Ship of Fools: Reforming General Synod

Thread: Reforming General Synod Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :

There'll be increasing calls to reform the Church of England's General Synod after the vote against women bishops the other day.

My view is that some protracted exercise isn't necessary. Two simple reforms are easily accomplished.

1. Elections to the House of Laity by all of those on the electoral roll.

2. At the Final Approval stage, we should abolish voting by houses requiring only a two thirds majority (or a slightly higher threshold) of the whole Synod. The various 'houses' of Synod would still be able to exercise their distinctive roles in the legislative process up to the Final Approval stage (in other words, the House of Bishops in particular would be able to kill off unwise doctrinal changes at an early stage). This would ensure that the last stage of the process was more representative of the church as a whole.

Any other ideas out there?

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

And those proposals will get the two thirds majority necessary in the louse of laity* exactly how?

Easier for the Deanery Synods in the 42 diocese which voted yes to women bishops to find out how their General Synod representatives voted, and vote off those who voted against the will of the diocese next time the voting comes round.

(* typo, I meant 'house' - or did I [Two face]

)

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

That looks as though it's got legs.

The usual issue is the argument that "you're only recommending this constitutional change to get round a specific problem".

Presumably, in order to get this change, you'd require two thirds majorities in all three houses? So I suppose there is a risk that the minority groups would vote the same way again to frustrate the change?

"We know what you're doing, we know what you're doing!"

But what it might do is to separate out some elements in that minority whose objections were to specific terms, not opposed in principle. So that could make a difference.

And in the aftermath of the vote, the flak, and the current political debates, some cracks may begin to appear in the blocking vote.

Plus, as a number have noted, it seems likely that the Laity elections to General Synod are going to get closer scrutiny.

Yes, it could well have legs. And, politically, at least it's a sign to the "world outside" of seeking "to put our own house in order".

[ 23. November 2012, 10:14: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :

Eeeh, I don't know if I've ever agreed with Spawn before, but I'm glad to do so this time. [Smile]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

Go for the full electoral roll franchise in priority. It's the important bit. If you can't get wind in the sales for abolishing voting for houses as well, be willing to drop that as a concession. The bishops will be terrified of creating something where they can be outvoted, but might just be willing to change to a credible electoral system for the House of Laity as their concession.

They don't debate in separate houses. It isn't like the Third Estate and the Tennis Court.

The real problem with General Synod isn't this vote. That has merely drawn attention to something that has been both obvious and hidden for years, which is that it has no element in it that genuinely represents the Laity.

That's why the rest of the time, it has no credibility. None of us respect it, take any notice of it or regard its resolutions as having any bearing on what we think or do. Why should we? I've been a regular member of the CofE for forty years, and served on three different PCCs. I've never had a vote for the House of Laity.

Unless the election method to the House of Laity is changed, the next one, even if it pleases a different constituency and votes the other way on women bishops, won't merit any more respect for anything else it does.

Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :

Enoch's right that enfranchisement of the electoral roll is the priority and a long overdue reform.

Any such reform faces the accusation of stable door and bolting horse, but given the fact that three-quarters of Synod members are now feeling frustrated it could be accomplished. As to whether any reform would gain the votes in House of Laity would have to be a calculation taken. If this reform could not be conducted in the lifetime of this Synod, efforts could be make to elect a pro-reform laity next time round.

Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
If you can't get wind in the sales

I often get wind in the sales. It comes of too many sprouts at Christmas. [Razz]

The church is caught between a rock and a hard place. By reforming the system, it demonstrates that it's trying to put its house in order, as Barnabas says, but it also indicates to the antis that the gloves are off, and reform is necessary primarily to ensure the "right" result. That runs the risk of inflaming a dwindling rump into outright disobedience and even full-blown schism.

Reform isn't a bad idea at all, but doing it now is probably unnecessary if you just want women in the episcopate (the backlash from the pews should see to that), and it would almost certainly prolong and intensify the church's bitter in-fighting on this issue.

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

I don't know the detail but aren't the Houses required, as they are the Convocations? I'd always assumed that they were nigh on impossible to be got rid of but maybe not.

Thurible

Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
Reform isn't a bad idea at all, but doing it now is probably unnecessary if you just want women in the episcopate (the backlash from the pews should see to that), and it would almost certainly prolong and intensify the church's bitter in-fighting on this issue.

My proposal does not deal with women bishops legislation. My best guess is that a new measure with something akin to the House of Bishops clause 5.1(c) will be brought back to General synod and gain the necessary final approval majorities within two years. My proposals deal with future legislation. The representativeness of the House of Laity has been a problem (expressed widely) before now. Furthermore, there is now a determination to accomplish some reform so it should be taken advantage of.

My second proposed reform, albeit less important, deals with a felt need that something needs to be done about a situation in which five years work can be destroyed at a stroke by an artificially high final threshold.

I'm assuming that the work of General Synod is of a sufficiently high quality to bring good legislation forward. My personal view is that the women bishops legislation was not quite good enough.

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

I certainly agree with the suggestion about enfranchisement through the Electoral Roll. It's something I've wanted for some time. Having said that, it may not be the complete panacea. It would still leave open the possibility that well-organised large churches that were prepared to run a three line whip could have a greater influence than now. But I think that this would be a risk worth taking.

I don't think that reform of General Synod should stop there, though. Part of the problem is that lay involvement in GS is only really open to those who, for one reason or another, can spare the time. Most working people are excluded, unless they are prepared to use their holiday time for GS meetings - a decision which will hardly be attractive.

I think that we need to look at ways of opening up involvement in GS for more "ordinary" people. This may mean GS meeting at weekends. I also think that there needs to be a review of what exactly GS does. Does its business need to be slimmed down? How does GS work in relation to the Archbishops' Council? It mustn't be there simply to rubberstamp decisions made by the Council. And how about this - could some of its business be done online? Do GS members have to meet in person to, for instance, discuss a paper or report?

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

These sound like sensible suggestions. But how might election by everyone on the Electoral Roll work in an observably fair but not over-expensive way?

Certainly 'something should be done'. The present situation where people vote for people who vote for people who vote for people who vote for things in the House of Laity seems ridiculous.

Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
The bishops will be terrified of creating something where they can be outvoted,

They have just been outvoted, and it took less than 28% of the votes cast to do so.

As well as a more representative form of election, such as election by the electoral roll, we need transparency.

Take the political elections. I vote in a secret ballot to elect my MP. My vote is secret because I do not represent anyone other than myself. My MP votes in Parliament and his vote is not secret, I can find out how the person who represents me voted, that's how democracy works.

We need a simple, transparent way of finding out how the members of the house of clergy/laity* who are our representatives voted.

Reform of the house of laity has to be lay led, so that it does not sound like the response of bishops or clergy who are pissed off at having been outvoted.

(*delete as appropriate)

Posted by Uriel (# 2248) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
These sound like sensible suggestions. But how might election by everyone on the Electoral Roll work in an observably fair but not over-expensive way?

Yes, reform is a good idea, but Chapelhead is right to note the cost implications. Having administered a General Synod House of Laity election in a Diocese before I can say that it would be very expensive to do it with all on the electoral roll. In our reasonable sized Diocese we had 1100 Deanery Synod members, of whom around 800 voted. So that they would be informed in their choice, each candidate was permitted to give the Diocesan staff an A4 electoral statement, and we included this in the mailing with ballot papers. When the ballots came back, because the Synod uses an STV proportional voting system the election count took four staff 5 hours just for the 800 votes returned. The Electoral Roll across the Diocese, if I remember correctly, was around 30,000. If you ran the election in the same way the Diocesan administration would not be able to handle it, and you would have to put in significant extra resources.

You could put information out online, as well as just having the electoral statements pinned up in every church. But as we saw with the Police Commissioner elections, people seem to value having a piece of paper put through their letterbox. Voting would still have to be by postal ballot - few democracies have worked out secure online elections yet, I doubt if the C of E is likely to lead the way. There would also be increased admin on maintaining the diocesan electoral roll - it was a bugger of a job keep it up to date for 1100 people, much more for 30,000.

Just the costs of printing and mailing would be over £20K per diocese. Add on the extra admin, staff for running the count, etc, multiply that across 44 dioceses and you are getting a significant bill for each General Synod election. And, as has already been pointed out, the biggest problem is that many working lay people are not able to stand because of how the Synod operates and when it meets. So the extra costs would allow a wider range of people to select from the same pool of candidates, usually drawn from the retired, the semi-employed and the Synodical anoraks.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Great Gumby:
That runs the risk of inflaming a dwindling rump into outright disobedience and even full-blown schism.

Hmm - it's always dangerous to assume that this really is the 'dwindling rump'. Given the hollowing out of most church congregations, with a horrendous percentage being OAPs, you might find that the house of laity votes weren't unrepresentative. It's within the timescale of my involvement - 30 years or so - that in the Diocese of Manchester the smallest parish got the same number of deanery synod reps as the largest. They've slowly moved away from that - with the consequence that the largest are now expected to produce silly numbers of deanery synod reps; more than 10 if I remember correctly. Of course they don't, so they remain under-represented.

The biggest single easy reform would be to separate the electoral college status and being a Deanery Synod rep. The theory is that a Deanery Synod rep by being exposed to the issues of the wider church becomes equipped to act as an elector. [Roll Eyes]

Allowing parishes to appoint electors just for the synod elections - or rather encouraging them to abuse the present system by electing them to Deanery Synod just in time to vote, recognising that they will resign immediately afterwards, could be done without any legislative change, just an admission that this is how it's going to be... Certainly the present scenario, where failing to appoint them hasn't discouraged the Deanery Synod's overweening sense of its own importance, sadly is disproving that aphorism 'Don't vote, it only encourages them'.

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

There are problems with enfranchising the electoral roll as it's currently defined. For a start, you can be on the roll without actually going to church for a year or more, or until your vicar overcomes his/her qualms about striking you off it. You can also be on the roll without actually being an Anglican, just as long as you've attended an Anglican church often enough to slip under the wire. Finally, you can be on the electoral roll of more than one parish - which would presumably mean you had more than one vote.

However, I think the real problem of Synod - particularly the laity, but the clergy also to an extent - is that it's made up of people who want to be on Synod. I wouldn't be surprised, therefore, if axe-grinders, busybodies, and people with nothing better to do are somewhat over-represented. And I wonder how many of those got where they are by putting on an air of fake self-depractation and saying, "Oh well, if nobody else'll stand ..."?

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

I think having three houses in your Synod is kind of strange. In the US Church, the clergy and laity form one house called the House of Deputies. I think two houses would just be less unwieldy.

But I think changing everything just because one vote put off the implementation of one specific issue by five years to be rather extreme. If a body is going to be democratic, one has to put up with the body voting wrong every now and then.

Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
I think having three houses in your Synod is kind of strange. In the US Church, the clergy and laity form one house called the House of Deputies. I think two houses would just be less unwieldy.

These are just differences between US democracy and UK democracy. I've reported on a couple of General Conventions and there are strengths and weaknesses of your system as there are of General Synod. The thing we wouldn't like to import from your system is that your Deputies meet separately from the Bishops and don't debate together. We also have more time for considered debate as our Synod generally meets twice a year and yours (for many good reasons)every three years. Louie Crew came as an observer to General Synod a few years ago - he enthused to me about some aspects of it. OTOH, General Convention particularly impresses me with the use of 'hearings' as part of the legislative process to which anyone (including visitors) could give evidence. The plenary sessions are terrible in that there is very little real debate and the little there is, is often squeezed by real complex procedural stuff.

Posted by lowlands_boy (# 12497) on :

You'll have to excuse the rather obvious question from the Methodist, but presumably "electoral roll" is meant differently from the "electoral roll" that you have to be on to vote in secular elections?

I presume you're referring to what we'd call the membership list (of a particular church)?

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
However, I think the real problem of Synod - particularly the laity, but the clergy also to an extent - is that it's made up of people who want to be on Synod. I wouldn't be surprised, therefore, if axe-grinders, busybodies, and people with nothing better to do are somewhat over-represented. And I wonder how many of those got where they are by putting on an air of fake self-depractation and saying, "Oh well, if nobody else'll stand ..."?

Sortition, anyone?

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

How are you elected to the house of laity at the momnt?

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

By members of the Deanery Synod.

Thurible

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lowlands_boy:
I presume you're referring to what we'd call the membership list (of a particular church)?

Pretty much. You don't have to be on the Electoral Roll to attend. take communion etc; it's largely a way of indicating that you 'belong' to a particular church, and allows you to stand for and vote for members of the Parochial Church Council.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

Basically you have to be a lay person on the Electoral Roll of your local church, and two electors (who must be elected lay members of a Deanery Synod in your diocese) must nominate you. Then you have to be elected by the lay members of the deanery synods in the diocese.

[Cross posted.
IMHO, one of the problems is that Deanery Synod members are rarely elected with any thought about who they might nominate for General Synod, and another is that people find themselves voting for people about whom they know little and who they may not have a real opportunity to question before voting.]

[ 23. November 2012, 15:09: Message edited by: BroJames ]

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Thurible:
By members of the Deanery Synod.

Thurible

The problem goes one stage further - who elects the Deanery Synod?

[ 23. November 2012, 15:42: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
The problem goes one stage further - who elects the Deanery Synod?

Lay Deanery Synod members are elected by parishes. I believe exact arrangements vary between dioceses, but in this diocese a church with an Electoral Roll of up to 50 has one Deanery Synod representative, 51-100 two representatives and then one more for each 100 on the Roll up to a maximum of 10 representatives.

[ 23. November 2012, 15:49: Message edited by: Chapelhead ]

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

Part of the problem is that Deanery Synod, which has no money, no power and no significant job is seen as somewhere between 'incredibly boring' and 'stupid'. Arms need to be twisted to get people to stand for 'election' to Deanery Synod (I've never seen a vote for election to Deanery Synod - numbers volunteering always being equal to or less than the number of places).

So these less-unwilling-than-others volunteers then need to vote for people they probably don't know to be Diocesan and General Synod representatives.

Posted by Huts (# 13017) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
The problem goes one stage further - who elects the Deanery Synod?
Lay Deanery Synod members are elected by parishes. I believe exact arrangements vary between dioceses, but in this diocese a church with an Electoral Roll of up to 50 has one Deanery Synod representative, 51-100 two representatives and then one more for each 100 on the Roll up to a maximum of 10 representatives.

So actually everyone on the Electoral Roll does vote for those who finally get onto general synod in a round about way.

If you want the general synod to be more representative of the church, then people need to see deanery synod representatives as more important.

If you don't engage in elections - loony's usually get in

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Huts:
If you don't engage in elections - loony's usually get in

I take it you've seen General Synod.

Posted by Arch Anglo Catholic (# 15181) on :

Many fair points made already.
Have you been to a deanery or diocesan synod meeting?
The former is filled with professional committee members or those who are looking for soemthing to do and almost never by those who are really doing anything in the Church. Worse still are those appointed by their local Church because 'someone has to do it or it looks bad'.
Diocesan synod is run by the Bishop who effectively sets the whole agenda. Therefore to cry loudly that so many diocesan synods voted just the way their bishops wanted causes me to respond with the merest hint of irony 'Really? what a surprise!'
If we want a system that is truly democratic it has to involve the whole Church not just an elite.
Of course that may still not give you the answer you want. Pollsters indicate that the vast majority of the UK populace is in favour of capital punishment. Our un-representative form of government has side stepped that neatly by simply ignoring the wishes of much of the electorate - thank Heavens.
The danger of great democracy is that the decision making process reverts to the lowest common denominator.
That being said, as Churchill opined, Democracy is the worst of all systems, apart from all the others.
If the decision had gone the other way on the women bishops issue, how many would now be calling for reform I wonder, or asking whether the decision was truly representative?

I'm honestly not sure what the right system is but whatever is proposed, it needs to be well considered, thought through and not a knee jerk response to a perceived problem.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Part of the problem is that Deanery Synod, which has no money, no power and no significant job is seen as somewhere between 'incredibly boring' and 'stupid'.

Not in this diocese. The diocesan budget is partially devolved to deaneries and they decide staffing.

A parish which doesn't send reps. might find it loses its vicar because the area dean perceives a greater need in another parish and s/he can redeploy priests in charge if the synod votes to agree with him/her.

Posted by sebby (# 15147) on :

How interesting to an interested observer that when reform, or even abolition, of Synod was mooted before on here it was shot down by some with indignation.

This particular cause aside, it seems just a little odd that reform is now urgently desired because some or many even, did not receive the verdit they wanted.

I do remember that in 1992 the vote on a similar issue was carried, and then it was regarded as the voice of the Holy Spirit. I can't say that I have seen the same said this time.

Perhaps the Chinese or the former Soviet way of achieving a desired result is to be preferred by those who rejoice in the label of Liberal, or Synod just stuffed with wax works as, again, on the Chinese model.

It is a little redolent of EU charters even. Keep sending them back until you get the vote you want - or as above, change the rules.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I think that votes for the house of laity should be done by electoral roll members - however, it is difficult to find out much about the candidates.

I used to be on deanery and diocesan synods and even found it hard to know much about the candidates from that position. You can attend hustings but candidates don't tell you everything.

The 2/3rds majority in each house must have been put into the procedure for a good reason - presumably to stop something foolish or heretical. I hope someone will explain the reasoning on this thread.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
(I've never seen a vote for election to Deanery Synod - numbers volunteering always being equal to or less than the number of places).

I've stood for election and lost. (The clergy had twisted two arms too many that year.)

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

There is a problem with this that the house of laity could become even more politicised, because larger churches would have a greater say, and many of these are evangelical. I can also see that some clergy would "encourage" their members to vote in certain ways.

Having said that, reform of the laity house is really needed. There is an argument that, rather than having a lay representatives, all electoral roll members could have their vote on all synod decisions. Yes it is expensive, and also open to some abuse, but if this was only one of the three houses, it might serve to give a sense of the general view.

Of course this is also open to abuses, but because there are no personalities involved, it might be less of an issue.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

I'm not sure we've really figured out what General Synod is supposed to be yet, nor how the Church of England should be governed. Are we ruled by the Crown (which usually means Parliament these days), or by the collective will of active churchgoing members, or by the college of Bishops?

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
I'm not sure we've really figured out what General Synod is supposed to be yet, nor how the Church of England should be governed. Are we ruled by the Crown (which usually means Parliament these days), or by the collective will of active churchgoing members, or by the college of Bishops?

A fourth (and more likely) alternative: The C of E is effectively governed by the Archbishops' Council.

Now THERE is a body that is even more unrepresentative and unaccountable than the House of Laity. The Council effectively makes all key decisions and then gets Synod and Parliament to rubber stamp them. And membership of the Council is pretty much "jobs for the boys (and girls)".

Part of my ideal reform of General Synod would be to change this and make membership of the Council more representative and give Synod greater ability to challenge Council decisions.

Another suggestion to add to the melting pot.....

Is it really essential for ALL three houses to pass this (or any other significant) measure by 2/3 majorities? I think a decent argument could be made for adopting the practice of requiring all thee houses to pass it by a simple majority, AND that the overall majority (of all three houses) comes to more than 2/3.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Has no one else ever written charitable orders of institution? The standard practice is to set up a charity with the option of changing the constitution and the usual clause to allow this is by a two thirds majority vote at two subsequent meetings. Some charities insist on three quarters.

Not sure if this is charity law or something else, but every version I found when I was doing it had this clause in.

Posted by Lucrezia Spagliatoni Dayglo (# 16907) on :

quote:
How interesting to an interested observer that when reform, or even abolition, of Synod was mooted before on here it was shot down by some with indignation. This particular cause aside, it seems just a little odd that reform is now urgently desired because some or many even, did not receive the verdit they wanted. I do remember that in 1992 the vote on a similar issue was carried, and then it was regarded as the voice of the Holy Spirit. I can't say that I have seen the same said this time. Perhaps the Chinese or the former Soviet way of achieving a desired result is to be preferred by those who rejoice in the label of Liberal, or Synod just stuffed with wax works as, again, on the Chinese model. It is a little redolent of EU charters even. Keep sending them back until you get the vote you want - or as above, change the rules.

I agree. I haven't seen or heard any similar comments anywhere else. Having faith will never be easy.

Posted by Rural Rev (# 17274) on :

But back to an earlier post - do you really think the current House of Laity will vote for such a change when the chair of this knows that he holds all the cards at the moment?
I am not sure the necessary changes to Synod will come from within (certainly in my life time) and maybe Parliament will force the necessary change instead.

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Chapelhead:
Part of the problem is that Deanery Synod, which has no money, no power and no significant job is seen as somewhere between 'incredibly boring' and 'stupid'. Arms need to be twisted to get people to stand for 'election' to Deanery Synod (I've never seen a vote for election to Deanery Synod - numbers volunteering always being equal to or less than the number of places).

We are entitled to four lay reps on Deanery Synod and had five standing the last time we had an election.

Ours is certainly a toothless organisation: whilst we have to adopt the Parish Share scheme for the Deanery, it's already been approved by Diocesan Synod and so there's no actual choice.

Thurible

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Thurible:
Ours is certainly a toothless organisation: whilst we have to adopt the Parish Share scheme for the Deanery, it's already been approved by Diocesan Synod and so there's no actual choice.

Sounds like the way the Chapter elects a bishop.

Posted by Chapelhead (# 21) on :

quote:
Originally posted by sebby:
I do remember that in 1992 the vote on a similar issue was carried, and then it was regarded as the voice of the Holy Spirit. I can't say that I have seen the same said this time.

Part of the problem is that, if this is the voice of the Holy Spirit, we have to work out if the Spirit is saying

quote:
My will is that you provide more assurance to your brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with you on this matter and who are being marginalised.

quote:
My will is that you stop denying the vocation of women to the Episcopate and enact the single-clause measure that will demonstrate how all are valued and honoured equally.

The Holy Spirit is tricky that way.

All we can really do is try to get to the 'mind of the church', and many are convinced that the current set-up doesn't do that. As we all (of whatever party) know that all reasonable, sensible people agree with us, how do we get the House of Laity to reflect that? Deanery Synod doesn't seem to work in many places.

Leo's experience might show in part the way forward - get Deaneries to be more significant. I know it's almost impossible even to get people to attend a service in the next village, but if we are going to get the bulk of the laity more involved in the wider church (beyond vague prayers and support for 'our' missionaries) then Deaneries would seem to be the place for it to happen. At least there is some chance of relationships being built up between individuals. Even, possibly, between people of different traditions. [Eek!]

[ 24. November 2012, 11:34: Message edited by: Chapelhead ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

Like Spawn said (and Bishop Pete, on another thread), we want direct elections to synods. The indirect system isn't working.

No real need to change the supermajority requirement. There are good reasons for that and its quite a normal thing in churches and charities and clubs.

The last thing we want is to run whinging to Parliament. We should be trying to stop them from interfering in church politics, not getting them more involved just because we think they might be on our side this time round.

We've got a constitution. Rules, procedures, standing orders. It allowed a minority to block what seemed to be the interests of the majority. Bad news. But changing the constitution because of one bad decision would be worse. We can work within it to get the change we want - or if we can't then maybe we don't deserve to get the change.

So what supporters of ordained women in the Church of England ought to be doing now is probably:

1) deciding whether or not there is a decent change of bringing back the question in the next year or two under the current rules and within church structures.

2) identifying synod members who claim to be in favour of women but in fact voted against and finding out why they did and what if anything might persuade them to change.

3) getting as organised as our opponents are and make sure as many candidates for the next general synod stand on a clear pro-women platform.

4) push for change to direct elections to diocesan and general synods as soon as possible (presumably it would have to be the synod after next)

Yes, its politics. So what? When we build a church building we need architects and builders to do it for us, because that's what they do. When we build a coalition or consensus behind some change in our laws, we need political activists and campaigners to do it for us, because that's what they do.

[ 24. November 2012, 14:50: Message edited by: ken ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I agree with Ken.

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I am not quite sure why church members being ecclesiological politicised is a bad thing. It means that they are actively concerned about the direction the denomination is going in.

I would be worried if politics all circled around a single issue or became "my party right or wrong" or became solely over personality. However when it refers to people wanting a greater say in decisions made on their behalf, I tend to think it is a good thing.

Whether voting democracy is the right way to go is a whole different question.

Jengie

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