Each day this week Anglican Futures will give a summary of what happened at Synod for those with little time to spare.
*TL:DR = Too Long: Didn't Read
1) The Archbishop of York survived a vote to stop him giving the Presidential Address - with help from the Bishop of Dover, though a third of members could not support his right to speak.
2) During questions, the Bishop of Europe tried hard to defend the sophistry that it is at the heart of the debates about the Prayers of Love and Faith (which offer a blessing to those in same-sex relationships).
First he said that the bishops would not be offering any objective analysis as to whether the blessing of same-sex relationships departs from apostolic teaching because it
"is a matter of a person's own conscience to what view they have about the level of disagreement that that these issues present for them and that it's not for others to constrain them into into a particular level of disagreement so we respect difference in the different levels of disagreement which different people hold."
Then he tried to explain why when a couple come to the church for a blessing because of their relationship, it is only the couple that are blessed not the relationship.
"Yes the, the prayers bless the individuals, um they're not making a statement about the um the relationship into which they're entering if it's a uh so that that's turns on quite a significant distinction in the way that the blessing is being used."
Plural truth anyone?
3) With his tongue firmly in his cheek, Rev Robert Thomson, asked the Archbishop of York what mechanisms he was putting in place to improve his memory (after the Archbishop of York had to apologise for making statement based on misremembered facts). Stephen Cottrell avoided the question.
4) Synod voted almost unanimously (2 abstentions) to repent of the failures of safeguarding detailed in the Makin Report and to recognise that the impact of such abuse is still felt today, so should not be described as historic.
Speeches worth watching:
a) Rt Rev Julie Conalty, Bishop of Birkenhead, read out four, very different, statement from survivors of John Smyth.
b) Mr Ed Shaw spoke of the need for culture to change.
c) Dr Nick Land talked of the danger of what C.S. Lewis described as "inner rings."
d) Mr Martin Sewell, a survivor advocate recognised his own failures.
Find out what else is coming up at General Synod HERE
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