{"id":140029,"date":"2025-09-25T17:43:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T21:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=140029"},"modified":"2025-09-25T18:46:52","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T22:46:52","slug":"church-times-church-of-england-is-in-need-of-a-structural-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=140029","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Church of England is in need of a structural survey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Study criticism of the direction the Church of England over the past decade, and certain words are certain to appear: \u201ccentralised\u201d, \u201ctechnocratic\u201d, and \u201cbureaucracy\u201d among them. The agreed wisdom in these quarters is that, under the previous\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/archbishop-of-canterbury\">Archbishop<\/a>, power was increasingly assumed by a managerial centre \u2014 at national and diocesan level. The Church\u2019s leadership turned to secular, corporate wisdom in a bid to reverse\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/church-attendance\">numerical decline<\/a>, and the parish suffered. Cuts to stipendiary clergy have been the most obvious indicator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is a narrative that was debated in the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/general-synod\">General Synod<\/a>&nbsp;in July, when the announcement of funding plans for the next three years brought to the surface disagreements about how the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/church-commissioners\">Church Commissioners\u2019<\/a>&nbsp;funding \u2014 \u00a311.1 billion at the last count \u2014 should be distributed. Calling for more to be distributed directly to dioceses rather than as grants for which dioceses must bid, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/bishop-of-hereford\">Bishop of Hereford<\/a>, the Rt Revd Richard Jackson, urged members to \u201cput your faith in the local\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDo we still have faith in the parish system \u2014 or are we going to let it wither on the vine, to be replaced with regional centres and lots of forlorn empty buildings? That is where the current trajectory will take us,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/19-september\/features\/features\/church-of-england-is-in-need-of-a-structural-survey\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">As the annoucement of the next Archbishop of Canterbury approaches, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MadsDavies?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MadsDavies<\/a> asks whether it is time to review the drift towards managerialism <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/primatesportfolio?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#primatesportfolio<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/archbishopofcanterbury?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#archbishopofcanterbury<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IBevNbmLUX\">https:\/\/t.co\/IBevNbmLUX<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/1971118772040720525?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 25, 2025<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Study criticism of the direction the Church of England over the past decade, and certain words are certain to appear: \u201ccentralised\u201d, \u201ctechnocratic\u201d, and \u201cbureaucracy\u201d among them. The agreed wisdom in these quarters is that, under the previous\u00a0Archbishop, power was increasingly<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=140029\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324,199,437,435,184,108,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-of-england","category-england-uk","category-ministry-of-the-laity","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture","category-stewardship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140029"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140033,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140029\/revisions\/140033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}