Diocesan Synod Address – June 2008

Diocesan Synod Address 7^th June

“Reconstructions”

Every so often the presidential address at Synod takes the form of a mixed bag of items, and today’s is one of these.   If there is an overall theme, it is that of reconstruction.  I want briefly to look at three areas, which relate directly to items that are before us on this morning’s agenda.

The first concerns ministry and mission.  I have watched – and listened – with interest and concern over recent years, and have begun a conversation around the diocese, at Deanery Chapters and other meetings, that has been going on for a considerable amount of time.  At the recent Bishops’ Council meeting, we had an unusual collective fit of enthusiasm – largely because we did what we should have done a long time ago, which was to forget about the agenda for a while, and devote a morning to looking at this particular subject.  Fareham Deanery Synod had submitted a paper asking for the Bishop’s Council to revisit the Hedges allocations of stipendiary clergy to deaneries.  And from that single request, a whole trajectory of related issues began to appear, which are replicated all over the Church of England, and are therefore not just Portsmouth problems.  These included the shrinking number of stipendiary clergy; anxiety about consequent increased workload; the relatively high average age of our clerical workforce; longer interregnums, sometimes involving readvertisement; clergy sabbaticals, and the consequent need for cover during those times; the place of the Readers in all this, as part of the “delivery system”; and such developments as new forms of ministry, lay and ordained, ordained local ministry, and the “fresh expressions” initiatives, about which we will be hearing more at the November Synod.

Everything is indeed connected to everything else!  You will be hearing later this morning about the discussions we had at the Bishop’s Council, and I hope that you will all sign up to the motion on the agenda, to support the Bishop’s Council in its wish take these ideas and proposals forward.  I want to be very candid with you all by saying that I myself, not for the first time, am not sure where all this is going to lead.  This is not some plot by the Bishop and his colleagues – it’s the result of careful listening, which will continue.  Of course, not everyone is going to get what they want – that’s impossible in a Church like ours!  If I may caricature different parts of our Church, I sometimes hear, on the one hand, pleas that everything should be based on the gifts of the individual in the community, which effectively means being under the thumb of the local church, far away from the authority of the Bishop; and, on the other hand, pleas that nothing must ever be done for the first time!  I am myself full of hope and enthusiasm about the future of the Church, but things are going to be different in the kind of reconstruction that is going to emerge.  I am not prepared to sit here for the next few years and manage decline.

The second area that I want to touch upon is the forthcoming Lambeth Conference.  In spite of all the hoo-ha, it’s still going to happen, with the vast majority of Bishops invited attending, and there is a calmer spirit among us than was the case some months ago.  According to the latest count, if you subtract Nigeria and Uganda, and allow 10% for episcopal vacancies, only 20 bishops are unaccounted for.  My own contribution to the pre-Lambeth debate took the form of a small collection of essays produced by friends and colleagues and published earlier this year, entitled: “A Fallible Church”.  By telling you about it, I am either putting you off it altogether, or else relieving you of the need to buy it!  The contributors all agreed instantly to the invitation that I gave them, realising that we were all committed to providing a more positive interpretation of worldwide Anglicanism today, in spite of all the tensions, than the doom merchants would have us believe. 

The first four short essays are case studies on various parts of Africa and their relationships with England.  These include our own Terry Louden on Ghana, and David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury, on the historic link between Salisbury and The Sudan.  James Jones, Bishop of Liverpool, provides a very moving account of a three cornered conversation that he inaugurated between Liverpool, Virginia, and Akure, in Nigeria.  What these essays demonstrate is that if we are to continue to be a Church in a multi-cultural globalised world, and not have some kind of central magistrium or papacy, then bi-lateral links are of vital importance.  And that’s why what the Diocese is doing over the forthcoming pre-Lambeth weekend, ably organised by Mark Rodel, is so important.  We do need to keep an historical perspective, and take stock of the common tradition of Christianity in handling conflict through the ages.  What we are experiencing is the painful reconstruction of Anglicanism, no more, and no less.

Thirdly, and finally, I want to say a few words about the reconstruction of our environment.  On the Wednesday after Easter, I took part in a conference at Cowes on the “Eco-Island” project, which blends concern about environmental issues with questions about the sustainability of community life, welfare provision, economic growth and so on – a project which, it is hoped, will gain European recognition, and resourcing.  Had this taken place ten years ago, it would probably have been dismissed as a gathering of anoraks!  But things have changed since then.  We are all becoming far more aware of the fragility of our planet, and the challenges facing us as we try not to rob the earth’s resources from our grandchildren.  There was a distinguished line-up of speakers, including Ghillean Prance, and the Vice-Chancellor of Southampton university, Bill Wakeham.  We heard about initiatives in replanting the Brazilian rainforest, and we also looked at a map of this part of England, which showed the likelihood of the catastrophe that we all fear, namely the obliteration of our coastline, and a rising waterline that will result in not one Isle of Wight but three.  And this makes it essential, in my view, that we have a Diocesan Environmental policy.

What that conference showed was that we can take control of the future, if there is a collective will, because, as we all know deep within us, not everything is a foregone conclusion.  So we start from where we are, and we do what we can.  And that is far more than recycling, using eco-friendly lightbulbs, or sharing transport as much as possible, and in electric cars.  To run the Island’s buses on cow manure may sound initially like a bit of a joke, but it’s a deadly serious proposition, with serious outcomes, potentially.  Reducing our “carbon imprint” will not just help to save the world, but will also help us to understand that we are stewards of creation, and not masters.  So what we are about is not just the reconstruction of the world, but the reconstruction of our relationship with it, as the work of God himself.

To reconstruct something, as I know well from recent personal experience, is about honouring what is there, but having the courage and the humility to remove what is no longer functioning and replace it with something else.  This is part of the ethos of Kairos, through which we have already discovered that, while the process can be both painful and challenging, God sometimes likes to reveal himself in crises, and he invariably gives us the strength to face them, and come through them.