THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND College of Bishops published draft Prayers of Love and Faith last month, ‘asking for God’s blessing on same-sex couples as they give thanks for their civil marriage or civil partnership’.

In 2021, the Church In Wales authorised its own Liturgy for the Blessing of a Same-sex Civil Marriage or Civil Partnership, to be ‘used experimentally for five years’. Revd Gareth Rayner-Williams compares the two and asks what do they mean by ‘blessing’?

Next week the Church of England’s governing body, General Synod, will debate a motion that asks them to ‘look forward to the House of Bishops further refining, commending and issuing the Prayers of Love and Faith’ and ‘invite the House of Bishops to monitor the Church’s use of and response to the Prayers of Love and Faith… and to report back to Synod in five years’.

As a male Church in Wales priest married to my husband, I can’t quite find in Prayers of Love and Faith any pronouncement that would offer to bless our same-sex marriage or declare it to be a union unequivocally blessed by God.

Instead, were my husband and I to pay for this service, all the draft prayers would seem to offer us is a polite request that God might consider blessing us as a twosome, leaving it to God’s own choosing as to whether God decided to or not - God may do, or God may not, who can tell? Certainly not ourselves, who would be left feeling liturgically short-changed by such a second-rate, second-class service.

Thank God we went to the United Reformed Church (which voted overwhelmingly in favour of allowing same-sex couples to marry in its buildings in 2016). There we were pronounced ‘blessed in civil union’ after we had exchanged our vows and gifted each other with rings that sealed God’s sacramental blessing.

To be fair, I don’t agree with those who think the prayer of blessing in the Church in Wales is any more generous, for it reads:

May God the Father, who created you and breathed life into you, bless you.
May God the Son, who extended his arms in love upon the cross,bless you.
May God the Holy Spirit, who kindles the flame of love in your hearts, bless you.
May the infinite and glorious Trinity strengthen the covenant between you,
and so bind your lives together in love, that you may be a blessing to each other
and a visible sign of God’s loving purposes for all his children.
Amen.

A nice enough prayer, but note the provisional ‘may’ in front of each clause- something you won’t find in the prayer of blessing offered in the Church in Wales liturgy for heterosexual marriage (and similarly in that of the Church of England), where a couple are left in no doubt that God richly blesses them:

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, bless, preserve, and keep you;
the Lord mercifully with his favour look upon you;
and so fill you with all spiritual benediction and grace
that you may so live together in this life
that in the world to come you may have life everlasting.
Amen.

But at least in Prayers of Love and Faith the College of Bishops’ are upfront in their clarification that the ‘Blessing’ offered is nothing if not nuanced. In their accompanying report they state:

‘What does it mean to bless? We often ask for God’s blessing on people and situations, as we make decisions, as we seek the way forward. To ask for God’s blessing is to express an intention to walk with God and put God at the centre of what we do and how we relate. Our prayers ask for God’s blessing - they are prayers, not pronouncements. God will answer as God chooses’.

I can’t ever imagine a liturgical rite for the blessing of heterosexual marriage prefaced with such mean-spirited and resentful double-speak, can you? Where is the pronouncement, where is the approval? Without these, the blessing is both thin and hollow. Worse still, however, the College of Bishops go on to explain:

‘The people of God are encouraged to… pray for the blessing of all - including enemies and persecutors, whose actions we definitely do not approve of! ...The prayers we are offering here do not all contain blessing. Where they do, we ask for God’s blessing - recognising that it is not our blessing or approval that is conferred, but a prayer for God to bring about flourishing and growth in the ways of God.’

I read these words as public words said ‘about us’ as LGBTQ+ people and, as a same-sex-married-person, I’m left wondering whether the bishops consider me to be blessed or not; approved of or reproached. It’s clear that both interpretations are allowed for in this very odd theological explanation of what a blessing is, so at pains are the bishops to distinguish it from what it isn’t.

It seems to me that the bishops have taken five years to prove how out of touch they are, and I don’t mean with modern society (that so clearly approves of same-sex relationships), but with God whose love is prodigal and whose blessing is lavish and extravagant. In the end, what the bishops have offered is a service where they stingily attempt to weigh out the scale of God’s grace - just enough offered, but no more - whereas this is what we see in Christ:

Look
what happens to the scale
when love
holds
it.

It
stops
working.

- Kafir (c.1440-1518), quoted in Daily Prayer for All Seasons, by the US Episcopal Church, 2014 p.96.

It’s complicated, I realise: so many theological viewpoints to consider, but I want the Church in Wales and the Church of England to celebrate LGBTQ+ relationships in its public liturgy - declaring that our relationships are what help us to thrive and to flourish. I also want those same public liturgies to proclaim our loves to be sacramental, not unlike God’s love for us: powerful, generous, faithful, supportive, kind, healing, truthful and lifegiving. Love that dares to speak its name and becomes a blessing from the God who comes to us with such fierce and tender compassion.

It was Prosper of Aquitaine who said: ‘The law of praying is the law of believing’. There’s much wisdom in that and, given this aphorism, Prayers of love and faith appear to be quite mixed-up in terms of what it is the church believes about the relationships that are so dear to us. But at least these prayers are a start, representing the first step on a new path, and I welcome that.

Nevertheless there’s something theologically stingy about them: prayers where episcopal fingers are not raised in generous blessing over same-sex couples, but instead lie firmly crossed behind episcopal backs as the bishops cover their collegial backsides with a good old Anglican fudge. We deserve better.

The General Synod of the Church of England will debate its response to the Living In Love And Faith process on Wednesday 8th February 2023. The debate will be live-streamed on the Church of England’s YouTube channel. Prepare for self-care if you choose to watch. If you would like to talk to someone from the Open Table Network, please don't hesitate to contact us, and we will respond as soon as possible.