Accusations of schism flying in run up to General Synod
by Susie Leafe, Christian Today:
General Synod begins on Friday and it looks as if the “new spirit of generosity and pragmatism” which Bishop Martyn Snow recently identified is going to be in short supply.
Earlier this week, the orthodox grouping ‘The Alliance’ wrote an open letter to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury pleading with them, not to introduce standalone services of blessing for same-sex couples without following, “the lawful constitutional path to preserve the unity of the Church throughout the Anglican Communion.”
But it was not just the process that concerned them – The Alliance believe that introducing such services would “be part of a schismatic move which departs from the teaching received and upheld not only by the vast majority of the Anglican Communion (representing around 75% of the Anglican Communion’s 80 million members), the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches but also the vast majority of other churches around the world”.
The Alliance went on to suggest that if General Synod went ahead with the plan put forward by the bishops they would “have no choice but rapidly to establish what would in effect be a new de facto ‘parallel Province’ within the Church of England”.
This was fighting talk and perhaps unsurprisingly their letter could not go unanswered and one of the most senior bishops in the Church of England, the Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, was given the task.
In an open letter he questions The Alliance’s mandate, claims there is no significant doctrinal change, and alleges there was “a very considerable consensus at the Lambeth Conference in 2022 about accepting different views on sexuality yet still walking together”.
It seems that just like the Archbishop of Canterbury before him, Bishop Croft would rather forget that hundreds of bishops boycotted the Lambeth Conference because they could not walk together with those who have departed from the teaching of the Church. It also seems to have slipped his mind that many who did attend were also very clear that they too could not walk together.
The truth is, there was no vote at Lambeth and there was no opportunity for bishops to dissent from the party line espoused by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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