See earlier article about yesterday’s House of Bishops meeting.
The House reviewed detailed updates from the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) working groups presented by Bishop Martyn Snow. After considered reflection on the complexity and depth of the proposed changes, it became clear that Bishops with views across the range of different perspectives agreed that it was unlikely all elements of the proposals would be sufficiently developed in time for Synod to make a decision in July.
They agreed to extend the timetable to ensure that all elements of the proposals are sufficiently developed for a decision to be taken on them as a whole. The intention is still to update General Synod in February, and bring further proposals to General Synod in July, but it is likely these will not be able to be formally put to a vote until a subsequent Synod. This will also give further time for consultations with Diocesan Synods and other networks.
Two reactions to this have been published:
Trusting in Love and Faith? A January 2025 Update by Helen King
Before a decision is made about same-sex marriage, perhaps the CofE should decide what God is, who Jesus is, who wrote the Bible and if the moon is made of green cheese. This should hopefully delay the LLF process until the present generation of LGBTQ people have died and gone to heaven – if there is such a place – which is debatable.
Thanks, that’s funny. But in all seriousness, the procedural and practical chaos and discontent of the LLF and PLF process is an obvious concomitant to the theological incoherence, poverty and confusion of the contemporary C of E. I don’t have a solution this, of course. If there is one, it may be Darwinian. Extinction of ideologies that fail to replicate, and survival of those which are fit enough to reproduce generationally. What that means and where it takes us, we will have to see.
Very good questions all. That’s why theology is important, but ‘surprise, surprise’ it’s missing from the papers being submitted to Synod.
I find the contrast between this process and Trump intriguing. Be careful what you wish for. Of course, under Trump, LGBTQIA people do not even exist, there are only males and females.
Trump certainly gets things done, even if they are not workable or misguiided. I can see why so many people admire him.
Please don’t get gender and sexuality mixed up. You can be happily and definitely male (gender) and at the same time gay (sexuality). Take it from me.
I dont. You are missing my point.
Also check out mariann budde and her recent talk at the post inauguration service. There is an article in todays guardian. Do you really think maga supporters make a distinction between sex and gender ? Ponder why trump won and the democrats lost.
For avoidance of doubt i hate trump and his cronies. But i am also a realist.
Unfortunately Trump’s winning, to me, proves an unchanging rule of life – ignorance and pride make very powerful allies, who inevitably win. Social advances, very often hard won, are easily set back and overturned by those who refuse to move. And, to quote John Buchan, society is like a fragile, plate glass floor above a cess pit. I’ve been re-appraising my understanding of God’s sovereignty in relation to a world in rebellion against him just lately….. partly due to Trump. And it doesn’t fit very well with more liberal theological views. Still, as Tony Campolo pointed out, we can often… Read more »
Well said Bishop Mariann Budde in speaking Truth to Power. Judging by President Trump’s reaction her sermon obviously hit a presidential nerve.
Its what he is getting done that is the cause for concern. His latest move, the immediate suspension of all diversity staff, for example, is not likely to sit well with many of the writers on here!
Ignorance, arrogance and determined power make a very dangerous combination.
What’s stopping a diocesan bishop, with the support of their bishop’s council and diocesan synod, getting on with all the things that the House of Bishops and General Synod are delaying?
The fact that they’d alienate even more of their diocese than already? Parish share slumps, relationships deteriorate, clergy resign, disciplinary action initiates? Who knows.
Based on Charlie’s account above, the bishops who are in favour of clergy in same-sex marriages are delaying because they want to offer conservatives a deal: Delegated Episcopal Ministry in exchange for both PLF and allowing clergy to be in same sex marriages. They fear that if they let conservatives have DEM now (in exchange for PLF) then they will never get acceptance of clergy in same-sex marriages. In March 2023 Bishop Bailey-Wells tweeted a photo of Eeva John being given flowers at a meeting of the House of Bishops. In the background was a whiteboard which showed the list… Read more »
Thanks. This is the kind of transparency that GS 2354 Trust and Trustworthiness within the Church of England encourages, and which the HoB minutes/meeting summary should be honest about. The minutes/summaries so far have been very guarded. Perhaps if GS, and more CofE people generally, knew what the HoB was really thinking about the implementation of LLF/PLF we could reset some expectations.
Pilgrims Progress The Sequel: The Long Walk to Irrelevance?
There would be a confetti of CDMs and other legal moves by the ConEvos if a diocesan bishop declared UDI. The fact is all of them know that stand-alone blessings are already taking place in their dioceses. Even I have taken one, and wonderful it was! This process (stuck in treacle) is trying to sort that, as a matter of ecclesiology. I repeat a point I and others have made before: the best catalyst would be a decision by Parliament to remove the right of incumbents to act as registrars for the marriage of opposite-gendered couples. The new Second Church… Read more »
Do clergy act as Registrars now? I handed over the Registers a few years ago.
Now I just fill in a document saying I’ve done a wedding, get the relevant parties to sign it, and send it off for the Registrars to do the registration.
My belief that we one day get equal marriage in the Church of England has been disrupted by recent events in the States. And Elon’s salute shook me to the core.
I fear the same forces are at work in the UK. In all honesty, I am scared of the future.
I used to put together multi-disciplinary teams. If I added a solicitor, I would expect them to handle the legal questions. At worst, they might need a few days to check case law. If I included a forensic accountant, I expected them to be an expert in their field. And so on. (And we always met our deadlines.) So when bishops have to get theological input from others, and it takes weeks and months, I find myself perplexed. It’s not the standard of expertise I used to expect – and receive – from a wide variety of other professions. Surely… Read more »
Kate all that is being released is one great big sham . You met your deadlines because you and your team were signed up to the process and your area of work required it.
The only logical conclusion from what is taking place here is that the House of Bishops wants to remain rooted to the spot, preserved in aspic, for ever and ever, Amen. And they have it down to an extremely fine art.
The bishops clearly don’t care about deadlines or those people impacted by the delay. That’s bad enough. But that bishops need others to do theology for them is astonishing.
They’re so hopeless if you handed them your bus fare in the morning and asked them to look after it, they’d have lost it by home time. Hopeless but brazen with it, they’d blame you in some way for your walk home.
Hopeless and also obtuse. They think that gay people don’t have straight family members, friends and work colleagues who are as appalled with their endless equivocation as we are. It’s not just my queer friends who think I’m mad to bother with such an homophobic institution, my straight friends are if anything even more uncomprehending.
I’m impressd that your friends have a view on the internal contortions of the C of E. In my experience most people are oblivious to all of this wrangling (and probably to the very existence of the C of E itself).
Has anyone wondered whether this is inevitable in an established church? Church tethered to nation and culture will perforce go through endless contortions. Progressives irate. Conservatives irate. Repeat and recycle. All cohabiting inside une grande impasse.
By contrast, TEC just eliminated virtually any conservative position and became, proudly and resolutely, a new confident American denomination. Minted like so many others.
TEC’s shift to ultra-liberalism has come with a precipitous decline in attendance from 1,187,000 in 2003 (the year of the election of Gene Robinson) to 386,000 today. During the same period, attendance at the breakaway conservative ACNA has grown from nothing 84,794. People see the liberalising of the church as a shifting of the goalposts, a denial of the faith of previous generations, and a craven kowtowing to the secular liberal consensus of the age. If LLF and same-sex clergy marriage are accepted, I am sure that we will see a large scale exodus of those who hold to the… Read more »
Straw man. The US southern baptists are also declining and the only thing propping up the US Catholic Church is (gasp) immigrants.
the largest growing religious identity in the US is “none” and study after study shows that younger people are turned off by conservative politics and homophobia.
https://www.prri.org/research/religious-change-in-america/
I very much agree. The Church of England is sleep walking into oblivion. I don’t accept for one minute that same sex couples, if not already established in a church, will be attracted by any changes Synod may eventually invoke. We are already seeing every diocese in England going steeply into financial deficit and this will gather momentum in the coming months as disaffected members withdraw financial support and membership. The LLF project has been a disaster in this respect.
Thank goodness for TEC. The bishop of Washington able to speak the truth to a powerful liar .
Perhaps the CofE will adopt TEC’s strategy and all will be well?
I suspect the days of the Episcopal Cathedral being something called ‘the National Cathedral’ are coming to an end, hastened along by her gross simplifications.
Obama’s border czar was praising Tom Holman (in charge of ICE) this morning. The left even called Obama “the Deporter in Chief,” and he didn’t face nearly the same drug, rape, gangs, Venezuelan death squads that the last 4 years gave to the US.
As for the Bishop of Washington, she has enough problems of her own. God bless her.
The Washington Post recorded Trump as having told over 30,000 lies. You might be his apologist on here, but I’ll stick with a bishop who preaches a a gospel of “gross simplifications”.
That would be WAPO of course it would. 70% of Americans said immigration was broke and wanted a change. They are going to get it. If the good Bishop wants to be merciful, 1) open the grand edifice in which she is speaking to immigrants needing warmth and food who are not criminals burning homeless people to death on the subway, or raping young women, or working for cartels; charity starts at home, and 2) make an effort to be sure every victim of assaults from those crossing the border receive personal, compassionate response from you and your clergy. The… Read more »
The Telegraph today carried articles headlined “Trump ambushed by woke bishop” and “This woke bishop’s pathetic attack on Trump sums up why he won.” I think she has been rather Welbyish and unwise – politicians do not have to attend Episcopal services, after all, and will probably stop doing so if they are made to feel got at during them. I appreciate that almost all those commenting on here are signed up to the Boomer/Guardianista view of the world, and deprecate any other metanarratives, but would counsel that it is unwise for the Church to become an organisation exclusively wedded… Read more »
i agree. I have never voted Tory, but if a governing party ignores the needs and wishes, however misguided, of large parts of the population, they will be in trouble. We see this in the UK regarding immigration, terrorist acts, violence, grooming gangs, climate change, LGTB++, and financial inequality. We can read all the government reports and statistics we like (such as that immigrants are financially beneficial to the UK, or hospitals are staffed by immigrants, or that grooming gangs represent only 3% of child abuse cases, or Pakistanis/Asiansare not over representative than other ethnicities). But these ‘facts’ are not… Read more »
The Telegraph and Daily Mail being anti-woke? You could blow me down with a feather!
I see little evidence AP was an apologist for Trump. I think some here on TA should be more cautious in their accusations.
I wonder if the frequency of episcopal statements on world events, archiepiscopal foreign trips, clerical political interventions etc. etc. varies in inverse proportion to the size of one’s church?
The Pope called Trump a “disgrace” in relation to his hateful immigration policy. The RC Church is quite big.
Thank you for alerting me to that. There has been so much Trump news I had missed it.
I am glad the Pope spoke out.
Indeed, and maybe that’s why the Pope has some credibility and heft when he speaks less frequently, (in my limited acquaintance, happy to be corrected), than some inveterate ecclesiastical commentators/tweeters who always have a tuppenceworth to offer.
Maybe – – also the weight of history is against the papacy on what it has spoken out against (or rather not spoken out against). But I think it’s a weakness of the church that we have retreated away from being political interventionist. We will disagree on what is the right thing to do – – but we should be able to disagree in a better way than the current right-left political divisions. We should be able to – — of course we often have plenty who would rather preach to the converted of their political camp than understand what’s… Read more »
We are all would-be immigrants…to the Kingdom of God. We have no right of entry: we are only admitted by the compassion of the ruler of the Kingdom. If we don’t welcome immigrants to our earthly kingdoms, or begrudge them food, education, medical treatment or housing on a par with own, why should God welcome us into His kingdom?
Yes, but how many, on what terms, paid for by whom? Are you advocating unlimited and unmonitored immigration, granting full and immediate access to all the services and benefits of the State?
Even if the justifications for delay are totally sound, the message more delay sends is deeply damaging on every level. I’m concerned that further delay will be used to great effect by the far right, media savvy influences that have taken root in parts of the more conservative wings of the church (and wider society). Let’s not sleepwalk into the re-emergence and redeployment of toxic narratives and behaviours many of us hoped had had their day 80 years ago, especially not in the name of Christ. Incidentally, wasn’t Bishop Marian a breath of fresh air? I sincerely hope the CofE… Read more »
I feel that it is time for the UK to follow many other European countries & make the Civil marriage ceremony the only one that is recognised, thus making any religious ceremony (CofE, RC, Hindu, Moslem, etc) an optional extra that is not legally binding.
I think that may happen.
But let’s be aware of the ideological shift that would represent.
The State claiming sole authority as the author and authenticator of the estate of marriage. And any ‘religious’ marriage having no legal reality or social heft.
Works fine elsewhere, & avoids lots of issues in multi-cultural society.
I see no ideological shift because the reality in UK is that both marriage & divorce already fall under state control, and the licence for priests to conduct them can be withdrawn. Whether a ‘church’ marriage has any social heft is entirely down to the couple. There are still plenty of church weddings in France & Germany, it’s just that the legal requirement is fulfilled by the state ceremony rather than the religious one.
We have a right to marry in our parish churches. The rights of the people should not be trampled on.
Removing the right of the priest to act as Registrar is a separate issue to the right of people to be married in their parish church. Consider the longstanding arrangements in other denominations.
I am not aware that people have the right to be married in any other denomination, unless perhaps they are members. Are you aware of any?
If it is a “right of the people”, then the normal principles of non- discrimination should apply. In the 21st Century a right available to mixed sex couples should be equally available to same sex couples.
Not a great deal about “rights” in scripture Kate. Which Kingdom do you feel most comfortable in?
I was responding to someone else who was wanting to retain the “right” of heterosexual couples. I am merely saying that if it comes to “rights” that is, as you suggest, a secular thing and therefore discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation should not be permitted.
Sorry Kate, I misunderstood you. The “rights” viewpoint is indeed not a good theological position for the Spirit filled, born again believer to embrace. There is hardness of heart on both sides in the process and it will, as a result, not be fruitful. The LLF dance has highlighted just how impoverished our leadership ( bishops) has become in the C of E. We now arrive at a point where nobody is happy with the current position and a breakdown of the Communion ( schism) is the very likely outcome. I have remained in the C of E for over… Read more »
Only if you are straight. If you’re gay you’re already being trampled on.
I totally agree. Rights should be extended to all, not be curtailed from all. It is wrong that some have rights and others do not. The solution should be to extend rights to all, not remove them from all.
Thanks – don’t doubt that it ‘works fine’ elsewhere. But France has a culture of laicite and Germany a different Christian demography to the UK. I’m just saying, WRT England in particular, that this would be a step towards ‘disestablishment’/’secularization’. Hooray, some may say, while others boo, and yet more say ‘so what’. Fair enough. But let’s be awake to the wider implications of what seem to be specific changes,
On the Greek island of Syros, which has a mixed Orthodox and Catholic population, couples often go through two religious marriage ceremonies one Catholic and one Orthodox. I personally attended the Catholic and Orthodox weddings of two close friends. The Orthodox wedding was much grander and had a boisterous party at the end so it was more fun but the Orthodox religious ceremony was incomprehensible to me.
Not at all surprised that a delay has occurred. The Bishops seem to have woken up at last to the existential threat this unnecessary LLF path created. Coupled with the imminent financial catastrophe and inevitable membership collapse, they now play for time. This has been coming for many years. I am so grateful for the Alliance holding the torch.
Geoff I really find your use of the word “unnecessary” offensive. I understand that you think a “Loving God” creates human beings with a need to love someone of their own gender and then rather spitefully denies them permission to bestow that love. Of course St Paul lacked a direct phone line to the Almighty so isn’t it just possible be got it wrong ? But I find describing sexual love as “unnecessary” lacks the love and kindness Christians are called to show to fellow believers.
He didn’t describe sexual love as unnecessary. He described the LLF path as unnecessary.
Nor did he say ‘I think a “Loving God” creates human beings with a need to love someone of their own gender and then rather spitefully denies them permission to bestow that love.’
If we’re going to debate these matters please can we not misrepresent one another.
Nigel, twice today people have used the word “spiteful God” in the context of some kind of heavenly vendetta. We all have a choice in how we conduct our lives. We should not judge one another. However, in a familiar creed we do sign up to God judging the living and the dead at a point in time. Changing our inherited doctrine and formularies ( as received down the ages by the C of E) , an oath every priest takes, will, come the day, be subject to judgement. The question therefore is “ has the historic church got it… Read more »
Discuss? My only comment is to repeat what St Augustine said about science, there may be some new things which are discovered, with a God-given intellect, and our doctrines should take account of this else we will appear ridiculous.
https://harvardichthus.org/2010/09/augustine-on-faith-and-science/
Very generic!
I do like to call out sometimes when somebody’s comment is misrepresented. I have no view on the comment, I am simply keeping strawmen in check. I follow Thouless on ‘Straight and Crooked thinking’, particularly as he was a fellow at my Cambridge college.
Jesus didn’t seem to think that we would be judged on any doctrine we hold but rather on how we treat other human beings. Matthew 25.
I think the Biblical theology of judgment and justification may be a bit more subtle and multi-layered than this. Matthew 25 concerns the judgment of the NATIONS – not God’s people. All of us fall short in terms of our actions. But those who trust in God’s grace – those who align themselves with his ways through faith in his promises – will not be condemned in the judgement. It’s not doctrine, per se that saves. Nor action, per se that saves. But faithful trust, which leads to entering into the good works which God has prepared for us to… Read more »
David, we live at a time where people are offended by whatever goes against their own standpoint. I accept that God created us in his image and we all, including me, fall short due to sin in our lives. I agree the church needs to show love and acceptance to all regardless of their sexual preferences. a” The churches my ordained wife has served in have always welcomed same sex attracted couples.Never judging or condemning. Equally she would never bless a union between a man and a woman if they were not married. God calls us however to follow a… Read more »
“they now play for time”
I hope you’re not implying that the previous decades has been “relatively speedy”.
The Anglican Communion’s change of mind on contraception in 1930 (grudgingly), not really embraced until 1958, came after 50 or more years of discussion. So yes, not speedy.
I don’t see your point. Contraception was never considered in scripture. Sexual relations between men and men was mentioned and, if I am correct, it wasn’t part of Gods plan for mankind. This is why the current “rules” for clergy in same sex relationships is celibacy. Why would the church have this directive, even if it is widely ignored, if it had No theological grounds for holding this position.