It’s iterative, innit
from Anglican Futures:
Trigger warning – there is a higher than average possibility of coming across the word ‘iterative’ in this post.
Anyone listening to any of General Synod cannot have failed to hear that the House of Bishops of the Church of England have been taking an ‘iterative’ approach to the implementation of Living in Love and Faith. It was in fact tempting to open a “book” on the number of times the bishops would utter the word ‘iterative’, because, if one takes the word literally, it’s use became quite iterative.
But even taking into account the second definition, Synod members have been scratching their heads as to what such an approach could possibly involve in this context.
Did the bishops don white coats and safety glasses fearful of their experiment blowing up in their faces?
Were they crowded round a screen using a hi-tech computer-aided design programme to move the different aspects of Pastoral Guidance around so they all lined up neatly?
Or, perhaps the bishops were more like Steve Jobs, using the iterative process to seek out the glitches and the bugs in PLF 1.0, with only a distant vision of the potential capabilities of PLF 15.
Some hoped the bishops might be taking an iterative approach to the law – stare decisis – basing their new rulings on previous judgements or precedents – but that dream didn’t last long under the cross examination of the M’Learned KCs.
As is so often the case, the reality is far less glamourous or complicated. Summing up the debate, Bishop Sarah Mullally told Synod,
“At all of these meeetings … the legal has been in conversation with theology. This has been an iterative process, as has the development of the Pastoral Guidance. Theology, legal advice, pastoral consideration have been in constant conversation.”
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