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e loading posted in general synod tagged care system children education environment ministry development board safeguarding transparency leave a comment synod at home 3 long monday posted on july 13 2026 by fluff35 back in february i submitted a private member s motion a pmm that this synod affirm that there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed faithful intimate same sex relationship and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with christian discipleship any member of synod can submit a pmm and mine was aimed at ending this very bruising synod quinquennium with a positive pastoral statement about the invaluable but apparently unvalued contribution of lbgtqia people to the church all those pmms which had reached the threshold of 100 votes have been scheduled at this july synod so this morning mine was debated back when i first tabled the motion there was a certain amount of conservative kerfuffle online they didn t like the word intimate i observe that we seem to be hung up on intimacy we witnessed an example of this during synod questions on friday question 14 was from mrs anna de castro sheffield asking the chair of the faith and order commission in the context of the living in love and faith process what meaning has faoc given to the word intimate and the response she was given that faoc has not found it necessary to explore the meaning of intimate and to provide a more technical definition to the word than offered by its common usage common usage eh my first thought was the usage in an intimate little italian restaurant during a catch up on the tennis i saw a mixed doubles match in which the commentator assured us that someone on the other side of the net knows both players intimately and then there s intimate care which is all about toilets and continence yet in these endless debates some members of synod seem to think intimate is all about bodies and pleasure if you say sexually intimate maybe that s a reasonable interpretation but i didn t just look at the words of my motion that didn t stop conservatives both before today and during the debate on the pmm telling me that i meant it no in the supporting paper which i was asked to put in before synod met i tried to make this clear i wrote that if we reduce intimacy to bodies and indeed to specific acts of those bodies we are not doing justice to the depth of our need for trust and closeness intimate is used in this motion to recognise that deep devoted passionate relationships of many kinds exist and always have existed and that includes a range of types of physical contact in a response to another synod question july 2023 synod q72 the then bishop of london helpfully noted that llf has always tried to recognise that the expression of sexual intimacy between two people cannot be reduced to a small set of defined actions my motion was deliberately short of course no fundamental objections was a reference to the 1975 motion which began the journey towards women priests looking at my motion conservatives were complaining that they did have objections but of course some people did in 1975 too and they simply voted against however i heard the concern and in the time between submitting the motion and coming to the debate several of us worked on trying to address it should we spell out the presence in the church of other views by the time amendments had to be put in we had come up with an amended form of the motion which we thought addressed this and more so that was submitted by chris dalliston the dean of peterborough appearing as item 54 on the agenda that this synod a affirms that all baptised believing and faithful persons regardless of sexual orientation are full members of the body of christ b delights in the lives and ministries of lgbtqia people in the church of england c recognises a legitimate range of theological perspectives held in good conscience across the church of england on the right ordering of committed faithful intimate same sex relationships and d recognises that this includes views that affirm and views that reject the position that there are no fundamental objections to being in such a relationship and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with christian discipleship and ministry so basic pastoral message plus recognition that there are other views within the c of e as i was not able to be in york the motion was moved by professor muriel robinson who opened by talking about her friends david and stuart who have been together since theological college in their early stages of ministry there was no problem in accepting their relationship but as they were increasingly badly treated both left ministry and one gave up on faith this is a very sad story and it is not uncommon why does the church do this to people the chair of the debate chose to hear at an early stage from proposers of amendments to give us a sense of what they were about the first of those item 53 was from the chair of the house of laity jamie harrison it is quite long so i shall just summarise it here he aimed to remove all the pastoral focus of the original motion making it instead into a brief statement of where we are now with the prayers of love and faith permitted in existing services and ah that s the problem there s nothing else to put on that list because nothing else has happened in the direction of welcoming lgbtqia people in the c of e so the rest of the motion restated that sexual intimacy properly belongs within marriage which was odd as that moves us into opposite sex relationships which were not within the scope of my motion the amendment also tried to reduce the impact of no fundamental objections by claiming that there are also many people who aren t certain what they think and others who think same sex relationships run counter to the message of scripture and the christian tradition it ended by mentioning the new working group for which we voted in february although it hasn t started meeting yet as so far it has only got a chair no members there were many excellent speeches including adam kendry an armed forces rep noting that it is now 26 years since the armed forces got their act together on accepting lesbian and gay people anna norman walker pointing out that the motion was not about liturgy and doctrine just about the ordinary people in our parishes bishop nick chamberlain the first out gay bishop who as an acting bishop doesn t have a vote in synod pointing out just how bad the times are for lgbtqia people graham kirk spriggs a vicar on his experience as the only gay person in the room being told fornicators won t inherit the kingdom of god martin auton lloyd noted that in his deanery there are more clergy in civil partnerships than in marriage a key theme was how lesbian and gay clergy and lay people ask not for change but simply for recognition of their lives and ministries as graham put it where is he a lifelong anglican affirmed why is he not included there were some rather odd speeches from conservatives worrying about whether intimacy is an ambiguous word read my supporting paper holding up the is it a duck is it a rabbit optical illusion don t ask but there is an excellent discussion of its use in the debate this morning here assuming sexual and romantic are the same thing conjuring up the image of the church as the bride of christ but with a muddy dress and a speech by a traditionalist young woman who is certain that she should not enter a same sex relationship that s of course up to her it doesn t help those who have found security and growth in such a relationship the voting was complicated when jamie harrison s amendment item 53 came to the vote it was defeated there was a vote by houses meaning that something has to pass in all three of them which went bishops 17 in favour 7 against 6 abstentions clergy 78 in favour 90 against 4 abstentions laity 88 in favour 93 against 1 abstention so it failed in two houses and thus failed overall when chris dalliston s amendment item 54 was voted on however it passed in all three houses bishops 12 in favour 8 against 8 abstentions clergy 100 in favour 68 against 4 abstentions laity 102 in favour 76 against 4 abstentions bearing in mind that this amendment entirely replaced my original short motion you d perhaps think that the voting on it would be replicated when we went on to vote on the motion as amended after all this had exactly the same words no on the final amended motion we voted bishops 11 in favour 14 against 4 abstentions clergy 93 in favour 79 against 0 abstentions laity 101 in favour 83 against 0 abstentions assuming that there were roughly the same people in the room or on zoom some of the clergy seem to have decided they were against rather than in favour but the overall vote result was a pass however the bishops changed their votes in a way that led to the motion failing because of the house of bishops this is very baffling and perhaps some time we will find out what was going on in the later debate on trust professor veronica hope hailey commented on how very very odd the c of e is although what she was thinking about were its structures at national and diocesan level alongside its reliance on volunteers at parish level she observed that it s not clear who is in charge bishops claim that they only have soft power but then look at them at a coronation i d add voting by houses can also show their power she noted that synod just goes round in circles and that s what we did on my pmm the day ended with bishop robert springett updating us on safeguarding a key comment was that safety depends on a culture that will not abide theology being used for coercive purposes he also supported mandatory reporting rather than reliance on the seal of the confessional this was pushed back on by bishop philip north there was a question about what counts as spiritual abuse which as i heard it came rather close to asking for support for conversion practices about spiritual direction about why not all lessons learned reviews are published and about the training which has to be carried out in parishes to help people to volunteer as parish safeguarding officers long day lots to think about not least that the bishops suddenly felt unable to support saying that all baptised believing and faithful persons regardless of sexual orientation are full members of the body of christ i am guessing that this is their problem as i cannot see that they would fail to agree that we have a range of views in the c of e what message is this sending to those faithful queer people who are clergy and laity and bishops in the c of e share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email share on reddit opens in new window reddit like loading posted in living in love and faith safeguarding general synod marriage tagged general synod homosexuality prayers of love and faith sexuality trust 1 comment synod at home 2 sunday into monday posted on july 13 2026 by fluff35 sunday at synod always begins with a communion service from york minster lots of members don t go for a variety of reasons but for me it has been one of the highlights of synod membership and i am happy to report that this is one situation in which being online has positive advantages the livestream from the minster was excellent lots of cameras meaning there were angles one can never see from a seat in the building i particularly liked seeing the close ups of the organist playing as well as of the preacher the archbishop of canterbury on what good soil means when sowing the gospel and the president the archbishop of york the birds eye views were beautiful the music was outstanding even by the minster s standards at the end as the processions left the camera was facing towards the great west door which suddenly opened letting in a blast of sunlight and a reminder of the greater world in which our church activities are set this was appropriate to the work of synod in the afternoon which was focused on the global climate emergency we heard a presentation on a new document offering a theology of the environment hope for all creation then there was the final approval stage of the festival of creation in christ first sunday in september and commemoration of the 21 martyrs of libya 15 february i discussed these which are part of synching our calendar with those of other christian churches at an earlier stage of the progress of this new liturgy through synod the title of the first one has changed and then another presentation on the route map to net zero carbon for the c of e by 2030 agreed in 2022 you may have been wondering how this is getting on it is now running to 2034 and an extra 40 million has been allocated for that period and more money for the next two funding periods some of this funding is from government and local communities our funding attracts outside funders the money is used to fund energy audits and to support capital works projects air source heat pumps solar panels etc particularly in struggling parishes we heard that the c of e has 30 000 buildings needing attention churches cathedrals schools and clergy housing a third of churches are now part of the eco church initiative reduction in emissions is about 3 7 each year compare the national trust which is aiming for 5 and a key point made in the presentation and in the speeches from the floor was that saving money on fuel use releases money for mission we reconvened after supper for the debate on palestine this was based on a motion brought by the carlisle diocesan synod back in 2021 but which the business committee has only now managed to put on the agenda the motion laments the loss of lives on both sides and calls for solidarity with palestinian christians in non violent resistance and for peace for all people of israel and the occupied palestinian territory we heard how our silence is damaging to the palestinian church the motion asks us to challenge both anti semitism and anti muslim hatred and to review our investment policies as a church now that the international court of justice has declared occupation of palestinian territory illegal you could tell this was a very important and challenging motion because the archbishop of canterbury was called to speak first there were lots of amendments which took us up to the time scheduled to end for the evening 21 45 after some agenda juggling this morning monday the business committee found space to continue the debate at 9 00 with the archbishop of york as the first speaker both archbishops like many others who spoke have visited the holy land and can speak with authority stewart fyfe who moved the motion in summing up the debate said that frightened christians in palestine are wondering whether the world still sees them the motion as amended passed after a counted vote by houses which means that the names of who voted 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