The forthright statement comes as CofE bishops meet to discuss whether to offer some form of welcome or acceptance to gay couples in official liturgy.

But the document denies this compromise between full acceptance of gay marriage and the Church's current position would work. It would be a "recipe for continuing conflict" the CEEC said and insists allowing "the blessing of same-sex relationships would be a de facto change of Church of England doctrine".

Rt Rev Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn, is president of the influential council and other bishops including Rt Rev Donald Allister, Bishop of Peterborough, and Rt Rev Tim Dakin, Bishop of Winchester, are members.

Together with all senior bishops in the CofE they will bring forward a recommendation to the ruling general synod at its next meeting in February.

"The best way forward" would be to restate the Church's position that any sex outside heterosexual marriage is sinful, the document says. "Effective sanctions" also need to be taken against clergy who go against this teaching, it argues, slamming "years of drifting" where several gay vicars have married without consequences.

The comprehensive document goes on to argue the slightest change in the CofE's stance would cause an "inevitable" split.

"There will need to be some visible 'differentiation' and division within the Church of England between those following this new teaching and those wishing to be in an 'apostolic community'."

The document analyses all various options of what a split might look like but calls on conservative Anglicans to warn bishops that any shift would have "inevitable consequences, leading to the divisions we all would not prefer".

Rt Rev Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, is a member of the CEEC. He told Christian Today: "The House of Bishops are still engaged in conversations about the nature and shape of pastoral provision in this area. Many evangelical Anglicans would agree with the analysis and the concerns expressed in the CEEC document that any move towards further liberalisation would bring to a head the divisions in the Church of England and might well cause a split. My role -- and that of my colleagues in the House is to do all that I can to prevent a split and to hold people in the Church of England -- though that will not be easy, given what is at stake."

But Canon Giles Goddard, vicar of St John's Waterloo and a pro-LGBT member of synod, said it was "sad they are refusing to engage".

He told Christian Today: "It feels like they are taking a position in order to discourage the reference group in the House of Bishops from making progress." He added he "certainly does not agree with the conclusion" that a split is inevitable.

"There are ways we can work together if there is a will to make it happen."

Goddard also insisted there are "very strong theological traditions that indicate same-sex relationships are blessed in the eyes of God.

"The Church needs to celebrate that."

Andrew Symes, from the conservative group Anglican Mainstream, said the Church had been shifting towards a change since the 2013 Pilling Report and said Guarding the deposit explained why this was "theologically very important".

He told Christian Today: "Some will be critical, asking why we should be discussing 'visible differentiation' or separation on the issue of sexuality, when evangelicals have tolerated liberal views on other matters in the heirarchy for decades.

"Others will see two of the options presented in the document -- a renewed commitment to biblical orthodoxy or a negotiated separation -- as impossible to achieve, leaving the more realistic prospect of the main body of the church continuing its gradual slide towards revisionism while small groups separate from it over time.

"I think the document, which doesn't see itself as the last word on the subject, is an important contribution to the debate on the future of the C of E in the context of a rapidly changing cultural context. It correctly identifies the importance of GAFCON and the Global South in holding the C of E to account for its 'apostolic faithfulness', and will serve as a call to many wavering evangelicals to stand firm for orthodox faith in the denomination."

END

A report in the Church Times, entitled Thinking about Evangelism, includes interviews with members of Archbishop's Task Force on evangelism, and other clergy. According to Chris Russell, a renewed and more urgent focus on evangelism should not be "motivated by anxiety about numbers" but because "people do not know Jesus Christ". While the Archbishops of York and Canterbury have recently led high profile initiatives in prayer, witness and mission, at the local level it seems that many clergy are not giving priority to evangelism in parishes. Why is this? Its clear from the interview quotes that for some, there is an aversion to speaking about faith outside of the regular liturgy of worship and the church doing good in the community and caring for the poor; the work of priesthood is seen as 'witness through presence'.

Among those interviewed in the report there is no clear agreement on what evangelism is, and a coyness about defining the message. One Diocesan official talks about churchgoers making friends and inviting people to "explore who you are as a spiritual being" (which might at best be described as pre-evangelism, not sharing good news about Jesus!) There is an assumption that provision of love, authenticity, family, examples of "real" alternative values (not defined) will draw people in to the faith community. An inevitable comment from sociologist Linda Woodhead concludes the piece: the church should stop being a moral judge, and offer experience of God through silence and mystery.

Do evangelism in the hard areas

There are similar vague sentiments expressed in an article by Malcolm Brown from Church House. He begins by making some good points: there needs to be more support for intentional evangelism through the local church in historically neglected areas of the country for mission: low cost housing estates. The Renewal and Reform programme wants to enable this, believing that the Church must not retreat but engage and grow in these areas, linking evangelism and "the transformation of people's lives...building bonds of community around shared faith in Christ". The parable of the sower teaches us that the seed of the Gospel should be sown everywhere, not just in ground we think more likely to be fruitful ie economically viable, or areas where it is easier to attract clergy to live and minister.

As someone who spent seven years as a vicar in a peri-urban estate I would agree with this. But in terms of the crucial questions of method and message in the toughest areas, Brown can at the moment only suggest facilitating a conversation among existing and would be practitioners. Again there is a tiptoeing around any definite statement about Christian faith (such as repentance from sin, conversion to Christ, the power of the Spirit), or about possible causes of urban deprivation and associated church struggles. The official line seems to be: we want church growth, so evangelism is necessary, but it's up to each of us to define it according to our different theologies.

Change the church's image and message, and the people will come

Some church leaders are prepared to come off the fence, and believe the key to mission is to make the church more attractive to the general public, specifically by being fully "welcoming" to the "LGBT community". The now familiar method of bringing this to our attention is by commissioning a survey, interpreting the results to say what you want to say ("some people think the church is unwelcoming"), and releasing a press statement.

Setting aside statistical detail of this recent poll (leave that to Peter Ould) and the totally un-newsworthy, 'Pope-is-Catholic' revelation that Jayne Ozanne, Martyn Percy and Alan Wilson want the church to change its teaching on sexual ethics, it is worth making the point that their ostensible reason for doing so is evangelism. The Church's continued 'injustice' against gay people "will continue to impede all efforts to evangelize future generations", says Percy.

The assumption seems to be that the Church should change its views to align with how a particular group of non-believers think, in order to be seen as "there for everyone". It is difficult to imagine a philosophy further removed from the teaching about mission in the NT, and bizarre that some people persist in the line of thinking when all the evidence shows that it is theologically orthodox parish churches which are most committed to, and effective in evangelism.

Inspire, pray, unite, accentuate the positive

Other influential leaders want to turn the tables and give a different narrative altogether from the continual focus on church decline and the need to reverse it. This view says: let's be positive not negative. Don't bemoan decline but get excited about pockets of growth. Don't pander to the media cliche of old C of E church buildings with a handful of elderly worshippers -- rather tell stories of new church plants, young people worshipping and praying, and initiatives by non Anglican denominations. Look at the growth in London, and in Cathedrals. Not "a generation away from extinction" but "on the cusp of revival'. Focus on unity across denominations in prayer and worship as a sign of the Kingdom.

Pete Greig, founder of the 24/7 Prayer initiative, author and inspiring charismatic speaker with strong connections to Holy Trinity Brompton and Archbishop Justin Welby, sets out his vision for mission along these lines. He concludes his 'Letter to the UKchurch' by suggesting the Nicene Creed as the basis for Christian unity, and insisting that differences of opinion on such issues as Israel, spiritual gifts, church governance, marriage and sexuality are secondary -- they should not "define orthodoxy or divide the Church" as we recommit to making disciples throughout the land.

Don't compromise on the authentic message

A very different view is taken by the authors of the recent document 'Guarding the Deposit' released on 25th October by the Church of England Evangelical Council. It argues that the basis for evangelism must be a church based on "apostolic norms", with doctrinal and ethical teaching going back to the Lord Jesus himself. The original apostles, and their successors as leaders of the church, should "not only preach the gospel message about him [Jesus] but have authority to shape the life of the congregations that were formed within the surrounding pagan culture as a result of their preaching". The document goes on to state clearly that if the Church of England were to capitulate to cultural pressure and either relegate key issues of doctrine and ethics to "things indifferent" (as Pete Greig suggests above) or to actually deny the apostles teaching and promote the opposite, it would no longer "retain apostolic continuity".

'Guarding the deposit' rejects the idea that fence-sitting, accommodation and compromise over sexuality would make the church more successful in its evangelism. It would mean "a return to the pagan patterns of sexual conduct from which Christ came to redeem us". It would lead to a serious break with the vibrant churches of the Global South who are far more successful in evangelism than we are, and from whom we need to learn about how to share faith and grow the church. It would result in "a new church -- a non-apostolic version of Anglicanism" from which orthodox believers in England would be justified in seeking an alternative and more faithful ecclesial jurisdiction (the document goes on to outline various options for "visible differentiation" in the event of a decision to abandon apostolic norms).

Niebuhr revisited: Christ and culture

These different understandings of evangelism illustrate different perceptions of the Church's relationship to the surrounding society, and how Christians view Jesus in relation to culture. Reinhold Niebuhr's classic of missiology from the 1950's, portraying the pros and cons of five different perspectives, has often been referenced in this discussion. A helpful recent summary by Trevin Wax can be found here.

The approach of those who want to mould the church to fit society's values aligns with Neibuhr's 'Christ of culture' model. Wax comments:

Despite the appeal of this position to the elite and powerful groups within a civilization, Niebuhr sees it as inadequate... allowing loyalty to culture trump loyalty to Christ, to the point the New Testament Jesus gets replaced with an idol that shares his name.

The viewpoint outlined above by Pete Greig would be described by Niehbuhr as 'Christ and culture in synthesis'. Focusing on the differences between the ways of thinking and behaving in secular society, and the faithful church, is negative and judgemental. Rather, Christians should always look for points of contact between church and culture, always affirming the good, so that the world views the church favourably. However, an over-emphasis on the positives downplays clear Scriptural themes and can end up obscuring truth, for example on sin and judgement. A merely optimistic analysis may be inspiring in the short term but does not provide a foundation for resilience during periods of discouragement and difficulty in evangelism, or for how to interpret negative news and current cultural trends with honesty and godly understanding.

'Christ and culture in tension' is a view that observes culture somewhat dispassionately as if from a distance, as we seek to be faithful to Christ. We acknowledge differences between culture and the Christian community, but do not criticize it or seek to change it. Rather the concern is on preventing unchristian elements from the culture from infiltrating the church (note the regular New Testament warnings about 'false teaching'). Evangelism and discipleship will involve offering people a clear choice between the way of Christ and the way of the world; the resulting church will be counter-cultural, but not seeking to criticize or change culture outside the walls of the church.

But another view would say that some aspects of culture cannot be observed dispassionately or treated as background wallpaper to our lives. Non-Christian society cannot simply be seen as an open door for the Gospel, as if evangelism is easy, and failure to grow the church is only due to fear or lack of winsomeness in presentation. While humanity is made in the image of God and made up of redeemable individuals whom Christ came to save, there are ugly and hostile aspects of culture, consisting of powers actively seeking to destroy the church. These must be named, described and faced by believers, through prophetic analysis (pointing out what is wrong in the culture from a Christian point of view), and spiritual warfare as a basis for preaching of the Gospel. This 'Christ against culture' thinking has usually avoided by the Church of England with its 'gospel of niceness', but in other parts of the world Anglicans have employed it with godly courage, standing up to oppression, injustice, corruption and error in government and society.

Such is the crisis of confidence that declining attendances and divisions over doctrine have caused in the C of E, that there are few people arguing in the style of Niehbuhr's fifth model, 'Christ the transformer of culture'. The idea of the church shaping the values and policies of government, law, education, media seems for many people too close to a 'Christendom' model. But there are good examples of this working in history, as Joe Boot argues in this article.

According to this view, evangelism is not just about leading individuals to Christ, and church growth. Nor can it be content to speak against the destructive powers and protect the church from false teaching, important though this is. The vision that Jesus gave in the 'Great Commission' is to disciple nations, to lead communities and societies out of wrong thinking and practice, so there is closer alignment in society with right belief, worship and behaviour. Is it possible for the redeemed people God to provide cultural leadership even to those who have not yet accepted Christ? That is another debate.

END

Before anyone complains that the bishop elect of St Davids was not appointed by Dr Morgan but by an electoral college, there is no difference other than going through the motions. The name of Canon Penberthy as the next bishop of St Davids was circulating months ago despite her having to endure "sexism on her way to the top". That is, the absence of female toilets in a male college which moved her to micturate in England. Had her trail-blazing taken place today she could have armed herself with a transgender sign and urinated in St Michael's College, Llandaff rather than having to micturate elsewhere.

In the 1980s St Mike's as it was affectionately known trained half the bishops now sitting on the bench, Swansea & Brecon, St Asaph and Monmouth. It is no more. Down the pan and soon to be followed by the 'washed up' Church in Wales herself. St Michael's Theological College now houses the St Padarn's Institute which we are told "comes on the back of dwindling attendances in the Church in Wales and the church's subsequent decision to reorganise traditional parishes into larger Ministry Areas". As Dr Morgan draws his pension early in the new year he will have much on which to reflect. Perhaps he will contemplate writing a book on how he excluded faithful Anglicans from Christian worship in Wales.

Canon Penberthy regards the first women Deacons as 'trailblazers' in the feminist cause. A supporter of blessing gay unions and same sex marriage in church she is also studying for a PhD in Quantum Physics which may not be regarded by the faithless as the most useful asset in the Great Commission if they are to be brought to Christ.

Another PhD student is the Rev'd Isabelle Hamley who is to take up the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury's Chaplain in January 2017, replacing Archbishop Welby's previous choice, another female Chaplain who has been appointed bishop of Dorking.

In modern parlance, 'the Revd Hamley' is recorded as being in the final stages of a PhD in Biblical studies, (Relational identity, Otherness and Victimisation: An Irigarayan Reading of Judges 19-21).

Not acquainted with the subject I Googled to find out what on earth she was talking about, only to discover that it boiled down to more from the Queer Bible and gender politics.

Is it any wonder that church attendance is declining at an alarming rate? Why not be honest and proclaim Western Anglicanism as the Church of Queer Theology?

END

He joined MPs and Peers calling for an independent investigation of a massacre of political prisoners in Iran in 1988.

In the summer of 1988, based on a fatwa decreed by the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Khomeini, some 30,000 political prisoners were massacred in the space of a few months and buried secretly in mass graves. The officials responsible for the massacre currently hold some of the highest positions in the regime.

Pritchard said: "We must now focus on human rights abuses that are taking place in Iran."

The Bishop of Moray, Ross & Caithness, the Bishop of Croydon, the Bishop of Stepney and the former Bishop of Sodor and Man also attended to put pressure on the Foreign Office over the crackdown.

Rt Rev Jonathan Clark, Bishop of Croydon, told Christian Today the UK and US governments were "ignoring human rights issues" because the nuclear agreement and trade are "bigger fish to fry".

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"They are ignoring the fact the Iranian government kills and tortures its own people," he said.

Human rights must be part of how the UK does diplomacy, he added.

Labour MP Jim Fitzpatrick also attended the meeting and urged the government to address the "completely unacceptable" cases of " discrimination against ethnic or religious minorities as well as the continuing use of the death penalty and restriction on freedom of expression".

He said: "I know that the UK Government has repeatedly raised concerns about human rights with the Iranian authorities, including the imprisonment of seven Bahá'í faith leaders who have been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

"I hope that the Government will continue to press Iran on these sensitive issues and urge much greater progress."

Tory MP Dr Matthew Offord said: "The current UK policy on pursing business opportunities in Iran in the post-nuclear deal era risks empowering the Revolutionary Guards, which is the paramilitary arm of the Supreme Leader and the major force in exporting terror out of Iran and suppressing any popular dissent."

This should be a great encouragement to us in the Church of England as we recognize that our core business is to bring the truth of the gospel to the nation -- and is a conclusion that confirms what we see on the ground where there is a confidence in the Bible as the Word of God.

It is also a conclusion that matches the Church of England's clear theological identity. She identifies herself as apostolic - in other words faithful to the teaching of Jesus as given through the Apostles. According to Canon A5 this teaching is 'grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.'

So while for some this new research merely confirms the obvious, it is likely to be a major upset for those who hold to the comfortable notion that theology doesn't much matter. Unfortunately this was just the impression given by the otherwise very helpful Church Growth Research Programme conducted by the University of Essex and sponsored by the Church of England. It's 2014 report claimed 'where a church places itself in terms of its theological tradition appear(s) to have no significant link with growth.'

Three conclusions follow from the new research.

First, pragmatic and managerial approaches to tackling declining attendance are unlikely to be successful unless equal attention is paid to the theological convictions we convey. The current Reform and Renewal Programme goes some way towards this, but all too often we get taken up with issues of pastoral reorganization and the reform of ministerial training rather than theology. If this new research is right, such approaches are superficial and failure is built in. Without vision, the people perish.

Secondly, we are constantly being told that the health and growth of the Church of England depends upon remaining 'relevant' by catching up with trends in wider society. This has never been more true than in the case of the current debate over human sexuality.

If a more liberal agenda on sexuality is adopted by the Church of England, there will certainly be a fundamental breach with historic Christian teaching and the majority of the wider Anglican Communion, but in addition, the hope of future growth will be entirely misplaced. We only have to look to the experience of the Episcopal Church of the United States, which has been at the forefront of such changes, to see that accelerated decline would be the likely result with attendance down in that Church by more than 25% over the past fifteen years.

Thirdly, although we are the established church, and seek to be a church for the whole nation, we have to recognize that God's Word is not always popular and therefore there will be times when we have to put our civic and institutional involvement at risk. However, unless we are clear about how God views human sinful behaviour, then however much that message is resented, there will never be a full appreciation of the glorious message of salvation.

Anglicans have always given an honoured, though not ultimate, place to reason and this latest research should be taken seriously in that tradition. It should help the Church of England and other declining mainstream Western Churches to recover the biblical truth they have overlooked, that Christian faith tends to thrive when it is distinct from the prevailing culture and this is the lesson we should be learning from the rapid growth of the Anglican churches of the global south formed through missionary endeavour. A Christianity that merely recycles the norms and values of the prevailing culture renders itself irrelevant and subservient. Jesus' call in the Sermon the Mount for his followers to be salt and light has not been rescinded.

The Rt. Rev. Rod Thomas is the Bishop of Maidstone

Reform is a conservative evangelical group within the Church of England that teach the "infallibility and supreme authority" of the Bible and it has objected to the appointment of female bishops in 2014. The group also preaches against sex outside of a heterosexual marriage.

It was also reported that more younger people attend the churches linked to the conservative group. Only 18 percent of the congregation were aged over 70 compared to 30 percent in the whole Church of England.

"Without these churches the collapse of the Church of England would be even more noticeable," Reform director Susie Leafe told Christian Today.

Reform is also one of the organizers of the Renew annual conference, along with two other conservative organizations, the Anglican Mission in England and Church Society.

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The statistics came from over 300 churches that submitted a report of their church attendance to Reform each year in the past five years.

"What the leadership of these churches have in common is a belief that the Bible is our authority in matters of life and doctrine and the teaching we find in its pages about Jesus Christ is reliable, coherent, challenging and life transforming," Leafe said, noting that Reform member churches were spread across the U.K. and have varied styles ranging from the traditional to charismatic.

The findings seem to align with the results of a study conducted in Canada which showed that churches that uphold a more literal interpretation of the Bible grow faster than those that are more liberal.

"If we are talking solely about what belief system is more likely to lead to numerical growth among Protestant churches, the evidence suggests conservative Protestant theology is the clear winner," said David Haskell lead researcher of the Canadian study titled "Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy."

Haskell's research is scheduled to be published next month in the international journal Review of Religious Research.

END

It comes amid a long and drawn out process and will certainly not be the last key moment.

Arguments have raged for decades over the Church's teaching and practice on gay relationships. Things reached a head when several conservative Anglican leaders formed a splinter group ahead of the 2008 Lambeth Conference of senior bishops from across the world. Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) was set up in protest that the US Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada had been welcomed despite promoting a "false gospel" over same-sex relationships.

In light of this increasing division the Pilling Report was commissioned in 2011 to make recommendations to the CofE over the issue. When published it recommended that priests should be free "to offer appropriate services to mark a faithful same sex relationship". It did not propose a change in teaching or a new official liturgy but suggested some form of "pastoral accommodation".

It also recommended that in light of "deeply entrenched views", the issue "would best be addressed by facilitated conversations".

That was in 2013. Since then the Church of England has undergone two years of "shared conversations" where all levels of Church hierarchy took part in facilitated talks with other Anglicans in an effort to understand concerns on both sides of the debate.

The process of behind-closed-doors talks -- and a two-year grace period for the Church -- has now ended. In July, the entire General Synod took part in the talks and it is now down to senior bishops to collate the results and come up with a recommendation of what to do next.

To do so they have formed a reflection group and the bishops are expected to bring a suggestion to the CofE's General Synod which will meet next in February.

It had been thought the Church was heading towards some form of acceptance or welcome service for gay couples, as Pilling recommended.

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But the reflection group, when announced, contained a number of "entrenched" conservatives, as the report put it. None of the members have previously advocated for a change in Church teaching. And it featured two prominent conservative evangelicals -- Rt Rev Julian Henderson, Bishop of Blackburn and president of the Church of England Evangelical Council, and Rt Revd Rod Thomas, Bishop of Maidstone and former chair of the conservative Reform group.

As a result even Colin Coward, a long-time LGBT activist within the Church, thinks any change in teaching or practice is now unlikely.

"Unless there is a dramatic change in heart and mind in the members of this group I can't imagine there being any change," he told Christian Today.

"They would either betray their GAFCON colleagues or they will betray the people of this country."

What is clear for both sides is that this marks a breaking point. If there is some form of change to welcome or bless gay couples in the Church, conservatives have vowed to leave. John Dunnett, chair of the Evangelical Group on General Synod, has told Christian Today many "will have no option than to reconsider their position in the CofE" if the bishops suggest anything that even gives the perception the Church may change its teaching.

"It is important that whatever the bishops propose it does not sow confusion about the teaching of the Church," he said.

But without a change Coward warned LGBT people would continue to feel alienated by the CofE. "More and more people I know are simply leaving the Church to find other paths for their faith," he said.

"A quiet change is taking place that is extremely damaging."

Whatever the outcome of the bishops' meeting in the coming days, the Church is edging towards a decision. The question remains if it will be definitive, or if it will leave the door open to years more argument and division over sexuality.

END

Now that these Conversations are over, the question floating in the breeze is, "Where do we go
from here?" The radical wing has its objective, which it seeks to achieve by salami-slicing
opposition to its agenda and by planting facts on the ground while the Guardians of Christian
doctrine - the Bishops - are as usual looking the other way. The game plan will be familiar to
anyone who has followed the story in the Episcopal Church, USA, or the Anglican Church in
Canada.

LGBT activists in the Church of England wish to change the law of England which currently
forbids same sex marriage ceremonies in Church of England churches and prohibits its clergy
from officiating at them. The law can only be changed at the request of the General Synod. So the
first slice of the salami is to secure permission for clergy to bless civil partnerships, the precursor
of same sex marriage, exploiting the thesis that such registered legal relationships are not
necessarily sexual in nature. The bishops long ago ceased to resist clergy entering into such
arrangements and living together in the Vicarage.

The next stage is to seek permission from the General Synod to bless (not to solemnise, since that
would be illegal) same-sex marriages contracted in state register offices. Once the Synod has
agreed this, and such services have been taking place for a couple of years, the final stage is to
persuade Synod that there is no difference in kind or in theology between blessing such unions
and actually performing them in its 16,000 places of worship.

The government, which receives its daily orders from Stonewall, will be only too delighted to
change the law at Synod's request, and Voila! Same sex marriage will be lawful, and not only
lawful in the context of England's monochrome human rights culture, but a human right that no
minister of the Church of England will long be permitted to deny to same-sex couples. The new
law will be accompanied by a conscience clause in order to secure passage through General
Synod, but within a year the first orthodox cleric will be contemplating either a civil lawsuit
demanding huge damages, or even arrest and prosecution for a hate crime.

The activists have their supporters and allies in the House of Bishops, which alone initiates
debates about doctrine in the General Synod. And there is a session of General Synod coming up
in February 2017. And the most recent press release from the House of Bishops indicates that they
are working (in strict secrecy and set apart from their clergy and laity) on some kind of proposals
to be brought to the Synod that month.

But the House of Bishops contains more Evangelicals than it has done since the early 20th century,
and while not a majority, there are thought to be enough to block any proposals which would
weaken the doctrine of Christian marriage in the Church of England which is contained in Canon
B30 "Of Holy Matrimony":

The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord's teaching, that marriage is in
its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do
part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the
procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and right direction of the
natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual society, help and comfort which
the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

All the intervening ground has long since been thrown to the wolves by the House of Bishops.
They have facilitated remarriage after divorce, permit the ordination of divorced and remarried
candidates, allow bishops to divorce and remarry or to have civil partners. They have no room for
manoeuvre, no more bones to throw to the revisionists, nothing to offer by way of yet another
compromise in which orthodoxy always comes off worst.

To permit the blessing of civil partnerships or of same-sex couples would make a nonsense of
Canon B30. It is anticipated, therefore, that the orthodox among the House of Bishops will
acknowledge that they have nowhere else to go but to defend Canon B30 with all the votes and
influence at their disposal. Work which is being undertaken by the House of Bishops from now
until February 2017 will test whether there are enough bishops with enough resolve to block
proposals for change to doctrine. Probably there are, and an impasse means retaining the status
quo for now.

There will be the usual cries of anguish from politicians and the main stream media. But for now
Canon B30 will prevail. And while the debate drags on and on, as it will, there will be more
married clergy-couples, bishops coming out, more and more disobedience to Christ's teaching and
flouting of canon law. The revisionists only have to win once. The orthodox have to win every
time. It will be a test of resolve and strength for the long term in the struggle to maintain Christian
marriage as defined by Canon B30 as a foundational component of the Church of England's moral
teaching and pastoral practice.

The final battle, however, will not take place in February 2017

John Prior is a longtime observer of the culture wars gripping the Church of England

END

Bishop Rachel Treweek was the first woman bishop to sit in the House of Lords.

A spokeswoman for the Gloucester Diocese confirmed Treweek would preside and said: "As part of Bishop Rachel's ministry she celebrates the Eucharist in many churches across her diocese, to worship will fellow Christians who are all loved and valued by God."

Simon Sarmiento, spokesman for Inclusive Church, said the regular services which are already held in the Manchester and Liverpool dioceses are about "reaching out to a group that largely feels people aren't reaching out to them".

He told Christian Today: "These things are not under the counter or peculiar in any way. It is purely a pastoral activity. It is all about safe spaces."

But Revd James Paice, from the conservative grouping GAFCON UK, said Treweek's involvement "is sending a very confused message".

He told Christian Today: "We say one thing about morality but here we are celebrating something else." Paice, part of the GAFCON UK Taskforce, said although the Church insisted it had not changed its teaching, the realities on the ground were different.

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He added if the CofE was serious about sticking to teachings laid down in a landmark 1998 resolution on sexuality known as Lambeth 1.10, "then actually we should be doing other things than having LGBT Eucharists".

Inclusive Church's local representative in the Gloucester diocese, Revd Sue Greatorex, said she was looking forward to Treweek presiding at the Eucharist. She said of the services: "They are aimed at the LGBTI community to give them a safe space to be themselves and worship together."

She added traditional Anglican liturgy would be used.

The service, to be held at St Bartholomew's Church, Gloucestershire, on 15 January is one of a number of regular LGBT Eucharists already running across the UK.

Treweek's move comes as the Church of England is considering its next steps over teaching on same-sex marriage. The Pilling Report in 2013, which Treweek advised on, recommended a form of "pastoral accomodation" where clergy would be allowed to offer services to welcome gay relationships. No such move has yet been made by the Church.

He said if it had really been listening to the poor it would not have been surprised by the Brexit vote and the concerns of those who 'feel frozen out'.

The bishop's attack follows the embarrassment of senior Church leaders headed by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby after voters disregarded their appeals to vote to remain in the EU in the June referendum.

His criticism in a Church Times article effectively accuses other prelates, who have repeatedly underlined their concern for the poor, of hypocrisy. It makes him one of the rare senior clergy in recent years to break ranks by voicing dissent.

The bishop, who was 50 yesterday, said the Church had allowed gay rights to dominate its concerns, and 'all too often middle class clergy squirm nervously during Remembrance Sunday and excise any hymns that hint of nationalism'.

He said working class people were frozen out of the economy and suffered shrinking wages, but 'they are routinely accused of xenophobia, or worse, when they express concerns about changes imposed upon their communities by those who live far away'.

Bishop North said working people felt abandoned by their own institutions and 'if the CofE was still adequately present in areas of deprivation, it would not have been surprised at the revolution in popular politics this anger caused'.

He added: 'The Church's agenda is being set not by the poor, but by academics, the moneyed elites, and certain sections of the secular media.

'We then listen to the poor on condition that what they say backs up our own pre- conceived arguments.'

He added: 'Across many communities, extended family life remains very strong. For all its frustrations, it is where most people find support, self-identity and purpose.

'But too many Anglicans seem embarrassed to stand up for the sanctity of the family.'

The bishop said that in the referendum campaign the 'leave' side had called for voters to take back control of the country, and this had resonated with them.

'It was less an anti-immigration vote than a patriotic vote from people who were fed up with having pride in their nation, its flag and its armed forces misrepresented as intolerance or racism,' he said.

END

He called for a "a more beautiful and better common narrative" that would enable Britain to "play a powerful, hopeful and confident role in the world" and resist "the turn inward that will leave us alone in the darkness, despairing and vulnerable".

In the five-hour debate that ensued, Peers grappled with questions of universality and relativism -- values changed as society evolved suggested more than one contributor -- in their attempts to respond to the Archbishop's motion (to "take note of the shared values underpinning our national life and their role in shaping public policy priorities"). Dostoevsky, Thomas Aquinas, and Walt Whitman were reached for.

The Archbishop's contention that good existed in "absolute and permanent terms" and call to acknowledge the scriptural roots of values did not resonate with all.

Since 2014, all schools have been required to "promote fundamental British values", listed as democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. The values of these Values were "considerable", the Archbishop said in his speech, but they were "not properly embedded in the heritage of our country . . . To apply a revisionist secularism to our notions of identity inhibits the ability to reassert the 'deep values' reflected in our common history -- those that show what makes for virtue, and of what is good in absolute and permanent terms. It is what Aslan in C. S. Lewis' Narnia called the "deep magic" of the system. . .

"Fundamental British Values have certainly developed out of these deep values; but if they are not grounded in an understanding of how we came to be who we are, they will remain an insubstantial vision with which to carry the weight of the challenges of the 21st century.

"That is because the right to life, liberty, and the rule of law, and robust democratic government, does not come cheaply, nor is it held lightly. The roots of our freedom in this country are deeply embedded within our British constitutional and civic life, because their foundation lies within the shared scriptural inheritance of all our faith traditions."

In illustrating the limitations of Fundamental British Values, he pointed to the examples of Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who "did not accept the final authority of the rule of law when the law was unjust".

A renewal of British values would not happen without a renewal of "intermediate institutions", including the family, companies, and schools, he argued, "because otherwise nothing stands between the lonely individual and the over-mighty state".

There was "no better example of the expression of good values" than the parable of the Good Samaritan, he suggested. It was a story "deeply embedded in our collective understanding of what it means to be a good citizen"; one that "reinforces a Christian hope of our values: those of a generous and hospitable society rooted in history; committed to the common good and solidarity in the present; creative, entrepreneurial, courageous, sustainable in our internal and external relations".

The catalyst for the Government's attempt to codify shared values was the threat of violent extremism, the Archbishop said; but "values built on feelings of threat and fear can lead us down a dangerous path. . . If we spend all of our energy preventing bad ideologies -- whether religious or political -- I fear that we will neglect the far more transformative response required to build a convincing vision for our national life."

He wanted to see "a more beautiful and better common narrative that shapes and inspires us with a common purpose; a vaulting national ambition, not a sense of division and antagonism . . . That will enable us to play a powerful, hopeful and confident role in the world, resisting the turn inward that will leave us alone in the darkness, despairing and vulnerable. . .

"Such a vision has a deep magic that has, at our best, enabled us to be a country of hope and purpose -- and will do so again."

Peers disputed the existence of timeless values.

"Values are national, cultural, tribal, time-specific, and exclusive," argued Lord Stone of Blackbeath: "They change as each individual society evolves." Virtues, however, were "universal, for all human beings, for all time and are inclusive".

"Each generation defines its own values, which are based on the norms of that particular time," said Baroness Warsi. "We are not a reductive list: we are a complex set of aspirations, which change, and change often. . . The term 'British ideals' is a much better way forward."

Many speeches warned that liberal values were under threat in Britain, and several pointed to evidence of a rise in hate crime in the wake of the EU referendum. Lord Harries feared that some of the values set out in the Archbishop's speech were being "seriously eroded".

He challenged those who denied the existence of shared values: "There are certain values that are fundamental but whose implementation have to be worked out in every generation."

"There is magnetic north," he contended. "There is such a thing as truth. There is that in us which is drawn towards it however glazed over the glass on our personal compass might be. There seems to be a desperate need in our society to recover and reaffirm the most basic moral values, without which there can be no human community at all."

But he shared Baroness Warsi's view that the values listed by the Government were not uniquely British, and expressed concern that they had been championed as such as part of the counter-terrorism strategy. This had left to some feeling "othered" and "alienated".

Anxiety about asserting the supremacy of British values was voiced by other Peers.

Lord Wallace of Saltair suggested that "the claim by some on the Right that English values, or more precisely Anglo-Saxon values, are different from and superior to the values of other nations" had contributed to "a deterioration of national debate". He also felt "some hesitation" about describing the shared values as "Christian".

"The history of liberalism, of tolerance and dissent, is, on the European continent, the history of liberals fighting against the authoritarianism and Orthodoxy of the Roman Catholic Church, and in Britain has a great deal to do with the Quakers, Congregationalists, and the other Nonconformists dissenting from what was then a rather complacent Establishment which supported the powers that be."

Despite the Archbishop's warning against a "defensive or preventive mindset", some used the debate to issue a call to arms.

"The whole culture of western Europe is now under threat by those who will not integrate and accept the values of our European Judaeo-Christian heritage," warned Lord Blencathra. "We must not in the name of discredited multiculturalism sacrifice our western liberal democracy, which is still a value shared by the vast majority in this country."

While the Archbishop was not alone in quoting from scripture, several peers were alive to the failings of religion. Baroness Flather denied that values were "faith-based: they are shared values in themselves", and called for more open criticism of faith practices. It was not racist to do so. Political correctness had been "one of the biggest disasters of the past 25 to 30 years. . . There are faiths, especially the Abrahamic faiths, which treat women very badly."

Other peers grieved for the ways in which the Church failed to reflect their values. Baroness Berridge pointed to the lack of non-white bishops, and the fact that practising Christians were much more likely to have a university-level qualification than the population at large. Lord Collins of Highbury called on the Archbishop to defend the rights of LGBT people.

There was praise for the Church from Lord Glasman, who said that he had received criticism for working with it, from some on the Left.

"At least Christians and people of faith don't believe that the free market created the world," he said. "Neither did the administrative State." He welcomed the Archbishop's focus on institutions as the "body politic" which would protect individuals from "domination" by these two external forces.

After a debate in which multiple values were listed, and some questioned whether a list should even exist, Lord Bourne, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Faith and Integration, concluded that "the essence of Britishness is undeniable and identifiable. . . At the heart of our values is a simple and inclusive proposition: everyone living in this country is equal before the law and everybody is free to lead their life as they see fit." Christianity was still "the faith of the great majority in the country, and we should celebrate that".

Closing the debate, the Archbishop determined that values could not be "tidy. We do not end up with a single list to which we all affirm. Values are necessarily dynamic and constantly adjusting to the situations around us." Britain was not comprised of "vulnerable individuals and an incapable state", he said.

"We believe passionately in communities--we are communitarian--and if they clash, we will learn how to clash well."

He was before he was consecrated Bishop of Maidstone in 2015, with a brief to provide episcopal oversight for conservative evangelical churches, opposed to women bishops around England, on the executive committee of the Anglican Mission in England, set up in 2011 to spearhead new orthodox churches outside the CofE's structures. It was right to step out of that role when he was consecrated Bishop in order to focus on building relationships in dioceses, which he has successfully done.

But of course he remains supportive of AMiE and is publicly committed to the international confessing Anglican movement, GAFCON, with which AMiE is associated.

If he left the Church of England, surely he would become AMiE's Bishop, ordaining frontline clergy for their new churches and supporting their existing churches as well as being involved in GAFCON internationally?

Would he not become England's Bob Duncan without the bushy eyebrows?

Why would it be a tragedy for the Church of England if Rod Thomas left? Because many of the conservative evangelical churches he already oversees in the CofE are growing and have young people in them. Surely those churches would eventually follow him out?

It would also be a tragedy for the CofE in a broader way. Take the example of a conservative evangelical curate in the Diocese of Sheffield. With the active support of his then Diocesan Bishop, the Rt Revd Steven Croft, who knew a good minister when he saw one, this curate became incumbent in 2015 of a parish church in a South Yorkshire market town with an historic building.

What a blessing this committed evangelical minister is proving to be both in the church and in the town by God's grace. Some wonderful things are happening in that, in worldly terms, 'unstrategic' place for the eternal Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

If Rod Thomas left the Church of England, would not the well-springs producing under God such blessings be significantly less likely to flow into established churches in such out of the way places?

And that would be a spiritual tragedy for England.

Julian Mann is vicar of the Parish Church of the Ascension, Oughtibridge, South Yorkshire, UK - www.oughtibridgechurch.org.uk

There are various potential options for the future of the Church on this subject. Some have listed only the different ways in which so-called "traditionalists" might be hived off into a "safe space", or leave the Church altogether once the liberal triumph is complete. But it is far from inevitable or desirable for that to be the outcome.

Others have seen the options as merely extremes: adopt gay marriage or stay as we are; with a third way ("pastoral accommodation" of prayers for same-sex couples, but no change in doctrine) seen as a nice compromise in the middle. But this is tendentious: there are far more options than merely these three, and no-one is happy with the status quo.

Option 1 -- Full acceptance of gay marriage in church.

This is the desired outcome for the Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual, and Transexual (LGBT) groups such as Changing Attitude and Accepting Evangelicals. The latter describes itself, for example, in this way: 'We are an open network of Evangelical Christians who believe the time has come to move towards the acceptance of faithful, loving same-sex partnerships at every level of church life, and the development of a positive Christian ethic for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.'

So this would mean the Church of England asking the Government to remove the so-called 'quadruple lock' in the Same-Sex Marriage legislation, which currently makes it illegal for Anglican churches to celebrate same-sex marriages. That reflected the Government's commitment that no religious organisation or representative would be forced to conduct or participate in same sex-marriage ceremonies.

Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, and Parliament sought to protect and promote religious freedom by making sure the Church of England -- and individual ministers -- would not be compelled to marry gay couples.

This 'lock' ensures that religious organisations and their representatives (not just the Church of England) can continue to act in accordance with traditional doctrines and beliefs on this issue. And since the Church of England's official doctrine of marriage in Canon B30 (and numerous other statements, including the 1987 Higton Motion of General Synod and the 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10) remains the biblical doctrine, this legislation would need to be unravelled in order for change to occur. There would also need to be full-scale doctrinal and canonical revision, and perhaps all kinds of 'freedom of conscience' discussions in the Church for years to come.

Option 2 -- Pastoral accommodation

Since option one seems politically very difficult at present, a compromise option has been widely discussed. This envisages no change on marriage in church, so (it is said) doctrine is officially unchanged. But there is an allowance for 'pastoral accommodation', i.e. prayers and/or blessings for gay couples who have been married elsewhere will be permitted in churches where certain conditions are met (such as PCC Where next on same-sex marriage? and/or episcopal approval).

This has been presented as a steppingstone measure by the gay rights movement, and spoken of as a model of 'good disagreement' (where everyone gets something they are lobbying for and nobody gets everything). The use of these seemingly positive and clever euphemisms ('pastoral accommodation' / 'good disagreement') should not be allowed to hide one simple fact: what is being proposed here is a full-scale change in the Church's doctrine of sin, by stealth. It permits blessings for things which God does not bless. It celebrates and calls holy, that which God calls unholy -- indeed, that which he says excludes people from his kingdom.

Given that existing guidelines allow even clergy to engage in same-sex civil partnerships, this option might seem like only an evolution, a tolerant measure which keeps official doctrine intact. It is not, however, the most loving or kind thing to permit people to wander further and further away from the one true God. Sin is a part of all our lives, even once we have become Christians. Yet it is not something to be tolerated, blessed, and celebrated -- but something of which we all must repent.

Options 1 and 2 would inevitably lead to some kind of split in the Church of England if they were pursued. Special arrangements might be offered to those who object to the new development (for a while at least). They could be either informal, on a diocese-by-diocese basis, or some kind of official structure such as a new jurisdictional Province of the Church created to handle 'traditionalists' (who will quickly become labelled in other ways). And new structures will be created or further developed outside the Church of England to cope with those who leave as a result of this acceptance of heretical false teaching.

Option 3 -- The status quo

This option is the default position. No change in the doctrine of marriage or the doctrine of sin. But lobbyists and activists will continue to push the boundaries and test the limits of existing rules and subvert them where possible. None but the most naive can think that this option is acceptable or stable as a solution.

Option 4 -- No change in doctrine.

Enforcement of proper discipline. This option would keep the doctrine of marriage intact, but it would enforce proper discipline within the Church. Currently there is a de facto acceptance of one rule for clergy and another for laity (in line with a certain interpretation of the Bishops' document Issues in Human Sexuality). Many would like to see this corrected, and for the Church to be consistent others would take this further and seek to discipline those who teach against canon law and the biblical doctrine of marriage, whether they themselves contravene it in their own lifestyles or not. After all, false teaching is pernicious and infectious (it spreads like gangrene, the New Testament says) and so it would not be a loving or spiritually healthy option to permit it to make further inroads into the church.

According to the Bible and the teaching of the church throughout every age, Christians must be driven by what is most pleasing to God, rather than by our own sinful appetites and disordered desires. Besides, it would be inconsistent only to discipline those who live a certain way and not also to censure those who encourage this. Currently, official guidelines make it plain that access to the sacraments cannot be denied to those who are living in civil partnerships, even if they are sexually active, or to their children.

So although 'clergy of the Church of England should not provide services of blessing for those who register a civil partnership... lay people who have registered civil partnerships ought not to be asked to give assurances about the nature of their relationship before being admitted to baptism, confirmation and communion.' The official guidance says the same about same-sex marriages: that while 'the same standards of conduct applied to all, the Church of England should not exclude from its fellowship those lay people of gay or lesbian orientation who, in conscience, were unable to accept that a life of sexual abstinence was required of them.'

As far as many are concerned, this is far too spiritually dangerous a situation to be continued. The Bible, and the Thirty-nine Articles, make it clear that those who partake of the sacraments while in such a state 'purchase to themselves damnation' (Article 25, alluding to 1 Corinthians 11). No minister of the Church of England should willingly allow their parishioners to make such a purchase!

Rather, as the Ordinal says, 'They are to be messengers, watchmen and stewards of the Lord; they are to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for his family, to search for his children in the wilderness of this world's temptations, and to guide them through its confusions, that they may be saved through

Christ for ever.' Rather than dispensing cheap grace, or playing diversity politics with the sacraments, faithful stewards 'are to call their hearers to repentance'.

Option 4 may require amendments to the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure and/or the Clergy Discipline Measure. But without change of this nature, there will remain a lack of clarity and credibility in the Church of England's position on the subject. That would also demonstrate a lack of love towards those who desperately need the church to act in a way that is lovingly faithful to Scripture.

Option 5 -- No doctrinal change. Enforcement of proper discipline, including internationally. This option takes things further and also calls for the enforcement of proper discipline withinthe Anglican Communion as a whole. That is, it will properly discipline those Provinces (such as The Episcopal Church, in the USA) which have introduced gay marriage into the church. By 'proper discipline' here we mean more than a few stern words. Removal from the Communion should be on the cards, despite the large amounts of money often splashed around by some American churches. Truth and godliness cannot be bought. Although one can (as just mentioned, above) 'purchase damnation' through unrepentant participation in the sacraments, it is impossible to purchase a right standing with God. It should also be impossible to buy a way into the Anglican Communion regardless of doctrine and practice. Option 6 -- No doctrinal change. Enforcement of proper discipline.

Public call to repentance.

This final option would include all of options 4--5. It also includes a public call for the revisionists worldwide to repent. The argument here is that it is not sufficient simply to remove false teaching and false teachers from the church, but we must also demonstrate a loving commitment to their ultimate salvation, by calling them back to the one true God, whose ways alone can lead to human flourishing -- in this world and the next. As the Book of Common Prayer rightly says, 'Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ... desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live... Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy; so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy.' Change will come There are a number of committed LGBT advocates on General Synod, but not as many as is often thought.

'Affirming Catholicism' and 'Accepting Evangelicals' do not constitute a majority on Synod. There are many clearly opposed to their agenda, and a large number of potentially persuadable people in the middle, looking for godly leadership and a positive way forward. There is no reason at all to think that the adoption of options 1 or 2 are a foregone conclusion.

Many gay activists have a quasi-religious commitment to a view of historical development which sees the ultimate victory of their social agenda as utterly assured. That is why their opponents are always portrayed as 'on the wrong side of history'. This is a form of historical determinism so beloved of Stalinist Marxists in the last century. But it is deeply and fundamentally flawed. The problem is that many conservative Christians have also bought into the same theory. Too often they believe the propaganda that they are destined to lose political and cultural battles of this sort. We may know that ultimately Jesus will win and truth will prevail -- one day.

But we are rendered powerless and mute in the here and now, by the sheer avalanche of negative messaging from the world and the worldly church. And so we too readily buy into the idea that theological liberalism is more powerful and attractive and effective. But it is not so. The devil is a liar, and the father of lies. He has been doing it for a long time, and is an expert in deception. Yet the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword.

It is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. If God's word was enough to create the world, and if by it he sustains all things, surely we must be more confident in the message he has given us for the people of this confused and confusing world? It has divine power to demolish strongholds and every lofty opinion raised against it. So let us take every thought captive to obey Christ, and entrust the outcomes to him. With God, anything is possible.

As JC Ryle said, 'It may be that our numbers may be thinned, and many may desert our cause under the pressure of incessant official frowns, persecution, ridicule, and unpopularity. But we have no cause for discouragement, despondency, or despair. Then let us stand firm and fight on.

Lee Gatiss is the Director of Church Society, Adjunct Lecturer at Wales Evangelical School of Theology, and Research Fellow of the Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He is the Director of Church Society and a weekly columnist in the Church of England Newspaper.

With a 17,000-strong petition calling for the bells to ring at Christmas, the Minister had approached campanologists from neighbouring churches to ring in the festive season.

But, one by one, they are rejecting the Minster's offer in an "act of solidarity" with the York ringers.

Leeds Minster's deputy ringing master Robert Childs said members discussed the invitation from York's Dean and Chapter during a practice session where 13 members voted no, with two abstaining.

However, many of them knew the minster's team of 30 volunteer ringers, who were all dismissed by the Dean and Chapter in the autumn, and felt they could not ring the bells in their place.

He said: "They felt it would be the wrong thing to do.

"You could see it as an act of solidarity with our fellow bell ringers in York."

President of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers, Chris Mew, said the Minster is inviting ringers from outside the area to assist in ringing the bells over the Christmas period.

He said they "must follow their own consciences" as to whether they accept.

"Whilst this may be attractive to the community it has raised varying reaction from ringers approached to help and from the wider ringing fraternity," he said, adding that it was a "pity" the Minster had not processed the safeguarding applications for some of the former ringers in time for the bells to be rung again at Christmas.

But it will take about three months before the recruitment, induction and training process has been completed and ringers deployed.

A York Minster spokeswoman said: "The Chapter of York is making plans for future bell ringing arrangements at York Minster and we are drawing on expertise from around the county and country to help us shape those plans.

"We are exploring options for ringing at Christmas but are not yet in a position to confirm if we will go ahead".

Speaking in October, a bell ringer, who asked to remain anonymous, said: "The reaction was one of complete shock and people were in tears afterwards.

"The Minster has been a very unhappy place in recent months - but we had no idea this was coming."

Despite claiming the initial decision was for health and safety reasons, it became apparent it was due to safeguarding issues surrounding David Potter, a leading figure in the bellringing team who has been the subject of two police investigations following allegations made in 1999 and 2015. On neither occasion were charges brought.

The Minster has said all the axed bell ringers are entitled to apply to join the new team, where they will go through training and an induction process.

END

While Dr Dorgu will be the first Nigerian to be a stipendiary full time bishop in the Church of England, he isn't the C of E's first Nigerian bishop - the secretary general of the Anglican Communion, Dr Josiah Idowu-Fearon, is an honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of London.

In line with usual practice, Dr Dorgu's appointment was announced this morning by 10 Downing Street, the official home and office of the UK's Prime Minister -- the appointment of Church of England bishops are subject to the approval of the Queen Elizabeth. The Diocese of Southwark issued a simultaneous press release giving further details of the new bishop's background.

Dr Dorgu was born and brought up in Nigeria, where he worked as a medical doctor before ordination in London in 1995 (deacon) and 1996 (priest). He served his curacy at St Mark's Church in Tollington Park before becoming Vicar of St John the Evangelist in Upper Holloway. He was made a Prebendary (Honorary Canon) of London's St Paul's Cathedral earlier this year.

"Mosun [his wife] and I are delighted that Southwark, under the visionary leadership of Bishop Christopher and the area bishops, is a dynamic diocese of clergy and laity working hard for the Gospel of salvation for all through Jesus Christ," he said. "We are greatly honoured to be invited to share and contribute to this dynamic ministry of bringing God's love to the people of Woolwich and the Diocese. I look forward to getting to know the clergy, people and churches of the area in the coming months."

The diocesan Bishop of Southwark, the Rt Revd Christopher Chessun, said: "I am delighted that Karowei Dorgu is joining the episcopal team in Southwark Diocese as Bishop of Woolwich. He brings a wealth of experience of urban parish ministry and has a real passion for evangelism and reaching out to those who are not churched with the love of Christ. I look forward to working with him and to welcoming Karowei and Mosun to the Diocese."

Father Yaqoob Khushi was appointed Priest of Llanfair Caereinion, Llanllugan & Manafon, in the Church in Wales' Diocese of St Asaph, earlier this month. He had a long ministry in the Church of Pakistan before he moved to London, where he had been working as a hospital chaplain and assistant priest in Holy Trinity, Southall, prior to moving to Wales.

"We are delighted to welcome a priest of great experience and a broad understanding of the Christian faith to the Caereinion Mission Area," the Bishop of St Asaph, Gregory Cameron, said after a service of welcome at St Mary's Church in Llanfair Caereinion. "Yaqoob Khushi and his family are making their home in Wales, and we welcome all the new perspectives that they will bring."

Miguelina Howell has spent her entire lifetime in the Episcopal Church -- her first role was as an eight-year-old acolyte at a church near her home in the Dominican Republic; and in 1997, at the age of 20, she was at the pre-Lambeth Conference young adult gathering in England, where she met the then-Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey.

She was ordained as a deacon in 2002 and a priest in 2003; and served in two churches and a school in the Dominican Republic. In 2008 she was called to serve as associate rector of St Paul's Episcopal Church in Patterson, New Jersey. It was a call that required her to leave her family and country and settle in the US where she would have to minister in English -- which was not her first language. Last year she was invited to take become the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut, and she was installed in February -- becoming the first Latino Dean in the Episcopal Church.

Howell recognises the historic significance of her appointment, but stresses that her focus is being a child of God who is willing and ready to serve.

"For me it's not about my gender or ethnicity, it's about the God-given gifts bestowed upon me as a child of God to serve God's mission at Christ Church Cathedral and the larger Episcopal Church," she told the Episcopal News Service this week. "Being a woman and a Latina are aspects of my identity that I cherish and I do recognise how those aspects enrich my ministry and allow me to serve God's ever changing, multicultural church in a unique way.

"This has been the most exciting 10 months of my ministry in the United States. . . Every day is a new day. God is doing a new thing in the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and I am blessed to be part of it."

But to try to redefine the disagreement as a question of the legal status of a Lambeth Conference resolution, misjudges the nature of the debate and the struggle both in the Church and in wider society.

The struggle is as to which of two different world views will define the character and behaviour of the Church of England. One is influenced by secular cultural tastes and airbrushes those parts of the Bible that critique them out of the picture; and the other is faithful to Scripture and Christian experience of sin and holiness down the ages.

Rather than rely on the law -- it may be more helpful to place the issue in the context of the Spirit.

The background to this life or death struggle for the integrity of the Church is set in one of St Paul's mystical insights into the relationship between our sexualised anthropology and our souls. He puts it very simply.

Where societies offer their spiritual and emotional allegiances to idolatries, there then follows as a direct consequence, a level of disintegration of gender identity and sexual expression.

This cannot be proved sociologically. In fact it can't be proved by any discipline. It is a mystical insight- an enlightenment of the mind by the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's a function of being born again, and so able to negotiate human experience in a new dimension. It's an essential element of being the Church.

As it happens, our society is experiencing exactly that gender disintegration.

The most serious antagonists in this attack on the Church are the ideological Left who combine the values of Cultural Marxism with the filter of psychotherapy. Whenever they want to undermine their ideological victims, they add the suffix 'phobic' to the enterprise.

They have launched an assault of the creation paradigms that the Father has used to fashion humanity in co-dependence. They particularly hate what they call gender- binaries.

So even the simplistic confusions of sexual appetite have become endlessly subdivided into LGBQTi spectrum; ending up with the complexities of "LGBTQQIP2SAA."

This process of the redefinition of sexual identity and sexual desire muddles what God has given,- the interdependent binaries of man and woman,- with complexity and incoherence on an endless sliding scale.

How might the Church respond to this break down of identity and proliferation of desire?

The Church, enabled with this mystical diagnosis that Scripture offers, has been given the role of easing people out of idolatry, sexual incontinence and incoherence, by introducing people to Jesus. Jesus introduces humanity to the creating Father, and He sends the Holy Spirit to mend and mould us.

Although it is a 'mystery' it is a transparent mystery. One that can be understood, and lived. Even Church bureaucrats should be able to access it by the simple expedience of reading the New Testament.

The Church of England has taken a different route however. When faced with the human disintegration of neighbours who are out of relationship with God, it has decided to affirm the incoherence rather than mend the brokenness.

It is a truism in the history of the Church that where the Church loses touch with the Holy Spirit, it takes refuge in politics. Where it fails to transform the human heart, it settles for shifting the fabric of the body politic. Social transformation is certainly a consequence of changed hearts, but it is a by-product not a primary goal.

The great seduction of the Church in our age has been one of replacing the conversion of souls with socialism. But socialism has come in a more toxic and intense brand in the form of an egalitarian Marxism dedicated to equality of outcome, and the sweeping aside of anything that stands in its way.

The reconfiguration of marriage and gender identity is part of this movement. It is particularly tragic that bishops and clergy have been captured by its allure.

Gay rights, homosexual erotic desire and the reconfiguration of Christian marriage into a secularised biologically sterile patterning, is the place where this fissure is splitting the Church.

And that brings us to Lambeth 1.10.

The list that GAFCON published of actions taken by gay activists and their sympathisers must have touched a nerve somewhere in the heart of the Church of England. Someone, somewhere had the idea of sending a Church bureaucrat to reduce the struggle to a legal nicety.

Mr Nye, General Secretary of the General Synod, goes to some lengths to explain that the status of a Lambeth resolution does not have the force of legislation. It can't be treated as a law.

"Like all Lambeth Conference resolutions, it is not legally binding on all provinces of the Communion."

"It says nothing about discipline within provinces of the Anglican Communion; the Lambeth Conference has no jurisdiction to do so."

"The Resolution is an important document in the history of the Anglican Communion. It is not the only important resolution, from that Conference or others. It does not have the force of Scripture, nor is it part of the deposit of faith."

But Mr Nye is looking down the wrong end of the telescope. He makes the mistake of thinking that the faithful within Anglicanism are relying on Lambeth 1.10 as if it had some legal status or force that could be appealed to.

No Mr Nye, the faithful are looking to Lambeth 1,10 because it was one of those rare moments when Archbishops around the world bound the Church to reflect the priorities of the Holy Scriptures and Divine revelation. It isn't Lambeth 1.,10 that has any serious metaphysical and epistemological status, it is the Bible, which Lambeth 1.10 echoes.

GAFCON are not appealing to Lambeth 1.10 out of a misplaced respect for Lambeth Conferences. But because this particular Lambeth Conference on this particular subject embodied obedience to Scripture in this resolution.

It's true, this may come as some surprise, since it doesn't happen very often, but on this occasion it did.

What he seems disturbed by is the use of the word 'violation'. And perhaps it is that word that has upset the C of E establishment. It is a strong word, and I want to explain why I think it might have been used.

Mr Nye hears it as if it had overtones of violating the law; which is why he is at pains to explain Lambeth 1.10 does not have the status of law. In fact 'violation' here has deeper resonances, perhaps more akin to the violation of someone you love who has been despoiled.

One of the great mistakes the progressive left makes, is that it cannot get inside the head or the heart of the faithful Christian. Knowing only a world made up of power and fear, it mistakes the love of God for a phobia of sexual incoherence.

The faithful Christians are distressed not by other peoples' sexual habits, but by a sense of the profound disaster that comes when the love of God which attempts to rescue us from ourselves, ,is rejected and even trashed.

This distress is made even worse when the rejection of God's love and help, set out so clearly in Scripture is authorised and energised by the very people whose lives were intended to guard it -- priests and bishops.

Mr Nye is unhelpful then when he throws dust in the eye of his reader:

"At present, the House of Bishops is reflecting on conversations across the Church on same-sex issues. But at this point no change has been made to teaching, nor has there been any formal proposal to do so."

This is true in a technical sense only. The bishops are indeed reflecting on the conversations, but the way the conversations were engineered was intended to allow the bishops to change traditional teaching. Otherwise there was no need to have any conversations!

And no change has been made. Nor has there been any formal proposal to do so. But Mr Nye knows only too well that there have been plenty of informal proposals to do so.

Many Deans have set out to bless what cannot be blessed, as Gay Pride marches have passed their cathedrals. The bishops of Liverpool, Salisbury and Buckingham never miss an opportunity to affirm what God has forbidden. The Archbishop of Canterbury told the progressive crowd at Greenbelt, that if he was not constrained by churches who held the line on Scriptural obedience, he would want to press ahead. He said when asked by an audience member who was due to enter a civil partnership 'when the Church would be in a position to bless the union', that he did not know. "I don't have a good answer to it," he said. "If we were the only Church here and [there were] no other Churches, and if division didn't matter, it would be much easier to answer"

It is harder to be soothed by Mr Nye's assurance that no 'formal' changes have been made, when the cage of scriptural obedience is being rattled by the C of E hierarchy from the Archbishop downwards.

Mr Nye makes it clear that in his opinion

"clergy and laity alike are entitled to argue for changes to teaching and practice."

At this point it is clear that Mr Nye doesn't understand the orthodox position. He thinks the whole matter is one of opinion, and one opinion or argument is as good as another.

This is very much part of Anglican culture. Maybe Mr Nye would say that if there were some clergy and laity alike who wanted to argue that Jesus didn't rise from the dead they would be "entitled" to their opinion?

We do live in an 'entitled' culture. But no Mr Nye, faithful Christians are not entitled to argue that the Bible has got it wrong. If they want to do that, they must do it from outside the Church; not inside. There is no such entitlement Mr Nye. At least, not if you accept the authority of Scripture.

So what Mr Nye is saying is that there are plenty of clergy and laity alike who don't accept it, and they want to argue for the cogency of their heterodox opinions.

And that is where Mr Nye and orthodox Anglicans part company. That may indeed be the point at which the faithless and the faithful take different roads as GAFCON suspects may be about to happen.

As a final riposte, Mr Nye invites GAFCON to know its place:

"How discipline in the Church of England is applied, is a matter for the Bishops of the Church."

Of course it is Mr Nye. Or at least it certainly should be. But this is an old chestnut.

Are the bishops accountable to the faithful in their acting as guardians of the faith, or are they senior management bosses who make their own decisions and don't thank the employees for asking them if they are applying the firm's rules correctly?

They are not first and foremost managers -- we have Archdeacons and Diocesan Secretaries for that. They are guardians of the apostolic faith and we get clear glimpses from Ezekiel among others, that a failure of responsibility from those God has entrusted with the faith will be and are now, in deep trouble if they prefer irresponsibility to responsibility.

And once again, the rebuke to mind their own business, when the faithful Anglicans both within the C of E and elsewhere ask how the bishops are managing as guardians of the faith, won't do.

Perhaps this letter from the bureaucratic heart of the Church of England is a sign that GAFCON's "list of disobedience has touched a nerve.

No- it was not 100% accurate. It didn't claim to be; it didn't need to be. It just needed to tell the story about the extent of the disobedience and the direction of the trajectory that the C of E is taking- the same one as TEC took, for the same reasons, with what will be the same outcome. People can judge for themselves the difference between pretence and practice.

And to the Bishop of Salisbury who tried to undermine Canon Andy Lines with emotional blackmail in their BBC Radio 4 interview, these are not vulnerable victims. You are behind the curve. This is an outdated trope. The vulnerable victims are now the Christian bakers, teachers and nurses, whom your secular allies have hounded out of the public space. Instead, your 'victims' took to rainbow websites in their hundreds to celebrate their disobedience and their rejection of orthodox Christianity.

Mr Nye ends with the hope "that this will give you and readers of the paper a clearer picture of the state of teaching and practice in the Church of England."

Yes, My Nye, it does indeed.

It leaves us with some questions though. Why was it thought sensible to ask a Church bureaucrat to answer a matter of spiritual integrity as though it was a legal triviality?

And does this error in judgement act as a warning that the present leadership of the Church of England intend to break with Scripture and Tradition, and divide the Church as they endorse secular and anti-Christian sexual mores?

I was impressed by the analysis that George Conger of Anglican Unscripted offered in their commentary on the latest media spat about the C of E ,and its troubles over reconciling the secularisation of sexual ethics with orthodox Christianity.

"Learn from our experience they warned".

If the orthodox Anglicans turn on each other, they will dissipate and collapse, allowing the liberalisation of the Church to progress faster than it would otherwise have done. And since they offered this advice, the evangelical criticism of the GAFCON statement has progressed apace.

The criticism from the liberal lobby was incoherent. "Don't damage vulnerable people" advised the Bishop of Salisbury, in a voice loaded with empathetic emotion on Radio 4. Except that the vulnerable people of his anti-victim trope rushed to sign up to a website celebrating their rejection of Lambeth 1.10.

"Don't publish a list if is not 100% accurate" was another complaint. This ignored that the point behind the publication was to give a sense of the scale of the rejection of Lambeth 1.10.

"Don't publish such a list unless you are certain what your 'game-plan' is" insisted another commentator.

Leaving aside the law of unintended consequences, the game plan is very simple.

The struggle is to save the C of E from the corruption of secularised sexuality that we are warned off by the mind of God in Holy Scripture. The struggle is to be faithful to God when His healing and saving Word to us is 'violated.' The aim is to honour Jesus in the face of a culture which denies Him.

The bishops and the General Synod of the Church of England will be reminded that they cannot serve two masters, and will have to choose.

With GAFCON, many of us will say "as for me and my house... we will serve the Lord."

"I believe we should include Christianity in citizenship tests for all those who want to come to this country," said Lord Carey, who was the archbishop of Canterbury 1991-2002. "There are many questions asked of migrants about the Royal Family and Parliament, but little about the Church of England or Britain's Christian history."

"And it is vital that the Government itself does its homework better," he said. "Politicians and advisers would do well to remember the contribution of Christianity to our life, and not just our 'holy-days' and celebrations."

"In co-ordination with religious leaders, some thought should be given to special training in religious literacy for at least some judges, Ministers and senior civil servants who deal directly with religious communities -- their freedom and equalities," said Lord Carey.

The archbishop also noted that the Christian population in the Middle East has fallen from 7% in 1996 to 1.5% today. "[T]he Middle East, the region that gave birth to our faith, could soon see the virtual extinction of Christianity," said the archbishop.

As for Muslim communities in England, Lord Carey, referencing the government's recent review, said the facts show "public authorities have been ignoring harmful social practices in some of our Muslim communities, such as the exclusion of women, domestic violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation." People do not speak out about these problems, as the review documents, because they fear being labeled "Islamaphobic."

However, the review, by Dame Louise Casey, who heads the Social Welfare office in England, "equated conservative religious views with intolerance, even extremism," said Lord Carey. "By condemning all those with conservative religious views -- and not just an Islamist minority -- she is imposing a new form of intolerance."

"In civil life as a whole, we are choosing to forget the Christian heritage which has contributed so greatly to our laws, rituals, language, our traditions and even our landscape," said the 81-year-old archbishop. "It has built our civil society and sustained charity and social movements and has been the fabric of our daily existence for a millennium and more."

"The glue which tied us together used to be the institutions of our civil society," he said, "inlcuding the Church of England...."

END

They are truly men and women from the East, being born again in a stable.

Their miraculous stories are among the remarkable events that have been taking place this year at St Mark's, part of the Hanley team ministry in Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, which has seen more than 50 Muslims convert to Christianity in one year alone.

The vicar, Rev Sally Smith, compares the church as it was to a pool - one that was even a little bit stagnant. Then the Home Office began settling dozens of asylum seekers and refugees in this part of Stoke-on-Trent, where there is a vibrant Muslim community.

Now, she says, the church has grown from about 12 to 50 people or more. People leave as they move to join relatives in other cities and towns - and they are constantly being replaced. She likens it now to a living river of faith. Eight in ten of the congregation now are converts from Islam.

Smith set up a drop-in centre, Sanctus, to help welcome the newcomers, mainly from Iraq and Iran. Many are referred there by agencies such as the Citizens Advice Bureau.

Sanctus, based in the church, being sensitive to the surrounding Muslim community, explicitly does not proselytise. It is now a social enterprise and reliant on donations. Smith is looking for ways to make it more financially independent.

"I am very open about the fact that we are not here to convert people. I say to volunteers, leave your religion outside the door," said Smith.

Nevertheless, many Muslims do convert, moved to do so by the warmth of the welcome and worship at St Mark's and Sanctus.

One of the new converts acts as her translator, rendering her sermons each Sunday into Farsi for the Iranians.

Often destitute and arriving in Britain having lost absolutely everything and after going through desperate struggles and sufferings, they are moved by the kindness of the Christians, said Smith.

They respond to the sense of becoming part of a family.

"We say everybody is welcome. We worship one God. What we do in church, we do in the name of Jesus. Sanctus is for people of all faith and none, it does not proselytise."

At least two of the converts came to Christ as a result of dreams.

Smith told Christian Today: "One man, Hassan, had a dream. In this dream, Jesus came to him as a light. He told him to come to this church and be baptised. He knew it was the Lord who had wrapped himself around him.

"Another man saw Jesus in a dream and he was shown a picture of this very church.

"So many supernatural or mystic experiences seem to be happening. It is wonderful to be part of. It is all quite messy, we are not organised at all.

On the day of the nativity tableau, there were seven baptisms of converts from Islam. And in this church, that is not unusual. Some of the recent baptisms will feature in Songs of Praise on BBC television to be broadcast next month.

END

Church attendance has plunged to its lowest ever. This marks a defining moment for the comatose Church of England in 2016 as it gurgles and gasps on life-support. Only 1.4 percent of the population now attend C of E services on Sundays. Numbers have nosedived to a mere 752,000 souls. Even the sanctified spin put on the figures by stirring in mid-week, occasional services, school services and Messy Church (a liturgical novelty minus the pigeon poo), keeps the numbers below a million at 961,000.

While the C of E is wheezing away like my old asthmatic auntie, Islam is growing. Its worshippers spill out from overcrowded mosques on to the streets--offering prayer five times a day. Conservative churches are growing. The Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC) is witnessing a new church plant or addition almost every week. An old nursery rhyme may hold the clue to solving The Mystery of the Disappearing Devotees in the C of E.

Remember "Old Mother Hubbard"? She went to the cupboard, to give the poor dog a bone. When she came there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor dog had none. Well, that's the problem. The cupboard is bare. The sheep are not fed. Instead of preaching the meaty gospel of Jesus Christ, Old Mother Hubbard has been serving by the ladleful, a watery gruel of niceness. As a bonus, she might throw you a wafer-thin slice of the stale bread of Corbynite socialism or climate change hysteria or diversity abracadabra.

But niceness is her USP. "Niceness" with a capital 'N' is the premier product the Church of England is selling to its non-customers. Sociologists have put a new label on this product. They are calling it Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Christian Smith, Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, outlines the creed of this religion as follows:
1. There is a God who created the world and watches over us.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is also about providing therapeutic benefits to its adherents. This is not a religion of repentance from sin, of keeping the Sabbath, of living as a servant of a sovereign divine, of steadfastly saying one's prayers, of faithfully observing high holy days, of building character through suffering...' but '...centrally about feeling good, happy, secure, at peace. It is about attaining subjective well-being, being able to resolve problems, and getting along amiably with other people,' writes Smith.
Don't worry, be happy is the theme song of this religion. It is Marmalade Christianity--sweet, sugary and non-controversial. Biblical Christianity, on the other hand, is Marmite Christianity--salty and stinky. You love it or hate it. 'Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront,' says Jesus in Luke's gospel, a verse Peterson translates with characteristic pugnacity in his translation, The Message.

This month, while Sir Mike Tomlinson, Birmingham's former education commissioner, was warning of hundreds of children in the city being exposed to radical extremism through unofficial Islamic schools, Birmingham Cathedral was celebrating its 300th anniversary with an offering of Marmalade Christianity.
Feeling miserable post-Brexit? Feeling depressed post-Trump? Now Birmingham Cathedral is offering Christians and people of other faiths the chance to turn your emotions into a referendum-style art project based on votes about feelings. The "religion of niceness" is inviting Brummies to answer a different question each day for five days about "how they are feeling" at this point in the year. Questions include: "Have you laughed today?" and "Are you looking forward to next year?" The answers will be displayed as eight-foot tall interactive boards.

This is a grand display of Anglican Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It is all about feelings, nothing more than, feelings as Morris Albert sang in the seventies. Christmas is about flesh. The most glorious line in the prologue to St John's gospel announces that 'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.' This is the incarnation, not deism; flesh, not feelings; marmite, not marmalade. It is this we proclaim as the message of Christmas and the good news of Christianity. 'And to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,' writes St John.

St Feelomania's Church might see a rise in attendance if only the preacher took the Bible seriously and preached the 'Word made flesh.' This is what a 5-year academic study Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy revealed last month. But will the touchy-feely kum-ba-yah singing vicar of St Feelomania's Church open a jar of marmite for her parishioners?

No! David Haskell, who led the research into the church growth project, thinks not. "If you're in a mainline church and that church is dying, and you've just heard that the theological position that you have is likely what's killing it, you're not going to be very happy about that," he writes.
Old Mother Hubbard waited too long to stock her cupboard with food.

She went to the baker's
To buy him some bread;
When she came back
The dog was dead!

The Rev'd Dr Jules Gomes is pastor of St Augustine's Church, Douglas, on the Isle of Man

As the scandal of the bell-ringers remains unresolved and after every effort by the Dean and Chapter to recruit bell-ringers from outside York Minster to ring the bells at Christmas failed, CAWTE initiated an online petition calling for the removal of the Dean of York.

VOL: Hope you had a great Christmas--despite the bells of York Minster being silent for the first time since the 14th century! Am I right?

CAWTE: Yes, I had a great Christmas--and yes, it was the first time since the 14th century that there were no bells! The Dean and Chapter managed to get some local ringers for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, but not for Midnight Communion. The ringing team in Leeds were asked but refused out of solidarity with the York team.

VOL: Do tell me something about yourself and why you decided to become involved and initiate an online petition? Are there two petitions on this issue? What is the difference between the two?

CAWTE: I'm not a member of the Minster congregation, but I have many friends at the Minster. I decided to start the petition to give a voice to the frustrated and angry people of York, who have had to suffer the Dean's appalling people management skills since the day she arrived.

It's not my petition that has amassed the 18,000 signatures--mine is the smaller one, which now has 432 signatures. I set mine up later, and it is calling specifically for the Dean's removal.

VOL: Surely this must be an exception to her 'people management skills'? Dean Vivienne Faull holds a very senior position in the Church of England and she must have taken a number of facts into consideration when disbanding the bell-ringers. Why are you calling for her to be removed from her position?

CAWTE: The dispute with the bell-ringers is just the last in a long line of examples. The way she has handled it has simply inflamed the whole situation instead of calming and resolving it. I don't want to break any confidences or reveal sensitive information, but I know the truth of the situation at the heart of this disaster, and the Dean has ridden roughshod over the facts.

VOL: How do you think the media has responded and how do people now view such a prestigious cathedral?

CAWTE: The Dean has created a situation which has seen her mocked in the national press and broadcast media, and the whole Minster community dragged into disrepute. York has become a laughing stock. This is not how we expect someone in such high office to behave.

VOL: Dean Faull has held many senior positions before coming to York Minster. Surely she was successful in these roles?

CAWTE: I have friends who have encountered her in her posts prior to York, and who make the same criticisms of the Dean as we have seen on Facebook, and in the comments on local press pages, since this whole fiasco began. She is universally seen as high-handed, inflexible, contemptuous of others and, sadly for someone in her job, un-Christian.

In her last post, at Leicester Cathedral, she was known as "Vicious Viv". This is not a person you want to have in charge of a well-loved Minster with massive volunteer support, and huge affection from the local community.

VOL: Do you know her personally or is this just another impersonal petition?

CAWTE: In my own dealings with her, I have found her to be condescending and inconsiderate. I was lucky enough to review the Mystery Plays this year, and so was invited to the press night drinks, before the show, in The Deanery. I use a wheelchair and, unfortunately, The Deanery is not accessible to wheelchairs.

In other situations where I have been personally invited to an inaccessible event, the organisers have bent over backwards to accommodate me, even going so far as to hold the event in a different building. All the Dean was prepared to do was to move the gathering into her garden.

On opening night, I broached the subject with her and requested a change of venue. She gave me a sickly, false smile and said, in the tone of voice one would use to a small and stupid child, "Oh, but it will be in the garden! I have booked lovely weather especially!" I was wryly amused when press night was very cold, with torrential rain, and the wind so high that the beer tent outside the Minster blew away.

VOL: Surely the Dean is accountable to her superiors? Have you made an effort to speak to them and seek a resolution at a higher level by talking to John Sentamu, Archbishop of York? Isn't York Minster his cathedral? Or does he not have any authority over the Dean and Chapter?

CAWTE: I have found it difficult to find out who actually employs the Dean, and so I have addressed my petition to the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York, who are her superiors in the Church of England. The hierarchy of the Church of England is pretty complex! I believe the Minster is the home of the Dean and Chapter, and I know that the Archbishop has to be invited to enter it. He has no automatic right to enter.

That being said, he is second in command in the Church of England. Surely he outranks the Dean? He made a statement to the press at the end of October about the bell-ringers, which was not very well expressed, but conveyed that he was firmly behind the Dean. I don't even know if she has told him the full facts.

I do not believe the Dean is suitable for holding a position of such authority in a major cathedral, and that she is doing irreparable harm to public opinion both of the Minster, and of the Church of England. She is simply not fit for purpose, and the Minster deserves better.

The Rev'd Dr Jules Gomes BA BD MTh PhD (Cantab), is pastor of St Augustine's Church on the Isle of man. He is an occasional commentator for VOL