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Tag: Prayers of Love and Faith

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

  • ‘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.