Fortuitously – the Obama effect
This morning, Wednesday 21 January 2025, fortuitously reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Americanah published in 2013, I reached chapter 35 in which the relationship between Ifemelu, the primary character, and Blaine, her boyfriend, is in a terminal state. Ifemelu is a black Nigeria, Blaine a white American. She is reading Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father. They are united for a period in their dream that Obama might become president. He wins the Iowa caucuses. Their hope rises, exploding into possibility. She reads the latest news about him, seeking information and reassurance, worried that something would derail him. At an Obama rally, a father, his son hoisted onto his shoulders, “was stunned by his own faith, stunned to find himself believing in things he did not think he ever would.” Ifemelu observes the crowd:
“ They believed. They truly believed. It often came to her as a sweet shock, the knowledge that there were so many people in the world who felt exactly as she and Blaine did about Barack Obama.”
Obama becomes the Democratic Party nominee. Two pages but several months later, Ifemelu and Blaine spend election night with their friends watching the results on TV. Obama wins the state of Virginia and then the election and their living room “became an altar of disbelieving joy. “Ifemelu watched, mesmerised. And there was, at that moment, nothing that was more beautiful to her than America.”
Less Fortuitously – the Trump effect
Well, you might guess what’s coming next. Eighteen years later I’m writing as Donald Trump is in the air on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As the Guardian reports this morning, Trump, “increasingly shaped by his erratic shits in behaviour and unpredictable decisions, his fury at perceived slights and his growing desire to stamp his name in the history books, his legacy the model of an imperial leader from centuries past.” In Trumps world there are winners and losers, bullies and the bullied. His method – create chaos, fill voids with provocation, transgress norms and ignore the consequences. No one trusts him. They only fear him and his unpredictable unfiltered psychopathic psychology.
We are all affected by Trump, directly and indirectly. He is normalising psychopathic, abusive, bullying, manipulative, dishonest behaviours. Our relationships and human encounters are being affected by Trump’s behaviour every day, everywhere, all the time. Subliminal and not so subliminal awareness of Trump’s presence infiltrates my meditation space every morning. Trumps malign influence affects what happens in church and in the Church of England. It magnifies, intensifies, the effect of other changes in human society and culture; our absorption in mobile phone screens and social media memes. I’m affected by this every time I leave the Priory and walk through London streets or catch a bus.
The effect of Living in Love and Faith
I have been mulling over and emotionally stewing about posting a blog following the decisions taken and documents issued by the Church of England House of Bishops. I have reached an age and the Church of England Bishops have reached a stage when I don’t really care any longer what the Church does or doesn’t decide to do in relation to my sexuality.
As I’ve described in previous blogs, at the age of 11 nearly 12, I became aware that my emotional and physical desire was for other boys, intuitive, integral to my identity. If God judged my emotional and sexual desires for men then God was wrong and I was right. My intuition has guided me throughout my life and is guiding me now as I react to the House of Bishops’ statement to the Church and the Living in Love and Faith process dies because not a single bishop escapes from infection by The Trump’s anaesthetising of courage, vision, depth, truth and love.
The House of Bishops statement sets out an agreed position as the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process is brought to a conclusion and confirms an agreed approach to any further changes. I do not agree with the position reached by the Bishops, nor with their approach to further changes and I hope fervently that Together and every other group dissents from the House of Bishops’ position, abandoning the Church at the end not only of the LLF process but of seventy years of reports and endless meetings and Synod debates.
I have disobeyed the teaching of the Bishops and the mind of Christ informing God’s attitude as revealed in Holy Scripture in guiding the Church. I feel less welcome in today’s Church than I have ever felt in seventy years of living unashamedly with my sexuality. If I feel profound anguish, it’s not anguish about my sexuality and the way the Bishops have utterly failed, seventy years on, to overcome the prejudices of the Christian Church. It is anguish at the abusive, prejudiced, homophobic God the Church continues to construct and worship.
What I interpret from the House of Bishops’ letter is that while they “remind themselves” . . .
that God is love.
that God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to share our human nature, and to live, die and rise again for us.
That God’s invitation to know, love and follow him through Jesus Christ and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit extends to all people, in every place and time, without exception, thus including all those who are LGBTQI+.
and that God’s will is for the flourishing of each person in a world transformed by that peace and justice which are the marks of God’s kingdom
. . . the House of Bishops do not understand God’s love and do not understand what God’s will for human flourishing means for LGBTQIA+ people, our families and friends and allies. What human flourishing means for the House of Bishops is that human prejudices are given priority over God’s unconditional, infinite love.
The C of E bishops are infected by the same anxiety as inhibits Keir Starmer. Starmer can’t risk speaking the truth and upsetting Trump. This bishops can’t risk upsetting the Church Revitalisation Trust, HTB, CEEC or The Alliance. The new, money-centred, growth-fixated, homophobic conservative evangelical axis is allowed to dominate and control.
Time for Action
In my last blog, two months ago, I argued that it’s time to organise ourselves, challenge status quo narrative, develop our moral courage, stand up visibly and audibly and become active agents in pursuing the full equality of LGBTQIA+ people in the Kingdom of God. After the Synod in November 2025 and more significantly, the 14 January 2026 House of Bishops’ letter to the Church key people have preached and written and posted statements challenging to status quo and confronting the Church with reality. We should be inspired by the courage shown by the Deans of Canterbury, Southwark, St Edmundsbury, Bristol and Salisbury. These Deans have declared themselves openly – the Bishops have kept silence. Progressive inclusive networks have yet to follow the road less travelled down which the Deans and others have plunged.
Cathedral Deans
Five cathedral deans have done what no member of the House of Bishops has had the courage to do – they have preached powerfully honest, direct, sometimes very personal sermons describing the impact the Bishops’ utterly inadequate conclusion has had on them and on LGBTQIA+ people and on many family members, friends, colleagues and allies in the wider Church.
The Very Revd David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury
In October, following the announcement from the House of Bishops of the death of Living in Love and Faith (LLF), David Monteith, Dean of Canterbury said in a very personal sermon preached on October 25, 2025:
“This multiplies our shame which so many of us have and still experience as LGBT+ people in our families, churches and neighbourhoods. I found my life and heart constrict as I received this news once again; being told loudly and clearly that our minority lives and loves must remain marginal, hidden and uncatered-for like a vegetarian in 1980s France.”
“None of my clergy colleagues have enquired as to how I am doing. No one from the bishop’s staff on which I sit have said a word. None have even alluded to noticing that the bishops had issued their conclusions. Nothing. We are invisible despite being present and our cares and concerns are best kept to our own little minority lives.”
“I have bent over backwards over the years to be gracious and kind, to not walk away from the table, to become vulnerable in sharing my self in conversations and dialogue. I have listened to those of a conservative view with grace. I have watched them behave despicably in meetings, soaking up their violence against me and mine and so often with an annoying smile.”
The Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark
Mark’s sermon, preached on Sunday 26 October 2025 is available to view on YouTube and as a document.
“So, the latest trend to take hold in London is the ‘scream club’ in which people gather to shriek at the top of their voices. More than 600 people headed to Primrose Hill this month for the London Scream Squad’s 15 minute inaugural session. In recent days I have been tempted to join. Not only does the news each day make me want to scream, either in shock or despair, but then things come along in the Church of England which, as a public representative of it, make me want to scream too. The first bit of news was that the House of Bishops has decided to put through the proposal that ‘stand alone’ services of blessing for same-sex couples should go through a process that won’t agree to it, and that clergy will continue to be barred from entering a civil marriage with a same-sex partner. If they do, they are likely to lose their license or not get a new appointment, nor will those who are gay and married be accepted for ordination training. Of course, add to this that we are not allowed to marry same sex couples in church, and no bishop has ever been transparently appointed in a civil partnership and it is hard not to conclude that the Church of England is still homophobic and does not believe in the equality of love.”
“I have rarely preached personally on this topic, but perhaps today’s the day. In all the church debates in over 30 years of ministry, I have to tell you that I haven’t recognised myself. I didn’t choose anything. I discovered who I was, and it wasn’t easy. I knew people beat up people like me, the government was telling people not to teach children about people like me, the newspapers were naming people like me, the Church was excluding people like me if they were honest.”
“This Cathedral will continue to welcome all, and we rejoice in offering prayers with those who have made a loving commitment in life - and we look forward to the day when we can offer them equality with everyone else.”
The Very Revd Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury
A sermon preached on Sunday 26 October 2025
“The House of Bishops of our Church has issued a statement which has effectively ended what’s become known in church circles simply as ‘LLF’. Living in Love and Faith began its life more than five years ago, with the publication of a range of Christian teaching about identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage. These resources have been the backdrop to an exhausting series of synodical debates, nationally-convened conversations, and diocesan discussions. Changes to the Church’s life have resulted, modest and humane changes which many of us welcome. For the first time, our Church has published prayers that can be used with same-sex couples after a civil marriage or a civil partnership. Salisbury Cathedral has publicized its willingness to use them. But further developments were also envisaged: the use of these prayers in their own bespoke services, outside existing acts of worship, and the removal of the prohibition on clergy entering same-sex marriages.”
“The Bishops’ statement has brought this trajectory to a sudden halt. The legal and theological advice that they have received is that further changes will need legislative processes, and that these will not be complete before the end of the current synodical term. The advice has not yet been published and cannot be assessed, although it seems to have arrived very late in the day. What is unarguable is the devastating effect that the Bishops’ decision will have on tens of thousands of faithful Christians. I count myself among them. We had dared to hope that the LLF journey would take us to a place where the structural homophobia of the Church of England might begin to be unpicked, and where the lives and loves of gay Christians might be honoured and treasured in the way that those of their straight sisters and brothers have been for generations. Instead, the statement reads ‘We recognise that, for some, [these decisions] will be difficult and disappointing’. How can that one miserly phrase address the cruel pain and visceral hurt that is being visited on the lives of so many by the abrupt abandonment of the work of five years?!
The Very Revd Joe Hawes, Dean of St Edmundsbury
A sermon preached on Sunday December 7 2025:
“I, like most other gay Christians have taken a few decades to come to a place in which I can affirm, with heartfelt certainty, that . . . who I am in my creation, is essentially what God intended. That I am not an aberration, a mistake on God’s part,. My 37 year relationship has helped me to accept myself , but how many gay clergy have been condemned to lives of loneliness, self-denial and self-loathing because they’ve been oppressed by the strictures of a hostile Church?”
“Over the past five years, we have pussyfooted around, allowing to be diluted what we believe to be the holiness of full acceptance and relationship. And we have continued to uphold the ban on clergy entering even civil same sex marriages. Ordinands have waited and waited, and some haven’t been able to be ordained.”
“[Bishops] have a narrow and closing window in which to lead the Church to a place in which it can breathe out this toxicity of institutional discrimination and breathe in something good and life giving. Bring forward a proposal at the very least, for standalone services of blessing for same sex couples, and lift the ban on clergy entering same sex marriage. You actually do have the power to do it, and it is very far from full inclusion, but it would be a start.”
The Very Revd Mandy Ford, Dean of Bristol
A sermon preached at Canterbury Cathedral, Sunday 14 December 2025
“Twelve years ago, my partner and I celebrated our civil partnership with a service in our parish church. It was a modest affair. There was tea and cake, champagne and sandwiches, there were flowers and hats. And Jesus was there too, in word and sacrament, in the preaching of the gospel and the celebration of the Eucharist. It was a foretaste of the Kingdom, a wedding feast, a celebration at which there were a host of angels making festival! Yet, in the outworking of the Living in Love and Faith process. this foretaste of the Kingdom is to be denied my sisters and brothers, because it looks too much like a wedding.”
“Where, among our bishops, are those with the courage to act from love, who are willing to risk the breaking in of the Kingdom?”
“Where, among our bishops, are those who will stand up against legalism, who will expedite processes for standalone services and lifting the ban on clergy entering same sex marriages?”
“Where are the bishops who will enact the spaciousness of a church where we live with difference?”
Leading voices
The Revd Robert Thompson is Vicar of St James’ West Hampstead and St Mary’s Kilburn and a member of General Synod
In an article for ViaMedia News Robert expresses his deep disappointment charged with much anger at the statement from the House of Bishops on the ending of the Living in Love and Faith process and asks what forms dissent should take.
“The LLF statement presents its outcome as a pastoral compromise. Theologically, however, it represents an impasse. It affirms baptismal belonging, ordains LGBTQIA+ people to ministry, and invokes ecclesial unity—yet refuses to draw the doctrinal and disciplinary consequences of those affirmations.”
“This leaves LGBTQIA+ clergy inhabiting a space of permanent provisionality: fully called, partially trusted; sacramentally equal, institutionally constrained.”
“A church that affirms baptismal equality and ordains LGBTQIA+ clergy, but then restricts our vocations for “unity”, isn’t showing patience or pastoral care. It’s simply justifying inequality sanctified by process.”
“It is here that I locate the anger that charges my sadness. Like many colleagues I am now left in a place where I need to assess how best to respond to episcopal decision-making. Anger because I feel as if I been nothing but a faithful, committed and deeply-engaged Anglican for the entirety of my life and this feels like a resounding slap in the face. Like many I am now asking: at which point does active dissent to this decision-making become both morally and theologically essential and what forms should dissent take?”
The Rt Revd Paul Bayes, retired Bishop of Liverpool
“Today’s statement of the House of Bishops, freely admitting to a preference for loveless law over messy love, makes it hard for me even to connect tenuously with the institution to which I have given most of my life. I had hoped for courage, and for an entrusting of the life and unity of the Church to the God of love. So deeply disappointed.”
The Revd Simon Butler, Rector of Holy Trinity and St Mary's, Guildford, a former member of the General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council.
“I have used the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) in two stand-alone services since they were permitted, and would welcome further enquiries. They have been simple occasions of quiet joy. The pastoral task laid upon me by my ordination vows and the mission of God in this community is more important than allowing an illegitimate request from the House of Bishops to get in the way.”
“Something that the Bishops have accepted throughout LLF, despite the objections of conservatives, is that there is legitimate disagreement about what is an “essential” matter of doctrine. With such latitude, faced with a simple request not to use the resources in stand-alone services, I believe that I am free to say, with politeness and respect, “You ask of me something you are not at liberty to ask.” Less politely put, “Wind your necks in.” I shall be continuing to offer stand-alone services, and would welcome the opportunity to challenge the legal basis of any attempt to prevent me.”
Dr Helen King
Helen, who is a member of General Synod and has been deeply involved with the LLF process posted a commentary on the ending of the LLF affair on her website.
“Bishops like the sound of a closure to LLF as a ‘process’ but with the onus being placed on the rest of the church to decide what to do. To quote the summary of the words of Bishop Martyn Snow at the May 2025 House of Bishops, “Failure to reach agreement would not be the end of the conversation. Synod members would table Private Member’s Motions; dioceses would pass Diocesan Synod Motions. These would pass or fail by narrow margins with consequences.” As we wait for more from the bishops . . . from their next meeting in the middle of this month – we can at least see where the driving force of The Alliance, the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), stands.”
David Runcorn is a convenor of Inclusive Evangelicals and the author of Love means Love – same-sex relationships and the Bible. He has been a vicar in West London, chaplain at Lee Abbey Community, North Devon, lecturer and tutor at Trinity College Bristol, Director of Ministry Development in the Diocese of Lichfield, and Associate Director Ordinands and Warden of Readers in the Diocese of Gloucester.
David posted a comment on the ending of the LLF process on Inclusive Evangelicals.
“One of the good gifts emerging out of the otherwise dispiriting official statements in recent months has been the quality of personal testimony and theological convictions being offered in response. The new Archbishop of Wales, Cherry Vann, told of the years of being obliged to hide her partner, Wendy, from public and church view and the joyful freedom of now being in a church where that is no longer necessary. Four Cathedral deans, themselves gay and in long and faithful partnerships, have also shared stories of the costliness of carrying out their ministry. If the Church of England is to move forward and lead with the theological conviction and authority that is its calling, it too must turn away from what continually overpowers it, and from the fatal reflex to compromise.”
Inclusive Evangelicals posted resolutions for 2026
No turning back!
To continue to respect those we disagree with. No one is being forced to act against their conscience. But we ask for the same respect in return, for our theological convictions, and a recognition of the clear mind of the church.
To hold fast to what the church has declared good – and not let go will until full blessing is received.
Rev Charlie Baczyk-Bell is a married gay priest, Associate Vicar at St John the Divine Kennington, Diocese of Southwark and forensic psychiatrist
I will gladly offer any queer couples a service of blessing, as is my right as a priest under Canon B5. I am a married, gay priest, and the world has not ended.
The Church of England, and the House of Bishops, is institutionally queerphobic.
We your clergy are not. Come to us, and we will not turn you away.
Queerphobia is no different to misogyny, or racism, or any other kind of hatred. You, bishops, and those you compel you in fear, will face the judgement of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What you do to these little ones, you did also to me.
Heterosexual, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Bishops
MOSTLY SILENCE
One bishop who has committed herself is Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop in her Presidential Address to Diocesan Synod on Saturday, 29 November 2025
“I need to make clear now my views which will not come as a surprise, that I in the firmest way possible want to see full inclusion for LGBTQI+ people. This means, as far as the current LLF issues before us concern, I support standalone services of blessing for same-sex couples who are civilly married and I long for a Church that enables clergy holding my license who are able to marry their same-sex partner. The Faith and Order Commission’s recent document on doctrine is meant to help the Church move forward in the LLF process, but I am persuaded by Durham theologian Mike Higton’s reflections that in fact it does the opposite, and I lament that this is where we have got to. I want to argue for full LGBTQI+ inclusion because of the witness of Scripture, not despite it.
“One of the saddest aspects of where we have reached as a Church, is the erosion of the witness of real lives and a disregard for the fear and distress our LGBTQI+ siblings live with. I lament the disproportionate impact of the endless years of debate and discussion on the mental health of the LGBTQI+ community.”
On Sunday 11 January 2026 at Southwark Cathedral the President at the Choral Eucharist was the Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun. The Sub-deacon and Preacher was the Very Revd Dr Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark. The Bishop could have acknowledged the bravery and truth embedded in Mark’s sermon preached on Sunday 26 October 2025, but he didn’t. Lesbian, gay and bisexual bishops still remain firmly locked with the closet from which Mark further released himself that day.
Revd Colin Coward: Changing Attitude England
We are called by the Mystery named God to live lives that are creative and healthy in the contemporary context of an increasingly unhealthy world that is having an unhealthy effect on religious institutions including the Church of England. We are living through global movements of change of tectonic plate proportions.
My “belief” in God is intuitive and experiential. I trust in the dynamic relationship of presence and Mystery located in the experience of my body and the life in which I am inextricably immersed. The roots, ground, essence and core of Being, both my being in my body and my being in the world is where Mystery existentially IS. IT is LOVE, unconditional, infinite, intimate. IT is life in all its fulness.