The Church of England has published this press release: The House of Bishops: Living in Love and Faith
The House of Bishops has confirmed, following a meeting held by Zoom on Wednesday 24 June, that it will proceed with the publication of the Living in Love and Faith teaching and learning resources in early November this year.
The publication of the resources, originally scheduled for July 2020, had been deferred as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Commissioned by the House of Bishops and led by the Bishop of Coventry, Christopher Cocksworth, the aim of the Living in Love and Faith project is to help the whole Church to learn how relationships, marriage and sexuality fit within the bigger picture of a humanity created in the image of God.
Commenting on the decision to proceed in the autumn of 2020, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on all of us and none of us knows what challenges we will face in the months to come.
“The LLF resources are about vital matters which affect the wellbeing of individuals and communities. That is why it is important for the Church to move ahead with publishing the resources as soon as possible.
“They will help the Church to live out its calling to be a people who embody the reconciliation of Christ as together we explore matters of identity, sexuality and marriage.”
The House endorsed the plan to enable bishops, dioceses, deaneries and local church communities to explore the resources together from the beginning of 2021.
The House acknowledged that engagement with the materials will need to be responsive to local contexts and fully recognises the impact of COVID-19 and other challenges on the health, the economy and the wellbeing of the nation. It is envisaged that in 2022 learning and engagement with the materials will move to discernment, decision-making and if necessary, synodical processes. The group that will take this part of the LLF process forward on behalf of the House of Bishops will be led by Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London.
The Church Times has reported this here: Living in Love and Faith resources to be published in November which includes some additional comments by the Bishop of Coventry.
I note that it is only resources that will be published in November. They will be “explored” in 2021, thus ensuring that nothing really happens until after the Lambeth Conference. That seems to have been the plan all the way along.
Assuming Lambeth happens in 2021.
Call me a cynic, but I suspect those churches that are most likely to take full advantage of the resources will be those that least need to and those who are least likely to use them will be those that could most benefit.
And it is sadly a truth not often expressed, that by the time you get down to deaneries and parishes, in many parts of the country, the engagement will be slight indeed.
Graeme Buttery
First off, kudos to the website staff. The enhanced comment features — such as italics, bullet points, embedded Internet links, etc. — add to the website’s functionality. I especially appreciate the ability to add italics.
I fully agree with Mr. McWilliams’, Mr. Buttery’s, Mr. Waddington’s, and Mr. Pemberton’s comments. If that makes me cynical, so be it.
The CofE, regardless of how people think it is founded on, is ultimately a human hierarchical institution, with everything that means.
Dissapointing that the Archbishop has failed to mention the disreportionate effect Covid 19 has had on the LGBT+ community and how delaying the publishing of LLF the Church has added to the grief and burdon carried by LGBT+ Christians. The Church is acting like LGBT+ issues, Covid 19 and national wellbeing are seperate issues when they overwhelming linked. Please stop making excuses for systemic homophobia in the Church.
Mr. Simm,
Would you mind explaining how, in your view, COVID-19 has affected GLBT people more than other people? Or how the LLF document would make that disparity any better?
Reports by ILGA. Stonewall and the LGBT Foundation highlight many unique issues. Maybe check them out as they are quite detailed. LLF will not change anything – there is no desire for change and no urgency. Most people have no interest at all and this is another exercise to kick the can down the road. Time has moved on and so have people. Whether church doors open or close is irrelevant to the many who feel excluded and unwelcome.
There is much data and evidence around this, which the government themselves have accepted and messaged about. You may want to take a look at this research report – the impact is far worse overseas sadly
https://lgbt.foundation/coronavirus/impact
I wish there was a button to “like” your comment George as I whole heartedly agree with every word you say!
Oh, for goodness sake. Meanwhile, in the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Do people really have any interest in engaging with this as if it is going to change anything at all?
I couldn’t agree more with Pemberton. Have they really got nothing better to think about? How about opening up our cathedrals and churches to worshippers promptly next weekend for a start?
Roll up, roll up! It’s “Carry On in Coventry” with Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and most of the usual suspects. The one who’s missing and who might have brought a sense of reality to the show is Sid James, but he wouldn’t have passed the Stasi vetting for “episcopabile”. To them all I send my favoured liturgical greeting taken straight from “Carry on up the Khyber”: may the Lord light up your life, to which the canonical response is: and up yours.
Ref Stanley, Michael, Jeremy et al, well
sadsaid.Reminded me of another in the Bishop Cocksworth catalogue:
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/bishop-coventry-apologises-pressing-wrong-12617469
It pressed my button, and carrying on you can also see what a newspaper paywall shields us from … pubs, pizzas, Pillmere … ‘all human life in Coventry’.Now was it Godiva or a Bishop with no raiments- Godiva Must Fall.
I digress- so much fun. Good to know that the Bishops have their finger on the people’s priorirites 😉
In the twelve years I’ve been tangentially involved with the Church of England, I’ve seen off the ‘Listening Process’, the ‘Pilling Review’ (to which I contributed as an interviewee), the ‘Pilling Report’, the ‘Shared Conversations’, the ‘Report of the House of Bishops Reflection Group’, the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ process, and not forgetting my personal involvement in the Pemberton case. Now there is to be a further two years of ‘engagement’ before ‘discernment’ starts in 2022 – which itself is to take a further unspecified length of time – and, finally, it is ‘envisaged’ that ‘decision-making’ might take… Read more »
The impact of COVID19 on LGBT+ people has been by very negative, particularly for young people. Many have found themselves isolated from the people and places of support, and some have been obliged to spend these months of lockdown in homes where their sexual identity is something that brings trouble to them if they are open. So it has increased stress and anxiety. A national church that thinks we can approach these things as if we had all the time in the world to discern and dither lets down some who are very vulnerable. The last thing this community needs… Read more »
As Jeremy, Evan, Stan and others eloquently point out – it’s too late for the CofE. My contemporaries have long been indifferent to it as an institution but also for their own spiritual lives. If they give it a thought, I suppose if I’m around, they take it as a given that it is homophobic, sexist and racist. These wearisome prognostications will fall flat on their own backsides. LLF has only ever been about kicking a battered can further down the road; the conservative evangelicals will not countenance anything else. I would say that 99% of my former parishioners couldn’t… Read more »