Any CofE members around here - LLF response

I'm hearing some more nuanced responses to LLF which go beyond the 'no women and no gays here' conservative camp and the 'crack on and celebrate SSM in church now' camp. It doesn't translate well on Twitter. My sense is that clergy and congregations as working out what it all means to them in their context.

My elderly ladies are very GC. Don't underestimate women who have lived and can critique Judith Butler as well as cook fabulous scones,

It is in fact a classic of that homophobic 'trans the gay away' attitude. Perfectly happy to marry two women as long as one of them says they are a man.

It seems to make itself comfortable under so many banners. Just not the reality one.

I think the CoE has made its position pretty clear, at least in the ‘higher’ echelons. The statement made by the previous archbishop and backed by several senior clergy that ‘trans is a sacred journey’ was a turning point for me.

I also find the appointment of TW and the non binary to be parish priests fairly unsettling.

Thank you for starting this thread! I'm a local synod member and very GC (not in the conservative/complementarian camp at all - interesting to see posts above about this very real difference). Our church did LLF and it did work well because the leadership modelled a listening perspective by having a leader with a more traditional view and a leader who was more liberal and leading it between them with respect and care which I thought was good.

However, we really didn't go into the GC side of things - any mention of it was just shot down with the usual be kind. I tried to talk about women's spaces and children's safeguarding etc but I might as well have been speaking in tongues for all the response I got - slightly rolled eyes and immediate 'but be kind!' type of thing.

I'm really interested in this thread and would love to talk with GC Christians as this stuff all unfolds and think about how we can talk about it in our churches.

This is exactly how I feel. The third camp needs a voice!

True. I was hoping for more LLF conversations than we had. My church didn't do it. I did half a course with clergy.

This has been bothering me, thanks so much for starting the thread. I go to a conservative evangelical church. Not deliberately, I joined it when I was a new Christian and I didn't even know what male headship was. But we have stayed for various reasons.

Part of me worries that my daughters will notice that women don't speak much up at the front and what that could be teaching them, but I thought at least they're safe from gender ideology.

Then we had a series of evening discussions including one on gender. One of the scenarios was what to do if a child at a youth group identifies as non-binary. The people in my group were all very focused on welcoming the child as they were and not excluding them. But no mention of the safeguarding risks around potentially affirming an identity without parental knowledge or consent. And as we know social transition is not a neutral act.
I'm planning to raise this with the vicar.

Would love to talk to other GC Christians. I was a feminist before I became a Christian and I've always felt they are separate things but it would be good to bring them more together in my head.

It is hard to speak up when those two voices are the loudest and people just assume you have to fall into one of two camps when really you're in a third!

It's quite tricky to speak up- the conservatives assume you're on board with them which makes me feel like a bigot, the liberals assume I'm a bigot.

But actually very few people who have thought about it are in any way bigoted. They have reasonable grounds for their beliefs in both directions. Those who feel they can't in good conscience bless same sex marriages are very concerned about the hurt that will cause to those who ask.

To be fair, quite a few haven't thought about it and just parrot a Bible verse and slap the table.

One is conservative in theology and sexuality, and rather uncritically GC ('Male and female God made them').

I wouldn't count them as GC, I'd count them as gender enthusiasts - they're absolutely on board with the idea that femininity is innate to females, they just don't think that males can be females.

To paraphrase a Twitter meme, conservatives: women should not speak in church and stick to flower arranging; genderists: anyone who doesn't want to speak in church and prefers flower arranging is a woman; GCs: why shouldn't women have positions of leadership?

I absolutely agree there are two loud 'groupings' but I think GC voices are quiet to the point of silence.

Is anyone involved in church schools? I was unimpressed to discover my local was buying into it, and sounded out the chair of governors (my only contact) a few years ago. She was very uninterested in hearing more. However she's recently had a change of heart and become very GC, so I'll be pushing on that door again. I wonder whether I sewed seeds for her change of heart on my first attempt.

In my experience C of E members, including senior leadership, fall into two camps on GC issues.

One is conservative in theology and sexuality, and rather uncritically GC ('Male and female God made them').

The other is liberal in theology and sexuality, mostly exercised over gay stuff, and uncritically assuming a Stonewall approach to trans questions, bolstered by a 'God calls us to be kind' instinct.

The result is two loud groupings, defaulting to rather unexamined 'tribal' positions on GC matters.

I've found few who take the nuanced approach of Synodmember in being pro gay unions, but also GC because of the need for women's safe spaces etc (the Ash Regan line). I don't know of any networks or groups in the Church that focus specifically on GC issues, which is a real gap. I'd love to hear of any.

Synodmember: big thanks for your plans to push on this door.

prefer not

I'm interested in starting a group to discuss this. PM me if you're interested. I would not to do it on MN which is too public for me!

Thank you. I need to do a bit more reading, I think, and also consider whether to start getting myself about a bit.

It’s clear to me that same sex means same biological sex on the context of the church. It just has to. Unless a grc exists. But I am going to check that.

Intend to keep my power dry at synod that I am GC. I will use it when I can…… st the moment the liberal end trust me so I want to keep it that way to be able to persuade them when it is needed….

This is such an interesting discussion. I don’t actually know re people with grc but I assume they absolutely do marry anyone with a grc as legally they are the other sex. I definitely will be resisting anything where self ID comes anywhere close. @PCCmember there wasn’t a discussion about anything other than the motion before synod this time. I welcomed that. There was 8.5 hours of debates as it was and anything else simply wasn’t relevant. One person asked re non binary people in a fringe meeting and I kept trying to find him to explain it simply depended on their biological sexes as to whether they could get legally married in a c of e church at the moment. I suspect that amongst those who favour same sex marriage tjere is a tendency to want to be kind to trans people too. On marriage it simply doesn’t matter does it as it is the legal sex that matters. So it’s the safeguarding stuff that needs to be drawn out on that and it is for anoteher day. There have been some answers to questions presented at previous synods where it is clear that stonewall does not have a presence and is not encouraged in any way from the centre in schools or churches or anywhere else. If I can find the relevant document I will share it: I was hugely encouraged when I read it. It is strange to be aligned with the evangelicals but they are totally all over the trans stuff and the conversion therapy in this respect i obv agree with them on. I will need to take care on that I realise but so far, so good.

Are we currently marrying couples where one has a GRC? Are we marrying couples who are both the same sex but one self identifies as the other gender?

I'd also be interested in networking with others.

I'd even be interested in joining synods etc, if it meant I could help, even though generally I'd avoid it like the plague! I do enough similar in a work capacity!

DH works in this area. Any views from England/Wales need to be tempered by the need to keep the generally much more conservative African churches (i.e. the ones in Africa in communion with the C of E) on side. I understand this really hampers Synod.

We have a transwoman welcomed in our congregation. But we have unisex toilets so no particular issues to grapple with.

I'm an infrequent churchgoer. A good friend is very involved. I'll sound her out - she is fairly GC - and see what she says. She is very pro gay marriage.