The Church of England’s House of Bishops met today, and agreed to spend more time finalising its proposals on the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. There is a press release, which is copied below.
House of Bishops continues work finalising Living in Love and Faith decisions
16/12/2025
The House of Bishops has agreed to spend more time finalising its proposals on the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process, which explores the Church’s approach to identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage.
At a meeting at Lambeth Palace in London today, bishops discussed a series of decisions taken in principle on the direction of LLF at their last meeting in October.
While those decisions were not contested, the bishops identified some areas where further clarification is needed and agreed to continue work on a letter to the Church summarising LLF and setting out an agreed position.
Bishops recognised the deep hurt, particularly to LGBTQI+ people, as a result of those decisions.
The House will meet again in January to finalise the text of the letter – which will take the form of a statement from the House.
The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, who chairs the LLF Programme Board, said: “Although we recognise that having not set out a final decision today may add to the frustration and distress many people are feeling, it is important we take proper care and time on this. That is needed.
“We remain on course to bring proposals to Synod for consideration in February.”
‘Deep hurt’ – not half- LGBTQ+ people were promised ‘radical inclusion’. Yet broken promises characterise the HoB on safeguarding and sexuality. As a single gay man I don’t have much skin in the game. The people I feel most sorry for are the clergy and potential ordinands who’d like to marry their same sex partner. Lay people can get married in Aberdeen and in the not too distant future probably Abergavenny. Quite why younger LGBTQI + people bother with the CofE I’ve no idea. It was cruel to march a vulnerable minority up to the top of the hill only… Read more »
Is there any possibility that we can finally wrap our heads around this? T,Q,I,A add as many plusses as you like people are included by the Church of England, they are free both to marry in church and to minister. The only people who are currently not included are those who marry a same sex partner, which they may not do in church, neither may they minister afterwards. Why do so many people now insist on using this clunky collection of letters in place of language that accurately describes what we actually mean? Maybe a moratorium is a good idea… Read more »
Jane I have read your comments about this before and I am afraid I find it very confusing and an obfuscation of what is really going on. The letters might be annoying to some, and might not have equal weight and so on. But the fact remains that people who are same sex attracted and wish to have a partner with whom they have an intimate relationship are increasingly unwelcome in the Church of England. It surely can not have escaped your notice that since the Jeffrey John debacle over 20 years ago that a particularly strong and powerful constituency… Read more »
Andrew, yes, you have indeed misread me if you think I’m resisting moves to include gay people in the life of the church. I can’t imagine how you could have reached that conclusion from anything I’ve ever posted. I believe that gay people in stable, loving, faithful relationships should be able both to marry their same sex partners and to fulfil their vocations to public ministry. I am however being driven slowly bonkers by the absurd LGBTQIA+++ acronym and the factually untrue assertion that these are all people excluded from the life of the church. Do we not have enough… Read more »
Dear Jane: I can’t speak for the Church of England. All I can say is that in my part of the Anglican Church of Canada—the Diocese of Edmonton—there is a working group with responsibility for overseeing LGBTQI+ inclusion in the diocese. At an educational event before I retired, that group—which is made up largely of LGBTQI+ people—explained that designation to us, spelling out the importance of each letter (by the way, we have two more in our part of the world – 2S for ‘two-spirit’, an indigenous designation for gay people), and encouraging us to use it. I don’t know… Read more »
Andrew, your second para. Alleluia! Yet there are others less strident in the CofE who, while not biblicist or homophobic, are wary of ‘bespoke’ PLF following a similar trajectory to the Order for Prayer and Dedication after Civil Marriage, which – it could be said – opened the way to the remarriage of divorcees in church. While most I suspect now see that development as a positive move, nonetheless I detect a hesitancy in the pews over the Church solemnizing same-sex marriage – and this in a parish church well known for its welcome to gay individuals and couples, not… Read more »
Plenty of trans folk are gay, or are straight but perceived as gay by people who refuse to accept their gender identity. Besides which, while marriage equality has totemic status in terms of the “rules” of the church, it is a piece of a much larger picture of what “radical inclusion” looks like, and trans people in particular are seeing the consequences both of the bleed over of secular transphobia into the church and the alignment of evangelicals with transphobic iterations of Christianity largely cooked up in the US. It seems like you’re using a lot of words to justify… Read more »
Jane, like Andrew Godsall, I too have read your comments on this subject before, and like Andrew I cannot agree with you, but for different reasons. As I understand it you want to split off the issue of transgender rights from the issue of homosexual/lesbian/gay rights and treat them as different issues. I can understand that from a woman’s perspective then the idea of a trans-woman coming into what are considered to be female spaces can raise questions. But there has to be balance in this debate, balancing the needs of cis-gendered women against the needs of trans-gendered women. Both… Read more »
Are bisexual people really welcome in the CofE? Are people who choose to identify as queer really welcome? I don’t know whether you identify as anything other than straight but if not it’s patronising to criticise our lettering. It feels as though you’re trying to erase us and our status as a persecuted minority in the CofE. The organisation is institutionally homophobic, you seem uncomfortable with that reality. I’ve been out throughout my 30 years of ministry and there has been a price to pay for my honesty, though not I have to say from my parishioners. As to your… Read more »
Very well put Fr Dean, I could not agree more.
LGBTQ+ people were not promised ‘radical inclusion’. We were all promised “a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church… founded in scripture, in reason, in tradition, in theology”. The Inclusive Church chose to ignore the second part of this call and used it to justify pushing forward every change at General Synod without the necessary work having been done on canon law, practical details and especially the theological undergirding. Now that has finally been made public it’s clear that ‘radical inclusion’ cannot mean “liberalisation at all costs, including disregarding the sincerely-held objections of ‘traditionalists’ ”.
The Church of England goes to great lengths to accommodate the sincerely-held objections of “traditionalists” have not been disregarded. The proposal has always been that ministers will have a discretion whether to use PLF. No one will be required to do so.
In exactly the same way, ministers have a discretion as to whether they remarry divorcees within the lifetime of their former spouses (and some will not in any circumstances).
Churches can refuse to have women ministers. The Church Commissioners pay for five bishops to minister to such churches
I won’t be holding my breath over this. The House of Bishops clearly can’t come to a common mind (a number of the usual suspects will be absolutely against that and are likely plotting to prevent it) and have once again kicked LLF temporarily (hopefully) into the long grass of the Christmas break. Let’s enjoy turkey and fine wine in the meantime and start worrying again in January. But let’s hope they have woken up to the overwhelmingly negative response to the LLF pause. By stating they will be bringing “proposals” (see OED) they have at least committed to a… Read more »
The diversionary exercise known as LLF etc was launched when a statement from the Bishops was considered so inadequate that Synod “declined to take note”! Would it be fitting that when the Bishops finally try to give LLF its formal burial, that Synod once again repeat that procedure to tell the Bishops that they are still on the wrong side of history? More generally, after 25 years of trying to be an LGBTQI+ ally, I must draw attention to the irrefutable fact that the Conservative Evangelical constituency has never acted in good faith. I am sure that many individuals have… Read more »
Remember the poor bishops have such difficult decisions to make. They have to have to have a half an eye all the time on Reform in the Church, especially when the country and Church is under the leadership of the much heralded soon to be Prime Minister, with his huge base of support within parishes throughout the country. Also GB News pays really well for content, longs to see proper Christian values re-established in the UK, and looks poised to quickly replace other failing and bankrupted fake news outlets. This will become a really important platform for the bishops to… Read more »
Good point! And maybe they will soon abolish the bothersome string of letters and + signs which cause right minded folk such problems . Watch out for something catchy like D and MI
( Different and Morally Inferior)