Is it really as simple as that?

Welby’s resignation has exposed dissatisfaction with the national institutions of the Church of England. But over-elevating the parish is not the answer. We need a deeper conversation about the proper roles of the national, diocesan and parish church.

The resignation of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury is a remarkable event, unprecedented in the modern history of the Church of England. The resignation, the safeguarding failures behind it and the call for further resignations has occasioned a great deal of commentary on the state on the Church of England. A common theme of this commentary has been the argument that the centre, especially under Welby, has become too powerful, too dominant, too unaccountable. All this has come at the expense of the local: it is argued that the parish, seen as the proper focus of the Church of England, has been neglected, deprived of resources, and pressurised to conform to the agenda of the evangelical tendency in the ascendant in the national church.

Giles Fraser, for example, asserts that

So much of the local energy — and money — that was once spent on the ground is now taken up responding to the demands of the centre.[1]

In response he urges that we ‘burn down the machine’, meaning the national church bureaucracy. In an article for The Times, Martyn Percy takes a similar line:

Cutting back on the hierarchy and top-down management of churches — “heavy pruning”, to borrow a phrase from Jesus’s teaching — might let in some much-needed light and air for local recovery and growth at ground level.[2]

I should acknowledge that I am sympathetic to these arguments insofar as it does seem to me that Welby’s time in office has been dominated by top down initiatives that focus on key features of an evangelical agenda (evangelism, discipleship). My problem with this agenda is not that I have anything against either evangelism or discipleship but that they are offered as simplistic solutions to complex problems and result in pressure on dioceses and parishes to pursue policies and practices about which they have not been consulted. As a programme this seems to me to lack either organisational or ecclesiological validity.

So it does seem likely that some sort of rebalancing of power and focus in favour of parishes is called for. But we must beware of the same tendency to simplistic solutions in those who do not like Welby’s legacy as in those who do. Reading many of the comments on social media concerning recent events one might imagine that all the Church of England needs to do is leave the parishes to get on with it. But is this a credible conviction?

I do not think so. In my experience parishes lack the resources and vision to take on the challenges of the modern context on their own. We do not use the phrase ‘parochial’ as a criticism without any cause. The advantages enjoyed by parishes are all about being close to the action, as it were. But this is also their weakness. Someone needs to be attending to the wider picture. In many places, for example, it is clear that collaboration across parishes is an essential ingredient of the way forward. This could happen entirely as the result of local initiative and choice but relying on that seems unduly optimistic. In fact, ironically enough, a primary reason why safeguarding has improved so much at the local level is because of the far greater accountability to the diocese that the processes now involve. This last point illustrates well how the realities of contemporary society militate against the idea that we can or should go back to the good old days when the local vicar was king in his castle.

These are practical, organisational objections. But there are ecclesiological considerations. The Church of England is already drifting towards congregationalism I suggest, under the influence of models such as those associated with Holy Trinity Brompton and its network. The Church of England is not a collection of parishes, of local centres, but an episcopal, national church in which bishops are a focus of unity and a bulwark against parochialism and congregationalism. Percy wants bishops to be more accountable – and that is, in itself, hard to argue against – but how would you achieve that without creating unintended consequences that might undermine the Anglican tradition of episcopacy? There may well be an answer or it might be right to take the risk, or one might decide the tradition needs to be discarded, but it would be wise to have considered the matter carefully before acting.

I want to see the church thinking more deeply on these important questions and being less quick to reach for ‘solutions’ – on these as on nearly all the problems that face it. We need to think more systemically and more ecclesiologically about the way forward. One feature of such a venture would be a much more careful and informed conversation about the proper roles of those occupying positions in the different ‘levels’ of the church. What should we expect of archbishops, of bishops, of parishes? What structures and resources should exist to make the church effective at these different levels?

If we ask these questions it will not be long, of course, before we realise we cannot answer them without giving deeper consideration to the question of the identity of the Church of England, to defining its mission and ministry, and to the outlining of some narrative about the church’s future. These, in my experience, are the questions with which those working in the national church do not want to engage. But I suggest that the role of the clergy and officers of the national church should be – not to decide – but to offer leadership on precisely these matters.

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[1] https://unherd.com/2024/11/burn-down-the-church-machine/

[2] https://www.thetimes.com/article/b6ecef89-afed-4405-bbcc-786f11396b83

Does the Church of England need some help?

At a time when the world continues to change at pace, the national Church of England’s capacity to respond is severely weakened both by scandal and organisational incoherence. Can the Church of England make necessary changes by itself?

As all Anglicans reading this know and feel acutely, the recent safeguarding scandals involving bishops have left the Church of England in a most uncomfortable place. Morale and reputation have both been severely damaged. We find ourselves in this place after many years of decline in attendance at church services and influence on society. The latest events are the last thing we all need. What can be done to address this situation, one which feels like it is spiralling out of control? We might start by being honest about the nature, scale and difficulty of the task facing us. In this blog I will be looking at the national church, rather than the challenges faced at parish level, though, clearly, the two are related.

A good place to start is to consider the kind of organisation we are dealing with. At the national level the Church of England is a bureaucracy.[1] Most large organisations are, because that is the prevailing model and bureaucracies are good at maintaining order. Bureaucracies do well at sustaining and refining existing processes in a stable environment. They are not designed to manage change. Bureaucracies struggle especially to cope with a fast changing context. Many of the woes of the Church of England are at least linked to this characteristic. The world has changed a great deal in the last fifty to one hundred years and, it seems, at increasing pace. The Church is not the only institution to struggle to keep up. By keeping up I do not mean simply ‘going along with change’ but formulating considered responses to new circumstances in a way that preserves the integrity of the Church’s fundamental commitments whilst listening for the voice of God speaking to us in what is happening.

In bureaucracies, however, it is extremely difficult to take a systemic view of the organisation in its context. Knowledge exists in separate ‘silos’ and there is little capacity to reveal and consolidate it. When bureaucracies do attempt to manage change they typically have a limited range of tools at their disposal. Because the capability for change is not ‘built in’ they rely on special initiatives and programmes. These factors add up to a great reliance on reform through structural or procedural change. There is a long history of such changes in the NHS, for example, and none have proved lasting solutions to the service’s problems. ‘Head office’ changes what it can change with the result that other ‘softer’ factors such as behaviour or culture are neglected.

A further problem is that the programmes and initiatives which are undertaken require immense amounts of additional energy and focus to sustain. This creates the risk that insufficient attention will be given to other matters of importance. We know that the pursuit of particular targets can distort organisational culture – it has been noted in the NHS for example.[2] It is possible that the Church of England’s focus on congregational growth has had the effect of causing a loss of focus on other aspects of our mission and identity, such as how we credibly live out our role as the national church.

All this makes life challenging enough, but there is a further difficulty. In a bureaucracy such as a large company it is clear that whatever the difficulties there is a board of directors whose job it is to find solutions. The Church of England, on the other hand, has no such body, but instead, a range of national institutions whose relation to one another is complicated and unclear. Sarah Mullally has spoken powerfully about this in an address to Synod (yesterday as I write):

I have gazed into the heart of the Church of England and found, at its core, incoherent governance structures, in which a number of bodies which need desperately to be joined up are free-floating. While there are governance proposals coming to the General Synod this week, they fail to resolve how the functions of the Archbishops’ Council, the Church Commissioners, the national church institutions, and the House of Bishops relate to one another.[3]

Mullally goes on to address the resulting lack of accountability. The implication for reform is that it is far from clear which individuals or groups have the legitimacy or means to get a grip on the situation. The archbishops have moral and spiritual authority but little formal power. The moral authority is currently damaged and one has resigned. General Synod is too large, too unwieldy, to exercise active leadership and the House of Bishops likewise. My understanding is that the Archbishops’ Council is expressly not seen in those terms.

The lack of coherence, clarity, accountability and ‘joinedupness’ may well be, at some level, deliberate. It ensures that none of the church’s parties is able (entirely) to get the upper hand. If this is true we are paying a high price for adopting such a clumsy means to manage our internal political difficulties – a kind of institutional paralysis along with the other damage. At the same time the things that do happen may well be decided by those well-placed enough and determined enough to keep pushing. When I researched the rationale of Renewal and Reform I discovered that this was the story behind the genesis of that programme. There has to be a better way. Not least, it ought to be possible to have clarity of leadership and accountability but use it to frame and enable discussion and action rather than decide or dictate it.

For some time now I have argued for a kind of national conversation which attempts to achieve a sufficient shared understanding across the church (and, perhaps, the wider community) about the purpose and future of the Church of England. I believe such a shared understanding (which would not be required to deny all differences or solve all disagreements – far from it) would allow a much more sustainable and confident adoption of particular policies and actions. As I said in my last blog many senior church people believe this to be too difficult and too time-consuming. I say it is better to take your time, grasp the nettle and get it right. But I am wondering who now has the capacity or legitimacy to make any such systemic approach happen? A bishop I talked to recently argued that we might need to begin by addressing governance in order to create such a capacity. This is Sarah Mullally’s argument too. I remain convinced that it is better to address the question of organisational identity and direction before changing the structures, but perhaps, needs must.

A more radical solution occurs. Is it time to appeal to a higher authority? Is it time to ask parliament to appoint a commission to draw the threads together and lead on a reassessment of the role, and future of the Church of England? I thought I read such a suggestion recently but I cannot now remember nor find out where or who. It seems a jarring idea in many ways, but can we manage what is required by ourselves? The alternative appears to be to place a heavy weight of expectation upon a new Archbishop of Canterbury. The way we are set up is not designed to be adequate for times like ours.

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[1] A bureaucracy is an organisation divided into ‘bureaus’ or ‘offices’, gathered in departments and characterised by strict, formalised division of task and responsibility

[2] Amongst many examples see https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/preview/1443943/11817.pdf

[3] https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/14-february/comment/opinion/bishop-of-london-safeguarding-crisis-should-not-be-seen-in-isolation

In general I believe that planning is essential.  The only real alternative to planning is not responsiveness and flexibility but chaos.  The people who plan are much better at improvising than the people who don’t.  But can one plan in such times as these?

Whatever kind of organisation we lead we face an unusually high degree of uncertainty right now.  No-one knows if the curve of the economic recovery will be fast and steep or slow and relatively flat.  There might be a second wave of coronavirus that is worse than the first or we might keep it under control and come up with a vaccine relatively quickly.  We might reach a new deal with the EU post-Brexit that minimises cost and disruption but the opposite seems as or more likely.  The vast majority of people and organisations face an uncertain economic future in which unnecessary spending is not at all attractive.  All this leaves confidence low. 

Many organisations are not yet able to operate in anything like the “normal” way and still have many working remotely, from home, in temporary arrangements.  It is not clear when it will be possible to return to “normality” or whether there will ever be such a return.  Do we really need the large, expensive offices we had become used to thinking essential?  Has the crisis demonstrated their dispensability?  I suspect the jury is out on this one for most as well.

Can we plan in an environment like this? 

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The Christmas story contains a challenging message for organisations and their leaders on fundamental issues like control, power, knowledge and status.

The gospels contain the familiar tale of how Mary is visited by the angel Gabriel and, as foretold, subsequently becomes pregnant. She and Joseph travel to Bethlehem in order to comply with the conditions for the Emperor’s census. There is no room for them in the inn and so the baby (destined to be the king of kings) is born in a stable. Angels appear to the shepherds proclaiming peace and the shepherds visit the baby – followed a little later by an unknown number of sages from the east with gifts. Herod gets wind of a special royal birth and, fearing a rival, resolves to kill all the children under two in and around Bethlehem. But the parents are forewarned in a dream and flee to Egypt. Thus begins God’s programme to save the world.

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