Archbishop Rowan Williams is, and probably always will be, more patient and tolerant than I ever will be. Tolerance, patience and grace are attributes that he has brought to the See of Canterbury in abundance. Whilst, I have not always agreed with his actions, I understand them to flow from principles and conscience that were always informed. I am not sure that those who voted against the Measure on Tuesday afternoon at Synod allowed their consciences and principles to be similarly informed.

This is not to say that I doubt that there were deeply held theological convictions that are underpinned by a coherent theological worldview or worldviews. I am not from the Catholic wing of the Church of England so I do not understand arguments of apostolic situation. Others do, and will respond along those lines.

I do understand the Evangelical constituency. There are those like Fulcrum who are understandably aggrieved by what happened on Tuesday. Leaders of other networks have also responded, for example John Coles and Ian Parkinson on twitter. Conservative Evangelicals for the most part will be content with what happened. What I write now is meant to be a challenge to them, although in the nature of these things, my little offerings probably will not be seen by anyone from that constituency.

The Conservative Evangelical constituency showed itself to be ill informed by its decision to lobby against the Measure in two specific ways, which show that it is becoming a movement that is increasingly shallow in its thinking and more detached from the rest of the Church of England.

There was nothing shallow about the theologies of a preacher of the ilk of John Stott of All Souls’, Langham Place. Even if you disagreed with him, you discovered his theology was shaped out of a love of Scripture and a desire to engage with the world. It was backed up by the desire for evangelicals to take scholarship seriously so that now evangelical biblical scholars are rightly heard by all sections of the church.

I make this charge on two grounds. First, the exegesis offered of Scripture was, to my mind, based on special pleading rather than on careful wrestling with the biblical text. The Revd Angus McLeay’s comments about the New Testament endorsing a view that the authoritative teaching role is to be male seems to me to be special pleading rather than one that takes account of the biblical witness as a whole. It does not take account of the fact that Paul endorses the teaching role of both Priscilla and Aquila to the preacher Apollos. It does not take into account that a female apostle is mentioned in Romans 16 nor that Lydia appears to be a leader of a Christian community in Philippi. It ignores the fact that Mary of Nazareth presumably taught her son the Hebrew Scriptures. More importantly, whilst McLeay roots all of this in the story of creation, the arguments advanced do not do justice to Galatians 3:28 which purportedly are the words of early baptismal formula, declared over those who had become ‘new creations’ in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

The exegesis offered throughout the debate by Conservative Evangelicals also did not do justice to the teachings in the NT about working with those who hold different positions and walking the extra mile. To say to the rest of the Church, ‘we do not believe you’ with regard to the promises you are offering is for Conservative Evangelicals to put themselves deliberately out of fellowship with other Anglicans, which is something that needs to be repented of.

The second reason for making the charge is to my mind more telling. Evangelicals have prided themselves as putting proclamation of the gospel at the heart of our mission to the nation. There seemed to be no understanding that to work actively against the Measure would make the case for Christ less likely to be received. This would not have happened in earlier generations. Mission would have been the imperative, and leaders like Stott would have made friends within other traditions.

Conservative rightly to my mind love the scriptures. I do too. They rightly want to preach, even using words. I do too. The scriptures need to be wrestled with. It was by wrestling as well as by experience that enabled Saul of Tarsus to become the Apostle to the Gentiles. When we do not wrestle, appear not to listen or seem  ready to make connections with the world, then our words might sound like they are clanging gongs to a nation that already has begun not to listen.