Thurifer visits General Synod
The tea rooms were empty. The debating chamber was full. That could mean only one thing. The General Synod was debating sex. And gay sex at that. The debate over the blessing of and prayers for same sex relationships but not for same-sex marriage was spread over two sessions. *
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The most effective speeches were those that were extempore not those had been written (with perhaps a little too much of the midnight oil) with overwrought metaphors or grandiose phrase-making that may have seemed profound in the writing but were clichéd and overly verbose in the delivery. Some of the worst were the clergy who mistook the podium for the pulpit, whose self-conscious oratorical clichés and mannered delivery were less than convincing.
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There were relatively few interventions by bishops during the debate of the proposed amendments, apart from the Bishop of London who was steering the legislation through the Synodical process. She did it with calm reasonableness even when batting amendments to the boundary. She had a sticky wicket but played her innings well. There was only one charming slip when he she appeared to commend Holy Matrimony for same-sex couples but meant Holy Communion. Interventions by bishops from the floor were less accomplished. The Bishop of Lancaster’s contribution seemed, at least to this observer, chaotic and unhinged. The Bishop of Chichester was as eloquent as usual but the prose seemed overwrought. The Archbishop of Canterbury opposed one proposed amendment and launched into a passionate defence of Nigeria for which country and its people he evinced a respect and admiration. However, when he means to be passionate he sounds merely querulous and ill-tempered and that was not redeemed when his voice faltered and he seemed on the verge of tears. This heart of stone remained unmoved.
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Most of the two lengthy sessions was occupied with a long series of amendments which came primarily from an Evangelical perspective. They won one or two and came close to winning in a few others in the House of Laity but the House of Bishops and the House of Clergy trumped them on each occasion. The most sustained applause over the two sessions came when a point of order suggested that a vote by Houses, rather than Synod as a whole, gave the House of Bishops an inbuilt power to block any amendment to their own document. That is the nature of an episcopal church and the logic of Apostolic Succession. But in the world of realpolitik that is the way it is.
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What came as something of a revelation was the procession of those in favour of Living in Love and Faith who announced their relationships of one sort or another. Among the more soberly dressed there were splashes of colour and the exotic. Vivid reds, purple hair, a pink suit. The division was sartorial as well as doctrinal and moral. It is an irreconcilable division, as much as the division over the ordination of women was (and is). The compromise that is the national church, the divisions of catholic, broad/liberal, evangelical are more sharply delineated. there is no middle ground. There is only the exercise of power, even if it is a quasi-democratic power.
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Once the amendments had been determined, the final debate added little and was unlikely to have changed any minds. Trenches had been dug and occupied. All this was acted out against the recent evidence from the last Census that the for the first time under half of the population descried themselves as Christian. And of that minority, a mere fraction is Anglican. This debate was little more than forlorn echoes along empty corridors. The final vote to accept the prayers for same-sex unions was House of Bishops 36 for 4 against 2 abstentions: House of Clergy 111 for 85 against 3 abstentions: House of Laity 103 for 92 against 5 abstentions.
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One of the heroes of the marathon was the unruffled Chair (although as he was often but not invariably referred to as Mr Chair, it is unclear what point was being made) Geoffrey Tattersall. He was an oasis of calm and measured reasonableness with a telling and appealing sense of humour sprinkled throughout the long sessions. Challenged once on procedure that contributions from those opposing amendments were given the last word, he was gracious to a mean-spirited intervention. He only voted once and that was when he suggested that the debate concluded. He may well have voted in favour. He was ably assisted by one of the Synod lawyers, wigged and gowned, and their head-to-head discussions, switching the microphone on and off, were, oddly, mesmerising.
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Some forty years ago a new vicar was moving into his vicarage, in what was then a typical Anglo-Catholic working-class parish, and was being assisted by two parish stalwarts, women in the early sixties. As a bed was being taken in by the removal men one of the women asked the vicar, ‘Is that your bed, Father?’ ‘Yes’, he said. ‘But it’s a single bed, Father’. ‘Yes’. ‘Father A [his predecessor] had a double bed. He had a friend, Father. Do you have a friend , Father?’ ‘No, I don’t’. She turned to the other woman, ‘Mavis, Father doesn’t have a friend living with him’. Mavis said, ‘Oh dear. Who will do the tombola?’