Updated again 26 May and 28 May (scroll down for updates)
The Church Times reports: Bishop of Winchester steps back after diocesan rebellion.
THE Bishop of Winchester, Dr Tim Dakin, has “stepped back” from work for six weeks after he was threatened with a vote of no confidence at the next diocesan synod.
On Tuesday evening, the Suffragan Bishop of Southampton, in Winchester diocese, the Rt Revd Debbie Sellin, announced: “Bishop Tim has today informed me that he will be stepping back from his role as Bishop of Winchester for the next six weeks, so that he can focus on discussions about future leadership and governance reform in the diocese.”
The letter gives no further details, but it is understood that between 20 and 30 senior church members in the diocese, clergy and laity, threatened to pass a vote of no confidence in his leadership at the diocesan synod…
Read the full Church Times article for much more detail.
At the time of writing this, the diocesan website contains no reference to the matter.
The Hampshire Chronicle had a report this morning: Bishop of Winchester Rt Rev Tim Dakin to step down for six weeks.
Updates
The Times (£) has Bishop of Winchester, the Right Rev Tim Dakin, steps back after flock rebels
Surviving Church Bishop Dakin and Winchester. A Diocese in Crisis?
Gavin Ashenden Bishops who Bully – Reflections on a Safeguarding Scandal.
Church Times Leader comment: Winchester
Church Times Angela Tilby: Panic lies behind the Dakin crisis
I am guessing the situation is very fact-specific and I don’t know enough to comment; however, it would be good to see General Synod seize this precedent and pass a vote of no confidence in the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Its not a single can of worms but a whole pyramid.
And it doesn’t just have implications about the integrity of +Winchester but the process of making him a bishop at all. No theological college training, no priestly formation, gaps in his CV: who on earth thought him suitable bishop material?
The Winchester CNC of 2011-12 has serious questions to answer. Was it inept? Was it misinformed? What due diligence did it undertake? To what extent did people like Lady Brentford provide ‘helpful’ backstairs information? The Ashenden article is *so* explosive on so many levels that Dakin has two options: 1. he could sue, but in view of the comments on this thread and elsewhere, that could be a very high risk and costly strategy. 2. he could maintain a ‘dignified silence’, which will be interpreted by many as an admission that Ashenden’s accusations or conjectures are true. It’s almost Catch-22… Read more »
I think there’s a strong possibility that David Williams (now +Basingstokiensis) may have sat on the ViS if not the CNC. See my post elsewhere on this gargantuan thread
I believe that (now Bp) David Williams sat on the CNC for Bp Dakin’s appointment
Thank you, James. Would it be step too far to surmise that the present Lay and Clergy chairs in Diocesan Synod would both also have been key players in the process? I recall the open ViS meeting at Bursledon, but not the members. Buyers’ remorse?
I am sure that others can confirm who the Diocesan Clergy and Laity were in the CNC process. They are the only ones who can comment for themselves as to their experience of the process!
And they are sworn to secrecy on all that happened at the meetings of the CNC.
In answer to your last questions, there will be significant pressure exerted for both.
I don’t know how the CNC, and system of nominations, recommendations and references works but it’s worth pointing out that the current bishops of Leicester, Birmingham and Durham were all CMS trustee board members during the 2000s, the latter two each chairing the board for periods of time.
The Ashenden article also has significant omissions. “A complaint had been made to the Dean, Robert Key, that a Churchwarden had inappropriately hugged his tenant who had every right to expect better behaviour from him. “ Well this was a churchwarden who was chaperoned because of his inappropriate tactile behaviour with women (mentioned in Korris), with whom female lay ministers in Jersey were warned not to be on their own with (something never came to public light but which was common knowledge) and who also was moved around different churches as problems arose (now there’s a surprise!). The Dean at the… Read more »
Absolutely
Specifics aside, it’s good to know that bishops can be held accountable by those lower down the food chain, even if it takes a long time to reach the light of day. The CT piece remarks on the fact that Dr Dakin has never been in full time parish ministry. He is not the only senior church official in that position. Say what you like about whether hierarchs need parish experience (of course they do IMO), it’s an effective smoother of hard edges.
But hasn’t it been tough to lead during Covid? Can’t he take time to pray and seek direction? So some folk are unhappy. That’s leadership for you, right?
Why has fighting the pandemic been particularly onerous in Winchester? Is it a more virulent strain?
I’m one of the clergy in this diocese. My experience is that the issues are here are not related to covid, and have been challenges long before this current season. I think it is far deeper than your comment suggests. My hope is that the concerns raised may now nearly be public enough that the significant culture challenges here can no longer be discounted, suppressed or silenced.
He couldn’t afford ‘his’ clergy any affirmation, appreciation or any attention…a former now departed (not Winchester or Salisbury) diocesan once confided that + Dakin “had not a pastoral bone in his body”. Pastoralia and the care/cure of ensouled bodies and questing minds totally eclipsed by a unifocal Missional/marketing strategic priority. “I don’t do parishes” was an earlier statement to a surprised Patron.
I understand WInchester may be the diocese referred to recently as having spent £500,000 on NDAs.
Is there any basis, first-hand knowledge of facts, for saying this?
Written Question and Answer from Diocesan Synod 22nd March 2021. Further answer in supplementary question not yet published. 3. To the Chief Executive: I’ve been approached by a concerned member of this diocese to ask at synod about the use of Non Disclosure Arrangements and Financial Settlements when terminating either the post or employment of both clergy and diocesan staff. Within the past 10 years: • Can you explain for what reason(s) NDAs have been used? • How many times has an NDA been used? • How much has already been spent on financial settlements for clergy and other diocesan… Read more »
In my ignorance, I had assumed the NDAs to relate to claims for abuse (as distinct from employment) and am relieved to learn that I was wrong about that. I’m not an accountant but I looked at Winchester Diocesan accounts fully published, of course, on the Charity Commission website, and found nothing to suggest that excessive sums had been expended on legal fees.
At face value, the reply quoted by Rev James Pitkin above answers both Marian Birch’s question and my concern.
I have no comment to make on the other general issues covered by others below.
Reading James Pitkin’s post alongside the information available on the Archbishop Cranmer website Archbishop Cranmer it would seem that it is WInchester Diocese that is being referred to in the Cranmer post – though they may be referred to as ‘confidentiality clauses’ rather than NDAs
Yes, indeed. I am keen that the Diocese publish the verbal answer to the supplementary question (to the written question/answer above). But I could only offer my recollection which is yet to be tested by the Minutes! (My memory says that it was said that the confidentiality agreements in settlements were there and may be what are called NDAs elsewhere)
Confidentiality clauses constitute non-disclosure agreements. NDAs almost invariably exist within a context rather than as stand alone documents. To state that we’ve never used NDAs but have used confidentiality clauses amounts to casuistry of the highest degree. I am in touch with those who have been wrongly bound under NDAs by Winchester Diocese. Keep track of ndafree.org and soulinformation.org for further information.
Yes but those who know can’t say openly. There is a lack of openness within the culture on such matters. Eg We have tried to get a proper figure out of the Church for what the cover ups by wealthy Churches have cost ordinary folks in the pews over Smyth and such basic information is openly suppressed. We talk the talk but do not walk the walk on Transparency and Accountability. With the Makin review unlikely to be published this year, my revised guess is that all in, the Iwerne cabal will have cost hard pressed churches over £800k by… Read more »
Martin, the follow-up to “it’s too difficult to get the information” is “well the finances are the easiest piece to track on these things. When you can tell us how much money you are spending, we might start believing that the systems work – until then don’t even try telling us they work for victims and survivors.”
Both the Church Times and the Hampshire Chronicle highlight Dr Dakin’s lack of parish experience: when will the Crown Nominations Committee take on board the need for bishops to have worked at the coal face of ministry? The optics here are dreadful for the CofE but only a week or so ago someone was appointed bishop with virtually no parish experience; why are those making these appointments so obdurate? That hard pressed parish clergy and parishioners are calling time on these matters is of huge significance. How long will it be before further rebellions about the Archbishop of York’s £90k… Read more »
Re ‘parish experience’ – I take your point, but on the other hand, if I ask myself who have been the most memorable bishops of the last, say, 150 years (memorable for their impact on both the Church and the nation) quite a high proportion of those who come to mind had minimal parish experience, and some none at all – e.g. Westcott, Gore, William Temple, Ramsey . . . . more recently Rowan Williams and Tom Wright. I wouldn’t want extensive experience in the parochial ministry to be a condition of being advanced to the episcopate.
Rowan Williams was a great disappointment in his lack of support for LBGTQ people and, to most ordinary folks, was incomprehensible. Tom “Air Miles” Wright spent an inordinate time in the USA lecturing his fans – causing much rejoicing in Durham Diocese when he finally went back into academic obscurity.
Well actually Tom Wright was quite a popular bishop of Durham while I was a priest in his diocese.
That’s a matter of opinion, Charles. Many Durham clergy were pleased when he left. I remember Andrew Brown of the Guardian said Wright “always seemed to be to a first class prefect at a minor public school – exactly the sort of person I got myself expelled to get away from.” Sounds just like the Bishop of Winchester.
Did I really? “God what a genius I had in those days!”, to quote Oscar Wilde
On one infamous occasion he was in Washington DC when he should have been in Washington Tyne & Wear taking a confirmation service. The candidates were all sent home pending further instructions.
“academic obscurity” — I love it. As opposed to clerical obscurity?
“incomprehensible” — hmm.
Perhaps I should have written “out of harm’s way”. Ask the average Englishman who Tom Wright is they’d say “Never heard of him!”
If you say so.
I’m sure my niece and nephew in Manchester have never hard of N.T. Wright. Mind you, like the vast majority of English people (not just ‘men’, FrDavidH) they’ve never heard of any Anglican bishops or theologians. I’m grateful for the reminder they continually give me that the ‘Church of England’ is very much a minority pursuit in England.
Absolutely right, Tim. The vast majority of English people would see bishops and academic theologians as very obscure and hardly ever give the CofE a passing thought.
Says a lot.
Your last sentence is such a contrast to the C of E into which I was born and baptised nearly 80 years ago: a parish with a rector and always two, sometimes three curates (one, incidentally, I remember from 70 years ago, a Canadian), a Reader with a DD, two churches full every Sunday, all BCP with full choirs at main services, Sunday school for infants, junior church in the afternoon at both churches, Crusaders (to which my sister belonged), summer camps (diocesan, but no Iwerne-type associations) with both young men and women leaders in their late teens, treated equally,… Read more »
Indeed. Very sad. Thank you for your comment.
Why did the C of E become a minority pursuit? Because ecclesiastical self-government gave power to those who see themselves as a spiritual elite, and everyone else as beyond the pale, dross to be purged. 1) Only a small minority of churchgoers in the sixties were weekly communicants. The Church pushed Communion as the main service, in many cases the only option. Weekly Communicants were the only ones who really mattered. 2) The old Puritan heresy, rejected at the Savoy and by Luther and Calvin and Cranmer, that infant baptism requires promises and commitments from parents, was revived with a… Read more »
Surely William Temple was Rector of St James Piccadilly.
You’re quite right – those three years rather tend to slip one’s mind. When offered it he was assured that ‘there is said to be little parochial work of the ordinary kind’. Iremonger continues: ‘His was not the stuff of which parish priests are made’ And he did have two curates! But the position gave him prominence and plenty of time for his other (national) activities. Perhaps not a very typical cure, then. His father Frederick was never a parish priest at all as far as I recall.
I think quite a few ‘plum West End’ parishes (and no doubt elsewhere) have been ‘used’ as stepping stones for those on their way up the ladder. I have done research on the former parish of All Saints Ennismore Gardens, where Ralph Inge, later – famously – Dean of St Paul’s – was a deeply unsuccessful vicar (and he knew it) for under three years.
Thank you John. You are no doubt also aware of Michael Ramsey’s short time as vicar of St Bene’t’s in Cambridge, and of Charles Gore’s one year as vicar of Radley.
I want to thank all above for the reminder that harsh/ready judgments about lack of this, or too much of that, don’t always conform to the way God uses people’s talents in his service. Michael Ramsey, Charles Gore, William Temple. Three intelligent and productive servants. George Herbert, humble and wise, long service in rural cures. God endows the obedient.
George Herbert’s holy and wise service in rural ministry couldn’t be described as ‘long.’ He was less than four years Rector of Fugglestone St Peter with Bemerton.
Let’s call it the entirety of his priestly ministry, then, given his poor health and early death…
This has been brewing for some time. While I can appreciate how awful it must be for the Bishop to be in the spotlight like this, and can even sympathise with him, I am afraid the responsibility rests at his feet “in my opinion.” From the moment he arrived in the Diocese, he was quite clear that he knew what was needed to wake up sleepy Winchester. He failed (or refused) to listen to the long experience of those already in post, while adopting an “arm’s length” approach. The local media was aghast the he refused to give interviews before… Read more »
The ‘rave in the naves’ were actually held under the previous Bishop.
Chris – I think that this is a reference to Resource Churches (eg St Mary’s in Southampton)
Thank you for your trenchant analysis. I wonder what a six week period of “stepping back” will achieve. If matters have become this serious is there any prospect of + Winton effectively leading the Diocese again? Would not the time honoured course of resigning for health/ unspecified personal reasons have been the way forward? Or might he have discovered that God was calling him to serve in some other role ( assuming he could find another role)? I thought that he had been quite successful at the CMS, having overseen the merger with SAMS. Perhaps running a diocese is different… Read more »
From the sound of it, one intended outcome is to avoid the vote of no confidence. As things stand, this can be brushed off in the future as needing a break from the challenges of the role – it’s hard to finesse the meaning of a no confidence vote if it happens.
The merger with SAMS came at great cost to the identity of CMS – but the story from Winchester is the same in CMS. Good, able leaders were moved on, his ideas were enforced by new recruits (who sometimes could not articulate those ideas) and the £16m from the sale of partnership house went on £10 for the new offices (fair enough as they are flexible and have rental space) but in 3 years we were in a financial crisis and loosing members. Savage cuts to everything but the pet ideas.
£10 m on new offices!!!!
As a member of staff at the ACO I took the chance to meet with three East African Archbishops to talk about CMS – where I was on the board. I talked about the vision. They were not interested. They were blunt. With Tim as Sec Gen CMS was finished as far as they were concerned.
What’s ACO?
Anglican Communion Office (used to share premises with CMS and USPG)
Thanks.
But not at that time.
Winchester was not the only diocese to furlough curates. Bizarre idea, it would seem to perpetuate the secular notion that all clergy do is lead services, so if there are no services to lead there is nothing for us to do!
David without wishing to diminish what you’ve said Dr Dakin must be particularly maladroit, for most of these criticisms could be attributed in a good many dioceses. To upset the Lord Lieutenant in a ‘county’ diocese seems especially foolish but keeping everyone at arm’s length seems to be ubiquitous nowadays, perhaps they feel it enhances the gravitas of their office. There are a number of diocesans who find the House of Lords more interesting than Borcetshire. As to stepping back for six weeks, I’d suggest Dr Dakin spend those weeks in the toughest parish in Southampton saying the office with… Read more »
Tim was always a maverick; his tenure at CMS, when I first knew him, resulted in a fragmentation of the society and while his always delightful and charming personality seemed to obviate criticism, his lack of knowledge of the church in the British Isles, its governance and discipline was manifest. Possibly a Kenyan Church Army background with its obvious hierarchical traditions was not the best training for one of the more senior bishoprics despite the distinction of previous CMS holders of the title!
Please forgive the inapt comparison, but is this the start of the Church’s 1989 moment?
I suspect not, but we shall see.
Sorry to display my ignorance, but could somebody please elucidate “1989 moment”. Thank you.
Many thanks, and apologies for not having made myself clear. What I mean is that is a revolutionary moment, as with the fall of numerous authoritarian regimes in central Europe and elsewhere in 1989 (I could have referred to 1789 or 1848). I cannot think of an instance in this country where the authority of the episcopate has been challenged in this manner. If Dr Dakin is ousted (i.e., is constrained to resign) courtesy of a ‘coup’ by the diocesan synod, then it means that episcopal authority is not predicated upon some species of ‘divine permission’ or monarchical approval, but… Read more »
Thank you for taking the time to offer such a comprehensive answer.
Revolutions have an unhappy habit of devouring their own children.
You are describing TEC in a oner. General Convention now sets the terms via resolutions. It is in fact more properly to be called ‘The General Convention Church’ not unlike forms of presyterianism (thought these are well thought through and inherent polities).
The ‘coup’ goes much further than the synod, but it is they who carry the motion for the many…and there are many.
David Richards’ description of the past decade in Winchester rings true and I don’t want to simply pile on the anecdotes and add to the catalogue of diplomatic and pastoral disasters. But three things do strike me. First, lack of incumbent experience is not the issue here (Rowan Williams was a terrific diocesan bishop, by all accounts, ditto ‘Mr Boddington’ in Derby). More germane is when a diocesan bishop has a fundamental problem with the Church of England’s identity and its parochial model of ministry. To accept a senior bishopric in the Church of England on the grounds that it… Read more »
Agree with what you say James. I don’t think that the basic problem is lack of parish experience – but lack of people skills and empathy (which you can have even if you have not been an incumbent). Like Phil Groves I watched from a bit of a distance when we both worked at the Anglican Communion Office and saw, and sometimes helped pick up the pieces of , people who had not been ‘flavour of the moment’ when Tim Dakin was Gen Sec of CMS. However beyond the ‘personal’ issue, what I find salutary in the present situation is… Read more »
Agreed Clare, although I was not as much at arms length because I was also a CMS Trustee. The issues we had with Tim were: he did not like the ethos of CMS and tried to change it, tried to run everything himself, had no idea how to have a strategic plan and spent money on pet projects. Members were told they had to become part of a new ‘monastic’ community or they were out, they had to sign a new doctrinal statement and to submit to ever changing ideas of what mission was depending on the last book Tim… Read more »
As a bog-standard parishioner of the Winchester diocese, I’m reminded of Simon Schama’s observation in his epic ‘History of Britain’ series that leaders who (appear to) lack a combination of intellectual curiosity, human empathy and cultural imagination tend to compensate for it by adopting a more authoritarian stance, surrounding themselves with people who will affirm their beliefs and, eventually, become so disengaged from those they lead that they take themselves into a culd-de-sac of their own devising.
To be fair, that could also be true of several other CofE bishops at the moment.
Alan there’s nothing ‘bog standard’ about your contribution, if only there were more intellectual curiosity, human empathy and cultural imagination in the college of bishops we’d all be a lot better off methinks. The dearth of academic theologians amongst their ranks is noticeable, and there doesn’t seem to be a superfluity of empathy or cultural imagination either.
In surrounding himself with people who affirm his beliefs, Tim Dakin appointed his wife, who is a priest, as the ‘Diocesan Bishop’s Spirituality Adviser.’
I think that Sally is “Spirituality Adviser (School of Mission Associate)” to the Diocese, not just the Bishop. https://www.winchester.anglican.org/school-of-mission-team/
Not only, but also https://www.winchester.anglican.org/bishops-advisers/ .
Missed that!
Such outrageous nepotism prompted the RC Church to introduce celibacy.
I note that the “School of Mission” is led by a former Management Consultant who spent hopped off to the Netherlands after curacy, and two former CMS staff. Looks an awful lot like a Bishop surrounding himself with his own tribe…
As Mrs Proudie once said: “the bishop thinks and I agree with him”.
.
The more I read the more I wonder why it took so long for them to rebel.
Sally Dakin has been excellent as a Spirituality Advisor. And as far as I’m aware she does the role as an NSM. There might be more than a few people in the diocese who would be pleased if she swapped roles with her husband.
I agree! I do note that the episcopal self-denying ordinance has not extended to Sally. The Diocesan Facebook page (still valiantly plugging on!) has recently advertised Sally’s on-line Rule of Life mini-retreats in June, before the end of her husband’s purdah.
The Church Times: “Critics say that the issue goes beyond his church tradition and includes the lack of pastoral care for clergy and the imposition of a particular approach to the Church’s ministry. It is said that the diocese has lost 22 clergy posts through pastoral reorganisation. It is, none the less, seeking to appoint a Church Planting Missioner, who will be given the task of planting 30 new churches by 2030; and a Church Growth Missioner to develop capacity for growth in the diocese. Another source said that the Bishop, had been largely invisible in the diocese.” A very… Read more »
https://www.winchester.anglican.org/ Click on *Our Bishops* (note the plural) and you arrive at a long bio of Tim Dakin but no mention of the other two bishops in the diocese. Finding the page about the suffragans is quite an achievement. Try it and see for yourself! When you eventually track the page down, they appear to merit no bio at all. Seems odd as both have had significant careers and ministries and are not bishops for nuffink! https://www.winchester.anglican.org/suffragan-bishops/ I assume the diocesan website is tasked to a well known firm of reputation managers/launderers in the City of London. To render two… Read more »
It is as Gilo surmises. From the Diocesan website: Luther Pendragon provides an external press office function and handles all media inquiries for the Diocese of Winchester. If you receive a call from a journalist contact a member of the team on either 020 7618 9197 or on dioceseofwinchester@luther.co.uk. The press line is staffed 24/7 and so if you have an urgent issue out of office hours it is always better to call rather than to email. Despite the advertised 24/7 service, the website still carries no reference to recent events in the Diocese, despite being carried by the national press.… Read more »
Luther Pendragon is the reputational management outfit on which Lambeth Palace stakes its life and is particularly highly prized by the Bishop at Lambeth. You can be sure that this is the common denominator in the ‘discussions’ between Lambeth and Winchester at present. If I were a betting man, I’d put £20 on the outcome being this: Tim Dakin resigns on ‘health grounds’ after the six weeks is up; and Tim Thornton, who retires in six weeks’ time as Bishop at Lambeth, becomes the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commissary in Winchester until the Holy Spirit finds another compliant Evangelical to do… Read more »
The website lists Dr Dakin’s role as Prelate of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, an historical appurtenance of the Bishops of Winchester. The ceremonial demands of this role seem to be confined to Garter Day which takes place at Windsor Castle each June. A procession, a service, a feast, but no joust. The Garter role may doubtless add to the historical marking and pageantry of the nation. But isn’t it equally as important that Debbie Sellin’s role as Deputy Lead Safeguarding Bishop is publicly visible on the diocesan website? A role which demands weekly time and engagement with… Read more »
I did actually find a link to the Dean, if not the Cathedral. This further supports your observations. It airbrushes her academic achievements (5 degrees in 3 disciplines from memory, including Journalism), the breadth and depth of her ministerial career (UPA, commuter village, and town centre / civic parishes, plus religious affairs radio producer, and Bishop’s and Diocesan Communications officer), not to mention her most obvious gift as a Pastor! Irony….
“I did actually find a link to the Dean, if not the Cathedral”. A slightly puzzling comment, unless I have misunderstood the context. Winchester Cathedral has a very extensive and comprehensive website about all aspects of the cathedral’s life and ministry, including at the present time recordings of the streamed services.
What does ‘stepping back’ mean? Not stepping down. Taking full pay (sorry ‘stipend’ however enhanced or not) while not doing the job. Not on sick leave. Compassionate leave? Who, if anyone is ‘covering’ eg on his work on FE, House of Lords, CMS … I note from Bp Debbie Sellin’s page on Wikipedia today- ‘On 20 May 2021, it was reported that Tim Dakin, Bishop of Winchester, had “stepped back” as Bishop for six weeks, in light of the threat of a Diocesan Synod motion of no confidence in his leadership. David Williams, Bishop of Basingstoke also “stepped back” and… Read more »
As someone resident in Winchester Diocese for 20 years until very recently, I can only hope that the six week cooling off period is also to allow the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint an acting diocesan bishop to guide the Diocese through this mess. With Bishop David standing back (a warm-hearted and inclusive Evangelical, by the way) and Bishop Debbie so inexperienced, it will require a steady hand on the tiller. In many ways, Winchester has lacked this for the past decade. Be in no doubt that healing and resolution can only happen with a major overhaul of the diocesan… Read more »
The resurgence of the ‘Prince Bishops’ is an indication of terminal institutional decline. Conveniently they can even increase their own autonomy and power by riding on the back of the social inequality they claim to condemn in the service of the gospel. Clergy and laity can see through this dissimulation and are quick to detect when they are being asked to sacrifice themselves on the funeral pyre of their parishes. The perception that many bishops have lost sight of any empathy towards those who faithfully maintain the Church’s ministry in favour of new specialists and church plants (ie new, shiny… Read more »
Froghole suggests that this might be the 1989 moment for the C of E. I think there has been a series of moments spanning 30 years or so. The anger being expressed by some of the bishops after General Synod declined to take note of their paper in Feb 2017 was, I think, one of the more significant things we have witnessed in recent Church History. It brought into sharp contrast the phrase ‘episcopally led and synodically governed’. Nobody who exercises leadership likes to have that called into question. I suspect the way to avoid it is to seek out… Read more »
I am told the Bishop of Southampton has just emailed/texted the Winchester clergy with the following: “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” She’s clearly got a knack for stating the obvious. For what it’s worth, may be Tim Dakin’s (unintended) lasting legacy to the Church of England will have been to ensure the progress of Renewal and Reform is dead in the water. The Bishops have got to get off their entitled high horses… Read more »
You describe a Bishop quoting from Acts 2 as she communicates with her clergy and ministers on the eve of the Feast of Pentecost as having ‘a knack for stating the obvious’ Well I certainly hope she has – though I could wish it sounded less like a put down here. I am really not sure what else you are expecting of her?
She just sounds a bit like that Fawlty Towers episode when Basil was desperate not to mention the War in the presence of a German guest.
Absolutely agree. It happens also to be one of the most evocative and beautiful passages from the NT which encapsulates the joy of the Church’s birthday. TA seems frequently to be about knocking bishops, not just Winchester, lately. Has Covid incarceration made people become obsessional and neurotic, I wonder?
“For what it’s worth, may be Tim Dakin’s (unintended) lasting legacy to the Church of England will have been to ensure the progress of Renewal and Reform is dead in the water.”
I suspect many of us would like that to be the case, Bill, but a lot of people have sunk a lot of their own credibility and Church Commissioners’ funds into R&R. I suspect there will be a fierce fight to defend it. I can’t see the direction of travel changing this side of Justin’s retirement and his successor having a thorough clear out of his hangers-on.
I still miss Jonathan Frost – he was a brilliant Bishop during my testing sojourn in Winchester Diocese.
That fluttering sound is the sound of chickens coming home to roost. I remember with great clarity the utter flabbergastery when the appalling ‘Green Report’ first saw the light of day. The efforts of General Synod to wrestle it out of the shadows and onto the agenda and the steadfast resistance of the DAG bishops (not naming them, they know who they are). Their determination to forge ahead with a managerial agenda in spite of widespread concerns and objections. The weak-kneed compliance of those bishops who knew it was wrong but lacked the courage and the energy to say so.… Read more »
DAG? Why not name names? They may know who they are, I don’t. Why be coy? Despite several comments from people in Winchester I am still not clear what has been going on or what precipitated this. Though I certainly sense considerable unease in many quarters about the direction a fragmenting C of E is heading. Synod elections soon. I hope the electorate will actually vote. Sadly so many dont seem to bother!
What is DAG?
I suspect that it is the Development and Appointments Group, a sub-committee of the house of bishops, currently chaired by the bishop at Lambeth: https://www.churchofengland.org/resources/diocesan-resources/archbishops-advisers-appointments-and-development. However, in answer to Dr Butler’s remarks above, it us hard to discern who are the members of this sub-committee, never mind who they were in 2014-15 when the Green Report was in preparation. As to Dr Butler’s useful observations about synod elections, I am reminded of the general uninterest in, and low turnout for, most local government elections. This want of interest arises chiefly because the finances of local government are subject to block… Read more »
Perry and Janet, DAG is/ was (does it still exist?) the HoB Development Advisory Group. As far as I know it was created to implement the ‘Green’ Report – the ‘Green’ in the title being Lord Stephen Green, the problematic chair of HSBC. The lead bishops were the bishops of Truro (at the time) and Ely. A number of other bishops were on it, but the membership wasn’t published and it changed over time. The work of the Group was not intended to be visible to the wider church. General Synod repeatedly raised questions and concerns about it and asked… Read more »
Many thanks for this. That is most helpful. So it was a product of Green. It is unfortunate, though predictable, that this committee has functioned in secret, not even appearing to publish minutes or reports describing its activities in general terms (as far as I can determine). One of the things that has struck me during my travels is that there are plenty of clergy, readers, etc., who have ample business or ‘leadership’ experience in the secular world, and that scant use has been made of this by the Church. I would query whether that is a function of a… Read more »
Thanks Froghole and Filigree (sounds like the name of a pub!) for the explanations.
In Whitby and Scarborough DAG is the Disability Action Group, of which I am a member. That didn’t seem appropriate. The other meaning I knew was the soiled wool from a sheep’s backside, which didn’t seem right either. Now I think it might be apt after all!
“soiled wool from a sheep’s backside” – nice one Janet. New Zealand sheep farmers often use it in the context of “it’s time to rattle their dags.”
Oh, wonderful phrase. What does it mean? What would prompt one to rattle one’s dags?
If not dealt with dags build up into hard lumps (I hope you’ve had your supper Janet) which rattle whenever the sheep run. So if your Kiwi famer found his neighbour’s flock had strayed on to his land he would set his dogs to chase them back. Hence “I rattled their dags”, applied figuratively to all sorts of transgressions, even perhaps the HoB Development Advisory Group. Remember you heard it first on TA.
I’m going to remember that phrase.
Over here (UK), farmers cut the dags off their sheep. It’s called dagging.So, presumably, there are no dags to rattle when the sheep are chased.
I was a sheep farmer in a previous life and we certainly cut the dags off, as do NZ famers, in late spring before the flies emerged. It was always called “docking”, at least in the South West. Dagging and dags are (happy) Kiwi imports. BTW, wool which built many magnificent churches has now become a financial embarrassment. So no hope there for restoring battered parish finances.
Although Bp. Dakin’s biography on the Winchester diocesan website is extensive to the point of tedium, there is no ordination training listed in it – just an MTh from King’s College London. HIs listing in Crockford doesn’t mention ordination training either. This seems a very significant omission. There can’t be many clergy – let alone bishops – who have had no training for the job.
His Wikipedia page states the he ‘…trained for ordination at King’s College London, graduating with a Master of Theology (MTh) degree in 1987’
KIng’s College London is a secular academic institution, not an Anglican training college. Studying theology is not the same as training for ordination – as those with theology degrees who then have to train to be a priest will attest.
It was not possible to train for ordination at KCL in 1987. Acquiring a MTh doesn’t constitute training.
Really? My recollection is that KCL got out of ordination training some time in the 1970s. When I was at Lincoln (1980-82) there were two or three people who had done their theological training at King’s but been shipped out to us for ministerial formation.
But King’s College London isn’t now, and wasn’t then, a theological college. How do you undertake training for ministry when not attending an appropriate institution or undertaking a proper course of supervised study? Answers on a postcard …
I think Tim was ordained while serving overseas as a missionary and I further think that his theology degree was deemed sufficient preparation for ordination. I am open to correction on this – but as many of us here know, a theology degree itself is insufficient formationally, valuable though it is as part of that.
It is important. I think, to note the considerable gap between receiving his M Th in 1987 and ordination in 1993. The rules of ordination in England would not have tolerated this. Sometimes in my day much older experienced people were allowed to do a term at a college prior to ordination but there is no evidence in Dakin’s case of any formal training or theological college residency whatsoever. It raises questions about what was really going on.
A succinct summary, not completely chronological, from “Church in Parliament”. I haven’t checked other sources, apart from Wikipedia, I don’t think that mentioned time at Christ Church, Oxford. At Plymouth his BA was in philosophy and theology. His honorary Canonry at Coventry coincides, I think, with Justin Welby’s time as a residentiary canon there. Born 1958 Theology: University College of Saint Mark and St John, Plymouth 1986 Masters in Theology at King’s College London 1987 Research at Christ Church, Oxford Principal of Carlile College, Kenya 1993-2000 Curacy at Nairobi Cathedral 1994-2000 General Secretary of the Church Mission Society 2009 Priest… Read more »
I note that his Wikipedia entry and the Diocesan website are intriguingly silent on his secondary schooling, a key part of his formation as an adult. In many of his views, he is plausibly close to the Public School/Iwerne constituency.
So many comments to reply to! Relevant also to Alice and Janet below. Some further nuggets from a Church Times article 7 February 2014 by Margaret Holness. After the M.Th he was a research student in theology at Oxford (clearly this refers to Christ Church, although that is not stated). “He left Oxford before completing a doctorate, because, in 1993, he was asked to return to East Africa, where he had grown up, to be the Principal of the Church Army’s Carlile College, Nairobi.” According to Wikipedia he was ordained Deacon in 1993 and Priest in 1994. It certainly seems… Read more »
He was a mish kid, and went to school in Tanzania. Nobody from Plymouth Uni would get anywhere near Iwerne.
Many thanks for this. The ‘Who’s Who’ entry (which he would have populated) makes no reference to research at Christ Church, although that does not mean it did not happen. It states that he was educated at unnamed schools in Kenya and Tanzania; that he has a BA in theology and philosophy from KCL in addition to the MTh. What happened in his late ‘teens and twenties, or between 1987 and 1993, is something of a blank, although he would be perfectly entitled not to mention work that was not germane to his later career (many others are less coy,… Read more »
How refreshing–as is usual–to have your penchant for genuine facts control the comment. TA at its best!
If you look carefully at the Crockfords reference Tim’s father was actually in East Africa working with the Church Army in a non-ordained capacity much earlier – I think from the mid-1950s. Tim was actually born in Africa. His godmother was Gillian Schluter (later Viscountess Brentford) whose family lived in Nairobi. This caused some ‘talk’ when Tim was appointed as Gen Sec of CMS by an appointments panel that was (I understand) chaired by Viscountess Brentford. The Crockfords entry suggests that his BA in theology and philosophy was from what is now the University of Plymouth not KCL – though… Read more »
Hurrah, Clare – at last someone has identified and named the nepotism in Tim’s career at almost every stage !
Mrs Amos: Many thanks for this, and apologies for not having responded sooner, but I was going to a number of services in the Vale of Evesham yesterday (and got drenched in the process). I might have misread the Who’s Who entry for Dr Dakin’s degrees, which is as follows: “Schs in Tanzania and Kenya; University Coll. of St Mark and St John, Plymouth; King’s Coll. London (BA Theol. and Phil.; MTh)” I had assumed from this that the BA was also KCL; what is now called Plymouth Marjon, which in the 1980s was effectively a teacher training institution, piggy-backed… Read more »
For what it is worth. When I was Prof at St Andrews, MLitt was its own degree. It could be used to place a potential PhD student who showed promise, as a way to determine that. It did not go the other direction unless one requested it as a step down from doctoral work. I don’t recall that happening in my nine years there. The STM degree can serve this purpose in the US, and the MA in Canada. It allows a student to do language work and demonstrate ability.
Also, the Joynson-Hicks connection is interesting, and I believe that Lady Brentford had a flat in Morton’s Tower for a while, and I understood exercised an influence – not only as third commissioner – not far off that of Mrs Boddington. The family used to be in Newick, near Uckfield, East Sussex, and is now at Warbleton, near Battle. The family have long been rigorous evangelicals, and the 1st viscount, ‘Jix’, a pioneer of transport law (Taylor Wessing is the current incarnation of his firm), was an ostentatiously pious ‘ditcher’ up to, and beyond, the point of caricature. When he… Read more »
Froghole: Inspired by Dr Seitz’s comment above, if the editors will permit my saying it on this thread, but not totally unrelated in the African context, and if you can find the time, might I suggest that you read the Coltart report about John Smyth’s times in Africa, and bring your erudition to that vexed subject. Both I, and I’m sure, Dr Seitz would appreciate an independent and rational view of what has become a very confused subject. Of course you may have seen the report already. My view, for what it is worth, is that the discussion so far… Read more »
Mr Wateridge: Many thanks for your characteristically kind remarks. I am not sure about my erudition (which is highly imperfect and often slapdash), and regret that I will need to read the Coltart report. If Smyth was a ‘pillar of society’ in Cape Town, I suspect it was: (i) on account of the susceptibility of local Anglophone society, whether of British or highly Anglicised Afrikaner ‘western Cape’ provenance, to a certain type of British expat (viz. the Spencers and Thatchers); and (ii) the manner in which that rather rarefied society inculcates in its offspring the values extant in Britain prior… Read more »
It was presumptuous of me to make that suggestion. I’m probably getting into water too deep for me, but my impression is that everything about Smyth was possibly already known in South Africa (certainly in Zimbabwe) before someone (the Bishop of Ely?) wrote to the Diocese of Cape Town, ostensibly tipping them off in 2013. If you haven’t already seen the YouTube video of Smyth, full of aplomb, on S African television in 2014, talking about the Pistorius murder trial, it is well worth watching. I happen to think his views about advocacy were spot on! It’s worth remembering that… Read more »
Tim’s autobiography on the diocesan website says: “I studied Theology in Plymouth, completed a Masters in Theology at King’s College London and then, after further studies and research in Oxford (focussing on practical, pastoral and mission theology), I unexpectedly transferred, as an ordinand, from Oxford to Nairobi Diocese where I was ordained in 1993 and 1994.”
Wherefore ‘unexpectedly’?
It’s even now still possible for a Fellow of an Oxford or Cambridge college to be ordained to his or her Fellowship (that’s the term) simply on the recommendation of the Head of House, and without selection, formal training, theological college residency, or the serving of a curacy. The questions about what’s going on should include why there remain these curious snakes-and-ladders in the CofE vocations system.
That anomaly should be eradicated. However, Dakin was not an Oxford Fellow so that wasn’t his route to ordination.
My point is that there seem to be a number of routes to ordination that bypass the expected processes of selection, training and formation. Closely examined most of them turn out to be archaic holdovers; all of the are based on the understanding that a bishop can ordain whoever they choose.
It is not just Oxbridge fellowships, but other non-parochial positions such as teaching posts in schools and theological colleges that provide sufficient title to ordination, as per Canon C5: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/legal-services/canons-church-england/section-c (but as per Canon C5(5) no letters dimissory are required for an Oxbridge fellowship, which is indeed anomalous).
To understand how this comes about one has to go back (at least) to the 1603/4 canons and the early Victorian constitutions of the universities and public schools. The infrastructure which was then in place has been dismantled over the years, but the ancient privileges remain.
Many thanks. Indeed: most college fellowships, and some headmasterships, required orders within a certain period of time, in default of which the office could be forfeit. Some colleges were very strict about this, but at All Souls’ (for example), it was common for fellows to appeal to the visitor – the archbishop – for a special dispensation. Certain colleges had even more demanding requirements: Lincoln, for instance, required its fellows to proceed to a BD within several years, and Mark Pattison very nearly lost his fellowship when it was discovered that he had failed to take the necessary (and then… Read more »
I had the feeling that this archaic route to ordination was quietly being suspended by the CoE in some document I read in recent months, but I can’t quite remember where? (In the last decade in a state of panic/despair I tried to see if I could use this loophole, and a very kind cleric pointed out that in the unlikely event I was successful, by doing so I would become an ecclesiastical anomaly, and the modern CoE doesn’t deal well with those. So, in the end, I bided my time, and was ordained with everyone else in a cathedral… Read more »
I commend this particular route to ordination: https://dudeism.com/ordination/
Can I become a Professor of Anatomy through Dudeism? I rather fancy it.
Done! Send me your address (email will do to wsmonkhouse at gmail etc) and I’ll send the cert. Let me know what prenominal you’d like. I do Quite Rev, Totes Rev, Bro Rev, Epic Rev, Awesome Rev (very select, that one). For roles I do North Dublin interjections (similar to but classier than those in Mrs Brown’s Boys), such as Archifeckinmandrite, by agreement.
Awesome Rev will do since I’m quite humble. I also collapse at the sight of blood. I’d prefer not to see any cadavers. Like many clergy I need to be respected due to my ontological change. not usefulness.
What does it matter? The CNC discerned that God has chosen him.
Or can we finally accept that for the most part the claim for discernment is an arrogant, even a blasphemous claim?
The idea that God “chooses” people for ordination is as preposterous as Him selecting some to be unemployed or nail beauticians or bin men. It’s time for Church people to stop thinking how special some people are. (Except in their own imagination). It seems God may have erred in His choice of Bishop of Winchester.
I believe people are called but I don’t believe that CNC discerns the will of God, or at least not with much reliability.
I’m curious, Father David – do you not believe that God called you to the priesthood?
No, Tim. It’s just something I realised from a young age I wanted to do. Some people become teachers, lawyers or burger sellers in McDonald’s. To imbue my personal inclinations with a deity ‘s desire to employ me is bordering on arrogance and megalomania.
Interesting. I guess I must be an arrogant megalomaniac then.
You asked me about me, Tim. I wouldn’t presume to speak about your motives.
I share your view FrDavid H. Years ago I confessed this to my then spiritual adviser (horrid term) in Mirfield who said I shouldn’t worry for the Lord could work through even my ego. I was deeply traumatised by this jibe for, like you, I am the humblest of creatures, the lowliest servant of the servants of God.
It will be tedious for TA readers if we argue who is the most humble, Fr Stanley. But it’s me..
Maybe not, but in your reply to Kate above you certainly called the idea that God chooses people for ordination ‘preposterous.’ This ‘preposterous’ idea is written right into the bog standard Anglican ordination services of many provinces in the Anglican Communion – it’s not just an evangelical peculiarity. I quote from the authorized services of my own Anglican Church of Canada: ‘Do you think in your heart that you be truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the order of this Church, to the Order and Ministry of Priesthood?’ (BCP) ‘Do you believe that you… Read more »
I agree, Tim, that the Church regards its employees as people who feel “called” .It wouldn’t sound as grand if candidates were asked if their choice of job were simply a matter of personal preference. .But usually a person’s profession is a mixture of their psychological, social and intellectual circumstances, abilities and choices. Fewer people today are ‘called’ to priesthood than previously. ( the RC Church is particularly in crisis). I would argue that fewer people want the job. Others might more piously say God has stopped ‘calling’ as many people.
With the moniker you adopt, one would assume you pastor a congregation. Is that correct? I share what I believe are Tim’s questions. It sounds like grim going.
I retired some time ago. I’ve never been happier.
That comes through!
The Church Times article mentions churchmanship – and how the issues go beyond churchmanship – but one matter that has not been mentioned so far is how some clergy did not (do not) feel Winchester is a safe place. There has been some deeply inappropriate treatment of some clergy and several of them have told me how they were on the receiving end of unnecessarily intrusive enquiries about their sleeping arrangements where they have been brave enough to disclose a civil partnership. I doubt that happens in any other diocese (except Blackburn, perhaps?). The description of a public school prefect… Read more »
I do however remember that when Tim Dakin was appointed to Winchester (with frankly a number of people who had seen /experienced him in action as Gen Sec of CMS uttering justified warnings about what lay ahead) that comparison with John V Taylor was quite widely made, and I feel that it was probably one of the factors that led to his election – partly because Bishop John had been so widely loved in the diocese. I also remember however that when John V Taylor died in 2001, at a time when USPG and the Anglican Communion Office were sharing… Read more »
And what was the Dakin vision for CMS Clare? How did it differ from what went before? I first encountered John Taylor when I was the Anglican student at the Venerabile 79/80 and he gave some lectures at the Centro pro Unione where he made a great impression not only for his learning but his winsome manner.
Some of my reply is ‘I wish I knew’. Part of the problem is that Tim regularly had bright ideas but one was not really able to understand them. When I initially encountered him and his ideas which were originally set out in the quarterly CMS newsletter – I genuinely could not really ‘get’ what he was talking about. And since my position at USPG was as ”theological resource officer’ he rather delighted in needling me by asking for my view on something he had just written in such a way that felt as though he wanted to make me… Read more »
Clare, you were absolutely right to see the emperor’s new clothes in Tim’s theology. The Trustee board were given a lecture by Tim at the beginning of every meeting. Everyone else seemed to be impressed (except Kevin Ward). However, thin and confused would be my summation. Most seemed to think it was impressive if they didn’t understand him and his desire was that he would be seen to understand things we mere mortals did not. Now, the board had finance and legal experts – no reason they should be theologians, but to deliberately confuse seemed to be the aim.
I have certainly spent some time trying to understand what was meant by ‘living the mission of Jesus’ – the Winchester Diocesan ‘strapline’ which seems to have faded away recently. I saw in the Thesis that Bp Tim writes “In simple terms I define mission spirituality as: sharing God’s life by living the mission of Jesus.” In our parishes and deanery we preferred ‘Sharing God’s Life’ because it seemed to say so much more – both active and incarnational. Mission communities were certainly a focus of attention for Bp Tim but we rural clergy already tend to see the parishes… Read more »
I find it interesting that you are already talking about him in the past tense…..
In recent months Bp Tim’s focus on mission communities has been moving on to new projects. It was the focus of attention that was in the past tense not Bp Tim himself – he is still the Bishop of Winchester!
In the mid-90s I was editor of Anvil: a Journal of Theology and Mission. Tim Dakin sent in an article. The Editorial Board agreed to publish it. Here it is:
https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/anvil/13-3_203.pdf
This will give you a real flavour of his theological style. As an exercise in practical theology it is bizarre – entirely de-contextualised theorising. The lack of real pastoral experience added to the confidence that he has real knowledge that can be applied has proved disastrous for CMS and now for the Diocese of Winchester.
I’m glad that someone has at last mentioned John V. Taylor, who overcame a couple of initial faux-pas to become a much loved diocesan.
Tony – I mentioned John V Taylor several days ago. (And I don’t think I was the first person to do so either).
This situation reminds me of a conversation, years back, with one of Donald Coggan’s former chaplains who, recounting a particularly difficult parish visit, recalled Coggan’s exasperation in the car on the way home: ‘There is a certain kind of Evangelical in the Church of England who is convinced that the governance of the Church is, at best, an incovenience and, at worst, a hinderance to their God-given plans and ambitions.” Not a lot seems to have changed in 50 years or so. The difference now is that a ‘certain kind’ of Evangelical bishop (and archbishop) will need to sit up… Read more »
I’m very grateful for the many insights giving a depth to this discussion. Personally, I am feeling a profound sorrow for (1) the 22 clergy whose ministries have been terminated under the present radical reorganisation proposals, (2) for the incumbents left under pressure to take on parishes additional to their present appointment, (3) for the same who are challenged to simplify a multi-parish benefice into a single parish by a certain time. But, as I recall, it was presented as a diocesan approved emergency plan–both bishop and synod–to get the finances, much reduced by the pandemic, into the black. There… Read more »
Thank you, Martin. I am in Romsey Deanery where the only reorganisation proposal is the union of two Benefices (one where I am the incumbent and the other benefice approaching vacancy on retirement). As it stands, it is likely that the Pastoral Scheme will not need to be opposed – it should happen with compromise and cooperation (as has worked in recent years elsewhere in the Deanery). We have successfully resisted the pressure for ‘Simplified Governance’ (the phrase used to form a single parish from the many) and are hoping for even more cooperation between the laity of the much… Read more »
Thank you Martin and James for your accounts of the situation. In 2009 in + Scott-Joynt’s day the Diocese was also in financial difficulties. Funding for the Chaplain to the deaf and the Chaplain to Southampton University was cut. The University Chaplain moved to Loughborough University. The University website does not mention an Anglican Chaplain and so I assume funding was not restored. The Diocese is in what appears to be a prosperous part of the country. I appreciate that there may still be hidden areas of deprivation. Of course the pandemic has been uniquely challenging for many if not… Read more »
It’s very short-sighted to cut university chaplaincy posts, especially in a diocese which claims to be mission-oriented. Chaplains do an effective missional work among students and staff.
The Diocesan website talks a good game on student evangelism – “a boiling point for innovative outreach and engagement .” I hope that the reality matches the rhetoric.
In April 2020 the DBF adopted a 20% cut for the 2021 Budget. This could only be met by reducing clergy posts by 22 and savage cuts on Dicoesan Staff (I estimated it at 34% of staffing costs at Diocesan level – 2 Archdeacons gone, leaving just one, and many other excellent staff ‘lost’). There were no cuts to SDF initiatives (resource churches).
Many thanks for this, and for the interesting remarks from Messrs Coppen and Pitkin. House prices in Hants average £362k, but the median will be rather different from the average, and perhaps especially so outside the concentrations of relative poverty in Pompey and Southampton. Overall, Hampshire is very wealthy, and in some places, impregnably so. The see of Winchester was for long second only to Canterbury in the incomes of its bishops, and there were instances where its bishops would reject higher preferments because of its abundant emoluments: they were – to paraphrase Charles Greville on the first duke of… Read more »
I am currently Rector of West Tytherley – a former Rector here went on to be Archbishop of Canterbury (Longley) and in his time here had a 16 bedroom Rectory and a ‘stipend’ of £500K in today’s money. (Anyone offering to help me return to the ‘good old days’?)
I am very grateful, James, for your further explanations. It is good to hear of a benignly possible pastoral reorganisation of yours and a neighbouring benefice. Here in the north-west Hampshire area, the picture is sadly much darker. Of ten benefices, there are only five with incumbents currently in post, that is 20 parishes in vacancy–16 of those for over a year. One (town) incumbent was lost as a result of the present reorganisation proposals, a rural assistant priest ‘dispossessed’, so these two clergy have been ‘collateral damage’. Counting vacancies among the 22 losses is pragmatic rather than strategic, because… Read more »
Thanks, Martin, really sorry to hear of your local situation. I think that the current situation with you is policy rather than accident. I understand that of the 141 parishes in Winchester Diocese affected by the reorganisations, 90+ of them are in the Northern Archdeaconry (which already had fewer clergy).
“Back in the Day” as some people tend to say there were two categories of diocese – “bishoprics of business” and “bishoprics of ease”. After totally exhausting himself as Bishop of Southwark, Cyril Garbett was translated in 1932 to the diocese of Winchester in order to refresh and renew the batteries before taking on the Northern Province as Archbishop of York ten years later in 1942. Sadly, from the above report and comments it would seem that the diocese of Winchester has now created a third category by becoming a bishopric of turmoil.
I’m sure my comments on TA probably bore everyone rigid, but my mother was confirmed by Cyril Garrett as Bishop of Southwark, and once as a little girl had by chance encountered him on one of his pastoral walks; he was then known as ‘the walking Bishop’. This was in then rural Surrey, and she related that she was rather frightened by this forbidding figure. I have a photograph of Garbett as Bishop of Winchester, on foot, leading a large funeral procession, probably 100 or more, past my present house in (still rural) Hampshire during WW II, the coffin on… Read more »
I definitely typed ‘Garbett’ but the iPad has a habit of correcting to what it thinks, even after itself having been corrected by the writer. Fingers crossed this time.
Let us not forget that great Dean of Winchester – Michael Stancliffe – father of David who moved from Portsmouth cathedral to become Bishop of Salisbury. What a superb preacher he was with all those beautifully crafted sermons, thankfully published to be enjoyed by a wider audience. One obituary described him as the last of the “gentleman deans”. A lady who worshipped at Winchester cathedral encountering the new Dean – Trevor Beeson – was feeling sorry for him as Michael being the last in such a distinguished line, Beeson could not claim membership of that august club of gentlemen deans.… Read more »
Yes, my list wasn’t exhaustive! Michael Stancliffe and Trevor Beeson both came to Winchester direct from Westminster Abbey. The two were cut from different cloth, but may I suggest that both were fine preachers. You have reminded me that Michael Stancliffe also wrote a substantial piece in each month’s services leaflet. In his “Dean’s Diary” Trevor Beeson acknowledged how humbled he felt on following such distinguished predecessors.
I did hear Michael Stancliffe preach at a Festival of St. Cecilia. I have not heard a sermon preached by Trevor Beeson but I do have an extensive collection of his books on Bishops, Deans, Canons, Church Musicians, A Dean’s Diary, Window on Westminster and Round the Church in 50 years. What an amazing archive Dean Beeson has created and a wonderful resource for future Church Historians. We should be grateful for the great contribution made by this Gentleman Dean.
Trevor is brill! Physically a bit ropey now but mentally as sharp as ever. Until Covid he was taking a service a week in the united benefice of Braishfield, and his sermons were 24 c gold. He pointed out that since his first “retirement” this has been his longest place in one post. I’d have crawled over hot coals to get to one of his services just for the sermon.
You mention “reluctant organist” above. I was one, and my first full service, very nervous as well as reluctant, was at All Saints Braishfield circa 1980. As I recall, Canon Boothman was the incumbent and I think two of his daughters were in the choir. Little did I realise then that this would lead to playing in churches for the next 40 years, 27 at the last count all over the Winchester Diocese, and a few beyond. I don’t have personal experience of Trevor Beeson’s sermons as duties kept me elsewhere, but I recall a lay clerk at Winchester Cathedral… Read more »
Thank God you no longer have to be a gentleman, in either sense of the word, to be a Dean!
If my Maths is correct (never truly reliable) then I make it that currently we have 41 male deans and 7 female deans (Winchester, Guildford, Norwich, Southwell, Lincoln, Liverpool and Bristol) with 3 vacancies – Sheffield, St. Albans and Hereford.
That makes 48 Deans and 3 vacancies for 44 Cathedrals.
I do believe that the title Very Reverend also applies to the Dean of Westminster and St. George’s. Windsor. The incumbents for Battle and Braintree, for example, are Deans and Very Reverend but I haven’t included them in this list. I will also repeat that Maths was never my strong point!
Having looked again at Wikipedia’s List of Deans in the Church of England I am not alone in being Mathematically challenged as they list 51 such. However, their opening numbering is somewhat awry as it goes 1 – 2 – 2 – 4 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 12. Perhaps we can agree on 46 Deans – 44 cathedrals + Westminster and Windsor = 46.
Father David, for perpetuiary, Deans in the CoE will include 3 for the Diocese of West Yorkshire and the Dales (renamed Leeds, following the difficulty of the Bishop of Leeds in explaining what his Diocese was). We are blessed with Wakefield, Bradford, and Ripon cathedrals, a rash of recently designated Minsters (which don’t even include THE Parish Church of a number of very significant communities like Leeds and Huddersfield). And we have more Bishops than we started with.
Windsor is Right Reverend. He was, and remains, a bishop – consecrated 1994 and Dean of Windsor since 1998. At Prince Philips’s funeral service he wore a bishop’s rochet with black wrist bands. My understanding is that at Windsor the Dean reigns supreme of all clergy and is answerable only to Her Majesty. He took precedence over the Archbishop in the incoming procession and officiated at the funeral. Visiting bishops and archbishops are effectively ‘guests’ at Windsor.
Absolutely – David Connor is indeed Right Reverend having served in the Norwich diocese as Suffragan Bishop of Lynn. As you rightly point out he has been a long serving Dean of Windsor since 1998. I further note that Bishop David was born in 1947 which makes him well past his 70th birthday. Similarly, the excellent Dean of Canterbury was born in 1947. Both clergymen are exercising a first rate ministry but I wonder how does this fit in with the rule which I think was introduced in 1975 that clergy have to retire at 70? Is it perhaps that… Read more »
We dealt with this on the Bishop of Beverley’s retirement thread. The legislation is the Ecclesiastical Offices (Age Limits) Measure 1975. Windsor, as a Royal peculiar, is completely excluded from that legislation (more surprisingly, so is Christ Church, Oxford!). The institutional C of E does not rule at Windsor! (I am completely unable to get to grips with the complexities of Christ Church, but William Nye has determined that the C of E’s CDM applies to its Dean. However, that is different subject.) The situation at Canterbury is that the Measure permits the Archbishop to extend the retirement age of… Read more »
It is also necessary to take account of the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Regulations 2009 which allow the relevant archbishop or bishop to enable a diocesan or suffragan bishop, dean, archdeacon or residentiary canon who holds office under Common Tenure to continue in office up to a maximum age of 75. to enable a person over 70 to take up an appointment as an incumbent, priest in charge, team vicar or to any other licensed office, or to enable a person who already holds one of those offices under Common Tenure to continue in office beyond the age of… Read more »
I quoted verbatim from the 1975 Measure (as amended) which is the up to date law applicable to non common tenure clergy. Father David was concerned with the situations (which turn out to be different), of the Deans of Windsor and of Canterbury. I think these fine distinctions are best left to canon lawyers.
In passing, I note that only Her Majesty can extend the date of retirement of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Fr. David: many thanks. It is Bocking, rather than Braintree. Confusingly, Bocking is a parish just to the north-east of Braintree, although it is in the process of being devoured by the sprawl of Braintree (the sort of identikit housing to which Michael H. referred). Even more confusing is that the title of dean of Bocking is held by the incumbent of Hadleigh in Suffolk. Unfortunately, the last incumbent of Hadleigh and dean of Bocking was in the news for the wrong reasons: https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/sudbury/news/hadleigh-clergyman-avoids-jail-after-being-found-photographing-teenage-boy-in-public-toilet-1-8086934/ (though he oversaw a sympathetic re-ordering of the interior). As you probably know, the diocese of… Read more »
I should have said that it the office is *also* held by the incumbent of Hadleigh, to compound the confusion. The peculiar jurisdiction of Bocking was abolished in 1845, so the title is essentially redundant. I should also have referred to Monks Risborough, since Princes Risborough was never part of the archbishops’ peculiar in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire: https://www.lambethpalacelibrary.org/sites/default/files/Canterbury_Diocese.pdf
Thank you Froghole for that correction – it is, of course Bocking rather than Braintree. For a decade I lived just a few miles away from Braintree and once at the invitation of the Dean of Bocking – I preached at a Flower Festival in Bocking parish church.
I was at St Chad’s Durham when at least two members of the SCR turned out to be not quite whom they claimed to be. One was a Walter Mitty character who drank the cellar dry and dined extensively before he was exposed. He’d claimed a distinguished naval career but it turned out he was not quite the salty sailor everyone thought. The second was a chap who became the college principal whose academic credentials I seem to remember were not as he’d declared. His difficulties definitely made the National press. . If there are gaps in Dr Dakin’s CV… Read more »
This has been a long time coming. As one of those marginalised/silenced/dismissed to beyond the sidelines in the Diocese of Winchester; the rot set in right from the start. (His enthronement sermon was a slogan short of a PowerPoint presentation totally out of context). Some of the analysis here on TA is correct, and some is just disappearing down rabbit holes of synod motions! Back when +Winton was appointed, he came into what was seen to be a “Dead See”. There was no doubt something needed to be done. It was like a school in special measures which was disappearing… Read more »
Many thanks. This is very interesting. I attended services across Hampshire (so all three dioceses) in 2009-16, so I would have caught the end of the Scott-Joynt regime. I was impressed by the recent, and often dramatic, pastoral reorganisations undertaken by Trevor Willmott (who now assists in a couple of parishes within a benefice just to the south of Glastonbury). This resulted in the creation of some very large units – a tactic he repeated in Canterbury. Obviously, the imperative was to cut down the increasingly unaffordable bill for stipends (and pensions). When I spoke to Hampshire clergy about the… Read more »
In my more localised experience relative affluence and optimal Church of England territory no longer go together. The church which I left at Easter is in a parish where the average house price (as an indicator of wealth) is in excess of £450,000 which buys you an identikit new build on a dormitory estate. Local church deficit currently £80,000 because of lockdown and a measly £6,000 raised over seven months towards £80,000 for urgent repairs caused by water ingress. There is plenty of wealth in the town but it ain’t going into church coffers. I see the same pattern in… Read more »
Michael you highlight an important issue: many clergy think that the cash will keep rolling in even if they’re making an online offering. Anecdotally I’m hearing that people are cancelling direct debits and standing orders in favour of a pay as they attend model. I certainly wouldn’t pay a subscription for such a poor substitute myself.
I’m sorry to see online worship described as a ‘poor substitute’. The services I attend online are more interactive than in-person church, and I learn almost a much from the attenders’ comments on the readings, and gain as much from their intercessions, as I do from the contributions of the clergy and readers. The past year has been one of spiritual enrichment for me. Although it has to be said that for health reasons I’d been unable to attend church at all for several years before that, so I was feeling pretty parched. Incidentally, I didn’t suspend my standing order… Read more »
Apologies Janet, I can see that in your circumstances this is a step forward. I miss the sacraments and the drama of the liturgy and miss church music. I also worry for the digitally excluded and lonely people who want to be with other people in the same building.
Exactly Fr Dean. That is why I became an ex Anglican on Easter Monday. The current anti-Gospel narrative – that only clergy can receive the sacraments – is not going to change until cancellation of public worship ceases. Even then, Article XXX remains illegally cancelled at the whim of theologically illiterate House of Bishops. As an Evangelical, the bishop of Winchester probably agrees with the Archbishop of Canterbury that public worship is inessential. To some of us, that is patently not true. How many churches in Winchester diocese remain closed because the bishop has agreed to continued cancellation? Having watched… Read more »
Am I missing a Fresh Expression, or should that have read ‘public worship’?
Thank you for the re-edit!!
I think Zoom has been a pretty good “second place”. We’ve had various people on there who cannot get to church physically.
No one misses my church music! Reluctant organist.
High house prices can mask a certain amount of genteel poverty. People who have lived in the same property for several decades may have seen the value quintuple. They may be living on relatively modest pensions. 33% of the worshipping community of the Church of England is aged 70 or over. The figure in Winchester Diocese is 36%. Often the only time when the value of the property is realised is on the death of the owner. This does benefit the Church if a legacy is left, especially if the legacy is the whole estate, the residuary estate or a… Read more »
Indeed: it was only in 2015 that people were relieved of the obligation to take out an annuity (i.e., insurance against living longer than your savings). Anyone who took out an annuity after 2000 would be getting really dismal rates, especially after 2007. So, it is possible that some people may have ample assets but very modest income streams. Of course, the situation was quite different in the 1970s and 1980s when annuitants may have been affluent at the point they purchased their annuities from insurers, but they were quickly impoverished by rapid inflation (which also gutted the real incomes… Read more »
‘Pastrow Family’ is Charlton, Enham Alamein, Hatherden, Penton Mewsey, Smannell, Tangley, Faccombe, Hurstbourne Tarrant, Linkenholt, Vernham Dean, and Weyhill, with proposed soon to be added : Appleshaw, Kimpton, Thruxton, Fyfield, and Shipton Bellinger. Further north Kingsclere, Ashford Hill & Headley, Hannington, Ramsdell, Baughurst, Wolverton, Burghclere, Ecchinswell, Newtown would see three Benefices turned into one Benefice and then possibly, the eight PCCs into one PCC or at least three. Around Whitchurch there is: Whitchurch, Tufton & Litchfield but soon to be officially added will be Hurstbourne Priors, Woodcott, Longparish, and St Mary Bourne,
Many thanks for that! To join Pastrow with Appleshaw, Fyfield, etc. (the last of which had the late Ian Tomlinson as a successful incumbent – a charming man) with the knot of parishes in the downland contiguous with Berkshire would be a truly bizarre and grotesque creation. Not least because Appleshaw, Fyfield, Penton Mewsey, Weyhill, etc., would be physically separated from Pastrow by Andover, though Knights Enham is already entirely surrounded by Andover. It would make more sense to reconfigure the diocesan boundaries to join the likes of Chute or Buttermere (summer services only) with Linkenholt, Vernham Dean, etc., since… Read more »
I don’t think people actually look at a map before they come up with such schemes. When, in the days of the Hind report, regional training partnerships were mooted there was a proposal that the whole of northern England be one RTP. When this was queried by those of us actually in the north, we were told that it was not far from Newcastle to Manchester or from York to Carlisle. The person making this assertion assumed you could drive in a straight line from one to the other on a fast road. Several of us muttered the word ‘Pennines’… Read more »
ps. I forgot Laverstoke & Freefolk are also due to go into that Whitchurch bundle!
Many thanks for that. Laverstoke is an obvious fit with Whitchurch (though Overton, which seemed well-attended, could have been another possibility), but when I went there, the congregation was very small and huddled in the chancel behind a curtain: I suspect that much of the heart went out of it once the Portal family ceased to be a presence at the Park (they were bank note printers, and I’ve often wondered if the proximity of De La Rue was a coincidence). As you probably know, Freefolk has been CCT for the last 45 years. When I went there in 2012… Read more »
Portals (by then based in Overton) sold themselves to De La Rue in 1995. The old Joseph Bonomi II designed Laverstoke mansion had by then been used as the Portals chairman’s house, which from circa 1969-1980 had been John Vincent Sheffield (great-grandfather of Chloe, Poppy and Clare Delvingne). I think the story is that De La Rue hadn’t realised that such a fine house had been included in the deal.
A very sad sight– the now ‘under offer’ ex-rectory of the now orphaned benefice of Hannington, Ramsdell, Baughurst and Wolverton (part of the Basingstoke deanery of diocese of Winchester). Note on the right is the Parish Office, with handy access rail for the infirm.
At comment about 172 on this post… its interesting how many reflections are nostalgic, wistfully anecdotal or bear no relation to engaging with the Winchester Crisis. This is fiddling while Rome burns – and way beyond rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Come on TA contributors …. address the issue here which is a fundamental crisis at the heart of Anglican leadership – and at the place of the Church of England at a local level. No pastoral reorganisation of however many parishes in Hampshire is going to address this. Who cares which parish is coupled with another? What matters… Read more »
Dear Charles The people who care about which parish is coupled with another are:- The clergy who see their workload increasing, often to an unsustainable level. Members of their congregations who worry about seeing less of their clergy as they spread themselves more thinly. Those who might not be affected directly but who care about the ministry of the Church of England, and the clergy and congregations mentioned above. I realise that this thread has gone off on several tangents. However the two themes that have emerged for me are:- What kind of leadership we need from our bishops. How… Read more »
Many thanks. Fair enough, and I admit that I am culpable on all three counts. Although I do not know what ‘the heart of faith in the heart of this county of this country’ means (and perhaps that is my problem), I imagine that the main issues, at least in England, are: (i) not enough people believe in the precepts of Christianity relative to the endowments, size and cost of the Church and its personnel; (ii) few people are willing to be persuaded of the merits of Christianity, however eloquent its advocates, because they perceive it as being largely or… Read more »
A particularly insightful comment from Mr Froghole. I’m convinced the CofE would be more successful if the product it is trying to sell weren’t religion. People don’t want that.
What would you propose? I’d be curious.
Just to bring the discussion into the present (as per Charles K’s valid point about nostalgia), I note the Sheldon Hub has just published its latest report from the research it undertook in relation to CDM. https://www.sheldonhub.org/usercontent/sitecontentuploads/3/1A10E25DCB7DB5E02AB69C0188CF7975/handed%20over%20to%20the%20dogs%20final.pdf I simply flag it because it refers very quickly to the use of NDAs/confidentiality agreements being used at an early stage in some dioceses as a way of soliciting resignations before any investigative process or attempt to establish the truth of an allegation is reached. Is this something that has happened frequently in Winchester? If so, why? And how many times? I note… Read more »
For more details of Sheldon’s announcement, see latest TA article just published.
Sad that people are fearful of negative consequences for critical engagement. The early church was alive with controversy and evidently flourished nonetheless. If clergy and laity are fearful of the bishop’s wrath how does that help grow the Kingdom?
Short answer: it doesn’t. People are fearful of using their real names for comments online in case they incur + Tim’s wrath. I have considered carefully whether to do this even with this post. He has been known to approach Diocesan Synod members after a vote to challenge why they voted against a motion (even when it has passed overwhelmingly, and spoke against it in what passed for ‘debate’). Many have voted against their instincts because they do not want to face his anger. It is desperately sad. What needs to happen is for + Tim to go. Winchester needs… Read more »
This is an entirely neutral enquiry, but just wondered if anyone knows why the Church Times appears to have removed its earlier report of the Winchester situation from its website today (28th May), although there is an editorial and an opinion piece by Angela Tilby?
It’s still there and the link in our article above will find it. On the CT website there is a link to it under “MOST POPULAR” in the right hand column.
More interesting is the complete ‘News Blackout’ – still! – in the Diocese of Winchester. This is text-book ‘Dictator’ tactics. Keep everyone in the dark. Pretend nothing is happening. Starve people of the truth. Grind them down and they’ll return to some degree of normal compliance. It has been the modus operandi of Tim Dakin for over a decade – and those he has gathered around him are continuing the regime. This is just one reason why we don’t just need a new bishop – the whole squalid broom cupboard needs clearing out, including (especially) certain lay members of senior… Read more »
I’ve also been intrigued by the role of certain senior lay members of staff. I respect the fact that they are not accountable to the public in the same way as others mentioned here, but it is a matter of public record that the present Diocesan Chief Executive and the Head of HR and Safeguarding both pre-date Tim Dakin, having been recruited in the Wilmott years if I recall correctly. The Head of Operations has been in the Diocese for 17 years, the son of a previous Archdeacon of Winchester/Bournemouth. However, the Director of Finance (shared with Portsmouth) was recruited… Read more »
If you look carefully at the Winchester Diocesan website – there have been some subtle changes in the last few days to take account of both the present situation and some critical comments that were made about how the website previously presented related information.
I think we can take it that the lid has just blown off this pot.
https://ashenden.org/2021/05/28/bishops-who-bully-reflections-on-a-safeguarding-scandal/
Gavin Ashenden’s CV is not as straightforward as people might think, and I would suggest that they might read his Wikipedia entry for further insight. If Wikipedia is correct, he was ordained overseas in another church in 2013 but did not formally resign from the C of E or as private chaplain to Her Majesty until 2017. It has been suggested to me that his changed status (seemingly undisclosed) makes no difference to accepting what he says in this article as factually correct. But, for me, I’m afraid there is a large question mark whether he is an appropriate person… Read more »
Agreed. He has a curious profile – we’re rather aware of it locally.
I have written something more substantial on ‘Surviving Church’ which has been linked on a later TA thread. But my ‘drift’ is that his ordination in the Episcopal Church of Christ while remaining in C of E orders and Chaplain to her Majesty from 2013 to 2017 is at least paradoxical when he questions the “missing years” 1987 to 1993 in Bishop Dakin’s formation. There is also the issue whether it was lawful, but that is best left to canon lawyers. Although Anglican, the Episcopal Church of Christ is not in Communion with Canterbury and for that reason not a… Read more »
Mr Ashenden is passing judgment from the position of a Roman Catholic layman. It seems he’s not sure where he wants to be.
Whatever the outcome in this whole sorry affair it is abundantly clear that the next Bishop of Winchester must surely be a current experienced Diocesan Bishop with proven pastoral skills.
Reading Janet Fife’s piece reminded me of the time that I was in Oxford when Tim Dakin was around. It’s some time ago, so I’m preapred to admit that my recall may not be pin-sharp. But he was one of those people who always had something to say, who was trotting out the latest insight from the latest book he had read; while, at the same time, there was always someone else nearby who could give him a run for his money and reveal that he didn’t know quite as much as he purported to know. We sometimes compared him… Read more »
Presumably if he was in touch with the Oxford dio DDO or went to a selection conference is recorded somewhere
Upthread, I pointed to +Tim’s autobiography on the Diocesan website (still strangely abandoned and frozen in time like the Marie Celeste). ” … after further studies and research in Oxford (…), I unexpectedly transferred, as an ordinand, from Oxford to Nairobi Diocese where I was ordained in 1993 and 1994.”
Wherefore ‘unexpectedly’ and exactly what point did his status change from candidate to ordinand?
For reference, here’s the official announcement of Tim Dakin’s appointment as Bishop of Winchester
http://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/5139-2/
Simon: Are you or Peter able to unearth the membership of the ViS committee and CNC who appointed Tim Dakin? David Williams was Vicar of Christ Church, Winchester at the time and, if not a front-line member, I think would certainly have been a key player in the process.
The links to other sites in that 2011 announcement are broken, but here are the articles we originally linked to
https://www.winchester.anglican.org/news/2011/09/06/the-next-bishop-of-winchester-announced/
https://churchmissionsociety.org/our-stories/tim-dakin-be-next-bishop-winchester/
It’s noteworthy that the ‘author’ of the announcement on the Winchester diocesan website is the ubiquitous Luther Pendragon!
Thank you Simon- How interesting to see what commentators said then ( and before then) and what is being seen and not seen and said and not said now. It’s good for the church’s reputation management that no-one outside the church is even listening any more.
Yup! I’m just an ordinary grunt in the C of E and churchwarden. I didn’t know anything about it till the recent email but there must have been rumblings for ages. A need for a bit of ecclesiastical governance in the sunshine I feel.
The 1987-1993 years in Tim’s CV now need to be clarified. At present there seems to be no record of his ordination as a deacon or as a priest. There should be certificates or a record of the ordination such as an Order of Service. I cannot think of any ordination I’ve attended where the newly ordained are not pictured with the ordaining bishop, and other photos of proud parents, children etc. If none of this evidence can be produced the CofE has a major crisis on its hands. It would raise fundamental questions about due diligence and the role… Read more »
I am fairly sure that Tim was ordained as both deacon and priest in Kenya by a bishop in that country linked to his post as Principal of Carlile College (which he had moved to as a layman as far as the C of E was concerned). I am sure I have either heard him talk about, or seen a comment about, him being ordained in Kenya – in effect as a Kenyan ordinand. I expect there is some record of his ordinations in Kenya, although record keeping may be slightly more ad hoc than in the C of E.… Read more »
There weren’t the cross-checks, but someone somewhere must have given him Archbishop’s Permission to Officiate under the 1967 measure pertaining to clergy ordained overseas. That requires copies of letters of orders and assurance of good standing from the bishop of the diocese in which one has served most recently.
Quite right. Clare makes out that such measures were instituted in her time. Not so. There have always been bureaucratic attempts at regulation. The common fault of an Anglican bishop is to refuse to feel bound by them. Kuria is a case in point but so is Harries Carey Rowan and Selby. They are all responsible inter alia for the rise and fall of TD. They should have known better.
Very patronizing. This shows the CoE’s valuation of records including the Diocese and Bishop of Winchester’s is nothing to boast of. As Provincial Registrar in CPK/ACK I can assure you that all selections for Provincial ordination training were documented. TD was never a known or recognized Anglican candidate or ordinand there except it seems in the eyes of the maverick Manesses Kuria. I remember going to a large ordination service c. 1995 in Ngiriambu. Gitari had invited Kuria. None of the clergy would speak to him. When I did I sensed the feeling that I was pushing the boundary of… Read more »
It might be worth moving this to the most recent thread, as it raises all sorts of new questions. We have been led to understand that Tim Dakin was ordained deacon in 1994. Would that have ordination been by Manesses Kuria whilst he was still archbishop? Kuria retired at some point in 1994. If Dakin was ordained deacon whilst Kuria was archbishop, would he have been priested a year later, or could it still have been priested whilst Kuria was still archbishop (i.e., ordination to the priesthood following almost immediately after ordination to the diaconate)? Would the ACK have held… Read more »
Somewhere, I think actually on this thread which currently has 237 posts, I have read that he was ordained priest in Africa in 1994. I think it was similarly suggested as deacon there in 1993, but I am less sure of that. It is certainly stated that he served his curacy in 1994 at Nairobi Cathedral. I know nothing about C of E ordination records; clearly there must be registers, but I would have thought it unlikely that Lambeth Palace would keep, or have access to, any records of the Anglican Church in Kenya.
I would have thought the question of Tim Dakin’s ordination was simplicity itself to resolve. Whether he was ordained by letters dimissory, or directly by a Kenyan bishop he must have letters of orders. It would be unusual for him not to be ordained to a particular ministry. But if he wants to quash the speculation that he is not ordained, then he should produce his letters of orders forthwith. If he can’t, then this all looks very concerning indeed.
Presumably he would have been required to submit evidence of his ordination as deacon and priest when he returned/moved to England in 2000 to become the leader of CMS? He would, I expect, have been subject to the requirements of the Overseas and Other Clergy (Ministry and Ordination) Measure 1967.
Indeed. Canon C6 (2) (a) requires anyone wishing to be ordained deacon or priest to exhibit letters of orders to the bishop who is to perform the rite. Canon C1 (on the consecration of bishops) contains no like requirement, presumably because no one who ever had a hand in drafting that canons would ever have thought it possible that a person might become a bishop without first having valid and proven orders as a deacon and priest. It should be comparatively easy for the bishop of Winchester to produce a certificate of his ordination as deacon and priest, or else… Read more »
I would be more willing to accord respect to Gavin Ashenden’s intervention but for this: https://christiantoday.com/article/gavin-ashenden-was-consecrated-a-bishop-four-years-ago-while-still-a-chaplain-to-the-queen/115342.htm I’m not certain of the chronology of the visit to Canterbury, but it might explain Canon Porter’s use of the term “you lot”, leaving aside whether or not he used the expletive. Now I might be mistaken about this (due to deafness or misunderstanding, and am happy to be corrected), but my recollection is that in an episode of ‘Anglican Unscripted’ two (?) years ago, Gavin Ashenden said that he was ‘shown to the door’ by Timothy Dakin at Winchester, not at General Synod.… Read more »
I suspect that you are right that Mr Ashenden has an axe to grind, though up to a point. However, it would be extraordinary, and dangerous, for him to make the allegations he did without being sure of his facts. It seems to me that his career was characterised by close and unusual engagement with other Christian denominations from the outset: there can be few Oak Hill seminarians who are also affiliated with Greek Orthodox monasteries (Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, in his case), and he studied at the now defunct Jesuit Heythrop College (though other high church clergy did likewise). During… Read more »
You are a very persuasive advocate, but, for the time being, the jury is still out – on both men!
Sorry, ‘Percies’. One example of parallel witness was an ‘apostle’ in the Irvingite church (the highest grade in its fourfold ministry) who was an active Anglican clergyman, was Henry Dalton, who was evicted from the perpetual curacy of the peculiar of St Leonard’s Bridgnorth, Salop, in 1835 (for substituting his own prayers for part of the liturgy!), and who became vicar of Frithelstock, near Bideford, in north Devon (he had hitherto held the living of Clovelly nearby). Although not active as an apostle whilst holding his cure, he remained one nonetheless, and resumed his apostolic activities in retirement without resigning… Read more »
I think being ordained bishop in the other church is a bit more than gradual withdrawal from the C of E!
Yes, indeed. You and Mr Wateridge are, of course, correct – and I was perhaps casting around for excuses. His consecration as a bishop in another denomination does undermine his standing (though the Irvingite example cited was, more or less, equivalent to consecration as a bishop). Mr Ashenden’s relationship with the Church of England in the last few years before he resigned his orders can be most charitably regarded as eccentric, if not disingenuous. Whether that completely subverts the content of his blog post is another matter. I would hope that he was making the case for the Channel Islands… Read more »
Which Gavin Ashenden is this? The Bishop of some obscure foreign land, or the recent convert to Roman Catholicism?
I assume the latter subsumed the former.
There seems to be another curious gap in Dakin’s CV. He was born in Feb 1958, but is stated to have gained his BA in 1986, by which time he would have been 28. Assuming the normal three-year degree course, this means that he would have started at University College Plymouth St Mark & St John in 1983, at the slightly late age of 25. This leaves a longish gap of seven years between his leaving school at 18 and going up to Uni. Now it is entirely laudable to be a mature student, having gained experience in the working… Read more »
He was brought up in Africa and someone has already said – on this thread! – that he has no connection with Iwerne. Sadly, the waters, muddy enough already, are being further clouded by speculation and guesses by people who haven’t read up the subject. Why won’t people desist and wait for some factual outcome?
I understand +Tim spent some time in Birmingham in his early adulthood. Professor David Ford was the main speaker at Winchester Diocese’s most recent Diocesan Conference, and he alluded to working with +Tim during this period. What he was doing I know not. I have no definitive evidence either way regarding Iwerne, however it was pointed out above that +Tim was a “mish kid”, does not appear to have been to a public school and didn’t attend Oxbridge until much later in his life. This doesn’t mean he was not at Iwerne, but his background suggests he would have been… Read more »
Numerous posts on this extraordinary thread didn’t make the ‘recent comments’ list and so are easily missed. Bishop Dakin clearly has had a very active life in England and Kenya. A possible clue about Birmingham might be his time as Honorary Canon Theologian of Coventry Cathedral. I don’t have the dates to hand but recall pointing out that they appeared to coincide with Justin Welby’s time as a residentiary canon at Coventry. We now have clear evidence that by 1993 Bishop Dakin was a captain in the Church Army based in Oxford. I would have thought that categorically ruled out… Read more »
That all sounds so good , except that he was never commissioned into the CA in the UK.
Apologies, I missed this reply earlier. I got the impression from what David Ford said that +Tim was in Birmingham in the late 70s/early 80s i.e. during the first block of time (1976-1983) that is not accounted for in his various CVs. I give those dates under the assumptions that he finished his A-levels at Henley Sixth Form College (see yearbook entry in the Archbishop Cranmer post) at the age of 18, and that he started at MarJon (Plymouth) in 1983 for a 3 year degree programme, graduating in 1986. As other posts have stated, he was a Lay Reader… Read more »
Thank you. Most of this ground has already been covered. I’m afraid that I feel that it has largely ceased to be relevant and that this topic has run its course. There is good reason to believe that Tim Dakin was validly ordained in Kenya. That issue became buried in a mountain of extraneous matters. Now it’s time to wait for a formal outcome.
On reflection, I apologise to you if my earlier response appeared to be rude. The fact is that none of us has any definite information in this discussion.
This thread is an unusual mix of things, but although TA is a forum for asking questions, I can’t see that anyone in authority owes “us” an explanation of anything so far as “we” are the commentators on this thread. So far as Bishop Dakin’s CV is concerned, every safer recruitment course I have been on has insisted that gaps in CVs are interrogated. If that was not done during the appointment to Winchester there are questions to ask of that process. I am afraid I think that some of the commentary on Gavin Ashenden’s contribution comes close to playing… Read more »
Froghole, whom I greatly respect, takes a different view but I see Gavin Ashenden’s reception into a church not in communion with the C of E without resigning his C of E orders as a major skeleton in his cupboard. Absolutely agreed that “we” are not entitled to ask or demand explanations – I think calling on a blog for production of evidence of ordination is presumptuous, to say the least, and that Bishop Dakin might well take the same view – if it ever came to his knowledge. But we can only wait for the six weeks to expire… Read more »
Raising questions on a public forum like TA about Bishop Dakin’s CV is not a demand or in the least presumptuous. Anglicans have a perfect right to question their so-called leaders’ backgrounds. Only in dictatorships are lowly subjects cowed into silence. If the Politburo believes TA readers are of no consequence and can be safely ignored, that only confirms one’s suspicions that people like the Bishop of Winchester can do as they like. (TA is not a private discussion. It’s on the Worldwide Web).
Please see my answer to Anthony Archer. The fact that TA can be read world wide is all the more reason to write carefully, rationally and factually. I am expecting to see an official response.
I am certain Gavin is just the messenger here. Shall we just say I am on the case and won’t be saying any more, for the time being.
Not saying any more is what I have been advocating.
My position (as a layman in the Winchester Diocese) is neutral and I expect to hear an outcome of some kind from official sources.
I will nail my colours to the mast to the extent of saying that I don’t consider Gavin Ashenden’s actions in this are wholly commendable. I realise that I am probably a single minority in this view, and so will refrain from any further part in the debate. Like Lord Asquith, I am prepared to “Wait and see”.
Having spent a gorgeous day on the top of the Hampshire Downs: among the commentators, and readers here are clergy and laity who have sworn fealty to Bishop Tim in various ways (licensed and PTO clergy, churchwardens, LLMs, holders of the eponymous BCM etc). I’m afraid that I think they are indeed ‘owed’ an explanation from their contracting party of how we got here and what happens next. With a total lockdown of Diocesan communications, this blog is all we have. Lesson One in PR disaster management in the ‘real’ world is how to issue an effective holding statement ASAP.… Read more »
“They” may be, my point was that “we” may not be – and also the demand for “now”, rather then when the facts have been investigated, is unrealistic. (I was an investigator once). However, the sense that an investigation will be conducted, and no account of facts will emerge, is generated by experience of repeated reports where the substance is not published (including a key one about the Channel Islands situation). And processes like IICSA which reveal what that secrecy culture has concealed and defended. I have asserted on the CDM thread that the routine accountability of bishops needs to… Read more »
Those of us who have been operating within ‘loud hailer’ distance of Winchester over the past decade are struck by the acute disconnect between ‘mission’ priorities and Tim Dakin’s obsessive legalism. His repeated warnings to clergy of ‘knowing exactly what you’re up to’ arises from an information network (which includes deploying his wife to spy on worship in the parishes) that makes Alexander Lukashenko look like an incompetent amateur. It all suggests a combination of insecurity and paranoia. He uses the opportunities of the law as a weapon of first resort and famously eyeballs people who present even a remote… Read more »
And the ‘Bishop in Europe’ in question was that now rare bird on the contemporary bench, a bona fide earned DD (Oxon.), with 22 years as a college fellow and 20 books (whether written wholly or in part) behind him, and whose formal relationship with Winchester went back to 1991, when he was made examining chaplain to Colin James.
I have been reading this story with great interest and whilst there are clearly facts we are not privy to, I am increasingly concerned about maverick Bishops who, on the surface, appear believe they are answerable to no-one and have the authority to do anything of their own volition.
We really do need clear transparency and accountability to be demonstrated now. I read the Archbishop Cranmer piece this morning with considerable concern. I am perhaps unusual in hoping and praying that Tim Dakin was lawfully and properly ordained as a priest and deacon. If this question cannot be laid to rest, then the potential consequences for all those he has allegedly ordained, married and ministered to sacramentally are grave. We perhaps forget too easily in this thread that the church has growing and already major credibility problems in the public domain. There is also the law of the land… Read more »
I am sure that Bp Tim was lawfully and properly ordained as Bishop. Surely that is all that matters? He is still legally the Bishop of Winchester.
I am finding myself getting rather uncomfortable with some of the inferences about Tim Dakin that are being made on this website – and even more on some other websites. I have made it clear that I myself am not uncritical about Tim Dakin for various reasons, however I have absolutely NO reason to doubt that Tim Dakin was validly ordained as an Anglican deacon and then priest in the Anglican Church in Kenya. I had always heard that he was ordained in Kenya shortly after he moved out to the country to take over the role as head of… Read more »
I said above that I would depart from this thread, but some independent delving to some extent, in fact considerably, supports what you say above. People here, and on other blogs, talk about comtemporary records. Those for 1993 are mostly about the ordination of women, but the Diocese of Oxford newspaper ‘The Door’ for November 1993 includes this under “Our links with Africa”: “To college in Kenya “Church Army officer Tim Dakin is leaving Oxford in January to take up a five-year post as principal of Church Army’s training college in Nairobi. Born and brought up in Kenya, Captain Dakin… Read more »
If you’ll excuse the excruciating pun, Roland, I’m slightly losing the thread here. But I think your point in citing the article in the Oxford diocesan magazine is important. I’m not clear how ‘Captain’ Tim Dakin in The Door is reconciled with the (more or less) contemporaneous ‘The Rev Captain’ Tim Dakin in the Anvil article to which Dr Amos and Canon Pemberton refer. You can understand, given all that has been said and the apparent lack of documentary evidence, why I am asking whether, having slipped ‘The Rev’ into an article, it somehow stuck and morphed into something more… Read more »
I really cannot believe that LP have a strategy at play here, and reckon somebody at Gracechurch Street (sic!) is crying into their coffee. I see no evidence of their professional skills and can only believe they have not been instructed in the matter. Another option is that they are declining to act in the manner their client/s (DBF?, Bishop?, Chief Exec?, Lambeth?) is requesting.
In other business, wasn’t there once a rule or custom that CA Captains resigned their commission if ordained?
In a nutshell, your reading is not up to date. I profess no personal knowledge of any of these facts. It’s now a matter to wait for some official announcement. So far there has been only one, Bishop Debbie’s. The rest has been mostly conjecture.
My time as an incumbent of two parishes in the Winchester Diocese during 21 years and as an honorary canon (emeritus) of Winchester Cathedral, makes it impossible to ignore the present turmoil which has overtaken the diocese. After retiring in 1996 I, and my wife Rachel have lived on the Isle of Wight, but continue to visit Hampshire from time to time. In the summer of 2014 we stopped to visit the church at Minstead in the New Forest. There a leaflet attracted our attention which set out Bishop Dakin’s strategy for ‘mission’. Reading this we were shocked by the… Read more »
I can only repeat what I have said to Will Richards. I don’t have any more information to impart and we must wait for an official announcement.
I know Minstead well. My family originates there and I have relatives, including an uncle, buried in the churchyard. A late friend of mine from the USA used to make an annual pilgrimage to Conan-Doyle’s grave at Minstead, and on my occasional return visits to him in the US we would similarly pay homage to Mark Twain at his grave in my friend’s birthplace.
About a decade I ago I was doing a temporary ‘backroom’ job in our local independent TV newsroom for the South of England. Given that I belonged to a church in Southampton at the time, I was interested in the news of a new bishop of Winchester. I was also interested in some of the comments being made by newsroom colleagues about the new bishop’s reluctance to be interviewed prior to his beginning the new role. They were baffled because they couldn’t understand why a new bishop would pass up the opportunity to give a ‘soft’ interview and introduce himself… Read more »
Having ‘stepped back’ for 6 weeks, I do not think that Bp Tim will be in a position to answer these questions before then. We will just have to wait!
This point has been made so many times, but people don’t seem prepared to accept it!
Thank you Jane. Your contribution is especially helpful as it shows the impression that + Tim made on those outside the Church when he arrived. Engaging with the media goes with the territory if you are a Bishop. Bishops are the public face of the Church. An interview to mark his appointment would have given him the chance to talk about all the good work the Church was doing in the Diocese. It would also have enabled him to establish good relations with the local media. This might have been helpful if he were later asked to comment on more… Read more »
He was a CA officer in Oxford Diocese in January 1994, before he moved to Kenya that year… His Crockford, Who’s Who, Wiki and HoL entries claim he was ordained deacon in 1993 in Nairobi. These dates cannot be reconciled.
Not impossible to reconcile. One of the givens is that the Dakin family (Tim and his parents) have had a long term and ongoing relationship with Kenya. They own a house there ( I don’t know when that was bought – but I think it may well pre-date 1994). Tim is appointed to the Carlile role in 1993 even though he is only going to take it up in 1994. Once it is known that he is going to go there he may have been ordained deacon in Kenya while he is out there for a visit (e.g. to his… Read more »
The report in the Oxford Door magazine of November 1993 is not correct. From 1990 to 2006 I was Chief Secretary of Church Army UK and I can confirm that Tim Dakin did not train with the Church Army in the UK and he was not a commissioned officer. He was commissioned in November 1993 in Nairobi without any Church Army training. Before the end of that year the then Archbishop of Kenya ordained him in All Saints Cathedral Nairobi again without any ministerial training. Since that time the diocese divided and the cathedral is that of the Archbishop who… Read more »
Having no reason to doubt something is not proof that it is so. You suspect this or you suspect the other or you seem to remember something else. If you have no absolute proof why are you defending him? But even if he was validly ordained, he most certainly should not have been.
Actually, it’s the other way round. There have been dogmatic assertions here, and as Clare Amos points out even more so on some other blogs, which now, albeit in a limited way, have proved to be wrong at least to the extent of the information from the most reliable contemporary source to date, the Diocese of Oxford’s own newspaper.
Final word, I hope. The more I think about this makes me certain that there are people in this country who must know some of the answers, but who do not consider it appropriate to intervene publicly. It really must be a situation where we can only wait for an official statement from Winchester or Lambeth, or both.
If Capt Tim left Oxford Diocese in January 1994, the Diocese would have very clearly registered his ordination to the diaconate in 1993, which is what his CV claims. He could not possibly have been ordained (legally) in Nairobi without the relevant letters dimissory from Oxford Diocese. If he had those letters from the Bishop of Oxford, ‘The Door’ would have been bidding farewell to the Revd. Tim Dakin. At present, just to add to the list of missing pieces for this jigsaw, there is no record of Tim being in the CA in Oxford Diocese either. He is recorded… Read more »
If they haven’t done so already, then Lambeth should be speaking not only to Oxford in general but to Lord Harries (Bishop of Oxford 1988-2004) in particular who will, doubtless, have recollections of his encounters with the aspiring ordinand-cum-Church Army Captain (presumably, the CA have a record of his commissioning as an officer?), as would the then-DDO, Canon Martin Pearce, who was a Residentiary Canon of Christ Church when Tim Dakin was undertaking research. As others have said, this level of speculation (and the discomfort it is causing) would be entirely unnecessary if there was some very basic attempt to… Read more »
What remains staggering is the Diocesan wall of silence – like its some sort of Eastern Bloc press blackout. No wonder speculation is rife on here and elsewhere. The longer this goes on, the worse it is – not for Bishop Tim – his days are clearly numbered, and the sooner he “retires” the better. But the Diocese needs some reassurance and some open, honest and pastoral leadership. There is none. No-one knows anything. Luther Pendragon are sitting on everything and refusing to send any messages. They have been exposed as woeful and completely out of touch with the local… Read more »
LP can only advise. If their client goes on to decline that advice, so be it.
Philip Johanson’s own post beat me to it with the breaking news of Bishop Dakin’s ordination. I had assumed that ordination in Nairobi in 1993 by the Archbishop was a possibility as, indeed, Clare Amos believed, but could not possibly say this as mere supposition. In my private researches I discovered that the Archbishop died not long after. Also I read an article from around 1993-94 by a Kenyan at Carlile College saying that they were waiting the return of Rev Captain Tim Dakin from Oxford. That was baffling at the time, but it now falls entirely into place in… Read more »
Thank you Rowland for your painstaking research. Thanks also to Philip. As Chief Secretary of Church Army UK at the relevant time you are the most authoritative source. It is to put it at its lowest somewhat surprising that + Tim:- 1. Became head of a Church Army college without receiving any training in or being commissioned by the Church Army. 2. Was ordained Deacon and Priest without any training in a recognised College/ on a recognised course. This means he would have missed on the parish placements which are part of ministerial formation. He appears to have spent much… Read more »
I don’t know that any of us is qualified to adjudicate on what was acceptable in the Anglican Church of Kenya. I think the fact that the ordination was by the Archbishop is enormously significant. I suspect, without knowing, that the Archbishop could well have possessed personal juridical powers to ordain suitable candidates (as I believe our own Cantuar has) and Timothy Dakin did have two UK degrees, one in theology and another including theology. These might well have satisfied the Archbishop’s requirements. Moreover, Timothy Dakin was not taking up parish ministry in Kenya, and so far as I know… Read more »
I think I should have added that his Coventry canonry was as Honorary Canon Theologian and (from memory) was from 2000 to 2011.
Actually it doesn’t answer all the questions because, unless he held a dimissary letter from a CofE bishop any ordination in Kenya would not necessarily be recognised here in the UK.
According to the Faith and Order Commission it isn’t enough that the ordaining church be in communion with the CofE: there is a requirement that the process of discernment and training also be considered equivalent to that the candidate would have had to go through in the UK.
In other words, ordination alone isn’t a free pass.
I have repeatedly said that I am neutral in these matters. However, I have to say that I’m pretty astonished by the evident malice in so many of the posts I have read and so little acknowledgment of the facts as they have since emerged; also people are still commenting out of sequence on this thread. My supposition, and it has to be that, is that the Archbishop of Kenya ordained TD as an ordinand of the Anglican Church of Kenya, and that issues of C of E authorities would not have come into play. I thought my post above… Read more »
It may interest readers to know that not only is ordination not “a free pass”, neither is an incumbency when moving from one jurisdiction to another. Before I could be instituted as Rector in the Church of Ireland I was required by the C of I Diocesan Registrar to produce a Bene Decessit from the Diocese of Derby in which I was ordained and was then an incumbent. Signed by rural dean, assistant rural dean, former TI, and diocesan bishop, it declared that while serving as incumbent “he has behaved himself soberly, piously, and with ability and conformably to the… Read more »
In my 50 years in ministry I have been beneficed in three different English dioceses, none of them the diocese of my ordination. In each one I had to submit my Letters of Orders to the Diocesan Registry. I would therefore be surprised if one about to be ordained bishop were not required to do the same.
Second reply: Yes, I see the point which you make as to which I have zero personal knowledge. That would have arisen on a first C of E incumbency or the Consecration. I suspect that the answer(s) are unlikely ever to be found on TA, so, once again, it’s better not to speculate and instead wait to see what happens.
There is also that puzzling statement in TD’s (auto)biography on the DoW website that:
“I unexpectedly transferred, as an ordinand, from Oxford to Nairobi Diocese where I was ordained in 1993 and 1994.” [my emphases]
It could be poor drafting, but to leave as an ordinand implies that Oxford had already accepted him for ministerial training before the unexpected transfer to Nairobi.
That might mean unexpectedly as a prospective ordinand in Nairobi in conjunction with the appointment as Principal of Carlile College. Just a thought. We don’t know, but I fear we are getting bogged down in minutiae. The important point of valid ordination now seems to be established.
To be fair, I’m not sure that anything has been established beyond doubt in this thread. Various people have found various bits of historical evidence and attempted to piece them together with varying degrees of success. I do think the people of the diocese of Winchester deserve a little more certainty about their bishop’s orders than can be scrambled together by a few self-appointed sleuths, half of whom present themselves under pseudonyms, on a blog. I very much hope that someone in Lambeth Palace is going through Tim Dakin’s blue file very carefully, before asking to see his letters of… Read more »
I would like to think that this was not intended, but your comment comes across as discourteous and not a little offensive. For my part I have never used a pseudonym on TA and I have considerable experience of forensic investigation. Matters changed dramatically with the evidence from Philip Johanson. He clearly has not gilded the lily about Timothy Dakin. He has given us details of when, where and by whom Timothy Dakin was ordained Deacon and how the ordination records came to be re-located. I fear that your reading has been superficial. I have consistently said that we must… Read more »
It was not my intention to be discourteous, but I observe three things. Firstly, whilst this is not true of you, it is the case that many commentators on here do use pseudonyms: I find that regrettable, even if I understand why some might choose to do so. I always comment in my own name on things, even at the risk, from time to time, of an episcopal ticking off. Secondly, Philip Johanson has asserted certain things but offered no evidence in support of his assertions. It is all very well to assert that evidence of Tim Dakin’s ordination will… Read more »
Thank you. I think more credit is due to the evidence of Philip Johanson and, yes, I will be bold in going further by saying censure due to those who have actively made mischief, chiefly two clerics from outside the Diocese of Winchester in sensationalising the matter of the validity of the Bishop’s orders – one of them almost going as far as asserting their non-validity. I wonder whether we will ever see retractions or apologies. Of course there is the possibility that Mr Johanson might be mistaken in some of the detail of his recollection (incidentally it is very… Read more »
I’m bound to say that I’m rather bemused that after the avalanche of comments on all aspects of the Bishop of Winchester situation, particularly questioning the validity or non-existence of Tim Dakin’s priestly orders, the news of the Bishop’s 1993 ordination has met with a virtual wall of silence, and just one response on TA out of a total of 302 comments here. Are people too embarrassed to say something publicly? Only over on Surviving Church Froghole has addressed the implications in any serious way. I’m genuinely puzzled, possibly prematurely, but I think that after more than 700 comments have… Read more »
Presumably, because the question about +T’s ordination having been answered, there is little more to say on this point.
TA, Surviving Church, and ?? Which is the third blog where these matters have been discussed?
The Archbishop Cranmer blog.
The clue is in the word ‘contrition’, but of course I accept that it applies only to those who stirred up so much mischief. They are the ones who are deafeningly silent.
Tim, as I have observed elsewhere on this thread, I don’t think anything definitive has been resolved here, though we trust that it will be by due authority in due course. Just out of interest, do you have a surname? I may be getting old and cynical, but I would like to be reassured that you are not the Bishop of Winchester lurking here to see what we’re all saying about you.
I wonder if the ‘wall of silence’ (matched only by that erected by the Diocese of WInchester in the last three weeks) is because people are waiting to see whether the various assertions, recollections and memories will be supported by documentary evidence. So far the only contribution that lays claim to be supported by available documentary evidence is by Gavin Ashenden. Since he is somehow ‘tainted’ in the opinion of other commentators to this thread, despite the detail he offers, we are left with no choice but to maintain the ‘wall of silence’ until many of the legitimate questions raised… Read more »
I take precisely the opposite view and consider Mr Johanson’s evidence as unimpeachable compared with Gavin Ashenden’s writings on the subject. I noted yesterday that comments on his website about this are “now closed”.
Yet again (how many times have I said this on this thread?) I repeat that we are waiting for official announcement(s) from Winchester and Lambeth Palace. I believe Cantuar is beyond the seas – if that has any relevance. Wait and see! How presumptuous people are in demanding what they want and always instant answers!
Rowland – your repeated comment to wait for six weeks is falling on stony ground. Telling everyone to remain silent for six weeks is unsustainable. The bishop of Winchester isn’t any old bishop. He is senior to most other bishops, has an automatic seat within UK law making, then suddenly goes underground. Total silence from his own diocese and from Lambeth. Archbishop Welby lying on a sunlounger in northern France is irrelevant. General Synod is going ahead during his sabbatical. Church of England governance hasn’t stopped because he is away.There should have been a holding statement on day one and… Read more »
Quite so, Michael. And while The Most Noble Order of the Garter, the five Oxford colleges to whom he is Visitor and the House of Lords (https://members.parliament.uk/member/4256/voting) can probably manage without him for six weeks, the Diocese is left as a flock without its Chief Shepherd. Diocesan Synod is effectively suspended; significant pieces of strategic work affecting people’s life and work are in abeyance; clergy, churchwardens, LLMs and BCMs see their counterparty gone AWOL; meanwhile silence from Wolvesey and Lambeth. Further, because TD was unable or unwilling to issue even a bland statement in his own name, he left Bp… Read more »
Anyone from outside the diocese could be left unaware from these comments that Winchester has two suffragans, and nothing has been said at all about Basingstoke being AWOL. As you say, the Bishop of Southampton is temporarily Captain of the ship. I have considerable sympathy for her.
Whereas everyone inside the Diocese is very much aware that Bp David has also “stepped back”.
It seems that even my shortest posts are misread or misrepresented. I hope the good people of the Winchester Diocese, of whom I am one, might recognise that the outside world does not necessarily have our knowledge of it – as evidenced by some of the comments even here on TA. Things have not been helped by active mischief-makers in this saga. My final word on TA about this!
I agree that it’s a tall order, but have you read all of the posts on this thread? Your questions rather suggest that you haven’t, which would explain why you ask such questions as where did he serve his title, where was he between 1987 and 1993, etc. Those two matters have been answered to the extent that the information can be gleaned from research – they are, respectively, Nairobi and the Oxford years at Christ Church and as Lay Reader. Surely by now people have grasped that ordination in Kenya was to an academic post. For our pains, I… Read more »
With over 300 comments mostly about him I thought it might be time to actually hear from +Tim, the Lord Bishop of Winchester, so here’s (see link) his maiden speech (by convention uncontroversial) in the House of Lords, dated Tuesday 14th May 2013.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2013-05-14/debates/13051441000460/details#contribution-13051444000001
A positive comment on the Bishop.
https://ramtopsrac.wordpress.com/tag/diocese-of-winchester/
I wrote this blog post as an ordinand 7 years ago as a reflection on my first meeting with the peers with whom I was to be ordained. Our meeting that day with +T was in that context. A lot has happened to myself and colleagues since then: his seeming vulnerability when he spoke to us initially could now be interpreted differently. His snap decision over the stoles – with no concern for the personal significance of their design – is hardly a positive reflection on his pastoral care for his clergy.
Dear Rachel I am sorry if my link to your old blog post misrepresented your current views. I was trying in the interests of balance to find something positive to say. I have occasionally seen negative stories about clerics in the media or online. Often some one will spring to the cleric’s defence “ He/she was lovely at my Nan’s funeral, / daughter’s wedding/ grandson’s christening.” I thought eventually some cleric from the Diocese of Winchester would attest to + Tim’s wise advice on a thorny parish problem or pastoral care at a moment of crisis. Perhaps a lay person… Read more »
What is interesting is that major restructuring of the kind in Winchester seems to be also happening in Portsmouth, which is also broke.
Sadly, many dioceses are in financial difficulties. The difference at Winchester appears to be that the Bishop had discretion in a three year budget to transfer money from one pot to another. The 2020 decision to cut the 2021 budget was taken without consulting Diocesan Synod.
Spot on, Simon
The dismay seems to have been festering for a good while. Was this the straw that broke the camels back?
Many dioceses were in financial difficulties pre covid. Mishandling of the pandemic by the Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow bishops has made a dire situation much worse. Keeping churches locked for 14 months and then expecting everyone to return at the beginning of June is the cause of disaffection, loss of attendance, loss of income. Proof that hundreds of views on Facebook and Zoom are meaningless in terms of returning worshippers and income.
This week’s edition of Private Eye carries a digest (p20) of what we’ve been discussing here, bringing it to a wider audience.
As an ordinary C of E Grunt, I make two observations.
May I thank you all for your contributions to this column? I’m extremely grateful, for without it (and that of “Surviving Church” and that of Gavin Ashenden) I would have been in the dark about much of the Dakin fiasco. The best summary (and that perhaps gleaned from yourselves) is in “Private Eye”. There seems to be a code of silence, an omerta, among clerics and only through you have I learned of the expansion of Pastrow benefice from the original 8 (I think) parishes to the current 16. Some of you may think that this column is just gossip or… Read more »
Thank you, Michael, for your commentary from the North West (of Hampshire!). I am not known as someone who follows a code of silence (!) and at Deanery level the communication works a bit better here (in the South West of Hampshire) than it seems to where you are. I would like to reassure you that the money given to the (local) Church is needed; please do not stop your covenant/standing order/direct debit! Of the money that goes from the local church to the Diocese (as ‘Parish Share’) the vast majority (80%+) pays for the clergy (such as me!). Please… Read more »
For some reason, your comment has reminded me of another comment made by a priest friend of mine recently: he said that in the modern C of E clergy have become nothing more than chuggers for the DBF.
Well, it is the DBF that pays us (through the Church Commissioners)! Many years ago arrangements were different – for one of ‘my’ parishes the Rector was given a 16 bedroom house and the equivalent of £500K per year. I would be very busy if I had to persuade parishioners to fund that sort of lifestyle (but might be willing to give it a go)
I often wonder where the C of E’s money has gone. I have never seen an economic history of the C of E in the last 250 yrs. It is surely a subject awaiting its historian.
I am sitting outside the massive tithe barn at Hartpury in north west Gloucestershire as I write this. The answer to the question is simple. Most of the Church’s ‘money’ was only a claim on taxpayers, whether tithe payers or church rate payers. Once the Church lost its taxing power it was forced back on its historic endowments which were spread very unevenly and were surprisingly modest in the aggregate. Over the course of a century and a half the clergy proceeded to devour that endowment. I agree wholeheartedly that the subject awaits its historian and that at least one… Read more »
I well remember Canon Michael’s funeral in the Cathedral, only a few months after he ‘stepped down’. +Tim’s body language spoke volumes.
I hope that this column has not been “just gossip”. It has covered a wide range of subjects. Some which you touch upon were largely unknown to me before what was the shock announcement – from Southampton – on 18th May. I took a personal interest in the matter of the Bishop’s first ordinations in the context that some people were questioning their validity and on another blog almost even their existence. I thought that the details provided by Philip Johanson amounted to acceptable evidence; he very clearly did not demonstrate any partisanship. Others have demanded seeing evidence from official… Read more »
‘And the Channel Islands were lost, which must be the CofE’s richest area in the entire UK.’ Leaving aside the fact that the Channel Islands are not, and never have been, part of the UK, I must beg to differ. Yes, there are some very wealthy people in Guernsey and Jersey, but the majority do not come into that category. The cost of living is very high, with houses increasingly unaffordable for younger families. Wonderful places to live, but at a cost. The two Channel Island deaneries are each self-financing, receiving no support either from the diocese to which they… Read more »
Ridunian,
That the “two CI deaneries are self-financing, receiving no support either from the diocese or from the Church Commissioners” I would think makes them very rare (plus the Isle of Man?) and indicates to me their relative wealth. My point was though, has Winchester lost a contribution? Donations or legacies, for instance or payments to pension funds that might pass through Winchester.
I’m ignorant in these matters and will be grateful for any illumination or correction.
The CI wouldn’t get any subventions from either the diocese or the Commissioners anyway. No one does, save unless they are in receipt of R&R grants, doled out in Lady Bountiful fashion to favoured projects. The vast majority of parishes must shift for themselves, granted that there may be a cross subsidy from the more affluent parishes as part of the parish share tax/system to some of the poorer parishes. By losing the CI, Winchester simply lost two deaneries with their parish share subventions, so it would have hit the bottom line. The question is how a diocese which was… Read more »
You touch on something important here: the Church Commissioners have huge sums to give away in SDF grants, presumably because they have largely ceased supporting day-to-day parish ministry, having withdrawn from supporting that by degrees since the late 90s. Part of the answer to the question “where has the C of E’s money gone?” must be that it has been diverted into pet projects, leaving poor parish clergy like Fr Pitkin to try to ease more money out of disillusioned parishioners such as Mr Nash.
My time series shows the support given to parishes by the Church Commissioners as varying somewhat over time, but growing from £20.0m in 1998 to £36.4m in 2018 (I need to update my figures to include 2019, clearly). In the same period the amount for Bishops and Cathedrals has more than doubled. The mission money is additional and some of it is parish focussed (£68.8m total mission money in 2018). The Commissioners have also more than recovered the losses of the early 1990s. Since 2006 the percentage of CC expenditure on items other than historic clergy pensions has increased from… Read more »
Thank you for sharing these figures. I’m not sure that I understand your point that “the mission money is additional”: I had understood that SDF funding came from abolishing the grants given under the Darlow formula. I’m also left wondering why it is that every parish I know feels so financially overstretched (even pre-Covid) if Church Commissioner funding really has grown as much as you suggest.
The Darlow formula was changed, but that was not the whole story. Over time the Commissioners have increase parochial support – it would take research beyond my figures to tell whether this was ahead of/behind costs. That’s why I indicated that the Bishops/cathedral support had risen faster over the same period – since those establishments have been relatively constant in number of people. The changes to Darlow had major impacts on some Dioceses (Chelmsford, where I used to be) and essentially nil on others (eg Oxford, where I am now) because Oxford was receiving no Darlow money. The research behind… Read more »
Many thanks for these illuminating comments. I have yet to see the Commissioners’ annual report for 2020, but if their subventions to the parishes amount to about £40m, then that amounts to approximately £3,200 per parish, were it to be spread evenly (which, of course, it isn’t). It was my understanding that, prior to the Pensions Measure 1997 the Commissioners were bearing the full load for all accruals, and had been funding the greater part of the stipends bill, although this was on a downward curve (the history of the funding of both pensions and stipends is painfully obscure, a… Read more »
Which does beg the question… why not?.. why have the churches not responded? The simple reality is that much of the leadership is not up to scratch in those rural churches, and there has been no strategic response to any of this. Winchester and others have been so obsessed with HTB plants and cloning a particular model, that we have not had the agility to adapt fast enough. The church hasn’t profited, because it hasn’t done enough. Ironically, this is what the current, silent and absent episcopal leadership was meant to address… and the impact.. to quote Froghole…. “not a… Read more »
I suspect that most rural churches are hollowed out financially. The real damage has been done already. First, parishes lost their assets from 1976: DBFs simply seized them and gave the parishes little or nothing in return (in fairness, as Guy Shrubsole has remarked, the DBFs were only liquidating the assets that many incumbents in possession of glebe had previously liquidated to finance their living standards). Second, DBFs ‘persuaded’ parishes to up their parish share subventions ‘or else’ they would get no parson. The parishes did so at exactly the time they ought to have been greatly increasing their investment… Read more »
I am not in Winchester Diocese, but next-door. I would rate my rural colleagues – I don’t understand where you get “not up to scratch” from. Most people who do not live in rural areas have very little idea what the rural challenges actually are.
Thanks, Mark. I did not want to say anything to Charles K in case I was rude (as I am in a position of leadership in rural churches)! Having lived in urban, suburban and rural settings I have found similar challenges – issues of people and social justice.
The Second report of the Social Security Committee on the Church Commissioners (The Operation of Pension Funds: The Church Commissioners and Church of England Pensions 29 March 1995) has a table in Appendix 5 (bottom of page 73) which shows the Church Commissioners paying 50% of Clergy Stipend, Housing and Pension costs – with fluctuations between 49% and 55%) between 1981 and 1992. Of course that would include all the pension cost in that period. There were major changes to Glebe and Endowments in the late 1970s (1976 Endowments and Glebe Measure), which I have not untangled – but the… Read more »
Thank you very much indeed for that. As I understand it, Fisher and Trustram Eve (Silsoe) agreed that clergy pensions be made non-contributory and a full charge to the Commissioners, with £8m being transferred from the pensions board to the Commissioners, courtesy of the Clergy Pensions Measure 1954. By the mid-1990s, 37% of the Commissioners’ income was being applied to clergy pay, and 51% to pensions. The burden had led the Commissioners into risky investments (this is where Andrew Chandler’s book is so helpful). However, the pendulum has swung much too far the other way. What is the greater risk… Read more »
Hmmm. I’m not much the wiser. “SDF”? (Shut Down Function? Strategic Defence Force?) And what about “parish share subventions”? “R&R” I do know and when my next door neighbour, the Rev’d Trevor, returns shortly from his current R&R he’ll explain it all; he’s Area Dean so he knows about these things. You’ve reminded me that in the proposed reorganisation, our Deanery Synod had a presentation from a consultant on the Experian data for our postcodes which showed their overall credit worthiness and therefore likely wealth and a reason therefore to increase our parish share. And for our benefice the value was astronomical because it… Read more »
SDF = Strategic Development Funding, the release of capital by the Church Commissioners to selected favoured projects.
Many thanks. I thought that an additional complicating factor with respect to Faccombe was that the Landon family were RC. For about a five or so year period, I saw no services advertised there, either in the benefice magazine or outside the church (which was always locked) following many reccies. I did finally get to an evening service there but, goodness, it took some effort and if I recall I was about a fifth of the congregation. Linkenholt was having about one service a month when I went there (Mr Persson is, I assume, a Swedish Lutheran, even if nominally… Read more »
I do wonder whether a similar situation has arisen at Diocesan level in Winchester. The Bishop has authority within a three year budget to move money from one category to another. This could lead to the perception (or the reality) that he is favouring his own pet projects at the expense of other areas of expenditure. Once parishioners get the impression ( rightly or wrongly) that their hard earned contributions are being spent in this way they are less likely to give. This creates a vicious circle. Less money means further reduction in clergy numbers which in turn makes parishioners… Read more »
I’m a little surprised that the authority to vire funds from one head to another is given to the bishop alone. It would surely be better for any such authority to lie with the bishop’s council, as the standing committee of the diocesan synod (and perhaps also the directors of the board of finance – don’t know if they are in Winchester or not). The council provides more accountability and representation from across the diocese, and very few if any such decisions need to be made so urgently that there is no time to consult the council. That is surely… Read more »
There is a suggestion in the reports that there are some governance issues behind the escalation of issues to the level they have reached. I think it was suggested that the initiative (or a significant part of it) for challenging the Bishop came from the DBF. In spite of the various scriptural injunctions, money does seem to have a more objective and tangible aspect than other aspects of practice when holding people to account. After all they famously got Al Capone on taxes … (not an edifying example, I know, but read your Bible and don’t be surprised)
The Pastoral Reorganisations planned for Winchester Diocese include the preference of ‘Simplified Governance’ – which is put forward as combining Parishes into Single Parish Benefices. In my area. this has been resisted and it is likely that 5 Parishes (currently in two Benefices) will come together in one Benefice with a Joint Council (which one of the Benefices already has). This has worked well in several Benefices in this Deanery, with each parish retaining its independence and identity and feeling responsible for ‘paying their way’ in Parish Share contributions. I do not think that a single-parish benefice would save me… Read more »
Many thanks. There have been a number of schemes in various dioceses recently to consolidated PCCs within multi-parish benefices into a single benefice. This has been going on for some time in Norwich diocese, which I have largely finished going around. It is a useful exercise since it is increasingly difficult to recruit parish officers, and the absence of officers is often used as a pretext for closure. Of course, there is a risk that officers will end up coming from only the strongest churches in a large unit, and if difficult decisions need to be taken about closures, the… Read more »
Sorry, the phrase ‘consolidated PCCs within multi-parish benefices into a single benefice’ is gibberish. I meant ‘consolidate PCCs within multi-parish benefices into a single PCC’. You have mentioned a couple of times above that one of your predecessors in your benefice had an income of £500k p/a. I imagine it was not either East or West Tytherley, as they were both comparatively poor livings. It may be worth noting that clerical incomes would have been elevated under the corn laws or during the years of ‘high farming’ between 1846 and the slump of the 1870s, since much the most valuable… Read more »
West Tytherley was the ‘good living’. Charles Longley who was Rector there in the 1800s went on to be Headmaster of Harrow School and Bishop of Durham and Archbishop of York before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 1862 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Longley. It has been said that he ‘married well’.
Many thanks for that. I suspect that the money would not have come from the marriage. That branch of the Parnell family was only moderately wealthy and, according to GEC, they had 4,426 acres in Cheshire and, mostly, in Queen’s Co. – i.e., Laois – yielding £2,674 p/a in 1883, or about £177k today, although that amount would have gone much further in funding their big house at Anneville in Co. Westmeath than it would now (they are now in the Chalke Valley in south Wiltshire). The Parnell family income would almost certainly have been more in the 1850s, though… Read more »
I expect you may know already that the new and revised Pevsner Wiltshire edition has been published. If it’s not a breach of TA rules to say this, it can be obtained from Blackwell’s at a substantial discount.
Many thanks, Mr Wateridge! Indeed! I purchased a copy at Heffers (now owned by Blackwell’s) last Saturday, the main object of the journey being a raid on the CUP bookshop. Unfortunately, the new volume for Co. Durham was not available (and nor was it available at the now rather disappointing Blackwell’s art bookshop in Oxford when I looked a fortnight ago). Hatchards and the nearby Waterstones (the old Simpsons) should have a full, or nearly full run of the whole set for sale. Unfortunately, the stocks maintained by Blackwell’s and Heffers are not as good as they were until a… Read more »
Revised Pevsners “will stop and that’s it, no more revised hardback editions ever”. Holy God! How will the Alice-banded gilet-wearing middle classes (and that’s just the men) cope? Without further ado, the C of E must prepare a liturgy of Pevsner-grieving. Having studied History of Art in the third year at Cambridge (the medical course in those days allowed such frivolity) I am available for counselling.
At the age of almost 80, and as a lifelong disciple of Pevsner (what a stupendous and matchless achievement the original Buildings of England series was) I have no intention of adopting an Alice band or gilet – nothing wrong with the latter, of course, just not my personal style. Pevsner’s biography (I forget who wrote it – Froghole is sure to know) is well worth reading. Pevsner had an extraordinary life coming to England from Nazi Germany (and was briefly interned in the early part of WW II). The family were converts from Judaism to Christianity. His mother remaining… Read more »
Many thanks! It’s: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/104/1042224/nikolaus-pevsner/9780712668392.html. The Pevsners’ life in the cottage (Snowhill, up a track to the west of Broad Town, and metres away from the white horse) is detailed in chapter 24. The cottage is also only metres away from the boundary of Broad Hinton parish – so they were just within Clyffe Pypard. They are buried about 10 metres to the east of the chancel of St Peter’s (which is now having one service a month). Fortunately, the trees on the perimeter of the churchyard obscure the view of the ever-growing Wootton Bassett and Swindon (the last gaps between… Read more »
In the cause of fairness I am going to comment. I am glad the ridiculous comments about the Bishop of Winchester’s ordination have been sorted out, but there have also been unfair comments about his training and level of learning. Anyone who has visited the offices in Wolvesey would be well aware of the phenomenal amount of books upon his bookshelves, and conversations with him upon various subjects would generally reveal that he *did* actually read them (unlike some clergy). I, for one, also enjoyed his sermons because they had the admirable quality of being both brief and sufficiently theologically… Read more »
Thank you, Sue. I don’t think that there have been any substantiated complaints about Bp Tim’s ordinations, nor his reading – he did say that he set aside a day a week for reading. However, the ‘complaints’ (properly made) are neither minor nor vindictive. I think that we have to just wait, as patiently as we can, for the 6 weeks of ‘stepping back’ to come to a conclusion.
Sorry to be unclear. I was in fact referring to this, and also to a situation involving another cleric I know very well, not to whatever has happened behind the scenes at Winchester. https://www.sheldonhub.org/usercontent/sitecontentuploads/3/E95769629F73792E9B69BA64F5F10547/handed%20over%20to%20the%20dogs%20final.pdf
Thanks, Sue – I guess that I am just sensitised to any suggestion that the Winchester situation is ‘minor’! I am appalled too about how the CDM procedures have been applied and hope that General Synod can drive the way forward to a better way (as suggested by Sheldon and the Ecclesiastical Law Society).
I think reasonable people have accepted the explanation from Philip Johanson about ordination in Nairobi, but there remain some, rather like “Doubting Thomas” demanding to see written evidence before they will believe. Very discourteous, I feel, to Mr Johanson who, for most of us, cleared up any doubt on the matter, and a generally ungracious response to those who undertook research while others speculated in a most uncharitable fashion. A number of worrying (and seemingly incompatible) inconsistencies between Oxford and Nairobi suddenly fell into place when Mr Johanson’s email appeared. As a layman in the Winchester Diocese, apart from the… Read more »