Colin Coward
Changing Attitude, Human Connection and ...

There is something missing in the public conversation about human connection and community identified by Catharine Viner in a recent Guardian article. I observe that human connection and community are also missing in the Church of England. Discovering this essence would be a valuable outcome of changing attitudes, helping people develop lives well-lived and enriching all our lives, engaging with unadulterated love and living life in all its fulness.

Changing Attitude, Human Connection and Community and Unadulterated Love

OneBodyOneFaith

To achieve the full inclusion in Anglican life and ministry of married LGBTQI+ people

To achieve the full inclusion in Anglican life and ministry of married LGBTQI+ people

I have been feeling in a precarious position since I posted the blog last Friday about finding the WhatsApp Southwark Affirming Clergy. The blog has had over 1,600 hits. I have been taking my time, as I always do, to process practically, emotionally, intuitively and spiritually, what has happened, what I have done, and what I am learning, over the last five days. What I haven’t had since I retired eleven years ago is an organisational, structural, a campaigning home. With OBOFs demise, I urgently want to be part of a campaign movement that no longer exists.

The Diocese of Southwark – an archetypal story of flourishing and decline

The Diocese of Southwark – an archetypal story of flourishing and decline

This week, after nine months of searching, I found the WhatsApp Southwark Affirming Clergy: social and political organising. The group has a membership of one hundred and eighty-five clergy. It is exclusively for LGBTQI+ licensed clergy. I am not allowed to join. This is the culture of Southwark Diocese and the wider Church of England today. Why? Because the culture of the Church of England has become toxic, abusive and unsafe thanks to the failures of Living in Love and Faith, the Clergy Discipline Measure and the safeguarding process. Powerful Conservative forces in the Church have, in the space of less than thirty years, transformed the culture, tolerated by Archbishops and bishops desperate to ensure the survival of the Church.

Campaigning for radical LGBTIQ+ inclusion

Campaigning for radical LGBTIQ+ inclusion

Why do we, LGBTIQ+ people become so quickly disputatious and defensive among ourselves? Because we have been living in an incredibly unhealthy, abusive, toxic environment in Church and Society for centuries for starters. We don’t seem to recognise that this unhealthy, toxic, abusive environment continues to dominate nationally, however much our local church seems to be welcoming and valued. There is a reluctance to organise ourselves to campaign actively for an ambition far greater than the Archbishops’ understanding of what radical inclusion means - a really radically inclusive outcome for LGBTIQ+ people.

Double amber - proceed with extreme caution – unconditional love ahead

Double amber - proceed with extreme caution – unconditional love ahead

The debate on Wednesday was utterly wonderful and transformative and the Archbishops’ letter is very responsive to the vote and the energy of the debate. The Archbishops recognise the need for “a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church . . . based on good, healthy, flourishing relationships, and in a proper 21st century understanding of being human and of being sexual.” Fabulous! But I have some words of caution, echoing the caution already expressed by some on the OneBodyOneFaith Facebook group.