Threatening the CEEC

It is some time now since the meeting of General Synod in mid-November. At that gathering the Synod decided to endorse the issuing of the Prayers of Love and Faith, and, through an amendment to the main motion moved by the Bishop of Oxford, to allow the Archbishops to commend for experimental use 'stand-alone services' …

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The Church of England and the LLF/PLF Process: Listening and Learning

Learning things involves listening. That is obvious - we listen to things we didn't know and we try and fit them into the jumble of impressions, facts, traditions and habits that go to make up the way we know anything. Descartes thought that the human mind was a bank slate, ready to receive sense impressions …

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An anniversary: and some weddings and funerals

We have just started watching the latest series of Grantchester, the clerical murder mysteries set in the eponymous village near Cambridge. The date is 1958, and the timid curate, Leonard Finch, has, with great tentativeness, started to come out of his closet, and embarked upon a very secretive and illegal relationship with a local photographer. …

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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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Indivisible Freedom and a Homophobic Church

Moving to Zaïre in 1987, among many cultural shocks encountered was the fact that a visa to travel there was a one-way ticket. There was no automatic freedom of movement out of the country once you had entered. You had to apply for an exit/re-entry visa when in situ. For someone used to their passport …

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You know who you are

Even from the back of the class you can see the assignment is covered in red pen. The teacher holds it disdainfully by the corner and then lets it fall fluttering to the floor. She scans the room with a baleful glance before focusing on the offending student: "You know who you are".  If I …

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