The Church of England continues to pursue a lasting settlement about how it responds to faithful same-sex relationships. While it has changed and developed over time, the beginning of this effort can be dated back to 2017, though the title by which is became known was only formulated a year later: Living in Love and Faith.
The journey has taken many twists and turns since then, but today’s situation is that dioceses are being consulted on proposals that were initially presented to the Church of England’s General Synod in February, in preparation for the bishops completing plans this autumn for approval by the General Synod in February 2026. Much of the attention has focused on the proposal for allowing “bespoke” (free-standing) services using Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF) with same-sex couples. Provision had already been made by the bishops in 2023 for PLF to feature as an element within an existing service of worship offered by a parish.
It has been recognized for some time that any satisfactory settlement would have to address three distinct but related issues: services and prayers for same-sex couples; pastoral guidance for clergy and laity about same-sex relations and same-sex marriage; and appropriate structures of support for parishes that are at odds with the position taken on the first two issues by their bishop, if not the Church of England as such.
One might think the second issue is pivotal: what the bishops, following consultation with the whole church, want to say about theological ethics in relation to pastoral practice regarding sexuality, relationships, and marriage should determine liturgical provision on the one hand and any adjustments to church polity on the other. In fact, however, this issue has been continually deferred pending further theological work, while initiatives relating to the other two are discussed or, in the case of PLF in existing services, already implemented.
That might seem, on the face of it, a somewhat curious manner of proceeding, but it probably reflects the reality that the key challenge at this point is seen by most bishops as enabling theologically contradictory practices (not just beliefs) to be sustained with integrity and consistency within one church, rather than deciding what theological truth the church should actually teach.
Although it too has been somewhat neglected, during the past year or so an outline proposal has finally come into focus relating to the third issue, appropriate structures of support for “dissenting” ministers and church communities, which the bishops insist on referring to somewhat coyly as “Pastoral Reassurance.” The 2025 Living in Love and Faith update document summarizes the proposal:
If churches disagree with their diocesan bishop on the use of the Prayers, they can request support from another bishop in the same region. This is described as delegated episcopal ministry, a possible compromise that could enable churches to benefit from the care of a bishop who shares their position about the Prayers, but who remains under the legal jurisdiction of the diocesan bishop. This option would be symmetrical, which means a church that holds a different theological view than their diocesan bishop can request some specific aspect of ministry from a bishop that shares their conviction either to use or not to use the prayers. The decision to request delegated episcopal ministry would be made by a Parochial Church Council, following consultation with the wider worshipping community. Pastoral Reassurance acknowledges that despite our differences, there is place for different theological convictions within the Church.
What might this look like in practice? Annex A to the paper presented by the bishops to the General Synod in July 2024 (GS 2358), on “Extended episcopal ministry and possible areas to be considered in a Code of Practice,” sketched out “what could be explored through extended episcopal ministry, and what is usually retained by the Ordinary,” i.e., what would be the nature of the “support” given by another bishop from the region, and what would still fall to the diocesan bishop.
This is the list of what could be taken on for a parish by a bishop from the regional college who is not the Ordinary: ‘Vocational discernment (ordained incumbent), Vocational discernment (lay and assistant ordained), Training of ministers, Ordinations, Confirmations, A teaching and preaching ministry for those parishes requesting extended episcopal ministry, Licensing/institution of new ministers, Deployment of curates, Filling of vacancies.” There was an additional indicative list of “further elements which do not fall directly under episcopal ministry, but which must be considered carefully,” to include: “Finance / payment of parish contributions, Grants / diocesan resources, Patrons, Behavioural code e.g., appropriate language.”
The implementation of these arrangements could trigger potentially far-reaching changes in the church’s polity and culture. To begin with, in two neighboring dioceses, where one bishop encourages use of PLF and one does not, might you eventually find at least 20 percent of church members in each diocese under the extended episcopal ministry of their neighboring diocesan bishop, and relating to that bishop for most or all experiences of episcopal ministry so far as local congregations are concerned? What too would be the effects on relationships between adjacent parishes within a single diocese that are under the day-to-day ministry of different bishops, with the possibility of corresponding financial arrangements?
The draft Code of Practice subsequently published by the bishops in February of this year, in GS 2386, for what was now called Delegated Episcopal Ministry, was at pains to rule out any departure from normal payment of parish contributions to the diocese in which parishes were located. More generally, one might say that the proposal for “Pastoral Reassurance” as fleshed out in the Code of Practice seems more concerned to reassure the Church of England’s bishops that it will not lead to the fracturing of their dioceses than to allay the actual fears of those who oppose the introduction of PLF. Perhaps unsurprisingly, what is set out in the Code of Practice may be too much for the majority of bishops in favor of bringing in PLF and far too little for those set firmly against PLF.
Alongside the main paper from the bishops for the February General Synod sessions containing the draft Code of Practice, there was a lengthy document from the Church of England’s Faith and Order Commission. This included a very thorough and insightful treatment of ecclesiological dimensions of disagreement in the context of Living in Love and Faith (GS Misc 1406). It looked carefully at the provision made in the Church of England for different convictions on the ordination of women as priests and bishops, concluding that while the disagreement over PLF is quite different in character, and therefore should call for quite different arrangements, in practice something akin to that provision might be the best that can be done to hold the severity of the disagreement, not only about the specific question of theological ethics but also about the ecclesiological implications of divergence in teaching and pastoral practice in responding to it. Indeed, the Code of Practice clearly takes as its point of departure the approach established for many years in the Church of England with parishes that do not accept women as priests and bishops.
Crucially, however, the Faith and Order Commission appealed to the concept of “provisionality” to justify this conclusion: an arrangement akin to that used for disagreement on the ordination of women could, with forbearance on all sides, allow space for continuing discernment, which might lead in various directions, including towards something much more like the “structural differentiation” at the national level, enshrined in legislation, that conservative voices in the debate have long been calling for. What appears in the bishops’ Synod papers from July 2024 and February 2025 looks compatible with what the Faith and Order Commission is advocating, but without acknowledging their guidance that this can be only a temporary and inevitably fragile accommodation that will need to shift towards something rather different for a sustainable settlement to be reached—and that such an accommodation is appropriate precisely because we can’t actually know at this point what that lasting settlement will look like.
The middle ground among the Church of England’s bishops seems determined to signal via the introduction of PLF (rather than a formal revision of church doctrine) a significant change in ethical teaching on sexual relationships, as expressed in public worship and pastoral practice. But it does not appear open to accepting that the scale and depth of the opposition means that, to remain one church, potentially far-reaching ecclesiological change may be inevitable in terms of formal structures, interpersonal relationships, and the self-understanding of ordained ministers—including bishops—and congregations. It is difficult to predict how this will be resolved, but we should know by December 2025 whether the bishops will press forward to the end of the road on the same precarious path they have been following since 2023, or pause to look at some alternative routes.
The Rev. Jeremy Worthen, PhD is the Team Rector of Ashford in the Diocese of Canterbury. He previously worked in ministerial formation and in supporting national ecumenical and theological work.
