One of my husband’s pet hates when we eat out is when a menu has too many adjectives, to the point that you almost lose sight of what it is you’re eating: ‘smoky deep-fried maple-cured lightly chopped British bacon’, that sort of thing. There are – of course – even websites like this one which can help you plump up your menu.

Here’s a little Church of England example from the just-released document GS2303, Implementation Work for Living in Love and Faith, which sort of is and sort of is not on the agenda for the July 2023 Synod (more on its status later): it announces itself as a paper which ‘outlines the update presented to General Synod in July 2023’ (which seems odd when the meeting hasn’t happened yet). In paragraph 20, 

There was also a commitment to provide a generous pastoral response which is loving and celebratory to those who are in life-long monogamous same-sex committed relationships

Now I can see what they are doing there. It goes with paragraph 12, which comes from a different one of the three ‘implementation groups’ which have been working on all this since February. Paragraph 12 tells us that the various groups are considering ‘in which situations the Prayers of Love and Faith will be recommended for use and what conditions may be imposed on them, such as that they may only be used with those whose relationship is demonstrably faithful, exclusive and permanent’.

So those four adjectives qualifying the word ‘relationships’ are trying to capture that combination of conditions.

But here’s a question. Do those who preside at marriages of straight couples check out where their relationship stands on these qualities? How do you ‘demonstrate’ that your relationship ticks the boxes, particularly if you are in the minority of couples who haven’t entered a physical relationship yet? Who is doing the checking?

I’m assuming that ‘in life-long monogamous same-sex committed relationships’ is Church code for those who entered civil marriage or civil partnership a while ago and now want the church to bless this. But if you would like to be married in church, can’t because that’s not allowed, and so ask for prayers immediately after your civil ceremony, are you still allowed to have these prayers?

Then there’s that ‘life-long’. How do you know your marriage is life-long? Maybe the word ‘intended’ should be in there somewhere. As many have pointed out, the claim that the only real marriages are those ‘between a man and a woman, for life’ already encounters a problem when faced with people who marry after a previous divorce. The Church of England allows them to marry in church, after interviews with the vicar, and also allows vicars who literally the ‘for life’ to refuse to marry a couple like this.

Perhaps the most interesting throwaway line in GS2303 is in paragraph 27. This says that one of the three ‘implementation groups’, the Pastoral Reassurance group, are ‘considering structural approaches where they are congruent with the Pastoral Principles, where they maximise mutual working together and seek the Gospel imperative for the Church to be one’. I had understood that the bishops were very much opposed to the calls for ‘structural differentiation’ being made by conservative evangelicals, whether these were for separate bishops, a separate province, their own theological training and their own ordinations. Yet here is the ‘s’ word. Somehow, in the topsy-turvy world of the Church of England, where ‘next steps’ means standing still and ‘implementation’ means not doing anything, ‘differentiation’ is about being united.

Finally, is GS2303 actually on the agenda for July? We are told that it’s not ‘part of the formal Group of Sessions (and therefore [does] not form part of the Agenda)’. This means it is not covered by Standing Orders. We are told that there will be a Notice Paper about it, and it will be ‘explained’ when we get to York. Yet the original published Agenda included ‘Living in Love and Faith’ with GS2303 as the supporting document. The item is scheduled for the Saturday afternoon, after a diocesan synod motion on prisoner rehabilitation. Assuming that motion would take a maximum of an hour and a half, that would mean 15.45-19.00 for LLF, which suggests there’s more happening than the Bishop of London summarising the 38 pages of GS2303, most of which in any case are the revised, very bland, prayers to use for covenanted friendship, God’s blessing, or a household or family.

The Business Committee’s report on the agenda says that the item is ‘a presentation and opportunity for questions’. I shall certainly have some of those…