The provincial proposal being advocated by CEEC and the Alliance would involve the exercise of geographical episcopacy as it would involve bishops having responsibility for particular geographical areas. I have previously made this point in a theoretical description of what a conservative third province (the ‘Province of Mercia’) might look like.

‘Like the existing provinces of Canterbury and York, the new province would consist of parishes, deaneries, archdeaconries and dioceses. The number of dioceses that would initially be formed would obviously depend on how many parishes opted to join the new province, but one possible pattern would be for there to initially be four dioceses, one in the Southwest, one in the South and Southeast, one in the Midlands and East Anglia, and one in the North. Chaplaincies in Europe would come under the diocese for the South and Southeast.

Each diocese would initially have one bishop and one of these would be the archbishop of the province. There would be no fixed archiepiscopal diocese and the office of archbishop would subsequently be held by the senior bishop of the province.

A parish church in each diocese would be the cathedral. This would contain the bishop’s chair and would be used for diocesan services such as the enthronement of the bishop, ordinations, and the renewal of ordination vows on Maundy Thursday. The diocese would be named after the location of the cathedral and the incumbent would carry the title Dean. There would be no cathedral chapter and when not being used for diocesan services the cathedral would act as a normal parish church.’

As can be clearly seen in this description the geographical nature of episcopacy would be maintained in such a provincial arrangement. Bell’s suggestion that the geographical nature of the episcopate precludes a provincial solution is therefore mistaken.

Read it all.

I have just posted a new blog post, 'Geographical episcopacy – a further response to Charlie Bell.'https://t.co/5qMh71WfIv

— Martin Davie (@MartinBDavie) March 11, 2024

Some, who mistakenly view the Church of England as a unified, coherent body – may therefore delight in the shrinking congregations and generally low morale that defines it nowadays. I delight in none of these things, because I love the CofE.

Look more closely though, and you’ll realise that there is not one Church of England – but two. There’s the Reverend Dr Jekyll, the one who performs invaluable work on the ground; burying the dead, visiting the sick, educating more than a quarter of our nation’s schoolchildren to a much higher standard than the state normally achieves.

This Church manages the food banks, playgroups, dementia cafés and loneliness workshops. It does its best to protect some of the most valuable parts of our nation’s physical and cultural heritage. Its parish priests do this for little money; its thousands of volunteers do it for none at all.

Then there is the other Church of England – the Reverend Mr Hyde. This is a church of unaccountable committees and upward failure, resulting in perhaps the least impressive bench of bishops since Pope Gregory first observed “non angli, sed angeli”. Members of this caste speak in identikit managerial jargon, which from an institution that has provided some of the most beautiful cadences and turns of phrase in the English language is depressing.

Read it all.

Several points expressed well. And they won’t stop. It’s like the control room at Chernobyl – total meltdown.

The Church leadership is destroying the CoE I love https://t.co/VUVRNZ06Te

— Tom Sander 🚴 (@RevThomasSander) March 6, 2024

I want to make a threefold response to what Bell says in these two paragraphs.

First, creating a new provincial structure for the Church of England to provide for the differing positions of conservatives and liberals is not a ‘fundamental threat’ to the Church of England’s ecclesiology.

What CEEC is asking for is internal differentiation within the Church of England by means of a re-configuration of the Church’s current provincial system. This could take the form of a new province for conservatives alongside Canterbury and York, a new province for liberals alongside Canterbury and York or a re-working of the two existing provinces to cover the whole country with conservatives in Canterbury and liberals in York. [1]

The key point to note about this proposal is that it is in line with the existing ecclesiology of the Church of England. The Church of England has historically consisted, and continues to consist, as a combination  of two separate provinces, each their own Archbishop (both of whom have metropolitical authority within their own province and neither of whom is subject to the other), and each having its own provincial synodical structure consisting of a provincial Convocation made up of the two Houses of Bishops and Clergy, and an attendant House of Laity.  A meeting of the General Synod is simply a joint meeting of these two provincial synods, and the two Convocations retain the power both to veto legislation proposed in the General Synod and to make provision for matters relating to their province (see Canon H.1 and Article 7 of the Constitution of General Synod).

Adding another province into the mix, or reconfiguring the two existing provinces, would not alter this ecclesiological structure in any fundamental way.[2] What it would mean is that the two (or three)  provinces of the Church of England could continue to meet together in General Synod to debate and legislate on matters of common concern, while their provincial synods could legislate to either maintain or change the Church of England’s current teaching and practice with regard to marriage and human sexuality, thus allowing both conservatives and liberals to have what they are looking for  within their own province or provinces.

Each province would hold that the other province or provinces is (or are) part of the Catholic Church and the Church of England, and there would be transferability of ministry without re-ordination between them subject to a minister being prepared to accept the doctrine and discipline of the province to which he or she was transferring.

The Church of England could thus stay together, but in a way which respected the conscientious convictions of both sides and would prevent the Church of England breaking apart entirely.

Read it all.

Martin Davie–A response to Meg Warner ‘Does the Bible really say … that sex outside marriage is wrong? https://t.co/tYzlpsnfpt #christianity #sexualethics #marriage #bible #anglican #anthropology pic.twitter.com/qdQI0oGk5j

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 30, 2019

The situation the Church of England is now in.

The situation in which the Church of England finds itself as a result of the vote on the amended House of Bishops motion on Living in Love and Faith is a peculiar one.

In its official sources of doctrine, the Church of England maintains unchanged the traditional beliefs of the Christian Church as a whole, based on the teaching of the Bible:

a) That marriage is between two people of the opposite sex, that the sole legitimate place for sexual intercourse to take place is within marriage thus defined, and that any form of marriage or sexual activity outside these parameters is sinful.

b) That sinful activity needs to be addressed through repentance, absolution and amendment of life.

c) That those who are ordained ought to be living lives of visible holiness.

However, the result of November’s Synod vote is going to be that the House of Bishops will commend prayers of blessing for use in normal church services for those in same-sex marriages and/or sexually active same-sex relationships and with also authorise  experimental ‘standalone’ services to mark such marriages and relationships. This liturgical provision will not contain any call for those in such marriages and relationships to repent of them, to receive absolution and to amend their lives so that they are in conformity the Church’s teaching.

In addition, it seems almost certain that the House of Bishops will institute a change in the Church of England’s existing practice which will mean that those who are in same-sex marriages and/or same-sex sexual relationships will be permitted to be ordained. This will mean that lives of visible holiness in relation to marriage and sexual conduct will no longer be a pre-requisite for ordination.

The result of these changes will be that as a result of the action of the majority of the bishops the Church of England will be a Church that still upholds beliefs a, b and c above in terms of its official doctrine, but will have ceased to uphold them in its practice.

The question I want to address in the remainder of this paper is how conservative Christians in the Church of England who continue to uphold the traditional Christian beliefs listed above should relate to their bishops in this new situation.

Read it all.

Martin Davie–A response to Meg Warner ‘Does the Bible really say … that sex outside marriage is wrong? https://t.co/tYzlpsnfpt #christianity #sexualethics #marriage #bible #anglican #anthropology pic.twitter.com/qdQI0oGk5j

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) May 30, 2019

The problem is that, as with the former Prime Minister’s claim, nobody really believes this is the case. How many people really believe that:

• what will be commended in the PLF Suite of Resource—public prayers for God’s blessing on two people of the same sex many of whom will be in a sexual relationship and/or a civil same-sex marriage—has always been lawful in the Church of England and could have been commended by the bishops and used by clergy at any point in the past? 
• the use of such prayers does not represent a major change from the historic and current situation? 
• while the doctrine of marriage remains unchanged, the proposed use of the PLF is neither contrary to doctrine nor indicative of a departure from in doctrine in any essential matter? 
• all these claims have been shown by the House of Bishops to be theologically and legally coherent and convincing?

Charlie Bell, a supporter of getting PLF done but also a severe critic of the latest proposals, recently wrote “what the bishops have done may be legal, but it is not honest”. This echoes the language of Canon C1 and the oath of canonical obedience. The way in which the bishops are proceeding—the “nothing has changed” argument and the refusal to publish the written legal advice they have received—is very difficult to view as honest and to trust. Given the law has not formally been changed, for many the introduction of PLF means that the doctrine to which the law refers has changed in practice. If, as it is being claimed, doctrine has not changed, then what is being proposed seems to many to be not only “not honest” but also, as shown by past legal advice, probably “not legal”. 

In short, unless we sincerely believe and are convinced that “nothing has changed”, then we have to say that it appears the bishops are acting in their commendation, and thereby encouraging clergy to act in their services, in ways which are unlawful. In addition, those liturgical actions are now—because of the bishops’ decisions, which do not alter the legality of what they commend and so in one sense could be described as simply symbolic or “virtue signalling”—going to attract much more attention when they take place then they have done in the past. This means clergy who accept at face value and act on the basis of the bishops’ commendation are probably more likely to face legal challenge than they were in the past.

In the light of this, it even more unacceptable that the bishops are now so reticent to set out clearly for parish clergy, and those who advise them such as archdeacons, both

1. the changing written legal advice which they have received throughout this process, particularly for their 9^th October meeting, and
2. a clear explanation as to how what they are now proposing in PLF is, and indeed always has been, legal and how this judgment relates to the content of past legal advice which they have published that would suggest otherwise.

Read it all.

It has repeatedly been stated that the CofE's doctrine of marriage has not changed. Can the bishops commend the Prayers of Love and Faith with any credibility without sharing the legal and theological basis on which they are doing so? @theologyethics1 https://t.co/3c7RlIvjb9

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) November 28, 2023

10.6 Faced with these problems there would appear to be broadly three (not necessarily mutually exclusive) pathways forward that would have some degree of theological integrity and which might enable the Church of England to proceed in a way that minimises conflict and division and maintains as high a degree of communion as possible in the light of where we now are:

Pausing in order to refine and develop further the theological arguments set out here in Annex H and then seeking a consensus for them in their final articulation as an adequate theological rationale for a form of PLF consistent with them and for new pastoral guidance and pastoral reassurance including any “formal structural pastoral provision in this time of uncertainty” (Introduction, para 18, p.3);
Recognising that for “a time of uncertainty” we have well-established processes in relation to liturgical development and so using Canon B2 (and the need for two-thirds support for any change in all 3 Houses of General Synod at the end of the process) for all of PLF;
Acknowledging that our deeper problem is that the Church has within it two significantly sized groupings divided over whether the existing doctrine is right and should shape our pastoral and liturgical life or is wrong and needs to be replaced with an alternative theology that should then shape our pastoral and liturgical life. Each of these has a clear and internally consistent theological rationale. What is therefore likely needed is not an unsatisfactory and unstable mix of supposed doctrinal continuity but with significant practical changes based on a “new insight into doctrine”. Instead, we need to seek some form of new structural settlement which would give to each of these contrasting and competing theologies their own secure, legally defined and episcopally-led ecclesial space with theological integrity and as high a degree of communion as possible between them within the Church of England.

Read it all.

As General Synod gathers, some thoughts on the theological rationale being offered for PLF with thanks again to @Psephizo for posting. https://t.co/R3RmHgE3pU

— Andrew Goddard (@goddardaj) November 13, 2023

The first thing to note is that it is not only difficult, but impossible, to argue that what the bishops are proposing is not a departure from teaching contained in the bishops’ statements concerning Civil Partnerships and same-sex marriages in 2005, 2014 and 2019. In these statements the bishops said that public prayers should not be said for same-sex couples. What is now being proposed is that such prayers should be offered. If the Bishops previous teaching constitutes doctrine for the purposes of clause (g) of the February General Synod motion and for the purposes of the Canons, then what is proposed is contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England.

The bishops argument seems to be that this change from previous teaching is not indicative of a change in any ‘essential matter’ because they are not proposing any change to the Church’s doctrine of marriage or its doctrine of sexual ethics which says that sexual intercourse should only take place within marriage (meaning a marriage with two people of the  opposite sex). Where their argument falls down is that if the Church of England’s doctrines of marriage and sexual ethics are viwed alongside the Church’s doctrine concerning the need for repentance and forgiveness for sin, then what they are proposing is necessarily a change of doctrine in an ‘essential matter.’

To understand why this is the case, the point that has to be grasped is that it is an absolutely essential part of Church of England doctrine that in order for people to be rightly related to God in this life and eternally happy with him in the next, they have to acknowledge, repent of, and confess their sins, not only in private but in the context of public worship, so that their sins may be forgiven and no longer constitute a barrier between them and God.

This doctrine is made crystal clear, for example, in the opening paragraphs of the service of Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer:

Read it all.

Martin Davie–Why the Church of England Bishops Cannot Do what they are doing with Prayers for Same Sex couples https://t.co/ZiZJOWkIHC #anglican #theology #analysis #marriage #anthropology #ethics #holyscripture #BCP #anglican #religion #parishministry #UK 'The bishops argument… pic.twitter.com/FUM7TZSatW

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) October 27, 2023

We have archbishops openly rejecting the teaching they vowed to uphold. The bishops are showing a lack of respect for a clear, recognizable link between liturgy and doctrine, refusing to follow the proper synodical processes for introducing new (particularly controversial) liturgy in the life of the church, sidelining public theological reasoning and the work of FAOC, and possibly seeking to introduce new guidance contrary to existing doctrine without the proper synodical process that respects the principle of bishops not acting on their own but always as bishops in synod. Alongside this they are also effectively tearing the Church of England away from the Anglican Communion and wider church catholic.

These are not minor technical matters. These actions threaten to dissolve part of the glue that holds the church together and enables bishops to act as a focus of unity. The bishops appear to be abandoning precious gifts that have helped preserve, structure, and cultivate our often fragile common life together across our differences. They are disregarding and undermining well-established, tried and tested, theologically and pastorally (not simply legally) founded principles and practices that enable “good disagreement.” It is, however, only by living within their constraints that bishops will nurture trust and embody integrity, especially as we navigate contentious proposed changes in our teaching and practice.

It is a serious matter for the church to err on marriage and sexuality. That, however, is a problem in one specific, albeit vitally important, area. These developments, and how episcopal and archepiscopal power is being used — on the sole basis, it seems, that these means are necessary to reach the desired end goal — are much more serious. They go beyond a single, possibly reversible, error of judgment, to weaken and potentially destroy core features of Anglican identity and essential characteristics of any healthy ecclesial body.

Read it all.

Grateful to the Covenant website at @Livng_Church for publishing my latest summary of the CofE processes around LLF and the serious and deeper questions they raise. https://t.co/6dmXAZWjAn

— Andrew Goddard (@goddardaj) October 4, 2023

Christianity is a very strange and a very difficult faith. It is difficult to believe, and it is even more difficult to do what we were asked to do last Sunday — take up the cross of Christ and follow. Yet, in spite of the gainsayers, I do rather wonder whether Britain is as secular as the sociologists of religion maintain. In churches that take the trouble to present a well-conducted liturgy, to preach the difficult and challenging faith of Christ, people still respond.

The evangelicals in the Church of England manage to fill churches. The splendid liturgy of the Western Rite attracts thousands every Sunday to the great oratory churches in Knightsbridge and Birmingham. Even the oft-repeated claim that there are no more vocations to religious orders is not completely true — the Blackfriars in Oxford have a flourishing novitiate.

There has never been a time when it was easy to believe that a loving creator allows the innocent to die in earthquakes or children to suffer from cancer. Since the feminist revolution, and the change in societal attitudes to sexuality, the churches undoubtedly face some problems. But I do not believe that either the sheer difficulty in believing at all, or the sexual revolution, is what keeps people away from church.

Christianity is not destroyed by rival ideologies, such as Darwinism. It is just slowly gnawed at by secularism, consumerism, the “strange disease of modern life”. To visit a church where they still offer business as usual is to be stimulated, as no secular equivalent can stimulate: disturbed as no drama or work of art could disturb.

Read it all.

Excellent article by A N Wilson in today's Times. Well deserved praise for #frgraemerowlands, and a mention for the choir (or Latin Chorus!) aswell. pic.twitter.com/yTShNu2jyA

— ssktmusic (@ssktmusic) September 14, 2023

What is new in The Times‘s “story”, however, is the particularly high level of pessimism among my colleagues. Declining numbers, churches closing, exhaustion at trying to hold things together… But I greet that “news” with something of a shrug. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. Because, if it is true that there is a God, then none of this really matters at all. Unpopularity doesn’t make the creeds false just as (another huge mistake) popularity doesn’t make them true.

But a nervous church leadership doesn’t like the ebb to happen on their watch. And so, spooked by these dismal stories of decline, they seek a very secular model of success. Borrowing their thinking from management consultants trying to revive ailing companies like Wilko and Pizza Hut, the leadership focuses on what the customer wants, sets sales targets, closes down underused outlets, and re-energises the sales team for greater, more frenetic activity. But the more we run around like headless chickens, the more desperate, and less attractive we look. Inevitably, the job becomes impossible and the workers in the vineyard become drained of motivation. As The Times reveals, a third of clergy have considered quitting in the past five years. This, then, is what’s new about the Church of England’s current death spiral. “All of the church’s problems stem from the clergy’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” as Pascal almost wrote.

The latest, and most ridiculous of these corporate reinventions of the Church is the idea that the clergy no longer has to work on Sundays – because other people are busy on that day. One deanery in Cornwall will have 23 churches, and only two full-time clergy. One of these “will work primarily in the community, looking for exciting opportunities to grow churches for people who have never been to church,” the area dean bubbled enthusiastically. He went on: “I’ve heard it has come as a bit of a shock that she won’t be working regularly on Sunday mornings.” But this is just another example of the “exciting opportunities” that await us as the Church is dismantled from within by those who are supposed to be protecting it.

Read it all.

When will our Church leaders stop behaving like deranged management consultants? | @giles_fraser https://t.co/Ria1E3znw2

— UnHerd (@unherd) August 31, 2023

Following on from the broo-ha-ha about Stephen Cottrell’s comments on the problems of calling God ‘Father‘, the latest episode in the debate about God’s sex and pronouns comes from Hereford Cathedral. Last Sunday, their main Communion service began with an Introit which re-writes Psalm 23 with God identified using female pronouns.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need, She makes me lie down in green meadows, Beside the still waters, She will lead.

She restores my soul, She rights my wrongs, She leads me in a path of good things, And fills my heart with songs.

Even though I walk, through a dark and dreary land, There is nothing that can shake me, She has said She won’t forsake me, I’m in her hand.

She sets a table before me, in the presence of my foes, She anoints my head with oil, And my cup overflows.

Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me, All the days of my life, And I will live in her house, Forever, forever and ever.

Glory be to our Mother, and Daughter, And to the Holy of Holies, As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, World without end. Amen.

There are several things to note about this piece, and its use in the Cathedral. (You can watch its performance at the Cathedral’s livestream on YouTube, but these are deleted after about a week, so I have captured it and posted it on my own channel, and the link is at the end of this piece.)

As I will explore below, it is a central conviction of Christian theology that God does not have a sex—because God is not bodily. To believe that God is sexed is a serious error, and that is why some people argue that we should avoid using the male pronoun for God. The difficulty here is that, because all the human people we know are either male or female, few languages have a commonly used personal pronoun that is not sexed, and that includes the Hebrew (and Aramaic) and Greek that the Bible is written in. Perhaps because of dominance of men in public roles in most pre-modern cultures, until very recently the default choice of generic pronoun has been male, so if the sex of someone was unspecified, then ‘he’ was taken to be inclusive of all. Thus we have used male pronouns for the personal but not sexed God of Christian faith.

Read it all.

What are the theological, pastoral, and institutional issues around the use of 'she' for God at Hereford Cathedral's service? Does the leadership of the Church of England have the courage to resist the tide of gender ideology? https://t.co/ImhRpuOJze

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) July 21, 2023

Meg Munn criticises the Council, not for pulling the plug on the ISB, but for not doing it soon enough. She singles out Justin Welby as the one who has undermined her role and not been robust enough with the other two members—something confirmed by Justin’s extraordinary distancing himself from the Council’s decision during Questions, giving the clear impression that he was throwing the rest of the Council under the bus in the face of negative publicity. Her comments about Steve and Jas are damning:

Read it all.

What has contributed to the lost of trust across the Church of England? How was that evidenced in last week's meeting of General Synod? What can be done to restore the trust we need to work together?https://t.co/dL5ruZuVfM

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) July 14, 2023

The key questions raised by this majority view are as follows.

First, on what issues are they proposing that it should be possible for those in the Church of England to disagree? Does this, as the context suggests, include the matters that are currently under dispute in the Church of England, namely, the nature of marriage, the proper context for sexual activity, and what patterns of personal life should be expected of the clergy?

If it does include these matters, on what basis do the majority of the bishops hold that it is legitimate for Christians to disagree about them? To use the traditional theological terminology, on what grounds can these matters be said to be adiaphora?

Secondly, what would a ‘generous theological, ecclesial and pastoral space’ mean in practice?

Is this code for saying that the teaching of the Church of England should be altered to officially encompass the view that same-sex marriages and same-sex sexual relationships are in accordance with the will of God, that the Church should provide recognition and liturgical affirmation for same-sex relationships (including same-sex marriages) and that clergy should be allowed to be in same-sex relationships?

Read it all.

We may subjectively dislike what God has said, but true Christian humility lies in accepting what God has said and acting upon it anyway' Martin Davie https://t.co/EUCULJ0Bk1 #anglican #marriage #theology #sexualethics #anthropology #scripture #religion #uk pic.twitter.com/WyjgnobT0k

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 10, 2023

Jane Chevous, a representative of survivors of church abuse, opened the proceedings with a damning description of the events leading up to the decision to sack the board, the incompetent way it was handled and the devastating impact it has had on already vulnerable people.

“For as we learned this weekend,” she explained, “Getting the papers prepared for Synod was more important than the lives of survivors. At 12.17 that day Jasvinder phoned me to share the devastating news – I felt like my whole world had crumbled around me. I had trusted the ISB. I had hope. And now that hope had been snatched from me and trampled underfoot.” [at 5.14 on video]

Despite their claims to the contrary, the response of the Council representatives, particularly the Archbishop of York, Rt Revd Stephen Cottrell, was defensive and self-asserting. In his introductory remarks he said,

“I want you to know Synod, though I can’t make you believe me, but I want you to know, that the decisions we took were some of the most painful decisions I have ever had to be part of in my life and work, but we took them believing them to be the were the right decisions for the safeguarding of the church? Could we have communicated them better? Could things have been different in the past? They are things we can discuss and they are certainly things we can learn from – I do want you to know that my concern has always been for the safeguarding of the church.” [at 18.50 on video]

Read it all.

As a trustee of Anglican Futures I'm biased but this is really good on how the Church of England is just repeating its safeguarding errors during Synod in York.https://t.co/EIRD6KKKu3

— Dan Leafe (@DanLeafe1) July 10, 2023

Many—including a number of leaders of various networks in a letter, subsequently supported by 22 bishops—are arguing the only proper route, given the subject matter, is the usual process of Synodical scrutiny and approval under canon B2. This would require two-thirds support in each of Synod’s three Houses in order to determine the prayers had consensus and were not indicative of a departure from doctrine. This seemingly technical procedural matter raises important questions as to the sort of church we want to be—the update opens by talking about “inclusive participation” (para 1)—and whether any route other than B2 exceeds the powers of non-Synodical bodies on such a contentious matter and is unconstitutional. I have explored these questions in some detail here (with a summary here).

Third, it originally appeared the prayers might be offered for a wide range of non-marital committed relationships. This is now less prominent (although the still undefined and novel category of “covenant friendship” continues to be highlighted) with more focus on same-sex relationships and an emphasis on these being “demonstrably faithful, exclusive, and permanent” (para 12). How a relationship could prove it meets these three criteria remains unclear. Making a legal status act as the gateway is problematic because the service would then appear to be affirming that status and civil partnerships do not require vows. The most contentious matters here are whether they can be used for sexual relationships other than marriage and/or for those in a civil same-sex marriage.

It would appear the bishops originally thought that the prayers, as they are silent in relation to sexual intimacy or the legal status of the couple, had gained sufficient consensus but this now looks less secure. This is in part because while the prayers may be silent and hence ambiguous, to enable their use in such contexts would require a change in teaching relating to sex and marriage. This is something which cannot be so easily camouflaged, which many are unwilling to embrace, and for which there has not yet been sufficient legal and theological justification. The focus of attention has therefore moved from the prayers to the second area of work which was totally undeveloped back in February but where the bishops perhaps should have begun their discernment…’

Read it all (my emphasis).

As part of @churchofengland LLF, Rev Andrew Goddard @goddardaj and our assistant curate Rev Georgina @TechieGeorgina have been having conversations about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage. View their latest conversation (link below) #LivingInLoveAndFaith pic.twitter.com/Ig3RCrzWON

— St John's Hyde Park (@StJohnsHP) January 31, 2023

Any decision at the end of the LLF process was going to face challenges but the responses to the bishops’ proposals suggest that there are four particular failures in their approach which have made matters worse. 

Firstly, in contrast to the detailed work of LLF, and failing to draw on that work, the bishops gave minimal explanation or theological justification for their proposals. Secondly, they proposed a liturgical response to different life situations without—as the ten points above demonstrate—offering any account of what pattern of same-sex relationship might be considered fitting within Christian discipleship. When asked about this the Bishop of London said in an answer (to Q163) in February, that we need to wait for the Pastoral Guidance as that “will include setting out unequivocally the necessary qualities for a relationship to be considered chaste, faithful and holy”. Thirdly, although committing to uphold the doctrine of marriage and thus rejecting a change to extend this to include same-sex marriage, the bishops were not clear as to what else—particularly in relation to sexual behaviour—should be considered as part of the doctrine of marriage. Nor were they clear whether they were proposing to change current teaching on sexual ethics. It was, for example, unclear whether what the Bishop of London had stated only in November last year in answer to a Synod question still applied: 

Canon B 30 does indeed continue to articulate the doctrine of the Church, including asserting that holy matrimony is the proper context for sexual intimacy. 

All three of these failings arose because it seems there was not sufficient time to achieve any consensus on them. The problem is that without any clarity and consensus in these areas, the proposals are inherently unstable and arguably incoherent. 

A further cause of instability and incoherence is a fourth feature of the proposals (number 7 above): to justify offering the prayers, including prayers of blessing, to couples in same-sex marriages the bishops, with the support of the Legal Office, offered a novel and contentious argument distinguishing holy matrimony from civil same-sex marriages. The relationship between civil marriage and holy matrimony after the introduction of same-sex marriage was not a question covered within LLF although it produced an invaluable “Brief History of Marriage Law” by Professor Julian Rivers. The answer now being offered represents a complete reversal of all previous legal and theological statements including in the Church of England’s successful case defending the refusal of Bishop Inwood, Acting Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, to give a licence to Jeremy Pemberton who was in a civil same-sex marriage. There, as set out in the original employment tribunal judgment of October 2015, the employment appeal tribunal judgment of December 2016 and the Court of Appeal Decision in March 2018, a key argument advanced was that the bishops’ actions were necessary because to be in a same-sex civil marriage was incompatible with the doctrine of the Church of England in relation to marriage.

Read it all.

The Prayers of Love and Faith put the practical cart before the theological horse. What questions do we first need to ask about the pattern of holy life God calls us to before we can discuss the Prayers with any coherence? @theologyethics1 @simonsarmiento https://t.co/i3nHup7SH1

— Dr Ian Paul (@Psephizo) June 2, 2023

2. IT’S ALL ABOUT THE BIBLE; IT’S CLARITY, AUTHORITY AND SUFFICIENCY GIVE US CONFIDENCE IN WHAT WE BELIEVE AS ANGLICANS.

This is clear from the section on “The Authority of God’s word”:

“The current divisions in the Anglican Communion have been caused by radical departures from the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some within the Communion have been taken captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies of this world (Colossians 2:8). Such a failure to hear and heed God’s Word undermines the mission of the church as a whole.

The Bible is God’s Word written, breathed out by God as it was written by his faithful messengers (2 Timothy 3:16). It carries God’s own authority, is its own interpreter, and it does not need to be supplemented, nor can it ever be overturned by human wisdom.

God’s good Word is the rule of our lives as disciples of Jesus and is the final authority in the church.” (Emphasis added)

Here we see the Kigali Statement echoing, in different words, the same assertion as the Global South Section 1.6 on the sufficiency of God’s Word written in its plain and canonical sense, and the rejection of any “hermeneutics of skepticism,” which Anglican revisionists have brought to the text of scripture.  The Kigali Statement goes on to say of the Bible:

“It grounds, energises and directs our mission in the world. The fellowship we enjoy with our risen and ascended Lord is nourished as we trust God’s Word, obey it and encourage each other to allow it to shape each area of our lives.”

Gafcon continues to stand for the Bible as the very foundation upon which Anglicans have confidence to believe what we believe, to have fellowship with Jesus himself, and to find “energy and direction” for all we do! Therefore, the crisis in the Anglican Communion is not about “differences of opinion” or “secondary matters” of human sexuality.  The crisis is about the very basis upon which the Church is constituted, especially when the plain reading of the text is ignored:

“This fellowship is broken when we turn aside from God’s Word or attempt to reinterpret it in any way that overturns the plain reading of the text in its canonical context and so deny its truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency, and thereby its authority (Jerusalem Declaration #2).”

In other words, what is ultimately at stake here is what we have proclaimed for the last 25 years: the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency, and authority of the Bible.  For this reason, it is impossible to embrace “pluriform truth” as the Archbishop of Canterbury did at the recent Lambeth Conference 2022. For this reason, GAFCON rejects the Canterbury led communion narrative of “walking together in good disagreement” as the basis for fellowship, much less Communion:

“We reject the claim that two contradictory positions can both be valid in matters affecting salvation.  We cannot ‘walk together’ in good disagreement with those who have deliberately chosen to walk away from the ‘faith once for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3).  The people of God ‘walk in his ways’, ‘walk in the truth’, and ‘walk in the light’, all of which require that we do not walk in Christian fellowship with those in darkness (Deuteronomy 8:6; 2 John 4; 1 John 1:7).”

Read it all.

Canon Phil takes an in-depth walk through of 8 major take-aways from the @gafconference Kigali Commitment released today. https://t.co/BzhWk6VJnh

— American Anglican (@AnglicanCouncil) April 21, 2023

As a former group treasurer for an oil company, Justin is aware of numbers – and those in the Church of England pews had been declining for decades before he became Archbishop. Now the finances of many dioceses are visibly failing, hastened by the pandemic. A national Vision and Strategy has now been brought in, with Strategic Development Funding specifically to redirect resources to fresh ideas. Some have seen this as a threat to the parish system, and the priest and polemicist, Giles Fraser recently reflected he was ‘sick of ten years of managerialism’ describing how he felt morale had plummeted.

Some bishops may feel similarly demoralised – the leaked ‘Bishops and their ministries’ paper last year noted the importance of creating a culture where ‘all bishops feel free to express their views in meetings… rather than deferring to those perceived as more senior in the ‘hierarchy’’. If the bishops feel voiceless, or perhaps powerless, it is difficult to see where the next Archbishop might come from. In Justin’s book on reconciliation he says ‘the use of power almost always leads to the abuse of power’, and he think he has ‘influence, but not power’. Who has the power at present in our Church, and who will have it next? That leaked bishops paper commented that the selection and formation process for bishops was ‘not robust or transparent and is therefore open to ‘political’ manoeuvring’ adding that it ‘may not produce the candidates best equipped for visionary national leadership if such candidates are chosen based on local needs’. Our bench of bishops has changed dramatically over the last decade, as they tend to; what will the next generation of bishops to lead us be like?

With plans to create a centralised body that will concentrate power further, will the bishops have the power to lead like they have in the past? A Church of England National Services (CENS) is planned to support the strategic vision of the national church, support national policy development and engagement, via a single governance board structure. When you centralise governance, you centralise power. In a Church of England that has a devolved and non-centralised ecclesiology, this will be interesting. How will checks and balances be built in, where will thorough scrutiny be seen? Few would doubt that a nettle of needed grasping, to bring efficiency and greater transparency, but will these internal reforms get it right?

As we count down the weeks until the coronation, the Makin review into allegations of abuse carried out by the late John Smyth is now 147 weeks overdue….

Read it all.

What has changed in @churchofengland over the last decade? And what next?

A whistlestop reflection (if that's not an oxymoron!) for @churchnewspaper https://t.co/Kwcn320XBR

— Rebecca (Bex) Chapman (@bexchapman3boys) April 4, 2023

Thirdly, and most fundamentally of all, Bishop Christopher [Cocksworth] admits that the cart was effectively put before the horse. Speaking of the “Pastoral Guidance” the bishops are supposed to be now producing in relation to Prayers of Love and Faith, he writes: “We promised pastoral guidelines on the practical outworking of the provision, with all their complex legal and theological questions, at a later point, rather than offering them alongside the liturgical provision. The result was that the response and prayers raised more questions than they answered…”

In other words, the Bishops came up with the prayers first rather than the theology. But how can you write prayers if you are not sure what the underlying theology is? Not only is it putting the cart before the horse, but arguably the horse has bolted and it is too late to shut the stable door as no-one knows where the stable is anyway. Don’t explore that mixed metaphor too closely but you get the idea…

In other words, the Bishops came up with the prayers first rather than the theology. But how can you write prayers if you are not sure what the underlying theology is? Not only is it putting the cart before the horse, but arguably the horse has bolted and it is too late to shut the stable door as no-one knows where the stable is anyway. Don’t explore that mixed metaphor too closely but you get the idea…

The bishop admits things have been done in the wrong order elsewhere when he lists some of the theological questions still to be answered by the bishops. He says these include: “Is the provision genuinely consistent with the doctrine of the Church of England?” (yes, you read that right!) and “What [are the draft prayers] saying or implying about the permissibility or otherwise of sexual intimacy in relationships of the same sex, and in opposite sex relationships that the Church does not recognize as marriage, and what is its theological case?” So the prayers were written before the answers to the key theological questions on which they rest were considered.

Read it all.

Good grief begins with honest reflection, however difficult.https://t.co/voCNxVJRmM

— Will Briggs (@WillBriggs) February 27, 2023

According to the fourth Mark of Mission, Anglicans are called to ‘transform unjust structures’. This was a reiterated theme of ACC-18, as we lamented the disempowerment of communities and nations through the ongoing repercussions of colonialism and racism. In a compelling reflection, one West Indian delegate began with a rendition of Bob Marley’s famous protest song against the discredited philosophy which holds ‘one race superior, and another inferior’. And yet there is a giant unjust structure staring us in the face – the structure of the Anglican Communion.

Why should England always take first place, in the seat of Anglican power and privilege? Why should the ACC’s president live in a palace by the River Thames, at the heart of the English establishment, and not be an Anglican living by the River Nile, or the Amazon, or the Zambezi, or the Mississippi? This is structural injustice. The president of the Communion, if we need one, should be chosen by the Communion, not preserved as a perpetual English prerogative by divine right. At our sumptuous opening banquet, hosted by the President of Ghana, Archbishop Welby praised Ghana for being one of the first African nations to win its independence from the United Kingdom, in 1957. Yet the Anglican Communion is still living with structures which belong to the 1950s and which should be consigned to history. They are not fit for purpose. Structural transformation is urgent.

The Church of England’s General Synod in July 2022 made a mistake by changing the rules for the Canterbury Crown Nominations Commission, to include five representatives from the global Anglican Communion in choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury. This is a structural reform in the wrong direction. It makes matters worse, not better. Presented as a magnanimous desire to include global voices, its effect is simply to bolster England’s primacy even further. It is like the strategy of a dying colonial power, faced by growing global unrest, which invites a few of its subjects to London as a last resort, offering them a modest voice in colonial policy. The new Canterbury CNC announces to the world that England comes first in the Anglican Communion, and always will be first. It trumpets our global aspirations. Rather than tinkering with the Canterbury CNC, what the Anglican Communion needs is a far deeper structural change.

These global dynamics were evident at ACC-18 in numerous ways. For example, on the first day of business the Archbishop of Canterbury offered to explain the recent proposals of the English bishops. It was billed as a ‘fringe event’, not part of the official ACC programme, but the room was packed. I encouraged the Lambeth team to broadcast the proceedings, for the sake of transparency, but they chose the opposite policy – the cameras were switched off, the press were expelled, the doors were shut, and we were instructed not to record or transmit what was said. In retrospect, that was probably a wise decision, as the Archbishop has a glorious habit of wandering ‘off message’ when providing unscripted answers to questions. However, after the English presentation there was time for only six short comments from global delegates. In a striking intervention, the Bishop of Valparaiso in Chile (who has given me permission to quote him) suggested that the fringe event itself was an example of ‘neo-colonialism’ – because England had taken 35 minutes speaking from the platform, while Chile was permitted only two minutes to respond from the floor. The bishop lamented, ‘this is a dysfunctional community’.

Read it all.

"For too long, we have stubbornly proclaimed… that the Anglican Communion is ‘one body’… But, counterintuitively, this mantra simply drives us further apart, because it forces provinces to shout more loudly to make their differences heard."https://t.co/YAXGtkbjtF

— Will Briggs (@WillBriggs) February 21, 2023

But is the ABC really surrendering to GAFCON and the GSFA?

Don’t count on it.  Consider what he said in the context of his apparent surrender:

• He will not be dictated to by GAFCON and the GSFA: “I will not cling to place or position. I hold it very lightly, provided that the other Instruments of Communion choose the new shape, that we are not dictated to by people, blackmailed, bribed to do what others want us to do.” In other words, he will reject any solution that is not endorsed by the other failed Instruments of Communion, the most recent of which (The Lambeth Conference of Bishops 2022) he “re-set” to never again express the mind of the Church and its teaching.

• He continues to embrace “pluriform truth” based on interpreting the Bible through the lens of culture: “…we are deeply in disagreement, not through lack of integrity, corruption, lying, or surrendering to the culture, but because we do interpret Scripture differently, we understand the work of the Spirit differently, and we look at these things with different cultural lenses. And are therefore all always wrong to some degree.”
• He continues to champion a process of “good disagreement” and postponement of decision on doctrinal disagreements through the same endless and failed processes employed over the last 25 years.  This is shown through the report of the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith, and Order (IASCUFO) to ACC-18 this week which questions whether there is “a single faith and order shared by Anglicans” anymore and instead “affirms the importance of seeking to walk together to the highest degree possible, and learning from our ecumenical conversations how to accommodate disagreement patiently and respectfully.”[https://acc18.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/Reports/en/en_dept_IASCUFO_Good-Differentiation.pdf ]

The American Anglican Council will continue to support the leaders of GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA) as they seek to “re-set” the Anglican Communion in keeping with the GSFA ‘Communique’ following the 2022 Lambeth Conference and the ongoing work of GAFCON.  We will have more to report as details unfold.  Please join us in praying for these faithful, courageous, and resilient leaders!

Read it all.

"The American Anglican Council will continue to support the leaders of GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA)… Please join us in praying for these faithful, courageous, and resilient leaders!"https://t.co/9FmBIIGKdW

— M M (@FrMickM) February 15, 2023

Ian Paul argues that the issue facing the Church of England is ultimately theological and that “there is no institutional unity apart from theological coherence.” He writes:

How can all this be squared with the consistent teaching of Scripture? This cannot be lightly set aside, since Canon A5 delineates our doctrine as being ‘rooted in the Scriptures’, and Article XX of the XXXIX Articles states ‘that it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.’

Nevertheless, with the passage of clause (g), he thinks the revisionists won at most a “Pyrrhic victory,” as it will force them to explain themselves clearly. Martin Davie goes even further in claiming that “the passage of clause (g) to the Synod motion was a great victory” for traditionalist Anglicans.

I would that Ian Paul and Martin Davie were right, but the lesson I take from the Episcopal Church USA two decades ago is that the addition of clause (g) will not snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Let me explain.

In 1997, I submitted, as part of the discernment process in the Episcopal Church (called “Continuing the Dialogue”), a book-length defense of the traditional doctrine of marriage titled Two Sexes, One Flesh: Why the Church Cannot Bless Same-Sex Marriage (a summary is available online in Theology Matters 6:3 May/June 2000). This book was circulated to all bishops and delegates prior to the 1997 General Convention, as the Church was proposing development of same-sex rites. I received exactly zero theological response at the time, although one bishop took me aside, Nicodemus-like, and said he agreed with me (he later went on to vote with the majority). While the Episcopal Church did not officially approve same-sex rites until 2006, there was clearly no interest in debating further the theology underlying the matter. From their point of view, the “dialogue” was over, and implementation was the only issue going forward.

This is this point concerning clause (g) that I think Martin Davie misconstrues.

Read it all.

On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain received a rowdy homecoming after signing a peace pact with Nazi Germany….we need Ukraine to win, not to negotiate with the evil empire. pic.twitter.com/WkIaSG5gmL

— Ludwik Klimkowski (@ludwikmoneyweb) February 7, 2023

The Church is at a crossroads. Nothing illustrates that more than Archbishop Steven Kaziimba’s response on behalf of the Church of Uganda to the Church of England’s decision to bless same-sex relationships. In short, the Church of Uganda says, “Just say no.”

Just say no to the leaders of the Church of England, including Archbishop Justin Welby and Archbishop of York, Stephen Cotrell, who tried to convince us there is a distinction between the blessing of a couple and the blessing of their relationship. As Archbishop Kaziimba says so clearly: if it looks like a wedding and sounds like a wedding, it is a wedding.

Just say no to the Church of England’s departure from the Bible and their new message, which is the opposite of the Bible. Instead of calling for repentance, it is blessing sin.

Just say no to going down the suicidal path the Church of England has now taken in following the Episcopal Church by redefining biblical standards for human sexuality, marriage, and leadership in the Church.

Read it all.

Over the centuries, the church of Christ faced many heresies and unbiblical innovations. However, God raised up faithful church leaders to defend the truth and protect the church from losing her vision.

One of these divisive heresies was the Arian heresy. It started in Alexandria in the fourth century. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, developed a thought that denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ. He believed that the Son of God is of a similar, but not of the same, substance as the Father.

Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and his deacon Athanasius realized that this heresy contradicts the doctrine of salvation. In response, they stood firm at the council of Nicaea (325 AD), and defeated the Arian heresy. Arius did not give up but he continued to spread his heresy even after Athanasius became the bishop of Alexandria in 328 AD.

Years later, several Emperors adopted the Arian heresy and persecuted and even deposed Bishop Athanasius. He also was exiled five times during his episcopacy and yet he continued to stand against the heresy. Athanasius became known as “Contra Mundum” which means “Against the World “. Without his faithful, bold stance and endurance, the church in Alexandria would have been swept away and disappeared. To the contrary, the truth prevailed and St. Athanasius was welcomed back by his people to his seat in Alexandria.

Today, in this postmodern age, the church is facing a number of innovations and heresies. Examples of these are rejecting the virgin birth of Jesus, denying His resurrection, undermining the authority of the scriptures, and adopting the prevailing morals of the culture. The most widely spread innovations that openly contradict the scripture, the doctrine of creation and church canon law are: same sex unions and same sex marriage. Those who promote these innovations are not content with the recognition of these practices by the civil societies and governments but they want the church to accept and to bless them.

Of course the church should welcome all people of the society without discrimination but it should not welcome all morals and values of the society. Otherwise, the church would lose its distinctive role to care for and guide people to live a righteous life.

In a time like this, the church of Christ needs faithful church leaders who speak the truth boldly; leaders who are happy to pay the price of defending the biblical truth. Yes, the church needs more like St. Athanasius, Contra-Mundum. Indeed, the church needs Bishops who continuously remember their vows to guard the faith at the time of their consecration.

As I am writing this, I received the very sad news that the Church of England passed a motion that allow the blessing of same sex unions. I learned that very few members of the synod spoke against this tragic motion and the majority voted in favor of it. Some members have said that blessing is different from marriage! They forget the fact that blessing is in fact an approval of the thing we bless. In addition, both marriage and the blessing of same sex unions have the same outcome; two people becoming intimately united!

It is sad that church leaders think that they can undo God’s purpose in creation and they can innovate different teaching from the Biblical one. Yes, we need more faithful Contra Mundum.

“In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it” 2 Timothy 3:12-14

The Most Rev. Dr. Mouneer Hanna Anis
Archbishop Emeritus
Episcopal / Anglican Province of Alexandria

Interview with Archbishop Mouneer Anis, First Archbishop of the new Anglican Province of Alexandriahttps://t.co/OmR8zmbNgM pic.twitter.com/8MQ4mjGatX

— Anglican Ink (@anglicanink) October 25, 2021

For me, and many other ‘orthodox’ Anglicans in the chamber, one of the most heartening things about the debate was the quality of the contributions from those upholding the current doctrine. I append two at the end of this article. I do think there was a significant contrast with the speeches in support of the motion and rejecting the amendments. A large number of them focussed on the feelings of those affected, especially gay clergy who cannot express their emotional and sexual love as they would wish according to current doctrine. There is no doubt that these feelings need to be attended to—but the question is whether this forms the basis for the Church to determine its understanding of the teaching of Jesus. Other speeches lifted proof texts from Scripture in some bizarre ways—claiming that Jesus’ offer of ‘fulness of life’ must mean that no-one should be denied a sexual relationship, or that Paul’s acceptance of diverse approaches to food meant we could have the same approach to sex and marriage, even though Paul himself did not—or that Gal 3.28 implies that sex differences no longer exist. It is hard to see how any of these arguments could form a part of the bishops’ theological rationale for the Prayers.

One theme mentioned several times was the idea that not being able to marry would consign a person to a lifetime of loneliness. It was rather odd hearing those who reject the doctrine of the Church elevating marriage to such a pinnacle, as if it was the solution to all our problems—and very good to hear several single people saying that this was not true.

Where does this all leave the process and what lies ahead for the House of Bishops? It seems to me that there is more work to do than ever before—and both Synod Questions and the debate has exposed this more starkly than ever. The challenges include:

1. How has the relation of sex and marriage been understood in previous statements?
2. On what grounds could these consistent statements be changed or rejected?
3. How does the Church of England engage with ecumenical statements, especially from the Roman Catholic Church?
4. What are the implications for the Communion?
5. What impact will the perception of what is being proposed have on the Church itself—on mission, church planting, plans for growth, clergy deployment and morale, and our work with young people?
6. If these prayers are commended for use in a church service, in what sense is that not liturgical provision? So how can we avoid needing a two-thirds majority in Synod for their approval?
7. Where did the claimed distinction between marriage and Holy Matrimony come from? How can that be sustained in the light of contrary evidence from all previous statements?
8. Why were the proposals brought under Canon B5 (local use and decision) rather than Canon B2 (national approval), against the obvious legal conclusion, when these are being offered national and commended by the House of Bishops?
9. How could the Pastoral Guidelines allow clergy to enter same-sex marriages, if the doctrine of the Church remains unchanged and ordination vows commit clergy to belief, uphold, teach, and pattern this doctrine in their own lives? How can their be any room for manoeuvre here?
10. In addition, what comments and feedback were given by members of Synod in their reflections, and what difference will that make?
11. In what context will the prayers be offered, with what rubric and introduction?
12. How can all this be squared with the consistent teaching of Scripture? This cannot be lightly set aside, since Canon A5 delineates our doctrine as being ‘rooted in the Scriptures’, and Article XX of the XXXIX Articles states that ‘it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written.’

If this is any kind of ‘victory’ for those who wanted to moved forward, it looks very much like a Pyrrhic victory. ‘If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined’ (Plutarch’s account of Pyrrhus of Epirus).

The motion was passed, with a significant addition which explicitly limits the scope for manoeuvre, so the work will continue. But I think the cost has been immense damage to the reputation and standing of Justin Welby, the final nail in the coffin of the Anglican Communion, damage to ecumenical relations, a further loss of confidence in the leadership of bishops within the Church, and the first signs of fracture at local and diocesans levels. And for what gain?

Read it all.

The Bishops in the Church of England wrote and issued a paper whereby they intend to introduce same-sex blessings services. They are not proposing same-sex weddings (at this stage), but wantng same sex blessing ceremonies. In other words, this change amounts to formally recognising same-sex relationships as a moral and God accepted good and that churches ought to offer services of prayer and blessing for these couples. Not every bishop agrees with the document, but clearly, there is sufficient consensus for its publication and presentation to General Synod for serious consideration.

In what can only be described as a dishonest riff, some Anglican leaders are insisting that the church’s doctrine on marriage isn’t changing…quite literally as they call for changes to the church’s understanding of sex and marriage. The same hypocrisy is being offered up by The Australian Law Reform Commission, albeit a legal entourage rather than a church one. Their recent submission to the Federal Government calls for religious schools to lose their freedom to practice traditional views of sexuality. For example, they are recommending legislation that allows Christian schools to teach a Christian view of sex and marriage, but they may also be required to teach alternate views. They will lose the right to employ staff on the basis of religious convictions. In other words, we’ll tolerate your religion so long as you tell and permit today’s sexology. That’s not compromise, it’s forced capitulation. That’s not co-existing with two unbridgeable views, that’s crossing over and demanding change.

This General Synod is happening on the other side of the world and in a Christian denomination that is different to my own, so why take interest in this debate? This particular case is important for several reasons: 1. I have many friends who pastor or who are members of churches in the Church of England. 2. The very public stature of this denomination (part through age and part through connections to the State) will garner significant media and public attention. 3. The Church of England is part of the worldwide Anglican communion which accounts for 10s million of believers, including Australia. 4. The same revisionist agenda playing out in the Church of England is present here in Australia, including among Baptists.

The flavour of the month is self-expression. In every sphere of life we are told that autonomy and self determination is an absolute, and questioning this ‘reality’ is the gravest of sins. From TikTok to the Bishop of York, the sermon proclaims that an individual’s sexual preferences and gender identity is the most fundamental aspect of reality…with a dash of God apparently giving approval. While this religious message will arouse a clap from the culture’s elites, notice how it doesn’t bring people to the cross or persuade them to follow Jesus and join a local church. What’s the point of Christianity if it does little more than mirror the culture’s messaging?

Read it all.

We do, of course, not live in an heroic age, an age of burning faith, martyrdom and devotion. Rather we live in the great era of spiritual apathy and indifference, interspliced with mad bursts of quasi-religious progressive fanaticism; of mechanism, materialism and utilitarianism; within the church, of the meticulous, supine management of a decay and decline that is seen as inevitable. Given that, it should probably come as no surprise that the sort of bishops we produce are not quite of the nature of Athanasius, Chrysostom or Becket, and are rather more likely to remind us of the deputy regional manager of a chain of supermarkets. Perhaps in some respects that is a good thing: such formidable men were the products of ages more violent, more turbulent and a good deal less comfortable and ‘safe’ than our own. Personally, they were probably incredibly difficult and alarming individuals. If Chrysostom were transplanted to the 21st century, one struggles to see him being offered a column in the Church Times or becoming a regular on ‘Thought for the Day’. He might make us all a bit too uncomfortable.

Nonetheless, it is surely the case that in this kind of shuffling, pusillanimous era we need uncompromising messengers of Gospel truth and orthodoxy, heroic conveyors of inconvenient moral verities, and fiery prophetic voices of doom crying in the wilderness more than ever. Surrender to the secular languages of ‘change management’ and MBA-style jargon, attempting to adapt the spirit of Taylorism and human resource departments to produce spiritual time-and-motion studies, will not make the Church more ‘effective’ or ‘productive’ (whatever that would mean) – it simply reduces its extraordinary, transcendental, urgent message to the level of the quotidian, the utilitarian, the banal. Not only that, but the grasping, instrumentalising spirit of technocracy and managerialism is actively contrary to the spirit of the gospel, which rejects every easy commercial assumption, every sophistical calculation of profit-and-loss, every piece of instrumental rationalisation. We should sell everything we own to possess one pearl and one pearl alone, that of Heaven.

What we need, therefore, are some bishops who defy this spirit, who refuse to conform to the Weberian spirit of the new church bureaucrats, who rattle against the iron cage that Welbyism is creating. The Bishops only emerge from their bureaucratic fortresses nowadays to issue vague, theologically undernourished moral pronouncements on subjects where they know their viewpoint will find approval from their liberal masters. This is not good enough.

Read it all.

Any genuine reform of the Church involves a threefold cord: renewal of faith and mission; reform of doctrine, discipline, and worship; and reordering of church polity at the local, regional and international levels. This pattern was true in ancient Israel, in the early church, and at the Protestant Reformation in Europe and England. The challenge for contemporary Anglicanism is to hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches in the context of Global Anglicanism.

This proposal is offered to and for Gafcon members as they assemble in Kigali in April 2023 and reflects my own focus on the “movement in the Spirit” that took place in Jerusalem in 2008. It is offered as well to the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA), which will meet in 2024. The GSFA is a sister movement with Gafcon, with overlapping memberships and visions. Gafcon has contributed the movement’s best formulary in the Jerusalem Declaration; the Global South Fellowship has approved a Covenant, which can serve as a first step in constituting a new Communion.

A revived, reformed, and reordered Anglican Communion will have no historic see. The choice of Jerusalem for the first Global Anglican Future Conference and subsequent decennial meetings there is a powerful reminder that Jerusalem marks the spot where the Gospel begins – on Calvary – and from where its mission spread from the Day of Pentecost to the ends of the earth. It also reminds us of our eternal destiny, the Jerusalem that is above. The suggestion of a Jerusalem Communion of Global Anglicans is just that, a suggestion (others might suggest Alexandria), but it is a reminder that Anglicanism today is not an English export but a global mission proclaiming an eternal Gospel and an eternal destiny with God.

Read it all.

A look bk to 2019–Stephen Noll–When Is “good Disagreement” Not Good? When It Contradicts God’s Word https://t.co/cSMiOKqYRZ 'The drumbeat for “good disagreement” fills the #Anglican air –+will no doubt become more frenetic as the partial Lambeth 2022 gathering approaches..' TK pic.twitter.com/lCiXIsFVjg

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) July 23, 2022

This year’s Conference was meant to help bring things back together. I observed it only from a distance, but I am aware of the great labor, prayer, and goodwill that went into its preparation (of which I was a part), and of the efforts of many present to be faithful, open, and hopeful. For all my frustrations, I admire the archbishop of Canterbury and the many bishops who worked hard for this affair. But the result simply didn’t add up.

The penny is finally dropping. Anglicans are “irreconcilably ­divided”—that is, their divisions are viewed on all sides as arising from essential commitments, which cannot be compromised. Anglican leaders are finally admitting that these “essential commitments” are tied up with claims about sexual identity and its scriptural (and hence Christian) meaning. Not that most Anglicans did not already know this. But at the public and administrative levels of leadership within the Communion—among bishops and their theological advisors or subalterns—a refrain of the past two decades has insisted on the secondary nature of these differences. Sexuality and its scriptural significance, it was explained, do not touch “core” realities of the gospel; they are “matters indifferent” (adiaphora, in the technical sense of not being doctrinal issues that should divide the church), or, if not quite that, at least matters that can be set aside as we focus on our commonalities and continue to chug along “together.” The Communion could carry on as a Communion, we were told, without resolving the supposedly secondary issues of sex and sexual identity.

It was at best a naive view and at worst a willful refusal to admit the obvious in hopes of maintaining a grip on ecclesiastical power. Though theologians, formal and informal, can argue that this or that matter ought to be adiaphora, the category is in fact purely descriptive. Christians divide over what they think is important, not according to a template devised by scholars. So “sex” is not important? Prove it to the Communion! Opposing sides say otherwise and have proven their commitments through their actions. Confusion, disagreement, and political hostilities over sexuality reflect deep cultural issues that may one day be resolved—but not in the short term, and probably not without the intervention of catastrophic social changes driven by factors other than theological discussion.

The Anglican “Communion,” therefore, is no longer a “communion” in the twentieth-­century sense, a sense that grew out of a nineteenth-century understanding and experience of common Christian mission. There are Anglican leaders who seem quite happy with the fragmentation; indeed, this summer’s Lambeth Conference seemed at times giddy with relief at having left behind the desperate efforts to paper over disunity. But if the Anglican “Communion” is not the Communion of the past, what is it?

First, it is necessary to clarify what else today’s Communion is not and does not do. The Anglican Communion no longer holds a common teaching about the gospel….

Read it all.

The Last Lambeth Conference by Ephraim Radner | Articles | First Things. Is this also the fate of the Catholic Church? https://t.co/viUvNN16Rg

— James Roth (@jrwash1942) September 14, 2022

This puzzle became more complicated recently during Lambeth 2022, which Nigeria…along with the Churches of Uganda and Rwanda [could not attend out of conscientious and theological objection]. Other Global South bishops during Lambeth standoffs with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby over the status of doctrines on marriage and sex declined to receive Holy Communion with openly gay and lesbian bishops.

“There is a profound asymmetric quality to the Anglican Communion, where the voice of the bulk of its membership is either absent or muted,” said the Rev. David Goodhew of St. Barnabas Church in Middlesborough, England. He is the author of a series of articles about African Anglicanism for Covenant, the blog of “The Living Church,” an independent Anglican publication founded in 1878.

“If one adds up the number of bishops who didn’t share Holy Communion at Lambeth … that is a very large number,” he said. “I have been startled by the number of descriptions that said this Lambeth was a success. I don’t know how one makes that claim when it would appear the bulk of the Anglican Communion’s bishops couldn’t come together to receive Communion. That looks like a disaster.”

Read it all.

The global #Anglican Church continues wrestling with conflict between traditional global south v. progressive global north reports @tweetmattingly in his column @ReligionMaghttps://t.co/Oy19dLrneo @AnglicanEcumen @AnglicanNews @generalsynod @MidwestAnglican @gafconference

— Religion Unplugged (@ReligionMag) August 18, 2022