Miranda Threlfall-Holmes No, the doctrine of marriage is not fixed
Andrew Goddard Psephizo What are the bishops claiming about marriage?
Helen King sharedconversations Would you Adam and Eve it?
Russell Dewhurst Law & Religion UK Canon B5 and the Prayers of Love and Faith
Meg Munn Chair of the National Safeguarding Panel Annual Report 2022 National Safeguarding Panel
Giles Fraser UnHerd God has no gender
Frank Cranmer Religion Media Centre Factsheet: Establishment and the Church of England
With so much else currently on the menu, this thread (admittedly a mixed bag), has so far passed without comment. Much of it is related to the current matter, but may I strongly recommend Frank Cranmer’s ‘Factsheet’ on Establishment and the Church of England. It should dispel many of the myths and be particularly helpful to our overseas readers with a simple and clear explanation of this complex subject.
There must be others who think people are losing the plot with the idea of dis establishment.
The church has just taken six years to carry out a glorified survey. It would take decades – literally – to take the conflict to the point where disestablishment is the answer
MPs are itching to jump in and slap conservative evangelicals into place, but is it seriously being claimed that the country looks to MPs to shape the moral world we occupy ?
It’s just not going to happen.
We need to sort the problem out within the church
People certainly don’t look to the Church of England to sort out the moral world in which they live. Why are MPs any worse?
At the very least, at least MPs have been democratically elected to their posts, which is a great deal more than I can say of the episcopal leaders of the CoE
Your opinion seems to be based on incorrect supposition. C of E Bishops are democratically selected and at the conclusion of the selection process they are elected. See the correspondence on the previous thread about the Crown Appointments Commission – it’s very recent, possibly earlier today. Unfortunately the C of E website page about this is currently being updated and unavailable for that reason, but you will find full and helpful details on Wikipedia: “Appointment of Church of England bishops” if you care to search there rather than make these unwarranted and incorrect blanket assertions.
I see nothing in the Wikipedia article that could be called a “democratic election.” With the exception of “the diocese’s representative members of the General Synod of the Church of England,” none of those voting in this alleged election have been elected to anything. (And there have been many comments and threads on this site about the lack of true representation in the choosing of diocesan representatives to GS.) In essence, this is, at best, a vote by a committee consisting overwhelmingly of appointed officials. I stand by my earlier comment–there is no democracy in the selection of bishops in… Read more »
The Crown Nominations Commission for any particular vacancy consists of members of the central panel (who are elected by and from the members of the General Synod), and others from the diocesan vacancy in see committee (elected by and from that committee). The vacancy in see committee contains a number of ex-officio members together with others elected by and from the diocesan synod; but these ex-officio members include the elected clergy and lay chairs of the diocesan synod, as well as the elected General Synod representatives. The dean, archdeacons and any suffragan bishops are also ex-officio members of the committee,… Read more »
I don’t really need to respond, other than to say that your original comment and this follow-up were both unwarranted without your having taken any steps to establish facts, or to know what you were talking about. Fortunately Simon Kershaw has provided the information which I was unable to due to the C of E website being temporarily ‘down’ as I have explained.
Final word, as far as I am concerned. This is intended to be a serious discussion forum, not a place for silly point-scoring.
There’s more to the move towards disestablishment than disagreements over LLF. Many people are uneasy that a denomination which has so few members, relatively speaking, should have such a prominent place in the House of Lords – particularly as we are now a multi-faith nation. Then there’s unease over the C of E’s exclusion from the Equality Act. Although, to be fair, the royal households are also excused from adhering to its requirements. I wonder how long the king will retain that exemption?
On the contrary, religious belief is protected by the Equality Act. The exemption from the requirement to carry out same-sex marriage ceremonies applies to all religious ceremonies: Schedule 3, at 25A. Subsequent clauses in that Schedule grant similar exemptions to all religions with respect to single-sex or sex-segregated worship, for example. However, we should rather regard these “exemptions” as balancing the general right to equal treatment with the general right to uphold religious beliefs.
Is it suggested that the Church of England should be specifically exempted from those exemptions?
Janet: I fear there is widespread misunderstanding about the Equality Act 2010 (which might extend to the pronouncements of some politicians), and probably confusion with the provisions which apply to the C of E in the Marriage (Same Sex Partners) Act 2013 – for which there are perfectly good and justifiable reasons. There’s nothing specific relevant to the C of E in the EA 2010 to support some of the commentary here which I believe to be based on misreadings. The EA has 218 sections and 28 schedules. I haven’t had time to look at any provisions relating to the… Read more »
Isn’t it our exemption from the Equality Act that permits us to continue to discriminate against women and LGBT people as regards employment?
The fact that the late Queen lobbied successfully for a similar exemption may not be directly relevant, but it does tell us something about the establishment of which the C of E is a part.
By “our exemption” I assume you mean the Church of England? As already explained both by Unreliable Narrator and by me, there is no such exemption; the protected characteristics and any exceptions to them are applied to all religions and beliefs (including non-belief). The Church of England is nowhere mentioned in the Equality Act 2010. I have no knowledge of the late Queen having lobbied, or obtained, any exemption. Can I deal with a basic point which the newspaper articles on the subject seem to have misunderstood. The late Queen, and now the King, cannot be sued or prosecuted in… Read more »
Whatever the exact wording, the C of E, along with other denominations and religions, lobbied hard and successfully to be allowed to continue to discriminate on grounds of sex and sexual orientation. But it matters more with the C of E than with other churches, because we are so much a part of the structure of the nation, and supposed to be there for everyone. And that contradiction is a powerful part of the argument for disestablishment.
The reason why people want to believe that the Church of England has a special exemption is that they want to argue that this (non-existent) special exemption should be removed, which, they believe, would give them what they want, namely a state-mandated right to same-sex marriage in the Church of England. That is a fallacy. No church is legally required to perform same-sex marriages contrary to its own religious doctrine, and the 2010 and 2013 Acts both specifically protect them from being required to do so. I think we would have heard something about the Roman Catholic church were it… Read more »
‘No church is legally required to perform same-sex marriages contrary to its own religious doctrine, and the 2010 and 2013 Acts both specifically protect them from being required to do so.’
That is an exemption from equality legislation, in layperson’s language at least. Churches are also allowed to refuse to consider a woman for a job on an equal basis with men. Other entities, such as the Post Office or British Gas, would not get away with that.
I agree with you that the issue is more salient now than a decade again. That does not mean it will happen any time soon.
A settlement will be possible in regard to SSM.
It’s just silly to think the King, the government, the judiciary and the legislature are going to intervene to spare progressives the job of accepting a settlement.
We know the the king would prefer to be the ‘protector of faiths’ rather than the ‘Protector of Faith’; Parliament is frustrated with the C of E’s continuing to discriminate on grounds of sex and sexual orientation. The government has less than two more years. That leaves the judiciary, who will presumably enforce any laws that are passed.
Not that I think disestablishment will happen any time soon, there are too
many other things to put right. The Church may wither away before anything is done about weeding it out.
I agree entirely with your analysis
We know the the king would prefer to be the ‘protector of faiths’ rather than the ‘Protector of Faith’ That is not His Majesty’s position. In 2015 he said No, I didn’t describe myself as a defender: I said I would rather be seen as ‘Defender of Faith’, all those years ago, because, as I tried to describe, I mind about the inclusion of other people’s faiths and their freedom to worship in this country. And it’s always seemed to me that, while at the same time being Defender of The Faith, you can also be protector of faiths. It… Read more »
If Andrew Goddard’s piece is right, (and the bishops ditto) should we, to be consistent, now remove Mr and Mrs titles from those in our churches who have only entered a civil partnership or marriage?
One question which merits discussion is whether the Bishops paper, or the legal advice on which it is based, reflect a change the doctrine of marriage in the manner in which they describe the relationship between civil marriage and “Holy Matrimony”, even between couples of opposite sex. The 1938 report of the first ever Doctrine Commission begins “Marriage stands in a special position because, both as a rite and as a state of life, it is not something particularly Christian, but rather is an institution of the natural order which is taken into and sanctified by the Christian Church.” I… Read more »
At last some sensible commentary on the Church, the King and the State: https://anglicanmainstream.org/archbishop-of-canterbury-challenged-over-claims-of-being-threatened-with-parliamentary-action-to-bring-in-same-sex-marriage-in-the-church-of-england/
Thanks for this link Peter. I have now started a new TA article on the ACC meeting. Please could further discussion of what was, or was not, said in Accra, be placed on that thread, not here.