At the recent Governing Body meeting the Bishop of St Asaph made reference to EFCW and previous communications with the Bench of Bishop’s in his answer to a question on Conversion Therapy. His answer can be found here or in the Church Times here. Our response is printed below.
The original 2021 letter to the Bench of Bishops (with their original statement appended) and subsequent correspondence which were referenced are linked underneath.
We regret the interpretation put upon the EFCW letter of June 2021 to the Bench of Bishops in the Bishop of St Asaph’s response to Question 1 at the recent September meeting of the Church in Wales Governing Body. This letter was written to the Bench in good faith, as part of an ongoing dialogue, and we are saddened that reference was made to it in a situation that did not allow a right of reply or clarification before the Governing Body, and in its subsequent publication and distribution. We wish to rebut the implication that EFCW (wittingly or unwittingly) endorses conversion therapy.
EFCW does not, and never has, promoted coercive or abusive practices. Nor do we promote or encourage “practices in which pressure is brought upon vulnerable LGBTQIA persons to submit to efforts aimed at the conversion of their sexuality including attempted exorcisms and worse”, which we also agree are abhorrent.
As evangelical Anglicans we uphold the authority of Scripture over every aspect of our lives, as detailed in Articles 6, 7, 19 and 20. We are concerned that reducing the role of the Church to one simply of “welcome, acceptance and friendship” as the Bishop of St Asaph indicates, without the freedom to discuss the whole Canon of Scripture, or its application to daily life, would undermine the holistic pastoral care and discipleship journeys of those in our congregations.
We would also wish to have protections allowing prayer to take place with people, at their request, in the way the Bishop of St. Asaph suggests, namely “that God’s grace can be operative in the situation, and that a person would know God’s guidance and blessing, without a defined outcome”.
