The future of LLF: cakeism or coherence?
by Andrew Goddard, Psephizo:
Twenty years ago, Archbishop Rowan began his presidential address to the July 2003 York General Synod by asking “Does the Church of England exist?”. He replied that “there are several different ‘Churches of England’” and we need “to find out what it is that makes these diverse ‘churches’ one” because “if we can’t answer this, we are in trouble”.
Questions around diversity and unity are once again coming to a head focussed around the implementation of the bishops’ proposals for Living in Love and Faith (LLF) supported at the February General Synod (which I discussed here). The update on that implementation process to July’s General Synod (GS 2303, to which citations below refer) has been accused of saying nothing with little or no obvious developments reported. In fact, on careful reading, it points towards the serious challenges now facing the church and the range of questions the bishops hope to make decisions on to bring to the extra session of Synod introduced for November.
Ecclesial cakeism?
The bishops identified three areas requiring further work after February—the draft proposed Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF), the new Pastoral Guidance to replace the 1991 Issues in Human Sexuality, and what they termed “Pastoral Reassurance”. That work has now been disbanded—I served on the Pastoral Guidance workstream but write here in a personal capacity—in part because it confirmed what many always suspected: it is impossible to treat these areas as totally separate workstreams. They are intricately interconnected, as the bishops report (para 18, italics added):
In responding to the questions from the Pastoral Guidance group the bishops were asked to give informal steers acknowledging that only once they were able to consider the progress of all three working groups more comprehensively could formal decisions be made.
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