C of E’s gospel failure

Dear Editor,

I agree with Keith Sinclair (in the October issue of en) that we should all pray for the C of E bishops as they wrestle with the Human Sexuality disagreement.

But there is a more important issue in the C of E – the failure of the Church as a whole to preach the terrible warnings, some from Christ’s own lips, alongside the wonderful promises and sincere invitations to all to repent and submit to Christ in His atoning death and life-giving resurrection. That failure includes a failure to believe, teach and preach that we all face God’s condemnation from birth onwards and we are all born with a nature inclined to evil because of Adam’s sin as well as because of our personal sins.

If a ‘differentiation’, a ‘parting of the ways’, over LLF is a serious possibility, I argue that LLF and the more important failure to preach the terrible warnings and the doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin should be considered together in the bishops’ discussions and the Synod debates, together of course with earnest prayer that God will have mercy on us all.

Yours sincerely,
Phil Almond Preston