Why can’t the Church say ‘church’? Justin Welby is an ecclesiastical embarrassment

Remember Consignia — that disastrous rebrand of the Post Office? It sounded more like a sexually transmitted disease or an obscure Roman battle than a postal service. The name Royal Mail was apparently too redolent of posties, stamps and letters. Founded originally by Henry VIII, it was deemed too old fashioned. Too Royalist, too establishment. And the name Post Office was too generic. In the DHL era, something exciting and new was required. The idea was to prepare the public for an era of diverse operations. Surprise, surprise — the public hated it. 16 months later, Consignia reverted to the Post Office.

Now another of Henry VIII’s creations has come up with a rebrand that is even worse. The Church of England is ditching the word church. Like the Royal Mail, it wants to prepare the public for an era of diverse operations. And the exciting new name for church is to be… I kid you not: “New Things”.

A recent study, as reported in the Church Times, of the word church — if I can still use that word — across 11 Dioceses of the Church of England (see, it’s tricky to avoid) has found that “in the past 10 years, about 900 ‘New Things’ have been started. None of the 11 dioceses used the word ‘church’ as its main descriptor of such developments.” In other words, the Church has given up on church. Not since Prince became Squiggle has there been such a daft revision.

And it has been a ruinously expensive business. At a time when ordinary parish churches such as mine are being asked for ever greater contributions to the central church coffers, the New Things corporate headquarters has ploughed at least £82.7 million into New Things. As the report explains, this “new ecclesial language” has happened “very quickly” and is “affecting an operant theology within the Church of England”. This is former oil executive Justin Welby’s principal contribution to the development of the Church of England. As the report admits, “loosed from theological roots, the conceptual framework inevitably looks for other sources for its guidance, namely business and management theory.”

Of course, what is going on here is more than just a name change. The Church of England has always been a strange beast, ecclesiologically. Henry VIII was instinctively a traditionalist. The coin in your pocket still has the letters FD after the King’s name, letters that stand for Fidei Defensor, Defender of the Faith. This title was given to Henry by the Pope before their falling out, and he remained proud of it, so kept it. Henry’s beef with Rome wasn’t so much theology — he just didn’t like being told what to do by some bloke in a far-away Italian city.

For Henry, the Reformation was about who was in charge, not whether the Church was still Catholic. The order of bishops, priests and deacons, the centrality of the eucharist, they all stayed. Inspired by the continental Reformation, which was always more ideologically driven, the evangelical Reformers wanted to go further, to get rid of all that Catholic ritualistic stuff. But they were held back. And so, the Church of England became a strange hybrid, both Catholic and Protestant.

These have always been unhappy bedfellows. At best, it makes the Church of England a model for a broad tent community, a place of compromise and tolerance. At worst, it makes it a fractious place of discontent and rivalry. It is the job of an Archbishop to hold the ring, to keep this coalition of interests at peace with itself. Welby has not done this. Of the 900 New Things reported by the Dioceses, only five of them are from this more Catholic side of the church coalition. New Things “has been, and remains, essentially an evangelically driven project”.

Which is why those who want to complete the unfinished business of the Reformation — getting rid of priesthood, and all that Catholic mysterious mumbo-jumbo of the Eucharist, as they see it — have spotted their opportunity. Last month, a number of big London churches decided to commission a number of men — yes, only men — to lead services of Holy Communion without them being ordained priests. It is absolutely a central pillar of Catholic Christianity, to which the Church of England has always seen itself as a part, that only priests can celebrate the Eucharist. As Matt Parks, the Chair of the church group Affirming Catholicism explained: “Permitting a form of Holy Communion in the Church of England presided over by those who are not ordained makes a mockery of the sacraments.”

But this new status quo — whereby our New Things don’t have priests, they have leaders — threatens a vital part of our whole constitutional settlement. At his coronation, the King was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury: “Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline and government thereof, as by law established in England?” The King’s answer was: “All this I promise to do.” By allowing these mock “ordinations” to take place without censure, Welby has embarrassed the King who promised before the whole country to preserve and maintain the Church of England’s essential nature.

The New Things enterprise is a centrally led project that is splicing evangelical Christianity with management theory to create something entirely new. When asked, the Church (sic) leadership says it is wholeheartedly committed to parish churches and the ministry of priests. But as the Bible says, “by their fruit will you know them”.

The Royal Mail has always promised universal service provision, which means that wherever you are, your letter will be delivered to you. The Czech Billionaire, Daniel Kretinsky, who is still trying to buy the Royal Mail has committed to maintaining universal service provision for five more years. Which obviously means that after five years, universal service provision will go.

The Church of England has also been traditionally committed to universal service provision — the services being church services in every parish in every community. Just like Kretinsky, our New Things leadership, formerly known as the Church of England, thinks all this to be uneconomic or unrealistic. Which is why, for many, their parish church is not being used and no new priests are being appointed. Parish priests like your friendly postie will become a thing of the past. Perhaps there will be a New Things centre some miles away. Perhaps you will be offered a ghastly “your business is important to us, you are 16th in the queue” New Things hotline or a flashy over-designed website.

Consignia was a disaster. This will be worse.

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Giles Fraser is a journalist, broadcaster and Vicar of St Anne’s, Kew.

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