I’m disappointed but not remotely surprised that the Church of England bishops’ latest two-year consultation process on sexuality (which followed their previous two-year consultation process on sexuality) has resulted in a recommendation to keep things exactly the same, except for some very small changes that will be kept as slight as possible so that nobody will notice.

The report’s feeble attempt at talking of welcoming LGBT+ people is revealed for what it is in the use of the phrase “gay and lesbian” to mean people attracted to people of their own gender. Once again, the existence of bisexuals is forgotten. Not that it’s much better for gay and lesbian people.

I don’t want any more consultation processes on sexuality from the Church of England. I won’t support them, co-operate with them or be part of the consultation. While we wait for yet more phoney consultation, yet more LGBT+ people will be denied an equal place in the body of Christ. More people will lose faith, give up, hate themselves or kill themselves. And the Gospel of Christ’s love will be denied and law will be promoted over grace.

Some of the bishops will talk about how painful it was to reach these conclusions, how they wrestled with their decisions and how hard it is to have to deal with competing expectations. I’m sure there’s some truth in this, but after so many pointless processes and delaying tactics, my patience with these sort of comments is rapidly deteriorating. I’ve nothing against the bishops, I just don’t think we should allow them the authority to make decisions like this.

We don’t need church leaders to tell us what we may and may not do when we worship God. We don’t need them to tell us how far we can follow the Spirit’s leadings or how we should read and interpret the Bible. We can do these things ourselves, with support from each other and with guidance from the Holy Spirit. Of course we get it wrong, we will often get it wrong, but there’s no reason to believe that church leaders committed to hierachy and homophobia will be more likely to get it right.

Let’s get on with it.