The latest report from the Joint Implementation Commission under the Covenant between the Methodist Church of Great Britain and The Church of England has been released.
The two churches have issued a joint press release (here and here), which is copied below the fold.
The report is due to be debated at the Methodist Conference and the Church of England General Synod next month.
The Methodist Church has made the full report available for download: Moving Forward in Covenant.
11 CommentsGloucester Diocesan Synod met yesterday evening and debated the legislation to allow women to be bishops. The synod voted overwhelmingly in favour of the main motion (to approve the legislation).
| Main Motion |
For
|
Against
|
Abstentions
|
| Bishops |
2
|
0
|
0
|
| Clergy |
55
|
5
|
0
|
| Laity |
44
|
5
|
0
|
A following motion seeking greater provision for the opponents of women bishops was heavily defeated (8 for, at least 93 against).
St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Diocesan synod also debated the legislation earlier this month, with similar results.
| Main Motion |
For
|
Against
|
Abstentions
|
| Bishops |
2
|
0
|
0
|
| Clergy |
41
|
3
|
2
|
| Laity |
51
|
2
|
3
|
| Following Motion |
For
|
Against
|
Abstentions
|
| Bishops |
0
|
2
|
0
|
| Clergy |
7
|
36
|
2
|
| Laity |
5
|
41
|
9
|
Affirming Catholicism is holding a day conference on Thursday 30 June at St Matthew’s Westminster.
The full title is: Thy Kingdom Come! Prayer and Mission in the building of The Kingdom.
Details can be found here.
Speakers include:
Victoria Coren has written this: Bashing the Bishop.
… Dr. William’s oeuvre has caught the imagination, snatched headlines and triggered a national debate. Maybe we should swap jobs? Except I’d make a terrible archbishop.
It’s exactly what he should be doing, of course: getting stuck in to matters of public ethics, questioning the national conscience, being a strong and relevant voice on issues of social concern. I can understand why some in the press feel obliged to disagree with him – and this is a good thing; we all want to live in a country of robust debate – but the way that some have slammed him for speaking out at all is just embarrassing. It’s like they don’t understand who he is, what he does or what the role’s about…
(The NoTW article she mentions is here.)
Paul Vallely wrote at the Independent on Aid and what the Archbishop should have said.
Those naughty people at the New Statesman. Apparently when the Archbishop of Canterbury arrived to do his week as guest editor he was planning to write the main editorial on aid to Africa. But Rowan Williams was persuaded to offer, instead, his thoughts on the state of the coalition government one year in. The paper got the headlines it wanted but we have been deprived of his thoughts on the place we used to call the dark continent. So what might he have said? And why does it matter?
At least one other bishop has spoken up in support of the archbishop:
John Pritchard of Oxford is reported in the Witney Gazette Bishop John joins attack on ‘disastrous’ Government cuts.
3 CommentsUpdated again Friday evening
This is a selection from the huge volume of articles written today (Thursday) in response to the New Statesman article by Rowan Williams.
Church Mouse What Rowan really said in the New Statesman
Nick Baines Feeding frenzy
Andrew Brown Cif belief Rowan Williams is not interested in party politics
Gary Gibbon Channel 4 News Will Archbishop’s criticism spark repeat of 1980s?
Jonathan Wynne-Jones Telegraph Anyone who wants Britain’s Christian heritage preserved must be glad that Rowan Williams spoke out
Cranmer Three cheers for the Archbishop of Canterbury
Friday morning update
Church Times Primate criticises ‘policies for which no one voted’
Giles Fraser Guardian Archbishop of the opposition
Guardian editorial: Welfare reform: Canterbury tales
Financial Times editorial: Pundit in purple
Telegraph editorial The Archbishop should not have played politics
Independent Leading article: Voice in the wilderness
Gregory Cameron interviewed by BBC Wales video Archbishop of Canterbury ‘right to ask questions’
Friday evening update
Daily Mail editorial Politics, morality and a discredited archbishop
Jonathan Wynne-Jones Telegraph Why the Catholic Church stands to gain from Rowan Williams’ outburst
Church Mouse Top five silly things said in the news yesterday
Nick Spencer Cif belief An archbishop who can spark national debate
Stephanie Flanders BBC God, poverty and the government (includes video interview with Ian Duncan Smith)
Simon Barrow Ekklesia Daily Mail tries to launch a ‘holy war’
15 CommentsBy an extraordinary coincidence, Theos has chosen today to publish its report, Turbulent Priests? (link to PDF copy)
2 Comments‘Turbulent Priests?’, by Daniel Gover, examines the political interventions of Rowan Williams, George Carey and Robert Runcie since 1979.
Covering issues as wide ranging as asylum, criminal justice, military conflict and church schools, the report seeks to answer the question: does the Archbishop of Canterbury contribute a moral voice in support of the common good that is much needed in contemporary British politics?
Updated again Thursday noon
Update the New Statesman has now published the full text of the leading article: The government needs to know how afraid people are by Rowan Williams.
I can imagine a New Statesman reader looking at the contents of this issue and mentally supplying: “That’s enough coalition ministers (Ed).” After all, the NS has never exactly been a platform for the establishment to explain itself. But it seems worth encouraging the present government to clarify what it is aiming for in two or three key areas, in the hope of sparking a livelier debate about where we are going – and perhaps even to discover what the left’s big idea currently is…
other updates at the bottom
Tim Ross has a front page story in Thursday’s Telegraph, headlined Rowan Williams condemns ‘frightening’ Coalition.
Dr Rowan Williams will launch a sustained attack on the Coalition in the most outspoken political intervention by an Archbishop of Canterbury for a generation.
He warns that the public is gripped by “fear” over the Government’s reforms to education, the NHS and the benefits system and accuses David Cameron and Nick Clegg of forcing through “radical policies for which no one voted”.
Openly questioning the democratic legitimacy of the Coalition, the Archbishop dismisses the Prime Minister’s “Big Society” as a “painfully stale” slogan, and claims that it is “not enough” for ministers to blame Britain’s economic and social problems on the last Labour government.
The comments come in an article he has written as guest editor of this week’s New Statesman magazine.
His two-page critique, titled “The government needs to know how afraid people are”, is the most forthright political criticism by such a senior cleric since Robert Runcie enraged Margaret Thatcher with a series of attacks in the 1980s.
Lambeth Palace is braced for an angry response but Dr Williams, who became Archbishop of Canterbury nine years ago, is understood to believe that the moment is right for him to enter the political debate…
Damian Thompson adds that Rowan Williams returns to Old Labour sloganising as he desperately tries to distract himself from Anglican meltdown.
The New Statesman itself reports the story this way: Archbishop of Canterbury: “no one voted” for the coalition’s policies.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a remarkable attack on the coalition government, warning that it is committing the country to “radical, long-term policies for which no one voted.” In a leading article in tomorrow’s New Statesman, which he has guest-edited, Rowan Williams writes that the “anxiety and anger” felt by voters is a result of the coalition’s failure to expose its policies to “proper public argument”.
With specific reference to David Cameron’s health and education reforms, the Archbishop says that the government’s approach has created a mixture of “bafflement and indignation” among the public…
Updates
The Telegraph also has these:
Rowan Williams: timeline of Archbishop’s political views
Friction between Church and State: a history of outspoken Archbishops of Canterbury
Guardian Downing Street hits back at archbishop’s broadside
Telegraph Archbishop of Canterbury defended by Lord Tebbit
New Statesman Philip Pullman on what he owes to the Church of England
24 CommentsTwo recent articles on this topic:
Diversity and democracy: Reforming the Lords by Patrick McGlinchey at Left Foot Forward.
The inclusion in the white paper of a 20 per cent appointed chamber option is a cause for concern. However, it is the proposal to allow 12 Church of England bishops to retain their seats as Lords Spiritual that could fundamentally hold the House of Lords back from democratisation and diversification.
To give special law-making privileges to one faith group over all others is almost unheard of among democratic nations
Indeed, the only global equivalent is the ‘Islamic Consultative Assembly of Iran’, which gives Islamic clerics similar privileges to Church of England bishops. In modern Britain, this system is clearly an outdated one which does not enjoy the support of our citizens.
An ICM poll commissioned by the Joseph Roundtree Reform Trust as part of the Power 2010 political reform initiative found that two-thirds of the public think anyone who sits in the House for Lords and votes on laws should be elected, and 70 per cent of Christians believe it is wrong that some Church of England bishops are given an automatic seat in parliament…
Their Lordships should beware: there is an overwhelming consensus behind Lords reform by Alan Renwick at Reading Politics (A blog of the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading.)
7 CommentsThe government launched its proposals for reform of the House of Lords two weeks ago. At the time, there were widespread rumours that senior Labour and Conservative peers were gearing up to scupper the plans. A survey of peers reported in The Times this week appears to confirm this: 80 per cent of the peers who responded said they opposed a wholly or largely elected second chamber.
As The Times points out, if peers do indeed choose to oppose the government’s plans, they will be acting counter to the manifestos of all three main parties in last year’s general election. Labour promised “to create a fully elected Second Chamber” (in stages). The Liberal Democrats, similarly, pledged to “replace the House of Lords with a fully-elected second chamber”. The Conservatives were only slightly less reformist, saying, “We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords”.
But peers tempted to flex their muscles on this issue should be aware that the consensus across the parties surrounding House of Lords reform runs much deeper than this…
Updated Saturday
Giles Fraser has written in today’s Church Times The Bishops are seeking to enshrine gay exclusion.
…This advice shows how much the Bishops have been straining every legal sinew to exclude openly gay bishops — even celibate ones — from their number. Do we really think that straight bishops have been challenged to repent of whatever they might have got up to at university, as it were? Of course not. And this double standard is a clear symptom of the fact that what is really going on here is prejudice, pure and simple.
The other weasel construction that those who pick bishops have alighted on is that a bishop must be “a focus of unity”. No: first and foremost, a bishop must be a man or woman of the gospel. Sometimes this means arguing for the right not to bring peace, but a sword.
To insist that bishops must be “a focus of unity” is a recipe for having bishops whose primary identity is that they are unobjectionable. Indeed, there is something almost heretical about this phrase; for it makes the quest for a quiet Church more of a priority than that of the preaching of the gospel.
The trouble is that, at the moment, a whole world of grammar is being invented with the express purpose of keeping gay people out of senior church positions. From the dreaded Anglican Covenant (whose purpose seems to be much the same) to this new advice, our Church is constructing its ground rules specifically to exclude homosexuals. And there is another phrase for that: institutionalised homophobia…
And the Guardian has published a series of articles this week, under the title How should gay bishops be chosen? which are all linked in this earlier post More discussion on appointing gay CofE bishops which has been regularly updated, but which has fallen down the page due to the number of other news stories since the start of the week.
The most recent (third) item was this one by Colin Coward: Homophobia has infected the Church of England. Earlier items were by Lesley Fellows and Peter Ould.
Saturday update
The Guardian series has now been completed with this fourth piece from Mark Oakley Gay or straight, allow clergy to reflect the rest of us.
13 Comments…If the bishops were to follow their lawyers’ checklist in deciding on new colleagues, history will repeat itself as religious leaders make themselves both inhumane and hypocritical.
Why inhumane? Well, gay people have no choice as to their sexual orientation but, when recognised, they do as the rest do – try to find someone to love and grow old with. Although some are drawn to a celibate life, most feel that it is not good for them to be alone and they seek intimacy and a togetherness that, as married people know, is easier to make stable when celebrated and supported publicly and without fear. Priests and bishops are no different. To stop such people being ordained because a group doesn’t like the fact that some people will always be homosexual would be as unjust as not having made John Sentamu the Archbishop of York because there was a theological argument going round for a white man. If talk of unity is to have any authenticity there has to be diversity and bishops should be signs and enablers of both. Instead, to make gay Christians even more afraid to be honest about who they are, and their need to love and be loved by someone, is not only inhumane but shameful.
Why hypocritical? Putting aside the fact that the present bishops were not questioned on their own sexual pasts, it would be an extraordinary policy to pursue this checklist when so many bishops know and privately support gay clergy in partnerships as well as those who are single who have been partnered at some stage. It would be equally duplicitous to imply that such gay bishops would be an innovation. Truthfulness would be the innovation…
Last week’s special feature in the Church Times is now available to non-subscribers for a while.
Glyn Paflin reviews the history in detail in Hoops and hurdles — the long search for agreement.
And there is a note about The Measure and the Code: not yet fixed.
The arguments against are put in two articles:
David Houlding Sacramental assurance: any man won’t do
Jonathan Baker This is not about justice and equality. We agree on those
The issue of male headship is discussed by two evangelical women, Clare Hendry and Lis Goddard in Male headship: two opposing views
John Saxbee is in favour of the legislation, as it stands There is no need to tread on any toes.
Pat Ashworth talks to four women who are serving as bishops in Women in post: the news from overseas.
Paul Handley has a report on a woman bishop already ministering in Britain, Only an issue when it comes to Anglicans.
And finally, there is a Leader: At this stage, it’s not about women.
13 CommentsUpdated Friday evening
From the Diocese in Europe website: Diocese votes on women bishops.
Members of the Diocese in Europe Synod have voted to accept the draft proposals for women to become bishops – despite the scheme being rejected by the House of Bishops in the Diocese.
The debate, referred to the Diocese from General Synod, was spread over three sessions during the 4 day Synod meeting in Cologne. First two keynote speakers. Bishops Peter Selby and Martin Warner introduced the topic offering different viewpoints but each sensitive to the effects of any change which would allow women to become bishops.
The following day Synod members met in groups to consider the issue. These groups reported back at a final session during the afternoon of Thursday 2nd June before the formal motion was debated. After that debate there was a short time of silent devotion and prayer before voting, by houses. The result was
Bishops – in favour 0 against 2
Clergy – in favour 11 against 10 abstentions 1
Laity – in favour 15 against 6 abstentions 3
And this:
After the main vote Mrs Ann Turner proposed a following motion that “this Synod desires that all faithful Anglicans remain and thrive together in the Church of England and therefore calls upon the House of Bishops to bring forward amendments to the draft Bishops and Priests (Consecration of Women) Measure to ensure that those unable on theological grounds to accept the ministry of women bishops are able to receive Episcopal oversight from a bishop with Authority (i.e. ordinary jurisdiction) conferred by the Measure rather than by delegation from a Diocesan Bishop.”
This was not accepted by Synod (17 votes to 23 with 6 abstentions)
But also:
Important note:- Due to the unique Constitution of the Diocese in Europe the formal response to General Synod must come from the Bishop’s Council (which is a smaller body composed of members of Diocesan Synod – and which will meet in late October).
Go to the diocesan website for audio files relating to this.
Friday evening update
Bishop David Hamid has written on his own blog about this: The decision of Diocesan Synod regarding Women in the Episcopate:
13 Comments…I am in favour of women in the episcopate, but I do not believe that the provision for those who are opposed to this development, contained in the measure, are sufficient to maintain the highest degree of unity in our Church. I therefore had to vote against the motion. I explained my position in a speech which I post below…
From 10 Downing Street: Diocese of Durham
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Very Reverend Justin Portal Welby, MA, Hon FCT, Dean of Liverpool, for election as Bishop of Durham in succession to the Right Reverend Nicholas Thomas Wright, MA, DPhil, DD, on his resignation on the 31 August 2010.
Notes for editors
Justin Welby (aged 55) was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. After a career in the oil industry in Paris and London, he trained for the ministry at Cranmer Hall and St John’s College Durham. He served his title at Chilvers Coton with Astley, Coventry diocese from 1992 to 1995. From 1995 to 2002 he was Rector of Southam and also Vicar of Ufton, Coventry diocese from 1998 to 2002. From 2002 to 2007 he was Canon Residentiary at Coventry Cathedral; and was Co-Director for International Ministry from 2002 to 2005. From 2005 to 2007 he was Sub-Dean at Coventry Cathedral and also Canon for Reconciliation Ministry and in 2007 was also Priest-in-Charge at Coventry Holy Trinity. Since 2007 he has been Dean of Liverpool.
From 2000 to 2002 he was Chairman of an NHS Hospital Trust, and he currently also serves on the Committee of Reference for the ethical funds of a large investment company in the City of London.
Justin Welby is married to Caroline and they have had six children (one of whom died in infancy). His recreations include most things French and sailing.
The Diocese of Durham website has a detailed press release, with photos: NEW BISHOP DESIGNATE OF DURHAM ANNOUNCED.
Liverpool Cathedral has Justin Welby, Dean of Liverpool is to be the next Bishop of Durham.
34 CommentsUpdated again Saturday
First, there was an item about this on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme.
The radio programme synopsis can be found at this page.
Colin Coward has transcribed the pertinent section at BBC R4 Sunday programme interview with Colin Coward and Canon Chris Sugden by Edward Stourton.
Second, Cif belief has this Question of the Week: How should gay bishops be chosen?
And the first article published in response is by Lesley Fellows:
The Church of England has double standards when it comes to gay bishops
The checklist used to stop Jeffrey John becoming Bishop of Southwark seemed deliberately designed to exclude him.
Thursday update
Peter Ould has added to Cif belief this article: End the cold war over gay bishops.
We know the church is divided on gay bishops. What’s needed is a synod vote after full public discussion of all the issues.
Friday update
Colin Coward has added another article to this: Homophobia has infected the Church of England.
The church must find the courage to deal with the poisonous culture of anti-gay prejudice in its appointment of bishops.
Saturday update
Mark Oakley has added Gay or straight, allow clergy to reflect the rest of us.
We can’t have one morality for laity and one for clergy. An ordination checklist would be inhumane and hypocritical.
The outline agenda for the General Synod meeting at York in July is now available from this page, as a PDF file. The information is copied below the fold.
3 CommentsUpdated Saturday evening
Here’s some of the responses to yesterday’s Guardian news story.
First, from the journalist who had the original scoop last July, Jonathan Wynne-Jones. He writes at the Telegraph that The Church of England cannot hide from a fight over gay bishops.
Savi Hensman has written at Ekklesia about Equality, prejudice, power and the Church of England.
From Scotland, Kelvin Holdsworth has written Colin Slee’s J’accuse.
Colin Coward at Changing Attitude has written Collusion, dishonesty, ignorance and stupidity are the marks of the House of Bishops.
Lesley Fellows has written How do you stop a brilliant gay man from being a bishop?
Benny Hazlehurst has written Archbishops haunted by a voice from the grave….
Peter Ould has written Leaks and Truth.
Adrian Worsfold has written The Rotten Stink at the Very Top.
Saturday evening updates
The Church Mouse has Gay Bishops, angry Archbishops and Deans speaking from beyond the grave.
Colin Coward has written again, see Campaigning for a healthy human Christian culture.
Peter Ould has written again, see Everybody Out!
30 CommentsUpdated again Friday 3 June
Andrew Brown, writing in the Guardian, has a report headlined Church of England tied in knots over allowing gay men to become bishops.
A meeting of Church of England bishops in York this week has broken up without agreement on whether gay clergy should ever be allowed to be chosen for promotion to bishoprics.
The leadership of the established church remains tied in knots over how far it can comply with the Equality Act in its treatment of gay people. Church lawyers have told the bishops that while they cannot take into account that someone is homosexual in considering them for preferment, they also cannot put forward clergy in active same-sex relationships and, even if they are celibate, must consider whether they can “act as a focus for unity” to their flocks if appointed to a diocese.
Conservative evangelicals remain bitterly opposed to the ordination of gay people, even though many clergy are more or less openly gay, and some are in same-sex partnerships…
The report continues with details of
…an anguished and devastating memorandum written by the Very Rev Colin Slee, the former dean of Southwark Cathedral, shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer last November. Dr Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, and John Sentamu, the archbishop of York, vetoed candidates from becoming bishops of the south London diocese…
And it concludes by mentioning that
The House of Bishops sought legal advice to discover whether it would be illegal to deny John a job. A briefing in December from the Church House legal department appears to state that though it would be illegal to discriminate against him because he is a celibate gay person, it was perfectly in order to discriminate against him because there are Christians who cannot accept gay people.
The briefing states: “It is not open to a crown nominations committee or a bishop making a suffragan appointment to propose someone who is in a sexually active same-sex relationship; it is not open to them to take into account the mere fact that someone is gay by sexual orientation.”
Original documents:
Colin Slee’s memorandum
Legal memorandum
Friday update
The Church Times has its own report on these documents: House of Bishops divided on keeping out homosexuals (and scroll down for a second article, Slee: tears shed after angry talks).
And a further update, a week later:
There is another copy of Colin Slee’s memorandum that is slightly longer, available via this page.
50 CommentsThe Church of Ireland Gazette reports: Anglican Communion ‘quite close to being dysfunctional’, senior English layman tells the Gazette.
In an interview reported in the current issue of The Church of Ireland Gazette, the Chair of the Church of England General Synod’s House of Laity, Dr Philip Giddings, speaks to the Gazette editor, Canon Ian Ellis, about the Anglican Covenant and the issue of women bishops in the Church of England.
The text of the interview report can be found at the link above.
A 23-minute audio of the whole interview can be found here.
(In the audio, the subject of the Covenant runs from 03:00-13:45 and the women bishops issue, including comment on the Ordinariate, runs from 13:45 to the end)
25 CommentsBishop Alan Wilson was interviewed last night on Channel 4 News about the Rapture.
You can see and hear what he said via this page: World fails to end.
The US evangelist who said the world would end on 21 May stands by his prediction, as the Bishop of Buckingham tells Channel 4 News Saint Paul would have said “don’t be silly”.
But the best explanation of why it didn’t happen is undoubtedly this.
A less amusing but very sensible analysis is by Paul Roberts and is titled Life after the rapture – on grabbing the microphone.
12 CommentsThe biggest “Christian” internet event of the year so far was the prediction that the world was going to end on 21st May 2011 at 6pm in each time-zone. The reaction by Christians has been either to ignore it, to join in lampooning it as extremely stupid, to protest loudly that they have nothing to do with the speculations of Harold Camping or to grow increasingly depressed at the amount of media interest that such an example of a group of Christians being extremely (and publicly) foolish has generated…
Remember this? Methodist minister ruled employee not office holder.
This week, it was announced that Methodist Church granted leave to appeal employment ruling.
The Methodist Church has been granted leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal against the judgement of an Employment Appeal Tribunal that Methodist ministers should be counted as employees and cases concerning them heard by Employment Tribunals. Methodist ministers have always been treated by the Church as office holders rather than employees.
Leave to appeal has been granted by the Court on the grounds that the appeal “has a real prospect of success on the basis of the submissions in the skeleton argument dated 14 April 2011. The state of the authorities on the key question of whether a minister of religion is not an employee is unclear and requires further consideration by the court following the case of Percy.”
This case may have significance for British churches other than the Methodists.
0 CommentsThe Church Times has a report Lords Spiritual could be reduced to 12 bishops by Ed Beavan.
The previous week, prior to publication of the White Paper, it had published two articles about this:
Create a House of Talents by John F. H. Smith.
There is a better way than direct election to make Parliament’s Second Chamber more representative…
House of Lords reform: we are close to selling the pass by Bishop John Gladwin.
There is much inertia on the issue of the Second Chamber, but the stakes in parliamentary reform are high…
There has been plenty of criticism of the government proposals since the White Paper was published, including some that the bishops are being allowed to remain at all.
This post by Obiter J on Law and Lawyers contains a good summary of the proposals: Plantagenet Palliser – after 100 years, will Lords reform arrive?
The Constitution Unit Blog which comes from the UCL Constitution Unit has listed Eight key obstacles on the road to Lords reform one of which is:
0 Comments4. Bishops. A reduction from 26 to 12 is proposed: possibly a compromise that pleases no one. Many want the bishops to go.