The following article by Andrew Goddard provides a historical overview and critique of the Church of England’s protracted and divisive struggle to implement the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) for same-sex couples. It argues that despite years of debate and shifting promises, the House of Bishops has largely failed to find a consensus, ultimately returning to legal and doctrinal constraints that existed nearly a decade ago.
Since 2017, the Church of England has engaged in multiple cycles of consultation and proposal, including the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) resources and various episcopal commitments to “radical inclusion”. While 2023 saw the commendation of certain prayers for use in regular services, subsequent efforts to introduce “standalone” services and allow clergy to enter same-sex civil marriages have faced significant legal and theological hurdles. Andrew notes that by January 2026, the House of Bishops appeared to reach a “near unanimity” that any such major changes would require formal synodical and legislative processes rather than simple episcopal commendation.
This realization has led to a perceived return to a recognition of the legal, doctrinal and procedural constraints identified in 2017, leaving the church deeply divided, with trust in episcopal leadership significantly damaged due to what Andrew describes as “over-reach” and “over-promising”. The article concludes that without creative thinking regarding institutional forms and a recognition of the lack of consensus, the church remains stuck in a cycle of raising and then failing to meet expectations.
A longer version providing more supporting evidence and links is available at Andrew’s own website here.
Andrew Goddard writes: Happy New Year! A description that, once again, appears unlikely to be accurate in relation to the Church of England’s struggles over questions relating to marriage and sexuality. The House of Bishops meets this week to finalise the proposals concerning Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) that it will bring to the General Synod next month. Where are we? How have we got here? What lessons can we learn? To answer these questions it is worth recalling the long backstory focussing on previous January meetings of the House in 2017, 2023, 2024 and 2025.
January 2017
Nine years ago the House was having to make decisions following a long six-year process that began nearly 15 years ago. This involved a group working for a number of years (2011-13) and led to a church-wide process of “Shared Conversations” (2015-16). Expectations were high that, in line with the majority view in the 2013 Pilling Report, the bishops would support proposals to permit “a priest, with the agreement of the relevant PCC…to mark the formation of a permanent same sex relationship in a public service”.
Instead, on the advice of a small episcopal group (whose members included Bishop Sarah Mullally, now the Archbishop of Canterbury-elect), the House decided in January 2017 to offer guidance “which stopped short of either Authorized or Commended liturgies” (para 43). It said the bishops would be “proposing no change to ecclesiastical law or to the Church of England’s existing doctrinal position on marriage and sexual relationships” (para 26) but rather “interpreting the existing law and guidance to permit maximum freedom within it, without changes to the law, or the doctrine of the Church” (para 22).
In short, no changes in doctrine or canons and so no changes in liturgy or discipline and with legal advice explaining how difficult further any changes would be given the canonical and theological constraints.
The backlash from those expecting more was significant and, shortly before the February 2017 Synod refused to take note of the bishops’ proposals (due to the vote among the clergy), Archbishop Justin promised he was now committed to “a radical new Christian inclusion” and “we will, as the bishops, think again… We are going to move on and find, as I say, a radical new inclusion based in love”.
The initial form of that “moving on” was the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. This began later in 2017 and produced a suite of resources in November 2020 which were used across the church through into 2022 (another five year process).
January 2023
From October 2022, the bishops had a number of meetings to consider what the next steps should be, guided by the Next Steps Group chaired by Bishop Sarah Mullally. In processes that still remain shrouded in much mystery a proposal was agreed by the House, with apparently widespread support, after a meeting of the wider College on 17th January. This was immediately selectively leaked to stress the decision not to change the doctrine of marriage which was then counter-balanced by a hurried press release heralding “historic plans” under which “same-sex couples will be able to come to church to give thanks for their civil marriage or civil partnership and receive God’s blessing”. It also noted “a commitment to produce new pastoral guidance in relation to the discernment of vocation” and announced that “same-sex couples…could have a service in which there would be prayers of dedication, thanksgiving or for God’s blessing on the couple in church following a civil marriage or partnership”. A few days later the official 55-page Synodical paper (GS 2289) appeared, launched at a press conference and introducing the proposed Prayers of Love an Faith which the bishops had decided to commend for use. The following weekend the Archbishop of York expanded on this, rewriting the church’s traditional sexual ethic on the Sunday programme and making sweeping promises of more to come “very quickly” in relation to what all this meant for clergy. All this raised the hopes of those seeking such developments and alarmed those committed to historic teaching and practice which they believed to be biblically-based.
One of the puzzles was how, compared to six years previously, all this was now suddenly possible but still with no change in either law or doctrine. In relation to law, the bishops refused to publish their legal advice but a note (GS Misc 1339) set out a new and immediately contested rationale based on the novel argument that civil marriage and holy matrimony were now “distinct…mutually exclusive”. In relation to doctrine, no theological rationale was offered for the developments.
These proposals dominated the February General Synod. After a long debate with one very significant amendment the Synod carried the bishops’ motion in all 3 Houses with an overall majority of 69 and a vote of 58:42. The strength of opposition was, however, clear and led the Archbishop of York, speaking towards the end of the debate, to introduce a new element into the next stage which was not in the original proposals from the House of Bishops: a pledge for “reassurance” in the form of “pastoral provision” for those unhappy with these and likely future changes.
By the extra November Synod, there was no further movement on either that reassurance or the new document to replace Issues and the PLF were only to be commended for use during intercessions in regular services not for “standalone” services focussed on the couple. After another long and often heated debate this more conservative proposal was supported but with a smaller majority akin to a Brexit 52:48 (see analysis here) due to a mix of stronger episcopal dissent, the lack of published legal advice and the weakness of the theological rationale.
January 2024
Two years ago the January House meeting took place during a significant new phase in the process (see my review here) with PLF commended and new leadership beginning to develop a new way forward. This was first announced in a Church Times article at the end of January but within a week of it appearing the Bishop of Newcastle suddenly resigned as co-lead. The Synod paper (and proposed motion) was therefore only in the name of the Bishop of Leicester (GS 2346). It offered ten draft LLF Commitments including in relation to the three particular areas of contention:
- “we are committed to the experimental use of standalone services of PLF” (this was under what is called Canon B 5A, see discussion here)
- “we commit to exploring the process for clergy and lay ministers to enter same-sex civil marriages”
- “we commit to exploring the minimum formal structural changes necessary to enable as many as possible to stay within the Church of England”.
Another proposed commitment was also seen by many as a signal that the previous process had a number of serious flaws (which I set out here).
Presenting his proposals, Bishop Martyn Snow began with “yet another apology…because I know that many of you were hoping for concrete proposals for implementing the previous decisions of Synod on LLF” and assured Synod “there is no intention for any rowing back; there is no long grass”. After a shorter and less heated debate there was widespread agreement that it was better for Synod simply to “move to next business” rather than vote on the proposal.
New groups (referred to as the “Leicester Groups”) were then set up and appeared to make some progress including proposing that PLF could be commended for use in standalone services as long as this was linked to some form of provision for those parishes in conflict with their bishop’s stance on this development. A key element was thinking in terms of “three spaces” within the one Church of England, but the bishops rejected this aspect which did not appear in the proposal brought to the July General Synod in GS 2358 as an “emerging proposal” albeit one with a clear timetable. Conservatives expressed their deep concerns both before and during another difficult debate. At the end of it, more narrowly than ever, and with greater episcopal division, the Synod agreed to ask the House of Bishops to commend PLF for “standalone” services alongside arrangements for Pastoral Reassurance and to report to Synod in February 2025 on theological work and the question of clergy in same-sex civil marriages.
January 2025
A year ago therefore the bishops were meant to be preparing to bring proposals to the February Synod. The state of the church was, however, particularly fragile after the sudden resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was clearly going to be impossible to fulfil the original plan but the Bishop of Leicester was adamant that “the House should stick to the process and aim to bring a package of prayers for use in bespoke services, guidance and arrangements for pastoral reassurance to the July 2025 General Synod” (5.1). After discussion however “the House received a proposal that delivering the package for the July Synod was now overambitious” (5.9). The Bishop of Leicester “noted the risks of telling stakeholders and the General Synod that the House of Bishops had changed its mind again, fearing the consequences for trust” (5.10) but the House decided simply to report to Synod in February and July, consult with dioceses, and only bring “proposals incorporating a way forward on clergy and same-sex marriage” to Synod in February 2026. An important element here was the work of the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC) which would in February appear in the form of GS Mic 1406 and GS Misc 1407 and later be summarised in this short booklet.
Unsurprisingly this decision (which I examined here and was reported to the February Synod in GS 2386) was not well-received by those eager to see change such as Helen King and Charlie Bell. The lengthy and rather sobering discussion at the May House of Bishops makes clear, however, that the whole PLF process and “the questions involved in delivering a package for February 2026 comprising stand alone services, pastoral reassurance, and a timetable for considering allowing clergy to enter into same-sex marriages” (6.12) was now facing major difficulties. These were then added to by the sudden, unexpected and largely unexplained resignation of the Bishop of Leicester as Lead Bishop on 6th June.
In July 2025, along with a brief update (GS Misc 1418) proposals were brought, by means of a Private Members Motion, to Synod in relation to one unfinished element of the PLF process. Unprecedentedly, a surprising level of consensus emerged as to how to remove Issues in Human Sexuality from the discernment process. The House implemented this later that month at its July meeting.
January 2026
The main reason for the significant timetable changes was the need to await further theological work from the Faith and Order Commission. This finally appeared for the bishops to consider at their October 2025 meeting and led to the announcement of another surprising sudden emergence of consensus, even “near unanimity – spanning the breadth of theological tradition”:
the bishops agreed in principle that both bespoke service and clergy same-sex marriage would need formal synodical and legislative processes to be completed before they could be permitted
and
there was strong consensus on the need for unity, transparency and proper process alongside pastoral care.
The reasons for this became clear in early November. The legal advice (GS Misc 1432) confirmed what should have been obvious to anyone who had taken seriously the 2016 legal advice in GS 2055. The theological advice raised important theological questions which had not been addressed thus far.
It had been hoped that in December the House would confirm these decisions and also agree the content of a letter/statement from the House. However, in part because of significant pushback against their decisions, this proved once again to be an unrealistic timetable. Instead, it was reported that although “those decisions were not contested” the identification of areas requiring further clarification and the need for more “work on a letter to the Church summarising LLF and setting out an agreed position” meant that “The House of Bishops has agreed to spend more time finalising its proposals on the LLF process”.
What next?
When the House meets this week “to finalise the text of the letter” it now seems clear that despite repeated promises it will not be proposing any further changes in relation to doctrine, liturgy or discipline to General Synod next month. What is less clear is what comes next given these questions are not going to go away and the church is split almost down the middle.
In the light of this history, perhaps the crucial question is whether what the bishops agree comes next offers any evidence that lessons have been learned (or will somehow be learned going forward) from these multiple failures to secure a “Happy New Year”.
We now seem to have returned back almost to January 2017. There has been a recognition that the church’s law and doctrine mean that repeated episcopal claims—that further changes can legitimately be introduced without a proper full (canon B 2) synodical process for liturgy and without a change of doctrine or at least law in relation to clergy discipline—were quite simply false and with little or no legal or theological foundation.
That means that the original January 2023 proposals represented significant episcopal over-reach and that the statements about the further steps that would swiftly follow were significant and damaging episcopal over-promising. Many would argue that even the limited watered-down commendation at the end of 2023 was only able to go beyond 2017 by means of highly dubious, even illegitimate, political processes.
Two other factors are also clear. Firstly, there is still nowhere near sufficient a consensus to introduce further changes without alienating a very significant proportion of the church and perhaps precipitating (as in other parts of the church) serious fracturing. On the other hand, to proceed no further for a long period of time will also alienate a very significant proportion of the church, especially as it has been repeatedly told by many senior bishops for the last three years that such steps are just about to be taken. Secondly, there is no obvious practical “compromise” on the issues of continued disagreement and certainly none which can claim “a theological coherence which those with different perspectives may all recognize” (GS 2055).
The bishops have repeatedly said they are seeking to maintain unity. That will doubtless be repeated as a central justification after this week’s meeting. However, what they have done (and even more how they have done it) and said they further intended to do (but then failed to deliver) have left the church more divided than ever. Their actions have almost totally destroyed trust in collective episcopal leadership across the church whatever one’s views on marriage and sexuality.
The danger is that, while finally halting the PLF process and embracing due processes, the bishops will continue to think that they must introduce further changes to liturgy and law afresh in the not-too-distant future. They also still appear to believe (this is a major largely unacknowledged reason why they are not proceeding any further now) that “unity” means refusing to think creatively about what uniting institutional forms, including patterns of episcopal ministry, might have to be developed in so theologically and politically divided a church. If that is the case then it appears that they are liable to again make promises that raise some people’s hopes and others’ fears and that, as a result, whether in January 2027 or January 2028, we will once again in the Church of England be facing yet another House of Bishops meeting and still be a very long way away from experiencing a happy new year.
Revd Dr Andrew Goddard is Assistant Minister, St James the Less, Pimlico, (where his wife Lis Goddard is vicar) Tutor in Christian Ethics, Westminster Theological Centre (WTC) and Tutor in Ethics at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He is a member of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) and was a member of the Co-Ordinating Group of LLF and the 2023 subgroup looking at Pastoral Guidance.
Buy me a Coffee
The only unity that is emerging out of this attempt to import the world’s ideas of right and wrong into the body of Christ is the realisation by all parties that liberal bishops are morally bankrupt. It is time for ecclesiastical ructions on a scale of the 1550s or 1660s to get rid of them.
At least half the members of the C of E are liberals, not happening
Then Jesus Christ will extinguish it in another way.
He won’t, it has been going for 500 years and is still going after approval of PLF by Synod
The episcopacy wasn’t packed with heretics until recently.
(a) It’s well known that at an international level, cultural liberals have a lower TFR than cultural conservatives, and are therefore being ‘progressively’ outbred over time.
(b) In addition to the above factor, the mounting birth-gap crisis in the UK, as elsewhere, will see the general public mood shift steadily against people perceived to be acting as demographic freeloaders, and the ideologies/ideologues perversely shilling for them.
The church and the likes of you were quite happy with the world’s ideas of right and wrong when we were imprisoned or chemically castrated. Your argument is vapid.
It’s worse than that. What was the divine penalty in ancient Israel?
And why would anyone need genitals if they’ve already decided to refuse ever to reproduce?
Anyone whose primary thinking mode is larger structures and patterns immediately recognises what is going on here.
It is the same as what is going on in the ‘Assisted’ ”Dying”’ ‘debate’ and is the inevitable result of trying to square a circle.
(It is also what is going on in the circle-squaring ”debate” itself. No end in sight. But nil desperandum: just up that hill, round that corner, at the end of that rainbow….)
Here are the views of a real bishop (i.e. overseer), sadly not welcome not in the Church of England:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-government-and-a-church-that-hold-their-people-in-contempt/
Powerful stuff: ‘The incoming Archbishop of Canterbury inherits a Church at a crossroads. The crisis she faces was not imposed from outside. It has been cultivated from within. The bishops were appointed as watchmen. They became courtiers. Rather than confronting the moral confusion of the age, they absorbed it. Rather than proclaiming repentance, they reframed sin as misunderstanding. Rather than offering courage, they offered caution.’
You could just as easily have copied and pasted the entire article.
Wow, there are still Christians somewhere in our elite.
I would guess that he is, to the contrary, held as much at arm’s length from the elite as they can muster.
Powerful stuff? Really? There’s a lot of sound and fury, but when you read it properly it’s empty abstractions, and unsubstantiated assertions. It’s got all the substance of early morning fog. I get that it appeals to your fears and prejudices, but don’t we need something better than that?
Who is suggesting the faith must apologise for concepts of law, dignity and mercy? Where is that happening? The governing assumption is that the nation is morally suspect at its roots, is “evident across the British establishment”? Then when not point to some of that evidence? Is the name of Christ spoken with embarrassment in the Church? Where? Which churches? I could go on.
Why not point to some of that evidence? Because it was an unashamedly rhtotrical article and the evidence is visible to those who have eyes to see, but it would have doubled the length of the essay.
The Bible itself opens with an ‘unsubstantiated assertion’…
Hi Adam, I don’t know this person at all, but that para stood out for me.
I could happily point you to supporting evidence for each one of those claims.
Ceirion Dewar is part of the Confessing Anglican Church which comprises many of those who could not stomach the apostate bishops in the CoE any more. He led the prayers at September’s Unite the Nation rally in London, sharing the stage with Tommy Robinson and others. Here is his equally robust defence of those actions and attack on Anglican bishops who condemned the rally without thought:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/betrayal-of-their-flock-a-bishops-rebuke-to-clergy-who-denounce-christians-marching-with-tommy-robinson/
I really like the level of Bp Dewar’s analysis/thought. How good that he sees the big picture and does not ignore the centrality of the spiritual. Note that there can be problems with accountability in smaller denominational (or otherwise) groupings, and I do not know the veracity of the reports of the past issue where an elderly neighbour was too long unrecompensed for her lendings. Tom Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, styles journalists as Pharisees, and is quite right. I believe and hope that this new leader’s heart is very much in the right place.
He shared a platform with ‘Tommy Robinson’ is all we need to know about this egregious prelate’s faux Christianity.
While he’s having vapours over his queer Christian siblings, he should address his mate ‘Tommy’s predilection for gay dating apps with no age limits.
“And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but sharing a stage with Tommy Robinson will not be forgiven.”
All Tommy Robinson did was confess twice that he was a sinner, encourage the throng, plan ahead for a bigger carol-service, and coo over the primary school evangelist.
Christopher
You mean besides being a wife beater, a drug addict, a criminal, and a violent racist thug?
But that isn’t why you hate him, is it Penelope? Furthermore that is no way to speak of your new brother in Christ, who has just admitted publicly before thousands that he is a sinner.
Where did I say I hated him?
True, I don’t believe in his ‘repentance’, based on his continued behaviour.
…which you don’t specify.
What is the evidence he is racist? He dislikes Islam, but Islam claims all races, and Robinson hangs out with (among others) Hindus and Sikhs of Indian origin who share his concerns about Islam. They are aware of the bloody thousand-year jihad in India.
Tommy Robinson is a man of personal courage and intelligence (confused with lack of education only by snobs), whose view of Islam and of our deceitful Islamophilic elites is shared by many, including Douglas Murray (who is aware of the Islamic attitude to his homosexuality). Robinson has done this country a valuable service in forcing the grooming gangs scandal into the public eye. As a feminist you will presumably be grateful to him for that.
Robinson has not seemed able to work with others to build personal alliances that last. That, together with his past, is why he has got nowhere in politics. Let’s see how TR as a New Creation unfolds.
If you believe Yaxley-Lennon is a new creation I have a bridge to sell you.
But, perhaps, you have a plausible explanation for his recent presence on gay (no age limit) dating apps.
And he’s done far more harm than good re the grooming gangs. His actions almost scuppered a trial.
Penelope,
I disagree with you about the grooming gangs. He worked ceaselessly at grassroots level to raise awareness of the problem of these gangs when councils, politicians and the mainstream media assiduously turned a blind eye. He even helped some of the victim families and confronted a policeman he believed was implicated. Honour to him for that.
Why are you castigating Robinson if he has been on gay sites? You wrote a thesis on queering just about everything. I presume your evidence is that he grumbled about X offering him such sites, which would be expected to happen if he had already done so. Can you name any site he visited, can you say whether he set up a date, and can you state his motivation in looking at such things? Of course he has admitted to being a sinner.
Time, not you, will judge whether he is a sincere convert to Christ.
Clearly, you are very ignorant about queer theology and, even more clearly, you haven’t read my thesis.
I don’t have a particular problem with gay dating sites, however, although I would draw the line at ones which host paedophilia. From what I see of Robinson, he continues to present as a racist, grifting thug (who has almost scuppered a trial), so I have yet to see any fruits of repentance. It’s the Russell Brand grift, but not even as convincing as Grant. There are now quite a few grifters and thugs seizing the opportunities that fashionable faux Christianity is offering. We should not be deceived. But some of us are still convinced that the queers are demonic rather than the crypto fascist thugs.
I have read the introductory and concluding material in your thesis online and all of the analyses in it of the Psephizo and Cranmer blogs. As for my knowledge of “queer theology”, I know some of its claims from the “Metropolitan Church” and the writings of Jayne Ozanne, and I know how to compare such claims against scripture. Try me.
The first fruit of Robinson’s repentance is his confession before several thousand people that he is sinful; did you miss that? You also ignored my refutation of your claim that he is racist: he hangs out with Sikhs and Hindus, whose ancestors have suffered persecution by Muslims. A white racist would not do that. Robinson is anti-Islamic, but that is not racist because Islam lays claim to be a universal religion. How then is he racist?
It is early days since Robinson claimed conversion. Time will tell what is going on in him. Either of us could be right or wrong, but your criteria for judging seem to be more worldly than those of scripture.
Hilarious. For years on here you fellows castigate gay people for having a sexual identity, and we’re told this is unChristian because Christians have their identity in Christ only. Then you all fall over yourselves to praise Ceirion Dewar angrily proclaiming “One of the most corrosive lies of our time is the claim, sometimes explicit, often implied, is that Christianity stands in opposition to national identity”
The PRIMARY identity of any genuine Christian is in Christ only. But we all have secondary identities: teacher, husband, father, Englishman, WesternCiv, etc. The question is which if these secondary identities are affirmed, and which condemned, in scripture.
He doesn’t say that it is subsumed. He says they are not in opposition.
I think this is supported by Paul’s description of the people of God as ekklesia, not as an association. It takes its place in the civic order, rather than looking in to its own interests.
Gay Christians say that our sexual orientation and our faith are not in opposition. We do not say that our sexuality has subsumed our faith.
not all gay Christians …but it’s about behaviour in the end.
Some people say it’s about behaviour. Some do not (see Rosaria Butterfield, James White, Christopher Yuan etc.) and argue that the orientation and self-description are themselves a problem.
Rather than point out that Christians are not unanimous, what do you think God himself says in the Bible, Adam?
The self-description is certainly a problem, because having an attitude or perspective (to the exclusion of other attitudes and perspectives) is self-fulfilling. Self-description will make things seem set in stone whether or not they actually originally were.
Orientation will generally be self-claimed and affirmed, making that essentially the same problem or issue as the above. The essence of the word ‘orientation’ is to describe something that is fixed.
The truth is different: that things become progressively more fixed having started off less so. A Zeitgeist that presents them as fixed from the outset is precisely the problem.
Almost every possible angle shows that things are otherwise. None of the following would even exist as 1% increases if the ‘orientation’/’fixed orientation’ perspective were correct – but in fact they are colossal increases:
-claims to homosexual orientation when:
-parented by lesbians (400% increase)
-surrounded by a culture or peers that have been affected by this (1993-2013 saw quadrupling of UK women who had had sss partners)
-in the flux or melting pot of adolescence and having not yet settled down (Savin-Williams and Ream found all ‘gay’ identity to be 3-4 times less stable and 25x so in adolescence)
-a male in an urban setting (Laumann 1994: 708% increase)
-a female in a university setting (Laumann 1994: 900% increase)
-a female resentful against men
-in possession of a weak father or overdominant mother
-child of divorce
-molested when young, whether against one’s will or temporarily in accord with it (average finding 500% increase).
Makes you wonder why the ex-gay advocates have such an abysmal track record in changing people’s orientation doesn’t it?
For the reason that I already stated: that once sss behaviour is embarked on, it becomes part of a person and of their self-image. It is playing with fire, and can change an entire destiny within 2 seconds. It is one of those things like divorce whose fallout will be centre-stage between the pivotal moment and the person’s dying day.
My summary is about how ss behaviour regularly begins, not a claim that it is easy to end it once it has been begun. It is not at all, and that is precisely what my warning is about.
But, on another point, when the data from so many separate angles points the way that it does, I am astonished that you can proceed in the debate without even acknowledging or digesting, let alone dealing with, these points. Does that not invalidate simultaneously both your position and your claim to be unbiased?
We have a Labour government elected with a big majority, so liberal Anglicanism reflects in the established church what the government is to some extent. If Farage and Reform won the next general election would the Church of England as established church move in a more conservative direction on issues like immigration? Would be interesting. On same sex marriage though even Farage has said he won’t reverse it though he would prefer to have just kept civil unions for same sex couples
If all processes, consultations and deep thinking continue to fail, they may – as a last resort – have to try prayer, fasting and silence. If God is able to get a word in, all sides will, hopefully, recognise His authority and many (perhaps all) of us will have to change our views to varying extents.
Sadly, I’m not holding my breath; groupthink dominates the CofE bishops as with the rest of our troubled elite.
Quite so David !
[Sherman January 12, 2026 at 11:27 am]
Strong meat indeed from Bishop Ceirion H Dewar.
I recently read an engaging article by Rebecca DeYoung
“Christian Character Formation in a Culture of Anger”@CSL
This set me on a quest to define “What is righteous anger?
I found Bob Deffinbaugh’s Scriptural survey very instructive.
https://bible.org/seriespage/14-righteous-anger-ephesians-426-27
Of course, not forgetting James 1: 19&20 Still exploring, Shalom.
Granted, God is very interested in Zeal, which is termed Wholeheartedness in OT.
Saul was very zealous for Jewish Orthodoxy and perhaps Jewish Nationalism;
Not knowing that both were slated for destruction in spite of Christian preaching.
He seemed to realize quite early that as Jesus said “My Kingdom
is not of this world else would my servants fight”
What subsequently defined Paul was good old-fashioned Wholeheartedness
He believed “God’s Testimonies” of the wholeheartedness of His People who really did indeed effect great changes in Ecclesia and State .
I very much appreciated Alister McGrath’s Testimony on Wholeheartedness
“Loving God with Heart and Mind” @ C.S. Lewis Institute
He quotes D. Coggan remark concerning Ecclesial Colleges
‘The journey from head to heart is one of the longest
and most difficult that we know”.
Shalom.
CoE is dying in Britain so the bishops responded for the last ten years by obsessing about homosexuality. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.
Anglicanism is doing much better in the global south, where the focus tends to be on Christ, not sex. Same is true of certain denominations in America. Maybe people respond to Christianity for reasons that transcend bodily functions. Our Lords Spiritual might have a think on that.
I admit that investing so much energy in this subject is not the obvious response to decline in attendance…
I think the Bishops are mistakenly believing that we have to be like the world in order to attract people – whereas the reality is that the more like the world we are, the less need the world has to join us, they have what they want without us. The Methodist denomination is in terminal decline for the same mistake; our local Methodist Church is about to close, while neighbouring evangelical Baptist and Anglican churches are doing well.
That’s a straw man argument.
Homosexuality is illegal in much of Africa still, same sex marriage is only legal in South Africa. It is a totally different scenario to the UK and the western Anglican world where same sex marriage has now been legal for over a decade (same sex marriage is also legal in the USA of course now and most of Latin America).
But is it recognised by God and how could you find out?
Well the God of Abraham is also the God of Muslims and Jews. Christians however unlike them believe Jesus is also God and Jesus never mentioned homosexuality and certainly never said a word against committed, monogamous same sex couples even if he reserved marriage for one man and woman for life
Did he ever say a word *for* them?
Why are you so biased as to mention that he did not speak against them and simultaneously ignore that he did not speak for them?
(Nor probably think about them or conceptualise them at all.)
But Jesus did say “I and the Father are one”. What is His Father’s view of it and how could you find out?
Jesus of course grew up Jewish, even though he founded Christianity in his lifetime and as Christians we believe ultimately is God too now
Jesus did not ‘found’ ‘Christianity.’
In effect he did, before that Jesus the only Abrahamic religion was Judaism
Abrahamic religion? But that category was only invented recently, and people in the ancient world were not keen to say ‘Let’s make some more Abrahamic religions’.
Abraham is far from being the most central figure in any of Judaism, Christianity and Islam: the most central figures by far are God and Jesus [as divine] on the one hand, Allah and Mohammad on the other. So where does the term ‘Abrahamic religion’ come from? From the (biased) people absolutely desperate to big up similarities and censor differences. The most central thing that they could find that all 3 had in common was Abraham. But one could desire Abraham to be more central. Speaking as though ‘Abrahamic religion’ was a central category is thinking backwards. It is a category that only existed by imposing the present on the past, which is the worst way of understanding the past.
Fumes. Travels on fumes.
And as the latest video on 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 opens up the questions of Holiness of God and the Name of God and holiness, sanctification, did the Corinthians spend as long on the discrete question of sexuality under the umbrella term of holiness, as long as the CoE has, while all the while the CoE in general has considered sexuality as a discrete topic, outside (rather than intrinsic, with much else) of Holiness.
Even as the CoE continues to fume.
Sexuality was quite a controversy for the Corinthians – three chapters of the 1 Corinthians are given over to questions of sexual ethics, behaviour, and marriage. St Paul is particularly concerned that people might be imposing celibacy rules (with terrible results) and implores them that married couples ought to be having sexual relations, and that those who are not called to celibacy ought to marry (1 Corinthians 7).
Yes indeed, and we see the results in imposed monasticism. A high fraction of aristocratic widows (and ageing spinsters) in Italy were forced to become nuns, saving their families from paying out large dowries. Convents were effectively prisons, as enclosure was rigorous. Some of the antics of these nuns (taken from Vatican archives) are in Craig Monson’s book, Nuns Behaving Badly. And the archives of the Provveditori sopra Monasteri, a group of magistrates charged by the Venetian authorities with cleaning up the city’s convents, starting in the early 16th century, contain 20 volumes of trials for cohabitation of monks and nuns.
‘Marriage’ in the Bible – i.e. to God – meant a man marrying a woman.
Why such a partial and airbrushed historical overview? There’s no mention of CEEC, their ‘Beautiful Story’ video, or the Alliance and their manual on how to nobble and intimidate your PCC. When the Bishop of Newcastle’s resignation as co-lead for LLF is mentioned, the reason for her resignation is skipped over without comment. And still, not a peep about the changes made in the drafting of PLF for covenanted friendships which were profound, apparently mad at the request of the conservative voices who were consulted, and presumably quite important to everyone who thought we had to be clear that sex was off the table. All very odd.
The original problem was always a misdiagnosis of what had gone wrong with Pilling. It looks, from the outside, as if quite a few simply thought that Pilling was under-discussed and a bit of a surprise, so the rest of us needed to be given time to go through the same debates. Then, with our understanding improved (‘conservatives’ seeing the strength of feeling from the ‘reformers’, and ‘reformers’ seeing the extent of the concerns by the ‘conservatives’) we’d accept that Pilling was basically right after all. Much could be summed by Bishop Croft’s assertion that nothing here was terribly revolutionary – if the Church already permitted clergy to be in civil partnerships, recognising those partnerships in a blessing is so obvious it barely counts as a step. But of course that missed a point. It assumed that everyone bought into Issues in Human Sexuality (outdated language notwithstanding) that people could not choose their sexuality, that orientation was not itself sinful, and individual conscience was paramount so disagreements (at least amongst the laity) should be no bar to Church inclusion. That assumption had little to no basis in reality in the Church debate. The reality on the ground had always been that Issues was selectively used – a convenient weapon when you wanted to hold the line clergy in same-sex relationships, but happily ignored if you wanted to invite an ex-gay ministry to speak to your youth club.
In jumping ahead to permitting same-sex marriage or not, we’ve had a shortcircuited debate, that served to emphasise and exacerbate every division. That may have suited those who always loathed the Bishops and now have a wedge issue with which they hope to split the Church. What we needed, and probably still do need, is a revision of Issues. It went through the issues and questions in a reasonable way, but it was of its time – the language is (to put it charitably) unhelpful, and it gives too much prominence to debates raging in the early 90s (such as if there is a gay gene will mothers be able to abort foetuses who carry it?). The LLF conversations, and the PLF debates that followed, show however that we do need to work through some of the basics. We may find there is more consensus than we realise (though that will upset a small minority who will doubtless fight any suggestion of doing this). Do we believe that sexual orientation is chosen or not? Do we believe it is fixed or malleable? Is the orientation sinful or not? Should people be open about their orientation or not? Is an orientation a bar to participation in / serving in the Church? How should gay people order their lives? Are they encouraged into ‘straight’ marriages because sexuality is irrelevant, or is it a calling to celibacy, and how do those choices fit with Christian ethics and Scripture? Does ruling out sex rule out all committed partnerships? Or do committed partnerships require sexual intimacy such that we do not believe it when people say they’re celibate? Etc. etc.
Holy, Holy, Holy.
Can’t recall BP Croft, in his extend essay, mentioned anything about holiness, which is not surprising given that he admitted that his view was that change was culturally supported, driven; secular, western, not the Holiness of God.
Nor did it cover the history, lengthy timeline, of the seeming centrality of sexuality in the CoE, as set out in this, AG’s overview article.
Bp Croft’s essay included the claim that John 16.12-13 could have been referring to, among oteher things, the brave new promised land of homosexual sexual indugence. Anyone who has knowledge of this gospel-author’s tendencies naturally finds this quite incredible unscholarly culture-bound perspective (trivially) laughable but also (far more importantly) pretty evil.
Croft reads John 16 in a way you disagree with and so therefore he is “pretty evil”?
Dissent is no longer answered with argument, but with moral accusation, portrayed not as disagreement but as a defect of character. Disagreement is reframed as danger. Conscience is tolerated only when it is compliant.
Maybe Ceirion Dewar had a point after all? It was just directed at the wrong people.
This is the predictable false step: person X did 100000 things in their life; one of these is evil; therefore person X is evil, and the other 99999 things they did don’t count.
It is predictable because the lower level of thinking gravitates to people (ad hominem) and not to ideas. This can be seen regularly when observing conversations.
Re John 16, does the Holy Spirit contradict himself?
The reading is not a way ‘you disagree with’. It is a way that every scholar would treat with contempt.
Your pluralism (a nonstarter philosophy and a selfish philosophy of convenience) and your pretence that different degrees of expertise are all precisely the same as each other are two separate factors that make you lose arguments before you start.
You’re still flustering with moral accusation rather than argument, and trying to reframe disagreement as a dangerous defect of character.
No I am not – but your failure to understand what is written runs like a thread through what you write.
Disagreement between a position that is evidence-based and affirmed by scholars and a position that is neither is not a level playing field. You are a pluralist, trying to smuggle in positions that cannot be defended on the basis that everyone is entitled to their position. Even if everyone were entitled to their position and even if some so-called positions were anything more than desires and ideologies, that would not mean that there was equal evidence or scholarly support, now would it?
But if your position is essentially pluralism, you cannot be a legitimate debater.
If I believe the moon is made of green cheese, my position gets extra points because it brings a greater diversity of opinion, right?
Now you’re getting hysterical and moving the goalposts…
Ian doesn’t like these tedious rabbit-hole threads that serve no purpose, and frankly neither do I, so I’ll end it there.
Adam, I think we all guessed that you would, not for the first time, not engage with any of the substance. This is likely to be because you cannot. So why not just concede?
To say ‘You’re getting hysterical’ (how can one tell on the basis of printed words?) is to shift from debate to emotions. A sure sign that the substance has defeated you.
Those who are primarily preoccupied with emotions are intrinsically speaking at a lower level than those preoccupied with substance.
In any case there are quite obviously, plenty of things in life that are indeed important, do indeed need to be emphasised, and do indeed deserve some righteous anger. Though that is obvious, in debates the substance is always the point.
Regularly, it is those who care most (i.e. the good people) who speak with passion.
Good people also do not impose on others unilaterally when a debate ‘must’ preemptively finish, almost before it has begun.
A gay gene? Ever heard of natural selection?
It’s always fascinating what you choose to reply to.
I’m glad you are that interested in me.
+Newcastle resigned because, although the most clued up individual had been appointed, their conclusions were not to her liking. As though the point of study is to throw up conclusions that are to our liking as opposed to accurate. It is shameful to sacrifice the pursuit of truth at the selfish altar of ideology. So she should not be in church leadership.
Or she saw the politicking for what it was and declined to play the game.
What an appalling thing to say: either (a) that an appointee has to toe the line rather than be a good scholar, or (b) that unless a subjectively congenial appointment is made then it supposedly follows that the appointment was political just because it was inconvenient to the dishonest ideology of a random person. Either way, appalling.
Adam concludes a long piece with nine or ten substantive questions about same-sex relationships and acts which all deserve serious consideration – and such consideration has been given, because none of the questions are new.
What Adam rarely does is offer his own answer, based on his understanding of 1. Scripture; 2. Philosophy (including natural law and his understanding of the ontology of human nature and the body); 3. Biology and Psychology.
If he presented and defended his own understanding of what these three areas tell us (along with his understanding of how the Christian doctrine of sin impacting human nature affects our use of scriptyre, philosophy and science), then we could have a debate of some value.
But Adam rarely does this and too often he terminates his contribution with a direct ad hominem attack on those who challenge his views, calling them “hysterical” as he does here, or something similarly negative. This is poor and unhelpful and does nothing to advance understanding, as he claims in his long post he desires to do. Play the ball, not the man.
What Adam needs to do first is: to answer his own eight or nine questions and then respond to any substantive critiques from the disciplines of Biblical Studies, Philosophy and the Sciences.
And second: stop calling people “hysterical” or other pejorative terms. That is why Penelope’s comments here are so unhelpful in the search for understanding.
What is clear is that PLF is here to stay. Majorities of all 3 houses of Synod, bishops, clergy and laity endorsed it and the Labour Government and Parliament are also clear that they expect some recognition of same sex couples married in UK law now in the English established church which PLF provides. PCCs like ours have already voted to provide PLF within services for any same sex couple parishioners who want them.
What is also clear is that standalone services for same sex couples within C of E church services cannot happen without the 2/3 majority of Synod that was needed to pass female clergy, female bishops and remarriage of divorcees in C of E churches. Fair enough and the Bishops upheld Canon B2 on that. However it also has meant that liberals within Synod are now starting campaigns for full same sex marriage to take place within C of E churches, after all, if they can’t even have bespoke non marriage services for same sex couples within C of E churches without the 2/3 majority needed for same sex marriage, why not go the whole way and push for full same sex marriage in the C of E like their SEP, and US Episcopal church colleagues and a few other deonominations like the Lutherans, Methodists and URC, Quakers and Church of Scotland?
At the moment they still don’t have that 2/3 majority but the Synod elections this summer are now setting up as a clear battle between liberal Catholics and open evangelicals v conservative evangelicals and the few remaining conservative Anglo Catholics to see which direction the C of E is heading on this issue
If something is not moral, no voting on earth can make the immoral moral. So how can it be here to stay, unless you commit the self-contradiction of regarding the amoral tides of history as superior to actual morality?
In the C of E Synod decides what C of E doctrine is on an issue in the end by majority, or in some cases 2/3 majority, disagree with that and you should not be in the C of E anyway
Simon, will you please stop just repeating the same answer over again. You know very well that we have heard it, and also that it is not a clever point because it is obvious that everyone knows it already.
You are either intelligent enough to know that rules are not infallible, or you are not. Most people have known that for most of their lives. Prove to me that you can catch up with that majority, because at present you are lagging behind them.
You could also tell people why ‘the Anglican Church’ features so strongly in your understanding of the Jesus who you know very well had never heard of such an entity.
How the teachings of Jesus are interpreted in the C of E is decided by Synod as you also well know. It follows his teachings like every other Christian denomination but it is his Synod who decides their interpretation
Lol. Let’s get this straight:
‘His Synod’ is the name you latterly (not exclusively) give to
an oligarchy of one random denomination
which is not the oldest
nor the largest
nor the most orthodox denomination,
and then you say that the interpretation of the text should be left to people most of whom cannot even *read* the text, or read anything else that is written in that language, when the world is full of people who can.
A power grab by the largely unqualified.
You don’t believe this. No-one could.
Synod is made up of bishops and elected representatives of the clergy (including Ian Paul) and laity. I am sure Ian will be delighted Christopher that you have said he cannot even read the Bible let alone interpret it!
Which is exactly what I did not say. Why is it that you cannot understand the meaning of’largely’?
Perspicuity of Scripture is a mainstream Protestant doctrine Christopher…
Since Scripture is perspicuous it follows from that premise of yours (to everyone’s relief) that the need for interpretation is minimal. It also follows that anything that sharply contradicts the perspicuous text is a non starter, however many times people brainwashingly desperately hypnotisingly jammingly repeat it, which is the only hope they have.
So you also oppose remarriage of divorcees, ordination of women and eating shellfish then, in line with passages of scripture?
As these points have already been addressed, you have shown you have reached your limit of what you are able to digest.
Remarriage of divorcees – yes, I do not only oppose it but more importantly strongly oppose it, which is Jesus’s position and very possibly his best-attested one. Where it comes to adulteration, indifference would be a great wrong, so approval would be a greater wrong.
Ordination of women? I don’t even believe in ‘ordination’ ás such. I think people should exercise every gift God gave them. The focus on women in particular is very 21st-century.
Shellfish – you know that this was dealt with above (Acts 10-11, Mark 7). You are treating all of ‘the Bible’ as though it was uniform, and as though nothing changed with the coming of Jesus. The choice is between not being a Christian and thinking that things did change radically with the coming of Jesus. Thus at source we have:
‘A new teaching – with authority’ (Mark 1.27)
‘These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life’ (John 5.40)
‘You have heard it said…but I say to you’ (Matt 5.17-48).
is it that you think the new covenant is the same as the old,
or is it that you do not think the new covenant exists?
You have made some odd choices here. All three questions have decisive teaching within the New Testament, the post Jesus era. They are not issues confined to the Old Testament.
The common denominator of your choices is that they are merely Anglican-centric. The cure is to broaden horizons and historical awareness.
The 2/3 majority thing is found in many constitutions as a provision so that major changes are not made by very narrow margins which might be affected by accidental short term circumstances, and also it generally will mean a positive favourable agreement by a majority of the total possible vote rather than just a majority of those who actually voted. It is likely to be a long time before such a majority can happen in the CofE on this issue.
Synod is surely supposed to operate in accordance with the 39 Articles or have the honesty to first change those Articles as well. Operating in accordance with Article 6 should therefore preclude a vote in favour of gay sex or of marriages involving gay sex. Changing the Articles I am guessing would require again a 2/3 majority and likely Parliamentary involvement too. Can Ian confirm on that? This would all be easier if the CofE were an independent Church and not a state-entangled church ….
Indeed and had a 2/3 majority been required for the Brexit deal Parliament agreed it might not have been as divisive as issue as it was, we might even have stayed in the single market. There are arguments in favour of simple majority vote for major changes, a win is a win after all but it is more divisive. The same applies to how Synod might recognise same sex couples relationships amongst their Parishioners in Parish churches.
Article 6 on the sufficiency of scriptures in its purest form would also have blocked female ordination and female bishops and blocked remarriage of divorcees in C of E churches. In the end though Synod voted by 2/3 majority for all of those so how Synod interprets scripture is most important in the C of E rather than a literal reading of scripture on everything, Old Testament and New. The Articles are of course mainly symbolic now, Parliament under the Church of England Powers Act 1919 granted full powers over C of E worship and governance to the National Church Assembly to submit to Parliament for approval. The Synodical Government Measure 1969 then renamed and reconstituted the Assembly as the General Synod that governs the C of E today. Most of the powers of the Convocations of York and Canterbury were then also transferred to Synod then
As regards the Articles they are not Scripture and so as human products are open to revision from time to time; but there are still ways of doing that with integrity, and ways which are clearly not with integrity, including the one where people don’t have the courage to honestly change but just glibly disregard and do their own thing. At some point the CofE will have to decide to seek disestablishment and change some of the Articles to achieve that.
Changing Article 6 would require setting an alternattive source of authority – and somehow I don’t think that the personal whims of ‘liberal’ theologians will quite ‘cut it’!!
Article 6 “in its purest form” – I think by that you’re meaning ‘dumb wooden literalism’ which was not the intent of the Reformers generally, of the original writers of the Article, or of the pre-Reformation scholars whose definition of ‘literal’ in the “Four-Fold-Sense” interpretation the Reformers followed. That definition of ‘literal’ likely would allow women in ministry; but no way could allow gay sex. Remarriage of divorcees – ???? But in an independent Church I suspect it would be reasonable not to require separation of those remarried before joining the church….
Requiring a 2/3 majority of Synod for major change is doing things with integrity. The C of E will of course never be disestablished as it was set up precisely to be English established church headed by the King.
Synod is now the ultimate authority over C of E doctrine, the Articles are mainly just symbolic. You of course completely ignore Paul’s forbidding women in ministry as your main focus is stopping same sex relationships not women priests and ministers. Jesus was clear divorce was only allowed on the grounds of spousal adultery, allowing separation and remarriage beyond those grounds is not authorised by scripture
Article 6 does no such thing.
Standalone services are happening and will continue to happen in CoE churches. Priests are offering them publicly. People who have been patient and who have not lobbied for their own special episcopal flavour have had enough of cowardice and bullying.
Penny, so you don’t think vows of canonical obedience are worth anything?
Or ordination vows?
Where did I say that?
Ian can answer for himself. But I assumed it’s an inference from your statement that those who are breaking the liturgical laws of the Church of England are doing so from resistance to “cowardice and bullying”. In other words, they are moral heroes, not persons disobeying godly order.
Many other things are “happening and will continue to happen in CofE churches”. Whether they are God’s will and will advance the word of God in English society is another question. As with the broader question of the future of British society itself, I tend to answer these as a function of demography itself, especially the death of Christendom, the near absence of faith in the under 40s and the unprecedented presence and growth of Islam, fuelled by immigration and a wholly different view of society and human rights. Britain isn’t unique in these phenomena, which are roiling much of the western world.
So what *did* you say, and what *is* your position? Anyone can say what their position is *not* but what is being hidden here is the main point: namely, what it *is*.
James and Christopher
Some clergy are offering services of blessing.
Gay Christians have been bullied.
Bishops have been cowardly.
These are things that have happened, not opinions.
You might infer my reactions to these things.
You might be correct. You might not be.
This issue brings inevitable and insoluble conflict. Only two sorts of people like it – the gossips and the dark side, or anyone else those whose stock in trade division is.
Gay Christians have indeed been bullied. The same-sex-attracted celibate clergyman Sam Allberry, at a Church of England synod on 15/2/2017, spoke of church liberals present bullying him for his view.
And plenty of liberal bishops are cowards, for adopting the softly-softly approach to trying to change the church’s definition of right and wrong from the Bible’s.
Penny’s standpoint is very clear: those Anglican clergy who disobey their bishops (and General Synod) by conducting standalone “services of blessing” for same-sex couples acting righteously in a God-pleasing way in resisting “cowardice” and “bullying”. So, if your conscience or convictions tell you, as an Anglican cleric you are free to disobey your bishop.
We must remember that the next time evangelicals and charismatics are condemned as vow-breakers for not leading services strictly according to the BCP or CW.
Penny’s standpoint is based upon the supremacy of conscience, an appeal we should take seriously, even as we insist that conscience can be and often is mistaken and needs constantly to be educated and informed, and not simply invoked as a trump card against all objections.
Further, the appeal to conscience and the right to disobey need to be balanced against some substantial facts about life in Britain today.
First, no one is compelled (by threat of imprisonment, torture or distrainment of goods) to be an Anglican minister or to be an Anglican layperson. In fact, not even most Christians in the UK today are Anglicans.
Second, anyone desiring such a ceremony can easily obtain it from a Methodist, URC or other denomination. In fact, they can have a full same-sex marriage ceremony in these places if they so desire.
People usually invoke the supremacy of conscience idea when they believe they are being denied something of fundamental importance to life or are being compelled to do something intrinsically evil (e.g. , serve in the armed forces). But there is no denial of persons’ freedom or rights here.
So Penny’s appeal here to the supremacy of conscience as a grounds for breaking canonical vows fails completely.
Penny didn’t make any appeal here. But do go on misrepresenting me. I’ll get the popcorn.
Well, it doesn’t appeal to me. But obviously I have the greatest respect for appeals to conscience because conscience (suneidesis) is considered in the New Testament (Romans; 1 Corinthians) to be a God-given faculty for discerning right and wrong, and the Christian understands that God speaks intimately and directly in our hearts, sumoning us to obedience. But the Christian also understands that conscience is not infallible or absolute but has to be informed or corrected, and obeying conscience always entails some cost in the world. (Just yesterday I was reading the famous account of St Polycarp’s martyrdom for what would seem to many or even most a quite trivial matter – but that is why we know him as St Polycarp.) One of the interesting marks of the modern post-Christian west has been the radical secularisation and individualisation of conscience, such as we see in Camus and his epigoni. This can only appear as a form of self-deification.
Unlawful, revision with rebellious actons-bullying, torpedoing integrity and truth and trust. A house divided can not stand. The foundations are subsiding with under-mining.
As established church the C of E will always be somewhat divided as it includes all wings of Christianity. From conservative evangelicals to liberal Catholics, from still some conservative Anglo Catholics to open evangelicals. Synod is where they all come together to decide C of E governance and worship guidance
Synod being, misled, with misreprentations, and truth witheld, and then being ignored, rebelled against with illegal action, renders synod a sop to appearance, ineffective formality, lies, deceit and undisciplined, illegal, activist bullying.