The Church of England has announced today:
Church publishes inspection reports
The Church of England today publishes inspection reports on two of its ministerial training colleges.
The Church has a long track record of ensuring the quality of the initial training of its clergy by regular inspection of its training institutions. Theological colleges and part-time training courses are inspected every five years by teams of inspectors appointed by the bishops of the Church of England. Where training is delivered ecumenically, Church of England inspectors work in partnership with teams from the Methodist Church, the United Reformed Church and the Baptist Union.
In the past the reports have been confidential to bishops and church leaders, but from today inspection reports will appear on the Church of England website. Inspection reports on the institutions of partner churches will appear on their websites. At first there will only be a limited number of reports, because training institutions are only inspected every five years. Over the coming years a full set of reports will appear.
See Quality Assurance in Ministerial Education and The Quality Framework for Ordination Training.
The first two reports are available as PDF files from this page:
Wycliffe Hall has published this press release: Bishops’ Inspection 2008 and there is also this PDF file containing Wycliffe Bishop’s [sic] Response:
Statement by the Bishop of Liverpool (Chair of Council)
Bishop of Chester (Chair-designate of Council)
Bishop of Birmingham17 March 2009: We are grateful to the Inspectors for their work, and for the wide endorsement which they give to Wycliffe Hall and its work. We are pleased that the Inspectors have confidence in Wycliffe, and we note their qualifications. In particular we welcome their recognition that the difficulties of recent years in relation to staff relationships are now largely overcome.
We welcome the recommendations of the Inspectors, and the Council and staff will do their utmost to ensure that they are given very careful consideration, and are acted upon.
We regret that the Inspectors have judged it right to declare that they have no confidence in one area of the Hall’s life, in relation to aspects of Practical and Pastoral Theology. We doubt that the evidence which the Inspectors adduce merits such a stark assessment, but we will ensure that the recommendations which are made in relation to this area are given speedy and particular attention. We share the confidence that the Inspectors have that Wycliffe Hall is fit for purpose, and look forward to maintaining its high academic standards and formation of both men and women for ordained ministry in the Church of England.
+ James Liverpool
+ Peter Cestr
+ David Birmingham
Several downloads are available here, which contain submissions made to the inspectors.
St Stephen’s House has also published a press release: Response to the Publication of the Inspection Report 2008
19 CommentsThe Diocese of Manchester reports: Bishop silenced by email failure:
1 million spams and a virus bring down Bishop of Manchester & Church of England email systems.
The central offices of the Diocese of Manchester were without email from 3-13 March (10 days) following a virus infecting its servers and an unprecedented amount of spam. The problems have also affected the Bishops of Manchester and other senior clergy in the diocese.
While some emails have now been restored, others are still not getting through, particularly to satellite offices.
Two weeks ago, following continuing concerns over missing e-mails and an unacceptably high occurrence of breaks in service, the diocese changed its IT provider.
The new IT technicians discovered a virus and tried to remove it. While doing so they found that it had severely corrupted systems. This has meant that, since 3 March, e-mails sent to the Diocese of Manchester central offices, its Archdeacons, and the Bishops of Bolton and Middleton have not been received, nor have they been able to send e-mails. E-mails sent via the Diocese of Manchester website have not been delivered either.
In addition, an audit of the 6000 pieces of communications sent by the Bishop of Manchester over the past ten months revealed that a significant amount of electronic mail, though sent by the Bishop, may have been deleted during sending or has simply not been delivered by the system. In addition, many emails sent to the Bishop may not have been received.
A spokesman for the Bishop said, “Given the nature and scale of the problem it is likely that the Bishop will never fully know which e-mails failed to arrive nor the number of emails that were sent by others to him but were never received by his office. If people have written or emailed the Bishop of Manchester during the past ten months and not received a reply, it is likely that a system failure is to blame.”
“The new IT providers have been given the brief of establishing, as an urgent priority, a cast iron IT system for Bishops, Archdeacons and our central administration. If an e-mail is sent to us and a reply or acknowledgement has not been received within three days, then individuals should follow-up the message with a phone call. As a policy, where possible, people should always request a receipt when sending e-mail to us.”
As the Manchester Evening News reports:
11 CommentsThe problem is particularly embarrassing because Mr McCulloch serves as the CoE’s communications spokesman.
Updated Tuesday evening
The Bishop of Winchester, Michael Scott-Joynt, has expressed his opinions on this subject in a lecture, given recently at St Paul’s School of Theology in St Helier, Jersey.
(The Channel Islands are annexed to the Diocese of Winchester.)
You can read the full text of his lecture on the diocesan website, at Bishop Michael on the Future of the Church of England.
Here’s a teaser:
…I am now going to examine some of the specific questions, challenges, realities in the life of the Church of England today which, I think, may be causing people to ask the question that is the title of this Lecture – or at least to think that such a title is worth offering to me, and I to think it worth accepting! I could have arranged them in more than one order; the order that I have chosen is only sometimes that of the importance that I see them having, the level of threat that I see them posing!
Disestablishment
Secularisation of politics and public life
Women and the Episcopate
Same-sex sexual behaviour,
Decline from orthodox teaching
Division of the Anglican Communion
Islam
Ecumenical developments
Financial Pressures
Absorption in, distraction by, these!
Tuesday update
Andrew Brown has commented on this lecture at Cif Belief in Secularism threatens British Christianity, says bishop.
24 Comments… I remember debating this last question with him from one of the twin pulpits of St Mary le Bow, and how impressed I was by his utter imperviousness to arguments from educated secular opinion.
Now he has published a talk he gave recently on the threats to the continuation of the Church of England, and it’s clear that he thinks that educated secular opinion is one of the main hostile forces facing his church…
Bishop Alan Wilson has written two blog posts about this.
First, Ecclesiology: What is Church, then?
Saturday I drew the short straw — helping enable a discussion at Diocesan Synod on the ecclesiological dimensions of ordaining female bishops. What then is “Church?” I tried to frame the discussion in four dimensions of being Church.
Every licensing we proclaim “The Church of England is part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” What does this really mean?
Second, this supplement, Ecclesiology: fifth element?
5. Church as Pilgrimage
A lot of ecclesiology is based on how the ship is running, but the real question is where the ship is going! Christians do not see history as a giant circular recycling exercise, but a journey which begins in a garden and ends in a city.
All worth reading carefully.
3 CommentsFor background to this, see TA articles from last September, here, here and here.
Last week, just prior to a conference of the Liberal Democrats, the Guardian published a letter, defending faith schools and in particular their selection policies, which had again been criticised earlier in the week in a new research report from Research and Information on State Education. (Full report as a PDF here.)
Banning selection of pupils by faith in religious schools would be “perverse and unjust”, a group of religious organisations which run faith state schools in Britain argue today.
In an exclusive letter published in the Guardian today, a cross-denominational group of religious leaders, led by the Church of England Board of Education, defends selection of some students and staff on the basis of commitment to their faith.
The letter comes ahead of a policy debate on 5-19 education in England at the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference tomorrow, which calls for a ban on selection by faith in religious schools, and follows a critical report by academics at the London School of Economics…
That critical report was attacked by the same leaders, see for example Religious Intelligence Church hits back at school admission policy claims by Matt Cresswell.
Janina Ainsworth, Chief Education Officer for the Church of England, said that a damning report commissioned by the Research and Information on State Education trust (RISE) was based on “out-of-date information that takes no account of the recent changes to the Admissions Code”…
…Commenting on the report Ms Ainsworth said that those with an agenda against popular church schools were using the research as “an opportunity to try and wrestle power from local people and further centralise admissions decisions.”
She continued: “The findings of this report do not support the recommendations made: nowhere does it present evidence that schools are breaking their own admissions policies to select certain types of students.
“It is unclear on what basis this report can obliquely claim that those local people who give their time freely as school governors are in some way acting unfairly.”
She added: “Church attendance is the only measure our schools use when allocating places on the basis of faith, and you can’t get a much simpler way of assessing whether someone has a faith commitment or not.”
As it turned out, the Lib Dem conference didn’t approve the original motion calling for a ban on selection, but did approve the following:
ii) Requiring all existing state-funded faith schools to come forward within five years with plans to demonstrate the inclusiveness of their intakes, with local authorities empowered to oversee and approve the delivery of these plans, and to withdraw state-funded status where inclusiveness cannot be demonstrated.
They also voted for:
iii) Ending the opt-out from employment and equalities legislation for staff in faith schools, except those responsible for religious instruction.
An attempt to extend iii) to also exempt ‘the senior management team’ was defeated.
The BBC therefore reported this as Lib Dems back state faith schools.
On the other hand Ekklesia which is a founder member of Accord reported it differently:
Liberal Democrats vote to demand fairness from faith schools
Lib Dem policy on faith schools is inclusion ‘breakthrough’
People of faith speak out for inclusive schools policy
Why church schools can be less than Christian by Jeremy Chadd
The Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a lecture last Saturday in Cardiff.
Here’s the LamPal press release.
Here’s the full text.
Now here’s the press coverage:
BBC Church calls for ‘just’ recovery
The Times Ruth Gledhill Archbishop Dr Rowan William[s] blames government for economic crisis and her blog entry, Don’t blame greedy bankers – blame your own pride, Rowan tells Government. And republished the full text on the web here.
Guardian Sam Jones Don’t blame the bankers – deregulation and spending caused it too, says Williams and sidebar, In the archbishop’s words. Also an edited extract of the lecture, Rowan Williams Deeper than simple greed and also the full text on the web. Analysis by Andrew Brown at Cif Belief Deconstructing Rowan.
Telegraph no coverage so far that I could find.
Ekklesia Archbishop sets out fresh agenda for economic justice
21 CommentsThe BBC has a report by Trevor Timpson titled Women ‘to change CofE for ever’ which reports on two groups in favour of women bishops, Fulcrum and Affirming Catholicism.
…What is reported less often, is that many Anglicans in both traditions support the appointment of female bishops.
Some of these believe the proposal is completely in line with their Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic beliefs, and that the ministry of women priests has already brought great blessings on the Church…
Meanwhile, Forward in Faith has published several articles in New Directions following on from the February debate in General Synod, see Bishop of London, Bishop of Chichester Jonathan Baker, and Geoffrey Kirk. and the resolution passed at the FiF Special Assembly on 14 February is here.
23 CommentsA Church of England press release today is titled Update published on Clergy Pensions Scheme.
The Church of England has today published a paper on the impact of the credit crunch and recession on the financial position of the Funded Clergy Pension Scheme and what this might mean for the future of the scheme…
There is also a paper from the Task Group:
The Task Group comprises the Chairman of the Pensions Board (Dr Jonathan Spencer), the First Church Estates Commissioner (Andreas Whittam Smith) and the Chairman of the Archbishops’ Council’s Finance Committee (Andrew Britton) assisted by the Chief Officers of the three organisations and the Chief of Staff at Lambeth Palace. Their initial paper is available via the Church of England website here. (.doc file)
And it is also available as a more accessible web page at Scene-Setting Paper from Archbishops’ Task Group.
17 CommentsLast year, I made an analysis of the July vote which I titled Bishops give a clear lead, in which I said:
Episcopal opposition turned out to be almost entirely limited to a core group of only twelve bishops. These included five who later signed the 15 August letter (see below) and who also have votes in Synod, i.e. the Bishops of Blackburn, Chichester, Europe, Burnley and Beverley. There were also seven others: the Bishops of Birmingham, Exeter, London, Rochester, Winchester, Dover and, significantly, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
At the end of the debate, the Archbishop abstained, and the other eleven all voted against the substantive motion. The only other bishop who voted “No” was the Bishop of Durham, whose earlier motion to adjourn the debate had support from only 46% of the synod. He had consistently opposed every amendment throughout the debate.
So, how did these thirteen bishops vote in February 2009, and who else voted AGAINST this legislation?
An examination of the February voting record shows as follows:
Thus altogether only seven bishops of the “July thirteen” voted against the draft measure, and only five voted against the draft canon.
However, there were other bishops who cast negative votes: Chester, Norwich and Wakefield voted against the draft measure, and Salisbury and Wakefield voted against the draft canon while Chester abstained in relation to the canon (Norwich voted for it).
In summary, the bishops gave a even clearer lead than in July.
6 CommentsMichael Brown wrote at Religious Intelligence about the FiF meeting following the February synod sessions, Anglo-Catholics warned of split threat in UK.
There is considerable audio material of that meeting available here.
Anglican Mainstream carries an article by Roland Mourant What Future Strategy should Forward in Faith UK adopt?
Earlier, the Church Times had an article by Paul Vallely headed Squaring up to the traditionalists (This was only partly about the CofE.) It provoked letters to the editor the following week.
25 CommentsWe published links to some of the Church Times detailed reports on this month’s General Synod last week. The remainder are now generally available.
UNIQUENESS OF CHRIST: Bishops asked for help in pressing Christian claims
DRAINAGE BILLS: Water charges are taxation, Synod told
YOUTH LITURGY: Request for teenage eucharistic prayers rejected
ANGLICAN COVENANT: Wide-ranging opinions on the St Andrew’s Draft
ASYLUM: Let asylum-seekers work, urges Synod
INTERFAITH WITNESS: Update given on bridge-building effort
RETREAT HOUSES: Fears for diocesan quiet places
CHURCH FEES: ‘Brown envelopes’ debated
FINANCIAL CRISIS: Members have an economics seminar
CHURCH’S VOICE: Faith is ‘not a private matter’
HUMAN TRAFFICKING: ‘The white van that slows down in my parish in the middle of the day . . .’
CRISIS RESPONSE: ‘We have been stealing from the next generation’
2 CommentsThe archbishops of Canterbury and York have issued a joint appeal, as mentioned here yesterday, to help counter the humanitarian crisis and deteriorating political situation in Zimbabwe.
They have jointly authored an article in today’s Times newspaper, Mugabe has ruined Africa’s beacon of hope. See also Archbishops of Canterbury and York condemn regime in Zimbabwe and Ash Wednesday: Say a Prayer for Zim.
The Archbishop of York has also invited people to come to join him today in a city centre Church in York praying for the people of Zimbabwe.
And see BBC ‘Pray and fast’ plea for Zimbabwe which includes a video interview with both archbishops.
8 CommentsThe Church of England has launched several initiatives as Lent approaches.
See the Love Life Live Lent website, and the CofE press release Church gives out ‘tweets’ for Lent. The Twitter feed is at http://twitter.com/c_of_e and for Facebook users, there is this.
Also see the Shrinking the Footprint website, and the CofE press release Cut the carbon this Lent, says Church of England.
And don’t forget the communion-wide campaign for Zimbabwe, see Anglican Communion joins Prayers for Zimbabwe on Ash Wednesday. Posters and fliers can be downloaded from USPG announces Archbishops’ Appeal for Zimbabwe. To donate online, go here.
16 CommentsThe Church Times publishes detailed reports on Synod debates. They are normally only available to subscribers for the first week. So far the ones below are generally available; there will be more next Friday.
WOMEN BISHOPS: Go extra mile, bishop pleads as Synod wrestles with women bishops
DR WILLIAMS’ ADDRESS: ‘Those who disagree won’t go away’
CONSTITUTION: New way of being Church House
BNP MEMBERSHIP: BNP support ‘incompatible’ with ordained ministry
CHURCH AS COMMUNION: Cardinal: ‘Division impoverishes us all’
8 CommentsFor votes on women bishops, see previous item. Other votes in February are available as PDF files as follows:
Electronic voting results for Item 30 (Amendment to Item 11)
Electronic voting results for Item 11 (Membership of Organisations and Race Equality)
Electronic voting results for Item 14 (Church Water Bills)
Electronic voting results for Item 15 (Uniqueness of Christ) as amended by Item 45
Electronic voting results for Item 49 (Amendment to Item 18 (Human Trafficking))
Electronic voting results for Item 23 (Justice and Asylum Seekers) as amended by Items 54-57
Electronic voting results for Item 24 (Climate Change and the Church’s Property Transactions)
1 CommentThe detailed results of the voting on the women bishops legislation at General Synod last week are now available.
Electronic voting results for Item 507
‘That the Measure entitled “Bishops and Priests (Consecration and Ordination of Women) Measure” be considered for revision in committee.’
Electronic voting results for Item 508
‘That the Canon entitled “Amending Canon No 30” be considered for revision in committee.’
From these simple alphabetical lists I have worked out the voting figures in each house below. It will be seen that each house voted by more than a two-thirds majority in favour each motion. Of course, voting to send the legislation for revision is not the same as voting in favour of its content.
| item 507 (measure) |
item 508 (canon) |
|||||
| for | against | abst | for | against | abst | |
| bishops | 35 | 10 | 0 | 36 | 7 | 1 |
| clergy | 125 | 48 | 6 | 142 | 27 | 7 |
| laity | 121 | 56 | 7 | 131 | 45 | 6 |
| total | 281 | 114 | 13 | 309 | 79 | 14 |
I have also compiled tables of how each member of Synod voted (or abstained or was absent). These tables are available as a web page.
8 CommentsUpdated Friday morning
Provisional attendance figures for 2007 were released today.
The press release starts:
Figures from the Church of England released today show further evidence that, while some trends in churchgoing continue to change, the overall number of people regularly attending church has altered little since the turn of the millennium. The 2007 figures confirm that attending a Church of England church (including cathedrals) is part of a typical week for some 1.2 million people.
The full figures are available as a pdf file.
Some early press reports
Martin Beckford in the Telegraph Christmas church attendance falls by 11% in a year
Jenna Lyle in Christian Today New Church figures show attendance ‘stable’
Update
Bill Bowder in the Church Times More go to church when Christmas falls at weekend
7 CommentsThe BBC Parliament Channel will show recordings of last week’s General Synod sessions on Friday 20 February. A schedule is available here.
BBC Parliament is shown on UK digital terrestrial television (Freeview) channel 81, on digital cable and on satellite at channel 504, as well as on the broadband media player. More information here.
0 CommentsUpdated Tuesday
The Church Times has two articles available without subscription. (There will be many more in the next two weeks as detailed reports become available to non-subscribers.)
Approval of women bishops clears its latest hurdle
Also, the Church Times blogger Dave Walker has some “behind the scenes” pictures.
Justin Brett now blogging as The Dodgy Liberal has written here about the debate on the Uniqueness of Christ last Wednesday.
Martin Beckford wrote at the Telegraph Synod: The temple of money and the altar of multi-faith dialogue.
George Pitcher at the Telegraph wrote Whittam Smith predicts Armageddon.
Tuesday updates
Justin Brett wrote a further article, see Synodical Ruminations Part 1 (Covenant) and see also the MCU document produced for this debate, at Briefing Paper for General Synod Members February 2009 (PDF).
And also another one on Synodical Ruminations Part 2 (BNP Etc.)
1 CommentIn my Saturday roundup of opinion pieces I included the article that Archbishop Sentamu wrote in the Daily Mail. One of the cases that he referred to there was the case of Jenny Cain and her daughter. The Telegraph reported this under the headline Primary school receptionist ‘facing sack’ after daughter talks about Jesus to classmate.
This case has given rise to criticism of the school, for example, according to the Telegraph:
John Sentamu said it was an “affront to the sensibility” of Christians everywhere that Jennie Cain is being investigated for alleged professional misconduct after she sent a private email to 10 friends asking for prayer.
And there was also Christian school receptionist row: More bishops speak out in support of Jennie Cain.
George Pitcher followed up with an opinion piece headed Christians need protection in law.
Other reports of the incident give a rather different picture. See for example:
Exeter Express & Echo Girl, 5, told off at school for talking of God followed the next day by Parents back head’s stance in storm over ‘go to hell’ comment
BBC School row over pupil’s God talk
Ekklesia School defends stance on girl who told classmate she would “go to hell”
Simon Barrow has written this comment article at Ekklesia Scaring the hell out of kids?
29 Comments… Perhaps those Christians who object to the school wanting to maintain a non-threatening environment should ask themselves how they would feel if a son of theirs ended up crying after being told by an atheist pupil that religious people are nuts and should be locked up? Or if their daughter was upset by a Muslim telling her she would suffer eternally for not believing in Allah and his Messenger?
In both these cases, there would be an outcry if the school did nothing, or if it said that that their kids would have to put up with being frightened, because trying to stop this would amount to “not showing respect for beliefs”…