General Synod meets from 11 July. Living in Love and Faith (LLF) is not included in the agenda, but that will do nothing to stop it lurking in the background of many other agenda items. Alongside the various papers issued for the presentations and debates that are scheduled, there is a document giving an upbeat LLF update, suggesting that everything is ticking along. Is it?

This blog started as a way of giving people a flavour of what it was like doing the Diocesan Shared Conversations, the residential meetings in 2015-17 that tried to bring Church of England people with different convictions about sexuality and identity together to talk. When I read through my earliest blog posts, there’s a mix of optimism and trepidation in my words. Ah, the naivety of (relative) youth! Then came the General Synod debate of 2017 where the Synod refused to ‘Take Note’ of the report the bishops produced; and that refusal led to a rapid regrouping of the House of Bishops and the proposal to produce a ‘teaching document’ which eventually became Living in Love and Faith – a long book, a course, various podcasts and videos. 

When I came into all this, in 2015, I was simply a member of the church whose academic work was on the history of the body and therefore thought she had something to contribute. I offered my time, and the offer was accepted. I had no idea just how much time that would be. In 2017, for that notorious debate, I was in the Church House visitors’ gallery watching it all unfold – or, perhaps, ‘unravel’ would be a better word. Then I was asked to join the History Working Group of LLF and I agreed, which meant a lot of meetings, writing, and commenting on drafts. In 2021, as what had become the LLF ‘journey’ or ‘programme’ continued, I stood for and was elected to General Synod.

And that’s where I still am. With my history, both with the production of the LLF resources and then on one of the earlier LLF Working Groups, I probably know as much about the history of LLF as anyone. But I still find out that there is information I had missed. 

That was the case again today.

On the Stories and News section of the official LLF page, there’s another update on LLF, dated 2 July. What’s new in this? How does it differ from the document sent out to Synod members last month? Well, first, personnel. We knew from a previous statement that Dr Nick Shepherd, the programme director (the central staff person holding it all together) is going to move to another role in September with Revd Helen Fraser taking over. She starts in August – but, as I noted in my last blog post, she is only seconded until March 2026. What does that say about what is envisaged after the February 2026 General Synod meeting? But there’s more now. The latest update confirms that, after the resignation of Bishop Martyn Snow, there won’t be another Lead Bishop for LLF. That’s accompanied by a reiteration of the point that the responsibility for forming “clear integrated proposals” to present to the House of Bishops now rests only with the Programme Board (chaired by the Archbishop of York), and that the House of Bishops with Synod then decides on “the formal basis and implementation of any proposals”. “Implementation”: I shall return to that shortly.

The second new thing is rather less easy to see. We are told that the LLF working groups are “continuing to meet”. In May 2024, those were set up as three groups – Pastoral Guidance, Prayers of Love and Faith, and Pastoral Provision. By November 2024, there were four: Prayers of Love and Faith, Pastoral Reassurance, Bishops’ Statement and Ministry and Vocation Guidance. The shifts in there – for example, from provision to reassurance – could comprise a blog post in themselves. It was always obvious that the remits of the groups were going to overlap but – new information for me! – if you click on the link at the foot of the 2 July page, you’ll see that these groups “continue to meet collectively, rather than in individual working groups”. That means a group of 34 people! “Continue”? When did that begin? I’ve seen no discussion of it. When did they merge? What’s the rationale? Did I miss something?

The third new point from the 2 July news story is around the “diocesan consultations” which are still happening; at least, in some places. Oxford held its consultation last month. We didn’t use the video recorded specifically for these consultations by Bishop Martyn, as it was deemed irrelevant now that he’s left and when nobody seems interested in the ‘Delegated Episcopal Ministry’ idea for ensuring conservatives could be provided with bishops sufficiently conservative to be acceptable in confirmations and ordinations. So we weren’t following the consultation template there. Despite an attempt by a conservative member of diocesan synod to move ‘Next Business’, those of us who were present did however follow the template by filling in a sheet answering questions on subjects like our familiarity with the LLF resources (ha!), how much they had been used in our church, and – quoting the form used in Oxford here – “What three words describe your feelings about participating in this conversation today?” (those who couldn’t make the meeting were not, as far as I know, given this sheet). We’ll see the results of that exercise later in the coming week. The 2 July announcement tells us more about these consultations elsewhere. It includes the information that some dioceses have now postponed previously-scheduled consultations; others are conversing but not consulting, so are giving no feedback. And that is apparently all fine, although these consultations were billed as giving the wider church a chance to participate before the House of Bishops next meets in October. 

What’s happening here? In this latest update, there’s a recognition that “challenges” have been identified in “holding these [diocesan consultations] consistently”. They certainly have. It’s not just that they aren’t happening everywhere. As different dioceses asked different questions – for example, “your view of the use of Prayers of Love and Faith” or “Use of Prayers of Love and Faith in your church” – it is unclear how any of the material coming out of these consultations can be used.  The original plan was to use Mentimeter, to generate word clouds with the words most mentioned in the ‘three words’ exercise appearing in the largest font. In Oxford, that didn’t happen, because it wasn’t clear that everyone would be able to use the tech. The word clouds idea has backfired, for example in the highly divided diocese of London, where there was so obviously a message shared among conservatives that words including ‘unapostolic’, ‘unholy’ and ‘uncatholic’ should be entered into the system. ‘Unbiblical’ would have made it to the top as well, except that some member(s) typed it as ‘un biblical’ instead. 

And what about implementation, led by the House of Bishops? That’s where all this falls down. There really isn’t any. The C of E page on “The LLF journey so far” states that, after the General Synod vote in February 2023, LLF moved “from ‘listening’, to ‘discerning’ and now to ‘implementing’”. The problem is that it hasn’t. 

In the list of things Synod stated in the successful motion in February 2023, have we really done enough on (a), to “lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to LGBTQI+ people and the harm that LGBTQI+ people have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church”? Just as a straight ally, I think not. 

How have we done on (b), “continuing to embed the Pastoral Principles in our life together locally and nationally”? Well, for starters, I see no lasting improvement in tone; not when a diocesan synod member in London can use “demonic” as one of their chosen three words in the diocesan consultation. 

As for (c), “commend the continued learning together enabled by the Living in Love and Faith process and resources in relation to identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage”, I really don’t see that we are learning anything we didn’t know about each other already. We sincerely believe this: you sincerely believe that. Is that “learning together”? 

And then (d), “welcome the decision of the House of Bishops to replace Issues in Human Sexuality with new pastoral guidance”; as we know very well, Issues is still in place in the discernment process, 34 years since it was written, even though it was not produced to be part of discerning whether someone could be accepted for ministry training, or whether they could be ordained. The “decision” was taken but, more than two years on, it hasn’t been ‘implemented’. 

And then there’s (e), “welcome the response from the College of Bishops and look forward to the House of Bishops further refining, commending and issuing the Prayers of Love and Faith described in GS 2289 and its Annexes”. No: while the Prayers were commended at the end of 2023 they remain unavailable for anything outside a section of an existing service. 

This means that (f), “invite the House of Bishops to monitor the Church’s use of and response to the Prayers of Love and Faith”, remains irrelevant because although there’s now a ‘tag’ on A Church Near You where churches can say whether or not they are happy to welcome same-sex couples for these prayers, the standalone services are not supposed to happen, even though we were told at the time of the material being commended that it was just a matter of setting up a system to do this ‘monitoring’.

Only the commendation of the Prayers of Love and Faith for use in existing services: that really isn’t a lot to show for all this time, money and energy. This isn’t ‘implementation’. The faithful, committed same-sex couples who have stuck with the church for so long; the people who long to have their legal relationship formally recognised and celebrated by their congregation, family and friends; those who have been forced to choose between their civil marriage and their vocation to ministry; they all deserve so, so much better than this.