General Synod Election Candidates 2026

Why I am standing
[email protected]
07930 494201
The Vicarage, Coombe Cross, Bovey Tracey, Devon, TQ13 9EP
Rev Graham Hamilton (63)
Candidate for General Synod
About me
I was born in Liverpool, found personal faith in
Jesus at 18 on a Scripture Union camp, and
spent 10 years in the Royal Navy as a
Seaman Officer, mostly on ships based in
Devonport, until I was sponsored for ordination
by Exeter Diocese.
I have been vicar of St Peter, Paul & Thomas
Bovey Tracey (PPT), a market town on the SE
corner of Dartmoor, with Hennock, a small
rural village on the moor itself, since 1999, and
have learned the value of persevering in long-
term ministry, pastoring and discipling the
congregation, getting to know families over
generations, and building trust with other local
churches and the civic community. We have
been blessed with a flourishing work with
children and young people through patient and
systematic bible teaching, flexible patterns of
worship and long-term investment in lay
volunteers, supported at times by paid youth
and family workers.
I have also served with Through Faith
Missions on evangelistic missions around the
country, was chaplain to a cottage hospital (till
it closed), and am now chaplain to the Devon
Army Cadet Force. I am an active member of
Deanery and Diocesan Synods. I am a
member of the Diocesan Evangelical
Fellowship and Church Society.
I am married with four adult children and eight
boisterous grand-children. In my spare time I
enjoy reading, playing piano, keeping an
allotment and playing boardgames.
I wish to serve the Diocese of Exeter and the wider church by standing again for General Synod.
Proposed by: Rev Mark Ward, Team Vicar, Ottery St Mary
Seconded by: Fr Benjamin Rabjohns, Team Rector, St Michael’s Heavitree
I have served on General Synod since 2015,
and have been encouraged to stand for re-
election. Our church faces many problems,
but I am convinced that God still has a good
purpose and a unique vocation for the Church
of England.
After the dry years when secularism and the
New Atheism seemed unassailable, there is a
new openness to spiritual issues, especially
among younger generations, and the national
church statistics report five years of steady
growth. We need to focus on proclaiming the
good news of Jesus in its fullness to an
increasingly anxious and divided society.
I fully support the national church vision for a
simpler, humbler and bolder church, and the
aim of doubling the number of children and
young people in our church by 2030. The
problem lies in the detail of how this can be
achieved. I hope to bring my experience to
bear on the challenges that are proving so
intractable.

Where I stand
The Priority of the Parish Church: people
come to faith when congregations are equipped
and encouraged by local clergy to serve and
witness with confidence to their neighbours,
and draw them into the life of a local church.
Our parish system is under serious strain -
listed buildings too expensive to maintain or
adapt, ageing congregations, a shortage of
volunteers, and a looming crisis in clergy
vocations. Save the Parish (STP) have
produced a 24 page manifesto and a 12 page
report on the crisis in parish ministry, and I
agree with much of the analysis: clergy are
exhausted, spread over too many parishes,
distracted from ministry by bureaucracy, while
diocesan staff numbers swell, bidding for
national funds. Clergy need to be well- trained,
with good housing, pay and pensions- and we
have made some progress recently. I disagree
with STP that the crisis facing rural churches
can be easily addressed by returning to a
traditional model, which was failing before
Strategic Development Funding (SDF- now
SMIBB) began, but central funding must be
prioritised on deep rural and inner city parishes,
and resource churches planted with full local
consultation. I suspect that we may need to
manage decline in some areas (in order to
prevent collapse), while investing in growth in
other places, and grow a new generation of
disciples. We need both parish churches and
new networks.
A period of peace in the National Church:
the last five years of safeguarding scandals,
divisive initiatives (Net Zero, Project Spire,
SDF) and Synodical stalemate over “Living in
Love and Faith” have been exhausting, and
have left a bitter legacy of distrust. Under our
new Archbishop Sarah I hope and pray that we
can become a simpler and humbler church,
restoring confidence in our safeguarding
processes, simplifying national and diocesan
structures and lifting the burdens they impose
on parishes.
Unless we wish the rancorous debate over
human sexuality to continue until one side
claims total victory, we need to acknowledge
that both viewpoints are sincerely held, and
cannot easily co-exist. We need to find a
settlement allowing both positions to flourish or
fail on their own merits, while remaining within a
broader Anglican structure. I uphold the
church’s traditional doctrine of marriage, and I
want to ensure that legally secure provision is
made for traditionalists, if there is to be further
progressive innovation. A ‘victory’ for either side
in the debates on sexuality, and the departure
of the losers, would be a disaster for the
Church. Likewise I believe we must maintain
the Five Guiding Principles to allow mutual
flourishing to become more of a reality.
A Voice of Hope and National Unity: I have
become increasingly anxious about the state of
our nation - our identity (English, British?), the
increasing likelihood of war with Russia or Iran,
national insolvency, lawlessness, de-population
(you can watch my Synod speech in July 2026),
deep political polarisation, rising levels of anti-
semitism, and anxiety about climate change,
Islamism and mass immigration. I was greatly
encouraged by the Synod debate in July on
“Promoting Unity in our Nation” (GS2449) . If
we can learn to live at peace within the church,
I believe that Synod together with the House of
Bishops could be an example to wider society,
and a voice for hope and unity, where different
viewpoints can be heard respectfully. “We can
be a prophetic voice without being partisan”
(Bishop Martyn Snow). If we do not fulfil this
vocation, other more strident voices will be
heard.
I have tried in this page to set out my stall as
clearly and honestly as possible: if you wish to
ask me further questions, please do get in
touch. I ask for your first preference vote.
yours sincerely
Graham Hamilton (63)

ageing,archbishop,church society,climate change,diocesan structures,disciples,discipling,doctrine,evangelical,evangelistic,good news,guiding principles,house of bishops,housing,human sexuality,immigration,living in love and faith,marriage,mass,net zero,ordination,progressive,project spire,safeguarding,save the parish,scripture,secularism,sexuality,traditional,vicarage,vocations,war,witness,young people,youth