The minutes of the May 2025 meeting of the Church of England’s House of Bishops are now available.
Although they are dated 18 June at the end, the internal file attributes have today’s date (1 Sept 2025).
There was a meeting in July, with an agenda and a press release, but, as yet, no minutes. The next meeting of the House is scheduled for 6-8 October.
Earlier minutes are online here.
22 pages, a bumper edition. Please can someone explain what a ‘gaming ministry platform’ is?
I started reading it, but then realised life is too short. Lots of ‘reflects’ and ‘discernment’, but I couldn’t find any theology or reference to scripture. Some bits which I found, to be frank, outrageous were: That the different generational experiences were interesting and it was possible that whilst younger women experienced disadvantage and were outraged by it, older women had become more accustomed to behaviours; That it was important to learn lessons from safeguarding cases where the administrative performance of parts of the system were not yet excellent; The media would have a field day with the first quote… Read more »
I had to look back at the original to check that you had not excluded some specifics about what “behaviours” we older women were better at putting up with. And found that you had quoted the whole, meaningless-but-nonetheless-provocative, thing. What WERE they thinking – and what was the Secretary thinking, failing to massage their Lordships thinking into something which made a bit of sense?
The point about this comment on women’s experience by age is applicable to much else in the Minutes: it’s merely a record of what one bishop, or perhaps one small discussion group of bishops, said.
I think the Church Times story on SMIBB funding answers my question: “Emmaus Gaming (EG), which explores digital evangelism and discipleship through online gaming, has been awarded £468,637 this year. The funding does not involve the development of an app, but will facilitate live streaming on existing platforms, in-person tournaments, and training for churches in digital discipleship.
SMMIB hopes that the investment will connect with 100,000 people across EG social mediachannels, as well as develop a community of 300 young people on the messaging app Discord. The aim is to reach the online gaming community in evangelism and discipleship”
Reading these minutes, I feel like I understand why Martyn Snow felt like he had to resign from his LLF role after this meeting. The House believed that we can muddle through, Snow thought “It was important to acknowledge the reality and seriousness of the position”. Snow thought that DEM was the most minimal solution that could hold the church together; a lot of bishops felt DEM would undermine their status and wouldn’t seriously consider it. The feedback Snow was bringing from the meetings he had been asked to have with other groups (especially The Alliance) was being totally ignored.… Read more »
I asked for information on projected future clergy numbers at General Synod in July and was told that the figures were out of date and would not be released. I note that the financial viability of the proposed stipend increase is accompanied (8.6.1) by “indeed modelling suggested a drop of c1000 stipendiary clergy in future trienniums”. That is precisely the kind of reason I wanted an idea of what the figures might be. The bishops had them as context, the Synod didn’t. Our Diocesan projections are currently being done on static numbers. And that is quite apart from planning to… Read more »
I think we all know the answer to your question (b): “You’re doing very well, have another five parishes”.
On Same-Sex Liturgies etc, 6.1.6-6.2: “Failure to reach agreement would not be the end of the conversation. Synod members would table Private Member’s Motions; dioceses would pass Diocesan Synod Motions. These would pass or fail by narrow margins with consequences. Cases would be tested and decided in court and new and novel procedures would be developed – with a risk of disobedience and disorder with different dioceses taking different approaches…In this scenario there would be loss of members, of ordinands and of financial resource, with consequent impacts on clergy and lay minister morale. There would be reputational risk and… Read more »
The Minutes reveal a great deal if you can read between the lines: 1. Churches offering “experiential worship” are allegedly more attractive to Gen-Z. It is unclear which churches are offering non-experiential worship (14.5). 2. 13.2.1: “There were differences in the accountability for diocesan and suffragan bishops. The former were largely unaccountable; the latter subject to more rigorous systems such as the appraisals held with staff teams and ministerial development reviews…Chief executives of charities – such as diocesan secretaries – have much clearer accountabilities.” But not diocesan bishops. 3. On the Holy Land, “The House of Bishops [7.5.3] discussed the risk… Read more »
“The House of Bishops [7.5.3] discussed the risk of the debate becoming binary – it was important for the House to hear both sides.” On that basis, >80 years’ ago the Church would have given credence to both sides. It has become notorious for anyone above a mental age of about three that the perpetrator’s ‘impunity’ floats upon a sea of lies, with practically all of its justifications and ‘explanations’ being revealed quickly as baseless. The BBC has adopted the very strategy proposed by the House of Bishops and, as a result, its reputation has fallen into the gutter, traducing… Read more »
I have today been looking at House of Bishops minutes from the 1980s for research purposes (declassified after 30 years) and they reveal much less than these, being bare records of decisions made. Meetings were all then, as now, technically a committee under Standing Order 14. So we can be grateful for the considerable increase in transparency that this new style of minutes represents.
Agreed – previous minutes have been very uninformative, which certainly cannot be said of these. It is a significant improvement in terms of transparency.
I suppose that if a meeting just talks a lot but fails to make much in the way of decisions the minutes need to find something else to say.
Thanks Neil. Completely agree.
The usual mixture of sunny optimism, at times Panglossian, interspersed with depressing facts about the recruitment and retention crisis in the clergy. As others have noted LLF has served to expose the rifts in the House; but also surely the genie is out of the bottle in terms of CofE realpolitik. LGBTQI+ people have found their voice and won’t be silenced, nor will the conservatives positioned at the barricades. I don’t see the milquetoast bishops ever discerning, even through a process of reflection, who is leading and who is being led.