Bishop’s Letter written by Bishop Pete Wilcox and Bishop Sophie Jelley

21st February 2022

1. Conversion Therapy
One of the storms which has been raging destructively on social media this past week concerns a letter to the Rt Hon Liz Truss, the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and Minister for Women and Equalities, as part of the Government’s consultation over its proposed legislation to ban ‘conversion therapy’. The letter has been signed by over 2500 ‘Christian Ministers and Pastoral Workers’. You can find it here.

The letter has caused considerable distress and consternation. There are six points that Bishop Sophie and I would want to raise in response. In choosing to address the matter at all, we realise that we risk adding to the already considerable levels of distress and consternation. However, in accordance with our daily prayer for ‘courage, wisdom and compassion’, we have decided to speak, and to speak ‘in house’ rather than by issuing a statement on social media.

a) Bishop Sophie and I are fully committed to the stance adopted by the General Synod in November 2017, namely that ‘conversion therapy has no place in the modern world, is unethical, potentially harmful and not supported by evidence’.

b) Individual lay and clergy leaders are, however, at liberty to dissent from this view and to do so as part of an official government consultation is entirely legitimate. Notwithstanding the motion passed at General Synod, it is not a disciplinary matter for individuals to express convictions contrary to it.

c) Nevertheless, we want to acknowledge that unnecessary anguish has, in our view, been caused to members of our churches, most acutely among LGBTI+ people, by the tone and content of The Ministers Consultation Response.

d) We note that there is a distinction to be made between the authors of this document and the signatories to it, which has not been much recognised in the heat of the controversy on social media. The most careless material is arguably not in the letter itself (pages 1-2 of the document), but in the ‘Theological Rationale’ (pages 4-11) which accompanies it. And the document itself states, that the rationale ‘represents the thinking of the authors. Other signatories of the letter may not agree with everything here’. Indeed, we are given to understand that many signatories may not have seen the ‘rationale’ before it was published and we know some are now wishing to distance themselves from it. Signatories to the letter should not be assumed to have signed up to the theological rationale.

e) We are united in our view that it was a mistake to publish this document as an open letter. In itself the letter is a contribution to a Government consultation process; but as soon as it was published, it was bound to be regarded as a campaigning document, and it was bound to fuel controversy in a way which, in our view, is unhelpful to the present ‘Living in Love and Faith’ process and at odds with the Pastoral Principles which underlie it, to which Bishop Sophie and I also remain utterly committed: acknowledge prejudice, speak into silence, address ignorance, cast out fear, admit hypocrisy and pay attention to power.

f) Finally, we cannot overemphasise the fact that all licensed and authorised clergy and lay leaders, PCCs and churchwardens have a duty to have due regard to safeguarding Guidance issued by the House of Bishops, and the new ‘Safeguarding Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults’ Guidelines states: “For the avoidance of any doubt, and in line with the decision of the General Synod of the Church of England in July 2017, it is made clear that nobody, whether a member of a Diocesan Deliverance Ministry Team or otherwise, is permitted to use any form of deliverance ministry in pursuit of changing or influencing somebody’s sexual orientation. This applies whether or not the individual concerned wishes to receive such ministry. Individuals asking for such ministry must be treated with compassion and understanding, and should be referred both to pastoral support and to links to appropriate resources.” It follows that if someone (or a body) with a duty to have due regard to this guidance, sanctions or exercises a practice that contravenes it, that would be treated as a safeguarding matter and liable to result in disciplinary proceedings.

We trust this is a helpful clarification. You might also like to be aware of a second letter, which you can find here, in which Christian leaders who support the proposed ban on conversion therapy have written a response to The Ministers Consultation Response.