CAMPAIGNERS are already preparing for the summer’s elections for the next General Synod, which, among other things, is expected to vote in 2028 on stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples.
The national co-ordinator of Together for the Church of England, Nic Tall, said this month that the organisation was working in partnership with Inclusive Church (IC) to support candidates willing to make a public commitment “to equality for everyone, at all levels and roles within the Church, regardless of disability, economic power, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, learning disability, mental health, neurodiversity, or sexuality”. It would also help electors to identify these candidates.
Inclusive Church (IC) reported in 2021 that 131 of its candidates had been elected to the Synod: up from 80 in 2015.
“It’s not always clear from what candidates say about themselves what their actual position is on some quite hot-potato issues like human sexuality and women’s ministry, and some candidates who have more conservative views won’t make any reference to that or will speak about it only in the vaguest of terms,” Mr Tall said.
He advised voters studying election statements to bear in mind that “if they don’t mention an issue you care about, don’t assume they would agree with you, and if they do say something be very clear as to what they are and aren’t saying.”
In 2021, the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) advised candidates not to “focus on controversial matters such as same-sex relationships/marriage”. The guidance also suggested that it might be “wiser” not to refer, as an alternative, to human sexuality: “it might be helpful to talk about listening positively to and respecting the views of others, even when we find ourselves disagreeing.”
Canon John Dunnett, the CEEC’s national director and the chair of the Evangelical Group of the General Synod, said last month: “Because candidates stand as individuals and not as members of any church ‘party’, our advice to them continues to be that they need to decide what is appropriate to say based on their own local context. With specific regard to LLF [Living in Love and Faith], it is regrettable that the continuing impasse means that this issue could be foremost in many people’s minds during the election campaign.”
The elections were “a key moment in our calendar”, he said. “As you would expect, we will be working across all of the dioceses to support candidates who stand for orthodoxy. Our goal is to ensure a strong and representative orthodox Evangelical presence in the General Synod, so that we might have a significant voice on all of these important matters.”
The elections were happening at “an interesting time for the Church of England”, Mr Tall said. The next Synod quinquennium would be coterminous with much of the archiepiscopate of Archbishop-designate Mullally, who will turn 70 in 2032. It is only once in every 15 years that deanery-synod elections — which due to take place in the spring — happen in the same year as a General Synod election.
Asked about concerns that elections would be dominated by questions about human sexuality, Mr Tall said that, while there were matters on which a “broad consensus” existed, there would be “certain issues” where there was a choice to make. “Sexuality and issues around LLF, whether we like it or not, will be something very much in front of people’s minds, partly because the House of Bishops has not been able to reach a settled position.” The Synod existed “for us to talk abut the things we don’t agree about”, he said.
In the coming weeks, IC/Together would be identifying candidates through its diocesan network and trying to ensure greater diversity, encouraging those who felt that the Synod was not somewhere that they belonged, he said. But it would first be trying to encourage people “to understand more that deanery synods really matter”. In 2021, some candidates had been elected by one vote.
Every three years, PCCs elect their lay representatives to the deanery synod. The number from each parish is determined by a resolution of the diocesan synod no later than 31 December in the year preceding the elections. This can be determined in various ways, for example, according to the number of names on the parish’s electoral (larger churches having more deanery-synod members).
In recent weeks, some diocesan synods have considered amendments proposing a faster rate of increase by electoral-roll numbers. In Birmingham, this would have meant one additional representative for every 50 additional members of the electoral roll, with the total capped at 12 rather than seven. Using this framework, St Luke’s, Gas Street, which is part of the Holy Trinity, Brompton, network, could double its deanery-synod representatives to 12.
The Save the Parish (STP) campaign was launched just weeks before the 2021 Synod elections. The Revd Marcus Walker, who chairs STP and was one of its successful Synod candidates, said last month that it had calculated that at least 150 of the members elected in 2021 were in sympathy with its vision.
STP’s hope this time was for “a much clearer sense of who we are” and a more extensive campaign across the country, he said. What had begun as “four of us WhatsApping” had grown into a mailing list of three or four thousand people.
“Wins” during the current Synod included the passing of his amendment to the Governance Measure to ensure that particular regard be given to the cure of souls in poor areas, and the increase in Lowest Income Communities Funding, Fr Walker said. There was also a sense that the narrative had changed.
“Five years ago, there was a feeling that what was happening at parish and diocesan level was a natural disaster . . . [that] people have stopped coming to church; therefore, there is no money. What has become clear is that it’s a choice. . . Questions of how money is spent . . . have risen hard up people’s agenda.”
He pointed to the fact that five other bishops had supported the bid by the Bishops of Hereford and Bath & Wells to see more of the Church’s wealth sent directly to dioceses to support parish ministry.
Support for STP cut across more contentious issues, he said. “We have people on both sides on the debate who are able to get along wonderfully at our events.”
In 2021, representation of the Catholic Group in the Synod fell from 50 to 30 members. Anglo-Catholics elected included the Archdeacon of London, the Ven. Luke Miller, who, as one of only two traditionalist archdeacons in the whole Church of England, suggested that the Synod “desperately needs the direct experience I can bring”.
The director of Forward in Faith, Tom Middleton, said last month that the Catholic Group would campaign to maintain a strong traditional Catholic presence in the Synod. It would “continue to highlight the importance to the Church of England of the witness of the universal Church, particularly in its celebration of the sacraments gifted by God. Those sacraments include holy orders, holy matrimony, and the reconciliation of penitents.”
In recent years, members of the Catholic Group have joined forces with Evangelicals and “UK Global Majority Reps” under the umbrella of the Alliance, which has opposed the direction of travel on LLF and campaigned for the stand-alone services of blessing to be subject to further synodical processes. The Alliance includes the Revd Sarah Jackson, CEO of the Revitalisation Trust, and chair of the HTB Network on the Synod.
Candidates from churches in the HTB network will be standing and re-standing, the Church Times understands. Its leading part in the Alliance — which campaigned strongly, and apparently successfully, for the Prayers of Love and Faith to be subject to further synodical approval — marked a noticeable shift from a previous tendency to avoid “church politics”.
