Did the Bishop of Oxford, Steven Croft, seek the advice of with the Bishop of Leicester, Martyn Snow, the lead bishop within the Residing in Love and Religion (LLF) trial on sexuality, earlier than launching his assault on the Orthodox leaders of the Alliance?
With Common Synod now underway in York, Bishop Snow is tasked with persuading members to simply accept controversial LLF Home of Bishops proposals to push for separate same-sex blessing providers on a trial foundation.
Christian At present contacted Bishop Snow's workplace to ask if he had been consulted earlier than Bishop Croft fired the pictures in opposition to the Alliance. Their leaders wrote to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Justin Welby and Steven Cottrell, on June 26 objecting to the LLF bishops' newest proposals.
The Diocese of Leicester stated questions in regards to the LLF needs to be directed to the C of E's central communications staff. An announcement is awaited from Church Home Westminster on whether or not the archbishop was correctly consulted as a matter of courtesy.
Leaders of the Coalition of Evangelical Charismatic, Conservative Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic Networks within the Church of England have simply issued a response to Bishop Croft's July 2nd weblog submit.
They responded strongly to Bishop Croft's problem to his declare that his coalition of Orthodox networks is supported by greater than 2,000 clergy. “I see no actual proof that that is the case (and notice that the Catholic signatories apparently didn’t signal the final letter),” he blogged.
The Alliance responded: “Proof of our community's help is that particular person members of the Church of England clergy have formally and personally expressed their help for the Alliance on-line at alliancecofe.org and we’ve got their names. (together with 138 clergy within the Diocese of Oxford to date). Catholic signatories stay a necessary a part of the Alliance and their views are clear from their signatures on previous letters, their current public assertion and their help beneath. Clergy presently supporting the Alliance come from church buildings which characterize 36 per cent of the common Sunday attendance of the Church of England and 55 per cent of the common Sunday attendance of the Church of England beneath 18s.”
The Alliance's response to Bishop Croft is signed by Tom Middleton, director of the Catholic community Ahead in Religion. So Bishop Croft's try and drive a wedge between the evangelical and Catholic wings of the Alliance seems to have failed.
Regardless of its uproar, Bishop Croft's weblog revealed a high-level revisionist technique to alter C of E doctrine on the solely heterosexual nature of marriage. He was blatant in his use of 'salami-slicing techniques', a time period that emerged in Hungary within the late Nineteen Forties to explain the takeover of the nation by the Communist Get together.
Bishop Croft, who in November 2023 grew to become probably the most senior C of E bishop to return out in favor of permitting full same-sex marriage in parish church buildings, warned Alliance leaders of how far the salami of conventional Anglican educating on sexual morality had already been sliced: ” The authorization of the Prayers of Love and Religion (at the same time as separate providers) merely supplies another liturgical provision to permit providers to be held legally with out the PLF. You as signatories have been a part of the church for a few years by which these providers have taken place.”
Bishops Croft and Snow have some profession collectively. They have been Bishop and Archdeacon of Sheffield when the Reverend Matthew Ineson, then incumbent of their diocese, revealed in 2012 and 2013 that he had been raped by serial church abuser Reverend Trevor Devamanikka when he was 16. Bishop Croft was one of many bishops criticized within the report 2023 C of E into scandal for mishandling Mr Ineson's revelations.
Even when Bishop Croft had consulted his former archdeacon, his derogatory weblog in opposition to the Alliance just a few days earlier than the LLF debate on July 8 may solely have deepened the deep divisions within the synod. One wonders what Bishop Snow thinks of his colleague's intervention.
Julian Mann is a former vicar of the Church of England, now an evangelical journalist based mostly in the UK.
