Catherine Bennett The Observer Your sermons on integrity are a bit rich, archbishop, given your faith in Paula Vennells
Richard Peers Oikodomeo The Five Guiding Principles and LLF – why the Church of England is immoral
Giles Fraser Save the Parish Only chaos can redeem the Church
Christopher Cocksworth The Living Church Sent to Coventry, Called to Windsor
In his praise for the starfish model of organization, Giles Fraser misses its biggest drawback–when something goes wrong, when a plan doesn’t work, indeed when criminality is suspected, there’s no one to take to task for the failure. That’s why the Occupy movement was such an absolute disaster: there were multiple plans being pursued, multiple goals articulated, but no one to take responsibility for carrying them out.
It is good to note that parts of the service of consecration of the present Coventry Cathedral, a little over sixty years ago, can be seen on Pathé. Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKL2RQcz07M
I remember the Coventry consecration service very well from the live BBC television broadcast, not least for the participation of the Bishop, Cuthbert Bardsley, whom I had seen as Suffragan Bishop of Croydon preaching at (what was then) Croydon Parish Church, and the newly-appointed Provost of Coventry, Harold CN Williams (informally known as “Bill”), from Winchester where he had prepared and presented my late wife for Confirmation. Next Monday, 17th June, is the date of the annual Garter Service and Ceremony at St George’s Chapel, Windsor and will be the first for both Christopher Cocksworth, as Dean and ‘Register’ of… Read more »
Thank you. In a post on TA from a while ago I mentioned the Australian McKie family, two of whom took part in the 1953 Coronation, William as Abbey organist and one of his sisters as a steward. There was also a brother, John McKie, who at the time of the Coronation was a Coadjutor Bishop in the Diocese of Melbourne. By the time of the consecration of Coventry Cathedral nine years later he had brought his family to England and was Assistant Bishop of Coventry, a post which he combined with a parish incumbency. Surely then he would have… Read more »
I remember Bishop John McKie, and seem to recall that he was much liked in the diocese, though I was only a child at the time. Indeed, he was the bishop who confirmed me. Deo gratias.
Thank you for this. I can only ever recall meeting him once, and that very formally. That was at Trinity College in the University of Melbourne. I must have looked a little less than my age (32 at that time), as he asked me what I was studying!
As you say, Sir William McKie retired to Canada and died there in 1984. His ashes and those of his wife were brought back to England and, appropriately, buried in Westminster Abbey. Their memorial in the Abbey is illustrated, with much further information about the family, here:
https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/sir-william-mckie
Are you aware of the biography of William McKie by Howard Hollis? It is entitled ‘Best of Both Worlds’ and was published by the Sir William McKie Memorial Trust in 1991. It is a very rewarding read.
Howard Hollis, himself an Australian, was a Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey at the time of the 1953 Coronation. His sister Gwen Hollis was a member of the congregation at St Peter’s Eastern Hill in Melbourne when I went there. The family were from Kyneton, about 50 miles from Melbourne.
All I could see were still shots, mostly of the various art works. By coincidence I was there for Choral Evensong yesterday – not a happy experience. The boy’s voices seemed not up to cathedral standard, there was no mention of what they were singing, the sound system (from the back row of the choir stalls) rendered what was being said and read virtually unintelligible; service conducted by a Reader, no clergy present. There were 4 of us in the choir stalls, another 4 scattered around the nave. These issues apart, perhaps the vastness and echo chamber of the building… Read more »
This is a very suitable service for a Reader to lead. What’s the problem?
No problem, it just seemed odd that none of the cathedral clergy were present.
It is some time since I attended Evensong in Coventry Cathedral (which I say to my shame as my parish is almost immediately next door to it), but I recognise some of the description you give. The building has the acoustics of a warehouse, which means that it can be hard to hear what someone is saying if they are not speaking at a very steady pace, and that must make it a very hard space in which to sing. My experience is that sitting on the back row of the choir stalls is the best place from which to… Read more »
I think I meant to send the below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbeE4m6Z2I4
Coming as I do from a Baptist background (although my childhood was in the CofE) I find Giles Fraser’s comments interesting. While the Baptist Union does of necessity have a certain amount of national structure to cover issues such as holding property in trust, the accreditation and discipline of ministers, safeguarding and other matters, we don’t have a hierarchy as such – our President and General Secretary are far removed from the Archbishops and our Council and Assembly are very different to General Synod! Basically we are a connexion of independent churches which largely run their own affairs. A measure… Read more »
The resources available to the C of E are vast compared to Baptists so it is difficult to compare. Baptists are projected to die out by 2080 and the Baptist Union has no credible plan to turn it around with individual congregations focused on survival rather than growth. At least the C of E is looking at successful ways of reversing decline of which HTB is one shining example of a starfish. I suspect Giles Fraser just wants some of the Church Commissioners dosh without a credible plan of how to spend it.
Can HTB really be described as a starfish? It often seems more like a cuckoo taking over the C of E nest.
I really liked Giles Fraser’s piece until he got to the end and identified the parish as the ground-level chaos agent that will save the day. From where I sit, parishes are just as much part of the old-style hierarchical structures as bishops and national committees. And most parishes I’ve ever worked in are very clear as to who the leader is. It’s not always the priest, but everyone knows who it is. Giles isn’t as radical as he thinks he is. Personally I think the parish system is dying, because it’s not sustainable in its present form. Parts of… Read more »
The parish system still works in the real rural church where there is much green space between villages who still retain an individual identity which is why creating multiple parish benefices/groups doesn’t really work at ground level. Parishioners can be fiercely loyal to their congregation and vote with their feet/incomes! Always interesting on 5th Sundays combined service to see which village is most strongly represented!
‘The parish system still works’. Really? I’m somewhat familiar with small rural parishes in the Church of England; many of my friends are attempting to minister in them. Most of them seem to be on the edge of financial collapse. I know of many clergy who are trying to minister in five or six point parishes, but the problem is there just isn’t the money for one priest, one parish any more. Our clericalist system is way too top heavy and expensive. What would a sustainable form of church look like in a small village? I don’t think we have… Read more »
Part of an answer would be what we sometimes call focal ministry – each church or community has its own minister but often they will be a suitably trained and licenced lay person. This is happening in some places already with some success.
I am sure this works in some contexts but it is a bit tricky when the regular service is the Holy Communion which the lay minister cannot celebrate.
Who does the training and who pays for it? Is the “focal minister” paid for his time in that role…or is it purely volunteer work? If the latter, doesn’t that restrict the role to retirees?
Often the focal minister is a Reader (LLM) or a SSM. In a small village community such a person could well have a fulltime job. They are not usually paid but expenses should be met.
That is the way forwards but it has to include weekly Eucharists and the traditionalists are fighting the idea of lay presidency. I sometimes wonder if the fuss about same sex marriage isn’t, to some degree at least, a proxy for a more general argument over evolution vs tradition.
The traditionalists? You are describing the practice of all Christian Churches, East and West, Orthodox, Oriental, Roman Cath, Lutherans and Anglicans (see articles 23 and 36), from time immemorial.
The majority of Christian churches, but not all. Are churches often have holy communion led by lay people. At least, they did in my nonconformist days, and I presume they still do.And a few Christian churches – e.g. Salvationists and, I think, the Quakers – don’t do the sacraments at all.
Christian tradition is far more diverse than some acknowledge.
Correct. And, in my tradition, having a well-respected local lay leader to preside would be considered more appropriate than trundling in an unknown (to the congregation) ordained minister from elsewhere.
‘Free churches’, not ‘Are churches’.
I currently attend a Mennonite church where the lead pastor normally ‘presides’ (they don’t use that term) at communion, but it’s quite normal for a lay leader in the congregation to preside as well. So yes, ‘all’ Christian churches is not accurate. And by the way, Anabaptism is about to celebrate its five hundredth anniversary, so this tradition goes back a long way.
I am not denying that some churches allow it, I’m denying that those who do not are ‘traditionalists’
I’m a little confused as to who you think is traditionalist and who is not. There are traditionalists on both sides of the argument. But traditionalist Anabaptists hold a very different view from traditionalist eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholics, for instance.
In his 1975 Canterbury enthronement sermon, Donald Coggan paid tribute equally to William Booth of the Salvation Army and to Pope John XXIII.
I think all churches since time immemorial is a bit of an exaggeration. The evidence of the Didache is that at least in some early churches lay presidency was allowed, because the Didache gave instructions on how to do it. The president may have been described as a bishop in the text (i.e. episkopos – overseer), but the bishop was elected by the local congregation, with no mention of apostolic succession. Various mainstream Christian denominations follow that same pattern to this day, by allowing for an authorised Elder to preside at the eucharist if an ordained priest is not available.… Read more »
Simon, I absolutely agree with your last two paragraphs. This is the point I was trying to make when I questioned Giles Fraser’s assumption that the traditional parish was the ground-level chaos agent that would save the day. As I said, parishes are part of the old-style hierarchical structure and are subject to the controls and norms of the C of E. Giles thinks he’s a radical, but he’s not.
‘it has to include weekly Eucharists’. Why this assumption? Weekly communion is a relatively recent addition in CofE life. Nowhere is it required. Still less is it sustainable.
David, you say “Nowhere is it [weekly Eucharist] required.” Leaving aside what the Canons might have to say about that, isn’t it because Eucharist is what the Church does? The primary ritual rehearsal of our identity and vocation; of what it means for her to witness to and be a foretaste of the kingdom of God. What baptism begins in us, Eucharist strengthens and sustains. Of course, in many parishes a weekly Eucharist is not sustainable, yet I would argue that it remains the determining and normative activity of the Church, rather – than as often understood by English Anglicans… Read more »
Problem: the Eucharist was never understood in the early church as an evangelising service; in fact, inquirers were required to leave before it began. Modern reality: the Church of England still sees getting people to come to church on Sunday as its primary evangelistic method (rightly or wrongly is the subject for another conversation). So, the parish communion movement made an insider event the main Sunday service (and, in many cases, the only Sunday service). If that’s to continue, we need a new primary evangelistic method, and we need it fast. By the way, this is not theoretical. A few… Read more »
Most of what we do in Church, non-eucharistic as much as eucharistic, will seem very strange to the newcomer: hearing folk sing to an invisible person is not normal. And while the newcomer, if adult and thus socialised out of a child’s imagination, may be repelled by ‘take, eat; this is my body’, in my experience the child will not be. How much is the absence of young people at the Parish Eucharist down to our conservatism and timidity? We baptised them as children then straight away excommunicated them, and in doing so missed out on the Church’s ‘primary evangelistic… Read more »
Weekly Eucharists, yes! But lay presidency amounts to UDI: a de facto declaration of independence from the C of E and the Anglican Communion. However well-intentioned, it sends out the message that the Parish Church of St Mary’s is sufficient unto itself and in little need of anyone or anything outside of itself. A better way – and one that DDOs, archdeacons and bishops (and T Pott) have been advocating for years – is for parishes to identify suitable people and encourage them to offer for priestly ordination. That this has been more successful in Evangelical parishes than in central… Read more »
‘UDI’? Sorry, Google doesn’t help me here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_declaration_of_independence
Ah, thank you. Since this is obviously a metaphor, can I suggest that in the context of modern Anglicanism, UDIs may well be in the eye of the beholder…
“Unilateral Declaration of Independence”, as invented or famously inaugurated by Ian Smith’s 1965 declaration of independence of the former British Colony of Southern Rhodesia – now, since 1980, the Republic of Zimbabwe. At the time of Smith’s action it was considered in some quarters to be treason, but the British Government took no effective action and after an interim period of very doubtful status, Southern Rhodesia’s judiciary recognised the independent status as de facto established.
Kenneth Skelton was Bishop of Matabeleland at the time of UDI in Rhodesia, and was praised by PM Harold Wilson for his courage. Skelton later became Bishop of Lichfield.
I remember a crack about the use of acronyms in church circles:
‘In the C of E you go to a DDO [Diocesan Director of Ordinands] to be sent to an ACCM [Advisory Council for the Church’s Ministry] conference.’
I’m a retired priest of the ACC, started out as a CA officer, raised a fair bit of money over the years for HfH, served a term on CoGS, now attend an MB congregation that is actually quite a bit closer to MCA than it is to its MB neighbours, and I’ve also had a few encounters over the past few months with the AHS.
How’s that?
Oh, and also, two of my kids were involved in TEC as teens, but not the TEC that’s usually known here by those initials!
Thank you. Clarification of the acronyms would oblige.
ACC: Anglican Church of Canada
CA: Church Army
HfH: Habitat for Humanity
CoGS: Council of General Synod
MB: Mennonite Brethren
MCA: Mennonite Church Alberta (a different denomination from MB)
AHS: Alberta Health Services
TEC: Teens Encounter Christ (not, in my daughter’s case, The Episcopal Church).
Thank you. The only one I figured out for myself was CA.
‘To err is human.’ DDO is not an acronym. A set of initial letters which are all consonants can be used as an acronym if a vowel is slipped in. ACCM if pronounced ‘Ackum’, as it frequently was, would be an example. I think the forerunner to ACCM was CACTM, Central Advisory Council of Training for the Ministry. That would be referred to as ‘Cactum’. I do not believe that Dado, Dedo, Dido, Dodo or Dudo would be a respectful appellation for a Diocesan Director of Ordinands!
Tho’ in Welsh double d is pronounced as “th” in though.
Interesting, thank you.
I recognise and appreciate the conditionality of your description, Charles. I am not a supporter of focal ministry – but not because I see it as a bad idea. I don’t support it because of the overblown claims being made of its efficacy in different Dioceses, based on a very sketchy body of research, and the way it is being implemented in a number of them. In the admittedly fairly small scale investigation I’ve done so far, trying to see how effective it really is beyond Dioceses I know well, I’ve found no evidence for any sustained growth causation or… Read more »
If a minister can be suitably trained and licensed, why should he or she not be ordained? Ordination is a licence or empowerment to celebrate the Eucharist. What hindereth?
Because they may not feel called to sacramental leadership.
Well if they do not feel called to sacramental leadership then that is, of course, another matter. My comment was meant in the context of so-called “lay” administration of Holy Communion. If a person does wish to celebrate the Sacrament he/she should be ordained to do so; but of course there are many valuable ministries that do not require it..
‘If a person does wish to celebrate the Sacrament he/she should be ordained to do so.’
I have been listening hard for decades, and have yet to hear a convincing justification for this requirement.
“Wishing to celebrate the Sacrament” is certainly not a justification.
But if a congregation and an individual together discern that the individual is called to offer sacramental leadership among them, why is that not justification for ordination?
Many dioceses, including my own, have a process for discernment of a vocation to the diaconate that is very much focused on the missional needs and context of the local congregation and the gifts of the individual, and that the deacon will exercise his or her ministry more or less exclusively within that congregation.
The barrier to ordination often is the amount of training required, involving a heavy time commitment over several years, and a college-level education. This can prove difficult to impossible for those who work shifts or have young children, or those from a not very literate background. In other words, to those not from the middle or upper classes. Yet these people may have outstanding leadership abilities in their own context.
And often, the churches without regular access to a priest are also the churches who have no one able to undertake two or three years of training.
Tim and Janet, Of course not everybody who may take on focal ministry and might be asked to celebrate Holy Communion will be able to do a prolongued course of study. What I was trying to suggest is that ordination ought not to require such a course, though it is desirable. Ordination, by definition (it seems to me), is the name given to the process by which a person is enabled (whether legally or actually and spiritually) to celebrate Holy Communon. That is the whole point of ordination. It is perhaps essentially a definitional issue. Lay peope cannot celebrate the… Read more »
‘That is the whole point of ordination.’
Really? The whole point? Then I wonder why we spend so much time and money on the theological education of those who do it. If it’s really just about praying the Eucharistic Prayer, priests could be trained in a week rather than three years.
The training is required to enable someone to become a vicar or similar occupation. That is why C of E clergy in England are generally known as vicars (or rectors) rather than priests. Yes priests could be trained in a week if need be but that would not equip them to become incumbents.
To Janet, I meant ordination as a priest. I don’t know what your seven years were all about but I strongly suspect you did pretty much everything a vicar could do except celebrate Holy Communion.
Yes, I did, as did other female deacons.
Granted that a local leader could be trained within a week to celebrate the eucharist, are they also going to be competent to preach the sermon? If not, who will? Word and sacrament are equally are equally important.
Does the presider need to be the preacher? Does the celebrant of the weekly Eucharist need to be the person who provides pastoral care throughout the week? Our professional clerical model has clergy jacks of all trades. Especially in small congregations that cannot afford stipendiary clergy, we can’t expect a volunteer to take on all the roles and duties that a seminary-trained, salaried priest does. 1 Cor 12 envisions something different. I occasionally preside at the Eucharist for a “fresh expressions” gathering of university students and young adults, led by a very part-time lay coordinator. Preaching duties are shared by… Read more »
Agreed. My question was more about who would preach if no one had any theological training – as is the case in many small parishes. A congregation where two members have theological degrees is quite unusual in rural or poor urban areas.
And I would strongly contest the assumption that parishes should only get stipendiary clergy if they can pay for them. Jesus never told his disciples to go out to the rich and prosperous only.
If the whole point of ordination is the celebration of the eucharist, why do we ordain deacons? What of the women who, like me, were ordained deacon with no prospect of being priested? What were those 7 years all about?
You talk about parish priests being a “top heavy system” so take money and expense out of the centre and keep in the parishes. It cannot be right that parishes have had their property annexed by their diocese (along with rental income) and then have to effectively fully fund their priest and diocesan “mission” investment (read salaries of a growing number of diocesan clerical and non-clerical posts) on top of bearing the full cost for managing the church they worship in and it be financially sustainable. My church is expected to pay for a full time priest (but only receive… Read more »
Bravo! It’s good to hear the voice of sanity from well informed, thinking, lay people. Thank you so much for your insightful comments.
‘Oh and by the way, my parish is a very middle of the road suburban/rural parish with a range of worship on offer, good attendance and a thriving messy church.’
Right. So yours wouldn’t be one of the far flung rural parishes whose incumbent is running around six different villages, most of whom struggle to keep up even with the cost of 1/6 of a stipend and benefits, then?
We are at the very edge of the suburbs and draw congregation from rural areas. We are part of a group of churches that include small village churches as well. As I said, we subsidise those churches and don’t have a full FTE of a priest either as a result. However, it is clear to me that the presence of those churches in those communities is important (they do all play a role in village life and it is highly unlikely that, if closed, those attending and giving would continue to do so elsewhere) – but growing those communities of… Read more »
I’m glad to appear here again for the first time in some years. The censorship and bias that TA has exercised over the last three to four years puzzles me. It rather invalidates the first word in the title. For example the CDM exoneration of me was not published, here it is:
https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/peers-determination.pdf
Will this comment be published Simon? Always happy to talk.
This claim is untrue. See TA article dated 25 March and subsequently updated twice during April.
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/oxford-disciplinary-tribunal-decision/
Moreover a simple Google search would have turned this up.
I recall seeing this on TA in March/April, reading it and finding it interesting. My view is that findings of tribunals,etc, should be supported with the general expectation of possible recourse to some kind of appeal, as most legal ‘systems’ and adjudications allow and respecting that at some point ‘a line must be drawn’. IIRC, it did seem to me that reasonable questions arose regarding ‘parity’ of representation (and undue passage of time?).
Perhaps I am being less than observant but the stinging observations of Catherine Bennett seem to have evoked a deafening absence of comment from TA regulars which is perhaps per se somewhat eloquent?
The comments have all been made here previously. Catherine is a bit late to the party.
What is ignored on threads is always very interesting … the 8th June thread below is still running ( with several contributions from your good self) but without even a single squeak about Stephen Parsons’ excellent article concerning the ongoing C of E institutional disgrace over Safeguarding.
The Guardian readers amongst us will have already read Catherine’s article there and uncomfortable parallels have previously been drawn on TA about the victims of Cof E abuse and the unfortunate postmasters . British institutional cover-up anyone?
I think you will find that there were no contributions from my ‘good self” to the 8th June thread. Perhaps that makes me doubly guilty?
Whoops- sorry! Must have muddled up my Anglicans- I do apologise
Catherine’s last lines about not expecting honesty from the church hierarchy are very telling .
It is very understandable to muddle up Anglicans!!!!!
Welby has declared he will stay until he reaches age limit, so articles like that will not change anything. Not sure why he clings on, but there it is.
There is, perhaps, little in her piece with which anyone can disagree.
Of course, we are now stuck with Welby until he finally has to retire, though someone more self-aware would recognise that the time has come to leave the stage. The real question now is the direction of the C of E once he has left office.
I’m bemused that Fr Peers is surprised that English bishops won’t give him a licence or PtO. They have been explicit about the consequences for lgbtqi clergy who defy their discipline on this matter. I don’t see the CofE changing its position any time soon, so Fr Richard is unlikely to be have an English sacramental ministry in the foreseeable future.
Father Richard did not express surprise. The surprise he noted was from the other worshippers in the church he was attending.