What do CofE clergy think about ‘Christian’ Britain, sexuality, and clergy morale?
Gafcon IoW reposts this Ian Paul article by Psephizo:
News
At the end of July 2023, Kaya Burgess, the Religious Affairs correspondent of The Times, sent out an email to 5,000 Church of England clergy, inviting them to complete a questionnaire giving their views on a whole range of issues, including whether Britain is a ‘Christian’ country any more, the Church’s teaching on sexuality, their own morale, and the leadership of the Church.
It made headlines with ‘Britain is no longer a Christian country, say frontline clergy’ in the report on the survey (which you can read here without paying), and then a Leader column with a rather different message—that the C of E needs to align itself with culture on the question of sexuality if it is to avoid extinction.
The world has moved on and left the General Synod behind. If it is to avoid irrelevance the church would be wise to embrace the liberal instincts of its clergy and the country.
What is rather striking here is that the Leader and the summary of the research point in completely opposite directions.
If Britain is ‘no longer a Christian country’ and the Church ’embraces the liberal instincts of the country’ on sexuality, then won’t the Church no longer be a Christian Church?
But that is only the start of the problems. The whole basis of the survey, and the confident claims it makes, it based on a con. The article (and news coverage in different media) claimed that The Times had undertaken a survey ‘of 1,200 clergy’. But it had done no such thing. It sent out 5,000 invitations, and then used the results of 1,200 who responded. The one thing we can report with confidence, then, is ‘76% of C of E clergy have better things to do in August than complete a survey.’ And you don’t have to think too hard to work out some of the selective factors motivating you to complete this or ignore it. Suppose you are leading a large and growing church, and are taking a group from your church to one of the summer festivals. Are you going to fill out the form? Likely not.
On the perennial question of sexuality - Here we find the poor methodology coming to bite.
“A majority of priests want the church to conduct same-sex weddings for the first time and formally drop its centuries-old opposition to premarital and gay sex, in a historic shift that campaigners hope will lead to a change in teaching.”
This self-selecting group is now claimed to represent the views of ‘the majority of priests’, which of course they don’t. I do find it curious that those who want change in the Church’s teaching appear always to need to resort to dubious methods and make false claims to support their cause. I wonder why that is?
