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  • The End of the Synod: Grieving for Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • All About LLF: the February Synod Debate

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

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

    The motion

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

    That this Synod:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Doing the numbers

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

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

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

    Autumn 2025: stalling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    2026: the waiting game

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

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

    February: voting for further movement

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

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

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

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

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

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

    And now?

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

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

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

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

    Methodological Clarification

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

    Creation, Genesis, and the Shape of Human Life

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

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

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

    Sabbath, Law, and Jesus’s Hermeneutic

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

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

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

    Marriage and the Resurrection

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

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

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

    Creation Read from the End, Not Only from the Beginning

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

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

    Sabbath, Sacrament, and Provisional Holiness

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

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

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

    Discernment and Ecclesial Responsibility

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

    Conclusion

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

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

     

     

    Bibliography

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

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

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

     

     

  • The House of Bishops on Clergy and Same-Sex Marriage – Further Personal Reflections

    by Peter Collier KC, retired Senior Circuit Judge and former Vicar-General of the Province of York

    Further to my recent reflections on the House of Bishops’ October statement on the future use of the Prayers of Love and Faith, I have now also reflected on their statement about the future of clergy and same sex marriage.

    Again, they say they have been influenced by the legal advice they have received and the papers provided by the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC).

    My reflections, as one who until not so long ago was engaged in the practice of the law, begin in a different place. I begin by looking at what marriage is generally seen to be in cultures across the world and then consider how, in England, the relationship between Church and State has played out over the centuries in changing attitudes to marriage in both Church and State.

    Family, Household, Marriage and Law

    I am no anthropologist, but as I understand it the basic units from which societies have been formed are tribe, and family. In most cultures there is a social group that broadly accords with what we would describe as the family. The core may be two people or, in cultures recognising polygamy or polyandry, more than two people. In some cultures, the wider household grouping plays a significant role.

    It is usually in the context of such groupings that children are born and brought up. The core couple relationship in such groups is commonly called a “marriage”.  How a “marriage” takes place, with what degrees of social customs, or required formalities, varies from society to society. Many of us will have had some exposure to different customs through attending Muslim or Sikh weddings in this country.

    As societies become more complex and sophisticated, the regulation of any particular society through a system of law will inevitably develop. The law may require preliminaries and formalities if a marriage is to be recognised as such, and to regulate both initiating and ending such a relationship.

    More complex societies will accord different consequences as a result of a marriage being recognised, treating the two (or more) people as a unit to be dealt with differently from those same people as individuals. This can have an impact on taxes required to be paid or on monetary or other benefits that the state may provide. In our society there is also a significant amount of law about the place of children and how they are to be dealt with if a marriage breaks down.

    As a young Christian, I was taught that marriage is a creation ordinance – it was God’s intention that people would find a helpmeet with whom they would share their life and they would together bring up children. And so this unit has always been the bedrock of a society. Of course, that has traditionally been interpreted as showing that marriage is between a man and a woman and only between a man and a woman. But additionally Genesis can be said to speak of permanence and in Matt 19 we have Jesus using the Genesis phraseology when asked about adultery. That led to the Matthean exception about which volumes have been written; and we will come to remarriage after divorce in due course. I would add that the church that taught me about creation ordinances also taught me that the world was made in 7 days; an article I wrote in the school 6th Form magazine (in 1965) advancing that cause led  my Headmaster to write on my report that term: “his Philistine attitude to science will be recorded on his UCCA form”.

    Since then, I have learned how to accommodate my interpretation of the Genesis account of creation to a growing understanding of what science shows us. Similarly, I have learned how to accommodate my understanding of what the Bible teaches about marriage, based not only on what science has shown us, but also and perhaps more significantly from getting to know some same sex couples and seeing the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. As my wife often reminds me, just as in our encounters with Christ, “conversion is in the meeting”.

    Whose Law?

    Throughout much of Europe, and in this country for nigh on a thousand years, the way marriages were initiated and thereafter controlled was governed exclusively by the Church. As the Christian church developed so did its Canon law through various synods and councils. In relation to marriage, perhaps the most significant of those was the 4th Lateran Council (1215). Its published Canons about marriage included Canon 50, prohibiting marriage in the 2nd and 3rd degrees of affinity, and Canon 51, forbidding clandestine marriages and priests witnessing such marriages, and providing that all marriages must be announced publicly by the priest in church so that legitimate impediments might be made known and the priest could investigate whether any impediment existed. That same duty and very similar phraseology remain in our own Canons today, over eight hundred years later – see Canon B33 (Of the duty of the minister to inquire as to impediments).

    The Church was able to impose its view of marriage – what it was and how it was to be solemnised and regulated – on the whole of English society. Consequently, for several hundred years the church and the state views about marriage were one and the same. Church courts had exclusive jurisdiction in enforcing the Church’s view of marriage. It was therefore the Canon law that was applied in all circumstances. It was only in church and in accordance with the rites and ceremonies of the church that anyone could enter into a marriage in England.

    The theology of marriage as understood by the reformers is set out in the introduction to the ‘Form of Solemnization of Matrimony’ in the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) – a man and woman come together in the sight of God and the face of the congregation to be joined in holy Matrimony; they declare (by their silence) that there is no impediment to their marriage; they then make various vows of lifelong commitment to one another; they are then blessed. In medieval times the making of vows had often happened in the churchyard or in the entrance to the church and the couple then came into the church for the blessing.

    However, there is nothing in the 39 Articles about marriage, apart from it being lawful for bishops, priests and deacons to marry (Art 32).  The wording of Art 32 is very interesting: “… therefore it is lawful for them … to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness”. I think that many who are wanting to enter into a same-sex marriage would claim those words for themselves. The Canons of 1603/4 had no statement about what Holy Matrimony was, just details about its preliminaries, and the permitted place and time of marriage (Art 42); who can grant licences to marry, and other details about licences (Arts 101, 102 & 103); and finally various provisions about divorce (Arts 105,106 & 107).

    Recognition of marriages

    It is perhaps reasonably well known that how countries deal with other countries’ systems of marriage forms a very complex area of law; not all forms of foreign marriage are recognised in this country as valid. Currently, the government is considering how to enable humanist weddings, and those performed in accordance with other religious traditions such as Islam, to be equally recognised as those carried out in accordance with English law.

    But what is perhaps not quite so well-known is the origin of that non-recognition of forms of marriage other than those carried out in accordance with the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England. There were exceptions for Jews and Quakers, provided it could be proved that the marriage had been carried out according to the practices of either of those two distinct groups. However, the theological (and therefore the legal) position was that a couple were not married by a priest, but they married each other by the exchange of promises. The priest’s role was to register and to bless the marriage.

    So, there grew up the practice of “clandestine marriages”. These were marriages conducted secretly without following the legal formalities required. In England that meant they had not gone through any of the necessary Canonical preliminaries and had not been performed in accordance with the BCP service for the solemnisation of Matrimony. They were sometimes referred to as Fleet Marriages as many of them were conducted in the Fleet Prison or nearby. By 1740 it is estimated that half of London weddings took place there. Such marriages were often witnessed by a priest.

    The beginning of state intervention

    With the intention of bringing the practice of such unsatisfactory marriages to an end, the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753 (Lord Hardwicke’s Act) was passed. It put all English Canon Law about weddings on to a statutory basis. It made invalid all marriages that were not performed in accordance with its provisions, unless performed according to Jewish or Quaker rites. So, those apart, a marriage had to be carried out in church after the publication of banns, or the obtaining of a licence from the ecclesiastical authorities (i.e. in accordance with the Canons). This Act was significant because it was the first time that the state law makers made laws about marriage, even if the law they made was simply adopting the church law.

    With the growth of non-conformity, members of other religious denominations and groups also wished to be able to be married other than in and by the Church of England. In particular, Unitarians were very unhappy about the Trinitarian language of the marriage service. This was eventually resolved by the Marriage Act 1836. I have referred to this in my earlier paper and noted the Bishop of Exeter’s distress at this invention of “civil marriage”. I also referred there to the removal of any religious service from civil weddings in Register Offices in 1856, bringing about the difference between religious and secular marriages.

     Some other state-led changes in our attitude towards marriage

    The relationship of a husband and wife within a marriage was again shaped by the ecclesiastical law which was based on scripture, as then understood. Some of that understanding remains to some extent among those who hold to “complementarian headship principles”.

    The tradition developed that a woman was given by her father to her husband – passing from the control of one man to the control of another. For a long time, a married woman had no right to own her own property and on marriage her husband gained control of all her property. That did not change until parliament intervened and the Married Women’s Property Acts of 1870 and 1882 gradually gave married women the right to own property, wages and investments separately from their husbands, and eventually to enter into contracts and lawsuits in their own names.

    Another ecclesiastical court action was for the restitution of conjugal rights. It was transferred to the court for Divorce and Matrimonial Causes when that was created at the end of the 19th century.  By such an action, founded on Paul’s argument set out in 1 Cor 7, a spouse whose partner had left them and was living away from them could obtain an order that they be required to resume cohabitation. This was not abolished until the Matrimonial Proceedings and Property Act 1970 came into force.

    The 1991 case of R v R [1991] UKHL 12 is a landmark UK House of Lords ruling that made marital rape a crime by overturning the centuries-old legal exemption for husbands raping their wives. The court’s decision established that a husband can be convicted of rape, thus dismantling the legal principle that a wife’s consent to sexual intercourse became irrevocable upon marriage.

    More recent changes – (i) Civil Partnerships

    A more recent and significant change has been the introduction of Civil Partnerships in 2004. This did not change marriage but introduced a new state-recognised relationship alongside marriage. If two people (who initially had to be of the same sex, but since 2019 can be of the opposite sex) register such a partnership in front of a registrar and two witnesses, they are accorded almost all the same rights and responsibilities as if they were married. The few that do not carry over have no particular significance from a religious perspective, being chiefly around survivor benefits in occupational health schemes. Many people regarded this as introducing same-sex marriage in all but name.

    Civil partnerships proved very successful. By 2014 there had been 60,000 partnerships registered, three times as many as the government had anticipated when introducing them. For some they were preferable to marriage as they carried none of the stains of patriarchal marriage traditions. But for others they continued the stigma associated with gay relationships. Such Civil unions, as contrasted with marriage, are also available in many other European and former Commonwealth countries.

    All that can be said about what a civil partnership is that it is the registration of a legal relationship between two people that produces a number of rights and responsibilities for them. There is no reference anywhere to what the relationship of the partners involves or does not involve behaviourally, particularly in the realm of sexual intimacy. Because it is silent in this area, the Bishops found it difficult to say that couples, including a couple where one was a cleric, should not enter such a partnership as there was nothing about it that was inconsistent with an exemplary way of life as per the Canons.

    But it has been the practice that if someone who presented for ordination was in such a partnership they were asked (by some, but not all, bishops) to confirm that they accepted the church’s teaching in relation to matters sexual. It used to be the case that the document “Issues in Human Sexuality” was referred to in that context, but that has now been withdrawn and potential ordinands as an interim measure are to be asked to confirm that they will live consistently with the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy. That document at para 10.2 states “The House of Bishops’ Marriage: A Teaching Document (1999) clearly affirms, ‘Sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively.’” Further pastoral guidance on this issue has been promised and is awaited.

    More recent changes – (ii) Same-sex marriage

    It was the pressure for real equality rather than a civil partnership (which could potentially be seen as a second-class relationship) that led to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. This introduced same-sex marriage. Nearly 40 other countries make same-sex marriage available. Between March 2014 and the end of 2022, 55,613 same-sex marriages were registered in the UK. In 2022, 7,800 same-sex marriages were registered, 4,896 being female couples and 2,904 male couples.

    It might be asked why a same-sex couple, perhaps already in a civil partnership, would want to convert it, as they can, to a same-sex marriage (note that you cannot convert a heterosexual civil partnership into a heterosexual marriage). The answer is perhaps because it has more of a sense of commitment, perhaps associated with the traditional attitude to and words around marriage ceremonies. The socialisation of marriage, which we learn about from the cradle onwards, would seem to carry a lot of weight.

    In a civil partnership, you apply to register it and do so before the registrar, but no words are spoken, no promises are made or exchanged. If you have a same-sex marriage then the same words are used as in a heterosexual marriage, where each person says that there is no impediment / reason in law why they should not marry and that they (call upon those present to witness that they) take the other to be their lawful wedded husband / wife. So there is a level of contracted commitment (about which more later) that is not present in a civil partnership. But it is obvious that those words fall far short of the exchange of vows made in a church service.

    The government recognised that some religious organisations hold a different view of marriage. The fact sheet published by the government in April 2014 said: “Many religious organisations believe that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and the Act explicitly recognises this. The civil understanding of marriage has always been broader than that of many religious organisations. Marriage has evolved over the years, for example to enable Catholics, atheists, Baptists and many others to marry outside the Anglican Church, and to recognise married women as equal to married men before the law.”

    There are however some interesting features of the legislation in relation to matters of sexual intimacy. Unlike in opposite-sex marriages, non-consummation is not a ground for voiding a same-sex marriage. Furthermore, you can only bring a divorce relying on adultery if the offending partner has had sex with a person of the opposite sex. I am uncertain what to make of these matters, but it does seem to me to raise the question as to whether there is any underlying assumption, in either a same-sex civil marriage or in a same-sex civil partnership, that there must be sexual intimacy. Clearly, although it is possible for a same-sex couple to adopt a child or for one of a female couple to bear a child, the underlying assumption about procreation (the first of the Augustinian “goods”, as spelled out in the BCP introduction to the service) is simply not there as it would be in an opposite-sex marriage.

    The modern contract of marriage – as seen by the state

    A well-known legal definition of marriage was provided by Lord Penzance in the case of Hyde v Hyde  [L.R.] 1 P. & D. 130, decided in 1866. He defines marriage as understood in Christendom and in English law as: “the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others”.

    The case itself is very instructive. Hyde was an Englishman who had converted to Mormonism. He met a young woman, also a Mormon, and in due course they went to Utah where they were married by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. The male petitioner later renounced the Mormon faith but she did not. They separated and he returned to the UK. She then married again. Again her marriage was according to the Mormon form. The man then sued in England for divorce on the grounds of her adultery. The court refused his petition on the basis that it did not recognise his Mormon “marriage” as a marriage. The reason was that the marriage in Utah was potentially polygamous and English courts cannot recognise polygamous marriages. Lord Penzance, the judge, also said in that case, “Different incidents of minor importance attach to the contract of marriage in different countries in Christendom, but in all countries in Christendom the parties to that contract agree to cohabit with each other alone. It is inconsistent with marriage as understood in Christendom, that the husband should have more than one wife.”

    Lord Penzance’s definition of “the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others” has come under some criticism in recent years. Rebecca Probert in Child and Family Law Quarterly, Vol 19, No 2, 2007 said that a new definition was needed.

    The President of the Family Division had in fact provided such a definition in the case of Bellinger v Bellinger [2001] EWCA Civ 1140 [2002] Fam 150; [2002] 2 WLR 411.2005.

    In that case the issue was the validity of a marriage contracted between the appellant (born a man but who had undergone transgender surgery) and the respondent (a man). There were a number of arguments to be addressed, one of which was that “The relationship called marriage is and always has been recognised as the union of a man and woman.” (para 124).

    Thorpe P quoted the above passage from Hyde v Hyde and said at para 128:

    “But the world that engendered those classic definitions has long since gone. We live in a multi-racial, multi-faith society. The intervening 130 years have seen huge social and scientific changes. Adults live longer, infant mortality has been largely conquered, effective contraception is available to men and women as is sterilisation for men and women within marriage. Illegitimacy with its stigma has been legislated away: gone is any social condemnation of cohabitation in advance of or in place of marriage. Then marriage was terminated by death: for the vast majority of the population divorce was not an option. For those within whose reach it lay, it carried a considerable social stigma that did not evaporate until relatively recent times. Now more marriages are terminated by divorce than death. Divorce could be said without undue cynicism to be available on demand. These last changes are all reflected in the statistics establishing the relative decline in marriage and consequentially in the number of children born within marriage. Marriage has become a state into which and from which people choose to enter and exit. Thus I would now redefine marriage as a contract for which the parties elect but which is regulated by the state, both in its formation and in its termination by divorce, because it affects status upon which depend a variety of entitlements, benefits and obligations.”

    That judgment was given before the introduction of civil partnerships and same-sex marriage. It now needs to be updated to refer to and include those in its modern definition of what is meant by marriage in the law of England and Wales.

    The advice from FAOC seems to me to be provided almost as if we were still in a position where they believe that the Church is shaping the law of marriage for England and Wales, as it did in the 18th century. It does not grapple with any of the issues created by the evolutionary development of marriage law by the state which I have been describing, nor with how the church responds to the external realities with which it is confronted. It is very much speaking within its own bubble.

    As we have seen in relation to marriages in other denominations, before 1836 not everything that purported to be marriage was recognised by the church as such. And, whilst the church ran the show, the state went along with its views. Little by little the state asserted itself and the two views diverged. The 2013 Act recognised that the Church has a different view about marriage from that which is now the official state position.

    The current contract of marriage is very far removed from the contract underlying the BCP service with its threefold Augustinian goods of procreation, faithfulness and permanence.

    It also seems to be the case that entering into a contract of marriage adds hardly anything to the registration of a civil partnership, other than at an emotional level.

    In those circumstances, and having regard to the absence of any reference to, let alone requirement for, sexual intimacy in a same-sex marriage, and having said that entering a civil partnership is not of itself inconsistent with leading an exemplary life, it seems to me that there is no good reason why the Bishops should not say that entering into such a “marriage” is also not in and of itself an ecclesiastical offence.

    Legal advice to the House

    I turn now to the legal advice tendered to the bishops on this topic. The Advice tells us that the Chief Legal Adviser to the Archbishops’ Council and the General Synod was asked “to consider two specific possibilities for legislative change to accommodate clergy who enter into same-sex (civil) marriages.”  Those two possibilities were (i) changing Canon B 30 and (ii) the creation of a power to grant a canonical dispensation to individual clergy that would permit them to be civilly married to a person of the same sex.

    Changing Canon B 30 (Of Holy Matrimony)

    It is noted that General Synod has previously resolved that current doctrine should not be departed from and so this route is not considered in any detail. It is however said that it would require more than a change in the Canons, because the doctrine is set out in other places also. This means that it would require a Measure to carry out further changes. Although it would be Article 7 business, it would only require a simple majority vote (presumably in each House) to carry that change into law.

    Canonical Dispensation

    The other option considered is granting a canonical dispensation. The similarity is drawn with the Canon C 4.5 process whereby faculties are granted to allow the ordination of those who have remarried whilst their former spouse is still alive. The Chief Legal Adviser considers whether there could be a similar faculty to allow an ordinand or cleric to be civilly married to a person of the same sex.

    He draws a distinction between that option and Canon C 4.5 on the basis that, when that was permitted, it was on the basis that when B 30 speaks about marriage being “in its nature a union permanent and lifelong” those words encompassed a marriage that was “entered into with the intention that it be permanent and lifelong (my italics)”. Thus, the legal advice at the time said that matters could proceed along the proposed route without compromising the church’s doctrine of marriage. I have always found that to be a rather specious piece of “special pleading” and a convenient way round the difficulty created by the doctrine as traditionally espoused. When the Measure was before Parliament assurances were given that this approach would be exceptional and only granted in exceptional circumstances. But it is certainly no longer the case that these situations can be seen as “exceptional circumstances”. Between 1993 and 2023, 2449 such faculties were granted; and it is estimated that one in six ordinations now follows the grant of such a faculty. And it is also the case that a number of clergy still refuse to remarry those who are divorced as they regard the vow as absolute and not conditional on best intention.

    As is well known, the Roman Catholic church does not recognise divorce, viewing marriage as a lifelong and indissoluble covenant. A civil divorce does not end the marriage in the church’s eyes and a divorced Catholic who remarries without an annulment is not permitted to receive communion. Their way round this is for the church’s marriage tribunal to grant annulments, i.e. saying that the marriage never really existed as a real marriage in the first place.

    But the advice to the Bishops goes further and says that powers of canonical dispensation “do not permit the doing of things which are contrary to the Church’s doctrine; they permit doing things which are not normally permitted as being contrary to good order or that otherwise require regulation. To provide for a power of dispensation to permit the doing of something that was contrary to doctrine would be a novel departure in the canon law of the Church of England.”

    Some historical canonical dispensations

    That last statement seems to me to pass over what happened in the nineteenth century amid all the controversies over ritualistic practices. The church was as divided then over ritualistic issues as it is now over sexuality issues. Again the law was clear and many of the matters in dispute were doctrinal. There were prosecutions of those who breached the law, some priests going to prison for the sake of their consciences. In 1881, the bishops in the Upper House of the Convocation for Canterbury reached a decision together that they would no longer prosecute people for breaching various rules of liturgical practice. This followed a decision of the House of Lords in a case against the Bishop of Oxford seeking to compel him to issue proceedings when a complaint was laid about unlawful practices, when it was held that his approach could not be criticised. Such dispensations granted by the bishops permitted the continued breaking of the ecclesiastical law.

    And that was not the only occasion when the bishops, for the sake of the good of the church as a whole, decided to act outside the law. The efforts to overcome the ritualism controversies led to the production of revised Prayer Books in 1927 and 1928. These were twice rejected by Parliament. Notwithstanding that, Convocation resolved to press on with its use. Bishop Hensley Henson said that bishops “found themselves compelled to act outside the law because the aid of the law, which was indispensable to the healthy progress of the church, had been refused to them.”

    A possible way forward

    This would seem to be a more accurate reflection of the law of dispensation (or “economy” as it is known in the Eastern church). Of course it is always easier to allow an episcopal dispensation if there is authority for doing so. And so the introduction of some form of canonical authority would undoubtedly be of assistance to bishops generally in this regard. This would be achieved by amending the Canons, which requires a simple majority (although I would expect there to be a vote by Houses and so a majority in each House would be required).

    One approach might be to add to Canon C 26 (On the manner of life of clerks in Holy Orders) a further paragraph at C 26.3 which might read as follows:

    The fact that a deacon or priest has entered into a same-sex civil marriage by virtue of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013, shall not in and of itself be regarded as indicating a life other than one that is a wholesome example and pattern to the flock of Christ.

    A similar provision could also be added to Canon C 4 (Of the quality of such as are to be ordained deacons or priests):

    No person shall be refused ordination as a deacon or priest solely on the ground that they have entered into a same-sex civil partnership of same-sex marriage by virtue of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013.

    It may be that there will be other and better ways of phrasing such dispensatory provision in the Canons, but I offer this as a starting point for moving forwards.

    Those who would wish to argue against this, as I know some will, have really got to grasp two things. First, the absence of any assumptions about sexual intimacy in same-sex marriages. Second, given that the society in which we live has redefined what it means by marriage, how do we as a church relate to those who have entered into civil marriages, whether same-sex or opposite-sex, which are now both very different forms of social contract from that of Holy Matrimony as set out in the BCP? These are two quite different contracts, and it will not do to rely on the fact that the section 1(3) of the 2013 Act preserved the church’s different understanding of what a marriage is, without working out what the consequences of that different understanding mean in practical terms.

     

  • A Question of Conscience

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

    Standing at the font, I smiled at the scene unfolding in front of me. A happily gurgling baby and his two proud parents, surrounded by his new godparents and family and friends, talking and laughing and taking photos. When they had arrived for the Christening, this little lad’s parents had been somewhat nervous, clearly unsure about being in church and whether they and their guests were really welcome. Of course I had done my best to put them at their ease, and it had gone so well (if I say so myself) that now, as they called me over for a photo with the church’s newest member, I found myself thinking “oh crumbs, I do hope they’re not going to ask me to marry them.”

    But hang on – isn’t that a bit of an odd thing for a priest to think? Aren’t we supposed to want people to have such a good experience of church that they want to come back to mark the most significant moments of their lives in the presence of God?

    This has all the makings of a future good news case study for the diocesan website, surely. A couple bring a child for baptism, unsure if church is really for them, and are so warmly welcomed that they decide to get married in church too. Maybe they start exploring questions about faith during the marriage prep course. Maybe they start coming on a Sunday, or bringing their little one to Messy Church. Maybe one or both of them goes on to be confirmed.  Maybe in 5 years they’re on all the rotas and the PCC. Maybe in 10 years this is the story one of them tells at a selection conference for ordination. Maybe… It’s a situation which has potential, anyway.

    So why was I, against all my better instincts, hoping that this couple would not ask me to marry them? Quite simply, because they are both women. And while nothing would give me greater joy than to declare them wife and wife in the sight of God, whose love shines through their relationship on even a brief acquaintance, as a priest in the Church of England I am not permitted to do so. Which means that, every time a same-sex couple asks me to marry them (which, as an ‘out’ lesbian priest, happens not infrequently) I have to act against my conscience.

    In saying ‘no’ – and of course I say it as sensitively and pastorally as possible, but really there is no good way to say ‘no’ to someone’s most cherished and life-giving relationship – I am also, I believe, acting against the best interests of that couple, and of the church, which could be so richly blessed by their presence.

    To act against my conscience, against my understanding of God’s calling both on my life and the life of the couple coming to ask for marriage, against the good of that couple and of the church, is painful. It is a form of moral injury. And done repeatedly, it takes a toll which is spiritual, emotional and physical.

    A great deal has been written and spoken during the LLF process about conscience. The House of Bishops is keen (and rightly so) that no clergy should be forced against their conscience to use the Prayers of Love and Faith, and has offered repeated assurances on this point. However, while much has been made of the consciences of those who believe the PLF go too far, little if any consideration seems to have been given to the consciences of those of us who think the PLF go nowhere near far enough. It is almost as if the House of Bishops doesn’t really believe we have a conscience that is worth considering.

    But we do have a conscience. And we act against it, frequently and painfully, in obedience to the discipline of the church which we have promised to uphold. The cost of acting against our conscience is high, and it is largely unacknowledged.

    Is it too much to ask that, just as the consciences of our colleagues with more conservative views on sexuality is respected, our conscience should be respected too? Apparently it is, if the most recent House of Bishops’ statement on LLF is anything to go by.

    There is no acknowledgement in this statement, and I don’t believe there has been in any of its predecessors, that all over the country hundreds of clergy are already required to act against our conscience, regarding the church’s response to same-sex relationships. Many of us continue to do so, doing our best to serve faithfully within a church which shows startlingly little consideration for our conscience, our integrity, or really our very humanity. Many others have found the cognitive, emotional and spiritual dissonance too great, and have left – either for another province, another denomination, or another path in life altogether. Their going is an enormous loss to the church yet, like the conscience of those of us who stay, has gone almost entirely unacknowledged.

    One of the greatest lies of the LLF process – and there have been many – is that we all approach it on equal terms, with equal power, equal stakes, and equal voices. That is not, and has never been, true.

    That inequality is nowhere more evident than in how our consciences are (dis)regarded.

    For those espousing a conservative position on same-sex relationships, their consciences are named as worth regarding, and assurances given that they will be protected. And when their conscience prompts them to say that they will leave if particular steps are taken, that is weighed as a significant factor in the decision-making of the church. Their consciences are treated as significant.

    For those espousing a progressive position on same-sex relationships, our conscience is not acknowledged: neither the fact that we are currently required to act against it, nor the fact that many of our siblings in Christ have been prompted by conscience to leave a church unwilling to affirm the lives and loves of LGBTQ+ people. Our consciences are treated as insignificant.

    There is a fundamental asymmetry here which has underpinned and undermined the entire LLF process. This has been explored before on this blog by Giles Goddard, in the first of a series of articles on the subject of conscience published here a couple of years ago but which remain as relevant as ever. Until that asymmetry of conscience is acknowledged and addressed, it is hard to see what progress can be made. When the conscience of some is elevated above the conscience of others, and implicitly with it the humanity, discipleship and vocation of some above that of others, that will never be a basis for good theology, nor for a just and faithful ordering of the life of the church.

  • Consensus, Compassion, Truth, and Grace

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

    In every political fight, not least those within the church, it is a good idea – every so often – to take a step back, and ask some questions about the landscape we now find ourselves in. Even those calling for ‘more theology’ in the glacial LLF process admit, at least privately, that this is more a political than a theological fight. That’s not to say that there aren’t firmly held theological views influencing our debates, but it is to say that it is clear that it is not on the grounds of theology that the outcome of LLF will be decided. There are two broad strands within the church that have come to theologically divergent conclusions on the goodness, or otherwise, of same-sex, same-gender relationships. In doing so, they have come to theologically divergent conclusions on Christian anthropology, and many other things beside. This is about sex, certainly, but it’s about much more than that – the ethical questions are deeper and wider, and often end up in theological divergence on the nature of God, rather than of God’s creatures.

    It’s good, I think, that we have named that: but naming it doesn’t solve the problem. Those on different sides of the ‘debate’ are not being difficult when they refuse to agree with the other, and nor are they being – in the main – dishonest. Neither, let us be clear, does one ‘side’ have the monopoly on good Christian theology. There remains, of course, spurious talk of there being swathes of the Church of England who ‘haven’t made their mind up’, but there is precious little evidence of such people, because the question is not so much ‘would you bless these people’ but rather ‘would you let someone else bless them, even if you might, in good conscience, not do it yourself’? That is the political reality we find ourselves in, and it is the key question. I am yet to find someone who doesn’t have an answer one way or the other, whatever the genesis of their answer, and however unclear that person might be on the underlying anthropological questions that arise. The reason for that is because we are ultimately at a binary choice, and that is why this issue has turned to politics and away from the idea of shared discernment. There is now a choice that needs to be made.

    Once again, in private if not publicly, most people are agreed that there is now a moderate majority – perhaps more than moderate – in the pews, and amongst the clergy of the Church of England, in favour of blessing same sex couples (and allowing clergy to marry their same-sex partner) at the very least, and probably a majority in favour of marriage in church. We know that, in autumn 2023, the College of Bishops supported enabling clergy to enter same-sex civil marriages, and that there was an indicative vote in the House of Bishops with the same result. In the General Synod, it is clear by a basic review of the numbers that there is a narrow majority in favour of blessings and clergy marriage. In other words, views have shifted on this, and the current teaching and practice of the Church of England no longer reflects what the majority believe and wish for. The majorities are indeed quite narrow (and goodness knows, if they’d gone the other way, they’d be lauded as clear and decisive), but then everybody knows that the General Synod (because of how it is elected and formulated) is not representative of the wider opinion in the Church of England, tending towards what is often described as consensus. Yet this consensus is really created through ensuring that the different ‘camps’ of people in the Church of England get represented on the General Synod, with minority perspectives overrepresented by design.

    I cannot be the only person to feel a bit fed up with the political games. I’m bored of them – they make me angry, they make me intemperate, and they make me frustrated at the way the church corporate behaves. I get particularly angry when I sit in a room, Zoom or otherwise, and political point scoring is the endless currency, at the expense of LGBTQIA people, who are frequently conspicuous by their absence. We remain a thing – an issue. There are speeches in General Synod rejoicing at the frustration of the progress to give us the crumbs under the table. We are expected to absorb this, whilst those who could be our allies tell us to have cooler heads and do very little to use their power and influence to support us in case it makes difficulties for them. Yet, as with every group facing structural and systemic oppression, that is our lot – one need not look too far to see similar dynamics at play in other vexed ecclesiological questions.

    Yet whilst there is a place for anger, there is also a place for calmly interrogating the assumptions that underlie our current impasse, and I’d like to take a moment to do that in relation to consensus. This is the new word of the moment – and I am willing, at least for now, to suspend judgement and imagine that those calling for it are speaking out of a place of genuine concern and not political manipulation (although, not being naïve, I must admit to being sceptical).

    The argument goes like this: decisions on LLF are very significant, and are splitting the church. We need to reach consensus on this, meaning – in Synodical arithmetic – getting to two-thirds majorities, the use of Canon B2, and so on, because unless we do the church will split. This is just too important to rely on slim majorities.

    Now, leaving aside the reality that a slim majority in General Synod represents a significantly less slim majority in the wider church, let’s just think for a moment about what is being said here. Firstly, the suggestion is that if such a consensus view was reached (at two thirds of Synod, for example), then the threats of schism would dissipate. There is no evidence that this is the case. Secondly, the suggestion is that the majority view should be overruled by the minority until consensus is reached. It is not at all clear why this should be the case, not least given that the suggestion is not that all must change practice but rather that pastoral accommodation be made that would enable those who would like to, to do so. If we were talking about a ‘must’ and not a ‘may’ situation, the argument might hold more water. But we’re not – we’re talking about enabling a clear difference in theological belief to be embodied through an extremely modest change in practice.

    Thirdly, and perhaps more importantly, we are being asked to accept as a fait accompli that schism will come, that the ‘church will split’, without interrogating that claim for a moment. Who precisely is making that claim, and why? On whose terms is this debate being held? If we might resituate it for a moment, we are being pressurised to accept that the anti-LLF minority’s view is inevitable – that it simply logically follows that schism will come if particular demands aren’t met, and this is controlling – through fear – the actions of our decision-makers. It is time for us to name that and stop accepting the inevitability of such a choice – for a choice it is. This is about red lines, and because of that it is ultimately about holding the majority to ransom. Recognising that rather changes the dynamics.

    Which brings me back to the reality of our current situation.

    Those arguing for no change on the basis of needing a consensus seem not to realise – or care – the strain that this is taking on LGBTQIA faithful Christians. I want to imagine that it is the former, and that this is a failure of imagination and not compassion, but having sat in enough meetings, I don’t think the sheer cost of this for LGBTQIA people is remotely recognised, or, frankly, that we matter to many of those who still see this as ‘an issue’. Compassion requires you to ‘suffer with’, and there is precious little evidence of that. At the same time, there are potential ordinands desperate to offer themselves to the church in service who are being banned from doing so, and faithful priests who have lost their ministries for following their hearts. There are queer couples to whom we can still not offer even basic sacramental provision. Every time there is even a gentle move forwards, we are faced with a barrage of passive aggression and made to feel like we are the problem.

    But we’re not the problem, and we are asking for crumbs.

    As we look towards final decisions being made, it is incumbent upon us all to tell the truth, and for our bishops – who are scared by the constant threats – to recognise that it is not to the rich and powerful, not to those who withhold parish share and make demands, that they most owe their allegiance, as followers of the crucified Lord.  It is to those who ask for a cup of water, and who are still refused. It’s hard work to push back against powerful narratives, but it is incumbent upon anyone in Christian leadership to seek and speak the truth, with grace. Time will tell if we are willing to do that, together. Yet let us not forget that the God who knows the secrets of our hearts is the God who will call us all to account.

  • Marriage and the Bible: It’s Complicated

    A Response to the Part Report of the Episcopal Reference Group on the Doctrine of Marriage

    by Johanna Stiebert, Professor of Hebrew Bible (University of Leeds) and co-director of The Shiloh Project

    I have been married for twenty years and have co-authored a book on marriage – but I am still awestruck at the sheer amount of preoccupation and nitty-gritty theological advice on marriage that is to be found in “A Part Report of the Episcopal Reference Group of the Faith and Order Commission: Living in Love and Faith and the Doctrine of Marriage, February 2025.”

    This interim report condenses a great deal of information into nine theses. Still, it is 16 pages long and refers and links to yet another 316-page (!) document, which is also in a state of ongoing development, namely “The Church of England’s Doctrine of Marriage: A Compendium of Sources.” Say what you like: there is no shortage of effort, consultation, discussion, or verbosity on display here.[1]

    The upshot of this word-mass, however, is, ultimately, rather underwhelming: it can be summarised as “regarding marriage, there has been continuity over a long period of time and there has been change, too. Some change has been accepted, other change has been considered, resisted and rejected.” This is not especially enlightening as far as upshots go.

    While it is admirable and important to listen and to talk about human relationships and marriage, has this exercise really been productive? Is there appetite for getting serious about inclusion? And, for all the extensive and ongoing consultation and discussion, is there still “stuff” that has not been discussed, or discussed openly, frankly, and fully enough?

    Let me, an ongoing studier of the Hebrew Bible, give my own responses in the form of nine theses – adding yet more verbiage on the matter!

    1. First, the sheer amount of ink spilled might imply that the Bible (the main source of authoritative reference for Christians) refers to “marriage” in ways copious and clear. Not so. In the Hebrew Bible (the by far larger part of the biblical canon), there is not even a word that captures English “marriage.” Instead, there is – usually rather fleeting – reference to men “taking” or “lying with” or “going in to” women. There is little about, let alone clarity concerning, marriage ritual or ceremony (i.e. weddings), or anything much either descriptive or prescriptive – that is, about what “being married” is or should be. There is nothing about marriageable age, very little that suggests consent, and consequently, very little evidence for what might pass as a “stable core to the doctrine of marriage” (p.5). It is important to be frank about what is not there in the Bible.
    1. Second, what is there, or what can be puzzled together about unions between men and women (Thesis 1), is often acutely violent. Men take women[2] following wars (e.g. Deuteronomy 21:10-14 and Judges 21:10-12, 20-23). If this is marriage, it is also rape, rather than “sexual intimacy” or “friendship” (Theses 6-7). In the Hebrew Bible husbands also get a pass for accusing their wives[3] of infidelity, in the absence of proof, and for submitting them to what looks like a gruelling public humiliation (Numbers 5:11-31). Surely, this kind of conduct in marriage would not pass as “honourable” (Thesis 3); this kind of conduct, while prescribed in the Bible, should be resisted and should fall into the category of “a need for change that has been accepted.”[4] There is blatant association in the Bible between violence and marriage. This needs to be acknowledged and resisted. 
    1. Third, marriage is idealised as “a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church” (Thesis 4), and as “God’s explicit sanction and endorsement as a holy vocation and whole-life calling in which to serve God and neighbour, not only in creation but in the Christian dispensation also” (p.8). It is good to be aspirational and to go into a relationship, especially one aimed at joining families and raising children (Thesis 5), with resolve to be friends and loyal (Theses 7 and 9). A text like Ephesians 5:21-33, as much as it clearly suggests hierarchy in marriage (vv.23-24), and as much as this text more than any other is cited by Christian abusers in cases of spousal violence, could be made right: a Christ-like husband is not abusive but loves his wife; obedience to a Christ-like husband does not involve submission to domestic violence; marriage constitutes mutual reverence.

    Most folk, however, as much as we might aspire to high ideals, such as “permanent and lifelong” (Thesis 9) union reflecting Christ’s relationship with the Church (Thesis 4), fall short. Any one person is complicated, and two people together long-term, against the backdrop of life, with its invariable serpentines and complexities, are yet more complicated still. Many of the ideals expressed by Jesus – parting with all our wealth (Matthew 19:21), loving our enemies (Matthew 5:43-48) – are noble and wonderful but nigh to impossible to live out. This pertains to ideals of marriage, too. How many among us who are married have never committed adultery, if we include there adultery in thought or in fantasy (Matthew 5:27-29)? Indeed, existing research strongly suggests that Christian marriages are as likely to end in divorce or to feature domestic violence and abuse as marriages in the general, non-Christian population: high ideals or norms do not transpire reliably in high (or even higher) conduct. Frank acknowledgement that the report idealises Christian marriage would be welcome.

    1. Fourth: several of the theses allude to the early chapters of Genesis – most notably, Thesis 1, with its reference to one man, one woman, and one flesh, but also Thesis 2, with its reference to marriage being a “gift in creation,” and (to a lesser extent) Theses 5 and 6, which refer to children (cf. Genesis 1:28) and sexual intimacy (cf. Genesis 2:24). The report asserts that what is prescribed is “specifically exclusive, monogamous marriage that was given in creation, such that other forms of marriage – several of which are contained in the Old Testament – are a falling short of or twisting of God’s original design and good gift” (p.6).[5]

    I, for one, find it rather extraordinary and bizarre that the early Genesis chapters are used so adamantly to justify heterosexual, monogamous, sexually exclusive marriage to the exclusion of all other kinds of marriage.[6] In the end, this – albeit wonderful – text is clearly a myth, complete with a talking snake and magical trees, where a human is made from dust and a woman, after all the animals, from a rib. It is a story, moreover, that departs rather sharply from the creation story that immediately precedes it (where humans are created together, after the animals). The story of Adam and Eve is the one that, more than any other biblical text, is used to drive home what marriage is and should be.

    The report, furthermore, firmly lays claim to this story. On the one hand, there is mention that the Church of England “has always recognised the marriages not only of Christian believers but of everyone,” yet on the other, it states that “Christians, however, by virtue of divine revelation, see in the same institution of marriage more than non-Christians see: most especially the ‘one flesh’ union and the sacramental signification of Christ’s relationship with his Church” (p.7). The Jewish text from the Hebrew Bible is firmly folded into a doctrine that makes Christian marriage superior (“more than”). This teeters on the brink of supersessionism. Above all, however, the mythological text is over-invested with profundity.

    Meanwhile, other texts of the Hebrew Bible – including legal texts prescribing that raped women marry their rapists (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), or the aforementioned texts linking violence and marriage, are not mentioned much. Maybe they are simply part of the change that has been accepted? Still, more honesty about how ideology drives the selection of biblical texts that construct the marriage ideal would be desirable.

    1. Now, we all hold ideologies; moreover, interpreting the Bible in ways that speak to life and how to live it will almost invariably (consciously or unconsciously) involve ideologically-motivated selection of texts. It is entirely possible to select biblical texts that provide and emphasise quite different recommendations for marriage than those of the report’s nine theses. It is entirely possible to construct recommendations that designate the married state inferior to the single and celibate state, or that permit divorce, same-sex marriage, polyamory, or unions without children – be this by choice, or not.[7] The report mentions that the State’s definition of marriage (subsequent to marriage equality of 2014) is distinct from the definition of marriage of the Church of England. The first thesis emphasises that in the Church of England marriage is between one man and one woman. Again, their becoming “one flesh” is stressed. It is acknowledged that this one-flesh-ness can be understood “sexually, socially, and even in some sense spiritually or mystically” (p.5). Yet even if two people of the same sex join sexually, socially, spiritually and mystically, this cannot, apparently, be a marriage, or God’s gift (Thesis 2), or “an honourable estate” (Thesis 3), or a sign of Christ’s relationship with the Church (Thesis 4), or “proper” sexual intimacy (Thesis 6).

    Exactly why this might be remains unclear to me. Friendship, even intimate friendship, in the Bible can be between members of the same sex – indeed, the bond between David and Jonathan, or the devotion of Ruth to Naomi, where there are also words of promise (1 Samuel 20:42; Ruth 1:16-17; cf. Thesis 9), stand out, as does the love of Jesus for his disciple (possibly, John the son of Zebedee). Indeed, these descriptions are far more suggestive of friendship than the account of Adam and Eve (or any other man and woman of the Bible, for that matter). The report refers to friendship as “the bedrock” (p.9) of marriage. Why can’t a relationship between persons of the same sex that is one of friendship, loving, intimate, consenting, and bonded by words of promise, ever be a marriage, while Adam and Eve are paradigms of marriage even though notions of friendship or consent are not exactly explicit? There is some consideration of this in the report, some mention of narrowing the “conceptual distance” between different- and same-sex unions (p.13) but this is not reflected in the nine theses. It is, ultimately, nebulous why there is a requirement for marriage to consist of one man and one woman only.

    1. The report acknowledges both change with regard to marriage, and some degree of “ambiguity and flexibility” (p.11). It says that doctrine can “develop or change” (p.2); that (albeit modest) changes have been made to the report (p.4), and that (much more significantly) there has been “pastoral accommodation” to permit divorce and remarriage in some cases (p.10), including on account of “differing interpretations” of biblical texts (p.11). There is also mention of change towards “a more egalitarian understanding” (p.12), and to permit contraception so that a married couple can “in good conscience” delay conception by artificial means (p.13). Moreover, the report asserts a shift in emphasis towards regarding sex in marriage less in terms of preventing fornication and more in terms of mutual enjoyment (p.16). It strikes me as right and good that changes and accommodation are made as knowledge (e.g. about safe forms of contraception) is gained; it strikes me as right and good to promote egalitarian marriage and to resist unfair rigidity (e.g. concerning divorce in situations where a relationship has broken down or is damaging to one or both partners).

    Moreover, there is precedent for changing doctrine within the Bible – not only in terms of how Jesus interprets Hebrew Bible doctrine but also internal to the Hebrew Bible. Hence, in the Ten Commandments, God promises to visit the guilt of parents on their children and subsequent generations (Exodus 20:5) but in both the books of Jeremiah (31:29-30) and Ezekiel (18:2-20) there is a retraction of this, stating that people will be responsible for their own sin, not for another’s. This strikes me as a progressive change within the Bible.

    Now, just as there now exists safe contraception, and just as there is more understanding and accommodation regarding divorce (which is condemned in some biblical passages), so understanding of gender and sexuality has been transformed, particularly in recent decades. There is much fuller understanding of gender and sex as being a spectrum rather than a binary and of human sexuality as much more complex than straightforwardly heterosexual, either by “natural order” (p.7) or divine design.[8] Why, if there is understanding that some humans are emotionally, psychologically, sexually, and spiritually fulfilled loving someone of the same sex, can same-sex marriage not be among the changes?

    1. Let me develop this point further. The report states firmly that “The Church of England has always believed and taught that sex is for marriage, and marriage is for sex” (p.9). Denying same-sex loving Christians a same-sex marriage, would also then deny them sex.

    This, of course, is the crux, the point of greatest division, and it is around this that much of the report circles. Same-sex marriage and homosexuality have drawn what journalist Mark Gevisser evocatively calls a dividing “pink line” – in multiple religious traditions, in marriage and sexuality debates, right around the globe. Indeed, the Bible could legitimate both same-sex inclusion and non-binary gender – because it is a dextrous text. Hence, creation of “male and female” could refer not to either/or but to male, female and everything in between – just as “old and young” and “great and small” can refer to a spectrum of ages or statures. Queer interpretations indeed offer a myriad of inclusive readings, which celebrate eunuchs as genderqueer, and the same-sex love of David and Jonathan, the Centurion and his servant, Ruth and Naomi.

    And openness to change need not mean “anything goes.” Of course, there are bounds – one such bound must be an insistence on informed consent for sex and for marriage, for instance. For this reason, I have been among those who welcomed a recent change in UK marriage law, which raised the age for marriage to at least 18 years in every case – in recognition of the magnified scope for exploitation and compromised consent of someone even younger marrying or entering civil partnership, even with parental consent.[9] Of course, ongoing discussion, including in the light of fuller understanding and growing knowledge, is important. But the reasons for resisting change in the face of new knowledge and understanding (e.g. knowledge about the nuances of human gender and sexuality) should be strongly interrogated, lest they rely on discrimination or prejudice. After all, there are biblical texts that refer to the “holy seed” and which express strong objection to marriage between different people groups (Ezra 9:1-4; Nehemiah 13:23-27), yet prohibition of miscegenation is nowadays considered straight-out racist (and in the USA, unconstitutional). Is resistance to same-sex marriage not straight-out homophobic? And if not, why not?

    1. Ultimately, the report concludes very little. It speaks (at length) of whether the “envelope” of the Church can or should be enlarged, or whether more inclusion would tear up a “God-given institution” (p.16). This is how the report ends. The report expounds and proffers possibilities for change and inclusion – and then retracts and dashes them.
    2. This blog is called “Via Media,” “the middle road,” referring to a path between extremes. Perhaps my alternative theses seem too strident, too extreme, for a middle road. My reply would be that right now, when very many minoritized groups, including queer and same-sex loving members of the human family, are ever more vulnerable in a world where sinister political forces are emboldening the weaponization of biblical texts while efforts to advance equity, diversity and inclusion are under attack, those of us who can speak out and can (or could) marry in the Church of England, have to speak out for those who cannot.

     

    Professor Stiebert has now published a further piece on the response to this blog post, on https://shilohproject.blog/a-response-to-a-response-to-a-response-yep-its-marriage-again/ 

    [Many aspects alluded to in this piece are developed more fully in Saima Afzal and Johanna Stiebert, Marriage, Bible, Violence: Intersections and Impacts (Routledge, 2024)]

    [1] All my references to theses and pages pertain to the report.

    [2]  In Numbers 31 men take little girls (v.18) in a war depicted as divinely sanctioned (31:1-3). Surely such sexual enslavement marriage is not what Thesis 2 has in mind when referring to marriage as “God’s gift.”

    [3] In Hebrew, there is one word for woman/wife and for man/husband. Context and/or translators’ choices determine which English word is used.

    [4] Numbers 5, while one of the longest legal texts about a scenario in a marriage and how it ought to be resolved, rarely features in discussions of marriage in the Bible. I could not find reference to the passage in either the compendium or the report. To be fair, the sources cited favour Christian texts, which is fair enough. Genesis 1-3 features very prominently in the compendium in particular.

    [5] Why these other forms of marriage fall short, or why later Hebrew Bible narratives tend not to make any such deficiency explicit, is not clarified in the report.

    [6] The story of Adam and Eve is also used to condemn homosexuality, non-binary gender, transgender, polygamy, polyamory, and divorce. Preoccupation with the story and with its reference to “one flesh” is already in evidence in the New Testament (e.g. Mark 10:8; Ephesians 5:31).

    [7] The report makes clear that children are not required for marriage to be valid or meaningful. It explains that marriage is the proper context for raising children, not that raising children is the purpose of marriage (p.13).

    [8] The report refers to “men and women being ‘diverse in their emotional, mental and spiritual lives, their way of experiencing and responding to reality’” – which difference it believes is instantiated in marriage to the benefit of society. It is the core argument made in the submission to the government consultation on equal marriage in 2014: “The uniqueness of marriage – and a further aspect of its virtuous nature – is that it embodies the underlying, objective, distinctiveness of men and women” (p.14). This emphasises a binary distinction that can be and has been plausibly questioned – as is acknowledged in the report, too (p.15).

    [9] This is in reference to the UK Marriage and Civil Partnership (Minimum Age) Act 2022.

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

     

  • Marriage Law in England and Wales – Some Reflections

    by Revd Dr Helen Hall, Nottingham Trent University and Professor Javier Garcia Oliva, Head of Law, University of Manchester

    (the third in a series of four: based on a presentation to the June 26th Symposium on Same-Sex Marriage in the Church of England organised by Sir Ben Bradshaw and Jayne Ozanne)

     

    Marriage Law in England and Wales-Current Framework and Proposed Reform

    Jurisdiction

    • Marriage law (and family law more generally) in England and Wales is distinct from that in Scotland.
    • This is not a recent development arising from devolution, but due to the agreement prior to the Act of Union, according to which Scotland would be permitted to keep its own legal system.
    • The analysis below relates exclusively to England and Wales, except where otherwise indicated.
    • Although Anglicanism was formally disestablished by the Welsh Church Act 1914, for the purposes of marriage law, the Church in Wales largely continues to operate as an established Church.
    • However, it should be noted that disestablishment means that the Church in Wales has no power to amend the civil law framework. It is completely dependent on Parliament in this regard.

    Current Framework

    • For historical reasons, there are four distinct routes to a legally binding marriage:  Anglican Marriage; Quaker and Jewish Marriages; Civil Marriage; and Other Forms of Religious Marriage where a faith group has opted-in (hereafter referred to as “Opt-In Marriages” in this paper).
    • Marriages outside of these four categories are not illegal in the sense of being prohibited, but they will NOT create a legally binding marriage in English/Welsh law.
    • Marriages which take place in other jurisdictions are ordinarily treated as creating a legally binding marriage in England/Welsh law, provided that they were legally valid according to the rules of the State in which they were celebrated.
    • Opt-In Marriages are performed by an authorised person, but must take place in a building registered for religious worship.
    • This means that there is no provision for Humanist marriages, nor any scope for faith groups which do not meet in a registered building, either because they lack sufficient members and money, or because their practices involve worshipping at home or in outdoor settings.

    Problems with the Current Framework

    • As a headline, it is unduly complex and bureaucratic.
    • Some parties to non-binding religious marriages are unaware that they have no legal protection until their relationship breaks down. It is only at that point that they learn that they were simply cohabiting, and are, therefore, entitled to no financial relief.
    • Individuals for whom English/Welsh is a second language are at increased risk of confusion.
    • Local decision making on opting-in may add to the confusion; it is not always enough to ask what faith community performed the ceremony, e.g. a Muslim marriage or a Sikh marriage might or might not be legally binding, depending on whether the community in question had opted-in.
    • A significant number of non-legally binding religious marriages are taking place. This leads to unequal outcomes should the relationship break down, or one of the parties die without leaving a will. It can also trap vulnerable people in abusive relationships, especially women. The lack of access to financial relief may make it very difficult for a person to leave their partner, if they have no housing and are economically dependent. The situation is exacerbated still further if they are from a cultural background which stigmatises separation, and their families and friends are unable/unwilling to offer support.

    Proposals for Reform

    • The Law Commission has proposed significant reforms:

    1)         Regulation of the Officiant instead of the venue (i.e. an end to the need to celebrate Opt-In marriages in a registered building).

    2)         Universal rules for ALL weddings

    • Couples would be able to give notice of their intended wedding online, and to choose the registration district where they would then be interviewed by a registration officer.
    • Notice of upcoming weddings would be published online so that the information was accessible to the wider community.
    • There would be great accommodation of the diversity of beliefs e.g. It would be possible to have a religious ceremony in a venue other than a place of worship and without having to incorporate prescribed words into the ceremony. It is suggested that there should also be an option for couples of different faiths to have a religious ceremony led by an interfaith minister that contains aspects of each of the couple’s beliefs. Finally, the rigid division between civil and religious marriages would be axed, allowing couples to have some religious elements, such as hymns and prayers, incorporated into their civil ceremony (as long as the ceremony remained “identifiably civil”.)

    Implications for Same Sex Marriage and the Church of England

    • This does not directly impact on same sex marriage and the Church of England, but there are a number of indirect implications.

    1)         This supports McLean’s thesis of “marriage” being a legal institution offered and regulated by the State, even though it may choose to delegate the ceremonial and administrative elements to third parties, including faith groups.

    2)         Respecting the diversity of beliefs present in contemporary society is a key element of the proposals, and no denomination would be forced to offer marriage ceremonies to all comers on an equal basis. It would clearly violate Article 9 of the ECHR and the rules of statutory interpretation, if any legislation enacted on the basis of the Law Commission proposals were interpreted as requiring all Anglican clergy to offer same sex marriages, or demanding that Roman Catholic priests and Orthodox Rabbis perform wedding ceremonies for non-Catholic/Jewish atheists or members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti monster.

    3)         The Church of England (and indeed all faith groups) would have to decide how to respond to the possibility of its clergy being involved in interfaith ceremonies, or providing “religious elements” of a civil ceremony, where the parties to the marriage were of the same sex. Given the scope for considerably increased flexibility in respect of wording and ceremonies, it is easy to see how Anglican clergy could be effectively “performing” same sex marriages hosted by a friendly neighbouring denomination, or conceivably even in the context of a civil ceremony, depending on how the “identifiably civil” part was interpreted. The church would have to decide how it wanted to respond to this.

    4)         With a much freer wedding economy, couples would have far greater scope to have a religious/Christian backdrop to their ceremony without going to the local parish church.  Consequently, if the Church of England wanted to continue to encourage weddings as potential opportunities for evangelism/outreach, and source of income, then it would do well to ponder how excluding same sex couples would affect perceptions of Anglicanism and Anglican marriage.

    • It must be stressed that not all proposals of the Law Commission become law, and even those that do often undergo substantial transformation before being enacted.
    • There is a considerable pressure for reform of wedding law, particularly in light of some recent high-profile litigation in relation to a woman seeking some mechanism to obtain financial relief when leaving a non-legally binding religious marriage. The conclusion of the appellate court was that neither divorce nor nullity could help. For the reasons outlined above, the vulnerability of people in this situation means that there is now an urgent reason to overhaul an idiosyncratic and piecemeal system which has been evolving in a haphazard fashion since the eighteenth century.
    • The collateral implications of all of this for same sex marriages in an Anglican setting are indirect, but very significant.