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.