Updated 7 March to add item 13 and 14
The electronic voting results from this month’s General Synod are now available online and are linked below, with links to the order papers containing the relevant texts.
Electronic voting results
Archbishops’ Commission of Families and Households (Order Paper IV)
Safeguarding Independence (Order Paper II)
Living in Love and Faith (Order Paper VI)
An aspect of the voting that gets less attention than might be expected is the clear gender divide in the pattern of voting.
Conservative amendments are consistently defeated in the Houses of Clergy and Laity by the weight of progressive opinion amongst the women members of those houses.
It is not a particular surprise, but it does suggest the direction of travel was set in 1992.
I’m just noting the facts. Please, no pile on !
Please provide figures. I can think of quite a few lay GS women who are very very conservative. I can also think of female clergy who are deeply conservative, except of course for the fact that they think that women can be priests!
You can think of one or two names in the House of Laity but Peter’s point about women clergy is actually correct. The majority of women clergy are clearly liberal and definitely so among women bishops. Since the ordination of women to the priesthood in 1994 and to the episcopate a few years ago, four trends have been apparent: 1. Church attendance has declined, and very precipitately after the covid closures in 2020, and has not recovered. 2. Women being ordained now outnumber men, and have done so for some years.Men are losing interest in the C of E ministry.… Read more »
Peter & I both referred to both clergy & laity, and for the latter in my diocese female GS members are overwhelmingly conservative. Decline in attendance has been ongoing for very long time, but post 94 women priests make convenient scapegoat. However glad that you do not blame women for Covid!
Francis James: I don’t know much about the House of Laity, so I refrain from commenting on it or making general remarks on the basis of 3 or 4 people I know. I do know 2 or 3 women in the House of Laity from the Diocese of Canterbury who are very liberal theologically, and I know Jayne Ozanne is a member as well. As for the House of Clergy, everything I stated is accurate, as far as I know, so you cannot dismiss it as scapegoating. I certainly don’t blame women for covid – I think the Wuhan Institute… Read more »
“…illegal advice…”
Indeed, although it was originally, and for some time, not ‘advice’ so much as a brusque diktat, backed up by direct or implicit threats both from the bench and their subordinate enforcers. It was only a considerable while after the illegality had been noted by many, and the chorus of discontent had reached a crescendo, that the authorities took fright, U-turned abruptly and said that it had not been a dictatorial decree after all, but mere ‘advice’.
That pusillanimous pivot had considerable adverse consequences for the authorities’ scant remaining credibility.
I recall hearing very clearly (IIRC!), that early ‘ex cathedra’ instruction from the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘banning’ use of church and related buildings, and wondering about his authority however well-meaning it may have been intended to be. Is there a copy ‘somewhere’ of it as incontrovertible evidence? I also recall his denial of having said what he clearly had, and my shock at that ‘duplicity’. As so often it’s the ‘cover up’ that is concerning. I think Justin has subsequently publicly ‘confessed’ that he may not have got everything right.
Given the C of E will not stop ordaining women it would suggest that from your perspective ( a conservative one?) the future must seem bleak. I think the decline in church attendance is long standing and is less due to women’s ordination than generational change. Those born say 1945-55 probably had some sort of connection with church. If they were C of E their children were less likely to get confirmed or remain practicing if they did and their grandchildren probably didn’t get baptized. Sociologists of religion call it the break in the chain of memory. But that apart… Read more »
The figures are there in the voting returns. Just add up against the obvious gender identifying christian names.
If you had done that you could give me the figures. As it is I see quite a few lay women on conservative ticket. Far less (surprise) when clergy.
Anyway, why shouldn’t women’s views carry weight in GS – after all they form majority of bums on pews.
Another way of looking at gender patterns in voting is to recognise that it is much less likely that ordained women will be complementarian or “traditional” Catholic which are the groups most likely to vote in a “conservative” way, in these contexts. This doesn’t invalidate the comment, but it does question a simple correlation.
Looking at the data on the February 2023 final motion, there is a difference between men and women voting. My figures might be slightly out as the spreadsheet I am using has had some updates since 2023 (with Synod members changing), and I wasn’t going to give lots of time to get absolutely perfect stats, but these are very close: Men: In favour 48.3%, Against 51.7% Women: In favour 69.5%, Against 30.5% Male bishops: in favour 80%, against 20% Female bishops: in favour 88.8%, against 11.1% Male clergy: in favour 41.7%, against 58.3% Female clergy: in favour 84.9%, against 15.1%… Read more »
Thank you Nic. This is well-observed; and IMHO your conclusion regarding effect of and/or empathy with exclusion is probably correct.
For myself, I am past comments on the “why” question when it comes to what people think.
We are where we are. The endless butting of heads achieves nothing.
What matters is the practicality of the next step.
The liberal caucus of women in Synod almost certainly means there will be no settlement.
The voting lists for two counted votes have yet to be published. They are the votes of the whole Synod on items 13 (the Racial Justice motion, carried by 364 votes to 0 against, with 2 recorded abstentions) and item 14 (the Bullying by Lay Officers PMM, carried by 273 votes to 15 against, with 2 abstentions). Although 10 of the 17 counted votes at this group of sessions were votes of the whole synod, the published voting lists show the votes in each house separately for all the votes, with members listed in order of their synod number. This… Read more »
Thank you for this observation David; and Peter for yours. IIRC in a previous GS there was a regular ‘stickler’ for procedures and caller for votes by houses; maybe current Synod members are becoming more ‘wordly-wise’? Peter- that ‘gender divide’ while not universal is noteworthy and does ‘say something’ about survivors of oppression, including in those ‘elevated’ to the priveleged voting position of bishop; I hope they will not be piled on.
The voting lists for items 13 and 14 are now available and I have added links above.
The total vote for item 020 (Clergy pensions) seems to be incorrect – or has it been miscopied?
Sue, It’s an error. This was one of the counted votes of the whole synod – i.e. not by houses – and the result declared by the chairman (Douglas Dettmer) was 382-0-0. 382 (not 227) is the total of the separate votes for the motion in each house as shown in the voting list, so accords with the result of the vote as announced.
It is, I suppose, unsurprising that all the bishops and clergy want bigger pensions. Apparently all the lay people want them to have them too.
So why, if everyone was in agreement, was there a count at all? Couldn’t the archbishops just shout: “what do we want” and everyone else roar back “bigger clergy pensions”? “Anyone against?”. Total silence.
Raising a point of order, Dr John Mason, a lay member representing Chester Diocese, requested a counted vote of the whole Synod, otherwise the vote would have been by a show of hands, as many other votes were during this group of sessions. SO 37(2) of the Synod’s standing orders provides: “The Chair may on any question order there to be a counted vote of the whole Synod, except where there is a requirement for there to be a counted vote by Houses.” As Dr Mason’s request had the consent of the chairman (Douglas Dettmer) there was, then, a counted… Read more »
Thank you.
Do you (or any other reader) have any idea why Dr Mason might have done this? Is it a recognised procedural move, perhaps as a means of filibustering to reduce time that might otherwise have been spent on something else?
Is he generally a bit awkward? Perhaps he just wanted to show that, on one matter at least, the entire synod were unanimous. It certainly counters the view that the church is split.
This vote does not seem to have found its way into a press release!
It is a way of finding out how each member voted, as can be seen from the linked results on this page. Or as it gives accurate numbers, can be used to say publicly how much support (or otherwise) a proposal has.
Or, in the case of my motion at item 023, the chair called for a counted vote because I had referred to receiving the results of a vote in silence (Synod protocol) in my final speech and suggested particular purposes for the silence, and hadn’t called for a counted vote myself. I was grateful for the alert chairing.