While last week was quite a week in the Church of England, this week is proving just as complicated. And it’s still only Tuesday… After last week’s shenanigans, late on Monday afternoon came the announcement of a second Interim Theological Advisor, Revd Canon Dr Jessica Martin. Full disclosure: I know Jessica because, like me, she was a member of one of the subject-based groups whose work fed into the Living in Love and Faith resources. I was in ‘History’, she was in ‘Social and Biological Sciences’. Her pedigree with Church of England sexuality discussions goes back before that, to the 2013 Pilling Report, to which she wrote the Prologue; while the full document can for some reason no longer be found on the CofE website, her text can be read here. She asked me to read drafts for two of her books and I was happy to help. I listened online when she gave the Bampton Lectures, now published as The Eucharist in Four Dimensions: The meanings of communion in contemporary culture. As a result I asked her to contribute a blog post to Via Media, which she did here; and very thoughtful and challenging it is, too. Before I met her, back in 2016 I wrote about how impressed I was by her Pilling Prologue, which I described then as a ‘shimmeringly beautiful, profound and prophetic introductory essay on the idolization of desire, which somehow cuts through all the episcopal circumlocutions and pettiness of attempts to categorise and condemn pleasure’. So, great appointment. But… I still have questions.

Yesterday’s announcement of this appointment managed to carry ‘quotes’ from ‘the Archbishops’, Bishop Robert Innes as chair of FAOC, and both new Interim Theological Advisors. Strangely, nothing there from the one remaining Lead LLF Bishop. ‘The Archbishops said: “In the last week, there has been a lot of public commentary about the appointment of the Interim Theology Adviser to the House of Bishops”’. Quite so. There was also the usual comment about ‘negative tone… especially on social media’. Well, Archbishops, give us something positive to report, something which shows that there is transparency and honesty in your processes, and something which is good news for the LGBTQIA+ people to whom you keep expressing repentance while doing so little to put that into action!

My first is: why wasn’t the new Lead Bishop for LLF announced at the same time? The absence of a name can only make people suspect that it’s proving very difficult to find someone to take on this job. And that’s problematic, if the intention is still to bring the ‘Commitments’ document to Synod later this month, as from what was said last month that document is very much a piece of work of the two Lead Bishops. As we know all too well from the safeguarding fiascos, rushing into something can lead to serious problems further down the line, so a delay may be the right thing. But it will be interesting to see whether there is a change of plan in what comes to Synod.

And my second is (again): how about process? There is much that we still don’t know about the appointment of the first of the two Interim Theological Advisors. What was the full job ad? Was it advertised beyond being circulated on the Priest-Theologian Network? (and, while we’re at it, what is that anyway?) Why was Bishop Robert Innes the one who has spoken for the initial result of that process, when the other Lead Bishop for LLF, Bishop Martyn, said in his statement that it was William Nye who needed to appoint a second Advisor? All we can reasonably surmise is that Bishop Martyn had a say in Jessica’s appointment, unlike with that of the other Advisor. Who appointed Jessica? FAOC, Bishop Robert, William Nye, the Archbishops? Was she on the original shortlist (as a theologian with experience of Pilling and of LLF thus far, she would seem to me to have been an outstanding candidate)? 

This being the Church of England, sadly, we will probably not be given the answers. I thought there was a glimmer of hope in relation to transparency when the House of Bishops decided to issue more than the usual anodyne paragraph after each of its meetings and, after the November and December meetings, indeed it did. But there is nothing about their January meeting beyond these few lines in the press release from the College of Bishops:

Following the meeting of the College, members of the House of Bishops held a short meeting to discuss Living in Love and Faith in more detail and looked forward to the lead bishops, Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley and Bishop of Leicester, Martyn Snow, further developing a paper for General Synod next month.

We’ll just have to wait until Friday, to see the papers for Synod. I suppose we could just have ‘Presentation by the Lead Bishop(s) for LLF’ as an item.