House of Bishops: minutes of October 2025 meeting
on Thursday, 15 January 2026 at 4.29 pm by Simon Sarmiento
categorised as Church of England, General Synod
The minutes of the October 2025 meeting of the Church of England’s House of Bishops have now been published (38 pages!)
There’s a lot in here, and not just on LLF; those whose main interest is LLF need to know that it comes up in several separate chunks so you need to read to the end. Remembering that, as usual, much of the content represents a comment made by just one bishop (the exception here is the long summary of what Casey Strine told the bishops was in the FAOC documents), here are just a few moments which struck me: 4.48.2 “The question in relation to pastoral reassurance was not what the House could stomach, but what those who wanted the… Read more »
“The contextual shift says nothing decisive about divine moral judgments, which are by definition not subject to the vagaries of what is culturally normative.” Really? So if I look at Christianity’s moral position on, say, slavery, the rights of women and the rights of Jews, at a selection of points in time (say, Council of Nicea, Council of Trent, Today) and points in space (say, Canterbury, Rome and Instanbul, with a side order of Berlin) I will find a constant and unchanging position entirely unaffected by the wider society within which Christians of that time and place found themselves? For… Read more »
I don’t understand the ‘by definition’ bit. There seems to be some heavyweight theological assumptions behind that. Seems to assume the Father Christmas view of God, who is an unchanging old man in the skies and tells humans what is good and bad.
Reminds me of the images in the Sistine Chapel. No, that can’t be right, Michelangelo was a devout Catholic, but was maybe fluid in his affections. What are the constant divine moral judgements concerning him?
Laugh or cry? A stumbling block for the Gospel?
Are there ANY constant moral judgements and requirements consequent upon Christian faith? If no – then Christianity has no moral heft at all, as every moral statement, requirement or judgement is mutable and provisional. If yes – then the question becomes what are those constant moral judgements and requirements which God commands, and how do we receive and discern his revelation. Unless God doesn’t exist, or doesn’t choose to tell humans what is right and wrong. In which case as Dostoyevsky perceived, everything is possible, and ‘morality’ is just a matter of who shouts loudest, who threatens most effectively, or… Read more »
Well I’d have thought Christianity has considerable “moral heft” whatever one’s view on the dichotomy you suggest.
In th first place there is “Love the Lord your God … and love your neighbour as yourself”. There is the repeated command on Jesus’s lips and from the prophets before him to feed the hungry, house the homeless, support the weak and defenceless, free the oppressed, and share forgiveness and reconciliation with those who have wronged us.
Of course, this is the heart of the progressive and tolerant Christianity which TA has sought to proclaim for 20 or more years.
“Of course, this is the heart of the progressive and tolerant Christianity which TA has sought to proclaim for 20 or more years.”
I didn’t know TA was about having a proclamation.
I refer you to my earlier comment and (as that comment did) to the very first post on TA: one which is linked to from the top right of the home page “About Thinking Anglican”. More specifically, to the third paragraph. Words I wrote over 20 years ago and which have sat there ever since. Of course, others will have to judge how successful TA has been at that proclamation.
Sorry, I can’t follow all that.
Are you saying that those contributing here are speaking in the context of promoting “progressive and tolerant Christianity”?
I never knew that. I simply assumed, in a most generous spirit, that people were somehow–at times very unclear!–“thinking anglicans” and so without any pre-agreed goals and assumptions.
I didn’t think it was particularly hard to understand, even if it is harder to practise! It is the basis on which the editors of TA set their stall.
Thanks for letting all contributors here know that “Thinking” means a “way of thinking” that you and others set a stall out in that specific context.
Speaking more neutrally, I thought “Thinking” was something like a manner of evaluation.
That said, I have often wondered if “Thinking” actually meant, holding strong and agreed “progressive” positions.
Thanks for clarifying.
Christopher it’s quite a stretch to think that you hadn’t previously understood the particular approach that Thinking Anglicans took to the various issues that have been at the centre of the Anglican Communion over the last 20 years. You were here, many years ago, under your own name and left in something of a huff because you didn’t care for a number of the contributions here that challenged your more conservative stance. You appeared with your current moniker, and were rather surprised to be called out for who you really were – accusing me of confecting a name. You are… Read more »
I genuinely entered this context because ‘thinking’ was its putative tag line. I admired genuine ‘thinkers.’ I’d put Froghole at the top of the list. I would never have thought he was here because of “the approach of the editors” and I am frankly surprised he or I was supposed to know that. That he has left does not surprise me. You have always taken a very personal interest in me, which I didn’t understand as ‘thinking’ but, like a lot of the climate here, more akin to emotive and personalistic. “I left in a huff” somehow stays with you… Read more »
“They are editors. I know what that role is. Editors don’t originate ideas, which is what I thought “thinking” was about.” This is more journalistic in approach as opposed to academic Christopher. Editors set tone and include/exclude content according to that tone. They were clear about the tone from the outset and the content and greater proportion of comments have reflected that. I too miss the very helpful comments of Froghole, but I am sure Froghole wasn’t contributing here all those years ago when you were here under your real name. And Froghole took a rather more liberal approach to… Read more »
Apologia — useful to know your own view. Perhaps there is room for you to be an ‘editor’?
I continue to be amazed at your invariable capacity to misinterpret what others say! Please don’t put words in my mouth. What I have written, I have written (he says, with his tongue somewhat in his cheek).
Dostoyevsky is one of my favourite authors, The Grand Inquisitor a superb sermon, Sonya the prostitute is at the moral core of Crime and Punishment. Notes from the Underground confirmed (when I read it at 13 yrs old) that I was not suited for a corporate career! Surely the issue is to discern what is foundational and what is periphery? I would hope you would welcome Sonya as an equal and moral member of any congregation. I don’t think you have explained the ‘by definition’ bit. Dostoevsky wasn’t very good at ‘by definition’. Which book is funnier, The Idiot or… Read more »
“There were no representatives in the room of those for whom the Codes of Practice were intended – and therefore it was difficult for the House to form a view on their effectiveness”
This shows how profoundly unrepresentative the House of Bishops has become.
Am I being overly cynical when my comment reflects that of Aesop: “The mountain labours and brings forth a mouse” How do these discussions help me and my parish to further the Gospel? Answers on the back of a stamp!!!!
Interesting that the crisis in the number of vocations takes up so little of the bishops time. It’s looking rather dire but apart from wringing their hands the bishops don’t seem to have much of a plan.
I was actually encouraged by the minutes in this section. I have spent the last decade or so baffled by the (‘optimistic’) view of an endless supply of people waiting around to respond to vocation, especially those willing and able to work unpaid as non-stipendiary priests. This seems to have even presented as a solution to the CofE’s problems in a number of forums and media articles. At times, I’ve seen this drive a careless attitude towards those people offering themselves for discernment or in ministry. The assumption is ‘there’s more out there’. They’re easily replaceable. There now seems to… Read more »
‘If you don’t feel valued, supported or belonging …’
May I suggest that one way not to alienate your clergy would be to stop beating them up for being LGBT+. No secular employer would be allowed to get away with it, for it is illegal. (Oh, I nearly forgot, the Church of England exempted itself from those rules.)
It’s surely only a matter of time before the government feels obliged to ‘bring the CofE to heel’, and to curtail its ‘exceptional’ abiity to not abide by the laws that are applied to ‘ordinary’ folk. I expect Marsha de Cordova to find it hard to ‘speak for the CofE’ on this and related ‘issues’.
Isn’t that what Danny Kruger has said a Reform government, if elected, plan to do?
Anne you’re right to highlight that this section of minutes does seem to be a departure from the usual Panglossian narrative we’ve heard before on vocations and the 10,000 house groups for example. I retired at 55 primarily to care for my parents who were living with dementia but I was also exhausted with the snobbery and homophobia I experienced personally from senior clergy. As to the organisational factors in my decision to retire: the hyperbole around the endless rehashed mission initiatives; the equivocation on sexuality; together with the catastrophic safeguarding failures, were all a consideration too. If the bishops… Read more »
PART 1 A comment on a paragraph in the minutes that, so far, has not been remarked on. Para 2.1 records that “The House AGREED by majority to meet as a Committee of the Whole House under Standing Order 14.” – in other words, to meet in private, with no members of the public present. Not only is this decision counter to the greater transparency acknowledged as necessary to restore trust in both the House of Bishops and the C of E generally, but the failure to state the majority and to name those bishops supporting and opposing the motion… Read more »
PART 2 Simple ‘removal’ of SO 14 was not what the report on transparency proposed. Recommendation 3 in paper GS Misc 1387 (June 2024) was: “The House of Bishops should continue to meet without public attendance, and should amend its standing orders to be honest that it is doing so, removing the fiction of public participation in Standing Order 13” with para of the report on page 12 stating: “In the judgment of the group, it would be most transparent to allow the House of Bishops space to consult together in private, without the added pressure of public and press… Read more »