Is unilateral action now the best option for Anglicans?

Anglican evangelical groups, like the CEEC, must have been deeply dismayed at the disclosure by Dr Malcolm Brown (Director of Faith and Public Life for the Archbishops’ Council) that the College of Bishops was resistant to ‘the idea that structural differentiation should be a desired outcome’ of the ‘Living in Love and Faith’ implementation process.

After all, in late January this year, the CEEC had issued a press release in response to the Church’s intention to forge ahead with blessing services for same-sex married couples, known as Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF). The CEEC statement announced that they would ‘continue to advocate a settlement, without theological compromise, based on a permanent structural rearrangement resulting in visible differentiation’.

In contrast, the College of Bishops has deemed that such proposals for a structural settlement ‘would be a concession to disunity’.

It’s somewhat ironic that, if anything, disunity has been amplified by the House of Bishops’ recent (10 October) announcement of their unilateral decision to bypass normative canonical due process in order to commend PLF for clergy to use at their discretion.

In the light of this impasse, it is worth considering whether any form of settlement on such a significant moral issue is a good thing and whether CofE evangelicals could unilaterally implement viable alternatives to structural differentiation.

One approach to analysing a moral settlement is through the lens of the moral philosophy of cooperation with (what we believe is) wrong. Of course, in a fallen world, a degree of (remote) cooperation with wrong is inevitable. For example, we cannot ensure that our taxes are not used to further morally questionable policies.

To understand how the philosophy of cooperation might be applied in a church context, consider the moral dilemma in the following fictitious examples. Jane is a diocesan communications officer. In the light of Scripture, she considers same-sex marriage (SSM) to be wrong. Despite openly disagreeing with PLF, her job description states that she is required to ‘articulate the priorities and values determined by the bishop and the Information & Communications Committee’. Among her duties, she is required to participate in team meetings with the bishop in which prospective press releases are brainstormed with the aim of generating a positive public response to Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF).

St Alphonsus Liguori (an 18th-century Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church) described the distinction between formal and material cooperation in this way: ‘That [cooperation] is formal which concurs in the bad will of the other, and it cannot be without sin; that [cooperation] is material which concurs only in the bad action of the other, apart from the cooperator’s intention.’ (Theologia moralis 2, §63)

So, to avoid formal cooperation, Jane eagerly asks to be ‘scribe’. By accurately capturing others’ suggestions for positively endorsing PLF without contributing her own ideas to the team’s brainstorming process, she convinces herself that she is not formally (and sinfully) cooperating with the PLF comms initiative.

She is mistaken because, according to Liguori, concurring ‘with the bad will of the other’ encompasses involvement in any action that directly furthers the purpose of the initiative, including the role of scribe.

Lloyd, a diocesan receptionist who directs invited guests to their meetings, also shares Jane’s views on SSM. In contrast with Jane, facilitating attendees of PLF meetings constitutes material, rather than formal cooperation. As the sole breadwinner for his family, we might also think that Lloyd is right to keep his head down and avoid discussing his views on the blessing services with colleagues. However, such connivance would do nothing to resist the ‘chilling effect’ of PLF on Christian orthodoxy in the Church.

Instead of advocating a specific course of action that would completely exonerate Jane and Lloyd, the philosophy of cooperation challenges each of us to discern the extent to which our actions promote the highest possible good. If such discernment is prompted by the bishops’ resistance to structural differentiation, then so much the better. Their refusal may well be an unwitting Godsend.