Last week the Church of England’s House of Bishops had an initial discussion about the Pilling Report. The expectancy outside the room was huge: what was said? Did those Bishops known to be opposed to blessing of same sex relationships make a stand with Keith Sinclair’s dissenting statement? (+Keith would not have been there of course, as this was a meeting of Diocesan Bishops). Were battle lines drawn, or was the emphasis on unity and collegiality? Were any decisions taken? None of this information has leaked out, and instead we were given this anodyne three line summary:

Sir Joseph Pilling attended the House to introduce a discussion on ways to address the recently published report on Human Sexuality, a paper commissioned by the House of Bishops as a report to the House.

However, we might be able to glean some clues as to what was agreed, and what is being planned, by looking at communications sent by Bishops in response to letters sent in by clergy and laity expressing concern about the Pilling Report. Here is an extract from one such letter, from a senior Bishop to one of his clergy:

We’re entering a period of discussion. It starts with the House of Bishops meeting this week and goes on to the College of Bishops in January. Each diocese will also be formulating its own way of pursuing the conversation. We can’t pretend there’s no conversation to have; the Church of England has many mansions and we need to step out of our own mansion and entrust our thinking to one other.

So here it is. We will be entering the period of “indaba” – or “facilitated conversation” advocated by the Pilling Report, and it will be done Diocese by Diocese, much as the discussions on women Bishops took place (see below). The vital subject of Christian teaching about sex and relationships will be decided by focus groups. But I’m interested in the “many mansions” idea. My understanding of John 14.2 is that “mansions” is a mistranslation which comes from the transliteration of the Latin Vulgate “mansiones” into the Authorised Version: the word monai simply means “rooms” or “dwellings”, and Jesus was assuring his disciples that there would be space for all his disciples in his Father’s home. So it doesn’t mean that we will all get a mansion in heaven, but nor is there any hint of the popular interpretation of universalism: that there will be different “homes” for all people even of radically different and opposing creeds. But the Bishop seems to be interpreting it in that way: Anglicanism is so broad it can encompass all different beliefs. The Gospel in this account is not then that we enter the Kingdom of God by turning from our sin and receiving Christ, but that we are all already in the Kingdom, and our task is to recognize the validity of all other beliefs and points of view.

The Bishop goes on:

In particular we need to discuss our attitude to Scripture and the hermeneutics we use in understanding our core authority. This may be a painful discussion at times for we shall find the light of Scripture refracted in different ways for different people. But none of these people must be distrusted as either heretical or dishonest. We have to engage. Christians can’t ‘deselect’ or un-Church one another.

 

We have shown that we can respect difference in the remarkable way the legislation on women bishops has gone forward. No-one is entirely happy with the likely result, which seems to indicate that we’re finding a way to live with a spectrum of views.

 

Here again is the assumption of universalism. All attitudes to Scripture and methods of interpretation are provisional; all are valid. No-one is a heretic. The church is inclusive of all beliefs. And the model we have used for pushing through the women Bishops legislation without ensuring that opponents are happy with adequate safeguards – could that be the same one about to be used for pushing through the acceptance of same sex relationships in church?

Another letter from a different Bishop in response to a complaint about Pilling goes further:

God loves all people, wants them to flourish, and blesses all relationships that are healthy and life-giving. God delights in the diversity of the world he has made. Wherever his love is present, the correct response of the church is to bless and give thanks…

 

…People in different kinds of relationships offer different gifts to society and to the church. I do not want to see the church lose sight of the distinctive ways in which God has, for many centuries, worked through marriage between a man and a woman. But it is vital that the church celebrates the wonderful ways in which God is also now working in lesbian and gay people’s relationships. So I would like the church to keep the distinctiveness of marriage between a man and a woman, and also joyfully recognise and bless civil partnerships. And I would like the church to give all the support it can to people in marriages and civil partnerships, as they live out the life long vows they have made to one another.

 

This is a much more overt expression of support for what is proposed in the Pilling Report. As such it may be telling us what we already know about this particular Bishop’s liberal views, rather than an insight into what the College of Bishops may decide in January. But it is alarming that a Bishop can so overtly support the blessing of gay relationships without any concern that this may be violating the Church’s historic understanding and teaching, and without any sensitivity towards his conservative clergy correspondent.

In particular, the Bishop’s word “now” in the last paragraph is interesting – an unfortunate slip perhaps – God is “now” working in gay relationships. Is that saying that God has at last caught up with us and stopped being homophobic? Or that this new way of being gay (ie in a civil partnership) is now being blessed by God when previous relationships were not? Most likely he really means that the church is now recognising God’s work in gay relationships when it didn’t before. This attitude displays pride: “we know better than all the Christians who went before us and who worship in the majority Churches today”. It also displays fear and lack of faith: “we must bless this new development because Western culture is heading in that direction, and we might be rejected and lose our status”.

So we don’t know what the Bishops will decide in January but these letters give us an insight into the kind of thinking being displayed by some of our spiritual leaders.

This article by Andrew Symes is from the December 17th, 2013 issue of the AAC’s International Update. Sign up for this free email here.