A post-it note crisis

Looking around the Church of England, leaves you with a disturbing sense of fragmentation. There is talk of principled protest at a national level; there is already evidence of ‘visible differentiation’ with clergy setting up their own independent structures of fellowship and support; ordinands are refusing to be ordained; people - clergy and lay - are simply leaving; parish shares are being withheld; new alternative Anglican Structures (i.e. not Church of England) have been set up and are functioning within the UK - granted for some time, but with a new significance in the light of LLF. And all that is before you raise your eyes to look at the Global Anglican situation!

A photo taken at a recent Bishop’s gathering inadvertently showed in the background a wall of post-it notes of the Bishop’s concerns about where the LLF process - or more honestly, where the House of Bishops - has taken us. It makes dismal reading: Loss of vocations, missional energy, and unity. Schism. Confusion. Not just the fracture of the CofE but its complete disintegration. Strained and broken relationships in families, churches, dioceses, and the global Church. Splitting dioceses. Division within (if we proceed), ridicule without (if we step back). That ‘cancel culture’ will prove more dominant than grace-filled love and acceptance. Irrelevance.

Indeed. But then again, it’s hard to imagine how any of that could be unexpected. People have been saying the results would include all of this and more since LLF was conceived, and the materials first published. The Bishops finally realising the possible outcomes of their actions doesn’t do much to alleviate the pain that many of us have been feeling over recent months, whilst those entrusted with the spiritual leadership of our Church have blundered their way towards the ‘complete disintegration’ of our denomination. Mind you, none of this made it to the press briefing. That simply alerted us to the setting up of a series of working parties focussed on Pastoral Guidance; the liturgy of the proposed prayers; and pastoral reassurance. So, pressing on then …towards the complete disintegration of one of the greatest denominations to be born out of the Reformation. No official acknowledgment of the pastoral chaos we’re already living with? No apology for the trauma already caused and the losses already sustained courtesy of the LLF process? No suggestion of a change in direction… you know, to avoid chaos, division, schism, broken relationships, irrelevance?

Apparently not.

That last one is ironic of course. Given that the whole LLF project was ostensibly initiated (in part) precisely in the name of ‘relevance’. It was always a spurious claim, albeit one dressed up in the spiritualised language of ‘mission’. But I always thought a misguided sense of ‘relevance’ was closer to the mark. It is a misguided vision of relevance because it is built on the idea that the way to make Christianity ‘successful’ is to evacuate it of everything that is distinctively Christian. But hey, at least we might avoid ridicule by not stepping back from the brink.

Of course, the issue is much deeper than the pragmatism that has driven the House of Bishops into their present and myopic disarray. I read earlier this week a helpful analysis that gives us a sense of what is at stake. The Cambridge historian Richard Rex suggests that there have been three great crises in the history of the Church. The first, in its early centuries, revolved around the question of the nature of God. This first crisis, during the Patristic era wrestled with the Bible’s teaching on the Trinity, and the Incarnation, and gave birth to the great ecumenical creeds. During the Reformation, a second crisis navigated the question of the nature of the Church (inlcuding ministry, polity, sacraments, preaching etc.). Rex argues we are living through a third crisis of comparable magnitude, and the question facing us now is that of the nature of humanity. This includes – as he memorably puts it – to ‘an entire alphabet of beliefs and practices: abortion, bisexuality, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, family, gender, homosexuality, infertility treatment…’. It’s a disturbing thesis. The first two crises were fairly devestating to live through at a number of levels.

To be honest, I’m not sure that a wall of post-it notes really does the situation justice. Though, I’m not sure what could. The first two crises the Church navigated produced some of the greatest pastors and theologians the Church has seen. People are still writing their PhDs on the work of Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, (if I may be allowed to include him) Augustine, and the like. Likewise those who helped us through the second crisis. Names such as Calvin, Melanchthon, Bullinger, Ursinus, Cranmer are indicative of host of luminaries who fought for Biblical truth against those who obscured it in a mist of what seemed obvious and incontrovertible to the Church leaders of the day. Interestingly, in both crises, the mission / relevance card was played!

We pray for the Lord to raise up a legion of pastor-theologians to help us navigate this third crisis. It looks like we’re going to need them!

sources for the photo and associated story: Anglican Ink,

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-lost-shepherds-can-justin-welby-and-pope-francis-keep-their-flocks/

Ephesians 5 & Gender

There is one other place where I might find myself in some measure of agreement with the Bishops: their dis-ease at objectifying people by talking about their sexuality. I say ‘might’ because I’m not entirely sure what the Bishops mean. If they are saying that their vision of what it means to be human is more than our experience of sexuality, then I suspect I agree. Indeed, one of the isssues I find most disingenuous about our culture is the idea that our experience of sexuality has such power to define us in our entirety, or even in our essentiality. We are inherently sexual beings, but not essentially so. I am not less human if my sexuality never finds expression in sexual activity.

But if it is suggesting that what it means to be human is without reference to our experience of sexuality, that would be a different matter. One of the most tragic elements of the whole debacle surrounding the Bishops’ Proposals has been precisely the reductionism of the debate. Everything has become about our experience of sexuality. Nothing else seems to matter. And worse, it has all been reduced to the very specific experience of sexuality of small minority of Christians. The following from CMF:

Even when studies have attempted to use broadly comparable definitions of 'orientation', rates of SSA appear to vary in different populations. This may be due to unreliable methods used to measure SSA or real differences caused by social, cultural and biological factors; we do not know. Overall, however, studies suggest that significant numbers of people from western populations, around 10-15% of men and 20-25% of women, experience a degree of SSA at some time in their lives. A much smaller proportion appear to be 'predominantly' same-sex attracted, probably about 2.0-2.5% of men and 1.5-1.75% of women.

https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=2078, accessed 080323

And it is always worth remembering that not all of those who are ‘predominantly’ same-sex attracted believe the Church should change its teaching and disicpline. But their voice seems to have been lost in the cacophany of virtue signalling.

One of the pastoral tragedies of the whole LLF process has been the failure of the Church to put this in the context of a much broader discussion about our experience of sexuality, and the range of struggle and depth of complexity of that experience. That aside, I fear that our own Bishops veer to defining our humanity without necessary reference to our experience of sexuality, or indeed gender. That is a strong claim, but it is born out of a part of the conversation that suggested (at the very least) that the vision for marriage as reflecting the relationship between Jesus and the Church (with specfic reference to Eph.5:22-33) is non-gendered.

I suspect it is all too easy to mis-represent the Bishops’ intention or meaning in this part of the conversation. It was brief and almost a throw-away line in the context of a wider reflection on the ‘sacramental nature’ of marriage. I think the point being made was that there was nothing in the sacramental dynamics of marriage (or the covenantal dynamics for that matter) that could not in principle be reflected in a same sex relationship…

But even then, it seems like a very odd thing to say. In part because of the implicit claim that we understand what Paul is saying deeply enough to so confidently dismiss the place of gender in this passage. That would be strange in light of how often we’ve been told that we don’t really know what Paul (and presumably other Apostles, and Prophets) meant given our distance from their cultural context.

But in part because, well it’s an image that runs throughout Scripture, and self-evidently always references a heterosexual marriage. It isn’t as though Paul picked this image out of thin air when writing to the Ephesians. Throughout the entire Bible (OK, almost the entire Bible… from Gen.1:26, through to Rev.21), the same image is repeatedly used, and it is always rooted in the specifically structured experience of a man and woman that is marriage. Not once is it ever reflected in a same-sex relationship. And always it is the Lord who is pictured as a husband / bridegroom, and the Church that is represented by a bride. Whole books are given over to exploring this sacramental analogy (e.g. Hosea!), and it is one that is referred to regularly by the Prophets, and by Christ Himself. And again, never is it protrayed in the context of a same-sex relationship, marital or otherwise. Which is to say at least that the differentiation in marriage is as important in this regard as the unity? And that the expression of our sexualtiy within that covenant (and only within that covenant) is integral to the integrity of that portrayal. For the record my own thinking is that it correlates to worship. But that’s another blog post!

Back to the matter at hand: to suggest that we can dismiss the gender of marriage partners without doing violence to the sacramental / covenantal / analogical or otherwise of marriage contains suggests a depth of insight into the relationship between Christ and the Church that is surely beyond us. I would suggest that we would be better served by allowing the picture of marriage to remain as God intended and presents it, and to allow it as such to teach us what God intended it to teach us. To assume we understand enough of it to change it without (inadvertently?) affecting our doctrine of Christ is inconceivable.

I say inadvertently, but… is there a link here with another proposal that has recently found voice within the Church of England: that we de-gender our vision of God as revealed in Christ (and to be clear, I haven’t heard either of our Bishops propose this!)?. It does seem likely that the two proporsals are in fact symptomatic of a deeper theological crisis. Again, there is a hubris at work that is deeply troubling. The most charitable reading is that we sufficiently understand all that God has revealed Himself to be confident that we can change our language of address to God, without affecting any aspect of our understanding of God.

It is almost to obvoius to point out the irony that whilst there is an intolerance about not using people’s preferred pronouns, we have little angst about disregarding God’s preferred pronouns. The point isn’t entirely facetious. We understand that how we describe ourselves, and each other matters. Langauge conveys our sense of reality. To argue that we can change our langauge about God without affecting our sense of the reality of who God is, is implausible. But not content with that, we are told that we can somehow see ‘behind’ how God has revealed Himself, and who God has revealed Himself to be, to who God really is. And further, that we can be so confident that who He ‘really’ is, is so different from who He has revealed Himself to be that we can change how we speak of Him without affecting the reality of our understanding of Him.

None of which is to undermine the feminine imagery used for God. But in Scripture God is never called Mother, or Queen. The Anglican Church has in this, as in other matters of faith, chosen historically to allow the Bible to shape our approach to God and our address of Him. Jesus himself referred to God as ‘Father’ 170 times in the Gospels. Have we really got to the point where we think we know better than Jesus how to talk about God?

Of course, we are free to change our vision of God and our langauge about God from taht bequeathed by Scripture, and by Jesus… but that would take us into a different religion.

What is human flourishing? And where does it happen?

Up to this point, I confess to being surprised that there are no ‘positive’ arguments from the Bishops for their position. They don’t cite a single passage from Scripture, or example from the history of the Church, they don’t lay out a constructive vision for same-sex relationships, nor their envisaged place in the life of the Church. Throughout the majority of their videos they adopt a ‘negative’ posture, seeking (I think unsuccessfully) to remove the obstacles they rightly perceive the teaching of the Bible and the Church present. The strategy seems to be thus to undermine the foundation of the Church’s historic position, knowing that once the foundation is sufficiently undermined in people’s thinking, the edifice will fall, and the position of the Church will change. And that is the now publicly stated ambition of both Bishops.

There is however one argument they deploy that seeks to establish a positive mandate for the change they wish to see, and it is the argument about human flourishing. We need to recognise first that neither Bishop tells us what human flourishing actually is. This seems a strange omission from the dialogue, but perhaps it is due to the unrehearsed nature of the conversation. The idea seems to embrace a plethora of related aspirations, including wellbeing, happiness, and life satisfaction. It is associated with success and healthy personal development. More technically, The Human Flourishing Programme at Harvard University has developed a matrix for measuring such ‘flourishing’, rooted in five key ideas: happiness and life satisfaction, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships.

It is a strange thing to hear Bishops of the Church espousing such a secularised vision for life. A more authentically Christian vision for humanity might define human flourishing in relationship to Christ. Mind you, once we put the concept of ‘human flourishing’ next to Scripture we find it an uncomfortable fit. If the concept can be inferred from the pages of the Bible at all, it is markedly different from the ideal finding common currency in our culturally angst-ridden debates.

The Bible is much more concerned about our being transformed into the image of Christ. ‘Faithfulness’ is a word that captures the dynamics of discipleship far more than ‘flourishing’, at least in any contemporary usage. By God’s grace there are times when faithfulness allows for ‘flourishing’, but where such a culturally conditioned idea of ‘flourishing’ and a Christian call to ‘faithfulness’ conflict, as they must surely do, it is the desire for faithfulness that captures our heart. For many Christians in the world today the idea of ’human flourishing’ is laughable. To be baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is to take up the cross, to follow a crucified Saviour. It is to embark on a journey of marginalisation, rejection, persecution and suffering. It is precisely to lose many of the trappings that our indulgent, self-serving culture now assumes as inalienable rights! We saw in Synod a contemptuous disregard for the Church elsewhere in the world. But it remains a simple statement of fact that their vision of discipleship is far more profoundly Biblical than the pursuit of ‘human flourishing’ by those Church leaders who are already amongst the most culturally privileged in the world. It is bizarre to find this parody of life being peddled by Christian pastors.

But back to the videos put out by the Bishops! By-passing any reflection on the nature of Christian discipleship, we are instead left with the grandiose vision of ‘human flourishing’. Given the lack of detail about what this entails, it is perhaps a little surprising that the Bishops are quite so adamant that the best environment for such flourishing is marriage. Their basis for saying as much is entirely subjective and anecdotal. There is no evidence or research offered for such a claim, nor is there any engagement with Scripture, or Christian teaching or tradition. It all feels incredibly arbitrary. We are told that we know more about sexual orientation than we did two thousand years ago… maybe, but does God?

And as another Bishop recently wrote: ‘The Church cannot hold a public service for a couple simply on the basis that it discerns virtues and good qualities in their relationship. It must also be confident that the pattern of relationship it is affirming is in accordance with God’s will. It expresses that confidence liturgically by proclaiming a form of life which is in accordance with God’s will and asking the couple to affirm publicly that they seek to live faithfully within this way of life (para 476, Bishop Keith Sinclair’s Dissenting Statement). Indeed.

Of course, once we do ask what the Bible teaches about what is in accordance with God’s will, it becomes painfully clear that there is some measure of dissonance. Given the divergent destiny in view, it is hardly surprising that there is such discord between the Bishops and Scripture on the place of marriage in the pursuit of that destiny. To say that marriage is the ‘best environment’ for human flourishing is to misunderstand not just the Bible’s vision for human life, but is also to distort the Bible’s vision for marriage. It is also pastorally catastrophic. Bad theology hurts people. And the Bishops’ comments on this matter have been hugely damaging to many in our own Church and in many others, who feel ‘betrayed’ and deeply undermined in the (often sacrificial) decisions they have made about how to live in a way that resonates with the discipline of the Church.

To say that marriage is the best environment for human flourishing is - at best - hopelessly inadequate, and more likely simply plain wrong. The BCP does indeed celebrate marriage as being ‘ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort’ of a husband and wife, ‘both in prosperity and adversity’. It is a way of life ordained by God and made holy… but only one way. There are other ways, equally valid and at least equally providing a context in which we can pursue faithfulness to the Christian vision for Christ-likeness. But the Bishops’ claim goes way beyond such a humble and Biblical idea.

To set marriage up as the best environment for human flourishing is a politically cynical sleight of hand, preparing the ground for the follow on question as to why it should be withheld from same sex couples, especially those in ‘permanent, faithful, stable relationships’. The Bishops’ pay tribute to those who have opened their eyes, we are told, to ‘gay partnerships that have provided a context of flourishing’. As we have seen, that may be irrelevant to the question of Christian discipleship, but more importantly, the Bishops’ have raised huge questions about the experience of those in our congregations who have never married, or who are divorced, widowed, or separated. Those who for range of circumstances, often beyond their control, will not marry, or who are no longer involved in a marriage, are seemingly denied the ‘best environment’ for their flourishing.

Again, quite apart from whether ‘flourishing’ is a worthy, or even appropriate, goal for Christians, this is in flat contradiction to the teaching of Scripture. St. Paul spends some considerable time on precisely this question (See I Cor.7, and the sermons preached on this passage which can be found elsewhere on this website). Although if we accept the Bishops’ approach to Scripture (see a previous post in this series) we may have to disregard Paul’s teaching here as hopelessly blinkered by his own personal issues and his first-century prejudice. But I, for one, am unwilling to lose his brilliant, Spirit-inspired and pastorally sensitive insights on the grounds of such flimsy conjecture. Paul’s vision for Church life, celebrating as he does the range of human experience as so many God-ordained contexts for discipleship, seems far more spiritually enriching, healthy and appropriate than the skewed, narrow, and excluding parameters being laid out by those advocating a change in the historic discipline, teaching and Canons of the Church.

And on this basis we must demur from the Bishops’ vision for love. Again and again it is claimed that such change would be ‘loving’. Love determines how we interpret Scripture; love is not about self-indulgence, but seeks the flourishing, the good of the other; love is the basis of our unity (presumably in the face of the disunity the Bishops’ Proposals have engendered...). Again and again the Bishops posit ‘love’ as the foundation for their thinking and their ambition in this regard. It is a claim for the moral high ground. But it is misplaced nonetheless. And it unravels at preceisley the same point. Christians seek faithfulness above flourishing. Of course properly understood, faithfulness to Christ is the ultimate in human flourishing, but as we have seen, that isn’t what the phrase is being used to mean. Which is the problem. Love is about redemption and discipleship. It seeks the sanctification of the other. That is ‘the good of the other’, but it doesn’t necessarily equate to ‘flourishing’. The conflating of those two ideas is as unfortunate as it is misleading. Our love for each other is structured in the context of our love for God. And love for God, throughout Scripture is inexorably linked to the question of faithfulness, to walking in the way of His commands and statutes. It is never loving to uncouple a human life from God’s vision for that life.

Still respectfully disagreeing about the nature of Scripture

One of the most unsettling features of the Bishops’ v-logs is the uncertainty they exhibit in handling the Bible. Again and again we are left with the sense that interpreting the Bible is an amibguous and hazardous process, and one that we can engage only with hesitancy, and certainly not with confidence.

This is a common ‘myth’ and I summarised the Bishops’ position like this in the last blog:

‘…that those texts were authored in a fog of first century cultural context and prejudice. They almost certainly weren’t dealing with the kind of stable, faithful, relationships we see same sex Christian couples enjoying in our own day and age. They represent the authors’ best guess at the time, and were never meant to be representative of a timeless morality.

There are at least two fundamental contentions in this statement, both of which I disagree with. The first is to do with the nature of the Bible. We’ve been working on this at DTP throughout this term, so we should be fairly familiar with what the Bible is, and how it functions in Christian life and worship. We have seen over and over again how the Prophets and Apostles were fully aware of their involvment in the inspiration of Scripture, and that they joyfully submitted to a glorious tyranny of the Spirit. And that their preaching, teachings and writings that resulted from that process were immediately recognised as Scripture by the Church. Their teaching formed a ‘canon’, a measuring rod against which all other teachings were measured, and were to be rejected to the extent that they deviated from the foundational teaching of the Apostles. Their proclamation was as counter-cultural in the first century as it was in the twenty-first century, and it is simply inaccurate to imagine they wrote in a way that was blinded by their own cultural prejudice, as if that served to justify rejecting the binding nature of their teaching for our own time.

This much is unambiguous, and known by all disicples of Jesus who take the time to read the Apostles’ account of their own experience. It is clear to the point of self-evident. The idea that the Apostles were unaware of their being inspired by the Spirit, or that they were able to (inadvertently) contaminate the Bible they were invovled in producing with their own uninspired thinking, or that the wider Church could hardly be expected to appreciate what was happening is patently unBiblical and simply a fictional re-writing of history. It is woefully out of step with the Church of England’s own teaching, and the testimony of the Church throughout the centuries. This much is simply rehearsing what we have been reflecting on at DTP this term, but I include briefly for the sake of completeness.

What the Bishops are proposing is in fact a kind of Arianism, re-invented and re-focussed not on the Person of Christ, but on the work of the Spirit in inspiring Scripture. Arius was so sure that he knew what it meant to be human that he couldn’t conceive that in Christ all the fulness of Deity could dwell in bodily form. He ended up ‘degrading’ Christ from His Deity so that He would fit into Arius’ sense of what might be possible and plausible. A Jesus (thought Arius) who has integrity as a human being cannot be God. The position deployed by revisionists makes the same move in regard to the Scriptures. In order for Scripture to be ‘fully human’ documents, we cannot conceive how they can also be ‘fully Divine’. And Arian-like, we sacrifice the reality that this is fully the work of the Spirit on the altar of what we assume it must mean to recognise the full human-ness of the text.

But the other part of the argument is every bit as dubious. The idea that human sexual experience was so fundamentally different in the first century that anything said about it cannot have relevance to our own cultural norms. This is at best a red-herring. It certainly sows confusion in the debate… and in my more cynical moments my suspicion is that is precisely what it is designed to do. For irrespective of whether stable, faithful sexual relationships (of any kind) were formed apart from and outside of Christ’s vision for marriage - and surely they were - the fact remains that all such sexual activity is forbidden by Scripture. Which is not to say - of course - that it didn’t happen anyway, both within and without the Church. But imposing anachronistically our concepts of sexuality on what may or may not have been the cultural norms of any given context is (ironically) the very kind of intellectual imperialism of which the Bishops are accusing those who hold to the traditional teaching and discipline of the Church. We stand by that teaching and discipline, which has been held (albeit usually imperfectly) by the Church throughout the centuries and in every cultural context. And the idea that in our western, liberal, secular, humanist culture we have finally reached a place in our understanding that allows us to properly understand things in a way that has never been done before is as arrogant as it is problematic.

Does this mean that only those who enter into ‘holy matrimony’ are destined to know fulfilment? Listening to our Bishops you could be forgiven for thinking so. Is witholding ‘Holy Matrimony’ from same-sex couples a kind of oppression, meaning they need to forego the ‘goods of marriage’? Is reminding oruselves that the Bible excludes all sexual activity outside of Holy Matrimony tantamount to harming people, condemning them to a perpetual lack of fulfilling their God-given potential? This will be the subject of our next post.

Can the House of Bishops survive?

The Bishop of Coventry, Christopher Cocksworth, who is also the Chair of the Co-ordinating Group for Living in Love and Faith published an open letter a few days ago offering some relections on where things currently stand in the LLF Process. Bishop Cocksworth signed a letter defending the Church of England’s actual teaching on marriage, and acknowledging that:

many Christians in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion, together with Christians from across the churches of world Christianity, continue to believe that marriage is given by God for the union of a man and woman and that it cannot be extended to those who are of the same sex.

His most recent letter is a masterpiece of diplomacy, recognising serious problems, but holding out the hope that they can be resolved. It is optimistic (I think overly!) about the prospect for the future, whilst trying to grasp the obstacles that threaten now to derail the entire LLF project. It remains however, an incredibly troubling read.

First is the persitent sophistry and casuistry that bedevils much of the official language about the Bishops’ Proposals. We are told there is a difference between praying God’s blessing of something, and praying His blessing for it… that the prayers ask for God’s blessing on the people, not the relationship… and we are reminded that the propsoals are ‘neither contrary to nor indicative of any departure from the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter…’. The trouble is that no-one apart from the Bishops themselves seem to accept the legitimacy of such subtle distinctions… more specifically, no-one apart from the Bishops of the Church of England, as witnessed by the GSFA Primates and numerous statements rejecting such distinctions as playing with words. Being told something is not indicative of a departure from the Church of England’s doctrine sounds disingenuous when the same Bishops are explicitly styling the Proposals precisely as a step towards the change of that doctrine; or to cite Bishop Cockswrth’s letter itself, which speaks of ‘communications of individual bishops welcoming probable, in their minds, future changes to teaching practice including, in the not-too-distant future, to marriage’. The line between subtlty and obfuscation is so thin many aren’t sure whether it is there or not. Indeed, many are feeling that, from some quarters at least, there is a deliberate attempt to deceive and to confuse. This is hardly characteristic of the godly leadership we hope for from our Bishops.

Then there is the tacit admission that the House of Bishops seemed unaware of the depth of opposition to this move throughout the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion. Such disconnectedness from the Church they are seeking to lead is deeply troubling. The implication that ‘some evangelical bodies’ would have opposed anything resulting from LLF is an unfortunate misrepresentation. But that aside, the sense that the Bishops were clueless as to the ‘suspicion, bewilderment, consternation and … rejection’ caused by their Proposals from across vast swathes of the Church suggests a leadership culture that is dangerously unrepresentative of, and unconnected to, the wider Church. This has to be addressed. The question of how the Bishops will respond now that they are growing in their awareness is one that needs to be urgently answered.

And as if that isn’t enough… I actually welcome the frank recognition that the process of LLF has resulted in confusion both in the House of Bishops and then, inevitably, at Synod, and throughout the Church of England. Bishop Cocksworth acknowledges the ‘systemic disruption’ that has resulted. There is something refreshing about someone recognising that the fall out from General Synod and the behaviour of some of the Bishops has been dangeorusly close to toxic. I was equally appreciative of the admission that something went wrong with the Ecclesial process. I don’t think the admission went far enough, limiting itself to the rather tentative question as to whether things might have been a bit rushed. I’ve written in a previous blog about my own feeling that the House of Bishops have ridden roughshod over the strucutresof governance in the Church, and the very ‘pastoral principles’ they themselves propounded during LLF; and that their behaviour at Synod came perilously close to an outright abuse of power… remember the sutatined applause when Stephen Hoffmyer raised his point of order!?? But the Bishop’s musings do recognise the erosion of respect and trust the House of Bishops has sustained. He hopes that it can be re-built and that lasting damage can be avoided. This seems to reflect the same disconnectedness I lament earlier… although I pray my own cynicism here will be confounded!

But the best (worst?) comes towards th end of the letter, when Bishop Cocksworth lists out a (representative?) list of questions that need to be answered before Pastoral Guidance is published in July. Forgive me simply re-producing them en masse here, but they have to be seen to be believed!

There are legal questions:

Is the provision genuinely consistent with the doctrine of the Church of England, and does it pass the strict canonical test it has set itself?

Is its distinction (novel for the Church of England) between civil marriage and Holy Matrimony secure?

There are practical questions:

How is the conscience of clergy and parishes who find themselves unable to use some or all of the liturgical provision to be respected?

What level of pastoral provision will be needed for those who could not use them, and should it involve, as many are arguing and as the Archbishop of York conceded in the debate, serious forms of structural differentiation?

Will clergy of the same sex be free to enter into civil marriage?

There are theological questions:

Can the distinction between blessing a couple as people before God, rather than their relationship, carry the theological weight that is placed upon it?

What is the provision saying or implying about the permissibility or otherwise of sexual intimacy in relationships of the same sex, and in opposite sex relationships that the Church does not recognize as marriage, and what is its theological case?

How will the Church of England explain to other churches of the Communion, and its ecumenical partners, and the other major religions of its land, what exactly it is commending and provide the necessary theological reasoning?

Ecclesial questions are raised about how, in exercising leadership, the bishops tend — as they did in the first two phases of LLF — to the ecology of the church of which their order is only one part.

You might want to read those again carefully. The fact that any one of these questions remained to be answered before they Bishops' Proposals were brought to Synod is deeply disturbing. The fact that none of them have been answered is surely a negligence of such catastrpohic proportions that it must torpedo the credibility of the entire LLF project. Are we actually being told that the House of Bishops produced these prayers without having established any theological or doctrinal foundation for doing so? Bishop Cocksworth comes frigtheningly close to admitting that the Bishops don’t yet know whether: "the provision [is] genuinely consistent with the doctrine of the Church of England?" Are we being told by the Bishop overseeing the LLF process that this was brought to General Synod, and voted on, without the House of Bishops having agreed on answers to these most basic of questions?

So, having spent 6 years on this (and at what financial cost??) the Chair of the LLF Co-ordinating Group raises the concern that as things stand, ‘the use of the provision faces legal challenge, the implementation of the proposals risks pastoral chaos, and the reception of the provision in the Church of England, the Anglican Communion, and the worldwide Church of God will be confused’.

And that is the most positive spin we can put on the situation as it now stands.

Where I must begin to respectfully disagree...

And finally we get to how our Bishops treat the question of same-sex marriage in relation to Scripture. Or perhaps better: how they treat Scripture in relation to the question of same sex marriage… because as they have now both publicly stated, this is where they wish to see the process of change terminate.

Two common and inter-related myths are perpetuated in the videos, and for the sake of clarity, I’ll give a post to each (though this may result in some overlap). They are:

(i) That there are in fact only a few texts relating to the question in the first place, and that they are ambiguous, obscure and complex, which means that how we understand them is subject to our subjective bias and perhaps even our prejudice, and,

(ii) that those texts were authored in a fog of first century cultural context and prejudice. They almost certainly weren’t dealing with the kind of stable, faithful, relationships we see same sex Christian couples enjoying in our own day and age. They represent the authors’ best guess at the time, and were never meant to be representative of a timeless morality.

So, taking the first one first. What are we to make of the claim that there are only a few texts touching on the question of same-sex relationships?

Well, we spent a whole term here at MIE showing how the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is a story about a marriage: between Christ and the Church. That is what structures our understanding and experience of marriage in human society. Whilst any given culture may feel at liberty to redefine marriage as part of its suppressing the truth about God (Rom.1:18-21), the archetypal reality that gives shape to marriage as God intended it remains unchanged. The Bishops’ Proposals tacitly acknowledge this in drawing a distinction between ‘Holy Matrimony’ as defined by the Church (see the BCP’s ‘Form of Solemnization of Matrimony), and gloriously rooted in Scripture, on the one hand; and ‘civil’ marriage, as defined by the law of the land on the other. Yet the stubborn fact remains that the whole Bible is about marriage. To say there are only a few texts that speak to the question of marriage is simply wrong. The Bishop of Oxford, in his paper on the subject, ‘Together in Love and Faith’, recognises there is a profound tension between the teaching of the Bible, and the Bishops’ desire to introduce liturgy to bless those in a same-sex relationship. He writes:

‘…all of my pastoral instincts point to finding a way of interpreting the Scriptures that allows for greater love and support, tolerance and the blessing of [same-sex] partnerships, even where this interpretation seems, at first sight, to be in conflict with some of the obvious interpretations of key biblical passages’.

There is an honesty in this sort of statement at least (though I’d question his use of the word: ‘some’). Much greater honesty than the implication that somehow the Bible doesn’t really talk about this sort of thing very much. One noted example that has become common currency in the discussion is found in the works of a theologian called Walter Wink, who would like to see revision: ‘Where the Bible mentions homosexual behaviour at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether that biblical judgment is correct’ (cited, Roberts, Together in Love and Faith, a response). Indeed, and it is worth noting that this has been the how the Bible has been interpreted by the Church throughout the centuries and in every cultural context. As to the question of whether it is correct… see the next blog!

Bishop Croft (Oxford) echoes the consensus of scholars on all sides of the current debate. The Bible simply does not support the extending of marriage to same-sex couples. Jesus affirms the Bible’s teaching on these matters, and does so explicitly, and condemns all other sexual activity as ‘immorality’. He doesn’t prohibit specific behaviours. He doesn’t need to - all such activity is already precluded by the Scriptures, which He came not to abolish, but to fulfil.

To circumvent that simple and straightforward observation about the Bible’s teaching about marriage falls far short of an authentically Anglican approach to the Bible. In spite of our own Bishops recognising that the Bible should interrogate us, it seems this is one area where they aren’t prepared to let it do so. There is not a single passage that affirms same-sex ‘marriage’, or sexual activity in any context. The best a revisionist can hope for is to negate, silence and marginalise the passages that do explicitly speak to this issue, and hope that no-one notices the positive teaching about marriage that reflects the relationship between Christ and Church (which, incidently, has far more to say to us about the structures of marriage than simply it intrinsically hetero-sexual nature - but that’s for another time).

Their framing of the discussion as if it is about a few random texts is simply wrong. This is a question about the whole sweep of Scripture, in which the passages that directly speak of sexual activity and marriage fit coherently and appropriately. To seek to restrict the discussion in the way our Bishops imply is, with respect, to distort the whole framework of Biblical revelation in this matter. Article 7 of the Church of England’s 39 Articles remains: ‘No Christian whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral’.

…and are those texts ambiguous, obscure and complex?

No. The Church has long held to the idea of the ‘clarity’ of Scripture. This isn’t to say there aren’t parts of the Bible that are difficult to understand (see II Pet.3:16). Not all parts of the Bible are equally straightforward, and some parts of the Bible are ‘entry-level’, others require a measure of spiritual maturity before they yield their riches (see e.g. I Cor.3:2). We often have to meditate prayerfully on a passage for some time before we grasp its meaning and significance. But the Bible imparts it own understanding (Ps.119:130), and the Lord is at work by His Spirit revealing truth. This means that together, we approach Biblical literature with great confidence and joyful anticipation. Much of the Bible was written to the whole Church, and the whole Church is supposed to read it and make sense of it. Certainly, Jesus expected His people to have a working understanding of the Scriptures and chastised them when they failed to do so! Similarly, the Apostle Paul was clear: ‘we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand.’ (II Cor.1:13).

It was Mark Twain who once decried, ‘‘The researches of many commentators have already thrown much darkness on the subject and it is probable that if they continue, we shall soon know nothing at all about it’. Unfortunately this is as true in world of Biblical Interpretation as it is in any other field. There is surprisingly little evidence and a great deal of speculation about the nature of homosexual relationships in the first century. Undoubtedly some were abusive, rooted in power dynamics, fleeting encounters. But this is true of all experiences of sexual activity. To claim that this was the only experience of same-sex relationships can’t be justified. At best it is an argument from silence, though there are strong arguments that this was not the case. There is an interesting incoherence in the revisionist position. On the one hand wanting to suggest that there have always been loving, stable, committed homosexual relationships when arguing that this is a constant feature of human experience, but suggesting that the Bible’s teaching knows nothing of such relationships when arguing that Scripture doesn’t speak against it.

Apart from anything else, there is nothing new under the sun. There has always been a vast array of sexual experiences and relationships. They may have been recognised, celebrated, illegalised or ignored by culture. But people are people. They always have been.

…and is how we understand them subject to our own bias and prejudice?

This is one of the more far-reaching suggestions in the video. I had to stop and replay it a few times to make sure I hadn’t misheard. Not only is the claim made, but Cranmer of all people is enlisted to the cause: ‘what the heart desires, the will chooses and the intellect justifies’. Of course, Cranmer’s point (and the European Reformer, Melancthon’s before him) was that we therefore had to guard our hearts and ensure that they were oriented to delight in holiness, purity and righteousness. This, for the Reformers, was the pastoral reality and responsibility that their understanding of human nature demanded. And, for the record, this was understood as a prerequisite for understanding God’s revelation of Himself. For our Bishops, everything is turned on its head. Rather than leading to clarity, it serves to obscure the truth. Those who want to be conservative (or are shaped by a conservative background) will be theologically and ethically conservative. Though importantly the knife cuts both ways: those who want to be revisionist (or who come from a liberal background) will be revisionist. ‘Often’ we are assured by our Bishop, ‘reasoning comes into this rather late in the day’.

But more seriously, do our Bishops think that we cannot be trusted to understand the Bible because we are locked into a self-fulfilling, pre-determined theological disposition in a way that precludes the idea of the Spirit breaking through our prejudices and teaching us truth through the Scriptures. Which is of course, precisely what Christians believe can and must happen as they engage with the inspired Word of God. Such a bleak prospect for being able to trustworthily handle the Bible is somewhat out of step with the Spirit’s own expectation of pastors (e.g. II Tim.2:15)… and with that of reason and tradition… and of our own experience as Christians.

The way the Cranmer quote is introduced to the conversation has precisely the opposite effect to what Cranmer intended. Cranmer’s confidence in the Bible as the Word of God is boundless. He has an incredible conviction that if he can just get the Bible into the hands (and heads and hearts, and souls) of the people (which he seeks to do through the structures of worship he developed in the BCP), then the Spirit will change our hearts, and therefore our will and minds. For our Bishops, it seems more a way of undermining that confidence, and sowing uncertainty in its place. This total loss of confidence in our Spirit-inspired ability to interpret Scripture faithfully finds expression again and again. ‘Scripture isn’t as straightforward as I thought’… and we are told variously that the Bible (on this issue at least) is ambiguous, complicated, and that there are other interpretations. But not all interpretations are equal, and in the midst of such confusion, it is clear that we can’t be trusted with the Bible, because our own prejudice blinds us to its meaning.

One of the immense recoveries of the Reformation, and one that is built into Anglicanism, properly understood, is the putting of the Scripture in the hands of the people. It is a dangerous idea. In medieval Catholicism the clerics deprived the people of the Bible, because they couldn’t be trusted to understand it properly. Do we need to fight that battle again?

On misappropriating Augustine...

In our next blog, we’ll look at how the Bishops explain their view of the nature and interpretation of Scripture. But just before we get there, I did want to raise a metaphorical eyebrow at the appearance of Augustine in the discussion. It was in relation to the question of how we interpret the Bible, and Bishop Mike alludes to a principle Augustine lays down in ‘On Christian Doctrine’ (1:36.40), ‘Whoever then thinks that he (sic) understands the Holy Scriptures or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this two-fold love of God and our neighbour, does not yet understand them as he ought’. Augustine seems likely to be the source for the ‘goods of marriage’ language that the Bishops use in their videos too, but we’ll look at that in another post.

For Augustine, this idea of our growing in ‘double-love’ was a goal of Bible study, and through it he was rooting our interpreting of Scripture in the realm of practical discipleship. The Spirit had inspired the Bible for a purpose, which includes ‘training in righteousness’ (II Tim.3:16). The Spirit’s work in us corresponds to that purpose, and if our engagement with the God-breathed Word doesn’t result in our growth into Christ-likeness, then, to put it bluntly: we’re doing it wrong. One of Augustine’s most beautiful insights is the idea of spiritual maturity as an experiencing of correctly-ordered and correctly-directed loves. To live well is to love well (1:27, Now he is a man (sic) of just and holy life who … keeps his affections under strict control, so that he neither loves what he ought not to love, not fails to love what he ought to love, nor loves that more which ought to be loved less…) .

This is part of what the Spirit wants to achieve in us through our study of Scripture. Elsewhere in ‘On Christian Teaching’, Augustine deals with what we might call the mechanics of how to interpret the Bible, but here the goal of Biblical interpretation (or at least one of them) is in view. The dangers of getting occasional passages ‘wrong’ is mitigated by an overall interpretation of Scripture that keeps us generally on track, rather like a hiker who ends up at the right destination even though they got lost on part of the journey (On Christian Doctrine, 1:36.41). Only when we are in the New Creation, and love is complete in us, will have no further need of the Bible (On Christian Doctrine 1:39). Until then we are bound to a desperate need of that Book, and should submit gladly to it.

Which of course, all raises the question as to whether Augustine would have been comfortable being enlisted to support the idea that the Church should bless those in a same-sex relationship, or marriage; and further, whether he would rally to advocate a change to the Law of the Church to allow for ‘equal marriage’. Would Augustine have seen this as a genuine interpretation of the Bible, pointing to a rightly ordered love, as the Bishops seem to imply? Would he allow that a correct interpretation of the Bible could possibly allow for such a conclusion? I suspect we know the answer to that question, but let’s ponder it nonetheless.

Anyone who has read Augustine might feel there is rather too much insight into the ancient Bishop’s engaging with the question of sex and marriage. Certainly he is pretty open about his own disordered and chaotic sexual history, and his ongoing struggles for his vision of purity. His relationship with his sexuality was clearly something that caused him intense spiritual angst, and at times, significant confusion, and emotional pain. As a Christian, later in life, Augustine saw his sexuality as perhaps the last great obstacle to his total devotion to the Lord. On the whole, he seems rather negative about the whole thing, and generally, Augustine is not considered particularly reliable in his counsel on the matter of sexuality and marriage per se. It’s widely recognised that he falls short of the ‘whole counsel of God’ on the subject, likely over-correcting as a result of struggling with a residual dualism, conflating sex and promiscuity, and wrestling with his own proverbial demons. All of which makes him a strange source for a discussion on the subject.

But whatever we make of his own marked preference for celibacy (though he did defend the legitimacy of marriage at a time when others were calling the whole institution into question), there can be no doubt that Augustine would have fundamentally rejected the idea of same sex marriage; and along with the consistent testimony of the Early Church Fathers, would have rejected all same sex sexual activity, whether in the context of a recognised relationship or not (see e.g. Confessions 3:8:15). Without any doubt, Bishop Augustine saw the only legitimate ‘outlet’ for sexual activity to be within the covenantal (and indeed sacramental) institution of marriage. And by that, Augustine meant marriage between a husband and wife.

‘The first natural bond of human society, therefore, is that of husband and wife. God did not create them as separate individuals and bring them together as persons of a different race, but he created one from the other, making the side, from which the woman was taken and formed, a sign of the strength of their union’.

He argued that marriage cannot be redefined by the Church, primarily because it is instituted ‘externally’. In other words, it is designed by God, and we aren’t at liberty to reconstitute it in line with any given cultural expectation (although to be fair, Augustine developed this argument in relation to polygamy, arguing that marriage as between one husband and one wife … ‘is shown plainly enough by the very first union of a married pair, what was made by the Divine Being Himself’ On Marr.1:10).

Critical reflection on the insights of Augustine would lead us in a very different direction to the capitulation to culture we are witnessing in the Church of England. It might not take us to pseudo-monasticism and functionality we find in Augustine, but it will take us some considerable distance from the assumptions and outworkings of the Bishops Proposals. Augustine unpacked the relationship between our sexual hunger and idolatry. The act of sexual intercourse cannot be decoupled from Holy Matrimony, because it speaks so powerfully of the act of vulnerability and self-giving that constitutes covenantal union and worship. When sexual desire is disordered (to use Augustine’s categories) and where sexual activity transgresses in any direction, the good and wise boundaries determined by the God who created it, to that extent it comes to speak of a misdirected doxological impulse.

Which is what makes this conflict that is currently ravaging the Church of England so deeply divisive and so dangerously dissentious. It is being presented as something innocuous: simply providing some liturgy that can be used (if so wished, and with no compulsion) to bless those who have entered into a civil marriage. But beneath such inoffensive language rages a storm that threatens to tear the Church from her deepest theological moorings and indeed, her devotion to Christ. This is why so many (on both sides) see the stakes as so high, and in part what makes the Bishops’ suggestion that we can walk together, maintaining the unity of the Church so dangerously inadequate.

But in the midst of all this we do find ourselves oddly in agreement with Bishop Martin’s comment that this is a moment reminiscent of the conflicts of the sixteenth century Reformation, in which the Church of England was forged. The Reformation was, of course, an Augustinian renewal movement. And it challenged the idea of celibacy (for priests et al) that Augustine, amongst others, gave the lie to. The Church of England mandates us to reflect critically on tradition in the light of Scripture (e.g. Art.21). Augustine got that one wrong. On that point, we can see with the benefit of 1500 year’s hindsight that he was out of step with Scripture. Luther, the Augustinian monk, undestood this, and would not be moved from the Bible’s teaching. As he famously resolved at the Diet of Worms:

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by clear reason (for I do not trust in the pope or councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted. My conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not retract anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.

So in a way, the fact that Augustine would not approve of being implicated in the Bishops’ position isn’t finally the point. Everything hinges - as it should do in the Church of England - on what the Bible teaches. To this we turn in our next blog.

all citations from Augustine, On Christian Doctrine are from NPNF, Vol.2, ed. Schaff

for the quote about ‘the natural bond of human society’, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, vol. I.9, Marriage and Virginity, ed. and trans. David G. Hunter (New York: New City Press, 1999), 33.

Again: yes, but... mission?

Let me start this third blog in the series by saying that one of the things I have valued about Bishop Martin’s and Bishop Mike’s leadership in Eds & Ips is their commitment to mission. In this they have sought to lead by exhortation and example. I may have sometimes struggled with the form it has taken, but fundamentally I have enjoyed their partnership in the Gospel.

That commitment to mission was something that found expression again in their videos. Bishop Martin echoed a former ArchBishop, William Temple at one point: ‘We exist … to proclaim Christ to the people of England' (Temple’s famous dictum being: "The Church is the only organisation that does not exist for itself, but for those who live outside of it."). And he warned that when we forget this, we tend toward becoming a sect. Amen. Indeed, I had much more sympathy with this sort of statement, than Bishop Mike’s much more ambiguous observation that opinion within the Church of England reflects that of wider society. Perhaps it does in the House of Bishops, but as the votes in Synod showed, the House of Bishops is some way out of step with those in the pews. And our job is not to represent the people of this nation, still less to reflect their cultural and social attitudes. It is as Bishop Martin puts it, ‘to proclaim Christ…’.

All of this finds expression in ‘Growing in God’, which has a number of strategic aims, inlcuding Growing in Number, and Growing Younger. Which again, raises significant questions about how the Bishops can come to the conclusions they have about the Church’s blessing of those in same-sex marriage. I’ll come back to the actual arguments that have convinced them in a later blog, but for now let me just make the point that the Bishops Proposals will critically undermine the Church’s mission in this nation.

Contrary to much of what has been claimed in the LLF discussions in recent years, changing the Church’s teaching will not result in the Church becoming more acceptable to society, only less defensible. Received wisdom in outreach suggests that as we become more ‘relevant’, ‘accessible’, ‘recognisable’ to our culture, we minimise the obstacles that stand in the way of people coming to faith. Without defending traditionalism as an end in itself, let me just say that to believe this now is stretching credulity to breaking point.

The idea was formulated about 70 years ago (in the 1950s), when Donald McGavren wrote a book that started what has become known as the Church Growth Movement. We need to recognise that it has been massively influential, and that without most people ever having heard of him, McGavren has shaped a lot of our generation’s assumptions about Church.

His basic idea was that in order to help people become Christians, we had to understand as much as we can about the specific culture / sub-culture they are living in, and then that we needed to redesign Church in a way that is uniquely shaped by that culture, relevant to that culture, and accessible to that culture.

After a generation of road-testing this idea, it has been found wanting at a number of levels. Apart from the development of specific and niche culture ‘churches’ (a patently unBiblical vision for the Church family), it is simply a matter of emperical observation that adopting this strategy has not led to Church Growth in any meaningful sense. Now, to be clear, it is debatable that McGavren would have sanctioned the application of this model to doctrine. He seemed to be more concerned about making the way we worship ‘culturally relevant’. But that does not take away from the fact that this is the basic missional argument that has been deployed during LLF. If we remove (now doctrinal / ethical) obstacles to Church membership, we’ll win the nation back to Christ. Or at least a hearing for Him..?

The Church (the Anglican Church at any rate) in UK is locked into a spiral of decline. Throughout LLF, our progressive ‘prophets of doom’ have leveraged this observation to justify the removal of what they seem to believe constitutes an unecessary obstacle to people coming to faith in Christ.

Except that dismantling centuries of Biblical insight and wisdom about what constitutes Christian worship and discipleship turns out to be a wrong turn of catastrophic proportions. A raft of theological, Biblical and ethical questions aside, it simply fails on the basis of the very pragmatism that justifies it. In other words, it simply doesn’t work.

Is that just anecdotal, culutrally primitive, prejudice talking? Nope - that’s hard data and research talking.

When Church growth and decline is analysed in relation to their alignment to progressive ideology, of which same-sex marriage is a cornerstone, then without exception (read that again) Churches that adopt such progressive ideology (more specifically those which legitimse same sex marraige) are in decline.

To be fair, the Anglican Church was already in decline, but the idea that last week’s vote in Synod will do anything to slow that delince is to fly in the face of all evidence to the contrary. Before Synod’s vote, the Church of England was facing extinction by 2060. The evidence suggests that date has just been brought forward! Growing Churches (meaning here denominations / networks) have all held the line on Biblical sexual ethics.

Which brings me to my ‘yes, but…’ response to the Bishops’ video. Yes to mission. Yes to proclaiming Christ… Yes to ‘making disciples’. But… this is a decision that has chronically undermined precisely that commitment. To have made it in the name of mission is, I’m afraid, misguided at best.

the diagram above, and the research behind it can be found at: https://churchmodel.org.uk/2022/05/20/uk_church_decline_and_progressive_ideology/

if you want to read an artice explaining how Churches that attract young people hold to the historical teaching on marriage, you can do here: https://christianconcern.com/news/churches-with-the-largest-youth-groups-teach-biblical-sexuality/

Yes, but... unity?

Before I address those areas where I (though not just ‘I’, I hasten to add) have grave concerns about what the Bishops have said in their videos, and explore how it cannot justify the departure we have now taken from the historic and Biblical teaching and discipline of the Church, there are a couple of other things the Bishops say that I have some resonance with… some.

The first, as I intimated in my first post, is their oft repeated commitment to unity. For this we are grateful, and it is one of the places where I felt both the strongest resonance, but also the some of the strongest uncertainty about what is actually being said. That uncertainty has only increased in the light of Synod’s debate and vote. Bishop Martin speaks of the need to ‘attend to and nurture the bonds of affection’, and Bishop Mike speaks of the commitment of the Diocese to continue to appoint, encourage and support across the spectrum of views on LLF, and specifcally on this issue of the blessings of those in same sex marriages. I was struck by the Bishops’ exploring their commitment to unity not as an end in itself, but in relation to Christ.

This is a refreshing perspective and one I warmed to in the videos. It is, as the Bishops say, costly, but it is something we are to prioritise, and make every effort to keep (Eph.4:1-6). So where do my concerns lie?

The first is the question of what it means to build our unity in relation to Christ, when our visions of Christ are dissonant. That seems an impossibly brittle foundation. At root is the question of whether we can disentangle the Person of Jesus from His teaching. And by ‘His teaching’ we don’t limit ourselves to the sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels, but also His teaching by His Spirit through the Apostles, and prior to that, through the Law, the Writings and the Prophets. Bishop Mike links our unity to our pointing to who Christ is… but that seems to be precisely the point at issue. Who do we believe Christ to be, and what do we believe He is calling us to be? Who is the Christ to whom we are pointing?

The second is the observation that throughout the Bible, the unity of the Church is threatened by heterodox teaching, and un-Apostolic views of Jesus, and of disicpleship. Those entrusted with leadership in our Church are exhorted to ‘hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that they can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it’ (Titus 1:9). This is captured by the Church of England’s commission to her Bishops (captured in Canon C18, Every bishop is the chief pastor of all that are within their diocese … it appertains to their office to teach and to uphold sound and wholesome doctrine, and to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange opinions). This conformity to the teaching of the Church is conformity to our shared vision of Christ, His teaching and what it means to follow Him. In spite of the oft-repeated claim that the 39 Articles are not a Basis of faith, it is clear that the BCP understands them to be exactly that. They are ‘Articles … for the avoiding of diversities of opinions and for the establishing of consent touching true religion’.

And my third concern is that in spite of the rhetoric of unity, the House of Bishops have in fact - in their Proposals - introduced colossal disunity to both the Church of England, and the Global Anglican Communion. Whilst I take Bishop Martin’s point that we may have different ideas of what we are aspiring to with regard to unity, and with whom, there are three fractures that have opened in this last week, that are unlikely to ever be healed.

Within the Church of England there is a disunity of doctrine, practise and liturgy that strikes at some of the most foundational beliefs about what it means to be Christian. We are facing an almost unprecedented prospect of division within our denomination. As of this week’s vote in General Synod, we can no longer speak of a united Church. The Church of England Evangelical Council (which includes Bishops and Principals of Theological Colleges) is amongst those within the Church of England immediately calling for visible differentiation, and for ‘Principled Protest’. The House of Bishops has preciptated a sequence of events that could conceivably lead to the break-up of the historic Church. That isn’t fear-mongering, it is simply a statement of fact. Whether those voting in Synod yesterday appreciated the significance of their actions or intended this as a consequnce is quite beside the point. And all talk of ‘walking together’ sounds hollow and disingenuous after what we witnessed at Synod.

Within the Global Anglican Communion (not even taking into account GAFCON), there has already been a call for the Church of England to repent, or face ‘impaired communion’. The Archbishop of Alexandria was at Synod, and warned those voting of these consequences. The Global South Primates (representing 75%+) of the Global Anglican Church have already issued a statement questioning whether ArchBishop Welby is ‘fit to lead’ the Global Anglican Communion. They continue that in view of this week’s General Synod, they will be

‘taking decisive steps towards re-setting the Anglican Communion (as outlined in our ‘Communique’ following the 2022 Lambeth Conference). Orthodox Provinces in GSFA are not leaving the Anglican Communion, but with great sadness must recognise that the Church of England has now joined those Provinces with which communion is impaired. The historical Church which spawned the global Communion, and which for centuries was accorded ‘first among equals’ status, has now triggered a widespread loss of confidence in her leadership of the Communion’.

And ecumenically… quite apart form the damage this has done ‘on the ground’, other denominations and Church networks are already raising deep concerns at Synod’s decisions. A Coptic Orthodox Bishop - an invited guest at Synod, warned this decision would be ‘contrary to the received tradition of the Christian world’, and would result in the distancing of other denominations such as his own. Abroad, there will be violent repercussions for the persecuted Church elsewhere in the world - again, a fact recognised (even articulated by the ArchBishop of Canterbury himself) but ignored by Synod. In part there is grief and despair at the significance of the country’s established Church stepping away from its own teaching, but also concern that the Synod’s decision will be used to undermine Christians, Churches and Christian Organisations, at home and abroad, that remain committed to the historic and Biblical position. Will the Bishops - as an expression of their commitment to unity within the Church of England - publicly defend and protect those who hold to the historic and Biblical teaching on these issues? Will they defend Christians who are now undermined in their workplaces? Will they defend parents of children in Church of England Schools who challenge those schools for teaching that which is contrary to Scriptural teaching? Recent history would suggest not - and that was before Synod’s vote. What then is this unity?

But I fear most immediately for the division and disunity that the Bishop’s Proposals will cause in the local congregations that remain the foundational building blocks of the Church of England. As each Minister & PCC now have to face the question of whether to use these Prayers of Love and Faith, how many congregations will be left diminished and divided. I confess a certain anxiety particularly over evangelical congregations. It has to be said that as evangelicals, we tend not good at unity. In part because we tend to be Evangelicals first and Anglicans second. Our commitment to Scripture and Christ trumps our commitment to the Church of England, although until this week the two were not necessarily in tension. The technical sophistry of Synod will count for little amongst those who long more than anything for their pastors to be faithful to Scripture. The legal casuistry will only serve to further undermine their confidence. And the oft-repeated statements from many that there is still a way to go on this journey gives little reason to stay. The situation we find ourselves in is not good for Evangelicals, nor for Anglicans. Many of us will stay… although for many it will depend on the reality of how this all plays out in the weeks and months ahead. But many will go. And in spite of the obvious contempt for traditionalists shown in Synod, that will be a tragedy for the Church of England.

So, yes, but… Yes, let’s pursue unity. But this is not it.

Where I agree with our Bishops

I’ve been asked a number of times over the last couple of days what I think of the v-logs released by our Bishops, in which they seek to explain how they have arrived at their conclusion that the Church should change its teaching, so that the Church of England would extend Holy Matrimony to same-sex couples.

If you haven’t seen them, they can be found here, https://www.cofesuffolk.org/deepening-faith/everyday-faith/living-in-love-and-faith/living-in-love-and-faith.php

I’ve watched the videos a number of times now, and will try and respond to them, as well as to the wider situation developing at Synod, over the next few days.

So, first: where do I agree with Bishops Martin and Mike…

The main area where I found myself in sympathy is with regard to their critical reflections on the uncritical (evangelical?) faith of their younger days! On this we share common ground. I totally agree with +Martin that Scripture Union notes, and the like, are not a good way to read the Bible, and I agree with +Mike that a faith that is not challenged, or interrogated is hopelessly vulnerable. I found myself saddened by both their stories as they recounted the destabilising experience they had at University, and how their youthful, but un-critical faith left them unprepared for the challenges of rigorous theological, philosophical and hermeneutical challenges they were exposed to in later life.

This seems to me an honest and important point to highlight, and we should be grateful to our Bishops for their transparency here. It underlines the urgency and importance of ensuring that those in our Churches, and those who are growing up through our Churches are invested with a rich, informed, well-resourced, and intellectually rigorous faith, that is able to engage well with the questions that are asked of it. We will have moments when our faith is challenged, but we can be much better equipped to navigate those moments. We, and our children and young people, are facing increasingly challenging questions as Christians, and we have a responsiblity to make sure that we and they are adequately prepared. Our Bishops have laid down a mandate for teaching and discipling at a much greater depth than we are used to!

The second major area of agreement is the Bishops’ own assessment of their videos. Towards the end of the last video, we are reminded that their v-logs haven’t been intended as arguments, deployed to change anyone’s mind. They are far more autobiographical, simply reflecting on how they have arrived at the position they now share. Indeed. They are however articulating at least some the reasons that they have personally found persuasive. I’ll look at those arguments and explain why I, and many, many others both inside and outside the Church, are less persuaded.

Yet a compelling argument for introducing change in any form to the Church’s teaching and discipline on marriage and sexuality (and yes, they do signify a change in spite of all rhetoric to the contrary), is really what we need. One of the common observations raised about the whole LLF process is that no such argument was forthcoming. I’ll try and show in a later post that there remains an apparent lack of any convincing theological, pastoral, missional or canonical justification for this extraordinary development … though this does perhaps explain why the changes are being forced through with seeming disregard for process, and for the concerns of those on Synod who have deep misgivings about the course that being set for the Church.

Unless it were being live streamed, it is unlikely that anyone would believe the behaviour of some of the Bishops. There is widespread condemnation of what is being described variously as disingenuous (see here: https://www.anglicanfutures.org/post/who-do-you-think-you-are-kidding evasive and condescending (see here: https://www.christiantoday.com/article/this.week.at.general.synod/139809.htm and arrogant sophistry (see here: https://mbarrattdavie.wordpress.com/2023/02/07/on-not-blaming-god/ There is a great deal of concern that the House of Bishops are simply abusing their power. This was captured in the debate itself when Stephen Hofmeyr made a point of order: the fact that we were, on every amendment, taking a vote by houses meant that the bishops could veto everything, and indeed were doing precisely that, somewhat undermining their apparent commitment to listen to Synod. The point of order was met with loud and prolonged applause, signalling widespread discontent...

I strongly recommend that you watch some of the interactions in Synod and decide for yourself (see here: https://www.facebook.com/CCFON/videos/514972150783085/ . I was particularly struck by Rebecca Hunt’s being so flabbergasted by one answer that she asked for it to be put in writing. It risks a staggering loss of trust in the House of Bishops and in the integrity of the processes of governance and accountability within the institution of the Church of England. Their blatent disregard for the Pastoral Principles the Bishops themselves have advocated throughout the LLF process, and that subsequent loss of trust, will remain an issue irrespective of the outcomes of General Synod. This is particularly unfortunate, because trust is precisely what is needed if we are going to walk together through these tumultuous times.

Whilst I agree with the priority of a Christ-centred unity to which our own Bishops return again and again in their videos, it is becoming increasingly clear that some of the Bishops speaking at General Synod are critically undermining that unity. Whilst we are so grateful that our own Bishops are speaking words of grace, and have publicly committed themselves to continuing to support, encourage, resource and appoint across the spectrum of views, they risk being drowned out by their colleagues.

what do Christians believe about all this... and what difference does it make to discipleship?

Part of what we’re doing over this term is helping you to find resources that will help you to think through the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and identity. If you are thinking thorugh the arguments and claims and counter-claims about what Christians believe, and what our culture is increasingly committing itself to believing; or if you are struggling to know how to tackle these issues in terms of your own discipleship and experience; or are unsure about how to talk to others, here are a couple of websites that might be help…

if you haven’t looked into True Freedom Trust yet: https://truefreedomtrust.co.uk/

Living Out: https://www.livingout.org/

here’s an American site that speaks to many of these questions: https://www.centerforfaith.com/

Hope they help…

True Freedom Trust

so who are the True Freedom Trust and why are we inviting them to be a part of our engagement with LLF? Here’s a short video that introduces their work.

Don’t forget to let me know if you are planning to come on 23rd, so that we can make sure there is enough brunch to go round!

A Beautiful Story

This is a great video that helps us think through some of the issues we’re facing in Living in Love and Faith. Testimony and teaching from a variety of Christians… honest, inspiring, tender, compelling…

Enjoy.

Have you heard of the Coalition for Marriage?

As we go through the term, I’ll be posting various articles and videos, interviews and posts that help us to grow in our awareness of, and to think through some of the wider issues relating to ‘Living in Love and Faith’ and the wider culture around marriage, gender and identity.

15 minutes of 'Sunday Morning Live'

If you’d like a quick and accessible introduction to the different perspectives on LLF, here is a short panel discussion from last Sunday’s BBC Sunday Morning Live. I’ve taken the video from the blog of one of the participants, Ian Paul. Hope it helps. It includes a contribution from a Methodist minister. As you may be aware, the Methdoist Conference has voted overwhelmingly to permit its ministers to conduct same-sex marriages in its churches and buildings.