The Church Times blog has a useful set of links to earlier events at The Telegraph reports that Jeffrey John is the ‘favoured candidate’ for Bishop of Southwark post
Colin Coward has his analysis at Changing Attitude in The new paradigm unfolds on Radio 4 between Chris Sugden and Giles Fraser!
Jim Naughton has an American view at the Episcopal Café in Not entirely baseless speculation about the Jeffrey John situation.
John Richardson wrote at The Ugley Vicar Be very careful before you object to Dr John.
12 CommentsPress Statement from WATCH (Women and the Church) 5th July 2010
20 CommentsWATCH Opposes Archbishops’ Amendment Regarding Women Bishops
The text of the Archbishops’ amendment on women bishops appears innocuously brief and simple. However, their proposed small alterations to the draft legislation hide some changes for the Church that WATCH sees as highly contentious.
In removing the reference to ‘delegation’ we are returned to the idea of ‘transfer’ of jurisdiction: a female bishop will have some of her job automatically removed as soon as she is appointed. This was rejected (as TEA) by the House of Bishops in 2006, and found unworkable in practice after detailed examination by the Revision Committee.
When it comes to having ‘coordinate jurisdiction’, the Archbishops appear to be seeking to create, in effect, two Diocesan bishops in each Diocese: one to minister to those who accept ordained women, and one to minister to those who don’t. This is a step further even than flying bishops. Such an innovation must not be accepted without serious examination of the consequences.
Senior clergywomen have written in the last week to the Archbishops asking them to withdraw their amendment. They say that the proposed amendment ‘brings dismay and despair amongst women priests, and many have voiced their reaction by saying how deeply undermining it is of their ministry as ordained women.’ WATCH remains opposed to the Archbishops’ amendment.
Updated again Monday afternoon
Anglican Mainstream has reproduced an extract from a blog entry by Ruth Gledhill under the (confusing) headline Scholastics v Orthodox: As Jeffrey John story breaks, we have Bishop Marshall’s ACC resignation letter. Ms Ruth Gledhill.
It includes the following:
It is of course possible that the Archbishop of Canterbury has had a dramatic Pauline conversion to the justice argument of gay rights campaigners in the Church of England. More likely is that he was boxed in and had little choice but to approve Southwark’s mandatory candidate. Nick Holtam from St Martin-in-the-Fields is likely to be the other name that goes forward to the Prime Minister. Under the new rules of the Crown Nominations Committee, David Cameron would normally expect just one name but I believe he has on this occasion asked for two.
The Times subscribers can find the whole article here.
Updates
The Australian has reproduced a news article from The Times headlined Gay bishop to divide Anglicans.
Anglican Mainstream has also published the following:
Anglican Mainstream – the full quote in the Times
Urgent Call for Prayer from Anglican Mainstream
20 CommentsUpdated Monday lunchtime
The BBC Radio 4 Today programme carried an item earlier this morning, which you can listen to here.
‘No chance’ gay bishop will split CofE
Canon Chris Sugden and Dr Giles Fraser discuss if the appointment of Dr Jeffrey John as Bishop of Southwark would reopen the wounds of the debate over gay bishops in the Anglican Church.
The interview is 7 minutes long.
Update
The BBC now has a news report, based on the interview linked above, at Appointing gay bishop ‘risks splitting Church’.
24 CommentsUpdated Sunday lunchtime
Tomorrow’s Sunday Telegraph has an article by Jonathan Wynne-Jones headlined Gay cleric in line to become bishop in Church of England.
Update
A second article in the Sunday Telegraph by Jonathan Wynne-Jones has now appeared online, see Meeting on appointment of gay bishop will determine future of the Church.
The official document entitled BRIEFING FOR MEMBERS OF VACANCY IN SEE COMMITTEES (version dated November 2009) is available here as a PDF file.
The process of selecting a diocesan bishop is also described here.
The Southwark Diocesan Statement of Needs can be found here. (PDF)
Members of the Southwark Vacancy-in-See Committee are listed here (scroll down).
The national members of the Crown Nominations Commission are listed on this page.
The Southwark nominees to the Commission are listed in this press release.
The meeting “next week” is in fact on Monday and Tuesday 5/6 July.
42 CommentsThe Church Times published a leader column yesterday, Have the Mexicans started a wave?
This argues the desirability of seeking a supermajority of votes in the CofE General Synod:
…The records of the recent House of Bishops meeting, released this week, show that the House agreed not to propose special majorities when it comes to the vote in the General Synod. The decision is surprising, given the impact that the Covenant might have on the Church of England. Although the text contains no mechanical means whereby one province can influence the deliberations of another, it will obviously change matters to know that a decision might result in some form of severance from the Communion mainstream. This might not be a bad thing — greater responsiveness to each other is, after all, the object of the Covenant — but it will be a different thing.
As matters now stand, the implications if a province decides not to endorse the Covenant are unknown. The Covenant Working Group concluded that, in such an eventuality, “there should be the flexibility for the Instruments of Communion to determine an appropriate response in the evolving situation.” In other words, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Primates’ Meeting, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, if time drags on, the Lambeth Conference would have to make something up. The C of E is not any old province, however, and were it to reject the Covenant, it is hard to see the project surviving. At the very least, the Archbishop of Canterbury would find it hard to support the Covenant without the backing of his Church. As so much rests on the vote, a two-thirds majority in the Synod would provide a clearer endorsement.
Paul Bagshaw has published an article today, Why the Covenant won’t work.
The Covenant will work in all sorts of ways, of course, some intended some predictable if unintended.
What it won’t do and can’t do, is what it says on the tin. It cannot ‘prevent and manage’ disputes:
This Commission believes that the case for adoption of an Anglican Covenant is overwhelming:
* The Anglican Communion cannot again afford, in every sense, the crippling prospect of repeated worldwide inter-Anglican conflict such as that engendered by the current crisis. Given the imperfections of our communion and human nature, doubtless there will be more disagreements. It is our shared responsibility to have in place an agreed mechanism to enable and maintain life in communion, and to prevent and manage communion disputes. (Windsor Report §119)
The reason it cannot ‘prevent and manage’ disputes is simple. If the Covenant mechanisms can be applied retrospectively (which is effectively what is being attempted) then these mechanisms are applied as it were from the outside of the dispute. They step in like courts and police to adjudicate and enforce an outcome – in this case the expulsion (in whole or part) of the offending members of the Communion…
A few days ago, he also published Just what will the Covenant cost?
5 CommentsFulcrum has published this Fulcrum Press Statement.
WOMEN BISHOPS AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND
Statement by the Fulcrum Leadership Team3 July 2010
(read the Commentary on this Statement here)The Bible supports ending restrictions on the ministry of women by making women bishops and the mission challenges of our times require it. It is vital that the General Synod debate later this month does not produce a stalemate. We need to move forward now toward women bishops in the life of the Church of England and we need them serving from 2014 and not 2018 or 2025.
We recognise that those who dissent from, as well as those who assent to, the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate are loyal Anglicans. Those who oppose this development need a space and a future in the Church of England. We believe this would be best served by appending a Code of Pastoral Practice to the Measure, not permanent legislation.
We believe the new legislation must not be framed to create what might be deemed to be a second class of bishops based on gender or a “Church within a Church”.
For these reasons we believe the legislation as proposed by the Revision Committee provides the best framework for a practical way forward.
Comment on the relationship between the work of the Revision Committee and the alternatives suggested by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York is posted on the Fulcrum Website.
Do read the full commentary.
14 CommentsRoz Kaveney in The Guardian asks What are demons, really? Christians and Satanists are both divided about the reality of demons. But even liberal believers can be led to silliness by their beliefs.
And John Casey writes in The Tablet about Talk of the Devil: Satan in Catholic theology.
Mark Vernon writes in The Guardian about The eroticism of the Church of England. The BBC’s new sitcom, Rev, is a surprisingly realistic picture about the sexual undercurrents of normal Christianity.
Alex Klaushofer writes in The Guardian about New wine in old church buildings. All over the country small churches are growing while the large buildings that once housed them decay.
And Ian Jack writes, also in The Guardian, about Saving churches for their history – not religion. These buildings are an important part of our landscape – even if they are not used for worship.
Symon Hill writes in The Guardian about Queer, Christian and proud. Ultra-conservative anti-gay Christians are a just a noisy minority. That’s why this coming Pride, the rest of us should raise the roof.
Peter Stanford has this Face to faith article in The Guardian: Christianity, arrogance and ignorance. After decades of discussion on world faiths, how could I know so little of their core beliefs?
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about The football babies come home.
Jay Michaelson asks in Religion Dispatches Does the Bible Really Call Homosexuality an “Abomination”? This word, used for centuries to justify an anti-gay posture, has been badly translated and even more poorly understood.
This week’s The Question at The Guardian’s Comment is free belief is Should religions compete? Would the world be a better place if religions concerned themselves only with the crimes and follies of their own?
Here are the responses.
Monday: Alan Race Conversation demands mutual respect. Without trust we cannot talk about God, but to build trust we must avoid trying to convert or lecture people
Thursday Maggi Dawn Religions should not compete for power. The call for peace at the heart of most religions contrasts with the way they behave as competing communities.
Friday Mehdi Hasan
Islam should not be missionary. Muslims must shun the divisive idea of a marketplace of religions which all compete for believers.
The Times has now hidden itself behind its paywall.
8 CommentsACNS reports two further resignations: Archbishops Henry Orombi and Justice Okrofi.
But the headline reads: Two new members to be welcomed onto the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.
The forthcoming Standing Committee meeting will welcome two new members from Asia and Africa: Bp Paul Sarker (Moderator of the Church of Bangladesh and Bishop of Dhaka) and Revd Canon Janet Trisk of South Africa (Rector of the Parish of St David, Prestbury in Pietermaritzburg, in the Diocese of Natal).
The two new additions and the existing members face a packed agenda for their July meeting that includes reports on finance, mission, the Anglican Relief and Development Alliance, evangelism and church growth, and unity, faith and order including the progress of consideration of the Anglican Communion Covenant by the Provinces.
They will also be discussing Standing Committee membership issues including electing a successor to Bp Azad Marshall, Bishop of Iran, and noting the resignations of Archbishops Justice Akrofi and Henry Orombi.
Outside of Committee business, the members’ agenda includes visits to Lambeth Palace, its library and Westminster Abbey.
The then current list of Standing Committee members as given in a recent ENS report on the resignation of Bishop Azad Marshall was:
[old list deleted]
Update
While I was writing the above, ENS published a new article, Standing Committee membership, resignations confirmed by Anglican Communion Office
The Anglican Communion Office has announced that two new members will serve on the Standing Committee beginning with the July 23-27 meeting in London: Bishop Paul Sarker, moderator of the Church of Bangladesh and bishop of Dhaka; and the Rev. Canon Janet Trisk, rector of the parish of St. David, Prestbury, in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Trisk was elected at the last Standing Committee meeting to replace Nomfundo Walaza, also from South Africa, and Sarker is the elected alternate for Middle East President Bishop Mouneer Anis, who resigned his membership in February saying that his presence has “no value whatsoever” and that his voice is “like a useless cry in the wilderness.”
The July 2 release also confirmed that Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda and his elected alternate, Archbishop Justice Akrofi of West Africa, have resigned from the Standing Committee.
And giving an updated membership list (quoted verbatim):
The Church Times has a report headlined Slash spending on bishops’ houses, says task group.
EXPENDITURE on bishops’ houses is out of control, an official task group has concluded.
The funding for see houses is set every three years. The total spent in 2002-04 was £11 million. In 2008-10, it is forecast to be £21 million. The average maintenance cost of some bishops’ houses is now well over £50,000 a year.
The figures come in a document prepared by a task group on spending, chaired by the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Richard Chartres. Other members include the Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd Andrew Urquhart, and the First Church Estates Commissioner, Andreas Whittam Smith.
The group acknowledges that a number of the houses are Grade I and Grade II listed. It also accepts that much of the expenditure is a result of work on office space in many of the houses, which are used by diocesan staff as well as by the bishop. Such expenditure seldom adds to the value of the house.
It concludes, none the less, that the money allocated in 2011-13 should be capped at £15 million, with a view to bringing it down to no more than £10 million in 2014-16. “There is a compelling need to bring control over this area of expenditure,” the group says.
This all comes from GS Misc 946 Archbishops’ Task Group: Report on Spending Plans 2011-2013, a document with lots more interesting information, which is among the General Synod papers, but has not yet appeared on the CofE website. It might perhaps appear on this page when it does.
3 CommentsThis is an attempt to explain in plainer English what the amendments, that the two archbishops are proposing to make to the Draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure, are trying to do.
First, they remove from the wording of the measure the explicit reference to “delegation”.
for the exercise by
way of delegation toa male bishop
This is because the concept of “delegation” has proved to be a stumbling block for some of those who are opposed to women bishops. See for example the discussion in this earlier TA thread from last October, when for a brief while it appeared that the Revision Committee was going down a path towards “statutory transfer” which is exactly what this amendment now seeks to restore. See also the earlier (2006) proposals which were for Transferred Episcopal Arrangements (shortened to TEA) and from the debate in July 2008, look at Amendment 72, which is reported on here, and which sought to insert the words:
“either by way of statutory transfer of specified responsibilities or”;
The vote on that amendment was relatively close, compared to the others, but it failed in the House of Clergy.
This point is summarised in the press release from the archbishops as follows:
Second, they make an assertion that this change:
shall not divest the bishop of the diocese of any of his or her functions.
From the press release:
Third, they insert into the section about the Code of Practice, an explicit requirement that the code must include guidance about the
arrangements for co-ordinating the exercise of episcopal ministry under section 2(1), (3) and (5) by the bishop of the diocese and any other bishop who exercises episcopal ministry in accordance with those subsections.
This is intended to ensure that the Code of Practice does cover the topics mentioned in those subsections.
From the press release:
So, to summarise, the amendments do exactly, but no more than, what the press release from the archbishops said they would do. They are a reversion to the principle of “statutory transfer” which was voted down by synod in 2008, and abandoned by the revision committee last November.
21 CommentsUpdated to include (below the fold) the text of the measure after amendment
Updated Thursday evening to correct extent of struck through text below the fold
The Archbishops have today released the text of their proposed amendments to the Women in the Episcopate legislation. We have copied this below.
We have put the text of the draft measure online here. There is also a pdf version available from the CofE website.
We linked to the Archbishops’ original announcement of their proposals here.
General Synod Draft Legislation: Women in the Episcopate amendments
Thursday 01 July 2010
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York have submitted the following amendments to the Draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure, GS1708A, to be considered at the forthcoming July sessions of the General Synod of the Church of England.
DRAFT BISHOPS AND PRIESTS (CONSECRATION AND ORDINATION OF WOMEN) MEASURE
Draft amendments to omit reference to delegation
Co-ordinate Jurisdiction
Clause 2
1. In subsection (1) leave out the words “way of delegation to”.
2. After subsection (1) insert –
“(2) The episcopal ministry referred to in subsections (1), (3) and (5) shall be exercisable by virtue of this section and shall not divest the bishop of the diocese of any of his or her functions.
Clause 5
In section 5(1)(b), at the end, insert the words “and, in particular, arrangements for co-ordinating the exercise of episcopal ministry under section 2(1), (3) and (5) by the bishop of the diocese and any other bishop who exercises episcopal ministry in accordance with those subsections”.
+Rowan Cantuar +Sentamu Ebor
We show below the fold the effect of these amendments on the text of the measure.
34 Comments