When I was a boy, there was no such thing as sharing the peace. The 1662 Prayer Book Communion service is a liturgy that resolutely maintains the sense of the individual amidst the corporate. Charles Willams's poem, At the "Ye that do truly" expresses the sense of separation of one Christian from another in this …
Author: Jeremy Pemberton
Church of England priest, musician, academic, father and grandfather. Married to my husband, retired.
In Praise of Method and Application
A propos the priesthood, Giles Fraser writes in praise of Incompetence in his latest Unherd blog. He talks movingly and rightly of the dangers of any priest ever pretending that they are “successful”. And of how the grace and love of God uses the unlikely, the odd, the incompetent to advance the cause of God’s …
How will the Church of England respond to heterosexual civil partnerships?
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 …
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The Church of England must break its toxic colonial legacy
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 …
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The Church of England must open its doors to same-sex weddings
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 …
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True LGBT+ inclusion and equality in the Church of England are a long way off
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 …
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From The Quire 