{"id":143156,"date":"2026-02-09T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T18:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143156"},"modified":"2026-02-09T19:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:09:40","slug":"the-church-of-england-general-synod-today-opens-amidst-tremendous-challenges-and-continuing-disagreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143156","title":{"rendered":"The Church of England General Synod today opens amidst tremendous challenges and continuing disagreement"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Church of England General Synod&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchofengland.org\/about\/governance\/general-synod\/groups-sessions\/general-synod-february-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">opens in London<\/a>&nbsp;today, with an agenda including the first address by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There will be a discussion on ending the Living in Love and Faith project, a church wide discussion on same sex relations and blessings, which reached an impasse over deep divisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decisions remain to be taken on stand-alone services for same sex couples and whether same sex clergy may be married in civil ceremonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other issues on the agenda are safeguarding, working class clergy, poverty and banning \u2018oasis\u2019 floral foam.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Telegraph has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2026\/02\/08\/church-losing-its-most-dedicated-followers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">published a chart<\/a>&nbsp;showing a decline in the number of people on the electoral roll of churches in each of the dioceses, a long term trend.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">February&#39;s General Synod opens today.<br><br>Here&#39;s what&#39;s coming up on the first day of the Church of England\u2019s Synod.<br><br>&#x1f4fa; You can also tune in live to all the events this week at <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1Sfh2FBPZS\">https:\/\/t.co\/1Sfh2FBPZS<\/a>.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/GeneralSynod?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#GeneralSynod<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/DSZCfQDWDI\">pic.twitter.com\/DSZCfQDWDI<\/a><\/p>&mdash; The Church of England (@churchofengland) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/churchofengland\/status\/2020815001729061339?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 9, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Church of England General Synod&nbsp;opens in London&nbsp;today, with an agenda including the first address by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally. There will be a discussion on ending the Living in Love and Faith project, a church<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=143156\">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":[67,324,199,184,108,694],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archbishop-of-canterbury","category-church-of-england","category-england-uk","category-parish-ministry","category-religion-culture","category-sarah-mullaly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143156","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=143156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143159,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143156\/revisions\/143159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}