The complaint by William Nye, the secretary general of the Archbishops’ Council, about the article in The Spectator – ‘Holy Relic: What will be left of the Church of England after the pandemic?’ – is very revealing of the mindset of the CofE’s mandarins.
It was on a website headed ‘The Church of England’ that Mr Nye made his complaint against the article, highlighted on the cover of the February 6th Spectator, about the threats to the national Church’s local ministry from bureaucratic centralism: ‘No one from the Spectator called the Church of England to ask whether any of these things were true.’
In practice, ‘calling the Church of England’ would have involved The Spectator contacting the Communications Team at Church House in Westminster. Does Mr Nye seriously expect any British journal, newspaper or broadcaster, which analyses current trends in the Church by law established, to allow its copy to be vetted by spin doctors? If there are elements in the British media that are prepared to pander to power like that, it is to The Spectator’s credit that it is not among them.
Furthermore, why does Mr Nye assume that its Westminster office constitutes ‘the Church of England’? Emma Thompson, the author of the ‘Holy Relic’ piece, is a frontline parish volunteer. The Revd Marcus Walker, who wrote a supporting piece – ‘The misguided priorities of the church authorities’ – next to Ms Thompson’s, is a frontline vicar. Surely they are just as much part of the Church of England as the people on the Church House payroll?
Ms Thompson did not reveal her source for her report that ‘this month the CofE’s elected governing body, the General Synod, will hear the Archbishop of York’s plan to impose a management system on its parishes nationally’. After her article, it is extremely unlikely that this month’s General Synod will hear of such a plan. Right though it is to accept that Mr Nye is telling the truth when he says he knows of no national plan to impose frontline clergy cuts across the CofE, the possibility of one being aired in a few Synods’ time cannot be ruled out if Ms Thompson’s source is reliable.
Mr Walker reported that ‘there is increasing outrage at the explosion of central positions while parish posts are being cut and at the church’s prioritising of trendy causes over actual parish ministry. Southwark (Diocese), for instance, has got rid of 30 parish priests’ posts in the past decade, but still managed to find room in the budget for a “Director of Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation”. They are not alone in this’.
This is the source for the report: https://www.churchofengland.org/about/leadership-and-governance/emerging-church-england/vision-church-england-2020s
Thank you very much for this link. If this ‘vision statement’ is the source for Ms Thompson’s claim that the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, is going to announce at February’s General Synod a national plan to impose ‘Chelmsford-style cuts on parish clergy’ and the selling of ‘assets owned by the parishes, to fund yet more managers’, then this vision is so nebulous that Mr Nye’s denial is totally credible. Furthermore, as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York pointed out in their article in this week’s Spectator, decisions about clergy deployment are down to individual dioceses, not the General Synod.
But Mr Cottrell was Bishop of Chelmsford before his ‘elevation’ to York and in that diocese parish posts are being cut. So, Ms Thompson may well be right that the intention behind this vision is to promote the cutting of frontline parish posts to allow for the appointing of more roving ‘pioneer ministers’ and ‘mission enablers’ and ‘diversity officers’ but it is difficult to prove that from the statement you linked to.
It would seem that the current cabal of senior bishops behind this ‘vision’ are neo-Marxist in their outlook. They dislike the legacy they have inherited, they consider the people attached to that legacy to be ‘conservative’ and themselves to be ‘progressive’ and they believe they can act as agents to ‘modernise’ the Church of England. It is all very New Labour and is likely to prove as damaging to the national Church as that programme has been to Britain.
Nye is an incredibly sane and generous person – I’d sooner have him speak for the Church of England than most other people.
I’m afraid this misses the point. However nice Mr Nye may be, he has no right to arrogate to the Church House Comms team the right to speak for ‘the Church of England’.
‘The Church of England’ is a title that sums up the various legal entities that make up the denomination – its Bishops, Archdeacons, parish clergy, diocesan boards of finance, parochial church councils, the Church Commissioners, and the General Synod. What legal status does the Church of England website have? Certainly, nothing compared with the legal burdens borne by a frontline PCC.
If Ms Thompson should have checked her claim that the Archbishop of York is about to announce a national plan for parish clergy cuts at the General Synod with anyone, it should have been with him – bearing in mind that he has no legal right to ‘impose’ such a plan.
It would seem that that Mr Nye’s complaint with its presumption that the bureaucratic centre in Westminster constitutes ‘the Church of England’ backs up the concerns raised by Ms Thompson and Mr Walker in the Spectator piece.
Julian’s thoughts are perhaps ill judged.
First the communications team is the right place to go to get put in touch with someone credible.
Second there is no reason to name call as “a cabal of neomarxists” people who think that Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation are important to Christians. Unpleasant tone and difficult thoughts Julian. Maybe you could point to the parts of the gospel which support your apparent position in relation to the Mission. Surely we should spend time on working for the society that God calls us to pursue.
What have Left-wing utopianism and self-serving identity politics dressed up in religious garb got to do with the biblical gospel of eternal salvation from sin and death through repentance towards the one true God and faith in the propitiatory sacrifice of His only Son? Did not Jesus Christ say: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’?