The decadence of the Church of England

The decadence of the Church of England

A recent book review opened my mind to the possibility that the current state of the Church of England might viewed as decadent. By decadent, I mean subject to decay, characterised by or reflecting a state of moral or cultural decay or appealing to self-indulgence. The trauma affecting the Church of England, holding it captive to the past, a trauma continues to have a deep psychological hold over the church, is homosexuality. By examining the period of over sixty years from when the Church of England first began to deal with homosexuality, I want to show how the disagreements that were visible from the start are the same as those now being tackled by the House of Bishops’ process to formulate a new teaching document.

By what authority?

By what authority?

Jesus’ authority is predicated on God’s authority. Biblical authority is predicated on God’s authority. Jesus declines to answer the question posed by the chief priests and elders. He poses instead a question they find it impossible to answer – clever move. But the question of what authority Jesus has remains unanswered. What amazed the people was not Jesus’ authority - the people were amazed at his teaching because, unlike the scribes, he taught with a note of authority. It’s the teaching, not the authority, that is fundamental.

Intimate Convictions Conference - Day 2 and Reflections

Intimate Convictions Conference - Day 2 and Reflections

The Intimate Convictions conference has been an extraordinary event. Probably for the first time in Jamaica lesbian, gay and bisexual people spoke publicly in a forum as equals about the effect of anti-sodomy laws in the thirty-six countries of the commonwealth where sodomy is criminalised and the sixteen countries that also criminalise lesbians. Over the two days twenty presentations were made with people describing the relationship between their church’s teaching and the lived experience of LGBTI people. The universal conviction of the presentations was that homosexuality had to be decriminalised.

Intimate Conviction Conference - Day 1

Intimate Conviction Conference - Day 1

The opening day of the conference was remarkable – nineteen people spoke in the five sessions into which the day was divided. The keynote address delivered by the Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Revd Dr John Holder, was a remarkable, well-researched, deeply historical and theological survey of the way in which we can understand the way in which what we now name homosexuality is, and isn’t, described in the Bible.

Intimate Conviction Conference opens in Jamaica

Intimate Conviction Conference opens in Jamaica

Intimate Conviction, the two-day international conference being held to examine the church and anti-sodomy laws across the Commonwealth opens today in Kingston, Jamaica. This conference, Intimate Conviction, is the first of its kind. It will provide an opportunity for a range of church positions to be heard, for global experiences to be shared, and to broaden the religious discourse around the repeal of laws affecting LGBTQI people.

Gravitational Waves

Gravitational Waves

This week the Nobel prize in physics was awarded to three American physicists for the first observations of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime that were anticipated by Albert Einstein a century ago. The description of what these three scientists detected is way beyond my imagination or comprehension. Our theology, especially our theology of God, is utterly inadequate to the task both of imagining our place in a universe of such incomprehensible dimensions and to the task of comprehending unconditional love. Jesus teaches about a Father whose love is unconditional and infinite. The God of tradition and orthodoxy habitually reinforces our guilty anxieties and worries.

False ideas in the church

False ideas in the church

The Church of England as an institution still looks okay on the surface. Congregations may age and decline and parishes are amalgamated as clergy numbers reduce (while the bishops add to their number) but worship and parish life and the central structures continue to function. But look inside and underneath and pay close attention to events at local, national and international levels and things are not looking good. At local, national and international levels the church is lacking - the church lacks leaders with courage, prophetic vision and wisdom. The church lacks the integrity and insight to tell the story of creation and evolution and human potential revealed in the Bible and Jesus (if you know where to look). 

Speaking as a fool for God

Speaking as a fool for God

I question the truth about ‘God’ being proclaimed in the church today. The image of God is based on an uncritical reliance on Scripture and Tradition, a simplistic reading of the Gospels, and a proclamation of the teaching and practice of Jesus which is in many ways profoundly in error. What theology, what image of God, is held by the bishops of the Church of England and the Primates of the Anglican Communion? Is it the toxic version of God and Jesus that supports discrimination and the abuse of LGBTI people or the radical, prophetic version that melts prejudice, confronts abuse, and transforms lives through living and loving unconditionally?

‘Feeling’ and ‘knowing’ - David Jenkins’ Guide to the Debate about God

‘Feeling’ and ‘knowing’ - David Jenkins’ Guide to the Debate about God

In 1966 David Jenkins, Bishop of Durham from 1984 to 1994, wrote a brief Guide to the Debate about God, exploring the historical perspective as well as appraising developments following the publication of Honest to God in 1963. Jenkins admits that there has always been a debate about God, not only about what He is like but about whether He exists at all. He wanted to explore whether theism really is on the way out and whether any hope of believing in God has to be abandoned as a result of the ‘new theology’. I have returned to David Jenkins’ Guide to the Debate about God this week because he identifies core issues of faith and the ‘experience’ of God with which I have been engaging for over five decades and which I believe are now essential for the Church of England to re-engage with if it is ever to recapture people’s imagination and open hearts and minds to the experience of unconditional love.

The unconditional and the insistence of God

The unconditional and the insistence of God

My spiritual director and I are the same age and both spent our childhoods in the diocese of Southwark. In our conversation on Wednesday, we discovered that we had both, in our teens, worked out that anything in the Bible that didn’t ring true to the ideas about God that had to be true had to be rejected – so much else in the Bible being unbelievable or downright un-Christian. I was hugely relieved when Honest to God was published to discover a bishop confirming that I wasn’t a heretic nor totally at odds with current church teaching. That was fifty four years ago. The conflict is still running through me.