In his presidential address at General Synod, Justin Welby spent some time ruminating on the idea that Western society is in the middle of a sexual revolution. It’s amazing what the clergy notice when they put their minds to it.

Society has been in the middle of a sexual revolution since I was a teenager in the 60’s. Then it was all about having as much sex as possible with the opposite sex; later it was about having sex with members of the same sex; we are now at the point where it’s about having sex with many people of any sex, preferably simultaneously. The clergy are just catching up to the second point.

What is strange about Justin Welby’s address is his apparent surprise at the sexual degeneration rampant in what are probably the dying embers of Western Civilisation, the implication that the church is under some obligation to recognise it as wholesome, the idea that the church should be swayed by cultural norms and, perhaps most odd of all, the hint that one cannot be simultaneously opposed to same-sex marriage and the hanging of homosexuals in Iran.

Altogether, a rather outré performance:

The social context is changing radically. There is a revolution. It may be, it was, that 59% of the population called themselves Christian at the last census, with 25% saying they had no faith. But the YouGov poll a couple of weeks back was the reverse, almost exactly, for those under 25. If we are not shaken by that, we are not listening.

The cultural and political ground is changing. There is a revolution. Anyone who listened, as I did, to much of the Same Sex Marriage Bill Second Reading Debate in the House of Lords could not fail to be struck by the overwhelming change of cultural hinterland. Predictable attitudes were no longer there. The opposition to the Bill, which included me and many other bishops, was utterly overwhelmed, with amongst the largest attendance in the House and participation in the debate, and majority, since 1945. There was noticeable hostility to the view of the churches. I am not proposing new policy, but what I felt then and feel now is that some of what was said by those supporting the bill was uncomfortably close to the bone. Lord Alli said that 97% of gay teenagers in this country report homophobic bullying. In the USA suicide as a result of such bullying is the principle cause of death of gay adolescents. One cannot sit and listen to that sort of reality without being appalled. We may or may not like it, but we must accept that there is a revolution in the area of sexuality, and we have not fully heard it.

The majority of the population rightly detests homophobic behaviour or anything that looks like it. And sometimes they look at us and see what they don’t like. I don’t like saying that. I’ve resisted that thought. But in that debate I heard it, and I could not walk away from it. We all know that it is utterly horrifying to hear, as we did this week, of gay people executed in Iran for being gay, or equivalents elsewhere.