In debates about Christian practice and moral teaching, each side invariably claims that the other’s approach will lead to fewer people in the pews. Typically, the advocates of a particular change claim that the new proposal will make the Church more attractive, welcoming and comprehensible. The sceptics counter that the Church is, or should be, committed to certain timeless truths regardless of their popularity in a society at any given time. This happened with various denominations’ liturgical revisions of the Sixties and Seventies, and with the argument over women’s ordination in the Church of England. It is being repeated now with the arguments over sexuality.

The most recent such interjection came from Dr Ian Paul, a clergyman, blogger and member of General Synod. On Sunday the Telegraph reported that Paul, a prominent Church of England Evangelical, believes the interminable debates over race and sexuality are diverting time and attention from more important matters. As a result, they are making the Church seem obsessed with its own internal rules rather than looking self-confidently outwards.

I am personally sympathetic to Dr Paul’s view, but it’s difficult to prove the matter one way or another. What is certainly true is that all churches will eventually need to pick a side. You cannot serve two masters, as someone once said, and an institution cannot continue indefinitely trying to go in two separate directions. The conservatives are right that any organisation clearly unsure of itself and plagued by self-doubt and division is going to struggle to recruit committed members. No one will give their life for a question mark. Not that Catholics should be too triumphalist. Bishop Robert Barron has criticised what he calls the “permanent council mindset”, … read it all in UnHerd