No this is not about climate change and the environment.
This is about the church being taken over by a cabal of management guru's who combine their Alpha Course conversion with Management speak.
Will the proposals in the Green report be any fairer or more open to ensuring that talent rather than mediocrity rises to the top?
The Church has historically had a system of preferment predicated almost entirely on patronage.
A few years ago I found myself sitting in a pub with a retired Bishop waiting for a couple of other people to join us for a meeting to do with a project we were both involved in.
In the way of things conversation wandered aimlessly until some part of what we were discussing struck a chord with said retired Bishop.
Hard to know now what that was but he reflected that whilst he had always resisted he had inevitably ended up colluding with a system with which he profoundly disagreed but which he had no power to challenge or change.
The process he described was he felt unbelievably corrupt.
Apparently, he told me, every two years as Bishop he had to send a report to Lambeth Palace, in that report he commented on the various clergy in his Diocese. On each report he had to state whether the subject of the report could and should be considered for a senior position in the Church, and in each case it was necessary to state what level of seniority might be appropriate: Residentiary Canon, Dean, Archdeacon, Suffragan Bishop, Bishop.
What then happened when an appointment was to be made was that he would be sent the list abstracted from the 'Golden Filing Cabinet" at Lambeth Palace. Of course when he looked at the list half the names would be familiar because he had put them on the list. In this way the self appointing Oligarchy and its right to be at the top of the heap of ambition was secured.
There has been a trend in recent times to advertise such senior posts but all that does is ensure that the long list is peopled by the aspirational, the ambitious, the hopeful and inevitably those who feel that they have been overlooked by the system.
Almost certainly there is a correlation between the names on the short list and the names in the Golden Filing Cabinet.
I always enjoyed the story told by an Archdeacon I knew who hadn't had the lobotomy (Humour By-Pass) that seems to go with appointees to such posts in Diocese.
In other words he was someone with whom I was able to share a joke.
He got the nod that he was going to be offered a senior appointment whilst using the Toilet in Church House during a meeting of General Synod (I should make clear that this was for the sole purpose of performing his ablutions!).
He was washing his hands, when from behind him a pompous prelatical voice boomed.
So you know the North-East, looking in the Mirror he responded yes, he had served in a North Eastern Diocese.
Good, came the response we need an Archdeacon, you'll be hearing from us.
Well the Green Report wants to cut this Gordian Knot of ambition by identifying a Cadre of potential leaders and training them in the skills of management.
Being a conspiracy theorist at heart I am sure that behind Green, Lord, Banker and Non-Stipendiary priest of no particular parish there lurks the same cabal that managed to fast-track our current Archbishop so spectacularly.
Who knows?
It is ultimately all suspicion and heads are not being raised above the parapet, various commentators have offered various hermeneutic readings of the scheme, in this blog however I want to go back to our founding document to get a flavour of how this leadership scheme might work or not work.
Will, for example, there be any Peter's or Andrew's? James', John's, Thaddeus', Matthew's, Philip's, Thomas's, Nathaniel's, Judas's, Simon's?
Fishermen, Tax Collector's, Zealot's or Oil Executives?
My suspicion is that when Lord Green assumes the role of Lord Sugar of the Church those showing disciple like characteristics will be 'fired' not 'hired'.
This is about the church being taken over by a cabal of management guru's who combine their Alpha Course conversion with Management speak.
Will the proposals in the Green report be any fairer or more open to ensuring that talent rather than mediocrity rises to the top?
The Church has historically had a system of preferment predicated almost entirely on patronage.
A few years ago I found myself sitting in a pub with a retired Bishop waiting for a couple of other people to join us for a meeting to do with a project we were both involved in.
In the way of things conversation wandered aimlessly until some part of what we were discussing struck a chord with said retired Bishop.
Hard to know now what that was but he reflected that whilst he had always resisted he had inevitably ended up colluding with a system with which he profoundly disagreed but which he had no power to challenge or change.
The process he described was he felt unbelievably corrupt.
Apparently, he told me, every two years as Bishop he had to send a report to Lambeth Palace, in that report he commented on the various clergy in his Diocese. On each report he had to state whether the subject of the report could and should be considered for a senior position in the Church, and in each case it was necessary to state what level of seniority might be appropriate: Residentiary Canon, Dean, Archdeacon, Suffragan Bishop, Bishop.
What then happened when an appointment was to be made was that he would be sent the list abstracted from the 'Golden Filing Cabinet" at Lambeth Palace. Of course when he looked at the list half the names would be familiar because he had put them on the list. In this way the self appointing Oligarchy and its right to be at the top of the heap of ambition was secured.
There has been a trend in recent times to advertise such senior posts but all that does is ensure that the long list is peopled by the aspirational, the ambitious, the hopeful and inevitably those who feel that they have been overlooked by the system.
Almost certainly there is a correlation between the names on the short list and the names in the Golden Filing Cabinet.
I always enjoyed the story told by an Archdeacon I knew who hadn't had the lobotomy (Humour By-Pass) that seems to go with appointees to such posts in Diocese.
In other words he was someone with whom I was able to share a joke.
He got the nod that he was going to be offered a senior appointment whilst using the Toilet in Church House during a meeting of General Synod (I should make clear that this was for the sole purpose of performing his ablutions!).
He was washing his hands, when from behind him a pompous prelatical voice boomed.
So you know the North-East, looking in the Mirror he responded yes, he had served in a North Eastern Diocese.
Good, came the response we need an Archdeacon, you'll be hearing from us.
Well the Green Report wants to cut this Gordian Knot of ambition by identifying a Cadre of potential leaders and training them in the skills of management.
Being a conspiracy theorist at heart I am sure that behind Green, Lord, Banker and Non-Stipendiary priest of no particular parish there lurks the same cabal that managed to fast-track our current Archbishop so spectacularly.
Who knows?
It is ultimately all suspicion and heads are not being raised above the parapet, various commentators have offered various hermeneutic readings of the scheme, in this blog however I want to go back to our founding document to get a flavour of how this leadership scheme might work or not work.
Will, for example, there be any Peter's or Andrew's? James', John's, Thaddeus', Matthew's, Philip's, Thomas's, Nathaniel's, Judas's, Simon's?
Fishermen, Tax Collector's, Zealot's or Oil Executives?
My suspicion is that when Lord Green assumes the role of Lord Sugar of the Church those showing disciple like characteristics will be 'fired' not 'hired'.
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