The Business Committee report GS 2091 contains the following:
Arrangements for the Saturday afternoon
25. The Business Committee has agreed that on Saturday afternoon the Synod will not be in session. Instead, members will be invited to attend a choice of seminars intended to update members on various important areas of work and to encourage our participation in the development of them.
26. The seminars will cover the developing work of the House of Bishops Teaching Document on Human Sexuality, the Pastoral Advisory Group, Digital Evangelism, the Evangelism Task Group and the Environmental Working Group, as well as Children and Young People. Each seminar will be 1 hour long and will take place 3 times on a rotating basis in order to allow those members who wish to attend up to three different seminars. There will also be workshops available on a number of these topics. Full details of these opportunities are set out in GS Misc 1188. This conference style session will be introduced at the end of the Saturday morning session by the Chair of the BC and some of those leading the different workstreams.
27. After due consideration, the Business Committee has come to a mind that the various PMMs and DSMs relating to the matters which are intended to be addressed by the proposed House of Bishops Teaching Document on Human Sexuality will not be scheduled for debate until that document has been published. This decision was taken on the understanding that the work on the Teaching Document will be completed by 2020. In addition, there has been an understanding that from the inception of the project there will be regular opportunities for members of the General Synod to engage with that work, as it develops at each group of sessions. This process of engagement begins with the seminars arranged for the Saturday afternoon of the July group of sessions.
The details of the arrangements for the Saturday afternoon are contained in GS Misc 1198.
The programme for the afternoon comprises
The nine seminars will each run three times during the afternoon, for an hour, at 2.30 pm, 4.15 pm and 6.00 pm.
The three workshops are described as follows:
…organised so that you can visit them at your own pace and in your own time throughout Saturday afternoon. Each workshop space will have information about aspects of the work of the Teaching Document and offer ways in which you can participate in shaping its work.
One or more members of the Co-ordinating Group for the Teaching Document will be available to respond to your questions and tell you more about the work of the group. These workshops are as much for the benefit of the Teaching Document as to inform you about the project..
There is a lot more detail in GS Misc 1188.
“Dear LGBTQ people,
Here is some nice long grass for you.
Blessings,
The Business Committee.”
So another two years of nothing – not even discussion is permitted.
We have an expression in New Zealand: “Anglican Fudge”. Is this what’s happening in Mother Church?
I suggest that every member of General Synod be required (as homework) to watch the excellent and inspiring videos linked on a recent thread on TA to the aftermath of Lizzie’s suicide.
Some ten years ago, when I was talking to our Mothers’ Union Group, who wanted me to tell them what had happened at General Synod, I mentioned that the subject of same-sex relationships had come up. All hell broke loose. Would I marry a same-sex couple? I said I would not. All but one of the twenty women present thought it was a disgrace that we discriminated in this way and I had to say that I have publicly supported equal marriage since 1980, but it is illegal to conduct such a ceremony in the Church of England. It would… Read more »
LGBTQI inclusion won’t be discussed until the infamous teaching document comes down from on high from mostly straight, male, and cisgendered people.
The teaching document needs to be deeply INFORMED by discussions in your GS and beyond!!!!
CoE, always putting the cart before the horse. If that document doesn’t embody “radical inclusion” as defined by the excluded people (not people speaking for us, without us). Then it’s a colossal waste of time. Which perhaps is the point of the exercise.
Radical new Christian inclusion =
1. Tell TEC not to normalise same sex marriage any more
2. Block all discussion within CofE for 3 years.
Calling this farce Kabuki theater would be to give it too much credit. Given Canterbury’s unity at any cost dogma, the content of the “teaching document” is a foregone conclusion: it won’t recommend equal marriage, end imposed celibacy for priests in same-sex relationships, or accept gay relationships as being equal to straight relationships. That being so, what possible reason is there to accept yet more delays? Change will have to be forced through against the English bishops’ will, whether that’s in 2020, or beyond: in which case, why not put all effort into that, instead of wasting time going through… Read more »