Synod

There are three levels of Synod, General, Diocesan and Deanery.

Iam on the lowest, the Deanery. We had a meeting on Thursday evening. It was an important meeting to attend, because we had to vote on a new issue that is coming up at General Synod in April. Before it goes to Generral, it will need to go through Diocesan, who will take on board what we have voted in Deanery, although they may ignore our thoughts, we in fact have no voting rights as such on the decision that will eventually be made.


The whole issue is an idea of Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is extremely complex, and takes one hell of a lot of understanding, even the summaries, and outline points of the main ideas  are difficult, The aim is for the Anglican Communion, which is made up of 43 sections to have a more common approach as to how we interact with each other and become more of a cohesive unity.

The church in Australia, hass already made it known that it will noy sign up to it., and the church is Africa has been told by its bishops bot to agreer to it either.

It would appear to have very few points in its favour, and a lot againts it. For example it will diminish the individuality of the Anglican churches initrs breadth of Churchmanship.

Well anyway after a lot of discussion it came to a vote. One silly man pleaded with us all to abstain. I just had to oppose this idea as I felt that in abstaining, we would be sending a feeling that we were apathetic, indicisive or at worst not bothering to underrstand and grapple with the complex issues. When it actually was voted on I was pleased that both the house of Laity and the house of Clergy defeated the motion set before us that the Covenant be accepted.

I left the meeting with a stonking headache.

I would love to have a talk with Rowan Williams to try and get to the heart of what his ideas are for the Anglican Communion. I reeally respect the man and have a lot of time for him and his Churchmanship but I fear that he is often unable to get across his thoughts to us mere mortals who do not posses his academic ability. I remember going to hear a lecture he was givinbg in Saklisbury Cathedral some whiler ago now, he had just been announced as the new Archbishop but not yet been consecrated. Anyway I went along armed with notebook and penbcil, and as i listened it became clear to me that I would need to take notes as I could not understand a word he was on about. When I got home and reread my notes, I was still very much in the dark.

He I feel still struggles to get his point across, its a shame because he has a lot to contribute to the life and work of the Church