Tim Wyatt The Critical Friend Made in Sheffield
Also in this week’s newsletter is a piece on the Church in Wales and its new archbishop: Cleaning House
Theo Hobson What do liberal Anglicans want?
Ian Gomersall A Retired Rector’s Reflections Division at ordination
David Torrance House of Commons Library The relationship between church and state in the United Kingdom
A briefing paper on the relationship between church and state in the United Kingdom
The question ‘What do liberal Anglicans want?’ has the same answer as the question ‘What do conservative Anglicans want?’ – there is and never will be a definitive answer as every single person has our own point of view. We always have and we always will. Many who attend evangelical churches do so for reasons other than agreeing with their theology, as with many who are members of traditional churches. Those who believe that the love of God shown and taught by Jesus means embracing everybody where they are regardless of their life choices will always be at odds with… Read more »
Thank you Julie for expressing this so clearly and carefully. I found myself very confused and a bit concerned by Theo Hobson’s article. It seems to be wanting some dualism between conservative and liberal and that just doesn’t exist. There is a wide and generous spectrum. Surely liberal Anglicans want inclusivity, and that means an openness to change but also an openness to those who can not, in all conscience, vote for that change now, and maybe never. Yet liberal Anglicans want what I think the vast majority of Christians throughout the world want – an openness to scripture which… Read more »
The NOS is best described as an experimental alternative ‘church’, and has no connection with the charismatic movement or HTB, which was established in the 1970’s. Hopefully the lessons from NOS have and are being learned, along with the dangers of spreading any conspiracy that might grab attention.
Since NOS began at St Thomas’s Sheffield – then a large evangelical charismatic church in Sheffield – it is clearly not true that it had ‘no connection with the charismatic movement’.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
One of the most interesting comments in the NOS article is the recorded comment from one of Mr Brain’s theological college tutors who said she was unwilling to sign him off for ordination but was overruled by the then Bishop of Sheffield. That resonated very loudly indeed with my experience working in theological education. We had several candidates over the years I was there who, for one reason or another, we, as a staff team, did not wish to sign off as ready for ordination. Some were quietly ditched by their Diocese, whilst others continued on as though we had… Read more »
It isn’t only liberals who are confused: Theo Hobson claims that same-sex blessings open the door to gay marriage, while also stating (rightly) that gay marriage hasn’t a chance of getting through Synod. I suspect that people will also see through his sly conflation of same-sex marriage with sex before marriage. Confusion is no sin (and may even be a virtue if the alternative is mulish certainty), but deception might be.
Re Hobson
It sounded to me like he was saying, go full on liberal and leave off any vestiges of traditional understandings of marriage; and that short of that, liberals look muddled where conservatives don’t.
Happy to have my reading skills interrogated. That’s what I read.
Oh I have no doubt he was trying to say that. But that is to seriously misunderstand what liberalism is all about. There is not one simple catch all issue that defines what is liberal and what is conservative. And Theo’s mistake is to try and make things binary. Conservatives look very muddled to many of us and live with all kinds of denial in the area of human sexuality. (And I don’t mean self denial.) And I’m sure liberals do as well. But that’s the human condition. In response to Theo I want to say: Liberals look nuanced, whilst… Read more »
Good luck in your efforts. I’m content not to be involved.
Are all the comments, and some of the articles, basically about sex and sexual misdemeanours? Are we perpetuating the sin = sex myth?
I think we can be fairly sure that some of the NOS sins did not involve sex. Maybe.