by Ian Paul, Psephizo
On Wednesday at about a quarter to five, the House of Bishops released a very significant statement, following their meeting the previous week in which they spent six and a half hours discussing the next (and final?) steps in the LLF process. The timing was odd; my understanding was that they were planning to release the statement on Thursday, but a newspaper had had sight of the documents from the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC, chaired by Dr Robert Innes, the bishop in Europe) and so their statement was released early.
There is much to note in the statement itself; there will be more to say when the FAOC documents and legal advice which informed their discussion are published. It is worth reflecting on why they are now (at last) so radically changing direction. But it will also be important to ask why we have got here after the launch of LLF in 2017, and the Shared Conversations prior to that.
In a nutshell: this looks to me very much like the end of the process. It is a momentous statement.