He's 68 - presumably he wants something to usefully occupy his days, and after resigning in something of a disgrace, the market for his next book probably shrank quite significantly.
He clearly doesn't think he's done anything wrong, still, judging by his House of Lords speech. Until he understands the problem that he is, for as long as he thinks the way he does, he is not safe to let loose on anyone.
I suppose that, at some point, honest attempts to produce the best available compromise lead to a betrayal of principle? It’s not easy to be sure what that point is.
The point is where you deny justice in the name of unity.
There is, unfortunately, no general agreement over what is just.
Nor is there agreement over when mercy should triumph over judgment.
Nor is there agreement over the role and limitations of grace.
We’re a muddled lot. We don’t always know when we’re being self righteousness in our attempts to be righteous.
Bridge builders are much needed. It is possible to do that with integrity. But hard. Walking a mile in another’s moccasins may help a bit.
But as I observed in another thread, it’s pretty hard to continue if your attempts lead to you being demeaned and demonised. It seems much easier to polarise than depolarise.
It's equally not easy if you're demonised and demeaned for being and living who you are. Reconciliation with those who demean and demonise has to START with them stopping it.
I've had the reconciliation gospel til it comes out of my ears, to put it politely. Spare me.
None of this works in practice. That's the problem. That's what says that the unity is a steaming pile of horseshit, and the stable needs purging now
Hmmm ... but purging of what exactly? All the public school establishment types? All the conservative traditionalists? All the liberals / evangelicals / charismatics / MoTR people / bigots / progressives / left-handed people ... ?
I get what you are saying, although I don't of course have any 'right' to comment as I haven't been through the things you undoubtedly have.
But where do we draw the line? Where does it all end?
There's a story about a Scottish Presbyterian minister who kept upping the ante on the criteria as to who could attend his church. In the end there was only him and two old ladies left.
I really, really, really know I have no right whatsoever to say this but are we actually saying that there should only be one sort of Christian in the CofE. Only liberals or only conservatives?
I really, really, really know I have no right whatsoever to say this but are we actually saying that there should only be one sort of Christian in the CofE. Only liberals or only conservatives?
Nobody is saying that. But the CofE can't demand that everyone conform to conservative understandings of faith and morals because of the threats of the minority who hold them. If their conservatism goes beyond merely holding a view on something to requiring that the church teach that view as normative and enforce it in practice then we're in a "your right to swing your fist stops at my nose" situation. None of the proposed changes, be it PLF, allowing gay clergy to marry and married gay people to be ordained, none of it, requires that conservatives do or say anything that contradicts their expressed views. The stumbling block is that a significant faction of conservatives are insisting that either everyone follow their rules or that they get to divorce the rest of the church but keep living in the house with access to the joint bank account and a vote in family meetings.
...Unity created by the pension fund and the law of establishment are decidedly not worth having.
"Worth having" covers a wide range of perspectives. Regarding the evangelical churches within the CofE itself, something to bear in mind are the tangible benefits they receive from staying within the CofE. For example, according to the Chote Review in 2022:
However, the SDU [Strategy and Development Unit] has reported that more than half of SDF [Strategic Development Funding] resources have gone to resource and church plant projects, which tend to be associated with evangelical traditions (though there are some in the catholic and central traditions). More specifically, 14% of funding has gone to projects exclusively made up of plants from the Church Revitalisation Trust (CRT) network linked to Holy Trinity Brompton (and a further 29% has gone to projects where CRT churches are present among those of other networks and traditions). This is not in itself proof of bias. Given the professionalism, shared services support and track record of that stable, it is hardly surprising they are often the first port of call for a diocese seeking numerical growth relatively quickly.
Regarding the size of the fund:
Core diocesan SDF funding of £176.7 million has been awarded since the scheme’s inception in 2014, of which £74.5 million has already been spent in dioceses and a further £102.3 million is still to be drawn in projects already under way or approved. The SIB expects to make a further £14.7 million available in 2022.
The stumbling block is that a significant faction of conservatives are insisting that either everyone follow their rules or that they get to divorce the rest of the church but keep living in the house with access to the joint bank account and a vote in family meetings.
Except in practice what they want to do is keep threatening to pull their parish share and cow everyone else into submission. They don't actually want to divorce the church, because they'd look a lot less respectable if they were just an unestablished sect with very conservative views.
The stumbling block is that a significant faction of conservatives are insisting that either everyone follow their rules or that they get to divorce the rest of the church but keep living in the house with access to the joint bank account and a vote in family meetings.
Except in practice what they want to do is keep threatening to pull their parish share and cow everyone else into submission. They don't actually want to divorce the church, because they'd look a lot less respectable if they were just an unestablished sect with very conservative views.
You missed the latter part of the sentence: their "third province" where they get to keep calling themselves CofE, keep their vicarages, churches, stipends and pensions, keep voting in General Synod but get to pick their own bishops, select their own clergy, and otherwise do as they please. It's cakeism to a degree that would make the last PM but two blush.
It seems to me that the time has come to admit that the Church of England is unsustainable in its current form. It has purposes which pull it apart, such as being both a cultural heritage organisation and a community hub, an intellectual heavyweight and a pastoral heavyweight, socially supportive and yet also a lobbying organisation for one or more very particular views of society. As with so many things, it has to be allowed to disintegrate, to experience the reality of its own accumulated disintegration, before anything meaningful could ever have a chance to emerge. Reconciliation is therefore a misdirected effort, slowing down a vital process which is essential before authentic regeneration is possible.
"Prayers of love and faith", the nauseating half-measure the CofE is offering to same-sex couples in lieu of the solemnisation of holy matrimony. The Episcopal answer to "Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?"
The other thing that the C of E manages to be, which nauseates many within and outside, is for many people its own fan club. It worships itself - its liturgy, its buildings, its past, its place in the Establishment. Such things only ever work if they are serving, not if they are demanding service from all and sundry, especially anyone foolish enough to attend a service. I sound very critical, because I am very critical. At the most local level, it sometimes manages to be something useful. However, as soon as it believes that its own sustaining is the ultimate good, it has fallen into being a cult of itself and deserves to implode.
I suppose that, at some point, honest attempts to produce the best available compromise lead to a betrayal of principle? It’s not easy to be sure what that point is.
It seems right to me to seek unity. As a lifelong nonconformist I’ve seen the damage which flows from a refusal to try. “Touch pitch and be defiled” is one of many possible journeys towards self righteousness.
It may be that the Church of England attempts maintain the big tent is at the point of institutional failure. But it was never wrong to try. The prayer that we might all be one remains a good prayer. Collectively we have a very long way to go in dealing peaceably with our differences.
And the title of the head of another church is "pontifex," bridge builder. And in episcopal polity the bishop is meant to be a centre of unity. Holding things together is at the core of a bishop's role. Maybe bishops at the edges feel that, and thats what stops them from breaking away.
And the trouble with many evangelicals is that they don't really accept bishops.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
But more seriously, it is certainly the case that many, not all, Anglican evangelicals want to create or recreate the CofE in their own image. They want everyone to be like them.
Conversely, I've met some on the stratospherically High sky-slopes who seem to think they are going to bring everyone round to their point of view.
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
As Eddie and The Hotrods put it, it (quoting from memory):
'You'll get too lonely,
Maybe it's better that way,
It ain't you only,
You've got something to say.
Do anything you want to do (Dang-nang-nang-nang! guitar hook)
Do anything you want to do (etc)
But perhaps it's the same all over?
I know Orthodox who act as if everyone is going to see the error of their ways and join us, and Baptists or independent evangelicals who think that everyone really ought to be like them if they had any sense.
But then, how do we deal with this? How does any Archbishop of Canterbury deal with it?
Are we talking about a Dominic Cummings style and approach? Slash and burn. Let it all dissolve and implode and see what emerges?
What might emerge, if anything, might be very different to what deconstructionists hope.
I'd be interested to pursue a thought experiment on a new thread as to what a dissolved and disestablished CofE might look like.
Would an organic and more fluid structure be more 'just', inclusive and benign?
Or would we simply end up with a maelstrom of competing sects which is essentially what happened to Nonconformity when it reached its high-water mark here in the UK?
Look what's happened to them.
The Methodists and URC are struggling. The Baptists are holding their own but aren't doing as well as they were.
Rome and Orthodoxy have their own particular problems.
I'm not advocating for the status quo, simply thinking aloud/allowed as someone who used to be involved in a 'restorationist' group which acted as if everything would be OK if only everyone were like them.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
I’ve never been a member of an Anglican Church. From my experience in the chronically divisive world of nonconformism (we are experts on division) I can confirm that mutual antagonism and irresolvable differences are not confined to Anglicanism. So anything I write here relates more to my direct experience. Although I have very good Anglican friends (for over 50 years) who have experienced being demeaned for their values and identities, I haven’t lived their experiences.
I can appreciate why people give up. Perhaps my personal persistence is a matter of temperament? I can assure Shipmates that I have had painful experiences of being demeaned and marginalised. But I’m still in the same church I joined 50 years ago this year. Those who were church elders at that time (all dead now) would not have predicted that a young rebellious nonconformist with a penchant for minority views would have hung around.
All I can say is that my persistence in learning how to live with local differences has been worth it. I think I’ve been an agent of change from within. I’d like to have seen more and I still may. Kindness is in the DNA of my local congo and of most of the folks who go there. That, more than argument, has probably been the real agent of such change that has happened.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
What some who look at the CofE's finances and church attendance figures see is unsustainable, unmanaged decline. The parish system does not have much longer to run in its current, traditional form - rural parishes are looking at a future of lay-led (and non-stipendiary-clergy-led) services and ministries overseen by stipendiary (ordained) area managers.
Also consider that the number of stipendiary ordinations appears to have been increasing in recent years, while most dioceses have been enacting and making plans for reducing the number of stipendiary clergy. (The non-linear nature of the number of clergy retirements is also relevant.)
The CofE has been looking for efficient programmes and processes to turn investment (in training and projects) into increasing church attendance. At the moment, the evangelicals are the ones with a coherent plan for putting affluent bums on pews. God help us all.
From my experience in the chronically divisive world of nonconformism (we are experts on division) I can confirm that mutual antagonism and irresolvable differences are not confined to Anglicanism.
Indeed not. Many years I was moderating (i.e. looking after) a small Baptist church which had no minister at the time. Another church, a mile or less away, was in a similar situation. The moderator of the other church and I agreed that neither church could afford a full-time minister so, logically, they should share one. When we put the idea to the churches, the effective response from both was, "We've never got on with them in the past, and we see no reason to start doing so now"!
“We don’t dance, drink, smoke, or chew
And we won’t mix with those who do.”
But seriously, Baptist Trainfan. It may actually help that we don’t have a written down magisterium. There are strengths and weaknesses in the belief in the independence of local assemblies (congregations, whatever). Narrow-minded prejudices tend to be limited. And if we can’t stand it any more we can move on.
From all of our exchanges over the years, I think you know, as well as I do, both the cost and the value of seeking to cope with differences. It’s a challenge whatever denomination we belong to.
Whither Welby? Whither Anglicans? Whither Baptists? We are all wrestling with what it means to be Christian in this era of both profound social change, neo-conservative reversion, and the resulting increasing polarisation. It may not be much but I’m cultivating kindness.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
I do frequent TA, by the way, and I think there is a distinction between wanting those who disagree gone and not understanding why they want to stay. Most comments, particularly in regard to the Society, that I've seen are the latter. Like, if you're using the Roman liturgy, you don't think the CofE has the authority to ordain women or you even believe doing so is impossible, you refuse the ministry of your diocesan bishop because they accept the ordination of women, you refuse to take communion from a woman, a man ordained by a woman or a man ordained by a man who has also ordained a woman, why do you even want to remain in the CofE? Why wouldn't you go to Rome?
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
I do frequent TA, by the way, and I think there is a distinction between wanting those who disagree gone and not understanding why they want to stay. Most comments, particularly in regard to the Society, that I've seen are the latter. Like, if you're using the Roman liturgy, you don't think the CofE has the authority to ordain women or you even believe doing so is impossible, you refuse the ministry of your diocesan bishop because they accept the ordination of women, you refuse to take communion from a woman, a man ordained by a woman or a man ordained by a man who has also ordained a woman, why do you even want to remain in the CofE? Why wouldn't you go to Rome?
Because it’s about winners and losers - ‘why won’t the vanquished quit the field?’ Is easily but not painlessly answered with ‘because we’re keeping this tiny flame burning’
If I wasn’t trying to keep the show on the road in a tiny rural parish and doing backflips with my conscience and beliefs to do so, I’d be commuting to the nearest Society parish 16 miles away.
Which is the other side of your coin, there are more like me out there compromising to keep things running (in fairness more like me on both sides of the argument compromising), and having to live with going against their conscience.
Frankly I’m not sure it’s healthy, but it’s where we are.
Seriously, I think for the laity (where the jibes about pensions and establishment are less important) there’s some work to be done about understanding the impact of ‘staying at great personal cost’ - never mind leaving.
I just about manage to get by in the wider CofE ecosystem and working hard for an excellent female priest, always knowing that I’ve got Society churches priests and bishops to run to if/when it all gets too much. It’s utterly dubious theology but even though I’m not immersed in that world anymore I do regard its continued existence as my insurance policy. Does that make sense?
Your last sentence is the most important from my point of view. This process of holding breath is not working any more. It's killing everyone and everything. We need a viable alternative, however fragmentary and messy. I know mess threatens a lot of people, and faith can be a refuge from mess, but that doesn't work. It's not available, and demanding it with menaces doesn't change reality.
“We don’t dance, drink, smoke, or chew
And we won’t mix with those who do.”
But seriously, Baptist Trainfan. It may actually help that we don’t have a written down magisterium. There are strengths and weaknesses in the belief in the independence of local assemblies (congregations, whatever). Narrow-minded prejudices tend to be limited. And if we can’t stand it any more we can move on.
From all of our exchanges over the years, I think you know, as well as I do, both the cost and the value of seeking to cope with differences. It’s a challenge whatever denomination we belong to.
Whither Welby? Whither Anglicans? Whither Baptists? We are all wrestling with what it means to be Christian in this era of both profound social change, neo-conservative reversion, and the resulting increasing polarisation. It may not be much but I’m cultivating kindness.
Your last sentence is the most important from my point of view. This process of holding breath is not working any more. It's killing everyone and everything. We need a viable alternative, however fragmentary and messy. I know mess threatens a lot of people, and faith can be a refuge from mess, but that doesn't work. It's not available, and demanding it with menaces doesn't change reality.
And yes I compromise every time I go to church
So what is the solution? Because to be honest I can’t see a better one than muddling on as we are.
As a thought experiment, when you say ‘fragmentary and messy’ are you prepared to live with (or walk away from) a settlement that leaves The Society in control of the finances, buildings and doctrines of the CofE and anyone that doesn’t like it can go?
Or do you expect to like the more likely outcome so you think you’re taking less risk in advocating for the mess?
Because from the minority wing without the money (ie not the ConEvos) it’s difficult not to see anyone with a solution other than the status quo as pretty menacing….
To be honest, I get the feeling that the Trad Anglo catholics are largely left alone these days because they don’t threaten the cash position of the Church and thanks to the PEVs they can safely be ignored.
@betjemaniac from your point of view I am the enemy. I'm a liberal sacramentalist who can't see why you can't be happy with the Ordinariate, when we have no other home. The Society won't work when a woman is appointed as archbishop of Canterbury, and feels like a compromise that is leeching too energy to be sustainable. Sometimes reality is just real and none of us can avoid it.
@betjemaniac from your point of view I am the enemy. I'm a liberal sacramentalist who can't see why you can't be happy with the Ordinariate, when we have no other home. The Society won't work when a woman is appointed as archbishop of Canterbury, and feels like a compromise that is leeching too energy to be sustainable. Sometimes reality is just real and none of us can avoid it.
And there we go. But I’m not a Roman Catholic - that’s why I can’t be happy in the Ordinariate.
So you push for a settlement that you’re comfortable with because you expect to be pretty unaffected.
You have no other home but you think I have one, so you think I need to go. I think I have no other home and just want to be graciously allowed to stay and thrive. So when it comes down to it you appeal to numbers.
By the way, if you really think the current PEV/Society arrangement couldn’t sit out a female ABC I have an extensive selection of nearly new bridges… that’s the reality I’m living with, you seek to avoid it.
And yet there are two sides,at least,to every argument. I wouldn't dare to enter into this discussion,but share with you a very recent incident/
My wife and I are going tomorrow to an amateur performance of the pantomime 'Sleeping Beauty' We told a neighbour who has a young grandson about it. She said in all seriousness that she was surprised that they were allowed to put on this show where a princess was put to sleep for 100 years and only awakened by the kiss of a handsome prince. She didn't think she could explain any of this to her grandson.
We said that we did not think that the am dram company had taken account of these thoughts when they decided to put on the show. Similarly we believe that the many children who do come to see the show will enjoy the singing, dancing, jokes and spectacle without worrying too much about the ethics - but perhaps they should.
I am sure that for many who go to C of E churches or any other churches for that matter go to be part of the local community.
That doesn't mean that the theological matters are not important.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
I do frequent TA, by the way, and I think there is a distinction between wanting those who disagree gone and not understanding why they want to stay. Most comments, particularly in regard to the Society, that I've seen are the latter. Like, if you're using the Roman liturgy, you don't think the CofE has the authority to ordain women or you even believe doing so is impossible, you refuse the ministry of your diocesan bishop because they accept the ordination of women, you refuse to take communion from a woman, a man ordained by a woman or a man ordained by a man who has also ordained a woman, why do you even want to remain in the CofE? Why wouldn't you go to Rome?
Because it’s about winners and losers - ‘why won’t the vanquished quit the field?’ Is easily but not painlessly answered with ‘because we’re keeping this tiny flame burning’
If I wasn’t trying to keep the show on the road in a tiny rural parish and doing backflips with my conscience and beliefs to do so, I’d be commuting to the nearest Society parish 16 miles away.
Believe me I understand the latter part, having spent the last 13 years quietly parking my beliefs about church order, ministry, the sacraments and so on in order to serve my (Church of Scotland) parish church. I wasn't referring to those who are willing to live with different views and serve in their parish, but those who take the extreme position (up to and including scolding Society priests for talking to ordained women) of having nothing to do with the church beyond their own party. It seems like they despise every part of the CofE where it differs from Rome.
Agree, although I’ve society priests of my age/generation (40s) increasingly reporting mainstream priests being scolded for talking to them.
Which I *think* is a reaction against both past treatment of liberals at the hands of now-departed arch trads and a desperate feeling on the part of some of the more liberal militants that the current arrangements (to the astonishment of many) actual do seem to be working - and surely that can’t be allowed to happen!
Personally, when the Five Guiding Principles were arrived at I had my doubts but have been genuinely impressed by the fact that the overwhelming majority on both sides seem to be playing nicely with them.
To the extent that I stepped down from the trad barricades and into a mainstream parish because I felt that the threat had diminished and I could therefore afford to!
What some who look at the CofE's finances and church attendance figures see is unsustainable, unmanaged decline. The parish system does not have much longer to run in its current, traditional form - rural parishes are looking at a future of lay-led (and non-stipendiary-clergy-led) services and ministries overseen by stipendiary (ordained) area managers.
The parish where I play has been "lay led" for the past 4 years beccause of a failure by TPTB to find us a priest. The result has been very interesting: not only did we not lose attendees after Covid, our Sunday School actually grew. When services resumed it was decided that we would stick to the pattern of services we had before the lockdowns: 1st Sunday - Parish Communion; 2nd Sunday - Family Communion; 3rd Sunday - Matins; 4th Sunday - Parish Communion; and an 8am said Communion service every week.
What became apparent after the lockdowns ended was that many of the congregation were fearful of the communion services, and after wrestling with this for 2 years at the end of 2023 it was decided to alter things so that every Sunday there was a non-eucharistic service. So now we have Matins on the 1st and 3rd Sundays, the Family Service is non-eucharistic with a said Communion straight after; and the 4th Sunday has Evensong. the result? The eucharistic service numbers are static, the non-eucharistic are growing.
So far, so good: but every single priest who comes to look at us, and the Archdeacon who is meant to be finding us an incumbent, place at the top of their list increasing the number of eucharistic services and doing away with Matins. Far from being "evangelical" the churchmanship is middle-of-the-candle, yet we get it with both barrels from evos and ACs. The evos say we are "too structured" and the ACs say we are "too low". We have the bums on pews - and more of them than before - but are being told this is wrong.
Well, it seems sensible to stick with what is obviously working, but sense and the C of E don't always go together...
Your parish could, perhaps, become one of those* which has a licensed lay minister as official minister-in-charge, although provision would still have to be made for a priest to conduct the 8am service (and the Communion service on 2nd Sunday).
*Not sure how many of these there are, but there used to be at least one in this Diocese, and another in Yorkshire. No doubt there are more, but it's not a common phenomenon - yet).
Of course, most Baptist services are non-Eucharistic ... In one church I had one gentleman who made a point of not attending on Communion Sundays. This wasn't, I think, for any hygiene reasons (we use little cuppies anyway) but because he disliked the implied "cannibalism" of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ - although he needn't have worried as Baptists don't tend to think in such terms.
Indeed. Conversely, many bishops don't accept evangelicals.
...
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
Yes, I did, and you obviously missed my 'more seriously' comment.
'More seriously' generally means that the preceding remark wasn't intended to be taken too seriously.
For the record though, and I know I'll be accused of 'both-sides-ism', I've heard comments from liberal Anglicans wishing that evangelicals (not all evangelicals to be fair) would leave and evangelical and conservative High Church Anglicans wishing that all liberals and progressive would leave.
So it's not as if I'm riffing with ideas that are way wide of the mark, however frivolous I was being. 'More seriously' means, 'More seriously.'
We had an OLM priest when I lived in Calderdale but after I moved she left the CofE when the parish church was closed, preferring to stay in the village with the local Baptists.
For the record though, and I know I'll be accused of 'both-sides-ism', I've heard comments from liberal Anglicans wishing that evangelicals (not all evangelicals to be fair) would leave and evangelical and conservative High Church Anglicans wishing that all liberals and progressive would leave.
So it's not as if I'm riffing with ideas that are way wide of the mark, however frivolous I was being. 'More seriously' means, 'More seriously.'
As a Keen Young Christian (CU type) in the early 1970s, I thought that the CofE was irredeemably liberal. So, of course, did the nonconformist Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones who, in a tussle with John Stott, argued that all Evangelicals should leave the CofE to its fate. The "balance of power" was certainly different in those days although we cautiously welcomed the appointment of Donald Coggan to ++Ebor as "one of us".
We had an OLM priest when I lived in Calderdale but after I moved she left the CofE when the parish church was closed, preferring to stay in the village with the local Baptists.
I genuinely think lay readers and locally ordained are the future of a lot of DIY rural ministry. It’ll help keep places open.
I've followed the recent posts with interest and apologise for my rather flippant and off-hand comment about what's been said 'on these boards.' There are very real dilemmas here and as I've said upthread, before I became too flippant, I don't think there are any easy answers.
Like @TheOrganist I've known of rural parish churches which have kept going through lay initiatives and a fair amount of local grit and determination. In one instance this happened only for the Bishop to take a dim view of what they'd done rather than commending them for it.
I've also come across Society priests who seem to think that 'their' way is the only way to be Anglican, although they have a lot of time for non-Anglican evangelicals because they think they are more 'authentic' than Anglican ones.* I wonder what they would say if someone insisted that Roman Catholic Catholics were more 'authentic' than Anglican ones?
FWIW I'd like to see more lay involvement and grassroots initiatives within the CofE, and indeed within my own affiliation. However we cut it, I think some form of 'organic' development rather than top-down managerialism or more superstitious forms of 'priest-craft' have to be the way forward. One of the wisest things I was told when I became Orthodox was, 'the sacraments aren't magic.'
*I understand what they mean as I've said this myself, and on these boards in times past. Although I think I'd add more caveats were I to take a position on this now. That said, I still believe that working-class Pentecostalism is more authentic than its middle-class charismatic cousin.
FWIW I'd like to see more lay involvement and grassroots initiatives within the CofE, and indeed within my own affiliation. However we cut it, I think some form of 'organic' development rather than top-down managerialism or more superstitious forms of 'priest-craft' have to be the way forward.
Professor Leslie Francis, in his book about rural churches, was saying this 30 years ago - but no-one was listening.
We had an OLM priest when I lived in Calderdale but after I moved she left the CofE when the parish church was closed, preferring to stay in the village with the local Baptists.
I genuinely think lay readers and locally ordained are the future of a lot of DIY rural ministry. It’ll help keep places open.
The problem is that it tends to reward areas with lots of able-bodied middle-class retirees with time on their hands. Our OLM was unusual in being a disabled working class woman. Any pretence of being a church for the whole nation is long gone.
We had an OLM priest when I lived in Calderdale but after I moved she left the CofE when the parish church was closed, preferring to stay in the village with the local Baptists.
I genuinely think lay readers and locally ordained are the future of a lot of DIY rural ministry. It’ll help keep places open.
The problem is that it tends to reward areas with lots of able-bodied middle-class retirees with time on their hands. Our OLM was unusual in being a disabled working class woman. Any pretence of being a church for the whole nation is long gone.
Presumably that is the case with non-stipendary and house for duty priests too.
We had an OLM priest when I lived in Calderdale but after I moved she left the CofE when the parish church was closed, preferring to stay in the village with the local Baptists.
I genuinely think lay readers and locally ordained are the future of a lot of DIY rural ministry. It’ll help keep places open.
The problem is that it tends to reward areas with lots of able-bodied middle-class retirees with time on their hands. Our OLM was unusual in being a disabled working class woman. Any pretence of being a church for the whole nation is long gone.
Presumably that is the case with non-stipendary and house for duty priests too.
House for duty priests at least aren't tied to a particular area. They do require another income, whether that is a pension or other employment, however.
Comments
He's 68 - presumably he wants something to usefully occupy his days, and after resigning in something of a disgrace, the market for his next book probably shrank quite significantly.
I'd recommend John Profumo's example to him.
There is, unfortunately, no general agreement over what is just.
Nor is there agreement over when mercy should triumph over judgment.
Nor is there agreement over the role and limitations of grace.
We’re a muddled lot. We don’t always know when we’re being self righteousness in our attempts to be righteous.
Bridge builders are much needed. It is possible to do that with integrity. But hard. Walking a mile in another’s moccasins may help a bit.
But as I observed in another thread, it’s pretty hard to continue if your attempts lead to you being demeaned and demonised. It seems much easier to polarise than depolarise.
I've had the reconciliation gospel til it comes out of my ears, to put it politely. Spare me.
Hmmm ... but purging of what exactly? All the public school establishment types? All the conservative traditionalists? All the liberals / evangelicals / charismatics / MoTR people / bigots / progressives / left-handed people ... ?
I get what you are saying, although I don't of course have any 'right' to comment as I haven't been through the things you undoubtedly have.
But where do we draw the line? Where does it all end?
There's a story about a Scottish Presbyterian minister who kept upping the ante on the criteria as to who could attend his church. In the end there was only him and two old ladies left.
I really, really, really know I have no right whatsoever to say this but are we actually saying that there should only be one sort of Christian in the CofE. Only liberals or only conservatives?
Please don't shoot me down in flames.
Nobody is saying that. But the CofE can't demand that everyone conform to conservative understandings of faith and morals because of the threats of the minority who hold them. If their conservatism goes beyond merely holding a view on something to requiring that the church teach that view as normative and enforce it in practice then we're in a "your right to swing your fist stops at my nose" situation. None of the proposed changes, be it PLF, allowing gay clergy to marry and married gay people to be ordained, none of it, requires that conservatives do or say anything that contradicts their expressed views. The stumbling block is that a significant faction of conservatives are insisting that either everyone follow their rules or that they get to divorce the rest of the church but keep living in the house with access to the joint bank account and a vote in family meetings.
Regarding the size of the fund:
Except in practice what they want to do is keep threatening to pull their parish share and cow everyone else into submission. They don't actually want to divorce the church, because they'd look a lot less respectable if they were just an unestablished sect with very conservative views.
You missed the latter part of the sentence: their "third province" where they get to keep calling themselves CofE, keep their vicarages, churches, stipends and pensions, keep voting in General Synod but get to pick their own bishops, select their own clergy, and otherwise do as they please. It's cakeism to a degree that would make the last PM but two blush.
"Prayers of love and faith", the nauseating half-measure the CofE is offering to same-sex couples in lieu of the solemnisation of holy matrimony. The Episcopal answer to "Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone?"
And the trouble with many evangelicals is that they don't really accept bishops.
But more seriously, it is certainly the case that many, not all, Anglican evangelicals want to create or recreate the CofE in their own image. They want everyone to be like them.
Conversely, I've met some on the stratospherically High sky-slopes who seem to think they are going to bring everyone round to their point of view.
Then, rightly or wrongly, my perception on these boards is that many liberals would prefer it if the evangelicals left to form their own independent churches and the more conservative Anglo-Catholics shuffled off to Rome or Orthodoxy to cause problems there. Thanks. 😉
As Eddie and The Hotrods put it, it (quoting from memory):
'You'll get too lonely,
Maybe it's better that way,
It ain't you only,
You've got something to say.
Do anything you want to do (Dang-nang-nang-nang! guitar hook)
Do anything you want to do (etc)
But perhaps it's the same all over?
I know Orthodox who act as if everyone is going to see the error of their ways and join us, and Baptists or independent evangelicals who think that everyone really ought to be like them if they had any sense.
But then, how do we deal with this? How does any Archbishop of Canterbury deal with it?
Are we talking about a Dominic Cummings style and approach? Slash and burn. Let it all dissolve and implode and see what emerges?
What might emerge, if anything, might be very different to what deconstructionists hope.
I'd be interested to pursue a thought experiment on a new thread as to what a dissolved and disestablished CofE might look like.
Would an organic and more fluid structure be more 'just', inclusive and benign?
Or would we simply end up with a maelstrom of competing sects which is essentially what happened to Nonconformity when it reached its high-water mark here in the UK?
Look what's happened to them.
The Methodists and URC are struggling. The Baptists are holding their own but aren't doing as well as they were.
Rome and Orthodoxy have their own particular problems.
I'm not advocating for the status quo, simply thinking aloud/allowed as someone who used to be involved in a 'restorationist' group which acted as if everything would be OK if only everyone were like them.
For the first para: really? Name one.
For the rest: it seems to only be you who has that impression, which you seem to have crafted from whole cloth to support your "both sides" hypothesis even though the evidence doesn't fit.
Clearly you didn’t spend as much time as I did on Thinking Anglicans as I did in the last 20 years. ‘Why don’t these people [non-progressives] just go?’ might as well have been a rallying cry at one point from some contributors
It has calmed down a lot now, but as someone who was then very much in the Trad Catholic camp that was absolutely the situation.
@Gamma Gamaliel referenced "these boards", not TA.
I can appreciate why people give up. Perhaps my personal persistence is a matter of temperament? I can assure Shipmates that I have had painful experiences of being demeaned and marginalised. But I’m still in the same church I joined 50 years ago this year. Those who were church elders at that time (all dead now) would not have predicted that a young rebellious nonconformist with a penchant for minority views would have hung around.
All I can say is that my persistence in learning how to live with local differences has been worth it. I think I’ve been an agent of change from within. I’d like to have seen more and I still may. Kindness is in the DNA of my local congo and of most of the folks who go there. That, more than argument, has probably been the real agent of such change that has happened.
Fair point
Also consider that the number of stipendiary ordinations appears to have been increasing in recent years, while most dioceses have been enacting and making plans for reducing the number of stipendiary clergy. (The non-linear nature of the number of clergy retirements is also relevant.)
The CofE has been looking for efficient programmes and processes to turn investment (in training and projects) into increasing church attendance. At the moment, the evangelicals are the ones with a coherent plan for putting affluent bums on pews. God help us all.
And we won’t mix with those who do.”
But seriously, Baptist Trainfan. It may actually help that we don’t have a written down magisterium. There are strengths and weaknesses in the belief in the independence of local assemblies (congregations, whatever). Narrow-minded prejudices tend to be limited. And if we can’t stand it any more we can move on.
From all of our exchanges over the years, I think you know, as well as I do, both the cost and the value of seeking to cope with differences. It’s a challenge whatever denomination we belong to.
Whither Welby? Whither Anglicans? Whither Baptists? We are all wrestling with what it means to be Christian in this era of both profound social change, neo-conservative reversion, and the resulting increasing polarisation. It may not be much but I’m cultivating kindness.
I do frequent TA, by the way, and I think there is a distinction between wanting those who disagree gone and not understanding why they want to stay. Most comments, particularly in regard to the Society, that I've seen are the latter. Like, if you're using the Roman liturgy, you don't think the CofE has the authority to ordain women or you even believe doing so is impossible, you refuse the ministry of your diocesan bishop because they accept the ordination of women, you refuse to take communion from a woman, a man ordained by a woman or a man ordained by a man who has also ordained a woman, why do you even want to remain in the CofE? Why wouldn't you go to Rome?
Because it’s about winners and losers - ‘why won’t the vanquished quit the field?’ Is easily but not painlessly answered with ‘because we’re keeping this tiny flame burning’
If I wasn’t trying to keep the show on the road in a tiny rural parish and doing backflips with my conscience and beliefs to do so, I’d be commuting to the nearest Society parish 16 miles away.
Which is the other side of your coin, there are more like me out there compromising to keep things running (in fairness more like me on both sides of the argument compromising), and having to live with going against their conscience.
Frankly I’m not sure it’s healthy, but it’s where we are.
I just about manage to get by in the wider CofE ecosystem and working hard for an excellent female priest, always knowing that I’ve got Society churches priests and bishops to run to if/when it all gets too much. It’s utterly dubious theology but even though I’m not immersed in that world anymore I do regard its continued existence as my insurance policy. Does that make sense?
That’s just where I am with it anyway
And yes I compromise every time I go to church
Thank you.
So what is the solution? Because to be honest I can’t see a better one than muddling on as we are.
As a thought experiment, when you say ‘fragmentary and messy’ are you prepared to live with (or walk away from) a settlement that leaves The Society in control of the finances, buildings and doctrines of the CofE and anyone that doesn’t like it can go?
Or do you expect to like the more likely outcome so you think you’re taking less risk in advocating for the mess?
Because from the minority wing without the money (ie not the ConEvos) it’s difficult not to see anyone with a solution other than the status quo as pretty menacing….
To be honest, I get the feeling that the Trad Anglo catholics are largely left alone these days because they don’t threaten the cash position of the Church and thanks to the PEVs they can safely be ignored.
And there we go. But I’m not a Roman Catholic - that’s why I can’t be happy in the Ordinariate.
So you push for a settlement that you’re comfortable with because you expect to be pretty unaffected.
You have no other home but you think I have one, so you think I need to go. I think I have no other home and just want to be graciously allowed to stay and thrive. So when it comes down to it you appeal to numbers.
By the way, if you really think the current PEV/Society arrangement couldn’t sit out a female ABC I have an extensive selection of nearly new bridges… that’s the reality I’m living with, you seek to avoid it.
My wife and I are going tomorrow to an amateur performance of the pantomime 'Sleeping Beauty' We told a neighbour who has a young grandson about it. She said in all seriousness that she was surprised that they were allowed to put on this show where a princess was put to sleep for 100 years and only awakened by the kiss of a handsome prince. She didn't think she could explain any of this to her grandson.
We said that we did not think that the am dram company had taken account of these thoughts when they decided to put on the show. Similarly we believe that the many children who do come to see the show will enjoy the singing, dancing, jokes and spectacle without worrying too much about the ethics - but perhaps they should.
I am sure that for many who go to C of E churches or any other churches for that matter go to be part of the local community.
That doesn't mean that the theological matters are not important.
Believe me I understand the latter part, having spent the last 13 years quietly parking my beliefs about church order, ministry, the sacraments and so on in order to serve my (Church of Scotland) parish church. I wasn't referring to those who are willing to live with different views and serve in their parish, but those who take the extreme position (up to and including scolding Society priests for talking to ordained women) of having nothing to do with the church beyond their own party. It seems like they despise every part of the CofE where it differs from Rome.
Which I *think* is a reaction against both past treatment of liberals at the hands of now-departed arch trads and a desperate feeling on the part of some of the more liberal militants that the current arrangements (to the astonishment of many) actual do seem to be working - and surely that can’t be allowed to happen!
Personally, when the Five Guiding Principles were arrived at I had my doubts but have been genuinely impressed by the fact that the overwhelming majority on both sides seem to be playing nicely with them.
To the extent that I stepped down from the trad barricades and into a mainstream parish because I felt that the threat had diminished and I could therefore afford to!
The parish where I play has been "lay led" for the past 4 years beccause of a failure by TPTB to find us a priest. The result has been very interesting: not only did we not lose attendees after Covid, our Sunday School actually grew. When services resumed it was decided that we would stick to the pattern of services we had before the lockdowns: 1st Sunday - Parish Communion; 2nd Sunday - Family Communion; 3rd Sunday - Matins; 4th Sunday - Parish Communion; and an 8am said Communion service every week.
What became apparent after the lockdowns ended was that many of the congregation were fearful of the communion services, and after wrestling with this for 2 years at the end of 2023 it was decided to alter things so that every Sunday there was a non-eucharistic service. So now we have Matins on the 1st and 3rd Sundays, the Family Service is non-eucharistic with a said Communion straight after; and the 4th Sunday has Evensong. the result? The eucharistic service numbers are static, the non-eucharistic are growing.
So far, so good: but every single priest who comes to look at us, and the Archdeacon who is meant to be finding us an incumbent, place at the top of their list increasing the number of eucharistic services and doing away with Matins. Far from being "evangelical" the churchmanship is middle-of-the-candle, yet we get it with both barrels from evos and ACs. The evos say we are "too structured" and the ACs say we are "too low". We have the bums on pews - and more of them than before - but are being told this is wrong.
Your parish could, perhaps, become one of those* which has a licensed lay minister as official minister-in-charge, although provision would still have to be made for a priest to conduct the 8am service (and the Communion service on 2nd Sunday).
*Not sure how many of these there are, but there used to be at least one in this Diocese, and another in Yorkshire. No doubt there are more, but it's not a common phenomenon - yet).
Of course, most Baptist services are non-Eucharistic ... In one church I had one gentleman who made a point of not attending on Communion Sundays. This wasn't, I think, for any hygiene reasons (we use little cuppies anyway) but because he disliked the implied "cannibalism" of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ - although he needn't have worried as Baptists don't tend to think in such terms.
My money is on some sort of mix of that and local ordinations - ie ‘can celebrate the Eucharist in this parish/benefice’
To be honest that would probably come under the heading of ‘messy but workable’
IIRC there is the facility to do the latter in canon law, and there are living examples out there (somewhere, I’ve never met one)
Yes, I did, and you obviously missed my 'more seriously' comment.
'More seriously' generally means that the preceding remark wasn't intended to be taken too seriously.
For the record though, and I know I'll be accused of 'both-sides-ism', I've heard comments from liberal Anglicans wishing that evangelicals (not all evangelicals to be fair) would leave and evangelical and conservative High Church Anglicans wishing that all liberals and progressive would leave.
So it's not as if I'm riffing with ideas that are way wide of the mark, however frivolous I was being. 'More seriously' means, 'More seriously.'
As a Keen Young Christian (CU type) in the early 1970s, I thought that the CofE was irredeemably liberal. So, of course, did the nonconformist Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones who, in a tussle with John Stott, argued that all Evangelicals should leave the CofE to its fate. The "balance of power" was certainly different in those days although we cautiously welcomed the appointment of Donald Coggan to ++Ebor as "one of us".
I genuinely think lay readers and locally ordained are the future of a lot of DIY rural ministry. It’ll help keep places open.
Like @TheOrganist I've known of rural parish churches which have kept going through lay initiatives and a fair amount of local grit and determination. In one instance this happened only for the Bishop to take a dim view of what they'd done rather than commending them for it.
I've also come across Society priests who seem to think that 'their' way is the only way to be Anglican, although they have a lot of time for non-Anglican evangelicals because they think they are more 'authentic' than Anglican ones.* I wonder what they would say if someone insisted that Roman Catholic Catholics were more 'authentic' than Anglican ones?
FWIW I'd like to see more lay involvement and grassroots initiatives within the CofE, and indeed within my own affiliation. However we cut it, I think some form of 'organic' development rather than top-down managerialism or more superstitious forms of 'priest-craft' have to be the way forward. One of the wisest things I was told when I became Orthodox was, 'the sacraments aren't magic.'
*I understand what they mean as I've said this myself, and on these boards in times past. Although I think I'd add more caveats were I to take a position on this now. That said, I still believe that working-class Pentecostalism is more authentic than its middle-class charismatic cousin.
The problem is that it tends to reward areas with lots of able-bodied middle-class retirees with time on their hands. Our OLM was unusual in being a disabled working class woman. Any pretence of being a church for the whole nation is long gone.
Presumably that is the case with non-stipendary and house for duty priests too.
House for duty priests at least aren't tied to a particular area. They do require another income, whether that is a pension or other employment, however.