The recent response to the Ad Clerum of the four bishops in Oxford by 110+ clergy and laity deserves our attention. The text of the letter, rehearsing now stale points about the bible in conflict with LGTB lifestyles, is of less interest to me than the signatories. Here we have a list of clergy, mostly male self-identified evangelicals, and laity who want us to believe that they somehow speak for a large number of church people in rejecting the bishops’ mild, even eirenic letter from last October. This called for listening and respect for the views of others in this difficult area of moral discussion. Others have picked up the challenge of looking at these arguments. Here I am concerned to think about what might be going on when 110+ individuals sign such a document.
In the Diocese of Oxford, there are apparently 2.5 million in the population and 55,000 who count themselves as members of the national church. The 110+ signatories thus represent 0.02 % of the church-goers in the area. Someone might immediately object that vicars and other Christian leaders represent their members. As most of those who signed are such leaders, do they not speak for many others?
Before I pick up this reasonable claim and respond to it, I want to think for a moment about how the process works in getting lots of people to sign such a letter. Today, thanks to the internet, the task is not difficult. An email is sent round an existing network of contacts to gather signatures. Such a network can be thought of as a kind of power circuit. It allows an individual to tap into and connect with friends or allies instantly and put into effect the joint act of signing a letter. Each individual within the circuit has helped to make something powerful happen. One of the main networks in operation in this case is clearly stated. Many, if not most, of the signatories are members of the Oxford Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship. As a group they would have a common view on the Ad Clerum letter and no doubt it was discussed at a meeting. But there are also in evidence other circuits of power or networks that the list reveals when examined closely. A check through Crockfords Directory shows us how many signatories knew each other at theological college, particularly Wycliffe Hall and Ridley Hall. Then there is a further circuit which networks at least five, possibly more, of the names -the Iwerne Minster connection. To belong to this network, one is a former attender of the prestigious conservative Christian camps in Dorset. Here boys from the best public schools were nurtured in a strongly conservative version of the Christian faith. The vision of the Iwerne founder (popularly known as Bash) was for his ex-campers to take power and influence in society as Christian leaders. The signing of this letter by at least five of these Iwerne graduates can be seen to be one small contribution to further this vision. For Bash followers, the Calvinist version of conservative Christianity needs to be promoted within the church at every opportunity. That expression of Christianity is, for many of us, unattractive and even repugnant.
My examination of the names that appear on the list of signatures tells me that we are mainly dealing with a power that comes from horizontal networking rather than power rooted in the ground. To continue the metaphor, it is not a ground up form of energy. We do not see, for example, any attempt by PCCs to have ‘no-confidence’ votes in the bishops. The signatures are thus to be regarded the view of single individuals and not expressing the thinking of corporate entities. It is true that some churches, such as St Aldate’s and St Ebbe’s in Oxford, seem to have persuaded the vast majority of their full-time staff to sign. But it is still hard to know how such highly eclectic churches could ever produce a statement which was a genuine reflection of the congregation’s mind on the topic. Students are in such a state of constant flux, that a poll of this kind would be meaningless. When we look at a normal parish like the Chesham Team where three members of staff signed, there were two who did not. What does that suggest to us about the ‘mind’ of the congregation? Other signatories, a significant number, give their local parish next to their name, when their attachment is fairly tenuous. We may note also that one bastion of conservative orthodoxy like Wycliffe Hall is divided. The Principal himself did not sign while three members of staff did. It is also striking to see that two student members of the college were attached to the lay signatories. What did the other students think about the letter? Were they consulted?
My degree of cynicism over the question as to whether a Vicar ever represents his congregation in an exercise of this kind also comes from slight personal knowledge of two parishes in the Oxford diocese, the leaders of which both appear among the signatures. Each has now, during the past twenty years, come to be overseen by conservative clergy. I knew the parish of Burford and the nuns who lived there before it became a bastion of conservative Anglicanism at the end of the 90s. A Vicar was appointed in 1998 who had served as a curate at St Helen’s Bishopsgate. The middle of the road traditions at Burford were fairly quickly turned upside down. I was also at one time familiar with the church at Wargrave. I know nothing of the present Vicar, but this parish used to be a centre of traditional Anglicanism under its former Vicar, John Ratings. The current Vicar has been identified to me as a former Iwerne camper and I imagine things are now radically different in that parish.
My final observation about the Oxford scene is to note that there are a number of highly attractive parishes now occupied by conservative clergy who have signed this letter. Places like Henley on Thames, Burford, Purley, Eynsham and Wargrave all seem to have Vicars or clergy who come from extremely conservative but also, in some cases, privileged backgrounds. Were any of these parishes formerly in the gift of conservative patrons or are there other forces at work here? Among the signatories there is more than a hint of upper-middle class entitlement. There are mysterious references, unknown to Crockford, to an institution called Latimer Minster located in Beaconsfield. In the absence of further information, one is forced to suggest that this is one more independent institution designed to subtly undermine the national church, using privilege and wealth to do so.
My scrutiny of the list of those who signed this letter suggests that it is far from being clergy exercising protest on behalf of the lay people they serve. Rather it is clergy, using their existing networks of discontent, in an effort to unsettle the bishops and force them to bend to their will. To the four bishops, I say, hang in there. There is no evidence of lay unrest in the diocese. What you have is a group of clergy, many of them of them products of public schools, who have bought into the ideas of REFORM and its Calvinist right wing ideas. These need to be resisted to allow the inclusive and generous spirit of the Church of England to thrive for the future.
Sounds about right to me, Stephen! Is it just me, or is it a bit strange, given John Smyth, that the guy is called Bash! And, given all that, that anyone would boast about it! We need to be free to talk about the things we don’t understand until we understand them better. I don’t understand trans, but when people thump the pulpit and declare that God created only male and female, when we know that is not so, I hear Trump supporters saying that he never said anything about grabbing women in their nether regions, when we have recordings of it. How can anyone think that ignoring the facts and telling lies advances the gospel one whit? Rhetorical question.
Good post.
I think the dichotomy between leaders and congregation is a sound point.
I recall visiting a very nice congregation whose Church did not accept women priests. The leaders explained that it was not something their orthodoxy permitted but that they were as co-operative and respectful as they could be. They welcomed their female Area Dean to preach.
I liked that they had fed 38 people at Christmas who would have otherwise been alone.
Good outreach happens across traditions.
Over coffee, congregation members quietly explained that they personally had no problem with women priests but their leadership did. This was there local Church their famiies had worshipped there, place and family trumped theological controversy.
Your blog is right on the button. The clergy signatories are not speaking for their churches or Benefices as the letter implies, but purely expressing a personal view. I’d be surprised if any of the signatories have a mandate from their PCC’s or congregations to speak on their behalf. Putting aside the theological arguments , the letter is misleading and disingenuous in suggesting that there is a membership of churches (“churches in our number” in the 3rd para and ” number of our churches” in the last para ) . The letter represents the views of a membership of clergy plus, led by 4 strong characters who may well have intentionally written the letter so that the dissenting voice appears to be more powerful than it actually is!!!
As the lay chair of the PCC of a parish where two of the clergy signed, I can confirm that they do not speak for the parish as a whole, and it was disappointing to see that they have signed. It is certainly not representative of the parish as a whole.
This is worrying. In many ways vicars are like missionaries attempting to push their beliefs onto poor church members who have a deeper, less restrictive personal faith. Some vicars have their own agendas over and above the needs of the parishioners.
Having found the response of the 100 or so clergy to the four Oxford Bishops (https://www.oxforddef.co.uk/Publisher/File.aspx?ID=221406) I cannot find where they imply that they are speaking for more than themselves but anyway as one cleric once put it, “the sheep have a right to bleat”. Even if you don’t agree with them don’t try to silence them by pointing to their backgrounds. I’m sure the priests in Jerusalem grumped at the motley coterie of Galilee fishermen who disagreed with them.
When the letter talks about the direction of travel that the Diocese is taking, it is abundantly clear that these clergy want to change that direction. That is pressure, that is a form of bullying. The letter is full of unspoken threats against the Diocesan leaders, those to whom they have given an oath of canonical obedience. Anglicanism stands up for inclusion of all. This letter is a strong statement of exclusion of those that the letter writers do not agree with. It is not a question of choosing which theology you want to follow. It is a question of whether you can live with those you do not agree with. Clearly the letter writers cannot live with difference. That is a major problems for Anglicans everywhere.
Do you wish to exclude these people then? What would be your plan?
The Church of England includes all. They still have to stand up to bullying of which the letter is an example. Please read the original letter from the Bishops. There is no trace of exclusion there – indeed the opposite.
First of all apologies Stephen for what was a brief and perhaps rather sharp rejoinder before leaving the house at teatime. In a tender time like this language is all important but I did mean to raise the question of what we are to do about those whose beliefs we find abominable. Can the Church live with two completely different views of what is acceptable behaviour. On the one hand those who understand lasciviousness or licentiousness being accepted in the Church as good and acceptable behaviour and on the other those who see that side as being unloving and unaccepting of people whom God has made. “Can two walk together accept they be agreed.”
I am an associate clergy member in one of the churches where the Vicar signed. At no time did he inform the ministry team or PCC of his position on this. I was horrified to see our church associated with it. You’re right, it is based on personal alliances and networks rather than reflective of the church itself.
It’s interesting that of the 26 lay signatories, only 4 state themselves to be PCC members; a further 3 are churchwardens so would also be on their PCC. 11 more are in some kind of lay ministry or leadership, and some of these may also be on their PCC although they don’t say so. Since a move to withhold parish share or request alternative episcopal oversight would have to be approved by the PCC, I do wonder how realistic the threat is. How many signatories have asked their PCCs for their views? There should have been time – this response appears more than 2 months after the bishops’ ad clerum.
I’m intrigued also that hardly any of the signatories’ wives appear on the list, though in many cases they are featured on the church website (one is described as doing ‘lots of cooking’). The signatories are mostly those who have some kind of official role in the Church, of course, though this isn’t true of all of them. And some of the wives who do have an official or quasi-official role haven’t signed.
A significant number of clergy signing don’t have parish roles at all, or if in a parish aren’t the incumbent. Again, this indicates that the threat of parishes withholding money or asking for a different bishop isn’t as serious as would appear from the fact that over 100 clergy have signed.
Let me put a question as thorny as the Brexit one just now. What do you do with such people who sign letters like this be they large or small? Like Brexit many know what they are against but who is coming up with what to do. Are they to be excluded but on the other hand how can you live with them?
Why do anything with them? Why not just leave them be?
I don’t think that’s an answer Janet . If it was all the shouting and brickbats at them should stop.
It is absolutely an answer – and a very Anglican one. They are free to publish a letter expressing their views; Stephen is free to write a blog giving the view that the clergy who differ from their bishops are unlikely to be able to carry out their threat; you and I are free to comment on both Stephen’s blog and the Oxford letter. Analysis and response don’t constitute ‘brickbats’. That’s the way it should be. No one needs to de-church anyone else.
No one has suggested that all LGBTI+ people are on the same page, or that all their friends and supporters are. Nor is everyone who is disturbed by the Oxford letter part of a ‘campaign’.
With every change there are some people who find it difficult. It was ever thus. Sometimes it’s been me, sometimes it might be you. That’s why we need to be kind to each other, forgiving one another just as Christ has forgiven us (to quote St. Paul). That doesn’t preclude honest debate.
I think there is a determined attempt to oust those who hold to a traditional understanding of where sexual relations belong. I would refer to Jane Ozanne who said on her website “There is no half-way house. Good disagreement cannot be the final resting place”. That’s a statement that only sees victory.
I referred to the little book “A Sad Departure” by David Randall on the cessation that has taken place in the Church of Scotland recently (the title is a ‘double entendre’ on the departure of the National Church from the faith once delivered as well as the sadness of those who have departed.)
Both Jane’s and Vicky Beeching’s stories have touched the hearts of many but I do hope many who are acquaint with their stories will read the testimony of the 27 year old lesbian girl given the opening chapter of “A Sad Departure”. Do see that not all LGBTI+ are on the same page as the campaign and many are holding fast to what the Church has always taught.
https://3r98nw2w9uto3s66qn2k1ho2-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/12/Sad-Departure_Full-Appendix-for-Website.pdf
I’d agree that trying to get people to leave is not the way to go. As far as PCC motions go, I’ve seen clergy getting their own way! It can be done! Keep on repeating what you want until everyone else gives in. Not put it to be discussed but go ahead as if you have, no one will check. Lie! Sign the form to say it went through, no one will check. I can give chapter and verse on all of these. So, sadly, a parish could be seeking alternative Episcopal oversight without the PCC’s even knowing.
I do think the differences on this particular area are too great for the institution to hold. OK I am saying wait and see. If the C of E adopts a similar plan to the C of S which, to boil it down, has said that the Church holds to its traditional understanding but those who disagree are free to act differently in this matter. It has been characterized as a new rule of the road: we drive on the left but if you wish to drive on the right you are free to do so provided you don’t cause any accidents. Accidents are waiting to happen in the Church but as I have said, wait and see.
By the way, my thoughts are that we just have to accept this.
I am an Oxford Diocese clergy person from a church where the vicar signed the ‘concerned Anglicans’ letter without any knowledge or discussion with anyone else in church. I want to thank our Bishops for their courage in getting off the fence, avoiding ambiguity and leading us sensitively.
I attended Iwerne Minster camps as a teenager and helped as an officer at the Junior branch at Swanage for some years. I have many happy memories. The teaching on the atonement has been central to my faith ever since, but I have moved away from some aspects of the theology and found my own path.
In my view, every adult involved was doing their best to follow the Lord. Lovely.