Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...
For those of us who care about the future of the Church in the UK, it's impossible to ignore the Church Of England. Sure, it's not the only church and there are exciting, interesting and beautiful expressions of Jesus to be found in many places outside of it. But it matters. The legacy bequeathed to us of a network of 15,000 or so churches is beyond significant.
Many of us desperately seek the renewal and revival of the Church and rightly celebrate when there are many signs of hope.
So eyes turn towards this week's General Synod, the parliament of the Church. For many churchgoers, let alone those outside, the Synod is a weird world full of arcane language and procedure. But, like any large institution, the Church needs a decision-making body. Synod contains many hardworking servants, experts in their field, committed clergy and laypeople who do their best to extend the Kingdom.
Depressingly, though, daggers are drawn this week over a number of debates, especially on gender and sexuality. This isn't the place to go into the minutae of the discussions. The Synod, though, is being asked to consider issues on which its members have wildly divergent opinions and beliefs. The problem is that these debates are only ever partly about the actual issues themselves.
In fact, various parties and groups seem to use the Synod as a bully pulpit from which to attack their opponents, or even others who are only loosely associated with their opponents. We should all be acting in accordance with the 'principle of charity', a philosophical concept that says we should always present the best and most fair version of our opponents arguments. Instead, ad hominem attacks are at risk of becoming commonplace on social media.
Briefing and counter-briefing are well under way ahead of the meeting and in my experience, it has never been so personal. The mood from some campaigners is one of outright hostility. A minority seem to have deliberately decided to play the man, not the ball. In other words, personal attacks are now seen by some as fair game – perhaps because the issues being debated are so emotive.
This is nothing short of a disaster.
The end result isn't simply that the Church looks divided over its practice and even its doctrine. It looks like there are members of the Church and its ruling body who are so committed to their cause that they're willing to engage in a campaign of verbal carpet-bombing, without caring about the many innocent bystanders being hurt.
Those innocent bystanders include faithful Christians whose churches, organisations and friends have been attacked, denigrated and deliberately misrepresented.
There's another kind of innocent bystander, though. It's the people who aren't in the Church at all. The people who may be ooking in and wondering why they'd want to join an institution whose members seem to be finding more and more ingenious ways to snipe at each other.
In John 13 Jesus says, 'I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.'
Jesus does not say we will always agree. He doesn't even say we won't argue. He says we will be known by the fact that we love each other. If we can't even try to do that, if we spend our time issuing press releases and attacking our fellow-believers, then we might as well give up and go home.
The world is watching and we are at risk of putting them off altogether.
None of this is to say that the issues being debated aren't important – they obviously are. It also isn't an attempt to shut down debate, to suggest that robust disagreement can't be a positive thing, or to say that the blame lies with any one group or set of individuals.
Yet if we don't take Jesus' instructions to love one another seriously, then why are we even bothering?
After those famous opening Shakespearean words in Henry V are another couple of lines which might well be worth noting for those on their way to York for the Synod. 'In peace there's nothing so becomes a man, as modest stillness and humility.'
Follow Andy Walton on Twitter @waltonandy
