"We don't do God": religion appears in the House
The Church of England has a small but distinct place in the House of Commons, and can sometime find itself the subject of intense scrutiny
Yesterday, as the more eagle-eyed among you may have spotted, the House of Commons found itself discussing same-sex marriage. I use the word “discuss” deliberately: this was not a debate, as such, and was in a relatively limited procedural context. As a result, it might have surprised and puzzled some people, with unfamiliar characters and terms but a fiercely relevant and heavily contested field.
Here is a brief summary of the background. The Church of England continues to struggle with its attitude towards same-sex unions; in truth this conflict began with the commencement in December 2005 of the Civil Partnership Act 2004, and intensified when the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 came into force in stages between July 2013 and December 2014. These statutes allowed same-sex couples in England and Wales to contract legal contracts, eventually recognised with the term “marriage”, in the civil sphere, with the same rights and entitlements in that area as opposite-sex couples. However, the legislation included a number of exemptions for issues of “conscience”: no religious organisation or minister would be forced, either by the government or the European Court of Human Rights, to conduct a same-sex marriage or permit one on his or her premises; the Equality Act 2010 would be amended so that no discrimination claims could be brought against religious organisations or individual ministers for refusing to marry a same-sex couple; and the new law would not affect canon law in the Church of England or the Church in Wales.
Special provision was made for the Church of England because it is, of course, the Established Church. The King is supreme governor of the church and a number of its bishops sit in the House of Lords. It has a close legal relationship with parliament and government, even if its religious and cultural identification with the nation has weakened.
(This, by the way, was the crux of the Abdication Crisis of 1936: it was not simply that the church disapproved of Edward VIII marrying Wallis Simpson, it was that Mrs Simpson was a divorcée, divorce was not recognised by the church and therefore, as not only her first but also her second husband was still alive, the King would have been contracting a bigamous union by marrying her and that was incompatible with his position as supreme governor.)
When passing the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act, the government gave assurances that not only would the Church of England’s canon law be unaffected but that, if the church wished in the future to endorse same-sex marriage, it would require primary legislation to be passed for that to happen. However, the existence of same-sex marriage in the civil field raised expectations by communicant members of the Church of England that they should have unions recognised religiously. If their union was legally valid and binding, yet the church to which they belonged and in which they worshipped did not recognise it in any way, they were, many felt, second-class citizens.
The status of marriage in canon law is quite clear. The institution is:
in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual society, help and comfort which the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.
There is no ambiguity there. Marriage is between a man and a woman. A union cannot validly be made between two people of the same sex. The Scottish Episcopal Church, a member of the Anglican Communion with around 100,000 members, authorised same-sex marriage in 2016, changing its canon law to remove references to marriage being between a man and a woman, and it is open to other Anglicans to be married in same-sex unions by the Episcopal Church. In September 2021, the Church in Wales voted to allow same-sex marriages to be blessed, but not performed, in its churches, and there is a conscience clause which allows individual ministers to refuse to perform such a blessing. But the Church of England remained clear that only a change to canon law would permit same-sex marriages, and it had no plans to make such a change. Such unions are still not performed or formally recognised by the Church of England.
In 2017, the Church of England began an exhaustive consultation entitled Living in Love and Faith to explore how “questions about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage fit within the bigger picture of the good news of Jesus Christ”. I should warn that some of the language the project uses is fairly emetic. The church talks of “journeying together” and using a “suite… of resources”, attempting to “encourage and enable engagement and learning in a variety of settings”. It tells “the real-life stories of followers of Christ with diverse experiences and convictions”, and wants communicants to “find help for everyday Christian discipleship in all its diversity, physicality, messiness and grittiness”. Had enough yet? There is even an LLF [Living in Love and Faith] Learning Hub. Truly it is the triumph of a strange combination (marriage?) of therapy-speak and management consultancy jargon which seems to have taken the Church of England prisoner.
My own view is that the primacy of Justin Welby, a former manager in the oil industry, is not entirely unconnected to this proliferation of garbage: he contributed to a book titled Managing the Church?, which hilariously considers to what extent churches adopt “management-speak”, and his dissertation at theological college was on the question “Can companies sin?”. Unlike his immediate predecessors, he does not hold a doctorate or any substantial theological background. But my own dislike of the archbishop is beside the point.
This month, consultation has given way to action, or at least proposals for action. On 17 January, the bishops of the Church of England met to discuss the results of Living in Love and Faith and prepare recommendations. These will then be debated by the General Synod, the church’s legislative body which took over responsibility for church order in 1919 under its previous guise as the Church Assembly. Changes to doctrine, rites and ceremonies, into which category recognition of same-sex marriage would fall, must be agreed by all three houses of the synod—Bishops, Clergy and Laity—and must be passed in the form agreed by the House of Bishops. On Monday 6 February, the synod will consider the issues arising from Living in Love and Faith.
The church has announced that the bishops will not recommend a change of canon law, and that therefore same-sex marriage will still remain illicit in the Church of England. However, “prayers of dedication, thanksgiving or for God’s blessing” will, if the synod approves, be available to be offered following a civil marriage or partnership. The archbishop of Canterbury has announced that he will not personally offer such prayers and blessings, “because of my pastoral care and responsibility of being a focus of unity for the whole communion”. By contrast, the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, the second most senior prelate in the church and a member of the liberal Anglo-Catholic Society of Catholic Priests, has said he will offer prayers and blessings. He believes the change will put the church “in a better place”, and spoke emotionally at a press conference of how “I’m really pleased it’s changing for my gay friends”.
That is a rather lengthy discussion of how the Church of England got itself to mid-January 2023. The measures are a compromise, and, like any compromise, it leaves some unsatisfied. Liberal Anglicans are disappointed, to put it mildly, that the church still refuses to perform same-sex marriage. The bishop of Oxford, Dr Stephen Croft, has said that the church has “further to go” and should change its doctrine, and he hopes that new guidance will “enable our clergy to order their relationships according to their own conscience and allow them the freedom to enter into same-sex civil marriage”.
Last week, on Wednesday 19 January, Ben Bradshaw (Lab, Exeter) raised a point of order on the decision of the Church of England, asserting to the speaker that:
Many Members across the House—the majority, I would judge—believe that by continuing to exclude lesbian and gay people from its full rites, the Church is no longer compatible with its established status, which confers the duty to serve the whole nation.
This is a dubious statement. The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act contained very clear exemptions to preserve religious freedom of worship and belief. However, an agitated Bradshaw, referring to “this very serious state of affairs and its potential constitutional consequences”, asked if the speaker had had any indication that the Second Church Estates Commissioner intended to make a statement.
Who is this character, you cry? What does the Second Church Estates Commissioner do, and why have I never heard of him or her? In personnel terms, the position has been held since January 2020 by Andrew Selous (Con, South West Bedfordshire), a tall, angular and rather grave figure who has been in the House since 2001. (I’m afraid I still instinctively think of him as a relatively new Member.) He worked for his family electronics firm before becoming an underwriter, and has also served in the Territorial Army. In opposition, he spoke on work and pensions, but there was no room for him in the coalition government, so he spent four years (2010-14) as parliamentary private secretary to Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford and Woodford Green), the work and pensions secretary. In 2014 he was appointed prisons and probations minister at the Ministry of Justice, but was dismissed by Theresa May in the summer of 2016.
Selous is, then, a pretty solid citizen, an unremarkable but dependable Member who was never destined for cabinet (though some of whom that is assumed do reach dizzy heights). He was, in fact, opposed to the legislation allowing equal marriage, describing it as part of “the really big issue—the one we debate very rarely in this House, although it is an unfolding tragedy across our nation—[which] is the collapse of family life”. He drew attention to the opposition of the churches to the notion of same-sex unions, and, as many religious conservatives do, eventually relied on the Bible to make his point.
Let me quote two verses from the New Testament from when Jesus was talking about marriage. He said that
“at the beginning the Creator made them male and female… For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
That was Jesus’s definition of marriage in Matthew chapter 19.
These words seem compelling; here is not the place for textual criticism or biblical exegesis, but it is true, I would say, that many of the arguments against using these words of Christ are to do with the context in which they were said or the circumstances under which the Gospel was composed. I’m an atheist, and so I don’t have a dog in this fight, particularly, but I do tend towards the view that you can’t wish away biblical injunctions; you have to have the courage to say, not unreasonably, “no, this is no longer something by which we want to live, and we have moved on as a society”. After all, the Bible prohibits eating oysters and wearing garments of mixed materials, so most people pick and choose. Anyway, not my circus, not my monkeys.
What does the Second Church Estates Commissioner do? How many commissioners are they? What is their purpose? Why do they feature in parliamentary procedure? The Church Commissioners are essentially the money men and women. They manage an investment fund of £10.1 billion, paying for the church’s missionary activities, providing livings and stipends for clergymen and paying some pensions. Their “diverse” portfolio comprises equities, property and alternatives, “including multi-asset and credit strategies, timberland and infrastructure”, which they manage ethically and responsibly, producing an annual Stewardship Report.
They are led day-to-day by a secretary and chief executive, Gareth Mostyn, a former chief financial officer of De Beers, amusingly, who oversees a senior leadership team of seven. In addition, there are 33 Church Commissioners, six of whom hold offices of state—the prime minister, the lord president of the Council, the lord chancellor, the digital, culture, media and sport secretary and the speakers of both houses—while the other 27, including the archbishops of Canterbury and York, form a board of governors which is the principal policy-making body. Here you find the First, Second and Third Church Estates Commissioners. These office-holders represent the commissioners in the General Synod, but the Second Commissioner (Selous) has the additional responsibility of speaking for the Church Commissioners in the House of Commons. The general duties of the commissioners are laid down in statute by the Church Commissioners Measure 1947.
A glance at Hansard will give a flavour of the sort of issues about which the Second Church Estates Commissioner is usually asked. When he was answering questions in September last year, topics included the misidentification of a grave at a church in County Durham, refugees from Ukraine, the worldwide persecution of Christians and the accessibility of churches. It is a matter of macro and micro, and, as the questions are held on a Thursday, the number of MPs is not always large.
Bradshaw felt that the attitude of the Church of England was of such urgency that a statement ought to be made. By chance, Selous was also in the chamber when Bradshaw raised his point of order; he pointed out that the church had not at that point issued a formal statement, though would do so in two days’ time, and that he was due to answer question as part of the scheduled rota the following Thursday (26 January). The speaker noted that Bradshaw might not get called to ask a question, and that perhaps a statement would be more responsive and appropriate.
In fact there is no provision for the Second Church Estates Commissioner to make statements. Ministers may, of course, make statements to the House, as may the speaker, and individual Members may make personal statements, especially explaining resignation from ministerial office. But the provision does not extend to the Second Church Estates Commissioner. Bradshaw therefore submitted an urgent question to Selous, which the speaker granted yesterday. This in itself was noteworthy: it is only the second time the Second Church Estates Commissioner has faced an urgent question, the first being in November 2012, when the General Synod was considering the matter of women bishops.
For those who are curious about the content of the proceedings yesterday, the Official Report has the transcript. (There are some contestable assertions tossed around like live grenades, but that is for another time.) What the episode brings to light is, firstly, for many, the existence of the Second Church Estates Commissioner and the method of his accountability to Parliament, but also a reminder of the implications of the Church of England being the established church in England. The church was created largely by statute and declaration during the reign of Henry VIII and the later Tudors: the Act of Supremacy 1534 declared the King to be “Supreme Head” of the church, though the title had been created in 1531, and the Act of Supremacy 1558 restored royal authority after the reign of Mary I, declaring Elizabeth I “Supreme Governor” (not supreme head; she was more cautious than her father); while much of the church’s corpus of canon law derives from the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563, drawn up by Convocation (a legislative assmebly of Anglican clergy which was the predecessor of the Church Assembly).
In ways we may not often notice, the Church of England remains intimately intertwined with the organs of government and legislation. I wrote last November about the presence of Anglican bishops in the House of Lords, and they are perhaps the most obvious day-to-day sign of the church’s status. But there are smaller indications too, from the existence of Parliament’s Ecclesiastical Committee (on which both Selous and Bradshaw serve, as it happens). It is a peculiarity of the Church of England—and perhaps a very English state of affairs?—that the national church separated from Rome in a legalistic, bureaucratic and methodical way, rather than in some dramatic uprising of popular belief. It is not too long before we will reach the 500th anniversaries of the stages of the English Reformation, and it is interesting to wonder if all of these institutions will make it to that milestone.
Hopefully this has been an informative and not-too-exhaustive explanation of why the doctrine of the Church of England suddenly flared into life in the House of Commons yesterday. The penalty for being the established church is that sometimes Parliament not only can but must interest itself in your affairs. The General Synod assembles next month, so we shall see what further developments await.