To the Bishops of the Church of England: thanks for nothing guys!

The English Bishop's have got themselves in a fine old mess haven't they?  Having (just about) recovered their reputation after the fiasco over women bishop's legislation and their resounding defeat in the House of Lords over same sex marriage, they seemed to doing OK with Archbishop Welby pointing out that their attitude to LGBT people is being seen as morally equivalent to racism and the Pilling Report suggesting very gently that some form of service to celebrate a Same Sex Marriage might be a half-decent idea.  Then they lost it.

It is never a good idea to issue a press release at 2am in the morning.  It looks as if you're trying to bury bad news or sneak something in "under the radar.  You look shifty and duplicitous.  The restating of pretty much the line of "Issues in Human Sexuality" (1991) was a disaster.  It was widely critiqued at the time as a sop to vocal  Conservative Evangelicals, especially following the suppression of the Osborne Report (I remember it well, I was at Theological College at the time).  20 years on and social and public attitudes have moved on massively, so recycling "The Laity can have partners, but the clergy can't" is deeply stupid as more people then than now see it as inconsistent, cruel and unfair.  Which it is.  It is pure stupidity to tell your clergy that the laws says they can marry but they can't unless you have a long establish tradition of compulsory clerical celibacy like the Roman Catholic Church.  It has boomeranged badly, especially as 1 Conservative Evangelical Bishop has already called in his civilly partnered clergy for "a chat", sparking fears of witch hunts in dioceses with Evangelical leadership.

I'm glad I'm in Scotland.  But also hope we don't get too much of a flood of refugee clergy job hunting up here.  We already have a fairly high proportion of imports who don't know the province or it's unique style.  Too many is not good for our identity.

For once in my life I agree with a Bishop!

Yeah, you read it right the first time!

The Bishop of Edinburgh gave an absolutely superb talk on how he's approaching the Lambeth Conference at St John's Princes Street tonight (Monday). It was the best bit of theology I've heard from a Bishop since I heard David Jenkins give the Charles Gore Lecture in Westminster Abbey in 1991. And it was the best reflection on the Trinity I've heard since the late, great James Bruce Torrance taught me at Aberdeen University in the 1980's.

His analysis of the current crisis was original, acute and incisive. He highlighted the difference between Provinces like the SEC where theological diversity is both a necessity and a virtue and the Provinces of the Global South which tend to be the product of missionary organisations. They imparted a monochrome Anglican theology from one part of the ecclesiastical spectrum to their converts and stressed the necessity of singing from the same hymn sheet as the norm to enable effective evangelism in an often and even still hostile context. Philosophically he challenged the idea that the debate is a clash between right and wrong world views, because if you hold God to be transcendent, then he is beyond our powers of ethical description and the current debates are a clash between different Goods, equally valid but different. He used a rather neat line from Isaiah Berlin to challenge both the conservative and radical groupings: "Happy are they who rest secure in unchallenged dogma - they are comfortable in their self-inflicted myopia". Brilliant!

I wasn't so taken with his analysis of different legal systems, but his reflection that the economy of the Trinity is not just an interchange of perfect love, but also a wrestling in intercession between the 3 persons as shown in the Garden of Gethsemane was simply superb. Disagreement, conflict and painful struggle is part of the Trinitarian nature of the Church and to opt out of that into a conservative holy huddle or a liberal glee club is to turn your back on God and fail to follow the Commandment not to take the Lord's name in vain - that was a stunning challenge to all engaged in debate at this time.

I was so impressed that I told him so - publicly - which is so not my usual style. I urged him to put the lecture on the Diocesan website because this challenge needs to be heard by more than the 60 or old Piskies in St John's tonight. 600 bishops need to hear it too! He agreed to do something with the website. It should be online in the next few days. Read it when it appears -it is seriously good, thought provoking stuff.