(Updated 13 July after the release of Meg Munn’s statement and then Maggie Atkinson’s statement)

Tweets in italics, connecting prose not… This blog started out as focused on sexuality and the church, but evolved to cover safeguarding too, not least because they are connected; something I explored in 2020 on another platform, here. This reflection is based solely on the safeguarding issues, although there was plenty more at this Synod that took my breath away; not least, 

Highlights (lowlights?) of that Synod, in addition to the ‘find the standing order’ episode, must be the man who said we should drive our cars more and fly more because God has climate change under control, and the man who said his parish shouldn’t ever contribute to redress for victims and survivors of abuse because nobody has ever been abused at his church *and they never will be*.

The ‘find the standing order’ episode refers the extraordinary (even by C of E standards) scenes on Sunday afternoon as members of Synod conferred in little groups around the debating chamber to find a standing order that would allow Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves, recently removed as Independent Safeguarding Board members, to address Synod. When such a way was found, it was excellent to hear them, and they came across to me as committed, passionate, and professional. We didn’t hear from the third member, Meg Munn, brought in to replace Maggie Atkinson after data security issues, although she was present. I heard comments afterwards to the effect that if only we had heard from Meg then we’d have heard a very different story; the implication was that this story would put the Archbishops’ Council into a better light. But then on Thursday morning, the day after we all staggered home exhausted from trying to combine the different accounts we were given over the course of the Synod meeting, Meg Munn’s resignation followed on the heels of Synod member Gavin Drake’s resignation, and she gave the Church Times information which does not increase our trust in the Archbishops’ Council, commenting for example that ‘the Archbishops’ Council has been slow to listen to those with organisational and safeguarding expertise’ and that ‘they failed to support me as Chair in developing plans for phase 2 of the ISB, indeed the Archbishop of Canterbury actually undermined me.’ Her statement also challenged the low output of the ISB and the inadequacy of the plans for moving to a phase 2, the fully-independent stage which was supposed to follow. As ever, the C of E spokesperson who initially commented on this news story trotted out the old ‘there are lessons to learn’ line. There certainly are.

On the final day of Synod, I tweeted that as Synod

continues on its final session, I think back to what I asked in the first debate on Friday: including my comment on #transparency, that I have no idea what was going on with the ISB sackings. And I still don’t.

This was based on something I contributed to the first debate of the meeting, the one on the Agenda (on the Friday YouTube recording at 1.07.00). After mentioning an item not placed on our Agenda, the Private Member’s Motion calling for an independent review into Soul Survivor, and thus making it clear that safeguarding was on my mind, I spoke about what I called ‘the agenda underneath the Agenda’, the issues of transparency, accountability and trust. On transparency, I asked ‘What is going on?’ and added ‘I’m hoping during this Synod I’m going to find out.’

Well, I didn’t. And I still haven’t.

The Archbishop of Canterbury blamed the disgraceful one hour’s notice before the 21 June announcement of the ISB dissolution – something which added to the trauma for many survivors who only found out when the announcement was made – was to give time for Synod papers to be issued. And then, the Archbishop disagreed with the Archbishops’ Council and wasn’t sure what he was allowed to say about what happened at it, but gave us the new information that neither Archbishop agreed with its decision #transparency #accountability #trust

I tried to make sense of this ‘the Archbishops didn’t agree with the AC’ alongside the other statement that the decision was unanimous. I decided that perhaps the decision to sack Jas and Steve was unanimous but the appalling timing wasn’t. Who knows? Somebody, presumably, does. But they’re not telling. I noted I’m still being told that I haven’t heard all sides of the story. I still don’t know what happened on 21 June: did the AC meet then or earlier? If the archbishops wanted a delay why wasn’t there one? I’ve also been told that the platform party *did* want Jas and Steve to speak but had to work out how to enable this. True? And I have a question about what the vision was for Phase 2 that Phase 1 had developed when the ISB was stopped.

Since Meg Munn’s full statement came out, I can attempt an answer to the very last question here – there were, apparently, plans, but they ‘lack[ed] necessary detail’. Or, if we go with Maggie Atkinson’s statement, the ISB which has been closed down was already trying to be Phase 2.

I supported Gavin Drake’s attempt to have a Following Motion on the Archbishops’ Council decision, and to place this after the discussion of the Archbishops’ Council Annual Report, something needed because the safeguarding slot was a ‘presentation not based on a report’ and so not open to following motions (yes, Standing Orders are sometimes very odd). But after some more invocation of standing orders it was not put to Synod for voting and something similar happened when Martin Sewell tried to put something in during the final item on the revised code of practice for safeguarding reviews: Once again proper discussion of safeguarding is closed down in the C of E Synod. A lot of people voted against ending this debate on the code of practice for reviews but the chair wasn’t willing to e.g. impose a one minute speech limit to hear more voices. All I wanted there was to continue the debate even with a one minute speech limit. The chair and vice chair of the House of Laity did too.

Picking up something another member said, I noted that The phrasing of “making the C of E less bad” is very accurate but very depressing as a way of thinking about what Synod does.

And so I go on… What I didn’t get called to ask in the debate on the Archbishops’ Council: on progress against the IICSA recommendations. “Can you refer me to where I would find the latest update on each recommendation and the action taken to date?” So on Thursday I asked the Chair of the House of Laity and the Lead Bishop for Safeguarding that question, and the former is on the case. Wouldn’t a simple table noting what we were asked to do, how we did it and who is responsible for making sure we do the rest, go a long way here?

I was interested, though, that the most read-tweet I made over Synod wasn’t any of these. It was one that came out of hearing a number of upbeat speeches on the lines of, ‘if we just pray even more/have more faith, God will send us more people and they’ll bring in more money and we won’t have to worry about how we are going to continue despite increasing reliance on the Church Commissioners’ pot, increased diocesan deficits, and falling numbers of regular givers with no increase in the amount they are giving’. I suddenly realised that this variant of a prosperity gospel isn’t feeling right to me. So I raised my fears in a speech and then wrote on Twitter: How to be unpopular at @synod. Having seen again the evidence of continued decline in giving, ask “Is there a point when we start to ask whether the poorer church is what God is calling us to be? This is a serious question. Is anyone thinking about this or are we asked to put our fingers in our ears and hum – and pray??” No answer given.

The comments on this tweet were supportive, referencing the post-Constantinian church and the possibility that we are going to need to redesign all our models of ministry. I would love to know that I’m not alone in the C of E in wondering whether we are clinging on to an image of church at a point where God is calling us to think outside the box. Maybe if we could move away from our current culture of deference, our lack of transparency and of accountability, and our inability to trust each other – and for parishes and dioceses to trust each other – we could find a new way to be the Body of Christ and to serve each other, and our nation, more effectively? Because it’s in the love and care shown in local manifestations of ‘church’ that my hope lies.