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

Safeguarding

Safeguarding the Institution: What Has Sex Got to Do With It?

Safeguarding the Institution: What Has Sex Got to Do With It?

Stephen Kuhrt’s book Safeguarding the Institution concludes with two radical proposals.

A wider clear-out of the Church of England’s senior leaders is desperately needed, a ‘circuit-breaker for the Church since, at present, most new bishops inevitably adopt the ethos of the group they are joining. A new type of bishop is required to replace the “one single characteristic overwhelmingly found in the bishops of the Church of England.

And “the single most controversial issue within the Church of England”, equal marriage. The official position must be brought into line with current practice, accepting and endorsing “gay marriage”. This is overwhelmingly favoured by the general public and the majority of churchgoers.

Safeguarding the Institution: How the Culture of the Church of England Facilitates Abuse

Safeguarding the Institution: How the Culture of the Church of England Facilitates Abuse

Stephen Kuhrt’s book ‘Safeguarding the Institution: How the Culture of the Church of England Facilitates Abuse argues that the running of a properly functioning church involves confronting issues and problems rather than avoiding them. The question “why are we doing this?” has been unconsciously present in most of the meetings Stephen has had with bishops and archdeacons. Every time they have been unwilling to discuss matters of principle and truth. It is the most terrifying question they can be asked.

The urgent need for movement

The urgent need for movement

Here I am, posting another blog dealing with the Church of England in crisis when I really want to be writing about the far more critical existential crisis going on moment, of which this week’s events are but one element. There needs to be a far, far more radical transformation of the life and culture of the Church of England, a movement developing in the root, seeing and feeling the essence of unconditional love.

Transformation is required – How to achieve it?

Transformation is required – How to achieve it?

This evening I'm writing and posting a spur-of-the-moment blog arguing that nothing is going to change, despite the serious nature of the failures reported yesterday, because something is far, far more seriously wrong with the basic fabric of the Church - what it claims to believe about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Bible - the fundamentals of our faith. A new movement is required.

Rethinking Christianity

Rethinking Christianity

Last Wednesday, 15 January 2025, two serendipitous events occurred. First, Thinking Anglicans listed just two opinion articles, one by Gilo for ViaMedia and one by me for Unadulterated Love. A conversation developed between us and others posting comments. The second event occurred later that morning. I came across the latest podcast by Sam Howsen, a conversation with Robert Thompson delving into the challenges facing the Church of England under a new Archbishop. Sam and Gilo are both contributing in their own very particular ways to living and imagining and exploring themselves and their life experience in the context of Christianity and I am a fellow traveller and seeker with them.

The past, the present and the future Church of England

The past, the present and the future Church of England

I visit churches in the hope of finding inspiration and wisdom, of finding something, anything, that communicates the essence of Christian love, truth and faith as I have experienced and known it through earlier periods of my life. There have been notably few places where love, God’s unconditional, infinite, intimate love, is the first truth the church wants to communicate.

The General Synod and effective Church Governance

The General Synod and effective Church Governance

The General Synod of the Church of England meets from 7th July for five days in York. There are a number of significant items on the agenda relating to issues affecting the well-being of our planet and members human race: climate change, Living in Love and Faith, safeguarding, and Church governance. Well, perhaps that last item isn’t of global or even personal significance, but it got me wondering: Who is responsible for the spiritual health of the Church of England and how does an institution with such an incredibly complicated structure better focus on what you and I might take to be the primary essence of being  Christian.

The Safeguarding Crisis in the Church of England

The Safeguarding Crisis in the Church of England

We are living at a time of crisis, globally and individually. The crises are multiple: climate, ecosystem, political, economic, spiritual, religious, refugee, health, housing, pollution. Every member of the human race is at risk of being affected by and infected by this systemic state of crisis – emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually. In the Church of England, the drama last week about the sacking of the members of the Independent Safeguarding Group manifests the total mess that is safeguarding policy and practice in the Church of England. The Church is directly affected by the unhealthy magical thinking that is a normative part of today’s Christian teaching and thinking.

LLF, safeguarding, abuse and Radical New Christian Inclusion – where did that go?

LLF, safeguarding, abuse and Radical New Christian Inclusion – where did that go?

I anticipate that the work undertaken by the College and House of Bishops, integral to the Living in Love and Faith process and to the outcome at General Synod in February 2023, will be judged “incompetent, ineffective and unfit for purpose. This will be a tragic end to what has in many ways been an effective exercise. I hope I will be proved wrong, too pessimistic, but  Church that is unable to ensure that its safeguarding practice is so inadequate is unlikely to produce proposals that are adequate to the most basic of LGBTQIA+ expectations.