A diversion from mission

Sadly, it looks like the Church of England faces years of debilitating debate on the issue of same-sex marriage with the recent announcement of so-called ‘facilitated conversation’. These set-piece conciliation exercises will have little or no relevance to the business of parish churches up and down the land and will be of passing interest to the vast majority of Anglicans. The Bishops have said that the ‘conversations’ have no predetermined outcome and are merely aimed at having ‘good disagreement’.

‘Good disagreement’ is about agreeing to differ and moving the conversation on to some other subject. So please, when we’ve done with ‘facilitated conversations’ can we have a moratorium on the subject?

With that in mind, I promise to keep the subject out of my columns for as long as I can – at least until some further major controversy crops up.