Thinking Anglicans

Opinion – 5 February 2025

Colin Coward Unadulterated Love What is the relationship in the CofE today between parishes and the hierarchy?

Martin Sewell and Stephen Trott Surviving Church General Synod and Safeguarding Reform

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FearandTremolo
FearandTremolo
9 days ago

One of the interesting things Colin says is that “The system for electing at deanery level members of diocesan synods and of the General Synod Houses of Clergy and Laity is not working”. And y’know what? I’ll bet you £10 that you couldn’t find five people in your church that could tell you how one would get elected to General Synod.

Of course, my own anecdotal experience is very much that people in the parishes also don’t enormously care what General Synod is up to, but that’s very much the question Colin’s asking.

Francis James
Francis James
Reply to  FearandTremolo
8 days ago

Apostolic succession is tied in with ‘indelible character of a priest’ hocus pocus which led to late 20thC CofE ceasing to be able to defrock its criminal priests (unlike RCs who still defrock). CofE will say that they remove PTO etc, but means nothing to Joe Public, & these clerical criminals can still parade around in Dog Collar etc.

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
9 days ago

Not a lot to argue about in the Sewell/Trott report.

But…what happened to apostolic succession, laying on of hands, and all that stuff?

[I am not at all personally saying that Bishops are special, I am only saying that some Anglicans consider them special, and consider the church is, in that domain of power and authority, different to secular organisations.]

Pam Wilkinson
Pam Wilkinson
Reply to  Nigel Goodwin
8 days ago

is the apostolic succession and “all that stuff” not part of the question Colin Coward is asking more broadly as “What kind of God do people believe in?” There is no consensus on the answer to that question. He is surely right that the “problems of governance” of the Church are not likely to be effectively solved whilst that situation continues. The Church has no clear purpose – which surely makes effective governance improbable, if not impossible? The goal of a commercial organisation might legitimately be to make as much money as legally possible. Decisions (which include decisions about public… Read more »

Colin Coward
Reply to  Pam Wilkinson
8 days ago

Yes Pam, “all that stuff” (and there is a lot of it) is indeed now (and has been increasingly for three decades) part of the question or questions I am asking. “What kind of God do people believe in?” Responses to my blog are helping me understand better the spectrum of belief in God present in the Church today and present in the Church seventy years ago. The spectrum runs from fundamentalist biblical belief in a God whose character and actions are being described in the Bible and who speaks and acts in a literal way to people who don’t… Read more »

Pam Wilkinson
Pam Wilkinson
Reply to  Colin Coward
3 days ago

Thanks for that thoughtful reply. What is the “process” within the Church for debate about theology, dogma, etc? Is there one? I do not have a wide circle of friends who are C of E priests but those I know, one in harness and two retired with PTO (one of them gay and hoping to be able to marry his partner before one of them dies) reject the doctrine of substitutional atonement. So that’s 100% of my small sample!! How can the Church of England, in your words, not acknowledge this spectrum of beliefs? Is it just unthinkable to take… Read more »

Colin Coward
Reply to  Nigel Goodwin
8 days ago

Nigel, I’ve read and re-read and thought about responding to your comment – and thank you for providing the opportunity. The apostolic succession isn’t a real thing, is it? It’s a fantasy idea made up by an institution – the Church – to provide it – the bishops and leaders – with the authority to exert control over the functionaries – clergy – and the people – plebs. I’m not entirely comfortable with the laying on of hands and all that stuff, as you call it, but with a Trump-rampant, I know that a visible sign of conferring authority by… Read more »

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
Reply to  Colin Coward
8 days ago

Thanks for responding, and being able to think about these issues. I merely throw out little darts during short pauses in my day job.

But the issue is fundamental, and there are big gulfs, as you say, and not all the gulfs are the gulfs of Mexico.

[In my day job I did a lot of projects in gulf of Mexico, for offshore oil platforms, and they are amazing, they drill to incredible depths. Perdido, Mars, Olympus, Ursa, Mad Dog]

Last edited 8 days ago by Nigel Goodwin
FearandTremolo
FearandTremolo
Reply to  Colin Coward
8 days ago

Although, first evidence of the succession is in the First Letter of St. Clement, written around 90AD and regarded to be authentic, even if it didn’t make it into the Bible: “on this account, having received perfect foreknowledge, they [the apostles] appointed the above-mentioned as bishops and deacons: and then gave a rule of succession, in order that, when they had fallen asleep, other men, who had been approved, might succeed to their ministry” (44.2). It’s a very early Church idea that the Apostles’ mortality doesn’t get in the way of the continuation of their office. And, crucially, whether the… Read more »

Anglican Priest
Anglican Priest
Reply to  Colin Coward
8 days ago

There are a lot of churches out there that have neither apostolic succession nor bishops consecrated inside this logic. It is not as if one would lack for choice. They hold the same views about these things as you do, and as do their fellow religionists. Methodists rejected AS. Presbyterians never had them. Baptists — quel horreur! Congregationalists — you have a friend in them. Maybe the question is more complicated and far simpler than you propose, at once. Join up with those who hold your view. What’s the hindrance? Or, identify why apostolic succession is a ‘fantasy idea’ through… Read more »

Last edited 8 days ago by Anglican Priest
Pam Wilkinson
Pam Wilkinson
Reply to  Anglican Priest
7 days ago

This may be a silly question, reflecting my lack of background. But how does the traditional doctrine of apostolic succession and the means by which bishops (and indeed priests) are authorised to do what they do sit with the fact that there are now some parts of the church which consider that some bishops (and indeed priests) who have been consecrated/ordained in the prescribed manner are nonetheless not quite kosher?

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
Reply to  Pam Wilkinson
7 days ago

There is no such thing as a silly question!

Anglican Priest
Anglican Priest
Reply to  Pam Wilkinson
7 days ago

I commend the note above from FearandTremolo, for the general background and logic. Your question has most of its force when one considers the reaction of the Church of Rome to Anglican orders, since more than any other church of the Reformation/s, it made claims to a kind of territorial catholicity, under the governance of the Monarch (cf the continental reformers in Geneva, Wittenberg, Zurich, etc). In general, they simply regarded the breach with Rome as breaking apostolic succession, no matter what lofty claims might be held re the See of Canterbury, early monastic movements in the British Isles, Joseph… Read more »

Colin Coward
Reply to  Anglican Priest
7 days ago

Anglican Priest – apostolic succession isn’t my problem, isn’t on my radar – but it doesn’t surprise me that some members of the Church of England are more worried about the validity of orders, of the foundation of the apostolic succession in the Church of England and of the continuity of the laying-on-of-hands than they are about Christian justice for women and LGBTQIA+ people.

Nigel Goodwin
Nigel Goodwin
8 days ago

In all this talk about safeguarding reform, transparency, codes of conduct etc., I just was emailed this list, as part of my role on the executive committee of my club: https://www.uka.org.uk/uka-licensing-decisions-and-case-outcomes/ which is depressingly long, but: (a) it is very transparent, with in many cases the details of the decision (b) decisions are often made with reference to relevant UKA codes of conduct It is not perfect, but compared to CoE, where it is not at all transparent, and there seems to be very little reference to any codes of conduct? One of the barred athletes took a car for… Read more »

Last edited 8 days ago by Nigel Goodwin
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