AMID warnings that the Church of England faces an “existential” crisis on multiple levels — falling clergy numbers, a slump in vocations, and low morale in parishes — the General Synod voted on Saturday against radical measures to redistribute the Church Commissioners’ wealth.
Members of the Commissioners issued stark warnings about the consequences of approving a proposal moved by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Dr Michael Beasley, which would have committed one per cent of Commissioners’ funds to diocesan stipend funds in perpetuity (News, 11 July).
In a debate that pitted national interests against the local, several speeches were made in defence of the existing method by which the Archbishops’ Council disburse funds through grants. The Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, told Synod members that a “no-strings subsidy” would “encourage torpor and disincentivise missional imagination”.
Other members lamented a perceived lack of trust placed in local expertise, and the “exhausting” demands made by the grant system.
The Synod eventually voted by a large majority in favour of an amendment by the Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, which called for a “greater level of stakeholder engagement” in national spending plans.
The original motion, carried over from February, called on the Church Commissioners to transfer to diocesan stipend funds a sum based on the amount that diocesan boards of finance (DBFs) could have gained had they invested the sums that they have contributed to clergy pensions since 1998: an estimated £2.6 billion (News, 31 January).
Moving the motion on Saturday morning, the Bishop of Hereford, the Rt Revd Richard Jackson, said that the original plan was “unrealistic” and he therefore welcomed the amendment from Dr Beasley.
Bishop Jackson spoke of the “parlous state of diocesan finances” that had produced “a cut in number of stipendiary posts, the amalgamation of parishes, increased clergy stress, reduced morale, and a collapse in vocations. Undoable jobs with a commensurate increase in the length of vacancies”. He said: “This is an existential threat to the Church of England.”
In a speech echoed by others, he suggested that the debate underway was about where decision-making power lay when it came to the best way of distributing the Church Commissioners’ fund.
“Is it local decision-makers in parish and dioceses . . . or is the determination better made by experts in the NCIs . . . usually as the result of an exhaustive and exhausting process?” He told Synod members that a small grant of £450,000 for Hereford diocese had required more than 500 working hours.
“I urge you to put your faith in the local,” he said. “Do we still have faith in the parish system — or are we going to let it wither on the vine, to be replaced with regional centres and lots of forlorn empty buildings? That is where the current trajectory will take us.”
Bishop Jackson’s plea was echoed by Dr Beasley, who told members: “Let’s not accept more conversation as a substitute for action. It simply lets the same small circle decide and deliver more of the same.”
The Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, supported him, echoing her colleagues’ concern about the state of parish ministry. “Stress levels are high among clergy,” she said, “some of whom, especially in smaller churches, feel like they are failing, and it is difficult to see how we can increase vocations to ordained ministry if people see that we don’t have the funds to pay the stipends.”
Accessing grant money, she said, was “enormously time consuming and comes with restrictions which crucially mean appointments have to be time-limited.
“Nine years may seem like a long time, but parish churches have been built on the religious and spiritual capital of centuries, and the Holy Spirit cannot be expected to act within the scope of our pre-determined time scales,” she said.
The Revd Dr Ian Paul (Southwell and Nottingham), a member of the Archbishops’ Council, questioned putting faith in local decision-making. He said: “We could simply release the money, assuming that across the dioceses we would reach the point where we are all equally sharing a passionate and disciplined commitment to mission and growth. The hard truth is that we are not there yet.”
The First Church Estates Commissioner, Alan Smith, warned that a statutory requirement to pay out one per cent of the value of the Commissioners’ fund in perpetuity would “crowd out” almost every other area of discretionary spending, requiring the ring-fencing of £3.5 billion. This would also lead to “sub-optimal asset allocation” necessitating the moving of funds to lower-yield assets with greater liquidity, and lower returns. Such a move could potentially put the Commissioners’ credit rating at risk, he warned.
Dr Wilcox agreed that the Church had a “funding crisis” and said that stipendiary clergy — “praying, creative, missionary” — were “the greatest asset in revitalising our dioceses”. But, as a Commissioner, he echoed Mr Smith’s warnings, and suggested that the Ecclesiastical Committee in Parliament might reject the legislation.
His amendment called on the Business Committee to schedule a “full debate that will enable Synod to express its view on the approach to disbursing funding”.
Several speeches suggested that parish ministry was becoming, as the Revd Vincent Whitworth (Manchester) put it, “impossible”.
The Archdeacon of West Cumberland, the Ven. Stewart Fyfe (Carlisle) warned that, since 2015, parish ministry had been “underfunded to a dangerous point”. Clergy jobs in rural areas were unmanageable, he said. “What makes us distinctive as the Church of England is [that] we maintain a Christian presence in every community and that is never going to pay for itself, but it is a proper charitable priority for Church Commissioners’ redistribution.”
Canon Kate Massey (Coventry), who, until six weeks ago, was serving alone in a parish of 15,000 in Coventry, found it “bittersweet” to hear about growth in churches in receipt of large grants. She had served a “faithful community of believers who are chasing an ever-receding horizon of cost-of-ministry payments”. Those without resources were “made to feel like they are failing”, she said.
Others defended the existing approach to disbursement.
The Revd Andrew Hargreaves (Portsmouth), a Team Vicar in a group of parishes revitalised by a Holy Trinity, Brompton church-plant, said that Strategic Development Funding and Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board funding had made a “profound difference” for these parishes, generating vocations and growing numbers of children and young people. He, and others, suggested that, even were more funding to be made available for stipendiary posts, falling numbers of clergy and vocations cast doubt on whether they would be filled. A total of 660 priests had retired last year, replaced by only 370 deacons.
Responding to the debate, Bishop Jackson regretted that so few speeches from the laity had been heard — these were the voices that had been filling up his inbox, he said.
The Synod voted in favour of the amended motion, 361 to seven with 14 recorded abstentions.
