RELIGION: Mysterious movements
Notes from the General Synod
You have to feel sorry for the Rt. Revd. Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester.
So I admit that not everyone agrees with me about this. Many of my friends and allies on the General Synod are of the opinion that the Bish. has completely lost sight of doctrinal principle in pushing through the proposals that have led, for the first time, to the Church of England officially sanctioning the remarriage of divorcees in church. It is, my friends point out, about as likely that this will remain ‘exceptional’ (as per the wording of the motion passed by Synod) as that Rowan Williams will use the occasion of his enthronement at Canterbury to announce that he has decided to join the Conservative Party.
And yet, I did have some sympathy for the Bishop, as he desperately tried to square the circle by claiming simultaneously that he did believe in the indissolubility of marriage (a brave stance, given how many members of Synod seemed only too ready to deny that this traditional doctrine had any validity whatsoever), and to defend the remarriage proposals drawn up by a committee under his chairmanship. Scott-Joynt was at least trying to be a man of principle; but, as one clergyman said to me, ‘the fudge has entered into his soul’. (Could there be a lesson for the Tory Party in there somewhere?)
Three cheers for the Bishop of Beverley, the only one of the bishops to vote no on this occasion; presumably, as a ‘flying bishop’, he is required to retain a full complement of vertebrae in order to prevent himself from falling off his broomstick?
* * * * * * *Possibly the most pointless event of last week’s General Synod sitting was the debate on ‘Parliamentary Democracy’, instigated by the Board for Social Responsibility (known to at least one of its members as ‘the Irresponsible Board’). The Bishop of Southwark, as Chairman of the Board — or rather, chair, as he inevitably describes himself — solemnly bewailed the extent to which formal democratic processes were becoming increasingly marginalized in today’s political world.
I suppose this does, at least, have the virtue of being innocuous enough, unlike some of that Board’s more far-fetched outpourings (such as its advocacy of the decriminalisation of cannabis, heaven help us).
It really is astonishing, however, that the General Synod considers itself qualified to lecture anybody about democracy, given that its own democratic deficit might justifiably be the envy of tin-pot dictators everywhere.
Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not hung up about democracy. I don’t think that democratic legitimacy is the only kind of legitimacy there is; I was, for instance, all in favour of hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords, and I believe that the Bishops should remain there (notwithstanding the nonsense that one or two of them utter from the red benches). Nor am I at all convinced that democracy is the best way to run a Church, given how little evidence there is for any coalescence between majority opinion and universal truth.
All the same, a body constituted as the General Synod is, cannot claim any legitimacy other than through democratic election. There is no reason why I, an ordinary layman, should have a vote on the great issues of the Church, but that my fellow laymen have put me there.
Hang on a minute. I venture to hope that you, good reader, are a loyal and faithful member of the Church of England, meekly kneeling upon your knees Sunday by Sunday, and a pillar of your parish. Nevertheless, the chances are that you have never had a vote in a General Synod election; nor, indeed, have you ever been aware that an election was actually taking place, or on what basis. Might there not be a problem here?
In fact (and I make no apology for explaining this, since it really is most unlikely that you know it already), the ‘man in the pew’ votes for his parish’s three or four Deanery Synod representatives at the Annual Parish Meeting every four years. (You voted for them at the same time as you elected the PCC; but I’ll bet you have forgotten who they are, not least because the election was probably uncontested.) It is these Deanery Synod members who act as an electoral college to elect members to the General Synod’s House of Laity on a diocesan basis, pretty much without reference to anyone. The election is carried out by postal ballot, and the extremely restricted electorate is justified on grounds of cost; but I can’t help thinking that Robert Mugabe would be proud of it.
We laity might, however, have less cause for complaint than the clergy, since we at least are not subject to institutionalised age discrimination.
In all probability, your local vicar would not be able to keep the show on the road without the assistance of retired clergy who, unlike most pensioners, carry on doing their jobs on a voluntary basis long after they have ceased to draw a stipend. You, like me, may be privileged to know one or two elderly clergymen who, hallowed by years of prayer and aware of approaching death, seem to be half in heaven already; and the Church could well do with wisdom such as theirs.
Retired clergy are, nonetheless, specifically precluded from either voting or standing in elections to the General Synod. There was a move to try and change this at the previous sitting in July; but it was roundly voted down on the grounds that retired clergy would be ‘a barrier to progress’ and would ‘keep the Church too much in the past’. Translation: our idea of progress might be their idea of deterioration, so we had better keep them out in case they disagree with us.
If, in spite of all these obstacles, you have actually managed to secure a vote in Synod elections, you will have a hard time deciding how to cast it. One redeeming feature of the whole process is that candidates do not stand as representatives of parties or tickets, formal or informal, so elections take place on a genuinely individual basis. Unless you happen to know any of the candidates personally, therefore, you are wholly reliant on their printed election addresses (which are sent out with the ballot papers). The trouble is, most of these are awfully bland, and so you may not be much the wiser.
The General Synod does produce verbatim reports of its proceedings, Hansard-style, which are readily accessible via the internet; so you might think that at least you could look up the Synod voting record of existing members. You should be so lucky! Synod (unlike Parliament, local councils and just about any other representative body you might care to think of) lacks any procedure for recording the individual votes of members, even when voting takes place by division, so there is no way of holding to account those whom you have elected.
God forbid that democratic scrutiny be let in upon this self-appointing oligarchy!
* * * * * * *Highlight of the week: A conversation with an Archdeacon in the tea-room (and, in my more cynical moments, I suspect that most of the highlights of the General Synod take place in the tea-room). The good Archdeacon — whom I shall not identify, lest I ruin his career for ever — admired my evident lack of political correctness, described himself as ‘culturally High Tory’, and wondered what on earth the Conservative Party was doing ‘going on about gay rights and that sort of thing’.
Gosh — and I never knew he cared. Make that man a bishop! Is there, perhaps, hope for the dear old C-of-E yet?
Quinquagesima writes on religious affairs for ERO
Quinquagesima, November 21, 2002 08:37 AM