THE Church of England is “not at the purpose of separation yet” over sexuality issues, the bishop leading the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) implementation says.
Speaking on the Church Times podcast, the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, says that “the overwhelming majority” of individuals he has spoken to concerning the issues dividing the Church — including blessings for same-sex couples, the restrictions on clergy entering same-sex marriages, and provision for opponents of the changes — “don’t need separation”.
“I feel it’s really essential to say that that’s the place to begin,” he says: “that the Church should remain one; and yet we’ve got to grasp the depth of our disagreement.”
Bishop Snow has written a booklet, Can We Imagine a Future Together? Intercultural lessons for living in love and faith, by which he portrays the disagreements over LLF in stark terms, and attempts to chart a route forward.
“We all want the perfect — and yet we profoundly disagree,” he writes. “So, what now? What I’m offering on this booklet is a middle way between the perfect that we long for and the truth that we experience.”
In his interview with the Church Times, recorded last Thursday, Bishop Snow sets out his vision for a “seasonal approach” to LLF. “I feel we’re entering one other latest season now, and that is the moment to usher in some learning from another fields, where there are also big disagreements.”
In the booklet, Bishop Snow suggests that there are lessons to be learnt from “interculturalism”: an approach to cultural difference which inspires interaction between people of various cultures.
This is different, he writes, from “simply endorsing every view going”, or co-existence without meaningful dialogue, but additionally distinct from what may be termed an “assimilationist” approach, by which one expects others to eventually agree with a single, predominant view.
It is a subject on which Bishop Snow has written before (Comment, 3 May 2024). He draws on his experience each as a bishop in considered one of most diverse cities within the UK, and in missionary work: he was born in Indonesia, where his parents were missionaries, and early in his ministry worked for the Church Mission Society in West Africa for 3 years.
A culturally diverse upbringing and extensive travel shaped his approach to theology, leading him to the realisation that “so most of the questions that we ask come out of our own context,” he says.
This has made him “way more open to realising that, actually, my very own way of considering, my very own beliefs, should be held with a level of humility. They have come out of my particular context and what shaped me.
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“I can still be quite firm about what I feel is true and flawed, and what I feel is the suitable approach. But I also wish to be open to what others are saying, understanding that they arrive with those different questions. So, I feel, from a theological standpoint, that that made me more willing to think that, as a Church, we will discover a way of life with difference on this.”
Bishop Snow’s views on marriage and sexual ethics aren’t any secret: he writes within the booklet that he holds “a standard understanding of marriage as a lifelong union of 1 man and one woman”.
These views haven’t modified, but he speaks of “learning an enormous amount” throughout the LLF process, particularly because the bishop in command of its implementation. “I’ve been deeply affected by most of the conversations that I’ve had, and I mean that very genuinely: I’m not only saying that since it appears like the suitable thing to say,” he says.
In the booklet, Bishop Snow suggests that other lessons that will be learnt from intercultural dialogue include the worth of sharing food and exchanging gifts. “Even if we will’t countenance seeing another person’s theology as a present, we will still see the person as a present and remain open to the opposite type of gifts they might have to provide to us and to receive from us,” he writes.
So, are LLF lunches moderately than General Synod debates the way in which forward? “You know, I’d quite like that,” he says. “I feel there’s something so powerful about sharing food together. My own experience is that you might have very different kinds of conversations over food, particularly in the event you cook it together.”
The structure of Synod debates, which frames fundamental questions as votes that will be won or lost, shouldn’t be necessarily helpful within the LLF process, he suggests.
“The model of Synods that we’ve got do force these binary decisions on us.” For this reason, “all kinds of other approaches” have been used throughout the LLF process, including small-group discussions. It is a “struggle”, nonetheless, to bring all of those together “right into a place where decisions can actually be made” — and, at the tip of the day, decisions should be made.
One of the present hold-ups is the shortage of a call by the House of Bishops on whether to remove the present restriction on clergy stepping into same-sex marriages — despite documents that were leaked to the Church Times in 2023 and suggested that there have been majorities in each the House and the College of Bishops in favour of such a change (News, 26 October 2023).
Discussions within the House of Bishops proceed, informed by theological work from the Faith and Order Commission. Bishop Snow says that he stays “confident” that a call shall be made “before too long”.
In the mean time, consultations in dioceses are continuing. Bishop Snow is anxious that these “don’t just mirror what’s gone on at General Synod, because among the conversations at General Synod have been very painful”.
He continues: “We’re all, I feel, in a single sense or one other, operating out of a spot of pain,” although he’s aware that, “for LGBTQI+ people, it’s a really different type of pain from that of those that, in conscience, can’t use the Prayers of Love and Faith.”
In the booklet, he acknowledges that, in meetings with groups on each side, there’s “an influence dynamic which shouldn’t be at all times easy to articulate”, and that it “governs what’s and what isn’t said, the way it is claimed, and the way it’s received. I do my best to acknowledge this, however it is complex, and I do know that I often get it flawed.”
Questions of power have turn into more distinguished in discussions of LLF in recent months. In January, Bishop Snow said that the subsequent phase of the method required “serious attention to problems with power” (News, 31 January).
Does the encouragement to take heed to other views, and seeing these as a present, turn into easier when one already occupies a position of power within the Church? Bishop Snow acknowledges that this “may possibly be right”, but, in his view, it’s “not wholly the case”, because, for a lot of bishops, the LLF process had personally been costly, and the stakes remain high.
“There are loads of bishops who feel very, very strongly about this, and I feel I’d go up to now as to say that I’m pretty sure there are some bishops questioning their position within the Church of England.”
But there are also many bishops who’re “not strongly of 1 view or one other”. As with the broader Church of England, it is that this “middle section” that the Church sometimes fails to recognise, he says.
After a vote in February last 12 months, by which the General Synod opted for more time for substantive proposals on LLF to be developed, Bishop Snow pledged to have interaction in “shuttle diplomacy” between those of opposing views (News, 28 February 2024).
A 12 months on, and several other evolutions of working groups later, a part of the “latest season” he’s proposing is a shift from the “purely listening mode” and asking the query “whether you possibly can actually live with this”.
One of the probabilities is a model of “delegated episcopal ministry”, by which parishes whose designated bishop took a contrary position could request oversight from one other bishop within the region who shared the parish’s view.
The Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) announced in February that it “cannot support” the plans for delegated episcopal ministry. The group’s national director, Canon John Dunnett, has said that this ministry would allow for “contradictory understandings of marriage and sexual ethics within the Church of England, and it’ll be unattainable for an orthodox understanding to flourish in that space”.
Canon Dunnett also said that the present proposals for delegated episcopal ministry would mean that parishes could still legally receive oversight from a bishop who didn’t share their position on LLF, and that it didn’t guarantee separate provision for ordination training and appointments.
Bishop Snow resists the concept that there is a straightforward solution to those issues which is able to please everyone. “If there have been, I’m absolutely convinced we’d have found that before now,” he says.
Perhaps, he suggests, it was time for a distinct approach, inspired partially by the philosopher Gillian Rose’s notion of the “broken middle”. “Rather than in search of the short solution, I feel perhaps we’re called to face on this brokenness,” Bishop Snow says.
And he stays hopeful that the CEEC, together with the Alliance group, with which it’s associated, may be willing to try delegated episcopal ministry, to “live with it for 2, three years or so, after which assess it and see, actually, is it working or not?”
The same applies to those on the opposite side of the argument, he says. “I’m very aware that we’re making an enormous demand in saying ‘Please be patient, please allow us to try to put this pastoral reassurance into place for conservatives before even fascinated about pushing on to any further developments.’”
He agrees that the effect of the final result of diocesan consultations may be a transparent message that “this isn’t going to work”, and, in that case, he would should reassess concerning the way forward. Bishop Snow hopes, nonetheless, that folks will not less than give some consideration to his vision of the subsequent steps.
He hopes that the analogy of interculturalism, which runs through his latest booklet, proves to be pertinent in terms of the importance that folks place on the Church of England’s remaining one body despite disagreements about sexuality. After all, he says, there aren’t many who would suggest that a society should fracture on the premise that it incorporates different cultures.
Instead, society looks for tactics of living with, and taking strength from, difference, he says. “The Church must be setting an example by way of how we live together within the face of disagreements.”
Can We Imagine a Future Together? is published by Church House Publishing and is accessible to purchase here.
Listen to the complete interview with Bishop Snow here.
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