Guli Francis-Dehqani ViaMedia.News Just Housing: A Christian Vision
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Some reflections on the recently published Final IICSA Report
Mark Fox Reaction Will Rishi Sunak want to appoint the Bishops?
Rosie Harper Anglicanism.org Did we die without noticing it?
Some interesting background in the piece on Sunak and the bishops, but I can’t take seriously any author who insists on the spelling “Moslem”.
Surely most of that article is simply out of date and some of it factually inaccurate. Bishops and most Deans are appointed by the Crown. The Prime Minister has an advisory role but is not personally involved in the selection process. The CNC selects two candidate(s) and since 2007 the convention has been that the Prime Minister passes the first name to the Monarch for approval who then passes it back to No 10 for the formal announcement. This is done on the Monarch’s behalf. In no sense is the appointment by the Prime Minister. Far from ducking responsibilities, Gordon… Read more »
The current arrangement is that the CNC sends only one name to the Prime Minister. It may (but does not have to) choose a second name but this is held in reserve and only submitted if it becomes impossible to appoint the first name.
You will see that I mentioned two candidate(s), the plural deliberately in brackets, without explaining further. Frankly, I was a bit surprised that this article appeared on TA without one of your own, or Simon Kershaw’s, editorial comments!
This is, however, Rowland, mere convention. The Prime Minister is within his/her rights to ask for another name. While bishops remain in the House of Lords it has been made clear that the Prime Minister must have a say in their appointment. Of course it is inequitable and even absurd that they should be in the House of Lords in a modern democracy. Removing them does not automatically mean disestablishment (after all no Church of Scotland leaders are in parliament). What it does mean is that the Prime Minister does not have a final word about their appointment, and it… Read more »
Nominations to diocesan sees remain Crown appointments. Gordon Brown’s Green Paper (2007?) stated that in the future Downing Street would accept the first name (now the only name – the General Synod took time to amend the standing orders!) From 2007 until whenever it was recently, the CNC still had to produce two names, and if it failed to do so (even if it had one name) the whole CNC failed, as in Oxford and Hereford. It then voted between the two by simple majority on its preferred name and that was the name submitted to the monarch. Most recently,… Read more »
Odd. Generally we hold people responsible for decisions even if they delegate them, so why is it different in this case? The truth is that a Hindu will be responsible (regardless of his actual level of involvement) for advising the King who to appoint as a bishop. Given the practicalities of how it is likely to work and subject to review if Sunak makes any controversial decisions, I am inclined to celebrate it as wonderful ecumenism rather than see it as sinister.
Anthony Archer has explained it better than I. I thought the current arrangement would be universally preferred by the readers of TA. Frankly, the media blow these things out of all proportion. Other than that Gordon Brown was a Christian, I don’t see his position and that of Rishi Sunak being significantly different. Selection is by the CNC and appointment is by the Monarch. Rishi Sunak is not being asked to make any decisions in a personal capacity. Incidentally all this (apart from the selection process) equally applies to Crown-appointed Deans.
If you read the piece carefully your points are addressed.
The article reveals how completely irrelevant the Church of England is in the grand scheme of things. No politician has the slightest interest in who the bishops are and what they say. Disestablishment is now a matter of time.
A combined reply to you and to Dave. I disagree with both disestablishment and the continual carping for removal of the Lords Spiritual, the latter usually based on spurious, and let’s be blunt, ignorant rhetoric. The Lords Spiritual are a minuscule proportion, less than 4%, of the House of Lords membership and rarely appear there in greater than single numbers. Their presence has been fully explained on TA time and again, and the same arguments to remove them reappear without any apparent consideration of actual facts. They can, and do, provide both a moral and Christian voice in the Upper… Read more »
When you point out that less 4% of the House of Lords (HoL) is comprised of Lords Spiritual (LS) as an argument for, that’s very weak tea indeed. Members of other religions outnumber the LS? Then I’d say CofE members would become lords without any need whatsoever for them to be mandated. Any lord, regardless of his/her/their religious affiliation, or no affiliation, can speak out in chambers from a moral or religious perspective on matters before the HoL. The other lords are not defective in this matter, and the LS are not superior. As I’ve stated before, throughout Parliament’s long… Read more »
PeterPi: This is my final comment on the subject, and on TA, for the time being. I simply don’t understand why this subject exercises you at all as an American and a non-Anglican. However many times the existence and history of the Lords Spiritual has been carefully and patiently explained on TA, it seems to fall on deaf ears every time, but most puzzling for me is the criticism from abroad by people who have no connection with, and are unaffected by, this (as they see it) wholly British or English anachronism. Fr Dean and I disagree, it’s as simple… Read more »
Rowland you describe the bishops as providing a ‘moral and Christian voice’ in the Lords. These bishops tried to block Civil Partnerships and Same Sex Marriage. At least one of their number argued for tougher abortion laws in Northern Ireland than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Ironically they’re now enthusiastic about CPs. The bishops come across as prurient busybodies. They don’t appear to be especially well respected by the other peers either; I’m thinking of the resignations from the Ecclesiastical Committee over the bishops’ failings in the CofE’s safeguarding scandals. Hopefully a Labour government will sweep them aside… Read more »
“Ironically they’re now enthusiastic about CPs.”
Based on my political experience, I’d say cynically, not ironically. Once the same-sex marriage train left the station, the same foes who were vehemently against CPs, now liked them.
SSM foes will say anything, they’ll begrudgingly accept anything, as long as it’s NOT called marriage.
The particular irony about the Bishop of Carlisle intervening on N Ireland abortion laws is that the bishops claim to have a convention that they will not intervene on legislation that affects N Ireland, Scotland or Wales, solely. That is, they say they will only enter debate of UK legislation.
That makes the intervention even worse, misogynistic really of him to think that an Englishman knows what’s good for the women and girls of NI.
One does not necessarily necessitate the other.
That’s true but I think the fault lies with the current cadre of bishops. With so many people suffering at the moment the bishops ought to be strident in their criticism of the Government, everything from poverty to the deaths of disabled benefit claimants and the appalling treatment of asylum seekers. If the bishops spoke out and used their platform then maybe the Government would notice and the Church may be seen as caring about social justice.
Geoff, the late Bishop Kenneth Cragg a leading scholar on Islam and one time Assistant Bishop in Jerusalem in his masterly book “The Call of the Minaret” described the spelling of Muslim as “Moslem” along with Koran and Mahomet as “those unhappy spellings and a mistranslation of Arabic” I read this great book back in 1986. Jonathan.
Yes, oddly “Koran” was still commonplace (though beginning to give way to Quran) when I was growing up in the ’90s but “Moslem” was already in its final throes.
Not an insistence but a typo. It is corrected.
Rosie Harper’s article about the demise of the CofE touched a raw nerve with me. At the church I attend the sacrament is still administered as an intincted wafer by a priest wearing latex gloves. This is despite all the medical evidence that the Covid and influenza viruses are transmitted by aerosol. The server stands alongside holding the chalice looking very much like the scrub nurse in an operating theatre. I still find the sacrament a comfort but the process I find dispiriting and it speaks to me of death rather than exuberant life. The kiss of peace is still… Read more »
Fr Dean there are still a number of churches with many covid restrictions intact, including the latex gloves which you described. This dates back to mid 2020 when the bishop of London issued onerous instructions, based on eroneous myth that covid could be caught from chairs, for example. It was already known at the time that covid is transmitted by aerosol not by touch. Some churches locally still have social distancing, communion in one kind for laity, face masks. One day they may join up the dots and realise why attendance has declined so dramatically.
Michael I too am mystified as to what the church thinks it’s doing. Do these clergy baptise wearing latex gloves and plastic aprons? Do bishops confirm and ordain wearing gloves?
Guli’s article is very welcome, because housing is a huge source of injustice in the UK. The initiatives in Keswick, though small, are very welcome. It is terrible when local people – most often young people – get locked out of housing in their own communities because of rising costs involved in both buying a home and renting one. Or at the very least, so much of their hard-earned income gets eaten up by ever-rising housing costs. Of course, the housing market is itself influenced by political issues: the desire not to let property prices crash, because of harm to… Read more »
Rosie’s comment:
“The authenticity of faith being shown not by the purity of your doctrine but by the quality of your love.”
That at least should be the priority, because God is Love. Love is the Greatest Commandment. Faith, Hope, and Love: the greatest of these is Love.
May we open our hearts and our lives to the Love of God. We may have our differences, but let us all pray and work and live out the imperative of Love.
So true.
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
One thing I am realising is that these commandments are not separate as they first appear. We can often only truly obey the first commandment by loving our neighbors. I think Rosie encapsulated this nicely too.
Agreed. The way the Love of God works is like a flowing stream. A stream of givenness and giving. When we give to others, we are opening to the Love of God. We are opening to the flowing stream and the givenness of God. If we just kept the Love of God for ourselves, in some religious experience, then the Love would not flow. Love flows in givenness. It cannot be hoarded. As Jesus explained, “Streams of living water will flow from within you.” “By this He meant the Spirit.” (John 7:38) This is why loving our neighbour is so… Read more »
Very grateful for Stephen’s thoughtful reflections on the IISCA final report. CSA does not just end with the evil of the abuse itself. A real tragedy and waste is the way it can maim people for decades of their life. Institutional responsibility should not end with ‘tightening up the safeguarding rules’. Victims of abuse deserve continuing support, as the report makes as a strong point. A child is abused in the context of an institution? Well then, there is an ongoing duty of care, which may extend into adult life, to make sure the individual gets therapeutic help. Yes it… Read more »
Dear Friends, I profoundly appreciate Canon Harper’s article. Her descriptions of the modern church’s struggle describes the American experience in so many ways. I’m afraid our present divisions are simply more advanced in time than the CofE’s. The establishment of the CofE was able to delay the inevitable institutional division, but it can’t stop it. I would suggest that it shouldn’t stop it. Attempting to appease the “traditional” or pre-modern social and ecclesial community is a fool’s errand. Focusing of “Church Growth”, marketing, and Family Life Centers simply distracted us from the real purpose of the church, that is taking… Read more »