TWO Church of England pressure groups wrote to the House of Bishops before its meeting this week to express hopes and expectations about the next steps in the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process.
The groups—Together for the Church of England, which campaigns for wider provision for LGBTQ people in the Church, and the Alliance, which represents opponents of the proposed blessings of same-sex couples—wrote the letters at the invitation of the House of Bishops, before there meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
The letter from Together’s chairs, Canon Neil Patterson and Professor Helen King, highlights that the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) for same-sex couples are being used. It describes this as a “small step towards redeeming the decades of exclusion and hurt felt by LGBTQ+ people from the Church of England”, and welcomes a decision the General Synod’s decision in July to proceed with stand-alone services of blessing (News, 12 July).
The “key unresolved question” is the content of promised pastoral guidance for clergy, specifically about whether they are permitted to enter same-sex civil marriages, Canon Patterson and Professor King write.
The House of Bishops’ commendation of the PLF demonstrates a belief that “same-sex relationships are good and may be prayed for in public,” they write. “How then can they be impermissible for the clergy?”
The Alliance’s letter is signed by its seven directors. “We gratefully welcome this opportunity to communicate the scale of pain and confusion felt by those we represent,” they write, and reiterate calls for “legal provisions” for opponents of the PLF.
There are 2360 clergy supporters of the Alliance, they write, who “represent the most diverse, youngest and fastest growing networks within the Church of
England”.
They complain, however, that they are “repeatedly told we are a small extreme minority grouping despite offering independent validation of our data”, and that, despite assertions that the House of Bishops is “committed to us having a
full and flourishing place” in the Church of England, “the experience on the ground
feels very different.”
They deny that the Alliance is schismatic and “looking for the widest possible separation in the Church of England”. Instead, they have been seeking to enable clergy to stay in the C of E who “might otherwise feel they are being forced to leave”.
The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) has introduced several measures that it has described as a “de facto parallel province”, including the commissioning of “overseers” who would carry out some of the pastoral functions of a bishop, and an alternative fund into which parish share can be paid.
The CEEC’s national director, Canon John Dunnett, is one of the directors of the Alliance, and is listed as a signatory to the letter, along with Ade Adebajo, the Revd Adam Gaunt, Canon Vaughan Robert, the Revd Sarah Jackson, Canon Paul Langham, and the Revd Jago Wynne.
Canon Patterson and Professor King conclude their letter with an indication that they are “willing to work with carefully defined conscience provision which is clearly designed to further the unity, rather than deepen the divisions, in the Church of England.”
After the meeting a Church House spokesperson said: “In accordance with the General Synod motion GS 2358 passed in July, the Bishops considered what guidance could be given to the working groups developing the detail of proposals on specific areas of work, including the proposed Bishops Statement and Code of Practise. Feedback from the discussions will be shared with the working groups.”