A VOTE on an amended motion related to trust in the House of Bishops was avoided on the Saturday afternoon when the General Synod voted by a narrow majority to move to next business. A culture and governance review of the House, commissioned by the Bishops, will go ahead anyway.
The motion from Dr Ros Clarke (Lichfield) called for a fully independent review of the “culture and governance” of the House of Bishops, which, she said, would help to rebuild trust.
The House of Bishops, part of the Synod, also meets separately around six times a year, and, as a result, and because of its relatively small size, had an identity that the neither the House of Clergy or the House of Laity had, Dr Clarke suggested. It also had extra powers, including the ability to make statements on behalf of the Church of England.
She quoted an interim report from the House of Bishops’ Transparency Group, last year which said that there had been a “loss of trust in the House of Bishops. . . It is perceived that bishops are insufficiently accountable to the wider Church of England.” Some changes had been made, including publishing minutes from the Bishops’ meetings, but a more thorough and wider-ranging, review was vital, she said, and this should be conducted by an independent body, to reassure the rest of the Synod
Clare Williams (Norwich) spoke of the Church in Wales and the recent crisis in the Bangor diocese. With Welsh disestablishment, a large amount of power had come to rest in the Bench of Bishops, she said, and had created an unhealthy culture and a “monochrome episcopacy”. At times, the English House of Bishops had also used its power to drive things through or block things against the will of the rest of the Synod. There was a lack of transparency and trust, she suggested, and only a truly independent review could address this.
“Christians don’t trust one another,” Jane Evans (Leeds) said — a conclusion drawn, she said, from working for a Christian organisation. This might partly be because disagreements became amplified, partly by the thought that “I am made in the image of God; so I must be right,” she said.
The Revd William Harwood (Truro) said that people in his diocese often questioned why the House of Bishops had so much power. An in-house review ordered by the Bishops would not suffice to address this, he said, given that two female bishops who had spoken out on safeguarding had said that they felt unsafe and unwelcome — a reference to the Bishops of Newcastle and Warrington.
The Revd Graham Kirk-Spriggs (Norwich) suggested that the motion exhibited “paranoia”, and that, while the Bishops were not always deserving of deference, they were deserving of more respect. He suggested that the motion was “a thinly veiled attack on the Bishops because of LLF [Living in Love and Faith], because some in this chamber haven’t agreed with decisions taken, and it’s a way of punishing them”. Dr Clarke’s proposal, he said, was “a total waste of time, and just another form of bullying”.
He was applauded at length.
Dr Jamie Harrison (Durham), the Chair of the House of Laity, moved his amendment, which struck out Dr Clarke’s original motion and welcomed the idea of an independently led governance and culture review, saying that the House of Bishops was already working on terms of reference for this. His amendment also called for this to be published in full and paid for by the Archbishops’ Council. A review could be helpful, he said, as the Church’s governance structures were reformed.
Responding, Dr Clarke was delighted that the House agreed that there was a need for a review, but said that what was being proposed was not fully independent, and, therefore, could not address the “gaping trust deficit” with the wider Church. It amounted to the Bishops’ both setting and then marking their own homework, she suggested, which would waste both time and money.
As a relatively new Synod member, the Revd Dr Charlie Baczyk-Bell (Southwark) was struck by how often the “finger of blame” was pointed, frequently at the Bishops. He, too, was frustrated by the processes of the House, but when he had met bishops, he found them to be people of “kindness, hard work, and personal holiness”. Everyone made mistakes, he said, but the culture in the Church now was such that, whatever they did, it would not be considered the right thing.
The Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell (Southern Suffragans), said that sexual harassment happened in the Church, even when it was not talked about. She welcomed the cultural review already instigated by the House and disagreed with the original motion. It was always tempting to blame the Bishops, but things were changing, she said. Work on misconduct that was serious but did not amount to safeguarding was urgently needed, she said, but a review of the whole Church’s culture was needed, not just the Bishops’. “Focus the work where it’s needed and not score tribal or political points about something which deserves a more dispassionate and far-reaching approach.”
The Revd Neil Robbie (Lichfield) opposed the amendment. Unless the review was independent, it would not be possible to know that the Bishops, perhaps subconsciously, were trying to “protect themselves from pain” in the way in which it was carried out.
Dr Harrison’s amendment was carried, before the Archdeacon of Liverpool, the Ven. Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes (Liverpool), moved that the Synod move to next business. She suggested that the amended motion amounted to little more than an “incredible waste of money”.
Dr Clarke argued that, since a review was to take place, the procedural motion would not save money, but prevent further debate on what independence meant for the review. But Dr Threlfall-Holmes’s motion was carried, by 154-144, with 16 recorded abstentions.
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