Key debate on women bishops in a diverse agenda for General Synod

Agenda also considers rural affairs, hospital and health care chaplaincy, the built heritage, Anglican/Baptist relations, Church colleges and universities, and ethical investment.

The February Synod, to be held at Church House, Westminster, from 3.00pm, Monday, February 6 to 5.30pm, Thursday, February 9 has a great variety of subject matter, along with a key debate on the process to permit the ordination of women bishops.  Debates reflecting the Church’s engagement with the wider community include rural affairs, hospital chaplaincy, the Church buildings heritage, Church colleges and universities, ethical investment, the human genome, and the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.  There are also debates on Anglican/Baptist relations and on reader ministry in the Church of England.

Women Bishops

The Synod will be considering the matter of women bishops in three stages at the February Synod:  a presentation on the ecumenical responses to the Rochester Report, Women Bishops in the Church of England, on the Monday afternoon, a wide ranging debate on the Report of the House of Bishops’ Women Bishops Group (the Guildford Report) on the Tuesday morning (on a take note motion), and a debate on the Thursday morning on a motion which takes forward the recommendation in the Guildford Report for Transferred Episcopal Arrangements and invites further work on the theological, ecumenical and canonical implications of this approach for the July Synod.

Rural Affairs and the Church

The Church of England has one of the most extensive networks in rural England. This debate focuses on the major contribution of rural churches to rural community development, commends the new workbook Seeds in Holy Ground and calls on dioceses to ensure that rural churches are adequately resourced to enable a continuing and effective Christian presence in rural areas.  The resolution also urges the Government to give practical recognition to the contribution of rural churches.

Hospitals and Health Care Chaplaincy

At a time when cuts in the NHS can threaten provision for spiritual health care, this debate seeks to affirm the importance of chaplaincy and to encourage healthcare chaplains and volunteers in their work in the National Health Service and in all places of healing care.  It provides opportunity to develop the dialogue between healthcare chaplains (as employees of secular institutions) and the Church.  It also requests the Government, NHS Trusts and other healthcare bodies to ensure continuing and adequate provision of chaplaincy and spiritual care.

The Church’s built heritage

This debate is based on a motion from the Cathedrals and Church Buildings Division (CCB) that combines a Private Member’s Motion (with the highest number of signatures) from Mr Roy Thompson and a complementary motion from the Lincoln Diocesan Synod.  The CCB motion encourages work at national and diocesan level to take forward discussion of the recommendations of the Church Heritage Forum’s report, Building Faith in our Future.  It also calls upon the Government to increase financial support for the care, maintenance and repair of church buildings, and to continue the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme beyond March 2008 (if the issue of VAT on such repairs has not by then been permanently resolved in the context of European Community discussions).  It notes that grants from English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery Fund have declined in real terms in recent years, and that the cost of outstanding repair work to churches is estimated at £373 million.

Anglican/Baptist Relations

The debate reflects conversations between the Church of England and the Baptist Union of Great Britain that took place from 1992 to 2005.  The report of these conversations explores unexpected convergences in Christian initiation and pastoral oversight between the two Churches, offers searching questions to both Churches and points the way to closer practical collaboration between Anglicans and Baptists.

Church Colleges/Universities and the Church of England:  Mutual Expectations

There has been much development since the last report to the General Synod on church colleges in 1994.  For example, more than half the church colleges have become universities in their own right.  A Board of Education working group has produced a report with a statement of mutual expectations between the Church and those Higher Education institutions.  The Synod is asked to call for further development in this partnership.

Ethical Investment

The report from the Ethical Investment Advisory Group, which is the subject of this debate, speaks of the impact that the Group can have on corporate behaviour through constructive engagement.  It will be introduced by the EIAG’s Chairman, Mr John Reynolds, who will speak about how the Group might take the process of engagement with companies further.

Diocesan Synod motions focus on the human genome and the slave trade

A motion from the Guildford Diocesan Synod invites the Synod to consider that the human genome is gifted by God to each individual and as such should not be patentable, and it calls for strict control on the availability of human genetic data. 

A motion from the Southwark Diocesan Synod recognises the opportunities for the churches in marking the Bicentenary of the Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (in March 2007) and invites churches to consider ways in which pressure might be applied to bringing about an end to modern slavery, including human trafficking and bonded labour.

Agenda also looks at reader ministry, pensions and the five-year plans

A Private Member’s Motion from Mr Nigel Holmes is set within the context of a growing number of different categories of minister, both ordained and lay, and a sense that readers are under-used in the service of the church. 

A presentation by the Secretary of the Pensions Board provides an opportunity to update the Synod on recent developments in the pensions world and their implications for the Clergy Pension Scheme. 

The debate on the report Into the New Quinquennium provides the Synod with an opportunity to look at the work programme that the Synod itself and the National Church Institutions will be delivering over the next five years.

Legislative business

There is only one item of legislative business at the February Synod.  Admission of Baptised Persons to Holy Communion Regulations come before the Synod for Final Approval.  They will replace the existing guidelines on this subject produced by the House of Bishops in 1997 and will take account of the developing practice of admitting children to Holy Communion before Confirmation.