Martine Oborne’s article reminds us that the High Anglo-Catholic (The Society) anti-female position extends far beyond the simple issue of Female Priests & Bishops. The fact that Male priests who were ordained by a female bishop are unacceptable is perhaps understandable. However, that Male Bishops who ordain women are thus rendered unacceptable is far less so, as is unacceptability of male bishops whose consecration included a female bishop (regardless of how many male pure blood male bishops also present). As for male priests, unacceptability illogically extends to those of otherwise impeccable lineage (St Stephen’s House) who state that they accept… Read more »
A priest, a member of Forward in Faith, once told me he’d been ostracised by colleagues in the diocese simply for being seen talking to a woman priest at the diocesan clergy conference.
Kate Keates
11 days ago
As TA regulars know, I am a supporter of WATCH and Martine Oborne in particular. She is right about the risk to women, but the point needs to be drawn more widely, more fundamentally: any group which is institutionally treated as less, as second class in some way (or some contexts) is at risk. That should be self-evident. If a group who share a particular characteristic is held to be unsuited for particular roles because of that characteristic they are marked as being inferior., less important. If the Church of England is to be truly serious about safeguarding it isn’t… Read more »
Well said, Kate. The Church of England routinely discriminates in all kinds of ways, both consciously and through outdated systems and processes that still bear hallmarks of favouring white, able bodied, heterosexual, middle class, married, men.
Bryan Y
11 days ago
Well done Gavin Drake. How can this be given more of the oxygen of publicity? Can someone ask Ali Maqbool or Harry Farley or Cathy Newman to pick this up??
Lorenzo Fernandez-Smal
10 days ago
Dr Elly Hanson, the psychologist reporting in Makin, may very well have flagged up the absence of women in leadership roles in the Iwerne camps and said that ‘potentially valuable perspectives from women were absent,’ but this pales into insignificance if you compare it to the fact that all these kids had mothers (and fathers) who did next to nothing. If my child were to come home from a so-called Christian camp with a bleeding bottom, I would not bemoan the lack of valuable perspectives from women in leadership; I’d speak out. It’s the wretched theological convictions underlying the abuse… Read more »
I’m told, on very good authority, that only one of the beatings took place at a Iwerne camp. Most of them occurred in Smyth’s garden shed, often during term time at Winchester College. Other victims were university students, often away from home. Many of the parents will have known nothing about them, as their sons were usually old enough not to be supervised in the bath.
Indeed. And we should recognise just how painful it can be for children to admit to abuse. Some times it comes out only years later; at other times, not at all.
The victims didn’t even talk to each other, let alone to their parents. Anyone who went to that kind of school will know in their bones that you did not tell your parents anything in detail about the miseries you endured. Some of the parents were worried about the psychological hold that Smyth established over their children, and did try to act on it. One boy still at Winchester was asked to become godfather to one of Smyth’s daughters, and had to be stopped from doing so by his parents. And in some ways the psychological or spiritual abuse was… Read more »
I said the same thing in an earlier thread, Lorenzo. Just about everybody who knew those boys were complicit in the cover up – didn’t one parent have chance to report it to the police, and refused? Unfortunately it was at a time when physical abuse was widely accepted within state education as well as private – the past is a different country, they did things differently there.
Same with Martine’s piece – so long as we deliberately institutionalise inequality, we support abuse.
My understanding of those times is that parents often decided to keep things secret to protect the child (or indeed young adult) from the harm that might happen if the abuse was to become more widely known. The fear was that the public scandal would be attached to the young men for ever, and risk ruining their lives. I don’t think the parents were driven by their own Christian theology. Having seen how those on the receiving end of abuse in more recent decades have been treated by the church having done at the right thing and tried to make… Read more »
How could ‘others’ have brought Smyth to justice without involving the juvenile victims? I think your point has very considerable force. Agreed that their anonymity would have been guaranteed in a criminal prosecution, but the process would have been bound to reawaken the trauma.
Very interesting and important. I went on a Scripture Camp in North Wales when I was about 15/16. I’m sure there were no beatings (although the leader was a Housemaster at my school and was known as a ‘beater’). But the whole ethos of the camp was entirely foreign to me and there were some strange characters around. In particular the ordinand in charge of our tent). It clearly had some kind oppressive effect on me and I recall my mother sitting me down a couple of weeks after my return to ask me what the problem was. I’d been… Read more »
That’s the substance of my point. Of course it is painful for children to admit to abuse, but surely the parents must have sensed they had been traumatised. If not, why not?
Many of the children were already damaged and traumatised before Smyth got to them. Trauma inflicted by the parents. There is extensive and quite well accepted scholarship about “boarding school syndrome”, a set of coping mechanisms adopted by young children sent away to boarding school by their parents from age seven. If you look at the literature around that you can see why the child might not have wanted to show “weakness”, or the parents might not have picked up the clues, or the parents might not have wanted to accept the clues and be in a state of denial… Read more »
Is it, Simon? I went to boarding school, and in many respects mine was unpleasant, but this abuse is in a league of its own. I’m not exonerating the parents, even after so long.
For me this is one of the unanswered questions about Smyth. Why didn’t the victims families do anything? And for those who were still at school, the wounds should have been visible to school nurses/PE teachers.
If something like this happened to me I am sure my family would frogmarch me to the nearest police station and/or confront the perpetrator directly.
Sadly we’re looking at this with 2024 eyes, not those of the 1950s and 60s. I suffered perpetual bullying at both primary and secondary schools – indeed in both cases it was institutionalised, by the biggest bullies being appointed prefects. At the secondary (a rather third rate grammar school in a rural market town) the prefects had more right to inflict corporal punishment than the teachers did. Bullying was the norm – read any boys papers of the time and see how violent the stories often were. My father confronted the perpetrators, was openly sneered at, and of course, I… Read more »
It’s easy to project today’s culture back 30 or 40 years and assume that’s how things were then. In practice, a generation ago the word of a child carried little weight if the allegation was against someone with social standing. It wasn’t just children, either. I started work in the eighties for a large City institution. The woman who recruited me left shortly after I started. She was assaulted by her male boss, complained but was quickly made redundant. The boss carried on, his career seemingly unaffected. I like to think times have changed but I don’t personally have the… Read more »
Martine Oborne’s blog for WATCH and Gavin Drake’s open letter to the Church Commissioners who are State Office Holders both provide powerful arguments for dramatic, radical change in the governance of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury can be held to account for his failure to ensure that each failing identified by Martine and Gavin should have been actively and competently addressed. The entire House of Bishops and the the Archbishops’ Council are equally responsible. The need to take action has been identified repeatedly by people whose articles and blogs and actions have been reported on Thinking Anglicans.… Read more »
Is Gavin Drake in touch with the Channel 4 team who have been reporting recently on Smyth (e.g. https://youtu.be/9_Jn1of6GHI) and Matthew Ineson (https://youtu.be/ujq5ARaQiKs)? Surely they would be interested to take these matters further. This oxygen of publicity seems to have been instrumental in raising awareness and pressure for the right thing to be done.
Isn’t a major complication that we think of the Church of England as a single entity, which it most certainly is not? Any reform needs urgently to address the fact that a lot of the problems for the CoE have arisen because so many different independent or semi-independent “Anglican” organisations have been involved in fostering and then covering up abusive behaviour. These organisations can easily close or re-form so there is really no one to go after except the CoE. There are enough powerful insiders in the CoE to ensure any investigation is either a vague ‘lessons learned’ report, or… Read more »
I am reminded of the Johnny Cash song: … Oh my God … You can run on for a long time Run on for a long time Run on for a long time Sooner or later God’ll cut you down Sooner or later God’ll cut you down … Go tell that long tongue liar Go and tell that midnight rider Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down … Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news My head’s been wet with… Read more »
I have always thought talking to non church friends that they think the C of E is like Marks and Spencer. I wealthy organisation with a CEO ( Abp) branch managers ( bishops).and outlets offering more or less the same product..
So far as I am aware “Church of England” is not a trademark. It should be. Sorting out the structure would take years but attempting to take control of use of the name would be a good first step.
That sounds like a practicable idea as a starting point. – a Private members motion for general Synod perhaps? You could then have e.g. delegate to each bishop (who in turn could delegate to archdeacons?) the ability to approve the use of the trademark within geographical contexts (make sure you have someone to apply to for something that is not-so-obvious on its geographic context ); For parish churches it becomes a rubber-stamp exercise, for anything else it becomes the way for someone to ask “are we happy to attach our name to it? What safeguarding or etc policies do they… Read more »
My understanding is that He has made the term freely available but with a condition relating to ‘taking in vain’. I suspect that something like the conditions for ‘creative commons’ is also in place: give due credit and don’t stop use by others.
Well, the Church of England has now clearly forfeited its right to be the Church by law established, but will the State Office Holders really want to invest time in addressing that? They should certainly step in and legislate for proper independence in safeguarding (for the sake of victims and survivors, and to ensure proper episcopal accountability), but again they are witnessing a fast failing organisation digging its own grave. There might be some merit in a new Chadwick Commission (the last Commission on Church and State was chaired by Revd Professor Owen Chadwick in 1970), but who has the… Read more »
In the last few days the British Academy has released this biographical memoir of Chadwick by his RC Selwyn colleague John Morrill (the memoir was actually completed a year ago but not published until last week): https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/5575/Memoirs-21-28-Chadwick-W-Owen.pdf. It includes (at 681-85) interesting remarks on the work of the Chadwick Commission in the period 1965-70, as well as of his wider attitude (and that of Henry) to the episcopate (note their views on Runcie at 668). It is evident that successive appointments secretaries in Downing Street placed significant reliance on his advice over several decades. There is also a comparable memoir… Read more »
I think the situation on what to do about church-faculty-permissions would likely cause a lot of confusion and/or legal “fun” that you seem to be simplifying. Also the current setup of multiple charities linked by ecclesiastical law – well if that law was no longer law do we need to create new legal ties? Or new federation organisations – or etc… .. I think there will be something to sort out. But that is a detail – – To play (is it God’s or Devil’s?) church advocate for a moment. Whilst you could argue from a “impartial observer this may… Read more »
Thank you. One of the reasons why I have heavily reduced my contributions on this site is that I had become thoroughly bored by repeating myself. However, to repeat myself… the Church now has the support of less than 1% of the coming generation, and even that might be a very generous estimate. I have now attended services at a little over 7,000 churches in every part of the country (my ‘anecdote’ might now be ‘evidence’), and it is apparent that the Church is in terminal run-off practically everywhere; far fewer than 1% of the churches where I have attended… Read more »
You are not boring. The problem is not facing reality. “the Church now has the support of less than 1% of the coming generation, and even that might be a very generous estimate.” When the general English population of 99% hears “Church of England” it must then say, “as once it was,” or “good idea until it isn’t” or “isn’t that quaint,” or “Christianity is locked into a dying institution, can I hold the channel changer, please?” At some point credulity vanishes. Then throw in all the facts on the property ground as you have done and one wonders why… Read more »
Many thanks, as ever. I think you put your finger on it when you ask what is establishment *for* exactly. It was created in order to give the state complete control over the formation of public opinion, with the state reducing the Church to little more than a government department, virtually sidelining the manor (which had been the chief organ of local government in the Middle Ages) and transforming the parish into the major unit of local administration, which it remained until 1894. What has happened since the second quarter of the 19th century has been a form of disestablishment… Read more »
Thank you for that steer, Froghole. I knew both of the Chadwicks towards the end of their careers and respected them greatly, so will be very interested to read the memoirs.
Until recently, the only PBA memoirs available were those from the mid-1960s until the turn of the century, and those from the 2010s. During the pandemic I wrote to the secretary of the British Academy asking if all past memoirs could be published. To my intense pleasure (given that it is now a chore since moving house getting to the London Library or British Library) the British Academy has now made all memoirs available here: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/5569/FBA_Biographical_Memoirs-master-27November2024.pdf (there are some significant omissions). You will see Henry Chadwick’s included (by Rowan Williams), as well as those of other distinguished ecclesiastical historians and… Read more »
Thanks for posting the link. This will distract me from work for hours! I was taught by R P C Hanson and knew F F Bruce who are included here. From the former we have much to learn in the Church of England today, but that’s another story!
R.P.C. Hanson had been Bishop of Clogher before returning to academic life at the University of Manchester. He undertook some episcopal duties in Manchester. In an article he wrote about the ‘winter of discontent’ in 1979 he casually mentioned that he used a motorbike for transport. It is reported in a local newspaper for the East Lancashire district of Rossendale that Bishop Hanson did a confirmation there in February 1982. It would have been a perilous journey from Manchester to Rossendale (about 20 miles) on a motorbike at that time of year. How did he convey his episcopal outfit? Maybe… Read more »
I don’t disagree, but the vested interests will push back at myriad points. No bishop has enjoyed the Lords as much as ++Welby. I am in favour but used to take the view that disestablishment was something that only Parliament should initiate. From memory ++Williams said he wouldn’t die in a ditch over it (or words to that effect). ++Welby got in a tangle over it at a private meeting with MPs, saying he would rather see disestablishment than the Anglican Communion breaking up over same-sex marriage. He later denied this. Before any one-clause Bill, I would want to see… Read more »
Many thanks. No bill would be one clause (given that disestablishment would need to resolve various property issues): however the key to the change of status need only be one or clauses. See Sections 1 and 3 (1) of the Welsh Church Act 1914 here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/4-5/91/enacted Indeed, the financial and political settlements associated with the Irish and Welsh Church Acts were rendered slightly more complex, especially in the case of the Welsh statute, by the need to extract the Irish/Welsh churches from their union with the Church of England. If the Church of England were to be disestablished (and disendowed,… Read more »
I should add that the primary reason for Cockburn CJQB refusing to entertain discussion of the oath in the Selwyn case is that the court did not wish to question the status of a statute to which assent had been given by both chambers and by the sovereign. In 1914 royal assent might have been denied by George V, not to the Welsh Church Bill, but to the contemporaneous Government of Ireland bill (the king evidently valued his coronation commitments to the Union more than to the Church). He was urged in this course by Arthur Balfour but he was… Read more »
It would be much more complicated than that. England politically is a very different country than Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. How much of that is because the Church of England props up ideas like the monarchy? So while legislatively you might be correct, there would be huge concern in Westminster that a liberated Church of England could become socialist and advocate for a republic. Establishment favours the Church but there is a quid pro quo in terms of a unspoken constraint on Church teaching that many politicians would be reluctant to lose.
“…there would be huge concern in Westminster that a liberated Church of England could become socialist and advocate for a republic.” Thank you, but I must respectfully disagree. It is only deemed to be ‘complicated’ because certain people keep saying it is so, over and over again, which reminds me of Lewis Carroll: “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.” I very much doubt that there would be ‘huge concern’ in… Read more »
I’m genuinely curious. Is the idea that Westminster wants there to be a Church of England because absent that, the Monarchy would forfeit its credibility? Or, because it likes to limit what it teaches, even if not attending or not even liking Christianity? Obviously there was a Monarch before the events of the sixteenth century. Is the idea of an Established Church attractive for reasons that really don’t have anything to do with Christianity, except in some acceptably anodyne form? If 98% of the population of England doesn’t have any interest in attending the Church of England, are they indifferent… Read more »
“Obviously there was a Monarch before the events of the sixteenth century.” And equally there was a Church of England before the events of the sixteenth century. Indeed there was a Church of England before there was a King of England. Henry VIII or Elizabeth I did not create “establishment”, they merely continud the existing practice, without the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. In one sense “establishment” only becomes something unique to the Church of England when a plurality of denominations is allowed. So 1689. In another sense establishment comes with the acceptance of Augustine’s mission by the Anglo-Saxon… Read more »
Thanks for the obvious! The comment to which I referred had to do with the CofE having a monarch to warrant it. As some sort of ‘esse.’ No, there was a catholic church in England from Gregory the Great’s sending Augustine to Canterbury, in 597, and a generation preceding that with St Colomba, et grace a romance, ‘and did these feet.’ Without a latterly appearing Ecclesia Anglicana in the 1530s, then under the governance of a polity ‘brand new’ in the British Isles, confected by Cranmer, there was a ecclesia under the authority of the Pope. Could there be a… Read more »
Can you expand on why you think disestablishment would take so much time?
I think you are right there is little appetite for a royal commission unless it was part of a wider constitutional review covering e.g. a written constitution, the rile of the House of Lords, devolution, etc.
Disestablishment of the Church in Wales (once four dioceses in the province of Canterbury) wasn’t difficult and didn’t take much time as far as I am aware.
It took three attempts: 1894, 1909 and 1912-14. Asquith’s bill of 1894 was more radical than the final solution, and failed with the Rosebery ministry (it would have been subject to the Lords veto anyway). Asquith presented the 1909 bill (the then home secretary, Herbert Gladstone, who would otherwise have presented it, being sympathetic to establishment), and it again floundered on the Lords veto, despite the Liberals’ massive Commons majority. McKenna’s bill succeeded, despite the Liberals being a minority since the two 1910 elections, because of Irish and Labour support, and because the Lords had been neutered in 1911. Even… Read more »
I ought to know the history better than I do having been ordained in that church. When did Monmouthshire, which was half of the Diocese of Llandaff, get transferred from England to Wales?
Thank you. Wales, of course, had no separate identity from England between the Laws in Wales Act 1535 and the Welsh Church Act 1914, which was the first occasion since the reign of Henry VIII when Wales was given a separate legal identity. Monmouthshire was formally severed from England under Schedule 4 of the Local Government Act 1972 (Peter Walker’s Act, implementing many of the recommendations of the 1970 Redcliffe-Maud report on local government). Indeed, Wales is still subsumed within England for judicial purposes, as a mere circuit. There were a number of border parishes which straddled England and Wales,… Read more »
Haven’t you got Dixton and Monmouth the wrong way round? And are you saying that the Archdeaconry of Monmouth, after which the new Church in Wales Diocese was named (rather than from its Cathedral in Newport) was once in the Diocese of Hereford? Also as a tangent referring back to a discussion of the use of abbreviated forms of Latin names of sees in bishops’signatures, I guess that Bishop Lee of Manchester set the trend of sticking to the English name of the see in 1948 rather than signing as James Mancunien or even James Mamucien. However the new trend… Read more »
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, though I do need to correct myself in one respect. Monmouth (with its dependent perpetual curacy of Overmonnow) and Dixton Newton were indeed anciently in the diocese of Hereford. However, the transfer of both parishes into Llandaff diocese actually occurred in 1836 (cap. 77, 6th & 7th William IV) – so that the whole of Monmouthshire became contiguous with Llandaff. Dixton (but not Monmouth) was one of the 19 parishes (and 23 churches) which were subject to the Section 9 border plebiscites held in 1915-16. Dixton voted in early 1915 to transfer… Read more »
Privatisation of the Post Office hasn’t helped. Some privatised railways beset by bad management have been renationalised. Why would privatisation of the Church be an improvement? The current management and governance system is failing but we still need a Church. Sack the bishops rather than privatise the Church.
The Church of England is not the property of the State that they can sell off if they choose or renationalise at will. Nor the church a business like Post Office or Railways. There is a compete category error here – a confusion explained, in part, by it being the established church in the first place. What is needed is an ecclesiological discussion, not a parliamentary debate.
To regard the Post Office and Railways as businesses may also be a category error, at least in the traditional view. They were created, their raison d’etre, to provide essential public services, namely the transportation of letters, goods and people. Only in recent decades has the notion that their primary objective is to make money for shareholders got in the way. If the Church were to be privatised, it would presumably go down the same route. Indeed the present semi-autonomous position is already having that effect as is seen quintessentially in Wigan; but nationally in very low christening rates I… Read more »
Surely the railways were indeed created to make money for their shareholders? Only much later were they nationalized as an essential public service, then privatized. And the Post Office was created as a means for the king to send messages and instructions to his lieutenants throughout the country and for them to respond. Subsequently it was opened up as a general letter carrier, presumably in order to subsidise the carrying of official business. And a couple of hundred years later broadened with the introduction of the “univeral service obligation”. Turned into a corporation in the 1960s and eventually sold off… Read more »
The disendowments of the Church of Ireland and Church in Wales were justified by the proponents of the 1869 and 1914 Acts on the basis that the endowments were the ‘patrimony of the people’, and that the people had effectively underwritten those endowments by means of tithe and compulsory church rate (prior to 1868 in Wales and prior to 1833 in Ireland [as ‘church cess’]) – in other words, by past taxation enforceable within the secular courts against all those liable regardless of their profession. In effect, disendowment would return to the people the capital which had been expropriated from… Read more »
I am inclined to agree with you. The Church of England is a different category to all other Christian denominations in England. It should be accountable to the Nation. It should be available, parish by parish, for all who wish to access it, as ‘their’ church, whether attendance is low or not. Far more than 1% of people choose to access ‘their’ local parish church at different times in their lives. Even as empty building, the parish church is presence of God, and witness to God. God speaks through more than simply gospel proclamation. God is numinous, and many parish… Read more »
I’d probably also add the Armed Forces to that ‘constitution’ and national contract. The Church of England, as ‘National Church’ is part of the fabric of society. I mean, we can switch to a miscellany of denominational varieties, but I believe we would lose something in the process. I think we would be less… in the same way that if you replaced the Crown with a political (typically short-term) president we would lose something as well. A President Blair or a President Boris would be just more opportunist politicians, driven by short-termism. Whereas the Crown represents something measured in millenia,… Read more »
“But the bottom line is that I believe the Church of England should be a National Church for the Nation” — and if the Nation does not share that instinct?
I’m not sure most people have a view, but Establishment is Establishment. Pull one thread and others come loose. It’s not straightforward to unravel. There are also political people who want to turn the England into a Republic, and subvert the whole establishment. They may be right, but actually I think England is quite a ‘conservative’ nation and not straining to end the establishment/’constitutional’ frameworks in place. Generally there is a tendency to leave well alone, and maintain what is seen as the English way of life. There’s some fine tuning that can be done, including proportional representation of faiths… Read more »
Your position, as I read it and responded to it, sounds like, ‘we have a toothpaste that English people really need, because I am saying so.’ But when no one wants that toothpaste, and chooses from 100 versions better as they see it, the argument is not obvious. ‘I’ll have me favorite Crest over your nice and quaint Vademecum brand.’ Establishment may be a good idea. But I doubt it is one on the terms you imagined. They are your terms and you are, I presume, one of the 1.5 % who attend the CofE (when the Scottish revery doesn’t… Read more »
In terms of church buildings, do we need them? Would an altar suffice? Maybe one of the underlying problems of the Church of England is that it focused too much on buildings (good for the tombs of local bigwigs) and not enough on altars?
No Kate, I don’t think an altar would suffice. The countless parish churches are not just for bigwigs. They are places for funerals, for weddings, for baptisms, for harvest festival, for places to pray in times of trouble. They are woven into the fabric of society, however under-used they may be becoming. They are national heritage and for all in a parish who want them, they are ‘theirs’.
Jane Charman
9 days ago
I have huge respect for WATCH, and for Martine Oborne personally, and I fully support the important work WATCH does. On this occasion, though, I think WATCH is calling it wrong – personality and character rather than sex and gender seem to me to be at the root of the Bishop of Newcastle’s current difficulties. It’s noticeable that none of the other women diocesans has endorsed her perception of events – and that won’t be because none of them has ever been leaned on by an episcopal colleague or found themselves on the wrong side of prevailing orthodoxies. The HoB… Read more »
I reread Martine Oborne’s excellent article after reading Jane’s post and I’m still wondering where the Bishop of Newcastle suddenly sprang from. I don’t think any of the other posts on this current thread have mentioned her either up till now. Colin Coward’s post talks of the need to break through the defensive blockade around the church. Jane you made it clear you thought X Helen-Ann did the wrong thing several threads ago. Quite a lot of us didn’t agree with you, even if we usually do. But somehow you now applaud the Bishop of Chelmsford as having behaved in… Read more »
Susanna, thank you for asking for clarification. Martine’s article was prompted by the actions of +Newcastle and reactions to it but that connection is probably more evident on X/Twitter than it is here. There you will find it embedded into threads which include or are specifically about +Newcastle.
Thank you Susanna and others. The term ‘prophetic voice’ is rarely deployed with complimentary intent. Jane’s intervention, and later clarification, prompted me to reflect on my own career in public service. During that time women certainly achieved top posts and were at most of the top tables. But I was very aware that the majority expectation was that we would behave like the men and that speaking with a different voice was bad for us as individuals as as a group. That we might have something important or useful to say was irrelevant. There is no shortage of analysis of… Read more »
Prophets usually find themselves in the sort of ‘difficulties’ the Bishop of Newcastle now faces. That is, if being ignored by one’s dubious colleagues and feted by the common people can be termed a difficulty.
Did you see the letter in the Church Times this week by Bishop Peter Selby taking +Newcastle to task, Janet? It disturbed me hugely because it illustrated what I see as the most pressing cultural problem in the HoB without mentioning it or indeed meaning to. I think there is a very fine line between professional etiquette grounded in collective responsibility and the kind of omertà that is prevalent in mafia families and has arguably fuelled the abuse cover-ups in the RC Church. My view is the conduct of the HoB collectively and its culture have crossed that line some… Read more »
And I wonder what the unfortunate survivor makes of all this? X Newcastle stood up for him against two entitled archbishops- and the content of their letter was nothing new – basically ‘JS still doesn’t feel he needs to apologise however wrong he might have been because archbishops don’t apologise. Just suck that up , there’s a good girl’. General outrage from the clan – poor JS cannot end his days dressing up in his best robes and mitre and being admired by old ladies. Compare and contrast- X Chelmsford states engagingly that she has had her knuckles wrapped by… Read more »
Matt is backing +Helen’Anne to the hilt. And he has publicly complain about his treatment by both ++Sentamu and ++Cottrell. Which is entirely in keeping with what I (a clergy survivor in York Diocese) have seen of both.
I did see that letter, and I thought it perfectly illustrated the culture of oppression and omertà that Bp Hartley has been speaking up against, and why she was right to do so. I’ve never met Bp Hartley, and am not privy to her mind. But, judging by her public statements, she expected other bishops to back her when she called for Welby to resign, because that’s what they were saying privately. But by the time she released the archbishops’ letter, she must have known what the reaction from the Church would be. She has said since in interviews that… Read more »
Janet. Greetings. In a church facing, among other things, issues around the misuse of charismatic authority, claims to being ‘prophetic’ need particular care. I think +H-A’s actions are better described as ‘protest’ and ‘dissent’. But if you are claiming hers was a prophetic act how are we to discern it, as the scripture requires? And could I choose to call +Guli’s response, to what appears to be s similar experience of coercive central authority, ‘prophetic’ too? If not, why not? Who decides? And do these questions make Jane or I ‘dubious’ too?
Hello David. Questions do not make people dubious. It’s the refusal to question power, especially when it is misused or abused, that makes people dubious. And I am aware, thank you, of issues around the misuse of charismatic authority, and thought carefully before I used the word ‘prophet’. We can discern +Helen-Anne’s action as prophetic by comparing them to the actions and words of biblical prophets such as Nathan and Elijah – prophets who revealed the secret sins of those in power and exposed them to judgment. As for +Guli, I haven’t heard her remarks, only read comments about them.… Read more »
Janet, I think this needs a New Testament understanding of the exercise of prophetic ministry in the church rather than a rather selective ‘this is that’ from the Old Testament. Meanwhile the bishops are gathered on Mount Carmel awaiting their collective fate?
I don’t think we can divorce the New Testament so easily from the old, nor ignore what the Old Testament has to teach us about speaking truth to power.
I am not suggesting ignoring anything. But you have not responded to my comment about the need to discern what comes with claims to be prophetic or sign. Has this happened here? Where and who by? What if not all agree with it – as is the case here? Thanks.
I did respond to your comment about discernment. I pointed out that +Helen-Ann’s words and actions are congruent with those of biblical prophets. That is how prophecy is to be tested.
Note that Bp. Helen-Ann has not herself claimed to be prophetic – that’s a term used by myself and others.
As for all agreeing with it – the point of prophets is that they say what is uncomfortable to hear. Many refuse to listen.
As someone whose (‘born again’) Christian journey began in a deeply ‘charismatic’ religious community – and a gentle one – I have come to witness some examples in church life where the gifts of the Spirit seem to have been co-opted and almost appropriated in ways that I regard as problematic and dangerous. That included the emergence of house churches which were mostly led by men is a spiritually ‘muscular’ way, where the charismata were much in evidence, the quiet voice and gentleness of the Holy Spirit less so. Of the many and various manifestations of charismatic life, I should… Read more »
Janet, well, it’s the season for a spot of apocalyptic. And that sort of language does sometimes come to the fore when things are bit fevered for any reason. I’m not sure, though, that +HA intended to be a prophet – her statements so far have been more along the lines of ‘I thought we were all going to say this so why am I the only one?’ From where I’m standing what we’re seeing is some splitting and projection of the kind that can happen when an individual, or an organisation, is under great psychological pressure. ‘You are a… Read more »
Throwing my non-aligned tuppence worth in here, there are as I understand it, two kinds of prophecy. One is the Tolkien fantasy sort (which I think is what many people expect) of a ‘fore-telling’ of a future event; the other an interpreting of current events in the light of God’s revealed will and standards. Isaiah and Jesus himself were particularly skilled at the second sort. (This being Advent, I wonder if Isaiah realised there were two interpretations to his ‘young woman / virgin’ prophecy, or what he understood by his ‘suffering servant’ messages? Seriously, that does intrigue me at the… Read more »
That’s interesting, John. At one time I had quite a lot to do with +Sentamu. I both liked him as a person, and thought he was an utterly atrocious leader.
John: “Charismatic history is littered with leaders who made extravagant platform prophesies which subsequently never came to pass.” Sadly this is very true. Great care needed in discernment and, as you say, often only clearer quite a long time later. Some people’s voices do ‘ring’ with a truth that triggers alertness of recognition within. But even so, I think it needs the discernment of the wider Church and where Church communities should take it from there. The Church is collective, and prophecy may ‘channel’ through some at certain moments in time, but more of what the prophetic is about involves… Read more »
That’s a good insight, Susannah. The church, as I understand it, is a body of believers which has the responsibility of discerning the will of God – your ‘collective’ in action. The church – any church, at any time – inevitably reflects the society from which it draws its members and their values. One weakness is our innate tendency to ‘hero worship’ individualism; to idolise particular people and to feel they can do no wrong. Sadly the charismatic movement had /has a tendency to do just that, with inevitable results. Those who’ve followed some of the more contentious threads on… Read more »
PS. Collecting ivy and evergreens for my wife’s Christmas crafts at a ladies’ meeting is a definite aid to meditation. It struck me while clipping leaves that you’ve very neatly defined how I believe the Holy Spirit should and does work in a church context. Having just read all of your earlier reply to Janet Fife, we are most definitely travelling the same road, encountering the same issues and thinking along very similar lines. As I said, part of my journey is finding a balance between personal individualism and corporate actions. Too much emphasis on individual experience is a problem… Read more »
The question is not whether we like or dislike John Sentamu. The point at issue is that he was criticised in a review for his failure to respond adequately in a serious safeguarding case, refused to accept the criticism, attacked the review, and refused to apologise for either when asked to do so. These are objective facts. It’s an objective fact also that York Diocese was criticised in other safeguarding reviews (e.g. the Pearl Review) during Sentamu’s tenure in office there. Any parish clergy of whom all this were true would be facing disciplinary action. Retired bishops and archbishops have… Read more »
I don’t think Bp Helen-Ann is the saviour of the Church of England. I do think she has put her finger on the abuses of power within it which have damaged so many people, and are damaging the church itself. I think the way she has spoken out about that is prophetic. That doesn’t mean I think all her views and actions are prophetic. Nor do I think the bishops are a brood of vipers – that exaggerated language is yours, not mine. After long experience of the C of E I’ve concluded that some bishops are corrupt, and many… Read more »
This comment is in response to that of Colin Coward two days ago when his last line was, ‘How can we organise to achieve a breakthrough? I find the photographs being posted on Twitter and especially in this article by Gavin Drake, very effective. We now know what the people responsible for safeguarding cover up look like. Let’s have these regularly posted as I am sure they will not like to be identified in such a way. The strongest evidence against Archbishop York was Gavin’s brilliant video of Stephen Cottrell speaking blatant untruths to Synod. Gavin, please don’t mind if… Read more »
I have a major credibility problem with my Christian beliefs, and the way we express them, over all this. So many conference addresses and worship songs express a powerful belief in a God of high moral standards, who clearly threatens judgement on corruption and wickedness. One of Graham Kendrick’s ‘Make way’ songs expressed it very forcefully; there are other, more recent ones. We sing a lot about God’s purifying fire coming down to purge the church of sin, before sending it to be a light to the world. (Make your own list) But – does it ever happen? Or, if… Read more »
Thank you for picking up on my question, Susan. It’s good to be shown that there are ways in which the photographs being posted on Twitter are effective, making visual what are otherwise invisible people to many. I’ve never been a Twitter person so I’m unaware of what effect it has. I’m not going to join X now! I’ve not seen Gavin’s video – and clearly I need to. But seeing things on Twitter isn’t the same as a movement developing in the Church of England that achieves enough traction to have an impact. Following Thinking Anglicans is enough to… Read more »
Colin thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am not particularly technically minded or part of social media. However, two years ago I was advised to become part of Twitter and have since learned a lot about safeguarding and the personalities involved, (even interviews with Cathy Newman on channel 4 are posted). I do though quite agree with you that it is unlikely for a movement to develop from Twitter. Over the past five years through supporting a friend in a wrongful allegation, I have been made aware of serious safeguarding abuses in the Church of England. It is concerning… Read more »
Apologies! Incorrect link, it seemed to work before I posted it. The actual video made by Gavin is well worth seeing. How Stephen Cottrell can remain in post with this video circulating I do no know.
I should be grateful if someone could post the correct link.
Martine Oborne’s article reminds us that the High Anglo-Catholic (The Society) anti-female position extends far beyond the simple issue of Female Priests & Bishops. The fact that Male priests who were ordained by a female bishop are unacceptable is perhaps understandable. However, that Male Bishops who ordain women are thus rendered unacceptable is far less so, as is unacceptability of male bishops whose consecration included a female bishop (regardless of how many male pure blood male bishops also present). As for male priests, unacceptability illogically extends to those of otherwise impeccable lineage (St Stephen’s House) who state that they accept… Read more »
A priest, a member of Forward in Faith, once told me he’d been ostracised by colleagues in the diocese simply for being seen talking to a woman priest at the diocesan clergy conference.
As TA regulars know, I am a supporter of WATCH and Martine Oborne in particular. She is right about the risk to women, but the point needs to be drawn more widely, more fundamentally: any group which is institutionally treated as less, as second class in some way (or some contexts) is at risk. That should be self-evident. If a group who share a particular characteristic is held to be unsuited for particular roles because of that characteristic they are marked as being inferior., less important. If the Church of England is to be truly serious about safeguarding it isn’t… Read more »
Well said, Kate. The Church of England routinely discriminates in all kinds of ways, both consciously and through outdated systems and processes that still bear hallmarks of favouring white, able bodied, heterosexual, middle class, married, men.
Well done Gavin Drake. How can this be given more of the oxygen of publicity? Can someone ask Ali Maqbool or Harry Farley or Cathy Newman to pick this up??
Dr Elly Hanson, the psychologist reporting in Makin, may very well have flagged up the absence of women in leadership roles in the Iwerne camps and said that ‘potentially valuable perspectives from women were absent,’ but this pales into insignificance if you compare it to the fact that all these kids had mothers (and fathers) who did next to nothing. If my child were to come home from a so-called Christian camp with a bleeding bottom, I would not bemoan the lack of valuable perspectives from women in leadership; I’d speak out. It’s the wretched theological convictions underlying the abuse… Read more »
I’m told, on very good authority, that only one of the beatings took place at a Iwerne camp. Most of them occurred in Smyth’s garden shed, often during term time at Winchester College. Other victims were university students, often away from home. Many of the parents will have known nothing about them, as their sons were usually old enough not to be supervised in the bath.
Indeed. And we should recognise just how painful it can be for children to admit to abuse. Some times it comes out only years later; at other times, not at all.
This is so true.
The victims didn’t even talk to each other, let alone to their parents. Anyone who went to that kind of school will know in their bones that you did not tell your parents anything in detail about the miseries you endured. Some of the parents were worried about the psychological hold that Smyth established over their children, and did try to act on it. One boy still at Winchester was asked to become godfather to one of Smyth’s daughters, and had to be stopped from doing so by his parents. And in some ways the psychological or spiritual abuse was… Read more »
I said the same thing in an earlier thread, Lorenzo. Just about everybody who knew those boys were complicit in the cover up – didn’t one parent have chance to report it to the police, and refused? Unfortunately it was at a time when physical abuse was widely accepted within state education as well as private – the past is a different country, they did things differently there.
Same with Martine’s piece – so long as we deliberately institutionalise inequality, we support abuse.
My understanding of those times is that parents often decided to keep things secret to protect the child (or indeed young adult) from the harm that might happen if the abuse was to become more widely known. The fear was that the public scandal would be attached to the young men for ever, and risk ruining their lives. I don’t think the parents were driven by their own Christian theology. Having seen how those on the receiving end of abuse in more recent decades have been treated by the church having done at the right thing and tried to make… Read more »
How could ‘others’ have brought Smyth to justice without involving the juvenile victims? I think your point has very considerable force. Agreed that their anonymity would have been guaranteed in a criminal prosecution, but the process would have been bound to reawaken the trauma.
Very interesting and important. I went on a Scripture Camp in North Wales when I was about 15/16. I’m sure there were no beatings (although the leader was a Housemaster at my school and was known as a ‘beater’). But the whole ethos of the camp was entirely foreign to me and there were some strange characters around. In particular the ordinand in charge of our tent). It clearly had some kind oppressive effect on me and I recall my mother sitting me down a couple of weeks after my return to ask me what the problem was. I’d been… Read more »
That’s the substance of my point. Of course it is painful for children to admit to abuse, but surely the parents must have sensed they had been traumatised. If not, why not?
Many of the children were already damaged and traumatised before Smyth got to them. Trauma inflicted by the parents. There is extensive and quite well accepted scholarship about “boarding school syndrome”, a set of coping mechanisms adopted by young children sent away to boarding school by their parents from age seven. If you look at the literature around that you can see why the child might not have wanted to show “weakness”, or the parents might not have picked up the clues, or the parents might not have wanted to accept the clues and be in a state of denial… Read more »
Is it, Simon? I went to boarding school, and in many respects mine was unpleasant, but this abuse is in a league of its own. I’m not exonerating the parents, even after so long.
For me this is one of the unanswered questions about Smyth. Why didn’t the victims families do anything? And for those who were still at school, the wounds should have been visible to school nurses/PE teachers.
If something like this happened to me I am sure my family would frogmarch me to the nearest police station and/or confront the perpetrator directly.
Sadly we’re looking at this with 2024 eyes, not those of the 1950s and 60s. I suffered perpetual bullying at both primary and secondary schools – indeed in both cases it was institutionalised, by the biggest bullies being appointed prefects. At the secondary (a rather third rate grammar school in a rural market town) the prefects had more right to inflict corporal punishment than the teachers did. Bullying was the norm – read any boys papers of the time and see how violent the stories often were. My father confronted the perpetrators, was openly sneered at, and of course, I… Read more »
It’s easy to project today’s culture back 30 or 40 years and assume that’s how things were then. In practice, a generation ago the word of a child carried little weight if the allegation was against someone with social standing. It wasn’t just children, either. I started work in the eighties for a large City institution. The woman who recruited me left shortly after I started. She was assaulted by her male boss, complained but was quickly made redundant. The boss carried on, his career seemingly unaffected. I like to think times have changed but I don’t personally have the… Read more »
Martine Oborne’s blog for WATCH and Gavin Drake’s open letter to the Church Commissioners who are State Office Holders both provide powerful arguments for dramatic, radical change in the governance of the Church of England. The Archbishop of Canterbury can be held to account for his failure to ensure that each failing identified by Martine and Gavin should have been actively and competently addressed. The entire House of Bishops and the the Archbishops’ Council are equally responsible. The need to take action has been identified repeatedly by people whose articles and blogs and actions have been reported on Thinking Anglicans.… Read more »
Is Gavin Drake in touch with the Channel 4 team who have been reporting recently on Smyth (e.g. https://youtu.be/9_Jn1of6GHI) and Matthew Ineson (https://youtu.be/ujq5ARaQiKs)? Surely they would be interested to take these matters further. This oxygen of publicity seems to have been instrumental in raising awareness and pressure for the right thing to be done.
Isn’t a major complication that we think of the Church of England as a single entity, which it most certainly is not? Any reform needs urgently to address the fact that a lot of the problems for the CoE have arisen because so many different independent or semi-independent “Anglican” organisations have been involved in fostering and then covering up abusive behaviour. These organisations can easily close or re-form so there is really no one to go after except the CoE. There are enough powerful insiders in the CoE to ensure any investigation is either a vague ‘lessons learned’ report, or… Read more »
I am reminded of the Johnny Cash song: … Oh my God … You can run on for a long time Run on for a long time Run on for a long time Sooner or later God’ll cut you down Sooner or later God’ll cut you down … Go tell that long tongue liar Go and tell that midnight rider Tell the rambler, the gambler, the back biter Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down Tell ’em that God’s gonna cut ’em down … Well my goodness gracious let me tell you the news My head’s been wet with… Read more »
I have always thought talking to non church friends that they think the C of E is like Marks and Spencer. I wealthy organisation with a CEO ( Abp) branch managers ( bishops).and outlets offering more or less the same product..
So far as I am aware “Church of England” is not a trademark. It should be. Sorting out the structure would take years but attempting to take control of use of the name would be a good first step.
That sounds like a practicable idea as a starting point. – a Private members motion for general Synod perhaps? You could then have e.g. delegate to each bishop (who in turn could delegate to archdeacons?) the ability to approve the use of the trademark within geographical contexts (make sure you have someone to apply to for something that is not-so-obvious on its geographic context ); For parish churches it becomes a rubber-stamp exercise, for anything else it becomes the way for someone to ask “are we happy to attach our name to it? What safeguarding or etc policies do they… Read more »
Better start by copyrighting ‘God’?
My understanding is that He has made the term freely available but with a condition relating to ‘taking in vain’. I suspect that something like the conditions for ‘creative commons’ is also in place: give due credit and don’t stop use by others.
There is also the primary stipulation, namely an exclusivity clause. Thou shalt have none other Gods but me.
True, but on that stipulation, litigation is ongoing.
My nomination for comment of the year!
Well, the Church of England has now clearly forfeited its right to be the Church by law established, but will the State Office Holders really want to invest time in addressing that? They should certainly step in and legislate for proper independence in safeguarding (for the sake of victims and survivors, and to ensure proper episcopal accountability), but again they are witnessing a fast failing organisation digging its own grave. There might be some merit in a new Chadwick Commission (the last Commission on Church and State was chaired by Revd Professor Owen Chadwick in 1970), but who has the… Read more »
In the last few days the British Academy has released this biographical memoir of Chadwick by his RC Selwyn colleague John Morrill (the memoir was actually completed a year ago but not published until last week): https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/5575/Memoirs-21-28-Chadwick-W-Owen.pdf. It includes (at 681-85) interesting remarks on the work of the Chadwick Commission in the period 1965-70, as well as of his wider attitude (and that of Henry) to the episcopate (note their views on Runcie at 668). It is evident that successive appointments secretaries in Downing Street placed significant reliance on his advice over several decades. There is also a comparable memoir… Read more »
I think the situation on what to do about church-faculty-permissions would likely cause a lot of confusion and/or legal “fun” that you seem to be simplifying. Also the current setup of multiple charities linked by ecclesiastical law – well if that law was no longer law do we need to create new legal ties? Or new federation organisations – or etc… .. I think there will be something to sort out. But that is a detail – – To play (is it God’s or Devil’s?) church advocate for a moment. Whilst you could argue from a “impartial observer this may… Read more »
Thank you. One of the reasons why I have heavily reduced my contributions on this site is that I had become thoroughly bored by repeating myself. However, to repeat myself… the Church now has the support of less than 1% of the coming generation, and even that might be a very generous estimate. I have now attended services at a little over 7,000 churches in every part of the country (my ‘anecdote’ might now be ‘evidence’), and it is apparent that the Church is in terminal run-off practically everywhere; far fewer than 1% of the churches where I have attended… Read more »
You are not boring. The problem is not facing reality. “the Church now has the support of less than 1% of the coming generation, and even that might be a very generous estimate.” When the general English population of 99% hears “Church of England” it must then say, “as once it was,” or “good idea until it isn’t” or “isn’t that quaint,” or “Christianity is locked into a dying institution, can I hold the channel changer, please?” At some point credulity vanishes. Then throw in all the facts on the property ground as you have done and one wonders why… Read more »
Many thanks, as ever. I think you put your finger on it when you ask what is establishment *for* exactly. It was created in order to give the state complete control over the formation of public opinion, with the state reducing the Church to little more than a government department, virtually sidelining the manor (which had been the chief organ of local government in the Middle Ages) and transforming the parish into the major unit of local administration, which it remained until 1894. What has happened since the second quarter of the 19th century has been a form of disestablishment… Read more »
Thank you for that steer, Froghole. I knew both of the Chadwicks towards the end of their careers and respected them greatly, so will be very interested to read the memoirs.
Until recently, the only PBA memoirs available were those from the mid-1960s until the turn of the century, and those from the 2010s. During the pandemic I wrote to the secretary of the British Academy asking if all past memoirs could be published. To my intense pleasure (given that it is now a chore since moving house getting to the London Library or British Library) the British Academy has now made all memoirs available here: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/5569/FBA_Biographical_Memoirs-master-27November2024.pdf (there are some significant omissions). You will see Henry Chadwick’s included (by Rowan Williams), as well as those of other distinguished ecclesiastical historians and… Read more »
Thanks for posting the link. This will distract me from work for hours! I was taught by R P C Hanson and knew F F Bruce who are included here. From the former we have much to learn in the Church of England today, but that’s another story!
R.P.C. Hanson had been Bishop of Clogher before returning to academic life at the University of Manchester. He undertook some episcopal duties in Manchester. In an article he wrote about the ‘winter of discontent’ in 1979 he casually mentioned that he used a motorbike for transport. It is reported in a local newspaper for the East Lancashire district of Rossendale that Bishop Hanson did a confirmation there in February 1982. It would have been a perilous journey from Manchester to Rossendale (about 20 miles) on a motorbike at that time of year. How did he convey his episcopal outfit? Maybe… Read more »
I don’t disagree, but the vested interests will push back at myriad points. No bishop has enjoyed the Lords as much as ++Welby. I am in favour but used to take the view that disestablishment was something that only Parliament should initiate. From memory ++Williams said he wouldn’t die in a ditch over it (or words to that effect). ++Welby got in a tangle over it at a private meeting with MPs, saying he would rather see disestablishment than the Anglican Communion breaking up over same-sex marriage. He later denied this. Before any one-clause Bill, I would want to see… Read more »
Many thanks. No bill would be one clause (given that disestablishment would need to resolve various property issues): however the key to the change of status need only be one or clauses. See Sections 1 and 3 (1) of the Welsh Church Act 1914 here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/4-5/91/enacted Indeed, the financial and political settlements associated with the Irish and Welsh Church Acts were rendered slightly more complex, especially in the case of the Welsh statute, by the need to extract the Irish/Welsh churches from their union with the Church of England. If the Church of England were to be disestablished (and disendowed,… Read more »
I should add that the primary reason for Cockburn CJQB refusing to entertain discussion of the oath in the Selwyn case is that the court did not wish to question the status of a statute to which assent had been given by both chambers and by the sovereign. In 1914 royal assent might have been denied by George V, not to the Welsh Church Bill, but to the contemporaneous Government of Ireland bill (the king evidently valued his coronation commitments to the Union more than to the Church). He was urged in this course by Arthur Balfour but he was… Read more »
It would be much more complicated than that. England politically is a very different country than Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. How much of that is because the Church of England props up ideas like the monarchy? So while legislatively you might be correct, there would be huge concern in Westminster that a liberated Church of England could become socialist and advocate for a republic. Establishment favours the Church but there is a quid pro quo in terms of a unspoken constraint on Church teaching that many politicians would be reluctant to lose.
The Church of England *should* prop up monarchy. It’s one of its roles, Kate.
“…there would be huge concern in Westminster that a liberated Church of England could become socialist and advocate for a republic.” Thank you, but I must respectfully disagree. It is only deemed to be ‘complicated’ because certain people keep saying it is so, over and over again, which reminds me of Lewis Carroll: “Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.” I very much doubt that there would be ‘huge concern’ in… Read more »
The numbers don’t matter. What matters is the pageantry of Coronations, Royal Weddings and State Funerals.
It’s also worth remembering that members of the Royal Family have to be in communion with the Church of England.
I’m genuinely curious. Is the idea that Westminster wants there to be a Church of England because absent that, the Monarchy would forfeit its credibility? Or, because it likes to limit what it teaches, even if not attending or not even liking Christianity? Obviously there was a Monarch before the events of the sixteenth century. Is the idea of an Established Church attractive for reasons that really don’t have anything to do with Christianity, except in some acceptably anodyne form? If 98% of the population of England doesn’t have any interest in attending the Church of England, are they indifferent… Read more »
“Obviously there was a Monarch before the events of the sixteenth century.” And equally there was a Church of England before the events of the sixteenth century. Indeed there was a Church of England before there was a King of England. Henry VIII or Elizabeth I did not create “establishment”, they merely continud the existing practice, without the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome. In one sense “establishment” only becomes something unique to the Church of England when a plurality of denominations is allowed. So 1689. In another sense establishment comes with the acceptance of Augustine’s mission by the Anglo-Saxon… Read more »
Thanks for the obvious! The comment to which I referred had to do with the CofE having a monarch to warrant it. As some sort of ‘esse.’ No, there was a catholic church in England from Gregory the Great’s sending Augustine to Canterbury, in 597, and a generation preceding that with St Colomba, et grace a romance, ‘and did these feet.’ Without a latterly appearing Ecclesia Anglicana in the 1530s, then under the governance of a polity ‘brand new’ in the British Isles, confected by Cranmer, there was a ecclesia under the authority of the Pope. Could there be a… Read more »
Can you expand on why you think disestablishment would take so much time?
I think you are right there is little appetite for a royal commission unless it was part of a wider constitutional review covering e.g. a written constitution, the rile of the House of Lords, devolution, etc.
Disestablishment of the Church in Wales (once four dioceses in the province of Canterbury) wasn’t difficult and didn’t take much time as far as I am aware.
It took three attempts: 1894, 1909 and 1912-14. Asquith’s bill of 1894 was more radical than the final solution, and failed with the Rosebery ministry (it would have been subject to the Lords veto anyway). Asquith presented the 1909 bill (the then home secretary, Herbert Gladstone, who would otherwise have presented it, being sympathetic to establishment), and it again floundered on the Lords veto, despite the Liberals’ massive Commons majority. McKenna’s bill succeeded, despite the Liberals being a minority since the two 1910 elections, because of Irish and Labour support, and because the Lords had been neutered in 1911. Even… Read more »
I ought to know the history better than I do having been ordained in that church. When did Monmouthshire, which was half of the Diocese of Llandaff, get transferred from England to Wales?
Thank you. Wales, of course, had no separate identity from England between the Laws in Wales Act 1535 and the Welsh Church Act 1914, which was the first occasion since the reign of Henry VIII when Wales was given a separate legal identity. Monmouthshire was formally severed from England under Schedule 4 of the Local Government Act 1972 (Peter Walker’s Act, implementing many of the recommendations of the 1970 Redcliffe-Maud report on local government). Indeed, Wales is still subsumed within England for judicial purposes, as a mere circuit. There were a number of border parishes which straddled England and Wales,… Read more »
What a marvellous list. I’m not sure I have any saliva left after reading that out loud!
Haven’t you got Dixton and Monmouth the wrong way round? And are you saying that the Archdeaconry of Monmouth, after which the new Church in Wales Diocese was named (rather than from its Cathedral in Newport) was once in the Diocese of Hereford? Also as a tangent referring back to a discussion of the use of abbreviated forms of Latin names of sees in bishops’signatures, I guess that Bishop Lee of Manchester set the trend of sticking to the English name of the see in 1948 rather than signing as James Mancunien or even James Mamucien. However the new trend… Read more »
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying, though I do need to correct myself in one respect. Monmouth (with its dependent perpetual curacy of Overmonnow) and Dixton Newton were indeed anciently in the diocese of Hereford. However, the transfer of both parishes into Llandaff diocese actually occurred in 1836 (cap. 77, 6th & 7th William IV) – so that the whole of Monmouthshire became contiguous with Llandaff. Dixton (but not Monmouth) was one of the 19 parishes (and 23 churches) which were subject to the Section 9 border plebiscites held in 1915-16. Dixton voted in early 1915 to transfer… Read more »
This item from the House of Lords library speaks the issues:
https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/lords-spiritual-in-the-house-of-lords-explained/
That was under the previous government ….
Privatisation of the Post Office hasn’t helped. Some privatised railways beset by bad management have been renationalised. Why would privatisation of the Church be an improvement? The current management and governance system is failing but we still need a Church. Sack the bishops rather than privatise the Church.
The Church of England is not the property of the State that they can sell off if they choose or renationalise at will. Nor the church a business like Post Office or Railways. There is a compete category error here – a confusion explained, in part, by it being the established church in the first place. What is needed is an ecclesiological discussion, not a parliamentary debate.
To regard the Post Office and Railways as businesses may also be a category error, at least in the traditional view. They were created, their raison d’etre, to provide essential public services, namely the transportation of letters, goods and people. Only in recent decades has the notion that their primary objective is to make money for shareholders got in the way. If the Church were to be privatised, it would presumably go down the same route. Indeed the present semi-autonomous position is already having that effect as is seen quintessentially in Wigan; but nationally in very low christening rates I… Read more »
Surely the railways were indeed created to make money for their shareholders? Only much later were they nationalized as an essential public service, then privatized. And the Post Office was created as a means for the king to send messages and instructions to his lieutenants throughout the country and for them to respond. Subsequently it was opened up as a general letter carrier, presumably in order to subsidise the carrying of official business. And a couple of hundred years later broadened with the introduction of the “univeral service obligation”. Turned into a corporation in the 1960s and eventually sold off… Read more »
The disendowments of the Church of Ireland and Church in Wales were justified by the proponents of the 1869 and 1914 Acts on the basis that the endowments were the ‘patrimony of the people’, and that the people had effectively underwritten those endowments by means of tithe and compulsory church rate (prior to 1868 in Wales and prior to 1833 in Ireland [as ‘church cess’]) – in other words, by past taxation enforceable within the secular courts against all those liable regardless of their profession. In effect, disendowment would return to the people the capital which had been expropriated from… Read more »
I am inclined to agree with you. The Church of England is a different category to all other Christian denominations in England. It should be accountable to the Nation. It should be available, parish by parish, for all who wish to access it, as ‘their’ church, whether attendance is low or not. Far more than 1% of people choose to access ‘their’ local parish church at different times in their lives. Even as empty building, the parish church is presence of God, and witness to God. God speaks through more than simply gospel proclamation. God is numinous, and many parish… Read more »
I’d probably also add the Armed Forces to that ‘constitution’ and national contract. The Church of England, as ‘National Church’ is part of the fabric of society. I mean, we can switch to a miscellany of denominational varieties, but I believe we would lose something in the process. I think we would be less… in the same way that if you replaced the Crown with a political (typically short-term) president we would lose something as well. A President Blair or a President Boris would be just more opportunist politicians, driven by short-termism. Whereas the Crown represents something measured in millenia,… Read more »
“But the bottom line is that I believe the Church of England should be a National Church for the Nation” — and if the Nation does not share that instinct?
I’m not sure most people have a view, but Establishment is Establishment. Pull one thread and others come loose. It’s not straightforward to unravel. There are also political people who want to turn the England into a Republic, and subvert the whole establishment. They may be right, but actually I think England is quite a ‘conservative’ nation and not straining to end the establishment/’constitutional’ frameworks in place. Generally there is a tendency to leave well alone, and maintain what is seen as the English way of life. There’s some fine tuning that can be done, including proportional representation of faiths… Read more »
Your position, as I read it and responded to it, sounds like, ‘we have a toothpaste that English people really need, because I am saying so.’ But when no one wants that toothpaste, and chooses from 100 versions better as they see it, the argument is not obvious. ‘I’ll have me favorite Crest over your nice and quaint Vademecum brand.’ Establishment may be a good idea. But I doubt it is one on the terms you imagined. They are your terms and you are, I presume, one of the 1.5 % who attend the CofE (when the Scottish revery doesn’t… Read more »
A much higher number attend their church when they want to, just not all that often. But it is still their church as parishioners.
In terms of church buildings, do we need them? Would an altar suffice? Maybe one of the underlying problems of the Church of England is that it focused too much on buildings (good for the tombs of local bigwigs) and not enough on altars?
No Kate, I don’t think an altar would suffice. The countless parish churches are not just for bigwigs. They are places for funerals, for weddings, for baptisms, for harvest festival, for places to pray in times of trouble. They are woven into the fabric of society, however under-used they may be becoming. They are national heritage and for all in a parish who want them, they are ‘theirs’.
I have huge respect for WATCH, and for Martine Oborne personally, and I fully support the important work WATCH does. On this occasion, though, I think WATCH is calling it wrong – personality and character rather than sex and gender seem to me to be at the root of the Bishop of Newcastle’s current difficulties. It’s noticeable that none of the other women diocesans has endorsed her perception of events – and that won’t be because none of them has ever been leaned on by an episcopal colleague or found themselves on the wrong side of prevailing orthodoxies. The HoB… Read more »
We certainly agree on the culture of the HoB, Jane, though I would go further and label it toxic – for male and female Bishops.
I reread Martine Oborne’s excellent article after reading Jane’s post and I’m still wondering where the Bishop of Newcastle suddenly sprang from. I don’t think any of the other posts on this current thread have mentioned her either up till now. Colin Coward’s post talks of the need to break through the defensive blockade around the church. Jane you made it clear you thought X Helen-Ann did the wrong thing several threads ago. Quite a lot of us didn’t agree with you, even if we usually do. But somehow you now applaud the Bishop of Chelmsford as having behaved in… Read more »
Susanna, thank you for asking for clarification. Martine’s article was prompted by the actions of +Newcastle and reactions to it but that connection is probably more evident on X/Twitter than it is here. There you will find it embedded into threads which include or are specifically about +Newcastle.
Thank you Susanna and others. The term ‘prophetic voice’ is rarely deployed with complimentary intent. Jane’s intervention, and later clarification, prompted me to reflect on my own career in public service. During that time women certainly achieved top posts and were at most of the top tables. But I was very aware that the majority expectation was that we would behave like the men and that speaking with a different voice was bad for us as individuals as as a group. That we might have something important or useful to say was irrelevant. There is no shortage of analysis of… Read more »
Prophets usually find themselves in the sort of ‘difficulties’ the Bishop of Newcastle now faces. That is, if being ignored by one’s dubious colleagues and feted by the common people can be termed a difficulty.
Did you see the letter in the Church Times this week by Bishop Peter Selby taking +Newcastle to task, Janet? It disturbed me hugely because it illustrated what I see as the most pressing cultural problem in the HoB without mentioning it or indeed meaning to. I think there is a very fine line between professional etiquette grounded in collective responsibility and the kind of omertà that is prevalent in mafia families and has arguably fuelled the abuse cover-ups in the RC Church. My view is the conduct of the HoB collectively and its culture have crossed that line some… Read more »
And I wonder what the unfortunate survivor makes of all this? X Newcastle stood up for him against two entitled archbishops- and the content of their letter was nothing new – basically ‘JS still doesn’t feel he needs to apologise however wrong he might have been because archbishops don’t apologise. Just suck that up , there’s a good girl’. General outrage from the clan – poor JS cannot end his days dressing up in his best robes and mitre and being admired by old ladies. Compare and contrast- X Chelmsford states engagingly that she has had her knuckles wrapped by… Read more »
Matt is backing +Helen’Anne to the hilt. And he has publicly complain about his treatment by both ++Sentamu and ++Cottrell. Which is entirely in keeping with what I (a clergy survivor in York Diocese) have seen of both.
I did see that letter, and I thought it perfectly illustrated the culture of oppression and omertà that Bp Hartley has been speaking up against, and why she was right to do so. I’ve never met Bp Hartley, and am not privy to her mind. But, judging by her public statements, she expected other bishops to back her when she called for Welby to resign, because that’s what they were saying privately. But by the time she released the archbishops’ letter, she must have known what the reaction from the Church would be. She has said since in interviews that… Read more »
Absolutely, Janet. I agree completely with you, and with Susanna.
Janet. Greetings. In a church facing, among other things, issues around the misuse of charismatic authority, claims to being ‘prophetic’ need particular care. I think +H-A’s actions are better described as ‘protest’ and ‘dissent’. But if you are claiming hers was a prophetic act how are we to discern it, as the scripture requires? And could I choose to call +Guli’s response, to what appears to be s similar experience of coercive central authority, ‘prophetic’ too? If not, why not? Who decides? And do these questions make Jane or I ‘dubious’ too?
Hello David. Questions do not make people dubious. It’s the refusal to question power, especially when it is misused or abused, that makes people dubious. And I am aware, thank you, of issues around the misuse of charismatic authority, and thought carefully before I used the word ‘prophet’. We can discern +Helen-Anne’s action as prophetic by comparing them to the actions and words of biblical prophets such as Nathan and Elijah – prophets who revealed the secret sins of those in power and exposed them to judgment. As for +Guli, I haven’t heard her remarks, only read comments about them.… Read more »
Janet, I think this needs a New Testament understanding of the exercise of prophetic ministry in the church rather than a rather selective ‘this is that’ from the Old Testament. Meanwhile the bishops are gathered on Mount Carmel awaiting their collective fate?
I don’t think we can divorce the New Testament so easily from the old, nor ignore what the Old Testament has to teach us about speaking truth to power.
I am not suggesting ignoring anything. But you have not responded to my comment about the need to discern what comes with claims to be prophetic or sign. Has this happened here? Where and who by? What if not all agree with it – as is the case here? Thanks.
I did respond to your comment about discernment. I pointed out that +Helen-Ann’s words and actions are congruent with those of biblical prophets. That is how prophecy is to be tested.
Note that Bp. Helen-Ann has not herself claimed to be prophetic – that’s a term used by myself and others.
As for all agreeing with it – the point of prophets is that they say what is uncomfortable to hear. Many refuse to listen.
As someone whose (‘born again’) Christian journey began in a deeply ‘charismatic’ religious community – and a gentle one – I have come to witness some examples in church life where the gifts of the Spirit seem to have been co-opted and almost appropriated in ways that I regard as problematic and dangerous. That included the emergence of house churches which were mostly led by men is a spiritually ‘muscular’ way, where the charismata were much in evidence, the quiet voice and gentleness of the Holy Spirit less so. Of the many and various manifestations of charismatic life, I should… Read more »
‘Jane or me’
Janet, well, it’s the season for a spot of apocalyptic. And that sort of language does sometimes come to the fore when things are bit fevered for any reason. I’m not sure, though, that +HA intended to be a prophet – her statements so far have been more along the lines of ‘I thought we were all going to say this so why am I the only one?’ From where I’m standing what we’re seeing is some splitting and projection of the kind that can happen when an individual, or an organisation, is under great psychological pressure. ‘You are a… Read more »
Throwing my non-aligned tuppence worth in here, there are as I understand it, two kinds of prophecy. One is the Tolkien fantasy sort (which I think is what many people expect) of a ‘fore-telling’ of a future event; the other an interpreting of current events in the light of God’s revealed will and standards. Isaiah and Jesus himself were particularly skilled at the second sort. (This being Advent, I wonder if Isaiah realised there were two interpretations to his ‘young woman / virgin’ prophecy, or what he understood by his ‘suffering servant’ messages? Seriously, that does intrigue me at the… Read more »
That’s interesting, John. At one time I had quite a lot to do with +Sentamu. I both liked him as a person, and thought he was an utterly atrocious leader.
Being serious, I’d say you have very accurately summarised the comments I heard. As I said, I didn’t know him well enough to express an opinion.
John: “Charismatic history is littered with leaders who made extravagant platform prophesies which subsequently never came to pass.” Sadly this is very true. Great care needed in discernment and, as you say, often only clearer quite a long time later. Some people’s voices do ‘ring’ with a truth that triggers alertness of recognition within. But even so, I think it needs the discernment of the wider Church and where Church communities should take it from there. The Church is collective, and prophecy may ‘channel’ through some at certain moments in time, but more of what the prophetic is about involves… Read more »
That’s a good insight, Susannah. The church, as I understand it, is a body of believers which has the responsibility of discerning the will of God – your ‘collective’ in action. The church – any church, at any time – inevitably reflects the society from which it draws its members and their values. One weakness is our innate tendency to ‘hero worship’ individualism; to idolise particular people and to feel they can do no wrong. Sadly the charismatic movement had /has a tendency to do just that, with inevitable results. Those who’ve followed some of the more contentious threads on… Read more »
PS. Collecting ivy and evergreens for my wife’s Christmas crafts at a ladies’ meeting is a definite aid to meditation. It struck me while clipping leaves that you’ve very neatly defined how I believe the Holy Spirit should and does work in a church context. Having just read all of your earlier reply to Janet Fife, we are most definitely travelling the same road, encountering the same issues and thinking along very similar lines. As I said, part of my journey is finding a balance between personal individualism and corporate actions. Too much emphasis on individual experience is a problem… Read more »
The question is not whether we like or dislike John Sentamu. The point at issue is that he was criticised in a review for his failure to respond adequately in a serious safeguarding case, refused to accept the criticism, attacked the review, and refused to apologise for either when asked to do so. These are objective facts. It’s an objective fact also that York Diocese was criticised in other safeguarding reviews (e.g. the Pearl Review) during Sentamu’s tenure in office there. Any parish clergy of whom all this were true would be facing disciplinary action. Retired bishops and archbishops have… Read more »
I don’t think Bp Helen-Ann is the saviour of the Church of England. I do think she has put her finger on the abuses of power within it which have damaged so many people, and are damaging the church itself. I think the way she has spoken out about that is prophetic. That doesn’t mean I think all her views and actions are prophetic. Nor do I think the bishops are a brood of vipers – that exaggerated language is yours, not mine. After long experience of the C of E I’ve concluded that some bishops are corrupt, and many… Read more »
This comment is in response to that of Colin Coward two days ago when his last line was, ‘How can we organise to achieve a breakthrough? I find the photographs being posted on Twitter and especially in this article by Gavin Drake, very effective. We now know what the people responsible for safeguarding cover up look like. Let’s have these regularly posted as I am sure they will not like to be identified in such a way. The strongest evidence against Archbishop York was Gavin’s brilliant video of Stephen Cottrell speaking blatant untruths to Synod. Gavin, please don’t mind if… Read more »
I have a major credibility problem with my Christian beliefs, and the way we express them, over all this. So many conference addresses and worship songs express a powerful belief in a God of high moral standards, who clearly threatens judgement on corruption and wickedness. One of Graham Kendrick’s ‘Make way’ songs expressed it very forcefully; there are other, more recent ones. We sing a lot about God’s purifying fire coming down to purge the church of sin, before sending it to be a light to the world. (Make your own list) But – does it ever happen? Or, if… Read more »
Thank you for picking up on my question, Susan. It’s good to be shown that there are ways in which the photographs being posted on Twitter are effective, making visual what are otherwise invisible people to many. I’ve never been a Twitter person so I’m unaware of what effect it has. I’m not going to join X now! I’ve not seen Gavin’s video – and clearly I need to. But seeing things on Twitter isn’t the same as a movement developing in the Church of England that achieves enough traction to have an impact. Following Thinking Anglicans is enough to… Read more »
Colin thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am not particularly technically minded or part of social media. However, two years ago I was advised to become part of Twitter and have since learned a lot about safeguarding and the personalities involved, (even interviews with Cathy Newman on channel 4 are posted). I do though quite agree with you that it is unlikely for a movement to develop from Twitter. Over the past five years through supporting a friend in a wrongful allegation, I have been made aware of serious safeguarding abuses in the Church of England. It is concerning… Read more »
Apologies! Incorrect link, it seemed to work before I posted it. The actual video made by Gavin is well worth seeing. How Stephen Cottrell can remain in post with this video circulating I do no know.
I should be grateful if someone could post the correct link.