What is in Kelvin's Head?

Reforming Canon 4

07/03/2023

The Scottish Episcopal Church has a curious hobby and that hobby is reforming Canon 4.

Now, Canon 4 is the set of rules by which we choose new bishops and from time to time the cry goes up that it is time to reform Canon 4.

There are a limited number of reasons why anyone would want to reform Canon 4. Broadly speaking there’s two reasons – the first of which is that for some reason there’s a feeling held by some people within the church that the wrong person has been elected as a bishop somewhere. The second reason is the feeling that an election process has not gone smoothly and things have been very difficult along the pathway to chosing someone to be the bishop of a diocese.

It has been quite a while since we’ve engaged in trying to reform Canon 4 but right now, we are slap bang in the middle of it. There’s a strong view that the current Canon isn’t working as well as it might. Some, I suspect, do think that the wrong people are ending up as bishops, and few who have had anything to do with the process in recent years would describe it running smoothly in all cases. Indeed, the dioceses where it has seemed to run smoothly have been in the minority.

Last Saturday, the diocese that I’m in carefully considered the latest proposals for Reforming Canon 4 that are on the table at the moment and rejected them by quite decisive majorities.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the process stops here. The freshly proposed canon will still be presented at General Synod in June and be voted on. It will need more than two thirds to agree with it in each of the three houses – clergy, laity and bishops. Last year when it was first read, it didn’t achieve that. It would be fair to say that there is quite some risk that this will not get through its second reading. If that is the case, it will cause quite some upset because a lot of work goes into these things, for which everyone in the church should be grateful.

However, I was pleased that the Diocese of Glasgow and Galloway said no last week as I don’t think that what is proposed at the moment is fit for purpose and if we say yes to it, we could be stuck with it for 20 years.

What we decided we wanted to happen was the Faith and Order Board to take another look at it in the light of the concerns that people still have and propose something else next year, building on the work that has already been done.

One big problem in the process being proposed is the idea of confidentiality. It has been proposed that we return to a system where elections are carried out in which the names of those who are being considered are not published and are held in confidence by all those who are involved in the process.

It is a fine idea. However, I’ve not come across anyone at all who thinks that dozens of Scottish Episcopalians (around 150 people in some dioceses) can actually keep such a confidence for weeks on end. One of the reasons for this is that we used to have a closed system and the news of who was being considered always did leak out into the wider church. This is not particularly surprising, for after all, the wider church does have a legitimate interest in who is being considered. Something called the internet has been widely adopted, even by Episcopalians, since then too, making it even more likely that word would get around now about who was being considered.

Many candidates have found it very hard to be named as candidates for the Episcopacy publicly and found the weeks between being named and the election taking place quite tortuous. I’m one of those people. It is horrible to have everyone talking about you.

The cry has gone up that we must keep everything confidential in order to protect the candidates.

This has the best of motives but lots of us think it unrealistic.

From my point of view this could have been sorted out by looking at the election timetable and significantly changing it rather than trying to impose a confidentiality that I don’t think can ever be kept.

Some people (I am amongst them) think that the process of chosing a new bishop should be done by a much smaller group of people than is currently the case. If a smaller “electoral college” was doing the work, I could imagine it being much more likely to be able to keep the confidentiality that we are looking for.

However, if a whole diocesan synod of people are involved, then this seems unrealistic.

The idea of a smaller group of people making the choice does not seem to have widespread support at the moment, which I think is a shame.

From my point of view, it would be better to have either a smaller group which was able to keep confidences or alternatively to have the larger diocesan synod doing it, but that process to be made more rather than less transparent. I think if the diocesan synod is involved this should be a public piece of business. (This is what happens in some other parts of the Anglican Communion – eg the US based Episcopal Church).

I think members of electoral synods would probably behave significantly better than some have done if it was a public meeting that the candidates were present at. I also think that those who are candidates who come from a diocese should retain a vote in the process. It is a strange thing to take away a vote from someone simply because they are a candidate.

The current proposal we have before us is trying to use rules suitable for a small gathering for a bigger gathering and it just won’t work.

The consequence of this for candidates could be even worse than the situation that we currently have. Should an election take place and the names leak out, or even be printed in a newspaper or appear online in a social media post, the only people who would be unable to speak about this – either publicly or privately, would be the candidates. This could result in new cruelties in a system which is already problematic.

There are other things that trouble me about the proposed canon 4 process too. In particular, I’m concerned that the Personnel Committee still have no involvement in the running of the elections.

I have the feeling that the Personnel Committe would manage the interview and election processes significantly more professionally than the current combination of the College of Bishops and local members of the diocese concerned.

Some Episcopal elections have in recent years been conducted incompetently. The church needs to hear that those responsible for these processes will never have anything to do with the election of bishops again. There also needs to be a clear complaints process and all involved need to deal with complaints properly. (This has not always happened).

Incompetently conducted elections have meant candidates being treated cruelly. We need to make that stop and if that means doing some more work on Canon 4 before agreeing a new process then I think we should make the effort to make that happen.

I am aware that the problems that we have seen are not all caused by the current text of the canon. However, any attempt to change the canon should do whatever can be done to make things better.

Canon 4 needs to be revised. What is currently being proposed would probably be an improvement, but only if the electorate was composed of the House of Angels and the House of Saints who could, to the very last cherub, keep schtum when they needed to.

However, we live in the real world and I think we need a real world electoral process that will work properly.

Lots of work has been done already.

However, we’re not there yet.

The current proposals are not yet fit for purpose and should be rejected.

41 responses to “The Columba Declaration”

Edward Andrews

11/02/2016

As Anglicans get down to the important issue of the niceties of Theology, lets get into the broad brush situation.
The relationships between the Churches of the Celtic tradition and the Southern tradition have been fraught since the 7th Century (Whitby). Part of the whole question surrounding the war of Independence (and before with King David was teh independence of the Scottish Church.
The irony is that the present attempt is to bring the Churches of the united Kingdom together may well blow back on them. While the Kirk today doesn’t mean much in Scotland the most secular part of the UK I’m not convinsed that playing footise over Bishops is going to impress the older members – the ones who voted No.
The fact is that the Scottish Episcopal Church has the Anglican franchise in Scotland. It is an authentic Scottish Church (especially if you ignore the instances when it has gone to England for Episcopal ordination.) and to negotiate over its head about something so sensitive it at the best discourteous.
Those of the reformed tradition don’t get wound up by the antics of a few Episcopalians. We seek whatever degree of true unity is available to us, but do not see the need for uniformity. I spent some very pleasant years as a guest of the Scottish Episcopal Church when the climate of the Kirk became unattractive to me, and am grateful for the table fellowship which I received.
The site of two big boys presuming to set things up is not pleasing. For the information of those who want to get up tight about the real presence, that is what the reformed tradition believes, we are Calvinists not followers of Zwingli. I am not going to seek to discuss which Greer philosopher we get our understanding of existence from.

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Father David

12/02/2016

Father Ron: let us not forget that the great Arthur Michael Ramsey was born an ecumenical baby. His maternal Grandfather was Vicar of Horbling in Lincolnshire and his paternal Grandfather was a Congregationalist Minister. His Anglican Grandfather baptised him and when in adult years he visited Horbling parish church he was deeply moved when standing by the font – the place where this great man of God began his Christian pilgrim journey. However, as a child he worshipped with his family at the Congregationalist church in Cambridge. To the great benefit of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion – the kind of High Jinks that took place next door at Little St. Mary’s proved to be an attractive magnet and so the pull of Anglo-Catholicism brought to us a spiritual giant and a contender (in company with William Temple) for the title of the greatest Archbishop of Canterbury of the 20th century and a man who yearned and longed for Christian Unity.
Edward Andrews: Even as we all long and hope for the unity of all Christians your words are wise when you point to unity not uniformity.

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Keith Barber

12/02/2016

Cynic I may be, but my first response is to ask what is the hidden agenda. For I’m pretty certain there will be one, whether it’s about trying to create an ecclesiastical bulwark against disintegration of the UK or get ++Welby an ally or two in the aftermath of the huge and hostile reaction to the Anglican Primates’ decision to punish TEC (sorry Kelvin) for its moves towards inclusion of LGBT people.

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1. Jeremy Bates
  
  13/02/2016
  
  Or perhaps it’s like the Easter-calendar announcement–a convenient way of changing the subject, at Synod and elsewhere.
  
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Father Ron Smith

12/02/2016

Whatever the motivation for this ‘secret’ accord with the Church of Scotland; simple courtesy would require that the Church of England promoters consult with their Episcopally governed equivalent in Scotia.

Another point is this; do the Presbyerians realise that they may have signed up to the catholic premise of recognition of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion? Are they happy with that?

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1. Edward Andrews
  
  12/02/2016
  
  Well actually the Presbyterians believe “Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.” You will see the word real is there. Don’t know what the 39 articles say you believe.
  Those of us who are big on the real presence use the Platonic rather than the Aristotelian understanding of reality.
  
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  1. Father Ron Smith
    
    12/02/2016
    
    Not believers, then, in con-substantiation? Freely translated as bread and wine ‘together with’ the Body and Blood of Christ? Note, not the more literal trans-substantiation, which would nean the disappearance of the bread and wine. (although as some of my more scientific friends would say, this is a tautology.
    
    What all must agree on, though, is that some members of the Church of England, and many of its constituent partner Churches of the Anglican Communion, do have a problem with the ‘Real Presence’ – a reality that, for me, and I suspect most Anglican Catholics, means that the substance of the bread and wine consecrated at the Eucharist is truly “The Body and Blood of Christ” in accordance with the dominical instruction: “This IS my Body, my Blood” (Not, you will notice, “this REPRESENTS my Body, my Blood”). ‘A Sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’ – this saying sums it all up pretty well, I think
    
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    1. Kelvin
      
      12/02/2016
      
      I think it is time to draw the discussion about the real presence to a close on this comment thread. It is hardly the main point and I’ve never ever known a comment thread about transubstantiation to be constructive.
      
      Comments on the Columba Declaration welcome. Comments trying to explain what transubstantiation *really* means – not so much.
      
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      1. Edward Andrews
        
        12/02/2016
        
        Thank you Kelvin. As I see it the C of E has come poaching in your preserves. This is wrong and unhelpful. If there were going to be Anglican/Presbyterian dialogue the SEC should be the lead player. I have my own problems with the declaration as a Member of the Church of Scotland who seeks an end to the United Kingdom. However as a Catholic Christian I am in solidarity with my SEC brothers and sisters who have been left out of the loop. Both the Cof E synod and the Kirk’ General Assembly should reject the document, but I don’t suppose that they will.
Augur Pearce

16/02/2016

A contribution to the ‘establishment’ discussion: In my book the terms ‘establish’ and ‘Church of England’ both have more than one meaning. ‘Establish’, for example, can mean ‘set up, bring into existence’ (sense E1), or it can mean ‘endow, privilege’ (sense E2).

Most people who use it of the C of E use it in sense E2, and they understand the C of E (in what I might call sense C3) as an association with its own rules, distinct from the English nation but privileged by law in various ways (with some concomitant obligations).

In fact I think this describes the C of S position fairly well, but is quite wrong as regards the C of E. The C of E (I contend) is not distinct from the kingdom of England, it is that kingdom ‘wearing its spiritual hat’ (sense C1). England, as church, has various spiritual responsibilities to discharge, and in order to do so, it establishes (=creates; sense E1), by its law, a complex of specialist institutions, offices, rules, and assets which itself becomes known derivatively as the C of E (sense C2).

One clear example of how the C of E (in sense C1) and the C of S have been differently understood from very early times is found in comparing Richard Hooker’s well-known words ‘There is not any man of the Church of England, but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth, nor any man a member of the commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England…’ with the Church Act 1567, declaring those ‘quha outher gainsayis the word of the Evangell ressavit and apprevit as the heidis of the Confessioun of Faith professit in Parliament of befoir in the yeir of God 1560 … or that refusis the participatioun of the haly sacramentis as thay ar now ministrat, to be na memberis of the said Kirk within this realme now presently professit’.

The Church of England, in short, is simply England; the Church of Scotland is a privileged sectional group.

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1. Seph
  
  17/02/2016
  
  If this be so, it strikes me as uncomfortably caesaropapist. This may be one of the things that makes me uncomfortable when I am down south and find myself in a C of E church.
  
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