asked to point out that as most Bishops consider the ‘fundamental unit’ of the CofE to be the diocese, it really doesn’t matter if there are no employees further afield outside Diocesan HQ. The House of Bishops have responded: “That’s your problem, not one that central staffing can resolve (although we could always employ another Diocesan Strategy Enabler or Resource Advisor for Growth to look into your issues and concerns, and report back in 2032?). The new mission statement for all dioceses is ‘keep growing staff numbers at central HQ, and let the peasants eat their brioche’. We are all striving for that. If you are not, chances are you will not be replaced when you leave/retire/are unlucky enough not to have your PTO renewed, etc….”.

    (k) the most difficult posture in the Anglican Kama Sutra, reserved only for male clergy who cannot in conscience accept women priests or bishops. Please note, this requires four participants, with each person required to assume the pose of the relevant number. Due to the potential hazards of this position, it should only be attempted after a risk assessment has been undertaken, and a PEV must be present at all times during the actual act: apologies to those who found this question difficult. We should have added that during this positional enactment, no mobile phones or recording devices are permitted. However, the PEV is equipped with a stopwatch, so each participant has the same amount of time in each position. We should also have reminded readers of the ‘safe word’ or phrase in the event of something going wrong, or someone feeling uncomfortable. For those ordained before 2012, the safe phrase is “motion to move to next business”. Those ordained more recently must audibly exclaim “Mutual Flourishing!”. Both phrases bring any action to an immediate halt, and result in complete disengagement.

    (m) the number of complaints made against the Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council and NST last year. Correct, but I am also asked to point out that due to the high volume of complaints, and the necessity of all these being handled internally by hand-picked members of NCI’s or the Archbishops’ Council, the whole business of a complaints policy regarding senior personnel has been rendered unworkable. The Secretary General has asked me to say that because no complaints are ever upheld, and due to the time-consuming fuss of going through the motions of a policy and process, there will now be a moratorium on all future complaints. From hereon, all complaints will be treated as deliberate nuisance, and all complainants will be treated as vexatious litigants, liable for counter-litigation and costs if there are any complaints about the ineffectiveness of complaints. So, if you don’t want to be hit with a huge legal bill, don’t ever complain. Simple.

    (n) the number of Mission Enablers employed in the CofE: correct, though probably underestimated.

    (o) the coded number of the Beast in Revelation, according to my colleagues at our local HTB Plant. Apparently if you take the two 6s away, then join the remaining numbers of 1 and 2 together to make a 12, then divide the 12 by the numbers remaining (which is 2), that equals 6. So, the 1662 BCP is actually a code for 666 as set out in Revelation 13. A series of talks is now available on the God Channel and YouTube. And there are books. Correct: and you have been warned.