I recently asked a trio of entrepreneurs what they wished they had known before they set out on the path to leadership.

Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post, who now heads Thrive Global, which aims to end the “stress and burnout epidemic”, told me: “I wish I knew what I discovered the hard way in 2007 when I collapsed from exhaustion . . . That [it is a] delusion that in order to succeed we have to be always on.”

“I wish somebody would have told me how hard it is,” said Anna Skaya, chief executive of Basepaws, which is building a database of feline DNA.

“There are obstacles all the time. All the time,” added designer Diane von Furstenberg, who heads the eponymous fashion group. “Listen, I have a lot of energy . . . That doesn’t mean that I don’t wake up thinking like I’m a total loser, [even] now.”

It probably takes a successful entrepreneur-founder to admit such truths. Even in a world where there is increasing acknowledgment of the dangers of workplace stress, this kind of leadership lesson is only rarely taught in business schools, still less by leadership manuals of the “five ways to be awesome” variety.

Yet this understanding of the many hurdles facing any leader is embedded in the 3,000-year-old Judeo-Christian culture of teaching about how to lead, according to Steven Croft, the Anglican Bishop of Oxford….

Read it all.

The Rev’d Dr Emma Ineson, current Principal of Trinity College, Bristol, was appointed by the Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev’d James Newcome after consultation with a diocesan group.

She will be based in Kendal and will have particular responsibility for the county’s God for All strategy; that everyone in Cumbria – of all ages and backgrounds – has the opportunity to know more about God and God’s purpose in their lives that they may become followers of Jesus in a Christian community.

Emma said: “I am delighted to have been appointed as the Suffragan Bishop of Penrith. I have been so impressed by what I have seen of the creative and innovative approach to building community and reaching every person across the Diocese with the love of Christ, exemplified by the recent ‘Moving Mountains’ mission.

“Jesus prayed that his disciples would be ‘one’ and as the first ecumenical Diocese, Carlisle is truly living out what that means in practice. The ‘God for All’ strategy aims to see every person in Cumbria discovering more of God and becoming followers of Jesus in Christian communities.

Read it all.

We are delighted to announce the appointment of Trinity principal @e_ineson as Bishop of Penrith in the Diocese of Carlisle. Emma’s service of consecration will be in York Minster in February 2019. You can read more here: https://t.co/QiFRsA783c. pic.twitter.com/VM7A9qneV3

— Trinity College (@trinity_bristol) May 9, 2018

A prominent bishop and 300 other Anglicans have backed the US Episcopal Church’s stance on same-sex marriage, saying it shows the Church is ‘not as homophobic as it can sometimes appear’.

They have signed an ‘alternative’ letter to one sent by the Church of England’s general secretary, William Nye, that warned American Anglicans could face ‘stringent consequences’ if it went ahead with plans for a gender neutral wedding service. He added such a move would increase pressure for the CofE to ‘disassociate’ itself from its US counterpart.

The Episcopal Church (TEC) in America permits same-sex marriage, unlike the Church of England and most other provinces in the 80 million-strong Anglican Communion around the world.

Nye’s original letter has sparked a fierce backlash from pro-LGBT Anglicans in the UK and more than 300 have signed a different note thanking TEC for ‘leading the way on this important issue’.

Read it all.

I was staggered by the terrible damage that our plastic usage is causing God’s creation, including humans, on this single island home that we call planet Earth. It’s nearly impossible to live plastic-free but we can all live with considerably less plastic if only we give it commitment.

Every piece of plastic I use will most probably outlive me by hundreds of years.

We can, one by one, and collectively as communities and nations and governments, do something about it. It’s simple. We have to do something about plastic. We can do it – now let’s do it!

Read it all.

Canon Graham Usher has been confirmed as the new Bishop of Dudley, @CofEWorcester announces http://t.co/rbBqbDpmA2 pic.twitter.com/Q6YUJ5G1GL

— BBC WM 95.6 (@bbcwm) December 12, 2013

In a response to a consultation by the Episcopal Church on same-sex marriage (News, 20 April), Mr Nye said that there had not been time to consult the wider Church, and that it “reflects discussions among staff of the Church’s Archbishops’ Council only”. This raises questions of governance, says a letter to the Church Times, signed by more than 110 members of the clergy and laity, who say that they wish to “dissociate” themselves from Mr Nye’s response.

“Unless the content of the letter is tested synodically, he surely cannot claim to speak for the Church of England as a whole,” they write. “Mr Nye’s letter, written on Archbishops’ Council stationery, gives the impression that he was acting as an agent of the Council and its trustees and writing with its authority. But, as he acknowledges, his response is simply the fruit of conversations held among a small cadre of professional staff. As a governance matter, this will not, we think, do.”

Canon Simon Butler, Vicar of St Mary’s, Battersea, and a member of the Archbishops’ Council, confirmed online last Friday that Mr Nye’s letter “does not reflect the views of the Archbishops’ Council. We have never been asked. . . As a Council member I was not even made aware of the existence of this consultation, let alone asked to comment.”

Read it all.

A special service has been held in Salisbury to “symbolically reclaim the city for the common good” following the nerve agent attack on 4 March.

The Bishop of Salisbury hosted the service of “cleansing and celebration” at St Thomas’ Church, near where Sergei Skripal and his daughter were found.

The service, which was open to all faiths and none, involved prayers to cleanse the site and the city.

It was followed by a procession to the bench where the Skripals were found.

Read it all.

The Church of England should lose its protections under the Equalities Act that allow it to discriminate against people on the basis of their sexuality, a bishop and senior clergyman have said today.

Paul Bayes, the bishop of Liverpool, and David Ison, the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, both backed Jeremy Pemberton, a…priest who was blocked from being a hospital chaplain after marrying his [same-sex] partner.

Read it all.

Bishop and senior clergyman join calls for Church of England to lose equalities exemptions https://t.co/HxpKKZcZnq

— Harry Farley (@HarryFarls) April 9, 2018

Sir, Today the “two-child limit” policy, which restricts tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in a family, has been in place for a year. The policy is making it harder for parents to achieve a stable and resilient family life. By 2021, 640,000 families will have been affected. Most are low-earning working families, most have three children and some will have made decisions about family size when they were able to support children through earnings alone, but later claimed tax credits or universal credit after bereavement, redundancy, separation, disability, illness or simply low pay.

The policy is expected to tip an estimated extra 200,000 children into poverty. It also conveys the regrettable message that some children matter less than others, depending on their place in the sibling birth order.

It is a grave concern that there are likely to be mothers who will face an invidious choice between poverty and terminating an unplanned pregnancy

Read it all.

We’ve just heard how, when the women arrive at the empty tomb, early on the first day of the week, hoping to anoint the dead body of Jesus, they’re shocked to find the tomb open and a young man sitting inside, dressed in white.  This angel speaks to them: ’Do not be alarmed.  You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.  He has been raised.  He is not here: look there is the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples – and Peter – that he is going ahead of you to Galilee: there you will see him, just as he told you’.

Go and tell his disciples, and Peter.  It’s those two words ‘and Peter’ that catch my attention.  Why are they added?  You won’t find them on the lips of the angel in the version of this story told by Matthew, Luke or John.  Why do they matter to Mark?  Well, I think there are two reasons, both of which might encourage us this morning as we celebrate afresh our Lord’s resurrection from the dead: the first reason has to do with what the Risen Lord wants for Peter; the second, with what he wants from Peter.

Let me say something about what the Lord might want for Peter to start with.  This is the first reference to Peter in the Gospel of Mark since the moment about 48 hours before, when the cock had crowed a second time and he had broken down and wept.  Our last glimpse of Peter is of his sobbing remorse at the realisation that he had indeed denied Jesus, as his Master had prophesied that he would.  This is a more catastrophic fall from grace than that of any Australian cricketer: as the curtain falls on his active participation in the Gospel story, Peter has failed.

So those two words ‘and Peter’ on the lips of the angel are full of hope.  They suggest that the Risen Jesus, far from having given up on Peter, far from having written him off, is intent on // re-establishing // a relationship with him.

Read it all.

The Very Revd Dr Pete Wilcox has been confirmed as the new Bishop of Sheffield https://t.co/8nX0Q03Jpz pic.twitter.com/ATjnjdwscT

— BBC Radio Sheffield (@BBCSheffield) April 7, 2017

The diocese of Chichester was used as a case study for inquiring into child sexual abuse in the Church of England. Some have wished to claim immunity from our failings, regarding us an aberration and unlike more “normal” dioceses.

More careful consideration, however, suggests that what happened here was characterised by attitudes that were not unknown elsewhere.

If, for example, we look at the case of one highly manipulative offender, Roy Cotton, factors emerge at an early stage that might account for why no effective disciplinary action was taken against him.

First, academic snobbery: Cotton was an Oxbridge graduate. Second, social snobbery: he worked in an independent preparatory school before ordination.

Third, manipulating episcopal patronage: he was exempted from selection scrutiny and spent only one term in training. After being ordained in his home diocese and serving a curacy there, he moved to Chichester with a glowing reference from his bishop, and subsequently moved from one parish to another with apparent ease.

Fourth, at the end of his ministry in Chichester, he was dealt with leniently in old age because of illness and infirmity….

Read it all.

Slavery is on the rise in Britain in a way we have not seen since the days of William Wilberforce. Last year 5,145 victims were found in the UK. It is a big increase on 2016’s figure, but it still does not come close to the tens of thousands that the National Crime Agency believes are hidden.

It might seem that we should leave this problem to the police. But this Easter we are asking everyone to open their eyes to the signs of potential exploitation around them. The Clewer Initiative, our national anti-slavery project, educates people on what to look out for. New life for those entombed in darkness.

As Wilberforce said more than 200 years ago, “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say you did not know.”

Read it all.

The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Simon Burton-Jones to be the next Suffragan Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester, 10 Downing Street has announced. He currently serves as Archdeacon of Rochester and Canon Residentiary at Rochester Cathedral.

As Bishop of Tonbridge, Simon will focus on evangelism and growth. This aspiration and intention to grow is rooted in “Called Together”, the Diocese of Rochester’s vision. He will also have oversight and leadership of the education, youth and children, and community engagement work of churches across the Diocese of Rochester. In relation to education, he will chair the Diocesan Board of Education, supporting the work of the 89 Church of England schools within the Diocese.

Please see a video message from the New Bishop of Tonbridge here

The Bishop of Rochester Rt Rev James Langstaff said “I am delighted that Simon Burton-Jones has been appointed as the next Bishop of Tonbridge. He is a thoughtful theologian and gifted communicator. As Archdeacon of Rochester he has supported the mission of the Church in some of Kent and Medway’s most deprived communities, and steered the development of valuable new work in Chatham and Ebbsfleet.”

Read it all.

New Bishop of Tonbridge Announced https://t.co/iDHMaXmzH7 @c_of_e #CalledTogether #BishopTonbridge pic.twitter.com/OeeefH8MbR

— Diocese of Rochester (@SeeOfRochester) March 27, 2018

“This is one of those occasions when the Christian faith speaks deeply into our present context. The terrible things that happened don’t get the last word.

In the end love, life and resurrection are where the story takes us,” Bishop Nicholas said.

He added that there are similarities between Jesus’ betrayal and Skripal’s attack.

“Salisbury has been through a difficult time, it’s got some of the same ingredients in terms of betrayal, a murderous attack and people who have been deeply injured by this,” Bishop Nicholas said.

Read it all.

We take very seriously all that has been heard by the Inquiry. Archbishop Justin said when he gave evidence last week that he had learned again through listening and reading the evidence given to the Inquiry, that we must not simply say sorry, but that we must also take action that demonstrates clearly that we have learnt the lessons.

Read it all.

The Right Reverend Mark Rylands has served as the Anglican Area Bishop of Shrewsbury for nine years.

He says that while it has been a huge privilege to serve the people of Shrewsbury and Telford the time is right to move with his wife, Mandy, to the south-west where they have previously lived, served and have family.

After a special farewell service in July, Bishop Rylands will take up his new role as priest-in-charge of the Ashburton and Moorland Team in Exeter Diocese, where he will also be an Assistant Bishop.

“Working in the Diocese of Lichfield has been an enriching experience. Many in this country are not sure where Lichfield, Telford or Shropshire is, we are slightly off the beaten track, slightly unknown. I have been blessed to work here,” he said.

“It will be sad to leave. And for some it may seem a surprise move. I have sensed God’s beckoning to serve as a parish priest again.

Read it all.

Bishop steps down from role for parish ministry return: Rt Rev Mark Rylands, the Bishop of… https://t.co/91fkNwf7Vf

— DJ KNS (@wnuvradio) March 19, 2018

The Bishop of St Albans, a leading campaigner for measures to limit the harm done by Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), has responded to recommendations from the Gambling Commission.

The Rt Revd Alan Smith supports reducing the maximum stake on the machines to £2, from the current level of £100. The Commission has recommended limiting the stake to at least £30, but has left it up to the Government to decide the final figure.

Read it all.

[Matthew] Ineson points out that in the statement by the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team ‘it is claimed that the Archbishop did not fail to act on any disclosure made, because the responsibility to respond and act lay with the diocesan bishop, namely Steven Croft’.

“The National Safeguarding Team are clearly stating here that Steven Croft should have acted,”he adds.

He points out that his alleged perpetrator, Trevor Devamanikkan,was charged in May 2017 with six serious charges of sexual abuse against Ineson. However, he committed suicide before the case could come to court.

“Steven Croft has admitted on several occasions that I disclosed my abuse to him in the media over the past 16 months. I have pursued the complaint against Steven Croft’s failures several times with the Church, who have blocked any attempt at investigation into his failures.

“The National Safeguarding Team now acknowledge those failures and I call on Steven Croft to resign with immediate effect,” said Ineson.

He also calls on Archbishop Sentamu to resign with immediate effect ‘for failing to act on my disclosure to him’.

Read it all (requires subscription).

The diocese of Chichester had a “major issue” with priests carrying out abuse, an inquiry has heard.

Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev Martin Warner, made the claim when giving evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Dr Warner said there had been a “breakdown of trust” between the Church of England and the local council.

He also said he was warned by a senior Church of England official that the area was considered “a basket case”.

The bishop claimed Caroline Boddington, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s appointments secretary, made the remark when he was appointed in 2012.

Read it all.

The Bishop of Lancaster-designate was introduced by Bishop Julian at Marsh Community Centre, Lancaster, this morning, alongside the Suffragan Bishop of Burnley, the Rt Rev. Philip North. Joining the Bishops were other members of the bishop’s leadership team.

“I am thrilled and humbled to be appointed the eighth Bishop of Lancaster,” said Mrs Duff. “This is a vibrant and exciting part of the Church of England with its Vision 2026: Healthy Churches Transforming Communities. Being born and brought up in Lancashire, the region has been on my heart in prayer for many years.

“Time and again I have seen how, with prayer and perseverance, churches can grow and it will be good to be part of a courageous diocese that is looking to the future with real hope.

The Bishop-designate is married to Rev. Prof. Jeremy Duff, who is Principal of the St Padarn’s Institute in the Church in Wales, and they have two sons, Robbie, aged 13 and Harry, aged 10.

Read it all.

Dr Jillian Duff (aged 45) was born and brought up in Bolton, Lancashire. She was educated at Christ College, Cambridge and Worcester College, Oxford. After working in the oil industry, she trained for the ministry at Wycliffe Hall Oxford. Dr Duff served her title at St Philip’s, Litherland, in the Diocese of Liverpool from 2003 to 2005. From 2005 Dr Duff took up the role of Pioneer Minister, church planting in Liverpool City Centre till 2011. I

Read it all.

Congratulations to @JillLCDuff, Director of St Mellitus College, North West, who this morning was announced as the next Bishop of Lancaster! We hope you will join us in praying for Jill and her family as she prepares to take on this exciting new role. pic.twitter.com/C17MvWuNjM

— St Mellitus College (@stmellitus) March 13, 2018

A former priest in the united Church of North India’s Diocese of Calcutta has been chosen to be the next Area Bishop of Bradwell in the Church of England’s Diocese of Chelmsford. The Ven Dr John Perumbalath already serves in the Diocese, which covers the county of Essex and parts of east London, as the Archdeacon of Barking. He comes, originally, from the ancient Syrian Christian community in Kerala, India, and trained for ministry at Union Biblical Seminary in Pune.

Dr Perumbalath worked as a youth worker among university students for two years and as a theological educator for three years before his ordination in the CNI. In addition to his parish ministry, he served on the CNI’s General Synod and its theological commission. He moved to the Church of England in 2002 and served in three parishes before becoming Archdeacon of Barking in 2013.

He is a member of the C of E’s General Synod and sits on its appointment committee and mission & public affairs council. He is a trustee board of Westcott House, a theological college at Cambridge University, and chairs the national committee for minority ethnic Anglican concerns (CMEAC) and the London Churches Refugee Network.

Read it all.

Dr John Perumbalath's appointment follows the sad death of Bishop John Wraw last year: https://t.co/YgrWyKb5EF

— Ellis Whitehouse (@E_Whitehouse293) March 9, 2018

From there

“The biblical doctrine of God’s wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates–yes, hates, and hates implacably–anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.”

(quoted by yours truly in the morning sermon)

The Bishop of Southwark has called on Christians around the world to show ‘solidarity’ over the indefinite closure of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre in protest at a bill affecting church lands and new taxes on churches that are ‘unfair, inappropriate and arbitrary’.

Speaking to Christian Today from Galilee on the final day of a pilgrimage with 84 people from the south London Anglican diocese, Bishop Christopher Chessun also expressed his disapproval of a bill in the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, supported by Israeli settlers, that would allow the state to expropriate land in Jerusalem sold by churches to private real estate firms in recent years.

‘The bill going through the Knesset is of course at the instigation of particular groups and it is very important that the powers that be recognise the significance of the status quo which governs the relationship formally between the church and the state,’ Chessun said.

‘So if there are actions taken by different groups of settlers or whatever else and that leads to poor leadership by the powers that be then there will be massive consequences.’

Read it all.

Two places he feels particularly close to God are by the shores of the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus lived and worked, and at St Benet’s Abbey in the heart of the Broads. As Abbot of St Benet’s he arrives by boat every August to lead an open-air service beside the scattered ruins.

“I’m not really a sea-going person but there is something about where land and water meet, and an atmosphere hallowed by prayer,” he said.

When he first became a Bishop there was no Google, Facebook, or women priests. Today 35pc of priests in the diocese are female – and one of the first to be 
ordained, the Rt Rev Jan MacFarlane, now Bishop of Repton, will be back to preach at his celebration service.

In 2012 Bishop Graham was tipped as the next Archbishop of Canterbury – and admitted to praying that he would not be appointed. “I love being Bishop of Norwich and having a community, and churches, over which to minister and getting to know a lot of people.”

Read it all.

From a focus on the disadvantaged of his diocese to chatting to the Queen about corgis – the Bishop of #Norwich reflects on 25 years as a bishop https://t.co/uccUdjIN7z #Anglican #religion #uk 'I love the mix of the urban and the very rural. Above all it’s the people' pic.twitter.com/6FbksCZ9Ye

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) February 20, 2018

Lord Carlile reacted by saying that he was astonished that the Church had gone public with the new claim, when among his recommendations was that people accused of abuse should remain anonymous until the allegations are proven. We note that the decision of the NST to share the information through a press release is a direct breach of article 3.8 of the Practice Guidance 2017 from the House of Bishops, published in October 2017.

So, despite the Church of England saying – begrudgingly – that it had accepted many of Lord Carlile’s recommendations in his report, it appears that this is not the case. For starters, the ‘Core Group’ of the NST that will investigate the alleged “new information” looks set to include some members of the previously discredited group. Members of that original Core Group are seriously conflicted and should not in any way participate in the new investigation. The deficiencies and failings in the process and mind-set of the original Core Group were so extensive that no one who was a member of this dealing with the first complaint (by someone known as ‘Carol’) could be confidently relied upon.

We must remember that Carlile’s report noted that the original Core Group failed to establish a process that was fair and equitable to both Carol and the reputation of Bishop Bell. There was “a rush to judgment”, which failed to give proper consideration to the rights of Bishop Bell. The Core Group was set up in an unmethodical and unplanned way, and became a confused and unstructured process. The ‘process’ – if that can be any meaningful description of the debacle overseen by the NST – was predicated on Bishop Bell’s guilt. The truth of what ‘Carol’ was saying was implicitly accepted without serious investigation or and kind of wide-ranging inquiry. Carlile’s report was effectively a vote of ‘no confidence’ in the NST.

As for ‘proven’, Mrs Barbara Whitley, George Bell’s niece, and now 94 years of age, has made it clear that she wished to be represented by Desmond Browne QC. Yet without consulting with Mrs Whitley or the wider family further, on 8th February 2018, Graham Tilby of the NST informed Bell’s family and friends that he had assigned a Mr Donald Findlater to represent their interests and concerns.

Read it all.

When Desmond Browne QC volunteered his services to Mrs [ Barbara] Whitley [93-year-old niece of the late Bishop George Bell], she was no doubt pleased that her long-dead uncle would have the previously denied skilled advocate at the table to evaluate and challenge evidence, assumptions and conclusions, and to make submissions as the matter unfolded. In this position, of course, he would not be participating in the making of the decisions, and could legitimately be asked to withdraw during decision-making deliberations. Core groups were once commonplace for me, with familiar modes of operation. Unfortunately, so far as I can ascertain, nobody making and shaping decisions on behalf of the church has any such personal experience of what is all in a day’s work a safeguarding lawyer.

But, inexplicably, Mrs Whitley’s choice of advocate was denied by the church.

Upon hearing of this decision, my fellow Synod legal colleague David Lamming and I presented a carefully evaluated case for letting Mrs Whitley have her wish, buttressed by warnings of the highly predictably adverse PR consequences for failing to do so, enhanced with entreaties and exhortations to ‘do the right thing’.

We had a prompt meeting with those who made and defended the refusal. We appreciated their willingness to listen, putting the case I now share, without success. It should not have been necessary. We can over-intellectualise these matters, but the man on the Clapham omnibus could have advocated the case for Mrs Whitley having her free choice of lawyer succinctly. It was, in John Cleese’s succinct if not-quite-biblical phrase, ‘bleeding obvious’.

George Bell’s niece is an elderly lady. She has suffered and continues to suffer prolonged anxiety as her long-dead relative has been and continues to be publicly traduced by the Church of England on the basis of a single uncorroborated allegation brought 60 years after the event, all as a result of inadequate process that need not be restated. You might have expected a compassionate and contrite church to have been on its mettle, but, as usual, the consideration of the little people gave way to what can best be described as institutional bullying – which will come as no surprise to the many dissatisfied victims of abuse at the hands of the church, some of whom gathered outside Church House the following day.

I am puzzled that so many sincere and ethically-aware Christians cannot see that one of the best ways of honouring past victims is not to create new ones.

Read it all.

The O’Donovan review of the workings of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) was approved overwhelmingly by the General Synod on Thursday afternoon.

The report, prepared by eight theologians led by the Revd Professor Oliver O’Donovan, called for more theological depth among those chosen to be bishops (News, 19 January).

Introducing his review, Professor O’Donovan described it as “on the revolutionary side of evolutionary”, meaning that it was “neither bland nor bloody”.

As well as boosting the number of theological heavyweights on the bishops’ bench, Professor O’Donovan said he wanted to undo a culture of “excessive secrecy”.

This found considerable backing in the Synod. Anthony Archer, a lay member from St Albans diocese who had served on eight CNCs, welcomed this. He was “not proud to be associated with a body that has a reputation to be secretive”.

Read it all.

When we wrote to Sir Philip to ask him to undertake this review, our first concern was whether the Church had done enough to inform and educate clergy and laity about the 2014 settlement and the effect of the House of Bishops’ Declaration within it. We regret that, as Sir Philip concluded, not nearly enough was done to create an understanding of what the Declaration and Settlement would mean in practice. Sir Philip’s recommendation to form “a group with balanced membership to review what has been done; distil examples of good practice within dioceses; and provide resources to help dioceses, deaneries and parishes, and theological training institutions to engage in further consideration of the issues” has led us to establish an Implementation and Dialogue Group. The Bishop of Rochester has agreed to Chair this group, with the support of the Bishop of Aston. As Chair of the Steering Committee in charge of the draft legislation to enable women to become bishops that the Synod approved in 2014, Bishop James will bring significant experience to the Implementation and Dialogue Group along with others who sat on the Steering Committee with him. We have taken very seriously the call from Sir Philip to make this a diverse and balanced group….

Read it all.

The Archbishop of Canterbury will be under renewed pressure at the Church of England’s ruling General Synod this week to renounce his claim that a ‘significant cloud’ remains over George Bell, a highly-respected bishop accused of sex abuse.

Members of synod, which acts as the church’s parliament, are today being asked to back a motion expressing ‘regret’ over Justin Welby’s handling of the case and calling for Bishop Bell’s ‘reputation as one of the great bishops of the Church of England is restored untarnished’.

The motion, seen by Christian Today, will be published as synod opens on Thursday after being approved by the church’s lawyers. It will not be debated at this week’s sessions but could be discussed at the next synod in July, if it receives enough support….

Read it all.

So, we may have endured considerable turbulence based upon a hearsay delayed allegation which cannot be corroborated and which no authority took seriously when it was first published.

It could still be true, of course: one of the victims could come forward with credible testimony, but this is not what we are currently being told. If it changes, we start all over again.

Meanwhile, victims of more contemporary and proven abuse will be standing outside General Synod asking us to support their quest for justice with just a fraction of the time we are currently expending arguing about events of 60 years ago. The sooner we get all this out into the open and settled, the faster we can turn our attention to their long neglected current needs.

To do that quickly we need real transparency, and the sooner the better.

Read it all.