July Synod is over. Another long meeting, which was extended by having a separate meeting of the House of Laity before ‘Synod proper’. This time around, we had earlier starts (8.45), shorter meal breaks, and one evening session scheduled to 21.45 with another to 22.00. This meant that it was very difficult to manage to queue, eat, and make it to one of the many fringe meetings scheduled outside the formal business. It felt very rushed and I’m tired. Ironically, one of the debates was around a diocesan synod motion on rest periods for the clergy. Wellbeing; excellent, but could Synod members be treated a little more gently?

The agenda had plenty of legislative business (which is core to what we do) along with debates on topics including the human dignity of disabled children, and food banks/the social security system. As usual, these ‘outward-facing’ debates meant stories could be told, and expertise shared. I’m just not so sure what happens as a result of them. The disabled children debate was harrowing, focused on support for those who have been told their child is likely to be born with disabilities, and for those who need help throughout the child’s life – including when that child grows up. I had to have a session sitting on the steps looking at the lake after some of the pain I heard in that debate.

Safeguarding featured strongly, with a private member’s motion on Soul Survivor; the whole motion ended up being replaced after the words ‘That this Synod…’, with what seemed to me a far less useful call from the Lead Safeguarding Bishop to let the Archbishops’ Council be the body deciding what to do when the report already commissioned by Soul Survivor from Fiona Scolding KC lands in a month or so’s time. Then there was an update on safeguarding independence (basically a holding motion with the detailed analysis of the options for different new bodies delayed until February) and a further motion moving on the legislation for the Redress Scheme.

And then there was Living in Love and Faith. As usual, this featured heavily in Questions. I think we all felt sorry for the current lead LLF bishop, +Martyn Snow, as he answered supplementary question after supplementary question: no you can’t see the legal advice given to the House of Bishops because it wasn’t all written down, it was given orally, you’ve seen everything we could share with you in writing in the papers you have for Monday’s debate, no that’s all there is, as I just said, that’s all there is… and on and on it went. Together on General Synod, which brings together those working for LGBTQIA+ inclusion as well as for all other areas of inclusion, had made the decision not to submit any Questions, both because there’s quite enough else happening on LLF and because the small staff team would be better off spending time on the process and not having to write answers to Questions which are much the same as those at all the earlier meetings of Synod since 2021.

Living in Love and Faith was also the subject of a formal presentation to Synod, with a panel of six members of the various Working Groups telling us what happened at the Leicester meeting, a meeting which some people regard as a real step forward in spending time listening to each other and in coming up with the idea of ‘delegated episcopacy’ as a way forward, but which others regard in rather less optimistic terms. Listening to the presentation, I had the usual sense of LLF déjà vu. I’ve been sitting in rooms and eating breakfast with people with whom I disagree since I did the Diocesan Shared Conversations – and started this blog – in 2015. And here we still are. There was the opportunity for (more!) questions but I didn’t get any sense of new information emerging.

Clearly there was an issue with those at Leicester not recognising the documents that went on to the College of Bishops as being a fair reflection of their work. Leicester was never designed to produce a document for the CoB to consider, though, so it isn’t easy – without having been at either meeting – to know just how/by whom the draft from Leicester was changed before the CoB, which then rejected it so that the version that went on from the CoB to the House of Bishops was closer to the Leicester suggestion. These events were the subject of formal Questions and of the informal questions at the next LLF event: an informal fringe meeting with the current lead LLF bishop +Martyn Snow.

And that wasn’t the end of it, merely the foreplay before the main event, yet another LLF debate on Monday afternoon, with 5 hours allocated. The motion was to support the timetable of what comes to which meeting of Synod (a timetable which extends for several more years), and to ask the House of Bishops to allow ‘standalone’ services using the Prayers of Love and Faith and to oversee more work on the doctrine of marriage – which may eventually lead to clergy being allowed to be in same-sex marriages. The Pastoral Reassurance – that’s the arrangements for those who think any use of the Prayers of Love and Faith with a committed same-sex couple is ‘blessing sin’ – would be reviewed over three years to see just who is asking for this Reassurance and how it’s all going. The paper behind the motion includes a section on what could offer Reassurance – basically, bishops delegating some roles to other bishops who are more acceptable to the conservative evangelicals and others who aren’t happy with any change here. There really wasn’t much direct reference to the details of this paper in the debate.

Unlike previous debates, and contrary to rumours beforehand, this one only generated two amendments. One was about allocating more money to the theological work which is going on between now and February – when it all comes back to Synod again – and the other was a proposal to delete a clause agreeing that the infamous Issues in Human Sexuality – used in selection for ordained and (in some dioceses) also lay ministry – should be replaced by a combination of the Pastoral Guidance, the Bishop’s statement (I wonder if that apostrophe was put in the wrong place on our agenda?) and a Code of Practice for pastoral provision. The first amendment passed easily: the second was rejected. For those wanting to lose that clause, the issue seemed to be that unless Synod saw the three documents named, we wouldn’t know if we wanted to abandon Issues or not. I was very struck afterwards by chatting to a Synod member who said he was born in the year Issues came out – 1991. That’s a seriously old document, with all its dated language about homophiles and its dated assumption that bisexuality is incompatible with fidelity. And, as speakers in the debate pointed out, it was never written to bear the weight which was subsequently placed on it.

I wasn’t called to speak in the debate, but what I wanted to say relates to something the Archbishop of York said at the end of it; “Synod, after what has I think for all of us felt like 18 months of trench warfare on this issue, I just wonder whether the time has come to put down our rifles and could I suggest a little game of football in no man’s land?”

I wanted to read out these phrases: A matter of life and death; Trench warfare; Legislative schism; A hotch-potch kind of schismatic thing; There will be mayhem.

I then intended to point out that none of them was from the current LGBTQIA+ inclusion debate; no, they were all used in Synod’s 1981 debate on women. Because I believe that these other times when we have strongly disagreed are relevant. Those who were called mentioned some; +Sarah mentioned the ordination of women, Revd Brenda Wallace the remarriage in church of divorced people. The are all areas where we have made different sorts of limited pastoral provision, all areas where we live with difference in the interests of the unity of the church. This isn’t new.

In the press release it issued after the debate, the Church of England Evangelical Council called the debate ‘Milestone Day’. Really? Wouldn’t that have been the day at the end of 2023 when the Prayers of Love and Faith were commended for use in existing services? If I’d spoken, I would have commented on the call from the CEEC for a ‘doctrinal firewall’ on the question of LGBTQIA+ inclusion; a sort of theological asbestos. I wanted to remind Synod that  – although it took a while to realise this – asbestos is lethal. Its dangerous qualities would affect those of us on both sides of the wall. Do we need more walls? Are walls the best way to show Christ to the world? I believe that Christ came among us to break down walls, not to put more up.

Finally I wanted to make the point that what we have lost in our current discussions seem to be, first, actual gay people and their lives, and second, any sense of joy around what happens when a gay or lesbian person finds love. The ‘love’ has fallen out of Living in Love and Faith. Paraphrasing the Archbishop of Canterbury on why we needed to pass that motion on the human dignity of disabled children, our reluctance to move on damages not only the church, but the society in which we live. When we speak out for justice, the world hears the gospel message. Our beloved lesbian and gay siblings already suffer homophobic attacks and, in some parts of the world, face the death penalty for being themselves.

I continue to believe that the church needs to say a clear ‘yes’ to affirming and celebrating their faithful and committed loving relationships.