(Psephizo) Ian Paul–Helen King’s motion for General Synod: a help or a hindrance?

Thirdly, this raises the question about the three descriptors that have been chosen in the motion and what they mean, especially if they are to include within their scope sexual relationships. 

A classic statement advocating same-sex unions (and later marriage) is that by Jeffrey John which was entitled Permanent, Faithful, Stable. These three terms are also in need of more careful definition but how significant is it that both “permanent” and “stable” are lacking here? What conclusions are to be drawn from the fact they have been replaced simply by “committed” with no explanation as to the nature or level of that commitment?

There has been a long concern about occasional and non-exclusive male same-sex sexual relationships being acceptable, including among gay Christians (see for example the 1997 work of Andrew Yip whose research with gay male Christian couples found “the majority of couples were expectationally and behaviourally non-exclusive; the recently deceased leading campaigner Malcolm Johnson expressed surprise in his Diary of a Gay Priest that “a third are physically faithful—or say they are!”). Leaving that question open is one reason the LGCM statement quoted above offered no criteria as to when expressing love fully in a sexual relationship was entirely compatible with the Christian faith (see Sean Gill, The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (Cassell, 1998), pp. 12-13).

In a world of rapidly changing sexual norms there is now much wider discussion and acceptance of “ethical non-monogamy” (ENM). As briefly explained in this “ethics explainer” from The Ethics Centre this is distinguished from “infidelity” and “cheating”. Here it is not unreasonable to ask whether those in such an ENM form of relationship might nevertheless still be able to be classed as in a “committed, faithful, intimate” form of relationship.

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Helen King's motion for General Synod: a help or a hindrance? https://t.co/cIA8Evq875 via @psephizo

— Simon Sarmiento (@simonsarmiento) June 2, 2026