Peter Hancock to be Bishop of Bath and Wells
Diocese of Bath and Wells: Peter Hancock nomination approved
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Right Reverend Peter Hancock, MA, Suffragan Bishop of Basingstoke, for election as Bishop of Bath and Wells in succession to the Right Reverend Peter Bryan Price on his resignation on the 30th June 2013.
The Right Reverend Peter Hancock
The Right Reverend Peter Hancock (aged 58) read Natural Sciences at Selwyn College, Cambridge and then studied for the ordained ministry at Oak Hill Theological College. He served his first curacy at Portsdown in Portsmouth diocese from 1980 to 1983.
From 1983 to 1987 he was Curate at Radipole and Melcombe Regis in the diocese of Salisbury.
From 1987 to 1999 he was Vicar of Cowplain in the diocese of Portsmouth.
From 1993 to 1998 he was Rural Dean of Havant.
From 1997 to 1999 he was an Honorary Canon of Portsmouth Cathedral.
From 1999 to 2010 he was Archdeacon of Meon in the diocese of Portsmouth.
From 2003 to 2006 he was Diocesan Director of Mission.
Since 2010 he has been Suffragan Bishop of Basingstoke.Peter Hancock is married to Jane and they have 4 grown-up children, Claire, Richard, Charlotte and William.
His interests include walking, meeting people, travelling and watching sport. He has particular concerns for the environment and the work of mission and development agencies.
The Bath & Wells website has its own announcement.
2 CommentsMore analyses of Sharpe v Worcester DBF
Our previous report is here.
The Church Times carried a detailed news report by Gavin Drake but this is available only to subscribers.
Frank Cranmer has published the more detailed analysis that he promised, see Clergy employment and Sharpe v Worcester DBF.
Two other articles have been published:
Philip Jones has written The Removal of an Irremovable Pastor: Sharpe v Diocese of Worcester. He argues that it is impossible for the holder of a freehold office to bring a dismissal claim of any kind in an employment tribunal.
Neil Addison writes that Anglican Vicar May be an Employee.
2 CommentsBishops Welcome Senior Women Clergy to their Meeting
The eight elected senior women clergy are attending their first meeting of the House of Bishops this week. The Church of England issued this press release to mark the occasion.
Bishops Welcome Participant Observers to First Meeting
09 December 2013The House of Bishops of the Church of England has today welcomed eight women as participant observers to its meetings. The welcome follows the election of the eight senior women clergy from regions across the country.
In February of this year the House decided that until such time as there are six female members of the House, following the admission of women to the episcopate, a number of senior women clergy should be given the right to attend and speak at meetings of the House as participant observers. The necessary change to the House’s Standing Orders was made in May.
Elections for the eight senior women clergy were held in autumn of this year and the following were elected:
- East Midlands – Ven Christine Wilson, Archdeacon of Chesterfield
- West Midlands – Revd Preb Dr Jane Tillier, Prebendary of Lichfield Cathedral
- East Anglia – Ven Annette Cooper, Archdeacon of Colchester
- South and Central – Ven Joanne Grenfell, Archdeacon of Portsdown
- South East region – Ven Rachel Treweek, Archdeacon of Hackney
- South West region – Ven Nicola Sullivan, Archdeacon of Wells
- North East – Very Revd Vivienne Faull, Dean of York
- North West – The Rev Libby Lane, Dean of Women in Ministry, Chester Diocese
Having taken up their role on 1st December, the two day meeting of the House of Bishops in York on December 9-10 will be the first meeting at which the participant observers will attend.
Left to Right Back Row:
The Ven Rachel Treweek, The Ven Nicola Sullivan, The Ven Annette Cooper, The Ven Joanne Grenfell
Front row:
The Revd Libby Lane, The Revd Jane Tillier, The Very Revd Vivienne Faull, The Ven Christine Wilson
There is a larger version of the photograph here.
13 Comments
yet more comment on the Pilling report
The Archbishop of Kenya, Eliud Wabukala, Chairman of the GAFCON Primates, has written an Advent Letter to the Faithful of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and friends.
…The Church of England has just released what is known as the Pilling Report, the conclusions of a Working Group commissioned by the House of Bishops to report and make recommendations on issues of human sexuality. I am sorry to say that it is very flawed. If this report is accepted I have no doubt that the Church of England, the Mother Church of the Communion, will have made a fateful decision. It will have chosen the same path as The Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada with all the heartbreak and division that will bring.
The problem is not simply that the Report proposes that parish churches should be free to hold public services for the blessing of homosexual relationships, but the way it justifies this proposal. Against the principle of Anglican teaching, right up to and beyond the Lambeth Conference of 1998, it questions the possibility that the Church can speak confidently on the basis of biblical authority and sees its teaching as essentially provisional. So Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth conference, which affirmed that homosexual practice was ‘incompatible with Scripture’ and said it could ‘not advise the legitimisation or blessing of same sex relationships’, is undermined both in practice and in principle.
The proposal to allow public services for the blessing of same sex relationships is seen as a provisional measure and the Report recommends a two-year process of ‘facilitated conversation’ throughout the Church of England which is likened to the ‘Continuing Indaba’ project. This should be a warning to us because it highlights that the unspoken assumption of Anglican Indaba is that the voice of Scripture is not clear. This amounts to a rejection of the conviction expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles that the Bible as ‘God’s Word written’ is a clear and effective standard for faith and conduct…
Stephen Noll, the retired Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University has written The Pilling Report and the Anglican Communion.
Susannah Cornwall has written Some thoughts on the Pilling Report.
Symon Hill has written Why I’m Not Cheering The Pilling Report.
22 CommentsChurch Times: Pilling disappoints
Today’s Church Times has a leader about the Pilling report: Pilling disappoints.
20 CommentsTHE Pilling report, The Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality, adds a shade more civility to the gay debate. It talks of repentance for homophobia, and begins its findings and recommendations with a statement of welcome and affirmation of the “presence and ministry” of gay people in the Church of England. And at various points in the report we can feel the group’s members, or rather most of them, yearning towards a greater liberalism. Its concession, however, that same-sex partnerships might be “marked” in church has been construed as the very least that the group could have recommended. The C of E, if it has the stomach for it, now faces the prospect of two years of facilitated conversations, “conducted without undue haste but with a sense of urgency”, about a move that will be moribund unless it encompasses same-sex marriage, and will do little to convince the gay community, and society at large, that the Church really knows the meaning of the words “welcome” and “affirmation”.
The report was always likely to be disappointing. When it was set up in 2011, the Pilling group’s task was to reflect on the post-Lambeth ‘98 “listening process” and merely “advise the House [of Bishops] on what proposals to offer on how the continuing discussion about these matters might best be shaped”. In other words, it was not being asked about policy, only about process. Even this modest goal of directing how future talks might be modelled proved too difficult, damaged by the fact that one of its number, the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Keith Sinclair, queried even the continuation of the listening process on the grounds that no further discernment is necessary. His dissenting statement, which, with his appendix, takes up more space than the group’s reflections, is a key factor in the report’s ambivalence. If evidence were needed on the brokenness of the Church on this matter, here it is.
A narrow brief and internal disagreement have made for a tame report, one that is hardly likely to enliven further consultation. Bishop Sinclair does his best to portray it as dangerously radical, but his description of it as undermining the Church’s teaching about homosexuality is inaccurate. The undermining has already happened: the report’s most radical act is to reveal in an official document what is already widely known: that a significant proportion of churchpeople regard that teaching as flawed.
Faced with this gulf between conservatives such as Bishop Sinclair and, say, almost everybody under the age of 30, it is easy to see why the majority in the working group latched on to the concept of “pastoral accommodation” with such enthusiasm. But this merely takes the Church’s ambivalence into a pastoral situation, saying to a couple, in effect: “We agree with what you’re doing, but are too weak to prevail against those who disapprove of you.” This is hardly a convincing response to the missiological challenge that the Pilling report identifies.
Pilling Report – more comment
Updated Thursday afternoon
David Pocklington of Law & Religion UK has published a most helpful summary, putting the report in context: The Pilling Report, the CofE and human sexuality.
Andrew Goddard has written for The Living Church that Divisions Deepen in Pilling.
Update
Anglican Mainstream have published these Pilling report – Dissenting Statement FAQs from the EGGS (Evangelical Group of the General Synod) Committee.
17 CommentsPilling Report – Fulcrum responds
Fulcrum has published its Response to the Pilling Report. Fulcrum welcomes much, but not all of the main report. But it also welcomes elements of the Bishop of Birkenhead’s Dissenting Statement, starting with a welcome to
The clear and irenic statement of the church’s teaching that “the proper context for sexual expression is the union of a man and a woman in marriage”. We also welcome the biblical case set out for this vision by the Bishop of Birkenhead in Appendix 3 and would further have liked to see this biblical engagement throughout the whole report.
But do read it all.
23 CommentsPilling Report – more opinion
Updated Monday evening and Tuesday morning
Ekklesia have published several articles
C of E should be more welcoming, sexuality report urges
Think-tank proposes different approach to church sexuality row
Bishops back think-tank call for reconciliation in sexuality debate
and a related paper: Church views on sexuality: recovering the middle ground by Savitri Hensman.
Andrew Symes writes for Anglican Mainstream about The Pilling Report: what it says, what it means, what we should do.
John Martin writes in The Living Church about A Cautious Step Leftward.
David Gillett blogs My reflections on the Pilling report.
Update
Ian Paul blogs The Pilling Report: divisive and damaging?
Jonathan Clatworthy blogs for Modern Church on Pilling on sex: modified rapture, and has written a 5000-word commentary on the report: Pilling’s progress: cairns on a mountain path.
The Sybils have issued a press release,available online here Sybils Christian transgender group respond to Pilling Report, and as a pdf here.
27 CommentsChanging Attitude responds to the Pilling Report
Changing Attitude England’s initial reaction to the Pilling Report was published this morning.
Some brief extracts
This report does not herald radical change and does not therefore fulfil the expectations of Changing Attitude. There are no practical proposals which will begin to dismantle the present culture of secrecy, denial of reality, suppression of identity and the maintenance of unhealthy attitudes. The group has met people and listened and the unhealthy attitudes remain unchanged as the report demonstrates…
Changing Attitude is disappointed that the Report deals so superficially with transgender (198) and intersex people (197) despite having received a submission from the Sibyls…
4 Homophobia
The most serious failings of the report are to be found here…The report doesn’t understand that so-called orthodox, traditional teaching, which is literalist and fundamentalist, using the seven texts as proof texts of God’s judgement against homosexuality, underpin and are the source of prejudice against LGB&T people and personal and systemic homophobia in the Church…
Our Christian conviction is clear – homosexuality is not harmful. Christian homophobia and prejudice is deeply harmful and results in anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, violence and murder, the result of social prejudice based on false Christian teaching.
The Director of Changing Attitude England has separately published Colin’s reaction to the Pilling Report. [This is an extended version of the text originally linked here.]
11 CommentsPilling Report – opinion
Janet Henderson blogs Pilling – Initial Reactions.
Simon Reader writes for the Westminster Faith Debates: A Blessing in Disguise?
Jonathan Clark, Bishop of Croydon, blogs Welcoming Pilling.
Rachel Mann blogs on The Pilling Report and Trans People.
Bishop Alan Wilson offers these Resources for your very own Pilling Report Party.
Dave Young blogs Let’s talk about love not sex: Thoughts on the Pilling Report.
17 CommentsWorcestershire tribunal case is remitted for fresh hearing
We reported on the case of Mark Sharpe, the former Rector of the Teme Valley South benefice (near Tenbury Wells) in February 2012: here, and also here.
This week, the Employment Appeal Tribunal finally issued its judgment in the appeal of this case.
The full text of the judgment can be found here (.doc format) or as a webpage here.
In brief, the EAT made no decision on the substantive issues, but remitted the case to a fresh hearing before the ET in accordance with various legal principles set out in the judgment, some of which depend on other recent cases involving ministers of religion, including in particular this one.
The trade union UNITE issued this press release: Unite calls for clergy employment talks after landmark decision.
Media coverage:
Telegraph Rector to sue church over harassment from parishioners
Birmingham Mail Vicar wins appeal in battle to sue church
BBC Church of England ‘harassed vicar’ case to be heard again
Update
Frank Cranmer has published this analysis: Clergy employment: Church of England rector wins appeal on jurisdictional issue
1 CommentSynod Voting on women bishops
The electronic voting results from last weeks meeting of General Synod are now available. They include the vote to proceed with the current proposals to allow women to be bishops (item 11) which was passed by 378 votes to 8 with 25 recorded abstentions.
I have further analysed the votes by house, and added those who were absent and the vacant places on Synod. For this purpose I have used the list of members that was given to members of the press last week.
| For | Against | Abstain | Absent | Vacant | |
| Bishops | 35 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 7 |
| Clergy | 177 | 2 | 5 | 15 | 3 |
| Laity | 166 | 6 | 19 | 16 | 5 |
| totals | 378 | 8 | 25 | 40 | 15 |
Within the category “Absent” it is impossible from the available data to distinguish those who were genuinely absent from Synod at the time of the vote from those who were present but failed to vote or record an abstention.
My raw data is available as a spreadsheet. For each house it lists all members (grouped by diocese etc) and shows how each one voted.
6 CommentsPilling report – statements from campaign groups
Updated again Saturday evening
Inclusive Church
Inclusive Church responds to the House of Bishops Human Sexuality Commission Report
Accepting Evangelicals
Pilling recognises Evangelical diversity
Reform
PILLING REPORT “VERY DIVISIVE” SAYS REFORM
Church Society
Lee Gatiss responds to the Pilling Report on sexuality
Christian Concern
Pilling Report – Statement from General Synod Member & Christian Concern CEO Andrea Williams
Anglican Mainstream
Statement from Anglican Mainstream on the release of the Pilling Report
Church of England Evangelical Council
Statement of the Executive Committee of the Church of England Evangelical Council
Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement
A Small Step Forward
Changing Attitude
Changing Attitude England’s initial reaction to the Pilling Report
Fulcrum
Fulcrum interim response to the Pilling report
Pilling Report – press reports
Updated several times
John Bingham Telegraph Churches should perform gay blessings, CofE says
Sam Jones The Guardian Church should allow blessings of gay relationships, CofE report says
Anglican Communion News Service Report on sexuality: “Hold Church-wide facilitated conversations”
Updates
Church of England Newspaper Same sex ‘blessings’ recommended in report
BBC News Same-sex blessings backed by Church of England report
Carey Lodge Christian Today Church of England report on human sexuality: Clergy should be able to bless same sex partnerships
Madeleine Davies Church Times Pilling opens door to gay blessings in church
Sam Jones The Guardian Anglican church should lift ban on blessings for gay couples, report says
Andrew Brown The Guardian The Pilling report: a blessing for gay people but not for conservatives
John Bingham Telegraph Church of England considers ‘weddings in all but name’ for same-sex couples
And for those who are still confused there is The Pilling Report – Your Questions Answered.
21 CommentsPilling Report published
Update There is an audio recording of this morning’s press conference by Sir Joseph Pilling here and a video here.
The Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality (the Pilling Report) has been published this morning, and can be downloaded from here. Print copies (ISBN: 978-0715144374) are available from Church House Publishing and other retailers.
There is an accompanying press release.
Pilling Report published
28 November 2013
Publication of the Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human SexualityThe Archbishops of Canterbury and York have today published the Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality.
In a statement thanking the working group – chaired by Sir Joseph Pilling – for its report, the Archbishops commented that the report “is a substantial document proposing a process of facilitated conversations in the Church of England over a period of perhaps two years. The document offers findings and recommendations to form part of that process of facilitated conversations. It is not a new policy statement from the Church of England.”
Noting that “the issues with which the Report grapples are difficult and divisive” the Archbishops recognise Sir Joseph’s Pilling’s comment that ‘disagreements have been explored in the warmth of a shared faith’. The Archbishops continue “Our prayer is that the process of reflection that will now be needed in the Church of England, shaped by the House of Bishops and the College, will be characterised by a similar spirit.”
Commissioned by the House of Bishops of the Church of England in January 2012, the working group included the bishops of Gloucester, Birkenhead, Fulham and Warwick. The group invited three advisers to join in the work. They were: Professor Robert Song, The Ven Rachel Treweek and the Revd Dr Jessica Martin.
The report considers the rapidly changing context within which the group undertook its work. It examines the available data about the views of the public in our country over time. The report considers homophobia, evidence from science, from scripture and from theologians. During their work, members of the group not only gathered evidence from many experts, groups and individuals but also met a number of gay and lesbian people, often in their homes, to listen to their experiences and insights.
The report offers 18 recommendations. The first recommendation is intended to set the context for the report as a whole. It warmly welcomes and affirms the presence and ministry within the church of gay and lesbian people both lay and ordained.
Three recommendations look at the report’s proposal for ‘facilitated conversations’, across the Church of England and in dialogue with the Anglican Communion and other churches, so that Christians who disagree deeply about the meaning of scripture on questions of sexuality, and on the demands of living in holiness for gay and lesbian people, should understand each other’s concerns more clearly and seek to hear each other as authentic Christian disciples.
Further recommendations call on the church to combat homophobia whenever and wherever it is found, and to repent of the lack of welcome and acceptance extended to homosexual people in the past.
The recommendations do not propose any change in the church’s teaching on sexual conduct. They do propose that clergy, with the agreement of their Church Council, should be able to offer appropriate services to mark a faithful same sex relationship. The group does not propose an authorised liturgy for this purpose but understands the proposed provision to be a pastoral accommodation which does not entail any change to what the church teaches. No member of the clergy, or parish, would be required to offer such services and it could not extend to solemnising same sex marriages without major changes to the law.
The report notes that the church’s teaching on sexuality is in tension with contemporary social attitudes, not only for gay and lesbian Christians, but for straight Christians too. In relation to candidates for ministry, it recommends that whether someone is married, single or in a civil partnership should have no bearing on the assurances sought from them that they intend to order their lives consistently with the teaching of the Church on sexual conduct.
The report includes a ‘dissenting statement’ from the Bishop of Birkenhead who found himself unable to support all the recommendations made by the group as a whole. The main part of the report is supported and signed by all the other members of the group, including the advisers.
The House of Bishops will discuss the report for the first time in December 2013, and it will be further debated by the College of Bishops in January 2014.
Ends
Note to Editors
The Report of the House of Bishops Working Group on Human Sexuality is published today by Church House Publishing in Paperback and Ebook formats (ISBN 978 0 7151 4437 4, 224pp, £16.99) and is also available to view online
http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1891063/pilling_report_gs_1929_web.pdf
An audio interview with Sir Joseph Pilling is available on https://soundcloud.com/the-church-of-england/the-pilling-report-on-human.
A video of the news conference with Sir Joseph Pilling is avaiallbe on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oghxqZ1AMc4&feature=youtu.be.
The full text of the statement from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York can be found below
Earlier this month, the Review Group established in 2011 by the House of Bishops under the chairmanship of Sir Joseph Pilling delivered to us its Report.
This is a substantial document proposing a process of facilitated conversations in the Church of England over a period of perhaps two years. The document offers findings and recommendations to form part of that process of facilitated conversations. It is not a new policy statement from the Church of England.
The House of Bishops will be meeting next month and the College of Bishops the following month to consider the Report and decide how such a process might best be shaped. In view of the interest in the Report we have decided that it should be published now, without delay.
As the chair notes in his foreword, the issues with which the Report grapples are difficult and divisive. We want therefore, on behalf of the House of Bishops, to express our sincere appreciation and gratitude to the members of the group, its advisers and to the staff who supported it, for the investment of time, intellect and emotion that they have made in order to produce such a wide ranging and searching document.
In Sir Joseph’s words their ‘disagreements have been explored in the warmth of a shared faith’. Our prayer is that the process of reflection that will now be needed in the Church of England, shaped by the House of Bishops and the College, will be characterised by a similar spirit.
+Justin Cantuar +Sentamu Eboracensis
28 November 2013
I have copied the Findings and recommendations from the report below the fold.
4 CommentsHouse of Lords debates report on Holistic Mission
We reported back in July on the publication of a report by the ResPublica think tank, Holistic Mission: Social action and the Church of England.
This was the subject of a recent debate in the House of Lords, for which the Hansard record can be found starting here. Alternatively ResPublica has published it as a PDF file.
The speakers were not uncritical of the report. The following passage illustrates:
Lord Elton: …Like my noble friend Lady Berridge, who made a very good speech, I attended a meeting recently in the Jerusalem Chamber, where the final version of the authorised version of the bible was agreed, to hear Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University give a PowerPoint presentation. She gave a most illuminating account of the position, outlook and membership of the Church of England. I strongly recommend that account to my episcopal friends and ask them to distribute it as it was a suitable forerunner to the great declamation by George Carey in Shropshire, which nobody has yet had the bad manners to mention, which warned of the end of the church unless something changed. We now have to look at whether what is being proposed is the right change. A good deal of reservation has been expressed about that, not merely because it puts everything in the hands of one church but because of its rather obscurely articulated union with government. The union of government and church is a very dangerous institution, indeed. If the church is seen to co-operate with the Government, de facto it is not co-operating with the Opposition and it is likely to get all the flak that the Government get for things that go wrong which are not the fault of either of them…
The presentation, Telling the Truth about Christian Britain, mentioned in the above quote can be found as a PDF file on this page.
1 CommentBishop of Winchester issues update on Jersey safeguarding
The Diocese of Winchester has issued this press release:
5 Comments22nd November 2013: The Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Rev Tim Dakin has today issued the following statement, providing an update on the ongoing Jersey safeguarding inquiries:
“Earlier this the year I commissioned an Investigation into a safeguarding complaint in the Deanery of Jersey, conducted by former High Court Judge Dame Heather Steel. The purpose of the Investigation was to advise me if there was any reason for disciplinary action to be taken against any member of the clergy.
“Dame Heather has informed me that she is finalising her investigation report. However, I have received legal representations from an interested party requiring me to undertake not to release the report to any person. On legal advice I have agreed to comply with the request and this means that I am currently unable to publish the report or provide further information about the representations that have been made.
“What I can state at this point, based on Dame Heather’s findings to date, is that I will not be taking disciplinary action against any member of the clergy in relation to the handling of the safeguarding complaint in question or the subsequent review process.
“The purpose of launching the inquiries in March was to understand fully the handling of the original complaint and to learn lessons for the future. I am all too conscious that questions remain about safeguarding best practice as well as the effect that this issue has had on Jersey’s relationship with the rest of the Diocese. I believe Bishop John Gladwin’s Visitation will help in the long-term, but in practice I feel that more immediate steps must now be taken in order to achieve progress.
“Given the current circumstances, and in order to move us forward, I have sought the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury to initiate a pastoral visit to the Channel Islands, so that a fresh perspective can be taken on safeguarding. The visit will be conducted next month jointly by the Rt Rev Nigel Stock, Bishop at Lambeth, and the Rt Rev Trevor Willmott, Bishop of Dover, and has the Archbishop of Canterbury’s full support. Bishop Trevor is a former Bishop of Basingstoke and so I feel his previous knowledge of the Channel Islands will be of significant benefit. On the visit, the Bishops will meet with local church leaders and Island authorities from both Deaneries, in order to help understand how the current situation may be progressed. Their visit will enable further conversations to be held which I am sure will benefit the Islands and the wider diocese. They will report back to me by the end of the year.
“I am informing the Dean and Lt Governor of Guernsey of this as well. Although some of what has led to this proposal has more directly arisen on Jersey, the Islands will be bound to have many common interests in both the process and the outcome, and I wish them to be fully engaged in the relevant actions and interactions.
“In all of this, the victim at the heart of the original complaint should not be forgotten. As a Church, we are called to reach out to the least, the last and the lost, even though at times they may reject the help we offer. In HG’s case, that rejection has been entirely understandable, given how she sees her experience of the Church of England. A number of people across the Diocese have been working hard to find a way of helping that could be acceptable to her. Having sought expert advice from health professionals and specialist charities, we have made provisions to help support HG, through a third party. We pray that she will be able to accept what is being offered.
News from the Society of St Wilfrid and St Hilda
See our report of September 2010 about the formation of this organisation.
The organisation now has a redesigned website.
The front page says:
The Society is an ecclesial body, led by a Council of Bishops. The purposes of the Society are:
- to promote and maintain catholic teaching and practice within the Church of England
- to provide episcopal oversight to which churches, institutions and individuals will freely submit themselves
- to guarantee a ministry in the historic apostolic succession in which they can have confidence
The Society is supported by Forward in Faith and administered by its Director.
A letter has been sent to all its supporters, which can be read as a pdf here. The full text is copied below the fold.
52 CommentsHomophobic bullying in the CofE: responses
Anglican Mainstream has published a lengthy statement, apparently in response to information about what the Church of England is doing to combat homophobic bullying:
All bullying is wrong but C of E and Church Schools “should not promote Stonewall”
It is right that the Church of England should address issues of bullying and make schools ‘safe’ places for all children and young people. However, we are astonished that Stonewall has been chosen to deliver this service…
Changing Attitude has responded to Anglican Mainstream:
Anglican Mainstream’s homophobia
Anglican Mainstream has issued a statement criticizing the Church of England for working with Stonewall to target homophobic bullying in Church Schools.
The statement is a prime example of the homophobia that is institutionally present in the Church of England. Homophobia is personal or institutional prejudice against lesbian, gay and bisexual people rooted in a conscious or unconscious irrational fear of, aversion to, dislike of or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals (see dictionary definitions at the end)…
Read both articles in full to comprehend them.
7 CommentsHomophobic bullying in the Church of England
Questions about this were asked on Monday evening. This topic had also come up last July, and indeed the preceding November.
This time it went like this:
Question 57
Dr Rachel Jepson: Which resources does the Board of Education recommend to be used with both staff and students in all Church of England schools to address LGBT bullying?
Bishop of Oxford: The Board does not generally recommend resources to schools except those produced by itself. In this case the Board is overseeing a project to produce materials for Church schools to help them to combat homophobic bullying within the framework of Christian values and belief. The project consultant is currently writing materials prior to their being piloted in schools over next term.
Dr Rachel Jepson: What is the timescale for the project to which you referred and who is the project consultant who is writing the materials and what is their relevant expertise, please?
Bishop of Oxford: We have gone to someone who has been deeply involved in producing material in a particular diocese, so we do know we’ve got someone of expertise there, she has that previous track record. Precisely what timescale is, and indeed the name of the person, has escaped me, but I’ll make sure that you know.
Mr Robin Hall: In his July presidential address, the Archbishop of Canterbury pledged to use – and I quote – the best advice we can find anywhere. As Stonewall is the leading charity committed to tackling homophobia, is the consultant working closely with Stonewall, to make the most of their experience and expertise?
Bishop of Oxford: Stonewall is indeed involved, as one of the consultants, and other organisations too, with a good track record in this field. We are committed to having the very best consultants and experience that we can get.
Question 58
Mr Robin Hall: Given the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call in July for a “a commitment to stamp out” homophobic bullying in Church of England schools, what work has been undertaken to log or track the number of incidents of homophobic bullying in our schools?
Bishop of Oxford: There is no national collection of statistics regarding bullying in schools and the Board of Education doesn’t have the capacity at this time to engage in such a survey. The Board’s approach is rather to resource teachers and governors to create a strong anti-bullying culture with a specific focus on homophobic bullying.
Mr Robin Hall: As you know, schools are already obliged to report the number and type of bullying incidents each term, so this data I believe is readily available. If we don’t understand the scale of the problem, how will the Archbishop’s campaign to tackle homophobic bullying be targeted, and how will we know if it has been a success?
Bishop of Oxford: This will I hope come out of the work that’s being done by the group that’s looking into this, and if there is further action that the Board needs to take then obviously we’ll be ready to take it.
Mr John Ward: Would the Board take into account the useful debates in this place in February 2007, including the motion passed, proposed by The Reverend Mary Gilbert, which affirms that gay and lesbian Christians are full members of this church without reservation, and would the Board think that might be useful in its reflections on how we tackle homophobic bullying?
Bishop of Oxford: The Board is indeed fully committed to there being no homophobic bullying in any of our church schools. This is a very clear commitment that we have made, and we are not going to renege on it.
3 Comments