by Julian Mann, Christian Today
If Save the Parish is going to do what it says on the tin, how can it treat the Church of England’s traditional teaching on marriage and sexual morality as a secondary issue?
Save the Parish (StP), founded in 2021 “to sustain a thriving, cradle to grave, parish system with well-trained clergy”, has just launched its manifesto for the elections this autumn to the C of E’s governing body, the General Synod.
Written by StP founder and chairman, Rev Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London, the manifesto states: “One of the joys of Save the Parish has been the way in which people across the divides of church and national politics have been able to work together and become friends.”
The StP manifesto says the group has “a conscious policy of agreeing to disagree about all other matters”, which include the C of E’s deeply divisive arguments about sexual morality in the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process, its Net Zero drive, and the Church Commissioners’ £100m Project Spire slavery reparations scheme.
StP recognises “that many among our number feel passionately about some, or all, of these important issues and many of our candidates will be standing with other Synod groupings at the same time”.
Marcus Walker himself voted for the private member’s motion at the July 2026 General Synod, which expressed “delight in the lives and ministries of LGBTQIA+ people in the Church of England” and stated that “committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationships” can be “entirely compatible with Christian discipleship and ministry”.