Diocesan Synod Presidential Address (excerpt)
May 14th 2005

Elections to the General Synod

The General Synod matters. It is how we make decisions as, and for, the Church of England; and, like it or not, it is the General Synod, not what happens in your church on Sunday, that the national media is watching and reporting. So it matters that there are godly, competent and appropriate candidates, and that each of us takes some responsibility for encouraging qualified people to stand for election; and it matters that those with a vote have thought what issues should be uppermost in their minds. I can speak, as perhaps the only member of this Synod who is neither a candidate or an elector!

The General Synod needs younger as well as older members – including, I should say, a good smattering of people well under 25. It needs female members, ordained as well as lay. It needs members from the minority ethnic communities. 

I’m not surprised that for many people, candidates and electors, this seems a single-issue – or at best a two-issue - election: and that the issues people have in mind are either or both of women as bishops and same-sex sexual behaviour. 

Each is important for our Church, whether we think of the Church of England or of the Anglican Communion, and for our ecumenical relationships; and on each I’ve no doubt that the next Synod, serving for five years from this November, will spend a good deal of time. But in my judgement both our Church, and the nation, will be very poorly served if one or both of these issues are foremost in the minds of candidates and electors.

For me, the question that should most concern us all is the reception of the Windsor Report of the Lambeth Commission as confirmed and developed by the Primates’ Meeting at Dromantine in February; because if the next Synod, led by the House of Bishops, does not consistently support the leadership here of the Archbishop of Canterbury and his fellow-Primates, then first the Anglican Communion, and then the Church of England, could well be broken apart and cease to exist as we know them.

And here, summarily, are five more subjects, each really a range of questions in itself, for candidates and electors: 

The Mission-Shaped Church agenda
Christian witness in social and political, environmental, trade and aid, and peace issues, in the UK and internationally
Ecumenical opportunities and decisions
The inter-dependence financially of dioceses
Church and State, Church and Crown.

In fact, you could almost use our Pastoral Letter as a manifesto, and as a check-list!