Lots of reasons to vote against the Archbishops amendment

So the Archbishops, without speaking to any other group, just days before Synod, come up with a new amendment to the Women Bishops legislation.

Most Synod members I was in touch with before gathering in York, were variously bemused, confused, annoyed or just downright livid. Why? Two main reasons. Firstly, it rather runs rough-shod over the work of the Steering Committee, who had taken months reviewing every-which option, and then it did something different. Secondly, and more importantly for me personally, it seemed to 'deliver' to nobody.

(photo: JoanaHard)

The archbishops' amendment firstly seemed to be re-introducing at least a degree of transference of responsibility and/or authority, in having 'co-ordinaries'. This must in some ways be perceived as taking away from the authority of potential women bishops in the future.

This adjustment was introduced - presumably - for the benefit of the traditionalist catholic members of the church. However, this is precisely the group that would least accept the diminution of any bishop's authority, responsibility, or jurisdiction. So it doesn't seem to suit either of the key parties it seeks to support, so appears completely unfit for purpose.

As a member of the synod who has been in favour of ordaining women to the episcopate, and voted for that; but (and not only because I am from the diocese of Chichester) I have also tried to take particular care to support those who find the ministry of women in the episcopate hard/impossible to accept.

In the run-up to synod, most of my reading and conversing led me to think that, despite it's significant sponsors, I was going to vote against the archbishops' amendment.

However, a number of things made me start to change my mind. I was aware that though this amendment didn't satisfy everybody; actually neither did any of the other amendments either, nor the measure itself; and synod needed al least something workable. The archbishops were giving an opportunity for a way forward that perhaps tried to inflict the least pain possible if people rallied around it.

Reports suggesting that the CofE was creating yet another fudge portrayed the whole debate in a more negative way than struck me as the reality. Mark Beach's blog also perceived this not very clean solution as being a rather more Anglican way of doing things. So here it is. Flawed, incomplete, compromised. But perhaps also gracious, enabling, and hopeful.

I had earlier spoken with a bishop for whom nothing less than separate dioceses would do (the first option that was rejected in debate) - but later I found that he was prepared to shift significant ground, and re-consider the archbishops' amendment as maybe a workable solution. He had been prepared for the sake of the Gospel and the church to move to a much more central position. Another bishop, who we have heard lobbying at other times for the simple 'single-clause measure', also spoke privately and and in debate about this perhaps being a real way forward. Here possibly was a solution that was both Catholic and Reformed - rather like, well, the Church of England.

The voting (now widely reported elsewhere: For: B25/C85/L106; Against: B15/C90/L86; Abs: B0/C5/L4; amendment passed in house of bishops and laity, but lost in the house of clergy, so lost overall) actually recorded an overall total number of votes in favour - but being recorded by houses, was lost - just like a crucial vote in 2008. And no house had a 2/3 majority, which is what will be required in a final vote.

I didn't like the way that this proposal still hints at women bishops having to be prepared to share some of their authority - but actually, in a diocese like mine, where none of the bishops will personally ordain women to the priesthood, under this proposal such a non-ordaining bishop would also have to share some of their authority.

That's why, against my original intention, and weighing all the reasons why I should have voted against the amendment, I actually voted for it, and am pleased to let the record show it. It is part of being a loyal Anglican; not un-thinking, kowtowing, or in blind obeisance; but for the sake of God's kingdom and it's traditional catholic, conservative evangelical and women episcopal members.

Monday's continuation of this debate will have more to tell us - this story is not yet finished...

Alastair, Chichester 101 (slightly apologising for a more personal and opinionated submission than I usually seek to post)

All Those Amendments...

Justin has posted a very helpful explanation of how and why most of the amendments work, and how they will affect the proposed women bishops legislation on his blog. His theology - by self proclamation - may be both dodgy and liberal; but his insight in to the synod's debating process is insightful and illuminating.

Alastair, Chichester 101

Here we go again...

Another July, another trip to York, and another huge debate about Women Bishops. Before I was elected to Synod in the Autumn of 2005 I went up to York in the July to see the Women Bishops debate, and get an idea of what Synod was like. And now, five years later...

Of course, women bishops are not the only topic of discussion at York - you can find a copy of the full agenda here or a brief digest here - but revision of the legislation will take up a large amount of this last Synod meeting. Alastair has already posted a link to the Revision Committee Report and the Draft Measure, and all the amendments are now in. This document tells you the order in which they will be debated, and Peter Owen of Thinking Anglicans has written a very useful summary of what they all mean here.

So what else is on the Agenda? There are a number of amendments to the Clergy Pension Scheme - you can find them all listed with the rest of the Synod Papers here - which are summarised in a general Clergy Pensions Report. The Diocesan Synod Motion about Deanery Synods that Alastair had hoped would be discussed in February is firmly on the Agenda this time round - he might be writing more about that in due course. There is also another bit of structural change that could be interesting. There is a proposal to appoint a Faith and Order Commission to replace the Faith and Order Advisory Group (FOAG), The House of Bishops Theological Group, and the Doctrine Commission (which has not met for several years). Sensible streamlined government, one would suspect, but the new group will be, like its predecessors, an entirely appointed body. I would expect some rumblings at least as to why Synod does not have a greater say in who is part of it, given that Synod has at least played a part in setting it up. There is, of course, a report - and you can read it here.

So, presuming you have nothing better to do, how can you join in the fun? Hopefully the Twitter feed from York will be entertaining. You can follow me, Alastair, Pete Broadbent and others individually - and of course the GeneralSynod twitter identity that feeds tweets directly from this blog. You can also use the #synod hashtag, and tweets mentioning "synod" show up live in the panel to the right in this window. There will also, no doubt, be some live blogging going on here and elsewhere. The Church Mouse has kindly invited me to do a guest post again, and as usual there will be some less objective stuff going up here. There should also be a live audio feed available via Premier Radio, although at the time of writing I am not too sure how to find it. On the other hand, England are probably losing a cricket match somewhere too...

On a final and more serious note, as ever there are aspects of this Synod that will be very difficult for some of us, and we would all be grateful for your prayers. Please pray especially for those who feel themselves to be under attack for their beliefs over the next few days, and for all of us that we can be open both to the Holy Spirit and to each other as we try to figure out where the Church of England goes next.

Justin
(GS 373)

Seeing through clouds

So, the Revision Committee have produced their document on Women Bishops in preparation for July's General Synod.

A key feature is what Bishop Pete Broadbent calls 'monoepiscopy' (one Diocesan Bishop having authority in the Diocese) - as quoted by the Church Mouse.

Bishop David Hamid has a great word cloud from the report, which I blatantly link to here.

How will synod members, and those even further removed from the process of the debate, be able to see anything through the clouds I wonder?

Alastair, Chichester 101

Some Synodical Sweeping-Up

So, that's it for another five months or so - Church House is preparing for the next conference, and the Synod staff breathe a short sigh of relief before the preparations start for York in July. Needless to say, the process is beginning of picking over the bones of what we did and didn't do in the course of last week. My own musings have been kindly hosted by the Church Mouse here so I won't bore you with them again. Also on the Church Mouse's blog is a very good summary of what he sees as major events of the Synod. In case you want the official version, you can find links to lists of decisions and audio of the debates here on the Church of England website.

One thing that has been interesting over the last few days has been the increasing use of Twitter. As Alastair and I were two of those who spent a lot of time up in the gallery 'tweeting' it was rather gratifying to see this blog post about the possible future and benefits of social media in a forum like General Synod. These days, a broadband connection has the potential to get you right to the heart of an extraordinary variety of events.

Anyway, that's about it for now. It only remains to add a huge thank you to all those people who have followed us, read the blog and prayed for us over the last few days. Thank you all for sustaining us during what could have been a very difficult week.

Justin
(GS 373)

ACNA debate

So, the much-trailed debate on what sort of relationship the CofE can have with ACNA, triggered by Lorna Ashworth's private member's motion, took place thus afternoon.

Many wiser words are recorded elsewhere - but I was left reflecting on what was going on here. That is to say, who can we be friends with. And especially, whether you can be friends with two friends, who are not any longer friends with each other.

I was also trying to work out was what was being asked for here - potentially being in communion with two different churches within the same Anglican province, was a new precident or not - that may have had more significance on the result of the debate.

I found the answer - yes we already do have places where there are more than one group of Anglicans on the same patch. Europe for one - where the CofE diocese of Gibraltar in Europe overlaps with a the European wing of - oh yes - The Episcopal Church, TEC.

Thanks to Ruth Gledhill for the interview/pic

Alastair GS101

++Rowan : archbishop, theologian, preacher

Dr Williams is a gifted and acknowledged academician - who can turn out a book on Dostoevsky in a brief sabbatical! Yet, his work is sometimes is often so rich and dense that the ordinary man or woman on the street to understand. Shucks - his academic work is hard for the ordinary cleric - certainly this one - to understand too!

Then there are the times that the Archbishop of Canterbury makes speeches from one of his many formal roles. There are times when these carefully crafted speeches are so subtly worded that again things are not so immediately clear to listeners.

And then there is Rowan’s preaching. What struck me, as he spoke briefly in this morning’s Synod Communion service, is how eloquent he is in preaching. In fact it was more than that - animated, lively, speaking freely, God-focussed, passionately, hardly taking his eyes off the members of the congregation.

To me ++Rowan looks more at ease preaching (- particularly in less formal settings), and is easier to understand, than in most of the other situations we hear from him. “Papa don’t preach”?? No way - “Preach, man Preach”.

(Wished I had taken a photo myself - but it was in the middle of a service...)

Alastair GS101

In praise of the Rowan Williams sound-bite

Archbishop Rowan's presidential address is widely available on the net already - in fact it was up almost as soon as he finished speaking - so I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow. You can read the text here or in a number of other places. However, here a couple of fragments that I wanted to record.

"Not all goods are comparable in a fallen world"

"Christian freedom is freedom from isolation - to be free is to be free for relation"

"The other we meet is the person he or she is, not the person we have created in our fantasies"

He's not always the easiest speaker to follow, but the effort is almost always worthwhile - and rewarded by small delights like the fragments above.

Justin
(GS 373)

Democracy and Legislation

I noticed an interesting phenomenon in Synod this morning during the legislative business. One set of amendments was put forward to the Code of Practice associated with the clergy discipline measure by one of the lay members from Salisbury Diocese, who happens to be a lawyer. His arguments were technical, but seemed to me to make good sense. Nevertheless two of the three were not debated at all by Synod. This is because amendments to legislative business in these circumstances are only debated if 40 members in the Chamber stand to show that they want a debate - and in this circumstance 40 members did not stand. There are good reasons why this rule is in place - it makes it more difficult to subject legislation to death by a thousand amendments, for example - but there are times when I wonder about the wisdom of it

The sequence goes that the proposer of the amendment has his five minutes, and then one of the sponsors of the legislation to be amended can get up and issue a rebuttal. Only then does the Chairman ask if 40 members will stand for the amendment to be debated. Now, in the case of these amendments we had a lawyer standing up saying that there was a potential legal problem with the code of practice - immediately followed by a bishop (who to my knowledge has no legal training) saying that there was no legal problem without bothering to address the concerns that were raised. And it was mid-morning, and synod was bored and sparsely populated, so only about 20 people stood. But here's the thing - those twenty members included all the synod members whom I know to be lawyers. I wonder what it was that they wanted to say. It could have been that they were all going to agree with the bishop, but I would still have liked to hear them.

And that goes back to my title, I suppose. Legislation is often - but not always - rather technical and more than a little dry. Lawyers often don't manage to make it any more accessible. Elected representitives are not always elected for their ability to unravel legal arguments - or even stay awake for them - and so it is that when confronted with a legal argument and a bishop saying it's all OK they go with the bishop. There isn't an answer to this, of course - and in this case I have no idea who was correct anyway. Still, it brings to mind the old adage that democracy is not always the best way of governing - it's just that all the other options happen to be worse.

Justin
GS 373

Live Synod Twitter stream

There is now a live feed of Twitter comments that include 'Synod' in them on the sidebar at the right.

Twitter is very ephemoral - but very immediate. Bliog posts necessarily take longer to create, and are possibly more considered. It hink the two run well together in helping show what General Synod is up to.


Alastair Cutting; GS 101

Opening of Synod, and where are the Women Bishops?

Usually the first day of Synod includes a plan of what is to come.

There are the expected welcomes and introductions, and usualy something from the Business Committee (who set the order and the agenda for Synod meetings).

So no Women Bishops debate this February. The Bishop of Manchester's Legislative drafting group had just too many people to hear from, and too many individual submissions to be able to come to this synod with legislation his time around.

The Bishop of Manchester was timetabled to give an update - most of which Ruth Gledhill was able to post about even before the words came out of his mouth. The Business Committee decided to prevent any discussion or even questions following the presentation, which I thought was a shame, but would probably have been some of the 'same old, same old' speeches, with no immediate way of concluding - so perhaps they were right.

However, this has triggered two things in my mind. After the Pope Benedict XVI signalled the Apostolic Constitution last October, Bishop Andrew Burnham suggested that the Feast of the Chair of St Peter (22 February) as a suitable day for clergy and parishes to "make an initial decisions" as to whether they wanted 'go' or not. That of course, on an earlier understanding of the debate timetable, would have come immediaely after discussions at this February Synod. The synical in me wondered if it would have allowed dramatic taking their ball away if the debate had not gone in the way they wanted. So now, with no extra debate, what wil the 'decisions' on 22 Feb be? I am guessing much less portentous.

Curious also that Reform should have used the start day of Synod to get publicity for their 'Warning to Synod' (dated 8 Feb) over women bishops. And after being on the go since late 2007, the number of clergy signatories on this is reported as, well, 50. (Recent church stats reveal over 12,000 licensed clergy, and a further 4,500 active retired clergy.)

Alastair GS 101

Feb 2010 Synod

Justin has already reminded us about the start of the next sitting of Synod, with links to the material.

He has aso been flirting with the Church Mouse, and has One and Two posts there with more background on next week's agenda.

Last year's February Synod was the first that had Twittering added to the live blogging (Bishop Pete Broadbent signed up and started twittering from within the chamber, and the Archbishop of York now also tweets) - look out for Synod or #synod tags next week to see what is happening. If it works, I think that the rss feeds from this blog should show up on the GenSyn tweets, and Justin and I will be tweeting too. Tweet back to us...

Along with material here on the General Synod blog, there is much on Thinking Anglicans, Ruth Gledhill, Church Mouse and others I have accidentally failed to list, and then linked on from them.

As to subject material this time around, I'm glad that Women Bishop's isn't being debated (though there will be an 'update'); but it is only postponing the inevitable difficult debates until July, the last sitting of the current Synod.

Much air-time/newsprint so far on Lorna Ashworth's 'Lets be friends with the Anglican Church in North America' motion. I am worried by two things around this debate: by schismatics, which ACNA, with perhaps good reason, are; and by being in communion with some who act in a way that seems like they are out of communion with me, whilst others who are out of communion, seem closer to the agreed theology and doctrine of the Church of England of which I am a part.

Practically the final debate of this session is on what legal status Deaneries have, and as our local deanery has been working around this for a number of years, I will be interested in the direction of this debate being introduced by the Coventry diocese - I may even try to get to speak. So no sneaking off early from synod for me then...

Alastair Cutting GS101

Happy New Year

While most of us are still crawling out of our snowdrifts and attempting to return to normality, almost unnoticed the outline Synod agenda for February has appeared. You can access it here, and in due course the full agenda and more paperwork will appear on this page.

There are several items of interest on it - both in terms of presence and absence. Notable for its absence is any legislation concerning the consecration of women as bishops. Given the smoke signals over the last few months this is no real surprise, but I doubt that whoever is doing the presentation mentioned in the outline agenda will get an easy ride. Present we have no less than four Private Member's Motions (all pedants please feel to comment on the position of the apostrophe) at least two of which might cause something of a stir. It will be interesting to see the reaction to the motions calling for recognition of ACNA and equal pension provisions for clergy widows/widowers and surviviors of civil partnerships. There might also be some controversy over the TV coverage of religious issues.

Also present is a large amount of legislative business (a symptom of the fact that we are drawing near to the end of the quinquennium) and four Diocesan Synod motions. I am not sure about the background to any of these, and no doubt more will appear in due course, but Manchester's motion about the compatibility of Science and Christian Belief could provoke some debate, and I am intrigued by Chelmsford's 'Confidence in the Bible' motion. In fact, the more I think about that particular title, the more I wonder...

Justin (GS 373)

Rome says "Welcome..."

Well, there was a surprise! Yesterday's unexpected hurriedly put together press conference in London, responding to the Vatican's scheme for special Anglican ordinariates appears to have put cats amongst pigeons.

I am seriously struggling to understand what all this is about, where it is going, and I await the 'details' with interest. 

It feels a little like we are being told: 'You know where the door is to come in, but here is a window you can climb in through, too'. Except I'm not one that feels I am standing outside, needing to come in. I'm already at home (even if some of the members of the family are a little strange).

If the CofE is truly catholic and reformed (or at least supposed to be!), I can see that for some, it may appear to be losing, or have lost significant degrees of it's catholicity. But this new 'solution' appears to reinstate quality catholicity at the high price of any degree of remaining reformed. I mourn any diminution of our catholicity - but so do I mourn any amelioration of our reformation.

It still sounds a bit like the little Orthodox book on ecumenism that I've picked up in Cyprus a number of years ago. Of the breakaway Roman Catholics, it says: You want unity? Of course you may have it. Simply renounce your schismatic ways, repent, and return to Mother Church and we will have unity.


I do hope that where the Roman church is saying "Welcome...", we are not saying "Grandma, what big eyes you have; what big ears you have..."

Does Rome really want this sort of complicated, bi-polar unity, with these sorts of Anglo-Catholics? I thought Bishop Alan's Blog was helpful. Many more links through Thinking Anglicans as usual.

(I had been half way through planning an update post on Women Bishops, but this subject has queue jumped it... Later.)


Alastair Cutting GS101

Early morning radio, and how many bishops?

One of our Chichester General Synod members is Gavin Ashenden (to be accurate he is a University's rep; not a Chichester one, but we lay a claim to him too.

In his spare time, Gavin also runs the Radio Sussex/Surrey Sunday morning programme, nicknamed 'Get up with Gav'. When he is running short of sensible material, Gavin has been known to trawl around anyone who owes him a favour - which on a couple of occasions has included me. I did a very brief bit for his show a few weeks ago, and I got a 4am text message request on Sunday morning. There was a gap in the shows schedule - could I help fill it...

Rev'd Dr Canon Gavin Ashenden, at 5:30am

Over breakfast, I managed to trace another Chichester synod member, Lorna Ashworth to join me for the live link up (one earpiece each, chatting on mobile phone live with Gavin).

Lorna spoke a bit about her Private Members Motion is support of the ACNA, and Gavin asked me a bit about the synod motion from Bradford Diocese asking to reduce numbers of senior posts - especially bishops. Having been a member of the Chichester Bishop's Council for some time, and seen the work of bishops and archdeacons through the lens of being a General Synod member, I know the tremendous calls on their time and energy. I understand the expenses currently incurred by senior staff make them look 'expensive' but cutting their number will not help significantly. The discussion with Gavin provoked me to think of contributing to the debate.

Daily Telegraph report

"When was the last time you saw your bishop?" was the opening line of my speech, picked up by some of the press. My own speech was not nearly as erudite or historical as that by the Archimandrite Ephraim Lash - one of the ecumenical observers at synod from the orthodox church, who suggested that what was needed was the orthodox tradition of a bishop in every village! (The Church Commissioners blanched at the thought!)

It's not that we bishops, or other senior staff don't want to be in the parishes; they are too stretched to be so. So we need more of them. Not as they currently are, but in a different way. Already in some provinces the role of Archdeacon has been absorbed into the role of the Rural Dean.

Not long ago it was unheard of to have NSM clergy in charge of a parish, but now it is relatively common. How about NSM bishops? Yes, well it needs a bit more thinking through than just that, but we  need to find ways of doing things a bit differently - and that was some of my 'heads-up' suggestions. Some folk seemed to warm to the idea.

... I may be able to add audio in to this post later...

Alastair Cutting GS101

Opening Doors - especially to those with Learning Difficulties

I have always loved watching the signing for the deaf at Synod, and have posted on this elsewhere. Sunday afternoon has a debate on those at church with Learning Disabilities, and the the things that affect them, following a report called Opening Doors.

My wife trained as a teacher of those with learning difficulties, and still teaches them. I love the phrase 'Special Education', however pejorative it is sometimes misunderstood to be. These are special people. Before university, I worked on one of the large 'mental institutions' (as they were then called) set outside London - one that was so secure, that it was used as the film-set for the 70s sitcom 'Porridge'... How glad I am that many of those people are no longer 'imprisoned' but free to be in the community.

Churches, in my experience, 'collect' 'interesting' people. People with various learning difficulties have been members of every church I can remember have had 'special' members of the congregation. We have at least 3 'care in the community homes in our parish.' Should I have spoken today, I would have talked of:

• Neil, who knows all the cricket scores form yesterday's matches, and can recite massive lists of kings of England, or programmes on the tv tonight, or the order of saints days of the year;
• Mark who comes faithfully each Sunday for our service, and sings and joins in with responses loudly, even if he cannot read the words for them. One day when we used an old chorus, Mark knew every word by heart. He asked me recently "My dad's gone to be with Jesus. But he's not died has he?"
• Ewan and Carol come to our Wednesday service each week. Ewan is dying to be thurifer for us - even though it is not our tradition, especially on Wednesdays. 

I love these characters, they add much unexpected colour to our services (I have changed their names, but our congregation will know who they are!). Each has faith in their way, and in the words of the DVD that came with this report, help teach us to pray. Several speakers have said: "We have much to learn from people with learning disabilities". May we indeed have Opening Doors to these members of our communities. A report warmly received.

Alastair Cutting GS101

July Synod Friday's business

Belatedly, as initial attempts to get online proved difficult...

Justin has already added a post, and Thinking Anglicans already has a write-up on Friday.

Links to all the papers for July's Synod are here.

Live feed from debates (via Premier Radio) are here.

The agenda on Friday, as usual started with the presentation of the Business Committee's report. They put the Synod agenda together, finalising what is on the agenda, and how debates are to be tackled. This July they got a rough ride as they decided to finish synod early, on the Monday evening. Some synod members felt not a wide enough consultation had taken place warning of that, and the many people had already booked train tickets etc and couldn't then cancel. There were a number of other issues about what was, or was not on the agenda. A grumpy start to Synod.

Then there was a presentation of a report from the National Stewardship Committee. Presented in a very lively way by one of Synod's elder statesmen. I am all for young members of Synod; but not at the exclusion of this sort of wisdom. We didn't quite finish the debate, and had to return to it later...

The final part of Friday's work was Questions. This synod, questions put by members were only to be for written answer, unless a verbal answer was particularly requested. This is, in my opinion, a crass move of synod, which most members circumvented, by asking for a verbal reply anyway.

The list of questions, and answers, does not yet appear to be online, but Simon Sarmiento 'Twittered' most of them.

In fact, the Twitter-ing that started at the February Synod has continued in a lively vein in York in July, and the live stream is available here.

Alastair Cutting GS101

Synodical Government

At the start of July's General Synod, there have been one or two questions around synods, synodical government and the processes of how the church structures work.

The Church of England is "Episcopally led, and synodically governed", it is said. That means bishops have a say, and synod has a say. Both, it would appear, feel that sometimes 'the other' hampers the way they would like to operate. The House of Bishops, often a very diverse gathering of individuals, can at times - like one of those great shoals of fish - suddenly all sweep and swoop as one. Majestic to behold. And a few moments later, scatter once more to their individual pursuits.

One of the questions sitting at the back of Synod's mind, and sometimes at the front, and even voiced a number of times this July... is 'What is Synod for?'.

Synod, though often described in the press as 'The Church's Parliament', is really other than just that. Yes, it has legal business to deal with (this morning synod voted to change laws from the 1500s!).

But what should synod be for, and how how should the established church carry out it's business? I have some experience of the Anglican church in Aotearoa/New Zealand, where their General Synod, drawing people from a wide area of the the south Pacific, meets only once every 2 years.

Of course meeting as infrequently as that (though possibly appealing to some of the CofE General Synod!) , and saving considerable sums of money, has the negative consequence that people actually meet others so rarely, and creating fellowship becomes more of an art. The networking that the CofE synods allow is more than just friends meeting friends at the expense of parishioners; it is part of how we work as the national church.

There remain though, some real concerns that Synod (and possibly the Archbishops' Council) currently aren't quite fit for purpose; and we need to find ways of working slightly differently. Many old grey heads around - where are the under 40s; some are asking (he writes, slightly worriedly at the far end of the 40s). We need to have some of the next generation of leaders engaging in the church's structures and processes. (That does not preclude the wisdom and vitality of some of our older synod members - one almost septuagenarian led a very lively and important presentation, with a number of brilliant interventions including an up-to-the-minute cricket score!)

Blogs and Twittering at synod have been regarded with some light-hearted interest but assumed peripheral; but I wonder if some of the use of new media and styles might be pointers towards other ways of communicating, and debating.

But if I remember, ++Rowan's opening address of this quinquennium of Synod (which was before this blog got going) reminded us that the root of the word synod means 'walking together'. Just as gathering around the Lord's Table, eating together, is a family-oriented model for church; so is the idea of walking together.

This July's Synod has started a bit grumpily. The Agenda debate gave the Business Committee a hard time, and a number of debates have been crotchety, and the 'group work' considered inadequate this year. A third of the way in, debates on the Archbishop's Council and its budget, and tomorrows debate on the Constitutions, all point to some movement about how we may best be synod; how we may best facilitate the mission and ministry of the church of God in England.

Alastair Cutting GS 101

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When is a Motion not a Motion...?

When it's been amended.

Last time round I described the sequence of a debate through amendments and so forth, in an attempt to unpack a little of the process that we go through in turning a motion on the agenda into a resolution passed by Synod. One particular tactic that I didn't say much about last time - although it's the one I tried to use myself - was the tactic of complete substitution - "Delete all the words after 'This Synod' and add..." Obviously, one reason why someone would put an amendment like this in is because they think that the proposed motion is just completely wrong and ought to say something entirely different, and there is an example of this in the proceedings this session: Philip Giddings (Oxford Diocese, Chair of the Mission and Public Affairs Council, Vice-Chair of the House of Laity) has put in a "Delete all and add..." amendment to the debate on the Review of Constitutions.

However, there is another reason why this sort of amendment turns up, and we have two examples this time round. One is the contingency business, the other is the motion below:

The Revd Dr John Hartley (Bradford) to move on behalf of the Bradford Diocesan Synod:
‘That this Synod request the Archbishops’ Council to formulate proposals for reductions in the numbers of episcopal and senior clergy posts, taking into account reductions for the number of stipendiary clergy since 1979; and submit a report with recommendations to the General Synod within three years.’

Unless there is a very good reason why they shouldn't be debated - and Southwark's motion to rescind the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod (Resolution C) is an example of this - motions from Diocesan Synods are always debated at General Synod, in the order in which they are received, and unlike Private Member's Motions they do not lapse at the end of each 5 year synodical period. However, this can result in some pretty forthright motions being put forward, and this is one of them. Clearly, a motion expressed in such bald terms would not necessarily be received with open arms by the hierarchy, but at the same time it would not be sensible for the powers that be to try openly to defeat such a motion. So what is the establishment to do? To the rescue comes our old friend "Delete all and add..." The tactic is to replace something potentially dangerous with something very much more anodyne - then everybody can support it, nobody in authority has to speak against it, and nothing much will happen as a result. This is how it is done:

Canon Dr Christina Baxter (Southwell & Nottingham) to move as an amendment:
Leave out all the words after 'That this Synod' and insert:
", welcoming
a) the recent establishment of the new Dioceses Commission;
b) the decision of the House of Bishops to decouple, from January 2001, national support for episcopal ministry from actual episcopal numbers; and
c) the intention of the Archbishops' Council to prepare for the new Synod in November 2010 a progress report on the delivery of changes to the present pattern of dioceses and of episcopal deployment."

In Synodical terms, Christina Baxter is a very major player. She is Chair of the House of Laity, a member of the Archbishops' Council, and involved in a great deal else besides. Obviously, a Bishop could not have put this forward, it really had to be a lay person. The fact that Christina has been chosen to do it gives some indication of how seriously this motion is being taken.

I have to say, I hope the motion goes through unamended - for two reasons. The first is that I don't like this kind of interference. Bradford Diocese wanted a particular motion to be debated, and they should get that debate, not the debate other people think they ought to have. The second reason is that there is something peculiar about a church that has fewer people in the pews, fewer priests, but more people exercising oversight.

You can find more information from Bradford about their motion at here and a response from the Dioceses Commission at here.

Justin (GS 373)