The Church of England likes to portray itself as the friend of civil partnerships for LGBT+ people. This is notwithstanding the fact that when the legislation was passing through the House of Lords in 2004 the majority of its 26 bishops in the British upper chamber of parliament voted for an amendment that was widely …
Continue reading How will the Church of England respond to heterosexual civil partnerships?
March 12 marks the 25th anniversary of the ordination of women priests within the Church of England. Yet while today marks one milestone, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people remain second-class citizens. Next year the Anglican bishops from around the world will meet for the Lambeth Conference. Except that a tranche of them, mostly from …
Continue reading The Church of England must break its toxic colonial legacy
The first same-sex marriages were celebrated on March 29 2014 shortly after midnight. No same-sex marriages have yet been celebrated in Church of England churches, because the established church, firmly against the proposal, campaigned for and was granted a pass by the government to make sure it wouldn’t happen. Five years on, a new campaign …
Continue reading The Church of England must open its doors to same-sex weddings
This has been a strange few weeks in which to be LGBT+ and a member of the Church of England. The bishops of the church have commissioned a process called “Living in Love and Faith”. This will, according to its website, produce “resources that will help bishops” lead others in thinking about “what it means …
Continue reading True LGBT+ inclusion and equality in the Church of England are a long way off
Background The Living in Love and Faith Project of the Church of England is the outcome of the impasse that happened in February 2017 when the General Synod, very unusually, declined to take note of the House of Bishops Report that followed the shared conversations of 2014-16. This meant that the report was effectively dead …
Continue reading Fake Participation: what is wrong with Living in Love and Faith?
Confined as I am to the pews these days I have to listen to a lot of sermons. What I can’t do is what I am called and trained to do, which is preach myself. My estimate of most preaching I hear is that it is of a very poor quality indeed. When I was …
Continue reading The Bible and the Newspaper – Thoughts on Preaching
From The Quire 