It has been announced this morning that the new Bishop of Southwark is the current Bishop of Woolwich, Christopher Chessun. How on earth Christopher has lived with this for the last three months and continued to work as normal in the diocese beats me. Yet that in itself says something about the stature of the man.
I have worked with Christopher for the last five years and he has proved himself to be an able and respected bishop and leader. Committed to London and appointed Bishop for Urban Life and Faith, he understands the varied contexts in which the clergy and people of this diocese serve. He will bring to his new post a clear vision, a robust adherence to the faith and discipline of the Church, and an ability to take a fresh look at how and why we do things the way we do in Southwark.
Little is widely known about how bishops work together in a diocese like ours. People encounter their own Area Bishop and, from time to time, the Diocesan Bishop. Most won’t realise that our pattern of working is based on mutual trust and a recognition that the three of us (Kingston, Woolwich and Croydon) are very different in temperament, experience and character. Yet, this is a strength in a diocese of some diversity and considerable challenge. To ensure good communication, constant discussion and broad understanding of each others’ remit, the bishops in Southwark have a pattern of meeting once a month as follows:
- 8.00am Eucharist
- 8.30am Breakfast together (informal chat and catching up)
- 9.00am Bible study (led by rotation)
- 9.45am Business
- 1.00pm Lunch together and depart
The Area Bishops meet with their own Area staff (Archdeacons and Advisers) once per month (in Croydon from 8.30am to 1pm) and the Bishop’s Staff Meeting meets once a month (from 10am-4pm).
The strength, proven through the years I have been here, is that this pattern offers the best chance of good relationships, coherent discussion, mutual advice (and/or sympathy) and an excellent forum for the establishment of good collegiality and communications. Bishop Tom Butler set all this up and worked it very effectively; we three Area Bishops have worked together well, creatively and honestly. (And Richard Cheetham, the Bishop of Kingston and Acting Diocesan Bishop, has handled his role in the vacancy with great skill and discretion – we owe him a great debt of gratitude.)
So, all this adds up to a promising future in Southwark. Because of ridiculously short notice I cannot be with Christopher at his introduction to the diocese and the press. Nor can I be in Croydon when he visits the Area in the afternoon. (I am interviewing and then doing a long-planned and prepared Parish Visit – the work carries on!) I then can’t be at the Diocesan Clergy Study Day in Southwark on Thursday (I am addressing a Southwark Headteachers Conference in Canterbury). But, my absence is completely regrettable because I would like to be there to offer Christopher my complete and unreserved support and encouragement.
The new Bishop of Southwark will need to be given time and space to negotiate the change of role as well as the change of home and office. He will need the prayers and generosity of clergy and people in the Diocese. He’s got mine. It is a great appointment.
Nick Baines's Blog 
October 6, 2010 at 8:58 am
No snake oil on this one then?
October 6, 2010 at 9:37 am
Dubious, er… ‘snake oil’? Meaning what?
October 6, 2010 at 11:04 am
I have known Christopher for 18 years, he was my wife’s vicar in Stepney before our marriage, and then my spiritual director. He is a godly, prayerful and gentle man with a real commitment to the church as a body which will help him to unite the different strands of this potentially fractious diocese. I think and pray he will be a unifying figure.
October 6, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I gather that Jeffrey John, the openly gay Dean of St Albans, was rejected for this post?
He was dropped from the nominations in July after the Archbishop of Canterbury came under pressure from conservative Anglicans?
Nick, I am sure that both these gentlemen are fine people, and I guess you know them both. I wonder how you feel about this ?
KK
October 6, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Kevin, I posted extensively on the ridiculous and inaccurate reporting at the time. He was no more rejected than I or any other potential candidate was – and I have no idea who was on the original longlist of a dozen or so or on the shortlist of half a dozen. The Archbishop came under no more pressure on this than on anything else. The coverage was spurious and I was wheeled out onto the Radio 4 Today programme to make the point.
Jeffery is wonderful in may respects, but he didn’t fulfil most of the criteria for this post (read the paperwork submitted by the Diocese of Southwark). I am very happy with the appointment of Christopher Chessun, although it came as a surprise.
October 6, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Sorry Nick, a bit of inter-textual referencing. I quoted Norman Tebbit on your post [Sept 29] when he described Ed Milliband as being “well rubbed down with snake oil”. I guessed, from your expressions of respect for Christopher Chessun, that you probably wouldn’t apply that description in this case ….. probably not in the other either. Just a passing ironic comment!
October 6, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Dubious, no snake oil to be found anywhere near here!
October 6, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Nick
Why was it a surprise?
Mouse
October 6, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Good luck to him! Does he blog, or is he planning to?
October 6, 2010 at 6:16 pm
A wonderful choice. Christopher has just stepped down as Chair of Churches Together in South London of which I am Treasurer and he is an inspiration to all of us from our varied traditions. All the people of South London are blessed to have him follow in the footsteps of Tom Butler and most importantly, he stays in our Diocese. We can see God at work through the people who follow Him – and He is working ecumenically. Church unity is about goodwill growing between us. Christopher will ensure the bonds between us strengthen, within and without, if we allow ourselves to be led by God and his bishops.
October 6, 2010 at 6:46 pm
[…] Bishop Nick Baines – Bishop of Southwark If you have stumbled onto this blog please do take a few moments to read the following piece:- Echoes of God […]
October 6, 2010 at 9:16 pm
EnglishAtheist, he doesn’t blog. Yet…
October 6, 2010 at 9:16 pm
Mouse, I think everyone expected an outside appointment. That’s all. It’s a good surprise!
October 7, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Nick,
Thanks for the reference to your earlier post (I had missed it). I share your distrust of the gutter press, particularly the Telegraph (MP’s expenses etc).
I know nothing about the ways in which your church chooses its leaders, but it is good to know that a homosexual could easily become Bishop of Southwark, as long as he fulfilled those ‘other criteria’.
KK
October 8, 2010 at 8:36 am
Dear Nick,
We are all looking forward to seeing our new Bishop of Southwark and his wife.
Sachiko
October 8, 2010 at 10:05 am
Possibly a tangential question, from an Ebbsfleet oriented direction, but what is Southwark’s diocesan relationship with +Fulham?
I only ask, because as a non FIF (although sympathetic) layman who isn’t particularly called to the Ordinariate, I’m suddenly having to confront the fact that relationships with the wider CofE, for those (any?) of us remaining, look like they might be quite challenging to rebuild. And rebuilt they’re going to have to be, SSWSH not withstanding.
I suppose what I’m getting at is that whilst +Ebbsfleet is currently “my” bishop, at some point he’s not going to be because he will, presumably, have gone elsewhere. What sort of reception do you think us remaining ACs are going to get when they are pushed back into the mainstream after 20 years apart?
October 8, 2010 at 10:29 am
Oh my goodness I hope not! I’m beginning to dread the appointment of new Bishop of Salisbury – who knows what we might get??
Anne.
October 8, 2010 at 12:24 pm
I have just caught up on the issue of the suspended deputy head at St Michael’s and All Angel’s Academy Camberwell. Will this be sorted out before the new Bishop arrives or will it be waiting for him in his “in box”.
Seems a rather unfortunate situation to me. Can you shed any light?
October 8, 2010 at 4:03 pm
I hope he will be as enteraining as
The Rt Rev Tom “I’m the Bishop of Southwark, it’s what I do” Butler
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1536544/Curious-incident-in-the-night-leaves-Bishop-of-Southwark-with-black-eye-and-sore-head.html
October 8, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Anthony, don’t believe everything you read in the papers…
October 8, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Martin, no I can’t. It is not my Area, but it is in Woolwich – so Christopher should be on to it already in his current capacity.
October 8, 2010 at 4:08 pm
Sachiko, you’ll be luckyto see his wife – he doesn’t have one! He is single.
October 8, 2010 at 4:18 pm
PrimroseLeague, my response is obviously subjective, but, I hope, not inconsistent with others’. +Fulham offers pastoral care to ‘Resolution C’ parishes in the Diocese of Southwark. He relates to three parishes in the Croydon Episcopal Area. The former Bishop of Southwark – rightly, in my view – held on to the jursidiction of thsoe parishes, but we all work closely with +Fulham in appointments to ‘his’ parishes. +Fulham is invited to Staff Meetings, residentials, etc as a full member of the Southwark Staff Team
I actually don’t think that ‘rebuilding’ relationships with the wider CofE should prove difficult at all. I have always taken my responsibility for my ‘C’ parishes as seriously as for all the other 100 and they get treated in exactly the same way (Parish Visits, Ministerial Reviews, pastoral (and financial, etc.) support. I genuinely do not see a problem in the people of such parishes – should they decide not to go directly to Rome or into the Ordinariate – remaining where they are, being taken seriously and being valued. I cannot think of a bishop who would not want to continue to be sensitive to the particular sensibilities of such people.
I would hope that people in this position will be able to meet with the Area or Diocesan Bishop and talk/pray together. I am currently reflecting on how this might best and most sensitively be done once decision time comes.
October 8, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I’m so relieved to hear that, in that case I shall investigate SSWSH more fully, as I can’t go to Rome in good conscience (although I am genuinely frightened for the future, as I do place great faith in assurance and validity, which is only going to get more problematic in the next few decades for obvious reasons). As I’m only 29, I could be around to see a lot of it (deo volente).
There has been a tendency for us I think to behave like a church within a church for the last 20 years, which has meant that there are genuine fears about our reception by the wider CofE. Personally I still hold out some hope that the PEV model will be retained as a last minute compromise, as it has served us well to date, but the future is one, as the Chinese say, of interesting times.
Anyway, sorry for hijacking the blog, but I have followed it from afar for a while and have usually been impressed by the general good sense and charity. I shall go to mass a little less troubled on Sunday.
October 8, 2010 at 5:41 pm
PrimroseLeague, you haven’t hijacked the blog – you are welcome! I don’t think you alone in not being able to go to Rome, but worrying about what ‘staying’ will mean. I must confess to worrying less about ‘assurance and validity’ on the grounds that (as Moltmann put it in Munich earlier this year) when we hear the words of Jesus inviting us to eat and drink, he is also talking to me. Assurance has to be rooted in the person of God rather than the ‘formulae’ we use to try to get it right.
I am aware that putting it like this opens up further questions for which a blog like this is not the ideal discussion ground. If you find yourself in London, let’s meet and talk.
October 9, 2010 at 2:44 pm
PrimroseLeague,
I am involved in the General Synod Election and have been having occasional discussions about where we might end up. I can only speak from a very small cross section, but it seems to me that the
rationale of those seeking the recognition of women as Bishops as well as Priests is founded in a profound sense of inclusivity. It ought to ( though I appreciate may not always) be a priority for wide ranging inclusivity. It would be a strange ‘inclusivity’ that did not want to strive hard to keep fellowship with those with whom we have worked as brothers and sister for many years.
In the course of the debates, I have heard some denoting themselves as “bible based” or “bible believing” – as if others in the Church are not or are less so. I have been trying to think of a way of simply expressing the approach of those of us who some might believe are rather too accommodating to modern attitudes.
My chosen appellation is “Gospel Gracious” – in recognition that many of us are acutely conscious that before God none of us are justified. All we can do is to pass on that prima facie acceptance and try to follow the almost promiscuous love that Jesus showed. In this I am very moved by the old Catholic doctrine on baptism – “Baptism by desire” – which comes out of the fact that the only person to whom we know Christ accorded entry to paradise was the unbaptised thief on the cross, whose other qualifications – “bible believing” or otherwise – would scarcely commend him as a role model to the satisfaction of many congregations.