updated Friday
Official press release: Culture change for seven days a week faith welcomed by General Synod
Official summary of the day’s business: General Synod February Group of Sessions 2017: Thursday
The text of Gavin Oldham’s motion is not included in the summary; as amended and passed by Synod it was:
That this Synod, considering the ratio of time and money spent in administration to that spent in mission to be too high throughout the Church of England, and noting the very effective facilities provided for parish statistics collection and clergy payroll:
(a) confirm that the principle of subsidiarity should not be applied to purely administrative functions; and
(b) request the Archbishops’ Council to develop its current work with dioceses to identify opportunities for nationally provided administrative services which would both release a larger proportion of resources for local growth and mission initiatives and generate economies for the whole Church.
Press reports
Zachary Guiliano The Living Church Synod Turns to Mission
Anglican Communion News Service No easy solution to same-sex marriage issue, secretary general tells C of E Synod
Josiah: “We are not up to the task of resolving them faithfully right now…” He said the differences could impede their common mission to the world. And he suggested the time might be right to set aside difficult matters. “It may mean self-restraint of a sacrificial kind, for now. It may mean patience of a painful kind, for now,” he said. Maintaining the status quo is not a neutral action. It means LGBT people taking the rap for the Church’s failure to treat them like everyone else. It means a continuing definition of lesbian and gay sex as sin because… Read more »
I find the comments by Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon intriguing. It’s the first time I’ve heard him express concern for the gay sisters and brothers in Nigeria and other parts of Africa who face dreadful criminalization. And he expressed the need for a change of attitude there and said that they (Africans) need the space to work it out on their own. I’m not sure what he means by “space.” He called for setting the matter of sexuality aside for awhile, saying ““It may mean self-restraint of a sacrificial kind, for now. It may mean patience of a painful kind, for… Read more »
Susannah is right, the comments of the secretary general are appalling. “It may mean self-restraint of a sacrificial kind, for now. It may mean patience of a painful kind, for now”. It’s cheap and easy to ask others to sacrifice so that you can continue to do nothing. Worse than this particular piece of cowardly enthusiasm for other people to suffer so his life can be easier, Idowu-Fearon is arguing in bad faith. He has a long track-record of abusing and condemning homosexuality, comparing it with corruption, calling it abnormal, and then issuing tendentious “but, but, the dog ate my… Read more »
I agree, Interested Observer: to use your own phrase, it’s the racism of low expectations, bizarrely employed by the target himself. You don’t set a timetable for another person’s freedom. Only full equality is good enough, as quick as possible.
‘Susannah is right, the comments of the secretary general are appalling. “It may mean self-restraint of a sacrificial kind, for now. It may mean patience of a painful kind, for now”. It’s cheap and easy to ask others to sacrifice so that you can continue to do nothing.’ It need not be cheap. In advance of progressive marriage equality the bishops and Primates could agree that there would be no promotion of any sort for any bishop or primate in an heterosexual marriage, that no bishops would marry, and that married bishops remain celibate until this is sorted out. I… Read more »
Depending how it is handled, the Culture Change (Setting God’s People Free) risks alienating many, perhaps most, regular worshippers in the same way the aftermath of the Parish Communion Movement did. There are always wheels within wheels, inner and outer circles, those who are more committed in some ways than others are. Drawing individuals further in is a vital part of ministry, but will a Cultural Revolution achieve this, or merely create an us and them divide leaving many regarded as, and feeling, no longer proper church members. In the early and middle decades of the last century only a… Read more »