St Helen’s multiply the muddle
by Anthony George, Anglican Ink:
In a press release dated 18 December 2020, St Helen’s Bishopsgate announced that they are now in “a state of broken partnership” with their bishop and diocese. It’s easy to sympathise with the predicament in which St Helen’s, like other orthodox Church of England parishes, find themselves. But it’s hard to view their action as coherent. And harder still to think of it as a wise model for others to emulate.
In assessing the decision, it’s important to recognise the influence St Helen’s has over a certain sector of English Anglicanism. By British standards, it is a very large church. It has a vast staff team that includes many young men in training positions who later move on to ordained ministry. Its location in the City of London means it is extremely wealthy, with annual outgoings of around £4 million, and many very wealthy people in the congregation and in lay leadership roles.
This enables St Helen’s leaders to exercise great power outside the parish. The Rector, William Taylor, is the Chairman of ReNew. Brian O’Donoghue, the “Team Leader: Partnerships and Projects” is also a ReNew trustee and on the planning group. So two out of five ReNew trustees are senior staff members at St Helen’s. A third trustee, Karen Soole, credits her time there as a formative influence on her Christian life and ministry. Between them, Taylor and O’Donoghue are also trustees of a wide range of evangelical organisations, including the highly influential Proclamation Trust, whose annual EMA conference was held at St Helen’s until 2012.
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