The Guardian report that the Church of England have taken new and further steps towards the introduction of services of blessing for Same-Sex couples. You can read their report here. The Guardian note that it is already permissible to bless the marriages of same-sex couples in a regular service, so the new step is the introduction of special services specifically for the purpose of blessing same-sex unions.
The original step of blessing same-sex unions within a regular service was already deemed controversial and against the teaching of scripture by conservatives and evangelicals. This further step to introduce specific services of blessing – that will look much the same as a traditional wedding service but without any legal standing – has not been welcomed by them. Some have argued that it could lead some to leave the Church of England over this issue. I suspect, however, it won’t.
The bishops have been quite clear this time that this is very much a compromise position. They usually pretend their compromises aren’t really compromises at all but word things in such a way as everyone can pretend they are victors. This time, they have fessed up and the specific compromise is to permit what is unbiblical to take place within the church but to let individuals who object to opt out.
The problem here is that bodies being what they are, it isn’t really possible for one member to do something without affecting the rest of the body. Allowing an opt out for another part of the body, when they all belong to the same body, will necessarily impact the whole body. If a mouth chooses to ingest poison, but insists no other part of the body has to follow suit and all other members are free to opt out of doing the same, the rest of the body isn’t immune. What the mouth does will impact everything else. It is the nature of being part of a body. Ingesting poison will kill the body, and thus every member along with it, regardless of whether you claim the foot doesn’t have to swallow anything personally.
Of course, this compromise step is not where matters end. The bishops are already undertaking work to determine – against the historic teaching of just about every stripe of church under the sun – whether same-sex attracted clergy should be permitted to marry their partners and remain in the church. Never mind what the Bible says, which should start and end the matter, the bishops are going to work out another compromise. And one can’t help but feel it will be rather like this latest one. Namely, they will permit it and if you happen not to be LGBTQ+ nobody will force you to marry someone of the same sex. Which is not really a compromise at all when the actual position against it is not really whether individuals are willing to permit people freedom to marry whomever they will – which is already theirs by right in law – but whether the church as the church is going to stand on what the Bible teaches. Will the church offer something unique to the world or will it kowtow to cultural mores, in the face of what scripture teaches, and look like everyone else, everywhere else and thus abandon the one unique thing it has: the gospel?
There can be absolutely no doubt which path the bishops are on. Nor can anybody credibly claim things are getting better. Neither can it be said there hasn’t been some considerable time put in trying to fight these things. J.C. Ryle was raising issues of concern 150 years ago or more and he would never have envisaged the Church of England would be where it is now. John Stott and Jim Packer – within the last 50 years – insisted that if the very issues we see in the Church of England today were to come about, they would have no choice but to leave. Stott in particular didn’t seem to imagine it could possibly get this far, and yet here we are. The issues have been live for nearly two centuries, they have gotten worse and even the (at the time) wildly imagined red lines that godly men never thought would be crossed have long since been transgressed.
The solution, for some, is to seek to setup a new province. Whilst this would allow for new structures and new primates, it doesn’t change the fact that the President of the Instruments of Communion remains the Archbishop of Canterbury. A desire to remain within the worldwide Anglican Communion – even if in a different province with its own primates – still puts one under the Presidential leadership of a primate considered problematic enough to cause you to leave the Church of England. It similarly continues to bring you into fellowship – or “bonds of affection” – with all those who continue in it. It is not, when all is said and done, properly separation.
Confessional Anglicans – who subscribe to Anglicanism because they are convinced it most faithfully represents biblical church order – should consider very carefully if a new province really achieves anything at all. Proper separation from the Church of England, and other errant Anglican provinces, might require new episcopal structures that are entirely apart from the Anglican communion. If the Archbishops of Canterbury and York are errant leaders to whom faithful, gospel-believing Anglicans cannot submit, remaining in the Anglican Communion over which the Archbishop of Canterbury presides doesn’t strike me as creating the separation they claim to want. It requires an entirely new episcopal structure entirely apart from any ongoing communion or fellowship with those deemed errant enough to cause you to leave.
Faithful Anglicans must take John’s warning seriously:
Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works. – 2 John 1:9-11
To belong in communion with those who deny the gospel is to take part in their wicked works. There is no clearer way that a welcome is being extended, a claim of acceptability made and a belonging to your house, than to sit in the same church as someone. John is very clear – not only here but across his three letters – such people are to be shunned and avoided. If you welcome them into your house, you sit in fellowship with them and you have communion with them, you take part in their wicked deeds.
We can say all we like that they have abandoned the confessions, not us. That is almost certainly true. But it doesn’t change the fact that they remain in the Anglican Communion with you. They have no been removed, you are in no position to remove them and they are not going anywhere. The only direction of travel is ever further down the road of unbiblical compromise and gospel denial. And to sit in the same house as them, to sit in the same communion with them, to have ongoing fellowship with them – even if it is formally in name only – is, according to John, to take part in those same wicked deeds. A new province, remaining in the worldwide Anglican communion over which the same errant bishops preside and are fully involved, is still to remain in communion and accept them in your house.
If Anglican episcopacy is genuinely your understanding of what the Bible teaches concerning polity and church order, it is absolutely right for you to ensure that is how you structure yourself. But any such restructuring that keeps you in fellowship or communion with doctrinally compromised and gospel-denying bishops is to simply continue as you are now. The biblical call is quite clear:
14Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15What accord has Christ with Belial?b Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,
“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
17Therefore go out from their midst,
and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
then I will welcome you,
18and I will be a father to you,
and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.” – 2 Corinthians 6:14-18
The only real question here is this: if you genuinely are concerned about biblical faithfulness, will you be just as faithful to these parts of scripture as you seem to want to be concerning the introduction of same-sex blessings?