THE Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, is standing down as certainly one of the co-chairs of the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. She has expressed “serious concerns” concerning the recent appointment of a latest interim theological adviser to the House of Bishops.
In a statement published online on Thursday morning, Dr Hartley said: “It has grow to be clear to me within the last 48 hours that there are serious concerns regarding the recent technique of appointing an interim theological adviser to the House of Bishops.”
Dr Hartley and the Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Revd Martyn Snow, were appointed last November to co-chair the LLF process, and last week wrote an article for the Church Times setting out their hope for a “reset” of the method (Comment, 26 January).
In Thursday’s statement, nevertheless, she said: “What has transpired within the last 48 hours has had a critically negative impact on the work Bishop Martyn and I were searching for, in good faith, to do. My role as co-lead bishop for the LLF process is now undermining my capability to fulfil my primary calling, to steer and look after the people and places of the diocese of Newcastle.”
Earlier within the week, the Vicar of All Saints’, New Longton, the Revd Dr Thomas Woolford, a tutor at Emmanuel Theological College, was announced because the interim secretary to the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC) and adviser to the House of Bishops, before a everlasting post-holder takes up the position in September.
After his appointment, an article by Dr Woolford, published in 2019 on the web site of Church Society, a conservative Evangelical organisation within the C of E, began to be circulated on social media.
In the article, Mr Woolford wrote: “I believe it will be disastrous and desperately wicked if the Church were to arrange blessings for things we must not bless, alter the canons to accommodate worldly pondering, surrender the usual of chastity for ordained office-holders, or sanction false teaching.”
Speaking shortly after Dr Hartley’s announcement, Dr Woolford distanced himself from the tone of the article. “I’m still a conservative on blessings and on sexuality; in order that part hasn’t modified,” he said. “But I’d put a number of things in another way in light of the journey that we’ve been on in Synod and in the broader Church.”
He emphasised that the article had been written for a conservative readership, and pre-dated the conclusion of the discussion stage of LLF and his election as a General Synod representative for the diocese of Blackburn.
He said that he had asked for the article to be taken down when he was appointed to the FAOC post, as he didn’t want it to “distract” from his work. An archived version of the article remains to be available online.
The article argued that one shouldn’t stay in an “apparently apostatising Church of England” due to “missional benefits” or a hope that “we could yet turn it around.” Instead, he wrote, “I invite you to remain . . . and die. Stay and die because, frankly, that’s what Jesus would do (and did).”
He went on to write down that “death”, on this context, would “likely take the form of being faraway from office”.
On Thursday afternoon, the Bishop in Europe, Dr Robert Innes, who chairs the FAOC, said that Dr Woolford’s was an “advisory role, not an executive role”.
“He is an adviser amongst other advisers, and advisers come from an appropriately diverse array of positions,” he told the Church Times, and emphasised that it was a six-month interim appointment.
“It’s testament to the very febrile nature of the Church for the time being that the appointment of a short lived adviser attracts a lot interest and controversy, and I do regret that.”
He described Dr Woolford as a “a really able theologian indeed”, who understood that he needed to “behave in a neutral way”.
Asked whether he was aware of the 2019 article before the appointment was made, Dr Innes said that he was not, but echoed Dr Woolford’s remarks about its being written in a “very particular context”.
“It was an excellent few years ago, and if he was in role now he would express himself very in another way, and he understands a must retain a neutrality on the problems,” the Bishop said.
Dr Woolford confirmed to the Church Times that, on taking on his latest post, he had resigned his Synod membership, and wouldn’t be at this month’s group of sessions.
In February last 12 months, he proposed an amendment to the LLF motion to the effect that an incumbent and PCC would should have voted in favour of using the Prayers of Love and Faith before any service of blessing may very well be held within the parish.
The amendment succeeded, by one vote, within the House of Laity, but fell within the Bishops and Clergy (Synod, 17 February 2023).
Some of those that had been critical of Dr Woolford’s appointment expressed disappointment on social media at Dr Hartley’s decision to resign.
The Revd Dr Charles Bell, a self-supporting minister within the diocese of Southwark, wrote that her resignation was “really sad yet unsurprising. There are forces at work to destroy the limited progress now we have made on LLF — first the outrageous rollback and ignoring of Synod, then +Europe appointing a wholly inappropriate theological adviser.”
The Rector of Great St Bartholomew, Smithfield, the Revd Marcus Walker, nevertheless, wrote that the news was “doubly sad” as Dr Woolford was “someone whom I can disagree with but (a) have robust debates with (and we didn’t two weeks ago, on this issue!) and (b) remain good friends with. Which is the way it needs to be.
“We must work out how one can have the ability to work with, debate with, trust, and love one another through this very difficult season. And perhaps we want to do it within the reverse order from how I put it: love then trust then debate then work with.”
