Open letter to the Crown Nominations Commission for the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury
Open Letter to:
The Rt Hon, the Lord Evans of Weardale, KCB,
DL
Chair, Crown Nominations Commission for the
See of Canterbury,
And members of the Crown Nominations
Commission for the See of Canterbury
Dear Lord Evans, and Members of the
Crown Nominations Commission for the See of Canterbury,
“And Solomon made the curtain of blue
and purple and crimson fabrics and fine linen and worked cherubim into it”[i]
Re (A) the Vacancy in See for the one
hundred and sixth Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC 106), And
(B) The state of the House and
College of Bishops of the Church of England (CofE)
Introduction
A route needs to be found for ABC 106,
and the CofE, to ask the international Anglican Communion for them to have a
sabbatical for a season from its traditional roles in the international
communion, in order that ABC 106 can focus full time on addressing the mess that is the
CofE.
In your discussions:
·
Please revisit the principles set out
in the Hurd Report[ii]:
crucially that the role is simply too large for one person to undertake.
·
Please hear the fury of lay
volunteers in the CofE across the country about the state of the Church and,
crucially, the poverty of the leadership by the House and College of Bishops.
·
Given that the establishment refuses
to do the sensible thing and press the “pause button”, and you are tasked with
finding a new ABC on the same terms and conditions as the last one, you must
have the courage to make recommendations, alongside offering a name to the
Prime Minister, about the context of that appointment.
I write in a personal capacity. I do
so as a lay volunteer who, like many, loves the church.
Part A: On the 106th
Archbishop of Canterbury
We have had enough of the culture of
dull grey “leadership and management”. We need ABC 106 to be a pastor and a
theologian. We need ABC 106 to rebuild and craft a culture of trust in the
House and College of Bishops, focused on being pastors and theologians.
We do not need a catholic, or a
liberal, as ABC 106. We most definitely do not need an evangelical. Far too
many of our current headline problems have come out of that wing of the CofE.
We need an ABC 106 who will, in the words of Bishop Michael B. Curry, teach the
CofE to “be an Episcopalian branch of the Jesus movement”[iii].
We do not need a “safe pair of
hands”. It cannot be “business as usual”. Our church currently carries all the
moral authority of a squadron of newts[iv].
ABC 106 needs integrity and strength
of character, for there will be far too many Bonhoefferian moments, when they
will need to channel their inner Bishop Budde[v].
The Hurd Report and the life of
the CofE
Our Church has spent the last
twenty-four years ignoring the sensible recommendations of the Hurd Report
(Hurd, 2001[vi]). In any
other walk of life, faced with the current mess that is the Church of England
(and “mess” is the short and polite version of what we all really think and
feel), the “Pause Button” would have been pressed, an Interim Archbishop of
Canterbury appointed, and a root and branch review undertaken of the Job
Description. That we have failed to do this, and that you are engaged in the
task of agreeing a recommendation for the ABC 106, apparently on the same terms
and conditions as ABC 105, says everything that we need to know about the state
of the sin of English exceptionalism in the CofE.
You must not be surprised when you
hear about the breadth, and the depth, of the anger, that lay volunteers in the
Church of England feel about the state of our Church. It is essential you hear the
sounds of that fury. It is not the bishops who are keeping the life of our
Church on the road.
When the sun rises in the east in the
morning over the parishes of Lowestoft, and when it sets in the evening over
the parishes of western Cornwall, it is lay volunteers who are sustaining the
life of our beautiful church. Raising funds. Keeping buildings open. Running
far too many food banks because successive governments have impoverished poor
people. Offering safe spaces and services to vulnerable members of our
communities. Reaching out to people of other faiths. Welcoming Refugees and
Asylum Seekers. Challenging public bodies when they are not doing their jobs
properly. Who is it who is doing the vast majority of this work? In season and
out of season. Every day of the year. In villages. In towns. In communities in
all of our cities. It is lay volunteers.
And who is causing all the grief? Who,
on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, is putting bad news headlines in the
national media? Who has dragged us into the safeguarding quagmire? Who is
squandering our historic fiscal resources? Who is spending far too much money
on staff in diocesan offices, in Lambeth Palace and in Bishopthorpe? Who is
failing to implement the legally executed decisions of General Synod on far too
many items? Who has lost our trust? Who is failing to challenge gift wrapped
misogyny and homophobia? Who is systematically undermining and under resourcing
people in the parishes? While at the same time constantly coming up with yet another
idea that is here today and forgotten tomorrow? Who is putting an obsession
with unity and the preservation of the establishment before truth and justice?
Who is engaged in these constant acts
of collective incompetence? It’s the Archbishops and the House and the College
of Bishops. Yes, you read that correctly: collective incompetence. I live in
Yorkshire. In Yorkshire incompetence is incompetence.
In any other walk of life action
would have been taken about the collective incompetence of the archbishops, and
the House and College of Bishops. The failure to deliver on decisions made by
General Synod is indefensible and unsustainable. In any other walk of life there would have
been suspensions, disciplinaries, retraining, and dismissals. But in the CofE?
What do we do? We appoint more of them.
Parkinson’s Law (Parkinson,
1958[vii]) is alive
and well in the CofE. The CofE is like the Royal Navy: more admirals than
ships. Our membership has fallen. And what do we do? Appoint more Bishops. We
are far too top heavy. What do we not do? We do not put enough resources into
sustaining clergy and supporting the lay people in parish ministry who are
doing the real work. It’s the pharaoh school of management: more bricks with
less straw.
When the sun rises in the east we
have one priority: it is the provision of parish ministry. In rural, suburban
and urban communities: parish ministry. When the sun sets in the west we have
one priority: it is parish ministry. In poor, middle class and rich
communities: parish ministry.
We stand in need of fundamental
radical reform. And if we are going to survive that is what the next ABC needs
to be solely focused on. We need to refocus the office of ABC, for a season,
away from the international Anglican Communion, to focus on the healing and
renewal of the systemic mess that is the CofE.
Part B: On the House and
College of Bishops
The House and College of Bishops
stands in need of radical reform. There are far too many of them. Delegate the
function of confirmation. Then significant cuts can be made in the number of
bishops. Alongside that we need to cut the number of staff in all diocesan
offices, and Lambeth and Bishopthorpe Palaces. Before the documents of the New
Testament no archbishop can justify having a “chief of staff”. We are a church.
Not a multinational company. All clergy removed from these roles should be
transferred to where they are really needed. To parish ministry. And on the
same stipend as all other parish clergy.
The writer of the Book of Acts
teaches us:
“All who believed were together
and had all things in common”[viii]
Evangelicals in the CofE complain
that the rest of us do not take scripture seriously. The real issue is the evangelicals
that do not take scripture seriously enough. This is a moment for the
ecclesiastical “Putney Debates”[ix] of our
day. Verse forty-four, chapter two of the Book of Acts is the key fiscal and
organizational principle of the life of the primitive church. We need to
re-think our relationship with all stipends in the light of this text. All bishops
and clergy should receive the same stipend. Evangelicals want us to take
scripture more seriously. Right: let us take scripture more seriously. Let us
re-organise the stipends of all our bishops and clergy so that we stand with
integrity before verse forty-four of chapter two of the Books of Acts. Then we
will know what it means to take scripture seriously.
All bishops and clergy in receipt of
a stipend greater than the average parish clergy stipend should volunteer to
take a voluntary cut in their stipend to the same level as a parish vicar until
such time as the finances are stabilised.
We need a national clergy deployment
scheme: there is a real north south divide. Too many rich churches in London
(from a range of theological traditions) have surplus clergy while too many parishes
cannot find them. All ordained clergy should be prepared to serve anywhere: and
not just in parishes that reinforce their theological tribe.
The bishops are systematically
undermining parish ministry. We have one
purpose: to offer parish ministry across the whole of the country. Rural,
suburban and urban. Poor, middle class and rich. We are failing. Why? Because
the Bishops are systematically undermining parish ministry. They do not have
the authority to do this.
The structural and strategic funds
have been a gross squandering of our historic resources. Bringing with it an
unhealthy obsession with bean counting and reducing parish ministry to head
counts.
A matrix of disagreement that
undermines the national church
The argument that ABC 106 cannot be a
woman because of the Anglican Communion and because of the Declaration and the
Five Guiding Principles is fundamentally flawed. The need for ABC 106 to have a
sabbatical from the traditional See of Canterbury roles in the Anglican
Communion is precisely so we can escape this flawed emotional manipulation.
The Declaration and Five Guiding
Principles needs to be abolished. As a matter of urgency. It is time to end
this practice. Going forward all ordination candidates must recognise the
ordination of all other candidates. We need to find integrity. We need to end the CofE’s opt out from
equalities legislation. The misogyny must end. In Yorkshire misogyny is
misogyny.
Opposition to Living in Love and Faith has been weaponised
into every part of the business of General Synod. The ancient guardians of
orthodoxy, the writers of the three ecumenical creeds, make no mention of
marriage. Marriage is not a touchstone of orthodoxy. People in our church who
are seeking to redefine marriage around one pattern of relationship do not have
the authority to claim the nomenclature of “orthodoxy”. They are walking in the
borderlands of heresy. That students in ministerial formation are being
allowed, publicly, to declare that they are “orthodox candidates” for
ordination is not only creedal illiteracy, it demonstrates that standards have
fallen in our training programmes.
On this matter the Church of England
Evangelical Council (CEEC) is practising schism. That is schism as defined in
Canon A8 “Of schisms”. The House and College of Bishops need to take
appropriate action.
The CofE has a choice. Marry
everyone. Or marry no one. If the CofE is not reprepared to grasp the narrative
arc of justice on this matter, then we will ask Parliament to do so. The
ecclesiastical cake-ism must end. We cannot be the national church and carry on
with this discrimination. We shall ask Parliament for a cross party, one-clause
Bill, to repeal Part II of The Marriage Act 1949. Then the CofE will marry no
one. The homophobia has to end. In Yorkshire homophobia is homophobia.
We used to be a broad church. Now we
are three churches on the verge of a form ecclesiastical civil war. And in this
there is a cold narrow authoritarian Holy Trinity Brompton cult that is clearly
engaged in a fossil fuel funded power grab.
On the state of the country
Our church is in a very bad place. Our
beautiful country is in a very bad place. These matters are hinged. We are two
England’s. Deeply and, for a season, probably irreparably divided. Growing
wealth, and health, inequalities, are undermining our common life. One England
is cold, cruel, callous and deeply opposed to Refugees and Asylum Seekers. We
are a secular, multi-cultural, multi-faith country. For some this is a place to
fear and division. For many of us this is a cause for celebration and joy. A
strength not a weakness. A place where Refugees and Asylum Seekers are welcome
because they will strengthen the gene pool and the social and economic life of
our country.
Within this we have seen the rise of
a far-right fascist politics within the public life of the country. One key
cause for concern is that this far right politics is claiming to uphold and
defend “Christian culture” and make the UK a “great Christian nation again”. They
do so espousing a politics and values that is fundamentally irreconcilable with
the documents of the New Testament.
It is into this space that ABC 106
will have to exercise public ministry. As the “national” church we must
reconnect with ourselves and find our place again in the society and country in
which we live. Justice is the narrative arc, and ark, of scripture. In the
debate in the 1820’s and 30’s over the abolition of slavery people who called
themselves Christians argued, from the texts of scripture, for the preservation
of slavery. Today people are reading and interpreting scripture in the same way
to second class refugees and asylum seekers, women, and members of the LGBTQ+
communities.
Conclusion
I write in a personal capacity. I
love the church. I have been a faithful active communicant member of the CofE
for all the forty-three years of my adult life. Everywhere that I have lived I
have been a member of my local church, and sort to serve my local community
through my local church. Like many, I have served in numerous voluntary roles:
we are not illiterate of the life of our beloved church. Never did I imagine
there would be a day when our beautiful church would be in such a mess.
Never did I imagine I would see the Chief
Executive of the Charity Commission write, publicly, to the General Synod and
the House of Bishop’s in such a manner. I read those letters in furious and
incredulous disbelief that ever we had come to such a disgraceful place.
Protocol says this letter should end
at the conclusion of Part A. I have scrutinised and examined my conscience
before the thin Hebrean place[x]. In good
conscience you the Chair, and the CNC for the appointment of ABC 106, need to
hear about the fire of our righteous fury. Today good conscience takes
precedent over protocol. Therefore, Part B of this letter stands.
Action must be taken to identify the
route by which the CofE asks the Anglican Communion, for a voluntary sabbatical
“for a season”, for the post of ABC 106 and their staff, from their
“traditional” commitments to the Communion. We need ABC 106 to be able to focus
all their time on the mess that is the CofE. We need to sit, in humility, for a
season, as an ordinary member of the international Anglican Communion while we
find ourselves again. If we allow ABC 106 to sit on St Augustine’s seat on the
same terms and conditions as ABC 105, we shall set them and the Church of
England, up to fail.
The writer of the Letter to the Ephesians
teaches us:
“Be angry but do not sin, do not let the sun go down on
your anger”[xi]
We write with integrity before verse
twenty-six, chapter four of the Letter to the Ephesians. We have every ground
to be angry about the state of our beloved church, and we have not sinned. That
we have not. In Yorkshire Scripture is Scripture.
May St George, our Patron, hold in
their hand the sun, that it may not set until our righteous fury about the
collective incompetence of the archbishops, and House and College of Bishop’s,
has been expedited before Jesus Christ, the Son, sitting in the ancient ecumenical
credal office of the Judge.
It is our prayer that the wisdom of
King Solomon’s colours[xii], will be
with you and the members of the CNC for the See of Canterbury, in the task that
is before you.
Yours sincerely,
Etc
The Feast of the Annunciation of our Lord to
the Blessed Virgin Mary,
25 March, in the Yead of our Lord, Two
Thousand and Twenty-Five.
Copied
to:
· The
Archbishop’s Secretary for Appointments, The Canterbury Crown Nomination
Commission
And
· The Dean
of Canterbury Cathedral
· The Chair
of Canterbury Diocesan Synod
· The Chair
and Standing Committee of the House of Clergy, General Synod
· The Chair
and Standing Committee of the House of Laity, General Synod
And
· The Chair,
and members of, the Ecclesiastical Committee
Footnotes
[i]
II Chronicles, Chapter Three, Verse Fourteen (New Revised Standard Version,
Updated: NRSVU)
[ii]
“To Lead and to serve, the Report and Review of the See of Canterbury”, 2001,
Chaired by Lord Hurd.
[iii]
Bishop Michael B. Curry.
[iv]
We apologise, unreservedly, to all God fearing, law abiding, tax paying,
patriotic newts.
[v]
Budde, M.E. (2023), How we learn to be brave. Authentic Media Ltd
[vi]
Ibid.
[vii]
Parksinson, C.N. (1958) Parkinson’s Law: or
the pursuit of progress. John
Murray.
[viii]
Acts chapter two verse forty-four (NRSVU).
[ix]
The Putney Debates: 28 October to 8 November 1647.
[x]
Hebrews chapter four, verse sixteen: “Let us therefore approach the throne of
grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in
time of need”. (NRSVU)
[xi]
Ephesians, chapter four, verse twenty-six. (NRSVU).
[xii]
Ibid.
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