One of the most senior bishops in the Church of England has issued strong condemnation of the House of Bishops’ statement on Civil Partnerships, calling it “unbiblical”.

|TOP|The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali, rebuked the statement for undermining traditional teaching on marriage in a letter written to clergy in his diocese, reports The Church of England Newspaper.

In the letter, Rev. Nazir-Ali expressed concern for the way in which the statement will “severely test the Church’s discipline and stretch pastoral relationships to the breaking point”.

He also expressed his anger at the House of Bishops for issuing the statement without any broad consultation with the wider Church.

“I fear that the change in church law will have the effect of undermining that very teaching on marriage which the bishops are wishing to uphold and that it introduces another category of ‘partner’ covertly without any public or synodical discussion,” he said.

|QUOTE|The Bishop of Rochester continued his attack on the Church of England’s leadership of the civil partnership controversy, criticising the permission it gave to the Government to change church legislation by order, so that the term ‘civil partner’ was automatically added wherever the term ‘spouse’ appeared.

Rev. Nazir-Ali argued that the legislation was not needed on the grounds that the ambiguity of the Civil Partnerships Bill is not consistent with core Christian teaching on marriage and would be unacceptable to a substantial number of its members.

He warned that the statement has compromised pastoral discipline at the local level and pre-empted the relevant canons in the context of preparation for baptism and confirmation, as well as for the purposes of receiving Holy Communion.

|AD|He added that the statement’s interpretation of not wanting to exclude from the fellowship of the Church, as equivalent to there being no discipline in terms of access to the sacraments, “flies in the face of clear biblical teaching and the unanimous practice of the Church down the ages”, reports The Church of England Newspaper.

The Bishop of Rochester added: "The statement has given bishops the task of ensuring that clergy who enter into these partnerships adhere to church teaching in the area of sexuality without giving the bishops the clear means to do so.

“I dare to hope that bishops will find better ways of relating to such couples than seeking assurances, and I believe many of us will. If our difficulty as Church with particular life-choices means that we cannot speak hopefully about what are clearly signs of commitment and responsibility, perhaps it would have been better to say nothing,” he said.

The attack by the Bishop of Rochester is likely to awaken the debate on gay civil partnerships within the Church once again.