Paying attention to the power of the bishops
Several years ago, the Church of England produced a set of six Pastoral Principles to help people in the Church of England work together to discuss the issues around sex and marriage. These were raised in the group work at General Synod last week, when we were invited to identify with one of the six words and, if we chose, explain why. I chose the word which is highlighted in the final one of these Pastoral Principles: Pay attention to power.
In a number of ways in the past few weeks, it has been hard not to feel that the House of Bishops are exercising their power in ways that do not entirely fit with the given explanation of this Pastoral Principle:
“Because of our understanding that Christ calls us in humility to regard others as better than ourselves we will not exploit any perceived or real power over others. We will encourage our communities to be places where everyone seeks to serve one another in the Spirit of Christ and to respond joyfully to his call to mutual submission.”
Paying attention to process
The Living in Love and Faith process followed on from a series of Shared Conversations. The whole thing has taken around six years. At the end of this, the House of Bishops were given, as I understand it, just a few hours to discuss and agree to the proposals and prayers that were published on January 20th. Synod members then had just over two weeks to consider these, before last week’s debate.
Amongst the many concerns expressed was the issue of process. The bishops have insisted that their proposals do not constitute any change to the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage, nor to authorised liturgy. This is important, because it meant that the changes did not require synodical approval, which would have to be given by way of a 2/3 majority in each house (bishops, clergy, laity). It was far easier to seek a simple majority on a motion welcoming the proposed changes, than to have a debate scrutinising the actual proposals, and seek a 2/3 majority.
Many of the legal challenges brought last week focussed on this point. While the bishops provided the legal advice they had been given, which rested heavily on a distinction between ‘doctrine’ and ‘teaching’, alternative legal advice found that this did not stand up to scrutiny. The prayers themselves were presented not as authorised liturgy, but simply commended by the bishops. Commended prayers are useful and appropriate in specific circumstances, such as on the death of the Queen, but these Prayers of Love and Faith are clearly intended for regular use, and are even presented in the form of services. They have every appearance of liturgy.
The Church of England has been described as ‘episcopally led and synodically governed’. The bishops are not the legislative body of the church; that is General Synod’s role. The way in which the bishops chose to subvert due process as they put forward proposals for new liturgy which changes the Church’s doctrine (not only of marriage, but of scripture, sin, salvation and sanctification) is an abuse of their power.
Paying attention to people
Twice in the debates last week, senior bishops responded to lay people in the chamber in belittling personal attacks. I understand that the Archbishop of York has since apologised privately and personally to Ben John, though not publicly, despite the public nature of his remarks. The Bishop of Leicester, so far as I am aware, has made no apology to Sam Margrave, despite his disgraceful attack in response to one of Sam’s proposed amendments.
Bishops belittling and berating lay members of the General Synod is never a good look. It is impossible to quantify the stifling effect this has on other synod members, who may already be nervous about speaking up in a room full of hundreds of people, not to mention the press. They should not also have to be afraid of being laid into by a bishop.
Once may be a mistake. Twice is beginning to look a bit like a pattern. Either way, this sort of behaviour is utterly unacceptable. If bishops cannot control their tongues, they ought not to sit in the chamber.
Paying attention to privilege
On two occasions during the LLF debate there were sustained periods of applause from across the whole chamber. The chair of the debate, Geoffrey Tattersall, was rightly applauded for his excellent work in keeping the business moving, keeping the debate fair, and keeping the tone civil throughout. The other ovation came for Stephen Hofmeyr making a point of order late on in the debate.
All the amendments and the main motion on LLF were taken by a counted vote of each house. A counted vote can be called for on any vote, but usually it is only called when something is likely to be very close, or when it is important enough to want to be able to give concrete numbers of synodical support. A counted vote by houses can also be called for on any vote, but this is more often used politically, because it makes it much more difficult to pass a motion. It requires a majority of bishops, a majority of clergy and a majority of lay people, rather than simply an overall majority.
When the motion was proposed by the Bishop of London, she explained that she was doing so on behalf of the House of Bishops. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the bishops voted against almost every amendment and in favour of the motion as a whole. They were able to use their vote as a veto against any changes they didn’t like. On several occasions, the house of laity voted in favour of amendments which the bishops voted down.
Stephen Hofmeyr’s point of order asked that, since the bishops were effectively proposing the motion together, they might consider abstaining on the amendments to allow the voices of the other houses to be heard. He did not even finish his sentence before the applause began, and continued long and hard. It was very clear that everyone in the chamber had felt silenced by the bishops.
Of course the bishops have the right to vote in General Synod debates. But in this instance, they could have paid attention to the privilege they had of previously discussing and agreeing the proposals together. They could have made their case, and then left the voting of the amendments to the clergy and laity who had not had that privilege.
One of the first people I spoke to after the bishops’ proposals came out said, “How can I ever trust the bishops again?”
Indeed.