Save The Parish - Cornwall

As controversial ‘On The Way’ restructuring plans in the Diocese of Truro attract national headlines, some deaneries are questioning the apparently unaccountable actions of the ‘Deanery Implementation Teams'.  Yes, shades of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four here.  ( Click this link to read more thoughts about the Church of England's current 'manager-speak' .) 'Deanery Implementation Team' (DIT) is the name that the Diocese has given to the groups of people in each deanery who will be taking the next steps – unless challenged – in the On The Way plans under the leadership of the Rural Dean and the Diocesan Director for Change and Renewal, Ruth Marriott . In Kerrier in west Cornwall, churchgoers report that the Deanery Implementation Team (DIT) seems to be acting without due consultation. In Penwith - a deanery stretching from Hayle all the way to Land's End - a cleric said of the DIT, led by the forceful vicar of St Ives, Rev Nick Widdows: “Their ...

  "Revolutions begin with an assault on language. Diocesan straplines, cute mission initiatives, the bullying insistence that there is no alternative — what is being rolled out in Truro, Leicester, and elsewhere starts with an assault on theology," writes Rev Angela Tilby in today's Church Times .  "In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four , the point of “newspeak” was to reduce the range of thought, and so to make certain realities impossible. So, not much hope for parish, priest, tradition, pastoral care, contemplation, or liturgy. The new language has taken over." Click here to read the full article.   Angela Tilby, a writer, broadcaster and theological educator,  is a member of the national Save The Parish steering committee. After working for the BBC for over twenty years she was ordained in 1996 and taught at Westcott House in Cambridge. She was vicar of St Benet’s Cambridge for five years and then Diocesan Canon at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxf...