AMONG those closely following the forthcoming General Synod debate on Living in Love and Faith (LLF) shall be ordinands and people within the discernment process within the Church of England, for whom the form of the Church wherein they hope to serve stays within the balance.
This week, several of them spoke to the Church Times concerning the impact that the selections being made were having on their progress towards ordained ministry and on their personal lives.
They include a young woman who’s waiting to learn whether her engagement to a different woman might be followed by marriage; and an ordinand who, on requesting to defer their priesting, was told by their bishop that they might should resign their orders.
Although the Church’s bishops have given a commitment that opponents of the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) could have “an honoured place inside the Church”, members of the network Orthodox Ordinands tell of deep anxiety about their future.
The conversation is happening within the context of a steep fall within the variety of ordinands within the Church: from 591 in 2020 — the best for 13 years — to 379 last yr (News, 11 July 2023). While the principals of theological colleges and courses (TEIs) have cautioned against attributing the decline to LLF — and Church House, Westminster, cites the Covid-19 pandemic as the important thing factor — the Orthodox Ordinands group reports that potential candidates are questioning whether to pursue their calling within the Church. Of the overall 379 beneficial for ordination last yr, only 342 began training: an unusually high deferral rate.
WHEN it involves LLF, much has yet to be decided. While Parts One and Two of the Pastoral Guidance were published in December (News, 15 December 2023), Part Three, on ministry, has yet to be finalised. This includes work on replacing Issues in Human Sexuality, the document that candidates for ordained ministry are asked to read and assent to live in accordance with.
This third section of the Pastoral Guidance may also set out “whether ministers are capable of enter into same-sex civil marriage without an expectation of celibacy”. The “Commitments” paper set to come back before the General Synod this month refers to “exploring the method for clergy and lay ministers to enter same-sex civil marriages” (News, 9 February). It recognises that “not all bishops can be content to ordain or license such ministers”, and states that bishops “would wish to commit to being transparent with candidates for ministry about their very own personal approach and commit to exploring alternative national approaches for candidates who they, in conscience, couldn’t sponsor”.
Voting figures illustrate that the House of Bishops is split on the matter: a “narrow majority” are in favour of removing restrictions. The paper refers to the opportunity of “uneven treatment of ministers in several parts of the country”.
Among the ten commitments set out within the paper is the appointment of an interim Independent Reviewer to “monitor the sensible outworkings of the bishops’ commitment to value and respect different theological understandings”. It asserts: “We will do every thing we are able to to make sure that nobody feels pushed out of Church. We will seek a commitment to avoid using the civil courts to settle our disputes.”
FOR Sarah (all names have been modified), who’s because of attend a bishops’ advisory panel (BAP) in June, the dearth of clarity about whether the clergy can be permitted to enter into same-sex marriages had made it difficult for her and her fiancée to make plans since their engagement last yr. “There were rumours that clergy marriage guidelines would change and we’d have the opportunity to have a wedding followed by Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF); but now we’re only planning for a civil partnership and PLF,” she said this week. “It is difficult to not feel as if I’m entering an establishment where my relationship status shall be seen as second-class.”
Having an “affirming” bishop and diocesan director of ordinands (DDO), she had not been asked any “unusually probing questions”, she said. “However, in my first meeting with my DDO, upon asking about my relationship status, she stressed that, if I were to get married to my fiancée, I might never have the opportunity to go further with the discernment process.
“I actually have found that, in interviews and discussions within the discernment process, I keep being questioned repeatedly about my ability to work with people within the Church who hold different beliefs and viewpoints to me. Somehow, I doubt that straight candidates are asked similarly with such intensity.”
When it got here to where to coach, she had felt “very restricted”, she said. “I feel that I’m being forced to contemplate colleges that won’t suit my form of worship or theology, but are the one options because they’re inclusive. Looking further ahead to the long run, I’m anxious about finding a curacy, as I worry that an increasing variety of churches won’t want to contemplate a queer woman as a curate — and that inclusive churches won’t have funds for a curate.”
Thomas, a youth employee in London who entered the discernment process in 2022, said this week that he had stepped back before his Stage Two BAP, as his bishop on the time was not willing to sponsor him unless he undertook to enter right into a civil partnership. “My partner and I are eager for marriage, and neither he — nor I — can be willing to simply accept civil partnerships because the official recognition of our relationship,” he said this week. “I would favor to attend to see what comes over the following 12 months. Otherwise, I fear I can’t proceed to follow my calling and can, as an alternative, marry my partner, which in itself is a calling to family life with someone whom, I think, God has put into my life.”
Laura shall be ordained this Petertide. Her discernment and selection process mostly took place online, due to the pandemic. This week, she recalled the “pregnant pause” that followed her telling the DDO that she was bisexual while married to a person. She was encouraged to stress this latter aspect and her belief in monogamy. There was, she said, some “quite nasty” language in Issues, which states that bisexuality “inevitably involves being unfaithful”. She considered it “just luck” that the person whom she fell in love with was a person relatively than a lady.
The current climate felt “precarious”, with an “extra level of scrutiny”, she said. The bishops in her sending diocese, where she is going to begin a curacy this yr, all hold a standard position on sexuality, and a few have questioned her decision to return there. Many gay clergy had already left, she reported.
But, she said, “It’s my home. I grew up here. I need to remain and help make it a safer, more welcoming church for LGBTQ+ Christians, not run away from it.”
There was also at all times a level of flux in dioceses, she said: bishops retired and moved. “The tables turn, and everybody moves around; so quite a lot of it’s what you possibly can weather for the time being.”
IN OCTOBER, Orthodox Ordinands wrote to the Archbishops to say that the PLF left them feeling “vulnerable and anxious” (News, 10 November 2023). The letter was signed by 161 ordinands, representing each Evangelical and Catholic traditions.
This month, the group raised concerns a couple of “postcode lottery for ordinations”: while some dioceses had made provision for people to be ordained by bishops who shared their theological convictions, others had not.
“Implementing a national scheme for alternative ordinations no matter diocese can be one significant step to reshaping the narrative, and showing ordinands that they will move through the method and discover a curacy at the top,” Matt Porter, a theological student in training at Oak Hill, said. He warned that, “if some leaving training cannot get ordained by a supportive bishop, then they’ll leave this summer.”
This month, a spokesperson for the diocese of London confirmed that, for those being ordained this yr, the London College of Bishops and the Bishop of Ebbsfleet were “capable of offer appropriate provision reflecting the range of perspectives consonant with Anglican teaching and tradition”.
John, an ordinand in his final yr, who’s because of begin a curacy in a diocese wherein the bishops don’t share his theological convictions, said this week that he praised God “for the kindness of my diocesan bishop in agreeing to an alternate ordination. . . It has provided a way for me to get ordained within the Church of England with my conscience and integrity intact, and has allowed me to go to a curacy where I feel I’ll thrive.” But he was conscious of friends who had made the same request and had been told by their diocese that it might not be possible.
For another ordinands, the long run looks uncertain. One in search of a curacy reported this week that two dioceses had been “unable to search out anything which is orthodox. . . The instinct is to walk away, not get ordained, and serve God in another way. This teaching is Jesus’s: it isn’t ours to alter.”
Another related that a request to defer their priesting “to permit more time to process theology and to await November’s release of the Pastoral Guidance” had been met by “the demand to resign my orders if not ordained in 2024.
“The Bishop has questioned my integrity and discernment, and made this an ethical issue. The impact has been a turmoil of grief, confusion, anxiety, and stress. I not feel secure within the C of E, and definitely not in my diocese.”
ORTHODOX ORDINANDS is in contact with people who find themselves currently within the discernment process, in addition to candidates in training. This month, it reported “very real uncertainty” among the many former, concerning “whether or not they shall be welcome, wanted, or supported when it is thought that they hold to the standard view — whether there shall be appropriate theological training colleges to go to, and curacies provided. . .
“Potential candidates are telling us they’re the increasingly polarised and messy situation inside the Church of England and wondering if that’s the life they need to enter into in ministry — whether or not they could accomplish that with integrity, without feeling compromised.”
Max is currently within the discernment process. Despite the promise of “an honoured place inside the Church”, he questions whether this shall be possible, given the potential for traditionalists to be equated with racists and homophobes. “How can we are saying the Church won’t expel those individuals who describe themselves as ‘orthodox’?” he asked this week. “Who would work alongside a racist? I don’t see how this isn’t a debate of absolutes.”
Nevertheless, he remained calm concerning the future: “For either camp, our toil is to specific God’s love and spread the gospel, LLF/PLF or not: the Great Commission isn’t affected.”
Stephen, who has recently begun training and holds a standard view, is conscious of being within the minority in his theological college where, he said, “a vocal minority in the coed body would relatively not have us within the Church of England.” Teaching staff had been supportive, nevertheless, he said, and he was aware that some shared his convictions.
“In the discernment process and in conversations with my diocese, my sense is that these issues are entirely sidelined and treated as unimportant,” he said this week. “As a young ordinand in search of a stipendiary title post, my fear is that orthodox parishes is not going to be given curates and/or that orthodox candidates shall be pressured into serving in contexts which have moved in a way that their conscience is not going to allow.
“Since my diocese is now in emptiness, there’s also a way of tension in relation to the appointment of a recent diocesan bishop, provided that the previous bishop was relatively sympathetic.”
ASKED concerning the slowdown in ordinand numbers, TEI principals sounded a note of caution about attributing it to LLF.
The Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, the Revd Dr Sean Doherty, said that none of the school’s ordinands had deferred ordination due to the PLF, although several had expressed concern concerning the uncertainty of the situation. He was cautious about attributing the slowdown to this factor, saying that numbers “fluctuate yr by yr.”
But he agreed that a “national approach” needed to be developed to supply assurance to ordinands across the spectrum of theological convictions, and to encourage vocations. “I actually have heard from quite a few DDOs that the brand new discernment process is taking longer,” he said this month. “That’s not necessarily a foul thing, if it means that individuals are more ready by the point they arrive through into training, nevertheless it’s also vital not to place people off.”
The Principal of Westcott House, Cambridge, the Revd Dr Helen Dawes, said that last yr’s ordinand numbers indicated that the drop had been “felt across the board, which makes me think it’s not primarily driven by concerns concerning the implementation of the Prayers of Love and Faith”. Neither was it a matter of “residential v. non-residential training”, she suggested: the numbers entering full-time training on each pathways had fallen by similar amounts. It was the drop in part-time ordinands that had been “noticeably smaller”.
Most of Westcott’s ordinands were younger than the present average and sometimes in a “quite precarious” financial situation, she said. “Whilst we’re glad to support the formation of the younger and more diverse leaders that the Church is in search of, it does raise the likelihood that their existing financial precarity is a problem for some potential ordinands.”
There was “very broad support” at the school for moving forward with the PLF, she said. But it was “vital that we proceed to be a community where people can form, develop, or change their views on complex issues — and where, if we disagree, we are able to accomplish that thoughtfully and with each other’s humanity on the front of our minds”. The trustees had expressed their support for using the PLF for members of the school community in regular services.
In addition to the pandemic and the brand new selection process, uncertainty concerning the availability of long-term clergy posts has been cited as a possible reason behind the autumn in numbers (News, 14 July 2023).
But they’ve not fallen in all dioceses. The DDO in Manchester, Canon Nick Smeeton, reports that numbers remained high throughout the pandemic, and have remained regular: over the past five years, there was a 40-per-cent increase in stipendiary candidates, 20 per cent of whom have a minority-ethnic background.
He remained “pretty positive” concerning the recent selection process, but expressed “a slight concern that uncertainty around PLF could have led to some potential candidates holding back for a time, and this might mean that — nationally — there shall be a shortage of curates from certain traditions in a couple of years’ time, potentially impacting planting plans. But I’m seeing early signs that we’re getting through to the opposite side of this.”
Helen Bryant is a first-year ordinand with the Eastern Region Ministry Course. She began discernment in Ely, for LLM training, and was beneficial through the pandemic, but had to start the method again after moving to Coventry, where she was eventually beneficial for ordination. She suggests that the drop in ordinand numbers may be related to the heavy workload of DDOs, who’re “often in huge demand from all areas”. A high level of turnover ends in a discernment system that may develop into “overwhelmed”.
The long length of the discernment process is “right”, and it could be well worth the Church’s being clearer about this with those exploring vocations, she suggests. “Although I often felt that I used to be going over the identical ground, every time I did, I discovered recent depths to what I used to be saying, and this ultimately meant that I used to be well prepared.”
This month, the Archbishops’ Council’s head of vocations and deputy director of ministry, the Revd Helen Fraser, said that the National Ministry Team was planning to expand outreach and support.
“God has not stopped calling ministers to serve his Church,” she said. “With the variety of retirements projected over the following few years, along with the missional task ahead of us of growing as a younger and more diverse Church, as much as ever we’d like faithful and godly people to step forward and serve our worshipping communities in ministry.”
WHEN the General Synod meets, those in training for ordination will have the opportunity to follow the controversy online. A desire expressed this week across the spectrum of convictions was to see more work from the Bishops on the theological rationale of their proposals. Joshua Tomalin, who’s in his second yr at Oak Hill, suggested that, to this point, ordinands had needed to undertake “quite a lot of theological work personally on the problem without much guidance. . .
“So much of the crucial decision-making is completed behind closed doors. Sometimes it’s leaked out, and sometimes it isn’t,” he said. “This doesn’t feel like a very good system of leadership. Even when decisions are made, there is commonly little or no — even no — rationale provided, which is deeply confusing at times, especially once they appear to contradict themselves.”
He expressed concern that, currently, theological students lacked “a seat on the table” in decisions that might affect the remaining of their working lives. One option, he suggested, was to recognise them as a stakeholder group within the plans to be delivered to the Synod next week. “For a few of us, the alternatives made now will impact our ministry for 40 years or more, but we feel powerless in how these decisions are made. Having some form of representation would go some option to fixing this.”
