Dear +Nick,

Thank you for taking the time to blog through the conference and for the patience and forbearance you have brought to the process.

I can entirely understand and sympathise with your frustration at the Sunday Telegraph article. However, lest it sow yet more episcopal disharmony, I understand that in the case of at least one of the bishops cited he had not spoken with the journalist, and the comments attributed to him were selectively taken from an interview elsewhere made before the conference, talking about his hopes and fears for the conference and for the state of the Communion more generally. Sadly press reporting of individual's views cannot, it seems, always be relied upon as an accurate account of their views.

Best wishes,

Stuart

Nersen,

Thanks for your post. You are quite right to say that there is only one correct interpretation of scripture. The trouble is, in our fallen state, we struggle to identify what that is. In the 18th century the "orthodox" or "mainstream" view in the Church of England, the view held by the greatest number, was that scripture supported slavery. In certain of the German churches in the 1930s (though by no means all) it was orthodoxy that the Bible supported anti-semitism - indeed, that view has sadly been held by Christians of many types in many place at many times through history. In the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa in the mid 20th century it was orthodoxy and the majority view that the Bible supported Apartheid.

Two things of which we can be confident: the majority interpretation of the Bible will be different in 100 years than it is now - and, as humanity will still be fallen, it will still be an imperfect reading of God's Word.

History teaches us very clearly that even if most people believe the Bible supports their view on something, a while later most people may take the contrary view.

Stuart

BTW, On the numbers point, Bob Jackson's research for his book "The Road to Growth" showed (to his evident surprise) that churches grow fastest when receiving a minister from a liberal theological college.

Nersen,

Thank you for your response. Absolutely I do realise that the fact that a consensus opinion is sometimes wrong does not mean that consensus opinions are always wrong. I addressed the issue simply as I read, or may have misread, your previous posts as seeking to imply that there is an argument from numbers holding a view in favour of it being correct. Clearly, we're all fallen humanity, even if we all agreed it's still possible we might be wrong.

You make good points on Apartheid and Nazi anti-semitism. I do not see that the same argument could be made on slavery, or on medieval anti-semitism. I should stress, I'm not trying to suggest any moral equivalance between circumstances here - that would be a horrendous suggestion - and it might be that the example of the medieval church believing the earth was flat would be a better one to use, rather than using such unspeakable and extreme acts. But the point, as far as I can see, remains that force of numbers cannot prove a case for or against any belief.

Stuart

Why would Old Etonian views dominate Fulcrum? Oh, I get it....

Exeter diocese has committed to 25% growth in numbers (participation) over the next five years - with full awareness that this is an ambitious target. Fundamental to the approach here is an acceptance that growth comes locally, in each church, and that the right steps for each church community to drive growth will vary based on demographics, location, where they're starting from - and certainly churchmanship as well. It would be daft to impose a high church, evangelical or liberal model on churches which do not have that tradition - although there is an implied assumption here that every church will be evangelistic. It's expected that different churches will look to learn from each other's examples of growth - whether that's liberal learning from evangelical, evangelical learning from anglo-catholic or whatever.

The commitment to growth stems primarily from reflection on the Great Commission of Mt 28 (or Mk 16, Lk 24, Jn 20, Act 1) and on Paul's words (Rm 1, Rm 15) and on the approach of the apostolic church to planning its mission (eg Act 15). Secondarily, it also involves a frank acknowledgement that the church must grow or disappear. Whilst the CofE disappearing isn't necessarily a problem (although personally I'd regret it), the church in the broader sense disappearing would be, as its witness goes with it.

Bringing this round to clergy numbers, one strand within this is calling out more vocations to local ministry - by which I mean unpaid and within the local church community rather than any technical definition - be that ordained or any other type of ministry. This links to a realisation that models of ministry are changing and to achieve and sustain growth in the long term will need many more trained leaders/ministers than we could pay for in stipendary clergy.

I understand that a paperback edition is coming out in April - and will be considerably cheaper than the hardback, for those who have not yet purchased a copy.

Thank you David, a very helpful post.

To Nersen's point, the Canons are certainly applied selectively.

"Every minister shall use only the forms of service authorized by this Canon" - I've been to many 'home made' services which have not complied with this instruction. "The apparel of a bishop, priest, or deacon shall be suitable to his office; and, save for purposes of recreation and other justifiable reasons, shall be such as to be a sign and mark of his holy calling" - I know many clergy who wear non-clerical clothing other than for the purposes of recreation. "At Morning and Evening Prayer on Sundays the minister shall normally wear a surplice or alb with scarf or stole" - again, there's no shortage of churches where the minister does not normally wear a surplice or alb.

I suspect a problem may be that so many of the Canons are largely ignored that it becomes hard to use the rest as a solid rule book.

Toby,

Quite so. Indeed, one could also argue what "normally" means in regard to wearing alb/surplice, or that every service has some exceptional reason for a non-approved form of service - and why not. Much like Newman interpreting the 39 Articles ("the Romish doctrine of purgatory is a fond thing vainly invented... so any other doctrine of purgatory is fine") one can always get around these - but in truth I suspect pretty much all of us would reasonably have to accept that we/our churches don't abide by the rules of the church (thankfully, in many cases).

That's no problem - but it does mean that we're in no place to try and use the rulebook to enforce discipline on others - throwing of the first stone, motes in eyes, etc..

Stuart

David Palmer, I have a suspicion that the Fulcrum Forum is actually a cunning plot by Open Evangelicals to keep Conservative Evangelicals and liberals occupied in endless argument with each other, whilst they tiptoe off to achieve world domination, or at least run another jumble sale.

Or maybe it just feels like there are more liberals and conservatives than moderates posting here...

A number of dioceses are introducing the permanent diaconate as a self supported ministry - although such ordinands would be more likely to take non-residential training.

With four reports now published, there is some interesting data starting to come through:

Wycliffe: 66 ordinands; 57 men; 9 women

St Stephen's: 25 ordinands; 21 men; 4 women

Ripon: 129 ordinands; 66 men; 63 women; (62 residential; 67 non)

Oak Hill: 57 ordinands; 56 men; 1 woman

And on their "report cards":

Wycliffe: Confidence with qualifications; confidence in 8 categories; with qualifications in 4; no confidence in 1

St Stephen's: Confidence with qualifications; confidence in 8 categories; with qualifications in 5

Ripon: Confidence; confidence in 11 categories; with qualifications in 2

Oak Hill: Confidence with qualifications; confidence in 6 categories; with qualifications in 7

The church expends significant resources on support for church schools, and measured by results (academic, inspection and popularity with parents) these are highly successful.

It would seem that the rationale for this could be:

a) to support mission, not in terms of immediate converts, but as their is some evidence to suggest that people are more likely to turn to Christ later in life if they have some familiarity with the Gospel from early on;

b) as part of our ministry, a contribution to the broader community, especially pertinent as these schools seem so effective, based on published stats, including those with high numbers of pupils with free school meals (ie, it's not just a middle class thing).

Which do forum members feel is (or should be) the more important of these motivations? Are there others?

I'm inspired to pose this question from a reference on another thread to Clare's school's excellent website (www.stmatthiasschool.org.uk) which is well worth a look for those who have not seen it.

And I've just re-read my post and noticed a howler of a spelling mistake. Go to the back of the class.....