by Julian Mann
In the battle for biblical orthodoxy on marriage and sexual morality, Church of England conservatives have lost three articulate and effective General Synod members in the elections for the next five years.
Rebecca Hunt, a barrister who is centre manager of the Christian Legal Centre, did not get re-elected as a lay member for Portsmouth Diocese.
As a member of the previous 2021-2026 General Synod, she was particularly effective at question and answer sessions in championing biblical teaching and holding bishops and senior officials to account for departures from it with considerable forensic rigour.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, chief executive of both the Christian Legal Centre and its sister organisation, Christian Concern, said: ‘Rebecca has been a courageous and articulate Christian voice on Synod, and we are grateful for her faithful service. We were disappointed not to see her re-elected but there are many friends of Christian Concern who have been elected.’
She added: ‘Our commitment to seeking biblical faithfulness within the Church of England continues, and we will keep supporting those who uphold it, both within Synod and beyond.’
Another effective orthodox member, Laura Oliver, a GP based in Preston, was not re-elected in Blackburn Diocese.
In her election address Oliver said that as a member of the previous Synod she was ‘able to speak several times in the various debates on marriage and sexuality, using my own personal experiences as a single, same-sex attracted woman to ensure no relevant voices are forgotten in the discussions and that God’s good word on sex and marriage is upheld’.
In those debates Oliver was a powerful advocate for the received biblical teaching of the Church.
Ed Shaw, ministry director of Living Out, an organisation that supports same-sex attracted Christians in their stand for biblical obedience, was also not re-elected to the new Synod. As a lay member for Bristol Diocese in the previous Synod, he brought formidable intelligence to the debates.
Revisionists wanting the C of E to ditch its current teaching that marriage is exclusively heterosexual and that sex should be reserved for marriage made a significant gain in Southwark Diocese. Prominent LGBT campaigner Charlie Baczyk-Bell was re-elected as a clergy member. Contrary to C of E rules for licensed clergy, Charlie Baczyk-Bell has entered into a same-sex civil marriage with Piotr Baczyk-Bell, who has now been elected as a lay member for Southwark.
C of E revisionists are celebrating the optics of the new ‘husband-and-husband team’ on Synod. In practice, the two of them are likely to prove very effective politically on Synod and on its committees.
The C of E’s protracted Living in Love and Faith (LLF) programme on ‘relationships, sexuality and gender’ ran into the sand over the legal impossibility of allowing standalone or dedicated services of blessing for same-sex couples without the two-thirds majorities required for a doctrinal change in Synod. But the revisionist game is still very much in play.
After Synod voted last February to bring LLF to an end, the House of Bishops has set up two working groups to take forward ‘questions of relationships, sexuality and gender’ and ‘explore legal and legislative questions around special services involving Prayers of Love and Faith’, as the liturgy for the blessing of same-sex couples is called. Since December 2023, the House of Bishops has allowed clergy to conduct Prayers of Love and Faith in existing church services but dedicated gay wedding celebrations are still not allowed in parishes.
C of E conservatives are celebrating the election to Synod of Nicky Gumbel, the former vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, the evangelical charismatic flagship church in London’s West End, and founder of the globally influential Alpha Course for enquirers into the Christian faith.
As a new clergy member for London Diocese, Gumbel, 71, can be relied on to vote against revisionist moves to undermine the C of E’s doctrine on marriage and sexual morality in the 2026-2031 Synod sessions. In December 2023 he signed a letter to the House of Bishops from leaders of the Alliance, a coalition of Anglo-Catholics, conservative evangelicals and charismatic evangelicals, which called the Prayers of Love and Faith a ‘departure from the doctrine to which the Church of England has always held fast’.
But, though he would vote the right way, how effective would Gumbel be in the arduous political combat on the floor of the Synod? Is he, metaphorically speaking, enough of a street-fighting man?
Fortunately for the orthodox cause, three very effective female members of the previous Synod have been re-elected – Debbie Buggs as a lay member for London Diocese and Prudence Dailey and Helen Lamb as lay members for Oxford Diocese.
Speaking metaphorically again, if the likes of Buggs, Dailey and Lamb can continue to wage effective urban warfare on the Synod floor, they should help rally the orthodox troops and act as mentors to the new members now elected. But the losses of Hunt, Oliver and Shaw are still a blow for Synod conservatives.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK.