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Category: General Synod

  • The Unbearable Lightness of Being General Synod

    by Anon

    It was a pretty depressing meeting of General Synod, even by recent standards.  There have now been three expert reports dealing with the harm and trauma caused to safeguarding victims, those who have suffered abuse at the hands of the Church of England’s safeguarding processes, and those falsely accused.

    The Jay Review specifically cited those on the receiving end of the “weaponisation of safeguarding”.

    The Glasgow Report stated that “actual harm and trauma” had been caused to those left in the lurch by the sudden closure of the ISB.

    The Wilkinson Report covered, in forensic detail, how the Secretariat at Lambeth Palace had chosen the day of announcing that closure – 21st June 2023 – as being the cut-off date for trying to prevent Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves speaking at General Synod. The Report states that “the timing of the termination was affected by the dates of General Synod because the ISB members intended to speak at Synod and to terminate their contracts after they had spoken would be problematic” (565.4).

    And the Wilkinson Report went further. There were no risk assessments done: “no risk assessment beyond informal conversations was carried out by or on behalf of the Archbishops’ Council … about the effect of the termination of the ISB contracts on complainants, victims and survivors who were engaged with them, particularly those involved in case reviews” (566.4). Press releases said the victims were contacted and being cared for. Wilkinson found this to be untrue. A lie, in other words. “[W]hen the final decision to terminate the ISB contracts was taken, there was a plan to have a plan to provide interim or transitional arrangements for those case reviews but nothing further was in place” (566.10). “A plan to have a plan” – but no plan.

    General Synod were told that Kevin Crompton, the ‘Commissioner’ appointed by the Secretariat, was now looking after victims. The victims issued a statement to say that was another lie.

    Three experts on safeguarding, nationally, told the Archbishops’ Council and General Synod that the Church of England lacks the resources, expertise, wisdom and independence (a code for ‘integrity’) to manage safeguarding safely, yet Synod voted to keep hold of the processes it does not understand. This shows little care and attention for victims; indeed, it is reabusive.

    Following the February Synod, the whole matter has now been handed over to a ‘Response Group’, a self-appointed group of part-time amateurs, whose agenda is to preserve the privilege that got the church into this mess. This is staggering arrogance. The Lead Bishop for Safeguarding spoke at Synod opposing motions for independence, refusing apologies and denying accountability. Her credibility with victims was zero before Synod began, and now languishes in negative ethical equity, were such a thing possible.

    Others appointed to the ‘Response Group’ have misled Synod before. They’ve assured members there are conflicts of interests policies operating. There are not, and Wilkinson highlights that. The claim has been made on Radio 4 that the Archbishops’ Council have all had trauma-training. Where is the evidence that they have? These abusers stay in place, keeping hold of their power and privilege.

    Some victims have now requested that those responsible for the harm and trauma caused to them, including the Archbishops’ Council and others leading safeguarding, be subjected to safeguarding complaints themselves.  Good luck with that, as they say. When was the last time anyone senior was held accountable for previous mess-ups, cover-ups or stitch-ups?

    The Jay, Wilkinson and Glasgow Reports will be material for the shredder. In the unlikely event of any recommendations surviving, victims can be certain that they will be those that empower the Church, and subjugate the oppressed.

    In December 2023, after the ISB had been shut down for modelling “the wrong kind of independence”, the journalist and activist Andrew Graystone wrote a letter to the Church Times:

    Whatever recommendations emerge from these reports will have to pass through exactly the same defensive and inept governance structures as have brought the Church to this desperate place.

    For years, there has been little evidence of willingness in the Church to change fundamentally. Instead, there is a long history of tinkering at the edges: a new safeguarding post here, a new review there. My greatest fear is that instead of immediately implementing Professor Jay’s proposals, they will be sent out for a typical C of E consultation process — and we will still be debating whether to implement some watered-down version ten years from now.

    The reality, as expressed by Ms Wilkinson and experienced by many victims and survivors of abuse, is that hardly anyone in the senior leadership of the Church has a deep understanding of abuse and trauma, and what it takes to help survivors rebuild their lives. Mandatory trauma training is one of her key recommendations. Day after day, I hear from survivors whose trauma is met with bureaucracy.

    He continued with this compelling analogy:

    It is as if the A and E department of every hospital were staffed entirely by overworked senior managers with no clinical expertise and a heap of other problems to deal with at the same time. All of the survivors I know are exhausted, ground down by navigating the Church’s managerial and adversarial systems. So are the senior leaders. Yet still they project an absolute conviction that they know how to run the hospital better than any outside experts.

    This is correctly diagnosed. Pain, brokenness, trauma and profound suffering are met by extremely poor processes and evasive bureaucrats who lack proper expertise and empathy. It is tragic. But also extremely abusive, as victims testify.

    Yet General Synod voted for more of the same.  I wonder how many members of General Synod would opt to have an operation in a hospital with the worst reputation in the NHS, and with a high rate of unexplained deaths? A hospital with a reputation for making your illness and injuries even worse, and intensifying your pain and trauma?

    None, I expect. Yet Synod voted to have the same people presiding over this safeguarding debacle make recommendations for improvements.  It will end in failure, and more fatalities. Yes, please do remember that people at their wits’ end with Church of England safeguarding processes take their own lives, lose their homes, watch their families implode, and have mental breakdowns.

    More recently, Andrew Graystone pointed out that:

    Such is the chaos in the Church’s safeguarding structures that not only can the Church not treat survivors with justice and mercy: it doesn’t even have a mechanism to learn from its own failings.

    Already, I have been contacted by people alleging that they have been abused in church settings, who have decided not to report their abuse because they have seen how the Church has treated Mr X and others.

    We hear that Professor Alexis Jay is going to investigate, issue a report, and then have it debated and implemented. This will take well over a year. This is an emergency, and it requires a well-resourced expertly run emergency response.

    And now we have the report, but has it even been properly debated, coming out as it did a couple of days before Synod?

    Over £1 million was spent on these reports and on consultants who concluded the Church of England cannot safely deliver such work, and lacks the expertise and resources to do so.

    It is just as well that the Post Office is not being run by the Archbishops’ Council, or subject to the oversight of General Synod. Were it so, Paula Vennells would still be in charge, and given another chance to get things right. Alan Bates would be behind bars, and the public would be told that whilst there had been a few errors, and apologies could be considered, the status quo would be maintained.

     

  • Finding a Way Through: February 2024

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington and a consultant to the LLF Implementation Pastoral Guidance Working Group

    Well, there goes another General Synod.

    It has been rather a strange year. It feels like a long time since many of us yearning for change thought that we might finally be getting there – or if not ‘there’, exactly, then somewhere along the road from here to there. February 2023 saw the first glimmer of light for LGBTQIA people shine through and yet time after time, Synod after Synod, archepiscopal intervention after archepiscopal intervention, attempted rollback after attempted rollback, backdoor dealing after backdoor dealing, there seems to have been a concerted and rather ill-tempered determination to ensure that any semblance of progress is snatched away from us. It is fascinating that there is a ‘clear will of Synod’ until that clear will isn’t what some people appear to want – again, and again. The mantra of ‘just keep asking the question until you get the right answer’ is beginning to get just a tiny bit tiresome.

    So where do we find ourselves after yet another debate?

    Well, in the first instance, we find ourselves all pretty sick to the back teeth of the endless meddling of unnamed authorities in the process. It was enormously refreshing to hear the courageous voice of the Bishop of Newcastle make reference to this reality, and it is about time that whoever it is – and we all have our suspicions of the various parties involved – that keep sticking their noses in, trying to subvert the process, however well intentioned, just stop. It is becoming increasingly clear that the LLF Implementation leadership has had too many cooks, some in purple and some in suit and tie, and that the broth is at continual risk of being spoiled. Now is the time to step back – the trust in many in leadership is gone, and others, including the Bishop of Leicester, need to be allowed to get on with the job without endless interference and politicking.

    Secondly, there was a welcome change in the nature of the debate and – frankly – the behaviour of many of those involved in it. This might seem somewhat unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but as a gay person looking in, this was the first time that I didn’t feel physically sick, or seething, when hearing some of the speeches. There was the usual casual misrepresentation, and the occasional veering into discussion of ‘issues’ rather than people, but in general this debate did seem – at last – to be veering into decent human conversation. Only time will tell if this continues.

    And thirdly, it now seems very clear both where the bounds of the future direction are being drawn, and what that means for the church. Whilst there were howls of disquiet that the idea of ‘cannot agree to disagree’ and the need for ‘legally secure structural provision’ did not garner anything like majority support, nonetheless that is a fact – they did not, and they have not, consistently. What is needed now is a move away from the double-edged sword of ‘victimhood’ and threat that irresponsible organs such as the CEEC have used to date. If you choose to threaten to exclude yourself because you cannot live with disagreement, when there is clear disagreement, and you cling to demands for ‘my way or the highway’, then you are getting awfully close to being a bully. Nobody is forcing you out – you are choosing to exclude yourself because you cannot accept you might be wrong, or the reality – that we simply cannot agree on this. We see your false binary – and we challenge it.

    So it really is about time we named this tactic for what it is. ‘Give us X or we won’t stay in the church’ is not a negotiation – it is a bare, naked threat.  When it is done by people who appear dead set on ensuring those of us who want to find some kind of compromise are stopped from doing so, then that threat becomes very malign indeed. It is not the only way – and you, we, all of us, know it.

    Which brings us back to Synod. It was a very good thing that the Leicester paper was not voted through, because hidden amongst the concerning hints of rollback was the idea that it was only once ‘conservatives’ got their full structural change that standalone services or clergy marriage might be considered. Synod clearly and unambiguously voted that idea down, and it really is time to put it to bed. ‘Structural provision’ is simply not going to happen, and far too many of those who have been arguing for it have been doing so in bad faith, because the reality is that they wouldn’t accept anything remotely acceptable to the wider church and hence just want to delay, delay, and eventually throw their hands up in the air and say ‘this was all just too hard, let’s not bother’, binning the implementation of Synodical decisions at the same time. The sooner we name that, and move on to genuine, serious, engaged negotiations, the better.

    Many of us advocating for change are more than willing to come to the table and have already compromised a great deal, but there needs to be a starting point of good faith, genuine negotiation from those who oppose the Prayers of Love and Faith, and a recognition that it is now beyond time to implement the clear will of Synod, much as the Bishop of Leicester has indicated. Simply shouting ‘legally secure structural provision’ doesn’t, frankly, do the trick, and is getting tiresome. For many – me included – these are questions not just about these prayers, but about a fundamental threat to our ecclesiology. Casting our ecclesiology aside and creating a ‘pure’ church within a church in order to appease those who will never really be appeased is not a good strategy. Suggesting that we can remain in any serious way ‘one church’ whilst having ‘legally secure structural provision’ is a demonstrable nonsense.

    So – let’s sit down and work out how we can move forwards. If you are a reasonable conservative who opposes these prayers on theological grounds, we can and want to work with you to enable you to flourish in the same church as us. We want to ensure you have pastoral provision that allows you to feel valued and loved – pastoral provision which, incidentally, has been cruelly withheld from so many LGBTQIA people for years. You do not have to buy into the lie that structural provision, with bishops out of communion with one another, special ordinations, confirmations, theological colleges, pseudo-provinces, and the rest of it, is the only answer – it isn’t, and it’s not going to happen. It just isn’t. We want you to feel supported, and we want to build each other up in the faith – and we can make this happen if we’re willing to put our minds to it, and ignore the extremes.

    That’s the challenge, and that’s the direction of travel. There is a way through if we are willing to find it. Let’s learn to be the Church of England again, together.

  • Estates Evangelism: Justice on the Margins

    Fr Alex Frost, Vicar of St Matthews, Burnley and member of General Synod

    At this February General Synod I had hoped to speak in support of Bishop Philip North’s motion on the topic of Estates Evangelism. I didn’t get called to speak, but I didn’t lose heart because everyone who did speak, did so with empathy, kindness and consideration for people living and working on our most troubled estates. I get so much enthusiasm for ministry when I hear people discussing and focussing on a loving gospel response to serve the poor and to call out injustice.

    In 2021 I was part of a religious cost-of-living crisis piece for the BBC News. It was viewed by 12 million people, and led to an outpouring of love and affection which has affected my life and my ministry forever, so it’s no surprise that I supported +Philip’s  motion at Synod because, if we don’t do something now, then when will we?

    There were other matters of justice, particularly racial justice, discussed at this Synod too. The contributors offered heartfelt stories and inspiring words and there was a huge consensus that calling out injustice should be the heart of what we do as a church. Calling out injustice means discussing many emotive topics and I am reminded that injustice comes in many forms, including colour, race, sexual identity, disability and class.

    Returning to Estates Evangelism, St Matthew’s Burnley – where I’m the vicar – serves a number of challenging estates. Through the outstanding support of my colleague and Associate Priest Rev Kat Gregory Witham, we have created a new worshipping community called Fun Church. Fun Church is like Messy Church only the difference is that it does get very very messy, with squabbling, fall-outs, swearing, and tantrums, and that’s just the parents! Rev Kat, with an outstanding team, created this for families, and around 40-50 kids attend on a weekly basis. We heat the huge church, do some crafts, we do some singing and we feed them their tea. We have drop-ins, we offer food support, mental health support, weekends aways, and trips out.

    When I was telling somebody this, they were like ‘Brill, that’s amazing, are you an HTB church or are the Church Army involved?’ To which I replied, ‘Outside of the stipends we get nowt, zilch, zero from the Church of England’. All our funding comes from grants or charities and benefactors and fundraising, but the truth is we get nothing from the central Church. In fact the reality is we have to pay £30,000 a year in parish share for the privilege so we are doing our bit to support the Diocese. That’s not a criticism of the Diocese, but of the paralysis that is passed on by the processes placed upon estate churches that bind us to the national strategy to pay parish share.

    And so I want to add to the amazing voices at Synod, for the many estate churches that get on with doing what they are doing, with the millstone of money and debt preventing them from doing more. I want to speak up for the churches that refer individuals to Christians Against Poverty but are crippled by their own financial woes and yet carry on to a pathway to oblivion. And I want to speak up for clergy making the best of what sometimes can feel like an impossible situation. I also want to raise a cheer for the clergy who literally can’t cope, for the priests and deacons who are hanging on by a thread. For Ministers and Pastors who risk the sustainability of their own respective ministries, who jeopardise their own wellbeing, because of exhaustion, depression, worry and stress. And I want to give a voice for churches that serve in the most challenging places, who give their time in blood, sweat and tears, who are running churches at a loss but somehow keep going, to serve the most vulnerable places in our society. And to speak up for the families I come into contact with, who are literally picking up and eating the crumbs from under the table.

    After the ravages of Covid 19 and after the savage way in which the cost of living crisis has taken away people’s dignity, aspiration and zest for life, I want to ask: if not now, then when, Church of England?

    I truly believe that the growth of the Church of England will not come by producing a definition of fornication, or even by blessing same-sex unions; something, by the way, which I fully support. It won’t come in the calling out the wolves from the sheep. It can and it will come only from serving on the margins, by calling out the injustices of social and financial deprivation, and by walking in the footsteps of Jesus in the darkest of places.

    Growth will come where ministers are not shackled by carrying the weight of so much expectation with so little resource, but are instead enabled to offer more than soup and a sandwich, a prayer and a blessing. It will come if we can offer a radical distribution of the extraordinary and sometime repulsive wealth that is within the Church of England, wealth that will enable churches and church leaders to challenge injustice. The Church of England needs to fight for an end to foodbanks and to stop celebrating soup kitchens as great bastions of pastoral care; instead giving us the tools to stir, not just soup, but hearts and minds. The church should enable us to make a difference, and should hold those in power accountable to make a cultural change to how we serve the poor in mind, body and spirit.

    Churches do make a difference; they offer wonderful Christian witness. But they are so often held back by financial woes and lack of opportunities. I hope and pray that the motion passed at Synod leads to change and makes a difference to how much support is offered to our estates. The motion provides a route map to recovery, a route map to growth: what is important now is we all travel in the same direction.

     

     

     

  • Marriage, but not LLF

    by Revd Canon Mark Bennet, Team Rector in the Thatcham Team and member of General Synod

    We are hearing much about marriage as the Living in Love and Faith process continues. But there is another aspect of marriage – this time, opposite-sex marriage – where I believe the Church of England should do much better.

    In a previous article on Via Media, published in 2022, Revd Sorrel Shamel-Wood told the story of her ordination as priest being deferred because she had recently got married. The ‘problem’ was that, even though her new husband was a priest, he had been divorced and his former wife was still alive. Sorrel had been ordained deacon already, with no impediment, and had she deferred her marriage she could have been ordained priest and been married later with no consequence. But, by marrying before ordination, she found herself caught up in the arcane and poorly known provisions of Canon C4. The directions given by the Archbishops under the Canon had not been significantly changed for many years, and specified that it would normally be necessary to wait at least three years after a relevant marriage before a candidate could be ordained.  By the time of Sorrel’s case it was generally understood that this three year period was a fixed requirement. In fact the Archbishops always retained a discretion, which they were eventually able to use, though Sorrel’s ordination was still delayed.

    But why should Canon C4 be there in the first place? Sorrel’s story is not the only example of this Canon failing the Church of England and making it look rather ridiculous. But, because the provisions touch on deeply personal matters, these stories are not well known. Many candidates have been advised to defer marriage until after ordination to avoid the complications of the Canon. An organisation which claims to value marriage encouraging ordination candidates to delay their marriages? Does that make any sense?

    And here is another fact that should be more widely known: over 30 years, one in six ordinations has – like Sorrel’s – required the intervention of the Archbishops under the Canon – one in six – and that is quite apart from those who have actually taken the advice offered to them to defer their marriage. That is some 2,500 faculties issued in 30 years – an average of over 80 each year. Yet when Amending Canon 9 was passed by General Synod in 1991 such exceptions were expected to be rare.

    Most members of the Church of England, even of the General Synod will likely be totally unaware of the practical ramifications. Here as in so much of church practice, processes have varied in different Dioceses – some candidates have been required to attend a panel interview on the subject of their marital history. Clergy who have remarried after divorcing abusive spouses have been told that the former spouse will have to be contacted, even if this might be a safeguarding issue for the candidate or their children. Many candidates find the process intrusive.

    My conclusion is simple: Canon C4 needs to be amended, and I have a private member’s motion listed for debate in General Synod in February which seeks to achieve that. Rather than deciding so many cases are ‘exceptional’, we need to get to the root cause of the problem: the Canon itself.

    The debates leading up to the passing of Amending Canon 9 were tense and highly charged – including allegations that the doctrine of marriage was being changed, and legal action to try to get the amendments declared ultra vires. What was at stake? Those affected were both those like Sorrel – marrying a person who had a former spouse still living – and those who were themselves divorced with their spouse still living, and who had remarried.

    In contrast to former marriages, however, other relationships are not subject to the same scrutiny. This means, for example, that a brief and unwise youthful marriage when the candidate was not yet even a Christian is regarded with more seriousness than a long-term relationship into which children may have been born and which has now come to an end. In former times such a relationship would likely have been solemnized as a marriage, but times have changed. Focusing on remarriage can distort the pastoral understanding of a candidate’s history.

    I would like to encourage General Synod members to find out about how the Canon has operated locally, and to support my motion – and if you are not a member of General Synod, please encourage your reps to understand the issues and to offer their support. I have heard many personal stories which, because they are personal, I am not at liberty to share, and I’ll also have limited time to speak and need to deal with technical matters too. It would be good if other Synod members could come prepared to tell stories they know and have permission to share (there are clearly lots of them).

    These technical provisions buried in the detail of the Canons are not the subject of wide knowledge or popular debate, but when they affect so many lives and vocations it is incumbent on us to get them right. it is the human cost which is the real failing of Canon C4.

    This is my motion, currently scheduled for debate on the afternoon of Tuesday 27th February:

    Revd Mark Bennet (Oxford) to move:

    ‘That this Synod request that the Archbishops’ Council introduce the necessary legislation to remove the canonical impediment to ordination in respect of a person who has remarried and, the other party to that marriage being alive, has a former spouse still living; or who is married to a person who has been previously married and whose former spouse is still living.’

     

     

     

     

  • Safeguarding: When Good Reviews Go Bad

    by Andrew Graystone, who uncovered the abuses by John Smyth in a series of reports on Channel 4 News in February 2017; he continues to advocate for victims of church abuse, and speaks regularly with survivors of John Smyth.

    There have now been seven public reviews of the activities of John Smyth – or eight if you count my own book, Bleeding for Jesus. The first was Operation Cubic, which was conducted by Hampshire Police, and ended with a referral to the CPS. Then, after the revelations were made public, the Scripture Union commissioned a review into its own involvement. A review was conducted for Winchester College, where Smyth groomed many of his victims. The Titus Trust has held two reviews – one into Smyth’s abuses and a second, by the safeguarding agency ThirtyOne:Eight to conduct a review of its internal culture. The Advance network of independent churches carried out its own investigation, which focussed particularly on the involvement of its former leader PJ Smyth, who is John Smyth’s son. And finally, we await the arrival of the Makin Review, which was commissioned by the Church of England.

    As someone who has reluctantly become something of an expert on John Smyth’s abusive career, I have participated in all of these reviews. Aside from taking a huge amount of time, this has given me some insight into how such reviews are conducted, and what makes them effective or ineffective.

    It is worth remembering that one reason why there were so many reviews into the one narrative is that the key agencies at the centre of the case refused to work together on a single inquiry.

    Speaking to Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News in April 2019, Archbishop Justin Welby explained that only a joint inquiry would be effective. “Unless you can get everyone in, you’re never going to get anywhere near the truth.” Nevertheless, having failed to persuade everyone to participate, the Church of England eventually commissioned its own review. That review – scheduled to last nine months – has now lasted five years, and there is still no date for its publication.

    It is worth rehearsing the gloomy history of delay and obfuscation in this inquiry.  The Church of England’s intention to hold an inquiry was first announced by the then Bishop for Safeguarding, Peter Hancock, on the morning after Smyth died in August 2018. By then Smyth’s abuse had already been in the public domain for almost 18 months. Justin Welby had been aware of it for over five years (discounting earlier knowledge, which he first denied, but now admits.) The first formal complaint had been made to the Church of England six years earlier. And of course many key figures in the church, some of them at the highest level, had carried the knowledge for a staggering thirty-five years.

    Even so, the inquiry was not formally launched for a further twelve months. It was scheduled to last nine months, meaning that it would be published in May 2020. Since then there have been no less than six announcements that the inquiry was going to be late. In every case, survivors were promised that it was imminent. In January 2022, survivors and General Synod were told that the first drafts would be presented in April 2022. They weren’t. Then General Synod members were told that it would be published in the Autumn of 2022. Of course it wasn’t. The National Safeguarding Team has stopped making announcements about the timetable.

    There are two important questions. Firstly, what has caused the seemingly endless delay?  Secondly, why does this matter?

    Bishop Jonathan Gibbs, the second of three “Lead Bishops” to preside over the review so far, told Synod that “There have been significant delays due to COVID and the exceptionally high volume of information.” Blaming the pandemic is convenient, but disingenuous. The review was already well behind schedule before lockdown was imposed. In any case, very little of the work has been done face to face. Blaming the unexpected amount of evidence is a nonsense too. What on earth was the church expecting? They knew when they started that there were over 100 victims, four decades of history, and scores of witnesses to hear from. If they were taken by surprise by the “high volume of information” it can only be because they weren’t paying attention to what the victims and others had been telling them.

    The core problems that have caused the delay are quite different. They are:

    1) An insufficiently experienced reviewer. Perhaps Keith Makin will yet turn out to have been an inspired choice for this important role. We have not been told by what process he was given the job. He had never previously conducted a review on anything like this scale. He had held senior social work management posts, and had been an Independent Scrutineer for local authorities, but he had little forensic experience, and nothing that would seem to prepare him for such a complex case. He also had little experience of the church’s structures and processes.

    2) Lack of resources. The church decided that the task of reviewing a case lasting over forty years with more than a hundred victims could be handled by one part-time reviewer contracted for just two days a week, with a part-time assistant. This is far less resource than you would expect in comparable reviews. Of course it is not Mr Makin’s fault that he was given such inadequate resources for such a huge task. The church either didn’t recognise the scale of the review it was launching, or simply didn’t care. For example, the review was launched without the necessary GDPR arrangements in place. It was seven months out of a scheduled nine before interviews could be recorded and transcribed. Staggeringly, the necessary privacy notice was not issued until a full year later. On the same day that the Smyth Review was announced, the church announced another review, this time into the child rapist Revd Trevor Devamanikkam. That case – though no less serious – had just one perpetrator and one known victim. Yet it was set up with the same timetable and resources. Perhaps the church was simply not thinking clearly about what it was doing. Or perhaps the prime motivation for launching these reviews was just to be able to send out a press release saying that it was doing something.

    3) Lack of purpose, drive and consistency in the commissioning body. The church still appears to have little idea about how reviews work. They don’t seem to be able to distinguish between a review, an inquiry and an investigation. To this day it remains unclear who wants the Makin Review, why they want it and why it needs to be done in a timely way. As usual, nobody even knows what will happen to the report. Will it be read by bishops? Debated at Synod? Or just sit online somewhere for a few weeks before it is lost?

    4) Lack of oversight. Best practice for a review like this is to appoint an independent accountability body, separate from the reviewer and the commissioning body, whose task is to monitor the progress and scope of the review. That body might include interested parties, including representative survivors. When Thirty-One:Eight reviewed the abuses of Smyth’s fellow-abuser Revd Jonathan Fletcher, just such a body was appointed. They were able to provide assurance about the independence and thoroughness of the review, and also added their own statement to be read alongside it. Makin has not had this advantage. He has had no one asking him what is going on (with the exception of dogged Smyth survivors who take it upon themselves to do so informally). He has had no one asking him awkward questions about such crucial areas as record-keeping, confidentiality, resources or timescale. And when (or if) the review is published, there will be no one independent to give it an imprimatur. It will be, effectively, an undefended reviewer saying ‘This is how I see things.’ I fear that the lack of an independent scrutiny body is going to be particularly awkward over the next few months, if those who find themselves criticised by Mr Makin decide to cut up rough.

    So there are several reasons why this review has struggled from the start, and why it is so shockingly delayed. But why the rush anyway? Conducting reviews is a lucrative business. The author of an earlier church review reported privately but proudly that he had bought a London flat with the proceeds. In 2019 the NST themselves inadvertently leaked Mr Makin’s day rate – at that stage, it was £650 per day. The Church of England has been extremely chary about revealing the overall cost of the Makin Review. Bishop Jonathan Gibbs was asked about this directly twice in General Synod questions in November 2022. He would only say “There is always a financial cost associated with any Independent Review, however this must be balanced with establishing the truth and listening to the voices of victims and survivors.” Synod members might feel they have a right to greater clarity.

    Why does all of this matter? Well, first, because the delay makes the review weaker. In the time between the disclosure of Smyth’s abuse twelve years ago in 2012 and the publication of the inquiry (2024? 2025?), some key figures have conveniently died. They include Smyth himself, who consequently managed to escape justice from the church, as well as the criminal courts. Revd David Fletcher, who probably did more than anyone else to enable Smyth’s career of abuse, has also died. Others have retired, or will do so before publication, placing them beyond the effective reach of the church’s disciplinary measures.

    In the course of writing my book, I approached a number of senior clergy who were implicated in the failure to stop Smyth’s abuse. In several cases they said they weren’t willing to speak to me until the Makin review was complete. That was now several years ago. The Archbishop of Canterbury gave assurances that if any currently serving church officers were found to have failed in their safeguarding duties, they would be investigated and disciplined whilst the review was in progress. To my knowledge only two very junior clergy have been sanctioned, and one of those was long retired. My book, published in October 2022, identified nine currently serving bishops who appeared to have failed in their safeguarding duties. They include Archbishop Justin Welby. Have any of them been disciplined?

    The delay also matters because there are two over-riding reasons to hold such an inquiry. The first is to restore confidence in the church. The hope is that the inquiry will draw a line under a terrible episode. Ideally it would show that the church did not make any mistakes in its handling of disclosures of abuse, but that’s unlikely to be the case. The alternative is that the inquiry should demonstrate that, even though the church made mistakes, it will not do so again. Lessons have been learned; processes have been changed; staff have been retrained or removed.  This is the basis on which trust can be rebuilt. But for that trust to be rebuilt, the process of the review must itself be sound. If there is any suspicion, justified or not, that the church has not been fully transparent, then the measure of trust will decline instead of increasing. If there is any hint that the church has tried to avoid, delay or manipulate the publication, it will do itself more harm than good. As things stand, those suspicions are hard to avoid.

    In this case, the process of the review has served to diminish, not enhance, trust in the church’s safeguarding practices. The review itself has been marked by delay, mismanagement, amateurism, poor communications and obfuscation. These are the same characteristics that allow abusers like Smyth to operate. However good the text of the Makin review is, if and when it is eventually published, no one who has watched the national church’s handling of the process will be able to say with confidence “This could never happen again.”

    The second reason to hold such an inquiry is for the sake of the victims. It is a vital part of the church acknowledging that it made mistakes. Only when the church recognises this publicly is it possible for victims to begin to rebuild their lives, and even in some cases to forgive. If the church, by its acts or by its omissions, allows victims to imagine that it might still be hiding facts, or avoiding facing up to the truth, then instead of healing, victims are re-abused by the process.

    For what it’s worth, I think publication of the Makin Review into John Smyth is still a long way off. Even if the first draft of the text is complete, there is a long way to go before publication. Parts of it have been seen by a number of Smyth’s victims, but it has not yet begun the lengthy representation process known as ‘Maxwellisation’. In other words, anyone who is referred to critically in the text will have a right to read it, and respond to what they perceive as factual errors. This isn’t going to be quick. There are likely to be many people on the wrong end of Mr Makin’s pen. Many of them will call in lawyers. Those who are unfamiliar with the process of reviews may not realise that before a text is published there can be endless legal battles over what it can or can’t say. The church is almost continually waging these battles with reviewers. Given that one of the individuals criticised for his failures over Smyth is almost certainly going to be Archbishop Welby, I would be surprised if the report is published before his retirement is announced.

    When it is published, what can we expect? Will anyone take responsibility for the largest abuse scandal in the Church of England for a century by offering their resignation? I doubt it. Will there be sanctions for those who enabled Smyth to abuse, or failed to act on what they knew? There’s no precedent for that. Will the report be debated by General Synod? I don’t suppose so. What then? I imagine there will be the usual apology from Lambeth Palace, posted on a website somewhere. Such apologies are now so familiar that I could have a good stab at drafting it for them. Then it will be business as usual for the church. If there is another John Smyth out there, and to my certain knowledge there is, he will surely breathe a sigh of relief.

    The scope of the Makin Review was always limited. For instance, it doesn’t look into Smyth’s time in Africa, where most of his abusing occurred. Nor will it look at the influence of the Iwerne network in the Church of England, nor the theological drivers that motivated the cover-up of his abuse over three decades.

    We are on to our third Lead Bishop and our fifth Director of Safeguarding since the review was announced. Synod and Archbishops’ Council are hopelessly distracted. In the absence of an independent supervisory group there is little support or accountability for Mr Makin, and little pressure to get his work over the line. What if he has found himself out of his depth in the scale, detail and politics of the process? In the meantime, he is earning handsomely from the delay – although that hasn’t prevented him from taking another role as Independent Scrutineer for the London Borough of Croydon. Perhaps most significantly, a significant number of senior church leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, have good reason to want the review to continue indefinitely.

    Perhaps there is another way forward. The Church could acknowledge that the Makin process has broken down. Given that there have been seven reviews and a book, a barrister could be appointed with two months to produce a digest of what is known so far.  There would be unanswered questions, but they could be identified as such. Without such a breakthrough, my own growing expectation is that the review will never be published.

  • Plotting the Division of the Church of England

    by Nic Tall, member of General Synod and Secretary of the General Synod Gender & Sexuality Group

    If you have been paying attention to the church press recently, you will have a sense of grumblings from conservative parts of the church, disgruntled over prayers of blessing for same sex couples. You may have noticed pronouncements about an “Ephesian Fund” or “alternative spiritual oversight” and wondered what’s going on.

    To help explain current movements within the church I will carefully plot the path that has brought us to this point. This reveals a consistent plan to partition the church which stretches back over years. Does that sound far-fetched? I’d ask you to look at the evidence and decide for yourself.

    This plan to divide the church, with conservative parishes refusing to share resources with the wider church and turning priests and parishes away from the care of their bishop, goes back to 2016. In the aftermath of the struggle to prevent women becoming bishops, some conservatives who opposed equality for women in the church looked to the issue of sexuality as the next place to oppose progressive values.

    A discussion document titled “Guarding the Deposit” was prepared for the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) in October 2016. It considered what would happen if there were moves to support equal marriage or blessing of same sex relationships in the church, and concluded that there would need to be “visible differentiation and division within the Church of England”. The envisaged division took the form of partition within the church, with both affirming and non-affirming Christians remaining within the church but divided into separate provinces. Provinces, in the Anglican Communion, are usually geographic: these wouldn’t be. They would overlap geographically but have separate episcopal oversight.

    Following October 2016, the General Synod had a busy time debating same sex relationships. February 2017 saw the famous “take note” debate, when a paper from the House of Bishops was rejected by Synod. This led to Archbishop Justin Welby declaring “we need a radical new Christian inclusion in the Church”. That response would be explored through a new project, Living in Love and Faith (LLF), producing a suite of resources available and inviting the whole church to explore the issues. LLF would take a few years to gather together these resources, but a sense that they might usher in progressive change was clearly concerning some.

    It is in this context that the CEEC, following that 2016 paper, began to take those ideas about how to divide the church more seriously. CEEC began to prepare for creating conditions where they could be put into practice.

    At its annual Council meeting in January 2019, the CEEC agreed to increase its capacity, seeking to raise extra funds, employ staff and refine options for “visible differentiation”. Until this point its annual income was around £35k, most of which was paid in a grant to a theological consultant. In 2019/20 income doubled to £100k and by 2021/22 it had increased to £176k. The January 2019 meeting also looked ahead on strategic and tactical concerns for the 2020 General Synod elections, another sign of long-term political planning.

    Having resolved to significantly increase capacity in preparation for the debates over LLF, the next part of the plan was to expunge any moderate evangelicals who harboured sympathy for those in same sex relationships. So, at the July meeting of General Synod, the Evangelical Group on General Synod (EGGS) amended its basis of faith to include conservative statements on marriage, sexuality and gender identity. This effectively removed inclusive evangelicals, leading to a split in the constituency.

    Freed up from any internal resistance that would have come from those inclusive evangelicals, the CEEC’s Council meeting in January 2020 prepared to make bolder steps. The first priority on its plan for 2020 was “Visible differentiation for the sake of biblical orthodoxy: development of Permanent Provision options and proposals from Council; development of Principled Protest; liaison across the evangelical constituency.” It also sought to focus on the 2020 General Synod elections, organising locally through Diocesan Evangelical Fellowships (DEFs). The Report and Accounts from 2019-2020 show that further plans were developed to encourage and support evangelical bishops to “be distinctive”. The intention to create division within the church was starting to take shape, using the sexuality debate as a wedge issue and strengthening links across the evangelical constituency, through local diocesan networks and bringing evangelical bishops on board. This was the first time that “principled protest” had been seen as part of the strategy.

    On 26th July 2020 the CEEC published the report “Visibly Different”, 104 pages long and expanding the themes of “Guarding the Deposit”. It spent time working in detail through the proposal for “a provincial way forward”, creating a third province which would be separate from the rest of the church but geographically coterminous. Whether liberal or conservative Christians would be deposited into this third province was a moot point; the critical part of the plan was structural differentiation, with conservatives remaining in the Church of England and enjoying all the financial benefits of doing so.

    While the CEEC was drawing up detailed plans for structural division within the church, the LLF project had been steadily developing its suite of resources for the wider church to explore issues around sexuality and relationships, and these were published on 9th November 2020. Six days later, the CEEC unveiled a 32 minute video entitled “The Beautiful Story”, including content from three bishops. This video undermined the content of LLF, presenting just one perspective, and a deeply conservative one at that. It concluded with John Dunnett, Chair of EGGS, issuing a call: “the General Synod elections in summer of 2021 are massively important and evangelicals need to be thinking now about whether they might be a good candidate”. So instead of engaging in open and honest debate with LLF, the agenda was only to focus on conservative perspectives; no others were worth discussing. It was also linked directly to maximising the political outcomes of the 2021 General Synod election.

    Moving into 2021, the CEEC looked to expand its capacity further to support its plans, employing paid staff for the first time, appointing an administrator in January, National Director in April and a Communications Director in November. In July the CEEC/EGGS National General Synod Elections Team published their guidance for conservative evangelical candidates in a document not intended for public release, but soon leaked. Candidates were assured that the local DEF would make sure “orthodox evangelicals” would vote for them in any case, so election statements should be aimed at another set of voters: those from the “middle ground”. Candidates were advised to conceal their views on same sex relationships, women’s ordained ministry or abuse within the church, but instead “as much as possible, sound as if you are a practising member of the Church of England”. “Sound as if”? On sexuality the advice was “it might be that it is wiser not referred to… talk about listening positively to and respecting the views of others, even when we find ourselves disagreeing.” A further private document on how to handle hustings meetings was distributed, again maintaining the policy of concealing their true views on sexuality and women’s ministry.

    Supported by the resources and organisation of the CEEC, not to mention this deliberate concealment of challenging views on sexuality and women’s ministry, conservative evangelical candidates performed well in the elections. The results saw many independent candidates displaced, along with a reduction in traditional catholic representation, although inclusive candidates supported by Inclusive Church maintained good numbers. Contrary to the CEEC campaign, Inclusive Church had a deliberate policy of transparency, publicly promoting a list of candidates who had signed up to a broad inclusion statement so voters would have clear information to base their decisions.

    With the new General Synod formed in November 2021, the subject of same sex relationships was bubbling away under the surface, but with the LLF materials out for use in the dioceses there was little coming directly to General Synod for discussion. The 2022 Council meeting of the CEEC reiterated the strategic priority linking LLF to differentiation, maintaining a policy that pursued division with sexuality as a wedge issue.

    Later in 2022, the momentum for change from LLF began to build, with feedback from those having done the LLF course indicating a majority wish for liturgical affirmation of same sex relationships. The House of Bishops held meetings to decide a way forward, with much speculation on the direction they would choose. In this atmosphere John Dunnett, Chair of EGGS and at this point Strategy Director of CEEC, issued a document outlining the CEECs position following LLF. The stance was to oppose any change whatsoever, effectively dismissing the whole LLF project and the ignoring the majority in the C of E who saw a place for some change to better accommodate LGBTQIA+ people. However, if that were not possible “differentiation will become an immediate necessity”. Three different options for visible differentiation were explained, with the preferred model involving “the rearrangement of episcopal oversight, dioceses and provinces.” Liberals would be given the option of opting into a “third province”, with conservatives retaining the remainder of the Church of England and relationships with the Anglican Communion.

    Which brings us to the eventful year of 2023. In January, the House of Bishops brought forward proposals for the blessing of those in same sex relationships and new pastoral guidance to replace Issues in Human Sexuality. On 9th February, Synod passed a vote in all three Houses to welcome these proposals, giving the House of Bishops a green light to proceed. This was the signal for the conservative plan to divide the church to move up a gear. Within a week a slick, pre-prepared video titled “We Love the Church of England” was rolled out. It voiced a hope for unity, but also stated that no compromise was possible. The solution presented was “structural rearrangement”, alleged to be desired by those liberals “preaching a false gospel”. Without such an arrangement it was predicted that “we’re going to tear the Church of England right down the middle.” At least five speakers in the video were based in churches that do not accept the ordination of women, and were therefore from the tiny minority of Church of England parishes (less than 5%) who hold to that view. The entanglement between historic opposition to the ministry of women and a wish to divide the church over sexuality was still evident.

    On 16th March 2023 the CEEC issued a statement that it was “compelled to resist” the direction approved by Synod, and called on conservative clergy to sign a declaration to join them. The declaration made no mention of visible differentiation, seeking to draw in as many conservative supporters as possible without spelling out the radical plan of partitioning the church.

    At the same time as stoking up fear among its conservative evangelical constituency, claiming that Synod’s decision would be “extremely distressing for evangelicals in this country”, the CEEC began to forge alliances with other groups. On 7th July, on the eve of the next General Synod meeting, a long letter raising complaints about the LLF process was published, with additional signatories from the Traditional Catholic group on synod (Anglo-Catholics opposed to the ordination of women), New Wine, the HTB Network, Church Revitalisation Trust and Myriad. Traditional Catholics coming on board was no surprise, as they had also opposed the Synod vote in February and had often sided with conservative evangelicals to oppose progressive proposals in the church. However, the inclusion of some charismatic evangelical church planting networks, particularly Holy Trinity Brompton, was a new addition. It had sometimes been assumed that HTB preferred to keep any reluctance around same sex relationships under the radar, given the diversity of views present within its congregations, as demonstrated earlier in the year by letters to the Church Times from LGBT+ affirming Christians who were HTB members.

    But the involvement of HTB and its Church Planting charity The Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT) would now go far beyond being a co-signatory to a letter. On 13th July 2023 a company called “AZ Alliance Ltd” was registered with Companies House, with a stated nature of business being “activities of religious organisations”. The two named directors were originally Sarah Jackson (Chief Executive Officer of the CRT) and Jago Wynne (Vicar of Holy Trinity Clapham, part of the HTB network of churches), with John Dunnett (National Director of CEEC) appointed as a third director in September.

    The involvement of personnel linked to HTB would continue, with former HTB Vicar Nicky Gumbel joining John Dunnett, now National Director of the CEEC, at a meeting in Cairo of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GFSA) in October 2023. Gumbel (recently awarded the CBE for ‘services to the Church of England’) was recorded as attending on behalf of “Alliance UK”, while the meeting of conservative Anglicans issued a statement with the priority of “re-setting the communion according to its biblical and historic roots”. The statement went on to add “We all know and lament that our Communion has entered into a deep darkness of rebellion to the truth of God’s word.”

    In spite of the campaigning by the CEEC to stir up dissent, the General Synod met again in November 2023 and once again voted in all three Houses of Synod to continue the work on LLF, including the consideration of standalone services of blessing for same sex couples. With the CEEC having failed to derail the LLF process, two days after the vote they launched the “Ephesian Fund”, closely followed by plans to create alternative structures of spiritual oversight. These announcements were two pillars of the long-planned structural differentiation, except that they were informal in nature. The Ephesian Fund relied on the fact that payment of Parish Share or Common Fund to the diocese is purely voluntary and cannot be enforced. The aim is that any money entering the fund will only be paid to dioceses with a legal restriction attached; namely that the money can only be passed on to churches committed to a “biblical faith”, meaning those who refuse to use the Prayers of Love and Faith. It is a mechanism to begin the financial division of the church. Arrangements for alternative spiritual oversight would move all discretionary relationships with the diocesan bishop on to an alternative person, such as a retired bishop holding conservative views. While there is no way for a priest or parish to informally absent themselves from legal relationships with the bishop and diocese – such as safeguarding responsibilities – it is intended to undermine the relationship with the diocesan bishop as far as legally possible. These arrangements are currently being described as “a temporary provision which will support evangelicals until a settlement based on structural provision is made available”, a provision which is hoped would be “permanent”.

    So, following two votes in General Synod affirming the PLF, and the direction of travel on LLF moving beyond the CEEC’s red line of no change, the plan for division has now been unilaterally declared, seeking to separate the Church of England as far as possible, without formal legal provision agreed through due synodical process.

    And here is the most recent piece of the jigsaw, showing the extent to which the plan is being pursued. Rather than waiting for disgruntled churches to contact the CEEC and enquire about the financial and oversight arrangements now being developed separately from normal C of E practice, there is a proactive campaign seeking to recruit churches to this split. A proactive campaign with a deep involvement of The Alliance, Nicky Gumbel and the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT; as of December 2023, renamed the Revitalise Trust).

    I have been passed a document from a church leader dated 11th December which had been distributed to all of their church members. The document states that the leader and his wife had been wondering whether to leave the Church of England due to “the blessing of sin” and “allowing in false teaching”. However, the leader then tells of being approached out of the blue to be recruited to join the Alliance:

    Out of the total blue I had an email setting up a phone call with Nicky Gumbel. We are not the sort of people who use our connections to position ourselves near influential people. Though he knows one or two of us from this church, we do not know Nicky Gumbel personally.

    Nicky phoned to ask what we were thinking of doing post-General Synod in November, and having listened to our dismay and despair, he then shared what he is doing through the Alliance. We are going to share this with you now, but what we would also add is that following a call with Nicky, we also had an hour’s call later with further updates on some of the detail of the Alliance with the CEO – Rev. Sarah Jackson – of the Church Revitalisation Trust, which is the active agent leading the bringing together and forward motion of the Alliance.

    Nicky Gumbel talked to us about his vision to open the Alliance to churches to join.

    The vision is to partner nationally by gathering 3000 Anglican churches across the nation, all biblical and all committed to orthodoxy, and together probably representing more than 50% of all English Anglicans. The Alliance will seek to stand in unity as one for orthodoxy.

    NG and the Alliance are working behind the scenes to develop legal protections for orthodox clergy, orthodox ordinands and training institutions, they are already working out how to offer orthodox Bishops to provide biblical oversight to clergy and churches, amongst a range of other developments.

    It’s all fairly live and quite new, but it was important for us to hear that the Alliance are seeking to ensure that spiritual oversight will be offered by orthodox Bishops, thereby giving spiritual safety for clergy and parishes who cannot “walk together” with false teaching and false practice.

    This document was being circulated to the members of the church on the same day that The Alliance wrote to the House of Bishops, asserting that they “are committed to working together with others in the Church of England to enable a flourishing of the whole church for generations to come. We want to do all we can to avoid years of more infighting in our divided church.” However, their actions show that, far from wanting the flourishing of the whole church and a way out of infighting, behind the scenes there is proactive action to split the church, part of a plan for division stretching back years.

    The revelation of the CRT as a central element in driving the plan for division is also striking. The CRT has been the beneficiary of tens of millions of pounds of central church funding, delivered through the SDF fund in various church planting schemes. In their answer to Question 32 at the July 2021 Synod, the Archbishop’s Council estimated that between 2014 and 2020 this funding amounted to roughly £50m for projects led by the CRT or for which they were a partner. That the CRT has received such large sums of central church funding to develop its network of church plants, but is now preparing to use that network to divide the Church of England, is a betrayal of the faith placed in them by the wider church.

    The CEEC and the Alliance know that the formal structural changes they seek can only happen with a legal underpinning agreed by the General Synod. This is very unlikely to happen, particularly in the current General Synod where a 2/3rds majority in all three Houses would be challenging to achieve on such a controversial plan. Having failed to prevent the introduction of the Prayers of Love and Faith, sought by a majority in the church, and aware that formal structural provision is not currently likely, the remaining option is to divide the church as much as possible through informal means. These informal means are designed to make the split that they seek a de facto reality as much as is possible, such that formal legal recognition will seem a straightforward way out of the impasse. The aim of proactively recruiting a quarter of parish churches and half of the church’s members shows the ambition, perhaps hubris, behind the plan.

    I hope this article has documented the long-term factional planning to split the Church of England and alerts the overwhelming majority of church members committed to unity to resist it.

     

     

  • Press release from the General Synod Gender & Sexuality Group and from Inclusive Groups

    During last week’s General Synod, the chair of the debate on the Living in Love and Faith process rightly noted that it’s not a question of who claps loudest, or for longest. Nor is it a question of how many people sign a petition: none of us wants to start yet another ‘petition war’. But as those leading the various inclusive groups which have been involved in LLF as ‘stakeholders’, some of us meeting with various members of the LLF team over the years, we feel compelled to state our position after Synod’s votes in February and in November to move forward with using the Prayers of Love and Faith.

    The following press release has been agreed by inclusive groups after discussion among their members, trustees or steering groups.

    20 November 2023

    We welcome the decision of General Synod to endorse the proposal of the House of Bishops to authorise the Prayers of Love & Faith for public use, including the trial use of standalone services under the Bishop of Oxford’s helpful amendment, and to continue the wider work of pastoral guidance and provision.  This continues the hopeful direction of travel set by February’s historic vote towards greater inclusion of LGBTQIA+ members of the Church of England.

                Of course, many of us would wish for much greater steps, much sooner, including equal marriage in church.  And we are also saddened by the hostile and negative manner in which many have engaged with the process, including the simplistic use of Scripture and appeal to narrow legal points. We look to the House of Bishops to issue new pastoral guidance for ministry, as agreed by Synod last February, and hope this will make generous space for LGBTQIA+ clergy to marry at their discretion, and for priests whose marriages are recognised in their own Province to be given PTO for England.  We also look forward to engaging with the formal process for permanent authorisation of the Prayers under Canon B2, whereby all dioceses will be drawn into the consultation.  The fuller discussion of all the issues involved can only be better for the integrity and honesty of the Church in all its diversity.

                Our response to that diversity is now inspired by the beautiful concluding speech of the Bishop of London, noting that whilst she was now excluded from others’ tables, they were not excluded from hers, and that if she were to be found with those shut outside the door, she expected to find Jesus there.  We hope to speak for many shut out until now, among whom Jesus is found, and like Bishop Sarah, we look to a table from which none are excluded.

                In that spirit we are committed to continued work in partnership with the House of Bishops and all across the spectrum of the Church of England, to seek the broadest possible space, including pastoral provision for those opposed to change, that does not impair the unity of the one Church under God for all people.

    Signatories:

    General Synod Gender & Sexuality Group, Revd Neil Patterson and Professor Helen King

    Affirming Catholicism, Revd Dr Hannah Cleugh

    Affirming Catholics in Synod, Jacqueline Stamper and Margaret Sheather, co-convenors

    Changing Attitude England, Revd Colin Coward MBE and Revd Robert Thompson

    Church for Everyone, Revd Dr Nicholas Bundock and Revd Augustine Tanner-Ihm

    Clergy Consultation

    Diverse Church, Jade Irwin

    Equal, Revd Nigel Pietroni

    The Evangelical Forum on General Synod, co-convenors Simon Friend, Ven. Nikki Groarke and Ven. Malcolm Chamberlain

    House of Rainbow CIC, Revd Jide Macaulay

    Inclusive Church, Fr Dan Barnes-Davies

    Inclusive Evangelicals, Revd David Runcorn and Revd Jody Stowell

    Modern Church, Professor Elaine Graham

    MoSAIC, Very Revd Joe Hawes and Revd Trevor Wyatt

    OneBodyOneFaith, Luke Dowding and Revd Jo Winn-Smith

    Society of Catholic Priests, Fr. Ian Gomersall, Provincial Rector

    Student Christian Movement, Revd Naomi Nixon

    Women and the Church, Revd Martine Oborne

  • The Dam Has Broken: Synod and Beyond

    by the Revd Dr Charlie Bell, Fellow at Girton College Cambridge, Assistant Curate, St John the Divine, Kennington and a consultant to the LLF Implementation Pastoral Guidance Working Group

    There is a moment each morning, as most of the world slumbers, and the deep night seems to be all pervasive, that a tiny, almost imperceptible dot of light can be just about glimpsed on the horizon. Slowly, but surely, the hints of dawn make their presence known – gently, yet increasingly convincingly, until the light warms, and the day begins. And there is no going back.

    There will, surely, be much noise made about what happened at the General Synod this week – much both-sideism, much hand-wringing about the narrowness of the vote, many angry words spat with venom and fury. Yet despite all the noise, all the anger, all the foaming at the mouth – indeed, despite many frustrations from many of us about the ever-so-limited step forward that these blessings are – something has happened. That something is tiny, almost imperceptible, yet it is there on the horizon, and it heralds a new dawn that cannot, however many tricks are played, however many legal actions taken, be turned back. Something has changed – the ceiling has a crack in it, and grace is seeping through. God is on the move, and is calling us all to follow.

    For those of us who are LGBTQIA, observing the debate this week was a bruising experience – more so even than February’s sessions – with language and behaviour that was so far over the queerphobic line as to be utterly unacceptable in any other forum except the one we claim is dedicated to the Lord of love. A particular low point was the use of the phrase ‘target on the back’ of clergy not wanting to use the prayers – not only is it a completely ludicrous, fearmongering, and demonstrably false suggestion that such clergy will be at risk of legal challenge, it is a deeply distasteful thing to make light of such imagery in a world where LGBTQIA people genuinely face violence and hate, not least in parts of the Anglican Communion. Twenty years ago Gene Robinson was ordained bishop whilst wearing a bullet-proof vest, because he really did have a target on his back – loose language like this is well below the dignity of a bishop and should have no place in the silly games of Synod. Let’s be absolutely clear: you don’t get spat at in the street, or stabbed to death, for being a conservative evangelical – and the attempts to invert the reality of victimhood from so many in the Synod chamber was disgusting.

    Of course, there was ultimately no need for this week’s session to take place – the reality being that whether the motion had passed or not, the prayers would likely have been commended and the Pastoral Guidance brought forward. In choosing to bring this motion to Synod – however asinine its content – the bishops made yet another in a series of unforced errors, and allowed the February debate to be rehashed in an even nastier way than before. Listening to speech after speech, it became clear that very few of our opponents had anything to say about the amendments they spoke to, but instead wanted merely to do down the lives and loves of, and yet again ‘other’, LGBTQIA people. What they wanted to do was revoke even the moderate progress of February – and with it, the apology to LGBTQIA people for the way we’ve been treated.

    For whatever one’s theological perspective, this was surely not a debate that made the church proud, and yet despite the endless provocations and bad-faith acting, those arguing for these tiny steps forward showed grace in abundance. Those of us watching on could see love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control bursting forth again and again. Judged by its fruits, there was no narrow majority in the debate’s outcome. Similarly, it is clear that the offensive and theologically abysmal accompanying paper GS2328 did not and does not reflect the mind of even the House of Bishops, let alone the General Synod, and can be immediately consigned to history as a vain attempt at influencing debate by those who have no business to do so.

    So where, in practical terms, do we find ourselves. Firstly, we know that the prayers will be commended within the next month or so – about time, and at last. The vicious conservative responses to Wednesday’s motion passing have managed to suggest that both nothing is happening, nothing has changed, and that the change is a great catastrophe, enough to wipe the Church of England off the map. Given the logical impossibility of this faux-outrage, it is probably best just to ignore them altogether – a great boon to one’s mental wellbeing.

    Secondly, we expect that the standalone services of blessing – the only real change in official practice here – will be authorised for use for an experimental period. There is absolutely no reason for this to be delayed beyond silly legal games, so this authorisation should happen as soon as possible, and we should get some clarity straight away as to when this will be.  This authorisation means that we can finally offer people a wedding-blessing-that-we-must-explicitly-make-clear-is-not-a-wedding-blessing, an idea so lacking in pastoral compassion that it surely cannot be taken seriously. What it means in practice is that we can finally offer people a service to celebrate their love, which seems rather uncontroversial to me. It’s a step in the right direction, so let’s embrace that direction in its fullness.

    Of course, there were speeches made at the General Synod which delighted in the idea that these standalone services might be removed in two years once the two-thirds authorisation of Synod fails, which it doubtless will. This gave, perhaps, a rather good glimpse into the utterly uncompromising and pastorally uninterested perspective of those who see their life’s mission as being the opposition of same-sex intimacy in the name of the Jesus who never utters a word about it. In the main, the bishops speaking recognised how pastorally inept this was, and I agree wholeheartedly with the Bishop of Chichester that once these services are introduced experimentally it would be a pastoral catastrophe to remove them – I cannot see this ever happening, and if it did, then we should simply disobey.

    So where do we go from here? Well in the first instance we must hold the bishops to account and get the commendation and authorisation undertaken without delay. We must, too, throw the pernicious Issues in Human Sexuality in the bin and get the Pastoral Guidance released before the end of the year, if at all possible – it is now a matter of simple cruelty and pastoral ineptitude that it is not published and put in place, and it is high time that clergy and ordinands in same-sex marriages should be freed to live out their God-given vocations. It is totally absurd that we will be able to bless forms of relationship yet not enter into them, and I cannot see that Issues is in place in anything more than name since Wednesday’s vote. Good riddance to bad – dangerous – rubbish.

    Secondly, let’s be clear that this is not the end – it is a stepping stone, and there is certainly no going back, but it is most definitely not the end either, and there is much careful and coordinated work to do. Marriage will be opened to people of the same sex, and it is now a question of when and not if. The development of our doctrine, and our reception of this, is inherently part of the way our church does its theology and lives its life, and is not in opposition to it. Our opponents have made it clear that they will not even grant us scraps, pay any attention to simple pastoral need, or allow us to live within our conscience, however much we wish to let them live within theirs. It is time for us – and particularly our bishops – to recognise that, to stop making excuses for them, and to stand firm against their threats and demands for (and attempts at) schism. They will stop at nothing to snatch everything away from us, and we need our bishops to stand alongside us, just as Bishop Sarah did in her summing up. Bishop Sarah, you will always be welcome at our table – not least because it’s not ours, but the Lord’s, and all of us come at God’s invitation. We do not write the guest list – we come as fellow pilgrims.

    And that’s the final thing that we must now work for. For far too long, bishops and LGBTQIA people have been at loggerheads with one another, each, perhaps, feeling in an impossible and difficult position. Finally, and not before time, some – even a majority – of our bishops have had the courage to draw a line in the sand and to say that yes, we, too, are part of the holy and broken body of Christ, in the same way as anyone else, and ‘being in communion’ is never something that should be weaponised. Yes, it has taken far too long. Yes, it is sometimes far too lukewarm. Yes, we will need to encourage them time and again. But the dam has broken and the secret is out – the bishops are with us. Let us never cease to remind them of this simple fact and learn to rebuild the trust that has all-too-often been lost.

    So now let us turn our minds to hope. The light is rising, and so – creakingly, tentatively, in the face of anger and opposition and flailing frustration – the dawn from on high is breaking upon us. Someday, our church will be led into the way of peace and find that its unity is a gift given, and not an idol created. And until then, let us see the water flowing from the right side of the Temple, however much others might deny it or try to stop it, and watch it making abundant life spring forth wherever it goes. All those to whom this water comes are saved and will say ‘Alleluia’, as the ancient hymn goes. That surely is our song, too.

  • Vile Bodies?

    by Adrian Thatcher, Honorary Professor in the Department of Religion and Theology, University of Exeter and a Trustee of Modern Church

    So now we know! While the authorization of same-sex marriages within the Church of England remains a distant dream, ‘Prayers of Love and Faith’ for same-sex couples are to be commended by the bishops next month for experimental use in stand-alone services. The Church of England Evangelical Council immediately announced that the proposals ‘depart from a biblical understanding of sex and marriage’.

    One of the main sticking points among conservatives throughout the churches is that ‘biblical understanding’ is unchanging. Was the CofE wrong, then, when in 2004 it changed its doctrine of marriage to permit, albeit ‘in exceptional cases’, divorce and what it called ‘further marriage’? Was it wrong to allow a widower to marry his late wife’s sister; or wrong in 1835 to prevent it; or in 1907 to allow it again, having faced down trenchant opposition from conservatives over several decades similar to the outbursts that have been heard in Synod this week?

    If biblical understanding is unchanging then employing and trading in slaves, killing Jews and crusading against Muslims is fine too. Ephesians is pretty explicit: ‘Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ’ (Eph. 6.5). Were Augustine and Aquinas right to deduce from scripture that slavery was instituted by God so that by it certain people could be blessed by learning the virtues of obedience and humility? Were white mainline Protestants biblically sound to invoke the curse of Canaan (Gen. 9.18-27) in summoning biblical support for the convenient prejudice that all black people were cursed?

    Who dares to recall that a favourite proof text of Christian slave owners was the parable of Jesus which illustrates the need for disciples to be watchful for the coming of the Son of Man by means of a slave owner meting out punishment to inattentive slaves, actually cutting one of them to pieces for misconduct (Luke 12.46)? The cutting open of the bodies of slaves by lashing and lynching was a common punishment during the Jim Crow years in the Protestant USA, and the next verse – ‘‘The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows’ (Luke 12.47) – offered a persuasive reason for doing exactly what the saying recommended. Being Christian and cruel is fine, authorized by Christ himself.

    This exegetical cruelty – the shameful shadow side of Christianity almost never acknowledged – persists in the present wranglings where scripture is utilized to reinforce cruel prejudice. It is nothing new. ‘His blood be on us and on our children’ (Matt. 27.25), cited Christians, as they hacked innocent Jewish people to death in the name of Christ. Martin Luther’s wicked text, On the Jews and Their Lies, is packed with biblical quotations. Yes, on the basis of scores of proof texts he advised that synagogues be burned, their books confiscated, their worship forbidden, and that they driven from Luther’s country. Yes, if this great Protestant Reformer could advocate these things on the basis of scripture, what confidence can we have in the siren cry, ‘sola scriptura’ heard all around the Anglican communion?

    The time has now come for an investigation into the prior historical and theological causes leading to this Anglican tolerance of prejudice and pastoral cruelty. Such an investigation will uncover that disturbing strand of the tradition that regards particular human bodies as inferior, disgusting, vile, ‘other’. This tradition would explain more than the disdain shown to LGBT people and their arrangements for living in love and faith. It would help to explain the terrible and world-wide abuse of children and vulnerable people by Christian leaders; why the churches covered it up; why racism is still endemic; why women still can’t be ministers or priests in most of the world’s churches; why spiritual abuse operates unchecked; why churches uphold marriage while ignoring the poor quality of life within many of them.

    My new book, just published, has begun this wider, deeper, and necessary investigation. Vile Bodies: The Body in Christian Teaching, Faith, and Practice uncovers an antipathy toward particular human bodies in much Christian theology. It vilifies them, whether the bodies of women, slaves, Jews, Muslims, Blacks, heretics, gays, heathens, people of lower classes. This tradition of thinking about and mistreating bodies is stubbornly entrenched in theology. It manifests itself whenever the church manages to get itself talking about bodies.

    Bridging the distance between biblical times and our own, Vile Bodies examines the psychological abuse of women compelled to see themselves as the downfall of the world; the futile attempts of holy men to deny their sexuality; the elaborate (and entirely biblical) justifications for owning slaves and enslaving whole peoples. It shows how mystical theology plundered the body’s senses in its forlorn attempts to soar above them in the soul’s search for God. It describes the elaborate manipulation of biblical texts to justify the persecution and killing of Jews, soon extended to justifying the crusades, enslaving millions, and colonizing whole peoples.

    Racism, sexism, colonialism, and homophobia follow from the theology that regards some bodies as superior, others as inferior or disgusting. A particular feature of such theology is that it requires self-delusion, constant repetition, the refusal of complexity, and the pretence that cruel and exploitative beliefs and practices are consistent with God’s will. At other times spiritual malpractice appears to be acknowledged (“We sincerely repent”) while the bad theology continues unabated. Alleged fidelity to scripture is substituted for real fidelity to Christ.

    An ‘unknowing’ of this tradition is an urgent task. The inoculation from self-criticism; the priority of apparent unity over the pursuit of truth; the abuse scandals and their concealment to protect the church’s ‘good name’; the hypocrisy that spins pastoral principles while at the same time undermining them; these are the demons awaiting exorcism from the body of the church.

    Vile Bodies: The Body in Christian Teaching, Faith, and Practice, is published by SCM Press on November 30th. Copies at a 20% discount can be ordered here.

  • Polluted Ground or Holy Ground? Going Forward to the November Synod

    by the Very Revd Dr Mandy Ford, Dean of Bristol

    I trained alongside men who did not believe that I could be a priest. We were friends, we learned together, we prayed together, we drank gin together. But as our period of training came towards its end and we were about to move to our new dioceses, I started asking the question of them, “When I celebrate the Eucharist, do you think Jesus will turn up?”

    The best of them were honest. Quite simply, the answer was “no”. The Church of England did not have the right, apart from the universal church, to ordain me.

    I’m still here. The Vicar of Dibley jokes have faded. No-one is surprised to see a woman at the altar or conducting a funeral any more. Yet, female colleagues still have to endure being abused or criticised because of their hair colour, tattoos, fashion sense, parenting choices or simply for existing.

    Perhaps I’ve grown more compassionate over time, but I don’t think I’ve ever confronted someone with the question, “Do you think I’m going to hell?”. But as a gay woman in a civil partnership, I probably know the answer.

    My response is the same. I’m still here.

    When we stand on polluted ground, as the theologian James Alison describes it, we do not have to allow ourselves to be poisoned.

    Alison, drawing heavily on Girard’s anthropology of the victim, points us to Jesus. When Jesus was accused by the authorities, he remained silent. When he returned to face those who had abandoned or persecuted him, he did not retaliate. Jesus would not set the cycle of violence spinning round again. He stood on polluted ground but he did not spread the poison around.

    This is a tough space to stand.  Polluted ground can easily become toxic. Misogyny and homophobia become internalised as self-loathing, low self-esteem or victimisation without us noticing.

    What would it feel like to stand on holy ground instead?

    My experience of holy ground is closely tied to my experience of vocation, in coming to mature faith as an adult, in the call to ordination, in my relationship.

    In those things I experience being beloved as a child of God and if I look around, it becomes easier to see others as my sisters and brothers in Christ.

    I have been thinking about the Chamber of General Synod as a toxic space, as polluted ground. Instead, I ought to take off my shoes before I enter.