From the Church of England Evangelical Council website:
Preserving Apostolic Faith and Life
At its January 2018 residential, the CEEC reflected on the attached paper ’Gospel, Church & Marriage – Preserving Apostolic Faith and Life’. The Council endorsed it for circulation as a reflection as to how the life changing goodness and ‘amazing grace’ of God can be brought to bear upon current and contentious discussion within the Church of England.
Notice the careful wording on divorce ..to keep the evangelical conflicting contradictory interpretations of clear scripture together, No mention of the indissolubility word…
No mention of the openess to life and spurn of contraception once held in Anglicanism…they all contracept.
This is very interesting: not least because this statement was originally drafted to be signed by the bishops attending this residential (after, I am reliably informed, the archbishops had let it be known they would welcome a statement). However, as time went on, one by one, the bishops who were prepared to sign it became fewer and fewer. A good friend of mine (who is in a position to know) said that, by the end, it was down to Blackburn, Maidstone and one or two others. This highlights the degree to which the evangelical bishops are jittery, precisely because they… Read more »