CNC, women bishops, and LLF
on Wednesday, 4 September 2024 at 10.07 am by Simon Sarmiento
categorised as Church of England, General Synod
Andrew Goddard has written a detailed discussion on this subject, which includes
- a short history of recent developments in relation to CNC,
- a short guide to its processes relevant to understanding these outcomes, and then
- reflections on the failures to appoint particularly with reference to claims being made that relate this to wider debates concerning women bishops and Living in Love and Faith (LLF)
- discussion of the place of church teaching in the appointment of bishops
- concluding thoughts on where we are and what happens next
There is a précis of this article here: Is the Church in an episcopal stalemate? But I recommend reading the full article.
I cannot be the only one who wishes that we could just go back to the system where the Prime Minister advised the King to appoint a sound person. It worked terribly well and anyone who says it didn’t is kidding themselves.
I guess these days you’d have a new problem of getting Sir Keir to pay attention to the workings of the CofE. Like that episode of Yes Prime Minister, except the actor playing the PM hasn’t showed up for shooting because he’s in The Thick of It.
There no doubt is a better system than what we’ve got at the moment, but depending on the PM doesn’t feel like the move in 2024.
A sensible but disinterested or in this case disinterested and snowed-under Prime Minister would sensibly delegate the task to his private secretary, the King’s, and a churchy minister
And we know what happened when the PM’s appointments secretary was allowed to run things: we got Peter Ball.
And Brandon Jackson.
One only has to look a list of appointments (and failures to appoint) since the changes were made to come to the same conclusion.
You are certainly not alone in wishing this. There’s far too much self-determination in the Church these days; we’ve left the Nation behind.
The PM I am sure would be only too pleased to add the C of E to his list of broken institutions and so help amplify his ‘Broken Britain’ rhetoric. But you surely can’t be serious?
I hope you are the only one.
Ah yes, my dad worked as a parish priest under that system. He told me when he retired that most of his bishops had been former theological college principals who had hardly any parish experience, and very little idea what it was actually like out there in parish ministry.
The good old days are rarely as good as our memory would like to think.
But who defines ‘sound’ nowadays? Not even the church’s own internal tribes can agree on what is ‘sound’ and what isn’t.
“In such a situation it would appear justifiable for someone on CNC to see it as their responsibility to refuse to vote in support of the nomination of a candidate for diocesan bishop who was known to be committed to changing that teaching and practice.” This contradicts the idea that votes are based on discernment. Discernment means prayerfully ascertaining the wishes of God, as distinct to the wishes, conscience or political inclinations of members of CNC. One thing is clear: the selection of bishops is not, in fact, a process of discernment these days – if it ever was. Maybe… Read more »
Having experienced it in Canada, I think that there is a lot to be said for episcopal elections. It’s not a perfect system but it’s light years better than the shambles we have at the moment.
Every time I mention that on TA I get shouted down and told I don’t understand the C of E situation. But I’ve served my whole ministry under elected bishops and it’s been as good as any other system and, in my view, better than most.
Ducking and running for cover…
Completely agree with Tim and David and I wrote about that on another thread here a few weeks ago. I voted in two episcopal electoral synods in Aotearoa/New Zealand and have no complaints. Some dioceses there publish their list of candidates prior to the synod meeting, others do not.
Why church national synodical ‘hacks’ have a part – and a vote – in selecting a bishop for a C of E diocese they do not worship or serve in I do not understand. It is ridiculous.
Ducking and running for cover with Tim …
And at the risk of repeating myself (repeatedly) the community electing their bishop is a traditional method in the early church.
You will no doubt again meet the wall of stupendous insularity from many CofE Anglicans, when proposals to learn something from beyond England are made.
We may just be listening a bit more carefully this time, Tim!
Be careful what you wish for! Public elections mean that potential candidates must allow their candidacy to be made public. That may or may not be a good idea, but it probably means that some good candidates would decline to allow their name to go forward.There are some advantages to a more discreet process (even if that were different from the current one).
I’ve never seen that, and over the years I’ve participated in five episcopal elections (two in the Arctic, one in Athabasca, and two in Edmonton).
From my TEC perspective, I would not underestimate the desire of a very large number of clergy to wear purple shirts and mitres. My impression is that most parishes consider it an honor for their rector be nominated to be a bishop — and it’s generally not a negative thing if their rector is not elected. Choosing bishops be election is not a free-for-all. A diocese appoints a search committee, which then evaluates potential candidates (including background checks and screenings) and eventually comes up with a list, usually between three and five persons. There is then a period of time… Read more »
I agree but we then hit another problem as nobody can agree who the voters should be.
In our diocese it was the licensed clergy from each parish and mission unit and two lay reps from each that made up the electoral synod. It worked well.
Agreed. It meant that ALL the diocese was involved in the appointment of their new bishop, rather than just feeling that a stranger was being imposed upon them.
Like I said, it isn’t perfect but, on balance, it’s probably a better system than the C of E has at the moment.
In my neck of the woods it’s the licensed clergy, the people’s wardens of every parish, and additional lay delegates in proportion to the size of each individual parish.
Doesn’t that just replace one electoral college system with a different electoral college? Any change ought to remove the electoral college element.
Also someone (forgive me, I can’t remember who) made the excellent point that a true election means that ordinary people feel involved in the selection rather than have someone foisted on them. The system you identified doesn’t achieve that.
Nothing is likely to change this side of the identification of the next Archbishop of Canterbury, into which a significant input from the Anglican Communion will be made. How much will change then? As my pseudonym suggests, God only knows.
The lay delegates are elected at the AGMs of their parishes. Also, sorry, but if I began at the westernmost community in my diocese, set my car’s cruise control to 100 km/h and headed east, it would take seven hours for me to reach the easternmost community in my diocese. So we aren’t going to get thousands of people to come together for an electoral synod. Nor is there significant desire to do this. Everyone I have ever spoken to is happy to be represented by their elected delegates. Also, everyone knows ahead of time who all the candidates are,… Read more »
As with some comments I have made in other threads, about changing terms and conditions of clergy employment not being a silver bullet to dispel our current discontents, I fear that the malaise behind our current episcopal appointment issues may be well beyond a simple fix by changing the arrangements of the CNC. It will be interesting to see what effect (or lack thereof), a long term episcopal vacancy has upon the growing, and declining, local churches in dioceses like Ely and Carlisle.
Synod keeps pressing for a “vote by houses”. Because the House of Bishops is the smallest house and there are defined processes for episcopal selection, it is the easiest to
gerrymanderinfluence. Is it possible that simply getting rid of votes by houses in Synod could unblock the CNC process?In the Anglican Church of Hong Kong we also elect our bishops – and our archbishop. We have only 3 dioceses, and elections are by the Provincial Synod which includes all 3 bishops, all clergy of the 3 dioceses, and lay members elected by the parishes, 1 for the smallest parishes and up to 12 for the largest.
I have taken part in 2 elections for bishops and 2 for archbishops, and the system works. It’s open and transparent and we get the man or woman we vote for.