At last! A new ABC...

It's been a long time coming, but yesterday it came, the announcement of the next Archbishop of Canterbury to succeed the much maligned Justin Welby. I hadn't expected it, but the choice of Dame Sarah Mullally, the Bishop of London, seems to me inspired - amazing though it may seem that such a cumbersome instrument as the Crown Nominations' Commission might have been led to a Spirit-led conclusion. (Maybe the Roman Conclave even if a lot speedier has also proved itself inspired.) 

As readers will know, I have in my enforced leisure hours spent more time than I probably should in following the Church of England's parliament, General Synod (which is, by the way, in my opinion a dreadful way to run a church!). And it's there I have watched Sarah Mullally in action as well as hearing a sermon of hers, and she strikes me as being calm, compassionate, firmly moderate and enormously Christian. Friends who serve or have served in London churches respect and like her, even if they don't always agree with her. And she certainly has a record of caring and bringing life into the world.

However I am sure of two things. First that even now there will be journalists desperately digging for any dirt they can unearth to throw at her. And second, sadly, there will be certain churches and sectors within the Anglican church, both here and abroad, who will disavow allegiance to the Church of England which has a woman archbishop. However I was encouraged by what one conservative commentator said, even before the announcement, "The Archbishop is not the head of the Church; God is."

Finally considering the wait we've had for the appointment, I was reminded of the old saying about the mills of God grinding slowly, but extremely fine. I think its origins are to do with retribution but the poet and hymn-writer, John Oxenham ("In Christ there is no east or west"), used it in a more positive sense in a poem I'd not met before, Flowers of the Dust.

"The Mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small--
So soft and slow the great wheels go they scarcely move at all;
But the souls of men fall into them and are powdered into dust,
And in that dust grow the Passion-Flowers--Love, Hope, Trust.

Most wondrous their upspringing, in the dust of the Grinding-Mills,
And rare beyond the telling the fragrance each distils.
Some grow up tall and stately, and some grow sweet and small,
But Life out of Death is in each one--with purpose grow they all.

For that dust is God's own garden, and the Lord Christ tends it fair,
With oh, such loving tenderness! and oh, such patient care!
In sorrow the seeds are planted, they are watered with bitter tears,
But their roots strike down to the Water-Springs and the Sources of the
Years.

These flowers of Christ's own providence, they wither not nor die,
But flourish fair, and fairer still, through all eternity.
In the Dust of the Mills and in travail the amaranth seeds are sown,
But the Flowers in their full beauty climb the Pillars of the Throne." 

One friend called this the dawn of a new day. Another friend commented on her assurance that "the c of e would be safe in her hands". Amen. May it be so.

Forgive the headline writers

I'm not sure that it was a good use of my time but, for my sins, I did it. I binge-watched all of the Church of England's parliament's (General Synod) two days of debate about safeguarding on Wednesday, which were summed up in media headlines in the BBC and for example the Guardian as "C of E votes against full independence for safeguarding against expert advice". 

This inevitably does not, nor could it represent, the careful and conscientious discussion of all the issues which actually took place in the debates. I noticed a number of points: one was the intense and prolonged silence that followed the relaying of comments by survivors of the abuse of John Smyth - which indicated for me the genuine engagement of the listeners with their suffering. The second was that the Charity Commission had raised problems with churches outsourcing safeguarding because trustees may not delegate their trustee responsibilities. The third was, I believe, that legal snags had been raised by the law firm, Veale Wasbrough Vizards (VWV). The fourth was the complicated situation of cathedral clergy who are also trustees with thousands of visitors as tourists, worshippers and choir schools. It's complex because cathedrals are independent from the central institutions of the Church of England and from dioceses.

All dioceses now have their own professional safeguarding advisors. The model of safeguarding which the Synod voted for (Model 3) retained this local layer, while working for Model 4 (central fully independent safeguarding). If you're interested, the relevant differences between the original (favoured) motion and as it was amended and eventually passed are shown below in paragraph (c). An additional amendment (d) was added.

9  ‘That this Synod:
(a)  thank all those involved in Church safeguarding, particularly the victims and survivors who give so generously of their wisdom and experience, often at great personal cost, and parish safeguarding officers who make sure that safeguarding is a priority in every level and all those who support them in dioceses;
(b)  affirm its commitment to greater independence in safeguarding in the Church of England;
(c)  thank the Response Group for its work for greater independence in safeguarding in the Church of England, endorse model 4 as the direction of travel, and request the lead bishop to engage with the relevant bodies with a view to implementation.’ 

9  ‘That this Synod:
(a)  thank all those involved in Church safeguarding, particularly the victims and survivors who give so generously of their wisdom and experience, often at great personal cost, and parish safeguarding officers who make sure that safeguarding is a priority in every level and all those who support them in dioceses;
(b)  affirm its commitment to greater independence in safeguarding in the Church of England;
(c)  thank the Response Group for its work for greater independence in safeguarding in the Church of England, and, noting the significant reservations around model 4 in paragraph 62 of GS 2378 and the legal advice from VWV dated 31st January 2025, endorse model 3 as the way forward in the short term and call for further work as to the legal and practical requirements necessary to implement model 4.
(d)  lament and repent of the failure of the Church to be welcoming to victims and survivors and the harm they have experienced and continue to experience in the life of the Church.’  

As is clear, the end destination of the amended motion is the same as the original; it was the question of the best road to reach it.

No one, least alone myself, can blame the headline writers for caricaturing rather than fairly characterising the discussions. However it is not fair to say that the Synod voted against full independence of safeguarding. They simply voted for staged greater independence, which obviously must feel like a failure to survivors but in my view is not. 

Andrew Brown has made an interesting comment on the debates. He comments on the flaws of the so-called best of independent safeguarding.

 PS Having watched more proceedings than I should have, I take my hat off and bow deeply to those friends of mine who have actually taken part in the arcane dealings of Synod.

Ruined Church?

Last night as I was going to sleep I saw a picture.  It was of ground covered with medieval masonry as if it was an ancient house recently struck by a missile attack.  The size and nature of the rubble indicated that it might have once been a church.  Then I heard a voice in my head, ‘Do you reckon, human being, that this church can be rebuilt?’

 

And I thought, ‘God knows! But I don’t believe it can be restored to the building it once was.  No amount of human plans and ingenuity would be sufficient to achieve that.’

Then the voice said, ‘Human being, call the wind to blow over these stones.’  

So I prayed, ‘Spirit, please come.’  Then there was a mighty wind, like an earthquake, which shook and seized the rocks — all but one.  That one great stone remained unmoved and stable, and I saw that it was the former foundation stone, the Cornerstone.  

And a voice came from the wind which addressed the shaken stones, saying, ‘See that you love one another; even as He has loved you, you are to love one another.’  And I looked and saw the stones, one by one, course upon course, coming together to create a new building around the great Cornerstone.  There was no longer need of laws and regulations to hold the  stones in place, because in their hearts they were full of love which bound them together.  I knew that this building was different from what it had been before, because its windows were clear, clear as crystal, so that everyone could see inside; its doors were always open.  It was as if there was music from inside, ‘All are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place.’  Finally I looked up and saw fixed in place a finial on the pitch of the roof.  It was the cross which I had first seen lying among the rubble of the destroyed church.  

And I remembered Jesus’s words to Simon Peter, ‘The gates of Hell shall not prevail against my Church.’

2024 and 2025 - at the turn of the years

This post has been written on either side of the New Year.

Janus From Walltham Abbey

 There's a certain sense of frustration in being confined to a wheelchair as well as being physically cautious - a quality acquired after too many occasions lying on the floor after falls waiting for assistance. Fortunately we have great neighbours whom we have learned to call on, as the prescription, "Ring 999," usually entails long waits. The frustration is compounded by having the world mainly mediated through a screen or by radio. One doesn't need an algorithm to detect a certain uniformity of news narrative. I've observed that journalists often derive their news from other journalists' stories. As my father used to recite to us:"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum." (De Morgan, from his book A Budget of Paradoxes, 1872).

Looking back at my year, I consider this to have been vividly exemplified in the treatment of Archbishop Justin Welby. On Monday I commented:

"On 29th December, the Church remembered Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury. In TSEliot's play, Thomas preaches his last sermon on Christmas Day 1170. '...it is fitting on Christ's birth day, to remember what is that Peace which He brought; and, dear children, I do not think that I shall ever preach to you again; and... it is possible that in short time you may have yet another martyr, and that one perhaps not the last.' Four days later he is murdered in his cathedral by four knights who thought they were carrying out their King's wish - mistakenly." That couldn't happen today, of course, could it? No. Today it would happen by social and mainstream media (plus petitions) seizing uncritically upon a convenient pretext to impugn a good man's integrity and oust him from office in, as the admirable Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin described it, "the lynch-mob effect".

Looking back over my blog I see I was also much preoccupied with the debate about assisted suicide - which eventually came to the much altered House of Commons (following Labour's landslide victory in the July General Election). In the event MPs voted in favour of the second reading of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill by a majority of 55. I concluded that it was one step on the road to a state-sponsored National Death Service. It remains to be seen how far its proponents will try to extend its boundaries.

2024 was trumpeted as the year of elections, and it was. Perhaps the largest in terms of population was in India where the party of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, lost its absolute majority. In the UK the Conservative Party which had been in power for 14 years was trounced having made itself almost terminally unpopular.

Entering Notre-Dame Cathedral

In France President Macron, despite a successful Olympics and a magnificently restored Notre-Dame Cathedral, in effect received a thumbs down when both the far left and the far right oustripped his centre party - and lastly came the big one: in the USA ex-President Trump won a whopping victory over his opponent, Kamala Harris, who was the Democrats' last minute stand in for President Biden, who had been deemed too elderly for another four years in office. If there is a trend in all these, it seems to be that incumbent governments had lost their voters' confidence.

Joanne Froggatt in 'Breathtaking' (ITV)

Highlights of 2024 for me were watching the Paris Olympics, celebrating a significant wedding anniversary with friends and family, and going to see Sheridan's The School for Scandal at the RSC in Stratford. We've usually hugely enjoyed their Shakespeare, but how would we like their Restoration comedy? As it happened, we loved it. Clever, colourful and great fun. On the small screen, along with half the country, I was gripped and appalled by Mr Bates vs the Post Office. Shocking that the post office masters and mistresses have still not received their due redress. I was disappointed that ITV's mini-series, Breathtaking, with its searing exposé of the treatment of healthworkers during Covid, has not received similar attention and that the cost and sacrifice of all the NHS staff who were at the front line of the battle on our behalf have not been recognised or compensated as they surely deserve. On a lighter note I've enjoyed Return to Paradise - an Australian daughter of the comedy Caribbean detective series Death in Paradise. It stars Anna Samson as Detective Inspector Mackenzie Clarke, who seems to be on the "spectrum" but, and probably because of that, is a brilliant if uncoventional detective. I'm glad to read that a second series is "under development".

Casting a long shadow over 2024 was the expanding conflict in Gaza and the even more protracted invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, plus civil wars in Sudan, Myanmar and doubtless other countries about which we never hear. Last year I wrote a poem on Holy Innocents' Day. 12 months later, I wrote another one on the same subject. I wonder whether I'll be doing the same in another 12 months.

Father pulling dead son after missile attack In Gaza - Channel 4

Searching the rubble after missile strike  - Democracy Now

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

The rabbi whose mother escaped death                                                 In the kinder transport comments,
‘We need to have compassion.’
His voice is full of sadness.
In only two months more than a year
Fourteen and a half thousand slain
And nearly a million homeless
Seeking refuge.

‘Children,’ he says, ‘should never be collateral damage.’
Yet here we are, ending December,
Gaza destroyed and the children
Crying from the blood-stained ruins
Of their once happy homes,
Hospitals raped of life-giving medicines,
Fatherless, homeless, no escape
From the invader’s insane juggernaut.

With privileged forewarning you escaped
To Egypt; while all the other mothers wept
Did you hear the wailing? Does your Son
Now hear? Or does he recline unmoved, no crying,
Away in a heavenly manger?
With the One who wailed, yes groaned at a grave,
Surely now together you both walk and weep
Among the desolated people whom he loves.

And where’s the old carpenter? Is he not
Unseen among the fathers and brothers
Where they heave the beams and throw aside
The smashed family treasures seeking loved ones
Crying cursing loudly their Herod of today
Who in his fury commanded this catastrophe?
No flight to Egypt now for them
The healer, builder, the mother are here.

As with your Son you walk unseen among the ruins
Surely now you tell him of the pain and the joy
Of carrying a child within you, and the protracted pangs
Of birth, and the agony, oh the agony as he dies,  
Surely you do not tell the mothers and fathers
Searching the rubble now that all will be well
That a joyful resurrection day will come
But with him and them you sit and weep. (Holy Innocents' Day 2024)

From Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris

Like a beauty pageant contestant, I could wish for world peace in 2025. I suspect that is too big an ask, although it remains something I pray for because it's certainly proved to have been beyond the ingenuity of human politicians. I'm not sure whether the likes of Mr Elon Musk do anything to promote peace and justice (which of course go hand in hand). And so, beside removing myself from X which I have done in a vain gesture of protest, my wish for that rich overly ambitious South African is that he himself would take a ride on one of his rockets to Mars and stay there incommunicado. Another associated wish is that all the newly elected politicians, at least in this country, would prove themselves different from their predecessors and do better than their promises. As for the good old CofE, my wish is that a worthy successor to Justin Welby is appointed and that it should be a woman (from south of the city of Newcastle). 

Riccardo Muti's New Year message

Finally, the New Year's Day concert from Vienna was particularly good this year. The conductor was the 83 year-old Italian maestro, Riccardo Muti. The orchestra clearly like and respond to him. After the traditional orchestra wishing the audience a happy new year in unison, Muti's speech was short and to the point: "In my own Italian language on behalf of the Vienna Philharmonic I wish everyone three things: Peace, Brotherhood, and Love - in the whole world." To which a member of the orchestra responded, “Si!" And so do I.

What's it with Auntie and the C of E?

Occasionally, Auntie Beeb, that revered national institution, the BBC, gets a bee in her bonnet. And at the moment it appears to be concerning another national institution, the Church of England. One has to wonder why. Maybe it's to prove that the broadcaster is not the only organisation that has, or has had, failures in dealing with abuse.

For example yesterday the 'Today Programme' had another item about the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, and his perceived failure to deal with a former school chaplain, David Tudor, who had maltreated and raped students. The item was introduced with a short extract of an interview with th Bishop of Winchester, which was part of very long feature on Monday's 'World at One'. The guts of yesterday's items was the opinions of the BBC's favourite cleric, the hyper-articulate Giles Fraser who can be relied on to voice his dogmatically provocative views. Predictably he wanted the Archbishop out. He'd already campaigned for Archbishop Justin Welby's resignatiion. While I personallly dislike the pomp and circumstance of establishment, I don't believe either servant of the church merited the trial by media and petition to which they have been subjected.

So my question is this: why does the BBC never ask someone like Andrew Brown, the journalist who probably knows more about the Church of England, than any other, certainly than their own perfectly competent, Aleem Maqbool, to comment? Are they afraid he might puncture their proudly inflated thesis about the corruption of the CofE? Which he has done effectively, in a post on his blog, The Slow Deep Hover, 'In Defence of Stephen Cottrell'. "The basis of his defence is that he had no choice in law. He had inherited Tudor from two preceding bishops of Chelmsford, one of whom had granted Tudor the freehold. Since he had twice been acquitted of the offences that no one doubted he had committed, he could not even be suspended until or unless fresh charges were brought against him. As soon as that happened, in 2018, Cottrell suspended him. He should not be blamed for failing to do what was legally impossible....

"Sooner or later someone has to blow up the insatiable shark. The Church of England cannot be run by Twitter storms and petitions on Change.org. Time, effort, and money are all limited resources for a bishop, and to govern is to choose." (Incidentally all Brown's posts about the recent news concerning safeguarding are worth reading. He doesn't minimise its seriousness but does question the resulting conclusions.)

 

The Church of England is a complex and arcane creature. It's like no other institution, certainly not like a commercial company, or even like a government. Andrew Brown refers to the curious phenomenon of 'the freehold' - which means that it is a well nigh impossible for a vicar to be removed from his or her post, and it's not possible either for a congregation to vote their vicar out, however incompetent or uncongenial they may be. Sad but true.

Certainly the CofE needs reforming - that's something which the General Synod (its parliament) needs to attend to, rather than seeking ever more scapegoats for past failures. Ultimately, being the established 'state' church, it may be a matter the Government has to sort out. That might focus everyone's minds!

Monsters in Iwerne

No, I couldn't say nothing, could I?

When I was a boy, my parents would drive us several times a year in our ancient black Austin A6 to visit my grandparents who lived on the south coast.

Those days of course were before motorways and in-car entertainment. So my father would help the journey pass with the pub sign game, in which you take turns to spot the number of legs on the pub sign - thus the Red Lion in Sturminster Marshall would give you four, while the George at Norton St Philip with St George on his horse would give you six. However trumping them all was the Thousand Millipedes, which Dad assured us was down a side-road in Iwerne Minster. 

Iwerne Minster has hit the headlines recently as it was one of the locations where the serial child abuser John Smyth, QC and Church of England lay reader, used to operate in the 1970s and 80s - decades after our car journeys. Summer camps for public school boys were held in a prep school there. His other locations were near Winchester (where he established links with the famous public school), Zimbabwe and probably South Africa - until his death in 2018. His sadistic and perverted actions were first publically hinted at in an article in The Sunday Mail in 2012. But they were already known about to a limited number of Anglican churchmen as long ago as 1982. In 2017 the story broke on the Channel 4 News when Smyth himself was challenged by Kathy Newman about his activities. In 2021 Andrew Graystone published an account in his journalistic book, Bleeding for Jesus. 

In 2019 the Church of England's Archbishops' Council commissioned an independent review of the abuse and the involvement of what are termed "church officers". Five years later Keith Makin and Sarah Lawrence have produced their report. It is 263 pages long. It is exhaustive and not an easy read in either its content or its style. (It could have done with a bit more proof-reading.) Much to the media's glee, Archbishop Justin Welby, after a campaign of pressure, announced that he had tendered his resignation to the King. The hanging offence seems to have been that he had been "insufficiently curious" when "informed" of Mr Smyth's grotesquely sadistic activity in the late 70s and early 80s. As Andrew Brown the Guardian writer has shown - see my next post - this is not borne out by the facts.

Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat (Liverpool Art Gallery)

I tend to agree with the author of the Sunday Mail article, Anne Adkins, on Newsnight, that the Archbishop is being treated as a scapegoat, since  we always want someone to blame, but the abuser himself is now dead and beyond the reach of human justice.

In my next post I shall explain more of my reasons. However for now I shall quote the comments of the Rev Dr Sam Wells, vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in a letter to his church. They seem to me both judicious and helpful: 

"To be subject to profound and repeated physical abuse at a vulnerable age is among the worst things to befall anyone. Those who have had the courage to come forward and detail their experiences at the hands of a distorted individual over a period of decades must be at the very centre of the church’s care and concern.

"While the individual responsible was not an employee of the Church of England, and the channels through which he worked were not under the authority of the Church of England, it was nonetheless right that the Archbishop of Canterbury commissioned Keith Makin to investigate whether there was anything the church could have done to have prevented these terrible crimes and what lessons could be learned. After five years, the Makin Review has concluded that the church could have done much better, and has pointed the finger at certain individuals in particular. The central issue is that the information came to light in 2013, but between then and his death at his own hand in 2018, the perpetrator abused several dozen more people – and it’s not clear how this was permitted to happen.

"Over recent decades the church, along with many organisations, has undergone a radical reappraisal of its procedures around safeguarding children and adults at risk of harm. This has been a huge institutional culture change. The simple principles of vigilance, reporting and safeguarding being everyone’s responsibility have made the church a much safer place. One result of that is that failures stand out painfully; and failure in relation to a case as grievous as this is something neither church nor society is able to countenance. The church has failed many individuals whose lives have been impacted beyond description. It puts in question the significant progress that has been made. And it undermines the church’s credibility all over again.

"It is this that has led to the news today of the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as a result of the words in the Makin Report that suggest that he, along with others, could have acted differently – and that if they had, many could have been saved from an unspeakable experience of harm. Leadership can be lonely; in today’s culture, when there is a very great wrong, there is a corresponding tide of demand that a leader visibly pay the price for an institution’s failings. It is tragic that a primacy bringing such profound good in so many areas, conducted by a person of singular faith, courage, humility and integrity, should end like this. But it seems the Archbishop has concluded that the unheard pleas of survivors, the degree of institutional failure, and the fact that his own role in the case was not impeccable, have together made it impossible for him to continue. His dignity and selflessness are an example to all of us."

(Post amended for accuracy 25th November 2024)

Unholy irony

Yesterday, eclipsed by events on the domestic political stage, the whole Church of England General Synod, after a passionate address by the Archbishop of Canterbury and a shorter message from the Archbishop in Jerusalem, stood for two minutes in reverent silence praying for peace and reconciliation in Israel/Gaza. It was ironic therefore it was followed by a series of questions, some clearly barbed, on the subject of sexuality, which simply exposed how deeply and indeed bitterly divided the Church's Synod is over the issue. I suppose the people who stand for Synod, as for Parliament, will be activists by inclination, as it might be front-line warriors. Perhaps this is good for sharpening policies (to use political terminology). However I'm not sure the Church is meant to be a political body. I don't mean that it should not comment on or be involved in civil politics. But that's not its essence. That is to be a community of love, a community which models what loving and living together looks like. As its founder said, " I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

Well, this afternoon will no doubt see the major engagement when the debate concerning the blessing of same-sex couples is scheduled. It's not something I should look forward to. I don't suppose many, if any, will change their views. I have my own hopes for the outcome - which is that the proposal for a stand-alone service of blessing as well as prayers for use in other services should be approved. 

 

Personally I'd like our present pattern for weddings completely shaken up and reformed. It wouldn't of course solve objections to blessing same-sex relationships, but it would create room for more flexibility for differing traditions without doing away with the joys of church celebrations. Let me explain...

 

Time was when one of our pleasures was travelling to Europe, in the halcyon days before Brexit of course. One particularly bright memory was sitting of an evening witnessing a wedding party emerging from the mairie on their way to the church for the priest to bless the happy couple. “What a good arrangement!” I thought. The legal bit done by the mayor, the religious bit left to the priest. 

 

Much as I enjoyed doing a “good wedding” when I was a vicar, I was always aware of a tension between my role as a registrar - which came with the job - and my role as a pastor. Of course the civil bit brings in a useful revenue stream for the diocese and the parish, and all the extras like the organist, bellringers, verger etc, who are all worthy of their hire. The clergy earn nothing in addition to their stipend except maybe an invitation to the knees-up afterwards. At some point in our history the Church bagged a monopoly of celebrating weddings which lasted until the last century, I imagine. I suppose it was part of its campaign to take over all the levers of power - benevolently naturally, such as the right to 26 "Lords Spiritual" sitting in the House of Lords, which was once more significant than now when absurdly there are as many as 800 peers (plus one as of yesterday). No doubt this would involve difficulties concerning Canon Law - the minutiae of which resemble, it seems to me, the laws of the scribes and pharisees about which Jesus had something trenchant to say.

 

However, now it is really time to escape the magnetic attraction of our own importance and to make real our calling to serve the society in which we are placed. And like it or not our country now solemnises marriage between couples of all sorts. We can either refuse to acknowledge the fact, or bless all those that reflect the covenant relationship of enduring love that God has demonstrated for broken humankind. After all, who would deny communion or burial or the baptism of their child to someone who had been married in a registry office?

A sense of proportion

Get a life, you journalists! I woke this morning to the dulcet tones of our avuncular local archdeacon, "Stormin" Norman Russell, and the dour Scots of Jim Naughtie going on about celibate gay bishops. Naughtie asserted that "those outside it thought the church was 'obsessed' with sex". As Norman fairly commented you won't find sex mentioned in everyone's sermons tomorrow; in fact it will be in very few. We'll be more interested in the fact that Jesus is Light, good news, for all the world, exemplified by the coming of the Magi whom we remember at Epiphany. The church is remarkably unpreoccupied with sex. Naughtie cited the controversy about women bishops to bolster his assertion - failing to see the obvious, that that was not to do with sex but with gender.

The truth is that the chattering classes are obsessed with sex, and love it when they can bring sex and religion into the same news story. Although it is a full-page headline in today's I newspaper, "Church lifts ban on gay bishops", it really is a non-news story in the big scheme of things. Certainly the House of Bishops seem to have issued a strange statement preempting a review set up to examine the issues of having bishops who are in civil partnerships. You can imagine journalists seizing on this juicy worm, can't you, and ringing up the usual suspects like Anglican Backwater and Affirming Stonewallers for predictable quotes - and there you have it: stir together, put out on the internet, and you have an instant no-effort, no-brain story. One more to add to the arsenal of anti-church myths. One does wonder what the bishops thought they were up to - whether they are using the gap between archbishops to rush in a change in policy, which neither the outgoing one nor the in-coming one is enthusiastic about. One wonders who the bishops were who issued the statement, other than the Bishop of Norwich, and one wonders who their PR advisers were. I also wonder whether it is more than a proposal for General Synod to consider at their next meeting, or whether it is the fait accompli that it sounds like.

However, let me not bang on about it, or Mr Naughtie will feel vindicated! Perhaps we Anglicans should follow the Orthodox pattern of permitting clergy to marry but having only celibate bishops.

The poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, when he was guest producer of the Today Programme, made a plea for more good news. He was, sadly, poo-pooed by John Humphris. But I agreed with him, and so let me finish with an article (from 22nd November) which I found today:

10 Great things about the Church of England

The Guardian described the General Synod as “a long and boring suicide note”. But before declaring the Church of England dead, here's a quick review of a few of the things the Church has done, is doing and is planning to do... 
1.    International development
The Church of England continues to be a voice against injustice and for the people around the world living in poverty. They continue to try and influence governments, work with churches here in the UK and overseas and with charities. With seats in the House of Lords, bishops continue to question the government about development, and stand up for the UK’s aid budget. Not to mention the numerous charities that individual Anglican churches are committed to supporting.
2.    Paying a living wage
Yesterday's General Synod voted in favour of ensuring that all church employees are paid a living wage. The living wage is higher than the minimum wage, which at the moment stands at £6.19, outside London. By supporting the living wage, the Church of England is encouraging individual churches, diocese etc. to pay their employees £7.45 around the UK and £8.55 in London.
3.    Women’s rights
The news from the General Synod may have created controversy concerning the role of women in the Church of England, but it was only at the end of October that bishops in the House of Lords were lobbying the government to fulfil its and the UN’s commitment to strive for gender equality around the world and to place women at the centre of international development and the fight against poverty. Historically too, the Church has stood up for women, providing some of the first free schools for girls and supporting Josephine Butler’s campaign against the Contagious Diseases Act.
4.    Education
One in five primary school children are educated by Church of England primary schools, and there are 190 Church of England secondary schools in England. This makes the Church of England the largest provider of schools in the country.
5.    Abolition
In 1807 the Slave Trade Act was passed largely due to the efforts of William Wilberforce, who was supported and backed by John Newton, a Church of England clergyman. But the fight against slavery is something the Church of England has continued to be a part of; as the Church and the individuals within it campaign against human trafficking.
6. Working with other churches
The Church of England is committed to keep working with other churches and promoting church unity. The Council for Christian Unity (CCU) supports both broader dialogue between churches and dialogue at a local level. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has also been involved in supporting the Fresh Expressions movement.
7. Interfaith dialogue
The Church of England is actively involved in trying to promote dialogue between religions. The Springfield Project at St Christopher’s church in Birmingham, for example, is the home of The Feast, a project where young people of Christian and Muslim backgrounds can come together, make friends and discuss their faith. They also run a playgroup for mothers and children called Seedlings which serves their local, multi-cultural community.
8. Youth work
Many individual Anglican churches are involved with youth work. In particular the church runs The Church Lads’ and Church Girls’ Brigade (The Brigade), a youth organisation which welcomes people from all faiths and none. There is also the Church of England Youth Council which meets twice a year and represents the young people in the church, and can send representatives to the General Synod.
9. Reducing their carbon footprint
The Church of England is committed to ‘Shrinking the Footprint’. They are running a series of campaigns to reduce the Church’s carbon footprint by 80 per cent by 2050, and by 42 per cent in 2020.
10. The individuals in the Church
In the words of Justin Welby after the announcement of his upcoming appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury: “The work of the Church of England is not done primarily on television or at Lambeth, but in over 16,000 churches, where hundreds of thousands of people get on with the job they have always done of loving neighbour, loving each other and giving more than 22 million hours of voluntary service outside the church a month. They are the front line, and those who worship in them, lead them, minister in them are the unknown heroes of the Church.” 
(Lauren Belcher, Evangelical Alliance). 

Humpty Dumpty or Brave New World?

The good old Church of England has hit the headlines today with dire warnings of the possible consequences of the Government's proposals to introduce "equal marriage" (known popularly as gay marriage). I had taken the trouble to send in a personal response to the consultation and so had spent some time reflecting on my views. I was quite surprised by my thoughts.

I found I was more worried by governmental redefinition of language than by homosexual fidelity. Promiscuity of all sorts is emphatically and fatally corrosive both of persons and of society. However couples of the same sex have long lived together and been accepted. When I was a boy, my parents took us to visit my father's cousin, Sheila who farmed in Kingsland, Herefordshire, with her friend, Mary Elliott, whom she'd met at a bull sale in 1944. They bred Royal Show champion Kerry Hill sheep, which I enjoyed photographing with my Kodak Brownie camera. It didn't occur to me that Sheila and Mary's domestic arrangement was odd, nor did it occur to my parents to comment on it. Sheila ends her book The Happy Farmers (Logaston Press, 1989) honestly and rather movingly: "Small children have called us 'The Happy Farmers'. I think that few farmers can be entirely happy in their life of incessant struggle with weather, markets and disease; while few in old age can be happy with the aches and pains, the ills and accidents, the diminishing powers and (for me) the haunting fear of the future. But we are happy in our home, our friends and our love, so maybe we have earned that touching title."

It is a shame, in my view, that same-sex friendship is now regarded as sexual (and so for some as vicious or intrinsically "immoral"). Friendship is actually admirable. Faithfulness is a virtue. Promises of commitment are meant to cement marriages. The same is true, I imagine, for civil partnerships.

There is a fundamental question about the purpose of marriage, and of sex, which lies beneath the debate. It used to be said that the first purpose of marriage was the procreation of children, then as a remedy against sin (i.e. an appropriate outlet for sex), and third for mutual society for each other. Now in the contemporary CofE marriage service the order's reversed, with companionship as number 1. Most "conservatives", I'd guess, object to gay marriage because they see it as a charter for "unnaturalness". There's an ironic conjunction between fundamentalists and Darwinians in the view that the sole purpose of sex is procreation and the preservation of the species. In that case there is no place for sex merely to provide pleasure, either heterosexually or homosexually. That logic leads either to celibacy within marriage or to procreation for as long as hormones or life allow. Somehow I can't see our consumerist society buying that. It is a pity that our society sets such a store on the sexual acts that close companionship has become such a bone of contention.

My comment to the consultation was sent in the aftermath of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. I was ruminating on the nature of the monarchy. What, I wondered, would we call an elected constitutional head of state? They might fulfil precisely the same roles as the present queen. However, without a doubt, they wouldn't be called Queen or King. Traditionally hereditary heads of state have been named kings and queens. We'd give a different name to an elected one, such as president. They have the same functions, but they're crucially different. Traditionally marriage has been between a man and a woman. We'd give a different name to a same-partnership - wouldn't we? They're the same, but they're crucially different. 

Language in this country does not change by government dictat, but by usage and evolution. I can't work out whether the government is indulging in Brave New World social engineering, or whether it's merely become Humpty Dumpty:
"`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.' 
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - that's all.' "
Humpty Dumptyish redefinition of language sits rather uncomfortably with a government set on teaching our children the traditional skills of times tables, learning poetry by heart and mugging up on the solar system. They'd better beware, as every child knows the fate of Humpty Dumpty (unless they go to the PC nursery which, I learned today, has him landing safely on a bungee rope...). If you asked me for an alternative generic word, the best I could come up with is "union".

In fact, I have long been attracted to the French wedding system, as I understand it, where everyone has a civil ceremony, and those who choose proceed to a church ceremony afterwards. However, I also have sympathy for the CofE's mistrust of the European courts. Although they have ruled to respect religious freedom, because of the established nature of the Church here it's reasonable to suspect that discrimination legislation might be deemed to trump religious independence. The Church is NOT independent from the State here. It might have to face the difficult decision to cut its ties.