Theo Hobson

I was planning to give my mother-in-law the new biography of Ronald Blythe this Christmas. Then I read a review and had second thoughts.  I was aware the late chronicler of rural parish life had a bohemian side, but it seems that it was more extensive than I had guessed. Reviewing the book in the Guardian, Patrick Barkham says that his adventurous early sex-life is related; his adventures continued in later life, when ‘unlikely opportunities arose, including a dalliance with the stand-in postman.’ Barkham writes: ‘In another’s hands, this promiscuity might be sensationalist or spark prurient judgments, but it is sensitively treated by Ian Collins, a biographer who was also a close friend (but not a lover).

Parish churches are in trouble: about fifty churches close every year, according to a report from Civitas. The review, published last month, strongly echoes the case of the Save the Parish campaign: the Church of England’s leadership has failed to support local parishes, diverting funding to more modern-sounding initiatives. About twenty years ago some bright clerical manager types said that the parish is not good at reaching ‘the networks of contemporary life’, so new looser types of church should be set up. The vague assumption was that these would resemble the amorphous evangelical mega-churches like Holy Trinity Brompton. But no new model has really emerged, and traditionalists are understandably disgruntled. Let’s go back to square one and re-affirm the parish, they say.

There are many grey areas in this safeguarding saga. So it is nice when some black and white emerges. It is surely impossible for anyone to doubt the culpability of George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who resigned his priestly orders yesterday. First, the grey areas. It is difficult to say whether a bishop or archbishop should resign for failing to ensure that there are no dodgy priests operating in his or her diocese. On paper, a bishop should ensure that none of the priests whom he or she oversees are dodgy, and remove any who are. But bishops cannot simply fire priests, even if they have severe doubts about them.

Eating porridge with my daughter this morning (me brown sugar; her honey) I was telling her about Ready Brek, and the boy in the advert going to school surrounded by a warm glow. She shushed me: they were talking about porridge on the radio! In fact they were talking about a successor to Ready Brek called Porridge Pot. Someone said it was more like a pudding than a breakfast cereal, and was one of the processed foods adding to the obesity crisis. Masterchef fetishises fine-dining Then a foodie guru came on and told us about the pleasures of real porridge. Obviously I was the choir for her preaching. Or was I? When the presenter asked her how it was eaten in her house, her answer dismayed me profoundly.

In my first few teenage years I attended Christian holiday camps rather like the ‘Bash’ camps where John Smyth and Justin Welby prayed in the same dormitory. They were run by old boys from the school. It was a day-school, but obviously these camps had a boarding school feel. I loved it. It was like being at Hogwarts. I adored the clubby vibe, the belonging, the games, the lingo, the gossip, the praying together in the dorm, the sing-songs with cocoa. I went back for more every summer and Easter holidays for the next few years. It was a huge group of friends, still sweaty from a football game, congregating to worship.

Last week, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury since 2013, started leading the Church of England. He got off the fence on homosexuality and backed a major change to the Church’s teaching. He said that that ‘all sexual activity should be within a committed relationship, whether it’s straight or gay'. This obviously goes against the Church’s existing official teaching, that sex should not occur outside of heterosexual marriage. The Church is now likely to change that teaching fairly swiftly – probably next year. I predict that Synod will affirm equal marriage within three years. This shift comes after about 25 years of painful paralysis.

Forget Nixon in China. That phrase needs renaming: Welby on sexuality. For it is now at last clear that he has shifted his position on homosexuality. Talking to The Rest is Politics podcast this week, he finally came out with it. He is not, as we all assumed, a conservative in the awkward position of presiding over a Church that is pursuing reform. He has quietly changed his mind. He is not, as we all assumed, a conservative in the awkward position of presiding over a Church that is pursuing reform In the last year or two, he has hinted that he is on a journey, moving away from the conservative position that he has taken throughout his career, but he has never quite clarified.

Some sociology academics have, after a three-year research project called 'Exploring Atheism', unveiled a startling discovery: there are a lot of people in Britain who don’t believe in God. I know, it’s quite a gut-punch. They do not quite claim to have found that most Britons are atheists. But they do claim that there are now more atheists than religious believers. By collating various social attitudes surveys from 2008 to 2018 they found a strong upward trend in those saying that they did not believe in God, from 35 per cent to 43 per cent. During this time, believers in God dropped from 42 per cent to 37 per cent. This has led the academics to claim that Britain has now entered its ‘first atheist age’.

The evangelicals really are revolting. After a lot of talk of the need to break away from a tainted, liberal, heretical Church, something significant has happened. Last month, two of London’s biggest conservative parishes – All Souls Langham Place and St Helen's Bishopsgate – held services ‘commissioning’ new leaders. It’s an obvious repudiation of the Church’s authority, and a step towards creating a new structure – a ‘de facto province’, as one of the vicars involved put it. When this new structure is authorised, they will be officially ordained into it, he said. This move doesn’t quite break canon law, as long as these leaders don’t preside at the eucharist.

My friend Andy is getting married. It’s about time – he and his girlfriend have a one-year-old daughter. He wants to get married in church, so I introduced him by email to the local vicar. I was copied in to their initial correspondence. The vicar told Andy that the Church of England prohibits sex outside of marriage, so a church wedding would not be possible unless the couple repented of their sin and lived apart in the run-up to the wedding. Of course I made up the last bit. The vicar congratulated him and his partner on their decision and started talking dates. But isn’t it true that the church teaches that sex should only take place in marriage? Yes and no. The ambiguity sheds important light on the current crisis over homosexuality.

Future historians of the Church of England might look back at this weekend as the beginning of the end. A selection of bishops and members of the General Synod are meeting at a hotel in Leicester to seek a solution to the impasse over homosexuality. They hope to make a plan to take to July’s Synod: a deal that keeps conservatives in the Church. That’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it? It depends.  The story so far is that the Church decided in favour of same-sex blessings last year, and also in favour of new ‘pastoral guidance’ that is expected to allow gay clergy to marry, therefore officially condoning them for the first time. Conservatives, the large majority of whom are evangelicals, see this as false teaching, and are demanding their own structures.

Could Russell Brand, who has just been baptised, become a significant Christian figure? I suppose he could become a sort of British televangelist, God help us. But significant in a good way? It’s not impossible: he’s sharp and charismatic, and taps in to a major English spiritual tradition. But it’s not likely either: our culture needs figures who model wise restraint rather than juvenile hedonism, and Brand can’t entirely undo his image. Brand can probably never lose the aura of sleazy preening libertine Brand issued a video after being baptised in the Thames on Sunday, in which he said he had found his 'path' and was left feeling 'incredibly blessed' and 'nourished'.