The Church of England’s General Synod: Doing the Best Things in the Worst Times

Tucked away in the English countryside, Staunton Harold Hall has a church in its grounds with an inscription above the west door which reads (spelling as original) ‘In the year 1653 when all thinges sacred were throughout ye Nation either demolisht or profaned, Sir Robert Shirley, Baronet, founded this church, whose singular praise it is to have done the best thinges in ye worst times and hoped them in the most callamitous. The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.’

Without necessarily agreeing that erecting a church dedicated to the High Church Laudian tradition was one of the ‘best thinges’ that could be done in the time of the Commonwealth, or that Cromwell’s rule was ‘the most callamitous’ – after all it was during this period that there were some outstanding Reformed clergy in the pulpits of English parish churches, most notably Richard Baxter of Kidderminster – we may nonetheless look back and admire Sir Robert’s courage and initiative.

At a time when General Synod’s intransigence towards those who oppose the innovation of women bishops threatens the Church of England with a degree of chaos and division unprecedented since the turbulence of the mid seventeenth century, it is good to ask what the ‘best thing’ for English Anglicans might look like in our own ‘worst times’.

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