Andrew Goddard, on behalf, presumably, of the CEEC, has published a warning shot in advance of the House of Bishops meeting next Monday, October 9 when the bishops will attempt to decide what proposals they will bring to General Synod in November. I say they will ‘attempt to decide’ because recent evidence suggests the LLF team has failed to secure a breakthrough in understanding between the conservative evangelical caucus in the CofE and the coalition of progressive groups (now numbering 20 organisations) who informally articulate the hopes and dreams of many who long for a ‘change in attitudes’, a genuinely, fully, radically open, loving and inclusive church.
Andrew says it is “becoming increasingly clear that, despite the protestations that there is to be no change in the church’s doctrine of marriage and so no need for those committed to it to be concerned, the whole process is raising deep, wide-ranging, and disturbing questions about the current state and future shape of the Church of England.” I really hope that the LLF process really has raised deep, wide-ranging and disturbing questions. The Church of England, the House of Bishops, the hierarchies at Church House and Lambeth Palace desperately need a whole systems review to work out how the Church of England’s complacent, prophetically, theologically and spiritually impoverished foundations can be disturbed.
Andrew says it now appears that both archbishops no longer believe the received teaching of the church. They reject what they and the other bishops reaffirmed as recently as 2019: “the Church of England teaches that ‘sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively.’” It is becoming increasingly clear, he says, “that the archbishops, with the public or private support of many bishops, have been determined to use the LLF discernment process to shift the church away from this teaching that they promised to uphold in their ordination and consecration vows.”
Sexual intercourse outside marriage is wrong
Andrew argues that the teaching of the Church of England says, dogmatically (that’s my word), according to the Canons and liturgies and teachings of the Church, that sexual intercourse properly belongs within marriage exclusively. It is an expression of faithful intimacy. He has put a lot of effort into gathering evidence from books and interviews to show that the Archbishop of Canterbury has repeatedly stated that this is indeed the teaching of the Church of England. He begins with Andrew Atherstone’s biography of the Archbishop. Atherstone records that in 1999 Justin Welby wrote in his parish church news that “Throughout the bible it is clear that the right place for sex is only within a committed, heterosexual marriage” Ten years later the Archbishop told Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times that “My understanding of sexual ethics has been that, regardless of whether it’s gay or straight, sex outside marriage is wrong”. In an exchange on LBC with Ann Widdecombe, Archbishop Justin said the Church is quite clear that sex outside marriage is wrong. He similarly told nearly a thousand people in St. Edmundsbury Cathedral around this time that Scriptures and the church teach that “sexual activity should be within marriage and marriage is between a man and a woman.” Andrew is putting the Archbishop of Canterbury firmly in the dock. If the Archbishop doesn’t maintain this position at Synod in November, he has abandoned the authorised teaching of the Church and will be condemned by conservative evangelicals.
People have sex
However, as the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Bishop of Dover pointed out at the July meeting of Synod:
“It strikes me that all our children and grandchildren are having sex – they’re having sex – and yet I do not hear us saying we’re going to walk with them. We’re going to keep them in an outhouse.
“More than half the people who come to us for marriage are living together and they’re having sex, so what is it about homosexual sex that we’re reacting in such a visceral way? What is it saying about us? I really don’t know what the question is.
“I want all people to be able to walk in and receive God’s grace. Perhaps the question is, can we make sure at the end of the day God’s love is on the table and that we do not allow people to feel less than human but instead made in the image of God. That seems to be far more important than doctrine and anything else.”
Why no campaign against heterosexuals?
Why has there not been uproar and a vociferous campaign for decades by conservative evangelicals to ensure that heterosexual couples applying to be married by the Church of England weren’t interrogated about their sex lives to ensure they were conforming to the repeatedly stated teaching by the current Archbishop of Canterbury that the Church is quite clear that sex outside marriage is wrong?
Heterosexual sex outside of marriage became more widespread in Western societies as a result of the two World Wars and flourished even more strongly from the 1950s onwards. Why hasn’t the Church of England Evangelical Council being arguing vociferously that the Church must refuse to marry any couple who have engaged in sexual intercourse prior to their marriage?. The unexamined, heteronormative, prejudiced mindset of the Church of England prevents the Church from acknowledging its prejudice. It is solely concerned with, obsessed about, same-sex sexual activity. Their prejudice controls their failure to uphold what they claim is sacred Christian teaching - until the possibility of blessing gay sex arrived on the scene. The CofE did not wage a campaign against heterosexual premarital sex in the 1950s and 60s Neither did the church campaign against legalised sex for gay people outside of marriage. Now that the church wants to bless our sexual activity, conservatives object. Sorry, Andrew and CEEC, this is sheer prejudice and hypocrisy.
Why wasn’t the CEEC censuring the Archbishop of Canterbury when clergy were contravening their ordination vows by knowingly marrying thousands of couples who were sexually active? Was it because the clergy were ignorant of church teaching and discipline? No. It’s because the Church is selective in its prejudices.
The Authority of Scripture
Andrew says the bishops have refused to engage with the theological arguments and deep concerns of those who see gay sex and marriage as a matter of much greater significance (than straight sex). Gay sex raises questions “concerning the authority of Scripture, the nature of God’s ordering of creation, including his human creatures, the effects of the fall and sin, the pattern of transformation God works in redemption, and the content of the call to holiness.”
I agree with Andrew. It’s only within the last four decades (Synod becoming “Woke” about this thanks to the 1987 Higton motion) that gay people were a threat to God’s divine ordinances as revealed in the Bible. For several centuries theological arguments have been rehearsed and deep concerns raised by theologians and wisdom teachers about how an evolutionary and scientific world view impacted on what had until then been accepted as orthodox, traditional Christian teaching. These concerns were magnified in the nineteen-sixties of the last century thanks to the sexual revolution and gay liberation movements. Only slowly did conservatives begin to engage with ideas that were anathema to them. Not engaging is one of the reasons why the conservative wing of the Church of England finds itself in such a critical state aproaching the December 2023 General Synod meeting.
The Anglican Communion and Unity
Andrew raises questions relating to the implications of the Archbishops’ actions for Anglican identity, the use of episcopal power, and the future well-being and unity of the Church of England. He asks why the bishops, including the archbishops, have given little or no attention to the mind of the wider Communion and the implications of their actions for its unity and the place of the Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury within it.
The last of the Six Pastoral Principles developed in the course of LLF was “pay attention to power.” The card produced for this says that “inequalities of power have led to abuses in the past and will continue to do so unless all who exercise pastoral care reflect continuously on the power that they hold. Power must always be acknowledged.”
There are huge inequalities of power in many Provinces of the Anglican Communion in relation to LGBTQIA+ people. We are dehumanised, attacked verbally and physically, humiliated, abused, threatened and arrested. Anti-gay bills in Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda threaten imprisonment and in some cases death, not only for gay people but for families, friends, teachers, lawyers, and in Uganda and Ghana, anyone who knows a person is gay and doesn’t report them to the police.
Unhealthy Communion
Andrew says the development of proposals for blessings and prayers and the toleration of sexual activity weakens and will potentially destroy core features of Anglican identity and essential characteristics of any healthy ecclesial body. I argue that what has become increasingly apparent in the two and a half decades since Lambeth 1998 in the Church of England and other parts of the Anglican Communion is that they have become unhealthy ecclesial bodies. They are unhealthy because their teaching and practice results in prejudice against and the abuse of women and LGBTQIA+ people. The support given to anti-gay bills by some Anglican churches and the homophobia and prejudice manifest in other Provinces demonstrates how dominant, abusive, prejudiced and unhealthy many parts of the Anglican Communion are. The kingdom proclaimed by Jesus is one of unconditional, infinite, intimate love manifested in life in all its fullness within those open to the kingdom’s universal presence. Only when Anglican churches recognise this will they move a step closer to manifesting Jesus’ understanding of the kingdom.