What a tangled web we weave, when our bishops don’t believe…
A kingdom divided against itself, Jesus said, cannot stand. So some kind of split in the Church of England and the wider Anglican world which involves more and more people seems increasingly inevitable.
I mean, really. Towards the end of January the CofE’s House of Bishops issued a statement about opposite-sex civil partnerships, and how church teaching relates to it.
Clear and orthodox...
Admirably, it said very clearly: ‘For Christians, marriage – that is the lifelong union between a man and a woman, contracted with the making of vows – remains the proper context for sexual activity.’ It added: ‘In its approach to civil partnerships the Church seeks to uphold that standard, to affirm the value of committed, sexually abstinent friendships and to minister sensitively and pastorally to those Christians who conscientiously decide to order their lives differently.’
Given that the teaching on marriage and sex has been the teaching of most Christian denominations for pretty much all Christian history and is the official position of the Church of England, the least you would expect would be for bishops – our appointed guardians of the faith and overseers – to uphold it and teach it.
Hand-wringing equivocation...
But, of course not. This is the Church of England. Like some hand-wringing, wet piece of the Revd J.C. Flannel parody prose in Private Eye magazine, a number of bishops came out with messages setting out their anguished, perspiring equivocation.
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, said that she was ‘deeply frustrated and saddened’ by the way the statement was published. She continued: ‘I recognise that it has fanned into flame unnecessary pain and distress and I wish to acknowledge my part in that.’ Bishop Rachel was supported by the Bishop of Sheffield, the Rt Revd Dr Pete Wilcox, who described her words as ‘very helpful comment’. The Bishop of Gloucester’s statement was also retweeted by the Bishop of Manchester and the Bishop of Edmonton. The Bishop of Liverpool retweeted a statement from gay campaigner Jayne Ozanne which described the House of Bishops’ document as making the Church of England ‘a laughing-stock’.
Hypocrisy
As theologian Ian Paul pointed out in an incisive piece on his Psephizo blog: ‘Every diocesan bishop read [it], knew about it, and in fact heard it discussed’. So to seek to distance themselves from it afterwards was just hypocritical.
And it wasn’t just bishops – many clergy were up in arms about the statement as well. Of course, the main problem, as Gavin Drake, Director of Communications at the Anglican Communion, was quoted as saying, was this: ‘What surprised me about all this is discovering the sheer number of CofE clergy who don’t know what core CofE doctrine is. What do they teach at theological colleges if clergy are so uninformed about a position the Church has taken for 2,000 years and on which they are called to expound at every single wedding service they conduct?’
Welcomed
The House of Bishops statement, however, was welcomed by Church Society, and Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, President of GAFCON UK – though both felt it could have been clearer on repentance in some situations.
How will evangelicals in the Church of England fare? According to an online statement from the Church of England Evangelical Council, its January meeting ‘received a comprehensive paper on possibilities for evangelicals within the Church of England in the years ahead. After discussion, the emergent themes were referred to the Council’s Working Group for further development over the course of 2020.’ That cannot come soon enough.
