THE national director of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), the Revd John Dunnett, has resigned as an honorary canon of Chelmsford Cathedral over the choice to make use of prayers of blessing for same-sex couples at cathedral services.
Mr Dunnett was one among greater than 150 signatories to a letter sent last November, after the cathedral’s decision to make use of the Prayers of Love and Faith was announced. The decision, they wrote, left them “feeling disenfranchised from the life and worship of the Cathedral”.
The other signatories haven’t been made public, but Mr Dunnett said that they comprise priests, churchwardens, PCC members, and diocesan-synod members.
The letter called on the Dean, the Very Revd Dr Jessica Martin, and the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, to reconsider the choice — “and hopefully reverse it”. In a reply sent last month, the Bishop and Dean declined to achieve this, Mr Dunnett said.
On Wednesday, Dr Martin said that she was “very sorry that John has not felt capable of proceed as Honorary Canon: he will likely be a loss to the breadth and richness of our community.
“The Cathedral took the choice to supply the Prayers of Love and Faith over time, consulting with Chapter, the Senior Leadership Team, and the Cathedral Forum; and is one among many Cathedrals to have done so,” she said.
“We proceed to be a Cathedral for the entire diocese, to which all belong and all are welcome whatever their conviction on this issue, because the seat of the Bishop and the mother Church of the Diocese.”
Next week, the General Synod will consider a motion from the House of Bishops which formally brings the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process to an end (News, 16 January). But, Mr Dunnett said on Tuesday, it might be “duplicitous of any bishops who say it’s being paused, since it’s not. The LLF trajectory has not stopped.”
He suggested that the motion was “paving the best way for the House of Bishops to bring a measure to Synod for clergy same-sex marriage” (News, 23 January).
The CEEC has previously called for structural changes to the Church of England to offer separate provision for churches on either side of the LLF debate.
On Tuesday, Mr Dunnett suggested that specific provision may very well be made in Chelmsford for people within the diocese who took a conventional position on marriage and sexuality to enable them to proceed participating in shared structures, despite being in “impaired fellowship”. He gave for instance the thought of appointing a second Dean to act alongside Dr Martin.
Mr Dunnett said that he hoped to take care of good relations with each Dr Francis-Dehqani and Dr Martin. “I hope there isn’t any animosity, since it is about something more essential than that.
“It’s not about how Dean Martin, Bishop Guli, and Reverend Dunnett ‘get on’ — that is concerning the way forward for the C of E and whether it would depart from its historic understanding on marriage and sexual ethics.”
Last month, the chairs of Together for the Church of England, which campaigns for greater inclusivity for LGBTQ+ people, said that they were dissatisfied by the Bishops’ decisions on LLF.
The Vice-Dean of Bristol, Canon Neil Patterson, and Professor Helen King, a General Synod representative for Oxford diocese, said that the Bishops had acted in “the spirit not of Prophecy but of Procrastination”.
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