DESPITE their setback over gay wedding celebrations, Church of England ‘progressives’ are still hell-bent on replacing Christianity with toxic neo-Marxist identity politics.
The February 2026 General Synod in Westminster saw the end of the Bishops’ Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process which they launched in 2020 to prepare the way for dedicated services of blessing for same-sex couples. In February 2023 Synod duly agreed to these by quite narrow majorities among the clergy and laity, but the services then ran into legal difficulties. It turned out that gay wedding celebrations at special services needed two-thirds majorities in each of the three Houses of Synod, Bishops, Clergy and Laity.
So, at the last Synod meeting, the Bishops called time on LLF to the fury of the ‘progressives’. But church leftists have not thrown in the towel.
A private member’s Synod motion which is fast gathering signatures proposes that ‘there are no fundamental objections to being in a committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationship, and that such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship’.
This motion, put forward by Professor Helen King, a lay member for Oxford Diocese, had by February 18 garnered the support of 161 members, which means it is set fair to be debated at the July Synod. It would require only a simple majority and if passed would pave the way for clergy to be allowed to enter into same-sex civil marriages.
As Dr Martin Davie, a champion for Christian orthodoxy in the C of E, explains on his Reflections of an Anglican Theologian blog:
‘The language of King’s motion deliberately echoes the language of the motion passed by General Synod in 1975 “That this Synod considers that there are no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood”. This motion paved the way to General Synod passing legislation allowing women to be ordained as deacons in 1986, as priests in 1992 and as bishops in 2014. The purpose of King’s motion is an attempt to pave the way in similar fashion for those in same-sex relationships to be allowed to be ordained in the Church of England.
‘The motion would not in itself make such ordination lawful, but it would provide the basis on which a measure to allow those in same-sex relationships to be ordained could then be brought forward for debate. The argument would go that because General Synod had voted for King’s motion it had established the principle that “such a relationship can be entirely compatible with Christian discipleship” and this would in turn mean that it was entirely compatible with the exercise of ordained ministry.’
Davie brilliantly explains why this move is profoundly anti-Christian:
‘What possible reason could there be for those who call themselves Christians to consider voting for a motion like that proposed by Professor King? The answer is straightforward. They are reflecting the thinking of a culture which has largely replaced the traditional Christian worldview with a post-Christian worldview known as “expressive individualism”.’
This worldview, which has been shaped by figures such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sigmund Freud and neo-Marxist scholars such as Wilhelm Reich and Herbert Marcuse, ‘explains both the acceptance of transgender identities and same-sex relationships’. Expressive individualism dictates that the purpose of existence is to live as authentically as possible in accordance with what a person perceives to be their true self. If this involves a man seeing himself as a woman, that is what he should do according to this neo-Marxist morality.
Furthermore, Davie explains, society should support a person’s chosen identity because only then will they achieve psychological well-being. Thinking otherwise is immoral because it involves damaging a person’s psychological well-being through a refusal to give recognition to their chosen identity.
The C of E has already gone a long way to buying into this toxic ideology. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally, led the LLF project as Bishop of London. She was gung-ho for gay wedding celebrations until they hit legal difficulties. Since then, she has been an advocate for ‘due process’ and her ardour for gay wedding celebrations has somewhat cooled. But the ‘progressives’ certainly have a friend in her and she would almost certainly vote for King’s motion.
Davie deserves the last word: ‘Voting for King’s proposed motion would mean . . . believing that the modern worldview of expressive individualism gives us a more correct understanding of God’s will than the teaching of Scripture and the consensus of the Christian tradition . . . Either we have to say that all God’s people, and Jesus himself, have been misled over sexual ethics for the entire history of the Church until the late twentieth century . . . or we have to say that God has changed his mind.’
