Helen King sharedconversations Waiting for bishops
Chrissie Chevasutt ViaMedia.News Don’t Preach. Just Don’t.
Marcus Green Inclusive Evangelicals Friendly fire ….
Kate Mossman The New Statesman Justin Welby: “It’s better to be woke than asleep”
“He has denounced migration policy yet resists calls for gay marriage. Can the Archbishop of Canterbury unite a fraying Church?”
Andrew Goddard The Living Church Prayers of love and faith, (Arch-)Episcopal power and Anglican identity
and in response
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Disturbing the Foundations: LLF, the Sexual Revolution and General Synod
I don’t think the Anglican Ink blog was linked on TA, but perhaps it should have been. It describes the background to the process described by Helen King perfectly. https://anglican.ink/2023/09/27/the-church-of-englands-passage-to-oblivion-the-journey-so-far/ It is not about doctrine, or theology. It is about compromise. It is about fudging the theology and finding a way forward so that the greatest number of people stay inside the tent. Some people might be happy with that. For myself I think it is a safeguarding issue. We we are maximising the chances of LGBTQ people finding themselves in the same church or church institution as those preaching… Read more »
The juxtaposition of the ViaMedia.News and Inclusive Evangelicals articles is a stark illustration of the mess we are in. They are both about one of the most prominent priests in the CoE. One refers to historical on the record material that (some might think) may constitute a Safeguarding issue to LGBTQI+ Students. The other written now in the present by a Gay priest refers to a friend and brother in Christ. Life in the CoE is complicated and messy. Perhaps it’s always been like this? Perhaps it’s meant to be like this?
With regard to the Via Media news article, I’d like to point out that the St Aldates sermon being referred to was given 20 years ago. How many of us have changed over time in our views on various subjects? I know I have. I also know (speaking for myself) that I have sometimes worded things in the past in ways I later regretted, and ways I wouldn’t express myself now. The individual concerned has been deeply impressive in trying to understand trans issues better, and has engaged with me at very great length. and probably more than any other… Read more »
I am sorry Susannah, but your post has made me uneasy; not for what was said, but for what was not said. We often talk on this blog about a survivor led approach, and always listening to the experiences of survivors. Whilst acknowledging (and welcoming) that Simon Ponsonby may be changing his views now, it seems clear from various reports that in the past he and his church have been the instigators of much spiritual pain to a number of LGBTQ people. Whilst certain sermons may have been written a long time ago, there may well be people around today… Read more »
Chrissie Chevasutt addresses the main points made in defence of Simon Ponsonby viz. he’s a good chap (Chrissie Chevasutt acknowledges his warm tone and his repeated claims to love LGBTQIA people; but notes that the tone is at odds with the message); & something along the lines of ‘we all make mistakes’ and he has / must have changed (Chrissie Chevasutt has found no evidence of change in Simon Ponsonby’s recent teaching; and this old sermon is still available as part of the St Aldate’s magisterium). Whatever his merits as a writer, these matters seem incontrovertible.
Tony Phelan. Her criticism is of a sermon preached 20 years ago. “Chrissie Chevasutt has found no evidence of change in Simon Ponsonby’s recent teaching”. But Marcus Green and Susannah Clark clearly have. “This old sermon is still available as part of the St Aldate’s magisterium” – I am assured someone who knows it is not.
David, just for clarity, what is your evidence that it was preached twenty years ago. Chrissie believes it was preached some time between 2016 and 2018.
https://chrissiechevasutt.wordpress.com/2023/10/03/blowing-the-whistle-on-secrecy-and-silence/
And the question is, people can change, but by how much?
https://chrissiechevasutt.wordpress.com/2023/09/27/critique-and-overview-of-simon-ponsonbys-homophobic-sermon/
Hi Simon, This is a sermon that was preached in 2003. I have that on very good authority. Twenty years ago. I don’t have any doubt about that. I’m not sure why the date range 2016 to 2018 was guessed at, but that was incorrect. I simply want to engage with this church, and try to help them get a deeper understanding of the pastoral needs of trans people. I think it is better to try to engage than not to. I am personally aware of the way someone lesbian or trans can suffer psychologically if they are pressurised to… Read more »
Homophobia (and misogyny) absolutely exist in the historical church and among the saints. It is, perhaps, more tolerable when there is nothing to challenge such views rather than when someone has chosen those as the “distinctives” they wish to cling to above all else.
Hi Susannah, Thanks for the response. It is helpful to get some clarity. I acknowledge I don’t have much recent knowledge of the churches in Oxford, but like you I do have knowledge of how people can be severely damaged by priestly and church behaviours, and also how such people who have been damaged often find their reports of their experiences belittled, ignored and sidelined. I am simply doing what I can to keep the concerns of the survivors in this case visible. It is not sufficient to say that’s all in the past, things have changed. I do hope… Read more »
Susannah, Do you attend St Aldates? Are you a physical member of the church of St Aldates? You appear to see or know nothing about those people seriously wounded by Simon and other clergy. Victims do not seem of any great concern to you? When you talk of ‘personal attack’, you are talking to someone who has been a close and trusted friend to Simon, one of his closest intercessors for over ten years through the darkest times of his ministry. Simon abused me and our long friendship in church on Sunday 9th October 2022. That incident, which was highly… Read more »
20 years is the number quoted on several social media discussions. I happen to know it from someone with long church involvement there. The sources alone that the sermon draws on suggests something preached much earlier than 2016.
The sermon was preached in June 2003.
David and Susannah. thanks for clarifying, I am very happy to accept your statements about the date, although that does not affect the tenor of my comments on this subject.
Simon Who is saying ‘that’s all in the past, things have change?” But I do find myself thinking of how the process of S/Paul’s conversion involved being befriended by a former victim and the clear struggle of the persecuted church to believe change was real and accept him as one of them Perhaps there are similarities – and the challenge is just as hard?
David. Thanks for the comment. I am sure you and I want the same thing here, but because of our different contexts and life experiences we might come to different views about the best way of getting there. The various comments on this blog wanting to emphasise that the sermon was twenty years ago, and that Simon Ponsonby now wants help to re-examine his views, seem (to me at least) to be saying that Chrissie’s comments relate to the past and are not relevant to today’s debate. But let’s be positive and look forward. I do support people like Susannah… Read more »
Dear David (Runcorn), there is no hard evidence of a change in Simon Ponsonbys appalling theology and ignorance exhibited so plainly in his 45 minute sermon. Over the summer of 2023, he preached from Ephesians and doubled down on his hard line views. I asked Simon when he preached ‘the sermon’ and he refused to tell me. Furthermore, said sermon was removed from the web immediately I blew the whistle on its rather sick contents. Since then I have been ministering to LGBT people who have been driven out of St Aldates. There is evidence of conversion therapy having been… Read more »
Dear David, Could Susannah or Marcus provide hard evidence of both Simon’s revised, repentant views, regarding this sermon, or his current teaching? Simon’s teaching only last summer condemns all relationships outside of life long marriage between a man and a woman. That drove a young LGBT person out of St Aldates. They had been told it was a modern progressive church and LGBT ‘friendly’?!?! They had been there eighteen months and no one had challenged their open relationship, despite knowing. This is deliberately deceitful practise on St Aldates part. Secondly they have now hidden said sermon and trying to deny… Read more »
The SCM in Oxford have been pretty clear that they want churches to be honest and transparent about where they stand on issues of sexuality and gender. St Aldates is in my opinion top of the list of churches that is not transparent. Taking down a controversial sermon but without making a statement about why is a good example of that. Perhaps they would be a safe place for LGBTQA+ people, perhaps they are on a journey, but ” don’t ask don’t tell” is not a healthy or safe place to be in. They could say “people here hold a… Read more »
I believe sexual intimacy is restricted to a marriage relationship between a man and a woman, on the basis of biblical revelation. However I am also clear that the talk given by Simon Ponsonby – which was the basis for the article by Chrissie Chevasutt – was ill-judged in the extreme. A particularly egregious point in his sermon was his use of the term “psychotic” when he should obviously and clearly have been using the term “psychological”. To say that the two terms have different meanings is an understatement. Yet, surely Marcus Green and Susannah Clark (below) are to be… Read more »
Peter, no irony here then? You believe sexual intimacy is restricted, etc, according to your biblical ‘revelation’, a ‘revelation’ that condemns all other relationships outside of a marriage relationship between a man and a woman, enforced and hinging upon Revelation 21.9 as your punch line. A systematic homophobic theology that has only existed since post WWII. No one here is ‘condemning’ Simon Ponsonby. To construe placing someone under scrutiny, close examination, and the same principles he has used in his sermon, to hold them to account, is neither attack or condemnation. ‘Who did Jesus scrutinize the most? Who did he… Read more »
At what point is the Church of England going to wonder, “Hmm. We are having trouble attracting people, particularly young people. Is it at least possible that the Spirit has stopped drawing most people in? If so, why might that be? What are we doing wrong”
You can’t have it both ways. Blaming the Holy Spirit for keeping people out. And then blaming ourselves for people not wanting to come in. It’s a bit like Wilko blaming God for the company’s decline. And then asking what did the store owners do wrong. Perhaps God closed Woolworth’s as well because, like the Church, people no longer wanted the product.
As a priest, presumably you responded to a call to ministry? Can you therefore not recognise that people may – or may not – be similarly called to worship in a particular church?
When do many initiatives have failed, at what point do we stop questioning the initiatives themselves and start asking whether the Spirit isn’t calling people to worship in the Church of England? Yes, there are exceptions and maybe we can learn something from them, but I suspect the pattern isn’t easy to spot.
I don’t recognise that people are “called” to ministry any more than some are “called” to work in McDonald’s, or become teachers or refuse collectors. Using religious language to disguise a failing company, Church or any other organisation is meaningless. Why should some initiatives fail whilst others succeed? Probably it’s down to human ingenuity or failure. What has a concept of ” calling” to do with it? It’s often better just to use plain English rather than religious jargon.
Were you asked during the selection process whether you felt you had a vocation to the priesthood? If so, how did you reply? Or do you perhaps understand ‘vocation’ to be different from ‘calling’?
I’ve never heard people in other occupations describe how God chose them to be a bank clerk, a deliveroo driver or a soldier. Why do some religious people single themselves out as being “chosen” for their own career choice when lesser mortals have to decide for themselves. It sounds like self- indulgent aggrandisement to feel so special. Would you ever say to an unemployed person ” God chose me to be a priest, but you were called to the dole”?
Well, I once had to sit through a very lengthy sermon by a clerical gentleman who rejoiced at every wave of Thatcher inspired redundancies in his home town of Corby, because he said people were being forced to trust God. Now I’m not too sure God does force us to follow or obey him – a lot depends on how strict your doctrines of predestination are. But, personally speaking, I grew to see my role as a civil servant in the motor licensing trade as a divine calling, as it had a very strong sense of serving those who came… Read more »
I wouldn’t say that to someone else, but I have considered myself called to every job I’ve had – editorial assistant, shop assistant, vicar. Because that’s where I’ve been placed, and I’ve tried to serve God there. So yes, whatever occupation (or non-occupation due to disability, as I have now) is a vocation.
But were you never asked during the selection process if you had a vocation?
It’s so long ago I can’t remember! I see no objection for religious people to attach the word “vocation” to whatever job they’ve chosen. It’s the idea that God has ‘placed’ people in certain occupations I find questionable. Why should He ‘place’ some in highly -paid roles and others in sweat shops? Serving God wherever we accidentally happen to find ourselves is a different matter, however.
I can’t answer for FrDavid. I have always found the language of vocation and calling in church discernment to be very tricky. It seems to be a fine line between discerning that one has a calling to ministry and agreeing with what you wish God to say to you. And that’s before we enter the arena of selection conferences and the ways bishops decide upon whom to lay hands…
‘agreeing with what you wish God to say to you’?! I had to be dragged kicking and screaming! When I finished university and was thinking about a career, I said to God, ‘I’ll do anything you want, but I don’t want to go into Christian ministry and I never want to live in a manse again.’ That worked out well!
As a young Church Army evangelist I spent a lot of time resisting a call to ordained ministry because I had (have?!) a maverick temperament and didn’t want to be part of the religious establishment!
Listening to the parable of the wicked tenants this morning I was wondering much the same. Without the coercive power of state and societal disapproval are we seeing now the true fruits of the church’s failure to show Christ’s love, having replaced it with censoriousness and purity culture?
Why not look at those churches that are attracting families and those in their twenties and thirties. Perhaps the Church of England could learn from them.
They are very selective about the nice people they want in. And judgemental about those they don’t.
Sorry Father David H, I haven’t seen the data so I couldn’t possibly make judgements about them. Could you supply me with a link to the data.
You don’t need data. Just enter the average evangelical church and see who is there!
So what is the ‘average evangelical church’? What makes it average? And when was the last time you went to it?
It’s where a happy minister explains the meaning of life by quoting texts, and three young people play in a band. There are zillions of examples on YouTube, Facebook and X. I personally choose not to attend.
‘I personally choose not to attend.’ I don’t think anyone here is under any illusions you ever have.
I did once. But thought better of it later.
So your definition of evangelical actually has zero to do with what evangelicalism actually is, and the only evidence you have for your opinion is YouTube videos. Nor can you prove that it is ‘average’, and you have no personal experience to go on.
Well, let me correct you with a YouTube video of an average Anglican evangelical church – mine.
https://youtu.be/RC0utl5SwGc
Hmm. Priest vested in alb and stole, accompanied by robed server, bows to an altar with candles and a veiled chalice and paten …
This would all pass for ‘modern Catholic’ in the C of E
It all looks pretty “middle of the road” to me.
So, as I said to Matthew, in your mind evangelicalism is not primarily about justification by faith, or the authority of the Bible, or the call for conversion, but what the priest wears or doesn’t wear, and how the altar is furnished and vested?
So in your mind evangelicalism is not primarily about justification by faith, or the authority of the Bible, or the call for conversion, but what the priest wears or doesn’t wear, and how the altar is furnished and vested?
Not a server, but a lay reader, as you would have seen if you had continued to watch the video a little further.
So nothing to do with the actual beliefs and practices of evangelicals, then? Just a caricature based on the things you personally hate the most about them?
So why aren’t other churches attracting families and people in their 20’s and 30’s? Surely if they don’t they will eventually die out as their congregations grow old. Is it that those people leading such churches don’t think attracting families and those in their 20’s and 30’s is important.
Religion is dying out in many Western nations. Some people cling on to old ‘certainties’ within denominations who want to entertain them by smiling and pretending otherwise. These, too, will die out.
From your answer’ I take it you don’t think it is important because you don’t believe.
Since the dawn of Man religions have come and gone. My belief has nothing to do with it. I think it unlikely that in 50,000 years time people will still be debating whether gay people should be married by evangelicals.
Indeed. “…unlikely that in 50,000 years time people will still be debating whether gay people should be married by evangelicals.” More likely homo sapiens will be extinct by then. Especially since neo-liberal capitalist economics is determined to throw the planet away like an empty beer can. But by all means, let’s focus on what is really important to the Creator—the prohibition against same sex relationships. We shall all die ‘biblically’ correct in our metaphorical beds.
Religion is not dying out so much as changing fast. In my own church we have recently attracted a lot of families with young children, and they are almost all African. Word of mouth appears to be by far the most effective publicity tool we have in that community. Meanwhile, in our Diocese of Edmonton, the fastest shrinking parishes appear to be either (a) parishes that cling on to traditional Anglican style and don’t attempt to engage with contemporary culture at all, and (b) rural parishes, in which the towns and villages themselves are dying on the vine and many… Read more »
We are attracting these families at least in my neck if the woods, and I doubt we are unique. May be it isn’t enough and not fast enough but it is happening.
Graeme Buttery
That’s great to hear Graeme.
Thanks to Helen King for her latest note. As to the ‘red lines’, the CEEC seems to be in overdrive in advance of the upcoming General Synod. My ‘own’ Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship (DEF) in St Albans appears to have written a letter to our three bishops, +St Albans, +Bedford, and +Hertford. I say ‘appears’ as I have received anonymously a copy of the letter (available upon request). It is not quite clear what I have received, but I believe it to be a letter sent very recently by the Chairman of the DEF and/or the DEF Committee on behalf of… Read more »
Anthony, This must have been very painful for you, and in the post about the stalled complaint about Mr Nye you also said you are angry with the two xxs for their silence in respect of victims and survivors of previous clerical abuse. Since leaving home none of my children has attended church – the nearest to it is the same sex partner of one of them who is a very devout Roman Catholic who continues to attend Mass without any obvious problems. Reading this post, and the one about the stalled complaint, I cannot in any conscience tell them… Read more »
Thank you, Anthony. I’ve already seen one of those ‘DEF to bishops’ letters and the repetition of the CEEC language (E.g. ‘compelled to resist’) makes it clear who is doing the drafting. The most disturbing point in the version I saw was the statement that they won’t allow any bishop who hasn’t distanced themselves from the Prayers of Love and Faith to ‘preach, preside, confirm, ordain or perform any other act of spiritual oversight within our churches’ and that they won’t take communion from *or alongside* such a bishop. So even kneeling at the altar rail with a bishop who… Read more »
Don’ t they have the + Ebbsfleet to do this anyway?
They do, but the basis for the petition can only be on the grounds of a parish not accepting the ministry of a woman etc. (the complementarians). Seeking the oversight of another bishop for some other reason is not part of the PEV legal machinery. So, change would be required there. In addition, questions regarding alternative oversight are a matter for the diocesan bishop concerned. That won’t suit the CEEC tribe. Certainly, ConEvo parishes already under the oversight of their PEV are likely all to refuse to use LLF prayers. But hitherto they have not refused to receive communion etc from their ‘apostate’ diocesan. The more… Read more »
Anthony, please could you clarify – if PEVs can only be sought on the basis of parishes not accepting women priests, then as neither +Chichester nor +Lewes ordain women to the priesthood, can complementarian parishes in East Sussex (if there are any) request the ministrations of +Ebbsfleet when they already have two bishops who do not ordain women priests?
Yes, +Ebbsfleet has Resolution Parishes in Chichester, including for example All Souls Eastbourne, Holy Trinity Eastbourne, All Saints Crowborough. It depends what the diocese has arranged. Complementarians and TradCaths might be united on some things (sex for example) but need different provision! 🤣
Yes. St Albans one the same. Central CEEC drafting. Only pure bishops allowed. Pharisaic stuff we have seen before, but now spelling out the ‘consequences’ in more detail. Of course in the next breath they will be seeking structural change to suit themselves. I think not.
I have not seen one of these letters – is there any ecclesiology articulated within? Or is the ecclesiology only implicit?
How far can a decision to cut oneself off from the diocese (withhold common fund etc) be made by the incumbent alone, or the incumbent and PCC? And I wonder what sanctions the diocese has?
Well, it would be a foolhardy incumbent to declare impaired communion with the bishop without having the backing of the PCC. Parish share is not a debt. The diocese can’t sue for it. But the bishop can decline to licence another curate (by removing training incumbent status), can decline to license any other priest however s/he is to be paid, and decline to license a new incumbent when the current one retires or moves on. A priest-in-charge can be appointed for a fixed term without recourse to the patron or PCC. Bishops are well able to play hard ball too!… Read more »
I’d like to pick up a comment which Colin made in his remarks about the church and premarital heterosexual sex. He asked if the CofE had ever treated ‘straights’ in the inquisitorial, prohibitive way that it treats gays. Now I can’t say whether or not it’s done in the CofE but, when I belonged to a Baptist Union church some years ago, that one certainly did, as did a number of other non conformist and charismatically aligned house churches I knew at the time. Indeed, that particular Baptist church required couples living together to separate, and live apart until matrimony,… Read more »
Thanks for sharing this and how the “interrogative” style impacted on you. In a Baptist setting presumably most if not all marriage enquiries would have come from within the church membership or its fringe and there would be no legal obligation to conduct the wedding, so it might be easier to pursue this policy than in an Established Church parish setting ? However, I do recall a Conservative Evangelical bishop lamenting (over 30 years ago) that they had lost the “battle” (his words) over sex before marriage even amongst Christian couples. I recall another Bishop, who had moved significantly away… Read more »
I’m inclined to agree with him. I’ve long seen myself as a ‘secular Christian’ if you can have such a thing – ie one who seeks to follow Christ in a world which is increasingly run on very different lines, but on whose general basics I’m reasonably comfortable with. So many of these problems stem from our habit of reducing ethics to rigidly defined principles, from which no deviation is considered possible, and then trying to sledgehammer living situations to fit them. It just won’t work. Water will always find a way around an immovable rock….and leave it behind. You’re… Read more »