The Five Guiding Principles and LLF – why the Church of England is immoral

Most of us live and exist in many worlds. For most of my adult life I have worked and been employed in education and also been a priest of the Church of England.

Morality, ethics, is at the heart of the Christian life, all lives. Whatever our ‘spiritual experiences’, the test of all these is our ethics. With thirty years experience as a spiritual director I know that ethics, action, how we actually act is the true measure of our faith.

The sense of dissonance between these worlds has been significant in my life, as has the sense of dissonance around safeguarding.

Many clergy call for more theology in these debates. I am not sure about that. I suspect we need less theology and more common sense, in fact ,that good theology is, in fact, common sense.

As a headteacher how could I have conceived of “She can’t be Head of Maths because she is a woman.” Let’s just apply this principle across the church. It is simple. It is straightforward. This is the justice that the bible talks of.

The danger is that the same dissimulation and simple weirdness that has been applied to the ordination of women will be applied to to same sex marriages. It will be equally immoral. Don’t do it. My appeal is wait. Wait until the majority will vote for justice. Tempting as it is, don’t do it. Justice delayed  is justice denied is an easy claim; but partial injustice now is no substitute for true justice. The Church of England has important choices to make. They are not easy. Injustice now is not better than justice in some future world. 

At one level this is irrelevant. Few lay people believe or even know of this injustice. Most lay people do not understand this injustice for women or for gay couples. If the Church of England cannot be honest how can we can we hope for honesty in public life? I arrived at a church this week where at a midweek service the priest did not turn up. The dozen or so of us present discussed who would preside and I explained that I could not because I am married to a man. They were genuinely shocked, they did not realise that this was the position of the Church of England. Dishonesty is the beginning of all darkness, this is where the Church of England is on the ordination of women and the possible future of celebrating same sex marriages. Dishonesty is the heart of darkness.