Thinking Anglicans

Opinion – 16 March 2024

Andrew Brown Church Times Press: Telegraph sketches Jekyll-and-Hyde C of E

Madeleine Davies Church Times No churchwardens and vacant PCC posts: an investigation into the church volunteering crisis

[Church Times has lifted its paywall for the whole of March.]

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Living in Love and Faith and Together for the Church of England

Neil Elliot NumbersMatters Dioceses of the ACC – by numbers

38 Comments

Parish Finance Statistics 2022

The Church of England has recently published its Parish Finance Statistics 2022. These provide the latest financial information, including:

  • Income
  • Expenditure
  • Giving

Tables showing parish finances aggregated to diocese level are available as an excel file. Finance statistics for previous years, and other publications of the Research and Statistics Unit can be found on the resources, publications, and data page.

37 Comments

Opinion – 13 March 2024

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Life in all its fullness

Zac Koons The Living Church A Bronze Serpent Processional Cross

147 Comments

Opinion – 6 March 2024

Anon ViaMedia.News The Unbearable Lightness of Being General Synod

David Goodhew The Living Church The Church of England After COVID: Quo Vadis?
also online at Psephizo

Marcus Walker The Critic Dumbing down the priesthood
“Unless the Church reinstates rigorous college-based training for clerics, it will wither away”

136 Comments

February General Synod – electronic voting results

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)

24 Comments

Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway announces retirement

News from the The Scottish Episcopal Church

The Right Rev Kevin Pearson has announced today that he will retire as Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway on 31 August this year.

Bishop Kevin became the 15th Bishop of Glasgow & Galloway in July 2020 upon his translation from the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles…

5 Comments

Opinion – 2 March 2024

Alex Frost ViaMedia.News Estates Evangelism: Justice on the Margins

Charlie Bell ViaMedia.News Finding a Way Through: February 2024

Tim Sumpter Church Times How Covid changed one vicar
Church Times has lifted its paywall for the whole of March.

153 Comments

Opinion – 28 February 2024

Jeremy Pemberton From The Quire Inching Forwards?

Helen King sharedconversations Next business, anyone? LLF, Synod, February 2024

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love

140 Comments

Opinion – 24 February 2024

Helen King sharedconversations Questions of fornication

Lisa Oakley University of Chester Response from Professor Lisa Oakley to the ‘Future of Church Safeguarding’ report recommendation 10 the removal of spiritual abuse

175 Comments

General Synod – 23-27 February 2024

This post will be updated as the meeting proceeds.

The Church of England’s General Synod is meeting this weekend. The timetable is here, the agenda is here and the papers are here.

House of Laity meeting

In addition the House of Laity will meet on Sunday evening.

Live video etc

All sessions are streamed live on YouTube and remain available to view afterwards. Links have been provided in advance.

There is an official Twitter account.

Order papers

Business done

Official press releases

Press reports and comment

Church Times

The Guardian

32 Comments

Safeguarding – pre-Synod news and comment

Updated Friday to add a second Church Times article

Gavin Drake Church Abuse

Stephen Parsons Surviving Church The Future of Church Safeguarding – A look at the Jay Report
also online at Modern Church

Ruth Peacock Religion Media Centre Celebration but concern at proposed new CofE independent safeguarding

Francis Martin Church Times Jay calls for root-and-branch reform of church safeguarding

Simon Walsh Church Times Varied responses to Jay report on Church of England safeguarding

1 Comment

General Synod Questions

The Questions (and answers) for this weekend’s meeting of the Church of England’s General Synod were issued today. They can be found online here: Questions Notice Paper February 2024.

Questions will be taken in two groups; on Friday from 5.30pm to 7.00pm, and for about an hour on Saturday morning. There are 225 questions.

Update

There is a correction to the answer to Question 62 in Notice Paper 7.

22 Comments

Opinion – 21 February 2024

Unadulterated Love ‘Valuing all God’s children – including trans people!

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Freeing the Church of England from Mental Slavery

Helen King ViaMedia.News Slouching Towards Synod

3 Comments

Bishop of Leicester writes to General Synod members

The Bishop of Leicester has written to all members of the General Synod this morning, ahead of the LLF debate at Synod this coming weekend. The original is here and I haved copied the body of the letter below the fold.

(more…)

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Bishop of Buckingham, Dr Alan Wilson

The Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd Dr Steven Croft, has announced with great sadness the unexpected death of his colleague, the Rt Revd Dr Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham.

Paying tribute to Bishop Alan, Bishop Steven said: “Alan was a dear friend and colleague to many across the Diocese. Alan has deep friendships and pastoral relationships across both church and community in Bucks. He has offered remarkable leadership to our work in education and church schools over more than a decade. Alan has been a friend and advocate for survivors of abuse and a strong ally and supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community for many years.

“Alan had recently begun a well-earned sabbatical and was planning to use the time to plan and prepare for retirement in the next year. Alan loved God and loved God’s church with a rare passion. He was a bishop who prioritised the parishes and clergy in his care above everything else and served the people of Buckinghamshire with devotion over a long and demanding ministry.

“I will miss him as a friend and colleague. The Church has lost a wise, pastoral and prophetic bishop.”

There is more on the Oxford diocesan website.

23 Comments

The Wilkinson Files

Sarah Wilkinson’s report into the Church of England’s Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) was published in December. A debate on Safeguarding Independence (GS 2336) is scheduled to take place on Saturday 24 February at General Synod.

In advance of this debate six short documentary-style films (“The Wilkinson Files”) which highlight the key findings of Dr Wilkinson’s Report are being released by two Synod members. They explain these findings while displaying their precise location within the report. Each film is between 8 and about 15 minutes in duration.

The films are being released daily. So far two are available, but links are available for all six.

The films are presented by Martin Sewell and Clive Billenness, both Members of the House of Laity of the General Synod and both very active in matters relating to Safeguarding. Martin is a retired solicitor specialising in Child Protection. Clive is a Certified Auditor who is still in pracce and is also an elected member of the Audit Commiee of the Archbishops’ Council.

Clive said “When the Wilkinson Report is considered at the forthcoming meeting of the General Synod, speakers will probably only have 2 or 3 minutes each to speak about it. The Report itself reflects the legal background of its author and is packed with painstaking detail. We wanted to help Synod members to be as fully-informed as possible before Synod considers this. We have approached this like a forensic examinaon and have only included in the films any information contained in Dr Wilkinson’s Report, information of which she was aware or information in the Public Domain at the time she wrote her report.

“We have not invited anyone else to comment in our films or to appear on them in the interests of strict imparality. We leave it instead to our viewers to draw their own conclusions about how these sad events came to pass and how we can avoid a repetition. Dr Wilkinson’s report makes it clear that some fundamental changes are needed to the way the Church of England and the Archbishops’ Council conducts itself when dealing with Safeguarding.”

The films detail how the ISB was created, how it struggled to achieve the proper independence which abuse survivors and others expected, how it was closed down, followed by an detailed examinaon of the failures in governance which Dr Wilkinson highlights, a summary of the voices of the survivors who spoke to her and, finally, a short analysis of the “Magic Moments” where serious mistakes occurred which led to the failure and closure of the ISB.

18 Comments

Opinion – 17 February 2024

Ben Phillips The Critic How can we pay for our cathedrals?
“Critics of silent discos in Canterbury Cathedral are silent on how to fund our churches”

Bosco Peters Liturgy God is Immoral

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love The danger of endowing Jesus and his followers with divine powers at the expense of humanity – theirs and ours

9 Comments

Opinion – 14 February 2024

Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Can we find Integrity and Accountability in the Leadership of the Church of England?

Neil Elliot NumbersMatters God loves statistics

Anon ViaMedia.News Mini-MBA Course for the Talent Pipeline in the Church of England: Safeguarding Strategy

Andrew Brown The slow deep hover Evangelical Pantaloons

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Bishop Martyn Strangelove to the rescue, or How I learnt to Stop Worrying and Love LLF

118 Comments

Cathedral Statistics 2022

The Church of England has published its Cathedral Statistics 2022 and an accompanying press release, which is copied below.

Cathedral attendance continued post pandemic bounce back, 2022 figures show
08/02/2024

Attendance at Church of England cathedrals continued to bounce back following the pandemic, new statistics for 2022 published today show.

Figures show that adult usual Sunday attendance rose 60% between 2021 and 2022 for the 42 Church of England mainland Cathedrals to 12,300 adults. A total of 28,200 people including children attended services every week, according to Cathedral Statistics 2022.

Over the year there were 584,000 attendances at specially arranged services – not included in average weekly attendance –  such as school services. The number of special services stood at 2,100. The total reported attendance at Christmas services stood at 104,000.

However the figures had not yet reached pre pandemic levels of attendance.

The number of girl choristers in Cathedrals stood at its highest total in 2022 at 790, out of 1,500 child choristers. The number of Cathedral choirs stood at 165, also the highest number reported.

Cathedrals hosted 530 graduation ceremonies in 2022 with 434,000 people attending – the highest numbers ever reported.  There were more marriage services in Cathedrals in 2022 (290) than in 2019 (270).  Both the graduation and marriage figures reflect efforts that have been made, where possible, to catch up after the lifting of Covid restrictions.

These 2022 figures have been published following a survey by The Times of 30 Church of England Cathedrals that found congregations at Christmas (2023) for many, were higher than pre-pandemic levels.

6 Comments

Opinion – 10 February 2024

David Runcorn Inclusive Evangelicals Marriage in the Garden

Adrian Thatcher Modern Church A ‘Theological Vision’, or ‘Myopic Homophobia’?

Anne Richards Modern Church Spiritual Abuse

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Living as if . . .

Alex Frost ViaMedia.News Response to the ‘Letter from Seven Bishops’: A Theology of Inclusion

111 Comments