No Quitting After 110 Years

The Bishop of Lincoln, Dr John Saxbee, has written to The Guardian as a result of Theo Hobson's piece in the same newspaper. He points out that the Modern Churchpeople's Union has been running for 110 years, in which time it has moved the debate:

Liberal Anglicans are in for the long haul when it comes to promoting values and attitudes appropriate to the new way Jesus inaugurated. The Modern Churchpeople's Union is 110 years old this year, and during its time it has patiently promoted a liberal approach to doctrinal, moral and social issues so successfully that virtually all of those issues have resolved themselves into what is essentially a liberal consensus.

He sees sources of authority in Anglicanism to produce an inclusive Church, and where homophobia will be removed. It will come.

I like the reference to the "artlessly disguised" Father Giles, which everyone knows was Theo Hobson's crack at Giles Fraser of Putney, who recently has been arguing in the Church Times against the place of Plato in understanding Christianity - preferring the imperfect and actual to the idealised and heavenly as the latter produces sameness when we are diverse.

This is the point. People are diverse, and it is having that diversity valued and not undermined that is the essence of this whole matter. John Saxbee put it this way:

promoting values and attitudes appropriate to the new way Jesus inaugurated.