Free to publicly bless same-sex couples in church

In two lengthy papers, Peter Collier KC, retired Senior Circuit Judge and former Vicar-General of the Province of York and Fr Charlie Baczyk-Bell outline where the House of Bishops have arrived, both concluding that clergy are free to use the PLF resources in church in services with same-sex couples.

In Where Does the House of Bishops Currently Stand on the Use of Prayers of Love and Faith? Some Reflections for ViaMedia News. Peter Collier says:

• “It is clearly in order for any cleric who wishes to do so, to use the commended PLF resources in any regularly scheduled service.”

• ”It would be open to any priest relying on Canon B 5.2 to use a form of service considered suitable by them to provide a service of thanksgiving and prayer for a couple who approached them.”

• ”Clergy can continue to exercise their pastoral responsibilities under the B canons – and that to do so is not only acceptable, but right.”

• “It seems to me that the threat of litigation is vastly overstated in the papers that have been produced so far.”

In B2 or not B2: that isn’t the question Or: navigating the waves in the wake of the sinking of LLF, Charlie Baczyk-Bell concludes:

• “Clergy need to take back the initiative, and act under the provisions of Canon B5.”

• “Clergy can continue to exercise their pastoral responsibilities under the B canons – and to do so is not only acceptable, but right.”

Both authors agree that clergy are perfectly within their rights to continue blessing the relationships of lesbian and gay couples in church in stand-alone services or in the context of other services. There is pretty much zero chance of legal action being possible against such priests. So we can carry on doing what many priests have been doing for decades. We have the assurance as a result of thoughtful analysis of what the House of Bishops and the FAOC have done that no action can be taken against us.

This is a significant advance towards the radically new full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people first promised in 2017. That’s the positive news. The bad news is that there is no progress at all towards achieving equality in ministry and relationships for lesbian and gay clergy in general, let alone for those in committed relationships who wish to marry. Nor is there progress towards equalising the Marriage Canons to allow equal marriages to be solemnised in the Church of England. I know other denominations are available but as an Anglican, it is vital for me that anyone who wishes to marry in their parish church, straight, gay or lesbian, can legally do so.

What God do we believe in?

I return to the thoughts and questions that haunt me. What kind of God do we members of the Church of England corporately believe in? Do we really believe (as some clearly do) in a God who is tribal, prejudiced, judgmental of our gender or sexuality, authoritarian?

After the decades of reports and process and the years of Living in Love and Faith, the Church of England, controlled by the House of Bishops, still believes in a God who is unable to recognise and celebrate and pour out blessings on the love lesbian and gay individuals and couples can experience every day of our lives.

I wonder what kind of world, of planet, of universe, of cosmos, and of human civilisation does the Church of England believe in – are we yet aware of the seamless love of God the Father incarnated in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ – who lived and died and rose again for the life of One World, One Humanity, living on a fragile planet, anxious and insecure, mutually responsible and interdependent?

An era is coming to an end and a new era is slowly beginning to evolve. The era coming to an end is the era of prejudice and discrimination sanctioned by societies and cultures, legal and religious systems, against the minority of people who are now corporately gathered under the LGBTQIA+ acronym, and in particular, against those men and women who feel deep love and tenderness and desire for people of the same gender.

Another era is coming to an end, the era in which sacred texts have been used to justify discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people, against women, against people of different colours and cultures and religions. The addiction of some Christians to the God of dogma and doctrine and dividing lines is the reason why the Church of England is having such great difficulty moving at the same pace as the rest of English society out of the sexuality and gender era.

LGBTQIA+ people have been granted legal rights (not yet sufficiently established for Trans people) and with the legal protections comes justification for challenging discrimination and prejudice in other areas of society such as the Church of England. Humans have prejudices and discriminate selectively. God doesn’t. Gay and lesbian people have been arguing and campaigning for the freedom to live with the same protections, rights and values as heterosexuals for the whole of my life on earth. Many of us on this fragile planet live in the here and now, embodying the rights that have been hard won by prophetic campaigners.

The Church Revitalisation Trust is bankrolling HTB-identified conservative anti-LGBTQIA+ equality church takeovers and plants. I’ve written about specific examples in recent blogs. The HTB/CRT leadership knows their homophobic teaching is unpopular with their target audience. They maintain radio silence, refusing to speak their truth openly.

How do we, advocates for Christian justice and equality, motivate the majority of members of the Church of England who have already stepped into the new era of sexual and gender equality? How do we make their and our voices heard? The majority of bishops know the game is up. They know the inevitable outcome of the process started in the 1950s when members of the Church of England first started taking tentatively about homosexuality will result in equal marriage in church for gay and lesbian couples. What they don’t yet know is how to justify this change spiritually and theologically and they can’t yet find the courage to commit themselves to equality and justice for all in the kingdom of God where life in all its fullness will flourish.

It’s time to go to work

I’m reposting the conclusion printed at the end of my last blog - It’s time to organise ourselves, challenging status quo narrative, forming communities of resistance, offering counter-cultural models in the Church, develop our moral courage, standing up visibly and audibly, being active agents in pursuing the full equality of LGBTQIA+ people in the Kingdom of God.

You are part of the solution

You, reading this blog, have a voice and a conviction. You can do things to create the change we envision. Engage with your local clergy, congregation, friends, PCC, Churchwardens and allies. Ask them to join you in committing your local church to as fully inclusive agenda as is possible, including the public blessing of same-sex relationships, CPs and marriages.

Encourage the other progressive organisations, Together, Inclusive Church, Equal, Open Table, Network to find the courage to work for transformation by challenging the failure of the House of Bishops to commit to a radical new Christian inclusion for LGBTQIA+ people. Affirm lesbian and gay clergy in their relationships, in a civil partnership, and those dreaming of marriage.

Take courage yourselves from the courage shown by the Deans of Canterbury, Southwark and Salisbury in writing and preaching about the transformative vision we share and the isolation and abuse we endure.

Please repost this blog; copy and paste the text if you wish.

You are part of the greatest resource in the Church of England – people with vision and a passion for the Gospel proclaiming the inclusive good news of life in all its fulness.

To transform our vision into reality I’m going to need help and we are all going to need help. Join the Changing Attitude Facebook Group and engage with each other there. Contact me directly if you want to volunteer to help: ccmcoward@aol.com

What if we just weren’t made for these things?

A question that has been haunting me one way or another for a long time received some kind of an answer in an article in The Guardian Magazine on Saturday 20 September 2025. The article, by Alex Curmi, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, was titled “What if we just weren’t made for these things?”

I have great difficulty knowing and trusting what the point of being an active, committed Christian is nowadays (apart from being an irritant, pursued by God, keen on writing and posting blogs). Forty years ago the question didn’t arise. Being a Christian priest then was obviously a wise, fulfilling, vocational, fundamental of my life. God, trusted to be some kind of reality somewhere with very specific qualities and identities, was also open to be questioned, change, development according to radical new ideas in theology and liturgical performance and texts. God was open-minded about gay clergy and women priests. We, modern committed Christians, were wiser about the complexity of the Biblical text when and where and by whom the books of the Bible were (and weren’t) written. We knew about textual criticism, how the books had been edited and assembled, not necessarily in date order, we knew about Qumran and the Dead Sea scrolls – and evolution as a fundamental reality.

Alex Curmi’s article reminded me of the things I’ve become more conscious of in the last forty years, a more detailed awareness of the evolution of the human species and of ‘society’. Curmi gave a simplified timeline:

• human genetics and anatomy have remained largely unchanged for about 100,000 years

• For the next 90,000 years we lived as nomadic hunter/gatherers in tribes

• About 10,000 years ago an agricultural economy began to develop; settlements formed

• 5,000 years ago civilisations began to form, independently in five geographical centres. The Hebrew journey of faith began in this period.

• Christianity was formed 2,000 years ago.

Explorers, archaeologists and historians provide us with an increasingly detailed and still expanding knowledge of the many eras of civilisation that have evolved, succeeded and failed over this 5,000 year period. My awareness of the landscape of history and of my Christian faith has been transformed, raising the question for me: “Why do I still believe, and what is it I really believe – about God? The is partly a question of age: eighty, 45 as a priest. But there is more to it than that. Life itself has become far more complex that it was when I was a child, more unsettled, more fragile, more demanding. Human societies and cultures are clearly regressing to a more decadent state in parallel with our evolving scientific discoveries and inventions. Societies are electing or being subjected to tyrannical, emotionally immature, authoritarian leaders. Combine the fragile state of national and global leaders and institutions with the fragility and uncertainty about our capacity to respond effectively to the climate crisis and it’s no surprise that people feel insecure and uncertain about the security of our lives on the planet as well as about our personal faith when we are witnessing extremes of human aggression, destruction, murder and we are haunted by physical and emotional neuroses, addictions, diagnoses and syndromes. Curmi says there is a powerful explanation for many of these manifestations – the world has developed in ways our biology hasn’t been able to keep up with. My body knows this.

A visit to Foyles bookshop

Last week I had time to kill in the West End and wandered into Foyles and started browsing among the categories of human spiritual, emotional and psychological health and well-being, religions, Bibles, Church history, theology, Islam, Buddhism, philosophy, mythology, esoteric studies, the occult, mindfulness, astrology, ethics, epistemology, psychoanalysis, new personal development, self-development, self-help, spiritual guidance and relationships. I took photos of each pair of bookcases – 30 photos of two or sometimes three bookcases, about 70 in all, 1 metre wide by 2 metres high, seven shelves in each, maybe 40 books per shelf, 20,000 books in total, so many books, so much space occupied in Foyles, so many people reading these books. Maybe all these books, all these subject categories are responding to people’s physical, emotional, spiritual and religious anxieties and their search for understanding and reassurance, to find answers to the questions and experiences that haunt us.

Back to Alex Curmi – and obesity

Curmi says the contemporary human habitat isn’t the one we were made for, have evolved to live successfully within. Obesity, previously rare, has now overtaken malnutrition as the leading public health issue relating to diet in many parts of the world. He says the realm of dating and mating has also changed beyond all recognition. The process of finding a mate, a partner, has often become protracted and overwhelming:

“a phase of life characterised by choice paralysis, hurtful behaviour such as ghosting, and the constant anxiety that our true soulmate is just a swipe away.”

“Rising rates of depression and other mental health problems can also be viewed through the lens of mismatch. Many of us are living a life disconnected from others, lacking in fulfilling work and devoid of meaning.”

“Low mood is not the misfiring of a broken brain but a signal that we might be missing out on important aspects of human experience.”

“Reports are emerging that chatbots can fuel the delusions and paranoid thinking of people vulnerable to psychosis.”

Previous eras and generations may have been fortunate enough to live in communities rich with tradition, ritual and meaning. I understand why among my friends are those who continue to be deeply attached to their particular Christian traditions and practices. The traditions don’t particularly work for me any longer.

Curmi suggests that “understanding the life evolution designed for us allows us to look at our problems with more clarity and self-compassion, and can nudge us towards better, more informed decisions.” “Some solutions are straightforward, like keeping junk food out of the house, deleting social media apps or limiting screen time.”

“Community, collaborative problem-solving, ritual and meaning are vital ingredients for a satisfying life and will remain so. Thinking about how to building these into our lives so that they’re part of its fabric, rather than optional extras, is a potentially life-changing exercise.”

I think the Holy Spirit is working extra hard in my life at the moment, because a day after reading Alex Curmi’s article, I read on p10 of Ken Leech’s book a quotation from Eric Hobsbawn dated 11th July 1988:

“Britain after Thatcher will be a scene of destruction. Those who need to rebuild what has to be reconstructed – not necessarily in the same way as before – need a preliminary survey of the bomb damage . . . Answers to particular questions are given by most reports but nobody has sketched the general picture.”

John Major, the next Prime Minister, restored in a dull, grey way, some stability and Tony Blair’s New Labour restored some excitement, progress and creativity, but global events and regressions have halted progress towards reconstruction and are presenting us with a new, worse question. If Trump hasn’t destroyed too much of Western culture and society beyond repair, will we have the people to sketch the picture of repair we are going to need?

My understanding of the experiences I’m having as I visit church buildings and congregations in the Stepney area of London Diocese is that much Christian teaching, life and worship is being corrupted by the Trumpian revolution and the ways in which modern life is making us sick, identified by Alex Curmi. I am more convinced than ever that the Church of England is being corrupted by the multiple failures to engage with changing cultures, beliefs and practices and is already in a position where recovering a healthy spiritual and religious culture is going to be almost impossibly challenging. The good news is that I continue to meet individuals and churches where the congregations and their lives of worship and Christian witness and practice continue to display signs of health that respond to the question “What if we just weren’t made for these things?” These individuals and churches can lead people more deeply into the quality of “life in all its fulness.”