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Tag: House of Bishops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Crown Nominations Commission Back in the Firing Line

    by Anthony Archer, former member of the General Synod and the Crown Nominations Commission

    There has never been a shortage of armchair commentators on the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), which started life in 1976 as the Crown Appointments Commission (CAC), a belated recommendation of the 1970 Chadwick Commission Church and State.  In its early years it was lambasted for nominating men in grey suits. When I pointed out that its first handiwork was the nomination in 1977 of Hugh Montefiore to Birmingham, I was reminded that one swallow doesn’t make a summer!

    In the 1980s and 1990s evangelicals (in those days a broad group) moaned about the few nominations being made of episcopal candidates of their flavour. Such redoubtable CAC central members of the day as Viscountess Brentford merely retorted, ‘show us the candidates.’ But the process developed, and the years of Tony Sadler as Archbishops’ Secretary for Appointments gave way to the significant period of service of Caroline Boddington. Paperwork and due diligence improved. General Synod introduced interviews, against the initial advice of the then archbishops. The preferment process generally became more robust; not that every diocesan bishop would necessarily participate by putting names forward.

    Radical change is not a feature of the CNC process. Most has been change imposed from outside. Gordon Brown could not see how a son of the manse should have any involvement in the process. The convention was changed, such that only one name was sent to Downing Street, although it took General Synod some years to catch up with its standing orders. The Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 was a meaningful change, and its provision is soon to be extended.

    But throughout, the process received regular comment, mostly negative, almost certainly because of its perceived secrecy. Yes, it is confidential, as most appointments processes should be, but there is a difference between transparency of process and confidentiality of deliberation.

    And then we come to the current situation, the CNC 2022-2027 quinquennium  (central members are elected by General Synod for five years). I was privileged to serve from 2005-2007 and from 2017-2021. In all, including Dover, I have served on 18 CNCs. We have never failed. Why should we? The Church of England, a very flat organisation structurally, is stuffed with talent, and since 2014 that talent pool for episcopal appointments has theoretically doubled in size. No CNC ever failed until Hereford in 2014. It is probable that that CNC could not agree a second name, which was then fatal to the entire process. But it was possible to meet again quite quickly, and the nomination was resolved. The failure with Oxford in 2015 was more complex. Much got leaked about it. It was not edifying. A dysfunctional CNC apparently managed to promote two women candidates during final voting, neither of whom achieved the required majority of votes. Quite why they were invited for interview, I don’t know. But it was painful, not least for the candidates in question, as it is now.

    What are we witnessing now that has changed? Over the years, the General Synod has managed to elect a ‘balanced ticket’ of central members, more or less. Of six members, two have tended to be evangelical, two liberal catholic, and two traditionalist. Discernment should not be on party lines (the issue at stake here), but diversity of tradition in the central members helps eliminate criticism. The change today is a hugely more polarised General Synod, arguably more right wing (if that is the right term) than the extended 2015-2021 Synod. The new arrangements for electing CNC central members in pairs have not produced the result hoped for. Tribalism has become acute. Of the six ‘pairs’ of central members, fully four consist of members who are either conservative evangelical or traditional catholic. They tend to work together. The CNC arithmetic requires a candidate to obtain 10 votes (out of usually 14). If such a candidate does not find favour with the conservatives, it means that there are always four votes against such a person. That candidate may be a woman and/or hold views supportive of the introduction of LLF prayers (possibly indicative of a view on equal marriage). It requires only one of the diocesan members to side with this group for the candidate to fail. If no other candidate who has been interviewed can secure ten votes, the commission fails entirely. Two have now failed in the space of a year: Carlisle and Ely.

    The bishops (most of them) are incandescent with rage, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was his concern during the 2012-2017 CNC quinquennium which led to the magisterial report of Revd Professor Oliver O’Donovan, Discerning in Obedience. But General Synod failed to implement the key recommendations, the abolition of secret voting, and lowering the bar if, after successive rounds of voting, the CNC cannot agree.

    Which takes us to the recent House of Bishops meeting at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. Arriving at the Porter’s Lodge, I was one of the ‘members of the public’ granted a ticket to observe the meeting. A first for anyone. We gathered in an entrance hall. The College of Bishops (all the bishops) had earlier been meeting and had had its own session on the CNC crisis.  They were overrunning.

    We were shepherded in to what was to become a House of Bishops meeting (the diocesan bishops and some elected suffragans). The venue was a large hall. Nothing could have been less like a synod meeting. A hundred or so bishops seated at round tables, most in shirt sleeves, giving the impression of the latter stages of a wedding breakfast, with the bottles of wine (actually water) running out. There was a high table. The Bishop of Winchester presided, in dress-down. The Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council was immaculate, chinos, sports jacket and tie. The mandatory legal beagle sat impassive.

    We were welcomed. Heads turned. Never before had a meeting of the House of Bishops had to cope with outsiders (at least apart from formally appointed observers). Some five members of the current cadre of CNC central members were present. Four current or former members of the General Synod were there, only one of whom (me!) was a former central member of the CNC. A lay representative of the Ely CNC came. Two members of the press braved the journey to Oxford (best to come by train and walk), being representatives of The Times and the Church Times. The  Church Times devoted a full page to the report, almost missing its deadline for print. The Times was to follow up on its earlier piece in the week with the headline “Church crisis after ‘alarming failure to nominate bishops’.” The BBC website also picked the story up.

    And so, the debate began. It had been called for by some bishops under standing orders, a kind of emergency debate. It was informed by a paper which outlined some solutions to the problems, which had been circulated to General Synod members ahead of the meeting, but which hadn’t been discussed with the current CNC central members. The Bishop of London (in proper clerical dress) introduced the business, an assured and purposeful performance. There were amendments. There always are in General Synod business and in the Houses. Submitting one guarantees you are called to speak. The Bishop of Oxford wanted the House to emphasise its ‘regret’ at the state of affairs. Agreed on a show of hands. The Bishop of Rochester wanted to slow things down: more time for consultation. But he was seen off: this was just kicking the issues into the long grass. What else could be learned that is not already known? He gathered 13 votes in favour of his amendment, but there were 24 against. The Bishop of Oxford then returned with his second amendment. If the CNC fails to agree, leave it to a panel (for example) of archbishops and the five most senior bishops to send a name to the Prime Minister. Well, that would have been red rag to the General Synod bull, likely to be interpreted as an episcopal power grab. It was defeated, but only by 14 votes to 19. To be fair to the Bishop of Oxford, he was just suggesting a pragmatic solution, a last resort process which would concentrate the minds of the members of the CNC.

    And so, we returned to the main motion, amended by the insertion of ‘regretting’ and the deletion of ‘acknowledging.’ What was really happening? At one level, the House of Bishops was doing what it had to under SO3 of its standing orders (don’t get me started). Although it cannot command the General Synod, the proposals it brings to Synod are persuasive, usually.

    A key theme of the debate was whether the House was bringing proposals that merely addressed the symptoms (the failure of the CNC to nominate) or whether it had really dealt with the underlying causes. The Bishop of Bath and Wells took up this theme. But he didn’t seem to acknowledge what was clear from the paper informing the motion, namely a complete failure of some recent CNCs to ‘discern’ a candidate (although some nominations, such as Peterborough and Exeter seemed to have been plain sailing). The meeting saw an impassioned speech from the Bishop of Dover, angry that certain CNC members will only vote for people who ‘interpret the Gospel my way.’ There were some heartfelt contributions from the Bishops of Stepney, Taunton, Peterborough, and Derby. The latter had had to face predictable comment in the Lords recently during the passage of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 (Extension) Bill. The Bishop of Gloucester also spoke. It was not lost in the public gallery that more women were called in the debate than men.

    We know (the CNC has become very leaky recently because members and candidates are angry) that certain CNC members are voting purely on tribal lines. We have seen this before, but only now has this faction had the influence to thwart nominations. Frustratingly for them, and a mercy for the Church of England, they do not have the numbers to nominate ‘their own person,’ although they have tried successively. But what they have already achieved (which is wicked) is to provoke some candidates no longer to allow their names to go forward in the present climate.

    The Bishop of London summed up. The motion was convincingly  carried by 27 votes to nine, with three abstentions. The nine votes were assumed to be some of those who voted for the earlier Rochester amendment. Proposals (still to be worked on) will come to General Synod in February 2025, to include removing the secret ballot at CNCs, changing the threshold when the commission can’t agree, and giving the presiding archbishop an additional vote, if needed.

    The battleground will be the secret ballot. It is frankly dishonest to vote to shortlist a candidate who you know you will not vote for at the final meeting, but who otherwise meets the criteria. Worse is the fact that members can block a candidate while being able to deny the fact due to the secret ballot, having possibly made positive comments about the candidate in open discussion. I’ve witnessed this, but not in an environment where it made a material difference to the outcome. There were times during my CNC years when we initially looked as if there might not be 10 votes for a candidate. What did we do? We discussed it. We explained (maybe not all of us) why we had voted as we had, and we listened to others as to why they had voted for another candidate. We reached agreement and voted again. Simple, honest, transparent, prayerful discernment. But it doesn’t suit those who come with their own agenda. And when they are called out they complain that someone has leaked confidential information about this or that CNC.

    General Synod has been here before, but this time it’s serious. The Church of England in general, and the CNC in particular, look a laughing stock to the nation. It should know what it has to do.

     

     

  • Cooking with Love and Faith

    by Nic Tall, member of General Synod and National Coordinator of Together for the Church of England

    The General Synod has met again. Once again, it has debated the current stage of Living in Love and Faith (LLF), once again the plans to move forward have been approved in all three Houses of the Synod, and once again this permission to proceed still has a significant minority of Synod in opposition to the proposals.

    One aspect of the debate was the selection of metaphors used in speeches – Fortnum and Mason port and Stilton hampers, Argos flat pack furniture, LLF being like a bus with some on board and others feeling run over. One metaphor which came up in several speeches, all opposed to the proposals, was that it wasn’t “oven ready”. That the phrase was used several times implies co-ordinated comms work from conservatives literally speaking from the same centrally pre-prepared text. “Not oven-ready” expresses a concern that there hasn’t been enough work done, that proposed pastoral guidance needs more time and more consultation before it is fit for purpose, and we should stick with Issues in Human Sexuality until its replacement.

    Since coming home from the debate, I have been thinking through the questions of process and this culinary metaphor, and I have been comparing the LLF process to baking bread. We have been following a recipe, collecting and mixing ingredients, kneading the dough, stepping back and leaving it to rise for a while, before returning to knock it back, squeezing the air out, more pushing, pulling and stretching before leaving it to rise again. A good baker knows that a time of proving before further kneading helps the structure and flavour of the bread, but repeat that process too often and you ruin it.

    Before I talk about how we have been cooking the bread of LLF, I want to think about how the House of Bishops prepared the meal that is Issues in Human Sexuality.  I recently spoke with someone who was in the room when Issues was written.  It was a document purely created by the House of Bishops, who we should remember at that point included no women and no openly LGBT+ people. There was no Programme Board, no working groups, no consultation with stakeholder groups or involvement with the wider church at all. The entire process came from the House of Bishops discussing among itself and then putting out its thoughts as a teaching document, not intended as the policy statement that Issues later became. The preface stated “We cannot expect all to agree with our conclusion and, indeed, in our discussions we encountered a wide variety of opinions… It is our hope that this Statement – which we do not pretend to be the last word on the subject – will do something ‘to help forward a general process, marked by greater trust and openness, of Christian reflection on the subject of human sexuality’”. Issues was cooked by a small group of episcopal chefs, and was not intended to be the final meal. More than thirty years since it was first served up it now become stale and few find it appetising.

    Given the lack of process leading to the half-baked Issues, what has been happening in the kitchen to cook up its replacement? LLF began with panels of experts gathering to compile material around theology, biblical studies, history and more which formed the LLF book, videos, podcasts and course. These were then made available to the whole church to study, discuss and pray about. From late 2020 through to mid 2022, all policy work was paused while the resources were used at the grassroots in parishes, benefices and deaneries. In the baking metaphor, this was a period of the LLF dough being left to rise. Then there was a consultation, the largest in the C of E’s history, capturing the feedback of over 6000 who took part in the course and following up with focus groups to drill down deeper into grassroots opinion. The results were a majority wanting liturgical affirmation of same-sex relationships, a quick decision so everyone knew where they stood and a strong desire for the church to remain together.

    Through the autumn of 2022, the House of Bishops developed their proposals, which were modest but deliverable and brought to General Synod in February 2023. Synod welcomed the proposals through a vote passed in all three Houses. There has since been further work considering refinement and implementation, including consultation with stakeholder groups, small working groups and facilitated conversations bringing together people with very different theological convictions, in-person talks with representatives from different constituencies, theological input from the Faith and Order Commission, legal support from the Church of England’s Legal Office and a further substantial debate in General Synod in November 2023 affirming the ongoing direction of travel. There have been a ‘Next Steps Group’ and a ‘Moving Forward’ video.

    In preparation for the July 2024 Synod, there were different working groups, more stakeholder consultations, a Programme Board, further meetings of the College and House of Bishops and more input from FAOC. And then at the most recent Synod a third major vote has yet again passed in all three Houses to affirm the ongoing direction of travel. We can safely say that the LLF dough has been thoroughly kneaded, shaped and proved. When we compare the many years and wide consultation of the LLF process to the short bishops-only cooking up of Issues, we can be sure that we are in a much better place that will be more widely owned by the whole church once this dish comes out of the oven.

    We also have to remember who the chefs are in preparing this meal. The commending of liturgy and the issuing of pastoral guidance is the responsibility of the House of Bishops.  When Issues was published, it did not require Synodical approval; it was a document from the Bishops. Its replacement will also not need the approval of Synod. The House of Bishops have been much more sensitive this time around in ensuring wide consultation and involving people outside their number. The new pastoral guidance will not be something created in a closed room by a small group of outwardly straight men and then passed down from on high. It has been a collaborative process, with the bishops supported by Synod, FAOC, stakeholders, the Legal Office and all our parishes and deaneries who invested time with engaging.

    But now it is down to the House of Bishops to complete the process by putting it in the oven to bake. That is their job, and it is not for the rest of us to interfere. Neither will it help if we insist on continually opening the oven door to check how it’s getting on. Too many cooks will only spoil the meal.

    So, once the well-prepared dough of LLF that we currently have has been properly baked, brought out and left to cool, I hope we will be able to gather together to enjoy the breaking, sharing and eating. And I hope that will be around one table, where all are called, including our LGBTQIA+ family members who are usually only offered crumbs under the table. I hope also that our more conservative family members will also be at the feast around the one table, and not feel that they have to sit in another room apart from the rest of us.

    I hope that shared meal comes very soon, as many in the church, especially LGBTQIA+ people, are hungry and are needing to be fed.

  • Beyond Jay: Here’s What the Response Group and Synod Need to Do for a Safer Church

    by Gilo, hymn writer, co-editor with Janet Fife of the book Letters to a Broken Church, and co-creator of the House of Survivors website

    Three diocesan bishops seek my take, with varying degrees of regularity, on developments in the Church of England’s safeguarding and response to survivors. I’m careful to point out that any views I express are mine, mine alone, and do not represent those of any organisation or group. I neither seek nor receive any funds in the process. So the thinking expressed here is not the only viewpoint, nor necessarily the right one (if such exists). It is simply mine, in a field which is likely to be contentious in the forthcoming Synod.

    The three bishops have each asked what I think of the Jay report. In my view the Jay is undeliverable and, even if it were, would it necessarily result in something better than the current mess? Professor Alexis Jay has done the reverse of what she did in IICSA. The IICSA recommendations were limp and didn’t go far enough. Now she’s gone too far, and by proposing Org A she’s given CofE a possible excuse to slow down the crucial Org B. She is a political naïf, and in my view the recommendations in the Jay report arose perhaps as a form of psychological penance for not being ambitious enough in IICSA. I think this report will set the Church back, not move it forward. If you follow its course logically, then other institutions may seek Org A structures in the name of ‘independence’ and we’d end up with a multitude of safeguarding bodies creating further confusion. I think no amount of Org A, and no amount of expenditure on Org A (which would put current CofE safeguarding expenditure into deep shade) can stand in place of properly designed mandatory reporting in the statutory framework. This is the key. The best course of action the Church could be taking is banging loudly on Home Office doors to argue a case for an end to the ‘potemkin village’ Whitehall is wanting to create and instead to introduce effective mandatory reporting. Whitehall wants mandatory reporting in name only, in a watered-down version of the IICSA recommendation which was already itself a watery version.

    The Church has undoubtedly arrived at a car crash moment. Where does responsibility for this lie? Failed leadership. Synod must remind itself that failure at the heart of the axis of power, represented by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in conjunction with the Secretary-General, has brought the Church to such a desperate situation. Had they resolved their differences with the ISB in a transparent and safe way there would have been no need for the Jay report.

    Let’s turn to the much-needed Org B, which is where I believe focus must be directed. Org B, as an essential body for scrutiny and oversight and the all-important handling of complaints is urgently needed, and is long overdue. The Church must give such a body effective powers if it is to avoid creating another toothless tiger (NSP anyone?). At present I believe the power to place a diocese into special measures lies within the gift of the Archbishop. This happened memorably to Chichester Diocese under Rowan Williams. This is the kind of bite Org B requires. Not the set of rubber dentures which Archbishops’ Council and their NCIs will be looking to manufacture.

    And no veto by an Archbishop. It may well be that one of the places needing such Special Measures might be the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, alongside London Diocese which would seem a prime candidate for emergency action. London is not alone in being crashy, but it’s up there amongst the worst. We only need one diocese placed publicly into Special Measures and any other dioceses currently lagging behind in handling of cases or responses to survivors will tighten up their bootlaces in a weekend. The routine blanking and obfuscation that still persists in some quarters will quickly end.

    And above all it must end within the NST.

    Whatever shape the Archbishops’ Council eventually decides to give to a new shiny ‘independent’ model, the NST must be removed from the grip of the Secretariat. Its days as an arm of the legals and comms of Church House must end. If it is to have a positive future, it must be repurposed, retrained and given a new vision of itself, with independent management which involves survivors, with all our experience and narrative wisdom. The NST leadership must face their own cognitive dissonance squarely and courageously, and recognise that its deployment by Church House in various aspects of reputation management has been disgraceful and dishonest.

    Whatever happens, ‘Delay’ is likely to be the watchword. Delay by design, but also through incompetence and systemic dysfunctionality. One thing is for definite: the CofE must never again allow one individual to hold as much unaccountable power as is currently compressed into the office of the Secretary-General. He has presided over a rotten borough in the NCIs and puppet-stringed the NST to such an extent that it has become almost impossible for survivors to have much trust in the thing. But the problem is not William Nye alone; it’s the inherited system of which he is a part, albeit a big part. We must factor in too, the lack of leadership by the Archbishops, the Lead Safeguarding Bishop and the NST.

    The House of Bishops is an enfeebled house with a poor grasp of these things. What we’ve seen across the past decade is fewer than a handful of bishops speaking out. Alan ‘Elbows’ Wilson knew that any time the media approached bishops on matters ‘survivor related’’, the traffic would immediately be centrally controlled through Church House comms. He ignored this, and spoke directly to journalists without approval from the centralized machinery of the Secretariat. He was past playing safe games with the structure and was happy to be out on the edge speaking truth to its power. He doubtless took many a kicking but it never seemed to upset him. Julie Conalty has been a courageous voice too, often a lone voice highlighting particular aspects of corruption. But I suspect she’s marginalized by a structure which expects all bishops to stay blandly ‘on message’. She needs a few diocesans to step up and publicly support her when she dares to challenge the status quo.

    Bishops must stop being cowed, stop colluding with toxic culture. They must learn to get over their fear of receiving ‘heavy shepherding’ from one or other of the Archbishops when they speak out of turn. If an Archbishop arrives on your door to bully you into submission to the rules of purple enclosure – then stand up to him. If you stick your head above the parapet, you will be marginalised. Learn to embrace this. The likelihood is that this or that particular bit of funding for your diocese will be squeezed. It’s been indicated to me that this is quietly how the culture of collegiate control operates. So the purple enclosure stays on message and lets any missives be handed out by a Lead Bishop who to all intents and purposes seems mostly missing in action as far as survivors are concerned. When a bishop dares to go off-piste and makes an authentic comment, they experience the polite scowl of the institution. But if enough speak out, especially from the top of the Lead trio, then the toxic culture might begin to change.

    Successive lead bishops have discovered they have nothing but rubber levers to work with! The real levers, those of power and any real change, are held by Archbishops’ Council which in turn is heavily controlled by a shadowy Secretariat. The wheels turn slowly because everything is hardwired to move slowly. Just as the structure is hardwired to protect hierarchy and itself. One of the bishops who listens to me recently asked me what I consider to be the three main obstacles to progress. In my view, these are:

    (1) centralised and dysfunctional power which rules an unchecked empire with disastrous consequences. Look at the handling of the ISB members and the way they were closed down at an hour’s notice.

    (2) siloed mindset of the bishops who occupy a ‘me and my diocese’ headspace. There is little public collegiate expression of responsibility and far too much collegiate fear.

    (3) the transparency gap. Too much of the structure is wedded to reputation management and used to hiding stuff. The institution has failed to grasp that transparency is the best route to salvaging reputation.

    I want to end on a positive note, because the picture is not all gloom. Some dioceses have made huge strides. I’ve been supporting one survivor in recent weeks. We sent an initial letter of disclosure to the relevant diocese, and I advised that we should hopefully expect a response within 48 hrs. The reply came within 15 mins! And was hugely positive. Not only did the diocese agree to therapy costs immediately but they are also meeting us in the home geography of the survivor’s town rather than expecting us to make the journey cross-country. The bishop also sent a positive response as soon as he could. I believe dioceses must continue to retain responsibility for the deliverance of good safeguarding and positive response to survivors. And dioceses that are operating out of a handbook that should have been jettisoned a decade ago should be placed into the equivalent of an ambulance that Org B will need to have on standby for just such an eventuality.

     

     

  • Time to be Civil about Marriage

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

    Well, here we go again then.

    In the next few months – in an eerie echo of the same months exactly a year ago – the Church of England will once again be asking small groups to sit down and discuss queer people’s lives and loves. Despite the fact that the draft Prayers of Love and Faith have been sitting ready to go for almost a year, and despite the fact that an almost final draft of the Pastoral Guidance permitting clergy equal marriage has similarly been sitting ready to go for almost a year, the feet-dragging nature of the church’s response to love has once again been on full display. If in doubt, set up a subgroup, and so here we are, with yet more subgroups, asking exactly the same questions, and promising a solution by July.

    It would be a foolhardy House of Bishops that suggested a further delay in July – many LGBTQIA clergy and their allies are close to civil disobedience, along with an increasing recognition by a number of bishops that the current situation is not only untenable but deeply unjust. Yet it is clear that the sticking point on much of the negotiations is not the Prayers of Love and Faith, and their ‘legal route’, however much noise is being made about this by rather tiresome bloggers, but clergy discipline. The real nub of this is whether faithful, committed, partnered clergy can enter what they personally believe to be, but what the church corporately does not yet receive as, marriage, and whether the church is empowered to continue to ask prurient and weird questions about their bedroom antics.

    It does sometimes appear to be the case that those doing and promoting the work on LLF have forgotten that there are actually (despite everything) LGBTQIA people in the church. When the Programme Board was first announced, there was not a single (out) LGBTQIA person on it, and similarly you needed a microscope to find the LGBTQIA people in the small groups (something which has been, to some degree, mitigated thanks to some of us spotting it!). For all the warm words and the ‘apology’, the mode of operation of the Church of England has resolutely not changed on all this; it’s frankly not good enough, and it’s rather grating when compared to the way other minoritized groups are increasingly treated. There seems to be a wilful determination to keep LGBTQIA people out of the frame, and hence to condemn the process to an endless procession of unforced errors. LGBTQIA people remain, apparently, acceptably ignored.

    There are plenty of us LGBTQIA folk who are really willing this process, and its leadership, to succeed, despite everything – yet we are treated as though our involvement would somehow infect it with queerness. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, but in seriousness there needs to be a step change in the way the Church of England engages with us if it is to gain even a modicum of trust. People like me would be perfectly happy to look over press releases and point out the obvious issues, and indeed people far more qualified and senior than me, who are themselves ‘openly’ LGBTQIA (a term reserved, it seems, almost solely for the church in the modern world), should be invited to be part and parcel of the decision-making processes rather than merely advising it from the side-lines. There remains far too much being done about us, and not with us, and until that changes, the Church of England is displaying that it has learnt precisely nothing about its institutional queerphobia.

    Which brings us back to clergy marriage. From all the whingeing and whining, you’d think that the people this most matters to are those who oppose ‘sexual intimacy’ (as yet undefined) amongst queer people, but perhaps we might just reset the dial and remember that the key stakeholders here are queer people themselves. We have heard the usual delaying clarion call of ‘we need to do more theology’ on this time and time again, and we have heard all the handwringing about the conscience of bishops, yet we have – it appears – infrequently actually listened to and thought about the impact of the current pernicious, institutional and structural violence of the current position of the church for actual, real live, queer people.

    The level of pastoral ineptitude and lack of practicality found in the House of Bishops’ ‘Pastoral Guidance’ [sic] issued on Valentine’s Day 2014 is rivalled only by the disgraceful way that this has been implemented over the past decade. Absolutely no recognition has been given to the fact that the distinction between Civil Partnerships and Civil Marriage is not present in every jurisdiction, leading to clergy in Europe, for example, facing a choice between basic next of kin rights and their licences. Clergy from Anglican provinces overseas or our other communion partners, where equal marriage is not only permitted but required for clergy in same-sex relationships, have been prevented from offering their ministry in the Church of England in an extraordinary display of arrogant inflexibility on behalf of ‘mother church’. It is interesting, of course, that it’s only the queer married clergy who are blocked, and not the straight clergy, including bishops, who have been doing the marriage services – you really don’t have to look far for institutional queerphobia.

    Yet, finally, it seems that this pernicious nonsense is about to end, and not before time. There is now a clear way forward that brings the Church of England back to a position more true to itself – generous hospitality. We appreciate that we are not all going to agree on whether same-sex unions are marriage or not, perhaps for some time, yet we are part of a church and a communion in which a variety of perspectives are held entirely within the mainstream.

    In many ways, this is just a case of recognising facts. As yet – and it is only a matter of time – the Church of England corporately does not recognise the essence, dare I say sacramentality, of the marital in same-sex marriages. That’s actually where the distinction lies – not between the civil and the church (the marriage-matrimony idea), but in the anatomy of the participants. There are also, however, a number of queer clergy who want to enter into such a vowed state that is recognised as such by the State, and indeed by many churches that presently come to a different conclusion about this than appears to be the case in the Church of England. Some of them will want to do that in a civil ceremony, and others before God (indeed, in ceremonies in which God can actually be mentioned) in a church where such marriages can be celebrated.

    Neither of those options changes anything about the Church of England’s own position on what it holds to be marital. Clergy are not entering into marriage lightly – they’re doing so because they believe it to be part of their growth in holiness. The church has accepted – and indeed encouraged – clergy entering into Civil Partnerships, and the result of making a similar decision on marriage is absolutely no different from the church’s perspective, given the Church of England institutionally continues to refuse recognise such marriages as full fat marriage. The only difference it will actually make is to queer clergy – and it’s about time that happened, and the cruelty ended.

    Incidentally, this is not about press-ganging into marriage. For traditionalist Society clergy who are worried they might be forced to marry their same-sex partners, this is plain and simple scaremongering nonsense, often delivered to you by hierarchs in order to scare you into playing ball. Nobody is being forced into same-sex marriages, queer or otherwise, but the option is simply being put on the table. If in conscience clergy don’t want to take it, then that’s up to them – that’s the benefit of generous hospitality. Nothing has been said about civil partnerships being taken off the table, and the whole point of this exercise is surely to be expansive, and not close things down.

    And yet there are a number of ‘conservative’ bishops who continue to rail against this hospitality, and whose consciences ‘must be respected’ (again, interesting how it’s only ever one way, isn’t it). They won’t license or ordain clergy in same sex marriages, whatever the church decides, they say – and again, fascinating to see that they are unlikely to apply any restrictions to clergy from elsewhere who officiate at such marriages, but only on the queers in them. Their ongoing threat of a postcode lottery is holding the whole thing up, and they’re once again holding us to ransom. And it is all an argument built on sand, because as they like to remind us, the Church of England hasn’t changed its doctrine of marriage – and as is entirely obvious, the Church doesn’t recognise the marital in marriage between people of the same sex. It’s a house of cards, and needs calling out.

    It is high time for the Church of England to return to a sense of balance and proportion, to focus on the pastoral and not the disciplinary, and to actively find ways to enable and release its clergy into the world so badly in need of the Gospel message. We have failed – disastrously – at doing this for queer clergy in the last ten years, and at last we have the opportunity to change that. We don’t agree – maybe we never will – on marriage. But we can, surely, agree on the primacy of the Gospel. It really is as simple as that.

  • The Bishops must be Bolder and Braver on Gaza

    by Dr Jonathan Chaplin, a Fellow of Wesley House, Cambridge and a lay member of Ely Diocesan Synod*

    Two weeks ago, Archbishop Welby reversed his earlier refusal to meet prominent Palestinian Christian leader, Revd Dr Munther Isaac, on account of the fact that Isaac had shared a platform with Jeremy Corbyn at a pro-Palestinian rally in London. For the first time, he also used the word ‘condemn’ of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. These are important steps in a much-needed rebalancing of the Church of England’s official stances on the Gazan catastrophe.

    But there is more to do. Since October, the House of Bishops has issued three statements on the war, most recently in February. Coming from the appointed teachers of the established Church, they deserve a respect which must include critical scrutiny. Many elements of these statements are commendable, but they fall short on two fundamental counts.

    First, while the bishops eventually made clear their ‘moral’ disapproval of the Israeli military campaign, they fail explicitly to name Israeli actions as violations of international humanitarian law and war crimes.

    At this point there can be no doubt on the matter. As early as late October, a public letter from British lawyers to the UK government – now signed by 1100 – made clear that, even then, there was ample evidence of multiple specific violations of many international laws by the Israeli state. Months later, the extent and severity of these violations has expanded enormously. In January, the International Court of Justice delivered the extraordinary ruling that Israeli actions were ‘plausibly genocidal’, ordering Israel urgently to take all measures to prevent that outcome (which it has ignored).

    The horrifying scale of deaths and injuries has been amply reported, resulting from recklessly disproportionate and indiscriminate Israeli bombardments. Almost all Gazan hospitals are destroyed or dysfunctional. 80% of the population has been displaced and are barely surviving in catastrophically inhumane conditions while still under military assault. Well over 50% of buildings in Gaza have been damaged or flattened, meaning most Gazans will have nowhere to return when the fighting stops. 90% of educational institutions, numerous churches and mosques and irreplaceable cultural sites have been damaged or destroyed, and much agricultural land has been rendered useless. Many Gazans now face starvation due to continuing drastic Israeli restrictions on the supply of humanitarian aid – another war crime – and official bodies have reported that children are already dying as a result.

    None of this can remotely be justified under Israel’s ‘right to defend itself’, a phrase repeatedly but uncritically invoked by the bishops. As Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, observes, a state cannot invoke this right against a territory that it is belligerently occupying. Israel is not bound by some iron necessity to inflict this level of devastating collective punishment on defenceless Gazans. International law demands that Israel find other ways to protect its citizens against Hamas and retrieve its hostages.

    It is not enough for the bishops merely to express ‘moral’ disapproval of such criminal acts, since this is easily dismissed as a subjective judgment that can be legitimately contested. If what is happening in Gaza is to be truthfully described, these acts must be named as publicly verifiable and culpable breaches of international law.

    Second, the bishops’ statements fail to convey anything like an adequate recognition of the larger historical and political context of sustained Israeli oppression of Palestinians, since at least the 1967 illegal occupation. That complex history is, of course, read through radically different lenses. But there is ample verifiable evidence to support the bishops’ issuing a much fuller acknowledgement of the scale, intensity and recent harsh escalation of Israeli state oppression of Palestinians, which the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem in 2021 named as amounting to ‘apartheid’.

    The House of Bishops urgently needs to speak more bravely into a calamity in which Britain is itself deeply implicated historically. It will thereby send a much more credible message of Christian solidarity to the people of Gaza who have felt abandoned by many western churches.

    *an edited version of a speech in support of Dr Chaplin’s private member’s motion at Ely Diocesan Synod on 9 March 2024, seconded by the Revd James Shakespeare (Rural Dean, Cambridge South). The motion, which was carried narrowly, calls on the House of Bishops to issue a much stronger statement on Gaza that they have so far.

  • On the Exchanging of Friendship Bracelets; or: The Bishops are Asking us to Lie

    by Matt Drapper, an author who writes about church and queer culture. His book ‘Bringing Me Back To Me’ is an autobiographical look back at his experiences of Conversation Therapy Practices and homophobia within Christianity and his journey towards healing from trauma

    Imagine you have two friends, who are Christian women, who love their church and each other and you hear they have become engaged. Later, you are invited to a church service at which the couple, who have been recently married at a civil ceremony, will be blessed and their love for each other celebrated before God and the gathered congregation of their friends and family. You’ve dressed up for the occasion, written a card emblazoned with hearts and even brought a pocket full of confetti just in case they decide to take photos after the blessing. You’ve already heard of the couple’s disappointment; they cannot be married in the church with a traditional ceremony, and it feels a pity to have their blessing taped onto the end of a regular Sunday morning service, however you know this will be a wonderful celebration with family and friends. Except, when the minister stands up to pray, she describes the women’s relationship as “friendship” and instead of rings, they exchange friendship bracelets.

    The minister knows. The couple know. The gathered friends and family know. You know, this is an opportunity to come before God for a blessing on the relationship and civil partnership or marriage of a couple who love one another, but who have been denied the opportunity to be married in the church building they love (a right granted to straight couples simply for living in the catchment area of the parish.) However, everyone has (at the request of the House of Bishops and the Church of England Lawyers) been asked to lie and say they are just celebrating a friendship.

    For context, I’m referring to the documents recently released for General Synod which detail the ways Churches will be allowed to use the Prayers of Love and Faith. These prayers were ostensibly designed for the blessing of same-sex relationships, but, due to the inclusion of the phrase “with no change to the doctrine of marriage” in an amendment passed in February, have seemingly had their entire purpose removed from them, and worse, replaced with an encouragement to pretend they are something else entirely.

    One example of the prayers which some churches will be enabled to offer, begins with a promise of love and commitment, but ends with just friendship.

    For lifelong peace
    God of all grace,
    friend and companion,
    look with favour on N and N
    as they journey together through life. Deepen their love
    and strengthen their wills
    to honour the commitment they have made,
    that they may continue
    in lifelong faithfulness and friendship to each other; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
    All Amen.

    To what “commitment they have made” is this prayer referring? The Guidance offered for use of the prayers states: “Pastoral preparation with the couple should cover the fact that the service is not a marriage, or a Thanksgiving for Marriage, or a Service of Prayer and Dedication after Civil Marriage.” And yet, the blessing of a civil ceremony or marriage is exactly what these prayers have been asked for, and prepared for. No one was asking for a new form of pinky-swearing with our best friends and a promise to love them forever and ever and ever.

    “They are roommates,” used to be the whispered code for an Uncle or Aunt known to be living with their gay partner, back in the day. “They were good friends,” suggest descriptions below paintings of historical possible queer love in museums. And now the Church of England is asking us to use the same veiled language, whispered, between evening prayers.

    As if it were not enough that the latest Guidance of the Use of Prayers of Love and Faith (and its accompanying Theological and Pastoral Introduction to the PLF) consistently use the words “holy” and “ideal” to describe straight presenting marriage, suggesting an “unholiness” and “less than ideal” to same-sex partnerships, and as if it were not demeaning enough to describe the Prayers of Love as Faith as “Prayers on the Way” (on the way to what?), the Guidance appears to be asking Ministers, Couples, Friends and Family to be intentionally deceptive before each other and before God. I would go so far as to say, The House of Bishops are asking us to lie.

    We have spent our lives being told our relationships are not Holy. This new document enforces this feeling in some of the most unhealthy language I have ever heard. They may have swapped out the word “sin” for “unholiness”, and not aimed it at us directly, but they should say what they really mean, if they are proud of it. Call us sinners, please.

    In describing their purpose, the guidance continues: “The PLF fall short of affirming a couple’s entire way of life as made Holy by God, and blessed as a marriage service would do…The PLF do not seek to simulate marriage or pretend that our Church has made a decision to extend marriage to same-sex couples.” The Theological document could not be clearer. PLF is not to be used as a celebration of same-sex relationship. And yet, what else are they designed for? Throughout the recent documents, they are consistently described as celebrating friendship. Are we to believe the women’s football team will be using the prayers to bless their bonds? Are we to understand the men’s mental health support group will be showing up for a blessing over their budding friendships? Is this a blessing for besties?

    No.

    We know what it is.

    It is what it is.

    In the most outrageous sample from the Guidance, it is suggested as an image: “The minister may pray over rings worn by the couple (but) to avoid the impression that the service is a marriage service, rings are not given or exchanged.” Pardon? The minister knows, the couple knows, the friends and family gathered know what this service is for and what the prayers for the rings mean. Yet, the House of Bishops and Church Lawyers are asking us to pretend we don’t understand. To lie about it to each other and in front of God.

    The Guidance is also clear on another point: you cannot offer the blessings to people who are still going through an unsettled divorce. Why not? If it is a blessing for buddies, for two roomies who get on really well? Make it make sense.

    As a gay man who grew up in a Christian household, and then in evangelical Christianity, I was taught to whisper about my sexuality. I was told by my family, “You cannot Be Gay at home.” I was told by my church, “You will lose your leadership role if you are openly in a Same-sex Relationship.” Better to keep these things hidden, wrapped up in shame, secret, pretend to be something you are not. Queer Christians recognise a lie for what it is: Shame, Denial, Pretence.

    Asking ministers, couples, friends and families to lie to each other and before God is a sure way to invite destructive poison into a congregation. Is this really the best they can offer us?

  • ‘That Which He Has Not Assumed Is Not Redeemed’: Jesus, Sexuality and GS2328

    by John Seymour, a priest in the Diocese of London who recently completed doctoral studies in practical theology and education at IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society

    Jesus of Nazareth: fully human, fully God?

    I want to start with what, for many of us, may be an uncomfortable question. It’s one which we gloss over in our affirmations of the full humanity of Jesus. Did he have something which we would today call a sexuality? It may feel awkward or irreligious to imagine the God-man Jesus getting a spontaneous erection, masturbating for pleasure or relief, or indulging a sexual fantasy, but it is difficult to make sense of some of his encounters without Jesus being a human being with a sexuality.

    Many women had a strong affection for him, such that they provided for his material needs (Luke 8.1-3). He was able to understand the power dynamics at work in the life of the woman caught in adultery (John 8.2-11). Taken in context, it is interesting to ponder what kind of metaphor might be at work in the Samaritan woman’s retort, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep” (John 4.11). It is difficult for me at least not to suppose a sexual dimension to the intimacy of the beloved disciple reclining on Jesus’ breast (John 13.23) and the only disciple for whom Jesus cried was Lazarus: “see how he loved him!” (John 11.35).

    If human sexuality is to be redeemed then, on a Patristic understanding, Christ must have had a human sexuality. The quotation which starts this blog is taken from a letter from Gregory of Nazianzus to Cledonius, a priest he had oversight of. Gregory is addressing the Apollinarian controversy, and the suggestion that rather than having his own intellect, Jesus’ mind was replaced by the Godhead or Logos. Gregory’s humour is incisive:

    “If anyone has put his trust in him as a man without a human mind, he is really bereft of mind, and quite unworthy of salvation. For that which he has not assumed he has not healed, but that which is united to his Godhead is also saved.” (Epistle 101)

    That which is united to the Godhead is saved. In the sacrament of baptism, the believer is joined to Christ (Galatians 3.27; Romans 6.3-6), body, mind, soul (to use Gregory’s term), and with these, his / her / their sexuality, whatever that sexuality may be (and it seems to me that the spectrum represented by asexuality is included here). Sexuality is, then, a salvation issue. If our sexuality is not assumed it is not healed; and if we are not joined with Christ in every part of our humanity, we are not saved.

    The red lines of GS2328

    What does this say to our current debates? In the press conference of 20 January 2023 ahead of February’s synod, the Archbishop of York said, “We’re saying this is a good place to be where we can live together with our disagreements and fully acknowledge and welcome into our church LGBTQI+ people.” The implication was that the salvation issue had been addressed for LGBTQIA+ people: with the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF), the Church of England had created a sufficiently generous theological space in which we could enjoy the fulness of life as Christians that comes with integration of body, mind, soul and sexuality within the church’s understanding of what it means to be human.

    However, with the release of GS2328 and the events that led to that paper, the Church of England now really is not in a “good place” in relation to the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people. In its theology and the practical inferences drawn from it, the House of Bishops is communicating the same homophobic bias which led to the defeat of GS2055 in February 2017. It is painful to see that the investment made by many in the LLF process over six years, one that was costly, sacrificial, and often altruistically motivated, has borne so little fruit: the Church of England has moved backward in its inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people.

    Let me explain. I didn’t believe that the draft Prayers of Love and Faith presented in February 2023 provided for the welcome of LGB people, as the prayers did not affirm same-sex relationships through offering a blessing of a marriage or civil partnership, or indeed, of the substance of a relationship for a same sex couple.

    The ‘goods’ GS2328 claims it wishes to affirm arise from a motivation which derives at least in part from sexual attraction. Rather than accept and affirm this, GS2328 attempts to dissect sexual attraction from an innate, abstract sexuality by separating same-sex sex from the goods of same-sex relationships. There is continuity here with the tendency to affirm Jesus’ humanity whilst glossing over his sexuality as something real: GS2328 wants to recognise the goods of this category of relationship while erasing the actual part that human sexuality plays in producing them. In doing so, GS2328 simply betrays a homophobic theology. Any prayer which takes as its starting point separation of being human from being sexual communicates a commitment that is at odds with belief in the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ and is consequently hostile to LGB identity and to LGBTQIA+ people.

    That theological ‘red line’ drawn between being human and having a sexuality has now changed and moved. Arguably, in the February 2023 proposals, the red line was brought to synod intentionally blurred, with the prospect of that blurred line being affirmed at the November 2023 synod. Examples of this blurring include synod in February choosing (contra Higton 1987) not to assert that sexual intimacy could only take place in marriage, and not to assert that relationships outside of marriage could not be blessed (both of these were the subject of amendments that failed). Despite this, what has returned to synod in November with GS2328 is a well-defined red line. Whatever else that line might be, it is a dividing line between being human and being sexual. The prospect now is of that line becoming fixed in 2025. The line makes a false division between what is assumed by Christ and what is not.

    The Canon B2 route and a choice between homophobic theologies

    In the press release relating to the papers for synod, bishop Sarah is quoted as saying, “a majority of people would like to see a change in the Church of England’s approach to same-sex relationships. Based on what the Church has told us, no change is not an option.” Yet the last-minute adoption of a Canon B2 process for approval of PLF as a stand-alone service has proven to be enabling of a minority position. As a result of the intervention in the House of Bishops’ process, there are two outcomes that are possible in 2025:

    • The least negative for LGBTQIA+ people is that the Canon B2 process, with reference to the dioceses and then a vote in Synod requiring a two-thirds majority in each house, affirms the proposed PLF and underlying rationale. With this, a homophobic theology (articulated in the Pastoral Guidance and reflected in PLF) would be formally adopted by the CofE as the basis for ‘affirming’ the relationships of LGB people.
    • The other possibility that opens up – and this seems quite likely as an outcome with the current composition of synod – is that, whatever the dioceses say, PLF are felt to have significant doctrinal implications which synod is not minded to affirm. With this, not only the stand-alone PLF but also the PLF prayers due to be commended for use in existing services would fall, as being incompatible with Church of England doctrine.

    Whilst inadequate, the proposals of February 2023 offered a route to an incarnational faith which is saving for LGBTQIA+ people. In contrast, GS2328 offers options between theologies for LGBTQIA+ people, both of which deny the gospel of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ.

    It seems to me that GS2328 therefore heralds something of a pastoral crisis, as it tells me and my LGBTQIA+ siblings that the Church of England is not a safe place for us and that we are not welcome. It is also the occasion of a crisis in what the church is willing to transmit by way of salvation. With the decision to pursue a Canon B2 route, synod is set to determine whether or not LGBTQIA+ identities and lives may be joined with Christ’s and with this, to make a judgement on whether or not we may be saved. With the current politics of the Church of England, it looks like we are going to be damned to hell.

    Perhaps as they gaze over that precipice, the bishops might reconsider how closely they are willing to draw the line around who is saved and who is not. Synod has said that the bishops are not constrained by a doctrinal issue. In light of that, they need our prayers as they weigh their decision, as their own souls may be at risk in their judgment.

  • A Sum Total of Nothing: The Prayers of Love and Faith Return to Synod

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

     

    Well, here we go again. Another set of consultations, conversations, demands that LGBTQIA people make themselves vulnerable, another set of raised hopes, quiet promises, and damned hard work, and…well, nothing. Nothing at all.

    It is almost unfathomable, yet entirely predictable, that we have ended up exactly where we started. This November Synod, where we had been told significant progress would be brought forward, what we are being given is absolutely sod all. Please don’t mistake this for hyperbole – I am speaking in simple factual terms. Nothing has changed. This is nothing, warmed up and then cooled down again, and presented as radical inclusion.

    Not only are we presented with a sum total of nothing, but we are back talking in the way some of us had hoped was now history. The Synod papers have next to nothing positive to say about LGBTQIA people, and we are back to the despicable language of both-sides-ism that the ‘apology’ (which has shown itself to be utterly meaningless) suggested we might have finally grown out of. The motion being presented has inexplicably returned to the language of pain ‘on both sides’, as though there is even a remotely comparable situation for LGBTQIA people and those who oppose us having even private prayers.  The motion doesn’t even mention us – we are once again at best an abstract issue, and at worst simply erased. It is hard to take any other message from this that they wish we didn’t exist, and they don’t really care that we do. We are ‘less than ideal’ (with very uncomfortable echoes of the Higton motion in 1987) – our lives are clearly, in the bishops’ view, a blight on the life of the church.

    The motion states, too, that we are in a ‘period of uncertainty’: we are not, a clear decision was made in February and the House of Bishops is actively choosing to frustrate its clear purpose. There is talk of ‘implementation’. Where, precisely, is this implementation?

    We have been told that we are not to see the results of the Pastoral Guidance until 2025! The bishops are attempting to impose two more years of Issues in Human Sexuality blighting the lives of LGBTQIA clergy, preventing married people from getting ordained, and handing coercive control over our loves and lives to the meanness and lack of imagination of episcopal discipline. The cruelty of this – a decision imposed by an (allegedly) entirely straight House of Bishops on LGBTQIA clergy, with ever-present calls for us to be patient. Enough. We have been patient enough – over thirty years of patience.

    It is a bare-faced lie to say that there is no draft guidance – I have seen it, and it has been presented to the House and College of Bishops. Very substantial votes in favour of change have been registered amongst the bishops. So what exactly is going on? We need to be told specifically what needs to be done for it to be brought back, and we need it to be brought back in February 2024 for final sign off at the very latest. We need, too, for Issues to be rescinded immediately, at this November Synod. As a wise priest friend said to me: what the bishops have done may be legal, but it is not honest. Bishops, it is time you remembered the wording of our ordination vows. Our obedience is not without caveats.

    The commended prayers are – extraordinarily – a backward step. They quite literally amount to no more than our being able to pray for the gays in the intercessions of a regular Evening Prayer – and nothing more. The accompanying document makes it clear that the prayers can be used privately or ‘only in acts of worship where Prayers of Love and Faith are not the principal focus or form’ (and the guidance bizarrely suggests that nonetheless we ought to warn our parishioners in advance in case they want to avoid the beastly homosexuals!). This means that the commended prayers serve no pastoral purpose whatsoever – absolutely nothing has changed. I repeat, nothing – the commended prayers change nothing. So out of years and years of patient work, all we can do is pray for people like we already could do, and now we are specifically banned from holding special services for them. This is a scandal and the General Synod must demand that this ridiculous, offensive, unacceptable stipulation is removed if this motion is to be passed.

    And finally, the accompanying document for discussion in Synod has gone against the express will of Synod by entirely errantly eliding the ‘doctrine of marriage’ (for which we might look to Canon B30) and ‘the place for sexual intimacy’. Laying aside the fact that the bishops have still not actually defined what that means (itself rendering Issues utterly meaningless), the press release from the Church of England contains within it a lie – stating that ‘Synod also voted for no change to the doctrine of the Church of England around marriage and sexual intimacy.’ No, it objectively and absolutely did not, and nor did it agree that the doctrine of marriage included the assertion that ‘marriage between one man and one woman’ is the ‘proper’ place for sexual intimacy.

    The bishops accepted (including alleged ‘affirming’ bishops) – foolishly, as we told them, time and time again – an amendment that stated that Synod ‘endorse[s] the decision of the College and House of Bishops not to propose any change to the doctrine of marriage, and their intention that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England’. Synod also rejected two further amendments that stated that ‘sexual intercourse as an expression of faithful intimacy belongs within marriage exclusively’ (motion 44) and a motion that required ‘instructions making it clear that [the prayers] should not be used so as to indicate or imply affirmation of sexually active relationships outside Holy Matrimony or to invoke God’s blessing on such relationships’ (motion 68). Synod therefore specifically did not vote for no change on sexual intimacy when presented the opportunity to do so, and nor is there anything in our doctrine that supports the claims made that sexual intimacy and marriage are one and the same thing.

    Whoever drafted, or is ultimately responsible for, the press release and the paper accompanying the Synod motion is attempting to pull wool over the eyes of Synod and the wider church. Throughout the process, we have had long and fruitful conversations about teaching and doctrine, development and refinement, and yet here we are presented with a blunt and dishonest summary.

    Yet why are we surprised? The level of backroom deals, conservative backchannels, central church dishonesty, wink-wink nudge-nudge antics, power-play, poisoning with fear, secret promises, (arch)episcopal grandiosity, and silly letter writing has finally won out. It is now fascinating to see that the sad cabal of bishops who ‘dissented’ ultimately didn’t even want LGBTQIA people to get – nothing at all anyway!

    Well, the bishops should not be allowed to get away with it. The ‘affirming bishops’ need to take a stand, publicly, now. LGBTQIA people have spent quite long enough being the sacrificial lambs on the altar of unity – bishops, find some courage and speak for us, and that right soon. And frankly the ‘oh we don’t really know’ bishops need to recognise that that kind of fence-sitting has never been a Christian virtue, and most certainly is not now. We are real people whose lives are being wrecked by your indecision and refusal to look us in the eye. We carry the image and likeness of God in us, and you are marring God’s image when you slam the door in our faces.

    We have had enough. We have been taken for granted in Synod, and you should know, bishops, that you are no longer guaranteed inclusive votes based on private assurances. You are called to ‘serve and care’ for your whole flock, and that includes us. You are called to have a ‘special care’ for ‘the outcast and those who are in need’, speaking ‘for those who have no other to speak for them’. It is time to do so – and it is time to end this sham once and for all.

    You offered us bread but gave us a stone. You still have time to knead the dough.

     

     

     

     

  • Why Only 1 Diocesan Bishop in the Last 10 Appointments in the Church of England has been a Woman

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

    **updated 28 September 2023**

    Congratulations to Bishop Debbie Sellin, whose appointment as the next Bishop of Peterborough was announced today, and prayers for a fruitful ministry. The Church of England will now have 7 female Diocesan Bishops out of a total of 42 Diocesan Bishops and will have made 8 appointments of women as Diocesan Bishops out of the 29 appointments made since women became eligible as bishops in 2015.

    Congratulations to the Peterborough Vacancy in See Committee which stated, during the discernment process, that it was seeking to appoint someone who ‘wholeheartedly ordains men and women.’ Vacancy in See Committees all need to make clear statements like this, otherwise it may well be assumed in the appointments process that a candidate who does not ordain women or accept women as church leaders is acceptable.

    Congratulations also to Bishop Debbie for being selected, despite the disadvantages that female candidates face when appointments of Diocesan Bishops are made. This un-level playing field is evidenced by the fact that the Church of England has appointed three times more men than women as Diocesan Bishops and, most recently, over five times.

    Let me explain what’s going on. First, when a Diocesan Bishop is to be appointed, a Crown Nominations Committee (CNC) is assembled. This CNC has 14 members comprising: the two Archbishops; 6 members elected from the Diocese concerned; and 6 members from a group of CNC members that have been elected by General Synod to serve in this capacity for a term of five years. Synod elects 6 “pairs” of CNC members for this purpose and, for each appointment, the pair can decide which of them will sit on the particular CNC.

    So far, so good. But three of these “pairs” comprise Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics who do not believe the Church of England has the right to ordain women and/or Conservative Evangelicals who question whether women should be church leaders. This implies that at least 3 out of 14 members of any CNC do not believe that women should be bishops, or even priests. And that is before we take into account the 6 locally elected members of the CNC where there is often representation of those who do not fully accept women’s ministry too.

    When it comes to voting, a candidate needs 10 out of the 14 possible votes of CNC members to be appointed. We don’t know how individual members of the CNCs vote, because they are allowed to do this in secret and are therefore not accountable. Under the process, members can claim verbally to be supportive of certain candidates but then not vote for them in the ballot. Furthermore, if a member abstains that is equivalent to a No – because the candidate still needs 10 votes in their favour. A few years ago, in the Oxford diocese, the CNC had two female candidates and neither were approved because of abstentions. The process had to be repeated, and then a man was appointed.

    9 of the last 11 appointments have been men, including the appointment of one Diocesan bishop who is on the Council of The Society, a network of Anglo-Catholic clergy within the Church of England who do not believe the Church of England has the right to ordain women. For a Church that claims, in its famous Five Guiding Principles, that ‘it is fully and unequivocally committed to all orders of ministry being open equally to all without reference to gender,’ these arrangements seem extraordinary. I can’t help wondering whether the skewed and secretive system, by which Diocesan Bishops – of whom many sit in our House of Lords – are appointed, is actually even legal. While the Church of England has certain exemptions under the Equality Act 2010 to discriminate on grounds of sex, it does not have carte blanche.

    This is a sorry state of affairs, especially given the many episcopal appointments that are due to be made in the next few years. According to a recent survey conducted by The Times, about two thirds of participating clergy want to see the provisions allowing parishes to reject women’s ministry come to an end and over 80% said they would be happy to support a female Archbishop of Canterbury. But, to become Archbishop of Canterbury, candidates are generally expected to be experienced Diocesan bishops first – and, at the moment, only 7 out of 42 are women.

    All this implies that not only is there a long way to go in ridding the Church of discrimination on the grounds of sex but also there is something badly wrong with our governance and, in particular, how minority voices have gained such a lot of power in General Synod. Overwhelmingly, Anglican clergy and laypeople want equality for all people in our Church – but the skewed composition of the bodies that elect our bishops means that many senior clergy do not reflect these views. Furthermore, about 8-9% of bishops are Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics or Conservative Evangelicals, when only 4% of parishes have passed resolutions to restrict women’s ministry. No wonder many frontline clergy and lay people see senior clergy as becoming more and more out of touch.