Revisionist bishops in the Church of England are looking for ways around the ban on dedicated gay wedding celebrations in parishes, the new Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, Dr Joanne Grenfell, has let slip to the Church Times.
The paper reported last week the revisionist dismay at the House of Bishops’ decision to kick ‘standalone’ services of same-sex blessing into the long grass.
The Bishops announced after their October meeting that ‘the introduction of stand-alone or “bespoke” services of Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) will now be subject to a process under Canon B2, which requires a two-thirds majority in all three Houses of the General Synod’.
Clergy have been allowed to use PLF liturgy to bless same-sex couples in regular church services since December 2023. But despite the February 2023 General Synod vote to push ahead with blessing same-sex marriages in C of E churches the Bishops have been stalling on allowing clergy to hold full celebration services for same-sex couples after their civil marriage.
The Revd Dr Charlie Bączyk-Bell, a leading LGBT campaigner on the General Synod, said last week that bishops had been influenced by ‘threats of schism and removal of money’ by the Alliance, a network of church groups opposed to same-sex blessings.
The Church Times reported last week on a document produced by the Alliance ‘which urged clergy to pass a resolution through their PCCs {Parochial Church Councils} pledging to disengage from various C of E structures if stand-alone services or clergy same-sex marriage were permitted’.
Speaking to the Church Times, Dr Grenfell, a leading C of E revisionist, ‘acknowledged that the House of Bishops’ decision to require the approval of stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples to be subject to a Canon B2 process, which requires two-thirds majorities, would effectively prevent their coming into use’.
She said Bishops ‘realise that’s the reality of the process, and this is the reality of the voting patterns in Synod’.
However, the paper reported that ‘she also suggested that the distinction between using the Prayers of Love and Faith in scheduled and “bespoke” services was not a huge one, and noted that baptisms took place during other services and separately, but were still the same rite’.
Dr Grenfell, formerly suffragan Bishop of Stepney in London Diocese, is due to be welcomed as the new diocesan Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, which covers the East Anglia county of Suffolk, in January.
Her suggestion to the Church Times indicates that a vicar in her diocese who held a gay wedding celebration on a Saturday afternoon, provided it was topped and tailed with regular Sunday liturgy, would have the moral support of their new Bishop.
But under the new Clergy Conduct Measure, passed by the General Synod last February, they might not escape disciplinary consequences if the ‘case assessor’ adjudicated that a complaint of misconduct should be allowed to proceed to tribunal.
The Religion Media Centre reported this week that prominent revisionist clergy have vowed to defy the House of Bishops’ decision and to offer dedicated same-sex blessings but so far no bishops have put their name to the commitment.
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK.
Hat/tip Anglican Mainstream for access to this article.
