Martyn Snow, the Bishop of Leicester, has stepped from his role as Lead Bishop for Living in Love and Faith. He published the following statement on his Facebook page earlier this afternoon.
With a very heavy heart, I have decided to step down from my role as Lead Bishop for Living in Love and Faith. I am hugely grateful to the staff team that I have worked with over the last 18 months and similarly the Working Group members who have given hours of their time to seek an agreed way forward in the Church of England on matters of sexuality, relationships, and marriage. I hope it may yet be possible to reach such an agreement, but I don’t think that can happen under my leadership. I will not be making any further comments.
The logic of the incommensurabilty of the LLF proposals is working itself out – at personal cost – in the lives of those who have given themselves to trying to progress this doomed project. LLF/PLF tries to say that the church can simultaneously proclaim ‘Same sex sexual relationships can be good, holy and blessed by God’ AND ‘Same sex sexual relationships are shameful, sinful, and accursed of God.’ It’s the internalisation of contradiction in the body of Christ. A Kingdom divided against itself… It’s time to stop limping on with 2 opinions. Affirm the traditional teaching, and ask the progressives… Read more »
Or, split as most major denominations have on this issue.
Which denominations did you have in mind here? In the UK those denominations that affirm equal marriage have managed to do so by accepting a diversity of views and I’m not aware of any that have experienced a substantial split.
Mostly American examples as they are the best examples of how churches which have deep divisions on same-sex blessings tend to deal with this issue. In America, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Anglicans and Methodists are broadly split across these lines because these contradictory positions aren’t easily reconciled. The CofE isn’t similar to the Methodists or the URC in the UK as the number of theological conservatives is much greater. It’salso much greater than the TEC or the Anglican Church of Canada and those have seen significant exits over this. The reality is that the CofE has about 45% in opposition to this… Read more »
I am really sad about this. I believe Bishop Martyn has acted with integrity. It seems it is all too much.
I am torn in more than one direction here, but I think that sufficient numbers regard LLF as a doctrinal issue that it is correct to invoke canon B2 and require a 2/3rds majority in each house of Synod. I write as someone very strongly committed to working for equality.
2/3 majorities and canon B2 are not about doctrine. They are to do with authorizing liturgical material that is alternative to a service that already exists in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Services which are not alternative to the BCP may be used at the discretion of the minister (Canon B 5.2). Commendation by the House of Bishops reassures the minister that they are most unlikely to be disciplined.
But, as you know, Canon B 5.3 stipulates that “All variations in forms of service and all forms of service used under this Canon shall be reverent and seemly and shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter.” The Hous eof Bishops needs to understand that it cannot commend material that does not fulfil this requirement. This is about doctrine.
Yes indeed. But commendation by the HoB carries the implication that they believe that it does so conform.
If only it were about doctrine, and the debate that we ought to be having which is equal marriage. The Prayers of Love and Faith are explicitly not a marriage service, yet many on the conservative side misunderstand this and believe that it is about marriage. So, to be absolutely clear, the PLF are a service giving thanks for the good things in the lives of two people in a relationship. Unless your position is that it is Anglican doctrine that there can be nothing whatsoever that is good in the relationship of two people in the same sex, the… Read more »
Have you read the canon recently?
I had the text in front of me when I wrote my earlier comment.