The Church of England’s bishops pushed back key decisions on same-sex liturgies and clergy discipline for nearly a year. Dense theological papers show work is being done.
I think about the controversies that roiled the church into which I was ordained, and I grieve that we could not find a way to handle issues of conscience and theological vision with more charity.
The whole notion, which shows up with dogmatic insistency in A Brutal Unity, that conscience is something that can and should be sacrificed will appear to many Christians as an incomprehensible foreign intrusion into what we take to be the very essence of Christian existence.
