On October 15, 2024 Ian Paul posted on Psephizo a guest blog written by Andrew Goddard: The Archbishop of Canterbury, PLF, Truth and Trust. When first published, the blog was prefaced with an introduction by Ian Paul: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has made claims about the debate on sexuality and the Church's teaching which are demonstrably untrue. Why might he have done this, and what will be the impact on trust, the unity of the Church, and the future of the debate?”
I read the blog. I read the comments posted about the blog on Facebook. Ian Paul was being his usual, active interventionist self (note to myself, never posts comments in response to Ian Paul). (Second note to myself: I wish Andrew had his own website – or, what happened to Fulcrum?)
Andrew and I have been, if not at first friends, then certainly friends now. He and his wife Lis are warm in their welcome and hospitality. Andrew and I first met some twenty-five years ago at a number of deanery events in the diocese of Oxford. Andrew was there to present the tradition and teaching of the Church, me to present experience from a pro-gay perspective. We have continued to meet, usually two or three times a year, usually for three hours of conversation over coffee, and sometimes food (and often, chocolates). By chance I read the last chapter of Mark Vasey-Saunders’ Defusing the Sexuality Debate this morning, ‘Advice to a divided church’. On page 166 Mark refers to post on Fulcrum written by Andrew analysing responses to the release of a Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) video. On the next page, referring to a comment I had posted to the Changing Attitude England Facebook encouraging people not to respond with horror and panic to the CEEC video, Mark draws attention to it as “an intervention by progressives to de-escalate some of the responses of their own ‘side’.” And here I am, drafting another blog when I thought I was going to be tidying my house in readiness for an estate agent’s visit to take photos this afternoon. To engage and respond or not to engage and respond? – that is the question. Mark Vasey-Saunders’ book seeks to defuse the debate. I have engaged across difference, both with conservatives and within the progressive networks. I’m not always the best exponent of this, tempted to react viscerally with polemic because I am deeply, very personally invested less in the outcome of the LLF process than in the outcome for Christianity and the life of the Church, which is in urgent need of transformation from an abusive, prejudiced institution in its teaching and practice towards LGBTQIA+ people – and women – and people of colour – and etc. It is also in need of transformation in its theology, its ideas about God, which is ultimately a more important and significant and deeply conflicted and therefore carefully avoided issue.
The Archbishop of Canterbury interview on The Rest is Politics
A short TikTok clip has been posted of a forthcoming interview with the ABC by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. According to Andrew, what the Archbishop says about PLF is significantly misleading in relation to what the bishops have decided, what the church teaches on sexual ethics, who PLF is for, and what PLF offers. He contradicts and undermines past theological and legal advice as well as statements to General Synod. This raises serious questions and can only further damage trust in the PLF process and the Archbishop’s leadership. Andrew then addresses four statements made by the Archbishop “which are either misleading or demonstrably false about where the church stands and what has happened in the PLF process” referring to previous interviews given by both Archbishops.
Andrew’s posts are always detailed, carefully researched and clearly written and I find it easy to get lost in the detail. He identifies that the House of Bishops has in fact said something quite different from what the Archbishop said in the interview. The House has given a clear answer: it is committed to upholding the church’s teaching on marriage.
“The Church of England teaches that “sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively”. Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings.”
The Archbishop, however, is fudging this clarity, “rather oddly saying that he and the bishops are only permitting same-sex couples in civil partnerships to be in a sexual relationship . . . although clergy have for many years been permitted to enter same-sex civil partnerships (and) the bishops are still required to ensure those civil partnerships are non-sexual.”
What matters is sex and marriage – they go together like a horse and carriage in the Church of England. Same-sex couples can’t marry, Canon law says it’s only for heterosexuals. Lesbian and gay clergy couples can’t marry but they can contract a civil partnership but they can’t have sex. Couples can come to church for prayers within the context of a routine service but they can’t be blessed because sex and marriage are ruled out by doctrine. The prayers are not to be used as a thanksgiving for marriage or as service of prayer and dedication after a civil marriage. Such things would be contrary to or indicative of departure from the church’s doctrine in an essential matter. Despite what the Archbishop said, a couple in a legally recognised same-sex union cannot come along to their local church and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together.
Andrew concludes that “almost everything of substance that the Archbishop says about PLF (apart from “the church is deeply split over this”) is demonstrably either false or misleading unless the previous explanations and commitments offered by him and the bishops to General Synod are false or misleading.
The campaign for change
As I indicated in the blog I posted earlier this week, Revising Christian Fundamentals , there are now a number of ‘progressive’ groups and organisations campaigning individually or, for some, together under the banner of Together. Campaigning separately are LGB Christians; Changing Attitude England continues to campaign for a more radical transformation.
The Archbishop’s interview (Andrew notes) gives the impression that the Church of England, with the agreement of the majority of bishops, is onside with the progressive movement in the Church, teaching that sexual relationships, including same-sex sexual relationships, are acceptable as long as the couple are in a committed relationship, either a civil partnership or a marriage and that the Church of England will provide a service of prayer and blessing in church for couples in such relationships. Conservative evangelicals are opposed to this because it is indicative of a departure from the church’s doctrine and biblical teaching, and I, as a representative of Changing Attitude, don’t believe it’s true anyway.
It's a dire situation, says Andrew, and I agree. There are indeed deep theological disagreements on these matters that need to be addressed and that cannot be avoided. Andrew adds that they must not be avoided. But this is exactly what the contemporary culture of the Church of England has become highly skilled at – avoiding responsibility. Meanwhile the John Smyth, Iwerne, Peter Ball, Jonathan Fletcher, Trevor Devamanikkam, Mike Pilavachi scandals, the accusations of failure to tell the truth against both Archbishops and the abusive control exercised by Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council William Nye continue to reverberate around the Church (for those who happen to take the Church Times or follow Thinking Anglicans).
From my perspective, we are all compromised by the difficulty we have in freeing ourselves from the corporate, systemic, abusive, unhealthy, persistently homophobic culture of the Church of England. We are all implicated in some way by our inability to confront ‘our’ Church when she is so obviously in a deeply unhealthy state. Numbers are in free fall and people leave or avoid the Church not because they know in detail what the culture is like from the top down but because the Church, national and local, does not communicate a healthy understanding and vision of life, life in all its fulness. From both sides, conservative and progressive, there is a sense of desperation and a depressive mood.
At the moment we do not have a forum in which to explore the deepest truths and transformations that are taking place around the planet. Human societies, economies, religions (and life in general on this planet) are in a perilous state. I do my best to model a Christian spiritual life of love and openness to mystery and deep truth – but it’s challenging. I long for a forum where these essential challenges can be openly explored. Local churches and congregations, for all the good things they do, conservative and progressive, are not doing what I’m searching for. Maybe the time has passed and we’re in a doom loop (though I don’t believe that). Certainly there have been periods and places in my life where these dynamic conversations and explorations were possible.