General Synod – detailed Church Times reports
The Church Times publishes detailed reports on Synod debates. They are normally only available to subscribers for the first week. So far the ones below are generally available; there will be more next Friday.
WOMEN BISHOPS: Go extra mile, bishop pleads as Synod wrestles with women bishops
DR WILLIAMS’ ADDRESS: ‘Those who disagree won’t go away’
CONSTITUTION: New way of being Church House
BNP MEMBERSHIP: BNP support ‘incompatible’ with ordained ministry
CHURCH AS COMMUNION: Cardinal: ‘Division impoverishes us all’
8 Commentsopinions just before Lent
Updated Monday afternoon
Geoffrey Rowell writes in The Times that The synod is the place to challenge the unjust and evil.
Andrew Motion said in an interview with Janet Murray in the Guardian that “All children should be taught the Bible at school”. Theo Hobson in the Spectator was not impressed.
Sunny Hundal writes in the Guardian that It is worth having a healthy debate on the interaction between faith and violence.
Jonathan Bartley writes at Ekklesia about Hearing what children are saying.
At Comment is free Theo Hobson and Julian Baggini discuss Is Christianity a good influence on British culture?
On the BBC Radio 4 programme Today (Baroness) Sayeda Warsi argued that politicians are ‘ignoring’ polygamy. See Politicians ‘ignoring’ polygamy and also Happily married?
Update
Giles Fraser’s article in last week’s Church Times is now available, see Why is the Left so anti-Jewish.
General Synod – more electronic votes
For votes on women bishops, see previous item. Other votes in February are available as PDF files as follows:
Electronic voting results for Item 30 (Amendment to Item 11)
Electronic voting results for Item 11 (Membership of Organisations and Race Equality)
Electronic voting results for Item 14 (Church Water Bills)
Electronic voting results for Item 15 (Uniqueness of Christ) as amended by Item 45
Electronic voting results for Item 49 (Amendment to Item 18 (Human Trafficking))
Electronic voting results for Item 23 (Justice and Asylum Seekers) as amended by Items 54-57
Electronic voting results for Item 24 (Climate Change and the Church’s Property Transactions)
1 CommentGeneral Synod – votes on Women Bishops legislation
The detailed results of the voting on the women bishops legislation at General Synod last week are now available.
Electronic voting results for Item 507
‘That the Measure entitled “Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure” be considered for revision in committee.’
Electronic voting results for Item 508
‘That the Canon entitled “Amending Canon No 30” be considered for revision in committee.’
From these simple alphabetical lists I have worked out the voting figures in each house below. It will be seen that each house voted by more than a two-thirds majority in favour each motion. Of course, voting to send the legislation for revision is not the same as voting in favour of its content.
| item 507 (measure) |
item 508 (canon) |
|||||
| for | against | abst | for | against | abst | |
| bishops | 35 | 10 | 0 | 36 | 7 | 1 |
| clergy | 125 | 48 | 6 | 142 | 27 | 7 |
| laity | 121 | 56 | 7 | 131 | 45 | 6 |
| total | 281 | 114 | 13 | 309 | 79 | 14 |
I have also compiled tables of how each member of Synod voted (or abstained or was absent). These tables are available as a web page.
8 CommentsChurch of England attendance figures for 2007
Updated Friday morning
Provisional attendance figures for 2007 were released today.
The press release starts:
Figures from the Church of England released today show further evidence that, while some trends in churchgoing continue to change, the overall number of people regularly attending church has altered little since the turn of the millennium. The 2007 figures confirm that attending a Church of England church (including cathedrals) is part of a typical week for some 1.2 million people.
The full figures are available as a pdf file.
Some early press reports
Martin Beckford in the Telegraph Christmas church attendance falls by 11% in a year
Jenna Lyle in Christian Today New Church figures show attendance ‘stable’
Update
Bill Bowder in the Church Times More go to church when Christmas falls at weekend
7 CommentsGeneral Synod on BBC TV
The BBC Parliament Channel will show recordings of last week’s General Synod sessions on Friday 20 February. A schedule is available here.
BBC Parliament is shown on UK digital terrestrial television (Freeview) channel 81, on digital cable and on satellite at channel 504, as well as on the broadband media player. More information here.
0 CommentsACNA publishes statistics
The Anglican Church in North America has previously claimed:
“The movement unites 700 orthodox Anglican congregations, representing roughly 100,000 people…”
Today, a file entitled How many Anglicans are there in the Anglican Church in North America? has been published at this Fort Worth website.
How many Anglicans are there in the Anglican Church in North America?
On every Sunday morning, some 81,311 people worship at the 693 congregations of the Anglican Church in North America. These people and parishes are already outside of The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church in Canada. The large majority are temporarily under the oversight of six separate Anglican provinces.
The Anglican Church in North America will unify the parishes and membership of a number of jurisdictions:
• The Anglican Mission in the Americas (Rwanda) reports an average Sunday attendance of 21,600 in 180 congregations (40 of which are churches in formation called “networks”).
• The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (Nigeria) has 69 congregations with a average Sunday attendance of 9,828.
• The Reformed Episcopal Church has 150 parishes and an average Sunday attendance of 13,000.
• There are 51 parishes under the temporary oversight of Uganda with an average Sunday attendance of 7,000.
• There are 55 parishes in The United States under the temporary oversight of the provinces of Kenya and the Southern Cone with an average Sunday attendance of 10,000.
• Four entire dioceses separating from The Episcopal Church, with a combined 163 parishes and an average Sunday attendance of 16,483 (The Episcopal Church congregations and members having been excluded from this count) are temporarily dioceses of the province of the Southern Cone.
• The Anglican Network in Canada (Southern Cone) is composed of 24 congregations with an average Sunday attendance of 3,400.
• One congregation is under the temporary oversight of West Africa.
Based on a firm Sunday attendance average of 81,311 people, it is reasonable to very conservatively project that more than 100,000 Anglicans in North America are active members of a congregation of the proposed province (In many cases, total membership often runs at two to three times average Sunday attendance. For instance, The Episcopal Church reports an average Sunday attendance of 768,476 in 2007 and an active baptized membership of 2,116,749.)
While each individual group is small, as a united body, the Anglican Church in North America stretches from one end of North America to the other and has as many or more (in some cases, significantly more) members than 12 of the Anglican Communion’s 38 provinces (Bangladesh, Brazil, Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, Indian Ocean, Japan, Jerusalem & Middle East, Korea, Mexico, Myanmar, Scotland, Southern Cone, Wales)
See the PDF file for further comparison of ACNA with numerous provincial statistics.
38 CommentsGeneral Synod – further reports
Updated Tuesday
The Church Times has two articles available without subscription. (There will be many more in the next two weeks as detailed reports become available to non-subscribers.)
Approval of women bishops clears its latest hurdle
Also, the Church Times blogger Dave Walker has some “behind the scenes” pictures.
Justin Brett now blogging as The Dodgy Liberal has written here about the debate on the Uniqueness of Christ last Wednesday.
Martin Beckford wrote at the Telegraph Synod: The temple of money and the altar of multi-faith dialogue.
George Pitcher at the Telegraph wrote Whittam Smith predicts Armageddon.
Tuesday updates
Justin Brett wrote a further article, see Synodical Ruminations Part 1 (Covenant) and see also the MCU document produced for this debate, at Briefing Paper for General Synod Members February 2009 (PDF).
And also another one on Synodical Ruminations Part 2 (BNP Etc.)
1 Commentmore about Jenny and Jasmine
In my Saturday roundup of opinion pieces I included the article that Archbishop Sentamu wrote in the Daily Mail. One of the cases that he referred to there was the case of Jenny Cain and her daughter. The Telegraph reported this under the headline Primary school receptionist ‘facing sack’ after daughter talks about Jesus to classmate.
This case has given rise to criticism of the school, for example, according to the Telegraph:
John Sentamu said it was an “affront to the sensibility” of Christians everywhere that Jennie Cain is being investigated for alleged professional misconduct after she sent a private email to 10 friends asking for prayer.
And there was also Christian school receptionist row: More bishops speak out in support of Jennie Cain.
George Pitcher followed up with an opinion piece headed Christians need protection in law.
Other reports of the incident give a rather different picture. See for example:
Exeter Express & Echo Girl, 5, told off at school for talking of God followed the next day by Parents back head’s stance in storm over ‘go to hell’ comment
BBC School row over pupil’s God talk
Ekklesia School defends stance on girl who told classmate she would “go to hell”
Simon Barrow has written this comment article at Ekklesia Scaring the hell out of kids?
29 Comments… Perhaps those Christians who object to the school wanting to maintain a non-threatening environment should ask themselves how they would feel if a son of theirs ended up crying after being told by an atheist pupil that religious people are nuts and should be locked up? Or if their daughter was upset by a Muslim telling her she would suffer eternally for not believing in Allah and his Messenger?
In both these cases, there would be an outcry if the school did nothing, or if it said that that their kids would have to put up with being frightened, because trying to stop this would amount to “not showing respect for beliefs”…
Pittsburgh: national church seeks intervention
Updated again Tuesday evening
Although there is no report of this as yet on Episcopal Life Online, nor at the The Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh (Anglican) – which despite former claims to the contrary now appears to have slightly changed its name – there is now confirmation from the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh of a report from Lionel Deimel that Episcopal Church Asks to Join Calvary Lawsuit.
The actual court filing can be seen here as a PDF.
Deimel wrote:
An objection that the defendants have raised more than once in the lawsuit filed by Calvary Church against now-deposed bishop Robert Duncan and other (now former) leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh is that Calvary had no right to sue without The Episcopal Church’s being a party to the suit. Well, Archbishop-in-Waiting Duncan seems about to get his wish. Papers were filed today in the Allegheny Court of Common Pleas on behalf of Bishop John C. Buchanan, Retired Bishop of West Missouri and parliamentarian of the House of Bishops. In a “petition to intervene,” Buchanan, representing The Episcopal Church, asks the court to become a plaintiff in the case…
The diocese wrote:
Today, Friday, February 13, 2009, attorneys representing The Episcopal Church filed a Petition to Intervene in the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s Request to Special Master now pending in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County.
The following statement was issued by the Standing Committee, the current leaders of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh:
“We approve of and welcome The Episcopal Church joining our legal effort to regain control of diocesan assets that are still held by former diocesan leaders. Our request before the court is based on an agreement those former leaders made in court, namely, that diocesan property would unconditionally remain with a diocese that is defined as being part of The Episcopal Church of the United States. We believe the participation of The Episcopal Church in the case will help clarify beyond question who is and who is not rightfully the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh identified in that court agreement.”
Update
Lionel Deimel has published a second article, Further Analysis. In this he notes that the PDF document linked above contains two items. The second document, titled complaint-in-intervention, is analysed in detail by him. He summarises the concluding paragraph as follows:
In particular, The Episcopal Church asks that the court:
a. Declare that the people recognized by The Episcopal Church are the proper authorities to control the assets of the diocese.
b. Declare that property held by and for the Diocese of Pittsburgh may only be used for the mission of The Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Pittsburgh, subject to the rules of each.
c. Order the defendants to relinquish all diocesan assets to the proper authorities of the diocese.
d. Require defendants to submit an accounting of all assets held on October 4, 2008,
e. Provide such further relief as may be proper.
Tuesday evening update
ENS now has a report, PITTSBURGH: Episcopal Church petitions to join property case, wants Duncan to vacate offices.
8 Commentsopinions to think about
I wrote recently about a Theos report on Rescuing Darwin. Andrew Brown has now written at Comment is free about Science vs superstition, not science vs religion.
Last week in the Church Times Andrew Davison wrote that The C of E should nurture theology. For more about the Returning to the Church conferences, go here.
Giles Fraser wrote about the Credit Crunch, see The crunch needs global resolution. And don’t miss the lucid explanation of the Credit Crunch by Andreas Whittam Smith in a synod paper, The Inernational Financial Crisis and the Recession.
Earlier this week, Jonathan West asked Should I worry about the church?
The Archbishop of York wrote in the Daily Mail The intolerance towards Christians in the public sector is an affront. Another copy is on the archbishop’s own website.
Jenny Taylor wrote in The Times Let us use chastity to channel the soul’s energy.
Elizabeth Gray-King wrote in the Guardian about Valentine’s Day.
33 CommentsGreen and Pleasant
The overnight snow has cleared, and I am sitting in the study, looking out on the rather scruffy greenery of the garden. As with many clergy houses, the surrounding garden is unusually large for the locality. It’s much admired by visitors, especially congregation members, not because it is in any sense a model of horticultural achievement but just because it is a green space. And a green space is defined as good, to be enjoyed, a source of spiritual solace.
Talking recently with someone who has moved from working in the inner city to a parish in the depths of rural Essex, we fell to wondering about the default position which gives a spiritual value to the ‘natural’ world, but not to that which is evidently made by human hands, or indeed, by machines designed by human brains. Go into a religious bookshop, and look at the shelves of popular devotional material: most will have covers which show flowers, sky, mountains, woods, sea, even deserts. Any human beings shown will be almost certainly be in rural settings, whether the domesticity of the English countryside or something wilder and apparently more challenging. A very few might be consciously grittier in their approach: urban spirituality, talking of God in the city, is rough, tough stuff, edgy, about stories of poverty and survival.
Intentionally or not, the visual code being used implies that the natural world is of God, and good, offering us an unmediated access to the divine, and that what is the product of human activity is and does none of these things. This of course ignores the fact that so much of the landscape in which we operate is shaped by human intervention: very little certainly of the English countryside is ‘natural’, a wilderness unspoiled by people’s demands upon it. More importantly for my purposes, working in an urban environment, is the implicit message that houses, roads, factories, shops, bridges, railways are always to be seen as second-rate in the spirituality stakes. And, by extension, the people of the city need to get into the green world of big skies and empty spaces, because there they can pray, reflect, contemplate, in ways which are otherwise closed to them.
Perhaps this is part of a peculiarly English cultural obsession with the countryside: just as, if you make sufficient money (or so it was in the past, when people did make money), you move to the country, whether to a stately home or a comfortable bungalow, so if you are spiritually successful, you seek out the fields, the forests, the mountains. But the Christian story famously begins in a garden and ends in a city, and yet we constantly hark back to Eden rather than look forward to Jerusalem. Why are we so unwilling to explore a sense of God amongst the cars, the bricks, the concrete, the bus stops, and the busyness? Why do we not honour as God-given the human creativity which gives us the North London Outfall Sewer, the exuberant decoration of late 19th century terraced housing, the entertainment of one of our local covered markets? And why, when we do try to do it, is the attempt so often disastrous? I recall with pain, many years ago, singing ‘God of concrete, God of steel…’
I can’t answer the questions, but I’m off to look for signs of the Kingdom on the London Underground.
13 CommentsGeneral Synod – reports on day five
The official report of Friday morning’s business is at General Synod – Summary of Business Conducted on Friday 13th February 2009 AM.
Press reports:
BBC Church call for asylum law change
Martin Beckford Telegraph Church of England General Synod calls asylum seeker amnesty
Ruth Gledhill General Synod Feb 09 Day Five
Nottingham Evening Post City priest’s call for asylum seeker rights
Alastair Cutting Asylum and Sanctuary
We will update this as more reports are published.
0 CommentsGeneral Synod – Asylum Seekers and Climate Change
The final morning (Friday) of Synod was devoted to two diocesan synod motions.
The first, from Southwell & Nottingham, was about Justice and Asylum Seekers. The Revd Ruth Worsley moved the motion:
That this Synod, continuing to affirm scriptural teaching about care for the vulnerable, welcome for strangers and foreigners, and the Church’s calling to reach out to the marginalized and persecuted, call upon Her Majesty’s Government:
(a) to ensure that the treatment of asylum seekers is just and compassionate, and to that end to consider:
(i) conferring a right to work on all asylum seekers, and
(ii) declaring an amnesty for so called ‘legacy cases’ that predate the Government’s New Asylum Model;(b) to find a practical and humane remedy to the intolerable situation of destitute ‘refused’ asylum seekers who are unable to return to their country of origin because of personal safety, health or family reasons.
This was amended, by changing some of the wording, and adding (iii) and (c) so that the substantive motion became
That this Synod, continuing to affirm scriptural teaching about care for vulnerable people, welcome for strangers and foreigners, and the Church’s calling to reach out to the marginalized and persecuted, call upon Her Majesty’s Government:
(a) to ensure that the treatment of asylum seekers is just and compassionate, and to that end to:
(i) confer a right to work on all asylum seekers,
(ii) declare an amnesty for so called ‘legacy cases’ that predate the Government’s New Asylum Model, and
(iii) bring to an end the practice of detaining children and families in Immigration Removal Centres;(b) to find a practical and humane remedy to the intolerable situation of destitute ‘refused’ asylum seekers who are unable to return to their country of origin because of personal safety, health or family reasons;
(c) to investigate and report publicly on the quality of the legal services provided to asylum seekers.
The amended motion was then carried by 242 votes to one against (with one recorded abstention).
The second motion, from Worcester, was about Climate Change and the Church’s Property Transactions and was proposed by the Bishop of Dudley:
That this Synod call on the Archbishops’ Council to conduct an urgent review of the Endowments and Glebe Measure and other relevant Church legislation, with a view to bringing forward at the earliest possible opportunity any amendments needed to enable diocesan bodies and PCCs lawfully to dispose of land on terms which give proper weight to environmental considerations as well as financial ones, and so enable the Church to give a stronger moral lead in achieving Her Majesty’s Government’s objectives in cutting carbon emissions.
After debate this motion was defeated. 83 members voted for the motion and 98 against. There were 18 recorded abstentions.
0 CommentsGeneral Synod – Retreat Houses
The final business at Synod this (Thursday) afternoon was a diocesan synod motion on the future of Church of England retreat houses.
The Ven Richard Atkinson (Leicester) moved on behalf of the Leicester Diocesan Synod:
That this Synod
(a) celebrate the contribution of the Diocesan Retreat Houses to the Retreat Movement, and to the mission of the Church and the spiritual well-being of the nation;
(b )in the light of the closure of several Diocesan Retreat Houses, invite the Archbishops’ Council to review and to make recommendations for the future sustainability and development of the remaining Diocesan Retreat Houses; and
(c) encourage the Archbishops’ Council and the other National Church Institutions, Dioceses, regional training partnerships and parishes to make full use of the Diocesan Retreat Houses for retreat, prayer, study, conferences and creative thinking for the future.
Mr Brian Newey (Oxford) moved as an amendment:
Leave out paragraph (b).
This amendment was carried on a show of hands so that the substantive motion became
That this Synod
(a) celebrate the contribution of the Diocesan Retreat Houses to the Retreat Movement, and to the mission of the Church and the spiritual well-being of the nation; and
(b) encourage the Archbishops’ Council and the other National Church Institutions, Dioceses, regional training partnerships and parishes to make full use of the Diocesan Retreat Houses for retreat, prayer, study, conferences and creative thinking for the future.
At the end of the debate the amended motion was carried nem con on a show of hands.
Background papers
from the Diocese of Leicester and the Diocese of Peterborough (GS Misc 907A)
by the Secretary General (GS Misc 907B)
The Ven Richard Atkinson proposing the motion
0 CommentsGeneral Synod – reports on day four
Updated Friday morning
The official summary of the morning’s business is at General Synod – Summary of Business Conducted on Thursday 12th February 2009 AM
And for the afternoon, there is General Synod – Summary of Business Conducted on Thursday 12th February 2009 PM
Martin Beckford in the Telegraph Workers who lose jobs will escape ‘Crackberry culture’
Ruth Gledhill in the Times Bishop of London says that redundancy is good for the soul
Avril Ormsby at Reuters ‘We are all to blame for financial crisis’ – archbishop
BBC Church leaders focus on recession
Further updates
ENS In England, Anglican covenant debate reveals mixed expectations by Matthew Davies
Ekklesia Global economy hits poorest hardest, archbishop tells Synod
Ruth Gledhill General Synod Feb 09 Day Four
Justin Brett In Praise of the Tom Wright Sound-Bite
Alastair Cutting A jar, an empty cupboard, and kissing the hand of the Queen
7 CommentsGeneral Synod – Inter Faith: Presence and Engagement
The second item of business this afternoon (Thursday) was a debate on the report Inter Faith: Presence and Engagement (GS 1720)
The motion, proposed by the Bishop of Bradford, was “That the Synod do take note of this report”. The motion was passed on a show of hands.
The Bishop of Bradford introducing the debate
1 CommentGeneral Synod – Financial Crisis and the Recession
This afternoon (Thursday) Synod debated the report Implications of the financial crisis and the recession (GS 1719). Also relevant is the paper by Andreas Whittam Smith that we linked to here.
The Archbishop of York moved:
That the Synod do take note of this Report
The Archbishop’s speech is here.
The motion was carried.
The Archbishop of York speaking in the debate
0 CommentsThe Velvet Reformation
The March issue of Atlantic Monthly carries an interview with Rowan Williams written by Paul Elie.
The place of gay people in the church is one of the bitterest disputes in Christianity since the Reformation. The Anglican Church is trying to have it both ways—affirming traditional notions of marriage and family while seeking to adapt its teachings to the experiences of gays and lesbians. Presiding over the debate, gently—too gently?—prodding the communion toward acceptance of gay clergy, is Rowan Williams, the brilliant and beleaguered archbishop of Canterbury. He’s been pilloried from all sides for his handling of these issues, but his distinctive theology and leadership style may offer the only way to open the Anglican Church to gay people without breaking it apart.
Read the whole thing, starting here.
Also, read an interview with the writer, at A Flock Divided.
8 CommentsPaul Elie talks about Archbishop Rowan Williams’s balancing act, and the schisms threatening the Anglican Church.
Credit Crunch explained
Updated Thursday lunchtime
An extremely useful paper written by Andreas Whittam Smith provided for the debate held on Tuesday is now available on the CofE website.
See GS Misc 916 THE INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL CRISIS AND THE RECESSION.
Update We have now added this paper as a webpage.
1 Comment