Faith vs. Sentiment: A Theological Critique of LLF Letter

Living in Love, Departing from Faith: A Theological Rebuttal of the LLF Open Letter

Context
In October 2025, following months of debate surrounding the Prayers of Love and Faith (PLF), members of the Church of England released an open letter addressed to the House of Bishops. Signed by clergy and laity alike, the letter expressed frustration at the lack of progress toward authorising same-sex marriage in church and called for what it termed “a truly hospitable Church for LGBTQ+ people.” Citing opinion surveys and Synod votes as evidence of a “majority” desiring change, it urged bishops to recognise what the signatories described as “the movement of the Spirit” toward full inclusion.

The statement came in the wake of the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process—a five-year initiative launched by the Church of England to explore questions of identity, sexuality, relationships, and marriage. While its stated aim was to foster dialogue within the framework of Scripture, tradition, and reason, critics have long argued that LLF subtly redefines these very sources, privileging subjective experience and cultural empathy over doctrinal clarity.

This article, written by the Archbishop of Selsey for Nuntiatoria, responds to the theological and ecclesiological claims of that letter. It does not concern itself with individual motives but with the ideas that underlie the movement: the replacement of revelation with emotion, of faith with feeling, and of divine authority with democratic assent.

Living in Love, Departing from Faith
The Living in Love and Faith (LLF) open letter, issued by clergy and laity of the Church of England, is presented as a cry for compassion and inclusion. It laments the House of Bishops’ decisions regarding the Prayers of Love and Faith and the absence of a pathway for clergy to enter same-sex marriages. Yet beneath its polished pastoral tone, the letter reveals a crisis far deeper than any policy dispute—the eclipse of revelation by sentiment, of doctrine by experience, and of divine authority by popular will.

The Church’s perennial task is to teach revealed truth, not to ratify social desire. But the LLF manifesto proposes precisely the reverse. Its theological grammar replaces the supernatural with the psychological, interpreting the Spirit not as the Sanctifier of souls but as the affirmer of identities. What it calls “living in love and faith” becomes, in fact, living by feeling and consensus.

Love Without Truth
The letter’s first and most striking feature is its sentimental redefinition of love. It laments that apologies to LGBTQ+ people “have not yet been matched by deeds,” and declares that “we long for a truly hospitable Church.” Hospitality, in Christian tradition, is an act of charity ordered to truth—it welcomes the sinner for conversion, not the sin for approval. The apostolic teaching is unambiguous: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom 12:2)¹.

Yet the LLF statement transforms this call to conversion into a demand for affirmation. Love, it claims, means safety, affirmation, and equality. But divine charity is not emotional refuge; it is the willing of the true good of another, measured by God’s moral order. St Augustine’s dictum remains timeless: *“He who loves men ought to hate in them what is to be blamed, and love what God has made.”*² Love cannot contradict truth without ceasing to be love.

Grace Without Conversion
The open letter’s misuse of grace follows naturally from its misuse of love. Grace, in Christian theology, heals fallen nature and elevates it toward God. It presupposes repentance, not self-validation. Yet LLF’s moral anthropology treats human desire as morally neutral, even revelatory of divine will. The result is a theology of indulgence, not redemption.

The letter speaks of “err[ing] on the side of love” and “trust[ing] that inclusion will draw us closer to the heart of God.” Such phrasing cloaks moral relativism in mystical language. To “err on the side of love” is meaningless if love is detached from the moral law. Grace does not draw us nearer by confirming us in our appetites but by crucifying them: “They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal 5:24)³.

St John Chrysostom warned precisely of this counterfeit mercy: *“He who approves what God condemns, under the pretext of love, wounds the soul while soothing the ear.”*⁴

Unity Without Doctrine
The letter professes that “we seek unity, but not at the expense of LGBTQ+ people.” The implication is that unity must come at the expense of doctrine. The Church, however, is not a coalition of sentiments but the Mystical Body of Christ, united in the confession of one faith.

The appeal to “the inclusive majority” betrays a democratic anthropology foreign to both Catholic and classical Anglican ecclesiology. Truth in the Church is not established by survey but received through revelation. When moral discernment becomes a matter of majority feeling, the Church ceases to be apostolic and becomes sociological. The voice of revelation is replaced by the voice of the crowd.

Such appeals to the “majority” repeat the error condemned by Pope Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, where modernism was described as “the synthesis of all heresies,” precisely because it subjects divine truth to evolving human consciousness⁵. The LLF statement’s invocation of democracy within doctrine reveals the same spirit—the substitution of revelation with experience.

The Holy Spirit as a Spirit of Inclusion
Perhaps the most serious theological distortion in the LLF letter is its invocation of the Holy Spirit as the guarantor of inclusivity. “Change is already happening,” the authors declare, “in the hearts of God’s people.” The implication is that subjective experience is the locus of revelation—that the Spirit reveals new truths through emotional consensus.

But the Spirit’s role in Scripture is not to innovate but to recall: “He will guide you into all truth… He will take what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn 16:13–14)⁶. The Holy Ghost leads believers deeper into the deposit of faith, not beyond it. The patristic consensus, from Irenaeus to Athanasius, affirms that the Spirit sanctifies the intellect to receive revelation, not to revise it.

To invoke the Spirit in support of moral novelty is thus to confuse sanctification with inspiration. It is a pneumatology of self-expression—a theology that replaces Pentecost’s tongues of fire with the mirage of self-affirmation.

Ecclesiology of Sentiment
The LLF letter’s ecclesiology is implicit but radical. By appealing to diocesan generosity (“we will not withdraw our Parish Share”), it seeks to appear loyal while denying the doctrinal authority of the bishops it professes to support. It affirms the Church’s institutional unity while hollowing out its theological core.

In truth, the document reveals the collapse of Anglican authority structures into emotional voluntarism. The Church becomes a fellowship of mutual validation rather than a communion of truth. The very language of “safety” and “joy” is imported from secular therapeutic culture, not from the vocabulary of repentance and sanctity.

This transformation mirrors the wider Western shift from religio—the binding back of man to God—to expressio—the projection of self as sacred. The Church is reimagined as an affirming community of identities, each demanding recognition rather than conversion.

Tradition Replaced by Trend
The authors commend the “witness of ecumenical partners” who “offer a full welcome” to LGBTQ+ people and “have seen the Gospel flourish as a result.” This is theological circularity: the measure of truth becomes apparent success. Yet Christ warned that many false prophets would “deceive many” and that fidelity, not popularity, is the mark of the Church (Mt 24:11–13)⁷.

The historical record of liberal denominations does not confirm flourishing but decline. Where doctrine has been conformed to culture, congregations have withered and vocations have dried up. By contrast, where faith has been preached with clarity and sacramental life maintained—as in traditional communities, both Anglican and Catholic—the Gospel bears enduring fruit.

To measure truth by popularity is to make the Church a mirror of the age. The Fathers spoke instead of the regula fidei—the rule of faith handed down from the Apostles. Tertullian observed: *“Christ designated Himself as the truth, not as custom.”*⁸ Custom changes; truth abides.

The Moral Inversion of Inclusion
The word “inclusion,” omnipresent in the LLF lexicon, conceals an inversion. True inclusion is the embrace of all souls by the redeeming love of Christ, who calls sinners to repentance and holiness. The false inclusion proposed by LLF demands the acceptance of sin as identity. The former heals; the latter anesthetises.

The Church’s mission is universal precisely because its message is particular: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17)⁹. The inclusivity of the Gospel lies in its offer to all, not in the affirmation of all.

To abandon moral truth for social acceptance is to deny Christ’s kingship. St Paul warned the Galatians that those who pervert the Gospel under the guise of another spirit are “accursed” (Gal 1:8)¹⁰. Charity without truth is no charity at all; it becomes, in Benedict XVI’s words, *“love emptied of meaning.”*¹¹

The Cost of Discipleship
The LLF appeal to compassion unintentionally erases the cross. By treating moral difficulty as injustice rather than as the path of sanctification, it recasts Christian discipline as oppression. Yet the essence of discipleship is precisely to take up one’s cross. The moral law is not a denial of love but its form: it teaches the soul how to love rightly.

St John Fisher, martyred for upholding Christian marriage against royal tyranny, wrote: *“He that would be Christ’s disciple must take His doctrine whole.”*¹² To fragment the moral law in the name of empathy is to follow another master.

The Ecclesial Consequence
The LLF movement’s ultimate effect is centrifugal. By dissolving the moral coherence of the Church of England, it hastens its disintegration. A Church that cannot define sin cannot proclaim salvation. Once doctrine is reduced to preference, there remains no principle of unity but sentiment.

The tragedy is that those who sign the LLF letter believe themselves to be healing wounds, yet they deepen them. They confuse compassion with capitulation. They call the Church to be more “welcoming,” yet empty her of the very truth that makes welcome meaningful.

True love for the sinner requires fidelity to the Redeemer. To preach inclusion without repentance is to offer hospitality without a home.

Conclusion: The Call to Faithfulness
The Archbishop of Canterbury once wrote that “the Church is called not to reflect society but to redeem it.” That vocation remains unchanged. The Gospel cannot be amended to fit the feelings of the age; it can only be lived and proclaimed in holiness.

If the Church of England wishes to live “in love and faith,” she must first return to the faith that defines love—the faith delivered once for all to the saints (Jude 3)¹³. Only from that fidelity will any authentic renewal come. For love without truth is not Christian compassion but spiritual betrayal. The measure of love is the Cross; the proof of faith is obedience.

May those who truly love Christ’s Church have the courage not merely to speak sentimentally, but to stand doctrinally—not to “err on the side of love,” but to live on the side of truth.