The General Synod of the Church of England meets from 7th July for five days in York. There are a number of significant items on the agenda relating to issues affecting the well being of our planet and members human race.
Earlier this week I posted a blog about living at a time of crisis, globally and individually. The crises are multiple: climate, ecosystem, political, economic, spiritual, religious, refugee, health, housing, pollution. We are all affected by this systemic state of crisis, at risk of being infected– emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually. In a ViaMedia blog Charlie Bell wrote of “a sense of almost total, paralysing powerlessness amongst ordinary churchgoers and clergy” in the Church of England. He proposed that Church should commit to undertake a serious spiritual health check. In a second blog, I wondered how, when and where such a radical movement would be started. Might we find an indication of the Church of England’s alertness to the multiple crises facing our global community in the agenda for Synod?
Climate Change
On Saturday morning the National Investing Bodies will make a presentation reporting on a July 2018 Synod motion on Climate Change and on Sunday afternoon, responding to the climate emergency, the Bishop of Reading will move a motion on behalf of the Oxford Diocesan Synod ‘That this Synod, affirming the fifth mark of mission, concerned by the scientific evidence that climate change is proceeding at a rapid rate and by the impact of climate events, and seeking to build on the decisions taken with respect to GS 2159.
Living in Love and Faith
The Synod agenda says Saturday afternoon is reserved for an update on Living in Love and Faith (GS 2303). Details will be available on a Notice Paper. This update will affect the well-being of not just LGBTQIA+ people but our families, friends and colleagues, the congregations to which we belong, and those in the Church who do not accept the equality in creation in every respect of LGBTQIA+ people. Our freedom to marry in church, the freedom of priests to marry, the freedom to be prayed for in church, are these essential markers of equality all being contested.
Independent Safeguarding Board
Last week’s Church of England drama about the sacking of the members of the Independent Safeguarding Group made public the total mess that is safeguarding policy and practice in the Church..As a result a revised agenda has been issued for this session. There will be a presentation on developments relating to the Independent Safeguarding Board followed by an opportunity for questions. The Bishop of Truro will move a motion.
National Church Governance Report and Recommendations
On the agenda for Sunday evening is a presentation of GS 2307, the National Church Governance Report and Recommendations from the National Church Governance Project Board. It isn’t at first sight something that affects the well being of our planet and members of the human race. Nevertheless, I’ve read the sixty-eight page report. It has convinced me that a spiritual health check for the Church of England is even more urgently needed. Read what follows with patience; be ready for acronyms.
The National Church Governance Project Board (PB) was established in February 2022 to continue the work of the Governance Review Group (GRG), The GRG had previously made a series of recommendations to improve the governance of the National Church which it considered to be overly complex and opaque. Its successor, the PB, became more and more convinced that the problems at the heart of National Church governance “are both an expression of and contribute to a culture of mistrust which harms the reputation and effectiveness of the Church and diminishes its prophetic voice.” To overcome this there needs to be both governance and administrative reform and a sustained commitment to collaborative action and habits of mutual respect by every leader and institution within the Church of England.
A complicated governance landscape
I’ve learnt from reading the report just how incredibly tortuous and complicated the governance landscape of the Church of England is. There are at present seven National Church Institutions (NCIs). They are the Church Commissioners, the Archbishops’ Council, Church of England Pensions Board, Church of England Central Services, National Society (Church of England and Church in Wales) for the Promotion of Education, Lambeth Palace and Bishopthorpe Palace. They work together to further the work and mission of the Church of England.
Proposals
The PB report proposes to reduce the number of National Church Institutions (NCI) from seven to four. They also propose creating a new NCI,
“Church of England National Services (CENS), which would, through a transitional process, integrate the current functions of the Archbishops’ Council, Church Commissioners (excluding investments), Church of England Central Services and some of the activities of the Office of the Archbishops. The proposal seeks to make clear the interfaces between the NCIs and other National Church bodies, primarily the House of Bishops.” (Para 12)
There is a Diagram of the present seven NCIs on p27 of the report if you really want to see how complicated the structure is and an Illustrative proposal of the new, simplified structure on p29.
Church of England National Services
To give you an idea of just how complex the structures of governance of the Church of England are, here is paragraph 14 of the report:
“The creation of the new trustee body, CENS, should bring together teams from across five of the current NCIs, reducing the duplication within our current structures and improving decision-making through more streamlined oversight and a wider understanding of the issues relating to those functions. The integration of the functions will serve to:
a. better provide efficient and aligned support to the work of national church bodies, such as the General Synod, House of Bishops, College of Bishops, etc.;
b. ensure efficient and aligned service to independent bodies, such as the Dioceses Commission, Church Buildings Council and Cathedrals Fabric Commission;
c. develop a primary National Church point of contact for dioceses, cathedrals, parishes, chaplaincies, and other worshipping communities, which will provide consistent advice and support, as well as agreed services; and
d. allocate and disburse the National Church funding generated by the Church Commissioners to national, diocesan, and other church organisations, bringing improved prioritisation, consistency, and efficiency to funding processes, together with greater transparency and accountability for outcomes.”
A Spiritual Health Check?
How does an institution with such an incredibly complicated structure better focus on what you and I might take to be the primary essence of being a Christian Church – God, Jesus, Spirit, Love, Prayer, Compassion, Truth, Justice . . . The complex governance structure of the Church inevitably consumes huge amounts of time, attention and energy and draws attention away from the basics, the fundamentals of Christian spiritual life. Having read the report I became even more convinced that a spiritual health check is necessary for the Church of England.
Who is responsible for the spiritual health of the Church of England? The Archbishops, House and College of Bishops? General Synod? A relevant National Church Institution? I think every part of the Church should be responsible for its spiritual health. Spiritual health is both a personal activity and responsibility and also a corporate responsibility.
The formal way for the Church of England to implement a spiritual health check would be, after wide consultation, to appoint a representative body of authoritative people to review the current state of health of the Church. They would then write a comprehensive report with proposals to form the basis of a motion to be put to General Synod for debate.
Living in Love and Faith and Safeguarding have shown, the National Church Institutions cannot be relied upon to handle safely or deal effectively with complex subjects that both divide the Church and are too uncomfortable for the Church to handle. The Church doesn’t seem to have the wisdom, to undertake and implement a national safeguarding policy and practice that prioritises victims over abusers. The Church of England would seem to have the mechanism, the resources, the facilities and the wisdom to undertake a national project review of the governance of the Church but only time will tell whether it has the capacity and will to implement the proposals.
Problem
The Church does not have a common mind, a common understanding of the Gospel, enabling it to overcome centuries of dissenting views about the Gospel, God and Jesus, let alone the embedded prejudice and abuse towards women and LGBTQIA+ people. The Church of England makes victims of us all because it still doesn’t understand how and why it is institutionally abusive, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic.
It’s impossible for the Church of England to undertake and implement a spiritual health check. There is no agreement within the Church as to what counts as spiritual health. Prejudice and abuse is legally sanctioned by doctrinal convictions and by the Church’s exemption from equality legislation.
Trying to articulate what I believe to be an urgent need for the Church of England, the search for spiritual health, seems to be a really futile exercise at the moment. I find myself up against an edifice that has become a bulwark against healthy, visionary, loving Christian transformation – life in all its fullness.