There is a matter which ought to be cleared up before the Crown Nominations Commission meets to nominate the next archbishop of Canterbury (Panel choosing archbishop includes advocate of therapy for gay clergy, 10 April). In July 2010 someone on the CNC leaked to the press the fact that I was a shortlisted candidate for the See of Southwark. The archbishop of Canterbury set up an inquiry into the leak under Baroness Fritchie. This inquiry was never published, and was said to have been unable to reach a conclusion.

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Jesus of Nazareth was certainly dead by the Friday evening; Roman soldiers were professional killers and wouldn’t have allowed a not-quite-dead rebel leader to stay that way for long. When the first Christians told the story of what happened next, they were not saying: “I think he’s still with us in a spiritual sense” or “I think he’s gone to heaven”. All these have been suggested by people who have lost their historical and theological nerve.

The historian must explain why Christianity got going in the first place, why it hailed Jesus as Messiah despite His execution (He hadn’t defeated the pagans, or rebuilt the Temple, or brought justice and peace to the world, all of which a Messiah should have done), and why the early Christian movement took the shape that it did. The only explanation that will fit the evidence is the one the early Christians insisted upon – He really had been raised from the dead. His body was not just reanimated. It was transformed, so that it was no longer subject to sickness and death.

Let’s be clear: the stories are not about someone coming back into the present mode of life. They are about someone going on into a new sort of existence, still emphatically bodily, if anything, more so. When St Paul speaks of a “spiritual” resurrection body, he doesn’t mean “non-material”, like a ghost. “Spiritual” is the sort of Greek word that tells you,not what something is made of, but what is animating it. The risen Jesus had a physical body animated by God’s life-giving Spirit. Yes, says St Paul, that same Spirit is at work in us, and will have the same effect – and in the whole world.

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Jesus dies. His lifeless body is taken down from the cross. Painters and sculptors have strained their every nerve to portray the sorrow of Mary holding her lifeless son in her arms, as mothers today in Baghdad hold with the same anguish the bodies of their children. On Holy Saturday, or Easter Eve, God is dead, entering into the nothingness of human dying. The source of all being, the One who framed the vastness and the microscopic patterning of the Universe, the delicacy of petals and the scent of thyme, the musician’s melodies and the lover’s heart, is one with us in our mortality. In Jesus, God knows our dying from the inside.

–”“The Rt. Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe

Yesterday, for the third time this year, someone expressed to me genuine concern about involving the church in a project because they feared that dealing with a discriminatory organisation would compromise their moral integrity. The Church of England used to be the guardian of the nation’s morals, but is increasingly perceived as irrelevant, or even a threat to them. At first sight this is amazing, because the people I meet in church are usually kind, upright and morally aware. The nation’s moral instinct has changed, however. The church in its own bubble has become, at best, the guardian of the value system of the nation’s grandparents, and at worst a den of religious anoraks defined by defensiveness, esoteric logic and discrimination.
The collapse of empire may have led people to search for a new moral purpose in diversity not conformity. Neoliberal economics since Margaret Thatcher may have broken down networks and social tribes, regional identities and family ties. A new social and moral consensus has emerged. It is broadly Christian in the sense of “inspired by the teaching of Jesus” but disconnected from the institutional church.

This affects more than just the C of E. Evangelical bodies bemuse people who are innately suspicious of religious zeal and unpersuaded about the particularities involved. The Roman Catholic church seems corrupt and weird about sex.

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…front-runners to succeed Rowan are not just coyly denying any interest in the post ”“ they are actively saying it is an impossible one.
First to make this claim was Nick Baines (currently at 7/1 to move into Lambeth Palace, according to William Hill’s odds), who declared on his blog last September: “You’d have to be out of your mind to want to be Archbishop of Canterbury.

“My guess is that whoever is asked to do it next will have to be dragged to the seat.”

{and]…Graham James said: “I have served as a chaplain to an Archbishop of Canterbury and it was an impossible job then, and I think it’s more impossible now. Only those who don’t recognise its difficulties could possibly want to do it.”

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The Archbishop of Canterbury warned this week that challenges in the Anglican Communion “will not go away”. Dr Williams was speaking after a majority of diocesan synods rejected the Anglican Covenant.

Last weekend, three more diocesan synods ”” Lincoln, Oxford, and Guildford ”” voted against the Covenant. Three others ”” Black­burn, Exeter, and Peterborough ”” endorsed it. This brought the total number of diocesan synods in favour of the Covenant to 15, and the total number against to 23.

Since a majority of dioceses have voted against, it will not return to the General Synod during this quin­quennium (2011-15).

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Diocesan synods voted against the covenant, often in the face of great pressure from the vast majority of English bishops, who frequently made sure that the case for the covenant dominated proceedings. The bishops also exerted a certain amount of emotional blackmail, suggesting that if the scheme didn’t pass, it would be very upsetting for the archbishop of Canterbury (cue for synod members to watch a podcast from said archbishop, looking sad even while commending the covenant).

Well, it didn’t work, and now those particular bishops need to consider their position, as the saying goes. Principally, they need to consider a killer statistic: as the voting has taken place in the dioceses (and there are still a few to go), the pattern has been consistent. Around 80% of the bishops have voted in favour of the covenant, but the clergy and laity votes have split around 50-50 for and against, with votes against nudging ahead among the clergy. That suggests an episcopate that is seriously out of touch, not just with the nation as a whole (we knew that already), but even with faithful Anglican churchgoers and clergy in England.

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Tom Wright, 62, is the only bishop to approach Rowan Williams’ intellectual prowess. He has less range as a thinker than Williams but is a much better communicator. As Bishop of Durham he spent too much time away from the diocese giving lectures at Harvard and elsewhere but was an inspiring figure for younger clergy. Like Rowan Williams he is a genuine spiritual leader and a public intellectual. It is uncertain that he want to leave academia, especially with the defeat of the Covenant in the Church of England, but he is definitely a big beast, one of the very few in the Church of England.

Nick Baines, 53, usually heads the list of younger bishops. He wins admiration for his communication skills but has yet to prove himself as a deep thinker. He probably lacks enough experience and has not yet been tested to prove he has the abilities for Lambeth. In with an outside chance but unlikely to be appointed.

Christopher Cocksworth, 52, has been Bishop of Coventry since 2008. Among the younger bishops, he is a leading candidate….

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The Church of England, it is often said, is a broad church. You can’t get broader than John Pritchard, Bishop of Oxford and chair of the church’s board of education since January 2011. When he went up to Oxford University, he joined the Conservative and Labour parties simultaneously, though today, he admits, quietly and a little grudgingly, to being “on the left”. In ecclesiastical terms, he is said to be an “open evangelical” which would mean, very loosely, that he is traditional in doctrine but liberal in political and social matters, including the ordination of women as bishops. He prefers, however, to resist even that label, perhaps understandably, since one clergyman described an open evangelical to me as “a bigot who wants a nicer title”. Pritchard says: “I am a Christian of the centre, the generous centre”.

The right man, you may think, to negotiate the turbulent currents of the education system, in which Pritchard plays a key role.

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Rowan’s style has been private and unstrategic. Once, questioned about strategy, he responded crossly ”˜I believe in the Holy Spirit!’, seemingly oblivious to the possibility that the Spirit might work through long-term planning. Maybe that’s what we needed then. Certainly nobody doubts that he leads by example in his life of prayer and self-discipline. But we now need consultation, collaboration, and, yes, strategy. Despite routine pessimism, the Church of England isn’t finished. In a sense, it’s just getting going. We need someone with vision and energy to pick up from where Rowan’s charismatic style has led us and to develop and deepen things from there.

A new Archbishop must be allowed to lead. Yes, there are deep divisions. Part of the next Archbishop’s task will be to discern and clarify the difference between the things that really do divide and the things that people believe will do so but which need not. But, at the same time, there are problems of structure and organization that slow things down and soak up energy, problems that can and should be fixed so that the church and its leaders can be released for their mission, and to tackle properly the problems we face.

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Leading Anglicans are lobbying against Dr John Sentamu, the favourite candidate to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury, by suggesting that he is too old.
Dr Sentamu, whom liberals regard as too conservative on gay marriage, emerged as an early favourite to replace Rowan Williams when he steps down at the end of the year. But critics have privately questioned the African-born archbishop’s suitability for the role, pointing out that, at 62, he is already a year older than Dr Williams.

One insider said: “Just as the initials ABC are used to designate the Archbishop of Canterbury, the initials ABY have been used for York. But now, for those against him, they are being used to mean ”˜Anyone But York’.”

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Rowan Williams has been, in my view, an outstanding Archbishop of Canterbury, patiently holding together the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion with courage and wisdom.

At a time of speedy cultural change in church and society that has been a complex and thankless task.

I don’t know of anybody who could have done it better.

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The Rt Revd Dr Christopher Cocksworth, Bishop of Coventry, has been appointed to chair the Faith and Order Commission (FAOC) of the General Synod in succession to the Rt Revd Dr John Hind, Bishop of Chichester. Bishop John chaired the Faith and Order Advisor Group from 1991 and the FAOC from 2010, when it came into being.

The Commission advises the House of Bishops, the General Synod and the Council for Christian Unity on ecclesiological and ecumenical matters and acts as a theological resource for the Church of England as a whole. It has fifteen members and an episcopal chair.

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Indicating support for same-sex couples, the former Bishop of Oxford, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, said that it was still not too late for the Church to move ahead with blessing civil partnerships.
“The Churches have only themselves to blame for their current predicament, in which they face a major rewriting of the law on marriage,” he said.
“Instead of at first opposing civil partnerships, and then only accepting them grudgingly with gritted teeth, they should have welcomed them warmly from the first and immediately proposed services of commitment and blessing in church. They should do this even now.”

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There are also strong voices in society questioning the place of religion in public life. The barbarians of Bideford are at the gate. They say that faith is a private thing, and they imagine for themselves superior neutrality. Well, part of the Act of Uniformity was that we should live together under a rule of law, but this was a rule of law that included an established church, a set liturgy and a boundary commission for belief. These things have indeed gone on to shape our nation in countless ways. We should not lose them without a fight; though I for one intend to trust in the armour of the Holy Spirit, which of course looks to the world like nakedness. In other words we cannot expect a secular world not to challenge people of faith, and we will win our argument not by endless appeals to tradition, custom, or even law, but by living and proclaiming the truth of Jesus Christ. It is only when people are converted to Christ that they will see the logic of prayer at public meetings, and everything else that follows from it. In the meantime we can work together with all people of goodwill, and especially people of other faiths, to guard our historic position as best we can.

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A number of Dr [John] Sentamu’s follow­ers on Twitter, including some clergy, expressed dismay at his endorsement of The Sun on Sunday. On Monday, the Bishop of Bradford, the Rt Revd Nick Baines, wrote: “All my instincts lead me to take a different view from that of the Archbishop of York on this one.”

Bishop Baines said that he did not question Dr Sentamu’s motive “for writing the article and engaging with the paper in this way”, but said: “I could not endorse the paper myself.” He went on to criticise strongly how News International, which owns The Sun, had handled the investigation into phone-hacking.

The Bishop of Swansea & Brecon, the Rt Revd John Davies, speaking on BBC1’s Big Questions on Sunday morning, said that he was “not impressed” by Dr Sentamu’s article….

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The Bishop of Sherborne, the Archdeacon of Dorset and I met with 10 clergy from Dorset who had contacted me following my remarks on same-sex relationships in an interview published in The Times on 3 February, and on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme on 5 February.

Bishop Graham and I disagree about the appropriateness of using the word ‘marriage’ for same-sex relationships. He expressed his concerns to me privately and in the meeting. We are, however, committed to working together creatively.

I welcomed the open and robust conversation, which covered the following areas…

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Only a “tiny minority” of coun­cillors object to the saying of prayers at local council meetings, the Bishop of Exeter, the Rt Revd Michael Langrish, said on Tuesday.

Bishop Langrish was speaking after the High Court ruled last Friday that prayers should not be on the agenda for council meetings. The National Secular Society (NSS) and the former Bideford town councillor Clive Bone brought judicial-review proceedings against Bideford Town Council, in Devon, after councillors there twice rejected Mr Bone’s request for prayers to be abolished.

Bishop Langrish said: “My per­sonal experience is that it is a tiny minority who object to it [prayers at a council meeting]; at most of the councils I know in Devon it isn’t an issue. . . Leading public prayers in the chamber is an opportunity to articulate very particular issues that the council is dealing with.”

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My final point is that we need to see this very much as a moral issue. My contacts in the police force are horrified to see human beings treated by commodities-just being sold. That is a gross moral issue, not just about supply but about demand. There is obviously enormous demand to take advantage of sexual exploitation. What does that say about moral standards and understanding of sexuality in our society? What does it say about a lack of discipline and taking other people seriously as human beings? I ask the Minister that if we withdraw RE from such a central role in schools, who but the great religions is going to provide any moral framework to give people guidance about sexual behaviour in our society?

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I conclude from all this ”“ which could of course be spelled out at much more length ”“ that we can only understand early Christianity as a movement that emerges from within first-century Judaism, but that it is so unlike anything else we know in first-century Judaism (and the unlikenesses bear no resemblance to anything in the pagan world) that we are forced to ask what caused these mutations. The only plausible answer is that they were caused by the actual bodily resurrection, into a transformed physicality, of Jesus himself. Put that in place, and everything is explained. Take it away, and everything remains puzzling and confused. Of course, there is a cost. One cannot simply say, ”˜Well, it looks as though Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead’ and carry on with business as usual. If it happened, it means that a new world has been born. That, ultimately, is the good news of Easter, the good news which the rationalism of the Enlightenment has tried to screen out and which the church, tragically, has often forgotten as well. But to address this we need to move to the next section of this lecture.

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A test case bid to outlaw prayers before local council meetings has been won by the National Secular Society and an atheist councillor, Clive Bone.

They challenged the practice of Bideford town council, Devon, of having religious prayers on meeting agendas.

[On Friday February 11th] Mr Justice Ouseley, sitting in London, ruled: ”The saying of prayers as part of the formal meeting of a council is not lawful under section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, and there is no statutory power permitting the practice to continue.”

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Supporters of women bishops in the Church of England have hailed the latest General Synod vote but warned against further changes to the plan.

A leading campaigner regretted the Archbishop of Canterbury’s remark that “some bits of fine tuning” were needed.

The Church’s ruling body said the House of Bishops could make some amendments to the law before a final vote in July.

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The General Synod has asked the House of Bishops not to amend the draft women-bishops Measure “substantially”, after a three-hour debate on Wednesday afternoon.

The Synod backed Canon Peter Spiers in amending the Southwark amendment, so that it implied support for the Bishops to exercise their power to amend the legislation, but not to the extent that it would be likely to necessitate a new reference to the dioceses.

The decision whether any amend­ment is “substantial”, and therefore requires a further diocesan reference, is not, however, in the hands of the House of Bishops, but in those of the so-called “group of six”: the two Archbishops, the two clergy Pro­locutors, and the chair and vice-chair of the House of Laity, taking legal advice.

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The Archbishops of Canterbury and York suffered a humiliating defeat yesterday when the Church of England’s governing body rejected moves to create male “co-bishops” to work alongside female bishops in an effort to placate traditionalists.
Women bishops will now be given total authority in their dioceses when they begin to be consecrated from 2014, against the wishes of the Archbishops who had wanted traditionalist male bishops to rule alongside them with equal authority.
The vote increases the chances of further defections by dozens of Anglo-Catholic clergy and laity to the Ordinariate, the branch of the Roman Catholic Church created for defecting Anglicans who wish to retain both their Catholic and Anglican identities in the face of the growing liberalisation of the established Church.

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The Church of England moved closer to the consecration of women bishops Wednesday when it voted against giving strengthened legal protection to traditionalists who favour an all-male clergy, a decision that could lead more to switch to Rome.

The vote was the last chance for the church’s parliament, or synod, to influence the draft legislation in its long legislative process before it heads to the House of Bishops for consideration in May.

The draft will return to synod in July for a final vote – 20 years after it voted in favour of women priests.

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The difficulty many feel is that to leave the phrase ”˜male bishop’ in the draft Measure insufficiently recognises where that particular point comes in the argument people are trying to make. It doesn’t go to the root of it. In other words the theological conviction is not about male bishops as such: it arises from certain other convictions. And one of my questions about the draft Measure is whether anything can be done there, and / or in the Code of Practice, to overcome the resistance that is felt to that phrase, and to do better justice to what it rests upon. If I’m right about the two fundamental principles, that’s not a substantial change in the Measure. But it does of course then raise the question of how, whether in Measure or in Code, we do proper justice to this second point about theological integrity and pastoral continuity and ecclesial integrity; how we do that without over-legislating, over-prescribing in way that creates parallel church identities by default. And that I suppose is what a couple of years ago the Archbishop of York and myself were feeling our way for in the now notorious ”˜archbishops’ amendment’. If you look at some of the background literature that was provided at the time with that amendment, precisely the two principles with which I began were enunciated as the principles on which that amendment was based. Whether we were right or not to cast it in that form, I’m not at all sure. But looking forward to the debate later today, I would quite like Synod””no, I’d very much like Synod””to consider whether leaving a door open for the bishops to revisit some of those questions in the light of where we have got to might not a good idea at this juncture.

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