The Questions Synod members are allowed to send in are answered by appropriate staff members and then circulated with those answers shortly before Synod meets. We meet on Monday, for a week, so the answers came out yesterday; another 106 pages of reading.

Of the 258 (!) Questions this time around, the ones attracting attention are those on Project Spire – which are first in the list so there will be opportunities for supplementaries on them – and those around the costs, in money and time, of the Living in Love and Faith process. I was one of two members asking about the financial cost of this. The answer (Qs 94/95) is that, from 2017-2025, LLF cost £1.6 million. That of course excludes those of us who offered our time to the work. As for Synodical time, 42¼ hours have been spent on LLF in Synod since Feb 2019 (Q. 96; see also Q. 238: 34 hours of those fell in this quinquennium). And more hours to come next week.

There are two contenders for my personal award for the best Question/answer.

Unlawful use of those parts ordained for generation

The first is one of those ‘what is sex?’ Questions. Synod is notoriously coy, fond of euphemisms and of collective clutching or pearls. Here’s Q. 228, following up on last July’s Synod binning of Issues in Human Sexuality and replacing it with the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct for the Clergy. Revd Dr Patrick Richmond (Norwich) asks:

Given that the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy now serve as a primary document for discernment and discipline, what consideration has been given to the definition of ‘sexual intercourse’ used therein? Specifically, if the term is understood in the narrow sense of biological coitus, as recently argued by the Revd Canon Neil Patterson [https://viamedia.news/2026/01/24/what-is-anglican-sexanyway/ ] what assessment has been made regarding how the Guidelines reflect the Church’s wider authoritative teaching—such as that in the Book of Homilies warning against ‘all unlawful use of those parts ordained for generation’—and what steps are being taken to ensure that candidates and clergy understand the wider scope of the conduct to which they are committing? 

Unlawful use of your parts, eh? And the answer, from the Bishop of Chester as the Chair of the Ministry Development Board:

The replacement of references to Issues in Human Sexuality (“Issues”) with the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct for the Clergy (“the Guidelines”) in the discernment process does not create new obligations for candidates and clergy and nor does it make the Guidelines a primary document for discernment and discipline. 

The primary documents for discernment are the Qualities for Discernment used before a candidate comes to a discernment panel and the Qualities for Formation, using during training for ordinands. Reference is made to the Guidelines within these processes. 

The primary documents for discipline are set out in the statutory grounds within the Clergy Discipline Measure and the proposed Clergy Conduct Measure. 

As was emphasised by Synod in July 2025 when they called upon the House to replace Issues with the Guidelines, and emphasised again by the House when they decided to make the requested change, no aspect of the Church of England’s theological or ethical understanding of matters relating to sexuality has been changed by the decision to refer to the Guidelines in the process of vocational discernment and training for ordained ministry. Moreover, the Guidelines for the Professional Conduct of the Clergy do not in themselves establish or extend the law, though they do point to the law. They seek to provide a framework for behaviour that reflects the highest standard to which all clergy should aspire.

Wisely, avoiding any reference to those ‘parts’. However, Neil, whose Via Media article is cited, knows his Book of Homilies – a sixteenth-century document – and observes that the quotation comes from the Homily Against Whoredom and Adultery, which also commends the ‘godly acts’ of societies where adultery was punished by mutilation or death. It is rather unlikely that we will make it to Q. 228 in the time available, but he suggests that a good supplementary would be ‘Can the bishop confirm that the Church of England no longer supports such punishments?’

Doing the theology (even more of it)

But my absolute favourite Question this time around has to be Q.144 with the legible raised eyebrows in the answer; goodness, someone is reading these documents and wondering about why they cite certain scholars! Readers will recall that the last few years of Synodical business have heard many calls for ‘more theology’ and that’s why the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC) has produced a lot of pages of it which are supposed to underpin what is happening (or not happening) now on LLF. One is GS Misc 1431. Here’s the Question:

The Revd Canon Simon Talbott (Ely) to ask the Chair of the House of Bishops: 

Of the Theologians cited in GS Misc 1431 100% are white, 96% are men, 83% are in opposite sex marriages, 46% are North American, 12% are ex-gay/same-sex attracted identifying evangelicals, and only one (4% of the whole) is an affirming gay Anglican with a partner. Will the House of Bishops please commit to ensuring a broader theological base in the advice it receives, including taking seriously the scholarship of women and LGBTQIA+ Anglicans? 

The Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe to reply on behalf of the Chair of the House of Bishops:

The question indicates a careful reading of GS Misc 1431. The House is grateful for this engagement with FAOC’s work on GS Misc 1431 and the detailed analysis of sources that the questioner provides. 

FAOC recognises it has a responsibility to ensure representation across a range of backgrounds and perspectives in the scholarship with which it engages, certainly including gender and sexuality. Indeed, FAOC has discussed this responsibility at various times during this quinquennium, sometimes in connection with its work on LLF. 

GS Misc 1431 derives from a particular context. FAOC was asked to address a specific set of process-focussed questions closely connected to the Canons and disciplinary processes of the Church of England. Existing scholarship in this area is very limited, and it was difficult to achieve the desirable level of direct representation. At some points the argument is carried by theologians arguing for greater inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people. 

GS Misc 1431 refers the reader on several occasions to the Living in love and Faith book (2020), which contains a wider range of backgrounds amongst the scholars cited. This wider background has informed FAOC’s theological reflection on all its LLF-related work, although FAOC accepts this is not explicitly reflected in the work that GS Misc 1431 cites.

Advice given to the House of Bishops incorporates more than the sources quoted, always including the wider theological reflections of FAOC’s members, where considerable attention has been paid to issues of diversity. Moreover, the House trusts its advisers to support the whole Church in their work. 

FAOC welcomes analysis of the diversity and representativeness of its work. The Commission will continue to seek broad, balanced engagement with a diverse range of theological voices. 

We know from another Question (Q. 119) that the House of Bishops only had a week to read GS Misc 1431, along with the legal advice and another FAOC paper, so it seems unlikely that they could come up with such a ‘careful reading’ as this. After all, they’d just had 100 pages of theology and law sent out to them. You can see why the bishop – who is the chair of FAOC – comes across as rather impressed, although of course we don’t know if he wrote this answer himself.

This reference to FAOC is timely, because it is clear that the House of Bishops are waiting for yet another FAOC paper, on episcopacy and specifically on Delegated Episcopal Ministry; yes, DEM which the House has already rejected. (see Q. 140). We find out from Q. 254 that the House of Bishops Standing Committee decided such a paper was needed in February 2025 but FAOC haven’t had time to go beyond scoping it yet. Why did they want it?

We don’t get the Minutes of this Standing Committee but we can see where this is coming from by looking at the Minutes of the January 2025 House of Bishops. These feature the Bishop of Leicester (at that point, lead bishop for LLF) saying that the ‘theological undergirding’ for DEM ‘would be ready for May’ (5.2) but also have the Bishop in Europe – remember, he’s the chair of FAOC – saying that FAOC had ‘agreed’ (who asked them? Not clear) to do ‘further work on episcopacy, including ecumenical reflections’ (4.3) and specifically asserting, apparently contrary to what the lead bishop for LLF said at the same meeting, that the House ‘would not have the ecclesiological thinking on DEM by May’ (my italics, Minutes 5.10; and see also 5.7.8). There’s also a reference to the House agreeing ‘To commission more theological work on the appointment of diocesan bishops with some sacramental impairment’ (4.4.1). More? In addition to the other episcopacy work? Answering a Question on the episcopacy work, Q. 254, the Bishop in Europe says that it won’t be ready until ‘well into 2027’, probably not until Autumn. Casting some doubt even on that date, the Bishop added that FAOC changes its membership on 1 April 2027 and it’s the new membership who will decide if the document is ready to publish.

So when we are told in another paper for this Synod that a new Working Group will be set up and that it will ‘report back to General Synod within the first two years of the new General Synod quinquennium’ (from its Terms of Reference); how does that work with the FAOC tasks? The last batch of FAOC papers did not come out when we’d been told to expect them, even after Synod had voted extra resource to make that happen. 

Is this yet another timetable which will inevitably slip? And, if so, can we trust this new Working Group to be able to do any work?