Thank you for renewed hope - Open Table community host responds to Church of England bishops
Revd Andy Salmon is Rector of Sacred Trinity Church in Salford and a member of the General Synod of the Church of England. He is also the North West co-ordinator for HeartEdge, an international, ecumenical movement galvanising churches to be at the heart of their communites, while being with those on the edge.
GENERAL SYNOD, the Church of England’s governing body, debated the College of Bishops’ proposals for the next steps in the Living In Love And Faith process on identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage on 8th and 9th February 2023.
There were so many attempts to amend the House of Bishops’ motion that not everyone got to speak in the main debate. One of those unheard speeches was from Andy Salmon, Rector of the church which hosts our Open Table community in Salford, Greater Manchester, who is grateful for the limited progress that has been achieved.
I want to recognise that I am in a very privileged position. I am white, heterosexual and male. I haven’t had to face the barriers that many in this chamber and many in my congregation have had to face. Many are frustrated and angry about how long things take and how much hurt has been inflicted on the LGBTQIA+ community. We desperately want change.
But I want to speak on behalf of many out there and many in my church and say thank you to the House of Bishops. What we are being offered is not all that we had hoped for, but it is more than we feared.
So thank you. I want to say that on behalf of those from the LGBTQIA+ community who have made their home at Sacred Trinity Church, thank you for renewed hope. On behalf of those who have felt rejected by other churches because of who they are, on behalf of those who have asked for a blessing in the past and I’ve had to refuse. On behalf of the woman who posted a photo of our Christmas services poster because she was so pleased to see that we held Big Queer Carols, thank you. On behalf of the largely young people who live in the thousands of apartments in our parish, who mainly consider the church irrelevant at best, and a force for evil at worst, thank you for starting to change their perceptions. On behalf of those who come to our Open Table community because, although they’re part of a church elsewhere, at Open Table they can be honest about who they are, thank you. On behalf of colleagues who are excellent priests but have hidden their light under a bushel or even resigned their licence because of fear of being outed, thank you.