The General Synod of the Church of England will meet in London from 8 to 12 February 2010. The following press release was issued a short time ago.
See our adjoining item for links to online Synod papers.
Full agenda published for February’s General Synod
18 January 2010
Debates on children and young people, mission, TV coverage of religion, science and religious belief, church buildings, relations with the Anglican Church in North America, clergy pensions and legislation feature in sessions of the Church of England’s ‘parliament,’ the General Synod, to be held in London from February 8th to 12th.
Children and young people
Synod will debate the report Going for Growth, on the Board of Education’s new strategy for children and young people. This offers both a theological framework and practical proposals, and is a sequel to the debate at the July 2009 Synod on the major inquiry into childhood commissioned by The Children’s Society, A Good Childhood.
Mission
The report and motion from the Mission and Public Affairs Council will follow up the 2004 Synod debate on ‘Mission-shaped Church’ and will encourage action in training and deployment; the making of Bishops’ Mission Orders, and research on the growth of the ‘mixed-economy Church.’ Bishop Graham Cray (Archbishops’ Missioner and Fresh Expressions Team Leader) will give a presentation on the current programme and future plans for Fresh Expressions.
TV coverage of religion and ethics
A Private Member’s Motion from Mr. Nigel Holmes (Carlisle) invites the Synod to ask the BBC and Ofcom to explain why British television marginalises TV coverage of religious and ethical issues.
Legislation
Synod will be asked to complete several items of legislative business – chiefly the Ecclesiastical Fees (Amendment) Measure, which will put in place a new framework for the making of orders for parochial fees. Synod will also be asked to approve two codes of practice issued by the Archbishops’ Council, which set out the capability and grievance procedures that will apply to the clergy under the new common tenure arrangements.
Clergy pensions
An Archbishops’ Council report sets out the reasons for the proposed changes to the Clergy Pensions Scheme. These include increasing the pension age for future service to 68 and increasing the accrual period for future service to 43 years. There is a separate report on changes being proposed in relation to ill-health retirement.
There is also a Private Member’s Motion from the Revd Mark Bratton (Coventry) which asks the Archbishops’ Council and the Pensions Board to bring forward changes to the pension scheme’s rules, to provide pension benefits for surviving civil partners.
Science and religious belief
Synod will debate a Diocesan Synod Motion from Manchester, expressing concern at the perceived need to choose between the claims of science and belief in God; and urging the House of Bishops to promote a better public understanding of the compatibility of science and Christian belief.
Church buildings
The Cathedrals and Church Buildings Division will give a short presentation on what the Division has achieved since the publication five years ago of Building Faith in our Future, and the challenges that cathedrals and church buildings face today. This will preface a debate on the Ripon and Leeds Diocesan Synod Motion, which seeks to increase substantially the amount of money available for the repair of listed church buildings.
Relations with the Anglican Church in North America
A Private Member’s Motion from Mrs. Lorna Ashworth (Chichester) asks the Synod to express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America (which includes churches which have separated from The Episcopal Church in the United States, and the Anglican Church of Canada).
Other Private Members Motions and Diocesan Synod Motions
There will be a debate on a Private Members’ Motion from Mr. Tom Benyon (Oxford) which expresses concern about the potentially desensitising and damaging effects on children and young people of computer games containing violent and sexual content; and seeks changes to the classification system for video games and a review of the regulatory system for advertising video games.
There are two other Diocesan Synod Motions. One from Chelmsford asks Synod to request dioceses, deaneries and parishes to adopt some symbol of the Church’s confidence in the Bible for the nation, bearing in mind that 2011 is the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible. The other is from Coventry diocese, which asks for the case for legislation conferring incorporated status on deanery synods to be considered.
Women bishops
The Revision Committee on Women in the Episcopate has reluctantly concluded that it still has too much to undertake in order to conclude its work in time for the February Synod. The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd. Nigel McCulloch, as Chair of the Steering Committee, will make a statement.
Other business
Synod will be addressed by the President and Vice-President of the Methodist Conference (the Reverend David Gamble, and Dr. Richard Vautrey) as an expression of the Covenant relationship between the Church of England and the Methodist Church. There will be an opportunity for questions and contributions from the floor.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will give a Presidential Address. There will also be a presentation on the role of armed forces chaplains in the current military operations overseas.
There is also one item of liturgical business: the Revision Stage of the Additional Weekday Lectionary; and some business relating to Synod’s Standing Orders, and the forthcoming Synod elections.
Communicating Synod
Parishioners can keep in touch with the General Synod while it meets. Background papers and other information will be posted on the Church of England website ahead of the General Synod sessions. A live feed will be available courtesy of Premier Radio (accessible from front page of www.cofe.anglican.org), and audio files of debates, along with updates on the days’ proceedings will be posted during the sessions.
24 CommentsMany papers for next month’s meeting of General Synod are now online. The list below will be updated as the remainder become available. Papers are also listed when they are known to exist but are not yet online.
Updated 20, 25, 26, 29 January
Agenda
GS 1756 Full Agenda
Outline Agenda
Papers for Debate
The scheduled day for debate is appended.
GS 1639B Draft Amending Canon No 29 [Tuesday]
GS 1639C Petition to the Crown
GS 1639Z Report of the Steering Committee
GS 1715B Ecclesiastical Fees (Amendment) Measure [Tuesday]
GS 1715Z Report of the Steering Committee
GS 1724A Additional Weekday Lectionary and Amendments to Calendar, Lectionary and Collects [Wednesday]
GS 1724Y Report of the Revision Committee
GS 1727A Care of Cathedrals Measure [Tuesday and Thursday]
GS 1740A Mission and Pastoral Measure [Tuesday and Thursday]
GS 1740Y Revision Committee Report
GS 1757 Report by the Business Committee [Monday]
GS 1758 Clergy Pensions: Task Group Report [Tuesday]
GS 1759 Clergy Pensions: Ill-health retirement [Tuesday]
GS 1760 General Synod Elections 2010 [Tuesday]
GS 1761 Mission Shaped Church: Follow-up [Tuesday]
GS 1763 44th Report of the Standing Orders Committee [Wednesday]
GS 1766 Fresh Expressions [Thursday]
GS 1767 Realising the missionary potential of Church buildings [Thursday]
GS 1769 Going for Growth (covering note only) [Thursday]
Going for Growth report
GS 1774 and GS 1775 Codes of Practice under Section 8 of the Ecclesiastical Offices (Terms of Service) Measure 2009 [Tuesday]
GS 1774-5X Explanatory Memorandum
Private Member’s Motions
GS 1762A and GS 1762B (Mr Nigel Holmes): TV Coverage of Religious and Ethical Issues [Wednesday]
GS 1764A and GS 1764B (Mrs Lorna Ashworth): Anglican Church in North America [Wednesday]
GS 1770A and GS 1770B (The Revd Mark Bratton): Parity of pension provision for surviving civil partners [Thursday]
GS 1771A and GS 1771B (Mr Thomas Benyon): Violent computer games [Thursday]
Diocesan Synod Motions
GS 1765A and GS 1765B (Chelmsford): Confidence in the Bible [Wednesday]
GS 1768 (Ripon and Leeds): Repair of Church buildings [Thursday]
GS 1772A and GS 1772B (Manchester): Compatibility of Science and Christian Belief [Friday]
GS 1773A and GS 1773B (Coventry): Deanery Synods [Friday]
Updated Sunday morning
The Diocese of Glasgow & Galloway has announced that the Very Rev Dr Gregor Duncan has been elected to be its next bishop.
The Very Rev Dr Gregor Duncan elected as Bishop
The BBC and the Press Association in reporting this concentrate on one of the unsuccessful candidates.
BBC Priest fails in female bishop bid
PA Priest not elected as female bishop
Update
Bishop David Chillingworth comments on media coverage, in Welcome to Bishop Gregor.
22 CommentsAndreas Whittam Smith writes in the Independent about POWER2010. See Here’s one way to reconnect voters and see what he is talking about at the POWER2010 website.
Roderick Strange writes in The Times that Water into wine teaches us about transformation.
And Rosemary Lain-Priestley writes there about Being a mother, wife and priest.
In the Guardian Riaz Ravat writes in the Face to Faith column that amid a slew of negative coverage, we must all work at challenging how Muslims are seen.
The Brookings Institution has published a paper by Alex Evans and David Steven titled Hitting Reboot: Where Next For Climate After Copenhagen? (The paper itself is a PDF download from that page.) (Hat tip: Richard Chartres.)
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times that Science is not neutral.
And his Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 on Friday, about Theodicy is available here to listen to, or here as a podcast. The text will also be on the BBC website later, but is available now below the fold.
10 CommentsPat Ashworth reports in the Church Times today, Women face another delay as committee misses deadline.
THE draft legislation on women bishops will not be coming before the General Synod for debate next month as scheduled. Instead, the revision committee is expected still to be working on it after Easter. It will not now be debated till July…
This became public knowledge by the issue of the draft agenda, a little over a week ago.
Also, Jane Hedges writes about women in senior clergy posts, A little encouragement is all it will take.
This contains the results of a survey which showed that women clergy were less likely to respond to open competitive advertising than they were to respond to a personal approach. But what we don’t learn is whether this is the same or different for male clergy.
And there is a Church Times leader, Women bishops delay (scroll down).
10 CommentsTHERE are two sorts of waiting. One is the wait while a family comes to a decision about whether it wants to journey to a particular place. Time can pass during consultations and preparation, but it is generally considered well spent in order to reach a proper agreement. The second sort of wait is when, having decided on its journey, the family stands on a snowy platform awaiting a scheduled train that the rail company has just taken out of service.
Churchpeople are entitled to feel irritated that the revision committee charged with taking forward the draft women-bishops legislation has missed its February deadline. The next stage of the process must therefore be delayed till the General Synod meets again in July. It is, though, important that the Synod comes up with the best possible legislation to introduce women to the episcopate without reservation while, at the same time, seeking not to unchurch those who object. This was the Synod’s express wish, and it cannot be any surprise that the revision committee has struggled to fulfil both sides of this task. Returning to the analogy above, there is no point in the train’s arriving in the station if the whole family is not on the platform. The committee now needs to be more open about its deliberations in order to curb the Synod’s impatience.
Updated
The Government has proposed a new definition of when “Employment is for the purposes of an organised religion”.
Here it is:
Employment is for the purposes of an organised religion only if—
(a) the employment is as a minister of religion, or
(b) the employment is in another post that exists (or, where the post has not previously been filled, that would exist) to promote or represent the religion or to explain the doctrines of the religion (whether to followers of the religion or to others).
This would replace the current wording found in Schedule 9, Paragraph 2(8).
Update
In order to evaluate this, it may be helpful to recall that this clause is designed to cover a variety of issues, not only sexual orientation.
25 Comments(a) a requirement to be of a particular sex;
(b) a requirement not to be a transsexual person;
(c) a requirement not to be married or a civil partner;
(d) a requirement not to be married to, or the civil partner of, a person who has a living former spouse or civil partner;
(e) a requirement relating to circumstances in which a marriage or civil partnership came to an end;
(f) a requirement related to sexual orientation.
The House of Lords continued its examination of the Equality Bill yesterday. Amendments discussed covered clauses 10 to 29. Here is the news page with links.
The Hansard record can be found starting here, or the PDF file is over here.
Two of the amendments I had previously listed as interesting were debated.
Amendment 20 (Baroness Varsi and Baroness Morris) which would remove the word “philosophical” from the definition of “belief”, was debated, follow that from here.
At the end of the evening, Lord MacKay of Clashfern proposed Amendment 57A:
“Conscientious objection
Nothing in this Act shall have the effect of requiring a person (A) to provide a good or service to a person (B) when doing so has the effect of making A complicit with an action to which A has a genuine conscientious objection.”
Read the debate on that from here.
Also, yesterday there was a change in the list of peers sponsoring the amendment to delete Sch 9 Clause 2 Para 8. Baroness Varsi’s name was removed, and was replaced by Baroness Butler-Sloss. Lady Butler-Sloss also added her name to those sponsoring the amendment to delete the word “proportionate” in in paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 9 clause 2.
5 CommentsThis week in the Church Times there is a report on this topic. The original is subscriber-only until Friday but meanwhile is copied below.
TAC members mostly in India by Simon Sarmiento
NINETY per cent of the membership of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) resides in India and Africa, information received by the Church Times shows.
The TAC was formed in 1990, and now includes former Anglicans in six continents. Its current Primate, Archbishop John Hepworth, is based in South Australia. Dialogue between the TAC and the Vatican, after a formal petition made by the TAC in October 2007, was cited as a significant factor in the decision by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to issue the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus (News, 13 November).
The secretary to the College of Bishops of the TAC, Cheryl Woodman, supplied the figures shown on the left. She said that they were “based on about 60 per cent of our communicant membership attending every Sunday”, and that “this would easily bring the [membership] figure to around the 400,000 that is regularly quoted.”
In India, the TAC is represented by the Anglican Church of India (ACI). The ACI was formed in 1964 by Anglicans who withdrew from the Churches of North and South India. It now has 15 dioceses. The Traditional Anglican Church in Britain lists about 20 parishes on its website.
|
Territory |
Attendance |
Proportion |
|
India |
130,000 |
54% |
|
Southern Africa (including Zimbabwe, Mozambique, |
65,000 |
27% |
|
Central Africa (including Kenya, Cameroon, Eastern |
26,000 |
11% |
|
UK and Europe |
1,800 |
0.7% |
|
Canada |
2,000 |
0.8% |
|
USA |
2,500 |
1.0% |
|
Central America |
7,000 |
2.3% |
|
Australia (inc Torres Straights), New Zealand, and |
6,500 |
2.7% |
|
|
240,800 |
|
See earlier article here which includes a list of some of the amendments of interest.
Yesterday’s committee hearings dealt with Clauses 1 to 9. No amendments were agreed. The Hansard record begins here. The Parliament website has this news report with links.
Amendments considered included one from the Bishop of Chester on gender reassignment. (The Bishop of Chichester spoke on his behalf.)
The latest (Tuesday morning) list of the remaining marshalled amendments (excludes those considered yesterday) can be found here. Committee hearings resume on Wednesday.
The Bishop of Winchester’s amendment relating to marriages and gender reassignment discrimination has now reappeared in much shorter form then before:
58A* Page 143, line 2, at end insert—
GENDER REASSIGNMENT
A person does not contravene section 29, so far as relating to gender reassignment discrimination, only because of anything done in reliance on section 5B of the Marriage Act 1949 (solemnisation of marriages involving person of acquired gender).”
Baroness Noakes and Baroness Neuberger have added their names to Lord Alli’s amendment relating to the venues for civil partnerships.
Meanwhile in the House of Commons, two questions were asked relating to the EU “reasoned opinion”.
5 CommentsEpiscopal Café has drawn attention in ABC’s visitors to Canada on “aberrations south of the border” to a report in the Anglican Journal on the recent visit to Canada of “two pastoral visitors from the U.K. who were deputized by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams”. They were Bishop Chad Gandiya of Harare, Zimbabwe, and Bishop Colin Bennetts, the retired bishop of Coventry.
Rather surprisingly, the visitors appear to have included remarks in their report about a country they were not visiting, the USA. According to the Journal:
The visitors said they were also reminded frequently by bishops that “Canada is not the USA.” While the United States is seen as a melting pot culture where religious and ethnic groups are synthesized into “Americans,” Canadians “genuinely value and seek to live with diversity.” Differences between the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church were underscored, including the area of Christology. “We sensed that in Canada there was a general consensus on the nature of orthodoxy, with fewer extreme views of the kind that have led to some of the aberrations south of the border,” the report said. “Even the bishops who were strongly progressive in the matter of same-sex blessings insisted that they stood firmly within the creedal mainstream.” This, the report said, is “an encouraging sign that it allows for a more obviously Christ-centred approach to issues that currently divide the Communion, to say nothing of the wider church.”
Now read this article about the skills of Bishop Bennetts as a “bridge-builder”, Conflict resolution expert sent to observe at HOB.
198 CommentsAlthough he is now Hunkering down in the snow? Alan Wilson wrote last Sunday about the Rule of St Benedict, see It’s not what you say….
Giles Fraser wrote in the Church Times about Football in the wilds of Yemen.
John Cottingham writes in The Times that Our restless quest for God is a search for home.
David Bryant writes in the Guardian that A religion that is based on a code of moral injunctions should be approached warily.
Cif belief asked What are you frightened of this year? to which David Walker replied Spiders and authoritarianism and Mark Dowd replied The Pope’s visit.
Fulcrum published a sermon by Graham Kings on The Holy Spirit and the Magi.
12 CommentsThe outline agenda for next month’s meeting of General Synod is now available online and is copied below.
Note: In the agenda DSM stands for Diocesan Synod Motion, and PMM for Private Member’s Motion. The texts of the private members’ motions are online.
GENERAL SYNOD: FEBRUARY 2010
Outline Agenda
Monday 8 February
Afternoon
[ 2-4pm: Meetings of the House of Clergy and House of Laity ]
Tuesday 9 February
Morning
Afternoon
Wednesday 10 February
Morning
Afternoon
Thursday 11 February
Morning
Afternoon
Friday 12 February
Morning
Amended again Monday afternoon
My report in last week’s Church Times on the December debate in the House of Lords, can be now be read at Religion is more than this, say peers.
The consideration of the Equality Bill will resume next week, when the House of Lords considers the bill in Committee. The following five dates have been allocated: Monday 11 Jan, Wednesday 13 Jan, Tuesday 19 Jan, Monday 25 Jan, Wednesday 27 January.
Numerous amendments have been proposed, see the new marshalled list of amendments to be moved in committee, starting here.
Monday And now this revised marshalled list starting here.
The Conservative party spokesperson, Baroness Varsi, together with Baroness O’Cathain, Lord Anderson of Swansea, and the Bishop of Winchester have put down an amendment to strike out the whole of the new definition of the purposes of organised religion. Amendment 100. The latter three have also put down an amendment to remove the word “proportionate” in paragraphs 5 and 6 of Schedule 9 clause 2. Amendments 98, 99
Baroness Varsi and Baroness Morris have also put down an amendment which would remove the word “philosophical” from the definition of “belief”. Amendment 20
The Bishop of Winchester had put down an amendment dealing with religious marriages and gender reassignment discrimination. This is not in the current list because it has been withdrawn for redrafting.I am told it will be resubmitted shortly.
The Bishop of Chester has put down an amendment to insert the words “under medical supervision” into the definition of gender reassignment. Amendment 10
Baroness Turner of Camden has put down amendments to ensure that the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 will have to be read in light of Schedule 9 (3). Amendments 124, 125 and 137
She has also put down amendments:
– to modify paragraph 8 so that it reads (addition in bold):
Employment is for the purposes of an organised religion only if the purpose of the employment wholly or mainly involves—
Amendment 100
– to qualify Clause 3 of Schedule 9 (Other requirements relating to religion or belief) to add:
(d) A is not operating as a public authority, on behalf of a public authority or operating in relation to a contract with public authorities.”
Amendment 101A
Lord Alli has put down amendments:
– to allow civil partnerships to take place on religious premises Amendment 119A
– to delete the clause in Schedule 9 paragraph 2(4) which reads “(f) a requirement related to sexual orientation.” i.e. the transposition of the 2003 SO Regulations paragraph 7(3). Amendment 97E
Lord MacKay of Clashfern has put down this amendment:
“Conscientious objection
Nothing in this Act shall have the effect of requiring a person (A) to provide a good or service to a person (B) when doing so has the effect of making A complicit with an action to which A has a genuine conscientious objection.”
Amendment 57A
Michael Foster MP Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Equalities has today announced that the Government will propose an amendment:
16 CommentsContrary to some reports over the weekend, the Equality Bill will still allow churches to hire only male clergy and will let faith-based charities continue to recruit people of the same faith where this is a requirement of the job, such as care staff who may also be asked to pray with the people they look after. We have been absolutely clear on this throughout the Bill’s passage, but as there has been some misunderstanding around our intentions we will amend the Bill to make this clear beyond doubt.
Updated Friday morning
Malcolm whose earlier article at Simple Massing Priest The Anglican Covenant and Democratic Centralism was listed only in the comments on my previous roundup, has written again, this one is titled Rowan and the real revisionists.
Neal Michell has written Is the Anglican Covenant Non-Anglican? at Covenant.
Leander Harding has written Commentary on the Anglican Covenant 2009.
Ruth Gledhill has interviewed Gregory Cameron, see Confidence in the Covenant? at Religious Intelligence and also Church of England to consider communion with conservatives in US at The Times together with General Synod to be asked to recognise ACNA.
Retired archbishop Moses Tay doesn’t think much of the Covenant, see Anglican Covenant ‘Whitewashes’ Denomination’s Immorality: Retired Archbishop exclusively in the Christian Post.
In a related matter, Kenneth Kearon has provided an explanation of the current legal status of the Constitution of the Anglican Consultative Council. See this article at Episcopal Café Anglican Constitution is what it seems to be and also this note from Lionel Deimel Communion Transparency, Take 3.
Addition
Scott Gunn has published Anglican Communion woes? Be not afraid.
The Private Members’ Motion relating to ACNA can be found here. Scroll up for an explanation of how motions get selected for debate.
57 CommentsUpdated Saturday morning
John Denham announced yesterday the names of 13 new faith advisers who “will act as a ‘sounding board’ to advise on effective engagement with faith communities, and the impact of Communities and Local Government policy on faith communities.”
Read the full press release here.
The members of the panel are:
So far, there appear to be no newspaper reports of this.
Update
Heresy Corner has collected biographical information about the panel members, see The God Squad.
1 CommentThe former Bishop of London, Graham Leonard, died on Wednesday.
Telegraph The Rt Rev Mgr Graham Leonard
Guardian Alan Webster Monsignor Graham Leonard obituary
The Times The Right Rev Mgr Graham Leonard: Bishop of London, 1981-91
34 CommentsIn his brief and brilliant poem T S Eliot traces the path of the Magi, through “the very dead of winter” facing hazards, challenges and portents on the road to their destination as witnesses of the newborn Christ. But as so often with Eliot, it’s the twist in the final few lines that takes the reader off into a new and hitherto unexplored dimension. For, whereas Matthew simply tells us that they made their way home by a different route, Eliot makes us listen to the elderly traveller reflect on life after Epiphany:
…this birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Eliot’s insight is that, no matter how hard or arduous the journey to a religious experience may be, the greater challenge lies in living in the light of that experience afterwards, among people who haven’t shared it and cannot understand it. It’s a thesis borne out by statistical surveys which invariably show a majority of respondents are able to identify something that has happened to them that they would classify as a religious experience, and yet in most cases they haven’t found a way of integrating it into the rest of their lives.
I like to think that what is in the poem isn’t just Eliot’s Christian insight but something of his quintessentially Anglican identity. Here was a man who spent many years in the office of churchwarden, a position less associated with theophanies than with the challenge of ensuring good order and that the practicalities of church life are given due attention. In my years as a parish priest I found that a high proportion of those who came to join us were not new-born Christians, fresh from some profound conversion experience, but men and women who had come to faith elsewhere, often in more evangelical or Pentecostal gatherings, and had, after a short while, found little there that enabled them to live in the world as it is; nothing that could sustain them once Epiphany was over.
To be Anglican is not to disregard or downplay religious experiences. I know in my own life how important are both the occasions when I receive an intense experience of God and the daily sense of his quiet presence beside me and within me as I encounter him in contemplative prayer. But being Anglican is so much more; it’s about being resourced, equipped and encouraged to live a Christian life that is fully incarnated into a world which operates according to significantly different values. The work I do, nationally and locally, to promote high standards in equality and diversity practice, and my involvements with the Housing Association movement are as much what it is to be Anglican as my attendance at public worship and, as a bishop, my role as Eucharistic President.
And so I delight that the Church of England calendar now has the post Epiphany season running all the way through to Candlemas on February 2nd. But I do slightly wonder why so many of the Sunday lections for the next few weeks are about the miraculous, when, as Eliot has told us, that’s the easy bit, it’s after the journey is over that the real challenges arise.
David Walker is Bishop of Dudley in the Diocese of Worcester
4 CommentsThe way the stories of the nativity are told, they are full of journeys. There is Mary’s trip to see Elizabeth for companionship in pregnancy, the journey to Bethlehem to be registered and for the infant to be born, the journey to Egypt to escape Herod and later on to Nazareth to keep below the political horizon, and of course the journey of the magi to find the holy child.
And our stories are often full of journeys at this time of year. In our case, my son’s arrival from Germany was delayed by 20 hours and Air France lost his luggage for 10 days. Numerous family members across three generations came to visit from York and Lancashire, and this year the accounts of their travels were coloured with anxiety about the weather. And today, all my sisters and I are meeting in Lancashire to discuss the care of our elderly mother, though I will be travelling furthest for this occasion. And there will be similar accounts of the journeys made by you and yours over the holiday period, which will take in every detail of what went wrong or the signs of grace and blessing that made them a joy. On the whole, these are not life-changing journeys, though you can’t always know when you are setting off which trips will change things for ever and which will merely take you to another place.
The image of the journey is much used as a metaphor for the life of faith and for life in general. I have myself given sermons on the spiritual journey at this time of year. There are times when the metaphor works really well. I can remember a long wait once at Amsterdam airport, reflecting on how life is like waiting for the next plane. But the metaphor does have its limitations, and I would say on the whole that it is over-used and risks becoming a cliché. It becomes a problem as an image when one feels stuck and the sense that we should be going somewhere in our faith becomes another stick to beat oneself with. It is a problem, too, for people whose spirituality is centred on stability, on staying in one place and experiencing the height and the depth of that domain. It is a problem also because it tends to be used about my spiritual journey, rather than about the shared experience of a community.
It seems likely that different personality types respond more favourably to different images of the spiritual life, perhaps to artistic images such as a dance, for instance, or a picture or a symphony. Another series of helpful images centres on growth, seeds, trees, blossom and fruit.
The metaphor matters because it helps to shape the way you make sense of your experience. I have travelled with the spiritual journey metaphor for a long time, but I am beginning to feel that it won’t do any more. My hope for this new year is that I can find a new way to conceptualise my relationship with God and my calling to serve and that it becomes a little less about me.
Meg Gilley is a parish priest working in former pit villages in County Durham.
2 CommentsThe latest text of the Anglican Covenant is linked from this earlier article.
Responses from Provinces to Section 4 of the Ridley Cambridge Draft of the Anglican Covenant are in a PDF, here.
This week’s Church Times summarises the story, see Pat Ashworth Anglican Churches sent final text of Covenant — ‘not a penal code’.
Responses to the final version are varied. Here is a selection:
Living Church
Catholic Voices: Four Responses to the Covenant (Graham Kings, Josiah Idowu-Fearon, Tony Clavier, Richard Kew) and also The Covenant and the Fullness of Time (Peter Carrell). Also Essential Aspects (Christopher Wells) and Editorial: To Arrive Where We Started.
Anglican Communion Institute
Committing to the Anglican Covenant:An analysis by the Anglican Communion Institute and also Ephraim Radner The New Season: The Emerging Shape of Anglican Mission
A.S. Haley Common Sense and the Covenant
Bishop Chris Epting An Improved Anglican Covenant
Bosco Peters Anglican Covenant – partly used
Jim Stockton Bad Fruit from Bad Seed
Adrian Worsfold Anglicanism gives way to Democratic Centralism and also Authority to the Standing Committee!
Mark Harris Coal in your Christmas Stocking? One lump or two?
Tobias Haller Incarnation (?)
Jim Naughton What are the consequences of not signing the covenant?
And, linked earlier, but repeated for convenience, Giles Fraser Covenant fatalism (almost).
118 CommentsWe need social networking, but more of it should be in the real world rather than online, writes Julia Neuberger in the Guardian.
Richard Moth writes in The Times about Serving in Afghanistan with a true spirit of self-giving.
You can read and watch The Archbishop of Canterbury’s New Year Message.
Giles Fraser writes in the Church Times about Covenant fatalism (almost). (TA will have a roundup of reactions to the final Anglican Covenant proposal soon.)
Pat Ashworth wrote in the previous edition of the Church Times about diocesan missioners. See Taking stock and doing something.
In that issue, Peter Thompson wrote that The Noughties live up to their name.
And today Andrew Brown writes in the Guardian about Leicester. See Here, everyone is a minority.
18 Comments