Dear Giles,

Thanks for your swift reply and sorry for longer turnaround from me. I'll plead I had a bit more work to do for the Aff Cath conference last Saturday as I was giving a paper! I'm still processing that day but it powerfully made real to me both how there can be genuine hospitality, fellowship and mutual listening but also how little of that there has been and how deep some of the differences are.

Thanks for picking up what I said about the Articles. I'll avoid going too far into sacramental theology debates but while agreeing on the truth and comfort found in Article XXVI I'd add that this does not mean the church should have no regard for the minister's pattern of life as both Scripture (eg the Pastoral epistles) and the canons make clear. I'd also want to say 'I often think that if we focused a bit more on Christ and less on the sacraments and who was administering them the Church would be a better place'. But perhaps it's now my turn to show my churchmanship!

One final point on the Articles - 'no longer as key within Anglican authority as they were' we can agree on but how good this development is remains a serious question. After all, the CofE still says they are 'agreeable to the Word of God' and continues to define Anglican doctrine in relation to them - "The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal” (canon A5).

I found your picture of the three strands fascinating and could echo much but also felt a little uneasy in places. I've struggled to work out why and am still not totally sure. In part I think - paradoxically - it was the very strong focus on Scripture in relation to evangelicalism. Not that that is wrong or irrelevant I hasten to add but rather that it may be too reductionistic. This emphasis goes alongside other key features such as preaching and living the gospel of grace which has at its centre an understanding of our plight as condemned sinners and forgiveness and justification simply through trusting in Christ and supremely his death on the cross as our representative and substitute. All that of course is there in the Articles and so 'mainstream' Anglicanism but these are also evangelical distinctives more widely.

I think that bigger picture of evangelicalism is important as increasingly some believe the presenting issues and different responses to them in the Communion are not only due to different views of the authority or interpretation of Scripture but are revealing there may also ultimately in some cases be different gospels. If that is so then Galatians 1 warns us our correspondence may hot up!

I think my deeper concern with your account was that it seemed to assume these three strands were known and a sort of given, that they were rather fixed, and that all of them (by definition) had unquestioned legitimacy and their views must therefore be in some sense affirmed as integral to Anglicanism. To be honest I think Oliver O'Donovan's recent writing has shown how one challenge we are now facing is not only the growth of evangelicalism but also the fact the 'liberal' strand has altered recently. I'm also I confess far from convinced that 'Honest to God', 'Myth' and the Jesus Seminar have brought 'enrichment' or 'focused and developed our theological understanding' but again that discussion is problem for another time and place.

My concern is that this way of understanding Anglican identity can become predominantly - even wholly - a sociological account of the church and its different parties/traditions where there are no biblical or theological criteria of truth, except perhaps the commitment never to exclude and never to say that certain actions are illegitimate and mean we must recognize communion to be severely impaired or even broken. Perhaps here I caricature but as you say 'truth exists behind every caricature' and I trust you quickly to correct any misunderstandings.

I realise that saying this may come across as a frightening and threatening call to purify Anglicanism and purge it of non-evangelicals or at least of liberals and your Inclusive Church appeal again highlights that as a real fear. I don't think that is what I am seeking at all but perhaps need to unpack a bit more why I am an evangelical Anglican. I am an evangelical by conviction through commitment to such matters as the supreme authority of Scripture, the centrality of the cross and Christ's atoning death, the priority of mission including evangelism and the call for conversion. I am an Anglican by conviction not only because I see those central evangelical marks as central to Anglicanism. It is also because, as an evangelical Christian seeking to be faithful to Scripture, the church is also important and I am aware those evangelical emphases on their own can and have led to some evangelicals losing sight of this and other important aspects of Christian belief and discipleship.

Anglicans from a 'catholic' tradition remind me of the importance of the whole church and Christian tradition (not least for reading of Scripture) and the need to set my evangelical emphases in the context of worship and relate Word to sacrament. 'Liberals' remind me I need to be open to new insights and developments, to question received wisdom and not (in Archbishop Rowan's words) 'close down unexpected questions too quickly'. They also (as you note through reference to human rights) have a passion for justice and require me to take seriously the social, political and intellectual contexts of both Scripture and our contemporary mission field.

To be honest I think all of these are also part of evangelicalism at its best but as evangelicalism is - like all human traditions - rarely at its best I'm grateful to be in an Anglican Communion where other traditions can often more faithfully bear witness to these features of following Jesus. I am also excited by the way in which Anglicanism in recent decades has embraced and greatly benefitted from the experience of charismatic renewal, helping us to reunite Word and Spirit while reiterating in new ways the importance of worship, the contemporary leading and power of the Spirit and the importance of every Christian's ministry.

My vision is therefore of a church in which these different emphases - whatever labels we put on them - are able to learn from each other as together we hear and obey God's word to us in Scripture. But the strands identified with them also need to be tested by Scripture rather than simply accepted and included as they present themselves. That means any group - 'evangelicals', 'catholics' or 'liberals' - and the church as a whole may need to be challenged when their emphases become unbalanced, depart from Scripture and lose connection with the other aspects of Anglicanism.

I realize evangelicals can think they have a monopoly on Scripture and hope I don't portray you or others as people who 'don't care about Scripture'. I'm also encouraged you accept I try too to recognise the diversity in Scripture, the need to read it as a whole, and the - to varying degrees - contested nature of biblical interpretation. But I do think there are still quite significant differences here and that these are being played out in relation to sexuality at present. I well recall one prominent Inclusive Church supporter once telling me that the reason he thought evangelicals were fighting this one so hard was that though they might be able to persuade themselves and others that women's ordination was in line with their view of the authority and interpretation of Scripture, if they gave in on homosexuality they'd have to abandon some basic beliefs about Scriptural authority which are core to evangelicalism. I think that is indeed part of the problem at present because I have to say that I think all I've just outlined about my self-understanding as an evangelical Anglican is what leads me to the position I take on sexuality and that I cannot see how my vision of Anglicanism is compatible with what I hear you and others to be calling for.

On 'the texts' I agree that determining the exact meaning of Greek words can be tedious and it certainly won't bring the whole debate to the end. But it can highlight significant differences in understanding biblical authority. What if we could (to take the example you give) both agree that arsenokoitai in 1 Cor 6 and 1 Tim 1 does basically mean 'a man who has sex with a man', that Paul likely coins it from the prohibition in Leviticus, and that he therefore sees this as a sin incompatible with the rule of God and contrary to the gospel? Interestingly Chris Sugden has recently written on this matter that, "when, in discussion, a leading clergy gay campaigner was asked: "If it could be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that arsenokotai in scripture meant men having sex with men, and not male prostitutes, would you change your view and behaviour?” and answered 'no', the issue is not personal preference, but orthodoxy in teaching and practice”. Given you 'have no hesitation in agreeing...that 'it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God's word' I would take it such agreement (or "proof”) would put you in quite a different place in current discussions and that conversation between us on such matters is therefore not totally pointless or are we perhaps agreeing on that Article on 'contrary to God's word' but understanding it in significantly different ways?

In summary, I think the stance I take on sexuality and the current situation in the Communion fits the vision of Anglicanism I've just outlined in a way no other stance does. It is I believe fully biblical and I take encouragement in that belief from the fact that the church down the ages and across the world today read Scripture as opposed to homosexual practice whereas all other readings are very recent novelties and held by only a small proportion of Christians. The fact that the bishops from around the world at Lambeth 1998 so overwhelmingly took that view and judged the church could not bless same-sex unions or ordain those in them also means I see it as genuinely 'catholic' and hence those who reject such teaching and practice as the real 'schismatics'. As Archbishop Rowan says in his Hope and Challenge, the question is "whether the Christian Church has the freedom, on the basis of the Bible, and its historic teachings, to bless homosexual partnerships as a clear expression of God's will”. Though, as he notes, this "is disputed among Christians” it is true "as a bare matter of fact, only a small minority would answer yes to the question”. However, I also recognize that we are facing new challenges and understandings today and so need to keep on listening and learning and particularly struggling to combat all "victimisation or diminishment of human beings whose affections happen to be ordered towards people of the same sex” (The Primates at Dromantine). It concerns me that some evangelicals and others are not always so clear on these last points but unless Anglican churches work within the current teaching and practice of the Communion I fear we will find it impossible to keep on walking together.

You long for the day when 'we as a Church can agree that different positions on the expression of human love and sexuality can be held by Christians who respect one another's integrity' and 'we could move on to work out an ethic of relationship which is genuinely inclusive'. It would help me if you could explain a bit more what you mean by 'integrity' (I don't see you as duplicitous or deceiving and accept that you see your views as genuinely Christian but I find the word 'integrity' difficult given I believe the views are wrong). I also find 'inclusive' strange here and wonder why it is the test of an 'ethic of relationship' as I think any ethic is inherently exclusive as it rules out certain actions as wrong.

The reality is of course that we are manifestly very far from that day and many of us could not welcome it but would struggle to see how such a new ethic would be faithful to Scripture or in continuity with Church teaching on marriage and chastity down the centuries. The question - as you say - is 'how can we disagree?'. I am happy to do so within the parameters of official teaching and discipline laid down by the Communion and the Church of England but I know you and others find that a yoke too heavy to bear. What, I wonder, can we do to lighten that load or bear it with you without having to abandon the fundamental theological and biblical convictions and vision of being Anglican I've outlined?

Look forward to hearing from you

Andrew.