This is William Taylor, the rector of St Helen's Bishopsgate in the City of London. In a previous article entitled Love and hate, I described how his church had started work on setting up a separate province within the Anglican communion so as to preserve doctrinal purity in opposition to the Living in Love and Faith process. St Helen's commissioned its own faithful stewards (as it happens, all of them were men) to lead them into a separatist future. They were also not going to pay their parish share any more. But they were not actually leaving the Church of England. In other words, they were setting out on a journey while remaining in the same place.
It all went rather quiet after that. Until a couple of weeks ago, when the same William Taylor found another way to say the same thing in a sermon at St Helen's. Anyone who is feeling strong enough should watch the 7-minute video on YouTube.
His text was Titus 3:10. 'Warn a divisive person once, and then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with them.' For 'divisive person', read the entire bench of Bishops in the Church of England. He believes that all without exception are false teachers and clear heretics, tainted through engagement with the Living in Love and Faith process. St Helen's has done the warning once and warning twice bit. Now it's time to have nothing more to do with them. So in future, St Helen's will not engage at all in the ministry selection process of the Church of England.
So, who is William Taylor accountable to, if it's not any of the official bishops of the official Church of England? He has chosen the former Bishop of Blackburn, Julian Henderson, as his spiritual overseer, in a process arranged by the Church of England Evangelical Council. There's something to be said for choosing your own boss. They're likely to agree with you, and if they don't, you can always find someone else.
Who is being divisive here? Is it the official Church of England leadership, which has gone to great lengths to preserve organisational unity on its most controversial issue? Or is it this one conservative evangelical minister who believes that he is right and everyone else is wrong? The principled course would be for him to leave the Church of England and set up his own organisation. Then the rest of us can get on with the business of loving people as Jesus commanded.