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A Report on Knowledge: Written Reports from the Church of England, 1985–Present
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2025
Abstract
What kinds of reports does the Church of England produce? Some are technical (e.g., annual reports, financial statements, etc.); others are more practical (e.g., safeguarding, ministry); whilst others are doctrinal or ecclesiological (e.g., ARCIC, a report from the Doctrine Commission, such as The Mystery of Salvation, 1995, etc.). Others are hybrid in character, taking issues and concerns (e.g., leadership, vocations, etc.) as pragmatic problems to be resolved and to which a theological gloss is added. This paper focuses on the nature of these hybrid-type reports as exemplars of consecrated pragmatism. In so doing, the ethos of the reports traces the trajectory of the Church of England as it continues to shed its theological capacities and dissolve in a culture of ecclesial managerialism, ontologised bureaucracy and frantic ecclesionomics. The paper offers ‘a report on knowledge’ and questions the nature and purpose of the writings that the Church of England publishes on a range of doctrinal and practical theological arenas.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust
References
1 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1979, Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit; University of Minnesota Press, English translation 1984).
2 This is a phrase I deployed in an earlier critique of Church of England reports, specifically Martyn Percy, The Turnbull Report (Working as One Body, 1997),see ‘Consecrated Pragmatism’, Anvil, vol. 14, no. 1, 199, pp. 18-28.
3 Faith in the City: A Call for Action by Church and Nation (London: Church House Publishing [CHP], 1985).
4 The Archbishops’ Commission on Church and State (London: CHP, 1970).
5 Doctrine in the Church of England (London: CHP, 1938), Christian Believing (London: CHP, 1976).
6 Christian Believing (London: CHP, 1976).
7 The Mystery of Salvation (London: CHP, 1995).
8 We Believe in God (London: CHP, 1987).
9 Being Human (London: CHP, 2002).
10 See: https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/publications/administration-and-business/walking-in-integrity/; https://www.churchofireland.org/news/859/launch-of-first-report-from for Ireland and Wales. For Scotland see: https://www.scotland.anglican.org/who-we-are/organisation/boards-and-committees/faith-order-board/doctrine-committee/
12 The Episcopal Church (TEC) revoked the ‘Doctrine of Discovery’ in 2009 at its 76th General Convention (2035 – 2009: Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery). This doctrine, which originated with Henry VII in 1496, held that Christian sovereigns and their representative explorers could assert dominion and title over non-Christian lands with the full blessing and sanction of the Church. TEC repudiated this doctrine, as it legitimated the suppression of indigenous peoples. See: https://digitalarchives.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution-complete.pl?resolution=2009-D035
14 https://d3hgrlq6yacptf.cloudfront.net/5f3ecfb22c3ee/content/pages/documents/statement%20of%20needs%20(full%20doc)%20(2)-compressed.pdf. For a recent critique of such, see Marus Walker, ‘Biscuit Crumbs from the Table’, September 22nd 2025, The Critic Magazine https://thecritic.co.uk/biscuit-crumbs-from-the-table/
15 Lyotard, 1979, p. 5.
16 Tomorrow is Another Country: education in a post-modern world (London: CHP & General Synod [GS], Misc 467, 1996).
17 Tom Burns, ‘Friends, Enemies and the Polite Fiction’, American Sociological Review 18.6 (1953), pp. 654–662.
18 Leonard Saxe, ‘Lying: Thoughts of an applied social psychologist’, American Psychologist 46.4 (1991), pp. 409–415.
19 John L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
20 A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (London: Penguin, 1936).
21 E.g., see the report on Net Zero 2030: https://issuu.com/churchofengland/docs/nzc2030_-_annual_report_2024_singlepagesfinal?fr=sNDNkZDc3NTY2MTU.
22 Faith in Higher Education: A Church of England Vision [Tim Dakin], London: CHP, 2020. https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2020-03///10929acfaith-in-higher-education-report_web.pdf.
24 The Turnbull Report: Working As One Body (London: CHP, 1995).
25 See The Green Report (or Lord Stephen Green’s Report on Senior Appointments ) in the Church of England (London: CHP, 2014).
26 See Martyn Percy, ‘Are These the Leaders We Really Want?’, Church Times, 12 December 2014: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2014/12-december/comment/opinion/are-these-the-leaders-that-we-really-want
27 See the extended reporting in the Church Times, including from Madeline Davies, 04 July 2025: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2025/4-july/news/uk/survey-exploring-trust-in-church-of-england-scrapped).
28 James Dobson, Dare to Discipline, Wheaton, Ill.; Tyndale House Publishers, 1970). We note that in the absence of any independent external professional regulation for Church of England safeguarding, the field is wide open for conservative evangelicals to self-regulate according to their ‘biblical principles’. See: https://thecss.co.uk/ Organisations such as Ineqe [https://ineqe.com/] provide a review service for the Church of England’s dioceses and cathedrals and are similarly culpable for their lack of independence and oversight by valid external professional regulators.
29 On this see the Sydney diocese report: https://safeministry.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Responding-to-Domestic-Abuse-Policy-Guidelines-and-Resources.pdf.
30 All are London: Church House Publishing.
31 On this, see Ethan Shagan, ‘Profanity and Piety in the Church Porch: the Place of Transgression in Early Modern England’, in Alec Ryrie (ed.), Ellie Geberowski-Shafer, Ashley Null & Alec Ryrie, Contesting Orthodoxies in the History of Christianity: Essays in Honour of Diarmaid MacCulloch (Oxford: Boydell Press, 2024), pp. 120—137; and in the same volume, Korey Maas, ‘Lex, Rex and Sex: The Bigamy of Philipp of Hesse and the Recourse to Natural Law’, pp.56–76.
32 See Alec Ryrie, ‘The Myth of the Church of England’ in (eds.) Ellie Geberowski-Shafer, Ashley Null & Alec Ryrie, Contesting Orthodoxies in the History of Christianity: Essays in Honour of Diarmaid MacCulloch, (Oxford: Boydell Press, 2024) pp. 159–175.
33 By extension, Wales was included by implication, but not Ireland or Scotland.
34 Ryrie, 2024, p. 163.
35 Ryrie, 2024, p. 167.
36 G. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (London: SPCK, 1984).
37 George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine, 1984, p. 36.
38 Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology, (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 9.
39 See Miroslav Volf and Jossey Bass, Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in the Church, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p.75.
40 Paula Nesbitt, Religion and Social Policy, (Lanham MD: Altamira Press, 2001), p.59.
41 See Beth Allison Barr, The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England, Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2008, and Lynneth Miller Renberg, Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300–1640, Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2022, both of which explore how gender, sexuality, morality and social boundaries were far more fluid in medieval times than many suppose. Concepts of sacrilege, sin, community, appropriate conduct in worship and day-to-day comportment shifted markedly over this period, manifest through the influence of the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 in its resolve to regulate clergy and parish life, extending through to the Reformation, then to the English Civil Wars from 1642, and finally to the Restoration in 1660 – and even beyond.
42 See, for example, the conservative evangelical and Catholic document commenting on same-sex marriage: https://southwell.anglican.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/The-Church-of-Englands-Doctrine-of-Marriage-paper.pdf)
43 The eucharistic prayers for the Scottish Episcopal Church differ in theology from those of the Church of England. Those used by the Sydney Archdiocese are a different matter altogether, with the words of institution from I Corinthians 11: 23–26 often used instead. See Martyn Percy, ‘Orchestral Manouvers in the Dark’, Journal of Anglican Studies, September 2025: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-anglican-studies/article/orchestral-manoeuvres-in-the-dark/38500589E4D8AD702509C15A95D07CAB
44 i.e., Cryptonescient Morosophs – an obscurely humorous portmanteau construct drawn from Greek words. Cryptonescient ‘cryptic’ (secret) and ‘nescient’ (ignorant); and Morosophs (foolish) and sophos (wise). A morosoph is a ‘wise fool’ who puts on a show of intelligence whilst being ignorant. The term describes persons who pretend to be experts but possess little knowledge.