I knew at the age of 11 that I should trust my intuition and experience over the dogmas and teachings held by the Church and derived from the Bible through the authority of God. My sexuality was integral to my essence. Now I know more confidently, despite continuing hostility in the Church that in the uncertain dynamics of life, subject and object, the knower and the known, the self and Gods, are not separable. Relativity and the uncertainty principle require a non-dual mode of knowing whose essential nature is to be undivided from what it knows, counter-intuitive to the reality generally taug ..read more

I wish to be part of a movement in the Church that is reimagining Christian basics, recovering the Christian Church, not as an institution with commands, prohibitions, creeds and doctrines, but as a movement of people touched by the reality of God at the heart of their lives, nourishing the divine, the essence of God in the centre of our being, in our bodies and emotions, valuing and honouring the incarnational presence of the Christ ..read more

In my time of meditation and reflection this morning I became aware that the God in whom I don’t believe is very present and dominant at General Synod. I found myself wondering what kind of God and what kind of world and cosmos the institution is imagining. It’s an institutional, systemic problem ..read more

A Jesus Christ centred church, simpler, humbler, bolder – yeah, go for it, Stephen Cotterell. The Jesus Christ centred church that is simpler, humbler, bolder, isn’t remotely visible on the horizon yet. You and your comrades in the House of Bishops are lost in an almost impenetrable maze of scriptural authority, archaic traditions and invalid reasons that you are showing no signs of the vision and courage necessary to develop the church of your dreams ..read more

Whenever I write about the crisis in the Church some people post comments telling me that parishes are in a healthy state despite the crisis at the top and others tell me the opposite. One person recently commented that “everything is all right in the parishes” whereas another commented: “It is very hard to be a parish priest at the moment, trying to faithfully serve while having no faith in the hierarchy of the Church of England.” What is your experience ..read more

Here I am, posting another blog dealing with the Church of England in crisis when I really want to be writing about the far more critical existential crisis going on moment, of which this week’s events are but one element. There needs to be a far, far more radical transformation of the life and culture of the Church of England, a movement developing in the root, seeing and feeling the essence of unconditional love ..read more

This evening I'm writing and posting a spur-of-the-moment blog arguing that nothing is going to change, despite the serious nature of the failures reported yesterday, because something is far, far more seriously wrong with the basic fabric of the Church - what it claims to believe about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Bible - the fundamentals of our faith. A new movement is required ..read more

I’m offering ideas in this blog that will be manna to some, anathema to others, and difficult to process for others. I will expand these ideas in subsequent blogs. My ideas and thought processes develop every day. I insist on ninety minutes of silence, reflection, deep presence and meditation every morning and into the silence and stillness, unbidden, ideas flow. I offer these ideas to you knowing they may take time to process – weeks and years and possibly decades. I’m dreaming of a huge change in where our attention is focused as Christians ..read more

Last Wednesday, 15 January 2025, two serendipitous events occurred. First, Thinking Anglicans listed just two opinion articles, one by Gilo for ViaMedia and one by me for Unadulterated Love. A conversation developed between us and others posting comments. The second event occurred later that morning. I came across the latest podcast by Sam Howsen, a conversation with Robert Thompson delving into the challenges facing the Church of England under a new Archbishop. Sam and Gilo are both contributing in their own very particular ways to living and imagining and exploring themselves and their life ..read more

I think the Church of England is in crisis. I think the contemporary ideas held by the Church, the “theologies”, the ideas about and metaphors for and images of and awareness of the God it claims corporately to worship have become grossly inadequate and dangerously flawed. The result of this systemic incompetence are the gross failures of safeguarding and the deep malaise of abuse and the inability of the Church of England to recognise and face up to the abuse that is now a dominant narrative in the Church ..read more