by Madeleine Davies. Church Times
‘My trust has been shattered over the past decade’ one lay member says
AN INVESTIGATION into why the public have lost confidence in the Church of England is required, the General Synod heard on Monday afternoon.
The Rector of St Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, Fr Marcus Walker (London), speaking during a debate on the report Trust and Trustworthiness in the Church of England, observed that all 16 members of the laity interviewed for the report were involved in the Church’s structures (News, 3 July). They comprised six diocesan secretaries, and ten lay chairs or members of General Synod.
“The elephant in the room — the elephant herd harrumphing around the report — is all of those who are outside, alongside, walking with the household of faith,” he said.
“The people who have not lost faith from within the institution of the Church, but who have lost trust in the institution of the Church. Who have lost trust in the Church and its mission. . .
“People who have been mapped in polling in many different ways, losing confidence in the Church, in the clergy, in the bishops, in what we claim. Fundamentally, in the true claims that we assert about God and about Christ. A collapse of trust that has led to people sitting increasingly resentfully in the pews, or walking away and not coming back to the Church. This is a missional priority.”
Each person present could write a report on the causes of this situation, he suggested. While others would have different analyses, his own list included sexual abuse; “the treatment of little parishes by big dioceses”; the response to the Covid pandemic; and “the tendency of the episcopate to put their communist conks into politics” (a quote from The Vicar of Dibley).
He said: “What we need is evidence that drills down into where we have lost trust, why we have lost trust, and with whom.”