General Synod Election Candidates 2026

My name is Patrick Watson; I am sixty-four, a retired teacher and
headmaster, a licensed lay minister and currently a student at Wycliffe
Hall. My wife, Sara, and I worship in the Radley, Sunningwell and
Kennington benefice.
I am standing as a candidate for the House of Laity in the forthcoming
General Synod election as a member of Save the Parish: I believe that the
Church of England needs to re-focus its considerable resources material,
financial and personal onto mission within the parish system, centring that investment on the
parish clergy and their teams. I have appended to this statement a letter which appeared in the
Church Times on 14-8-26 and explains my thoughts ‘under this heading’ in more detail.
I also believe – consistent with the foregoing – that along with a slimming down of diocesan
bureaucracies, structures such as the Church Commission and Archbishops’ Council need to be
democratised.
Optimism Regarding Clergy of the Future
In the (mostly) younger people among whom I study at Wycliffe, I see enormous hope for the future
priesthood and leadership of the Church of England. Their faith is strong; their vocations are
strong; their enthusiasm for learning is strong; their sense of mission is strong. It is the duty of the
Church of England to reciprocate and put a great deal more heft – especially financial – into the
theological education and ministerial formation of future cohorts of ordinands. I believe that the
best way to strengthen our clergy and grow our church is through thorough training prior to
ordination and sustained in-post support subsequently.
On Divisive Matters
While I think the Anglican tradition is right to infer from scripture that the best place for a sexual
relationship is in the covenanted marriage of a man and a woman, I believe persons of all
sexualities should always be made welcome in all of our churches. I believe that the Church of
England’s work should promote social justice; however, I do not like the sort of grievance
archaeology and poor history which have given rise to Project Spire, which I oppose. I believe that
bishops, who are often in the media spotlight, should speak about ethical issues in the public
square and in Parliament but that their positions should always be underpinned and explained by
overt reference to scripture rather than simply going along with contemporary cultural mores,
whatever those may happen to be from time to time.
The Great Value of our Places of Worship
I believe that above and beyond ‘the regular Sunday congregation’ people value and are attracted to
our places of worship for their tranquillity and beauty, their sense of history-in-community, the clear
evidence of Christian purpose and mission emanating from them, their liturgy
and their music. They are also hugely valuable as flexible and welcoming
spaces for church and other community events.
My Commitment
If elected as a member of the House of Laity for Oxford Diocese, having few
commitments outwith my study at Wycliffe, I would attend Synod
conscientiously and dv serve my term seeking to promote the aims and values
outlined above, on which I believe the Church of England is founded and a
return to which I believe will see it thrive again.

Church Times, 14th August 2026
Place of the parish in the Church of England
From Mr Patrick Watson
Madam,
Correspondence last week critical of the stance of Save the Parish (Letters, 7 August) has confused
two things: Christianity and the Church of England.
When Christ commissioned the disciples, and when the fire touched the apostles, they were sent
on their many and varied ways profoundly inspired, yet unbound by much in the way of doctrine or
plan.
And from Paul’s nascent house churches, via Irenaeus’ dispatching of the ideas of the myriad
Gnostics, through Nicaea, Augustine, Chalcedon, the many monastic movements, wickedly
political papacies, the Reformation(s) and onwards, we frail image-bearers have sought – rightly or
wrongly and with varying degrees of success – to integrate the teachings and promises of our Lord
with the needs of society.
For some 500 years now, the Church of England has been our national iteration of this integration,
far from perfect but a Christianity with a particular purpose: the cure of souls. And with a particular
organisation too: the diocesan, deanery, and parish structure. And crucially to this issue, funded by
those both in history and the present with the wealth and the power and the will to enable that
mission to be carried forward in this place.
No one could possibly object to “two or three” – or 300 – being gathered together in faith and prayer
anywhere or anyhow; none of us at Save the Parish could conceivably object to experimental
missionary work and a striving for social justice. But what we can object to, what we do object to,
and what we seek to change, is the diversion into such activities (or indeed into an unhealthily
inflated episcopal bureaucracy) of funds and assets, whose specific purpose is to support the
training, missionary, and societal work of our parish ministry.
PATRICK WATSON
69a Bagley Wood Road
Kennington
Oxford
OX1 5LY

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