The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, has agreed that the relationship between Synod and the episcopacy needs to be clarified. He said: “Synodical government served us well in the early days but it’s been a kind of juggernaut. I think it’s got totally out of control.”
Bishop Reade spoke against the Synod becoming parliamentary with two competing sides: “Ideally I think the House of Bishops should be there, and we should be listening to the debate, and we should go away and make the decisions.”
He said the clergy and laity should vote, but that it should simply be used as information for the bishops. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had also spoken in July against using General Synod as a parliament, emphasising that the Church was managed by synod, rather than governed by it.
You cannot blame Synod for anything- the responsibility lies with the Bishops. Ultimately Synod can only wreck what is put before them or allow it to go through. In this case they merely endorsed the proposal of the HOB. Had that been more robust and sensible then the pain caused to so many of us Anglo-Catholics could have been avoided.
http://www.sbarnabas.com/blog
#1 I remember reading the comment of one Synod member who said in effect: ‘we voted for the resolution the bishops gave us, isn’t that what they wanted’
Over to the CofE HOB meeting this week. No doubt the TEC imported stroppettes, Marilyn McCord Adams and Christina Rees will try to get their oar in.
Thanks to rugbyplayingpriest and Pageantmaster for bringing your British perspective to this American blog. I don’t claim to really understand the governing structures of the C of E. But I will be praying for the HoB as it meets the next couple of days.
Once again, George Conger has done a superb job of reporting on a very complex matter. I hope the bishops are able to act more sensibly than the Synod did this summer. But ultimately, the issue of WO (women’s ordination, even to the episcopate) is only a symptom of a deeper problem, the clash in world views that is being played out on many fronts in western Anglicanism (i.e., in the industrialized, secularized, postmodern, pluralistic Global North). And ultimately, that will boil down to whether or not the Anglican Church is able to morph into being a truly counter-cultural Church, that knows itself to be, and fully accepts the reality that it is, “in the world but not of the world.”
Alas, that is extremely difficult for any state church or former state church that is still trapped in a Christendom mentality while living in a post-Constantinian, post-Christendom social world. But however difficult, and even traumatic and divisive that is, we Anglicans simply MUST make that harrowing transition and adapt to our new minority status as committed Christians in an increasingly de-Christianized society.
But once the salt of the earth has lost its saltiness, how shall its saltiness be restored? That question haunts me these days.
And the answer, which may seem trite or useless but isn’t, would seem to be, “Only God knows.” Only He can restore our lost saltiness.
David Handy+
Passionate advocate of high commitment, confrontational, Christ-against-culture Anglicanism or a radically post-Christendom sort.