South India story could aid C of E
From the Revd Jonathan Bish
Sir, — It is, perhaps, inauspicious for a person firmly of the Anglo-Catholic tradition to write to endorse something called “The Pledge”, but I write not of teetotalism, but of the unity of the Church.
“The Pledge” was a device, proposed by the Methodist Church in India, to overcome the entrenched divisions between Anglo-Catholics and Congregationalists in the process that created the Church of South India in 1947.
The Methodist Church in India had had considerable evangelistic success in Hyderabad in the early 20th century, but was one of the smaller constituent parts of a church union that consisted largely of the southern dioceses of the Anglican Church of India, Burma and Ceylon (CIBC) and the South Indian United Church (SIUC). Its “Pledge”, however, represented the single most important step that enabled trust between opposing parties.
In the form first adopted by the Joint Committee of the CIBC and SIUC in 1929, the Pledge read as follows: “[The uniting Churches] pledge themselves and fully trust each other that in the united Church no arrangements with regard to churches, congregations or ministers will knowingly be made, either generally or in particular cases, which would offend the conscientious convictions of any persons directly concerned, or which would hinder the development of complete unity within the Church or imperil its subsequent progress towards union with other Churches.”
We make much of our present divisions in the Church of England, and they are serious divisions over matters of principle, the right use of scripture, and authority in the Church. The General Synod has rightly been concerning itself with the lack of trust within the Church.
But the movement towards unity in South India faced greater problems: many more Anglicans than today saw an episcopally ordained ministry as a necessary condition for participating in the sacraments (something undergirded by the 1920 Lambeth Conference). Some Congregationalists feared the return of prelacy and autocracy in the Church; others, who sought to remove any form of credal affirmation from the United Church, saw Anglicans as more in sympathy with the “Church of the Fathers” than the “Church of today”.
At all stages of the process, many of the key actors were British rather than Indian, even as independence drew near. The Joint Committee had to resolve issues of lay presidency and what form of commissioning or re-ordination should take place on the inauguration of the new Church.
Yet the process also produced saints. And the “Pledge” assured two absolutes: no church member’s conscience would be offended, and the complete unity of the Church would be upheld.
Might we. in the face of our own difficulties, make a similar “Pledge”? The Pledge provided no legal guarantees, no alternative forms of oversight, and no structural differentiation. It would meet the demands of no party in the current debate over the Prayers of Love and Faith. But it would mark a change of direction from mistrust towards trust, and from division towards a commitment to the unity that Christ prayed for.
JONATHAN BISH
The Vicarage
Churchfield Street
Batley WF17 5DL
Bishop’s response to ‘gay-exorcism’ report
From Miss Vasantha Gnanadoss
Sir, — The Bishop of Sheffield (Letters, 12 July) seeks to dispel any suspicion that the diocese of Sheffield resisted publication of the two-part report of an investigation by Barnardo’s and published the report eventually in reaction to its being leaked to the BBC. The investigation sustained a complaint made by a church member in 2019 about an attempt in 2014 to exorcise his homosexuality.
The Bishop in his letter takes us in some detail through the preparations for publication during the three-week period between a meeting with the complainant on 11 June and publication of the report on 1 July. He regards the BBC’s involvement as “sheer coincidence”. The report is dated 30 November 2023 and 26 February 2024 (News, 5 July), and no explanation is given for the delay in preparing it for publication. Nor is there any acknowledgement of the Bishop’s earlier insistence that the report would be confidentially filed rather than published, and that copies should be shredded, as testified by the complainant on the BBC Radio 4 Sunday programme on 7 July.
In some cases of abuse, bishops seem to avoid taking responsibility as leaders, and act in a way that prevents our getting full information. As a consequence, survivors are not being treated with dignity.
The former England football manager has been applauded for taking full responsibility when the team is criticised. Are our spiritual leaders prepared to learn from a secular leader?
VASANTHA GNANADOSS
242 Links Road
London SW17 9ER
From Mr Matthew Drapper
Sir, — I should like to congratulate the Bishop of Sheffield for the swiftness with which he leapt to correct the record on your article which had said the report of the independent investigation into a complaint of a “gay exorcism” “was published by the diocese of Sheffield on Monday evening, after it was leaked to the BBC”.
It’s remarkable to note that the Bishop is a man of quick action and truth-seeking when it comes to correcting the record, despite its taking almost five agonising years for the diocese to complete and publish any kind of official, public response to my initial complaint that deliverance prayer was being used as a conversion therapy practice in a parish in his diocese, and despite, only a month previously, his official Bishop’s Recommendation being that the report should be securely filed and any held copies be “shredded and deleted”. If only such quickness had been applied to the whole sorry case from the beginning!
MATTHEW DRAPPER
Address supplied
Ex-churchwarden on Fr Williamson’s eviction
From Mr John Bannon
Sir, — For 17 years, my family and I have been parishioners, and I am a former PCC member and churchwarden of St George’s, Hanworth. I am very cognisant of events, documents, and communications leading up to the eviction of the Revd Paul Williamson from St George’s Rectory (News, 12 July), as well as his age-discrimination case against the Bishop of London.
I was present in court on several occasions when Fr Williamson offered to pay rent, and this is on record. The previous Archdeacon of Middlesex had proffered house-for-duty, and Fr Williamson confirmed to PCC members that he would then live on his pension and look after St George’s.
At no time has there been any paper evidence whatsoever showing any offer or assistance with accommodation. The Bishop has not responded to my challenge made, via the offices of Lambeth Palace, to produce any. The spokesperson’s statement loosely implied that the diocese was responsible for procuring suitable accommodation. Nothing is further from the truth. The diocese never lifted a finger. It was we concerned parishioners and friends who procured emergency accommodation.
There has never been pastoral care for Fr Williamson. More than 20 parishioners signed a document confirming this to the Bishops of London and Fulham and to a former Bishop of Kensington.
In conclusion, it has been the contention of many parishioners and PCC members that Fr Williamson has been brutally mistreated by both the Bishop and the diocese of London, after more than 30 years of faithful, pastoral, and evangelistic work. There have been many attempts in the past five years to denigrate him with unfounded allegations. The conduct of the Bishop and the diocese has driven away many faithful but disgusted parishioners. Attendance and income have plummeted.
JOHN BANNON
Former PCC member and elected churchwarden, St George’s, Hanworth, Hounslow
3 Hawthorn Villas
Barley Lane
Newry BT34 2AD
Ely deadlock on Crown Nominations Commission
From Mr Anthony Archer
Sir, — The failure of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) to nominate a candidate for the see of Ely (news story here) needs to be called out for what it is: a grotesque failure of a process taken over by a group of conservatives wanting to gerrymander the composition of the House of Bishops. It is misleading of the Archbishop of Canterbury to refer to a “lengthy process of discernment”. The members of the CNC who thwarted the process played no part in any discernment process. They simply came to the commission with little yellow notes in their back pockets reminding them of “LLF’ and “no women”. That is not discernment.
As Professor Oliver O’Donovan noted in his magisterial report Discerning in Obedience, “discerning something is quite different from expressing a preference. Preferences are things we bring with us; we express them, and then, perhaps, negotiate them in relation to others’ preferences. But discernments are things we start out not having, and have somehow to reach. Those who look for a bishop may begin by having preferences, but their preferences will be relevant only to the extent that they offer a clue to what they do not yet have, an insight into what God intends to do through this or that person in this or that place.”
There are now two vacancies at the back in the naughty queue, Carlisle and Ely, fortunately with capable suffragan bishops in charge. But what might happen with any or all of Coventry, St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, Durham, and Worcester? The Archbishops need to call time on the process, for at least 12 months. And diocesan representatives need to be clearly advised that if they don’t come to their CNC with full agreement on at least one name, they probably won’t get a new bishop.
ANTHONY ARCHER
Central Member, Crown Nominations Commission (2005-07 and 2017-21)
Barn Cottage
Little Gaddesden
Berkhamsted
Hertfordshire HP4 1PH
Plummeting vocations
Sir, — It beggars belief that we read (News, 12 July) that by far the highest-scoring factor inhibiting vocations is “local clergy well-being”, while under-resourcing, under-payment, and “institutional suspicion” also receive significant mention; and your General Synod reports tell us that both the toxic unworkability of the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) process and culture, and the proposal for a less punishing expectation of the clergy working week, seem to have been given, at best, begrudging consideration.
Further reading prompts the questions whether Synod members realised either how much damage had already been caused by the misapplication and mishandling of CDM, as experienced by the best part of 1000 of the 5628 respondents by the year 2020 to the Sheldon/Aston University research project, who had endured the full CDM process or its “early stages”; or the nature of a sabbath as prescribed in the Hebrew Bible and endorsed by our Lord: from sunset and through the next day, without any expectation that work would resume in the dark of the following night.
The erosion of stipend and pension values, and of retirement provision in this century, not to mention respect, reasonableness, and common courtesy, only add to my sad conclusion that, if I were still a vocations adviser, my simple advice today would be “Don’t.”
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
Crumbs not enough
From the Revd Ian Randall
Sir, — Curtis Hinshaw (Back Page Interview, 12 July) claims that the poor will always be with us, and attributes this to indolence on the part of the poor. He has overlooked Deuteronomy 15.4-5, where the promise is that “there will be no poor among you . . . if only you keep all this commandment.” Poverty and greater disparities come if the comunity is not organised according to God.
It is Mr Hinshaw’s job to make his neighbour’s life better, not just give away crumbs from his table. He and all of us must do what we can to see that our communities are organised according to God. Surely that is part of obeying the commandment of love.
IAN RANDALL
12 Westmead Road
Fakenham NR21 8BL
Class and Holy Orders
From the Revd Ravi Holy
Sir, — The Revd Dr Cris Rogers was clearly correct when he named the overwhelming middle-classness of the Church of England (Comment, 5 July). I, too, was identified as a “high-risk candidate” when I was honest with the selectors about my history of childhood trauma and abuse and consequent problems with alcohol, drugs, and the law.
I truly believe that I wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t also been an Old Etonian — or, technically, ex-Etonian, because I was thrown out before sixth form. But that doesn’t seem to matter, because at least I’d been there, so was clearly “a bright chap”. . .
I’m also mixed-race (English and Indian); so my sending diocese were keen to make sure that I wasn’t discrimated against as a “minority-ethnic candidate”. When they asked me about my experience after I was recommended for training, I told them that they should be far more worried about discriminating against people on the basis of class than race (or at least equally worried) — and that was 22 years ago.
RAVI HOLY
The Vicarage
Cherry Garden Crescent
Wye, Ashford
Kent TN25 5AS
York blaze remembered
From Mr John Radford
Sir, — I was interested to read the report recalling the 1984 fire at York Minster (News, 12 July), having been in the building on the previous Friday at the consecration of David Jenkins to be Bishop of Durham.
One fact in the story needs correcting: the Heart of Yorkshire window is not the Rose Window in the south transept, but the Great West Window, where the upper tracery forms the shape of a heart.
It is also worth setting on record that during the week following the fire, choral evensong (the opus Dei of any cathedral) continued over the road in St Michael-le-Belfrey, whose people were hugely hospitable and supportive, and that worship took place in the Minster on the following Sunday. A remarkable feat.
JOHN RADFORD
Church Lodge
Wimborne St Giles
Dorset BH21 5LZ