Saturday, December 08, 2012

Campaigners seek to change the system

THE narrow defeat of the women-bishops draft Measure in General Synod has prompted calls for the process of electing members to be changed.
The campaign group for women bishops WATCH said that the voting among the laity showed that "there was a considerable discrepancy between the local and national voting patterns. 
When the legislation was debated at diocesan level, it achieved more than a two-thirds majority among lay people in 37 of the 44 dioceses. 
"In Guildford, for instance, 70 per cent of lay members voted in favour at diocesan level, but three of the four General Synod members voted against. Had the General Synod members representing six dioceses chosen to reflect the views expressed by their diocesan synods, the Measure would have passed." 
Canon Rosie Harper, a member of the House of Clergy (Oxford), said that people in her parish felt "completely betrayed" by the fact that four of their lay Synod representatives had voted against the Measure, when the vast majority in the diocese was in favour. 
She said that there would be "much lobbying for change in the system" governing how the House of Laity was elected. She suggested that the process of electing members of the House of Laity should be reformed: instead of deanery-synod representatives' electing them, everyone registered on a parish electoral roll should be eligible to vote, she said.
Ruth McCurry, a spokeswoman for GRAS (the Group for Rescinding the Act of Synod), speaking in a personal capacity, said that deanery-synod representatives often did not have "personal knowledge" of those who were standing for the House of Laity of the Synod. Different groupings had succeeded in getting people elected in the House of Laity.
"We need a system where the electorate know each other, and that points to diocesan synods doing the electing [of General Synod lay representatives] instead of deanery synods, because they know the people in their diocese."
Nevertheless, the Revd Jon Marlow, Priest-in-Charge of St Pancras's, Plymouth, who studied synodical governance at theological college, wrote on his blog on Sunday: "As it stands, the electorate of General Synod lay reps is directly representative of every church in the country, and there is no other body than deanery synods of which that is true."
Introducing "any sort of proportional representation" to the process of electing members of the House of Laity would "only seek to increase the influence of the larger churches", he argued.
Elsewhere on the blog, Mr Marlow wrote: "The important thing to realise about General Synod members is that they are representatives, not delegates. Members are elected from and by their peers, and entrusted with making a decision on our behalf. They are not sent with a mandate: they are elected to think for themselves."
There have also been calls for lay supporters of women bishops to stand at the next General Synod elections in 2015.
The Revd Stephen Kuhrt, who chairs the Evangelical group Fulcrum, said: "The next elections for General Synod in three years' time may well turn into a virtual referendum on the issue [of women bishops], meaning that a very different House of Laity will surely be elected. It is vital for lay people in the Church of England to wake up to their responsibility to get people elected to General Synod who will properly represent them."
Mr Kuhrt said that Charismatic Evangelical leaders, who were mostly in favour of women's leadership, "recognise the greater responsibility they need to have in speaking out on such issues. The excuse of 'not wanting to do politics' is not good enough."