On the appointment of senior leaders in the Church
On 6th January, information technology was announced that Stephen Knott, who has been working as office of the Lambeth Palace team, was appointed to be Archbishops' Secretary for Appointments in succession to Caroline Boddington. The role has attracted attention in the past, since Caroline adult the function and so that information technology had significant command over the procedure of selecting clergy to exist part of the (too controversial) senior leader training programme, which then fed into the selection of bishops. Questions were raised about how and so much influence over the time to come leadership of the Church accrued to one (lay) position, and there was besides a question of conflict of interest since Caroline is married to the old Bishop of Derby. At her farewell in Full general Synod in November 2021, Justin Welby described her as 'the most powerful person in the Church of England.' Apparently, this was intended to exist a joke, but it was sufficiently close to the truth that only half the room laughed.
The function has in fact been inverse, with a primal part of the interest in senior leadership grooming beingness moved across to Ministry building Partition—just that has not been mentioned in any of the announcements virtually the postal service.
By all accounts, Stephen Knott has been a competent and valued fellow member of the squad at Lambeth. But his appointment is controversial, as final year he entered a same-sex marriage with his partner of 20 years, the Governor of Edinburgh Castle, Major General Alastair Bruce of Crionaich, OBE, and did then in a service of the Scottish Episcopal Church conducted by the Bishop of Edinburgh. Discussing particular individuals appointed to specific roles presents a challenge, since information technology can easily await equally though an individual is existence singled out—still there are some very significant questions of process, policy, and institutional integrity which are raised by this—and have been raised in several places.
Synod member Luke Appleton highlighted some of the bug the day after the appointment was appear:
While I don't think anyone wishes to intrude or cast judgement on Knott's private life or his marriage, to have had such a public nuptials overseen by a figure every bit senior as the Bishop of Edinburgh is probably the greatest endorsement of a marriage canon change i could gain.
Considering the contention and controversy of the current discussions and the passion held on all sides of the discussion, how can Knott remain impartial on something that will understandably be then significant to him?
Going forward, every date will be scrutinized increasingly closely. I have no reason to doubtfulness Knott is a person of integrity, and my hope would be that he would non politicize the appointment process. However having made such a public endorsement of one side and being a known friend of campaigners on that side of the debate surely raises some very serious questions. Information technology is noteworthy that a number of campaigners for liberalization have rejoiced at the news declaring information technology a 'victory' for revisionism and a major step frontward. If that is true and this role has been politicized then it must be bailiwick to higher levels of accountability.
In a letter to the Church Times last week, another Synod member Rebecca Chapman asked questions about the transparency of the process of this engagement:
I do not call back seeing this mail service advertised in the Church Times or elsewhere. Information technology appears to have been fabricated available only internally and briefly. The contrast betwixt this and the open and transparent recruitment process for the new Anglican Communion Office Secretary General, which was advertised over a period of weeks for prayerful consideration and sharing widely, is marked…
I am a recently elected member of the General Synod Appointments Committee, which has guidelines to ensure that "the process to exist followed should be clear and known." Why has the person responsible for our well-nigh senior clerical appointments been chosen through such an unclear and unknown process? Is this the standard now for church building appointments?
David Baker, writing in Christian Today, draws these problems together in his characteristically lively way:
This is a vital role. The appointment has been given to someone living in breach of Church building of England education. The whole subject is hugely controversial. As has been said in diverse place in online discussions, it would have been perfectly possible, surely, to have stated a genuine occupational requirement for the person in this mail service to be living according to the teaching of the Church of England.
While Mr Knott may no doubt consciously seek to be impartial, it is difficult to meet him being instrumental in appointing, for example, whatever conservative evangelicals as diocesan and suffragan bishops – though if he does facilitate that long overdue mythical "mutual flourishing," information technology will exist a good sign. Furthermore, in New Testament terms, what is needed is not someone who is "impartial" – but someone who is strongly fractional to Biblical truth and strongly opposed to error…
And finally – at that place is a whole process underway in the Church of England chosen "Living in Love and Faith" (LLF) which is supposed to facilitate discussion about bug around sexuality and then on. That procedure is, as even so, far from complete. It feels to many orthodox clergy and believers in the C of E that having got so far with that – and having additionally slogged their guts out through two years of a pandemic – the Archbishops are not simply jumping the gun when it comes to LLF and acting as if official church building educational activity has already been changed, but are bravado a mitred episcopal raspberry to all those (a.k.a. the majority of the global Anglican Communion) taking an orthodox position. No wonder liberal revisionists have cheered the appointment.
Ed Shaw, who is pastor of Emmanuel Metropolis Centre church in Bristol, and director of Living Out, offers a different kind of personal response, which I offer here equally an important perspective on the issues that this engagement raises.
The Church building of England keeps asking its gay members to go against their convictions and consciences.
Her well-nigh recent victim is the new Archbishops' Appointments Adviser Stephen Knott. He is a gay man who has married his partner in some other member church of the Anglican Communion, the Scottish Episcopal Church. He conspicuously disagrees with the Church of England's apostolic teaching that marriage is the lifelong matrimony of 1 man and one adult female: he has signaled that in what is surely the most public and permanent way possible. And yet the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have asked him to accept charge of the procedure of appointing the Church building of England's most senior leaders (deans, bishops, and archbishops) who are all duty bound to teach that he cannot exist married in the sight of God. How tin can they have asked him to exercise something that must be so troubling to his convictions and conscience?
Perhaps he feels, or they have indicated, that this situation won't be for that long. That soon, mail Living in Love and Faith, he will be able to assistance engage people who volition be able to "bless" his same-sex activity marriage (indicate the Church of England'due south half-hearted acceptance of it), or even allow people like him to get married as Anglicans s of the edge too. If so, it is my convictions and conscience that the Church of England is going to trample on next – I am a gay Anglican who lives in the light of historic teaching that union is the lifelong union of 1 homo and 1 woman. Every bit a effect, I am unmarried and celibate, in the reassuring knowledge that this is what my church has consistently asked of people similar me. Am I shortly to exist told that, somehow, we've got it wrong for centuries? At what toll to me and my many spiritual forebears? I'm increasingly uncertain as to whether that matters to the archbishops when they engage someone similar Stephen Knott to such a senior and influential position.
Some will say that neither Stephen Knott nor myself need to worry as well much because neither of u.s.a. are clergy and it is only the ordained, and non lay officeholders, in the Church of England, who need to live in the light of the Church building'due south official teaching on matrimony. This is an idea that has gained traction in recent years as function of an uneasy unofficial settlement that has kept liberals and traditionalists together. The Church of England's victims this time have been gay clergy who accept been disciplined when they have, like Stephen Knott, entered into a aforementioned-sex marriage (celibate civil partnerships are permitted). He will at present, in theory, be partly responsible for making sure that no ordained man or woman in his position gains preferment in the Church of England – unless his date signals a modify in the rules. How he can be asked to practise this beggars conventionalities, how gay clergy can put upwardly with one rule for him and some other for them also strains too many people'due south convictions and consciences over again. He, I, may not be ordained simply we are both in positions of authority in the Church of England and then surely need to be living in the light of her teaching in all areas of faith and conduct?
What is the solution to this personal struggle for so many of united states of america? Stephen Knott and his partner take found it – they got married in a church building that is happy to ally two men. Surely for conviction and consciences sake that is where they should be staying, and where he should be working? Others like them, Anglican men and women with deep convictions that two men or 2 women tin get married, with consciences that scream out to them when that is not allowed, should be post-obit them. Maybe the Church of England could help them past enabling a new entity where this can exist allowed for those whose convictions and consciences demand it, whilst continuing to treat people like me who honey and follow the teachings that a majority of Anglicans down the centuries, across the planet, have ever believed?
Information technology is more than virtually time the Church of England stopped its gay members from going against their convictions and consciences.
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