Changes in training prompt resignation and protest letter

Changes in training prompt resignation and protest letter:

A PROPOSAL to devolve decision-making about ministerial training to the dioceses, opposed by 17 theological educators in a letter to the Church Times today, prompted one member to resign from the task group behind it, it emerged this week.

The Revd Dr Sarah Coakley, professor of divinity at the University of Cambridge, sent a resignation letter to the group four days before the report - Resourcing Ministerial Education - was published (News, 16 January). In it, she lists several reservations about the report, warning that it is "anodyne and misleading". She describes the devolution to the dioceses as "the most disturbing part . . . I must be blunt: I simply do not believe there is sufficient qualitative theological understanding in most of the dioceses to protect the sort of aspirations that this report promotes."