Rev Fergus Butler-Gallie has a very interesting Critic piece on the corrosive effect of managerialism within the Church of England.
Missionaries, not management consultants
As trust in the Church of England collapses, its leaders are prescribing more of the very managerialism that created the problem
The dust is only just beginning to settle from General Synod. I know it might sound preposterous to talk about the Church of England’s parliament in terms redolent of a gunfight in the Old West: gunfights in the Old West were often conducted in a friendlier spirit.
There were the usual vicious fights about sex, as bishops said one thing and then voted in a completely different way. There was an exceptionally unedifying scrap over a report into the State of Israel, which has possibly done serious harm to interfaith relationships. There was even a bit of rancour about Net Zero. A full house for 2026 Britain!
It is often said that the Church doesn’t represent the nation any more. Au contraire: this Synod showed it was the perfect mirror to the badly governed, divided and petty nation which it seeks to serve.
As trust in the Church of England collapses, its leaders are prescribing more of the very managerialism that created the problem
The dust is only just beginning to settle from General Synod. I know it might sound preposterous to talk about the Church of England’s parliament in terms redolent of a gunfight in the Old West: gunfights in the Old West were often conducted in a friendlier spirit.
There were the usual vicious fights about sex, as bishops said one thing and then voted in a completely different way. There was an exceptionally unedifying scrap over a report into the State of Israel, which has possibly done serious harm to interfaith relationships. There was even a bit of rancour about Net Zero. A full house for 2026 Britain!
It is often said that the Church doesn’t represent the nation any more. Au contraire: this Synod showed it was the perfect mirror to the badly governed, divided and petty nation which it seeks to serve.
The whole piece is well worth reading even for long-time outsiders - the problem is severe enough to be clearly visible from the outside.
The lack of trust in this, the institution par excellence of the nation ought to be a matter of national concern. The Church of England is in a bad state and it is increasingly clear that it cannot be trusted to appoint the leaders or engender the culture required to get itself out of that mess. That isn’t just an internal Church problem but, once again, shows that the Church’s problems are the nation’s too.
8 comments:
The Presbyterians were right all along: a church is the sum of its congregations - the elders should run the church.
Mind you, I've no reason to suppose the Kirk is doing better than the Anglicans or the Romans but at least it doesn't have a hierarchy to embarrass it.
dearieme - that's my impression as an outsider, a hierarchy can be be problematic.
Any large organisation is eventually taken over by the concerns of the careerists. Sad, really,
I thought the plans of Frankfurt School Critical Theory was to destroy the institutions that were the glue that held the country together.
The Church and religion was one of the big ones.
It all appears to be going perfectly to plan.
DJ - yes it sad and that's my impression - the CofE has been taken over by careerists.
Mike - what they didn't appear to have was a plan B to deal with their inability to make sense of the mess once the glue has gone. Destruction is easy, construction isn't.
The post destruction plan is Utopia. Fish in the morning, make shoes in the afternoon and socialist philosophy after tea.
Anon - for us, not for them.
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