Conservative global Anglican leaders rebuked the Archbishop of Canterbury for saying in a recent podcast interview he believes that sex within any “committed relationship, straight or gay,” is moral, which they call an “explicit repudiation of Christian doctrine.”

The statement originated from the Primates’ Council of GAFCON, which stands for Global Anglican Future Conference and is a conservative Anglican movement formed in 2008. It came in a Reformation Day email from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, where GAFCON had gathered to celebrate the installation of the Most Rev. Steve Wood as Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Church in North America.

Archbishop Justin Welby’s remarks were part of a long-form interview with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart of The Rest is Politics, the U.K’s fourth most popular podcast, which was released on October 27.

In the discussion, which was filmed in the crypt of Lambeth Palace’s chapel, Campbell asked Welby if gay sex is sinful, a question he had first posed to the archbishop in a 2017 interview for GQ, to which Welby had answered that he was “copping out because I am struggling with the issue.”

This time Welby told Campbell he had “a better answer,” and said: “What the Archbishop of York and I, and the bishops, by a majority, by no means unanimous, and the church is deeply split over this; where we’ve come to is to say that all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship and whether it’s straight or gay. In other words, we’re not giving up on the idea that sex is within marriage or civil partnership.

“We’ve put forward a proposal that where people have been through a civil partnership or a same-sex marriage, equal marriage under the 2014 Act, they should be able to come along to their local, to a church, and have a service of prayer and blessing for them in their lives together.”

In an October 22 statement, Lambeth Palace slightly qualified Welby’s statement: “Archbishop Justin was giving a personal view that reflects the position now held by himself, the Archbishop of York, and many other bishops regarding sexual intimacy. He has been honest that his thinking has evolved over the years through much prayer and theological reflection — particularly through the Living in Love and Faith process — and he now holds this view sincerely.

“However, there is no consensus among the bishops on this question, and the Church remains deeply divided. Archbishop Justin stressed his absolute commitment to those who hold a traditional view having ‘a full and undoubted place in the Church of England.’ His answer does not indicate a changing of teaching from the House of Bishops.”

The GAFCON Primates Council granted that the Church of England’s decision to permit same-sex blessings does not amount to an endorsement of gay marriage, but they are unconvinced by his attempts at differentiating his personal views from the teaching of the church he has promised to lead.

“While he may claim not to have changed the doctrine of marriage, the Archbishop of Canterbury has demonstrably changed the doctrine of sin, by promoting the sanctification of sin by means of a divine blessing,” the primates wrote.

After explaining that Scripture “unequivocally teaches” that heterosexual marriage is the only context in which sexual intimacy is moral and that the archbishop’s statement defies Lambeth 1.10, which he declared to be the Anglican Communion’s teaching on human sexuality in 2022, the GAFCON primates added:

“We are guided by Jesus’ solemn words of warning to the Church of Thyatira, because ‘they tolerate the teaching of Jezebel,’ which endorses sexual immorality. Only judgment awaits Jezebel and all who follow her, unless they repent (Revelation 2:21-22; 22:15). Any toleration, let alone endorsement, of immorality is liable to God’s judgment.

“For this reason, in response to his public comments, we solemnly repeat our call for Archbishop Justin Welby to personally and publicly repent of this denial of his ordination and consecration vows, where he promised to ‘teach the doctrine of Christ as the Church of England has received it.’”

Welby’s answer to Campbell was not unexpected, as he said something similar about the morality of sex within committed relationships in a June 2023 interview at the Religion Media Festival. But the stakes are higher now, given the November 2023 authorization of Prayers of Love and Faith, which contains liturgies for the blessing of same-sex couples.

Instead of using the Church of England’s normal process for vetting trial liturgies, the bishops chose to commend Prayers of Love and Faith for use under the terms of Canon B5, which allows ministers to make alterations to existing liturgies so long as the substituted material is “reverent and seemly and shall be neither contrary to, nor indicative of any departure from, the doctrine of the Church of England in any essential matter.”

In GS2328, a paper distributed to General Synod before its narrow November 2023 vote to commend the bishops’ recommendations about Prayers of Love and Faith, the bishops said:

“The Church’s doctrine remains as set out in Canon B 30 (Of Holy Matrimony); we have been clear that we have no intention of changing that doctrine. We also note that the Church’s teaching on sexual relations has been treated as being part of the Church’s doctrine of marriage. We are not proposing to change that teaching.”

The Church of England’s traditional teaching about sexual intimacy belonging only within heterosexual marriage was in fact reaffirmed by a majority of its bishops in December 2019, as part of a pastoral statement about civil partnerships, which said:

“The Church of England teaches that “sexual intercourse, as an expression of faithful intimacy, properly belongs within marriage exclusively (Marriage: A Teaching Document of the House of Bishops, 1999). Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings (para 9).”

Conservatives argue that Welby’s statement undermines the legal basis for the current authorization of Prayers of Love and Faith, as the blessing of same-sex couples suggests an endorsement of sexual activity within their relationships, which is contrary to church doctrine.

A note on legal issues associated with Prayers of Love and Faith, distributed to General Synod members in July 2024, said that in offering blessing liturgies, the church made no assumption about whether sex would take place within the relationships being blessed.

The blessings, it said, were “a pastoral outworking for a time of uncertainty that respects the Church of England’s unchanged doctrine of marriage, including the aspects of that doctrine that are concerned with sexual intimacy. On that basis, we have concluded that making the PLF available for same-sex couples without there being an assumption as to their sexual relationships would not be contrary to the doctrine of the Church of England.”

In a further exercise in hair-splitting, the legal note acknowledged that “many same-sex couples will be in active sexual relationships,” which are contrary to church doctrine. Yet “in so far as making the PLF available for couples in an active sexual relationship does involve any departure from doctrine, it nevertheless does not involve a departure from doctrine ‘in any essential matter,’ and that doing so is compatible with the relevant canonical requirements.”

This finessed definition of doctrine “in any essential matter” may also provide a legal basis for what many expect to be the next step in Living in Love and Faith: a lifting of the current ban on entering same-sex marriage for Church of England clergy, and an elimination of the celibacy requirement for clergy in same-sex partnerships.

This article originally appeared at The Living Church and has been reprinted with permission.

The Rev. Mark Michael is editor-in-chief of The Living Church. A graduate of Duke University and Oxford, he serves as rector of an Episcopal church in Maryland.