St Mary's Church, Mudford

                                         November 2025

Dear all,

A new Archbishop of Canterbury has been named. When she takes up her post, she

will find herself pulled in four ways: Up and down, left and right.

First, up and down. The Church of England has an “Upstairs Church” and a

“Downstairs Church”. The Upstairs Church is a complex structure of institutions

and titles, synods and councils. There’s a central hub in London; 42 “Dioceses”

(regional groupings of churches), each with its Cathedral, Bishops and Diocesan

Office, home to a well-intentioned army of administrators, managers, “facilitators”,

and “enablers”.

The Downstairs Church is made up of faithful Christian pilgrims at prayer and

worship. They serve their communities in the name of Christ, running playgroups

and cake sales; visiting their neighbours in hospital; arranging flowers, making

coffee, filling rotas, cleaning the church, cutting the grass – and in many cases

maintaining the crumbling fabric of beautiful medieval buildings.

The upstairs and downstairs churches misunderstand each other - upstairs genuinely

believe that they are there to support downstairs; downstairs sees only increasing

requests for money and decreasing deployment of clergy. The new Archbishop will

be under great pressure to spend most of her time upstairs (where she has spent

most of her professional life). The more time she can spend downstairs, the better

the leader she will be.

Meanwhile, she will also be pulled from left and right. Worldwide, the Anglican

Church has millions of members with widely differing views. One of the most

significant fault lines lies between: - Conservatives - who hold that the Christian

message is timeless and therefore should challenge changes in society’s attitude and

behaviour which depart from it; and - Liberals - who think that the Christian

message should be reinterpreted as society changes, in order better to engage with

modern people.

Since WW2, and especially since the 1960s, this conflict has become ever more

pronounced. It is a “forever war” with no sign of resolution. The war is internecine,

but its battles become visible to non-combatants when they are fought in the theatre

of sex and sexuality. This happened in 1992 over the ordination of women as

Priests; in 2002 over the remarriage of divorcees in church; and in 2015 over the

consecration of women as Bishops. The current battle is over the marriage of same-

sex couples. Each time, liberals push for change; conservatives express opposition.

Up and down, left and right. These vertical and horizontal lines are a cross on which

every Archbishop of Canterbury has to suffer. I therefore cannot bring myself to

“congratulate” the new holder of that ancient and impossible role, but I wish her

well and we must all pray for her and for her family. May she, and we, in the words

of this month’s Memory Verse …

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2)

With all good wishes,

Richard

richardtherector@hotmail.com