IT WAS announced last week that the Suffragan Bishop of Penrith, the Rt Revd Rob Saner-Haigh, would be translated to the see of Carlisle, where he is the acting diocesan bishop. It is incredible that the appointment has taken nearly two years. Meanwhile, Ely remains vacant, and then, of course, there is Canterbury. The current process of making senior church appointments is turning out to be a disaster.
While attempts to tinker with the system will no doubt continue, there seems to be no recognition of the real issue, which is the decoupling of senior church appointments from the interests of the State. Senior appointments, though still formally made by the Crown, are now de facto settled within the Church.
The long process of change culminated in Gordon Brown’s decision, in 2007, to remove the prime-ministerial prerogative. Though some naïvely hailed this as setting the Church free from state “interference”, the effect has been to turn the Church in on itself, exposing our long and irreconcilable theological differences. Before 2007, the process of discernment recognised the obvious fact that the Church of England, by law established, is the Church of England.
The State has duties and responsibilities towards the Church, as the Church has towards the State. Loosening the ties not only reduces the moral and social influence of the Church, but harms the Church itself by reducing it to its ever-fighting factions. Conservatives — whether Evangelicals, Charismatics, or Catholics — do their best to push their preferred candidates. More loosely, liberal groups try to fight back. The result is stasis, or, at best, a series of unimaginative appointments.
The Church of England should not get above itself. It is not healthy to rely on the privileges of our position while abdicating our responsibility to the nation as a whole. It is one thing for bishops to make speeches in the Lords; it is another to ensure that bishops are appointed who have the interests of the nation at heart.
Without the State, we are in danger of becoming no more than a rabid squabble. It would take a humility that our leaders do not appear to possess to recognise that it is only our responsibility to “England” which saves us from ourselves. We have no business pushing our doctrinal preferences while the nation quietly dismisses our proper concerns, over immigration policy, for example, or assisted dying.
Of course, we are not all on the same side on these or other issues, but the quality of our debates does nothing for our mission to the nation if, at the same time, we are beating each other up over senior appointments. We are not a sect of biblical fundamentalists; nor are we about to unite with Rome; nor are we a bunch of woke lefties. The vocation of the Church of England is to be the Church of England.
