The bishops held the line at Synod - but for how much longer?
(Photo: Unsplash / Shelby Deeter)Hold up the front page. A majority of bishops on the General Synod gave a positive pastoral lead to the Church of England in vetoing a motion affirming “intimate” same-sex relationships.
It took the 14 bishops who voted against the motion on July 13 some courage to do so. It was obvious during the debate that the majority of Synod members in the chamber at York University supported the Private Member’s Motion.
Moved by Professor Muriel Robinson, a lay member for Lincoln Diocese, the motion as amended expressed “delight in the lives and ministries of LGBTQIA+ people in the Church of England” and stated that “committed, faithful, intimate same-sex relationships” can be “entirely compatible with Christian discipleship and ministry”.
In the final vote 93 clergy supported the motion with 79 against. Among the laity 101 voted for it with 83 against. Because the motion needed to pass in all three Houses of Synod, the 14 bishops effectively vetoed it - but only just. Eleven bishops voted for it with four abstaining.
Until the C of E releases the electronic voting results from the July 2026 Synod, the names of the 14 bishops who voted against the motion and the 11 who voted for it are unknown. But the Bishop of Sheffield, Pete Wilcox, led the episcopal charge against a measure that, had it passed, would have set the established Church on the path towards changing its traditional teaching on marriage and sexual morality.
He spoke in support of an amendment to the motion stating “that the teaching of the Church of England provides that sexual intimacy properly belongs within marriage”. That amendment moved by Dr Jamie Harrison, a lay member for Durham Diocese who is on the Archbishops’ Council, was supported by the majority of bishops but was sunk by the clergy and the laity.
Harrison’s motion tried to keep the Church on the course set by the bishops at the February 2026 General Synod. It was then that members backed the bishops’ motion to wind down the years-long Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process which had led to the Synod approving services of same-sex blessing in February 2023.
But due to the legal difficulties standing in the way of ‘bespoke’ or ‘standalone’ services of blessing for same-sex couples without two-thirds’ majority support in Synod, the bishops wanted to ditch LLF and instead set up a Relationship, Sexuality and Gender Working Group, effectively kicking gay wedding celebrations into the long grass.
Speaking for Harrison’s amendment, Wilcox began by paying tribute to the late Andrew Watson, the former Bishop of Guildford, who died of pancreatic cancer last March. That was significant because Watson was one of only two diocesan bishops who voted against the same-sex blessings in February 2023.
Wilcox voted for that motion but by October 2023 he had decided to join Watson in contending for the Church’s traditional teaching.
In a pointed remark against some of the revisionist stridency in the chamber, Wilcox said: “If Andrew were still alive, I’m sure he would have wished to speak in this debate. His words would have been careful and courteous. We miss his wisdom and his grace in this chamber.”
At one point in the debate, an LGBT activist clergyman cracked a joke about his lack of homosexual encounters in Norwich. The look that Wilcox, sitting a few feet away from the podium, shot at the speaker could have set his flowery summer shirt on fire.
An important aspect of Watson’s positive spiritual legacy is arguably his impact on Wilcox, an unlikely contender for biblical truth but who is now emerging as the chief episcopal champion for the Church’s traditional teaching.
Wilcox managed to take 13 of his fellow bishops with him this time around in defying majorities among the clergy and laity and doing what bishops should do.
Bishops are not delegates of the General Synod; they are senior pastors answerable ultimately to Jesus Christ in the Lord's revealed truth. In voting down the motion, they gave the Church a positive pastoral lead. But with elections for a new Synod due to take place this autumn the question arises: for how much longer can Wilcox persuade his colleagues to resist the pressure in their own dioceses and in wider society to ditch the Church’s traditional teaching?
Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire.
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