‘We need the theology’: what has now been released, and does it answer the real questions?

Posted on November 8, 2025 by fluff35

Unusually, with the next General Synod not until February, last Wednesday Synod members received the four key documents on Living in Love and Faith (LLF) which the House of Bishops had been sent before their 15 October meeting – the meeting now widely read as having ended the LLF process by not proposing any more steps towards LGBTQIA+ inclusion. That ending does not come as much of a surprise, because when the current Programme Director, Helen Fraser, was announced, her secondment to LLF was only until March 2026; and that would fit with LLF bowing out at the February Synod. The writing was already on the wall. Because I was involved in one of two meetings with key bishops – one with Together trustees, the other with the Alliance – we saw these four documents a week ahead of the rest of the church. I’ve now had time to read them again and, to help those who are bracing themselves to do the same, I offer this document-by-document reading.

What are the issues?

The issues under discussion remain the standalone Prayers of Love and Faith services (the preferred terminology is ‘bespoke services’, but I resist this because there’s no suggestion of a make-it-up-as-you-go-along service, simply the existing PLF resources in a separate service) and clergy in same sex civil marriages. Note, nobody here is talking about same sex marriages in church.

What are the documents and who wrote them?

There are four documents: 12 pages of September 2025 Legal Advice (although the link address gives November 2025, so it isn’t clear whether it is exactly as issued to the bishops) and three documents from Faith and Order Commission (FAOC), a group of theologians – many of them bishops – which works with a Theological Adviser, currently Revd Dr Casey Strine, and his deputy, Dr Guido de Graaff. These are long documents: 47 + 34 + 54 pages. What is, of course, missing from them is any sense of the real people for whom this is not an exercise in definitions and history and logic, but part of the pain or the joy they experience in their daily lives.

The Legal Advice was written by Revd Alex McGregor, Head of the CofE’s Legal Office. I do wonder what the status of this is, compared with the other legal advice that we have seen. “Advice from the Legal Office” was referenced for example in GS2346, which Synod saw in February 2024. I would be interested to learn whether any of the new Legal Advice is really new; the annexes to GS2346 seem to have it all already. 

None of the other documents has an author, because they come from FAOC, but from switches of style – at times giving the reader quite a jolt, as in The Exercise of Discipline, paragraphs 125 and 128 – it’s clear that they weave together contributions from different people. So, on to the documents, first of them that Legal Advice.

Legal Advice

What does this say on the two key topics? First, on Prayers of Love and Faith, the Legal Advice strongly supports the lengthy process of Canon B 2 as the “most secure way of bringing bespoke services into use”. “Most secure” means “least likely to be challenged in law”. B 2 involves various stages going through General Synod and stating that the services don’t depart from the “doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter”. These stages, which would involve securing two-thirds majorities in the Houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity, were already clear before this document came out (I wrote about that here) and would take until at least February 2028 to put into practice.

An alternative would be Canon B 5, which is what has been used to commend the existing PLF for use in a regular service. Canon B 5 only needs the House of Bishops to ‘commend’ material. When the existing commendation of PLF in regular services happened at the end of 2023, the House voted 24:11, with 3 abstentions, to commend them. The Legal Advice document states that something commended in this way does not have “any canonical or other legal authority” and is simply the opinion of the bishops, and the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963 could be used to start proceedings against any cleric using the material. The Legal Advice is that it is “unlikely that an accused who uses a commended form of service will be found to have acted unlawfully” but using such a service if not all bishops agree is more iffy.

The clear message is: B 2 is safer if you don’t want to have proceedings brought against you.

Second, on clergy in same sex civil marriages, here too a possible route through CofE structures is given, but this time only simple majorities would be needed in Synod. I would draw attention to the point in paragraph 29, on whether a different route would be to change Canon B 30 (Of Holy Matrimony). Mr McGregor comments “I have not yet seen FAOC’s thinking on this”. Here is one of the big problems with the LLF process; each document depends on another document and the endless delays as more has been sent off to FAOC for discussion have not helped. Back in July 2024 Synod voted to send more money over to fund FAOC’s work. Did it make any difference?

Possible parallels with what happened with divorce and remarriage are rejected. Somehow the “one man with one woman” part of Canon B 30 trumps its other phrase, “a union permanent and lifelong”. So marrying divorced people while the former spouse is still alive is OK but that doesn’t help with same sex civilly married people.

As for clergy who are already in same sex civil marriages, the Legal Advice states that “in principle” different bishops could take a different approach to this. But it has to be on a case-by-case basis, rather than announcing that in their diocese no such clergy shall face discipline.

So, as we are back on to whether same sex marriage is ‘marriage’ in the sense the Church understands it, and whether a couple in such a marriage would be in breach of church doctrine, we need to move on to the theological papers.

Full disclosure, for non-theologians like me, these were very heavy going. But if read along with the general vibe of the Legal Advice, namely that concern about what happens “unlawfully”, I think there’s a clear message being pushed.

The Nature of Doctrine and the Living God  

So… my take-home from this is the phrase “communally authorised and communally regulative”, as in “doctrine is true knowledge about God consonant with Holy Scripture that is communally authorised and communally regulative”. The word “communally” features 28 times. “Communally regulative” also comes up in the final document to be discussed here.

The Nature of Doctrine tries to explain how “for many people” marriage doctrine is a first order issue (for many people, though, it isn’t). It tries to have its cake and eat it by accepting that much depends on “how texts are selected and interpreted” but also that it is possible to decide “which parts and themes of Scripture are most pertinent and which reading of those texts best expresses the mind of Christ in the Church”. On the rest of the document, I’d just say two things: first, it’s very odd to start with Aquinas, Hooker, and Newman, and then to focus on a group of more recent theologians and second, that there is a lot about Scripture but nothing on Jesus, the Word of God to whom Scripture points.

“Communally authorised” obviously feeds into the story that standalone PLF require Canon B 2 processes. All the way through the last few years, there has been uncertainty as to what needs to go to Synod and what the House of Bishops can do on its own. The message of all these documents, when taken together, is that the bishops are not feeling that they can make decisions, other than the decision to pass it back to Synod. But is Synod representative of the Church of England as a whole? Is it sufficient as the “community” doing authorisation?

The decision to commend the PLF at all is described as a “contested decision” and links to one of the other FOAC papers on the “judgment of the House at that time”. That paper is: 

The Doctrine of Marriage and the Prayers of Love and Faith: Texts and Contexts.

As someone trained in social anthropology, I found this interesting, although on one of the working groups I was on I had already seen a lot of it (this does make me wonder why this final version took so long to appear). It argues that meaning – the nature of what we believe – comes out not just in words (like the PLF) but in symbolic action. Back on that working group we read a lot about whether a standalone PLF service could include couples wearing white, or having flowers and confetti, or exchanging rings. Basically it’s all about how to stop a standalone PLF looking like a wedding.

There are some fleeting appearances (mostly in the footnotes) of the service for Prayer and Dedication after a Civil Marriage, commended under Canon B 5, which many people think is the nearest thing to a standalone PLF. In that service, the notes say no rings can be given or received. So why not just say the same for a standalone PLF? Is it enough, asks the paper, to say of a standalone PLF ‘this isn’t a wedding’, or will people assume it is? It gets a bit silly at times. Oh dear, what if wearing white was banned, surely that would have to include traditional wedding garb for e.g. African or Indian weddings? This is a possibility raised by this document. So we are really supposed to imagine same sex couples, banned from wearing white, considering going the full sari instead?

As this paper moves along, it comes to the conclusion that it isn’t really about symbolic actions. It’s about whether PLF are a departure from doctrine “in any essential matter”. And also about the claim that commendation from the House of Bishops – as used for the PLF in existing services – carries “the highest risk of challenge once enacted”.

In the final pages of this document, the writer(s) finally admit that it is also about sex. If we bless a same sex couple, are we saying that “same-sex sexual expression” is not “morally problematic”?

And finally, the longest one of all, the snappily entitled The Exercise of Discipline and Clergy Exemplarity in the Church of England: The Case of Same-Sex Civil Marriages.

It self-describes as “technical and lengthy”. Yes. It refers across to the Nature of Doctrine paper and the importance of “communal authorisation” and how that then becomes “regulative”. It’s nice to see two papers which appear to have been written in tandem. This one is all about the possible routes for ordaining and relicensing people in same sex civil marriages. The basic point is that we can’t, because marriage is only one man and one woman, but there is more sense here than in the other papers that we have no consensus on reading the Bible, what we think clergy exemplarity is, or … what to do next.

The sections on clergy households and the tension experienced by spouses, children and lodgers of also having to follow the need to be “exemplary” is truly terrifying; thinking of some of the adults I know who were brought up in such households, I am surprised that any of them have remained sane.

In contrast to the Legal Advice, which didn’t see the relevance, this document also has a very lengthy section, paragraphs 94-144, on whether remarriage after divorce (for clergy or for anyone else) is relevant. One argument proposed is that such a marriage “departs from the historic understand [sic] of the doctrine of the church, but not in a way that consists of a departure from doctrine in an essential manner”. Much of the section rehearses the usual points about how to read the Bible. More than any other part of these documents, there are clearly different views in here and they can’t be reconciled. There’s “a case for”, “a case against” and “a further objection to” pastoral accommodation for same-sex civil marriage.

So there you have it. On my reading, risk, particularly the risk of legal challenge, is a theme of all the documents. Relaxation of discipline by some bishops is seen as carrying “the greatest risk for discipline to depart from doctrine”.

I do wonder whether all these scary risk comments were enough to make even some of the inclusive bishops think that they couldn’t go through with any of this. So what is left? While the 15 October statement included the assurance that “Prayers of Love and Faith, for use in regularly scheduled services, remain commended by the House of Bishops for use under Canon B5”,  I read enough hints in here that such use of PLF in existing services is also risky, to suggest to me that the next stage will be to propose removing them too. 

There is also an elephant in the room: Delegated Episcopal Ministry. This was the proposal for various aspects of bishops’ roles to be delegated to a different bishop, if the actual bishop were to be considered too progressive – or perhaps even too conservative – for someone being confirmed/ordained to accept confirmation/ordination by them, and there were various versions of this being suggested in different dioceses. It went too far for many, and not far enough for others. It would have entailed a Code of Practice to give “pastoral reassurance” to those who felt unable in conscience to live with whatever was decided. The October House of Bishops considered three possible versions of this, but threw them all out. No change = no need for a code of practice. So – as Andrew Goddard has suggested at the end of a blog post issued while I was finishing this piece – when push came to shove, was the nature of episcopacy felt more important even than the theology of doctrine or marriage, or the legal threats? 

 

Posted in General Synod, Living in Love and Faith, marriage | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Living in Love and Faith, October 2025: What’s changed?

Posted on October 28, 2025 by fluff35

Like many others, I have been reflecting on the 15 October House of Bishops announcement, which appears to say that Living in Love and Faith (LLF) has ground to a halt, with no change to the welcome given to lesbian and gay people other than a set of prayers – Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) – commended at the end of 2023 for use with a same-sex couple who would like to come before God to offer him their relationship, but only to be used in an existing service.

Here I would like to do two things. First, to think about two related questions: why this has happened, and why it has come as a shock to many people. Second, to think about other routes that could have been – or still could be – taken.

Why did this happen? 

In innumerable debates, and in Questions posed formally to the House of Bishops or those leading LLF, Synod members have heard from conservatives the words ‘Show us the legal advice’. The narrative was that we hadn’t seen it all, and Synod does love a conspiracy theory. Apparently there’s now another set of this, which isn’t yet public. But it is being held responsible for the 15 October announcement. Somehow, the legal advice around how we could move forwards is supposed to have changed. Or perhaps simply the way it was interpreted has changed. Another factor is the bishops’ resistance to one of the conservatives’ requests: for their own bishops to carry out confirmations and ordinations, their own process for selecting candidates for ordination, and like-minded bishops to support them. What they have asked for, in order that they can stay in a church where not everyone agrees with them that all same-sex relationships are sinful, is “structural separation”: one form of which was something that came to be called Delegated Episcopal Ministry. And that was too much for the bishops to contemplate.

Much of this isn’t new to those of us who’ve been part of this LLF ‘process’ (yes, those are deliberate scare quotes) for years. Think back to when GS 2346 (Living in Love, Faith, and Reconciliation) was debated at the February 2024 Synod. After some debate, and some amendments being made to the motion (and others rejected), the scheduled vote on the report itself did not take place, because instead we voted by a very large majority to move to next business. Frankly the document was a mess, offering too much “structural separation” within the Church of England for progressives to be able to support it, but too little for conservatives to accept it. Little has shifted since then.

Annex A to GS 2346 already laid out the various options for what were then called ‘standalone’ services, which are currently one of the sticking points – the use of PLF but in a separate service rather than in an existing scheduled service. Would it look too much like a church wedding? How could that be prevented? Well, just for starters, the service is different…! Somewhere along the line, the terminology shifted, as it so often does in LLF discussions. ‘Standalone’ became ‘bespoke’; I’ve heard it said that this is just a posh word for standalone, but I feel there is more going on here. ‘Bespoke’ implies more of a ‘make it up as you go along’ service, whereas surely these services would be using exactly the same materials from the PLF suite, maybe just more of them because there would be more time available. So here I am just going to use the original terminology of ‘standalone’; that is, separate.

Annex A already went through all the options for how this could happen, in terms of synodical processes, listing them with their likely risk. That’s interesting when so much of what is now happening seems to be about risk management.

One option in Annex A was that Canon B 5, which was used in 2023 to commend the PLF in existing services, could be expanded to include standalone services too. The quickest and the simplest route, it would mean designating some parishes as those which would use the PLF in separate services, for a fixed period of time, on an experimental basis. Feedback would be collected, and then the services would stop while a further, more complicated, process under Canon B 2 was considered by the House of Bishops and the Liturgical Commission, with a view to these standalone services being used anywhere. 

GS 2346 spelled out how, if that process under B 2 went ahead, it would mean the full legal mechanism of a steering committee, first consideration, setting up a revision committee, maybe another report on doctrine and a General Synod debate on that, then a revision committee stage producing a report back to Synod, maybe a repeat of that stage if members were not happy, then a further revision in Synod, then back to the House of Bishops, then perhaps votes in the separate Houses, then back to Synod for Final Approval needing two-thirds majorities in each House. And there could be a referral out to diocesan synods somewhere along the line. Gasp. But that’s how B 2 works. GS 2346 estimated a minimum two years for all the stages. Yes, it sounds protracted, but that’s how the C of E operates and it’s what happened with, for example, the ordination of women.

But GS 2346 offered some other ideas. Under Canon B 4.3, individual bishops could simply authorise the separate services – no experimental period, no need to get Synod to vote. That would mean that things would be different in different dioceses – rather like they are already on many matters, not least on sexuality; for example on whether licensed lay ministers are subject to the same restrictions on entering same-sex civil marriages. Under Canon B 4.2, the archbishops could do the authorising. One decision, all sorted. However, both were designated as having “High likelihood of legal challenge.” Back to risk again. Would the bishops, or archbishops, be taken to court? 1 Corinthians 6, anyone? “Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to decide between one believer and another, but a believer goes to court against a believer”?

To think further about the risks of these challenges, various pieces of theological and legal advice were commissioned. Returning to GS 2346 we read “I [that’s the voice of Bishop Martyn Snow, who at that point was lead bishop for LLF] have included in the annexes to this paper information on some of the key legal issues, as advised by the Church’s Legal Office. Other lawyers might offer different advice on some points, which could only ultimately be determined by the courts. But we include here the best professional advice we have.”

So we already had legal advice and, as Bishop Martyn noted, the problem is that it differs depending on who is asked to give it. And even then, you need to interpret it.

According to the House of Bishops’ 15 October press release, “the House reviewed detailed theological and legal advice on outstanding questions following the landmark 2023 Synod vote which led to the introduction of the Prayers of Love and Faith (or PLF)” and decided on the processes that would be needed both for separate services and for clergy in same-sex civil marriages to be licensed. As we had already been given detailed information in GS 2346 on the B 2 system, I am not sure why that had to be discussed again, nor am I sure why it seems to have come as such a surprise to some people. I suppose it’s just that very few people, except some Synod members, read all the documents that have come out along the way. It would be good to know that our bishops, at least, understand how Synod makes legislation!

But the October press release – which has to suffice until the minutes of that meeting are approved in mid-December – doesn’t hint at any discussion of the Canon B 4 options. So…

Let’s have some history

And here, not for the first time, I suggest going back to another long, angry process in recent history; marriage in church after divorce, finally made possible (officially) in 2002. It began with a series of reports, responding to changes in secular law regarding marriage and divorce, in 1966, 1971, 1978, 1983 and 1985; the Root Report (1971) noted “that divorced partners could enter into new unions that bore the hallmarks of a satisfactory marriage”; extraordinary wording that, while depressingly grudging, seems to me to be something that needs to be acknowledged around same-sex committed relationships.

At the moment, as we know, marriage of same-sex couples in church is not even on that table from which crumbs so rarely fall. When marriage of divorced people in church did eventually happen, as with PLF, individual clergy consciences were respected: no member of the clergy would be forced to conduct such a marriage against their conscience. There are those in Synod even today who do not believe marriage is possible if one or more partners has been divorced with the former partner still living. We manage to cope with that division, still. 

What is more closely comparable with PLF, though, is the service of blessing for a straight couple where a partner has been divorced. Such services have an interesting history. I’ve recently acquired a copy of GS 1361 Marriage in Church After Divorce, a report from a working party commissioned by the House of Bishops, and published in 2000, 17 years after Synod resolved that “there are circumstances in which a divorced person may be married in church during the lifetime of a former partner”. While that resolution was making its way towards something that put this position into practice, and in the full knowledge that “many … find our present positions contradictory in principle”, one step on the way was the approval of a service of prayer and dedication after a civil marriage. This happened in June 1985 – forty years ago.

What’s the difference between such a service for a straight couple, and using the PLF in a standalone service? I can see why some would not like to make the connection; it would make the PLF seem more likely to be a staging post on the way to equal marriage. But note that the prayer and dedication service was approved by the House of Bishops with “its use being permissible under either Canon B 4 or B 5”, not needing to go through General Synod because it was not an alternative to anything in the Book of Common Prayer.

GS 1361 Marriage in Church After Divorce outlines the history of how the services of blessing after a civil marriage evolved (all the following quotations, and those in the previous two paragraphs, are taken from this document). It’s an instructive read. Some clergy offered what came to be called “prayers at the chancel step”, which focused on penitence; “some bishops decreed that no stoles be worn”, to emphasise this theme, and the couple were not to be blessed. I note that the penitential theme would not have played out well if the person who was divorced had been subject to domestic abuse. There were also contextual considerations about not letting this look like a wedding, including “Hymns were often considered inappropriate since this would be to turn private prayers into a public service.” That’s the first time I’ve heard this suggested; how does a hymn make a service “public”? And these services were somehow not “public” but were standalone – although there were limits on the number who could attend.

There was no authorised liturgy for such a service “although a number of diocesan bishops began to issue guidelines and even circulated what they considered to be appropriate forms of service”. Fascinating. I wonder if any of these survive? But clearly there was variation between dioceses – the ‘postcode lottery’ which is held up as a bogeyman to scare people off using PLF in standalone services today – and in the 1970s some of these forms of service became more celebratory than penitential. The 1985 service of prayer and dedication, as eventually approved by the House of Bishops, is still alive and well and advertised as available. Is it right to assume that it was discussed when the Prayers of Love and Faith were drawn up? The service of prayer and dedication goes further than the prayers at the chancel step, as it even allows hymns!

So the history of how the Church of England moved towards allowing divorced people to marry again in church shows us a period of disruption, with clergy taking a lead and bishops responding to this, followed by a vote of principle in support, and then a House of Bishops initiative in approving a service to be used. I wonder: is this the way forward?

Posted in equal marriage, General Synod, Living in Love and Faith, marriage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

This week in Living in Love and Faith: On the Alliance Campaign Manual

Posted on October 16, 2025 by fluff35

It’s been quite a week for Living in Love and Faith news. Yesterday, an update from the House of Bishops putting everything on hold. It was clear when the staff team for LLF was modified a few months back, with the new lead being seconded only until Spring 2026, that LLF was coming to an end, but it was still surprising to see that even those ‘standalone’ services using the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) remain off the table. Note that these are now called ‘bespoke’. That’s a word which suggests a make-it-up-as-you-go-along service, which surely has never been the intention – a standalone service simply means the contents of PLF but not as part of an existing church service. Words have power, and to me it feels like this one has shifted to make it sound more alarming. Yet in other parts of the Church of England, they really are making services up as they go along, with what are being called New Worshipping Communities creating their own liturgy – and not for marriage (which only became church business in the Middle Ages) but for the Eucharist.

Today, another document appeared from the Alliance, setting out their plans for an Action Day on 1 December. More on that below. And then tomorrow lunchtime, yet another residential meeting of the LLF Working Groups is scheduled to begin. I would hazard a guess that the House of Bishops’ update makes the residential even more pointless, but it doesn’t seem to have been cancelled.

Here I want to focus on that Alliance document. It has always been clear in meetings I’ve attended that there are those in the room who have no interest in finding some sort of middle ground. Yet they remain in the room. That doesn’t seem a helpful way to proceed. I took part in the autumn 2023 set of three meetings between progressives and conservatives (called “Living with Difference”), where the progressives were willing to make the concession that the PLF should be an ‘opt-in’ – where parishes would have to decide to opt in to use them – rather than their use being the default position: but the conservatives simply restated the same demands at each meeting instead of suggesting any compromises. And so it has continued. Conservatives – or, at least, those who speak for them at these meetings – will be content with nothing less than their own bishops, their own selection conferences for ministry, their own ordinations and even their own theological colleges. And, quite possibly, their own archbishop too, in other words a third province in addition to the geographical ones of York and Canterbury. 

As a precursor to all that, the Alliance – the group combining the unlikely bedfellows of the Revitalisation Trust, Church of England Evangelical Council, Holy Trinity Brompton churches, New Wine, Living Out and traditional Catholics – wants a temporary “De Facto Parallel Province” (a DFPP, a particularly unsnappy acronym). That would, if necessary – which means, if there were ever to be any further move towards Prayers of Love and Faith in standalone services, or towards accepting clergy in same-sex marriages – become a split in which those leaving would have their own appointment and training systems plus full access to Church of England money. However, from the document issued yesterday, neither of those moves are going to happen. So do the conservatives still need their DFPP?

The disregard of geography that would follow in this DFPP has been encouraged by the situation with women priests, where it is permitted for parishes to receive their episcopal oversight from one of the Provincial Episcopal Visitors, a.k.a. a Flying Bishop, whose role crosses several dioceses. Only recently it was agreed by the Independent Reviewer, whose role is to arbitrate if a question arises around how we deal with these parishes, that more people are needed to minister to those who refuse the ministry of women. Well, that was always likely, once geography was abandoned. Travel takes time.

And now, courtesy of a leaked document from the Alliance, we can see what else they’ve been working towards in recent months.

This document is the Alliance Campaign Manual, bearing a date in late September. It outlines a plan starting with “Network Influencers” – chilling phrase? – identifying suitable incumbents. Then those incumbents get PCC members onside in order to work towards PCCs passing one or more of a range of motions, which include “That this PCC resolves to uphold Biblical orthodoxy by not permitting the Prayers of Love and Faith, commended by the House of Bishops in December 2023, to be used within St xxx Church and its associated congregations.” Passing such motions builds up towards ‘Action Day’, 1 December 2025 (although at one point it is stated as “prob. November”, and at another “in late Autumn”, perhaps relics of a previous version of the plan). On Action Day, parishes are expected to write to their bishops (I assume as it says ‘Diocesan Bishop’ even those who have opted for a Flying Bishop will write to that Diocesan who is not allowed to show up in their churches) to pass on their PCC’s views and decisions.

The Manual says the early stages of this were scheduled to happen between June and November, so let’s use the past tense here. In order to “onboard” (yes, that’s the language used in the Campaign Manual) PCC members, church leaders have been forming little groups of ministers and churchwardens who agree with the Alliance, with those in this group then having 1-to-1s with those PCC members. If members “hold strong views” (I think I know what that means) then the incumbent, rather than a warden or associate priest, has prioritised meeting with such people. Those with “progressive views” will be “heard and listened to”. I should hope so! Why is it necessary even to say that? An example of the sort of pressure which can be applied to any progressive members of the PCC is that incumbents are asked to remind them that they are trustees, and therefore should “represent the congregation and focus on the theology and mission of the church rather than personal experience and conviction”. In other words, if their views are not what you want to hear, you can try the “it’s not about your views” approach. So … what if the congregation supports the PLF? Are conservatives supposed to bow to that support, or to continue to try to get the motions through the PCC? And I find the dynamics of summonsing a PCC member to the office to sound them out very disturbing. Aren’t there safeguarding issues here? Power imbalances, potential threats?

Once the “onboarding” has happened, PCCs have been asked if they want to move to another bishop; whether they want to stop sending money to the diocese (Parish share) and send it somewhere else where it would only be used to help parishes who are also in the Alliance; and whether they want to encourage potential ordinands to take part in an “orthodox vocations programme”. If the PCC didn’t want to play ball then the church leader has been told that they can write to the bishop anyway.

The situation with ordinands is particularly disturbing. I’m an elected member of the Ministry Development Board, and we’ve put much time into finding ways to adjust how selection, training and formation are provided, to take account of the current needs of those coming forward and offering for ordained and lay ministry. That means we’ve been working with dioceses and theological education institutions to try out ways to work with older candidates with much experience, with those whose circumstances mean they need to train part-time, and so on. There is a Ministry Experience Scheme which gives 18-29 year olds the chance to try out different areas of ministry. Personally, I am strongly opposed to having theological training reserved for those of one tradition only, or for those who all share the same view on women’s ordination, or indeed on same-sex relationships. Clergy and lay ministers should be able to work with those with whom they do not always agree.

But, to the existing models for discernment and training, the Alliance Campaign Manual adds in another programme: Ready To Serve. It is being piloted by Southwell & Nottingham diocese, and the Alliance is recommending all its potential ordinands take this path “if supportive discernment is not available locally”. This seems odd, when diocesan directors of ordinands focus on the person in front of them, not on their own personal beliefs. But there’s more to Ready To Serve; the website clarifies that it is “open to those beyond the diocese”. So is this an Alliance programme and does it prefigure an Alliance training path and eventual ordination by the Bishop of Southwell & Nottingham for anyone who isn’t in agreement with their bishop?

As ever, people who are LGBTQi+ (the preferred letters of Alliance) don’t feature much. They weren’t even mentioned in the Church of England statement that came out on 15 October. The Alliance Campaign Manual insists that homophobia is wrong and that everyone is welcome in their churches (I assume, so long as they are not partnered) and it uses the phrase “radical welcome”. To explain what that means, they point to the Living Out resources. Not that radical, then. Living Out, of course, tells gay people – sorry, same-sex attracted people, the preferred terminology – that they must either remain celibate or marry someone of the opposite sex.

What are the connections between the House of Bishops statement and the Alliance Campaign Manual?It is all in the public domain: so you can make up your own mind. 

Posted in General Synod, Living in Love and Faith | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

White smoke day: the new Archbishop of Canterbury

Posted on October 3, 2025 by fluff35

Because I am on General Synod, friends and family assume that I have some sort of hot line to the process by which the new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen. Well, in a word, no. I have been as much in the dark as anyone else, as easily swayed by Channel 4 News‘s Cathy Newman telling us she’d heard it was to be Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester, or The Times telling us that Pete Wilcox, Bishop of Sheffield, was a “late contender”. That wording from The Times was particularly odd, when there aren’t any late entrants to the field; everyone will have had references taken up and interviews and medicals and safeguarding checks, and you can’t just say “Oh let’s look at someone we’ve not considered yet”. Having any (supposed) leaks at all is worrying when we all know that those on Crown Nominations Commissions to find new bishops and archbishops have to promise to keep all proceedings confidential, and that includes the names of those on the shortlist. We won’t have voting figures, or any other information on how the name finally emerged. I am delighted that it is Sarah, Bishop of London, having worked with her when she was a lead bishop on the Living in Love and Faith process, and knowing how she has managed to function with grace and dignity in a diocese where some church members will not accept her episcopal authority. If anyone can cope with being a woman in a church where women’s ministry is fully accepted in theory but not in practice, it’s surely her.

I’ve heard too many times now the statement that the Roman Catholics can find a new Pope within weeks but we take nearly a year to find a new Archbishop of Canterbury. Well, in the Church of England we involve lay people in making the decision. We involve women, both lay and ordained. This time around, we have also involved members of the wider Anglican Communion. Maybe bearing in mind how long it has taken for us to get to this point, some Church of England members were quite surprised when rumours began that the announcement would happen around now; apparently that counts as pretty soon after the interviews. Looking at the known events of the week, today is conveniently between major party conferences, and marked only by the release of Taylor Swift’s latest album. And this, according to the BBC News site, is “a triumphant pop victory lap”. I wonder what the archepiscopal equivalent for that would be?

But life, and news, are rarely that predictable. The appalling anti-semitic attack in Manchester on Yom Kippur reminds us that religion can be a life or death matter. That applies to Jews, to Muslims, and to Christians. This has ended up being a week in which celebration is difficult, and when the cost of faith can’t be ignored.

When I woke up this morning, I noticed that today is also the date on which the Church of England commemorates Bishop George Bell as “ecumenist and peacemaker”. The Lectionary app gives potted biographies of those in the church calendar, and includes this:

Through Bonhoeffer Bell was in touch with the underground anti-Nazi opposition in Germany and unsuccessfully attempted to get a commitment from the wartime government to distinguish between Germans in general and Nazis in particular. During the Second World War, Bell spoke in the House of Lords strongly condemning some of the actions of the Allies such as indiscriminate bombing of German cities. Though there is no actual evidence one way or the other it is widely accepted that this preparedness to speak the truth as he saw it may have prevented him from succeeding William Temple as Archbishop of Canterbury after Temple’s sudden death in 1944.

This felt very timely not just for the situation in the Middle East right now, but for the speculation that an obvious contender for the Canterbury role was passed over in 1945 because he spoke the truth “as he saw it”. That would seem like a good thing for an Archbishop to do?

Having the announcement on the day that Bishop George Bell is remembered is also timely in terms of safeguarding; one point that I’ve heard made again and again in the process for finding our new Archbishop is that they must be someone accepted by survivors of Church abuse. Bell was himself posthumously accused of abuse, and when Justin Welby, as Archbishop, responded to the independent review into the case he wrote

No human being is entirely good or bad. Bishop Bell was in many ways a hero. He is also accused of great wickedness. Good acts do not diminish evil ones, nor do evil ones make it right to forget the good. Whatever is thought about the accusations, the whole person and whole life should be kept in mind.

Archbishop-designate Sarah has been Bishop of London since 2018. London diocese is unique – with what’s called the ‘Area System’ making the role of the diocesan bishop very different to that in other dioceses – and it has maybe more than its fair share of safeguarding problems. Tragically, Father Alan Griffin took his own life in 2020 after finding he was under some sort of investigation carried out following a “brain dump” of information held by a retiring Head of Operations in the diocese; the church was criticised by the Coroner and there was an independent review into what happened, which stated that “There is clear evidence that the way Father Alan was treated was, in part, influenced by the Church and individuals’ conscious and unconscious bias around his sexual orientation”. In his summary, the reviewer stated “In particular, the Diocese has a strong leader in Bishop Sarah and I can see she is driving that positive change”.

The readings set for today include the following verses from Deuteronomy which seem like a good reminder for the Church of England and our new Archbishop:

Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel: ‘Be strong and bold, for you are the one who will go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their ancestors to give them; and you will put them in possession of it. It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’

Posted in Shared Conversations | 1 Comment

Is there a quorum in the House of Bishops?

Posted on September 4, 2025 by fluff35

Just when you’d have thought that the dust had settled from Dr Ros Clarke’s Private Member’s Motion calling for an independent governance and culture review of the House of Bishops, finally the minutes appear from the May 2025 meeting of the House; so, now, we have a glimpse of how they were thinking about their response to the PMM ahead of the Synod meeting in July at which it was debated. The stated purpose of the PMM was to restore trust in the House, but it allowed people of different views to blame the bishops for not doing what they would like them to do. One online commentator, Michael Hayden, noted before Synod met, ‘It’s surely unthinkable that they would vote against the motion, which in itself would say an awful lot.’

When it came to it, though, there wasn’t a vote, so bishops didn’t need to make any decision on how to vote. Instead, Synod voted to move to Next Business, a procedural motion which can avoid showing the extent of any division. However, we can see from the published results of the Next Business motion that this would have gone the other way if those who decided to abstain had instead voted ‘Against’, thus continuing with the debate and moving towards a vote on the motion itself. But even more interestingly, while we can see that four bishops voted in favour of Next Business, with two against and 13 abstentions, we also discover that there were only 19 bishops voting. There is of course a fourth voting option – simply, not to vote – but my bishop-spotting ability, while improved considerably in the last four years of Synod membership, didn’t allow me to detect any taking this option. Neither the dress-down style of York Synods nor our inability to see who is taking part by Zoom helps here.

Compared to some of the voting figures for July, 19 was mildly impressive. In several counted votes, the number of bishops was in the low teens, although for the motion on redistribution of funds 32 of them were there and voting.

When I was on Synod back in the last century, there were frequent calls of ‘Is there a quorum in the House of Bishops?’ I recall that happening during the Wimbledon Men’s Singles Final, shown in one of the hall of residence lounges in the days before iPads and smartphones. I was there; I can bear witness to preponderance of bishops in front of the TV. I don’t know what the system was then, but today there’s a rota to ensure there is always a quorum in the House. But, for the voting on the Clarke PMM, that’s not the point. What I want to know is: where are the bishops? I know we all need to go to the loo and find refreshments, and that not everyone is in the debating chamber at any point, but really? A motion about the House of Bishops, but only 19 of them vote?

There are in theory 53 bishops on General Synod. Not all are diocesans; some are elected from the suffragan and area bishops, and they can vote. But some sees are vacant, with an acting bishop, and those acting bishops can attend Synod but currently have no voting rights. There are moves afoot to change this; the House of Bishops minutes for May 2024 include, as part of their own work on increasing the transparency of the House, the intention “To remove the current legal prohibition on acting diocesans from voting in the House.” In my view, the Clarke PMM was not necessary, because the bishops have already got the point that the House is not sufficiently open to scrutiny, and the 22 pages of minutes from May show that there’s listening happening already.

And how has that work on allowing acting diocesan bishops to vote been going? Apparently it is… going. By March 2025, the House of Bishops minutes give us “9.2.1 Noted the importance of progressing the work on ensuring that Acting Bishops could vote in the House and General Synod. The Bishop of Dudley was progressing this with lawyers.” 

I don’t know how or why the Bishop of Dudley was given this job but, bearing in mind the repeated request of conservatives in the Living in Love and Faith debates to see “the legal advice”, I’d like to know a bit more about this. But the minutes from May 2025 don’t mention the lawyers; they pass the responsibility on to the Houses of Clergy and Laity. Maybe that’s what the lawyers said? This is what we now have:

“5.4 The BISHOP OF DUDLEY briefed the House on work being done to allow acting diocesan bishops to vote in both the House and the General Synod. Acting Bishops were approved and lawfully entitled to exercise episcopal functions in their diocese, but are not lawfully members of the General Synod or House of Bishops and therefore they as individuals and their diocese are left without a vote during often lengthy vacancies. Changing this required an amending Canon; this could be done swiftly with the support of Synod – but could become a partisan debate. He was therefore engaging with the Houses of Clergy and Laity to explain the issues and take matters forward.” 

An amending Canon; was that the legal advice? I think I could probably have given that advice myself. So, until acting diocesan bishops can vote, we are not going to get anywhere near 53 bishops voting. 

Meanwhile, back in the House of Bishops, the May 2025 minutes show that they addressed the Clarke PMM within the context of a paper they had received called ‘Making the House work better’. As is the usual format of House of Bishops’ minutes these days, what we can read are isolated comments from unnamed bishops. For example someone noted “That the House should take the PMM seriously”; someone (else?) “There was a case for a review, providing it was multi-disciplinary”; also “That the House needed to focus on building accountability and transparency”. The Bishop of London, who had presented the paper, noted “The work would proceed as set out in the paper.”

But here’s the problem. The paper was written for the bishops so we have no idea what constitutes “the work”. The agenda for the July House of Bishops meeting includes a ten-minute item, “Review of culture and governance of the House of Bishops: update”, so maybe more will become clear when the minutes for that meeting are eventually approved and published.

There are all sorts of other comments about the House in the May 2025 minutes: the Bishop of London’s observation that the House doesn’t always find the right balance “between working formally as a legislative body as a House of Synod and working more informally as an episcopal leadership providing prayerful discernment”; a comment on LLF, attributed to the Bishop of Leicester, that “the House was increasingly facing the choice of whether to lead or be led” and another comment, this one attributed, that the function of the House “had changed as a result of the Living in Love and Faith process and the pandemic”. 

What I think has changed is something else. The House of Bishops had, for whatever reason, reached a stage in which they felt that expressing collegiality could only be done by voting the same way. In the 2017 Take Note debate which kicked off the LLF process, all the bishops voted in favour of ‘taking note’ of their widely criticised Report, GS2055 Marriage and Same Sex Relationships after the Shared Conversations, which offered a vague “radical new Christian inclusion” to lesbian and gay Christians; all but one, and he had simply pressed the wrong button. 

Since then, the chains have loosened again. Now we are all aware that the House of Bishops contains a range of views, just like the wider church it serves. And somehow, that is hard for some people to hear. Personally, I don’t have a problem with it; they are individuals, people, and I am glad that they feel able to say what they think in their meetings as a House. The negative side of it, however, is when church members say that they want – or even that they can’t flourish without – a bishop who thinks as they do. People are complex. Bishops are complex. There’s never going to be a bishop who, in their views on sexuality, poverty, the Trinity, establishment, marriage, racial justice and the theology of atonement is ‘just like you’!

Posted in General Synod, Living in Love and Faith | Tagged | 2 Comments

July 2025 General Synod: money talks

Posted on July 19, 2025 by fluff35

I returned home from Synod on Tuesday evening; I wasn’t drafting this while I was there, as there was just too much else going on, and once I was back I had lots to catch up on from other parts of my life, but maybe that’s to the good as I’ve had more time to process it all. So, here we go, and I’m sorry it is so long, but there was a very full agenda, even without the fringe meetings (most of which I won’t talk about here). I’ll come to the specifics of some debates later, not in order of scheduling but as they fit into my reflections, so skip ahead if you like; but first, some general thoughts.

When I go out to various deaneries around my (relatively wealthy) diocese, the main concern expressed to me is their experience of more and more vacant, or only partly-funded, posts for ordained ministers in their benefices. This is not helped by the number of vocations to ordained ministry having fallen, so that we are a long way even from replacing those who retire. In Hereford, we were told by its bishop, some benefices have been without a priest for 4 years. 

In relation to this, at the moment a number of contradictory positions exist and these kept coming up across very different presentations and debates at Synod. These include:

The narrative of lots of money (in particular, the success of the Church Commissioners’ investments, up 10.3% in 2024 and funding an increase of £430 million in spending between 2026 and 2028), versus a narrative of crisis (nearly all dioceses now in deficit).

The narrative of declining numbers of church members versus a (new and not yet tested) narrative of a ‘Quiet Revival’ of new people – especially young men – coming in.

The narrative of Doing More Things (driven by the Vision & Strategy for the 2020s, with its key phrases of “becoming a church of missionary disciples”, “mixed ecology” and “younger and more diverse”) because the answer is doing more mission and praying more. I don’t hear much from the other side of that, but would suggest that the one who brings us to God is … God. St Paul wrote “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3: 6-7). So, what happens when the growth doesn’t follow the planting and watering? Has the focus on numbers gone too far?

On that theme, I know it’s becoming standard to ask for ‘more theology’, at least in the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process, but please can we have ‘more theology of prayer’? Once we reach the point that someone can say ‘in churches where they prayed for half an hour a week for growth, there was a 6 per cent annual rise in attendance’ I think we need to step back and reflect. In the Church Growth presentation, I felt very uneasy about the very mechanistic views some expressed, which seemed to me more akin to magic: You do the Thing, you get the Result. Just like that. And if you don’t get the Result?

This Synod brought plenty of good money news, for example about increasing clergy stipends, and improving investment in housing for retired clergy. This all relates to the increasing recognition that the main factor depressing the numbers of those offering themselves for ordination is not Covid, nor the new process of discernment they go through, nor the discussions of sexuality, but fears around clergy well-being.

And then there was more money talk in the final Synodical stage of the Redress Scheme for those who have suffered as victims and survivors of church abuse. The Scheme will be non-adversarial, person-centred and trauma-informed. Some present at Synod seemed most worried about whether they would be blamed if they reported but nobody listened to them. I was pleased that Synod passed the amendment proposed by Bishop Julie Conalty, so that those who have already received some help under the Interim Support Scheme will not have those payments deducted from any award made under the Redress Scheme; this is about showing generosity. An excellent point from Revd Jenny Bridgman extended the image of The Body Keeps the Score to the body of the Church: the Body of Christ. As a Church we carry the weight of what we now know happened.

On bodies and our proper use of them, I was of course very involved in the penultimate agenda item, the end of using Issues in Human Sexuality in the discernment process. The speech I gave made the point that, despite not having been intended to be used in this way for candidates for ordination, in some dioceses its malign empire has expanded into covering lay ministry as well; so this is something that concerns all who minister in the C of E. Only a couple of members seem to have voted to keep the document in use, everyone else having come together to bin it. The motion was amended so that the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy will be used as an interim point of reference before the bishops offer us a new guide. GPCC does not have an unhealthy fixation with sex, but covers far more aspects of a person’s integrity. It’s perhaps the first time progressives and conservatives have agreed on anything to do with our sexuality, so that was indeed something to celebrate, but it’s too early to say that the use of Private Members’ Motions like this one from Revd Mae Christie – proposed by Paul Waddell because she was moving house on the day it was scheduled – is the way to go on LLF. It’s for the House of Bishops to make the calls.

This debate on binning Issues was not the focus of this Synod, and one of my conclusions from last week is that the much-reported ‘battle’ between conservatives and progressives around sexuality really isn’t where the main problems lie. No, that’s back to money again. Of course it is. This wasn’t only about stipends and redress. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21) was mentioned in debates, maybe more than once. It’s hard to remember just how many times it came up because it was a very Groundhog Day sort of Synod, with four formal and many informal items on the agenda in which we had much the same discussion about money and whether the best way of deciding how to spend it is to put as much as we currently do into a central scheme to which dioceses make bids, or letting the dioceses have more to put into local parishes. The ‘Hereford motion’, passed by many dioceses and aimed at moving money from the central funds into the local, was amended by the Bishop of Sheffield, and the way the amendments were laid out meant that the other amendment, from the Bishop of Bath & Wells, was not able to be taken – that was the one I had intended to support, suggesting that 1% of the increase in value in the endowments should go to the dioceses to support ordinary parish ministry. Incidentally, the Sheffield amendment only just passed in the House of Laity, 87 yes, 83 no and 9 abstentions.

That’s a lot of bishops making – or trying to make – amendments, so maybe this is the point to mention the Ros Clarke Private Member’s Motion asking the House of Bishops to have an independent review of how they work. I’m on record expressing my unease about the secrecy of their processes but had I been called to speak I’d have pointed to improvements there, with them having resumed publishing their Minutes. And I would have reinforced the point made by another speaker, that bishops are individuals not some monolithic structure of a ‘House’. I think Bishop Paul Bayes put that very well here, writing in 2017 when there was also anger with the bishops. On the Private Member’s Motion, after some debate there was a motion to move to Next Business and I supported that because I couldn’t see how anything more being said could be helpful; Next Business only just passed, as if the 16 abstentions had voted ‘No’ then the debate would have continued.

That financial discussion is one manifestation of the division between  SMIBB – which stands for Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board – and the parish. The Bishop of Blackburn challenged claims of such a division by saying that, without the SMIBB funding outlined here, his diocese’s parishes would suffer and, of course, like most binaries it’s never as simple as all that. Like its predecessor, Strategic Development Funding, for which a full list of the projects funded is here, SMIBB works by people putting in bids for funding. I’ve witnessed for myself the reaction in a diocese when a bid is not approved; so much work goes into writing these, and of course some people are better than others at bidding. It reminds me of when I chaired a panel giving funding to libraries to preserve and catalogue books and papers in danger of deteriorating further. Some places wrote perfect bids. They even employed someone just to write them. Others, with unique materials to save, couldn’t produce such wonderful bids. So we worked with them, and we made allowances where necessary.

Another topic which kept coming up was racial justice, including Project Spire, featuring from the Archbishop of York’s opening presidential address onwards; Project Spire involves £100 million agreed as coming from the Church Commissioners to invest in projects with “communities affected by historic transatlantic slavery”. Some members of Synod still challenge the evidence of the need for this, and there was much unease this time around about the reduction in funding for both racial justice and disability; we kept hearing that the racial justice funding had only ever been intended to be for the short term, but also that there is money, just in a different area of the budget. I am not sure what to believe here, but I am disturbed that the Lead Bishops for racial justice had not been consulted in advance. Racial justice and disability are such important areas yet appear to be so easy to cut.

Alongside the central funding/local funding split, there’s a related one which is between national and diocesan. What should be the same over the whole Church of England, and where should dioceses have flexibility in applying national policy in order to take into account their local context?

When we apply this national/local distinction to Living in Love and Faith (LLF), there has been an attempt to find out how views differ between dioceses, by having diocesan consultations with diocesan synods. We heard more about this in a fringe meeting. It has not been a smooth process, as dioceses have decided to adapt the set questions, or even not to hold a consultation. Only 17 have so far held one. This was never intended to be comparable to what happened with, for example, women bishops in 2014, where dioceses were given a set motion on which to vote (all voted in favour). Instead, in these ‘consultations’ dioceses were asked how far they had engaged with the LLF resources, and whether parishes would use the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF); this is a particularly difficult one to measure unless everyone is asked the same thing.

London was asked “If the bespoke PLF are introduced alongside this form of pastoral reassurance, do you think your church would: opt in to pastoral reassurance/not opt in to pastoral reassurance as not needed/not opt in to pastoral reassurance as not sufficient/I don’t know.” The problem with that is simply that “this form” is not clear at all yet; the ‘Delegated Episcopal Ministry’ in which bishops agree to delegate their authority, for example for a particular ordination service, appears to have very few supporters.

Oxford was asked “What is your view of the current pastoral reassurance provisions for those unable to accept PLF?”  It wasn’t clear what “current” means, and this was raised at the meeting. This clarification was added: “For the purposes of this questionnaire, Pastoral Reassurance means: 

•Bishops’ Statement 

•Independent Panel 

•Local Schemes for provision of ministry 

•Ongoing conversations nationally”

The fact that only 79 people answered the question – rather than the 92 or 93 answering the earlier questions – may suggest that this wasn’t clear enough. For the record, 47% were Firmly Against or Against, with 28% In Favour or Strongly in favour. I am wondering there why one was a “Firmly” and the other a “Strongly”. And there is no way of knowing whether those who are not happy with the various aspects of Pastoral Reassurance are always the ones who aren’t happy with the proposed provisions; it’s perfectly possible that those who welcome the PLF don’t much care for the specifics of Reassurance suggested for those who disagree. Oxford was asked for “your view of the use of Prayers of Love and Faith” but did that mean the current use in existing services, the proposed standalone/bespoke services, or both? For the record 43% were some sort of “Against” and 46% “In favour” of whatever they thought they were voting on.

Back to the national, although I suspect some churches don’t use the Calendar, I found surprisingly interesting the item of Liturgical Business at this Synod. This was to add two new items to the Calendar, which give us opportunities to work alongside other Churches who have already introduced the Festival of God the Creator or a Commemoration of the 21 Martyrs of Libya. There were powerful comments made on how we construct sacred time and how the liturgical year relates to our individual journeys of faith. This was the item which did most for my own faith.

Martyrdom brings me to another central theme: war. It featured in Brigadier Jaish Mahan’s moving address on living with a land war in Europe and the complexity of the Middle East; in the various stages of legislation being passed so that chaplains will be licensed by the Archbishops rather than having to go through the process each time they move diocese; and in the address from the Archbishop of Jerusalem with his chilling image of food distribution in Gaza as “the Hunger Games”. Requests to have an extra agenda item on the Middle East were resisted; that was disappointing.

There was so much more at this Synod, and I haven’t even mentioned the breakfast, lunchtime and evening Fringe meetings (Synod never stops), but that will do for now. Do ask me about anything I’ve missed. And now we wait for February; unless there’s a last-minute decision to meet in November. I wonder why we can’t just have a Zoom Synod for any legal items which need to be considered; February is a long time away and leaves only one more Synod before the 2026 elections.

Posted in General Synod, Safeguarding | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Implementation? Another week, another Living in Love and Faith statement 

Posted on July 5, 2025 by fluff35

General Synod meets from 11 July. Living in Love and Faith (LLF) is not included in the agenda, but that will do nothing to stop it lurking in the background of many other agenda items. Alongside the various papers issued for the presentations and debates that are scheduled, there is a document giving an upbeat LLF update, suggesting that everything is ticking along. Is it?

This blog started as a way of giving people a flavour of what it was like doing the Diocesan Shared Conversations, the residential meetings in 2015-17 that tried to bring Church of England people with different convictions about sexuality and identity together to talk. When I read through my earliest blog posts, there’s a mix of optimism and trepidation in my words. Ah, the naivety of (relative) youth! Then came the General Synod debate of 2017 where the Synod refused to ‘Take Note’ of the report the bishops produced; and that refusal led to a rapid regrouping of the House of Bishops and the proposal to produce a ‘teaching document’ which eventually became Living in Love and Faith – a long book, a course, various podcasts and videos. 

When I came into all this, in 2015, I was simply a member of the church whose academic work was on the history of the body and therefore thought she had something to contribute. I offered my time, and the offer was accepted. I had no idea just how much time that would be. In 2017, for that notorious debate, I was in the Church House visitors’ gallery watching it all unfold – or, perhaps, ‘unravel’ would be a better word. Then I was asked to join the History Working Group of LLF and I agreed, which meant a lot of meetings, writing, and commenting on drafts. In 2021, as what had become the LLF ‘journey’ or ‘programme’ continued, I stood for and was elected to General Synod.

And that’s where I still am. With my history, both with the production of the LLF resources and then on one of the earlier LLF Working Groups, I probably know as much about the history of LLF as anyone. But I still find out that there is information I had missed. 

That was the case again today.

On the Stories and News section of the official LLF page, there’s another update on LLF, dated 2 July. What’s new in this? How does it differ from the document sent out to Synod members last month? Well, first, personnel. We knew from a previous statement that Dr Nick Shepherd, the programme director (the central staff person holding it all together) is going to move to another role in September with Revd Helen Fraser taking over. She starts in August – but, as I noted in my last blog post, she is only seconded until March 2026. What does that say about what is envisaged after the February 2026 General Synod meeting? But there’s more now. The latest update confirms that, after the resignation of Bishop Martyn Snow, there won’t be another Lead Bishop for LLF. That’s accompanied by a reiteration of the point that the responsibility for forming “clear integrated proposals” to present to the House of Bishops now rests only with the Programme Board (chaired by the Archbishop of York), and that the House of Bishops with Synod then decides on “the formal basis and implementation of any proposals”. “Implementation”: I shall return to that shortly.

The second new thing is rather less easy to see. We are told that the LLF working groups are “continuing to meet”. In May 2024, those were set up as three groups – Pastoral Guidance, Prayers of Love and Faith, and Pastoral Provision. By November 2024, there were four: Prayers of Love and Faith, Pastoral Reassurance, Bishops’ Statement and Ministry and Vocation Guidance. The shifts in there – for example, from provision to reassurance – could comprise a blog post in themselves. It was always obvious that the remits of the groups were going to overlap but – new information for me! – if you click on the link at the foot of the 2 July page, you’ll see that these groups “continue to meet collectively, rather than in individual working groups”. That means a group of 34 people! “Continue”? When did that begin? I’ve seen no discussion of it. When did they merge? What’s the rationale? Did I miss something?

The third new point from the 2 July news story is around the “diocesan consultations” which are still happening; at least, in some places. Oxford held its consultation last month. We didn’t use the video recorded specifically for these consultations by Bishop Martyn, as it was deemed irrelevant now that he’s left and when nobody seems interested in the ‘Delegated Episcopal Ministry’ idea for ensuring conservatives could be provided with bishops sufficiently conservative to be acceptable in confirmations and ordinations. So we weren’t following the consultation template there. Despite an attempt by a conservative member of diocesan synod to move ‘Next Business’, those of us who were present did however follow the template by filling in a sheet answering questions on subjects like our familiarity with the LLF resources (ha!), how much they had been used in our church, and – quoting the form used in Oxford here – “What three words describe your feelings about participating in this conversation today?” (those who couldn’t make the meeting were not, as far as I know, given this sheet). We’ll see the results of that exercise later in the coming week. The 2 July announcement tells us more about these consultations elsewhere. It includes the information that some dioceses have now postponed previously-scheduled consultations; others are conversing but not consulting, so are giving no feedback. And that is apparently all fine, although these consultations were billed as giving the wider church a chance to participate before the House of Bishops next meets in October. 

What’s happening here? In this latest update, there’s a recognition that “challenges” have been identified in “holding these [diocesan consultations] consistently”. They certainly have. It’s not just that they aren’t happening everywhere. As different dioceses asked different questions – for example, “your view of the use of Prayers of Love and Faith” or “Use of Prayers of Love and Faith in your church” – it is unclear how any of the material coming out of these consultations can be used.  The original plan was to use Mentimeter, to generate word clouds with the words most mentioned in the ‘three words’ exercise appearing in the largest font. In Oxford, that didn’t happen, because it wasn’t clear that everyone would be able to use the tech. The word clouds idea has backfired, for example in the highly divided diocese of London, where there was so obviously a message shared among conservatives that words including ‘unapostolic’, ‘unholy’ and ‘uncatholic’ should be entered into the system. ‘Unbiblical’ would have made it to the top as well, except that some member(s) typed it as ‘un biblical’ instead. 

And what about implementation, led by the House of Bishops? That’s where all this falls down. There really isn’t any. The C of E page on “The LLF journey so far” states that, after the General Synod vote in February 2023, LLF moved “from ‘listening’, to ‘discerning’ and now to ‘implementing’”. The problem is that it hasn’t. 

In the list of things Synod stated in the successful motion in February 2023, have we really done enough on (a), to “lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church”? Just as a straight ally, I think not. 

How have we done on (b), “continuing to embed the Pastoral Principles in our life together locally and nationally”? Well, for starters, I see no lasting improvement in tone; not when a diocesan synod member in London can use “demonic” as one of their chosen three words in the diocesan consultation. 

As for (c), “commend the continued learning together enabled by the Living in Love and Faith process and resources in relation to identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage”, I really don’t see that we are learning anything we didn’t know about each other already. We sincerely believe this: you sincerely believe that. Is that “learning together”? 

And then (d), “welcome the decision of the House of Bishops to replace Issues in Human Sexuality with new pastoral guidance”; as we know very well, Issues is still in place in the discernment process, 34 years since it was written, even though it was not produced to be part of discerning whether someone could be accepted for ministry training, or whether they could be ordained. The “decision” was taken but, more than two years on, it hasn’t been ‘implemented’. 

And then there’s (e), “welcome the response from the College of Bishops and look forward to the House of Bishops further refining, commending and issuing the Prayers of Love and Faith described in GS 2289 and its Annexes”. No: while the Prayers were commended at the end of 2023 they remain unavailable for anything outside a section of an existing service. 

This means that (f), “invite the House of Bishops to monitor the Church’s use of and response to the Prayers of Love and Faith”, remains irrelevant because although there’s now a ‘tag’ on A Church Near You where churches can say whether or not they are happy to welcome same-sex couples for these prayers, the standalone services are not supposed to happen, even though we were told at the time of the material being commended that it was just a matter of setting up a system to do this ‘monitoring’.

Only the commendation of the Prayers of Love and Faith for use in existing services: that really isn’t a lot to show for all this time, money and energy. This isn’t ‘implementation’. The faithful, committed same-sex couples who have stuck with the church for so long; the people who long to have their legal relationship formally recognised and celebrated by their congregation, family and friends; those who have been forced to choose between their civil marriage and their vocation to ministry; they all deserve so, so much better than this.

Posted in General Synod, Living in Love and Faith, Shared Conversations | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Ceasefire?

Posted on June 24, 2025 by fluff35

In the life of this General Synod member, it’s one of those weeks where there’s a pause. The papers for Synod are due out on Thursday 26 June, and there will then be a slightly frenzied period of reading, and of formulating Questions to send in by the deadline of 1 July. I’ve already sent in two Questions (we are not allowed any more per member) so I can relax a little there. Until the Synod papers are issued, while we have some idea of which items will be debated, we don’t know much more. One of the first papers I read is always the report of the Business Committee, on how they decided what to cover this time – there has to be a balance between legislation (our core job) and other matters of importance to the Church or the nation. As I write this, I’ve half an eye on the international news: it is still unclear whether the ceasefire that was supposed to happen today between Iran and Israel is in place, or not, and I can’t see how the synod agenda is going to manage to adjust to whatever happens there, although the Archbishop of Jerusalem is supposed to be in attendance. He spoke to us remotely in 2023, after the October 7 attacks. These messages from the rest of the Anglican Communion are very helpful for us; the view of daily church life in Estonia that we were given at the last Synod meeting was chilling.

In view of what is happening in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel and Iran, the endless in-fighting at Synod seems even more pointless than usual. But one thing we do know, as we wait for the papers, is that there is no progress on the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) front. We have not yet found out who is replacing Bishop Martyn Snow as Lead Bishop, nor who is replacing Nick Shepherd, the hardworking programme officer. I assume that news, too, will come later this week [update: it did, here https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/living-love-and-faith/stories-and-news/update-living-love-and-faith-staff-team], when a programme board meeting of LLF is scheduled. Meanwhile, C of E Comms focuses on the ordination services being held in many dioceses last weekend and next weekend, with its #NewRevs campaign (I do have a problem with the campaign’s focus on ordained ministry at the expense of lay ministry, but that’s another blog post).

No progress on LLF has an impact on the vocation and ordination processes. Not surprisingly, those of us who think we should go ahead with standalone services of blessing for committed same-sex couples, using the Prayers of Love and Faith, still think they should go ahead; they have been commended by the bishops, on an opt-in basis, so that no church or incumbent has to use them if they don’t think that’s appropriate. And when they were initially permitted, for use in existing services, there was just a plea not to use them outside those services until some sort of registration process had been set up so that their usage could be recorded, so it does seem odd many months later that this has all stalled. Equally unsurprisingly, those who think that the prayers are blessing sin still think they would be blessing sin if they used them, so they won’t. Stalemate, although not exactly ceasefire.

The July agenda is, however, going to include one item that is LLF-related.

While the LLF process was happening, Synod was not allowed to debate any motions expressing a view on the topics it covered. This was supposed to be so that local conversations could take place within a sort of ‘pause’; a ceasefire, if you like. So a Private Member’s Motion from Revd Mae Christie calling for the decades-old document Issues in Human Sexuality to be removed from the vocation process just sat in a corner humming quietly to itself. It was never intended to be a document to which those seeking ordination would have to give their assent; it says itself that it was written to ‘promote an educational process’ and it’s not entirely clear how it took on a very different role. Issues occasionally raised its voice in the formal Questions process. At the start of 2023, Mae asked when it would stop being used and was told that the hope was that it would cease to be used ‘by July 2023’. It’s still there. And when Synod passed motions which, at the time, members thought had actually moved things on towards LGBTQIA+ inclusion, those stated that Issues would be replaced; in February 2023 all three Houses of Synod passed one which ‘welcome[d] the decision of the House of Bishops to replace Issues in Human Sexuality with new pastoral guidance’. But it’s still there.

And now that Private Member’s Motion is on the agenda. It has been put in for the last morning of the residential meeting, so who knows whether it will be debated, or whether it will be ruled out of time in some way. Going by my own diocese’s Diocesan Synod, it’s possible that there will be a procedural motion to move to next business, so nothing will happen.

It’s also possible that the official position on LLF will be moving towards a ‘pause’. [update: This is supported by Nick Shepherd’s successor, Revd Helen Fraser, being seconded from her current role only until March 2026] I have written here before about the concept of a pause. It’s not unlike a ceasefire. The trouble with this one is that we aren’t talking about ‘issues’ here: we’re talking about people. People who want to share their lives with someone they love. People who know they still can’t be married in church, but who want to enter into a civil marriage rather than a civil partnership. At the moment, clergy who marry are subject to ‘discipline’ from their bishop and can’t move to new posts, so that’s a loss to the Church of trained, experienced priests. People already in same-sex marriages are not supposed to be trained or ordained: but if they contract a civil partnership instead, that’s apparently fine. We’ve been discussing human sexuality for decades, and the LLF process has been going on since 2017.

And I still hear people saying ‘Oh it’s not about sexuality really, it’s all about our different ways of reading the Bible’. That’s been said for so… many… years. It was the starting point of the Shared Conversations process – which is when I began this blog in, gasp, 2015. Ten years, just there. It was clear even when the Shared Conversations produced their first resources that there have always been different ways of reading the Bible. Focusing on what unites us, rather than than what divides us, we find our deep need to wrestle with this rich set of documents and to seek God through that wrestling.

But… ten years. Maybe I should be having an event to celebrate. Although, what is there to celebrate? One of the questions at our diocesan synod consultation was on the lines of ‘How familiar are you with the LLF materials?’ and when I said, very, I was involved in producing some of them so that makes about 8 years of familiarity, I had the feeling that those on my table weren’t able to grasp just how many hours and days and weeks of my time that has involved.

At this stage, a ‘pause’ isn’t going to get us anywhere, either as individuals invested in the process, or as a church.

Posted in equal marriage, General Synod, Living in Love and Faith, Shared Conversations | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Another one bites the dust: resignation, LLF … and murder?

Posted on June 7, 2025 by fluff35

updated (bits in bold) 15 June 2025

Friday 6 June was ‘interesting’, in the ‘may you live in interesting times’ sense. I wasn’t at home but my phone kept registering messages. The first was drawing my attention to the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) having issued their 20-page guide to their members attending diocesan synods where the Living in Love and Faith proposals will be on the agenda. Shortly after that, a friend passed on the news (from Facebook; when did bishops start using this as the way to announce anything?) from Bishop Martyn Snow of his resignation as lead bishop for Living in Love and Faith. He had only been in the role for 18 months, after an induction complicated by the Bishop of Newcastle – appointed as the inclusive to balance his conservatism – withdrawing from her role, and nobody replacing her. And then in the afternoon we had the statement from the Archbishop of York and the Bishop of London, thanking Bishop Martyn and stating that those diocesan consultations will continue.

That’s quite a lot of upheaval. I am not going to speculate on why Bishop Martyn left, or why he did so now, and would only note that his short statement attempted to close off such speculation, ending “I hope it may yet be possible to reach such an agreement, but I don’t think that can happen under my leadership. I will not be making any further comments.” It may or may not be significant that the Programme Director, Nick Shepherd, had already announced that he is moving to a different section of the Church of England central structures, after over three years in his role. 

Instead, I’m going to focus here on that 20-page CEEC guide for diocesan synod members. As is usual with CEEC documents, some of it takes the ‘If they say that, you say this’ format; we saw the same thing in the 2021 General Synod elections, where CEEC guidance for candidates included “suggested answers to difficult questions” and where those standing were told to “sound as if you are a practising member of the Church of England, that you are an Anglican!” The document goes through the materials produced by the centre and sent to dioceses, page by page, saying where the authors don’t agree with them. I didn’t seen anything new here. By page 14, we move to “points to make” and yes, they’re the same ones we have discussed endlessly at General Synod, the same ones on which innumerable blog posts have been written. One area that may be new to people who haven’t sat through General Synod debates is perhaps the “9 theses” on marriage which claim to find a “stable core to the doctrine of marriage”. These are laid out more fully in a document, GS Misc 1407, with which I find it hard to agree; for example it takes Adam and Eve considerably more seriously than I would, it interprets ‘one flesh’ more narrowly, and it really plays up marriage as “an icon of the relationship between Christ and the Church” in a way that makes plenty of assumptions about gender.

The idea of consulting the dioceses is not new. It happened with, for example, the marriage of divorced people in church, and with the ordination of women. But there won’t be a diocesan vote on a set form of words. There won’t be ‘votes’ at all. Indeed, the CEEC guidance for its members in diocesan synods encourages them to make sure that this stated intention of the consultations is strictly followed: members are urged “Please challenge any idea of a vote, a show of hands, or other indications to establish the ‘mind’ of the Synod, since the resources offered do not adequately address the substantive issues involved (i.e. people would be voting ‘in the dark’).” 

So, no vote, but there is going to be some indication of whether people think the basic proposals are good: the two key areas of LLF being fought over at present are around having separate Prayers of Love and Faith services using the resources commended by the House of Bishops 18 months ago, and on allowing clergy to be in same-sex civil marriages. At the moment, clergy can’t, but they can be in same-sex civil partnerships; to the world outside the church, that may look odd, but the C of E gets around this by saying that there isn’t any sex in civil partnerships; and, I suppose, logically, that there has to be sex in marriages? 

But that isn’t where the LLF team are looking for responses. Instead, it was originally planned that the dioceses would use an online system called Mentimeter so that members can respond anonymously to two main questions:

  • “What is your view of the use of Prayers of Love and Faith (suggested scale 1 firmly against, 2 against, 3 no particular view, 4 in favour, 5 strongly in favour)
  • What is your view of Pastoral Reassurance provisions for those unable to accept PLF (same scale as above)?”

I think these are doomed to receive unhelpful answers. On the first, if you think the PLF are kind of weak and inadequate and what you want is equal marriage, you could give them a low score, but if you think they are the work of the devil and will lead us all to hell you’d give them the same score. And are we answering on the prayers as currently used in existing services only, or on the proposal for separate services?

At Oxford diocese’s meeting on 14 June, there was a paper sheet to fill in rather than the use of Mentimeter – and I’ve heard of another diocese where this was the case. We began with two of our bishops doing a double act around John 4, the discussion between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, as an example of a respectful conversation. After we had done our two 15 minute sessions of discussion round our tables, there was also a vote on whether or not to include one of the questions on the sheet (“What is your view of the current Pastoral Reassurance provisions for those unable to accept PLF?” – the question was kept, although of course people could choose not to answer it) and, more significantly, a member moved ‘Next Business’ which, if passed, would have meant that the sheets were all left blank. This motion for Next Business was defeated by 54 votes to 33, with 12 abstentions. Perhaps having got up early to get to Diocesan Synod by 9.15, people wanted to feel that they had been able to do something in that time. Or perhaps the basic point that we had been asked to have this consultation by the bishops was foremost in people’s minds.

As Oxford’s experience suggests, the Pastoral Reassurance question is particularly hard to answer. It’s the term that covers a range of extra provisions intended to make those who aren’t happy with the PLF feel that they can still stay in the C of E (so it’s a one-way reassurance). But the proposed version of this in the papers sent to Synod members from the centre – Delegated Episcopal Ministry – is pretty much dead in the water already. Bishops don’t find it fits with their view of their roles. Liberals think it is giving away too much, for too little. The CEEC 20-page guide includes “an absolute rejection of DEM as adequate provision/assurance”. So why give our views at all? This is presumably why, in my diocese, we were told in advance that the agenda sub-committee “will keep this plan under review until the day that the Diocesan Synod takes place” and, at the meeting itself, we also discovered that the plan to open with the LLF video update had been dropped because it was out of date. 

People in several dioceses have commented to me that attendance from representatives of conservative churches is patchy unless there is something like LLF on the agenda. That’s no accident. While the CEEC election campaign in 2021 urged candidates “From now, make every effort to engage with your electorate at deanery and diocesan level!” the policy has since changed. See another CEEC paper from February 2024, on “impaired fellowship”, which advises members on how to take part in diocesan structures, including synods, as follows: 

“It would be wise to maintain engagement/presence in deanery and diocesan synods where there are strategic reasons for doing so – but individuals might feel it is appropriate to retreat from anything that is simply ‘being part of things’. Individuals will need to decide whether to step down from holding such positions such as Area Dean or membership of bodies such as Finance Committees and Diocesan Patronage Boards.”

The same document suggests not making any diocesan newspaper available in their churches and – really, you couldn’t make this up – “arriving at Diocesan Synod after worship has finished”.

So it was interesting to see who showed up for Oxford on 14 June. I thought I may be late arriving as I don’t drive and it would take about 2 hours of assorted modes of transport with all the risks of failed connections, but I wondered if others may be late by choice? In the event, a kind person who wasn’t even going to the meeting gave me a lift, and most people were there for the whole of the morning. Although as ‘worship’ was a couple of songs and our usual Dwelling in the Word Bible reading practice, there’s not much there that a CEEC member could find difficult.

Back to DEM. If not that, then what? The CEEC 20-page briefing makes “a plea for structural rearrangement”. “Rearrangement”, eh? What does that cover? My first reaction was to think about the deckchairs on the Titanic. So is this “rearranging” the parishes of the C of E so that they all vote on whether to be in the ‘we will never accept that God can bless a same-sex relationship’ camp or the ‘really, what’s the problem, this isn’t even church marriage, it’s just praying with two people in a committed relationship’ group? By page 15 we find out more: CEEC wants the legal right for clergy to “be ordained, licensed and overseen by orthodox bishops” (can I just say here, the use of the language of ‘orthodox’/ ‘not’ is very unhelpful since there are many of us whose theology is entirely ‘orthodox’ on matters like the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, but who don’t see what this has to do with LLF?).

“Rearrangement” goes further than clergy. CEEC want the legal right for confirmations and licensing of wardens to be carried out by “an orthodox bishop” (yes, that word again). They want vocations for both ordained and licensed lay ministry to go through a “pipeline” “that supports their orthodoxy not questions/erodes it”. They want “a secure and guaranteed provision of orthodox bishops going forward”; so what’s that, then, a quota for the appointments made by the Crown Nominations Commission, regardless of what each diocese puts in the statement of needs it produces before a new diocesan bishop is chosen? And, of course, CEEC want “orthodox churches and clergy to have full access to C of E assets, resources and opportunities (e.g. SMMIB funding)”; that’s Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board, and we are talking very, very large sums of money. None of this is new. My Synod colleague Nic Tall analysed CEEC thinking on this from 2016 onwards, in a piece for Via Media. 

And finally, murder. That 20-page CEEC document asks the question, is LLF “Credal or not?” Bearing in mind that the document observes that “tone matters” and that members should be “careful in the use of language”, I was shocked to see that the argument about whether we need to discuss sexuality even though it’s not mentioned in the Creeds is expressed as: there are “plenty of things not mentioned in the Creeds but upon which we would not be willing to accept any level of disagreement (e.g. murder)”. That little analogy turns up twice in CEEC’s document (pp. 5 and 17). Um, hello, is it “careful” to use as your sole example of something not mentioned in the Creeds but upon which there must be complete agreement… murder? Even before we get to debates about war or punishment which involve killing someone, are you saying that you believe it’s fine to mention murder when you are talking about two people in a committed loving relationship?

We don’t live in love and faith, but we do indeed live in interesting times.

Posted in Living in Love and Faith | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Living in parched places: February 2025 General Synod

Posted on February 16, 2025 by fluff35

I’m just back from a five-day Synod in central London. And, not for the first time, I’m wondering what the point of it all is. That’s exacerbated by being aware of some blatant attempts at manipulation, with the days and even hours before the meeting began being filled with last-minute messages to members and last-minute publication of press releases and blog posts designed to influence us. When we already had more paperwork than ever, and when many members were still struggling to get to grips with that, the arrival of even more reading matter just left many of us feeling confused – which was, maybe, why these things were sent or issued. I was elected as a member by my diocese and I shall stick with the task as long as the electors want me to represent them, but after many hours in the chamber I think I’m entitled to ask that basic question: what’s the point? When I am asked to give talks on how Synod works, I often suggest that the real question should be ‘Does Synod work?’ Here I am going to be as frank as possible about how I am feeling over all this.

Synod certainly has its moments. I have met some wonderful people committed to serving God in many walks of life. I’ve heard their stories. In the margins, in the tea room and the other seating areas, there are conversations in which we hear about each other’s churches, share ideas and experiences, and offer each other care. This is all rewarding but it’s not what we are there for.

General Synod is a legislative body. So, of course, we legislate. That means going through the various stages of Measures, in committees and in full Synod. We are also able to speak into the culture in which we are set, which is why we sometimes have debates on issues of actual relevance to the wider society which, as the Established Church, we are supposed to care about and serve. And we are there to consider changes in policy, and to direct the various bodies in the church to do things. Various business also comes to us from assorted church bodies, filtered through the Business Committee which tries to create a balanced and timely agenda. This time around, we had an excellent debate on Father Alex Frost’s Private Member’s Motion on working-class vocations and training (I declare an interest – I was one of the team that worked on this, which is why I was up on the platform next to Alex taking notes). That, of course, came from a member. An example of something which came from a church body would be the debate on sports and wellbeing ministry, in which I spoke and on which I have blogged on Via Media. The obsession with numbers, and with developing a ‘thing’ called sports and wellbeing ministry, was something I found disturbing, so I spoke about a simple initiative a local vicar has set up in his church as a response to his congregation and their lives.

Above all, and rightly after the long-awaited release of the Makin Report, this was the ‘safeguarding synod’. I have written separately about the Makin Report debate and the later, main debate on which option to adopt for safeguarding going forward. Other items at this Synod were relevant to this, not least the Clergy Conduct Measure.

This also turned out to be the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) synod: topical, because of course we’ve recently heard claims about how the last Liverpool CNC was run; we have the process to find the next Archbishop of Canterbury coming up; and two diocesan CNCs, Ely and Carlisle, have recently failed to decide on an appointment. CNC came up three times in the agenda: in a Report from the CNC about its work, then in a sequence of amendments to the relevant standing orders – some suggested by the bishops, others coming from members of CNCs – and in a further debate on the regulations for the Vacancy in See Committee. Each diocese has such a committee, a mixture of ex officio and elected members, and their number elects the six who will go forward to the CNC when their diocese is looking for a new bishop.

Those different CNC moments on the agenda demonstrated very clearly that everything – and I mean everything – has now become infused with the tensions around Living in Love and Faith (LLF), and whether the faithful relationships of gay and lesbian Christians are to be welcomed. The LLF item on Synod was a presentation with questions, because there is yet more delay, with more theology requested and the message being that this can’t possibly be done quickly because, to quote Bishop Robert, theologians are being asked to work with “shorter timetables than they feel comfortable with”. Right… And are lesbian and gay members of our church “comfortable”, as they wonder where the “radical new Christian inclusion” they were promised in 2017 has gone? The CNC moments also showed how the interweaving of even more elements – lack of trust in the bishops and in the archbishop(s) and continued unhappiness with the position of women in the church – makes the mixture even more explosive. This time around, those elements were intertwined with the other key issue: should Stephen Cottrell remain as Archbishop of York (ABY)? All of this, every bit of it, was connected. 

It is clear, not least from Ian Paul’s blog which came out in the flurry of pieces published at the start of Synod week, that conservatives regard Stephen Cottrell as a ‘false teacher’, because he supports blessings for people in committed, faithful, same-sex relationships. So they want him out. No Archbishops at all; an interesting situation. How would that work? Ian Paul stated clearly in this recent blog post that he would not share communion with Stephen Cottrell and had told him this in 2023, when it became clear that the Archbishop believes that sexual intimacy can take place in any relationship that is permanent, faithful and stable. When the ABY presided at the Eucharist before one of the days of Synod business, the most prominent conservatives were not in the room. They missed a very beautiful and moving service, a real highlight of the week for me, including an address by the Acting Primate of Canada, Archbishop Anne Germon. Such boycotts had become the norm with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, too. I hate such weaponizing of the Eucharist.

But the ABY is also the person who led the CNC which recommended John Perumbalath as Bishop of Liverpool, so an attack on that particular CNC process becomes ammunition in the attempts to make him resign too. A member of the Liverpool CNC had claimed that a woman on that CNC reported feeling coerced by the ABY when he made the CNC vote one more time when they could not reach a 10 out of 14 majority vote. That’s an odd claim, when one of the few things those of us who have never been on a CNC know about these meetings is that they often don’t make up their minds on the first vote. And John Perumbalath was then accused of sexual abuse of a woman and of harassment of a woman bishop, although nothing has been properly investigated so it’s impossible to know what to believe. 

This is all related to various of the proposed amendments to the standing orders governing CNCs which were before us at this Synod. One such amendment would give the Archbishop chairing the CNC an extra vote if the majority was not reached; so, this was a great time to suggest that Archbishops can’t be trusted. Another suggestion was that the secret ballot should be abandoned. Unlike any other appointments process I have encountered, on a CNC members’ votes are secret. Actually the whole process of a CNC, from who is on the shortlist to all the discussions within the meetings and the voting itself, is confidential. Members agree to this arrangement, which is why it was odd to have claims suddenly emerge (conveniently just before Synod met) not only that there was coercion on members of the panel but also that there were concerns at the CNC about John Perumbalath’s own safeguarding record.

In an interesting twist, Ian Paul had put in a Question to the 10 February Questions session of Synod about whistleblowing on the CNCs (Question 37 here). The answer was that there isn’t a whistleblowing policy for CNCs, although one will now be considered. But the deadline for submitting Questions was noon on 28 January, and the claims about coercion at the Liverpool CNC did not enter the public domain until after that, in the Channel 4 News piece at 7 pm. There’s probably an innocent explanation for this apparent coincidence.  

In the febrile days before and during the February Synod, the unproven claims about coercion of a woman on the Liverpool CNC combined with revisiting the David Tudor case made the ABY into someone who did not respect women, including ordained women, and led to a pile-in against him from women. I heard of various plans to boycott his Presidential Address; not to go in, or to enter but then to walk out of the chamber; to stand with one’s back towards him; to wear blue and sing the Magnificat; and so on. These plans eventually morphed into ‘wear a blue ribbon’ and of course the ABY wore one too. And we had some extra prayers in the middle of the Address, led by three different women, which felt rather odd as there was also time for prayer before it. 

Women scorned; women honoured… Women who have experienced being belittled, harassed and abused, whether that was the build-up of microaggressions to which the Bishop of London powerfully bore witness in one of her speeches, or a single shocking incident, came together with those who don’t trust ‘the bishops’.

One of the most contested suggestions brought to Friday’s debate on Vacancy in See Committee standing order changes proposed that those filling the six elected diocesan places on any CNC should include at least one lay and one ordained woman. While we heard that, since 2017, 25%  of CNCs included not a single ordained women among their members from the diocese (although they all included male priests), in Synod women from the conservative tradition said that introducing this change would be an insult and they didn’t need it. A prominent conservative man said that we should trust the democratic process; but one of the GMH coopted members, in a moving speech, asked why in that case we had agreed to coopt him as a response to our overwhelming whiteness? Was he just a token? Synod agreed to retain the proposed requirement for two places to be reserved for women, voting in favour in all three Houses.

Ah yes, votes by Houses: if you don’t want something to pass, you call for a counted vote by Houses. So, here, it was the conservatives wanting the vote by Houses. Such a vote makes it harder to win because you need a majority in every one of the three Houses and the House of Laity, in particular, tends to vote in a different way to the Clergy and Bishops. It’s a game, it’s allowed in the rules, and that’s all one can say. If you strongly think something should or shouldn’t happen, then you play it. But – hallelujah – all three Houses supported these reserved places for women among the diocesan reps.

The resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury after the publication of the Makin Report was finally achieved by an interesting alliance of the conservative Ian Paul, the liberal Robert Thompson and Save the Parish’s founder Marcus Walker: three male priests often working according to very different agendas, but united here by wanting the Archbishop out, for their own reasons. What we saw last week was a more complicated alliance, bringing in the issues around accepting or rejecting the full ministry of women. One speech made the point that recent CNCs have led to the appointment of more women; but others would note that those tend to be conservative women who are opposed to lesbian and gay inclusion. It’s complicated, and it will go on being complicated as alliances form and shift. 

Most depressing of all was a rumour that, in the main safeguarding debate, conservatives had been told to vote against the fully independent Option 4 because it could impose conditions they did not want to meet. Maybe it is just a rumour, but even the fact that it was circulating tells you everything you need to know about the lack of trust we still experience. At one of the zoom briefings I attended, a question was asked about whether the group chosen to run safeguarding if this Option was adopted would be ‘Christian’, and the answer given was that this would not be one of the criteria used. While knowledge of the church is obviously needed, Christian faith is not. That then plays into the view that we don’t want the values of the evil World being applied in the Church; Bishop Julie commented on this in a speech in which she said “We need to listen to God’s wisdom at work in the world”. I’ve also heard it said that we need to follow ‘Biblical standards of safeguarding’, whatever those are supposed to be. That is alarming when you remember that the prolific abuser John Smyth quoted the verses from Proverbs about fathers disciplining their children, and put himself in the position of a replacement father. One of the other effects of all those counted votes and votes by Houses is that the names of those voting each way will become public soon; unless, of course, they choose not to vote at all rather than show their electors what they think.

It’s a mess; it’s performative (something on which I agree with Ian Paul, and on which I even shook hands with him last week); so is there a point to Synod? Are we deluding ourselves when we see what we are doing as God-breathed in some way? With difficult and contested questions there will always be a plea for a short period of reflection or prayer before voting. We had that again last week and, as usual, it did nothing to make anyone more likely to accept the result of the vote. If we ‘win’ we give God the credit: if we ‘lose’ we blame the ‘opposition’. It’s rather like war, with each of the opposing forces claiming God is on their ‘side’. Are we a good advertisement for our faith? I do wonder whether Synod is finally broken.

Posted in General Synod, Living in Love and Faith, Safeguarding | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments