The General Synod of the Church of England met at the University of York (as it does every July) last weekend. ‘This was the worst Synod I have experienced in all my time attending since 2005’ commented a Synod friend on Facebook. He was primarily referring to what he perceived as poor organisation, an inability to run the proceedings smoothly, and wrong allocation of time in a far too pressured programme—even though we had little to talk about in relation to the Prayers of Love and Faith and other following elements of the LLF process.
There were some excellent moments to be encouraged about. Kate Wharton, who is Prolocutor (elected chair and spokesperson) for the York Province clergy, led an excellent debate about revitalising the parish for mission. And Tom Woolford gave what I think was the best speech in the whole Synod arguing that we ditch fees for weddings, which the Synod agreed to (in a phased way). You can listen to his speech here; it is a masterpiece of persuasive oratory.
But there were plenty of low moments, and I want to focus on four.
First, was the two times set aside for answering Questions. When I was first on Synod, questions were answered orally in the Synod, with the option of supplementary questions asked on the spot. Some time ago this system was changed, so that the initial answer was provided in written form—which saved time, allowed a more informed follow-up question, and offered an immediate written record. The great thing about Questions is that it is (potentially) the one place where you can ask about things that would otherwise be passed over or brushed under the carpet—the one place where you might be able to get a straight answer to a straight question.
But two things have been happening recently. First, the number of questions being asked has ballooned. I remember being surprised when 80 questions were tabled; then we reached 120; last February, with a whole tranche asked about the LLF process, we reached a new high of 206, or which 64 related to LLF—despite having just asked 71 in November when Synod did not meet. This time, 260 questions were posed, of which 23 were related to the Coronation and so ruled out of order (since Synod has no jurisdiction there), leaving 237. In our two questions sessions, we only had the chance to ask supplementaries of 95 of them, a mere 40%—which is problematic, since it is in the supplementary questions that the real issues can be teased out.
The second trend is that, increasingly it seems, the answers given to questions are less than honest or less than complete. I offer two brief examples.
In Question 4, bishop of Durham Paul Butler was asked about what research has been done to assess the impact of the Church’s work in schools on young people coming to faith. His answer referred to ‘the only recent longitudinal study’ by Cardus which showed a positive impact—but related to Canada, America, and Australia, and not the C of E. He failed to make reference to the study undertaken by Leslie Francis and David Lankshear in Southwark Diocese, which showed zero impact—but when asked about this in the supplementary question, responded ‘Yes, of course I know about this’. So the answer to the initial question failed to mention research which was well known—presumably because its findings were uncomfortable.
In Question 96, bishop of London Sarah Mullaly was asked when the decision to terminate the three working groups set up in February following LLF was communicated to the groups, to the Archbishops’ Council, and to the House of Bishops. The written answer address the first part, but simply ignored the second two parts of the question, and Sarah gave no further information in her answer to supplementaries.
The spiralling growth of Questions is indicative of a loss of trust—and the failure to give clear and honest answers to questions simply confirms the suspicion that is driving this.
The second low point for me was the Presidential Address to Synod by Stephen Cottrell, which you can read here. What sounded like a throw-away comment was the one that caught all the headlines:
For if this God to whom we pray is ‘Father’ – and, yes, I know the word ‘father’ is problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have laboured rather too much from an oppressively, patriarchal grip on life…
There followed the predictable flurry of newspaper articles—mostly misrepresenting precisely what Stephen had said (he did not say we shouldn’t address God as Father, just that he was aware it created problems for some)—and the debate rumbles on. I am offering a comment, one amongst many, for Radio 4’s Sunday programme. So the question is, why did Stephen make this casual comment? It was not on the spur of the moment, since it was clearly part of his script. Anyone with an ounce of pastoral or theological awareness would know that this is controversial. When I posted on Facebook my 90-seconds worth of comment for Radio 4, it quickly garnered 200 comments—people feel strongly about this.
God is not sexed—God is neither male nor female, because God does not have a body. That is a central belief of Christian faith. In Scripture, God acts in ways that we would think of as both male and female, caring, protecting, nurturing and defending his people. But the metaphors for God’s activity are mostly male, in particular Jesus teaching is that God is our Father.
The reason for this is that fathers and mothers love their children in different ways. Children have been part of their mother’s body, and so a mother’s love comes naturally, so to speak. But fathers have to make the decision to commit to love their children—which is one reason why we have so many fatherless children today.
God’s love is, in that sense, like a father. He does not have to love us, but he chooses to. And for those of us who have had a poor experience of human fathers, the solution is not to avoid addressing God as Father, but to discover the good Father that God is.
(You can find a fuller discussion in an earlier article here.)
But this leads to a second issue: why is an archbishop highlighting the problem, rather than offering a solution? The best response I came across was a wonderful letter in the Daily Telegraph:
The Archbishop of York is right to be concerned for those whose less than perfect relationship with their earthly father has damaged their view and understanding of God as Father (report, July 8). My own relationship with my father was almost non-existent, through no one’s fault – but when it came to loving my Heavenly Father, I found this hard to do.
However, through reading the Bible, discovering there who God is and how much He loves me, my understanding of Him as a Father has grown. In other words, I didn’t expect God to change in order for me to understand Him; I recognised that I needed to find out about Him, as shown so clearly through the Old and New Testaments.
We don’t adjust Scripture to accept and reflect the harms within society; rather we look to a loving, Heavenly Father who gave His Son, Jesus, to restore our broken relationship with Him. We need to encourage those of us who are damaged and hurt to find restoration and healing through finding God. Vanessa Bentley Tadcaster, North Yorkshire
Why aren’t we hearing this good news from the platform of Synod?
But there was an even worse problem with Stephen’s address than this. His main point was that we call God ‘our Father’, which implies a unity that transcends our differences.
In and through Jesus Christ, this God has taken on our flesh, lived and died, and been raised to glory, so that the barriers of separation that did exist between us, and that still persist if we persist in our wayward selfishness (what the Church calls sin) are broken down.
It is all there in the very first word. God is ‘our God.’ And therefore, we who say this prayer belong to each other…
“The unity of the Church” wrote William Temple, “is a perpetual fact; our task is to not to create it but exhibit it.”
In the context of our divisions over sexuality, I am afraid this is a naked power play. ‘If you call for differentiation because of our differences, then you are disobeying Jesus’. This completely ignores the question about whether our differences are things we can agree to disagree on, and therefore, from a theological point of view, ‘things indifferent’ (in Greek, adiaphora)—but it also ignores Stephen’s own failure to exhibit this unity. The answer to Question 74 made it clear that there has simply been no work done at all to justify such an assumption.
Q74 At a recent meeting of the House of Bishops, the House agreed that, while the Bishops’ views differ on matters of sexuality and marriage, they wish to create a generous theological, ecclesial and pastoral space holding the Church together in one body, thus suggesting that there is freedom for bishops and other clergy to either accept or reject the Church’s doctrine of marriage. This being so, what revisions are planned for the ordinal and the ordination vows, and what supporting theological work has been done to demonstrate that the doctrine of marriage is one of the ‘things indifferent’ (adiaphora)?
A There are currently no plans to amend either the ordinal or ordination vows in the light of this subject and the decision has been made to continue to uphold the doctrine of marriage. The Faith and Order Commission are supporting the bishops’ theological reflections.
Following the February Synod, Stephen announced on Radio 4 that the Church believes sexual intimacy belongs in ‘permanent, faithful, stable relationships’ regardless of the sex of the two partners, a direct contradiction of the Doctrine of the Church (as expressed in Canon B30) which, during the questions in November, in February, and in this session was confirmed again and again. And Justin Welby, in his comment at the recent Religion Media Festival, that ‘sexual activity should be within permanent, stable, and faithful relationships of marriage, as that is understood in each society’, also contradicted the doctrine of the Church.
How can we have reached the situation where neither archbishop actually believes the doctrine of the Church—which in their ordination vows they committed to believe, expound, and model for others? And how is that not utterly divisive? Stephen is, in his actions and speech, contradicting the very thing that he is presenting to us as obligation. One rule for us, it seems, but another for him.
The third low moment came in the presentation about LLF progress and a panel answering questions. Despite the graphics, there was little evidence of the three groups set up following February Synod having made any progress in resolving the questions they were set. In fact, the questions keep on multiplying, with no progress on answering them. Question 142 asked how many questions were raised in relation to LLF by a recent House of Clergy online meeting. The answer? 169! Even though some will overlap and repeat themselves, that is one heck of a lot of further questions to be resolved.
Sarah Mullaly kept repeating that, from now on, the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC), chaired by bishop of Europe Dr Robert Innes, would be assisting the House of Bishops in addressing these questions. But FAOC comprises theologians who all have full-time jobs elsewhere; it has less time to meet, less availability, than the three groups did—so how is it going to be able to resolve these questions before November?
And can they in fact be resolved? At the heart of the issue sits paragraph 20 in the supporting paper, GS2303:
The bishops are upholding the Doctrine of Marriage and their intention remains that the final version of the Prayers of Love and Faith should not be contrary to or indicative of a departure from the doctrine of the Church of England. There was also a commitment to provide a generous pastoral response which is loving and celebratory to those who are in life-long monogamous same-sex committed relationships.
How is it possible to offer liturgy which is ‘celebratory’ of something which is contrary to the doctrine of marriage of the Church, whilst not being at all indicative of a change to that doctrine? This is the heart of the question—to which not even the beginnings of a resolution have seriously been offered.
The lack of progress combined with the lack of honest admission of where we are is another major factor contributing to the loss of trust. The video of the session is now available online, and at 1 hour 8 mins you can hear me asking:
How do we rebuild trust? How do we rebuild trust when the House of Bishops continues to meet in secret, unlike the other houses of Synod? How do we rebuild trust when we are told that formal prayers that are being commended are not liturgy—then there is a slip of the tongue saying ‘this is liturgy—ooh, I shouldn’t say that!’? How do we rebuild trust when we are told ‘Pay attention to power’, and then we are told that this is all going to bypass Synod and be commended by the archbishops, the greatest possible concentration of power? How can we rebuild trust when we are told, on the screen, we want to approach something in a celebratory way, which is clearly contrary to the doctrine of the Church, all the while upholding the doctrine of the Church at the same time? There is a massive trust deficit both within and outside the Church, from every side of this discussion, so my question is: how and when are we going to rebuild that trust? Are we going to get to a point when we say ‘This is irreconcilable difference’ and be honest about it?
I was surprised that this was followed by applause—and it was not coming from just one group in Synod. The panel offering answers treated the microphone like it was a hot potato—and not a single person even noted my question, let alone offered an answer to it.
It is hard to imagine sitting and listening for three hours as almost nothing is said. And it was very interesting to note that a number of the most vocal bishops calling for change to the Church’s teaching were absent—due to unfortunate diary clashes.
The final low point was, of course, the presentation by members of Archbishops’ Council about the situation with safeguarding and ending of the interim ISB. From the platform a clear, undefended, and factual account of the Council’s decision was offered. There was an admission that mistakes had been made, but the commitment to establish legally independent scrutiny of the Church’s safeguarding work remained. Angry members of Synod appear to have forgotten that the Council made this clear decision two-and-a-half years ago, and it was presented to and signed off by Synod. And offering an open account, answering all questions from the floor, was not enough—it was insisted that we needed to hear from the two remaining members of the interim ISB whose contracts had been terminated, Steve Reeves and Jasvinder Sanghera.
There was some kerfuffle by the lawyers in finding the right way to hear from them—since the Synod’s own standing orders prohibit non-members from Synod from addressing us without a prior invitation—and for good reason, as we discovered. Steve claimed that the decision was a cover-up, and that ‘when the Council use the word ‘independent’ they don’t mean what other people mean by it.’ This is simply untrue, but of course the angry section of Synod was in no mood to hear any contrary evidence, and the members of the Council on the platform wisely decided not to contest these claims.
Not so for the two women who were involved with the interim ISB as chairs, Maggie Atkinson and Meg Munn. They have since made full statements which are now online, here and here respectively.
Meg Munn criticises the Council, not for pulling the plug on the ISB, but for not doing it soon enough. She singles out Justin Welby as the one who has undermined her role and not been robust enough with the other two members—something confirmed by Justin’s extraordinary distancing himself from the Council’s decision during Questions, giving the clear impression that he was throwing the rest of the Council under the bus in the face of negative publicity. Her comments about Steve and Jas are damning:
Although they initially welcomed my appointment, the two existing Board members routinely ignored emails, failed to respond to reasonable requests and declined to have meetings. I was staggered at this unprofessional behaviour, particularly when concerned with such an important issue as safeguarding in the Church. Their stated reason was that being Chair of the ISB was a conflict of interest with my chairing of the NSP, a role they knew I was due to finish in the summer. As a paper, endorsed by last year’s Synod, set out that the NSP and ISB would work closely together on phase 2, there never was a conflict of interest.
The comments from Maggie Atkinson are even more scathing:
This document refutes persistent misrepresentation bordering on defamation, threats to my professional reputation & personal wellbeing, through the publication and promotion of false or partial accounts by Jasvinder Sanghera (JS) and Steve Reeves (SR.)…
The July 9th suspension of a vital session of Synod to permit speeches by JS and SR, accompanied by s good deal of ridiculous behaviour and noise as witnessed on the TV coverage, turned a serious and vital session of the C of E’s legislative body into a farce resembling a political Party or Trade Union rally. Quite who it satisfied, and given Synod was not in session but suspended for an “informal” short period quite what it could seek to achieve, remain mysteries. Good theatre, but to what end? The un-Christian treatment of Meg Munn that afternoon, had it been meted out to me, would have made me do as she did: walk out. That she has now walked not only out, but away, sad as it is and dismaying as it will be to many, is richly deserved.
The Council has committed to initiating an independent review of all that has happened—and I have no doubt that, when all the facts are on the table, it will vindicate the perspectives of Meg and Maggie.
Where does that all leave us? It seems to me that the Church of England, in its leadership, is suffering from a lack of credibility and competence, and that there is a severe deficit of trust on all sides—not because people simply choose not to trust, but because, at so many levels, there appears to be little reason to trust. This is not only damaging credibility and undermining ministry, it is creating serious fractures across the Church at every level.
And it is becoming increasingly clear that these problems of leadership go all the way to the top.
NOTE: I am giving notice that from 16th August I will no longer allow anonymous comments. All are welcome to publish under pseudonyms if you wish, but you will need to make yourself known to me from then if you wish to continue commenting.
It sounded a bit like the ‘Wild West’, Ian.
Politicians (and others) often use various strategies to avoid giving direct answers to direct questions. According to Dr. Bull, a British communication expert, there are at least 35 techniques that politicians (and others) use to evade questions.
See :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-37791594
Indeed…which is another reason why politicians are not trusted. What a tragedy that bishops should think to follow this lead.
Ian – thanks for this analysis. Brief question relating to your final line: do you think both Justin Welby and Stephen Cotterill should resign?
Resign – or sent to the ‘Tower of London’ for a period of quiet refection ?
Resign or repent?
I am not sure what the point of me saying that would be. I am not aware of any bishop who has resigned for these kinds of reasons, let alone an archbishop.
Are you?
To create a high-profile rallying point, Ian. We already have a saviour but we need a Luther circa 1517.
We already have a saviour but we need a Luther
Ninety-five WordPress posts
As someone so good at engaging with critique and disagreement I am surprised by your oblique answer Ian. You are a key commentator and player in all this and I think your view on the consequences of the debacle seen at GS this week is important. My question is a straightforward one.
Whether or not any bishops or archbishops have previously resigned seems irrelevant to me. The point is, has their collective leadership on this been so poor that they should step down?
I do not go to a C of E church so do not feel like my view is that relevant but if an organisation I led got into the kind of mess we have seen this week, I would offer my resignation. And if my own church had botched a series of safeguarding issues so badly then I would vote for the leader to be removed.
A key question for the C of E is whether anyone is really taking this really seriously. I can see these issues rumbling on for years because the governance is so bad that no one feels responsible. The C of E is a doughnut with a massive gap in the middle – no one is in charge, everyone is disempowered and circling around it and countless commentators tweeting and stirring tribal debates which ultimately make no difference.
The Archbishops are not going to resign spontaneously. But they can be shamed into it by enough moral pressure applied continuously. If that does not happen, evangelicals would have only themselves to blame. It is time to realise that this has not come about by some kind of ghastly accident. The church has an enemy who continually plots.
Anton
Can you explain to me why Justin Welby doesn’t count as a leader of evangelicals? Or do you mean someone in senior leadership who agrees with you, rather than someone in senior leadership who is an evangelical?
Ian has cited on this very thread at least one statement by Welby that clearly eparts from Anglican doctrine and holy scripture.
The Archbishops are not going to resign spontaneously. But they can be shamed into it by enough moral pressure applied continuously.
But what would forcing such a resignation achieve? The process to choose the replacement has been thoroughly captured; the next Archbishop will almost certainly be a full-throated supporter of doctrinal change, without even Welby’s tempering concerns for avoiding scandal.
Anton
Does someone only count as an evangelical if every statement they make agrees with the right doctrine?
From perspective Justin Welby is a conservative evangelical who has used his office to promote the influence of conservative evangelicals and their beliefs within the CofE. He is not a direct speaker and often uses spin, if not downright dishonesty, to get his own way or to appease public/parliamentary scrutiny.
I do not think he is a good or moral leader, but I can’t understand the claim that he’s not sufficiently evangelical
Pete
‘He is not a direct speaker and often uses spin, if not downright dishonesty, to get his own way or to appease public/parliamentary scrutiny.
I do not think he is a good or moral leader, but I can’t understand the claim that he’s not sufficiently evangelical’
I think you have just answered your own question. John Stott would be turning in his grave, if he did not have better things to do.
Ian/Anton
My point is that you seem to be saying that evangelicals are always good moral people, which is a bit “no true Scotsman” and ignores the huge boost evangelicals have been given under his leadership, especially money and resources.
Evangelicals prioritise personal morality and integrity, even to the point of being accused of moralism. The things you say about Justin, if true, are enough for evangelicals not to view him as evangelical.
Resources have been offered to anyone interested in sharing the good news of Jesus, and seeing church communities growth through people coming to new birth as disciples. For that, you only have to be Anglican.
Peter: I’m using ‘evangelical’ as a shorthand for Bible-based. If the word is losing its meaning thanks to people like Welby then please mentally replace ‘evangelical’ by ‘Bible-based’ in my comments on his thread.
I do not go to a C of E church so do not feel like my view is that relevant but if an organisation I led got into the kind of mess we have seen this week, I would offer my resignation.
Okay so the issue here is, could anyone the job have done better? It would be unfair to ask someone to resign if no one else could in their position have done better; if the job was in essence impossible. The only people to whom we apply that standard — demanding they resign for failing to do something impossible — are Home Secretaries.
And at the heart of that question is: what do the bishops see their job as being?
Because from the outside it seems like the bishops see their job as being something like ‘avoid any events happening which threaten the continuation of the Church of England as an established church, for as long as possible’.
So for instance, avoid any major showdown with Parliament that would lead to disestablishment; avoid any scandals hitting the newspapers and television which would lad to public opinion turning against establishment; avoid any mass walkouts (by either side) that could threaten the collapse of structures or the loss of credibility of the institution’s claim to speak for Christians in England (a laughable claim, obviously, now a minority of Christians in England are Anglicans, but that has been a gradual process that can be brushed under the carpet whereas a public and obvious schism would be impossible to explain away).
And if that’s what the job is then not only is it hard to see how anybody could have done it better, but actually, the bishops’ strategy of trying to keep each side happy by offering it at least some of what it wants, even while it’s doing the same to the other side, while continually promising change to sections of Parliament and the media that want change while also promising that things will stay essentially the same to sections of Parliament and the media that are more concerned with the conservation of tradition, has actually worked amazingly well.
Now of course it’s a strategy based on deceit, on saying different things to different people, on carefully-worded statements that try to be able to be read different by each side. So morally it’s indefensible. But practically, you can’t argue with the results: both sides (or all sides, because depending on who you break it down there’s far more than two) are still engaging with the process.
So if that is what the bishops see their job as being, then why would they resign? Not only could no one else have done it better, they’ve actually succeeded in a very difficult task.
Now, of course, there’s two question that are raised by this:
1. Should that be what the bishops’ job is?
(b) Why do they see that as their job given it seems only to be staving off the inevitable?
For the first question the answer is, ‘obviously not, their job should be to proclaim the truth of God to the nation’. But that ship sailed a long time ago.
For the second — what do they think they are achieving, long-term, by this — I think that’s clear at least for the ones who want change: they think that if they can keep the show on the road long enough, then their opponents will, quite simply, die off. They think (rightly or wrongly) that everyone opposed to them is old, and all the young people are on their side; and so they need only to wait.
It seems to me that there are two things which have battered this assumption recently. The first is the continued operation of the women-bishops compromise, because that was brokered on basically the same sort of idea: give the opposer some of what they want, and then wait for them to die out. The compromise was never supposed to still be operating a decade later. They were supposed to all have either died or left for Rome by now.
An the second is that it looks (again, from the outside) that the whole ‘Living in Love and Faith’ was supposed to be a big play for time to get a new Synod elected which, it was assumed, would be far more sympathetic to demands for change. The idea was that ‘Living in Love and Faith’ would bring back proposals for doctrinal change to a Synod which had a two-thirds majority (if perhaps only just) prepared to vote for that change; and all this stuff with authorised prayers and blessings is a chaotic scrabbling for a plan B after plan A went up in smoke, and not only went up in smoke but went up in smoke in a way that showed that there was no guarantee that simply waiting until after the next election would have any different result.
But, those knocks aside, I think the pro-change side still have faith that they are on ‘the right side of history’ and that if they can just keep things going long enough, they will get their way (hence why they now keep talking about getting Parliament involved: if playing for time isn’t resulting in something internal changing that gets them their way, perhaps something external will swoop in for them).
What the anti-change side thinks they’re doing by going along with this playing for time, on the other hand, I have no idea.
But still — again, looking from outside — that seems to me to be the best explanation of events.
S
My view is that each generation of bishops plays for time on these issues. They are not waiting for a synod that agrees with their own personal views. They want someone else to be in charge when the fit hits the shan.
My view is that each generation of bishops plays for time on these issues. They are not waiting for a synod that agrees with their own personal views. They want someone else to be in charge when the fit hits the shan.
That is possible. Perhaps I project; I am not the type to just regard is as a success to manage to pass the hot potato on.
You are treating safeguarding as far more of a cinch than it really is. It is a catch-212 or Scylla/Charybdis. Either the vulnerable/victims are short-changed or there is a rush to demonise/exclude the accused. Plenty of criticism has been given for many instances of both. But at the same time few have appreciated the delicacy of having to steer between these two very unwelcome situations. Without being in full possession of the facts (and who ever is?) it is regularly a nigh impossible task. The level of discourse has in recent years been so unChristian and/or unintelligent and/or dishonest as to equate complainant with victim or accused with villain in some cases where that is to jump to the desired conclusions. If such pre-judgment can take place, it is equivalent to a judge bellowing ‘guilty!’ at the start of a trial.
catch 22
Christopher
Whereas I agree that *can* be a problem with safe guarding, there have been so many problems where the cofe has not had an impossible dilemma, but actually has taken immoral and possibly criminal decisions. Off the top of my head –
1. Many, many people making similar claims of abuse about the same individual and all being ostensibly ignored
2. Various churches and church leaders simply failing to comply with investigations with no consequences for refusing to
3. Two former archbishops being asked or told not to engage in public ministry because of their involvement in covering up sexual abuse
Well, Jon and Anton, I don’t think anyone can accuse me of not making my views clear.
I just think it is beyond my competence to suggest any specific course of action. All I can do is say it as I see it.
Yes Ian, your views are clear. I just think that evangelical Anglicans need a human leader against the bishops. I hope that one will emerge, and soon.
“Should Justin Welby and Stephen Cotterill resign?”
What’s YOUR answer to your own question, Jon ?
Jon (my brother) can speak for himself but my emphatic answer is that Welby and Cottrell should both very definitely resign. They have to take responsibility for the utter farce that the Church of England is becoming on their watch.
And I speak as someone who couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about Welby when he was first appointed. https://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-11-09/rev-stephen-kuhrt-welby-will-be-credible-leader/
Cottrell saying twice during the debate that his concern is to safeguard the church show his astonishing naivety – a misguided concern to ‘safeguard the church’ is ALWAYS the key factor at play in safeguarding debacles.
Stephen, I do not think he meant that. People have been blind to the fact that ‘the church’ can mean either the institution or the flock, and then have too readily believed the worst (that he meant the institution not the flock). Since he will have known that to refer to the institution not the flock would set him up for a battering – even if his heart lay with the institution not the flock, which is improbable – it is clear enough he meant the flock. But no-one has checked that before laying into him.
Cottrell thinks he means the flock and of course would say that if questioned. But, in reality, he means the institution. Action after action (not to mention non-action after non-action) reveals this. One of the biggest issues in safeguarding within the Church of England is that those trapped in a churchy subculture are no longer able to honest with themselves – about this or many other issues. It is this that produces the ‘plausible deniability’
But when you say ‘in reality he means the institution’, you are saying you know for sure the contents of another’s head, and that those contents are culpable.
Which is obviously wrong. None of us knows with even *slight* certitude the contents of another’s head, and yet you are claiming *total* certitude.
And without even consulting the poor man, aka punchball.
‘Cottrell saying twice during the debate that his concern is to safeguard the church’
By the phrase ‘safeguarding of the Church’ he meant an objective not a subjective genitive, as we made clear ie the safeguarding that the Church does.
The ineptitude here is of communication.
Sounds rather similar to the debates on Paul’s use of the genitive in Romans 3.22! I’m with the subjective genitive on that one.
Even if the ineptitude is communication, it is incredibly telling that Cottrell hasn’t though through confusion about what safeguarding is being the critical issue here.
Thank you, Rev. Stephen Kuhrt,
for your comments – which are difficult to disagree with.
If I understand correctly from what I’ve been reading, then you deserve to be highly commended, Stephen, for your noble efforts in helping to clean up the Church of England.
God bless you, Rev. Stephen, and your brother, Jon.
Yes they should and on multiple grounds.
They are wholly unfitted to lead Christ’s Church in England.
There are many other bishops who ought then to leave their posts but first the
2 archbishops who have brought the Church of England, not only into it’s current state but made the Body Of Christ into a laughing stock.
Answers given to questions about LLF typically try to square the circle and so come close to the gobbledegook which is the end point of this trajectory (as in Lewis, That Hideous Strength).
Answers given to questions about LLF typically try to square the circle
Perfectly sensible answers are given, it’s just different, mutually contradictory, answers are given to different questioners. The incoherence comes when trying to put the different answers together.
Answers given to questions about LLF typically try to square the circle
Perfectly sensible answers are given, it’s just different, mutually contradictory, answers are given to different questioners. The incoherence comes when trying to put the different answers together.
One scandal was that the live feed for the PLF presentation was withdrawn and not uploaded until two days later. No explanation was given at the time, despite repeated requests, and Synod members were informed when it was made available, not non members. Transparency and integrity – not.
Another groundless conspiracy theory. The presentation was not a part of formal business, so no-one had told the tech team to live-stream it.
Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, it was posted.
But classic that this was seen as ‘a conspiracy to silence dissent’.
I tweeted that I thought it cock up rather than conspiracy. However, it was inept of Synod, to say the least, not to realise that this presentation would be of great interest to the wider Church and beyond and extremely discourteous not to respond to enquiries.
Altogther, it was not an edifying Synod.
Synod did realise this and immediately protested, which is why it was put online…and I include a link to it.
Thank you
I meant to add but communication is not their strong point.
St Helens Bishopsgate reports on alternative structures being set up by faithful evangelical congregations. While these structures have no official standing within the Church of England as presently constituted, the bishops will have to engage with them if they want to restore harmonious relations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2CsFOm7HIs
It might be that the Archbishops prioritise their heretical agendas deriving from the unbelieving world and from doubt of the scriptures, and are using “let’s walk together” as a velvet glove over an iron fist. We shall see. Evangelicals would do best to drop their 1930s attitude of appeasement and peaceably picket every public engagement of the Archbishops and embarrass them, for I believe their moral character is such that they would make a few loud speeches saying they would not buckle, and then buckle. The problem then is to cleanse the liberal theological colleges.
The Bishops should stop trying to walk togther with schismatics and remove stipends and housing from clergy who are not a part of the Church of England. Some recompense for the training of ordinnads who are now serving outside the CoE would be just, especially from their copious reserves.
The bishops are the schismatics. Hypocrites too, taking a salary from the faithful to peddle heresy.
In your opinion. Clearly the majority of Synod and the CoE don’t agree.
Why should I care about that? Since when was truth decided by vote?
Shall we discuss it from holy scripture? You might recall that Jesus treated the written laws of Moses as the totally authoritative word of His Father.
Clearly the majority of Synod and the CoE don’t agree.
Surely the schismatics are the ones who disagree with the established positions. Which side agrees with the canons of the Church of England and which is in rebellion?
Anton
Of course he did. He was a Jew.
Gentiles are not bound by the Mosaic covenant.
And Holy Scripture says nothing about faithful gay relationships.
So, it’s simply your belief that the Archbishops are wrong in this instance.
‘Holy Scripture says nothing about faithful gay relationships’. It concistenyl rejects all forms of same-sex sex. And the doctrine of marriage in B30 ‘according to the teaching of our Lord’ does the same.
Ian
Scripture does not directly mention gay people or same sex marriage.
You can pick and choose which verses you want to either support or damn same sex marriage, but if you only read the “tho shalt nots” then you’re not actually considering the whole of scripture
That’s the issue. You appear to think that we must have a specific ‘thou shalt not’.
But, as almost all respectable scholars agree, Scripture is clear and unanimous. God created humanity male and female, and that sex binary is the basis for sexual intimacy, which takes place in male-female marriage. This is the whole arc of the biblical narrative, from creation to the ‘wedding feast of the lamb’ in Revelation.
I am not in the slightest ‘picking and choosing’; I am reading the whole of the text. The specific prohibitions are merely exemplars of that bigger narrative.
Scripture does not directly mention gay people or same sex marriage.
If I say, ‘marriage is the union of one man and one woman, for life’, have I directly mentioned same-sex marriage?
Ian
How do you reconcile that reading of scripture with human biology?
S
No.
“British people celebrate Christmas on December 25th”
Doesn’t directly mention British Muslims holidays
“King Charles is monarch of the United Kingdom”
Doesn’t mention Australia
No.
(In response to: ‘ If I say, ‘marriage is the union of one man and one woman, for life’, have I directly mentioned same-sex marriage?’)
Okay. So I have not directly mentioned same-sex marriage, but I have ruled it out.
So it is possible to rule out same-sex marriage without directly mentioning it.
So the fact that the Bible doesn’t directly mention same-sex marriage doesn’t mean that the Bible doesn’t rule out same-sex marriage.
So you need to stop saying ‘the Bible doesn’t directly mention same-sex marriage’ in response to people pointing out that the Bible rules out same-sex marriage because as you have just admitted it is possible to rule out same-sex marriage without directly mentioning it.
S
If my CEO invites us to bring our wives to an event. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want my husband there. There’s a difference between heteornormative statements and prohibiting same sex relationships
If my CEO invites us to bring our wives to an event. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want my husband there.
It does if the invitation is phrased as ‘opposite-sex partners are welcome’.
In fact there’s an even more obvious example: the current doctrine of the Church of England doesn’t directly mention same-sex marriage. Canon B30 reads:
‘ The Church of England affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better for worse, till death them do part, of one man with one woman, to the exclusion of all others on either side, for the procreation and nurture of children, for the hallowing and right direction of the natural instincts and affections, and for the mutual society, help and comfort which the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.’
Not a single word there directly about same-sex marriage, yet everybody agrees that the current doctrine of the Church of England prohibits same-sex marriage, and in order to allow it that canon would have to be amended to read ‘of two persons’ in place of ‘of one man with one woman’.
And that wording, which rules out same-sex marriage without directly mentioning it, is based on Jesus’ words — which also, in the same way, rule out same-sex marriage without directly mentioning it.
Anyway the point is that you’ve already admitted that it’s possible to rule something out without directly mentioning it (and there are numerous other examples: if my college kitchen has a rule ‘only food may be stored in the fridge’, that doesn’t directly mention that storing my bacteria cultures in the fridge is not allowed, but it still obviously rules it out). So ‘the Bible doesn’t directly mention same-sex marriage’ is not by itself any kind of evidence that the Bible doesn’t rule out same-sex marriage. It could rule it out by exclusion, without directly mentioning it — as indeed it does.
S
Yes I agree that sometimes not mentioning gay couples explicitly does mean gay couples are excluded. But not always. Context is key
Yes I agree that sometimes not mentioning gay couples explicitly does mean gay couples are excluded.
But the Bible doesn’t just ‘not mention gay couples explicitly’. Jedys explicitly defined marriage as being a man and a woman, ruling out same-sex marriage. Explicitly.
S
I completely disagree with that analysis. You’re relying on talking verses out of context and also stripping them of any historical context.
‘The Bishops should stop trying to walk togther with schismatics and remove stipends and housing from clergy who are not a part of the Church of England. ‘
Penny, presumably those who are ‘not part of the C of E’ include those who do not uphold the Church’s doctrine, and are denying their ordination vows?
You keep saying this Ian. But there is no evidence that those priests who are arguing for prayers for gay couples are not upholding church doctrine nor denying their ordination vows.
On the other hand St Helen’s has itself stated that it is out of communion with it’s diocese and takes no part in diocesan structures. Now it has ordained a minister into an Anglican sect. Whether they are right or wrong, they are in schism.
Now it has ordained a minister into an Anglican sect
What’s an ‘Anglican sect’ and how does it differ from an Anglican denomination like the Church of England?
Penny I was referring to the archbishops. Both have made public statements contradicting the doctrine of the Church.
Penelope, you take the attitude that the hierarchy is right because it keps to its own rules. Why then are you in the Church of England at all? You should be in the Church of Rome.
Penelope, you take the attitude that the hierarchy is right because it keps to its own rules.
I think Penelope takes the attitude that the hierarchy is right when it agrees with Penelope.
The Free Church of England or whatever it’s called. The home of Calvin and Matthew Firth.
Which tells us all we need to know.
Ian
Where?
Penny, immediately after the February Synod vote, which included an affirmation of the doctrine of marriage, Stephen said that he believed sex belonged in any ‘permanent, faithful, stable’ relationship. And two weeks ago, Justin said be believed sex belonged in marriage ‘as it is understood by that culture.’ Both were well publicised; I am surprised you didn’t notice.
S and A
At least I acknowledge my biases.
Everyone else appears to think they are being objective 🙂
And you assume that I have respect for ABC and ABY.
Objective is a meaningless word in this context, Penelope. My ‘bias’ is toward scripture. How about you?
Ian
I don’t think either of these comments contradict the doctrine of the CoE.
There is always uncertainty about when a marriage begins and the Church has often reflected the cultural understanding of marriage.
Or would you argue that a 16thC or a 19thC marriage is identical to a 21stC one?
Penny, there have been changes in the understanding of the administration of marriage, but not in its core theology, in particular being a lifelong union between one man and one woman. The fact that we have used an unchanged liturgy since 1662 demonstrates that.
The two statements from the archbishops are in clear and deliberate departure from that theology, and were spoken deliberately and knowingly as that. I’ve asked them.
Anton
A bias towards scripture is utterly meaningless.
Happy to quote chapter and verse, Penelope.
Huge if true Ian. So what did they bothe say when you asked them if they have departed from church doctrine?
Penny, personal correspondence remains personal. But it is not very hard to deduce that from the public statements. They were both quite clear in what they said. Hence my comment at the end of the blog.
Ian
Seems a bit rash to write to people saying that they don’t believe the doctrine of the CoE. Giving hostages to fortune one might say. Especially when their recorded comments don’t contradict church doctrine.
Penny, their statements do contradict the Church’s doctrine.
I didnt say that on the odd occasion the Bible mentions male same-sex sex, it doesn’t proscribe it.
It doesn’t, however, proscribe gay relationships.
It doesn’t, however, proscribe gay relationships.
As long as they don’t involve sex, indeed, no, it doesn’t.
Anton
I’m not an expert on St Helen’s but they seem to have views that are way beyond “normal” Anglican thought (not just in relation to gender and orientation) and want a denomination where all have similar theology.
I think to restore relationship with that particular church the bishops would have to radically change the theology of most other churches in the CofE, which simply is beyond their power to do.
They are not Anglican at all.
I assume that you also assume that none of the Anglicans in Africa are Anglican either as they and Anglicans from other parts of the Global Majority all think that the Church of England voted to be apostate at the February Synod?
Andy
The Anglicans in Uganda wanted to jail people just for “identifying” as gay and the rest of GAFCON were ok going along with it. They are not a source of moral guidance
Neither is the Old Testament, so far as you are concerned. Yet Jesus treated it as authoritative.
St Helens Bishopsgate was willing to put up with episcopal liberalism until the bishops crossed an obvious red line earlier this year, and would presumably be willing to tolerate the former status quo again. It is the bishops who have departed from the faith.
Well, they can go. But they clearly want to have their cake and eat it.
Don’t mention the Bible!
They were willing to put up with all sorts of things until the compromise on women bishops gave them an idea about to split from the Church but take a chunk of money and assets with them.
Changing the definition of sin is a red line.
I agree that it is problematical when supplementaries aren’t afforded enough time to be asked (in this case over half of them). Having oral supplementaries affords opportunity to press for straight on-the-spot answers to direct questions (sometimes needed because first answers can sometimes be ‘politically evasive’).
Personally I think there us a big accountability problem, and need for mandatory responses within given time-limits.
I don’t think twice-yearly General Synod slots are sufficient (especially for issues that crop up in between sessions). With modern tech it really should be possible (a) to stream bishops’ meetings, just like we stream Parliament and Parliamentary Inquiries; (b) to set up a tech platform where Synod members can ask a limited number of questions in a set time period… they could then be ‘liked’ or ‘upticked’ by other members, and the top 10 (20, 30?) questions should then be answered online within two weeks… with supplementary questions allowed from the original questioner. Other Synod members would also be allowed to ask supplementaries, but to keep things within reason, all Synod members would be very limited in how many supplementaries they can ask over all questions in a 6-month period (let’s call it the ‘Margrave Rule’.
If we believe in Synodical governance, and democratic representation having a role, well then… democracy only works if people can exercise *informed consent*, and how can members be informed if their questions get brushed off, if bishops’ meetings (unlike Synod’s) are not viewable etc?
The whole process of Questions and Accountability needs scrutiny and revision.
Does anyone really believe in democracy in Synod?
After all look at the the jiggery pokery that the Chair and the lawyers went through in the Sunday afternoon session to thwart the clear wish of the majority of the members to hear Steve Reeves and Jas Sanghera. I think it took FOUR different attempts under Standing Orders to allow them a hearing but you may like to watch it on YouTube and check for yourself.
Then you may wish to read Gavin Drake’s account of how his motion to ask for an inquiry into the shambles that is safeguarding at the national level was blocked by several technical ruses from the hierarchy. You can read about it at https://gavindrake.co.uk/2023/07/10/church-of-england-officialdom-determined-to-block-proper-safeguarding-reform/
As I have said to a number of friends this week, I was ashamed to call myself an Anglican by what I witnessed in those two sessions, both chaired by the same lady.
Andy, no-one was trying to thwart the will of Synod. On both occasions, we were constrained by the Synod’s own standing orders, which have been carefully written to prevent minority voices dominating and taking over the agenda of business. The lawyers themselves had no view on the question at hand.
Ian, When the chair is told to rule that because one of the Presidents is absent, the other cannot suspend Standing Orders, that looks like a conspiracy, not a cock-up. Regardless of whether it was or not, what it looked like is what matters. As marketers are wont to say, “perception is the only reality”.
Thus, when I worked in the public sector we used to refer to the ‘tabloid test’. If an action you took were to become front-page news (say in the Daily Mail under Labour or the Daily Mirror under the Tories) could you defend your actions?
Sacking all the INDEPENDENT members of the Independent Safeguarding Board (neither of the appointed chairwomen were ever independent of the structures of the Church) was always going to look bad. I am sorry that you still don’t seem to understand this and must conclude that, being a member of the Archbishops’ Council yourself, you are bound by collective responsibility.
I know how onerous collective responsibility can be, as I resigned my membership of a PCC so that I could speak freely about about an issue that I felt strongly about but on which the PCC had taken the opposite decision. It can be costly but, like remaining part of a Church that wants to abandon God’s historic teaching, I don’t know that there is any alternative. I am only in the C of E for now because the legislation to reject God’s teaching has not been passed. If the Synod were to use the only legitimate way of changing the Church’s doctrine, using Canon B.2 and requiring a two-thirds majority in all three houses of Synod, it might not been passed within the lifetime of this Synod. However if the hierarchy fudge the issue, as is widely expected, then I expect that I shall have to leave and find another fellowship to join outside the C of E.
A point about collective responsibility and decision-making occurs to me: almost all the members of the PCC are there as volunteers and by election. The AC is different: 7 of its 19 members are there ex officio. Dr Paul, having been elected by the House of Clergy, has the freedom to resign, explain to his constituency why he did so, and ask them to select another member in his place. It’s not clear that, say, the Prolocutor of a Lower House of Convocation can do the same, at least not without also resigning the Prolocutorship: and it’s plainly pretty absurd for one of the Archbishops to resign from their own Council. (Although it would be, I suppose, the “nuclear option”). But this cuts across their responsibility as trustees as set out in CC27 (3.3: “Sometimes, a trustee might feel so strongly that a decision is not in the interests of the charity that they have no choice but to resign.”)
‘When the chair is told to rule that because one of the Presidents is absent, the other cannot suspend Standing Orders, that looks like a conspiracy, not a cock-up.’ then that shows you do not understand that Synod is a legal chamber with Standing Orders than cannot be breached.
The so-called ‘Independent Safeguarding Board’ was never fully independent, as was make crystal clear to Synod from the beginning, which is why it was called the INTERIM ISB. And its major remit was to create a successor, which was fully independent.
Of course, that would mean Jas and Steve voting for their own redundancy, and I have never yet met a turkey who voted for Christmas.
IP: I’ve deleted this comment, as it makes unfounded allegations.
I am happy to be accountable, but I am not prepared to be cross-examined by someone hiding under anonymity, which is ultimately cowardly.
Ian, I would just note that I am repeatedly cross-examined by the person called ‘S’.
Is that ‘cowardly’ too?
Don’t get me wrong. I dislike pseudonyms as well. I also admire your reluctance to engage in ‘cancel culture’ here.
You are quite an up front person yourself (which I also respect, even if we disagree quite often).
For that reason, my logic tells me, if someone criticises you anonymously and gets posts deleted, and another person (S) criticises me and does not get deleted… is the primary reason the anonymity or the avoidance of questions that you don’t want to answer.
I’m on your side about the anonymity issue, but… level playing field in the case of S****… not so sure.
Thank you anyway for having the balls to let people like David R, me, Penny CD, and Andrew G engage here. A lot of people wouldn’t. You do at least have forthright courage in the life of the Church, even if you do my head in sometimes! I think I probably do people’s heads in too, so pot/kettle/black.
But I really hate being ‘policed’ to excess by someone shooting from the bushes and not identifying. I may be addressing somebody else, but I get spatter-gunned with pedantry from a person in hiding… which then incites defence… which then risks a nit-picking never-ending detour into whatever points the anonymous person wants to extract from you (130 cross-questions at Peter etc on that other page).
I expose my identity and the world knows who I am, but they hide. It’s a bit sub-optimal really. I understand you know ‘S’ a bit more than the initial, because you’ve let slip their name and gender a couple of times.
I know nothing about ‘S’ or ‘Unreliable Narrator’ and I’ve moaned at UN on Thinking Anglicans along these same lines. They are both very intelligent, but people do like to know who they’re engaging with. Otherwise it feels, humanly and emotionally, a bit like interacting with a bot.
Your site, your rules.
See my new note at the foot of the article.
Thank you.
It is not easy opening a website the way you do.
I don’t know if I’m speaking for others who sometimes watch Synod feeds but what I saw was dire and ponderous – as usual. Some of that may be due to the peculiar sound and camera setup: it’s like peering into a stage-managed dream world where an odd group of sociopaths with hearts that don’t beat and blood that’s ice cold are enacting a ritual which must surely lead to a deeply sad ending. As a window into the workings of the Church of England it could hardly be more depressing, not least for those of us who presumably pay for this indirectly and have a genuine interest in what our church is up to. I regularly watch the offerings of amateurs who put up YouTube content of fantastic sound and video quality; so it’s not a matter of resources. Whoever is secured to do the Synod job seems unable to put themselves in the place of their viewers.
And it’s no good protesting that it’s a legal process which constrains watchability. The legally driven business shown in the House of Commons feed may not be perfect in watching terms but at least you get a sense of real human beings with fire in their bellies, genuinely debating, and engaging with the issues in which we ordinary people have an interest.
Justin’s extraordinary distancing himself from the Council’s decision during Questions, giving the clear impression that he was throwing the rest of the Council under the bus in the face of negative publicity
I’m glad to see a member of the Archbishops’ Council reminding us of the duty of trustees to support a decision as set out in the Charity Commission guide CC27: “once a decision has been made, trustees must support and carry out that decision” and “Once a decision has been made following the proper procedures, however, even if the trustees do not all agree, they must all abide by that decision.”
Would it be fair to assume that you view your own comments on the ISB as supporting the decisions that were taken in the way CC27 sets out?
Yes.
Then it’s also fair to say your interpretation of CC27 is, to put it mildly, not universally accepted. To put it bluntly, I’m surprised you did not resign after AC rejected the Billenness request for a review. But by remaining on AC, you accepted the obligation to support and carry out the existing ISB decision.
But by remaining on AC, you accepted the obligation to support and carry out the existing ISB decision.
But trustees must be able to fire people that they have hired, if they determine that the employees are not performing the job for which they were hired.
It would be ridiculous to insist on a construction of that article which would entail that, having once taken a decision — such as a hiring — then the trustees can never change their mind in the light of new information.
It would indeed be ridiculous to insist on such a construction, and I did not do so. Trustees, as a body, can of course take decisions that reverse their previous decisions. But once a decision has been made by the trustees as a body, then individual trustees are expected to abide by, support and carry out those decisions: until the trustees as a body make a new decision.
I thought we should have pulled the plug eight months ago, and said so in meetings. I was outvoted.
… and by remaining, you accepted the obligation to abide by, support and carry out that decision.
Yes, in the sense that I did not write to them to pull the plug.
Yes, in the sense that you remained a member and a trustee and hence chose to continue to accept the obligations of a member and a trustee, including the obligation under CC27 to abide by, support and carry out the decisions that you were outvoted on. There’s no concept of mental reservation in CC27. It may be galling, but that’s life as a trustee.
While AC operates collective responsibility, and you remain a trustee, the only proper position is that AC, collectively, failed to ensure that the ISB project delivered what the AC had wanted and that in retrospect a different decision might well have reduced the waste f time, effort, money and the damage caused to various stakeholders by the AC’s failure.
This “I told you so — nothing to do with me guv” attitude is not only unappealing, it betrays a failure to accept the nature of collective decision-making and trustee responsibility under CC27.
‘This “I told you so — nothing to do with me guv” attitude’
I don’t think I understand your point. I agree that AC failed, and accept responsibility for that. I am glad that we finally realised our errors, and pulled the plug.
*I agree that AC failed, and accept responsibility for that.*
Thank you for making that clear.
Thanks for the patronising assurance.
the failure to give clear and honest answers to questions simply confirms the suspicion that is driving this.
It’s worse than that. Q40 was deliberately changed without the originator’s consent from that submitted to refer to a different matter, and ABY answered the changed question, apparently unaware that the true question referred to something else. Q41 which referred to the same matter as Q40 originally was not changed, but ABY answered it as if it had been changed t referred to that other matter. That might merely indicate confusion on the part of ABY, but was a deliberate act on the part of the secretariat.
I once wrote a letter to the Tablet wherein one sentence was edited knowingly to mean the precise opposite of what had been written – by the insertion of a ‘not’.
Yes, there is a serious question to ask there.
There is going to be an inquiry into how the questions as submitted came to be changed at what, effectively, was the last minute before the Questions Notice Paper was printed on 6 July, and after the Archbishop Stephen had provided /confirmed his written answers, not only by excising words wrongly (in my view) alleged to contain an imputation contrary to Standing Order 113(4)(a), but also how the written answers turned the questions on their head by making them refer to safeguarding allegations against Dr Martyn Percy when Martin Sewell’s questions asked about a review in response to Dr Percy’s complaint of “the deliberate weaponisation of safeguarding allegations with intent to cause me harm, perpetrated by senior clergy, church lawyers and church PR.”
In his answers to Martin’s supplementary questions (which I drafted), the ABY said that not only did Martin deserve an explanation but that he would like one too. I have seen information which indicates that the inquiry must be conducted by a person wholly independent of the Synod secretariat, Church House and the Legal Office, with the consequential report published and circulated to all Synod members. I will refrain from further comment until such report has been published, but it is imperative that the person conducting the investigation is provided with all e-mails, WhatsApp messages etc relating to the questions and the written answers.
[Links to the text of the supplementary questions (before some editing to reduce their length) and the transcript of Archbishop Stephen’s oral answers are on the Thinking Anglicans web blog under title ISB controversy, episode 8]
Is that so David? If so, I welcome it, but I don’t recall that being promised.
Re: the ISB, I refer you to the ten ‘Thinking Anglicans’ articles and commentary on this subject.
Ian, you say that two and a half years ago Synod signed off the ISB proposals, (which had been set out in a paper by Malcolm Brown). You may recall that the document stated:
“The appointment process for ISB members needs to communicate the commitment of the Church of England at the highest level to the principle of independence and, at the same time, demonstrate that the appointment process is not being manipulated in favour of ‘safe’ candidates.”
For this reason, he continued:
That there should be a formal and independent selection panel for all members of the ISB, including two survivors on the panels.
This principle, passed in the package by Synod, was adopted in the ISB’s Terms of Reference.
When the Archbishops’ Council contravened this process, and imposed Meg Munn as Chair (after the previous Chair had lost the trust of survivors because of mistakes over data privacy)…
You and your Council colleagues failed to advertise the post to attract a wide field of candidates (as set out by Malcolm Brown), interviewed no other candidates formally other than your favoured candidate, and failed to set up the stipulated interview panel with survivors on it…
THAT was a true low point, which precipitated the crisis and actions by the AC which followed. So of course members of General Synod were angry. Even a member of your own Council admitted to survivors: “We messed up. The appointment of Meg Munn was the wrong decision… we are all accountable.” What’s more, the abrupt shutdown of the ISB, without adequate warning to survivors, seemed to many Synod Members to be reckless and dangerous.
You further complain about Synod wanting Steve and Jasvinder to speak: that was for Synod to decide. By then the Archbishops’ Council had ‘lost the floor’. And even if you disliked them speaking, there is little doubt that Jane Chevous’s speech (which opened response to the AC’s presentation) ‘won the floor’ with the eviscerating voice of a survivor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYu3MDRecUY&t=157s
Indeed. It’s odd to complain that Synod is not getting the answers to the questions it wants and then complain that Synod does get to hear what it wants to hear.
Exactly. So much that’s wrong with the Church of England is to do with lack of transparency, dodging of questions, and top-down attempts to control agenda.
This Synod was at least healthy in that people were declining to just accept what the ‘high up’ people told them.
Ian was forthright in his slight altercation with Justin.
Martin Sewell was forthright in his slight altercation with Stephen C (though it was really about secretarial alterations to his questions).
And ‘the floor’ was forthright in not taking no for an answer, because they wanted to hear from Steve and Jasvinder.
Underlying the atmosphere at this Synod was a plummeting drop in confidence in the Leadership.
All that said, I did pray, and am praying, for Justin as he tries to handle all these things and attend to some critical family illness as well.
Jane was in our meeting too on 9th May, and we listened carefully. Members of AC also met with (on Zoom) and listened to survivors.
Synod does not give itself permission to listen to outsiders without careful invitation, in order to prevent the floor being hijacked. When we voted to suspend standing orders in order to listen, we were then subject to a string of claims, none of which I believe were true, without any right of reply.
As Maggie Atkinson asked: what was achieved by that? Steve and Jas have repeatedly put their narrative into the public domain. AC have not, until this Synod.
we were then subject to a string of claims, none of which I believe were true, without any right of reply
Whereas the people who spoke had been subjected to a similar string of claims, none of which they accepted as true, by yourself among others. Synod wished to hear their answers to your and other allegations — why is that so surprising?
Synod wished to hear their answers to your and other allegations — why is that so surprising?
So you’re saying it’s not true that ‘Steve and Jas have repeatedly put their narrative into the public domain’ ?
Not at all. I’m saying that Synod wished to hear them, in the same way that they had just heard from other parties in this distressing and damaging debacle. I’m not a member of Synod, but I imagine that members’ reasons included such old-fashioned notions as natural justice.
I’m saying that Synod wished to hear them
Ah, so you’re saying that Synod wished to cross-examine them, in order to get extra information over and above that which was already absolutely in the public domain from their statements.
So how did the cross-examination go? Were many illuminating questions asked of them? What new information was brought to light?
Because obviously if all they did was just repeat statements that they had already made, that were readily available to any member of Synod who cared to look for them, that would be utterly pointless, wouldn’t it?
I imagine that members’ reasons included such old-fashioned notions as natural justice.
Natural justice requires that an accused beer given the opportunity to put their side of the story. If the people in question had already put their suffer of the story into the public domain where Synod members could access it then natural justice had been satisfied already.
For some reason I don’t see a “Reply” button below your comment of 6:05pm so I’ll put my reply here.
Please don’t use the tiring rhetorical “So your’re saying …” followed by something quite different from what I’m saying – it doesn’t add value to the discussion. I’m saying what I’m saying. I’m saying that Synod wished to hear them, I’m not saying whether Synod wished to “cross-examine” anyone.
If you think, as Dr Paul seems to, that there was no point in hearing them, that’s for you to say. Synod thought differently.
If you think, as Dr Paul seems to, that there was no point in hearing them, that’s for you to say.
So did hearing them actually give Synod any new information, or was it just a repetition of information already available?
If the latter, well, I suppose at least it’s good that Synod has plenty of time to waste.
The reply system only allows four nesting of comments, else they disappear off to the right. So you need to click the last available reply button.
Surely it should have been obvious to the AC (and thus communicated to the Business Committee when this amended item of business was scheduled following the 14-days notice given on 21 July to Jasvinder and Steve to terminate their contracts) that Jasvinder and Steve should be given the right to respond to the statements made by the four members of the AC who addressed the Synod. It was the failure to follow the principle of audi alteram partem (“hear both sides”) that led to the unseemly shambles after the AC presentation, with members seeking to find a way under the Standing Orders that would enable Jasvinder and Steve to speak with, seemingly, those wanting to prevent that advising a questionable interpretation of SO 120, thus (in the understandable absence of Archbishop Justin) preventing Archbishop Stephen from authorising them to speak as he clearly wished.
Incidentally, I was surprised that no member of Synod asked how it was that Jane Chevous, not a member of Synod, was enabled to address the Synod whereas barriers were being erected when it was clear that Archbishop Stephen and Synod members wished to hear from Jasvinder and Steve.
The answer to your first question is that Synod was not being set up as a courtroom to adjudicate between two sides, but were hearing a report from AC.
The answer to you second is: first, it puts the lie to the idea that we were silencing critics; and that she had previously been invited by arrangement. It is all about following Synod’s own standing orders.
There is a current live General Synod Private Members Motion calling for the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign. I can’t understand why it has no signatories. http://www.churchofengland.org/about/general-synod/private-members-motions
I hope General Synod members now have a sense of what kind of approach is needed in November.
The fact that is has no signatures is a reflection on the person who has submitted it. Even he hasn’t signed it!
Well
a. Sam is well-intentioned, but clumsy
b. the motion as is is too personal
c. it ought to talk about confidence in the current archiepiscopal leadership
d. it is quite a high threshold to be the first person to sign
For these reasons, I don’t think you should take that lack of signatures as a sign of confidence. Are you confident in our current leadership?
Thanks for your thoughts Ian,
I agree with you that Tom Woolford’s speech to move the Blackburn motion on marriage fees was the best of Synod, and actually gives me some hope for the ability of Synod to work well. It changed my mind about what Blackburn proposed. The difference between the actual proposal and actual arguments made for it on the one hand, and the outside “spin” about it is remarkable. Tom and the Blackburn diocese went to some effort to make sure this was about shifting from a set fee structure to proportional donation structure as the Roman Catholics do, and to be careful in their arguments about why – the problem with charging for sacraments, wanting to be a church for the whole community, wanting to gather revenue more fairly etc.. Sad that the spin was it was because we really want to encourage marriages. That latter argument is tone deaf given the LLF debate, and tricky to square with Scripture that tells us to value singleness and celibacy.
It did make me wonder though about the wider implications, about both the arguments used, and the actual policy change.
Although it got a good laugh, Tom Woolford went to a lot of effort to engage with how the different groups in Synod view the world and view the Church. This measure wasn’t trying to beat one group over the head or score points, it was making a change, and considering why this made sense for everyone. As a consequence, it got overwhelming support.
This measure does raise a particular question about how the CofE views itself. We really do think part of the reason for being the way we are is to be a national church, providing ministry (in all its forms, including “life events” like weddings) for the whole country. It’s therefore important to us to maintain a network that does cover the whole country, with parish churches for all communities.
Yes, it was a good example of the process working well.
But then check the torrent of abuse online from revisionists, who described the whole debate as despicable and cruel to gay people.
Because the spin of the debate was quite different to Tom Woolford’s actual argument in moving the motion.
Of course no part of the CofE should be considering Marriages as a sacrament, surely. It’s contrary to the doctrine of the church!
Another reason for supporting the reform is that CofE weddings are declining at such a rate that there will be no church weddings at all by 2030. In 2012 there were 57,600. In 2021 there were 26,500.
Another reason for supporting the reform is that CofE weddings are declining at such a rate that there will be no church weddings at all by 2030. In 2012 there were 57,600. In 2021 there were 26,500.
And do you think reforming the fees will alter that trajectory? How?
Well in our rural church we have at least 5 weddings every summer from Parishioners or former Parishioners and they are quite happy to pay the fee
Woolford’s proposal was economically illiterate. Churches, especially rural ones, rely on wedding fees to help them keep going and fund organists, choirs and the vicar’s work on the marriage preparation. Any trial will soon discover scrapping wedding fees leads to a net loss in each Parish that trials it, with no significant change in wedding numbers. Wedding fees will therefore have to be restored
“How is it possible to offer liturgy which is ‘celebratory’ of something which is contrary to the doctrine of marriage of the Church, whilst not being at all indicative of a change of that doctrine?”
Possibly because in a same-sex marriage there are good things, even if the marriage itself (and its sexual intimacy) is regarded as against Church doctrine by quite a lot of people.
Things like companionship, fidelity, covenant, care, devotion, helpful neighbourliness, recognised closeness and togetherness in the context of the life of the local church…
Those things within the relationship may well be regarded as worthy of affirmation.
Where I share your scepticism, Ian, is that I’m afraid I do think the Prayers are potentially duplicitous… because in most cases, those gathering will know that – really – what’s being celebrated is the *whole* of the relationship including the sexual intimacy.
The Prayers may not say that, but it can’t stop them being received that way. In a way it is a ‘balancing trick’ to try to delay confrontation of the core issues. It’s trying to placate both liberal and conservative Christians. Well I am socially liberal and you are socially conservative on these issues, but neither of us should be happy with these Prayers.
Where I differ from you is your assertion that contrary views of sexuality create ‘irreconcilable difference’. The views themselves can’t be reconciled – I agree… they are opposites. But we, as Christians, can be reconciled: if we agree to disagree on sex, if we respect each other’s ‘right of conscience’, and commit to protect it. What we cannot do is dominate the other group’s conscience on sexuality.
But we can agree to face up to the reality of difference in the mind of the Church – that’s de facto there already – and we can seek reconciliation through prayer for grace and love towards each other.
Meanwhile we’re in a state of fakeness with these Prayers. They are not the destination for either group, and we may as well be honest about that, and get on with addressing the actual issue of gay sex and marriage (and whether that’s okay). There is a de facto plurality of views on this in the Church of England. How do we live with that, and can we get on with it please?
But we, as Christians, can be reconciled: if we agree to disagree on sex, if we respect each other’s ‘right of conscience’, and commit to protect it.
IT’S NOT ABOUT SEX.
What’s irreconcilable, and means the two of you cannot be in the same Church, isn’t your views on sex.
It’s your views on the Bible.
I see Torquemada has logged in.
Don’t you go dissing the Spanish Inquisition, mate. They cut the Carmelites some slack. Late 15th / Early 16th Century arguably a golden age of Christian spirituality in Spain.
S
Requiring everyone in the CofE to have the exact same view of the bible is a more radical step than allowing some parishes to marry gay couples.
Once you had achieved that then there would still be disagreement on this issue because the bible doesn’t talk directly about gay people or same sex marriage.
You then have a number of competing values within scripture and which you think is more important will win out – heteronormativity vs healthy relationships vs tradition vs loving your neighbor as yourself.
Requiring everyone in the CofE to have the exact same view of the bible is a more radical step than allowing some parishes to marry gay couples.
Capital B. It’s a proper noun.
The exact same view is not required, but surely you agree that it shouldn’t be too onerous to require everyone to accept that the Bible is the written Word of God, and to accept the Church of England’s canon A5?
“…to require everyone to accept that the Bible is the written Word of God.”
But what does that even mean?
S
The Bible says Jesus is the Word of God. Saying that The Bible is the Word of God is difficult for those of us with a “high” view of scripture to accept because it is effectively rejecting The Trinity since it makes The Bible equal to Jesus.
But what does that even mean?
It means you can’t say ‘yes, the Bible says X, but the Bible is wrong because it was written by human beings who were stuck in their cultures’.
It means if the Bible says X then you have to accept X.
So the discussion can proceed as to whether the Bible really says X or not, but everybody accepts that the Bible gets the last word on the matter.
The Bible says Jesus is the Word of God.
No it doesn’t; it says Jesus is the Word, the Logos, the one by whom and through whom all things were made.
Whereas the Bible is the Word of God, God’s revelation to us.
Saying that The Bible is the Word of God is difficult for those of us with a “high” view of scripture to accept because it is effectively rejecting The Trinity since it makes The Bible equal to Jesus.
No, it doesn’t. Jesus is the Word, the Son, the second person of the Trinity. The Bible is the Word of God, the written communication of God — of the Trinity — to us.
They are different kinds of things.
I agree that using the same word ‘Word’ for both can be confusing, but the word is being used in different senses.
“It means if the Bible says X then you have to accept X.”
That’s too vague.
I don’t believe God actually commanded people to slaughter the Canaanite children.
I don’t believe Noah actually built an ark.
I don’t believe Eve was formed from Adam’s rib or that Eve even existed. (She may have, but she sure as heck had parents.)
I don’t believe Job’s account literally was true, detail by detail.
I don’t believe Jonah really spent days inside a whale.
I don’t believe the sun stood still.
It’s not as simple or black and white as saying “if the Bible says X then you have to accept X”.
That’s fundamentalism.
Things have to be interpreted. Understood in context. Recognised as various kinds of genre. Weighed up against other passages in the Bible. Weighed up in prayer through the exercise of conscience and the operation of the Holy Spirit.
What does ‘the written Word of God’ mean? It’s an expression open to interpretation. Did God have fingers and hold a quill? Obviously no. Did God literally dictate every single word – as if by fax – in a kind of automatic dictation, and the authors just wrote it? I would say not. I would say that many passages in the Bible were influenced by the Holy Spirit, and the authors tried to make sense of what they *felt* God was saying, and then tried to ‘get’ it, in their culture, and find words to convey what they felt moved to relate.
Different Christians will view the writing of the Bible in a variety of ways. That the Holy Spirit engaged with authors I don’t doubt. But the authors were still autonomous, not robots.
Things like the claim God commanded the slaughter of babies and infants are almost certainly NOT anything God ‘wrote’. They were fallible humans, writing through the lens and filters of their own nation’s founding stories, their own culture, their own scientific limitations.
We see through a glass darkly.
Revelation shimmers through to us, and the Bible has profound spiritual themes, which should absolutely be treasured. But it is not a dictation from God.
I don’t believe […]
I don’t believe […]
I don’t believe […]
I don’t believe […]
I don’t believe […]
I don’t believe […]
We know. You don’t believe, basically, in Christianity. You believe in some mystical rubbish you’ve made up, that has vaguely Christian aesthetic stylings because that’s the cultural environment in which you grew up, but which has nothing to do with the actual truths of Christianity.
That’s why the Church of England needs to restate its boundaries, get rid of you and people like you, and return to actual scriptural Christianity; and it will have no peace until it does.
S, you need to discbntguish between not believing in biblical literalism, and not believing Christian doctrines.
Basically the Church of England’s fundamental problem is that it has tolerated for far too long the sort of syncretic pick-and-mix of which Susannah Clark is a paradigmatic example.
The sex stuff is all a sideshow, downstream of that basic error; and until that is rectified, nothing can be done.
The only question is whether or not the cancer has gone so deep that it cannot be removed without killing the patient.
Thanks.
Do YOU believe in those things I listed?
Because if you don’t believe (your own words) “if the Bible says X then you have to accept X” then you can share a ride with me.
Oh wait…
you need to discbntguish between not believing in biblical literalism, and not believing Christian doctrines.
Who mentioned Biblical literalism?
Is that the Bible is the Word of God not a Christian doctrine?
Do YOU believe in those things I listed?
Sigh. I’ll go through them.
I don’t believe God actually commanded people to slaughter the Canaanite children.
I do believe God gave that command.
I don’t believe Noah actually built an ark.
I think the book of Genesis begins as liturgy, then moves on to illustrative stories (where, perhaps, for example, several real historical people are amalgamated into one character) and ends up as history. I’m not sure exactly where the transition happens. So I’m not comfortable giving a yes or a no to this one.
I don’t believe Eve was formed from Adam’s rib or that Eve even existed. (She may have, but she sure as heck had parents.)
I think that is definitely in the part of Genesis which is illustrative.
I don’t believe Job’s account literally was true, detail by detail.
I think the book of Job is an extended parable.
I don’t believe Jonah really spent days inside a whale.
I think the book of Jonah, like the book of Job, is an extended parable.
I don’t believe the sun stood still.
I do believe that happened.
But the point is that I believe, and you do not, that every one of those things is in the Bible because God intended it to be there, as part of His message and revelation to us. So we cannot just ignore any of it as ‘well that was just men trying to make sense of their experiences and they got some stuff wrong’.
Susannah you will note from the reply of S above that they do not literally believe in a variety of things but do literally believe in a variety of other things. But they then think that others of us who simply draw the boundaries in a different way are non believers. S has to do all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to say ‘I believe….’ Including believing that cats – acting as God’s puppets – knocked bottles of ink over manuscripts in order to protect the word of God.
S of course doesn’t literally believe things any more than you or I literally believe things. If the bible were literally the unchanging word of God then we would all be circumcised. God’s word changes because – according to the bible – God’s mind changed. And there is the problem: the only way that some can use the phrase ‘the word of God’ is to ascribe human traits to God. God is so strong and mighty – therefore must have big muscles. God speaks in Elizabethan English – therefore the Articles and Book of Common Prayer are infallible.
S will emerge with a denial and evidence – which will all be circular – as to why S has to be logically correct. And the problem with logic, as is well known, is that it is circular and so long as you stay within the circle will make total sense. But anything outside of the circle – like your very sensible and obvious question ‘but what on earth does the phrase ‘word of God’ even mean’ – will be rejected simply because it doesn’t fit the circle.
they do not literally believe in a variety of things but do literally believe in a variety of other things.
I do not ‘literally’ believe in anything. I never use the word ‘literally’.
Including believing that cats – acting as God’s puppets – knocked bottles of ink over manuscripts in order to protect the word of God.
Ravens acted as God’s puppets to keep Elijah alive. Why are cats hilarious to you when that happened?
And the problem with logic, as is well known, is that it is circular and so long as you stay within the circle will make total sense.
That is not actually how logic works. Good logic is not circular: it reasons from premises to conclusions. If logic is circular — if the conclusions are assumed in the premises — then it is not, in fact, valid logic at all.
And every one of your conclusions is assumed in your premises. You can only prove by logic that the bible is the word of God by making that premise in the first place. Hence Susannah asked the question ‘but what on earth does that mean?’ It is a meaningless phrase unless you assume what it means in making the premise. A classic case of circular logic.
And of course to acknowledge that God’s mind changed will be to acknowledge that it might change again…….so that must never be acknowledged, even though we are no longer circumcised.
You can only prove by logic that the bible is the word of God by making that premise in the first place.
But I can’t prove by logic that the Bible is the Word of God, and I’ve never claimed to be able to.
What I can prove by logic, and have repeatedly, is that your position of claiming to be a Christian while denying that the Bible is the Word of God is logically inconsistent, and therefore must be false.
I have friends who are atheists: they don’t believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and also they don’t claim to believe in Christianity. I can’t prove their positions false by logic, because their positions are internally consistent.
But your position is internally inconsistent — it contradicts itself — and therefore it must be false.
Do point to where I have denied that the bible is the word of God and we can look at it in context. The question is: what does the phrase ‘word of God’ actually mean.
Do point to where I have denied that the bible is the word of God
You’re surely not going to claim that you don’t think the Bible was ultimately written by fallible human beings.
“What I can prove by logic, and have repeatedly, is that your position of claiming to be a Christian while denying that the Bible is the Word of God is logically inconsistent, and therefore must be false.”
That can only be proved by circular logic. The premise ‘the bible is the word of God’ assumes the same conclusion. The logic is completely invalid unless you specify what is meant by the phrase ‘the bible is the word of God’.
“So I’m not comfortable giving a yes or a no to this one.”
You mean that things aren’t quite black and white? Wow. There is a first time for everything it seems….
That can only be proved by circular logic. The premise ‘the bible is the word of God’ assumes the same conclusion.
But the point is that it is not necessary to prove that the Bible is the Word of God to prove that your position is logically incoherent.
If you believed the following:
1. All elephants are grey
2. Nellie is an elephant
3. Nellie is pink
Then I don’t need to be able to prove that elephants aren’t grey to show that you cannot simultaneously believe all those three things because they are logically incompatible.
The logic is completely invalid unless you specify what is meant by the phrase ‘the bible is the word of God’.
That’s simple to specify. It means that:
– God is the ultimate author of the Bible
– Everything that’s in the Bible, is there because God wanted it there, and everything that isn’t there is there because God allowed it to be left out
– God’s purpose in authoring the Bible was to reveal Himself to us directly (He had already of course revealled Himself to us indirectly in His creation).
That’s what the phrase means.
You mean that things aren’t quite black and white?
Either it did happen or it didn’t. That is black or white. I just don’t happen to know which.
Yet again you mix up ontology and epistemology. You should really do a basic, introductory course in philosophy, it would help you a lot.
‘God exists’ is an ontological statement. It is either true or false. Black or white.
‘I know God exists’ is an epistemological statement. A totally different kind of thing.
I keep pointing out relationships between ontological statements, like ‘A and B can’t both be true at the same time’.
Andrew Godsall keeps responding with epistemological questions like ‘but how do you know A is true?’
Which has nothing to do with the ontological relationship between A and B!
It’s very tiresome
And it would help you a great deal if you did a basic course in theology and biblical studies.
“Either it did happen or it didn’t. That is black or white. I just don’t happen to know which.”
You mean there might have been an ark with a man called Noah and two of every living kind of creature?
You mean there might have been an ark with a man called Noah and two of every living kind of creature?
I mean either there was such an ark or there wasn’t.
The bible says there was a man called Noah who built an ark and took on it two of every kind of living creature. Surely the bible can’t be wrong about that?
The bible says there was a man called Noah who built an ark and took on it two of every kind of living creature. Surely the bible can’t be wrong about that?
Of course the Bible (capital B, it’s a proper noun) isn’t wrong. The question is whether that part of Genesis is reporting history, like the books of the prophets and the gospels; or illustrative, like the book of Jonah. That’s what I don’t know. It certainly is either one or the other, and I can’t rule out either.
And it would help you a great deal if you did a basic course in theology and biblical studies.
It doesn’t seem to have helped you be able to answer questions about God, so I’m not sure what the point would be.
If the bible isn’t reporting history when it narrates the story of Noah, what is it reporting?
If the bible isn’t reporting history when it narrates the story of Noah, what is it reporting?
Capital B. Proper noun. Unless you think there are lots of bibles?
In that case it isn’t reporting anything.
It isn’t reporting anything? You mean the bible is the word of God but isn’t actually telling us anything?
A basic course in theology would help you learn the most important thing about God: you can’t eff the ineffable.
A basic course in biblical studies would help you learn why and how the various books of the bible were written.
It isn’t reporting anything? You mean the bible is the word of God but isn’t actually telling us anything?
Do you think there are lots of bibles? Because if you don’t then ‘Bible’ is a proper noun and in English, proper nouns have capital letters. I mean, do you write ‘quran’?
Of course it’s telling us something.
A basic course in theology would help you learn the most important thing about God: you can’t eff the ineffable.
I looked up the word ‘eff’ in the OED but the only entry for such a verb is this:
‘intransitive. British colloquial. To utter the word ‘fuck’; to swear, use profanities. Originally and chiefly in to eff and blind: to use strong expletives, to swear frequently;’
Are you saying that a course in theology would teach me I can’t swear at God?
A basic course in biblical studies would help you learn why and how the various books of the bible were written.
I know why they were written; they were written because God wanted to reveal Himself to us, so He caused various people at various times to write what He wanted written.
“– God’s purpose in authoring the Bible was to reveal Himself to us directly (He had already of course revealled Himself to us indirectly in His creation)”
This is what marks you out as a non-Christian and is the dangerous heresy of fundamentalism. God was revealed directly by coming to us as the son, Jesus Christ. The various books of the New Testament reveal to us why that ultimate revelation was Good news.
“Of course it’s telling us something.”
Please tell us what it’s telling us then. If it isn’t factual, and isn’t historical, how do we know what it’s telling us? Obviously you must know because you wrote ‘Of course it’s telling us something.’
This is what marks you out as a non-Christian and is the dangerous heresy of fundamentalism.
If that makes me not a Christian then Thomas Aquinas wasn’t a Christian, so I’m comfortable with that.
You would do well to look up the word ineffable – because you clearly have no understanding of that word in relation to God.
After some useful discussion, this appears to have descended again into a trading of insults. Better engagement please.
Please tell us what it’s telling us then.
That would be a sermon, and there isn’t space for one here.
You would do well to look up the word ineffable – because you clearly have no understanding of that word in relation to God.
‘ A. adj. 1.
a. That cannot be expressed or described in language; too great for words; transcending expression; unspeakable, unutterable, inexpressible.’
Which is of course not true of God; God can be described in language. God is eternal, uncreated, just, merciful; God is three and God is one. God is our father.
“That would be a sermon, and there isn’t space for one here.”
Oh, you mean you can’t actually write it in a sentence.? The most important thing I was taught as a journalist was to say it in a sentence befroe beginning to write the story. The same applies to a sermon. If you can’t say it in a sentence, you have no hope of saying it in a sermon.
Thomas Aquinas understood that the person of Jesus Christ was of supreme importance and that the New Testament bore witness.
The words you use to describe God are a poor shorthand. They are human words for something that is divine.
Oh, you mean you can’t actually write it in a sentence. The most important thing I was taught as a journalist was to say it in a sentence befroe beginning to write the story. The same applies to a sermon. If you can’t say it in a sentence, you have no hope of saying it in a sermon.
If you could say it in a sentence, doesn’t that mean the rest of the article was superfluous? You must have wasted a lot of ink on unnecessary words.
Thomas Aquinas understood that the person of Jesus Christ was of supreme importance and that the New Testament bore witness.
Thomas Aquinas had the same view as I do of the Bible; that it is direct revelation from God.
The words you use to describe God are a poor shorthand. They are human words for something that is divine.
All words are shorthands for the thing they describe; that’s nothing specific to God. The fact is that God is not ‘ineffable’. God can be described, albeit not fully described, in language.
Thomas Aquinas also didn’t think God was ineffable.
As long as I have Thomas Aquinas on my side, and you don’t, I reckon I’m good.
Thomas Aquinas. Let me recall what sort of things he said. He followed the Fathers in believing that words were helpful to us rather than actually being descriptive of God. I support that totally. His prime sources were scripture, the magisterium of Holy Church, tradition and human reason. He knew that fallible humans misinterpret a scriptural metaphor as a literal statement of fact – something we see so much of in evangelical theology. Maybe you think the Ark of Noah is a metaphor.
I think you will also find Aquinas a firm supporter of Transignification. “It is better simply to accept the words of Christ, of Scripture, of the tradition and of the Church’s magisterium which tell us what we need to know: Christ is really but invisibly present in this sacrament.”
So it seems, S, that we find much common ground in admiration of Aquinas. And the Summa Theologica has also been found entirely consistent with the notion of Heilsgeschicte – salvation history.
So I am especially glad we find Aquinas such an inspiration for our thinking together.
And the Summa Theologica has also been found entirely consistent with the notion of Heilsgeschicte – salvation history.
Previously you defined ‘salvation history’ as:
‘It simply means that the bible doesn’t just state the facts of what happened but its primary purpose is to explore the meaning of what happened in God’s saving plan for the world.’
I totally agree with the statement above: the Bible doesn’t just state the facts of what happened indeed, and its primary purpose is to explore the meaning of what happened in God’s saving plan for the world.
But the thing is that doesn’t actually seem to correctly describe how Andrew Godsall actually uses the Bible. Take Andrew Godsall’s description of the record of Jesus stilling the storm:
‘Was there an event when Jesus was in a boat with his disciples? Yes, it’s highly likely given that some were fishers, and that boats and trains and planes didn’t exist. Was there a storm? Highly likely. Did it die down? Storms generally do. Is that the significance of the story? No it isn’t. Is it a significant story that gives us some information about relationships between the disciples and Jesus and his future followers? Yes, as I have explained before, it is significant. Do I believe in Jesus because he can perform signs and wonders? No, I don’t. I believe in Jesus because he enables me – and you – to have a relationship with the father. Even in the midst of storms.’
https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/what-are-paul-bayes-goals-for-the-church-on-sexuality/comment-page-1/#comment-396187
Now this to me reads (and if anyone else can read it differently then please tell me how) like Andrew Godsall thinks that the event in question did not actually happen as recorded. Andrew Godsall things that it may have been inspired by a real event — a storm which subsided — but that Jesus did not miraculously cause the storm to subside.
How to square this with the definition of ‘salvation history’ given above? Here’s where the ‘hiding in equivocation’ that I mentioned comes in. I think the key is the clause ‘doesn’t just state the facts of what happened’. Because I would read that as meaning the Bible does state the facts of what happened, accurately, but then goes on to ‘explore the meaning’ as well as stating the facts accurately. But Andrew Godsall seems to take it as meaning something like the Bible states some facts that happened accurately, and other ‘facts’ that are actually put in as metaphors or figures to ‘explore the meaning’.
See the difference? On interpretation says the Bible doesn’t just state the facts of what happened (but what facts it does state are accurate); the other says that the bible doesn’t just state the facts of what happened (some of the ‘facts’ it states what happened and some are actually made up to illustrate the meaning).
It’s like there are two possible definitions of ‘salvation history’:
a) The Bible accurately records real events which happened as described in the physical history of the universe, and these events, if correctly read, show the history of God’s saving plan
2. The Bible authors had an idea of God’s saving plan for the world, and when they wrote the Bible, they based it on real events, but they added and embellished certain details to illustrate what they thought God’s saving plan for the world is.
How you can see that these two are totally incompatible. You can’t possibly believe both of them! They are in fact direct opposites. Definition (a) starts from the physical facts and works from them to God’s saving plan. Definition 2 starts with a preconceived idea of what the lan is, and them makes up the details to illustrate that idea.
So it’s vitally important, when someone says ‘the Bible is salvation history’, to pin them down to which of the two they mean. Because the first one is god and accurate; the second is an evil, pernicious and, yes, demonic idea that the Enemy has seeded to try to bring down the Church from within. Because the second one says, ‘you know what? It doesn’t matter if any of this stuff actually happened, what matters is what it means to you.’
And this is why I go so hard on the virgin birth. Because it’s true that an ‘important thing about the virgin birth is how it was unique in history for enabling the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob etc to become human – one of us’. But an equally important thing about the virgin birth is that a miracle occurred within Mary’s womb where the normal laws of the natural universe were suspended, and that if modern scientific measuring equipment were able to be pointed at Mary’s womb at the right time it would have recorded Y-chomosomes forming themselves out of nowhere, an egg being fertilised without a sperm, and cell division beginning with no genetic material from any human male present.
Because if that didn’t really happen as a real physical event in the real history of the world, then all of Christianity is a lie and we are, as Paul put in to the Corinthians, of all people the most to be pitied, for all our hope is in an illusion and when we die that will be the end of us.
So anyway I invite Andrew Godsall to state if I have made any errors in my reading and if so spell out — clearly and without any ambiguity! — what my error is. Or to explicitly state whether when Andrew Godsall writes ‘salvation history’ the meaning is (a) or 2.
Ah I see your usual response when things get difficult for you is to drag up old issues rather than address the things that have been put to you.
I’m delighted that you agree with Thomas Aquinas on all of the things I have listed. Do read the work people have done around Heilsgeschicte and Thomism. You’d find it instructive.
And when you have done that let us have your answer concerning what Noah and his ark are doing in the bible.
And then I will come back to our questions.
Ah I see your usual response when things get difficult for you
Nothing has got difficult for me; but there were so many issues to pick you up on with regards to your last that I had to pick one to focus on lest you be able to get away with ignoring some. And it makes sense to focus on the one where you refused to answer the question before.
I see you refuse to answer again, so we must all draw conclusions from that refusal.
No refusal to answer anything. Just waiting my turn. Your replies come first.
I remain glad that you are in such agreement with Thomas Aquinas about the various matters I have posted. But disturbed at your heresy of claiming that God’s revelation through scripture is more important than God’s revelation through his son.
No refusal to answer anything. Just waiting my turn. Your replies come first.
You refused to answer last time I asked and now you’re refusing again; but I think we all know what your answer would be, and that’s why you’re refusing, so that’s fine.
But disturbed at your heresy of claiming that God’s revelation through scripture is more important than God’s revelation through his son.
Moving the goalposts, are we? Up there you were claiming that the Bible being direct revelation from God was heretical. I am sure you will shift the goalposts further.
To Peter Jermey :
If one truly loved one’s neighbour as oneself, then why would one perpetrate upon them inherent, physically dangerous sexual practices?
Dear Pellegrino.
My wife and I are married… a civil marriage in Scotland and a celebration of that marriage in the Church of England (with wedding dress, bridesmaids, support of the PCC, reception etc).
We just love each other. We lead normal lives.
What ‘physically dangerous sexual practices’ do you think we carry out?
He is talking generally. Promiscuity is significantly higher (higher than high) in same-sex contexts, and promiscuity is the main red light for STIs as a result of exchanging bodily fluids nonexclusively. For STIs here the risk is more male than female, since the word ‘sexual’ there applies slightly more appositely if not exactly appositely. Your context is not primarily what he has in mind.
This being what he has in mind, he is talking accurately, and the idea that some random single case can be of any relevance to that big picture is incorrect.
‘Promiscuity is significantly higher (higher than high) in same-sex contexts’ Chris could you provide a link to research evidence on this? Thanks.
I don’t think Peter is going around perpetrating dangerous sexual practices on his neighbours!
Also Christopher could you provide the research details that show that lesbian women are more promiscuous than heterosexual men? I’d argue that STIs are *far* more likely to be spread by heterosexual men than lesbian women.
Inside covenanted marriage relationship, stats surely show less promiscuity, and less transmission of STI’s… so why not do the ‘responsible’ thing and sanction lesbian marriage? Marriage itself supports fidelity and devotion, so why begrudge women devoting themselves in stable, covenanted, caring and devoted relationships?
As for gay sexuality, I’ll let the guys speak up for themselves.
Woman-woman love can be tender, intimate, sacrificial, committed.
Any suggestion that there are “physically dangerous sexual practices” is preposterous. Being fair to dear Pellegrino, I get that he was alluding to (some) gay guys. I’m just making the point that such reasons for opposing same-sex relationships don’t stack up with lesbian couples.
Same sex sex is no more dangerous than opposite sex sex. Actually monogamous same sex sex is probably safer than opposite sex sex. All sex carries some risk, but isolation carries a big risk too
For the stats on men: try “A comparison of sexual behavior patterns among men who have sex with men and heterosexual men and women”, Glick et al,
J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2012 May 1; 60(1): 83–90. doi: 10.1097/QAI.0b013e318247925e
I couldn’t immediately find a similarly peer-reviewed publication for women, but I have seen what seems to be a serious blog post “an unequal distribution of partners: gays versus straights” by Paula England and Eliza Brown July 1, 2016, suggesting that profiles for lesbians and straight men are pretty much the same.
S
Who is Jesus the Word of?
Who is Jesus the Word of?
Nobody. That’s the point. Jesus is the original Word, the Word which was not spoken by anyone, the first principle, the thing which creates which was not itself created by anything.
Jesus is the REAL and LIVING Word.
The Bible is a container, a conduit, a rusty pipeline through which the REAL Word may flow and break through to our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
We continue to be created and made new by that Living Word, and the Bible is a kind of vessel. When we read passages, the encounters of earlier people who opened to God may tremble and resonate, inciting us to open to God’s Living Word as well… to Jesus Christ.
S
So Jesus is not the word of God? Is that what you are saying? I’m sorry but I disagree
So Jesus is not the word of God? Is that what you are saying?
Jesus is not the word of God, no.
‘ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’
That’s Jesus. Not the word of God; the Word, who was with God, and who was God.
(If you think about it obviously Jesus can’t be the word of God because Jesus is God. How could Jesus be both God and the word of God?
Or to put it another way, if Jesus was the word of God then Jesus would have been created by God. But that’s Arianism.
So no, Jesus is not the word of God. Jesus is the Word, and Jesus is God.)
There is a de facto plurality of views on this in the Church of England. How do we live with that, and can we get on with it please?
One very good way to deal with it would be for the Church of England to eject (as it has ejected people in the past) those who do not accept Canon A5 of its laws.
‘Meanwhile we’re in a state of fakeness with these Prayers. They are not the destination for either group, and we may as well be honest about that,’
that is precisely what I asked for in the LLF discussion. Answer came there none.
‘ and get on with addressing the actual issue of gay sex and marriage (and whether that’s okay). There is a de facto plurality of views on this in the Church of England. How do we live with that, and can we get on with it please?’
But this has already been debated and resolved. Just read through the answers to questions. Again and again ‘There is no intention to change the doctrine of marriage’. End of. OK?
But there IS intention to change the doctrine of marriage. Just not now.
You know it and I know it.
The Prayers are a stepping stone along the way. A ‘compromise’ to kick the can further down the road and try to placate at least one group.
They put off the inevitable showdown / resolution.
In a weird way I actually agree with your challenge at Synod. I just don’t think the Prayers are any solution. If anything they help perpetuate the attrition and stand off over these issues… not to mention the spurious attempt to portray ‘holy matrimony’ and ‘marriage’ as two different things. They aren’t. Marriage is marriage.
But there IS intention to change the doctrine of marriage.
So the bishops are lying?
The bishops have repeatedly said that the doctrine of the Church is marriage between one man and one woman. They have stated the fact, not lied. It is simply a fact, as things stand.
As for future intentions, there are divided views among bishops, but undoubtedly a significant number who would like to see the Church of England allow gay marriage in the end.
That is up to what each bishop says, but they tend to stick to assertions of what IS, not what they hope things will progress to.
They tend not to talk about the future, because they prefer to keep people calm and quiet, and not stir up a hornet’s nest.
I guess silence isn’t lying is it. Just diplomacy.
But anyone knows that there is momentum in the Church of England at large, supported implicitly by a good number of bishops, to ‘evolve’ the Church from Prayers as a first step >>> to Marriage in the end.
It’s best to be honest about that reality. It’s not the whole of the Church of England. It’s the (likely half, maybe more) who affirm gay sexuality.
If you’re in the Church of England you’re on that train at the moment.
The bishops have repeatedly said that the doctrine of the Church is marriage between one man and one woman.
They haven’t just said that. They’ve also said ‘ There is no intention to change the doctrine of marriage.’
You say there is such an intention; which would mean the bishops are lying when they say there is no intention. Correct?
I guess silence isn’t lying is it
Silence is lying if it’s done with intent to deceive. To lie is to attempt to intentionally deceive someone. That’s what you’re saying the bishops are doing, isn’t it? Attempting to deceive conservatives into thinking that there’s no intention to change doctrine.
I wouldn’t call it lying. They’re just keeping schtum. They don’t want to frighten the horses, do they?
When they say there is no intention to change the doctrine of marriage, they mean there is presently no intention to change the doctrine of marriage (because they don’t have the 67% backing in Synod to alter doctrine). So they’re telling the truth.
“No intention” means ‘as things stand’.
I don’t think the ‘conservatives’ are being “deceived” about anything. They know exactly what’s going on.
If anyone’s being deceived it’s the ‘liberals’ if they think gay marriage is just round the corner.
Plenty of bishops would like it to be – and of course they’re placating ‘liberals’ with the Prayers essentially on the ticket “Today prayers, tomorrow wedding bells” – but they know they can’t deliver that, maybe for years, without an essential confrontational showdown over doctrine, so ‘the war drags on’.
But is gay marriage the wish of quite a lot of bishops? Yes. Is it an ultimate intention? In many cases, yes – or at least a sincere hope. But right now, it is not their intention to fight that battle. They will leave that to another day, probably many years from now.
I think Ian and I (for once) would agree: that the Prayers aren’t really what they ‘say’ they are… sure the words don’t mention marriage or sex, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be received that way… and the avoidance of the main doctrine issue just means the conflict goes on and on. And that’s hugely damaging for the Church.
I wouldn’t call it lying. They’re just keeping schtum.
You’ve heard of lying by omission, right?
(Or we might call it Clintoning: ‘it depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is’)
https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-one-must-not-palter-when-negotiating
‘But there IS intention to change the doctrine of marriage.’ Only on the part of some. And that is not the will of House of Bishops.
Glad we are agreed on the duplicity of this approach. If liberals and evangelicals could unite on calling for an end to this charade, we would all be better off.
Since there is an intention to change the Church’s doctrine of marriage on the part of most of the bishops (but thankfully not from my own diocesan bishop who voted against LLF in February) is it not time to declare them apostate and request some faithful shepherds?
It is perhaps worth remembering that the majority are not always right. For those who have read the Old Testament, you may remember a rebellion against Moses and Aaron that led to the demise of Korah, Dathan, Abiram and their supporters that is described in Numbers 16. Similarly the spies got it wrong about not entering the Promised Land despite the reports of Caleb and Joshua. And of greatest significance perhaps, all the Israelites made a golden calf while Moses was receiving teaching from the LORD.
Maybe LLF is our golden calf? Will we worship the false or will we remain steadfast and cling to the Truth as revealed by God himself?
‘an intention to change the Church’s doctrine of marriage on the part of most of the bishops’…
I think there is for some, but ‘most’ is an exaggeration. I think there is no more than a handful who are serious about that.
I think there is for some, but ‘most’ is an exaggeration. I think there is no more than a handful who are serious about that.
Would you say that ‘most’ just want to do whatever will put off the moment of crisis for a little while longer?
>>the spurious attempt to portray ‘holy matrimony’ and ‘marriage’ as two different things. They aren’t. Marriage is marriage<<
Quite right – it's a deliberate confusion.
"Natural marriage" is the name given in Catholic canon law to the covenant “by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered by its nature to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring”, and is distinguished from a “Christian marriage”, in which the two parties involved are baptised
Once same-sex couples come to church “to give thanks, dedicate their relationship to God and receive God’s blessing,” what do you think comes next? There is no “middle way” or room for compromise in this – just contradiction and division.
The Catholic Church is facing the same problem. In 2021, the CDF (now DDF) was asked: “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” Note the framing of that question. It recognises authority in this matter comes from God, not man, and it is the Churches duty to follow this.
It answered: “Negative”, giving the following reasons:
“ … it is necessary that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord …
For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex. The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing …
[This] does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching …
At the same time, the Church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world, because for Him “we are more important to God than all of the sins that we can commit”. But he does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him. He in fact “takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are …”
This statement (spot on in HJ’s opinion) has been ignored in parts of Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and Germany, and its wording is now being reviewed by the newly appointed prefect of the DDF.
Ian
But there *is* an intention to allow blessings for same sex couples. I think that’s very hard to reconcile with continuing to teach that same sex relationships are always a bad option. That’s the compromise. Most gay liberals seem content to be second class members, but most conservatives still seem unwilling to even acknowledge that the CofE is in serious trouble on the issue of morality of sex and relationships, still seem unwilling to acknowledge that good faith readings of scripture can come to different conclusions, still seem unwilling to acknowledge that thru have failed to demonstrate a workable alternative
Pete ‘But there *is* an intention to allow blessings for same sex couples’. No, there is an intention to bless the individuals who might or might not be part of a couple. That hoop-jumping was made explicit in February.
Ian
Then why are conservatives opposing blessing gay individuals who might or might not be in a relationship?
How is this any different to the status quo? I’ve seen even bishops knowingly bless and even ordain gay people in the past
«Stephen is, in his actions and speech, contradicting the very thing that he is presenting to us as obligation. One rule for us, it seems, but another for him.»
Well, as my grandfather used to say, “Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi.”
Perhaps this is indicative of the esteem in which he holds the flock (even though Jesus called his followers “sheep”, not bovines).
You have no idea how grateful many of us are that you go along the General Synod so that we don’t have to. It all sounds utterly ghastly and ungodly. Thank you so much Ian for taking one for the team.
Thank you.
The CofE continues to badly manage public confidence in oversight of sexual abuse. I’d say the nub of the issue is the use of the word independent.
Meg Munn is not independent
A diocesis investigating a church in the same diocesis is not independent.
Why is this so hard to understand? Why is it so difficult to actually have independent oversight?
I’m not privy to the inner workings of the Archbishop’s Council, but the ending of the ISB certainly seems to have come across to survivors and the general public as punishing them for criticizing the church. Ian’s POV seems to be that it is actually a step to replacing them with a more independent panel. Why hasn’t the council communicated this reason for the decision to survivors and the media? It would certainly have done less reputational damage and reduced the amount of anguish caused for victims who have been let down time after time after time.
‘the ending of the ISB certainly seems to have come across to survivors and the general public as punishing them for criticizing the church’
Well I can tell you that is nonsense. As Meg Munn’s statement makes absolutely clear (have you read it?) they were completely failing to deliver what had been agreed.
It makes good sense, and indeed it is likely to be true. The public perception is very likely what is stated in the comment quoted. You isagree with the public perception, and that’s another matter. Your position agrees with Meg Munn and not with the two sacked members. Of course, you as a member of AC were responsible for ensuring the delivery of the ISB and you have so far failed to achieve that: indeed the more criticise the ISB members for that, the more complete you admit that failure is.
Yes, it was a complete failure, since we failed to grasp the nettle and sack the ISB. It should have been done sooner.
The public narrative relies on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories.
Ian,
Are you saying that the apparent halfway house of an ISB (with a remit to design its own replacement as part of its function) was ill-conceived in the first place, or that it was a good idea but the 3 people involved were badly chosen?
I would observe as an onlooker that the optics of sacking members of a board which has the word ‘Independent’ in its title are far from convincing – particularly when real victims are left dangling once again by the same church which employed their abusers.
Don, this plan was presented to and agreed by Synod. With hindsight, three was too few, and as Tim Goode said in Synod we did not intervene soon enough when things started to go wrong.
I would now say that we made the whole process too complicated, and we should now make use of external expertise to go straight to what was always envisaged as Stage II.
Dr Paul,
You state the perception relies on unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. May I make an observation on why those might be gaining traction, and invite your response.
In the main post you speak of 4 low points, the first is around questions, and that it shows a loss of trust. (Arguably, a well earned loss of trust) This loss of trust covers the leadership of the church and both a national and diocesan level, and is probably related to the increase in spin and reputation management involved.
You then say you can’t understand why people don’t believe the account of a difficult situation given by the Archbishops’ Council (clearly part of the leadership of the church).
Given the situation clearly looks bad (surely you can see that?), the laity relies on the accounts given by the two or more sides.
I have no skin in the game, beyond being a concerned member of the CofE laity. I do not know who to believe. Do you understand this position?
Yes, of course I do.
Sorry, I forgot to ask the question that inevitably follows; Given that you understand my position, what do think should be done about it, and why?
Ian
My comments are not about the truth of why the members were sacked but about the message that was sent to the survivors and general public. It’s hard to believe that this was simply sheer incompetence, but I cannot think of a reason why senior leadership of the CofE would allow such a negative message to spread about such a sensitive issue. Part of the problem of course is that the board had a chair imposed on them who was simultaneously on the national safeguarding panel. This is not independence! It’s like saying that the privy council is independent of the cabinet.
Pete, have you not followed the whole discussion? The ISB was always ‘interim’ and was not fully independent. Synod knew that.
Ian
My comments are about the disasterous communication to survivors and the general public. It’s hard for me to believe that this wasn’t intentional because there’s certainly nothing stopping the cofe comms team putting out their own message to the media. Who is responsible for the failure to communicate?
If the ISB was never intended to be independent then what does the I stand for?!
Pete, as I keep repeating, it was always interim, and Synod agreed with this.
The word “interim” seems to have crept into AC discourse around the time that the ISB started to demonstrate its independence. In GS 2263, written by Meg Munn as chair of NSP and Maggie Atkinson, then still chair of ISB, the wording is “The ISB, in its current interim iteration as informed by the relevant Policy Paper of February 2021”, and the ISB Terms of Reference refer to Phase I and Phase II.That paper at S23 refers t the need to decide whether ISB is continued into Phase II or whether it should be reconstituted. So “always interim” is incorrect. Synod had been assured that ISB was on a path towards full and formal independence to be achieved by 2024. That cannot now happen, as a result of AC’s actions.
It is clear that ISB Phase I could not possibly be fully independent, of course, because it had no independent legal existence: legally it was simply an activity of AC carried out by contractors, and that lack of independence was demonstrated by its sudden termination. What did change was the decision by AC to explicitly end the independence which thay had previous granted ISB and bring it under control by imposing Meg Munn as a chair with a brief to give orders to the other members: a brief which she complained she was not supported in by ABC. (That imposition, being contrary to the ISB Terms of Reference, was in itself a clear demonstration that AC was acting contrary to the limitations it had previously agreed for itself with respect to the ISB activities.) In other words, AC decided to abrogate their previous policy of respecting its independence and exercise direct control. That was the change,
‘The word “interim” seems to have crept into AC discourse’. To claim that you need to
a. buy into a groundless conspiracy theory, and
b. be ignorant of what Synod itself agreed two years ago, where the word INTERIM was not only prominent in the paperwork, but a key part of what this interim ISB was supposed to do.
The appointment of Meg Munn was not ‘to bring it under AC’s control’ but to fill the gap left by Maggie A at short notice.
There never was a thing called the “Interim ISB”. The ISB has always been just that, and the word “interim”, as I actually quoted from a GS paper (contrary to your throw-away insult about “ignorant”) was an adjective applied to the arrangements for which the formal name is “Phase I”.
What’s all this stuff about conspiracy theories? If conspiracy theorist means someone seeing conspiracies everywhere, what’s the term for someone seeing conspiracy theorists everywhere.
The proposals detailed by Malcolm Brown in a paper presented to General Synod on 27th February 2021, and approved in advance by the Archbishops’ council, can be read here:
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/independence-in-safeguarding.pdf
Make of them what you will.
I think A:1:b(2) raised a point of concern and a question about initial and ongoing resourcing. Given the importance of the project – hugely important – “Are the roles of the ISB members achievable in the time given them?” turned out to be pivotal. Was 3 people working part-time (averaging 2.3 days a week) really a sufficient investment in resources for such important work, especially after the data breach problems led to reduction of the workforce? Should more ISB members have been appointed initially, after the data breach problems, or in late 2022? The Council ended up crashing the whole project, but should they have simply provided further ISB members to expedite the work?
These words are particularly resonant in relation to the recent fiasco:
“An independent body will have considerable moral authority. It has the power to blow the whistle publicly and expose resistance or backsliding on the church’s part. But there are many contexts where friction and resistance from the church could undermine the independent body. What is needed is a structure which the church may put in place, but which it cannot frustrate.”
With regard to how Meg Munn was to be appointed – to avoid the Church parachuting in a ‘safe’ candidate, I refer you to section B.4. That principle was applied (correctly) when appointing Maggie, Jasvinder and Steve. The principle was written into the ISB’s Terms of reference as how people were to be appointed. But with Meg it was flouted.
Ian
As I have said, I’m not talking about what was known on archbishops council. I’m talking about the message survivors and the general public recieved and asking why there doesn’t even seem to be an attempt to reassure them.
I’m sorry about my persistence, and it may seem like a little thing, but I know it’s really really upsetting to survivors when the church leaders use the word “Independent”, but don’t actually mean independent. I cannot understand why they didn’t call it Interim Safeguarding Board or even Safeguarding Planning Board. It would have cost them nothing to do this and it would have saved survivors from more trauma.
Ian
I have now read her statement. She seems angry at the way the archbishops and the archbishops council refused to defend their decision to appoint her. She seems oblivious to the glaring problem of having an ISB chair who is simultaneously the national safeguarding chair.
Her explanation about why the other two were sacked is due to their unprofessional behavior. I think that’s reasonable, but I also think Munns appointment was outrageous and I think if I were a member of the ISB I would have resigned at that point, rather than simply trying to avoid contact with her.
So you conveniently gloss over her clear explanation of that, that the post was interim, that the ISB and NST were working collaboratively, and that she was about to stand down from the other role?
… and you conveniently omit the fact that the ISB Terms of Reference state quite clearly “Phase 1 ISB has three members. All are independent of all Church bodies.” It is clear that the chair of a Church body (in this case NST) cannot be said to be independent of that body, so the appointment was deeply flawed from the outset. You also omit the ToR that states the role of the ISB includes “independent oversight of the National Safeguarding Team (NST.)” It is clear that independent oversight of NST is not the same as working with NST, so that the statement presents Meg Munn’s view of her role and her inherent conflict of interest in a way that is at best tendentious.
Ian
I didn’t realize that was the explanation. That makes no sense to anyone outside church politics. It’s like something out of Yes Minister!
The question of God’s sex and gender is really important.
If the CofE is saying God is not male, then they are setting themselves apart from many other conservative protestants.
It may seem at the level of silly gossip, but it informs a lot of social policies.
Which protestants think God is sexed?
Many baptists and most independent evangelicals believe God is male or masculine. They would argue that only man was made in the image of God. This is what a lot of male headship theology is derived from. I suspect you’d find a fair number of people in even the CofE who believe God is male.
That’s why the ABYs comments were international news
‘Many baptists and most independent evangelicals believe God is male or masculine.’
Where? Can you give me a quotation?
‘They would argue that only man was made in the image of God.’
Peter J. I am a Baptist and can assure you ( at least in the UK) that they do not.
Google it. You’ll get a lot of Baptist church websites
Chris
The British Unionof Baptists is quite progressive compared globally
Peter, The Baptist movement in the UK is quite a different beast from the southern Baptists in the US . The BUGB is largely conservative among its member churches and although its Declaration of Principle allows for wide theological latitude, l have yet even in the most conservative wing of the BU, to come across a church that asserts that only man was made in the image of God.
“Christianity is not a philosophical speculation; it is not a construction of our mind. Christianity is not ‘our’ work; it is a Revelation; it is a message that has been consigned to us, and we have no right to reconstruct it as we like or choose. Consequently, we are not authorised to change the Our Father into an Our Mother: the symbolism employed by Jesus is irreversible; it is based on the same Man-God relationship he came to reveal to us.”
(Cardinal Ratzinger; The Ratzinger Report)
When we call God Father, we are using metaphor and analogy. We liken God to a human father by metaphor, without suggesting that God possesses a male sex or gender. We speak of God as Father by analogy because, while God is not male, He possesses certain other characteristics of fathers, although He possesses these in a different way (analogously), without human human limitations.
There are good theological reasons why God is revealed as a Father – by metaphor and analogy – and His Revelation in Christ cannot be disputed. See:
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8279
“By calling God “Father,” the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. The language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard: no one is father as God is Father. “
(Catechism of Catholic Church #239)
To Happy Jack – concerning our Heavenly Father.
Just as a matter of interest Happy Jack –
Do Roman Catholics generally see the Divine Name “Yahweh” (via the Tetragrammaton : ‘YHVH’) directly, or indirectly (via one of the Father’s Angelic Agent-Representatives, cf. Acts 7:30-35) as a sole reference to ‘the Father’ (cf. Isa. 63:16; 64:8; (New Jerusalem Bible) ; Mal. 2:10; John 8:41; et al) ?
Surely the reference is to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob being the fathers, both spiritual and natural, of Israel.
I see that ‘Happy Jack’ is not familiar with the Roman Catholic, ‘New Jerusalem’ Bible.
In Isaiah 63:16, and Isaiah 64:7-8, Yahweh God is called ‘Father’, and Jesus confirms that the God of the Jews is the ‘Father’ (John 8:41; John 8:54; John 17:3).
HJ: ““By calling God “Father,” the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything..”
Erm… I originated from my mother. The midwife will tell you.
HJ: “By calling God “Father,” the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is… transcendent authority”
Except that in a household the father is NOT the ultimate ‘authority’… it can as well be the mother or, more sanely, shared between them both. Women have as much capacity for authority as men, so on that ground you may as well call God ‘mother’.
HJ: “We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God.”
With respect, can you not spot the illogicality of the pronouns you use? If God is not ‘man’ or ‘male’, then the statement “HE is neither man nor woman” kind of leaves logic hanging in mid-air……..
Do you understand what metaphor and analogy is? That’s what’s being used.
On to your main point which is fully explained in the link HJ provided. The line of theological thought runs thus:
Both mother and father are active agents of conception. But the father, being male, initiates procreation; he enters and impregnates the woman, while the woman is entered and impregnated. There is an initiatory activity by the man; and a receptive activity by the woman.
The father and mother are both parents of their offspring and both are necessary for procreation. However, the father has a certain priority as the “source” or “principle” of procreation. This “priority as source” is complemented by the mother’s priority as first nurturer, due to her procreating within herself and carrying the child within herself for nine months.
This difference between fathers and mothers for the Fatherhood of God is crucial … We compare God’s act of creating to a human father’s act of procreation through impregnating a woman, we speak only metaphorically of God as Father.
However, the father has a certain priority as the “source” or “principle” of procreation. This “priority as source” is complemented by the mother’s priority as first nurturer, due to her procreating within herself and carrying the child within herself for nine months.
Hm. This sounds like it’s getting dangerously close to homunculus theory.
Assume I don’t see why the sperm has ‘priority’ over the egg, given both are necessary; and you could even make an argument that the egg has priority because the egg was around first (all of the eggs a woman will ever release are already present in her ovaries by the time she is born) while sperm only live about five days, maximum.
How would you convince me that actually the sperm has priority?
HJ, I’m not sure you understand female sexuality that well. Without a man, there can be no baby. Without a woman there can be no baby. The creation of the baby only happens if they both initiate sex together (leaving terrible things like rape out of discussion).
And I absolutely assure you, that women are just as capable of initiating sex as men, and sometimes the man may be sexually passive, as the woman takes the initiative to the point of intercourse. But you will probably know all that.
We risk falling into stereotypes.
“However, the father has a certain priority as the “source” or “principle” of procreation.”
Absolutely not. Like I say, cultural stereotypes. Men are not the source of sex. They are simply one partner of a pair of collaborators. Sadly, through many eras of assumed male ‘principality’ it’s been painted that guys are somehow the ‘source’ and the first ones to be made in the image of God, with women one step further off, made from ‘Adam’s rib’.
On the back of such stereotypes, women’s lives have been diminished, and in some ways distanced from God (male priesthood etc).
I accept that you are speaking metaphorically, but metaphors can sometimes be appropriated by humans and applied/literalised with real world consequences.
By the way, I respect your intelligence, I am sympathetic to catholic tradition, and I recognise your contributions to discussion. Besides which, I am difficult. I think I have a duty to be, in a world where fundamentalism is a serious threat, and where ‘quasi-fundamentalism’ also risks reducing and literalising the extraordinary, unfathomable, mysterious God, who fine Catholics, in England, in Spain, in France and elsewhere have recognised is reclusive as well as personal, revealed in Christ, but so often seen through a glass darkly, through a ‘cloud of unknowing’ that calls into question a lot of the claimed certainties and literalism, by means of which some people try to ‘package’ God and ‘box’ God in.
If you have ever read Osuna you will know that we’re drawn to a point where words trail off, and where the connection is trust and love. Then we’re there on God’s terms.
We should make claims in actual words, or extracts of the biblical, very carefully. Like the Bible authors themselves, we peer and try to make sense of encounter, and of absence, and of suffering, and of the compassion of God.
God who may be approached as Father, as Mother, but who is so much more beyond those words. God who is flow, God who is Person, God who protects us, God who desires us, God who is tender, God who is wild, God who is just, God who is good, God who is intimate, God who is remote… God who, by sheer grace and mercy, is the lover of our souls.
If ‘Father’ works for people that is great. It often works for me. But let’s not let metaphor and imagery lead us to contain and constrain our understanding of who God is.
‘HJ, I’m not sure you understand female sexuality that well.’ Er, it is worth asking the question back to you.
Without a man, there can be no baby. Without a woman there can be no baby
Could you explain that to Peter Jermey please because I’ve tried but Peter Jermey still seems to think a same-sex couple can produce a baby.
S
I know lots of gay couples who have their own biological children, including me and my husband.
In my generation of my family we have a straight couple with kids where one parent is a step parent, a straight couple with kids where both kids were adopted and we have a gay couple with kids where one parent is a step parent. And I doubt my family is radical or unusual. Real life doesn’t follow a simplistic model
You could always get to know a gay couple with kids if you want to understand how this works.
I know lots of gay couples who have their own biological children, including me and my husband.
You can’t both be the child’s biological parents. Which of you is not?
I’ve already explained this to you several times. I’m not sure I have the capability of explaining so that you can understand.
You really haven’t explained how two people of the same sex can produce a child who is biologically the child of both of them. I’m sure I’d remember if you had because it would be the scientific breakthrough of the century.
S
I’ve already explained this to you several times. I’m not sure I have the capability of explaining so that you can understand.
Just get to know a gay couple with kids or even get to know any couple with kids and you will get better insight than I can provide you.
I draw your attention to my website here: http://www.godde.com
I also commend to you the Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson and her book “She Who Is”.
Sub Christian paganism. It denies who Jesus Is. And ultimately the Triunity of the God, our Father of orthodoxy Christianity.
Little wonder the CoE is apostate in swathes.
>> … the Catholic theologian Elizabeth Johnson<<
The Committee on Doctrine of the USCCB undertook an examination and evaluation of this woman's writing, specifically her book Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God in 2011. It concluded that her writings contain “misrepresentations, ambiguities, and errors that bear upon the faith of the Catholic Church as found in Sacred Scripture, and as it is authentically taught by the Church’s universal magisterium,” and, “does not take the faith of the church as its starting point”, nor “accord with authentic Catholic teaching on essential points.”
Well HJ, you don’t need to tell me that the Church is resistant to feminist critique.
To “S”
It has nothing to do with “sperm” or the “egg”. The term Father is used as metaphor and analogy about God’s “activity” in creation.
As HJ wrote: “There is an initiatory activity by the man; and a receptive activity by the woman.”
Like all metaphors it can’t be pushed too far literally.
Pellegrino HJ misunderstood your question.. He was referring specifically to Acts 7:30-35 – “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob.” – as distinct from the clear Revelation of God as Father in the Old Testament that Jesus reaffirmed.
Apologies, Happy Jack;
for an inadequately phrased question.
Pellegrino, in the future (God willing), will engage more in disambiguation. 😉
Dear Susannah;
1. Why do you think that the Bible never uses the term ‘Mother’, for God?, and,
2. Do you think Jesus was culturally ‘sexist’ in referring to God as ‘Father’? (cf. Matt. 6:9; John 20:17; Rev. 2:27; 3:5; 3:21; cf. Rev. 1:6).
It was written by men in patriarchal eras?
It was written by men in patriarchal eras?
And this is why the Church of England needs to establish once and for all that the Bible is the Word of God, not of men.
S
Except, despite your repeated comments, the Bible isn’t the Word of God. And that isn’t the teaching of the church.
Dear Pellegrino,
1. I suspect that the Bible was written from within religious cultures where ‘male headship’ was pretty dominant, and within social cultures where women were hugely dependent on men. To them, in their time, the concept of Father had associations with leadership, protection, authority, which made attribution of ‘maleness’ to God quite predictable, and functional.
2. In the settings I’ve outlined in (1) it would have just been practical and helpful for Jesus – speaking to people who held those associations – to draw on them, just as he drew on pastoral analogies etc. He will have spoken to people *where they were* and in their culture, associating God with ‘Father’ would be helpful, would indicate strength, trust, authority.
I don’t think Jesus was or is remotely ‘sexist’. I think he was capable of identifying with women, AND with their cultural vulnerability, and to do so with non-sexist respect.
To extend the point, when he spoke of marriage being between one man and one woman, once again he was speaking to people where they were at. He was fundamentally concerned with fidelity, devotion, covenant. People around him, culturally only understood marriage as between men and women. He was speaking to them where they were. He might well have spoken (or be speaking) quite differently in our society today, with our wider understandings of marriage… again, speaking to us where we are, and still speaking of his main points about marriage: fidelity, devotion, covenant.
It’s obvious that procreation is also a function of many marriages. But does that have to be a function of all marriages? I don’t think so.
Returning to ‘Father’ I believe Jesus used that metaphor because it was the most helpful, right there and then, where people were. The association would make sense to them.
‘I suspect that the Bible was written from within religious cultures where ‘male headship’ was pretty dominant’
And it is clear that the NT rejects this. Just compare Paul’s teaching with that of Aristotle.
https://www.psephizo.com/life-ministry/aristotle-and-the-household-codes/
Ian, my point is that to have referred to God as ‘Mother’ might have been socially more complicated (not to mention shocking!)… and again, look at the 12 founding disciples: male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male…
Setting aside the absolute anathema about goddess worship in Judaism, I think we can pretty safely say that for most people ‘man’ / ‘father’ was associated with leadership, authority etc.
Jesus was speaking to that audience, and where they were at, and the concept of God as parent, and in their contexts ‘Father’, was helpful. It’s still helpful, though we live in different cultural times where Jesus might have chosen to communicate the motherhood of God.
Look at the 12 sons/tribes of Jacob. Male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male, male.
Setting aside the absolute anathema about goddess worship in Judaism
It was of course God who set up that anathema. So you’re saying you know better how to worship God than, well, God?
(But the thing is that as the god you are talking about is not the God of Christianity but the syncretic god you have made up in your head, then yes, you probably do know best how to worship her/him/it.
The only problem is that it/him/her isn’t real.)
Dear Susannah;
Thank you for elucidating your position.
Reply to Susannah Clark @ July 15, 2023 at 4:16 pm
>>HJ, I’m not sure you understand female sexuality that well. Without a man, there can be no baby. Without a woman there can be no baby.<>Men are not the source of sex. They are simply one partner of a pair of collaborators. <<
Again, you're missing the point. This isn't about sex! As stated: “the father and mother are both parents of their offspring and both are necessary for procreation.” You’ve moved beyond the metaphor for God’s priority as the “source” or “principle” of Creation. It’s a comparison between God’s act of creating to a human father’s act of procreation, complemented by the mother procreating within herself.
>>And I absolutely assure you, that women are just as capable of initiating sex as men, and sometimes the man may be sexually passive, as the woman takes the initiative to the point of intercourse. But you will probably know all that.<>If ‘Father’ works for people that is great. It often works for me. But let’s not let metaphor and imagery lead us to contain and constrain our understanding of who God is.<<
HJ wasn't doing that. He was offering an explanation as to why God revealed Himself as "Father" and why Jesus reaffirmed this.
See Happy Jack’s marvellous contribution below.
Sadly there seems to be no fear of anything remotely like it emanating from the mouths of either the ABoC nor ABoY.
It stands in rebuke in truth to:
1 the Archbishops
2 the Bishops
3 Anglo/catholic revisionists
4 Protestant revisionists.
5 Deists, theists, atheists, humanists in the church and outside.
It stands in consolidation and comfort to any and all those groups in the knowledge that those words of Ratzinger will never be uttered in disambiguated, clarity by those in
collective power authority, in the CoE. Nor the simple teaching evinced in the Catholic Catechism cited.
And therein stands the crux of the self-generated imbroglio.
‘S’ says: >> … the Bible isn’t the Word of God. And that isn’t the teaching of the church.<<
Eh ….?
Scripture has a twofold character; it is both Divine and human. It is a Divine book as it has God for its author, it is a human book, written by men for men, and, in this sense, limited. However, every word used in scripture was intended by God.
The inspiration of Scripture is a basic tenet of Christianity. It was not composed by exclusively by human labour. Scripture was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and has God as its Author.
For a Christian face to face with a Bible passage the question isn't “Is it true?” God wrote it, and he cannot lie. The question is only, “What does it mean, what did the biblical author, inspired by, God, wish to convey and teach?"
The Catholic Church does not teach that Scripture is so clear that every person will be able to interpret it in order to understand what is necessary for salvation, or even the “essentials” of the Faith. That doesn’t mean the Church disdains the Bible—indeed, Dei Verbum, a document of the Second Vatican Council, declares, “The books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted to put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.” The words of Scripture, the Catholic Church declares, contain teaching on what is necessary for salvation. The question, however, is who is able to authoritatively, definitively determine what that teaching is.
The Protestant doctrine of perspicuity, or clarity, of Scripture is a whole other matter!
If one believe that Scripture clearly teaches one thing and the particular church of which one is a member disagrees, then there's a problem. You can try to persuade the other members that they are wrong and you're right; or you can find a different church that better aligns with your interpretation; or you can establish your own church. And the latter is exactly what happened.
It didn’t take long once Luther rejected the Catholic Church for other European Christians to do the same, in ways Luther found heretical. Thus began five centuries of Protestant debates over Scripture’s "clear" meaning.
The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches do not teach that Scripture is so clear that every person will be able to interpret it in order to understand what is necessary for salvation, or even the “essentials” of the Faith. In the Catholic/Orthodox paradigm, it is not individual Christians who possess the ability or authority to intuit the Bible’s meaning, but the teaching authority of the Church – an authority granted by Christ to the apostles and their successors.
Apologies to ‘S’ … the comment HJ was referring to was made by ‘Penelope Cowell Doe’.
Re the speech on wedding fees. Tom Woolford and Mark Ireland were factually wrong about waiving fees: the incumbent has the legal authority to waive both PCC and DBF fees without asking or informing anyone. Many dioceses (my own included) say that the incumbent must ask permission from the archdeacon or DBF before waiving that part of the fees but this is simply wrong in point of law. It’s worrying than an archdeacon doesn’t know this or is at least keen to perpetuate the myth.
Second, wealthier people are more likely to get married. Well, yes: it’s in their interests to ensure assets and income are safeguarded in the event of the relationship ending. (Also perhaps it’s a value thing: lower income people may not believe as strongly in marriage and many have chaotic personal lives— which is both a cause and effect of their poverty.)
I speak as an incumbent in a poorer than average parish who is conducting two weddings today.
While I support the idea (could such donations be gift aided?) it would be much better to waive or at least reduce funeral fees. We could undercut the civil celebrants if we did funerals for, say, £50. That would be a much more meaningful motion to put to GS. I have done three funerals in a single day and I suspect the c-of-e sets the market rate. Our fees subsidise the rest of our ministry but civil celebrants are getting ~£200 for a few hours work. Let’s slash our fees and force them to match it. We’d be back to doing the majority of funerals in no time.
Well, why not put the case in your diocese and do what Tom did so that it comes to Synod…?
A matter of curiosity: when were wedding and funeral fees first introduced into the Church of England?
I can see the grounds for charging a fee for a burial, if the church has to hire a gravedigger.
I can’t really see the grounds for a priest charging for carrying out a wedding – surely that’s just part of the job, and what it means to be a priest (sorry, or minister, for those who prefer that term).
Sure, if you want a choir, it seems right to reward the singers… or an organist. But those should be detailed as add-ons. The actual funeral or wedding service should simply be a function of being a parish church, and being a serving priest/minister.
As I say, I am only asking out of curiosity, and happy to stand corrected. It’s not something I have studied. My wife and I paid £200 for a celebrant in Scotland, and we weren’t charged at all for our wedding service afterwards in the Church of England, though I chose to donate the same figure out of gratitude.
But I could afford to. If the Church of England wants to encourage more marriage in church, and just promote marriage itself, how is it a good idea to ‘fine’ people for doing right?
I simply don’t believe that priests through the early centuries and middle ages thought couples should be charged for seeking blessing and marriage. Surely, it was just what priests did, and a privilege at that?
Susannah
I suspect the fees have always been there. I know that in Victorian times many priests allowed people to marry for free on Christmas Day to encourage poor people to actually get formally married.
I can’t really see the grounds for a priest charging for carrying out a wedding – surely that’s just part of the job, and what it means to be a priest (sorry, or minister, for those who prefer that term). […] The actual funeral or wedding service should simply be a function of being a parish church, and being a serving priest/minister.
Let’s think about what you’re saying here. The minister’s pay comes from the donations of the congregation. So if a couple who doesn’t come to church, and therefore doesn’t contribute to the minister’s pay, rocks up, and isn’t charged a fee because it’s ‘part of the job’ then effectively what you’re saying is that the donations of the congregation are subsidising the couple’s wedding.
Is that fair? It doesn’t seem fair. Especially if, say, the couple are well off and could afford the fees while the congregation may be poorer and giving of what little they have.
So are you sure you really want to argue that the congregation should be subsidising the weddings of non-members?
It seems to HJ that charging a fee for marriages or funerals, whatever the status of the person “buying”, comes close to simony, i.e., the sin of buying or selling of something spiritual or closely connected with the spiritual. Asking for a donation is different.
As Pope Francis says:
“How many times we sadly enter a temple – a parish, a bishop’s house and so on, not knowing whether were are in the house of God or in a supermarket. There we have business, including the price list for the sacraments – nothing is free! You give freely and God will do the rest. God will provide what is lacking.”
charging a fee for marriages or funerals, whatever the status of the person “buying”, comes close to simony
Yes, that’s a danger to avoid. But also the labourer is worthy of his wages; teaching the gospel is an important job and deserves to be rewarded.
There must be a middle way.
And the practical fact is that the minister is being paid. The only question is who is paying.
HJ,
This would take us well off beam. How about sale of indulgences in R Catholicism?
Does this article broadly get it right?
https://theconversation.com/the-catholic-view-on-indulgences-and-how-they-work-today-193066
It would seem that indulgences would amount to a severance of any assumed Petrine apostolic line.
I often get called on for counseling for people who aren’t members of my congregation. I do Fifth Steps for AA members who never darken the doors of a church. The congregation pays my salary (well, actually the Diocese of Edmonton does, but the money comes entirely from my parish), but they know I’m not going to be ministering only to members. That’s the way it works, even though we’re not an established church. In your view, whenever I’m called on to do counselling or Fifth Steps for non-members, should I be charging a fee?
In your view, whenever I’m called on to do counselling or Fifth Steps for non-members, should I be charging a fee?
I think there’s a difference between counselling and a wedding.
Spoken like a true pastor. My priest/minister has always been the same. He is a priest IN the community and not just a priest in the church. And that’s witness to the Love of God.
Geoff @ July 15, 2023 at 6:43 pm
>>This would take us well off beam. How about sale of indulgences in R Catholicism?<>Does this article broadly get it right?<>It would seem that indulgences would amount to a severance of any assumed Petrine apostolic line.<<
Not at all. This practice was than and is now opposed to the Catholic Church’s teaching. It is contrary to explicit Church regulations. The sale cannot be regarded as a legitimate teaching or practice of the Church.
No offence is meant…
“weren’t charged at all for our wedding service afterwards in the Church of England”
As you had been married (I presume by the Celebrant) then whatever happened afterwards in the CofE couldn’t have been a legal wedding ceremony. It would have been superfluous even if SSM was permitted. It might have imitated it… but there are no statutory fees for these things.
Fair point. I wanted to express gratitude though.
Geoff @ July 15, 2023 at 6:43 pm on indulgences
Please disregard my earlier post – not sure what happened.
>>Does this article broadly get it right?<>It would seem that indulgences would amount to a severance of any assumed Petrine apostolic line.<<
Not at all. This practice was than and is now opposed to the Catholic Church’s teaching. It is contrary to explicit Church regulations. The sale cannot be regarded as a legitimate teaching or practice of the Church.
Same issue – still getting used to the mysteries of this site.
Here’s a better article on indulgences:
https://www.catholic.com/tract/myths-about-indulgences
To answer Susannah’s question, fees are of very long standing. The 1662 marriage service speaks of the “accustomed duty to the Priest and Clerk” that the groom is to hand over with the wedding ring. ‘Surplice fees’, as they were once known, were long estimated to be a key part of an incumbent’s income. When my parish was established in 1734 an estimate of those fees, and the tithe, was made to ensure that the parish would be able to support a Rector.
How very interesting. And of course now a good part goes to the DBF…
The Church of England charges funeral fees?
Yes.
I’m genuinely surprised.
Mind you, I always do a double take when I remember that the Church of England has a centralized fee structure that applies to every parish in the land. No one in the Anglican Church of Canada would ever put up with that sort of micromanaging from the centre.
How fascinating.
‘How fascinating.’
I can’t tell whether you’re genuinely fascinated, being sarcastic, or just find me annoying. Sorry, Ian – I’m not good at reading between the lines in the comment feed. You’ll have to spell it out.
Ian, thanks for the article. One question and one comment from me.
I know Kate Wharton and was pleased to read that her item on revitalising the parish for mission went well. My question is: was that positive debate completely swamped by the negative things you mentioned, and if so, is that emblematic of a general negative effect of all this on the mission of the church?
My comment is that the current woes of the church stem from a catastrophic failure of leadership, from the bishops in general (notwithstanding that some have voiced some discomfort with things); and from the archbishops in particular who seem determined to push through the prayers of love and faith come what may. You forcefully asked in Synod how trust can be rebuilt. As far as I can see one essential action must be new leadership in both Canterbury and York.
I wouldn’t disagree. But I have no idea how that happens.
Is it the case that there is no formal procedure for removing Bishop’s in the Cof E?
Is it the case that there is no formal procedure for removing Bishop’s in the Cof E?
‘Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’
Determined to push through what Synod voted for?
Synod voted for no change in the doctrine of marriage.
Who said that they had?
You keep implying it.
I really don’t imply that at all.
The PLF suggest no change in doctrine.
Which is, probably, how they got through Synod.
I wish they did require a change in doctrine. I believe that many LGBTIQA+ people find them offensive. Some voted against or, at least, abstained.
They are, perhaps, the crumbs which must suffice for now, and many might find great comfort and assurance in them.
Which is why I would support their introduction, despite knowing that they are still a separate drinking fountain.
The PLF suggest no change in doctrine.
Blessing couples in sexually active same-sex relationships certainly does suggest a change in doctrine has occured.
“Which is why I would support their introduction, despite knowing that they are still a separate drinking fountain.” Beautifully expressed.
And I opposed their introduction because they are still a separate drinking fountain.
I will not take my wife to a church that traduces her marriage.
I will not take my wife to a church that traduces her marriage.
You know there are denominations that do same-sex marriages right? Why not go to one of them?
Susannah
Not my expression sadly.
Used by Andrew Foreshew Cain.
Perfectly describes the situation.
I listened (on line) to much of the discussion and presentations on the Sunday afternoon at GS and I was not as impressed as many others seem to have been regarding the presentations of Steve and Jasvinder (especially Jasvinder’s). It seemed to me to beg a number of serious questions. I also agree that a lack of fairness to Meg Munn and Maggie Atkinson was displayed in the process.
I came away feeling very concerned about the role that the Archbishops’ Council had played in the last year or so – though perhaps re the issue of competency rather than intention. At the end of the day however I think that both safeguarding and LLF are ‘presenting issues’ for a still deeper and more extensive concern, namely the use and abuse of power in the Church of England.
In my view there are two different (and sometimes conflicting) ways in which power has been abused. The unaccountable and sometimes capricious use of power by many bishops which is how they have ‘historically’ interpreted their role, but which is not acceptable in the 21st century.. Second – I do think that (partly beause minutes do not seem to be made public) the power exercised by the Archbishops’ Council (and perhaps particularly the role of the Archbishops in relation to it – I thought the ABC’s attempt to ‘distance himself’ from the decision re the ISB was telling and worrying ) begs lots of questions.
I think it is going to be really important that the development and establishment of ‘the Church of England National Services’ does genuinely address the increasingly serious underlying questions relating to power that many of us have and are increasingly willing to express.
Thanks Clare—very helpful points.
*a lack of fairness to Meg Munn and Maggie Atkinson was displayed in the process*
A conspicuous lack of fairness to many parties was displayed. The AC appeared to hold the position then (and this position is displayed here now) that their presentation and their perspective was in and of itself sufficient to present Synod with a fair view of events. Synod rejected that position.
Given Synod expressed zero interest in hearing from Meg and Maggie, it is hard to believe that Synod was interested in having a fair presentation of events.
*Given Synod expressed zero interest in hearing from Meg*
Meg Munn wrote “I was further outraged when it was suggested that I should speak to Synod to explain the Archbishops’ Council’s decision” so it is clear there was indeed interest in hearing from her, even if she felt it outrageous, and apparently declined to do so.
*it is hard to believe that Synod was interested in having a fair presentation of events.*
It seems clear that Synod felt that hearing only from AC would not be fair, and that asking to hear from all three of the sacked ISB members would be more fair, or less unfair if you prefer. I doubt that Synod expected to achieve perfect fairness, especially when struggling uphill against the way Synod business is managed, even were it possible for perfect fairness ever to be achieved at a Synod meeting, or even at a presentation by the AC.
I think the main thing was that the Archbishops’ council’s abrupt action was unfair to survivors who had chosen to trust the ISB with their wounds and vulnerabilities. All that was stripped away from them, and their trust was shattered yet again. They were put last in the debacle.
In all of this, we should remember it is *SURVIVORS* and those embroiled in abuse complaints who need to come FIRST.
Not Jas, not Steve, not Maggie, nor Meg.
Survivors.
The announcements by Maggie and Meg were their right of self-defence. They did not really touch on the fact that both their positions were extremely tenuous because…
Survivors. And lack of trust.
Maggie’s data issue… something absolutely vital to trust.
Meg’s inability to be trusted by survivors who had already engaged with the ISB, 69 of whom wanted nothing to do with Meg. That’s not a criticism by me of Meg. It’s an issue of trust.
They were non-viable if the ISB was going to grow trust. Their presence was a subversion of the fragile trust that at least Jas and Steve were starting to develop.
There was also the issue of Meg’s appointment. I can’t understand, if Ian had wanted to shut down the ISB for 8 months, why he would appoint a new Chair – in controversial circumstances – just weeks before the ISB was shut down.
One of Ian’s colleagues on the Council admitted to survivors that “appointing Meg Munn was a mistake”.
Setting aside the mistrust the engaged survivors had towards her… the imposition of her as Chair on the ISB road a coach and horses over the due process that had been presented ro General Synod, and incorporated in the ISB’s Terms of Reference:
That to avoid the organisation just parachuting in their own ‘safe’ candidate, ALL people to be appointed to the ISB should come from advertisements to attract a wide field, with selected candidates to face a formal interview panel, including (as Malcolm Brown put it in his presentation to Synod) two survivors on that panel.
Why?
Because the whole principle of the Independent Safeguarding Board was… Independence. And process needed to be respected, or else you just had the Church appointing their own choices, the opposite of the proposed methodology. It didn’t matter if this was still Phase 1. All three other members of the ISB were duly appointed, respecting this process. Why not Meg?
Or to Ian: why EVEN Meg, if you just wanted to close the ISB down anyway? She was only in place for weeks, and yet the autocratic appointment precipitated huge dismay and problems.
The losers were the SURVIVORS.
Everything’s now been set back again, with broken trust to add to the problems.
An alternative (and mature) approach would have been to say, actually, Steve and Jasvinder are professionals with integrity, and doing good work at building much-needed trust with survivors, especially in the advocate side of their role. So let’s recruit (ahem, with proper respect for the agreed processes) 3 or 4 more ISB members, with a range of skills to help progress the whole project towards full independence. That COULD have been done.
Indeed it would have been fairer. Ian, you agree that the ISB was under-staffed and under-resourced from the start. Yet even so, the start of the next phase was still not due until Jan 2024. The AC short-circuited the process. Now it won’t happen for a much longer time.
Your colleague, Ian, admitted you had all messed up. I don’t blame you for that – you tried – and which of us doesn’t mess up. But the people who got harmed… once again…
SURVIVORS
You have admitted the Council messed up, and accept accountability, but I’m not sure the ‘mistakes’ you think you made are the mistakes people are dismayed about. I don’t think you’re willing to admit the AC itself took actions (contravening the appointment processes with Meg, demanding work with Meg when survivors did not trust her with their data, avoiding Independent Mediation, and I’m sorry, but the brutal effect on SURVIVORS of the abrupt closure of the ISB without them being informed… now they are in limbo again, feel betrayed, have lost trust…
I am totally prepared to accept that this has been a sad affair for all four members of the ISB, all of whom are professionals who wanted to help survivors. But in the end, the real catastrophic harm is the wounds done to SUTVIVORS by the Church. Sitting alongside other survivors, I can feel the tragic damage, the wound, the wrecked lives, the anger…
And I simply don’t believe the Archbishops’s Council should be trusted any longer with oversight for any aspect of safeguarding. In fact, I think the Archbishops should probably resign, but that won’t happen. What’s needed is for all safeguarding policy to either be handed over ‘in toto’ to Synod to control, or for an immediate establishment of a truly Independent agency, with no interference whatsoever from the AC.
Personally Ian, given that you weren’t listened to, and we are where we are… if you resigned I think that would actually be a statement of disassociation from a Council that has presided over a complete train-crash (with dreadful harm to survivors in the wreckage). Given your continuing significance in the sexuality debates, you would be well out of the safeguarding debacle, and you could well justify that by explaining you were not listened to.
However, very definitely your place not mine (to pre-empt you pointing that out to me!)
I apologise for repeated use of Caps Lock for the word SURVIVOR but I’m trying to make the point that it’s about them – not Jasvinder, or Maggie, or Meg, or the Council. And, seeing first-hand the pain and anger of some of those who have already suffered to much at the hands of the Church… it’s pitiful… and they deserved better.
Susannah
Thank you so much for writing this. It encapsulates my anger so well. I don’t understand why those with power in the church seem so oblivious to the impact of their actions
Penelope…. I fear you protest too much… 😉
“Except, despite your repeated comments, the Bible isn’t the Word of God. And that isn’t the teaching of the church.”
Article XX… “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written….” “the Church… a keeper of holy writ…”
Article XI… “governed with the Spirit and Word of God…”
Not to mention “God-breathed..” of 2 Tim… etc
It’s a tad more authoratitve than you seem to believe, standing above passing contexts for application.?
I didn’t say it wasn’t authoritative.
And Tim is only referring to the HB
I am a member of General Synod and was shocked at the unravelling of decorum caused by shambles ingrained in the management of safeguarding. As one who was involved in writing safeguarding policy for a diocese and implementing it in the 90s when there was less understanding of the issues then, we understood enough to separate the management of safeguarding from the diocese. It was a very successful model. Indeed one of the authors and implementers of the policy went on to write a Grove booklet on the matter. The expertise is in the system so why has it gone so wrong recently? Previous enquiries into safeguarding failures points to the poison (my word) of deference. This curdles the whole of the CofE. It is expected by Bishops of all, by clergy of lay people, by men of women and by adults of children and young people. This is a significant factor as to why nice people (evangelicals, catholics and liberals) get it so wrong. They don’t believe they could be wrong, before the fact. The C of E is not the only denomination in which deference exists but it is the most public.
This is a good point.
Implicit in the concept of deference, is the accompanying arrogance that “we know best” and will do what we want to do, because we can. Deference tends to just make it a bit easier to get away with.
The Archbishops’ Council could perfectly well have delayed the decision to fire the ISB members and shut down the ISB, and waited 2 or 3 weeks so they could consult with Synod and ask ‘What do you think? Do you have thoughts and ideas?’ and acting less abruptly it might have dawned on them that a transition period, allowing time for handling the involved survivors, was at least a bit better than the brutally abrupt action they took.
But that delay would have made them more answerable to Synod, and also they did not want Steve and Jasvinder to give the presentations they were scheduled to give. Instead there was an abrupt fait accomplis, without due consultation. The result was shattering for the survivors who were only told AFTER the event.
General Synod might well have said: “Well the ISB isn’t due to move into the 2nd phase until next January, so why not double the team, appoint 3 or 4 more members, and if need be extend the January date a little?”
That would have been better than what we now have… breakdown of trust… a much longer delay in the development of an truly Independent Body.
But… the Archbishops’ Council is “very important” in the hierarchy of the Church, and has two Archbishops on it, and it seems to have been a case of “we know best” and quite possibly also an attempt to retain control of the safeguarding agenda, rather than consult first with the wider Church as represented in General Synod.
We need to try to support leadership, without kow-towing to them. To be fair on Ian, he is less deferential than most. To be fair on survivors, in this instance he shares responsibility for the huge train crash that has set back trust.
The fact that AC members think Synod was the problem last week, and that members representing the wider Church were ignorant and biased, points to an attitude at the top of “what do they know?”
Actually, as you exemplify, quite a lot. The real reason for the abrupt and in my view reckless closure of the ISB, in terms of timing, was: (a) reluctance to let Synod have a say before the ISB was deleted; (b) they really did not want Jasvinder and Steve to give their scheduled presentations which were programmed and due to take place; and (c) if they delayed 2 more days, an Independent Mediator would have been triggered, according to contractual conditions, and I think they just did not want that to happen.
The actions were, to say the least, inclining towards the autocratic – and that self-assurance (or arrogance, you choose) is a corollary of a culture of deference and “we know best”.
I don’t think they did.
Extrapolate your second paragraph to the whole question of the management and business of ssm and prayers. It cuts both ways.
The question of collective responsiblity and duty of trustees is pertinent.
Having represented clients in different tribunals, I’m somewhat conflicted. Even not knowing the people involved I ‘d make the following observations:
1 independance. Many players have a purpose of their own to serve.
2 the terminology of *survivors* (as in survivores of Mental Health Services) started to creep into mental health advocacy at least 25 years ago. It immediately sets up perhaps an irreconcilable, unbridgeable chasm. It is unnecessary and unhelpful and purposefully freighted. Once a survivor always a survivor, can become mind set and driver.
3 while complainants can and do put forward their own case coherently and cogently they are usually better served by an independent advocate. (An adage that a lawyer who acts for their self has a fool for a client, expresses it strongly).
4 Right of audience. This applies in various forums such as tribunals, parliament, courts, committees. There are conditions, qualifications, limits, and it is not given to all. It seems that Synod granted that right, but it seems that the two *complainants* considered it to be akin to an informal appeal. Not sure if a right to rely was granted. (And if it were, would it only have confirmed the *appellants* in their view of the misuse of self-protectionist power?)
5 In their address to Synod, did they say what they were previously scheduled to say? Or something different? Was it an opportunity missed?
6 Conflict of interest. Is it real or perceived? What does it amount to? A conflict between different roles, different fiduciary duties as a trustee? Would it amount to a decision to recuse….
6 so that the rules of natural justice would apply which would include; not only must justice be done it must be seen to be done. ( Which doesn’t necessarily mean that proceedings are to be held in a public forum).
8 But this applies to adversarial systems, which is not necessarily a Truth and reconciliation system.
REF.
Susannah Clark
July 15, 2023 at 4:35 pm
Penelope Cowell Doe July
15, 2023 at 2:43 pm et al posts.
Given that you seem to regard the Bible as a now defunct male power constructed cultural document. What are we to use as an alternative guide to the knowledge and worship of God ?
You seem to indicate that everyone should rely on their *Gut” instinct i.e., our belly is our god see Phil 3:19
. I hesitate to refer you to Scripture given your construct, never the less {holding my nose}
Furthermore you disregard God’s judgment at the fall
Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
3:17 And unto Adam he said,” Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying,” Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Whether or not you believe in the equality of the genders, their judgement is different, as quoted.
No idea of the relevance of this to the comment cited.
Respectfully Alan, I think you’re literalising a story.
Men and women will be judged for their own actions and decisions, and their judgment will be the same.
A woman suffering pain in childbirth is nothing to do with judgment. It’s biology.
And God has never set out to punish women by making them subservient to their husbands.
Those are just two bad things, like tummy ache, or noisy neighbours, in an imperfect world.
They didn’t happen because of Adam and Eve. They happened because the process of birth involves pain, because bad husbands can be selfish and chauvinistic, because stomachs have problems with some things we eat, and because neighbours aren’t all considerate.
The ‘story’ or ‘myth’ is an attempt to explain why bad things happen in the world, that God exists, and that we can be selfish and unmindful of God.
The danger of literalising myth is that we look down the wrong end of a telescope. We make things look smaller instead of bigger. As myth, early Genesis is powerful at a mythic level, some of which we receive subconsciously, like a story around a campfire. It can connect with us without us having to de-code it all. When we start to de-code everything… and say that’s why obedience to husbands happens… then you miss the real impact of myth. It’s not why obedience to husbands happens. It happens if the husband is a dick (which many husbands aren’t).
Anyway, that’s my view. Yes, there is a kind of ‘Original Sin’ in that we’re born into an imperfect world where we are selfish (in part to survive) and where bad things happen unfairly. But people are also born – in the image of God – with ‘Original Beauty’ (often masked by hurt and our selfishness). We are most precious to God, and God seeks to restore the beautiful whole of who we are.
Before you ask, yes, I believe in judgment. God’s judgment is a fire, to consume what’s evil, but to protect what’s precious. And even in life, we sometimes need to face up to that judgment and take responsibility for actual sins we do – not Adam’s, not Eve’s… our own.
I do not regard the Bible as meaningless. It may have been written through a predominantly masculine lens (because of the times) but it shudders with the profound and holy. I don’t think it’s meaningless. I think it’s precious, but not all literal.
Those are just two bad things, like tummy ache, or noisy neighbours, in an imperfect world.
But why is the world imperfect?
Why have I witnessed infants dying?
You tell me?
Because they are sinful?
Why have I witnessed infants dying?
You tell me?
Because they are sinful?
Well they are sinful, yes, but I asked you first: why is the world imperfect?
I mean you agree the world is imperfect, I’m just asking you how it got that way.
It didn’t ‘get’ that way. It has always been that way.
We live in time – so does the universe we inhabit – and in the passage of time, creatures age or grow ill or die.
It is the way things are, this side of eternity.
It didn’t ‘get’ that way. It has always been that way.
So you think God made the world imperfect?
Do you think God made an imperfect world deliberately? Or is God just a sloppy worker?
You tell me.
You’re the one framing God in those terms.
I’m simply stating the fact that in the roughly 13 billion years of the universe and the billion years or so period of life on Earth, there has always been illness, disease, death, cellular mutation. Indeed it’s written into a billion years of evolution. There has always been suffering and pain since life on Earth began.
So the universe didn’t ‘get’ this way. It was always this way.
Where in this passage of time do you think ‘The Fall’ took place?
Was there no death before?
The Fall is just a concept, not a physical event caused by two people.
It’s an attempt to explain why there is suffering and pain and death.
And that’s a very challenging question which everybody asks.
Personally I find it insufficient to imply that babies suffer and die because we sin and they too are sinful.
Babies of all species were prone to death long before humans came onto the scene. In that sense, the consequences of the ‘Fall’ had already happened before any humans had showed up.
It’s extraordinary how many churches speak as if the ‘Fall’ was an actual event involving two actual people.
The ‘Fall’ is the attempt of a religious people to frame sin and how that can corrupt and cut us off from the grace and love of God. To me that makes sense.
But I still don’t accept that the suffering of babies, infants, children is because of a moral corruption in our species.
It happens because it happens. It’s the way it is, and the way the universe has always been.
It has ZERO to do with first humans. It is just biology.
Now personal and communal sin is a real thing that matters – undoubtedly.
But ‘the Fall’ is simply a story framework to try to highlight our need for God. It’s a literary mechanism. It’s not a record of events.
You tell me.
Well, no, you tell me. You think that God made the universe, right? And you think that the universe has always been imperfect. Which means you must think that God made the world imperfect, right? I can’t see any other way to reconcile those two. I mean if I’ve missed something please explain it.
Has the Church of England learned any of the lessons from the IICSA report?
Based on the shenanigans of Sunday afternoon and Monday morning the answer would appear to be a resounding ‘no’.
Unless and until there is a real INDEPENDENT inquiry into the fiasco that was the setting up, and then closing down, of the ISB, we shall just continue to repeat the same errors again and again and again. (For the avoidance of any doubt, an independent inquiry should be staffed entirely by those who have never worked for any of the NCIs and thus cannot be accused, unlike Meg Munn, of having a POTENTIAL conflict of interest.) Not only must the inquiry be independent, it must be seen to be independent and, if it criticises senior figures (Meg Munn said she felt undermined by Archbishop Justin) it must not be rubbished by members of the Archbishops’ Council for reporting an unpalatable truth.
I agree with you, Andy.
And it would be essential that the Archbishops’ Council did not get to define the parameters of that enquiry. As you say, it should investigate the setting up, and the closing down, of the ISB and actions of all parties in between, including investigation of the steps that could have been taken to avoid the meltdown, avoid the harm, and equip the ISB to achieve its purposes.
Over and over again Scripture warns us not to be deceived, not to become prey for Satan and those who consort with him to capture us and carry us off.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings.” (Heb 13:8-9)
Another text warns that there are many who wish to deceive us and their teachings are called the doctrines of demons:
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and the doctrines of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.” (1 Ti 4:1–2 )
There are many plausible liars going about today who seek to confuse, to stun, and to carry off faithful Christians. They do this with hypocrisy. To say that something is done with hypocrisy means literally that it is done by “actors,” These plausible liars are well skilled at being pleasing, at appearing pleasant, reasonable and sophisticated. But this is an act. They are in bondage to the sins they seek to glorify. The scriptural text here says that their consciences are seared; that is, they are branded and hypnotized by the sins they commit. They are lost and confused, to be prayed for, not listened to.
Their plausibility comes from appealing to innocuous themes such as tolerance, patience, kindness, and that most vacuous and currently ill-defined idea called “love.” Tolerance, patience, kindness, and love all have their places. Being agreeable, pleasant, soft-spoken, and reasonable in tone are all good things. But they can also become a cloak for a false plausibility and are, as the text above says, the “hypocrisy of liars.” In other words, these people are actors; they play the role of tolerant and enlightened experts but in reality are desperately trying to justify sinful behaviour and quiet their seared though still troubled consciences.
And thus Scripture warns us not to be deceived, not to be carried off, not to be carried away by plausible liars who say exactly the opposite of what God’s Word says, who call good what God calls sin. Thus, they promote and even celebrate same sex acts, fornication, abortion, and euthanasia.
They substitute their own doctrines for the revealed ones of Scripture. If they reference Scripture at all it is only to declare that it does not say what it plainly does say.
Happy Jack :
Thank for your Scriptural comments, and your astute psychological analysis.
Does Happy Jack think that the elevation of women into ministerial and episcopal roles, within the ‘Church of England’, may have rendered the ‘Church of England’ more prone to deception concerning Christian sexual ethics ? (cf. 1 Tim. 2:12-14 ?).
the elevation of women into ministerial and episcopal roles
You’ve gone wrong if you think that becoming a minister is an ‘elevation’. Ministers have a vital and important job but they are not ‘above’ everyone else.
Dear Pellegrino,
Why would women be more prone to deception?
Like Paul, you seem to be literalising the creation myths as if they actually happened.
Did Eve even actually exist?
Did a snake actually tempt her first?
And are women more prone to deception because of what a fictional Eve did in a myth, or is this a male fantasy that women today are somehow less-suited to leadership?
I think I need to appeal to Ian Paul!
Or failing that, Penelope Cowell Doe.
The question leads toward misogynistic territory, and I would want to think better of you.
To be clear, yes, it would be misogynistic to view women (as a class) as morally weak and gullible.
I thought we’d left all this in the 1950s – or even in the first century AD. (Galatians 3:28)
These are the dangers if we try to literalise elements from a narrative designed to be myth.
Did Paul himself also think the account of Eve was literal fact? I’d like to think better of him, but he was writing in a time when knowledge of evolution had not begun.
In any case, there is no basis for alleging that women are ‘like Eve’ and sexually weak when it comes to morals – and like Adam, the poor male priests and bishops are going to be tempted to profanity by the female ones.
That is a fundamentalist concept which we see being tragically played out in Afghanistan today.
@ Pellegrino – HJ’s post and the insights it holds, is from a 2019 meditation by Monsignor Charles Pope in the Catholic Stand .
@ Susannah Clark – HJ thinks you’re rather missing the point.
Dear Susannah;
Thanks for your comments.
If the biblical account of Adam and Eve does contain certain mythical elements, may the biblical account still, nevertheless, contain vital truths ?
I once wrote to the biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, and asked him whether his “Morphic resonance theory (whereby creatures parapsychologically inherit a behaviour-influencing, “species memory” ) could have any possible connection with the apostle Paul’s analysis of human nature described in Romans 1-3, and 5; i.e., Could inappropriate behaviour (‘wrong doing’) on the part of our primordial ancestors have subsequent, parapsychologically mediated, negative congenital character effects upon all of their progeny ?
In a nutshell, Dr. Rupert Sheldrake’s bottom line conclusion, was “yes”.
Consequently, I am further convinced that we are all, in various ways, congenital sinners, who all need God’s continual healing, and redemption – which is attained through Christ Jesus.
Yes and no. The ordination of women both reflects and reinforces the deception that currently infects the Church of England. This covers a whole range of issues, including sexual morality. Why? Because HJ believes such ‘ordinations’ do not reflect God’s design for His Church and contradict 2000 years of constant Christian teaching and practice. So, the women who present for ‘ordination’ are more likely to adopt liberal-progressive positions. Just look to the Lutheran Church of Sweden if you want to know where things will end up!
HJ believes spiritual deception is always with the Church. Its modern manifestation predates the ‘ordination’ of women. At its root is what Pope Pius X called the “Heresy of Modernism”. The essence of modernism is that all religious truth, all religious dogma and doctrine, as well as religious practice, is revisable. Fundamentally, there’s no such thing as immutable, perennial church teaching. The idea of things being immutably true and the Church having authority to guard and pass this truth on is rejected.
If there’s no immutable and unchangeable truth, everything’s revisable. We just keep on giving new formulations based upon individual religious sentiment that exists within ourselves or the culture. There’s no measure outside ourselves.
Modernist-progressives look at scripture as coming from human inspiration. When they approach scripture they have a ‘critical’ approach; they disassemble it and treat it as a human text. The truths set down there are not really truths handed down from God in an authoritative way, but are the culturally bound expressions of the religious sentiment of the time. If our religious sentiments today don’t resonate with what’s in scripture, we can reject parts as false, ‘reimagine’ or reinterpret the text and make it mean something completely different than it used to mean.
It would be interesting to assess the current whirlwind in the CoE in the light of the ordination of women. Has it exacerbated, intensified, and hastened the attack on doctrine?
Just as the unbelief of modernism gave rise to Historical/ higher Biblical criticism, gave way the unbelief of the philosophy of Foucault and all strands of post-modernism, while at the same time continuing to be rooted in modernism, their joinder has birthed children of rampant and disparate, cross pollinating, fixed but reconstruction model and movement of unbelief.
Blaming women since Eve.
Hardly PCB.
There seems to be a misreading, a less that careful reading and a misunderstanding of Adam and the fall, banishment.
What is it? An myth? A myth untethered to a definition, a definitition supplied with intelligence by CS Lewis.
It seems that the perspicuity of scripture gets lost in a twitter-like response and a reading through a prejudged modern cum post- modern lens.
A critique of modernism and postmodernism in theology and Biblical scholarship as well as the secular is mostly a one of critique of the mainly male exemplars.
Anyway, for lovers of stats and research, why wouldn’t there be an assessment of the influence of woman on the undermining of CoE doctrine.
For one, PCD, who has some influence, (certainly, with Susannah and other revisionists) and in a teaching role in the CoE, admits of heterodoxy and of being a Queer theorist who has in a previous comment said something to the effect that the miracles of Jesus are not reality in time space and place, in history, but are parables. If so it is redolent of influential fumdamentalism; unbelief.
You will be relieved to know that I have no influence in the CoE and no longer teach ordinands and readers.
You may read my book when it comes out though 🙂
And I have never, to the best of my knowledge said that miracles are parables.
Thank you, ‘Happy Jack’;
There is certainly a lot of truth in what you say.
However, there is a sixth taxonomic grouping of Christianity to go alongside :
‘Oriental Orthodoxy’, ‘Protestantism’, the ‘East Syriac Church’, ‘Eastern Orthodoxy’, and ‘Roman Catholicism’ –
; And that is ‘Restorationism’ – which attempts to restore the original, essential, and morally pure features of First century, apostolic Christianity (cf. Jude 1:3-4). In it’s better forms, it is predominantly guided by the principle of ‘Sola scriptura’ – which entails that, in principle, all humanly devised creeds are potentially revisable, in the light of unprejudiced study of the Scriptures.
Well, Pellegrino, HJ says that opens up a whole new can of worms!
Ian,
You said that:” ‘an intention to change the Church’s doctrine of marriage on the part of most of the bishops’…
I think there is for some, but ‘most’ is an exaggeration. I think there is no more than a handful who are serious about that.”
Why, if most are not in favour of changing the Church’s doctrine did most bishops vote in favour of LLF in February, which does change the Church’s doctrine? Only 2 diocesans and 2 other bishops voted against the final motion on LLF in February.
Andy, there are two reasons why bishops voted for the motion. First, because it included the affirmation of current doctrine. The reason why this amendment alone was accepted is because Sarah M realised that without it, it would not pass in HoB, so there is some evidence in support of my comment.
As for the other parts, bishops voted for it precisely because they thought they could have their cake and eat it. Which it is clear they cannot.
I agree, Ian, and that’s why amendment (g), although well meant, may well have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. In hindsight it was a misjudgement of game planning. The shambles which has resulted has one silver lining: the exquisite pain of the bishops’ dilemma as they try to work out how they can bypass canon B2.2 in November!
So it’s time to take the bull by the horns. I would suggest a relentless campaign of communication to them between now and then, warning of a total breakdown of cooperation if they do. And this (final) time Evangelicals really do have to mean it; they have nothing to lose. If B2.2 is used and evangelicals do lose the vote, then at least there is clarity and future plans can be made free from the debilitating effect of uncertainty.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker, ex-Anglican minister, shares his perspective on how women’s ordination came to be approved in the Church of England. It gives insights into the the trajectory of homosexual ‘blessings’ and then ‘marriage’.
It’s penned as a warning to the Catholic Church, but it has relevance here.
Sneaky Snaky Modernism
Let me tell you what happened in the Church of England over women’s ordination. The change came about by stealth and persistence.
First they said it was just about the idea of women’s ordination. It was a question that should be debated. No one dreamed that it would happen of course, but dialogue was needed. Discussions should be opened up.
Of course this was not about women “priests” and bishops. It was really about whether or not women could be ordained as deacons. After all, the church already had deaconesses. What was the difference?
Then by the early 1980s the women who were training to be deaconesses were sent to the same seminaries as the men and doing the same training. It was necessary we were told, “Because the women would be ordained one day. It was just a matter of time and they needed to be prepared.”
But in public it was all about “Dialogue, discussion, debate and an awful lot of demands for listening and more talk and more listening and more dialogue.” Right. But in the backrooms it had already been decided.
So the consultation went on and on and on because the Church of England has a synodal form of government. While the discussion went on up front, what really went on was a fair bit of politicking. Elections were held for the synod seats and both sides began to fight bitterly about the elections. Of course it was all done in a polite and “prayerful” Church of England type style. They were not arguing they were “discerning the way forward”
Then there was much rejoicing because they decided that women were to be ordained as deacons. Overnight the existing deaconesses jumped up a notch to become deacons and the women in training were ready to take the step.
This was not about women priests you see. It was just about women deacons. That was it.
But then all that was forgotten and the crusade to have women priests kicked in. The same cycle of discussion and dialogue and debate went on while behind the scenes the decision had already been made by the establishment and all they needed to do was manipulate the synod in the right direction to get the vote through.
Those in favor of women priests said passionately that this was not a theological issue. It was not about the Fatherhood of God or patriarchy or any of those things. That was inviolable. This was NOT about theology they said. It’s about equality and justice for women. That’s all.
Meanwhile they were already tinkering with the liturgy creating new prayers and forms of worship that weeded out the patriarchal language and started to call God “Mother” and refer to the Trinity as “Creator, Redeemer Sustainer.” But of course it wasn’t about theology; no indeed!
Well, you know the rest of the story. With tiresome predictability the whole lumbering thing went on until women were also made bishops.
https://dwightlongenecker.com/sneaky-snaky-modernism/
As an analyst of recent Anglican history, that Dwight Longenecker was a “smart cookie”.
Without getting stuck into the women’s ordination issue, I agree the parallels with the same sex issue are plain to see: these things are all done using much the same playbook.
Ian Paul has frequently pointed out on this site, over a period of years, that the basic theological work needed to be done and publicly presented as the very first essential before any further discussion could have a purpose (if at all). When they came up with the idea of the LLF project, my personal stance was that the orthodox faithful should not engage with it at all: it was clearly a trap. I thought we should have done our own work, made our own case, unambiguously in defence of our long held doctrine and presented it across the church in direct opposition to LLF. However, there’s this attitude that we all have to ‘walk together’ and be nice to each other, no matter what: having a public dust up is so unpleasant! So they were lured in and a whole box of linguistic, social and psychological tricks was opened up; and to this day the basic theological work has not been sorted out. And now we are where we are.
I’d recommend you have a listen to some of Larry Alex Taunton’s podcasts on YouTube. He’s only just started doing them. Just enter his name into the YouTube search bar and you’ll be offered his videos. He’s based in Alabama, USA, a historian, academic and Christian apologist, extremely well travelled and connected. He absolutely knows his stuff when it comes to what’s happening right across the western world and he presents it clearly and accessibly. Although he is an evangelical he’s banging the Christian drum rather than evangelical tribalism so I think you might value what he offers. I’ve only just come across him. You’ll just need to get past the American way of doing things!
It is corect tgat the discussion was framed in terms of “justice”, as if there were a human right to be ordained as there is to vote.
Because of the Establishment, the Church of England cannot do other than reflect, if belatedly where English society has gone. It isn’t really theological but political, dressed up in theological talk after the event.
As for Penelope, Susannah and the discussion above, there will never be a meeting of minds because Penelope and Susannah operate with an entirely different understanding of revelation compared to orthodoxy. They don’t think the Bible is the Word of God but only a very imperfect vessel of that Word, in which the truth is admixed with all kinds of error. Which parts are true is dificult for them to say because this year’s answer may be repudiated in 5 years or so. Usually they follow some kind of cultural critique, depending on a prevailing political viewpoint.
Of course they want walking together and good disagreement, because then their arguments can be not merely bad but atrocious, disingenuous etc and they will still be accepted at the table. That is what they want, but I expect they are surprised and pleased by how others simply capitulate to such a tactic.
From the box of political tricks – demand a compromise and then vote against it.
How about just live and let live? Have a situation like women priests where parishes that really don’t like the gays don’t have to suffer them, but others can?
That seems a more reasonable compromise than meaningless blessings which conservatives still can’t stomach
How about just live and let live? Have a situation like women priests where parishes that really don’t like the gays don’t have to suffer them, but others can?
Because it’s not about sex; it’s about the Bible. And you can’t have some parishes accepting the authority of the Bible and some not. At that point you aren’t even believing in the same religion.
Pete, ‘How about just live and let live?’ What you are asking is that sexuality and marriage is ‘a thing indifferent’, one of the adiaphora.
There are good reasons why this isn’t, including the teaching of Jesus, and the importance of this for Christian anthropology. You might remember my explanation here: https://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/why-is-sexuality-such-a-big-deal/
But in terms of process: where is the argument that this should be ‘a thing indifferent’? Not a single advocate for this has made the case anywhere I can see.
Ian
You guys keep claiming that banning gays from marriage is of primary importance. Did you ever think that (a lot of) other Christians in your church feel equally passionately that gay people must have equality and the sexual abuse must stop?
I know it continues to be a source of frustration that “liberals” feel they’ve shared, listened, compromised, accepted that you have sincere beliefs and yet they still get belittled, ignored and told they don’t believe in The Bible or Jesus.
Personally I still have not heard any case that I consider reasonable or rational for why gay people should not be allowed to marry in church and why gay priests should not be allowed to marry. Why should I believe that you are right?
‘Personally I still have not heard any case that I consider reasonable or rational for why gay people should not be allowed to marry in church.’
What have you read on this? My Grove booklet? Robert Gagnon? Preston Sprinkle? Richard Hays? Thomas Schmidt? Sam Allberry?
You guys keep claiming that banning gays from marriage is of primary importance.
It’s not about ‘banning gays from marriage’. It’s about the authority of the Bible.
I know it continues to be a source of frustration that “liberals” feel they’ve shared, listened, compromised, accepted that you have sincere beliefs and yet they still get belittled, ignored and told they don’t believe in The Bible or Jesus.
But many of them — Susannah Clark, Andrew Godsall, Penelope Cowell Doe, for example — are perfectly open about the fact they don’t believe in the Bible. How can it be ‘belittling’ someone to take them at their word?
It’s got nothing to do with whether beliefs are sincere or not. No one doubts that the beliefs of those who think the Bible is just human writings are perfectly sincere. But those beliefs simply aren’t Christianity.
Personally I still have not heard any case that I consider reasonable or rational for why gay people should not be allowed to marry in church and why gay priests should not be allowed to marry. Why should I believe that you are right?
You don’t have to. But whenever anyone wants change, the burden of proof is always on those who want change to make their case. The status quo is the default. That’s why the speaker’s casting vote is always for the status quo.
So nobody’s asking you to believe that the other side are right; and if you can convince two-thirds of the general synod that you are right then you can change the doctrines of the Church of England.
But the onus is on your side to prove the case for change, not on the other side to prove the case for the status quo. The other side just has to refute you arguments (for instance, by pointing out that the Bible never directly referencing same-sex marriage doesn’t mean that it doesn’t rule it out).
S
I believe in the authority of the Bible. I think Susannah and Andrew do too.
I don’t, however, share your foundationalist reading of scripture. It’s terribly modern and lacks the underpinning of tradition.
I believe in the authority of the Bible. I think Susannah and Andrew do too.
All three of you are on record as saying that you think the Bible was written by human authors trying to understand their experiences of the divine, that those authors were blinkered by their social and cultural contexts, and that they made mistakes.
In other words you don’t believe that God is the ultimate author of the Bible.
I don’t, however, share your foundationalist reading of scripture. It’s terribly modern and lacks the underpinning of tradition.
The idea that God is the ultimate author of the Bible is not ‘modern’. Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, Origen, all realised that. Is Origen ‘modern’?
What the CofE actually believes about the bible is summed up here:
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/gs1748b-confidence-in-the-bible-diocesan-synod-motion.pdf
I don’t think Penny or Susannah or myself have any problem with what is said there. We certainly ground our belief in the teaching of the scriptures which we hold to be inspired by God.
Andrew, that is very helpful, thanks. Worth noting that the document was drawn up by a Conservative Evangelical. I agree with S: your reading of the document is really one that works; the emphasis is very firmly on the sufficiency and clarity of Scripture, and it is the authority. There is no Anglican Tripod here.
And you, Penny and Susannah have often said things that are at odds with this statement. All very strange.
But on this statement, let’s agree, and hold ourselves to it.
I don’t think Penny or Susannah or myself have any problem with what is said there.
Really?
I mean, really ?
Two bits leap out immediately:
‘ The Church does not have the right to interpret Scripture in such a way as to make one part of Scripture contradict another.’
Susannah Clark has certainly claimed that parts of scripture contradict each other, setting, for example, the words of Jesus in the gospels against the commands given by God to the Israelites.
And indeed haven’t you put forward the idea that some parts of the Bible contradict others?
And secondly,
‘ The Church does not have the authority to decree anything contrary to Scripture’
It’s Susannah Clark’s stated position that same-sex marriage is contrary to scripture, but that the Church of England should recognise them anyway. That would be the denomination decreeing something contrary to scripture.
And while you’ve been careful never to make such a blatant statement, nevertheless you are on record s as saying that the Bible was written by fallible human beings, and contains errors. The obvious corollary to that is that the Church could decree things contrary to scripture, where scripture is in error.
So Susannah certainly would have a problem with both those parts of the Church of England view of scripture, and I’m really surprised that you claim you do not.
But you also need to read the parts of that document that refer to the dynamic interplay between scripture, tradition and reason and the developments in thinking since the Reformation. Scripture has to be interpreted and there are different interpretations. You yourself have said that it is not clear whether the narrative of Noah and the Ark is about real events or whether it is part of an extended parable.
What I have always said is that the bible is incomplete and that God didn’t stop speaking when the canon of scripture was fixed. That view is quite in line with an Anglican approach to scripture as outlined in that General Synod paper.
But you also need to read the parts of that document that refer to the dynamic interplay between scripture, tradition and reason and the developments in thinking since the Reformation.
So when you wrote ‘I don’t think Penny or Susannah or myself have any problem with what is said there’ you meant ‘except the bits that I do have a problem with’?
That’s called being dishonest.
What I have always said is that the bible is incomplete and that God didn’t stop speaking when the canon of scripture was fixed.
No it’s not. You haven’t only said that you think the Bible (proper noun, capital ‘B’, unless you think that there are other bibles — do you think that?) is incomplete.
If you had said that, and also that anything left out was not necessary for salvation, then you would have been within the bounds of the Church of England’s doctrine, as given in the document to which you linked.
But you have also said that you think the Bible was written by fallible human beings, that God was not its ultimate author, and that you think it contains errors.
That places you quite outside the bounds of the Church of England’s doctrine, and indeed, outside Christian doctrine altogether.
That view is quite in line with an Anglican approach to scripture as outlined in that General Synod paper.
It is not, because it is in direct conflict with the view of scripture set out in the Articles.
The fact that the Church of England may have been remiss in not disciplining some within its ranks who promulgated views in conflict with its doctrine does not mean that you can claim the doctrine has therefore changed. It just means that those who continue to push such heresies must now be stopped — better late than never.
Scripture has to be interpreted and there are different interpretations.
No one has argued with this. Certainly I don’t argue with it. Of course scripture has to be interpreted. And of course there are different interpretations: there is the correct interpretation, and there are wrong interpretations. There are lots and lots and lots of wrong interpretations.
Where we differ, and this is the crucial point, is that you think that the Bible, even when correctly interpreted, can still be wrong.
And I don’t.
S I am afraid you are just ranting there and not being at all clear. Try to be a little more concise as well please.
Nothing I have said puts me outside of Anglican teaching about the bible.
I am afraid you are just ranting there and not being at all clear
There’s no rant; it’s all perfectly clear; you obviously have no answer.
Maybe if you could actually form a question there rather than an incoherent rant….
Maybe if you could actually form a question there rather than an incoherent rant
I’m set out my case, perfectly coherently, as to why your ideas about the Bible are incompatible with both orthodox Christianity and the doctrine of the Church of England. You obviously have no answer, so I rest the case.
That’s lovely S. who are you going to rest it with?
As Miles Davis said, So whet?
Ian
I don’t often agree with Davie, but I cannot see anything contentious in the article Andrew cited.
I think that some on here must carry very thin Bibles,They have cut out very large swathes of it,how do they decide which parts are acceptable if their god is not their belly? Too many equality warriors, of various stripe, I think must carry a my Redacted Version Bible.
On female priests I must say my own female priest is the kind of priest that I have been praying many decades for.
God has called her and ordained her to bring forth fruit,
which to me is a continual feast. It is also true of our lady readers.
Alan –
What would you say to those Anglican churches which reject the authority of female bishops, and any (like Wallington, south-west London, in 2016) which may not allow women vicars? (on alleged, biblical grounds).
One the question of *myths* Some who “utter words without knowledge” do not understand the meaning of the term Myth, it is just their labelling practice.
C.S. Lewis wrote [I paraphrase]
I have studied myths [ like his friend Tolkien] and have written myths and published myths and I can tell you that the Bible does not contain even one myth. He also said that readers try to analyse what his thinking or what his intent was when he wrote his work, How on earth could they know?He said, and they are often wrong in their
assumptions.
Alan –
There’s a good, short article here, on C.S. Lewis (entitled ‘Who was C.S. Lewis?’), which may slightly modify your statements :
https://www.gotquestions.org/C-S-Lewis.html
Hello Alan,
I have that quote from CS Lewis, somewhere. It is in “The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict,” (759 pages) by Josh McDowell:
Here is another:
“The heart of Christianity is a myth which is also a fact. The old myth of the Dying God, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens – at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences. We pass from a Balder or an Osiris, dying nobody knows when or where, to a historical Person crucified (it is all in order) under Pontius Pilate. By becoming fact it does not cease to be myth: that is the miracle.”
C. S. Lewis
And here is an essay of his which sets the scene, Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism:
https://journals.wheaton.edu/public/journals/4/pdfs/Vol31_Heck-CSL-Modern-Theology-web.pdf
Penelope Cowell Doe –
I blame ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ (or, our primordial ancestors).
‘Eve’ had some sort of excuse for her mistake (she was deceived), but ‘Adam’ ( presumably), knowingly sinned.
Ref. July 16, 2023 at 1:06 pm Pellegrino
Pray tell us what or who are the Restoration groups ” In it’s better forms are?, There appear to be many strange bedfellows included in restorationism,one is at a loss as to which path you intend us to follow.
For anyone with the slightest intrest see https://academickids.com/encyclopedia/index.php/Restorationism : to me they seem to have more problems than recognized christian churches.
Apologies for yet another post but there are so many tangents on this post.
I believe in the principles of ‘Christian Restorationism’, Alan.
The early sixteenth century, pacifist Anabaptists were part of the Christian Restorationist movement, who wanted a proper biblical Reformation that went right back to First century apostolic Christianity. Thus, they attempted to restore original, New Testament Christianity – which included “believer’s baptism”.
Dear Pellegrino,
Does your Christian Restorationism include a repudiation of the Holy Trinity?
Is Jesus one of the Three Persons who are One God?
Susannah,
I think you may have fallen asleep at the wheel of comments for a good while, so far as Ian’s articles on scripture is concerned.
Pellegrino at length and in many places has denied the the Trinity, of God the Son, to such an extent that it appears to be the sole reason for his comments, seeming to come from a position of one of the offshots of unitarianism, such as JW, though he is somewhat shy to reveal, which.
It may be seen from P’s comments on scripture that P preaches ‘ sola scriptura’, though not as one of the five sola’s arising in the Reformation.
Dear Susannah;
Thank you for your question, but what specific form of Trinitarianism were you thinking of :
1. Subordinationist Trinitarianism ? (as exemplified by Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen and Novation);
or, 2. Eternal, functional subordinationist Trinitarianism?
or, 3. Filioque Trinitarianism;
or, 4. ‘Social Trinitarianism’.
It is also worth remembering that the term ‘Trinity’ (which derives from the Latinized form of the Greek, Platonic Philosophical term ‘trias’, meaning three) was only first used circa 170 CE by Theophilus of Antioch, and by which he meant God, His Wisdom (Gk. Sophia’), and His Word (Gk. Logos).
@ Pellegrino
But you need to establish just what form “First century apostolic Christianity” took. How do you do this? From “scripture alone”, ignoring the Apostolic Fathers? You also have to confront the New Testament passages that assign authority to the apostles for the visible Church and its development. And, if you can do all this, on what basis do you claim your interpretation from scripture of “First century apostolic Christianity” beliefs and worship is the valid one?
Thank you for your questions, Happy Jack;
The works of the so called, ‘Apostolic Fathers’ are interesting, but we have to be careful of forged interpolations, especially in the works attributed to Ignatius of Antioch. They are not, therefore, by any means, an infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice – unlike the New Testament (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16-17). Biblical Christian Restorationists base their doctrines and practices directly upon the Bible, rather than on post-New Testament, fallible human nature with it’s various man-made creeds, councils, and denominational hierarchies. In the slightly modified words of one German Theologian :
” Because we convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures and by clear reason (for we do not trust in Popes and councils alone, since it is well known that they have erred and contradicted themselves) then our consciences are captive to the Word of God. Here we stand – so help us God. Amen.”
We would say that the biblical essentials for saving faith (i.e., the ‘doctrinal fundamenta’) in Christ Jesus, are lucidly expressed in Scripture – especially in the Acts of the Apostles.
REF. Geoff
July 16, 2023 at 2:20 pm
Thanks Geoff. Lewis complained: “I distrust them as critics. They seem to me to lack literary judgment, to be imperceptive about the very quality of the texts they are reading. . . . If [someone] tells me that something in a Gospel is legend or romance, I want to know how many legends and romances he has read, not how many years he has spent on that Gospel.” Reference https://www.vqronline.org/essay/cs-lewis-and-his-critics
An excellent appraisle of Lewes’ thinking.
‘The Allegory of Love’ was a huge influence when I first started becoming familiar with literary criticism, along with F.R Leavis and T.S Eliot. In fact, I turned down an invitation to go to the Isle of Wight one weekend to listen to Jimi Hendrix, because I was so immersed in Lewis’s book (something I have never forgiven myself for!).
There is so much to be discovered and discerned below the surface of texts. Uncritically reading surface narrative, or taking textual extracts in isolation, we can miss so much.
I have such different opinions to Ian Paul on various matters, but his ‘above the line’ bible studies are in many ways a gift because his detailed labour over years has empowered cross-reference (aided by the Holy Spirit) and recognition of recurring themes and motifs, and meta-narrative rather than just ‘proof texts’.
I think this is key when reading the Bible, because there are so many ‘connections’ within the overall biblical tradition, and the Bible has a language of its own, and imagery that speaks to a reader, sometimes at a level below just the surface and cerebral meaning… speaking to the heart… opening the heart.
It is impossible to study the Isaiah writings without some receptivity to the ‘language of the images’ – a language that is recognised and understood by New Testament authors.
In my opinion the greatest theme of all is baptism. It recurs again and again through the whole Bible, reaching its climax in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the call to the reader to undergo that baptism themselves.
If we fail to understand ‘myth’ we can hardly begin to understand the heart of spiritual baptism, because it’s more than just factual report. It shudders through the whole Bible. It addresses us not only cerebrally, but in our feelings, our unconscious, our heart, and – typically of myth – it addresses people not just individually but as community.
It is not just about dissecting thousands of text in isolation and treating them each as standalone fact. God incites us to open to encounter when we read the Bible. Encounter that is personal, encounter which is ‘givenness’, encounter with the Living Word who is Jesus Christ. The Power… the Dunamis… of the Holy Spirit works dynamically with us as we read the text. The text is not just fact. It is a means (and portal) to relationship and engagement.
“Hippy Jack” was at the Isle of Wight in 1970 when Jimi Hendrix was on stage.
He slept through his performance!
HJ,
It must have been the Purple Haze, that has now descended on CoE Bishops.
Purple haze all around, don’t know if they’re goin’ up or down
Are they happy or in misery, whatever it is that demon put a spell on ’em.
In the case of women Bishop’s it must have been Electric Ladyland.
Jack was later visited by the Jehovah’s Witnesses – all along the watchtower.
James, for HJ, wouldn’t it be ‘The wind cries Mary’?
Or Chris,
HJ would be Happier than Happy, in pure delerious, ecstasy, soaking in the songs of the trio, in their harmonious triunity, Peter Paul and Mary, methinks.
@ Geoff, Chris B, and James
All good choices that make HJ chuckle. However, given the theme of this thread, an appropriate Hendrix song would surely be “Love or confusion”.
HJ,
It would be apt to change the preposition for a Hendrix ode to the CoE bishops – Love of Confusion.
The perspicuity of scripture lost in the descending purple haze, a plague of today on their house.
Alan the first link set out the context snd contentions of CS Lewis’s essay and talk which became an. essay in his book, The Fern-Seed and the Elephants.
Here is his essay on Modern Theology and Biblical Critisism:
https://normangeisler.com/fernseeds-elephants/
It includes one of your quotations.
I seem to recall that the first time the Synod voted for women Bishops it was rejected albeit by a small margin. So they kept on voting until they got the ‘right’ result. Bit like how the EU operates.
Exactly. It shows how elites really exist, and are not just a figment.
Same applies to euthanasia and numerous other so-called progressive causes.
Chris B that really isn’t fair. The votes were for two different measures. Neither, sadly, were a single clause measure.
Christopher: things hardly get more elite than being an Old Harrovian. How anyone could not support euthanasia beats me. Who wouldn’t want a good death?
Who wouldn’t want a good death?
There’s no such thing. But the point is ‘euthanasia’ is a euphemism and you should call it what it really is: assisted murder.
A so called *good death* policy was at the centre of the Liverpool Care Pathway in the NHS, that came into disrepute with the misuse of medical DNR, Do Not Resuscitate, and which brought about an independent review.
Death is only ever good, if the destination in eternity is good. Only in Christ is ever good. Otherwise, it is an enemy.
1 Corinthians 15.
Death is only ever good, if the destination in eternity is good.
Even then the death isn’t good. Death is the eight-hour flight in the middle of the row in economy with the screaming child behind you.
For the right destination it’s worthwhile, but it’s never in itself good.
(And more to the point when it comes to ‘euthanasia’, only God has the authority to decide when your, or anyone else’s, life will end. That’s why it’s wrong to murder, including to murder yourself).
It says it all that a euphemism is ‘needed’ in the first place.
The dishonest cloak their dishonesty.
Having witnessed several good deaths, I know there is such a thing.
Various things make people depressed – e.g., festering sin, unforgiveness, negativity. The Christian way is the antithesis of these and is less liable to produce them, and therefore unsurprisingly it is far less apt than secularism to make people be in a place where they want to chuck away the whole amazing world as though none of it were of any account.
Utter poppycock. And dangerous too.
In fact it is clearly correct. The saints through the years have been very motivated people, and secondly they have understood what a gift life is. They are always thinking about what they can give.
If life were a millionth of what it is, even contemplating just throwing it back in the giver’s face would be unspeakable ingratitude. But this is all part and parcel of the attitude that in some cases sees nothing glorious in the universe or in being alive in the first place and/or sees nothing to be grateful for. The one common denominator in the spoilt, privileged sexual revolution is the lack of awe/reverence. They are so closely connected.
As indeed Romans 1 says, about the connection between lack of awe/reverence and sleeping with same sex flouting the awesome design.
If it is incorrect, it follows that you are able to explain wherein it is incorrect.
It is incorrect because many Christians, as well as atheists and followers of other religions, suffer from depression – both mild and severe.
There are many causes including chemical imbalances, mental and psychological dysfunction, and CPTSD.
These are not cured or mitigated by a belief in a personal saviour and the idea that Christians shouldn’t suffer from depression is cruel and dangerous.
And saints have been depressed. Mother Teresa, for example.
There are many causes including chemical imbalances
Actually the ‘chemical imbalance’ theory of depressed has been debunked: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2022/jul/analysis-depression-probably-not-caused-chemical-imbalance-brain-new-study
It was basically pushed by pharmaceutical companies who wanted to sell drugs as a treatment for depression, but it never had much evidential basis.
It is incorrect because many Christians, as well as atheists and followers of other religions, suffer from depression – both mild and severe.
I note Christopher Shell didn’t say Christians never suffer from depression, just that ‘the Christian way is the antithesis of these and is less liable to produce them, and therefore unsurprisingly it is far less apt than secularism to make people be in a place where they want to chuck away the whole amazing world as though none of it were of any account’.
Note: ‘less’, not ‘never’. So what we would expect if Christopher Shell was correct is not for Christians never to be depressed but for the instance of depression to be less (to a statistically significant degree) among Christians than among a control group.
And, oh look: ‘ Thus, overall, 61% of studies find less depression among the more religious, and as the quality of the study increases, this proportion remains the same or increases slightly (67%).’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426191/
S
Festering sin, unforgiveness and negativity are Christopher’s reasons for depression. That is dangerous poppycock. Negativity often contributes to depression, but mostly because it is caused by trauma – PTSD or CPTSD.
Blaming people for their own mental health is both cruel and damaging. Claiming that religious people have better mental health outcomes does not erase the up to 40% who suffer from depression and other mental conditions. Depression is not caused by sin, though it may be caused by the sinfulness of others. Especially it is not caused by ‘sleeping’ with the same sex. That is an absurd and generalist claim of the sort Christopher so often makes.
SSRIs are still prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks and many specialists continue to prescibe them for depresssion because, although some studies have shown that they may not work, they often do.
SSRIs are still prescribed for anxiety and panic attacks and many specialists continue to prescibe them for depresssion because, although some studies have shown that they may not work, they often do.
So do sugar pills, and they work just as often as SSRIs. Cheaper too.
My question Pellegrino was “Pray tell us what or who are the Restoration groups ” In it’s better forms” are?
Are you saying that ANABAPTISM is it’s better form?or just including another bedfellow?
One can wait until you have engaged with Happy Jack
@July 16, 2023 at 4:26 pm
Dear Alan;
Some of the groups that came out of the Stone-Campbell Restorationist Movement, don’t seem too bad, Alan.
What do you think?
REF, Geoff
July 16, 2023 at 9:43 pm
Thanks for the link to C .S. Lewis Geoff. Top Man!
https://normangeisler.com/fernseeds-elephants/
Read this book in my late 20s I was suprized at how much I have retained of it. That is a link that all armchair theologians should ingest. The chaps on the Number 48 Omnibus have elected C.S.L as our Simplicity Champion.
Glad too that I could get this post in before they change the reel.
Hello Alan,
Last, from me, here is one more marvellous lecture/essay of his that is highly relevant in this whole matter, so far as the Bishops and church hierarchy is concerned. It is, however, a challenge to us all.
The temptations of the Inner Ring? Insiders and outsiders.
https://dckoso.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/the-inner-ring-by-c-s-lewis.pdf
Brill. thanks. not read that before.
REF.
Pellegrino
July 17, 2023 at 11:29 pm
Dear Alan;
Some of the groups that came out of the Stone-Campbell Restorationist Movement, don’t seem too bad, Alan.
What do you think?
It’s almost like trying to get a straight answer out of a snake
So, MY question was “Pray tell us what or who are the Restoration groups ”* In its better forms * are?
So your answer was* Some of the groups* that came out of the Stone-Campbell Restorationist Movement, don’t seem too bad, Alan.
What do you think?
seem to bad.
Again which are the* Some of the groups*? that came out of the Stone-Campbell Restorationist Movement,?
From what I know of the Stone-Campbell Movement [note, not a church]
Within this *movement* there are so many divisions and subsects it appears that each congregation is led by its own hierarchy does that which is* right in its own eyes *
The Stone-Campbell Movement looks like an Eton Mess in comparison to the current predicament[s] of the C of E . That said, we do seem to be heading in your direction!
Of this movement, wanting to *Restore* New Testament Christianity, is the core belief of Baptismal Regeneration.
Does baptism save a person from hell?
Answer: No, for the following reasons:
Baptism is not a part of the gospel. To include baptism in the gospel is to add a work to Christ’s work on the cross. It means that if we must be baptized in order to be saved, then Christ’s work on the cross was not good enough to pay for our sins. Those groups who believe in baptismal regeneration (the error that baptism saves us from hell) include:
Church of Christ, Roman Catholics, some Lutherans, Russian and Greek Orthodox, Mormons (LDS), Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS), and Apostolics (Jesus Only or United Pentecostals).
See https://www.gospeloutreach.net/bapregen.html for a more comprehensive discussion of this subject.
P.s. you still haven’t answered Happy Jack
July 16, 2023 at 4:26 pm
But you need to establish just what form “First century apostolic Christianity” took. How do you do this?
The answere that you did attempt to give him bore no relation to the Question.
Dear Alan;
In response :
1. The Gospel includes a call to faith in Christ, and obedience (see Romans 1:5).
2. Jesus commanded baptism (see Matthew 28:19; cf. Mark 16:16), which is why,
3. The Apostles preached baptism (see Acts 2:38); and,
4. I believe in the Protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture – whereby First century, Apostolic, Essentials of saving faith in Christ, are clearly revealed in Scripture – especially in the ‘Acts of the Apostles’.
Of course, Happy Jack, being a Roman Catholic, doesn’t believe in the Protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture.
Have a good day, Alan, and God bless you, – and don’t forget :
Anyone who wants to make progress in religion, must go back to the Bible !
@ Pellegrino
>>Of course, Happy Jack, being a Roman Catholic, doesn’t believe in the Protestant doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture<<
Well, HJ does wonder why, if due to enlightenment from the Holy Spirit, Scripture can be understood by anyone, why so many preachers and writers teach people the meaning of passage after passage. And why there's so much disagreement!
Perhaps you could shed light on this mystery.
Archbishop Welby, speaking in The Lords on the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill: ‘The problem with the Bill is that it has not started in the right place. It needed to start with a level of national consensus and agreement.’ The same principle could be applied to – – –
Thanks for this article, Ian. I recognise the lack of trust that you describe. I’m not going to comment on any of the specifics of the recent general synod – plenty have already done that. However, I will observe that the lack of trust is both deep and widespread.
There will be lots of reasons for that, but as this is an article on synod, I’ll limit myself to the observation that at every level synods are used as platforms for promoting an agenda, and not as vehicles for discussion or discernment. When synods start to feel like party conferences, something has gone badly wrong.
Thanks, Dexter. This Synod has certainly gained many ‘party’ features—but how could it not, when the HoB said that the sexuality debate would be settled here?
Since the sackings on 21 June I have seen you referring to the “Interim Independent Safeguarding Board.” I’m well aware that the board members were on two year contracts, relating to phase 1 of the life of the board. But I haven’t seen anyone else using that phrase, and I don’t recall the word “interim” being used prior to 21 July. Are you able to point me to any instances of the use of the four word phrase, either from yourself or in any official documents?
Also – will phase 1 now need to be repeated? Or was it unnecessary in the first place?
These are genuine questions, so please don’t answer them in attack mode.
Thanks—and they are important ones. The word ‘interim’ was used from the very beginning within AC. The paper outlining the process at our meeting in Jan 2021 includes this:
‘This suggests, not only that we are right to be setting up an interim structure, but that any structure that follows it should be regularly reviewed. In management consultancy, regular change of structure is often seen as intrinsically beneficial in driving culture change. We may find this applies to the church and safeguarding too.
The context following IICSA suggests that we should start with a very visible degree of separation between the independent structure and any institutions of the church, although – bearing in mind the points above – there must be clarity about where the AC’s and the bishops’ responsibilities begin and end and how the national work relates to dioceses. The interim structure can be tested in practice and adjusted if the degree of separation is too great or not wide enough.’ AC(21)08
Given that we were using this language, I would be surprised if it did not occur in Synod papers, though the more common terminology was ‘Phase I’ leading to a ‘Phase II’. I cannot track down the papers which gave the first presentation to Synod on this.
No, Phase I will not be repeated. I think, with the benefit of hindsight, I would say it was not necessary. But it was a reflection about anxiety about how fully independent scrutiny would be set up, and how it would be responded to. I now realise that there are much simpler ways to establish genuine independence from the start, and I hope that Alexis Jay will take us straight to that now.
One of the issues of trust is the Archbishops Council. After this debacle no one has resigned. How can the membership be changed? Or are they part of the self selecting elite within the church who expect deference and obedience
Most members of the AC are elected by Synod. A number are appointed for their expertise.
What exactly do you think the AC has done wrong here?
My concern is that as the council “fired” the two independent experts. With the appointment of Prof. Jay, who does she sends her recommendations to? Plus who decides on those recommendations? Given the track record of the current council many would not trust their decision. Better perhaps for a new council without their previous “baggage “
No, the Council pulled the plug on a group who had not done what was asked, was not actually developing the Independent scrutiny which was the goal, and by their own admission had a complete breakdown of communication with the Council.
So in order to get there, Professor Jay will make recommendations. To the Council, of course, who will implement what she recommends—assuming it will be genuinely independent. I have confidence it will be.
Alexis Jay is not a Baroness. Your comments on the independent members of the ISB are equally inaccurate although more by suppressio veri than suggestio falsi. The member of the ISB designated to lead on Phase II was the chair, who stepped back and was not replaced until too late; the others carried out their designated work. The breakdown in communication was at least as much the fault of the AC.
Indeed she is not. See my comment below on the Council.
I notice that you have silently edited out your mistaken “Baronness”.
Er, I accepted your correction and acknowledged it.
That though is the issue. As your orginal blog article makes clear there is a breakdown in trust with the current elite. How do hope to build again that trust with the current members?
What do you mean by ‘elite’? Bishops and archbishops are unelected and hard to remove (actually, almost impossible). Most members of the AC are elected by Synod, and others are appointed carefully. Unlike bishops, the AC offer an annual report which is debate in Synod, and its budget is approved.
So, despite perceptions, it is hard to argue that AC is an ‘elite’ which is not trusted.
*Most members of the AC are elected by Synod, and others are appointed carefully*
The first part is not correct. Six out of nineteen members are elected, two each by the three houses: none is elected by Synod as a whole. Seven serve ex officio. Six are appointed by the Archbishops: quite how carefully I doubt that either of us is in a position to judge. Less than a third is not “most”.
It’s hard not to see a group of people who rejoice in such titles as “The Most Rev and Rt Hon”, “The Rt Rev” and “The Venerable”, for example, as regarding themselves as being, if not an elite, then, let us say, a tad different from hoi polloi.
There are 17 members who join the archbishops.
Six are, as you say, directly elected by the houses of Synod (you cannot distinguish this from ‘Synod as a whole’, since the Houses comprise the whole of Synod).
Four are ex-officio—based on their election to those roles by Synod. So they, too, are elected.
Of the people appointed by the ABs, the director of finance (now Carl Hughes) is approved by Synod.
So of the 17, 10 are elected by Synod, and another one is approved by Synod. Only six are directly appointed. So I think my comment was fair.
I agree with you about titles; but that is an issue of deference and hierarchy in the C of E, not a problem of Council per se.
“Elected by Synod” can only mean that the election is an action of Synod as a whole. As I’m sure you know, a vote in an individual House does not constitute an act of Synod as a whole.
So, six members are elected to the AC by various parts of synod, and four more sit ex officio as a result of having been elected to other positions, again by various parts of synod.
Approval is not election.
So, nobody is elected by the Synod as a whole. Why bother to try to paint the AC as some sort of chummy democratic body? It’s patently an elite.
‘So, nobody is elected by the Synod as a whole. Why bother to try to paint the AC as some sort of chummy democratic body? It’s patently an elite.’
As has been pointed out above, your comment is a nonsense, and if true would suggest we don’t live in a Parliamentary democracy.
I was elected first time around, then stood again, and was re-elected by a clear first-time majority. That is what transparency and accountability are about.
“Elected by Synod” can only mean that the election is an action of Synod as a whole.
Not at all. The House of Commons is, in a general election, elected by the country; but the election of individual members is by constituencies.
The President of the United States is, also, elected by his country; but in a process whereby each individual State elects members of the Electoral Congress, not by any single vote of the country as a whole.
So ‘elected by X’ doesn’t necessarily mean that the election has to be a single vote of the entire electorate.
This is a failure to distinguish between Synod as an entity and synod as a collection of members. It is true that in the UK, the electorate votes in constituencies as a collection of voters: the Electorate as an entity votes rather rarely, most recently on Brexit. But none of this makes the AC any more democratic. It isn’t in any real sense elected by Synod and it does its best not to be accountable to Synod either.
Now you are making your argument in complete defiance of the actual facts of the matter. It is not very persuasive!
I am sure I do not need to explain the nature of the Archbishops’ Council to one of its more prominent members. However, it may be salutary for others reading this blog, and these comments, to know that there is an alternative point of view on some of these contested matters. In particular, there are members of Synod who deeply disagree with the rosy view of AC presented here, and others who do not accept that the AC’s presentations constitute the final word on highly contentious matters.
You don’t need to explain it; you need to understand it rather better than you are demonstrating here.
Are you a member of Synod? We don’t know, because you post anonymously, which will not be allowed soon. I believe in transparency and accountability; you, it appears, do not. I think that rather undermines your claims.
This is a failure to distinguish between Synod as an entity and synod as a collection of members.
You’re going to have to unpack that for me, I’m afraid. What distinction am I falling to make? I’m not even sure whether you suggesting that the elected members of the council are elected by members of Synod but not by Synod as a body or vice versa, and I’m not sure what it would mean to be elected by Synod as a body but not by the individual members given that election by Synod as a body necessarily involves counting up the votes of individual members.
It isn’t in any real sense elected by Synod
What would being in real sense elected by Synod look like, in your view, and what would be the significance of the distinction you are drawing?
The only effect I can see with the election by houses is that it gives the house of bishops a great say then it would numerically if linked in with the other houses. It’s the same effect as the Senate of the Congress of the United States where every state elects the same number of senators, no matter what the population of the state. No one claims that isn’t democratic (well, not when they are winning, anyway!).
[edited} Sorry, UN, this forum is for discussion, and not for people to make anonymous insults.
Make yourself known to me, and follow the reasonable rules of engagement set out above, and you will be welcome back.
Ian.
Hi Ian, the media storm of your latest synod has reached us here in the antipodes, Australia. I am a survivor and have huge misgivings about transparency in what happened with the ISB and the influence of functionaries such as William NYE. What seems to be a central theme here is that Jacinda and Steve had the trust of many survivors who finally thought they could get an independent review of their cases. What we see time and time again post IICSA and the Royal Commission here in Australia is that without independent oversight we have no trust in internal church processes.
We see this in Australia with a conga line of Bishops and Archbishops not facing what in the secular world would be justice. They covered up abuse and yet the internal trials have in the main failed. We have at least three trials , ex Governor General Hollingworth , Bishop Appelby and Bishop Slater all currently avoiding deposition . They are all guilty of cover up had adverse findings from our Royal Commission and yet due to their connections to powerful people within the leadership team and the best lawyers money can buy have overturned the prosecution from our professional standards boards recommendations. Some connect to shadowy groups such as the SSC a Anglo Catholic cult group. The issues with evangelicals also are concerning but we don’t have the same data sets that the Anglo Catholic dioceses in Australia were shown to be extreme hot zones.
It’s vital that even though the ISB failed in this first iteration that the Church gets it right. You can’t mark your own homework and without a robust outside agency providing independent oversight the publics view of the Church will be permanently damaged. Also the slow uptake of interim redress and the malign influence of the churches financial advisors is likely from our experience here in Australia to create huge road blocks. As you have bravely exposed abuse in evangelical streams of UK Anglicanism I hope you remain on AC and keep the focus on justice and compassion for all hurt and damaged by Priests Bishops and laity both historical and contemporary. Saving face reputation and assets both human and financial will end up being a titanic mistake.
Like John Wesley if you end up preaching in the fields after making restitution to the thousands abused then it will be a new Jerusalem in your green and pleasant lands.
Thank you AS for those sobering and helpful comments.
As far as I can see, every single member of AC would entirely agree with this. As far back as 2020, AC resolved that safeguarding scrutiny must be fully independent. Looking back, I think we made the process too cautious—mainly because of anxiety about getting it right—when we should probably have aimed for the end-point much sooner.
It is worth remembering that there is a very good chance that there are survivors amongst the membership of AC.
We are all delighted with the agreement of Alexis Jay to recommend the way forward, led by survivor engagement. I hope that it will resolve this question very soon.
*We are all delighted with the agreement of Alexis Jay to recommend the way forward, led by survivor engagement.*
What does “led by survivor engagement” mean in this context? No such engagement is mentioned at all in the press release of 20 July at https://www.churchofengland.org/media-and-news/press-releases/welcome-professor-alexis-jay
Gosh, I need to read the papers for you? It is not hard:
She continued: “My work will be fair, impartial, objective, and rigorous. One of my first tasks will be to hear the views of victims and survivors of church abuse, and to listen to those involved in safeguarding at all levels of the Church across England.”
https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/21-july/news/uk/professor-alexis-jay-appointed-to-sort-out-church-of-england-s-safeguarding
Thanks for answering my question by pointing to that further material — it’s a pity the Church of England forgot to say that in their press release. As you say, it’s not hard if you already know the answer. Perhaps Alexis Jay places more emphasis on the engagement with survivors that the AC does. Still, we shall see what comes of it.
The C of E statement was a response to her announcement. Why would they repeat it? And it really wasn’t difficult to find…
I can also assure you that the need to prioritise survivor engagement was understood as key within the AC. I made the point forcefully in our discussion of 9th May (feel free to ask other members) and this point was accepted.
However forcefully argued the need to prioritise survivor engagement might have been on 8 May, it failed to make it into the terms of reference published on 20 July. Nor did that announcement even mention survivor-led engagement. The AC is not doing very well at demonstrating its commitment to survivor-led engagement, possibly because what that isn’t what we will be getting. The Archbishops announced that the work would be entirely in the hands of Alexis Jay and John O’Brien. No survivors were involved or referred to in that appointment or in the terms of reference; Alexis Jay has announced that one of her first tasks will be to hear the views of victims and survivors. That is consultation, but it isn’t survivor-led engagement: it’s Alexis Jay-led engagement.
You have moved from engagement to trolling. I hereby give you notice…