Jonathan Baird (Salisbury) said that there was “one impressive thing about this
report: it has rather attractive coloured photographs.” He noted that 1600 people
had responded to the consultation, about the current Measure’s “horrors. Such
horrors continue to haunt us.” He and other members of the reference group had
been “unable to address” two central matters: the “nigh universal collapse of trust in
the Church” and “the misuse and abuse of episcopal and diocesan power”.
He spoke of the “chronic imbalance of resources between bishop and parish”; there
was “no defence against the parish being steamrollered” and “no way to stop the
latest ill-advised scheme being forced through”. He referred to “the wreckage of
Truro, Leicester, and Winchester”. Parishes needed “early redress and fairness”,
including legal support and stronger powers of self-determination. The report was a
“charter of surrender”, and he urged the Synod not to welcome it “to avoid the
ecclesiastical nuclear winter of Wales, Scotland, and the Methodist Church”
CT Madeleine Davies on Mission and Pastoral measure
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