In my previous post I mentioned that point where we found out the conservative groups were down to meet the LLF team before the House of Bishops met on 9 October, and the progressive groups after. As, in the end, nothing we said seems to have made any difference to the unexpected ‘pulling the B2 rabbit out of the mitre’ at that meeting of the House, maybe there wasn’t anything sinister going on with our invitations. Or maybe there was, but the key thing was not when we were down to meet the LLF team, but when the conservatives were? But there’s something else which has since occurred to me: it’s the revealing readiness in my mind, and in the minds of the others in the progressive groups, to assume that something is wrong about having all the conservative groups scheduled to meet before the bishops and all the inclusive groups after. Should we call that ‘the hermeneutic of suspicion’? It’s churchy language, at least.

I can now add another example of how suspicious and fearful we currently are. On Friday night, I was having my first attempt at reading GS2328, but in dodgy light on a small screen. When I came to 2.1.1 of the draft Pastoral Guidance, on ‘Making transparent decisions locally’, I thought that it meant that any occasion when the Prayers are to be used in a normal service would have to be notified in advance: the wording is that the incumbent’s decision to use them should be discussed with the PCC and the wider congregation and “made known ahead of time”. So I tweeted “so, if the vicar is going to use the Prayers of Love and Faith during the Sunday service, they are advised to put out a warning in advance?! We don’t routinely pre-warn about who is preaching or which intercessions or Eucharistic prayer we are using or what the hymns are…”

Re-reading the next day, in better light on a larger screen, I concluded that I’d read this wrong, so put up a further tweet, “may have misread a section of that very long GS2328. The phrase I took to mean announcing before a service that the Prayers would be in use was ‘made known ahead of time’. Maybe it just means ‘ahead of anyone actually asking for the Prayers’? My apologies if so.” Because I want to get this right; although I’m not yet sure that I have done so. Here’s the screenshot of the relevant section.

What interests me was how willing people were to accept my initial (mis?)reading suggesting that ‘health warnings’ would be issued ahead of using the Prayers in any normal service. In tweets and messages, some people reminded me that there are parishes where they do indeed announce who is preaching at each service, or who is presiding. Personally, I don’t think it should matter; preaching isn’t a celebrity performance and I certainly don’t attend for the preacher. Who’s presiding, though, that’s something else – in a situation where some people in a parish or a team won’t accept communion from a woman, telling them that the Revd Susan Smith is presiding means they can go elsewhere. Personally, I think that’s very sad, and I also wonder how far it goes; in my own parish there used to be someone who would not even take the Host (consecrated by a man) from a woman communion assistant, although he would take the chalice from a woman. I asked him why but the explanation didn’t go beyond how he just wasn’t happy about it.

Beyond that, though, the way a suggestion of a health warning ahead of any use of the Prayers was seen by many as perfectly likely reflects the low expectations which are set by GS2328. It’s all about fear; conservative fear that – to give just one example – a lay member of the church will be picked on at work because they belong to a congregation that won’t use the Prayers. Or, to give another example, that people coming for the Prayers will wear clothes that look too wedding-y. Or that churches – apparently allowed to design their own not-a-marriage-really certificate, may include symbols that look too wedding-y (“Such certificates must not suggest or imply in their wording or design that they commemorate or are proof of a marriage” in 1.3.4: imagine the drafting of that sentence… ‘ooh, add “or design” because even if the wording is OK there may be a picture of a cake’).

All this reflects the prevailing mood. Any sense of joy, of celebration, of welcome, of blessing, has now disappeared. In its place there’s just a combination of conservatives trying to present this as gaining the maximum possible protection from a Bad Thing (in their words, ‘blessing sin’): and progressives convinced that any crumb they are given will be hedged around to make it as depressing as possible. In this climate of increasing fear, where is the faith that sets us free?